In Paris, authorities are probing allegations that the holding company of tycoon Vincent Bollore used favors to win lucrative port contracts in West Africa. Bollore presides over a massive media, logistics and transportation empire on the continent, even as France’s clout in Africa is waning.

French investigators are probing allegations that Vincent Bollore’s holding company was given lucrative port concessions in Togo and Guinea in exchange for undercharging the current leaders of both countries for advertising work during their election campaigns.

The Bollore Group has denied all wrongdoing, and said the inquiry will give 66-year-old Bollore a chance to answer what it describes as “unfounded accusations.”

France continues to be a major economic and political player in West Africa, especially in its former colonies. But its influence has declined in the face of more recent competitors like China and Turkey.

Even so, the Bollore Group remains a formidable player. Its interests include logistical operations, railways, ports, and media interests that turn over billions of dollars a year.

Interviewed on French TV, journalist Nicolas Vescovacci, who wrote a book about Bollore, describes the Bollore Group’s Africa interests as an “empire” that spans 46 countries and employs 25,000 people. Vescovacci says the businessman controls what enters into the African ports his group controls, and at least part of local economies in countries like Guinea, Togo and Ivory Coast.

Bollore also has forged ties with powerful figures in both France and in Africa. He is friends with former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who is now being probed over alleged Libyan campaign funding for his 2007 election.

Journalist Vescovacci says Bollore has a network of relationships that range from former spies and policemen to politicians — from the left, as well as from the right.

Now Bollore’s relationship with two of them, Guinean President Alpha Conde and Togolese leader Faure Gnassingbe, is under scrutiny. French investigators are probing accusations Bollore’s advertising company Havas, now run by one of his sons, provided discounted services to both men during their election runs in exchange for port contracts.

In France, Bollore is a controversial figure. Over the years, he has launched a number of defamation suits against media investigating his group’s various business activities.

 
…

Armenia’s acting prime minister has said the country will hold new elections if all parties agree to it, prompting celebrations Wednesday on the streets of the capital, Yerevan.

Protests have been building for the last two weeks over an alleged power grab by former prime minister Serzh Sargsyan, who resigned Monday.

His acting replacement, the former deputy prime minister, Karen Karapetyan, said Wednesday all parties should negotiate new elections.

“If they decide that there is a necessity for a snap election, if they set a timeline so that they have enough time to prepare so that everyone is under the same game rules — if they decide so, we will move forward based on that,” Karapetyan told reporters.

Opponents had accused Sargsyan of clinging to power by manipulating the constitution, allowing him to move from the position of president to prime minister.

On the surface, the show of people power in this former Soviet state has striking similarities to the ouster of pro-Russian leader Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine in 2014, or Eduard Shevardnadze in Georgia in 2003. There are differences, however, argues Moscow-based political analyst Karine Gevorgyan.

“In Armenia, in particular, this situation is not linked with being oriented either to the West or to the East, like it was in Ukraine, but with being tired of inefficient, counterproductive power in government,” Gevorgyan told VOA in an interview.

No Moscow puppet

Anahit Shirinyan of the policy institute Chatham House agrees and says Sargsyan was not Moscow’s puppet.

“He was also very much acceptable for the West up until recently because he was thought to have tried to diversify Armenia’s foreign policy. He made this rather bold move toward Turkey back in 2008, with this rapprochement with Turkey, he tried to sign the Association Agreement, a cooperation treaty, with the EU back in 2013,” said Shirinyan.

Under pressure from Moscow, that EU Association Agreement failed and Armenia instead joined the Russia-focused Eurasian Economic Union. But Moscow has failed to build influence in Armenia, argues analyst Gevorgyan.

“I think it has happened because Russia itself has abandoned this political space in Armenia. Meanwhile, other countries, including the United States, as well as other Western countries, acted quite diligently and subtly to fill that space,” said Gevorgyan.

Now Armenia finds itself at a geopolitical crossroads, adds Shirinyan of Chatham House.

“It has an opportunity to get closer to the West, to the EU, because I think that particularly the EU’s support will be crucial in the next stage of reforming the country,” said Shirinyan.

Russia has offered little official response. Moscow has a military base in the country, along with historic and economic ties. Analysts say the strength of the protests likely will prompt a cautious response from all sides.

 
…

U.S President Donald Trump Tuesday praised the strength of America’s partnership with France — and the personal friendship he has developed with his French counterpart. President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Washington will be closely followed by the arrival of German Chancellor Angela Merkel later this week. And, as Henry Ridgwell reports from London, the two European leaders are lobbying hard for Trump to shift his position on trade tariffs and the Iran nuclear deal.
…

Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov is today one of the most renowned figures of the Russian opposition and was the organizer of the recently concluded Free Russia Forum in Vilnius. In an exclusive interview with Voice of America’s Russian service about the latest dramatic events in Yerevan, he said that the will of the people in Armenia for change was a key factor in the development of the situation in that country.

“History is not over, but there is one very important lesson we can learn from there: When people are lied to, they get tired of it; when they are ready to defend their freedom and their right to choose who will lead them, power retreats,” said Kasparov, who is half-Armenian. “The main lesson is that it’s a demonstration of the unity of the nation. When we see students, workers, priests, some in the military [participating in the protest], it makes it impossible for the authorities to suppress it by force.”

Armenian Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan resigned unexpectedly Monday after days of protests against him by opposition supporters who claimed he was clinging to power after serving the maximum 10 years as president.

Armenia’s turmoil deepened Wednesday as tens of thousands of people took to the streets after the opposition accused the ruling Republican Party of refusing to cede power following Sargsyan’s departure. Later in the day, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, the Republican Party governing partner, announced that it had quit Armenia’s ruling coalition, calling for the election of a prime minister with “the people’s confidence.”

​Domestic focus, honest elections

In a region dominated by “strongman” politics, the grass-roots demonstrations, which protest leaders have been careful not to paint as pro-Western or anti-Russian, are focused on a domestic agenda led by honest elections.

Armenia, which seceded from the Soviet Union in 1991, has, like neighboring Caucasus nations, struggled to overcome the legacy of central planning and remains dependent on Russia for aid and investment.

But Kasparov believes that prevailing conditions in Armenia are nonetheless specific to that country.

“It is a special situation there: a practically monoethnic state, three decades of war — one day sluggish, another day turning into a more acute phase,” he said. “There is the Karabakh clan [Karabakh military], and there is the Yerevan party — that is, there are many specific factors that do not apply to Russia.”

The opposition figure also noted that Russia’s powerful influence on the situation in Armenia continued. Russia, which maintains a military base in the country, has said that it is “very attentively observing what is happening in Armenia,” but ultimately considers the unrest a domestic issue.

On Wednesday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement calling on political forces in Armenia to engage in dialogue and act within the law to resolve the situation. They also dismissed any parallels to events that inspired Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan revolution.

The United States responded to developments by thanking Sargsyan for his many years of service and called for a transparent democratic process to determine his successor.

Russian influence

“Armenia is effectively under the all-powerful influence of [President Vladimir] Putin’s Russia, and it is clear that the majority of enterprises are one way or another controlled by Russian oligarchs. These ties were formed over a very long time, including military ties,” Kasparov said. “Armenia, unlike Ukraine, has no borders with the West. It is trapped between Azerbaijan, Turkey; Iran, Georgia are also there; you can’t go too far [without reaching] either Turkey or Russia, if we talk about the border.”

Nevertheless, according to Kasparov, Sargsyan’s resignation is a bellwether for Russia.

“Today, the whole world is in motion. Revolutionary changes are taking place everywhere,” he said. “Many of them are negative and destructive, but it is clear that we have entered a period of change. Armenia, I think, is a bellwether, showing that attempts to preserve the situation in Russia, attempts to return to the past … all the same end with a revolutionary explosion. Armenia is simply this bellwether indicating that change is inevitable. And the question is how peaceful and nonviolent these changes will be.

“Armenia has avoided, largely due to its national peculiarity, bloodshed and violent confrontation/ The extent to which this is possible in Russia is difficult for me to say. I fear that we missed the possibility for such a peaceful, nonviolent transition in 2011-2012, and that the changes in Russia will, of course, be more volatile.”

Thus, he said, it is necessary to prepare for such changes.

“It is necessary now, it seems to me, to think about what will happen in Russia when the day comes that patience completely runs out,” Kasparov said. “Why will that happen? There are landfills that make it impossible to breathe, corruption is monstrous, a sharp deterioration in living standards, banking collapses. There are many examples in history when such a combination of factors produced this explosive combination. And what needs to be done, I think, is what we talked about at the last Free Russia Forum in Vilnius: We need to prepare for this moment in order to propose a plan of action.”

​Darker outlook for Russia

While former Soviet republics such as Armenia may see long-term political changes emerge from this week’s protests, Kasparov believes that the situation in which changes could arrive in Russia is less favorable than the collapse of the Soviet Union.

“We cannot again, as in 1991, be caught by surprise. That will be unforgivable,” he said. “Because if at that time it was unexpected — and any change then seemed good — then today Russia has no such window of opportunity. There is no such upside. There was still economic and industrial potential then, but today the situation is different. It is much worse. Russia is mired in corruption, industrial devastation and wars. And its international reputation is actually much worse than it was 27 years ago. And society does not have the potential for change, the desire to make the country better, the desire to become part of the civilized world.”

“The most important task now is to talk seriously about constitutional reform, about what Russia should look like, what will be the path of this transition,” Kasparov said. “We have our own economic, political, social and foreign policy factors, and we need to take them all into account in order to have a sufficiently well-articulated program of action that can be proposed. The person that offers a program of action — even if it is, as articulated, radical in the opinion of many — is usually the one that inspires the people to follow.”

This story originated in VOA’s Russian Service.
…

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will pay a one-day working visit to the White House on Friday following a three-day state visit by French President Emmanuel Macon.

The back-to-back visits are seen a tag-team effort to persuade U.S. President Donald Trump not to abandon the Iran nuclear deal and to grant permanent exemption of the steel and aluminum tariffs to EU member countries.

While Trump and Macron’s ‘bromance’ was on full display during the French president’s visit, Trump’s relationship with Merkel is unquestionably cooler. It is widely reported that during their inaugural meeting in March 2017, Trump appeared to withhold a handshake with Merkel, and the two leaders did not speak for five months until a phone call on March 1.

“Where Emmanuel Macron is much more successful at charming President Trump, Angela Merkel doesn’t really make the charm offensive a priority and works instead on the basis of principle, common values, and shared interests,” said Eric Jones, Director of European and Eurasian Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

Nile Gardiner, Director of Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at Heritage Foundation told VOA he expected Merkel to take a more confrontational and adversarial approach towards the Trump administration than her French counterpart.

“The Germans have been a lot more critical of Trump’s foreign and economic policies,” he said. “And I think Angela Merkel is likely to be adopting a harder line than Macron on certain issues, but she’ll also be keen to make an effort to save the Iran nuclear deal,” he said.

Gardiner added that “it would be interesting to see the degree to which Merkel and Macron put forth the same proposals with regard to strengthening the Iran nuclear deal.”

Indeed, Center for Strategic and International Studies Europe Program Director Heather Conley told reporters the visits by two European leaders this week will be dubbed “the save the Iran nuclear agreement trip.”

During his visit, Macron repeatedly urged Trump and U.S. Congress not to walk away from the 2015 deal the six major powers — the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Russia and China — made with Iran to curb its nuclear program in exchange for relief from international sanctions that hobbled its economy.

Trump has called the agreement crafted under the Obama administration “the worst deal ever negotiated.” He contends Iran would quickly achieve nuclear capability at the end of the 10-year agreement and often assails its current military adventures in Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon.

Trump again called the deal as “insane” and “ridiculous” during Macron’s visit, but gave no indication as to whether he will pull the U.S. out of the existing nuclear deal with Tehran.

Trans-Atlantic trade

Trans-Atlantic trade will be another crucial issue during Merkel’s visit. Jeff Rathke, Deputy Director of Europe program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies emphasized that this issue is particularly crucial for Germany.

“Germany is the largest EU economy. It is a trade-driven economy,” he said. “I would highlight that the European Union is poised to retaliate if the United States does not extend the exemption on aluminum and steel tariffs, so there is a bit of a threat there of reaction.”

Rathke pointed out Germany has the same concerns as the United States regarding China’s trade practices and its economic role.

“The question is whether they can put aside the relatively less important trans-Atlantic trade disagreements and focus on addressing those much larger and longer-term issues ” he noted.

NATO, Syria

Other issues expected to be discussed during the bilateral meeting include the importance of the NATO alliance and the way forward in Syria.

Johns Hopkins University professor Erik Jones said he doesn’t think the Europeans have high expectations of changing Trump’s mind on these issues at the end of Merkel’s visit.

“If they get an extension of the waiver on US sanctions, that’s a big deliverable; if they were to get a formal commitment to extend the exemptions on steel tariffs, that would be a deliverable; if they were to get a firm commitment on a potential to restart Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) talks; that would be a deliverable as well,” he said.

But Jones said he doubts the Europeans “are bringing a big bag to carry these things home with.” He said they are going to bring “a very small folder and hope they’ve got at least something in it when they leave at the end of the day.”
…

Incessant attacks on the media by populist politicians are posing a threat to major democracies, two international watchdogs said on Wednesday. 

In their annual reports on the state of press freedom around the world, Reporters Without Borders and Freedom House harshly criticized Western populist leaders for discrediting the media, berating journalists, and threatening to impose restrictions. 

“As recently as five years ago, global pressure on the media did not appear to affect the United States or the established democracies of Europe in any significant way,” Freedom House said in its report, “State of Global Press Freedom, 2017-2018.” “Today, populist leaders constitute a major threat to free expression in these open societies.”

Reporters Without Borders offered a strikingly similar assessment, warning that “more and more, democratically-elected leaders no longer see the media as part of democracy’s essential underpinning, but as an adversary to which they openly display their aversion.”

President Donald Trump came in for harsh criticism from both organizations. Reporters without Borders called him “a media bashing enthusiast,” while Freedom House warned that Trump’s characterization of the media as “the enemy of the American people” and his disparagement of journalists and media organizations have “‘undermined public trust in fact based journalism.”

​The White House could not be immediately reached to respond to the criticism. 

Reporters Without Borders’ annual Press Freedom Index evaluates press freedom in 180 countries on a scale of 1 to 180, with 1 being the freest and 180 the least free.

In this year’s index, Norway stole the top spot from Finland while North Korea remained at the bottom at No. 180. 

The U.S. ranked 45th , down two places, continuing a trend that started under the administration of former President Barack Obama but accelerated under Trump.The ranking puts the United States in the same camp as Belize, Italy, Romania, and South Korea.

Europe, which historically has had the freest press in the world and had eight of the freest press sectors in the world, notched the largest decline in its regional indicator. 

In France, a journalist was hustled out of a press conference last May when he asked a politician about involvement in a scandal. 

In Poland, regulators fined a leading TV station for “promoting illegal activities” through its coverage of antigovernment protests, Freedom House said. 

And in Hungary, the free press has all but vanished as businessmen associated with the ruling party have “acquired most of the last bastions of independent media,” according to Freedom House. 

“That’s what we mean when we talk about hatred of journalists coming from political leaders in non authoritarian regimes which is really concerning,” said Margaux Ewen, North America director for Reporters Without Borders.

​The “Trump Effect” rippled into countries such as Turkey, which remains the world’s biggest jailer of journalists and the Philippines where President Rodrigo Duterte has openly threatened journalists. 

In Cambodia, which fell ten places in the RSF index, the government has used Trump’s criticism to justify a major crackdown on independent media.

Sarah Repucci of Freedom House said the comparison is misleading. While the Cambodian press is highly restricted, she said, the U.S. media has vigorously pushed back against Trump’s attacks.

While every region of the world saw declines in press freedom, there were some bright spots in parts of Africa where several authoritarian leaders have left office. 

Among them: Gambia, where a new president has promised a less restrictive press law and the inclusion of freedom of expression in the country’s constitution, jumped 21 places, Africa’s biggest leap forward, according to Reporters Without Borders.
…

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the United States stood with the people of Armenia on Armenian Remembrance Day — the 103rd anniversary of the start of the massacre of Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks.

“As we honor the memory of those who suffered, we also reflect on our commitment to ensure that such atrocities are not repeated,” Trump said in a White House statement. “We underscore the importance of acknowledging and reckoning with the painful elements of the past as a necessary step towards creating a more tolerant future.”

Trump also said he deeply respected the “resilience” of the Armenian people, who he said built new lives in the United States and made countless contributions to the country.

By the time the forced deportation and massacre of Armenians from the Ottoman Empire ended in the early 1920s, more than 1.5 million people were dead.

Like his predecessors in the White House, Trump stopped short of calling the Armenian massacre a genocide.

Historians regularly use the term when writing about the killings. But U.S. ally Turkey denies there was any deliberate campaign of ethnic cleansing. Turks say Armenians died during the upheaval of World War I, including the Russian invasion.

Turkey also contends that far fewer than 1.5 million Armenians died.
…

British officials presented their plans to ensure 3 million European Union citizens can be granted rights to remain in Britain after Brexit, but their presentation in Brussels on Tuesday left EU lawmakers worried the system won’t work.

Some said new revelations about efforts to deport people who came from the Caribbean decades ago undermined trust in British promises, so a deal to phase out EU court protection for Europeans in Britain after eight years should be reviewed.

At a practical level, MEPs emerging from a closed-door Home Office briefing in the European Parliament wondered about those unable to use the proposed smartphone application to claim their “settled status” — and said they were told the government’s app won’t work fully on Apple’s widely used iPhones.

Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian prime minister who leads the EU legislature’s Brexit coordinating panel, said after the presentation that his group would write to the government and EU Brexit negotiators and list its concerns. EU lawmakers must ratify a treaty to avoid legal chaos when Britain leaves the EU in March.

“After the Windrush scandal … there is a lot of anxiety [among] our EU citizens living in Britain that they could have the same experience,” Verhofstadt told reporters, referring to revelations this month about moves to deport people who came to Britain from the Caribbean as children in the 1950s and ’60s.

Free, quick, simple

The system for registering for lifetime rights for Europeans who arrived in Britain while it was an EU member should be free, the MEPs said, and must also be quick, simple and confer rights immediately rather than make people wait for confirmation.

Verhofstadt said they were also looking for assurances about how people could apply who could not use a smartphone.

Dutch MEP Sophie in ‘t Veld said the British authorities needed to build trust and show they had administrative resources to make the registration system work next year. Users of iPhones, she said, would be unable to use the Home Office app to scan their digital passport chips in order to apply for residence. Then, she said, they might have to mail in their passports.

Catherine Bearder, a lawmaker from Britain’s anti-Brexit Liberal Democrats, said Home Office staff had suggested people borrow other types of smartphones in order to register.

Britain’s interior ministry said in a statement that technology would play a role in the registration process, but that it would also make “nondigital” routes available to applicants.

Its minister, Home Secretary Amber Rudd, was quoted by the Financial Times this week as saying the system for EU citizens would be as easy as setting up an online shopping account.
…

Turkish officials say dozens were slightly injured after an earthquake in southeastern Turkey,

The earthquake struck Samsat village in the s province of Adiyaman early Tuesday at 3.34 a.m. local time. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake had a magnitude of 5.2 at 10 kilometers deep.

Turkey’s health minister said of those injured, 35 were still receiving treatment, according to official Anadolu news agency. The regional governor said the injuries were caused as people fled their homes in panic.

Anadolu quoted victim Zeynep Berk whose house collapsed on her and four others. Neighbors rescued the family and attempts to recover their 150 animals continue.

The quake was felt in neighboring provinces. Turkey’s Kandilli Earthquake Monitoring Center recorded at least 13 aftershocks.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump officially welcomes French President Emmanuel Macron with an arrival ceremony Tuesday at the White House before the leaders hold official talks and attend a state dinner.

The ceremony is set to include nearly 500 service members from all five branches of the U.S. military, while Trump’s first state dinner will feature entertainment by the Washington National Opera company. 

Tuesday’s bilateral meeting comes with several issues of global importance confronting the governments of both countries, including the war in Syria, Iran’s nuclear program and Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on aluminum and steel imports.

Trump takes great pride in his friendship with Macron, which is one of the reasons he invited the French president to be his guest for the first state visit of a foreign leader in his administration.

“This visit is very important in our current context, with so many uncertainties, troubles, and at times, threats,” Macron said upon arriving in Washington.

Macron will likely use part of his White House talks to try and persuade Trump not to pull out of the six-nation nuclear deal with Iran. Trump has constantly called it a bad agreement. He faces a May 12 deadline to again waive economic sanctions against Iran as part of the agreement.

Iran would regard the reimposition of sanctions as killing the deal and threatens to restart its nuclear program.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told supporters Tuesday there would be severe consequences if the United States withdraws from the agreement.

Benham Ben Taliblu, an Iran expert with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told VOA that if the United States pulled out, the Iranian reaction would depend on the way in which that happens.

“If the U.S. pulls out with a statement that says the U.S. is abrogating all its commitments under the deal, then I think the Iranians would look to try to try to create some sort of leverage, restart part of their nuclear program, but most importantly the Iranians would sic the Europeans and the international community on America and try to isolate America,” he said.

Macron has said he knows the deal with Iran is not perfect but said there is no “Plan B.”

Trump also has until May 1 to waive tariffs on European steel and aluminum imports or face a possible trade war.

The French president will also likely talk to Trump about what Macron said is the importance of U.S. forces remaining in Syria. Trump has talked about withdrawing Americans from northern Syria. Macron said that would increase the risk of giving up Syria to the Assad regime and Iran.

Shortly after his arrival in Washington Monday, Macron and his wife, Brigitte, along with Trump and first lady Melania Trump, planted a young tree on the South Lawn of the White House. It came from the Belleau Wood, where more than 9,000 American Marines died in a 1918 World War I battle on French soil. 

The Macrons and Trumps also took a helicopter tour of famous Washington tourist attractions before touching down at Mount Vernon, the 18th century estate of America’s first president, George Washington, where they had dinner.

Macron will address Congress on Wednesday before heading back to Paris.

 
…

A new report by Britain’s Growth and Development Commission offered a mix of both good and bad news for poor countries: some of the countries in the report have achieved middle income status, and places once plagued by conflict and instability have shown signs of improvement. But the report also notes that the number of people living in what it calls “fragile states” is growing. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo takes a look at the commissions findings.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump is welcoming French President Emmanuel Macron to the White House on Monday for a three-day state visit, during which the two leaders have scheduled a mix of official meetings and social events.

WATCH: Macron remarks shortly after landing in Washington

Shortly after his arrival, the French leader and his wife Brigitte Macron, Trump and his wife, first lady Melania Trump, are planting a European Sessile Oak sapling on the South Lawn of the White House, a gift from the Macrons.

About a meter and a half tall and between five and 10 years old, the tree comes from Belleau Wood, where more than 9,000 American Marines died in a 1918 World War I battle on French soil as allied forces fought off German troops.

​The two couples are then taking a helicopter tour of historic monuments in Washington before heading to Mt. Vernon, the majestic 18th century estate of the first U.S. president, George Washington, that overlooks the Potomac River in nearby Virginia. They are touring Washington’s white, British Palladian-style mansion, one of the country’s most popular tourist sites, before having dinner there.

On Tuesday, Trump and his wife are hosting the official military welcoming ceremony at the White House for the Macrons that will include nearly 500 U.S. troops from all five branches of its armed forces.

The leaders will then hold official talks, with Macron set to try to keep Trump from withdrawing next month from the 2015 international pact restraining Iran’s nuclear weapons development. The United States and France, along with Britain, Germany, Russia and China, negotiated the agreement with Tehran in exchange for lifting sanctions that had hobbled Iran’s economy.

But Trump says the deal is the “worst ever” negotiated by the United States and will eventually allow Iran to build a nuclear weapon. Macron and Trump are also expected to discuss trade issues, the continuing civil war in Syria and other world concerns.

The Trumps are hosting their first state dinner for the Macrons on Tuesday at the White House, with the Washington National Opera set to entertain.

Macron is addressing Congress, in English, on Wednesday, before heading back to Paris.

 
…

Trevor Ellis arrived in Britain in the 1950s as an 11-year-old with his Jamaican parents. He was schooled in Britain, gainfully employed his entire working life, paid taxes, married and raised children, who now have kids of their own.

But at the age of 71, he can’t get a British passport, has been told he isn’t British and has spent a spell in a deportation center.

Ellis and his now dead parents were were part of an influx between 1948 to 1971 of at least 50,000 migrants from a dozen Caribbean countries. The first 500, many children, arrived on board the ship Empire Windrush from Jamaica.

They were encouraged to emigrate by British authorities, who needed to plug post-World War II labor shortfalls.

They came from British colonies that hadn’t achieved independence and were considered British subjects, but rounds of immigration legislation over the years have stripped them of that designation, although most didn’t realize it.

Now at retirement-age amid tightening immigration rules and lack of official paperwork, many have been detained, made homeless, sacked from their jobs or denied social benefits and public health care.

Ellis says in 2014 he was sent to a detention center after being arrested for a minor traffic offense and was about to be deported when the interior ministry, known as the Home Office, intervened, ordering his release.

Simmering firestorm

For months a political scandal has been burning slowly about the treatment of Britain’s “Windrush Generation” with mounting reports of elderly migrants facing deportation threats, despite a law passed in 1971 granting them the right to live and work in Britain indefinitely.

Michael Braithwaite, who arrived in Britain in 1961 at the age of nine, lost his job as a special needs teaching assistant at a school in north London, a post he’d held for 15 years.

“I was distraught.I fell to pieces inside.I didn’t show it externally until I came home and I sat and I cried,” he said.

Last week, Braithwaite’s plight, and others like him, prompted fury in the British parliament and protests from Caribbean diplomats.

“I am dismayed that people who gave their all to Britain could be seemingly discarded so matter-of-factly,” complained Guy Hewitt,Barbados high commissioner to Britain.

Opposition Labor lawmaker David Lammy, who is of Ghanaian decent, denounced in parliament the “inhumane and cruel” treatment of the “Windrush Generation.”

“How many have been deported? How many have been detained as prisoners in their own country? … How many have [been] denied health under the National Health Service? How many have been denied pensions? How many have lost their jobs?” he asked.”This is a day of national shame.”

Sunday, British opposition lawmakers focused their criticism on Prime Minister Theresa May, accusing her of running an “institutionally racist” government and one so determined to crack down on illegal immigration that it has created a “hostile environment” for all immigrants, regardless of legal status.

Before becoming prime minister, May oversaw the Home Office and was responsible for introducing strict rules requiring employers, the health services, and landlords to demand evidence of people’s immigration status. Under May’s watch the Home Office destroyed the landing cards of the Windrush migrants in 2010 and never issued any paperwork confirming their legal status.

May has “presided over racist legislation that has discriminated against a whole generation of people from the Commonwealth,” said Dawn Butler, a senior opposition lawmaker.

Apology

May has apologized to Caribbean leaders and a hotline has been set up to assist affected migrants. She denied any of the “Windrush Generation” has been deported, but has agreed compensation should be given to those who’ve lost jobs or have been denied social benefits or health care.

“These people are British, they are part of us, they helped to build Britain and we are all the stronger for their contributions,” she told Caribbean leaders last week.

Commentators question why it has taken so long for the plight of the Windrush generation to become a major political issue.

“It reveals something about Britain that these cases did not attract noisy universal condemnation sooner,” argued Amelia Gentleman in the Guardian newspaper.

Justice Minister David Gauke has defended the tightening of immigration rules, arguing the core policy of trying to deter illegal migration was right, although he acknowledges there have been “implementation failures.”

But rights campaigners warn the government will court even greater political risks following Britain’s departure from the European Union, when it will have to sort out the immigration rights of nearly three million EU citizens living in the country, many of whom also will not have detailed documentation to prove their legal status.
…

Russian soccer teams FC Mordovia and FC Zenit-Izhevsk tested a new football stadium on Saturday, April 21. The Mordovia Arena in the Russian City of Saransk will be one of 12 hosts for the FIFA World Cup this summer. Arash Arabasadi reports.
…

French President Emmanuel Macron is heading to the United States for a state visit with President Donald Trump, looking to convince him of the need to keep a U.S. presence in Syria even after the defeat of Islamic State terrorists.

Ahead of his arrival in Washington Monday, Macron told Fox News during an interview at the Elysee Palace in Paris, “We will have to build a new Syria after war. That’s why I think the U.S. role is very important.”

He described the U.S. as “a player of last resorts for peace and multilateralism.”

Trump has said he wants to pull the estimated 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria as soon as possible, even as a week ago he ordered the U.S. military to join France and Britain in launching a barrage of missiles targeting Syrian chemical weapons facilities in response to a suspected Syrian gas attack. Trump’s planned troop withdrawal comes after the fall of Raqqa, IS’s self-declared capital of its religious caliphate in northern Syria.

“I’m going to be very blunt,” Macron said in the interview. “If we leave … will we leave the floor to the Iranian regime and [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad? They will prepare a new war.”

He said the U.S. and France are allied but that “even Russia and Turkey will have a very important role to play to create this new Syria and ensure the Syrian people decide for the future.”

Macron is set to arrive in Washington on Monday for three days of meetings, a speech in English to Congress, social events and Trump’s first state dinner.

His visit is occurring as an international chemical weapons monitoring group said its team of inspectors has collected samples at the site of the alleged gas attack two weeks ago in the Syrian town of Douma.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said a report based on the findings and other information gathered by the team will be drafted after the samples are analyzed by designated laboratories.

The group added it will “evaluate the situation and consider future steps, including another possible visit to Douma.”

The fact-finding team’s attempts to enter the town were initially postponed for several days due to a series of security-related setbacks.

Emergency responders said at least 40 people were killed in the suspected April 7 gas attack, which the U.S. and its allies blamed on the Assad regime.

The Syrian government has denied using chemical weapons, a violation of international law, and invited inspectors to investigate.

They arrived in Syria on April 14, the same day the U.S., Britain and France launched missiles targeting three chemical weapons facilities in Syria.

Ken Ward, the U.S. ambassador to the OPCW, claimed on April 16 the Russians had already visited the site of the chemical weapons attack and “may have tampered with it,” a charge Moscow rejected.

On April 9, Moscow’s U.N. ambassador told the U.N. Security Council that Russian experts had visited the site, collected soil samples, interviewed witnesses and medical personnel, and determined no chemical weapons attack had taken place.

U.S. military officials have said the airstrikes were designed to send a powerful message to Syria and its backers, showing that the United States, Britain and France could slice through the nation’s air defense systems at will.
…

More than a dozen Turkish opposition lawmakers switched parties Sunday in a show of solidarity as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s rivals scramble to challenge him in a surprise snap election that could solidify his rule.

A year ago, Erdogan narrowly won a referendum to change Turkey’s form of government to an executive presidency, abolishing the office of the prime minister and giving the president more powers. The change will take effect after the next elections.

The snap elections, called for June, caught Turkey off guard and come as the opposition is in disarray as it struggles to put forward candidates and campaign plans. The elections were initially supposed to take place in November 2019.

Officials from the pro-secular Republican People’s Party, or CHP, said 15 of its lawmakers would join the Iyi Party. The CHP, which is the main opposition party, said the decision was borne out of “democratic disposition.”

The center-right Iyi Party, established last fall, has been facing eligibility issues before the June 24 presidential and parliamentary elections, including not having enough seats in parliament.

The Iyi Party, which means “Good Party,” now has 20 lawmakers in parliament, enough to form a political group, satisfying an eligibility requirement. It wasn’t immediately clear if they would be asked to fulfill other requirements, including establishing organizations in half of Turkey’s provinces and completing its general congress, all to be completed six months before voting day.

But the party said it had already fulfilled those requirements as well.

That timing has posed a challenge after Erdogan agreed Wednesday to hold the elections more than a year ahead of schedule.

Iyi Party founder Meral Aksener, a former interior minister, is considered a serious contender against Erdogan and has announced her candidacy. She defected from Turkey’s main nationalist party allied with Erdogan, whose leader Devlet Bahceli called for the early elections.

Aksener, 61, can run for the presidency even without her party, if she can get 100,000 signatures from the public.

Turkey’s electoral board has yet to announce the presidential candidates and parties eligible to run.

 
…

Armenia’s opposition leader was arrested Sunday, hours after the country’s prime minister walked out of a televised meeting between the two.

Opposition politician Nikol Pashinyan was arrested Sunday in the Armenian capital of Yerevan, as he participated in one of the demonstrations that began last week when parliament elected Serzh Sargsyan prime minister after a decade serving as president.

Critics see the move as an attempt by Sargsyan to hold on to power.

Pashinyan has said he would like the demonstrations to be the “start of a peaceful velvet revolution,” a reference to the protests in 1989 that ended communist rule in Czechoslovakia.

About 15,000 people began the rallies Wednesday at Yerevan’s central Republic Square, with some holding posters that read “Make a step and reject Serzh.”  

The meeting Sunday between Sargsyan and Pashinyan was held with the aim of ending continuing anti-government protests.  Sargsyan walked out of the meeting when Pashinyan told him that he came to discuss his resignation, to which the prime minister responded, “This is blackmail.”

Sargsyan was nearing the end of his second and final term as president earlier this year when the country moved from a presidential to parliamentary system, empowering the position of the prime minister, which does not face term limits.  In April, Armenia’s ruling party moved to appoint Sargsyan as prime minister.

About 15,000 people began the rallies Wednesday at Yerevan’s central Republic Square, with some holding posters that read “Make a step and reject Serzh.”

 
…

The World Bank’s shareholders on Saturday endorsed a $13 billion paid-in capital increase that will boost China’s shareholding but bring lending reforms that will raise borrowing costs for higher-middle-income countries, including China.

The multilateral lender said the plan would allow it to lift the group’s overall lending to nearly $80 billion in fiscal 2019 from about $59 billion last year and to an average of about $100 billion annually through 2030.

“We have more than doubled the capacity of the World Bank Group,” the institution’s president, Jim Yong Kim, told reporters during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings in Washington. “It’s a huge vote of confidence, but the expectations are enormous.”

The hard-fought capital hike, initially resisted by the Trump administration, will add $7.5 billion paid-in capital for the World Bank’s main concessional lending arm, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Its commercial-terms lender, the International Finance Corp, will get $5.5 billion paid-in capital, and IBRD also will get a $52.6 billion increase in callable capital.

Lending rules

The bank agreed to change IBRD’s lending rules to charge higher rates for developing countries with higher incomes, to discourage them from excessive borrowing.

IBRD previously had charged similar rates for all borrowers, and U.S. Treasury officials had complained that it was lending too much to China and other bigger emerging markets.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said earlier Saturday that he supported the capital hike because of the reforms that it included. The last World Bank capital increase came in 2010.

Cost controls

The current hike comes with cost controls and salary restrictions that will hold World Bank compensation to “a little below average” for the financial sector, Kim said.

He added that there was nothing specific in the agreement that targeted a China lending reduction, but he said lending to China was expected to gradually decline.

In 2015, China founded the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and lends heavily to developing countries through its government export banks.

The agreement will lift China’s shareholding in IBRD to 6.01 percent from 4.68 percent, while the U.S. share would dip slightly to 16.77 percent from 16.89 percent. Washington will still keep its veto power over IBRD and IFC decisions.

Kim said the increase was expected to become fully effective by the time the World Bank’s new fiscal year starts July 1. Countries will have up to eight years to pay for the capital increase.

The U.S. contribution is subject to approval by Congress.
…

A British scientist is proposing a new approach to fighting the spread of malaria, a treatable mosquito-borne disease that kills hundreds of thousands each year, the vast majority of them young children in Africa. As Faith Lapidus reports, he is developing an antimalarial drug designed not for humans, but for mosquitoes.
…

Russia says it may block Facebook if the social media company does not put its Russian user database on servers in Russian territory. The warning Wednesday by the head of the country’s state media regulator Roskomnadzor comes just days after a Russian move to block Telegram, the encrypted messaging app. VOA’s Iuliia Alieva has more in this report narrated by Anna Rice
…

The food industry uses plastic to wrap its products in many places around the world. Plastic manufacturers say that keeps produce and meat fresh longer, so less goes bad and is thrown away. But, according to a new European study, while the annual use of plastic packaging has grown since the 1950s, so has food waste. Faiza Elmasry has the story. Faith Lapidus narrates.
…

The United States is calling out North Korea, China, Russia and Iran as “morally reprehensible governments” that violate human rights on a near-daily basis. But the State Department’s “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2017” also cited improvements in some countries’ records, including Liberia, Uzbekistan and Mexico. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine has more from the State Department.
…

Kremlin officials, from President Vladimir Putin down, wasted no time in condemning the U.S.-led punitive airstrikes on Syria a week ago, warning of dire consequences. But Russian state-run media has focused more efforts on disputing the alleged Syrian government chemical attack, which prompted the Western airstrikes in the first place, than on the U.S.-led retaliation itself.

The distinction might seem minor, but analysts say it reflects a Kremlin decision to try to reduce tension with the U.S. and prevent further escalation. Moscow is still holding out hopes for a summit meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, they say.

Amid rapidly deteriorating relations between Western countries and Russia, with disputes raging over a range of issues, including Kremlin meddling in the domestic politics of the U.S. and European states and aggressive Russian online disinformation campaigns, Kremlin officials also seemingly are avoiding directly criticizing Trump, in marked contrast to their open disdain for British Prime Minister Theresa May and Britain’s foreign minister, Boris Johnson.

On Friday, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov told the RIA Novosti news agency he had faith that Putin and Trump won’t allow any armed confrontation to occur between the U.S. and Russia over Syria.

“Speaking about risks of a military confrontation, I am 100 percent sure that [the] militaries won’t allow this, and of course neither will President Putin or President Trump,” he said.

Lavrov confirmed that Trump had invited Putin to visit Washington during a phone call last month and added that the U.S. president had said he “would be happy to make a reciprocal visit [to Moscow].”The Kremlin is now expecting Trump to issue a formal invitation, say Russian officials. The White House previously announced that Trump had raised the possibility of a summit meeting.

Lavrov said prior to the Western airstrikes, which were carried out in retaliation for a suspected chemical attack by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on a rebel-held Damascus suburb that left a reported 70 dead and hundreds injured, Russian and U.S. military leaders discussed behind the scenes what would prompt Russian retaliation and how to avoid it.

The Kremlin’s “red lines” were mainly “geographical” and focused on ensuring no Russian servicemen or personnel would be killed or injured.

Lavrov said, “Anyway … these red lines’ were not crossed” during the Western airstrikes, which targeted three facilities in Syria, where Russia is backing President Assad’s forces in the civil war.

On Thursday, the Bloomberg news service reported the Kremlin had instructed officials to curb anti-U.S. rhetoric. And on Monday Russian lawmakers delayed moving draft legislation aimed at U.S. companies in retaliation for a fresh round of economic sanctions Washington imposed last month on Russia, which the U.S. Treasury Department said was payback for Russia’s “malign activity” in general.

The temporary withdrawal by Russian lawmakers of a draft law that would have impacted a broad range of trade with the U.S. came after Trump officials reassured Russia’s embassy in Washington on Sunday, April 15, that the White House wouldn’t be announcing more sanctions on Russia in the near future — despite an announcement to the contrary by the U.S. envoy to the United Nations, Nikki Haley.

Trump has made no secret of his wish to improve relations with Russia. After congratulating Putin on his re-election in March, Trump tweeted that “getting along with Russia [and others] is a good thing, not a bad thing.”

On the campaign trail, Trump regularly expressed the same sentiment, arguing it would be in the U.S. interest for him to shape a strong personal relationship with Putin. Trump has met Putin twice as president, at the Group of 20 summit in Germany last summer and briefly in Vietnam at the Asia-Pacific economic summit in November.

Problematic summit

But a Trump-Putin summit could prove highly problematic for Trump in terms of domestic U.S. politics. It would likely sharpen divisions in the U.S. over relations with Russia as well as stoke partisan rancor over a special-counsel investigation into allegations that Trump’s campaign colluded in Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Trump won bipartisan praise last month on Capitol Hill, which is more skeptical of Russia than the U.S. president, for ordering the expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats, part of a coordinated Western move to punish the Kremlin for a March 4 nerve agent attack in England on former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter.

But the U.S. leader also faced criticism last month for congratulating Putin on his re-election in a phone call in which he failed to raise the issue of the Skripal poisoning.

Trump’s foes fault him for shying away from criticizing Putin personally, arguing it gives credence to claims made by a former British spy, which are part of the special counsel probe, that the Kremlin holds compromising information on the U.S. president.

Domestic U.S. politics aside, any summit between the two leaders would be high risk and might be weighted with too many expectations that can’t be fulfilled.

In an interview with VOA last month, U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman warned against thinking in terms of a reset with Russia, saying a sudden breakthrough is unrealistic.

“The resets and the redos of years gone by, both Republicans and Democrats, always end in disaster,” he said. “They heighten expectations to the point of our inability to achieve any of those expectations. Hopes are dashed. Relationships crumble. We’ve seen that over and over again.”

But he added it was important to maintain a dialogue and to look for “natural openings to build trust in small ways.”

He acknowledged the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election by Special Counsel Robert Mueller is complicating U.S.-Russia diplomacy.

“I would be disingenuous if I said it didn’t impact the environment in which all of this plays out. And certainly the impact it has on members of Congress and the American people, who are a big part of fashioning the nature of our bilateral relationship.”

Rewarding aggressive behavior

Some analysts and former officials worry that holding a summit in the near future with relations between the two powers at their worst point since the Cold War would be widely seen as a reward for aggressive Russian behavior.

On Thursday, Prime Minister May accused Russia of trying “to undermine the international system,” pointing to an aggressive Russian internet disinformation campaign “intended to undermine the actual institutions and processes of the rules-based system.”

She said in the weeks after a suspected chemical attack in Syria and the poisoning of a Russian dissident in England, there had been a 4,000 percent increase in activity by Kremlin-linked social media trolls and automated accounts propagating what she called lies.
…

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that President Vladimir Putin is willing to accept U.S. President Donald Trump’s invitation to meet in Washington.

In an interview with state-operated RIA Novosti news agency, Lavrov said that Putin is “ready for such a meeting.”

“We are guided by the fact that the U.S. President, in a telephone conversation – which is a known fact already, there is no secret – extended such an invitation and said he would be happy to see [Putin] in the White House.”

Lavrov added that Trump returned to the subject of the invitation a couple of times during the phone call with Putin and told him he would be happy to make a reciprocal visit to Russia.

Earlier Trump and Putin agreed on a possible summit in Washington.

Trump telephoned Putin on March 20 to congratulate him on winning the Russian presidential election two days earlier.

The White House and the Kremlin said at the time the two presidents discussed the possibility of meeting in person.
…

The case of Edgardo Mortara has roiled Catholic-Jewish relations ever since the 6-year-old Jewish boy was taken from his home in Bologna by papal police in 1858 and brought to Rome to be raised a Catholic. The move was ordered after church authorities learned he had been secretly baptized. Church law at the time required all Catholics to be raised as Catholics and educated in the faith.

Recently, the case has made headlines again after a U.S. historian, David Kertzer, found discrepancies between the Spanish text of Mortara’s memoirs held in the archives of his religious order, and an Italian translation published in 2005 by Italian journalist Vittorio Messori.

The Associated Press this week located the Spanish text in the Historic Archives of St. Peter in Chains, a Rome church famous for its Michelangelo statue of a horned Moses, and compared it with the Italian translation. Here are the key findings of the AP analysis:

* The 89-page notebook-sized autobiography, El Nino Mortara y Pio Nono (The Mortara Child and Pope Pius) isn’t actually Mortara’s original, hand-written text, which Kertzer says was penned in 1888. Rather, it is a typed up, spiral-bound booklet prepared nearly a century later by the Rev. Juan Oleaga, a Spanish member of Mortara’s religious order who also prepared a typed-up booklet of Mortara’s correspondence in 1994.

* In a brief introduction to the autobiography, Oleaga wrote that he faithfully typed Mortara’s text and that it was “fruit of a spirit that possesses the truth.” He said Mortara died ever grateful to Pope Pius IX, who authorized his removal and took him under his wing, and remained close to his family “even though he never got to see them converted to Catholicism.”

* Oleaga appears to have written a long footnote in the first few pages of the text in which he justifies the taking of Mortara from his parents and recounts a tearful reunion between Mortara and the Inquisition official responsible for it. That footnote — written in the same typeface as Orteaga’s introduction and set off from the Spanish text with an asterisk — is seamlessly integrated into Messori’s version as if Mortara himself had written it.

* Mortara’s anti-Semitic comments contained in the original Spanish were removed in Messori’s version, including reference to Mortara having “always professed an inexpressible horror” toward Jews. Mortara’s original writings that the faith of his family was “false, contradictory, absurd, condemned by history and burdened by the ‘ridiculous’ which the majority of men condemn,” was reduced in Messori’s text to Judaism being merely “contradictory and surpassed by history.”

* Messori’s version removes references to the “neurosis” and psychological problems Mortara suffered later in life and omits a reference to his “violent” removal from his parents and how much he missed his mother. It also said he was “miraculously” cured from the illness that prompted his baptism. The Spanish text makes no reference to a miracle.

* Kertzer points out that even Mortara’s original Spanish contains factual errors, including names and dates that were corrected in Messori’s version. Mortara’s account also includes an anecdote that Kertzer says has no basis in documentary evidence: that Pius, after learning of the baptism but before removing the child, had tried to persuade his parents to accept a compromise to send Edgardo to a Catholic boarding school in Bologna so they could visit him “whenever they wanted.” Kertzer says that based on court testimony from the time, there is no evidence of any such negotiation and that when the police arrived to take Edgardo away, it came as a complete shock to the family.
…

Breathe easy, Switzerland: The tiny African kingdom of Swaziland is changing its name.

King Mswati III announced it during celebrations of the 50th anniversary of independence and his 50th birthday. It appears to be as easy as that, as the king is an absolute monarch.

Many African countries upon independence “reverted to their ancient, native names,” he said. “We no longer shall be called Swaziland from today forward.”

The kingdom will be known by its historic name of eSwatini. The king has used that name in the past at openings of Parliament and other events.

Some Swiss have responded with relief as the countries often are confused on online forms.

It is not immediately clear how much it will cost the landlocked African country to make the name change.
…

One party leader is in jail. Another doesn’t have a candidate. A third might face eligibility issues for her party. Turkey’s weak opposition is scrambling to mount a meaningful challenge against strongman President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with just nine weeks to prepare for snap elections.

Erdogan set the presidential and parliamentary elections for June 24, in a move that will usher in a new system cementing the president’s grip on power more than a year ahead of schedule. Turkey is switching from a parliamentary system to an executive presidential system after a narrowly approved referendum last year, in the wake of a failed 2016 coup attempt. The changes take effect with the next election, which had originally been set for November 2019.

The snap elections caught Turkey off guard and come as the opposition is in disarray. Recent changes to the electoral law pushed through by Erdogan’s governing AKP party with the help of the nationalist party make the playing field even more uneven for the opposition, analysts say.

Still, the opposition parties sounded upbeat with the main opposition party’s leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, promising that the June elections would bring “democracy” and “calm,” and Meral Aksener, seen as the strongest candidate against Erdogan, vowing to send him home to rest after 15 years in power.

Observers say the early elections were called to capitalize on nationalist sentiment running high following a successful military campaign in Syria that ousted Syrian Kurdish militia from a border region, in a decision fueled by fears of an economic downturn ahead.

“The fact that President Erdogan called early elections, which is the first time he had voluntarily done so since he assumed office … is an indication of panic and worry,” said Fadi Hakura, of the Chatham House think tank.

The changes, which include ballot boxes being supervised by government-appointed civil servants and being relocated at will on security grounds, “make it improbable for the opposition to win any general election in Turkey,” Hakura said. “These really serious changes to the election law will, I think, make any serious challenge by the opposition highly improbable.”

The call for an early vote also follows the sale of Turkey’s largest media group, Dogan Holding, to a group close to Erdogan, further strengthening his grip on the country’s media.

A day after the snap election was called, the pro-Erdogan press seemed confident of the vote’s outcome. “Checkmate” headlined the pro-Erdogan newspaper Yeni Safak on Thursday, suggesting an early victory for Erdogan.

Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag compared the opposition to people “caught in a downpour in August, without an umbrella.” Marhir Unal, a senior member of Erdogan’s ruling party, said the latest opinion polls give Erdogan 55.6 percent support – which would allow him to win the presidential election in the first round. But Unal didn’t provide further details about the polls.

The main opposition party, the pro-secular Republican People’s Party has yet to announce its candidate. Its leader, Kilicdaroglu, on Thursday didn’t rule out an alliance with parties “that support democracy and oppose a one-man regime.”

The party denied it has been caught by surprise, saying it has several strong candidates and will nominate one in the next two weeks.

But the person considered the most serious contender against Erdogan so far is Aksener, a popular former interior minister who defected from Turkey’s main nationalists and formed her own party.

She has already announced her candidacy for the presidential race. However, questions surround the eligibility of her newly-founded Iyi (Good) Party for the parliamentary vote, as the party is legally required to have completed its general congress six months before the elections – something made impossible by Erdogan calling the elections for June.

“No one is strong enough to keep us out of the elections,” Aksener said during a rally in the southern Turkish town of Fethiye on Thursday.

The party in the most precarious situation is the country’s pro-Kurdish party, whose 45-year-old popular and charismatic former leader, Selahattin Demirtas, is in prison accused of links to outlawed Kurdish rebels. He faces a 142-year sentence on charges of leading a terror organization, engaging in terror propaganda and other crimes.

Demirtas, who has been behind bars since November 2016, stepped down as co-chair of his People’s Democratic Party, or HDP. He ran against Erdogan in Turkey’s first direct presidential election in 2014 and led his party to parliament in two general elections in 2015. The party’s current co-chairs, Pervin Buldan and Sezai Temelli, lack his popular appeal.

The elections would be held under a state of emergency declared following the failed coup. Parliament on Wednesday extended it for a seventh time despite calls for its end. Critics say the government has used the emergency powers to close down media outlets and jail critics.
…

Coins and bracelets from the 1st century that were looted from western Romania years ago and smuggled out of the country were put on display Thursday after a joint investigation with Austria brought them back home.

The treasure trove of gold and silver artifacts, stolen between 2000 and 2001, was presented at Romania’s National History Museum. The items were found in Austria in 2015 and returned following a cross-border investigation.

The artifacts — 473 coins and 18 bracelets — were taken from archaeological sites in the Orastie Mountains that had been inhabited by Dacians, who fought against the Romans in the early 2nd century.

General Prosecutor Augustin Lazar said 21 people have been convicted in the thefts.

Museum curator Ernest Oberlander-Tarnoveanu said it was “one of the finest recoveries of Dacian treasure in last 200 years” and called their return “a moment of joy, hope and … pride.”

He said the artifacts may have been an offering that a Dacian family made to the gods, which now was valued at “tens of millions of euros [dollars].”

Lazar urged Romanians to be vigilant in guarding their national heritage, and praised a local shepherd who called police after he saw someone entering an archaeological site with a metal detector.

He said intermediaries had taken the artifacts to auction houses and antique shops claiming “they are from my late grandparent’s collection.”
…

After 16 years of steady decline, malaria cases are on the rise again globally, and experts warn that unless efforts to tackle the disease are stepped up, the gains could be lost. Henry Ridgwell reports from a malaria summit Wednesday in London, where delegates called for a boost in funding for global anti-malarial programs.
…

Macedonia is “back on track” toward European Union membership, the EU foreign policy chief says, urging Macedonia to keep carrying out recommended EU reforms.

The EU’s Federica Mogherini congratulated Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev during a visit to Skopje Wednesday.

“You’ve gone a long way and, yes, the good news is … that you’re back,” Mogherini said. “I think this is a major achievement you have to be proud of. You can celebrate.”

But the EU official urged Zaev to deepen and maintain the recommended economic reforms needed to meet EU standards.

She also said she believes it is “definitely possible” for Macedonia and Greece to resolve the long-standing name dispute before the next scheduled EU summit in June.

Greece has been holding up EU and NATO membership for Macedonia because of their feud over the name Macedonia — used by both the former Yugoslav republic and the ancient region of northern Greece. 

Many Greeks say allowing the neighboring country to use the name Macedonia insults Greek history and implies a claim on Greek territory.

Macedonians say changing their country’s name or even modifying it in a deal with Greece would be like committing treason.

Greek and Macedonian leaders have opened talks on a settlement after years of unsuccessful efforts by the United Nations.

Among the proposals is calling the country New, Upper, or North Macedonia.

Macedonia has already changed the name of the main airport from Alexander the Great Airport — for the ancient Greek hero — to Skopje International Airport.
…