A few months after he turned 17 — and more than two years before he was arrested — Vincent Vetromile recast himself as an online revolutionary.

Offline, in this suburb of Rochester, New York, Vetromile was finishing requirements for promotion to Eagle Scout in a troop that met at a local church. He enrolled at Monroe Community College, taking classes to become a heating and air conditioning technician. On weekends, he spent hours in the driveway with his father, a Navy veteran, working on cars.

On social media, though, the teenager spoke in world-worn tones about the need to “reclaim our nation at any cost.” Eventually he subbed out the grinning selfie in his Twitter profile, replacing it with the image of a colonial militiaman shouldering an AR-15 rifle. And he traded his name for a handle: “Standing on the Edge.”

That edge became apparent in Vetromile’s posts, including many interactions over the last two years with accounts that praised the Confederacy, warned of looming gun confiscation and declared Muslims to be a threat.

In 2016, he sent the first of more than 70 replies to tweets from a fiery account with 140,000 followers, run by a man billing himself as Donald Trump’s biggest Canadian supporter. The final exchange came late last year.

“Islamic Take Over Has Begun: Muslim No-Go Zones Are Springing Up Across America. Lock and load America!” the Canadian tweeted on December 12, with a video and a map highlighting nine states with Muslim enclaves.

“The places listed are too vague,” Vetromile replied. “If there were specific locations like ‘north of X street in the town of Y, in the state of Z’ we could go there and do something about it.”

Weeks later, police arrested Vetromile and three friends, charging them with plotting to attack a Muslim settlement in rural New York. And with extremism on the rise across the U.S., this town of neatly kept Cape Cods confronted difficult questions about ideology and young people — and technology’s role in bringing them together.

The reality of the plot Vetromile and his friends are charged with hatching is, in some ways, both less and more than what was feared when they were arrested in January.

Prosecutors say there is no indication that the four — Vetromile, 19; Brian Colaneri, 20; Andrew Crysel, 18; and a 16-year-old The Associated Press isn’t naming because of his age — had set an imminent or specific date for an attack. Reports they had an arsenal of 23 guns are misleading; the weapons belonged to parents or other relatives.

Prosecutors allege the four discussed using those guns, along with explosive devices investigators say were made by the 16-year-old, in an attack on the community of Islamberg.

Residents of the settlement in Delaware County, New York — mostly African-American Muslims who relocated from Brooklyn in the 1980s — have been harassed for years by right-wing activists who have called it a terrorist training camp. A Tennessee man, Robert Doggart , was convicted in 2017 of plotting to burn down Islamberg’s mosque and other buildings.

But there are few clues so far to explain how four with little experience beyond their high school years might have come up with the idea to attack the community. All have pleaded not guilty, and several defense attorneys, back in court Friday, are arguing there was no plan to actually carry out any attack, chalking it up to talk among buddies. Lawyers for the four did not return calls, and parents or other relatives declined interviews.

“I don’t know where the exposure came from, if they were exposed to it from other kids at school, through social media,” said Matthew Schwartz, the Monroe County assistant district attorney prosecuting the case. “I have no idea if their parents subscribe to any of these ideologies.”

Well beyond upstate New York, the spread of extremist ideology online has sparked growing concern. Google and Facebook executives went before the House Judiciary Committee this month to answer questions about their platforms’ role in feeding hate crime and white nationalism. Twitter announced new rules last fall prohibiting the use of “dehumanizing language” that risks “normalizing serious violence.”

But experts said the problem goes beyond language, pointing to algorithms used by search engines and social media platforms to prioritize content and spotlight likeminded accounts.

“Once you indicate an inclination, the machine learns,” said Jessie Daniels, a professor of sociology at New York’s Hunter College who studies the online contagion of alt-right ideology. “That’s exactly what’s happening on all these platforms … and it just sends some people down a terrible rabbit hole.”

She and others point to Dylann Roof, who in 2015 murdered nine worshippers at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina. In writings found afterward, Roof recalled how his interest in the shooting of black teenager Trayvon Martin had prompted a Google search for the term “black on white crime.” The first site the search engine pointed him to was run by a racist group promoting the idea that such crime is common, and as he learned more, Roof wrote, that eventually drove his decision to attack the congregation.

In the Rochester-area case, electronic messages between two of those arrested, seen by the AP, along with papers filed in the case suggest doubts divided the group.

“I honestly see him being a terrorist,” one of those arrested, Crysel, told his friend Colaneri in an exchange last December on Discord, a messaging platform popular with gamers that has also gained notoriety for its embrace by some followers of the alt-right.

“He also has a very odd obsession with pipe bombs,” Colaneri replied. “Like it’s borderline creepy.”

It is not clear from the message fragment seen which of the others they were referencing. What is clear, though, is the long thread of frustration in Vetromile’s online posts — and the way those posts link him to an enduring conspiracy theory.

A few years ago, Vetromile’s posts on Twitter and Instagram touched on subjects like video games and English class.

He made the honor roll as an 11th-grader but sometime thereafter was suspended and never returned, according to former classmates and others. The school district, citing federal law on student records, declined to provide details.

Ron Gerth, who lives across the street from the family, recalled Vetromile as a boy roaming the neighborhood with a friend, pitching residents on a leaf-raking service: “Just a normal, everyday kid wanting to make some money, and he figured a way to do it.” More recently, Gerth said, Vetromile seemed shy and withdrawn, never uttering more than a word or two if greeted on the street.

Vetromile and suspect Andrew Crysel earned the rank of Eagle in Boy Scout Troop 240, where the 16-year-old was also a member. None ever warranted concern, said Steve Tyler, an adult leader.

“Every kid’s going to have their own sort of geekiness,” Tyler said, “but nothing that would ever be considered a trigger or a warning sign that would make us feel unsafe.”

Crysel and the fourth suspect, Colaneri, have been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, a milder form of autism, their families have said. Friends described Colaneri as socially awkward and largely disinterested in politics. “He asked, if we’re going to build a wall around the Gulf of Mexico, how are people going to go to the beach?” said Rachael Lee, the aunt of Colaneri’s girlfriend.

Vetromile attended community college with Colaneri before dropping out in 2017. By then, he was fully engaged in online conversations about immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, gun rights and Trump. Over time, his statements became increasingly militant.

“We need a revolution now!” he tweeted in January, replying to a thread warning of a coming “war” over gun ownership.

Vetromile directed some of his strongest statements at Muslims. Tweets from the Canadian account, belonging to one Mike Allen, seemed to push that button.

In July 2017, Allen tweeted “Somali Muslims take over Tennessee town and force absolute HELL on terrified Christians.” Vetromile replied: ”@realDonaldTrump please do something about this!”

A few months later, Allen tweeted: “Czech politicians vote to let citizens carry guns, shoot Muslim terrorists on sight.” Vetromile’s response: “We need this here!”

Allen’s posts netted hundreds of replies a day, and there’s no sign he read Vetromile’s responses. But others did, including the young man’s reply to the December post about Muslim “no-go zones.”

That tweet included a video interview with Martin Mawyer, whose Christian Action Network made a 2009 documentary alleging that Islamberg and other settlements were terrorist training camps. Mawyer linked the settlements, which follow the teachings of a controversial Pakistani cleric, to a group called Jamaat al-Fuqra that drew scrutiny from law enforcement in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1993, Colorado prosecutors won convictions of four al-Fuqra members in a racketeering case that included charges of fraud, arson and murder.

Police and analysts have repeatedly said Islamberg does not threaten violence. Nevertheless, the allegations of Mawyer’s group continue to circulate widely online and in conservative media.

Replying to questions by email, Mawyer said his organization has used only legal means to try to shut down the operator of the settlements.

“Vigilante violence is always the wrong way to solve social or personal problems,” he said. “Christian Action Network had no role, whatsoever, in inciting any plots.”

Online, though, Vetromile reacted with consternation to the video of Mawyer: “But this video just says ‘upstate NY and California’ and that’s too big of an area to search for terrorists,” he wrote.

Other followers replied with suggestions. “Doesn’t the video state Red House, Virginia as the place?” one asked. Virginia was too far, Vetromile replied, particularly since the map with the tweet showed an enclave in his own state.

When another follower offered a suggestion, Vetromile signed off: “Eh worth a look. Thanks.”

The exchange ended without a word from the Canadian account, whose tweet started it.

Three months before the December exchange on Twitter, the four suspects started using a Discord channel dubbed ”#leaders-only” to discuss weapons and how they would use them in an attack, prosecutors allege. Vetromile set up the channel, one of the defense attorneys contends, but prosecutors say they don’t consider any one of the four a leader.

In November, the conversation expanded to a second channel: ”#militia-soldiers-wanted.”

At some point last fall the 16-year-old made a grenade — “on a whim to satisfy his own curiosity,” his lawyer said in a court filing that claims the teen never told the other suspects. That filing also contends the boy told Vetromile that forming a militia was “stupid.”

But other court records contradict those assertions. Another teen, who is not among the accused, told prosecutors that the 16-year-old showed him what looked like a pipe bomb last fall and then said that Vetromile had asked for prototypes. “Let me show you what Vinnie gave me,” the young suspect allegedly said during another conversation, before leaving the room and returning with black explosive powder.

In January, the 16-year-old was in the school cafeteria when he showed a photo to a classmate of one of his fellow suspects, wearing some kind of tactical vest. He made a comment like, “He looks like the next school shooter, doesn’t he?” according to Greece Police Chief Patrick Phelan. The other student reported the incident, and questioning by police led to the arrests and charges of conspiracy to commit terrorism.

The allegations have jarred a region where political differences are the norm. Rochester, roughly half white and half black and other minorities, votes heavily Democratic. Neighboring Greece, which is 87 percent white, leans conservative. Town officials went to the Supreme Court to win a 2014 ruling allowing them to start public meetings with a chaplain’s prayer.

The arrests dismayed Bob Lonsberry, a conservative talk radio host in Rochester, who said he checked Twitter to confirm Vetromile didn’t follow his feed. But looking at the accounts Vetromile did follow convinced him that politics on social media had crossed a dangerous line.

“The people up here, even the hillbillies like me, we would go down with our guns and stand outside the front gate of Islamberg to protect them,” Lonsberry said. “It’s an aberration. But … aberrations, like a cancer, pop up for a reason.”

Online, it can be hard to know what is true and who is real. Mike Allen, though, is no bot.

“He seems addicted to getting followers,” said Allen’s adult son, Chris, when told about the arrest of one of the thousands attuned to his father’s Twitter feed. Allen himself called back a few days later, leaving a brief message with no return number.

But a few weeks ago, Allen welcomed in a reporter who knocked on the door of his home, located less than an hour from the Peace Bridge linking upstate New York to Ontario, Canada.

“I really don’t believe in regulation of the free marketplace of ideas,” said Allen, a retired real estate executive, explaining his approach to social media. “If somebody wants to put bulls— on Facebook or Twitter, it’s no worse than me selling a bad hamburger, you know what I mean? Buyer beware.”

Sinking back in a white leather armchair, Allen, 69, talked about his longtime passion for politics. After a liver transplant stole much of his stamina a few years ago, he filled downtime by tweeting about subjects like interest rates.

When Trump announced his candidacy for president in 2015, in a speech memorable for labeling many Mexican immigrants as criminals, Allen said he was determined to help get the billionaire elected. He began posting voraciously, usually finding material on conservative blogs and Facebook feeds and crafting posts to stir reaction.

Soon his account was gaining up to 4,000 followers a week.

Allen said he had hoped to monetize his feed somehow. But suspicions that Twitter “shadow-banning” was capping gains in followers made him consider closing the account. That was before he was shown some of his tweets and the replies they drew from Vetromile — and told the 19-year-old was among the suspects charged with plotting to attack Islamberg.

“And they got caught? Good,” Allen said. “We’re not supposed to go around shooting people we don’t like. That’s why we have video games.”

Allen’s own likes and dislikes are complicated. He said he strongly opposes taking in refugees for humanitarian reasons, arguing only immigrants with needed skills be admitted. He also recounted befriending a Muslim engineer in Pakistan through a physics blog and urging him to move to Canada.

Shown one of his tweets from last year — claiming Czech officials had urged people to shoot Muslims — Allen shook his head.

“That’s not a good tweet,” he said quietly. “It’s inciting.”

Allen said he rarely read replies to his posts — and never noticed Vetromile’s.

“If I’d have seen anybody talking violence, I would have banned them,” he said.

He turned to his wife, Kim, preparing dinner across the kitchen counter. Maybe he should stop tweeting, he told her. But couldn’t he continue until Trump was reelected?

“We have a saying, ‘Oh, it must be true, I read it on the internet,’” Allen said, before showing his visitor out. “The internet is phony. It’s not there. Only kids live in it and old guys, you know what I mean? People with time on their hands.”

The next day, Allen shut down his account, and the long narrative he spun all but vanished.

 
…

Spain’s ruling Socialist party appears poised to win the country’s third election in four years.

The Socialists, the party of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, were projected to win 123 of 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies, with more than 70 percent of the vote counted.

According to Spain’s Interior Ministry, roughly 75% of all eligible voters cast their ballots Sunday.

Spain saw high voter turnout in elections that were believed to be wide open. The race pits Socialists against four other main parties, including the new far-right Vox Party that is aligned with other far-right movements that have emerged across Europe.

With no one party expected to win a majority Sunday, speculation has centered on which of Spain’s top five parties will join together after the vote to create a governing coalition. A close election could result in weeks of political bargaining that could include smaller parties favoring Catalan independence  a hugely polarizing topic in Spain.

Analysts warn of the possibility of a deadlocked parliament and a second election.

Friday, Prime Minister Sanchez, who is up for re-election, said he is open to the possibility of a coalition with the left-wing United We Can Party, raising the possibility for a center-left governing deal.

On the political right, the conservative Popular Party has splintered into three main groups, with the new Vox Party making inroads with the electorate. The third right-leaning group, Citizens, says it will only join a governing coalition with the Popular Party.

The Popular Party has alternated in office with the Socialist Party since Spain’s return to democracy in the 1970s.

Leaders on both the left and the center-right have urged voters to keep the far-right at bay.
…

Spain heads to the polls Sunday for its most divisive and open-ended election in decades, set to result in a fragmented parliament in which the far-right will get a sizeable presence for the first time since the country’s return to democracy.

After a tense campaign dominated by emotive issues, notably national identity and gender equality, the likelihood that any coalition deal will take weeks or months to be brokered will feed into a broader mood of political uncertainty across Europe.

At least five parties from across the political spectrum have a chance of being in government and they could struggle to agree on a deal between them, meaning a repeat election is one of several possible outcomes.

A few things are clear, however, based on opinion polls and conversations with party insiders. No single party will get a majority; the Socialist party of outgoing Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is leading the race; and there will be lawmakers from the far-right Vox party.

Beyond that, the result is too close to call.

​Third election in four years

Voting starts at 9 am (0700 GMT) and ends at 8 pm in mainland Spain for what will be the country’s third national election in four years, each of which has brought a further dislocation of the political landscape.

It is uncertain if Sanchez will manage to stay in office and how many allies he would need to gather together in order to do so.

If, in addition to far-left anti-austerity party Podemos and other small parties, Sanchez also needs the support of Catalan separatist lawmakers, talks will be long and their outcome unclear.

Opinion polls, which ended Monday, have suggested it will be harder for a right wing split between three parties — the center-right Ciudadanos, conservative People’s Party and Vox — to clinch a majority, but this scenario is within polls’ margin of error and cannot be ruled out.

​Known unknowns

With the trauma of military dictatorship under Francisco Franco, who died in 1975, still fresh in the memory for its older generation, Spain had long been seen as resistant to the wave of nationalist, populist parties spreading across much of Europe.

But this time Vox will get seats, boosted by voter discontent with traditional parties, its focus on widespread anger at Catalonia’s independence drive, and non-mainstream views that include opposing a law on gender violence it says discriminates against men.

One of several unknowns is how big an entry Vox will make in parliament’s lower house, with opinion polls having given a wide range of forecasts and struggled to pin down the party’s voter base.

The high number of undecided voters, in some surveys as many as 4 in 10, has also complicated the task of predicting the outcome, as have the intricacies of a complex electoral system under which 52 constituencies elect 350 lawmakers.

Voters in the depopulating rural heartlands, many of whom are old and may well feel little direct connection to the country’s young, male, urban political elite, are of particular importance.

They proportionally elect more lawmakers than the inhabitants of big cities, but at the same time the cut-off point for parliamentary representation there is trickier to reach, making the outcome harder to predict the more parties there are.

An opinion poll will be published at 8 p.m., and results will trickle in through the evening with almost all votes counted by midnight. In the past two elections, the 8 p.m. polls failed to give an accurate picture of the eventual outcome.
…

Support for Scottish independence from the United Kingdom has risen to its highest point in the past four years, largely driven by voters who want to remain in the European Union, according to a poll published Saturday.

As the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) meets for its two-day spring conference, the YouGov poll showed support for secession had risen to 49 percent from 45 percent in the last YouGov poll carried out for The Times in June 2018. 

The SNP is preparing a new independence push after it was defeated in a 2014 referendum by concerns about the economy. 

The party’s proposal for an independent Scotland to continue using the pound in a currency union with Britain was perceived as a particular weakness. 

On Saturday, the SNP leadership proposed that if the country voted for independence, it should use Britain’s pound until a Scottish currency meeting six economic tests could be introduced. Delegates rejected that in favor of a more pressing time frame and formulation urging preparations to introduce a new currency “as soon as practicable after Independence Day,” preserving the six economic tests. 

Scots rejected independence, 55 percent to 45 percent, in a 2014 referendum. Then the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union in a 2016 referendum, but among its four nations, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay, feeding political tension. 

Britain is mired in political chaos and it is still unclear when or even whether it will leave the EU. 

YouGov also found that 53 percent of Scots thought there should not be another referendum on independence within the next five years. Scotland’s first minister, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, is pushing for one before 2021, when the current Scottish parliamentary term ends. 

YouGov polled 1,029 adults in Scotland following a new guideline on independence set out by Sturgeon on Wednesday. 

The poll also showed voters moving away from both the Conservatives and the Labour Party north of the English border. 

The Scottish Conservatives, part of Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative Party, are set to lose their only representative in the European Parliament in next month’s election as 40 percent of those who backed them two years ago switched to Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party. 

“These patterns represent a clear warning to the Unionist camp that the pursuit of Brexit might yet produce a majority for independence,” professor John Curtice, Britain’s leading polling expert, wrote in a column for The Times.
…

French police fired tear gas to push back protesters who tried to march toward the European Parliament building in Strasbourg on Saturday, the 24th consecutive weekend of protests against President Emmanuel 

Macron’s policies. 

The “yellow vest” protesters were back on the streets across France two days after the president outlined policy proposals including tax cuts worth around 5 billion euros ($5.58 billion) in response to the protests. 

Around 2,000 demonstrators gathered near European Union institutions in Strasbourg, with organizers hoping to make the protest international by marching to the parliament building a month ahead of EU-wide parliamentary elections. 

Previous yellow vest protests in the eastern city have mostly been peaceful. But concerned about the violence and destruction of public buildings that have marked some yellow vest demonstrations in other parts of the country, authorities had banned protests and barricaded the neighborhood where the parliament and other EU institutions are located. 

Police fired several canisters of tear gas to push back the demonstrators, a Reuters witness said. French television showed some hooded protesters throwing stones and other objects back at the police. 

Turnout falls

The Interior Ministry said around 23,600 protesters took part in marches across the country, including 2,600 in Paris, compared with around 28,000 a week earlier. That was the second-lowest turnout since the protests started in November. 

The protests, named after motorists’ high-visibility yellow jackets, began over fuel tax increases but morphed into a sometimes violent revolt against politicians and a government they see as out of touch. 

Many in the grass-roots movement, which lacks a leadership structure, have said Macron’s proposals this week did not go far enough and lacked details. 

Saturday’s protests in Paris, which has seen some of the worst violence in past demonstrations, was jointly organized with the leftist trade union confederation CGT and was mostly calm. Protesters also gathered in Lyon and Bordeaux. 

Protester numbers have dwindled from highs of over 300,000 nationwide at the peak in November to below 30,000 in recent weeks, according to government estimates. 
…

The death toll from a coal mine blast in a separatist eastern region of Ukraine rose to 17 on Saturday, rebel authorities said.

The gas blast on Thursday ripped through the mine in Yurievka village in the self-proclaimed republic of Luhansk, which broke away from Kyiv in 2014 and is run by Moscow-backed rebels.

“The tragedy took the life of 17 miners,” Leonid Pasechnik, the head of the unrecognized Luhansk republic, said on Twitter.

He added that the bodies of all the miners that died have been recovered.

Earlier the death toll accounted to 13, with another four people missing.

Pasechnik called the explosion at the Skhidkarbon mine a “terrible tragedy” and declared April 29 a day of mourning.

Russia’s emergency situations ministry sent mine rescuers to the separatist territory after it requested help, it said in a statement.

The Luhansk news agency said the mine was closed in 2014 due to the conflict between Kyiv’s forces and the Russia-backed separatists, but was reopened in 2018.  

Most of Ukraine’s coal is produced in its eastern region, where the ongoing fighting has cost some 13,000 lives.

Kyiv has tried to boost the operations of other pits under its control in the west of the country.

 
…

Russian President Vladimir Putin says his administration is considering a plan to ease the process of granting Russian citizenship to all Ukrainians, not only those in war-torn parts of eastern Ukraine.

Putin made the remark on April 27 at an infrastructure development summit in Beijing.

On April 24, Putin announced a presidential decree that eases the process of granting Russian citizenship to anyone living in parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions that are under the control of Russia-backed separatists.

That decree drew a swift and angry response from Kyiv, the United States, Britain, the European Union, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the international organization tasked with monitoring compliance with the 2015 Minsk agreements on eastern Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Putin’s decree “is actually about the Kremlin’s preparations for the next step of aggression against our state – the annexation of the Ukrainian Donbas or the creation of a Russian enclave in Ukraine.”

The OSCE said in a statement on April 25 that its chairmanship “believes that this unilateral measure could undermine the efforts for a peaceful resolution of the crisis in and around Ukraine.”

It said it was reiterating its “call for a sustainable, full and permanent cease-fire and its firm support for the work of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, which plays an essential role in reducing tensions on the ground, and in fostering peace, stability and security.”

In a joint statement on April 25, France and Germany – the European guarantors of the Minsk agreements – said Putin’s decree “goes against the spirit and aims” of the Minsk process, which aims to establish a stable cease-fire in the conflict in parts of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region and then proceed to a political settlement.

“This is the opposite of the urgently necessary contribution toward deescalation,” the statement said.

European Commission spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said the decree was “another attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty by Russia.”

“We expect Russia to refrain from actions that are against the Minsk agreements and impede the full reintegration of the nongovernment-controlled areas into Ukraine,” she said.

Ukraine’s foreign minister called Putin’s decree a form of “aggression and interference” in Kyiv’s affairs, while a Western diplomat told RFE/RL it was a “highly provocative step” that would undermine the situation in the war-ravaged region known as the Donbas.

The U.S. State Department also criticized Russia’s move, saying Moscow “through this highly provocative action, is intensifying its assault on Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Critics point to other frozen conflicts in former Soviet republics where Russia has granted citizenship to residents of separatist-held territory in order to choreograph demographic changes over time and justify future military operations.

In 2002, the Kremlin began granting Russian citizenship to residents of Georgia’s breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia – a policy that helped raise the number of Russian passport holders there from about 20 percent to more than 85 percent of the population.

Then, when Russia went to war against Georgia in August 2008, the Kremlin justified its deployment of Russian military forces in Abkhazia and South Ossetia by saying those forces were needed to protect Russia citizens in the separatist regions.

Russian media reports say Russia also has issued its passports to nearly half of the residents of Moldova’s Moscow-backed breakaway region of Transdniester.

That policy has raised concerns in Chisinau that the Kremlin may use a similar argument of defending its citizens in order to justify future Russian military operations in Transdniester.

With reporting by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian, Georgian, and Moldovan Services, Reuters, and AP

 
…

Hundreds of people turned up for a protest vigil outside Cyprus’ presidential palace Friday to mourn seven women and girls who police say a military officer confessed to killing and to question if authorities failed to adequately investigate when foreign workers were reported missing.

The protest’s organizer used a bullhorn to read out the victims’ names as well as those of other missing women, and others at the memorial shouted “Where are they?” in response. Some participants held placards decrying “sexist, misogynist and racist” attitudes about women who work as housekeepers or in low-paying service jobs.

​‘What everybody wants is justice’

In a poignant moment, a group of tearful Filipino women held lighted candles and bowed their heads in prayer for the three women and one child of Filipino descent who are believed to be among the victims. A 35-year-old Cypriot National Guard captain is in custody facing multiple homicide charges.

“I felt obliged to do something for these women, all the missing women, all the killed women,” protest organizer Maria Mappouridou said. “I think deep down, all that we want, what everybody wants, is justice.”

Federation of Filipino Organizations in Cyprus chair Ester Beatty said she hoped the event, and the tragedy of the deaths, raise public awareness about migrant workers.

“Right now, it’s really difficult for us to accept what has happened, what is going on. Beatty said. “We still need a lot of answers.”

Cases go back years

Beatty’s group held a silent prayer vigil last Sunday, a week after the discovery of a Filipino woman’s body in an abandoned mineshaft triggered the investigation that led to the captain’s arrest. Police identified her as Mary Rose Tiburcio, 38.

Tiburcio and her 6-year-old daughter had been missing since May of last year. Investigators zeroed in on the captain as a suspect and arrested him after scouring Tiburcio’s online messages.

While investigating her death and searching for Tiburcio’s daughter, police found another body in the flooded mineshaft 32 kilometers (20 miles) west of the capital, Nicosia. Cypriot media have identified the victim as 28-year-old Arian Palanas Lozano, also from the Philippines.

Investigators now think the missing 6-year-old was killed, too. On Thursday, the suspect told them while under questioning about four more victims and gave directions to a military firing range.

The body of a woman, who according to the suspect was of Nepalese or Indian descent, was found buried there.

From the suspect’s statements and information from the investigation, Cypriot police think the other three victims they know about so far are a 31-year-old Filipino woman who has been missing since December 2017, Maricar Valtez Arquiola, and a Romanian mother and daughter.

Cypriot media identified the mother as Livia Florentina Bunea, 36, and her 8-year-old daughter as Elena Natalia Bunea. The two are believed to have been missing since September 2016.

Cyprus horrified

Police said the suspect will appear in court Saturday for another custody hearing. He can’t be named because he hasn’t been charged with any crimes yet.

The scale of the ones he allegedly committed has horrified people in Cyprus, a small nation with a population of just more than a million people where multiple slayings are rare.

President Nicos Anastasiades said Friday that he shared the public’s revulsion at “murders that appear to have selectively targeted foreign women who are in our country to work.”

“Such instincts are contrary to our culture’s traditions and values,” Anastasiades said in a statement from China, where he was on an official visit.

As the president spoke, investigators intensified the search for bodies of victims at the firing range, a reservoir and a man-made lake near the abandoned copper pyrite mine.

Five British law enforcement officials, including a coroner, a psychiatrist and investigators who specialize in multiple homicides, were coming to Cyprus to help with the investigation.
…

The leader of Britain’s opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, said on Friday he had turned down an invitation to a state dinner which will be part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to Britain in June.

“Theresa May should not be rolling out the red carpet for a state visit to honor a president who rips up vital international treaties, backs climate change denial and uses racist and misogynist rhetoric,” Corbyn said in a statement.

He said maintaining the relationship with the United States did not require “the pomp and ceremony of a state visit” and he said he would welcome a meeting with Trump “to discuss all matters of interest.”
…

A U.S. federal judge has sentenced a Russian gun rights proponent to 18 months in prison for conspiring with a senior Russian official to infiltrate the National Rifle Association (NRA) and influence U.S. conservative activists and Republican politicians to benefit the Kremlin.

Maria Butina, a former graduate student at American University in Washington, pleaded guilty in December. A U.S. district court judge in Washington said Friday Butina will get credit for the nine months she served, but will  be deported immediately after serving her sentence.

Butina pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to act as a foreign agent. Her attorneys have requested a sentence of time served and deportation to Russia after cooperating with prosecutors. Prosecutors have also asked the court to deport Butina, who has been in jail since her arrest last July, and to impose an 18-month jail sentence.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr has said Butina should be deported to Russia without serving her sentence.

Butina is the first Russian national convicted of trying to influence U.S. policy toward Russia before the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Butina said in her plea documents her work was performed under the direction of Alexander Torshin, a former Kremlin official who heads a small Russian gun rights group. In 2013, she began to establish contacts with the NRA, one of the most powerful U.S. lobbying groups with strong ties to the Republican politicians, including President Donald Trump.

The 30-year-old also said she worked with an American political operative to develop unauthorized lines of communications with U.S. political influencers.

Prosecutors said in a court filing Butina was “keenly aware that portions of her work” were reported to “the wider Russian government,” but that she was “not a trained intelligence officer” and “not a spy in the traditional sense.”

Her attorneys wrote in an April 19 sentencing request that Butina acted with hopes of improving U.S.-Russia relations and that she “has done everything she could to atone for her mistakes through cooperation and substantial assistance.”

 
…

German automaker Daimler, which makes armored limousines used by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, says it has no idea where he got them and has no business dealings with the North.   

Kim has raised eyebrows by using Daimler-branded stretch limousines at several very high-profile summits, including his meeting this week with Russian President Vladimir Putin and both of his earlier summits with President Donald Trump.

The sale of luxury goods, including limousines, is banned under U. N. sanctions intended to put pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons.  

Kim nevertheless had two limos waiting for him at Vladivostok station – a Mercedes Maybach S600 Pullman Guard and a Mercedes Maybach S62. He is believed to have also used the S600 Pullman Guard for his summits with Trump in Singapore in June last year and in Hanoi in February.

​

“We have absolutely no idea how those vehicles were delivered to North Korea,” Daimler spokeswoman Silke Mockert said in a written response to an Associated Press report Wednesday on the limousines . “For Daimler, the correct export of products in conformance with the law is a fundamental principle of responsible entrepreneurial activity.”

Daimler, based in Stuttgart, Germany, is one of the world’s biggest and more prestigious automobile companies. It is one of the biggest providers of high-end passenger cars and the world’s largest producer of trucks above 6 tons.

On its home page, the multinational giant boasts of selling vehicles and services in nearly all the countries of the world and of having production facilities in Europe, North and South America, Asia and Africa.

North Korea, however, isn’t one of its official customers.

“Our company has had no business connections with North Korea for far more than 15 years now and strictly complies with E.U. and U.S. embargoes,” she said. “To prevent deliveries to North Korea and to any of its embassies worldwide, Daimler has implemented a comprehensive export control process. Sales of vehicles by third parties, especially of used vehicles, are beyond our control and responsibility.”

Kim’s ability to procure the limousines anyway is a good example of how porous the international sanctions tend to be.   

According to Daimler, the Mercedes-Benz Pullman limousines offer their passengers “a superbly appointed setting for discreet meetings.”

The version used by Kim is believed to be equipped with all the key communications and entertainment systems so that, according to a company description of the car, its occupants can remain “fully in touch with the rest of the world while enjoying the luxury and comfort of their own very special place in it.”

 
…

The chairman of Poland’s conservative ruling party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, has called the LGBT rights movement a foreign import that threatens the Polish nation. 

Kaczynski, a member of parliament who wields tremendous influence as leader of the Law and Justice party, also said during a lecture on patriotism that “everyone must accept Christianity” in Poland and that questioning the Roman Catholic Church is unpatriotic. 

The positions Kaczynski expressed Wednesday in the central city of Wloclawek came as Poland’s powerful Catholic Church is under scrutiny for child sex abuse by clergy and superiors who might have covered up for pedophile priests.  

Poland also has two elections this year: the vote next month to elect the country’s representatives to the European Union parliament and a national election in the fall.  

With his remarks, Kaczynski seemed to be tapping into the belief held by some Poles that liberal values have been forced on them as a result of Poland joining the EU 15 years ago.  

Kaczynski’s Law and Justice party won the last general election in 2015, the height of Europe’s mass migration crisis. The party’s campaign included portraying Muslim refugees as a threat to Poland. 

​Greater visibility

In recent weeks, Law and Justice has described the LGBT rights movement as another danger to Polish families and children. LGBT rights have become increasingly visible as more Polish cities and towns hold gay pride parades, even places known as bastions of the church and conservative values.  

Miroslawa Makuchowska, from the group Campaign Against Homophobia, said she thinks the party chairman’s anti-LGBT message was meant to distract attention from corruption scandals in the Catholic Church and in the Polish government.  

These are the same methods and same messages'' used to demonize Muslim immigrants, Makuchowska said.It’s appalling and frightening because it’s scapegoating.” 

The Catholic Church has long been revered as the institution that kept the language and spirit of Poland’s people alive during a long period of foreign rule, while also supporting the democracy movement under communism 

But the church’s standing has taken a hit as sex abuse victims increasingly speak publicly about past crimes of accused priests. Public opinion surveys show falling support for having nuns and priests, or even lay educators, teach religion in public schools, as is now the case. 

A movie about the clergy abuse problem, Kler (Clergy), became a blockbuster hit last year. On Wednesday, Kaczynski called the film an “attack on the church” and alleged it’s the LGBT rights movement that puts Polish children at risk.  

We are dealing with a direct attack on the family and children — the sexualization of children, that entire LBGT movement, gender,'' he said.This is imported, but they, today, actually threaten our identity, our nation, its continuation and therefore the Polish state.”
…

At the first major news conference of his presidency, Emmanuel Macron pledged to cut taxes on Thursday and said the French would have to work longer as he outlined his response to months of anti-government protests that have shaken his authority.

Speaking in a gilded hall at the Elysee Palace, seated behind a white desk with the French tricolor and European Union flags flanking him, Macron took reporters’ questions for nearly two-and-a-half hours, part of an effort to redress the rocky relationship he has developed with the media.

He apologized — not for the first time — for his sometimes sharp tongue and cutting comments, which have earned him a reputation for arrogance and contributed to a deep slump in his popularity ratings, which are showing some signs of recovery.

“I regret them deeply,” Macron said of the barbs, which included him telling an unemployed gardener to cross the road and find a job. “I think they did not show me as I am.”

Almost two years into his five-year term, and following a national listening tour, the prime-time event was also Macron’s attempt to quell nearly six months of ‘yellow vest’ protests that have brought weekly unrest to the country.

A first slate of economic measures put forward last December, and worth some 10 billion euros ($11.13 billion), failed to calm anger among lower-income workers and prompted Macron’s decision to hold a “great debate” with citizens.

The 41-year-old president, a former investment banker and economy minister, said he wanted a significant cut in income taxes, saying it would be worth around 5 billion euros, financed by closing loopholes for some companies.

The tax cuts come as France is trying to keep its budget deficit in check, while at the same time hoping to rid itself of a reputation as the world’s most highly taxed country. Figures from the OECD show France’s ‘tax-take’ is equivalent to 54 percent of gross domestic product.

Along with the tax relief, Macron said government spending would be squeezed and the French would have to work longer to build up social contributions, an announcement that is unlikely to be popular in a nation known for its 35-hour week.

“We must work more, I’ve said it before,” said Macron, who is renowned for tiring out his staff. “France works much less than its neighbors. We need to have a real debate on this.”

While providing few details on his proposals, he ruled out making people work longer per week or cutting the number of bank holidays, and he said he was not in favor of extending the current minimum retirement age of 62.

‘Children of the enlightenment’

With ‘yellow vest’ protesters decrying what they see as the political establishment’s elitism, Macron said he wanted to get the French more involved in the democratic process by making it easier to hold referendums on limited number of issues.

He also said he wanted to abolish the Ecole Nationale d’Administration, the elite school that trains France’s corporate and political leaders, saying new ways needed to be found of recruiting top-class civil servants.

“It’s not about scrapping one thing or another to create a symbol,” said Macron, himself a graduate of ENA. “But our high-level public service cannot be exempt from modernization.”

He also talked of a new push to decentralize government, breaking away from the “dirigisme” of the past, with policy decided and directed from Paris. He said changes would come within a year, including no more schools or hospitals being closed without the backing of the local mayor.

Although the number of demonstrators has declined since a peak in November, protesters clashed with police for a 23rd straight week last Saturday and the sustained unrest has had a draining effect on business, tourism and the economy.

It has also left Macron facing an uphill battle ahead of elections to the European Parliament next month, with polls showing the far-right party of Marine Le Pen is likely to perform well, potentially beating Macron’s En Marche.

Thursday’s policy proposals are the direct result of the three-month national debate, during which Macron toured the country, literally rolling up his sleeves to discuss everything from high taxes to local democracy with groups of citizens.

“We are above all children of the Enlightenment,” he said as the Elysee news conference approached the two-hour mark. “And it is from these debates, these deliberations, this capacity to contradict one another … that good solutions can emerge for the country.”

Despite the criticism leveled at him, and opinion poll ratings that show his support at around 30 percent, Macron did not pull back from any policies on Thursday, saying his government would push on with his reform drive.

“I asked myself: Should we stop everything that was done over the past two years? Did we take a wrong turn? I believe quite the opposite,” he said.

The ‘yellow vest’ street rebellion erupted over planned diesel tax hikes last November, but quickly developed into a broader backlash against inequality and a political elite perceived as having lost touch with ordinary voters.

Macron, who swept to power promising to “transform France” and “make work pay,” has seen his ambitious reform agenda derailed — or at least knocked off target — by the unrest.

Pension and unemployment insurance reforms planned for 2019 have made little progress so far.

Macron said the pension reform would be presented to cabinet this summer and that future increases in the lowest pensions would be indexed to inflation, another effort to provide lower-income workers with some succuor.
…

The following are key quotes from a rare press conference by French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday, responding to months of “yellow vest” protests with new measures.

On Macron’s government reforms

“I asked myself: Should we stop everything that was done over the past two years? Did we take a wrong turn? I believe quite the opposite.”

“We live in a country where disagreements are expressed vehemently. I’m fully convinced it was right not to give in over these first two years on the issues that are still at the heart of our project for this country.”

On France’s town hall debates after the protests

“We are above all children of the Enlightenment. And it is from these debates, these deliberations, this capacity to contradict one another … that good solutions can emerge for the country.”

On schools and hospitals

“We must maintain public service (in the countryside) … guarantee the access for all to health services and guarantee that no school or hospital will be closed without the mayor’s approval.”

On reforming France’s civil service  and elite schools

“I want to reform our senior public service. This is not a meritocratic system any more … We don’t need job-for-life protection.”

Macron also confirmed he would scrap France’s Ecole Nationale d’Administration, a postgraduate school that was founded in 1945 by Charles de Gaulle to train a postwar administrative elite drawn from across all social classes.

“To carry this reform we need to put an end to the ENA… It’s not at all about stigmatizing the ENA, I went to this school, I owe it a lot.”

On scrapping France’s wealth tax

Macron ruled out re-introducing the wealth tax — known in France as the “ISF” — that his government replaced by a tax on lucrative property deals and real estate assets.

 “Since it’s a pragmatic reform, it will be re-evaluated in 2020. If it’s not efficient, we’ll amend it.”

On tax cuts 

Macron said he wanted to “significantly” reduce income tax to alleviate the burden on the middle classes.

“Workers who pay income tax have widely contributed in past decades. So I’ll be simple, I don’t want tax increases. I want cuts for those who work by significantly reducing the income tax.”

Macron outlined some of the ways the tax cuts would be financed:

“I’ve asked the government to implement this tax reduction by closing some corporate tax loopholes, making people work more and cutting public spending.”

On immigration

Macron called for better control of borders at the national and European level. He said changes should be brought to the Schengen Area, even if it led to a reduction of its scope or to fewer member states.

“To be open, you need limits; to welcome someone, you need a house, so you need borders.”

On working more and retirement

“We have to work more, I’ve said it. France works a lot less than its neighbors. We have to have a real debate about this.”

Macron said he did not wish to push back the legalretirement age beyond the current threshold of 62. But he also outlined the need for measures that would require French citizens to contribute for a longer period to the pension system before retiring.

On France’s 2022 presidential election

Asked whether he would stand as a candidate in France’s next presidential election, Macron said:

“I don’t care about the next election. What I really want is for this mandate to be a success. And I take full responsibility for having to probably take other decisions that will be unpopular.”

 
…

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed closer ties as they began their first summit Thursday in the far-eastern Russian city of Vladivostok.

Kim, who is searching for economic help amid deadlocked nuclear talks with the United States, said he hopes to solidify relations with Moscow and looks forward to productive talks with Putin.

“I think it will be a good meeting to further develop the relationship between two countries which have long histories and traditions,” Kim told Putin.

Putin said he supports North Korea’s improved relations with Washington and that he hopes to see closer ties with North Korea.

The meeting is taking place in the Russian port city of Vladivostok, around 200 kilometers from the border with North Korea.

It isn’t clear whether the meeting will go beyond a photo opportunity, or whether the two leaders will sign agreements or a joint statement.

Kim is expected to push Putin for economic aid, specifically relief from international sanctions after Kim’s meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in February in Hanoi resulted in no deal.

“North Korea needs an ally,” says Jang Se-ho, a research fellow at the Seoul-based Institute for National Security Strategy. “And Russia has been seeking a chance to become involved more in the Korean Peninsula. They now have a chance to do so.”

Kim out of breath

Seated next to Putin during opening comments, the young North Korean leader appeared to be winded and breathing heavier than usual, drawing speculation about Kim’s health from some North Korea watchers.

“(Kim’s health) is a big deal in a long-term perspective,” though it’s not clear it will have a short-term impact, said Olga Krasnyak, a professor at Seoul’s Yonsei University.

Kim, who is believed to be around 35 years old, also appeared to be out of breath during an appearance Wednesday after arriving in Russia.

All of Kim’s appearances are watched closely for such signs, in part because the public does not often get unscripted looks at the North Korean leader.

​No longer a pariah?

Until last year, Kim hadn’t left North Korea since taking power in 2011.

Since then, Kim has met twice with Trump, three times with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, four times with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and once with Vietnamese President Nguyen Phu Trong.

“What this has mainly done is give Kim some international credibility. I mean, he was a pariah a year ago. And now he’s everybody’s prom date, everyone wants to be seen with him on their arm,” said Ralph Cossa of the Pacific Forum, a nonprofit foreign policy research institute based in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Although the meetings have raised Kim’s global stature, they have failed to reduce the sanctions pressure hurting his economy.

After a February Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi ended with no deal, the United States has insisted it will not relax sanctions until North Korea commits to abolishing its nuclear weapons program.

Putin: not much help?

With Putin’s own economy hurting, it isn’t clear that North Korea is a priority. And without buy-in from the United States, it is not clear how much he could do anyway.

Russia-North Korea trade fell dramatically last year, by more than 56 percent to $34 million, according to Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov, who was quoted in Russian state media.

“This is primarily due to the fact that Russia is forced to follow international sanctions that were imposed on the DPRK,” said Ushakov, using the acronym for North Korea’s official name.

By contrast, North Korea was earning about $100 million a year in hard currency from the Kaesong Industrial complex before it closed, said Troy Stangarone of the Washington-based Korea Economic Institute.

Kaesong, located just north of the inter-Korean border, used South Korean capital and North Korean labor to produce goods, before being closed after a North Korean nuclear test in 2016.

South Korea has expressed an interest in reopening the complex, but appears unable to do so unless the United States relaxes sanctions.

Russia, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, signed onto tougher sanctions amid North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests in 2016 and 2017. However, Moscow later called for sanctions against Pyongyang to be eased.

Putin as spoiler?

Under Putin, Russia has attempted to disrupt U.S. interests around the world, in countries including Syria, Ukraine, and Venezuela.

During a visit to Seoul Wednesday, U.S. Senator Chris Coons said it would be a “great disappointment for Mr. Putin to again insert himself in a way that’s unhelpful.”

“But it wouldn’t be the first time,” added Coons, who along with Senator Maggie Hassan met South Korea’s defense and foreign ministers.

But Putin is not likely to play the role of spoiler in the North Korea-U.S. talks, in part because he doesn’t have much leverage over Pyongyang, said Andrei Lankov, a professor at Seoul’s Kookmin University.

“And in this case, Russia’s interests are not that different from that of the United States. Both sides want to preserve the status quo and want denuclearization,” Lankov said.

The Soviet Union was once one of North Korea’s main financial backers. But after the Soviet Union broke up, Moscow prioritized relations with the South, before later adopting a policy of “equidistance” between the two Koreas.
…

Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in Vladivostok for a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Thursday’s summit reflects Russia’s effort to position itself as an essential player in the North Korean nuclear standoff.

Kim’s first trip to Russia comes about two months after his second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, which failed because of disputes over U.S.-led sanctions on the North.

Putin and Kim are set to have one-on-one meeting at the Far Eastern State University on the Russky Island across a bridge from Vladivostok. The meeting will be followed by broader talks involving officials from both sides.

Kim arrived Wednesday in Vladivostok on his armored train, saying upon arrival that he’s hoping for a “successful and useful” visit.

It is Kim’s first visit to Russia as North Korean leader; his late father, Kim Jong Il, visited Russia in 2011. The North Korean leader evoked his father’s “great love for Russia” and said that he intends to strengthen ties between the two countries.

​Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, told Russian media the summit would focus on North Korea’s nuclear program, noting that Russia will seek to “consolidate the positive trends” stemming from Trump’s meetings with Kim.

In February, Kim’s second summit with President Donald Trump in Hanoi ended without any agreement because of disputes over U.S.-led sanctions. There have since been no publicly known high-level contacts between the U.S. and North Korea, although both sides say they are still open to a third summit.

Kim wants the U.S. to ease the sanctions to reciprocate for some partial disarmament steps he took last year. But the U.S. maintains the sanctions will stay in place until North Korea makes more significant denuclearization moves.

Some experts say Kim could try to bolster his country’s ties with Russia and China. Others say it’s not clear how big of a role Russia can play in efforts to restart the nuclear negotiations. Still, the summit could allow Putin to try to increase his influence in regional politics and the standoff over North Korea’s nuclear program.
…

France on Wednesday observed it first “national day of commemoration of the Armenian genocide” provoking a furious reaction from Turkey. 

April 24, 1915, is considered the start of the World War I-era massacres of ten of thousands of Armenians by Ottoman Turks. 

France was the first major European country to recognize the massacres as genocide in 2001.  Turkey disputes the description, saying the toll has been inflated and considers those killed to be victims of a civil war.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says nations who accuse Turkey of genocide should look at their own “bloody past.”  Erdogan has previously accused France of of being responsible for the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Rwanda’s government has also accused France of being complicit in the mass killings of minority Tutsi community by majority Hutus. 

The Turkish Foreign Ministry also strongly criticized a statement issued by the White House on the Armenian killings. 

“Today, we commemorate the Meds Yeghern and honor the memory of those who suffered in one of the worst mass atrocities of the 20th century.  Beginning in 1915, one-and-a-half million Armenians were deported, massacred, or marched to their deaths in the final years of the Ottoman Empire,” the White House statement said. 

Turkey objected to the Trump administration’s use of the Armenian term, Meds Yeghern, which means “the great calamity.” 

“We reject the statement by U.S. President Trump on the 1915 incidents on April 24, 2019,” the Turkish statement said. “Based on the subjective narrative fictionalized by the Armenians, this statement has no value at all. The distortion of history for political objectives is unacceptable.”
…

An index of German business optimism fell in April as Europe’s largest economy struggles with a slowdown in trade and manufacturing even as it finds support from a strong labor market.

The Ifo institute said Wednesday its business climate index slipped to 99.2 points from 99.7 points in March, indicating managers were less satisfied with both the current situation and the outlook for the future.

The survey was worse than forecast by market analysts, who had predicted a slight increase.

“This is consistent with our view that Germany’s economy is likely to grow at a very anemic pace this year, even if there is a slight pickup in growth” in the first quarter, said Andrew Kenningham, chief Europe economist at Capital Economics.

German’s economy endured flat growth at the end of last year despite low unemployment that has helped keep consumers spending. The jobless rate was only 3.1 percent in February. The slowdown was blamed on one-time factors such as troubles in the auto industry over new emissions standards and low river levels that disrupted production. Slowing global trade has held back export-oriented manufacturing.

The government on April 17 cut its growth forecast for the full year to 0.5 percent.

A less pessimistic view was taken by Carsten Brzeski, chief economist at ING Germany. He said the picture in industry was not as disastrous as some recent data would indicate. Recent zig-zagging of indicators “should be seen as evidence of a bottoming out — confusion as a sign of stabilization,” he wrote in an email.
…

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has arrived in the far eastern region of Russia for his first ever meeting with Vladimir Putin, which Kim says is the initial step toward closer ties with Moscow.

Wearing a black fedora hat and matching dark overcoat, the smiling Kim was greeted by Russian officials and a military band Wednesday in the port city of Vladivostok. 

The North Korean leader made the short trip to Vladivostok via his signature armored green and yellow train. 

During an earlier stop in the border city of Khasan, Kim said this “will not be the last” trip to Russia, adding it is the first step toward improved Russia-North Korea relations, according to a readout issued by local Russian authorities.

At the Thursday summit, Kim is expected to push Putin for economic aid — specifically relief from international sanctions that remain in place after nuclear talks with the United States broke down.

Kim no longer a pariah?

It is the latest high-profile summit for Kim, who until last year hadn’t left North Korea since taking power in 2011.

Over the past year Kim has met twice with U.S. President Donald Trump, three times with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, four times with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and once with Vietnamese President Nguyen Phu Trong.

“What this has mainly done is give Kim some international credibility. I mean, he was a pariah a year ago. And now he’s everybody’s prom date, everyone wants to be seen with him on their arm,” said Ralph Cossa of the Pacific Forum, a non-profit foreign policy research institute based in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Although the meetings have raised Kim’s global stature, they have failed to reduce the sanctions pressure hurting his economy.

After a February Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi ended in no deal, the United States has insisted it will not relax sanctions until North Korea commits to abolishing its nuclear weapons program.

​Putin: not much of a help?

With Putin’s own economy hurting, it isn’t clear that North Korea is a priority. And without buy-in from the United States, it is not clear how much he could do anyway.

Russia-North Korea trade fell dramatically last year, by more than 56 percent to $34 million, according to Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov, who was quoted in Russian state media.

“This is primarily due to the fact that Russia is forced to follow international sanctions that were imposed on the DPRK,” said Ushakov, using the acronym for North Korea’s official name.

By contrast, North Korea was earning about $100 million a year in hard currency from the Kaesong Industrial complex before it closed, points out Troy Stangarone of the Washington DC-based Korea Economic Institute.

Kaesong, located just north of the inter-Korean border, used South Korean capital and North Korean labor to produce goods, before being closed after a North Korean nuclear test in 2016.

South Korea has expressed an interest in reopening the complex, but appears unable to do so unless the United States relaxes sanctions.

Russia, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, signed onto tougher sanctions amid North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests in 2016 and 2017. However, Moscow later called for sanctions against Pyongyang to be eased.

Putin as spoiler?

Under Putin, Russia has attempted to disrupt U.S. interests around the world, in countries including Syria, Ukraine, and Venezuela.

During a visit to Seoul Wednesday, U.S. Senator Chris Coons said it would be a “great disappointment for Mr. Putin to again insert himself in a way that’s unhelpful.”

“But it wouldn’t be the first time,” added Coons, who along with Senator Maggie Hassan met South Korea’s defense and foreign ministers.

But Putin is not likely to play the role of spoiler in the North Korea-U.S. talks, in part because he doesn’t have much leverage over Pyongyang, said Andrei Lankov, a professor at Seoul’s Kookmin University.

“And in this case, Russia’s interests are not that different from that of the United States. Both sides want to preserve the status quo and want denuclearization,” Lankov said.

The Soviet Union was once one of North Korea’s main financial backers. But after the Soviet Union broke up, Moscow prioritized relations with the South, before later adopting a policy of “equidistance” between the two Koreas.
…

The awesome power of nature remains undefeated. According to researchers in Britain, even moderate storms can move large boulders weighing as much as 10 (metric) tons. As a major storm follows one that recently hit the African country of Mozambique, researchers warn that even large natural barriers may not offer much defense. Arash Arabasadi reports.
…

Russian officials continue denying Moscow interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, brushing aside hundreds of pages of evidence in the Mueller report by saying the document contained no proof. Experts in Moscow told VOA’s Igor Tsikhanenka they don’t believe the Russian government will ever acknowledge any wrongdoing, nor do they think the Kremlin and the White House will be able to establish rapprochement in the near future
…

The European Union is praising Facebook, Google and Twitter for tackling disinformation while urging the social media giants to do more in clamping down on fake accounts.

Under an EU code of conduct, the three companies report routinely on their efforts to stop election interference. Facebook, for one, has been criticized for being a tool for foreign interference in elections.

Tuesday’s reports say Facebook, Google and Twitter are tightening advertising policy and surveillance, particularly with election-targeted ads.

But the commission urges them to share fake account data with outside experts and researchers.

Millions of people across the 28-nation bloc will vote in the May 23-26 European Parliament elections.

Polls show nationalist and populist parties could make significant gains, while mainstream parties would lose seats but retain control over the assembly.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump is making a state visit in June to Britain, where he will meet with Queen Elizabeth as well as Prime Minister Theresa May.

A White House statement says the president and first lady Melania Trump “accepted the invitation of Her Royal Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to visit the United Kingdom from June 3 to 5.”  It said the visit will “reaffirm the steadfast and special relationship” between the United States and Britain.

While in Britain, the Trumps will attend a ceremony in Portsmouth to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day, the invasion by Allied forces that helped defeat the Nazis in World War II.

After the state visit, they will attend a D-Day anniversary commemoration when they travel to Normandy, France, on June 6, according to the White House, which said President Trump will meet with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, during the trip.

On D-Day, Allied troops parachuted or waded onto the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944, in what was the largest sea assault in military history. Although about 4,500 died by the end of the day, the operation eventually led to an Allied victory across Europe.

 
…

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will visit Russia for a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korean state media confirmed.

With his Russia visit, North Korea’s Kim is seen working to build up foreign support for his economic development plans, since the breakdown of the second U.S.-North Korea summit in Hanoi in February led to stalled talks with Washington on the sanctions relief Pyongyang had sought.

State media Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said the visit will happen “soon,” but did not elaborate the time or the venue.

Putin and Kim are on track to meet by the end of April, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday.

Kim Jong Un’s chief aide, Kim Chang Son, was seen in Vladivostok on Sunday according to South Korean news agency Yonhap, leading to speculation that the Putin-Kim summit will be held in the city around April 24-25.

NK News, a group that follows North Korea, showed photos on its website on Monday of preparations underway at Vladivostok’s Far Eastern Federal University, likely to host part of the summit, with workers installing North Korean and Russian flags.

After the diplomatic failure at the Hanoi summit, Kim is likely looking to prove that he is still being sought after by world leaders, and that he has more options, said Artyom Lukin, a professor at Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok.

“Kim does not want to look too dependent on Washington, Beijing and Seoul,” he said. “As for Russia, the Putin-Kim summit will reaffirm Moscow’s place as a major player on the Korean Peninsula. This meeting is important for Russian international prestige.”
…

As spring flower fields around the Netherlands burst into bloom, painting the countryside with dazzling swaths of red, white, and blue, a modern day tulip bubble may be forming: tourists.

More than a million foreign sightseers are expected to visit this country of 17 million people on Easter weekend, a record, the Dutch Tourism Bureau said on Thursday.

Director Jos Vranken said he expects them to spend 300 million euros — a boon for the national economy. Many are attracted to the country’s museums and other cultural offerings, but in April, the flower fields and Keukenhof flower show in Lisse top many “must see” lists.

While flower lovers and the photographs they share on social media are free advertising for the country’s tourism, cut flower and bulb industries, it isn’t all a bed of roses.

“That has a downside,” Vranken said. “Farmers are having increasing damage to their fields from tourists taking photos.”

Foreign and Dutch tourists alike have learned to use “Flower Radar” websites to identify where fields are in bloom, especially in the main bulb-growing center known as the “Bollenstreek” along the coast between Haarlem and Leiden.

Do Not Tiptoe Through the Tulips

Signs and barricades — now printed in Chinese and English — saying “Enjoy the Flowers, Respect Our Pride” have gone up at the edge of many fields.

They illustrate the concept that taking photos at the edge of a field is okay, but actually walking among the flowers to take pictures ruins them.

Meanwhile, farmers in less-promoted areas of the country sense an opportunity.

In Creil, northwest of Amsterdam, one enterprising group has set up a “Tulip Experience” complete with designated selfie area, hundreds of tulip varieties on display, helicopter tours, food and drinks, and bouncy castles for kids.
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North Macedonia’s pro-Western candidate, Stevo Pendarovski, and his main rival Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova emerged tied in the first round of a presidential vote dominated by deep divisions over a change of the country’s name under a deal with Greece.

The change, which Greece demanded to end what it called an implied territorial claim on its northern province of Macedonia, resolves a decades-old dispute and opens the door to North Macedonian membership of NATO and the European Union.

But the accord continues to divide Macedonians and has eclipsed all other issues during campaigning for Sunday’s election, in which about 1.8 million voters were able to chose among three candidates.

Results on the State Election Commission website based on 98% of the votes counted showed Pendarovski got 42.7% of the votes, while Siljanovska-Davkova had 42.5% of the votes.

The two will face a run-off on May 5, reflecting differences over the deal pushed through by the pro-Western government of Prime Minister Zoran Zaev.

Blerim Reka, the candidate of the second largest Albanian party, came third with 10.4% of the votes.

Polls opened at 7 a.m. local time (0500 GMT). The State Election Commission put turnout at 41.9%.

Both Zaev’s Social Democrats and the opposition VMRO-DPMNE proclaimed victory.

“I am convinced that in the second round we will have a European president of our state,” Zaev told journalists late on Sunday.

This election is about voting to move the country forward, he said.

“We won,” said Hristijan Mickoski, leader of the opposition VMRO-DPMNE, which supported Siljanovska-Davkova. VMRO-DPMNE opposed the deal with Greece.

Analysts said the low turnout was down to disillusion among voters at the government’s lack of progress in attracting foreign investment and tackling high unemployment.

“We need a new and better president, a nation’s father that will help move this country forward,” said Sonja Kjurcieva, a 49-year old housewife from Skopje. “Together with the government they will bring us closer to Europe.”

The presidency has no authority to block constitutional amendments that were passed earlier this year by a two-thirds majority of parliament to enable the name change.

Shaping the future

Pendarovksi said the vote will be for how the country’s future will be shaped rather than a choice of president.

“I expect to win the elections and be the first woman president of Macedonia,” Siljanovska-Davkova said after casting her vote.

“I am a professor of European law, so I’ll respect (the agreement with Greece),” she said. “But I’ll do my best to show that some of the solutions are against our constitution.”

The presidency of the former Yugoslav republic is a mostly ceremonial post, but acts as the supreme commander of the armed forces and signs off on parliamentary legislation.

The refusal of outgoing nationalist President Gjeorge Ivanov to sign some bills passed by parliament has delayed the implementation of some key laws, including one on wider use of the Albanian language — 18 years after an ethnic Albanian uprising that pushed North Macedonia to the brink of civil war.
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Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a television actor, has won a landslide victory in the Ukrainian presidential election Sunday. Exit polls show he received around three times as many votes as incumbent Petro Poroshenko, who conceded defeat Sunday evening. As Henry Ridgwell reports, Zelenskiy’s supporters say the country needs an outsider to tackle endemic corruption, but critics say Russia could seek to take advantage of his inexperience.
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Climate change protesters who have brought parts of London to a standstill said Sunday they were prepared to call a halt if the British government will discuss their demands.

Some 963 arrests have been made and 42 people charged in connection with the ongoing Extinction Rebellion protests.

On the seventh day of demonstrations that have occupied key spots in the British capital, Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg addressed the demonstrators, telling them: “Humanity is standing at a crossroads.”

Organizers said they were willing to switch tactics from disruption to dialogue next week — if the government enters talks.

“We are prepared to pause, should the government come to the negotiating table,” Extinction Rebellion spokesman James Fox told AFP.

“What the pause looks like is us stopping an escalation.

“We can discuss leaving if they are willing to discuss our demands.

“At the moment, we haven’t received a response from the government… so we’re waiting on that.”

Extinction Rebellion was established last year in Britain by academics and has become one of the world’s fastest-growing environmental movements.

Campaigners want governments to declare a climate and ecological emergency, reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2025, halt biodiversity loss and be led by new “citizens’ assemblies on climate and ecological justice.

“We’re giving them an opportunity now to come and speak to us,” Fox told AFP.

“If they refuse to come and negotiate with us, then this is going to continue and this is going to escalate in different, diverse and very creative ways.”

Thunberg, the 16-year-old activist who has inspired pupils worldwide to boycott classes to join climate protests, addressed the cheering crowds at the Marble Arch landmark, the only authorized demonstration site.

“For way too long the politicians and people in power have got away with not doing anything at all to fight the climate crisis and ecological crisis,” she said.

“But we will make sure that they will not get away with it any longer.”

She continued: “How do we want the future living conditions for all living species to be like?

“Humanity is now standing at a crossroads. We must now decide which path we want to take.

“We are waiting for the others to follow our example.”

Police said they had managed to clear the protesters from Parliament Square and the Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus junctions.

Those charged range in age from 19 to 77. They hail from around England and Wales, with one person from France charged.

The charges are for various offenses including breaching public order laws, obstructing a highway and obstructing police.

Calling for an end to the protests, London Mayor Sadiq Khan said more than 9,000 police officers had been responding to the demonstrations, which had left the force as a whole overstretched.

“This is now taking a real toll on our city… this is counter-productive to the cause,” he said.

“I’m extremely concerned about the impact the protests are having on our ability to tackle issues like violent crime.

“You must now let London return to business as usual.”

In the blazing sunshine on Waterloo Bridge, police lifted protesters and carried them off to waiting police vans.

“I’m genuinely terrified. I think about it all the time. I’m so scared for the world. I feel like there is going to be calamity in my lifetime,” student Amber Gray told AFP.

“I don’t even feel comfortable bringing children into this world knowing that that is coming.

“And I don’t want people in the future to say to me, ‘why didn’t you do anything?’.”
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French Catholics on Sunday celebrated Easter mass in Paris in the shadow of the badly burned Notre-Dame Cathedral, praying that the landmark monument — and along with it the entire Catholic Church — can be renewed.

The fire at Notre-Dame six days earlier destroyed the cathedral’s spire and two-thirds of its roof. The damaged building is now to be closed for years to visits and worship.

Deprived of access to Notre-Dame, regular worshipers instead lined up patiently to celebrate Easter Sunday mass a short walk away, on the Right Bank of the Seine at Saint-Eustache church.

Throughout, the service was pervaded by the spirit and hope of a fresh start, infused by the Easter celebrations commemorating the resurrection of Christ according to the Bible.

‘Recreate unity’

The flames that devastated the cathedral were a “sign” said worshiper Marie Fliedel, 59, adding that she now felt a “renewal, a communion and a spirit”.

“I hope Christians react and take note of all that is taking place in this sad period and that this will bring us back together,” she said.

“This will recreate unity among Catholics. In misfortune, the fire will give strength to find ourselves again and defend our religion,” added Francois Toriello, 70.

The Catholic Church worldwide has been hit by a series of sexual abuses scandals, including in France where French cardinal Philippe Barbarin was handed a six-month suspended jail sentence last month for failing to report sex abuse by a priest under his authority.

Another sombre mark came from the series of devastating bomb blasts that ripped through high-end hotels and churches holding Easter services in Sri Lanka on Sunday, killing more than 200 people, including dozens of foreigners.

‘Courage, knowledge and prayers’

The Saint-Eustache service, also attended by Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo, was led by Archbishop of Paris Michel Aupetit who thanked the capital’s fire brigade for saving the cathedral from an even worse fate.

“When, for a moment, we thought that the bell towers could also fall, these towers that are so well known throughout the would, courage and knowledge came together with the prayers of all the faithful,” he told members of the fire service, several of whom were present in the front pews.

Laurence Mahoudeau, 55, who had come with her husband to celebrate the mass, said she had her doubts over whether the fire would prompt major change in the Catholic Church.

“Notre-Dame is something that goes beyond our religion, it’s historic, it is our heritage,” she said.

“I don’t know if this will prompt a renewal. There needs to be time. We want a strong Church. But it must be something completely different after the suffering and the sexual abuse.”
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Several world and religious leaders condemned the explosions on Easter at Sri Lankan churches and hotels that killed scores of people.

Dozens of foreigners — British, Dutch and American citizens — are believed to be among them the dead.

British Prime Minister Theresa May said attacks were “truly appalling.”

“The acts of violence against churches and hotels in Sri Lanka are truly appalling, and my deepest sympathies go out to all of those affected at this tragic time,” she tweeted. “We must stand together to make sure that no one should ever have to practice their faith in fear.”

The Catholic Church in Jerusalem released a statement saying “We pray for the souls of the victims and ask for speedy recovery of the injured, and ask God to inspire the terrorists to repent of their killing and intimidation.”

But during the traditional Easter address at the Vatican, Pope Francis conveyed sadness over the attacks.

“I want to express my affectionate closeness with the Christian community, attacked while it was at prayer, and to all the victims of such cruel violence,” he said.

Sunday’s bomb attack came a month after dozens of Muslims were killed in a shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern such violence was “devastating”.

“New Zealand condemns all acts of terrorism, and our resolve has only been strengthened by the attack on our soil on the 15th of March. … New Zealand rejects all forms of extremism and stands for freedom of religion and the right to worship safely. Collectively we must find the will and the answers to end such violence,” Ardern said in a written statement.

Meanwhile in the U.S., President Donald Trump said Americans stand “ready to help.”

”Heartfelt condolences from the people of the United States to the people of Sri Lanka on the horrible terrorist attacks on churches and hotels,” he tweeted.

The World Jewish Congress denounced the attack as “heinous” and appealed for “zero tolerance of those who use terror to advance their objectives.”

“This truly barbarous assault on peaceful worshippers on one of the holiest days in the Christian calendar serves as a painful reminder that the war against terror must be at the top of the international agenda and pursued relentlessly,” World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder said.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin called the attacks despicable.

“We are all children of God; an attack on one religion is an attack on us all,” he said on Twitter.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan condemned  in the “strongest terms possible the Easter terror attacks in Sri Lanka. This is an assault on all of humanity.” While Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said terrorism must be condemned and confronted globally as is a global menace with no religion.

“Terribly saddened by terrorist attacks on Sri Lankan worshippers during Easter. Condolences to friendly government and people of Sri Lanka. Our thoughts and prayers with the victims and their families,” he said.

 
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