The World Trade Organization is being slowly strangled to death, a retiring trade judge whose replacement has been blocked by the United States said in his farewell speech, delivering a thinly-veiled rebuke to the Donald Trump administration.

Ricardo Ramirez-Hernandez served two terms as a judge on the WTO’s Appellate Body, which acts as the final court for trade disputes between countries. Since his departure last year, the United States has been blocking the process to replace him and other judges, throwing the WTO into crisis.

“This institution does not deserve to die through asphyxiation,” Ramirez-Hernandez said. “You have an obligation to decide whether you want to kill it or keep it alive.”

In a speech introducing Ramirez-Hernandez, WTO Deputy Director-General Karl Brauner said there was “no movement in sight” to unblocking appointments.

“This is frightening,” he said, adding that it was an illusion to believe the WTO could manage without its appeals judges. It remained to be seen if the WTO was an achievement of civilization or only a temporary experiment, he added.

Founded in 1995

The Geneva-based World Trade Organization, founded in 1995, is the final arbiter for trade disputes between its 164 member economies and the main global forum for discussing trade.

Its appellate body normally has seven members, but because of the Trump administration’s veto on new hires, only four of the posts are now filled. One judge is due for reappointment in September and two are due to leave next year.

Three judges are needed to hear any case, which means the court will cease to function altogether next year unless Trump lifts his refusal to fill vacancies.

‘Unfair’ treatment

Trump and his trade advisers take a tough and unorthodox line on what they see as “unfair” treatment by the trade body.

Ramirez-Hernandez did not point fingers directly at any particular country for the crisis, saying all WTO members were responsible for dealing with problems.

“It seems to me that the crisis we now face could have been avoided if it had been addressed face-on, as it began to escalate,” he said.
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Hundreds of women’s rights activist rallied in Belfast on Monday to put pressure on British Prime Minister Theresa May to reform Northern Ireland’s highly restrictive abortion rules after neighboring Ireland’s vote to liberalize its laws.

Voters in Ireland on Friday backed the removal of a constitutional abortion ban by two-to-one.

That leaves British-ruled Northern Ireland as the only part of the British Isles with a restrictive abortion regime, and May on Sunday faced calls from within her cabinet and the opposition to scrap Northern Ireland’s strict rules.

Not May’s call?

A spokeswoman for May said on Sunday changing the rules should only be undertaken by a government in Northern Ireland.

The province, divided between unionists who favor continued British rule and nationalists who want to unify with Ireland, has had no devolved regional government since January last year after a power-sharing agreement collapsed between the two communities’ main parties.

Activists gathered outside Belfast City Hall carrying placards emblazoned with messages such as “I am not a vessel” and “Mind Your Own Uterus.” They said it was May’s responsibility to act.

“1, 2, 3, 4, we won’t be silenced any more,” the crowd chanted. “5, 6, 7, 8, it’s time for May to legislate.”

Abortion is permitted in Northern Ireland only if a woman’s life is at risk or there is a risk to her mental or physical health that is long-term or permanent. It is not permitted in cases of rape, incest or fatal fetal abnormality.

Both Northern Ireland’s mainly unionist Protestants and its mainly nationalist Catholics tend to be more socially conservative than elsewhere in Ireland or Britain.

The main unionist party, the DUP, opposes liberalizing abortion laws, while the main nationalist party, Sinn Fein, backs some changes. DUP lawmakers in London provide votes needed to support May’s minority government.

Trip has its risks

It is estimated that around three women travel from Northern Ireland to England for an abortion every day, while others risk prosecution by self-medicating with abortion pills.

“It is awfully unfair that people here should not be able to get an abortion,” said schoolgirl George Poots, at the rally with her mother and brother. “At present they have to worry about travelling to England and I also think of the women who cannot travel.”

Anti-abortion group Precious Life said Ireland’s vote would spur it to “up the battle to protect Northern Ireland’s unborn children.” “Northern Ireland is now the beacon of hope to the pro-life movement around the world,” leader Bernie Smyth said. 
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A court in the Netherlands said Monday that lawmakers should recognize a neutral, third gender, in a groundbreaking ruling for a person who does not identify as male or female.

The court in the southern city of Roermond said that the person’s gender could not be definitively determined at birth. The person was registered as male but later had treatment to become a woman and successfully applied to have her gender officially changed to female.

However the applicant later sought to be listed as a “third gender” — neither male nor female. The person’s identity was not released.

“The time is ripe for recognition of a third gender,” the court said in a statement, that adding that “it is now up to lawmakers” to consider drafting legislation that would formalize a neutral gender.

Transgender activists hailed the ruling as a momentous step in Dutch law.

“This can be called revolutionary within Dutch family law,” Brand Berghouwer of the Netherlands’ Transgender Network said in a statement.
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Supporters of the nationalist Alternative for Germany party marched through central Berlin to protest against Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government Sunday, and were kept away from a raft of counter-demonstrations by a heavy police presence.

Police said over 5,000 people turned out for the demonstration organized by the anti-migration Alternative for Germany, known by its German acronym AfD. A variety of counter-protests against the far right attracted well over 25,000 people in total, they said. 

The AfD event opened with German flags, placards such as “No Islam in Germany” and chants of “Merkel must go” outside Berlin’s central train station. The party’s supporters then marched to the landmark Brandenburg Gate. Opponents chanted “Nazis out” from the other side of the monument.

Some of the counter-protesters took to rafts on the Spree river, within sight of the train station. Groups organizing protests against AfD included artists and a coalition of Berlin music clubs hoping to “blow away” the party with loud techno beats.

About 2,000 police officers were in place to prevent trouble, including reinforcements from other parts of Germany. The march concluded without significant trouble.

AfD won 12.6 percent of the vote to enter Germany’s national parliament last year on anti-migrant and anti-establishment sentiment. It is now the largest of four opposition parties after the country’s two biggest parties finally agreed to continue a centrist “grand coalition” under Merkel earlier this year. 

Its march Sunday, an unusual move for a German political party, was headlined “Germany’s Future.” An AfD regional leader, Andreas Kalbitz, proclaimed that “this is a signal” and argued that it shows “AfD is the center of society.”

In parliament, AfD’s novice lawmakers have sometimes struggled to grasp basic procedures and stood out with blunt attacks on minorities, particularly Muslims, who made up the majority of the more than 1 million asylum-seekers to enter Germany in 2015 and 2016. Recent polls have put the party’s support around the same level as in last year’s election.

Prominent AfD lawmaker Beatrix von Storch told Sunday’s demonstrators that “the vital question for us is: freedom or Islamization?”

Among the protesters was Silke Langmacker, an accountant, who carried a sign reading “Taxpayers First.”

“We are here to stop the uncontrolled influx into the German welfare system,” she said. “The refugees must return to Syria and rebuild their country there.” 
…

British Prime Minister Theresa May will urge U.S. President Donald Trump to avoid protesters in central London during his UK visit in July and instead meet her at her country residence, the Sun newspaper reported on Sunday.

The details of the plan will be given to the White House by Kim Darroch, British ambassador to the United States, the report said.

There are two proposals that will be made to the White House by Darroch upon May’s approval – one for a Downing Street visit or one based at Chequers, a 16th-century manor house 60 km (40 miles) northwest of London – the report said, citing a source, who added it would be made clear that May prefers the meeting take place at Chequers.

Trump will also be asked to have tea with Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle, a royal residence west of London and not at Buckingham Palace, according to the report.

Darroch will suggest to the White House that Trump does not visit Britain’s houses of parliament, the Sun reported.

May’s office was not immediately available for comment. Trump will travel to Britain in July for a working visit with May, after months of back-and-forth over when the U.S. president would visit what traditionally has been the United States’ closest ally.

Many Britons have vowed to stage protests if Trump visits, with several politicians having previously voiced their opposition to Trump being granted a state visit.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said earlier in the year Trump was not welcome in London because of what he called Trump’s “divisive agenda”.

Trump cancelled a trip to London to open a new embassy earlier in the year. May was the first international leader to visit Trump in Washington after his inauguration last year.

 
…

Russian democracy hit a grim milestone this week when Evgeny Roizman, the independent-minded mayor of Russia’s fourth largest city of Yekaterinburg, resigned from his post in protest.

The mayor’s frustration was understandable: He was being forced to oversee a vote by local lawmakers to formally abolish elections to the post he had campaigned for and – against all odds – won as an opposition candidate back in 2013.

“Since I was elected by the city’s residents, I defend the interests of the city’s residents,” said Roizman, in announcing his resignation. “I will not take part in this under any circumstances.”

With that, Yekaterinburg joined the growing ranks of Russian cities where direct elections have been replaced by Kremlin-endorsed appointees into positions of power – further winnowing opportunities, critics say, for Russians to take part in an already restrictive political life at the grassroots level.

‘Managed democracy’

In Yekaterinburg, the decision to cancel direct elections had a key backer in the region’s Kremlin-backed governor, Yevgeny Kuivashev. Future mayors will now be chosen by the legislature from a list drawn up by lawmakers – a move Kuivashev insists will save the city money and streamline governance.

But, in reality, the mayorship had already been stripped to a mostly ceremonial post, with key decision-making power ceded to a “city manager” – also appointed by Kuivashev’s pliant legislature.

Welcome to Russia President Vladimir Putin’s so-called “managed democracy” – a loosely defined system that preserves the outlines of democratic traditions while meticulously avoiding the unpredictable results popular elections can deliver.

Kremlin supporters argue the managed system of elections and appointees reflects Russians’ desire to simply get things done.

The legislatures that approves appointees, they note, are popularly elected officials. They also argue that the ability to choose “city managers” allows skilled personnel to handle complicated public infrastructure issues that plague Russian regions and that few politicians know much about.

Moreover, proponents of the city managers point out ineffective appointees can be quickly replaced, unlike mayors who must be voted out of office.

Opponents argue the Kremlin’s real goal is to strip the country of political alternatives who challenge the Kremlin’s influence on regional politics.

“People don’t even know who these lawmakers are,” says Fyodor Krasheninnikov, a political analyst based in Yekaterinburg. “But everybody – even cities across Russia – knew Roizman was the mayor of Yekaterinburg.”

Krasheninnikov argues Roizman was driven from office largely because of his popular reputation as a politician who viewed Yekaterinburg’s problems through the eyes of a local – a far cry from grey functionaries imported by the Kremlin to oversee affairs.

“Putin destroyed popular politics in Russia. It doesn’t exist on purpose,” he says. “Because what if suddenly there arose figures opposed to the Kremlin? There shouldn’t be anyone popular in power at any level. Only Putin.”

Planted the seeds

Indeed, the demise of Yekaterinburg’s mayoral elections have seeds in Putin’s rise to power some 18 years prior.

Where Putin’s predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, once famously told Russia’s regions to “take as much sovereignty as you can swallow,” Putin took the reins of power, promising to restore Moscow’s authority over the country’s far-flung provinces under what he called the “power vertical.”

Since then, the Russian leader has taken multiple steps to put that vision into practice.

In 2005, Putin abolished the election of governors in favor of Kremlin appointees. (Subsequent changes now allow regions to elect governors, albeit with the Kremlin carefully filtering the list of candidates, including a bid by Roizman to run for the governorship of Sverdlovsk Oblast in 2017).

That same year, the Kremlin began gutting mayoral races in favor of “city managers” and other handpicked appointees approved by pliant local legislatures.

Today, every single one of Russia’s 85 governors is loyal to the Kremlin. Fewer than 10 Russian cities still hold direct mayoral elections. Even among those that do, the vast majority of elected mayors carefully toe the Kremlin line.

Yekaterinburg’s Roizman – a maverick politician who criticized Putin’s recent reelection as undemocratic and has allied himself with opposition leader Alexei Navalny – was the last lone exception.

Not just in Russia

While pro-democracy advocates criticize the practice in Russia, the concept of unelected managers appointed to oversee affairs is not without precedent in the West.

Smaller American cities have occasionally experimented with the practice when faced with financial or other crises. Among larger cities, Detroit recently was led by a governor-appointed “emergency manager” to help guide the city out of bankruptcy. The move – temporary and, ultimately, successful – was initially challenged by locals as an assault on home rule.

Still, Yekaterinburg analyst Krasheninnikov argues therein lies a key difference.

“They try and sell us this idea that this is an American tradition and these managers are specialists who can fix all our problems,” he says. “In reality, they’re just people convenient to the authorities.”

 
…

The Russian Defense Ministry says four of its soldiers have been killed in a clash with “terrorists” in northeastern Syria.

The ministry said Sunday that the dead were military advisers attached to a Syrian army unit in the Deir el-Zour region.

In a statement reported by Russian news agencies, the ministry said “two Russian military advisers, who controlled fire of the Syrian battery, died at the scene.” It says five others were wounded, two of whom died in a Russian military hospital.

The ministry said 43 insurgents were killed in the nighttime battle.

Russia has provided crucial military support to President Bashar Assad’s forces, helping them to roll back mainstream rebels as well as the Islamic State group. Russia and Syria both refer to the armed opposition as “terrorists.”
…

British Prime Minister Theresa May faced demands from ministers and lawmakers in her Conservative party to reform Northern Ireland’s highly restrictive abortion rules after neighboring Ireland’s vote to liberalize its laws.

Voters in Ireland, a once deeply Catholic nation, backed the change by two-to-one, a far higher margin than any opinion poll in the run up to the vote had predicted.

Penny Mordaunt, Britain’s women and equalities minister, said that the victory to legalize abortion should now bring change north of the Irish border.

“A historic and great day for Ireland and a hopeful one for Northern Ireland,” Mordaunt said. “That hope must be met.”

Northern Ireland has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe with even rape and fatal foetal abnormality not considered legal grounds for a termination.

And unlike other parts of the United Kingdom, abortions are banned apart from when the life or mental health of the mother is in danger.

Since the collapse of a power sharing administration in Northern Ireland at the beginning of last year, British officials have been taking major decisions in the region.

But any moves to change the law could destabilize the British government by antagonizing the socially conservative Democratic Unionist Party, which May depends on for her parliamentary majority.

More than 130 members of Britain’s parliament, including lawmakers in the ruling Conservative party, are prepared to back an amendment to a new domestic violence bill to allow abortions in Northern Ireland, the Sunday Times newspaper reported.

Anne Milton, an education minister, on Sunday urged the prime minister to allow a free vote in parliament.

Sarah Wollaston, the chair of the health select committee and a lawmaker in May’s party, said she would support the proposed amendment and said Northern Ireland should at least be given a vote to decide.

A spokeswoman for May said changing the rules on abortion is a decision that should be taken by a devolved assembly and the government is working to revive the power-sharing agreement.

Northern Ireland’s elected assembly has the right to bring its abortion laws in line with the rest of Britain, but voted against doing so in February 2016 and the assembly has not sat since the devolved government collapsed in January 2017.
…

Spain’s maritime rescue service says it has rescued 366 migrants attempting the dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean Sea this weekend.

The service says that its rescue craft has intercepted 73 migrants traveling in four small boats on Sunday, adding to the 293 migrants it pulled from nine vessels on Saturday.

Driven out by violent conflict and extreme poverty, tens of thousands of migrants attempt to reach Spain and other southern European countries each year by crossing the Mediterranean in smugglers’ boats. Most of the boats are unfit for open water, and thousands drown.

The U.N. says 636 migrants have died crossing the Mediterranean so far this year. A total of 22,439 migrants reached European shores, with 4,409 arriving in Spain, through the first four months of 2018.

Austrian leader backs role for EU border agency in Africa

Austria’s chancellor says European border guards should be allowed to go to north Africa to prevent migrants from setting off across the Mediterranean Sea in rickety boats.

Austria will take over the European Union’s rotating presidency in July. Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s governing coalition took office in December after a campaign in which both partners talked tough on migration.

Kurz told Sunday’s edition of German newspaper Welt am Sonntag that a new mandate for EU border protection agency Frontex should allow it “to act in third countries, with the permission of their governments, to end smugglers’ dirty business model and prevent smugglers’ boats setting off on the dangerous route across the Mediterranean.”

Each year, tens of thousands attempt to reach Europe in vessels that are mostly unfit for the open sea.

 
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Thousands of protesters marched under tight security in eastern Paris on Saturday after French labor unions, left-wing political parties and civil rights groups called for “floods of people” to oppose the economic policies of President Emmanuel Macron.

Marches and rallies also were being held in dozens of other French cities as part of the joint action against Macron’s policies that organizers consider pro-business and “brutal.”

At the Paris event, Philippe Martinez, head of leading French union CGT, advised the president to “look out the window of his palace to see real life.”

More than 1,500 police officers were mobilized in the French capital to prevent activists not associated with the official protest from disrupting the march and causing damage, which has happened during previous recent demonstrations.

Police said they detained 35 people in Paris before and after the march started. Some of them were preemptively taken in for questioning after officers searched their bags and found “equipment” that could be used to cause damage or to hide their faces.

Others, mainly youths dressed in black with their faces covered, were detained on the sidelines of the main protest for breaking a window at a business or damaging bus shelters. Police used tear gas canisters to push them back. One officer was slightly injured by thrown debris.

Unions, opposition parties and other groups are particularly denouncing a Macron-led legal overhaul aimed at cutting worker protections and increasing police powers.

They allege that Macron supports tax reform that favors France’s wealthiest and is working to tear down public services, including by making it harder for students to attend the universities of their choice and easier for police to brutalize residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods.

In the southern port city of Marseille, Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of the far-left Defiant France party, also addressed Macron while speaking to demonstrators.

“In the name of the poor, the humiliated, the homeless and the jobless, we are telling you, `Enough, enough of this world,”‘ Melenchon said.

Macron, a centrist former investment banker, says his economic changes are meant to increase France’s global competitiveness. In an interview with BFM TV on Friday, the French leader said that those who protest will not manage to “block the country.”

“No disorder will stop me, and calm will return,” Macron said.
…

A detained British-Iranian aid worker sentenced to five years in jail in Iran is to face a second trial on new security charges, the semi-official Tasnim news agency on Saturday quoted Tehran Revolutionary Court’s head Musa Ghazanfarabadi as saying.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested in April 2016 at a Tehran airport as she was heading back to Britain with her two-year-old daughter after a family visit.

She was convicted of plotting to overthrow Iran’s clerical establishment, a charge denied by her family and the Foundation, a charity organization that is independent of Thomson Reuters and operates independently of Reuters News.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson discussed Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s case with Iranian officials after flying to Tehran in December to try to seek her release.

“Ghazanfarabadi said the charge against Zaghari in the new case is security-related but did not say whether it was espionage or another charge,” Tasnim reported.

“Zaghari is to present an attorney and then the court will convene,” Ghazanfarabadi said.

Reuters was unable to determine the identity of the lawyer.

Asked for comment by Reuters, Britain’s Foreign Office said on Saturday that it would not provide a commentary on “every twist and turn.”

Her husband Richard Ratcliffe said it was not clear what the latest charges involved.

“To go back a week, she had met with the judge … who said there would be a charge of spreading propaganda against the regime, that’s a very mild form of security charge so hopefully it’s just that,” he told BBC TV.

In a statement on Monday, the Thomson Reuters Foundation said it totally rejected “the renewed accusations that Nazanin is guilty of spreading propaganda” and said it continued to assert her full innocence.

In response to an urgent question in parliament on Tuesday about her situation, British Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt said Prime Minister Theresa May had raised all consular cases with President Hassan Rouhani in a call earlier this month. He did not provide further details.

He also said the British ambassador in Tehran had spoken to Zaghari-Ratcliffe last Sunday.

“We remain of the assessment that a private, rather than public approach is most likely to result in progress in Nazanin’s case and ultimately, her release, which is all any of us want,” he said.

Iran does not recognize dual citizenship, which limits the access foreign embassies have to their dual citizens held there.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have arrested at least 30 dual nationals during the past two years, mostly on spying charges, according to lawyers, diplomats and relatives, Reuters reported in November.

According to former prisoners, families of current ones and diplomats, in some cases the detainees are kept to be used for a prisoner exchange with Western countries. Iran denies the accusation.
…

Ireland has voted by a landslide to liberalize its highly restrictive abortion laws in a referendum that its prime minister called the culmination of a “quiet revolution” in what was one of Europe’s most socially conservative countries.

Voters in the once deeply Catholic nation backed the change by two-to-one, a far higher margin than any opinion poll in the run up to the vote had predicted, and allows the government to bring in legislation by the end of the year.

“It’s incredible. For all the years and years and years we’ve been trying to look after women and not been able to look after women, this means everything,” said Mary Higgins, obstetrician and Together For Yes campaigner.

Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who campaigned to repeal the laws, had called the vote a once-in-a-generation chance and voters responded by turning out in droves. A turnout of 64 percent was one of the highest for a referendum.

All but one of Ireland’s 40 constituencies voted “Yes” and contributed to the 66 percent that carried the proposal, almost an exact reversal of the 1983 referendum result that inserted the ban into the constitution.

“What we see is the culmination of a quiet revolution that has been taking place in Ireland over the last couple of decades,” Varadkar, who became Ireland’s first openly gay prime minister last year, told journalists in Dublin.

The outcome is the latest milestone on a path of change for a country which only legalized divorce by a razor thin majority in 1995 before becoming the first in the world to adopt gay marriage by popular vote three years ago.

“For him (his son), it’s a different Ireland that we’re moving onto. It’s an Ireland that is more tolerant, more inclusive and where he can be whatever he wants without fear of recrimination,” said Colm O’Riain, a 44-year-old teacher with his son Ruarai, who was born 14 weeks premature in November.

Astonishing margin

Anti-abortion activists conceded defeat early on Saturday as their opponents expressed astonishment at the scale of their victory. Lawmakers who campaigned for a “No” vote said they would not seek to block the government’s legislation.

“What Irish voters did yesterday is a tragedy of historic proportions,” the Save The 8th group said. “However, a wrong does not become a right simply because a majority support it.”

Voters were asked to scrap the constitutional amendment, which gives an unborn child and its mother equal rights to life.

The consequent prohibition on abortion was partly lifted in 2013 for cases where the mother’s life was in danger.

The largest newspaper, the Irish Independent described the result as “a massive moment in Ireland’s social history”.

Campaigners for change, wearing “Repeal” jumpers and “Yes” badges, gathered at count centers, many in tears and hugging each other. Others sang songs in the sunshine outside the main Dublin results center as they awaited the official result.

The large crowd cheered Varadkar as he took to the stage to thank them for “trusting women and respecting their choices”.

“Yes” campaigners had argued that with over 3,000 women travelling to Britain each year for terminations – a right enshrined in a 1992 referendum – and others ordering pills illegally online, abortion was already a reality in Ireland.

Reform in Ireland also raised the prospect that women in Northern Ireland, where abortion is still illegal, may start travelling south of the border.

The leaders of Sinn Fein, the province’s largest Irish nationalist party that also has a large presence in the Irish republic, held up a sign on stage saying “The North is next.”

Middle ground

No social issue has divided Ireland’s 4.8 million people as sharply as abortion, which was pushed up the political agenda by the death in 2012 of a 31-year-old Indian immigrant from a septic miscarriage after she was refused a termination.

Campaigners left flowers and candles at a large mural of the woman, Savita Halappanavar, in central Dublin. Her parents in India were quoted by the Irish Times newspaper as thanking their “brothers and sisters” in Ireland and requesting the new law be called “Savita’s law”.

Deputy Prime Minister Simon Coveney said he believed a middle ground of around 40 percent of voters had decided en masse to allow women and doctors rather than lawmakers and lawyers to decide whether a termination was justified.

The vote divided political parties, saw the once-mighty Catholic Church take a back seat, with the campaign defined by women on both sides publicly describing their personal experiences of terminations.

Although not on the ballot paper, the “No” camp sought to seize on government plans to allow abortions with no restriction up to 12 weeks into a pregnancy if the referendum is carried, calling it a step too far for most voters.

Save The 8th spokesman McGuirk appealed for tolerance and respect from “those who find themselves in the majority now”.

Jim Wells, a member of Northern Ireland’s socially conservative Democratic Unionist Party, said that after the vote Northern Ireland and Malta were the only parts of Europe where the unborn child was properly protected.

“It is inevitable that the abortion industry based in Great Britain will set up clinics in border towns,” he said. “The outcome of the referendum is an extremely worrying development for the protection of the unborn child in Northern Ireland.”
…

The people of Ireland appear set to liberalize some of the world’s most restrictive abortion laws by a landslide, an exit poll showed Friday, as voters demanded change in what two decades ago was one of Europe’s most socially conservative countries.

The Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI exit poll suggested that voters in the once deeply Catholic nation had backed a ballot proposal by a margin of 68 percent to 32 percent. A second exit poll was due to be published by 2230 GMT (11:30 p.m. in Dublin).

Turnout could be one of the highest for a referendum, national broadcaster RTE reported, potentially topping the 61 percent who backed gay marriage by a large margin in 2015, as voters queued outside polling stations throughout the day in the blistering sunshine.

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who was in favor of change and called the referendum a once-in-a-generation chance, said earlier Friday that he was “quietly confident” that the high turnout was a good sign.

Vote counting begins at 0800 GMT on Saturday (9 a.m. in Dublin), with the first indication of results expected at midmorning.

Voters were asked if they wished to scrap a 1983 amendment to the constitution that gives an unborn child and its mother equal rights to life. The consequent prohibition on abortion was partly lifted in 2013 for cases where the mother’s life is in danger.

Ireland legalized divorce by a razor-thin majority only in 1995, but became the first country to adopt gay marriage by popular vote in a 2015 referendum.

But no social issue has divided its 4.8 million people as sharply as abortion, which was pushed up the political agenda by the death in 2012 of a 31-year-old Indian immigrant from a septic miscarriage after she was refused a termination.

“I think this issue is important because it’s been 35 years since any person has had a choice to vote,” said Sophie O’Gara, 28, who was voting “Yes” near Dublin’s bustling Silicon Docks, home to some of the world’s biggest technology firms.

“So many women have traveled across to England to take care of their family and health care needs, and I think it’s a disgrace and it needs to change,” she said, referring to women who travel to Britain for abortions.

Fierce campaign

The fiercely contested vote has divided political parties, seen the once-mighty church take a back seat, and become a test case for how global internet giants deal with social media advertising in political campaigns.

Unlike in 1983, when religion was front and center and abortion was a taboo subject for most, the campaign was defined by women on both sides publicly describing their personal experiences of terminations.

“Yes” campaigners have argued that with over 3,000 women traveling to Britain each year for terminations — a right enshrined in a 1992 referendum — and others ordering pills illegally online, abortion is already a reality in Ireland.

Although not on the ballot paper, the “No” camp has seized on government plans to allow abortions with no restriction up to 12 weeks into a pregnancy if the ballot proposal is approved, calling it a human rights issue and a step too far for most voters.

“I think it’s important that we protect the unborn babies. People don’t care anymore about the dignity of human life. I’ve a family myself and I think it’s really important,” said John Devlin, a marketing worker in his 50s voting “No” near Dublin’s city center.

The Irish government’s push to liberalize the laws is in contrast to the United States, where abortion has long been legal, but President Donald Trump backs stripping federal funding from women’s health care clinics that offer abortions.

​Home to vote

Videos shared on social media showed scores of voters arriving home at Irish airports from abroad. Ireland does not allow expatriates to vote via mail or in embassies, but those away for less than 18 months remain on the electoral roll.

As with the gay marriage referendum, those using the #hometovote hashtag on Twitter appeared overwhelmingly to back change. Many posted photos of themselves wearing sweatshirts bearing the “Repeal” slogan.

“Women and girls should not be made into health care refugees when they are in a time of crisis,” said Niamh Kelly, 27, who paid 800 euros and traveled 20 hours to return home from Hanoi where she works as an English teacher. She called the vote a once-in-a-lifetime chance “to lift the culture of shame that surrounds this issue, so it was really important to me to be part of that.”
…

Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed an international investigation into the downing of Malaysian Airliner MH17 over east Ukraine in 2014 as deeply flawed, after investigators concluded Russia’s military provided the missile used in the attack that killed all 298 people aboard.

Asked about the Joint Investigative Team (JIT) report during a press briefing with visiting French President Emmanuel Macron in St. Petersburg, Putin said that, while he had been too busy to read the report, “I can say right away, even not knowing what’s in it.”

“From the very beginning, we offered to work together on the investigation into the tragedy. To our surprise, they didn’t allow us to participate,” said the Russian leader. 

Putin complained that, while Russia had been excluded from the investigation, neighboring Ukraine was invited to take part.

“The Ukrainian side is there, despite the fact that Ukraine violated international law and failed to close its airspace over territory where a military conflict was happening.”

Putin’s comments follow a report by prosecutors from six nations that identified a Russian military unit — the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Brigade in the Russian city of Kursk — as the source of the “Buk” missile that brought down the passenger plane.

It also comes amid mounting international pressure for Russia to acknowledge the veracity of the JIT findings. 

The Netherlands, which lost 193 citizens in the attack, informed Moscow on Friday that it held the Russian state legally responsible and would pursue compensation. Dutch authorities say Australia would pursue similar legal action. 

The United States, European Union, United Kingdom and NATO have also called on Russia to accept responsibility and fully cooperate with all efforts to establish accountability. 

Theories debunked

Malaysian Airliner MH17 was shot down over territory controlled by pro-Russian separatists in east Ukraine in July, 2014 en route to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam. At the time, intense fighting raged between the Ukrainian army and the Moscow-backed separatists.

Russia has always denied any involvement in the tragedy and provided a range of theories — since debunked — arguing Ukraine was behind the attack.

On Friday, Russia’s defense ministry again issued a denial, saying “not a single anti-aircraft missile system” from the Russian Federation had ever crossed the border into Ukraine, despite photographic evidence presented by the JIT investigation to the contrary.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also dismissed Russian culpability, saying the case resembled accusations against Moscow following the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the UK.

“It looks much like the Skripal affair when they said it was highly likely done by Russians,” said Lavrov. The foreign minister then accused western powers of using the tragedy to pursue political goals.

Meanwhile, the speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin suggested Russia was already preparing for additional sanctions.

While the JIT report places blame squarely on Russia for providing the missile, investigators say they have yet to determine individuals behind the attack.
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Nations that remain in the Iran nuclear deal meet on Friday for the first time since U.S. President Donald Trump left the pact, but diplomats see limited scope to salvage it after Washington vowed to be tougher than ever on Tehran.

British, Chinese, French, German and Russian officials will try to flesh out with Iran’s deputy foreign minister a strategy to save the deal by keeping oil and investment flowing, while circumventing U.S. sanctions that risk hurting the economy.

The 2015 accord rests on lifting sanctions and allowing business with Iran in exchange for Tehran curbing its nuclear program. The deal’s proponents say it is crucial to forestalling a nuclear Iran and preventing wider war in the Middle East.

But U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday threatened the Islamic Republic with “the strongest sanctions in history” if it did not change its behavior in the Middle East.

“Pompeo was like taking a cold shower,” said a European diplomat. “We’ll try to cling to the deal hoping that there is a possibility of a transaction, but we’re under no illusions.”

At the heart of Friday’s talks, chaired by the European Union, Iranian officials will seek guarantees from the Europeans that they can protect trade. They will also want assurances that all parties will continue to buy Iranian oil.

Iran’s supreme leader set out a series of conditions on Wednesday for Iran to stay in the deal.

“This is a very important meeting that will show whether the other parties are serious about the deal or not,” an Iranian official told Reuters. “We will understand whether, as our leader, said, the European can give us reliable guarantees or not.”

Highlighting how difficult it will be, the U.S. Treasury announced Thursday more sanctions on several Iranian and Turkish companies and a number of aircraft in a move targeting four Iranian airlines.

Some Western companies have already quit Iran or said they may have to leave because of U.S. sanctions.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif said he expected the other signatories to present “a new package” that would be within the boundaries of the agreement, but did not include “any other issues.”

Trump denounced the accord, completed under his predecessor Barack Obama, because it did not cover Iran’s ballistic missile program, its role in Middle East conflicts or what happens after the deal begins to expire in 2025.

While European nations share those concerns, they have said that as long as Tehran meets its commitments, they would remain in the deal.

The U.N. atomic watchdog policing the pact said on Thursday Iran continued to comply with the terms of the deal, but could be faster and more proactive in allowing snap inspections.

“The European desire to remain in the agreement does not, however, detract from the concerns we have with regard to Iran,” France’s foreign ministry spokeswoman said on Thursday.

“That is why we proposed to establish a comprehensive negotiating framework with Iran. We want Iran to understand the value of a cooperative approach.”
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U.S. tech companies would be forced to disclose if they allowed American adversaries, like Russia and China, to examine the inner workings of software sold to the U.S. military under proposed legislation, Senate staff told Reuters on Thursday.

The bill, approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, comes after a year-long Reuters investigation found software makers allowed a Russian defense agency to hunt for vulnerabilities in software that was already deeply embedded in some of the most sensitive parts of the U.S. government, including the Pentagon, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and intelligence agencies.

Security experts say allowing Russian authorities to conduct the reviews of internal software instructions — known as source code — could help Russia find vulnerabilities and more easily attack key systems that protect the United States. 

The new source code disclosure rules were included in Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act, the Pentagon’s spending bill, according to staffers of Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen.

​Details of bill, which passed the committee 25-2, are not yet public. And the legislation still needs to be voted on by the full Senate and reconciled with a House version of the legislation before it can be signed into law by President Donald Trump.

If passed into law, the legislation would require companies that do business with the U.S. military to disclose any source code review of the software done by adversaries, staffers for Shaheen told Reuters. If the Pentagon deems a source code review a risk, military officials and the software company would need to agree on how to contain the threat. It could, for example, involve limiting the software’s use to non-classified settings.

The details of the foreign source code reviews, and any steps the company agreed to take to reduce the risks, would be stored in a database accessible to military officials, Shaheen’s staffers said. For most products, the military notification will only apply to countries determined to be cybersecurity threats, such as Russia and China.

Shaheen has been a key voice on cybersecurity in Congress. The New Hampshire senator last year led successful efforts in Congress to ban all government use of software provided by Moscow-based antivirus firm Kaspersky Lab, amid allegations the company is linked to Russian intelligence. Kaspersky denies such links.

In order to sell in the Russian market, tech companies including Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co, SAP and McAfee have allowed a Russian defense agency to scour software source code for vulnerabilities, Reuters found. In many cases, Reuters found that the software companies had not previously informed U.S. agencies that Russian authorities had been allowed to conduct the source code reviews. In most cases, the U.S. military does not require comparable source code reviews before it buys software, procurement experts have told Reuters. 

The companies have said the source code reviews were conducted by the Russians in company-controlled facilities, where the reviewer could not copy or alter the software. McAfee announced last year that it no longer allows government source code reviews. Hewlett Packard Enterprise has said none of its current software offerings have gone through the process.
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French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday said he would travel to Russia for the soccer World Cup if France reach the semifinals, turning a deaf ear to calls from human rights groups to boycott the tournament.

Human rights groups calling for the boycott over Russia’s involvement in Syria’s civil war met with Macron’s advisers earlier this week, saying it would send a strong symbolic message if the 40-year-old leader did not attend the World Cup.

“If the French team passes beyond the quarterfinals I will come and support,” Macron said during a joint news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Macron has banked on nurturing relationships with awkward leaders such as Putin, appearing engaged on the world stage but remaining non-committal and trying to mediate among opposing sides without unsettling anyone.

France have been drawn to face Australia, Denmark and Peru in Group C at the World Cup, which runs from June 14 to July 15. The top two in the group will progress to the round of 16. 
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Authorities in Spain say police are raiding several public and private offices across Catalonia in an operation against the alleged misappropriation of public development aid money.

Investigating magistrate Joaquin Aguirre in Barcelona ordered Thursday’s raid as part of a probe into at least 2 million euros (US$2.3 million) in development grants from the local government that were allegedly misused in an unspecified manner.

It said the investigation, which is also looking into possible abuse of power and fraud charges, has been going on for more than a year and remains sealed.

Private news agency Europa Press reported that 22 people had been arrested. Spanish police confirmed the raids but said the number of people arrested couldn’t be confirmed until the operation is closed.

 
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The Kremlin says it doubts that Yulia Skripal has issued a statement of her own free will after her recovery from poisoning that Britain blames on Russia.

Skripal, who was poisoned along with her ex-spy father in a nerve agent attack, said Wednesday her recovery has been “slow and painful” and that she doesn’t need assistance offered by the Russian Embassy.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Thursday the Kremlin doesn’t know whether Skripal made her statement under pressure or independently, where she is or if her rights have been respected by British authorities.

Russia has vehemently denied any involvement in the March 4 poisoning and blamed Britain for staging it. Peskov described the Skripals’ poisoning as an “unprecedented international provocation.”

　
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An abortion debate that has inflamed passions in Ireland for decades will come down to a single question on Friday: yes or no?

The referendum on whether to repeal the country’s strict anti-abortion law is being seen by anti-abortion activists as a last-ditch stand against what they view as a European norm of abortion-on-demand, while for pro-abortion rights advocates, it is a fundamental moment for declaring an Irish woman’s right to choose. couple

If the “yes” side prevails and the constitutional ban on abortions is repealed, the government plans to introduce legislation that would allow abortion within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and later in specific cases when the woman is at grave risk or the fetus is likely to die in the womb or shortly after birth. Parliament would then debate this plan.

Opinion surveys suggest a continuing change of attitudes in Ireland, a traditionally Roman Catholic country that surprised many by voting in favor of same-sex marriage in 2015. Both sides generally agree that the frenzied campaign ahead of Friday’s vote has not produced the dramatic shift in public opinion that anti-abortion campaigners were hoping for.

Still, David Quinn of the socially conservative Iona Institute says the “no” forces opposed to abortion rights still have “a fighting chance,” and recalled other recent political upsets.

“Remember: Brexit wasn’t supposed to pass, and Donald Trump wasn’t supposed to get elected,” he said.

Activists from both sides have put up thousands of emotional signs pleading their case and there were small demonstrations in Dublin on Wednesday as the vote neared.

Friday’s poll will be the fourth time in as many decades that Irish voters have been asked to decide on the issue of abortion.

But this time the debate has been roiled by two factors that voters have not faced before: The extraordinary power of social media and the increased availability through telemedicine websites of new drugs that allow women to make profound decisions over whether to end a pregnancy in the privacy of their homes.

Facebook and Google have both taken steps to restrict or remove ads relating to the referendum in a move designed to address global concerns about social media’s role in influencing political campaigns, from the U.S. presidential race to Brexit.

At the heart of this vote is whether or not to reverse a far-reaching 1983 referendum that inserted an amendment into Ireland’s constitution that committed authorities to equally defend the right to life of a mother and that of a fetus from the moment of conception.

The issue has been revisited repeatedly after heartrending “hard cases” that, abortion rights activists say, exposed vulnerable women to miserable choices — and even, at times, death.

Abortion is legal in Ireland only in rare cases when the woman’s life is in danger, and several thousand Irish women travel each year to terminate pregnancies in neighboring Britain. That number has fallen dramatically in recent years as women turned to online websites to illegally import drugs that end pregnancies.

The Irish Times said in its editorial Thursday that the constitutional abortion ban must be repealed because it has left doctors confused as to what is legal, and led women to travel abroad “in secrecy and shame” for abortions.

It cited as the type of  “grotesque spectacle” the ban has caused the case of a 14-year-old who became pregnant and suicidal after being raped. She had to go to the Supreme Court after the government blocked her from traveling to get an abortion.

Pro-abortion rights activists have sought to focus public attention on the difficult cases, including the fate of Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old Indian dentist who had sought and been denied an abortion before she died after a miscarriage in a Galway hospital on Ireland’s west coast in 2012. The man who led the Irish health service’s inquiry into her death has called for the constitutional ban on abortion to be repealed.

In an effort to neutralize the “hard cases” argument, some prominent anti-abortion campaigners have lately shifted their stance, even suggesting that new laws could be enacted to permit abortions in certain limited cases.

But that compromise was dismissed by Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, a medical doctor who favors repealing the constitutional ban. He said it is the country’s “hard laws that create hard cases.”

Friday’s referendum has placed the abortion debate on center stage, with many on Dublin’s crowded city streets wearing buttons or T-shirts that align them with the “yes” or “no” side.

Jessie Carton was walking down O’Connell Street last week in a “Repeal the Eighth”‘ T-shirt, a reference to the amendment behind the constitutional ban. The 17-year-old is too young to vote — but she would vote “yes” if she could.

“My auntie was forced to maintain her pregnancy, even though they told her the baby would die,” Carton said, adding that she would vote to repeal “so other women don’t have to go through what she did.”

An elderly Dublin man, John Byrne, wore a “no” button on his lapel.

“I believe in life. I believe God is the giver of life,” the 78-year-old said, adding that he credits God with helping him overcome alcohol addiction.

“I drank, and I remember sleeping in the bushes in Merrion Square. God bailed me out. … It’s high time I did something for him,” he said. “We’ve gone too liberal in Ireland altogether, and we would be better off if we respected our Christian values.”

The “no” forces are fearful that the urban vote in cosmopolitan Dublin could overwhelm their bid to keep the constitutional ban in force.

Quinn, the “no” backer from Iona Institute, says that if turnout is high in Dublin, the “yes” side is likely to triumph. A high rural turnout would keep the ban in place, he predicted.

Even if “yes” prevails, there will not be an immediate change in abortion rules. It will be up to parliament to enact a new law — a debate widely expected to be fractious.

　
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French President Emmanuel Macron heads to St. Petersburg Thursday for talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, whose support is key on matters ranging from salvaging the Iran nuclear deal to securing steady European gas supplies.

Business also is high on the agenda of Macron’s two-day visit, which coincides with a key economic forum in St. Petersburg.

Some observers say Macron’s trip comes within a broader context of thawing European relations with Russia, as seen in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to Sochi last week, and deepening differences with Washington.

But as he pursues a policy of engagement with Putin — like he did with U.S. President Donald Trump — France’s 40-year-old leader has said repeatedly he is not naive.

“I do believe we should never be weak with President Putin,” he told Fox News in an April interview. “When you are weak, he uses it.”

Still, a number of analysts doubt Macron will make much headway during his Russia visit. Some say the growing divide between the European Union and Washington will weaken his hand with the Russian leader during discussions that also are expected to include Ukraine and Syria.

Even boosting trade ties with Russia first demands “overcoming political obstacles, and they are numerous,” wrote economic journalist Jean-Marc Sylvestre in Atlantico.

“I think the Russians will do whatever they can to use Macron’s visit to their advantage, to their propaganda ends, and try to break the Atlantic alliance,” said political history professor Anton Koslov of the American Graduate School in Paris, referring to broader EU-US ties.

Tense Russia-EU landscape

Macron’s trip comes a year after hosting Putin at Versailles palace, shortly after his election, which was marred by claims of Russian interference. Since then, EU relations with Moscow, already tense over Ukraine and Crimea’s annexation, have sunk even lower.

In March, France joined the U.S. and nearly two dozen EU countries in expelling Russian diplomats in response to a nerve attack in Britain on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter. Even so, Macron kept his Russia visit on his agenda. Both Skripals have since left the hospital and are at an undisclosed location.

On Syria, the EU and Russia remain far apart. While Russia supports the Syrian regime, Macron joined Washington and Britain last month in striking Syrian military targets. The action followed a suspected chemical weapons attack, which Paris said it had “proof” took place.

The EU and Russia also remain key rivals closer to home, notably in the Balkans, where the Europeans worry about growing Russian influence. Yet the EU is divided over ramping up membership talks with six Balkan nations, promising only closer ties for now during an EU-Balkans summit last week in Bulgaria.

And while Russia is a close ally of Iran, France and other EU members separate their backing for the nuclear deal from their many differences with Tehran.

Washington’s pullout of the Iran agreement, however, is scrambling the diplomatic landscape. The Europeans will need Russian and Chinese support as they race to save the agreement.

Still, Koslov, of the American Graduate School, is skeptical Macron will make headway with Putin. “I don’t think he’ll be able to secure anything on Iran,” he said.

Business ties

In an interview earlier this month with France’s Journal du Dimanche newspaper, Macron described establishing a ‘strategic dialogue” with Putin and strengthening “Russian ties to Europe and not leaving Russia to fold in on itself.” The spread of Russian media propaganda in France, which Macron denounced last year, has lessened, he said.

Those ties also appear to include business deals. Bilateral trade has picked up since the EU first imposed sanctions in 2014, and the French business leaders accompanying Macron to St. Petersburg include the heads of energy company Total, food giant Danone, and Societe Generale bank.

Today, France is Europe’s second largest investor in Russia after Germany, and bilateral trade reached a reported $15.5 billion in 2017— up from $13.3 billion the year before.

Paris is not alone in its business overtures. Earlier this week, the EU’s energy chief Maros Sefcovic said he had reached out to Ukraine and Russia to resume stalled gas talks that also would help secure European access to Russian gas beyond 2019.

And after her own talks with Putin in Russia last week, Germany’s Merkel said despite their differences, the two sides need to “come closer to discuss the facts.”

“Merkel wanted to let Washington know that Germany does not wholly depend on the U.S. for international issues,” Josef Janning, Berlin office head for the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), told Britain’s Independent newspaper.

Still, a recent ECFR study finds EU nations still consider Russian actions destabilizing — or potentially so — both at home and abroad, and the bloc is broadly united in pushing back, including by maintaining sanctions.

“By trying to exploit Europe’s domestic divides and weaknesses,” wrote author Kadri Liik, “Russia has created urgent incentives to address them.”
…

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov plans to visit North Korea, Russian news agencies quoted a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman as saying on Wednesday.

Dates for the trip have yet to be agreed, she said. Earlier, the RBC news portal wrote that Lavrov would travel to North Korea on May 31.

That would mean him visiting before a proposed summit in Singapore between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

On Tuesday, Trump cast doubt on plans for that meeting, which has been scheduled for June 12.

Russia is considered an ally of North Korea, but has supported United Nations sanctions against it over Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

Lavrov accepted an invitation to visit North Korea last month.

 
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A Moscow court sentenced Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s spokeswoman to 25 days in jail on Wednesday for her role in organizing nationwide protests against President Vladimir Putin earlier this month.

Around 1,600 anti-Kremlin activists were detained on May 5 during protests held ahead of Putin’s inauguration for a fourth term as president.

Police detained Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s spokeswoman, on Tuesday, accusing her of organizing an unauthorized rally.

“Twenty five days is nonsense when you know you’re right and you have the support of so many people,” Yarmysh wrote on social media after being sentenced on Wednesday.

Navalny, who was detained at the protest, is currently serving a 30 day sentence for organizing the rally. On Wednesday, he appealed against the ruling, but a court in Moscow upheld the sentence.
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The United States on Tuesday gave American customers of Russia’s biggest van manufacturer GAZ more time to comply with sanctions, further backing away from its initially uncompromising stance on GAZ’s owner, Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska.

The United States slapped sanctions on Deripaska and his companies — including GAZ — and some other Russian tycoons in April, in response to Moscow’s alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections and what Washington called other “malign activities.”

Sources familiar with the matter told Reuters previously that sanctions on GAZ could affect its contracts with German carmakers Volkswagen and Daimler, as well as with U.S. firm Cummins Inc.

The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday gave Americans until Oct. 23 instead of June 5 to wind down operations and contracts with GAZ and said it would consider lifting the sanctions if Deripaska ceded control of the company.

GAZ declined to comment. The company competes with firms including a joint venture between Ford Motor Co and its Russian partner Sollers.

The same extension was previously given and the same mechanism for potential lifting of sanctions was described by the United States for Deripaska’s main asset, the world’s second-biggest aluminum producer Rusal.

The move was preceded by a lobbying campaign from Europe as the sanctions against Rusal caused a turmoil in the aluminum market.

Deripaska has already said he agreed in principal to reduce his influence in another company which controls Rusal.
…

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg apologized to EU lawmakers on Tuesday, saying the company had not done enough to prevent misuse of the social network and that regulation is “important and inevitable.”

Meeting the leaders of the European Parliament, Zuckerberg stressed the importance of Europeans to Facebook and said he was sorry for not doing enough to prevent abuse of the platform.

“We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility. That was a mistake and I am sorry for it,” Zuckerberg said in his opening remarks.

In response to questions about whether Facebook ought to be broken up, Zuckerberg said the question was not whether there should be regulation but what kind of regulation there should be.

“Some sort of regulation is important and inevitable,” he said.

He declined to answer when leading lawmakers asked him again as the session concluded whether there was any cross use of data between Facebook and subsidiaries like WhatsApp or on whether he would give an undertaking to let users block targeting adverts.

Facebook has been embroiled in a data scandal after it emerged that the personal data of 87 million users were improperly accessed by a political consultancy.
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Japan, Russia and Turkey have warned the United States about potential retaliation for its tariffs on steel and aluminium, the World Trade Organization said on Tuesday, bringing the total U.S. tariff bill to around $3.5 billion annually.

The three countries detailed their compensation claims in notifications to the world trade body, following similar moves by the European Union, India and China. Each showed how much the disputed U.S. tariffs would add to the cost of steel and aluminium exports to the United States, based on 2017 trade.

Russia said the U.S. tariffs, which President Donald Trump imposed in March, would add duties of $538 million to its annual steel and aluminium exports. Japan put the sum at $440 million. Turkey added a further $267 million.

China, the 28-nation EU and India have put their claims at $612 million, $1.6 billion and $165 million respectively.

They all reject the U.S. view that the import tariffs – 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminium — are justified by U.S. national security concerns and are therefore exempt from the WTO rules.

They say the U.S. tariffs have all the hallmarks of “safeguards”, a trade restriction that can be legitimately used to protect a struggling industry from an unforeseen surge in imports.

A country using safeguards must compensate other WTO members who stand to lose out from the restriction on their trade, normally by rebalancing their trading relationship with a net increase in imports of other goods.

But the United States denies its tariffs are safeguards and has offered no compensation, prompting the retaliatory action.

The compensation would normally take years, but because the U.S. steel and aluminium sectors were not facing an absolute increase in imports, the WTO rules permitted retaliation in just 30 days’ time, they said.

Japan said it was free to impose at least $264 million of its retaliation after 30 days, suggesting that the rest might be delayed, since some of the U.S. products covered by the tariffs were subject to an absolute increase in imports from Japan.

Neither Russia nor Japan specified how they might retaliate against U.S. exports, but Turkey listed 22 U.S. goods that it was planning to target, ranging from nuts, rice and tobacco to cars and steel products.
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A gay Chilean man who survived abuse by a Catholic priest said Pope Francis told him that his sexual orientation “doesn’t matter” to him and that “God made you like this.”

Juan Carlos Cruz said he spoke to the pope about his homosexuality during their recent meetings at the Vatican. The pope invited Cruz and other victims of a Chilean predator priest to discuss their cases last month.

“Juan Carlos, that you are gay doesn’t matter,” Cruz said Pope Francis told him, according to the Spanish newspaper El Pais. “God made you like this and loves you like this, and it doesn’t matter to me. The pope loves you like this. You have to be happy with who you are.”

The Vatican has refused to confirm or deny the remarks, citing its policy not to comment on the pope’s private conversations.

Cruz, who was abused as a child by the Rev. Fernando Karadima, Chile’s most notorious pedophile priest, told the paper that his sexual orientation came up during the discussion because he has been targeted for being gay after speaking out about his abuse.

Whether the pope’s comments will bring about change within the Catholic Church is debatable. Pope Francis has sought to make the church more welcoming to gays, most famously with his 2013 comment, “Who am I to judge?”

He also has spoken of his own ministry to gay and transgender people, insisting they are children of God, loved by God and deserving of accompaniment by the church.

While the Catechism of the Catholic Church states that people with “homosexual tendencies” “must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity,” it also calls a “deep-seated” homosexual inclination and its acts “intrinsically disordered” and “contrary to the natural law.”
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday accused countries with nuclear weapons of “threatening the world,” and criticized the United States’ withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

“Those who have more than 15,000 nuclear warheads are currently threatening the world,” he said, referring to the approximate total number of warheads worldwide, most of which are held by the United States and Russia.

Apparently referring to such states as Iran, he added: “Why are countries with nuclear warheads posing a threat to them?”

“If we are to be fair, to show a just approach, then the countries with nuclear weapons, which portray nuclear power stations as threats, have no credibility in the international community,” he said at an iftar dinner for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Erdogan said the Middle East had to be cleansed of all nuclear weapons, in an apparent reference to Israel, believed to be the only nation in the region to possess them.

U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States 10 days ago from the deal between Tehran and six major powers which limited Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. Trump ordered that sanctions be reimposed.

Earlier on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demanded Iran take additional steps such as pulling out of the Syrian civil war. Iran dismissed Washington’s ultimatum and a senior Iranian official said it showed the United States was seeking “regime change” in Iran.

The U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal comes as relations between NATO member Turkey and Washington have soured over a host of issues, ranging from U.S. policy in Syria to Trump’s decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. France, Germany and Britain have said they will try to save the nuclear deal with Tehran.

“As Turkey, we do not accept re-igniting issues, including the Iran nuclear deal, that have been put to bed. We find the other signatories stating their loyalty to the agreement in the face of the U.S. administration’s decision very positive,” Erdogan said.
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Survivors of a devastating high-rise fire in London wept Monday as relatives paid tribute to some of the 72 victims at the opening of an inquiry into Britain’s deadliest blaze in decades.

The Grenfell Tower inquiry is beginning with two weeks of tributes to those who died when a fire that began in a faulty fridge raced through the 24-story apartment block in June 2017. The statements from friends and family members are meant to keep the victims at the center of the inquiry, which will try to determine how the disaster happened and prevent a similar tragedy happening in the future.

“When we die, we live on in the memories of those who knew and loved us,” said retired judge Martin Moore-Bick, who is leading the inquiry. “It is fitting therefore that the opening hearings … should be dedicated to the memory of those who died.”

The victims included baby Logan Gomes, who was stillborn after his family escaped from the 21st floor of the building.

“He might not be here physically, but he will always be here in our hearts, and will be forever,” said his father Marcio Gomes, his voice breaking. “I know he’s here, with God, right next to me, giving me strength and courage to take this forward.”

The inquiry heard a message left by Mohamed Amied Neda from inside his apartment.

“Goodbye, we are leaving this world now, goodbye,” said the 57-year-old, who came to Britain from Afghanistan and ran a chauffeur company. He was found dead after falling from the building. His wife and son were left comatose but survived.

Mohammadou Saye remembered his 24-year-old daughter Khadija Saye, a promising visual artist whose work was shown at last year’s Venice Biennale.

“Her burning passion was photography, encouraged by her mother, Mary Mendy, who also lost her life in the same fire,” he said in a statement read by a lawyer.

“Khadija said to me one day: `Daddy, I’m in love with images.”

Moore-Bick’s inquiry will look at causes of the blaze, the response of local authorities and the country’s high-rise building regulations. But some survivors are critical because it won’t investigate wider issues around social housing that many residents had wanted to include.

Many residents accuse officials in Kensington and Chelsea, one of London’s richest boroughs, of ignoring their safety concerns because the publicly owned tower was home to a largely immigrant and working-class population.

Police say they are considering individual or corporate manslaughter charges in the blaze, but no one has yet been charged.
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A European Parliament meeting on Tuesday with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be broadcast live, parliamentary officials and the company said on Monday after controversy over plans for a closed-door hearing.

Parliament President Antonio Tajani, who was criticized by legislators and some senior EU officials over arrangements for the discussion on public privacy concerns, tweeted that it was “great news” that Zuckerberg had agreed to a live web stream.

A Facebook spokeswoman said: “We’re looking forward to the meeting and happy for it to be live streamed.”

Zuckerberg, who founded the U.S. social media giant, will be in Europe to defend the company after scandal over its sale of personal data to a British political consultancy which worked on U.S. President Donald Trump’s election campaign, among others.

He will meet Tajani and leaders of parties in the European Parliament in Brussels from 6:15 p.m. (1615 GMT) on Tuesday.

He is also due to meet French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday.
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