The United States has temporarily halted processing of all non-immigrant visa applications in Turkey, according to the embassy in Ankara, with the Turkey government taking reciprocal action.

A U.S. embassy statement Sunday read, “Recent events have forced the United States Government to reassess the commitment of the Government of Turkey to the security of U.S. Mission facilities and personnel.”

The statement did not clarify the reasons for which it is reassessing Turkey’s commitment, nor did it say how long the suspension would last.

The statement added, “In order to minimize the number of visitors to our Embassy and Consulates while this assessment proceeds, effective immediately we have suspended all non-immigrant visa services at all U.S. diplomatic facilities in Turkey.”

Hours later, Turkey retaliated by announcing its own suspension of visa services in the U.S., using language that largely replicated the U.S. statement and reasons for the halt.

Last week, Turkey arrested Metin Topuz – a U.S. consulate employee and Turkish national, accusing him of regular communication with alleged leading members of what Turkey has deemed a terrorist network blamed for a failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last year.

According to Turkey’s government, the so-called Fethullah Terrorist Organization, created by U.S.-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, was involved in the attempted coup in which more than 250 people were killed.  Gulen, who is in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania, denies any involvement.
…

The new U.S. ambassador to Russia said Saturday that restoring Ukrainian sovereignty and bringing North Korea to the negotiating table would be central issues as he works to improve U.S.-Russian relations.

Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman Jr. said trust is at a low point as many Americans believe Russia wants to undermine U.S. democracy amid investigations into Russian election meddling. “It is no longer a partisan issue at the political level, either,” he said.

Huntsman takes over at a precarious time between the two countries. He said he wants to improve relations, but the first step is returning Ukrainian control within its internationally recognized borders.

“This is an issue not only with the United States, but with Europe, Canada and virtually every other developed country,” Huntsman said.

Cooperative effort

He called North Korea an international threat, not just an American problem, and one that Russia has an interest in addressing. “Acting together, we think the United States and Russia could force the North Korean regime to the negotiating table to find a diplomatic solution,” he said.

Those comments came the same day President Donald Trump tweeted that trying to negotiate with North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs was a waste of time.

Huntsman also touched on defeating the Islamic State group and continuing dialogue on Syria during the remarks delivered in Salt Lake City after he was ceremonially sworn into his new office by his successor, Utah Governor Gary Herbert.

The ceremony requested by Huntsman attracted a hometown audience of heavy-hitters, including Senator Orrin Hatch, Representative Mia Love and the new ambassador’s father, billionaire industrialist Jon Huntsman. The event was not open to the public, and Huntsman did not take questions from reporters.

Huntsman won easy confirmation as U.S. ambassador to Russia last week. He met with President Donald Trump on Friday.

Previous experience

Huntsman has been a U.S. ambassador before, serving as the nation’s top diplomat to Singapore under President George H.W. Bush and ambassador to China under President Barack Obama. Huntsman returned to the U.S. to run for president as a Republican in 2012.

He struck a tough tone during his confirmation hearings amid tensions underscored by a series of expulsions of diplomats and closures of diplomatic missions.

Trump has called Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election a hoax. But Huntsman has said there is no question Moscow interfered.

The former governor had an up-and-down relationship with Trump during last year’s campaign. Huntsman backed him after he became the nominee. But he called for Trump to drop out after a 2005 recording surfaced of Trump making lewd comments about women.

Trump had also criticized Huntsman during his service in Beijing under Obama. But the men buried their differences during Trump’s transition.
…

Saudi Arabian King Salman bin Abdulaziz’s groundbreaking visit to Russia this week saw billions of dollars signed in investment deals in energy and defense that will deepen ties between Moscow and Riyadh, despite their confrontational past.

But analysts say self-interests and Middle East alliances will hamper the forming of a deeper partnership.

During this first trip to Russia by a Saudi king, the two sides agreed on billions of dollars in projects involving space exploration, nuclear energy and oil, including a $1 billion fund on energy cooperation and a $1 billion fund on high-tech investment.

Even the king’s 1,500-strong entourage, which Bloomberg said booked two luxury hotels just off Moscow’s Red Square for the four-day visit, gave a small boost to Russia’s economy.

Seeking new partners

Despite the U.S. being its major arms supplier, Riyadh also signed deals on manufacture of Kalashnikov arms and a surprise purchase of Russian weapons systems, such as the advanced S-400 missile defense system.

While the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has taken a harder line on Iran, uncertainty in America’s Middle East policy has encouraged Riyadh to forge new partnerships, analysts say.

“Saudi Arabia is looking for allies in its non-easy relations with Iran, while Russia is confronting sanctions and is interested in serious partners,” said Mikhail Subbotin of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of the World Economy and International Relations. “The sanctions made it look for new allies and activate relations with long-standing partners.”

Sunni-led Riyadh wants Moscow to help rein in Shiite-led Tehran’s influence in the Middle East.

Meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday at the Kremlin, King Salman said security and stability in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East is the most eagerly sought after and essential prerequisite for achieving security and stability in the world.

“This requires that Iran abandon attempts to interfere in the domestic affairs of the states in the region and stop the activity that destabilizes the region,” he said.

Questionable influence over Iran

But it is not clear that Russia has much influence over Iran or any desire to pressure Tehran.

Russia also deals with Iran on oil and last year began delivering less-advanced S-300 missiles to Tehran.

In Syria, Riyadh is on the opposing side to Moscow and Tehran in regards to Damascus. Russia is allied with Iran against militants fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, including some backed by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.

“In Syria, these two countries have much in common in their fighting against terrorism, but Saudi Arabia is part of a large coalition while Russia supports Assad,” the Russian Academy’s Subbotin said.

Observers noted the Saudi king in his public remarks on Syria to Putin did not mention seeking Assad’s removal from power, an indication that Riyadh’s long-standing position of regime change is no longer its main objective.

“As concerns the Syrian crisis, we are committed to pushing for its resolution in line with the Geneva I decisions and U.N. Security Council Resolution 2254, to finding a political solution that would guarantee security, stability, and Syria’s unity and territorial integrity,” King Salman said.

Russia’s military intervention in Syria succeeded in turning the tide of defeat away from Assad, analysts say, and demonstrated Moscow’s return to the world stage as a major player in the Middle East.

Crude relations

The plunging price of oil has also led to closer relations between the world’s two biggest oil producers. Mutual concerns of maintaining a stable price on crude, the biggest contributor to both their economies, produced an agreement to limit output.

“We are striving to continue the positive cooperation between our states to achieve stability in the global oil market, which will facilitate global economic growth,” King Salman said Thursday at the Kremlin.

But Russia does not always hold such agreements, as it is guided by its own interests, said Mikhail Krutikhin, an analyst and partner in the Rusenergy consulting company.

“There is a certain formalized agreement dealing with a reduction of oil volume between OPEC [Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries] countries and Russia, as well as some other countries,” Krutikhin said. “Here is a following issue: Russia does not implement its obligations. It increased oil exports, thus not helping to keep the prices at a high level but obstructing that.”

Cheating on agreed oil output caps has dogged OPEC since its founding, because those who break any such deals, whether members or not, stand to benefit more than those who stand by it.

“Russia is guided by its own interests,” Subbotin said. “Sometimes it de facto joined the coalition with OPEC and supported a policy aimed at reducing oil production; sometimes OPEC was reducing the extraction but Russia was increasing it.

“At the current stage, the interests of Russia and those of Saudi Arabia have coincided,” he added.

VOA’s Danila Galperovich contributed to this report.
…

Supporters of Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny staged nationwide protests on Saturday to coincide with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 65th birthday, with police making scores of arrests.

Rallies and pickets were held in dozens of Russian cities, including Moscow, Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, Ulan-Ude, Chita and Stavropol, with protesters demanding that Navalny be allowed to participate in the country’s March 2018 presidential election.

The Moscow-based OVD-Info, a group that monitors politically motivated arrests, said there had been at least 271 people arrested at protests in 26 cities as of 9 p.m.

No harsh crackdown

There was no harsh crackdown by police as seen in past rallies organized by Navalny. In March, police arrested more than 1,000 demonstrators in Moscow alone during nationwide protests. 

Most of the arrests on October 7 came in Putin’s hometown of St. Petersburg. Over 1,000 people gathered at Marsovo Polye (the Field of Mars) in the city center and then marched across the city, chanting “Russia without Putin!” and “Putin, retire!” 

OVD-Info said at least 62 people were detained in St. Petersburg, coming after some opposition protesters tried to break through police lines in the city’s main street.

WATCH: Supporters of jailed opposition leader Navalny protest

A large police presence had assembled throughout the city center before the rally.

Earlier in St. Petersburg, Navalny’s campaign coordinator, Mikhail Sosin, and the campaign’s lawyer, Denis Mikhailov, were detained. His campaign coordinators in Perm, Tver and Stavropol were also detained, as well as numerous campaign activists across the country.

Supporters were demanding that Navalny be allowed to participate in the country’s March 2018 presidential election.

Protesters

In Moscow, several hundred people gathered at central Pushkin Square, where protesters had planned to march to the Kremlin but were blocked by police, prompting them to turn back.

The protesters included teenagers holding rubber ducks, a symbol of opposition to the government, after reports that Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev had a special house for a duck in one of his properties.

Protesters at Pushkin Square chanted “Putin is a thief!” “Happy Birthday!” “We are the authorities!” “Russia without Putin!” and “Free Aleksei Navalny!” 

Heavy rains had hit Moscow, and many demonstrators were drenched. 

Police in Moscow had asked people over loudspeakers to disperse. There were at least 10 police vehicles in the square, although law enforcement officers were unprecedentedly restrained. 

Anton, 20, was holding a “happy birthday” balloon and a wrapped gift box with “pension” written on it. He said he wanted the entire Russian leadership to retire.

“I think you can change the country through street [protests], but if not, at least it’s good fun.”

Nikita Grigoryev, 16, a Moscow schoolboy holding a rubber duck, told RFE/RL: “I’m here to demand the authorities let Aleksei Navalny campaign [for president].”

“I doubt [this protest] will make any difference, but we have to show there are many people unhappy with what’s going on in the country,” he added.

‘We need freedom’

Lyudmila Gurova, 57, a pensioner, told RFE/RL: “We need freedom: freedom of assembly, freedom of identity, freedom to express our views about the country. This is a fascist country, I believe fascism has taken hold. For the last 26 years I have lived in social hell.”

The protests came a day after a Moscow court rejected Navalny’s appeal against a 20-day jail term he was handed after being found in violation of the law for publicly calling for unsanctioned rallies.

The ruling meant that Navalny remained in jail during the protests. Navalny’s election campaign chief, Leonid Volkov, was also sentenced to 20 days in jail on Thursday.

The local governments of numerous cities have not granted permission for the planned demonstrations.

Another wing of the liberal opposition, the Yabloko party, criticized Navalny for organizing the unsanctioned rally and for calling on his supporters to enter “deliberate confrontation with the police, under the batons of the OMON riot police.”

“Such ‘events’ are frankly provocations aimed only at dubiously creating PR for a certain person,” the party said in a statement on its website.

Warnings issued

Ahead of the protests, Russian authorities issued warnings against holding demonstrations without official permission.

Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on October 3 that “public calls for unsanctioned rallies and meetings are illegal … and therefore organizers of such events will be prosecuted.”

Prosecutors in St. Petersburg said on October 6 that “any attempts to conduct unsanctioned [demonstrations] are a direct violation of the law.”

Navalny had urged Russians to join the demonstrations, being organized in more than 70 cities nationwide, to support “political competition” in the country as he seeks to run in the upcoming presidential election.

“I understand perfectly well that that [the Kremlin] needs me to be locked up as much as possible and particularly on October 7,” Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, quoted him as saying in court.

Navalny’s campaign team called on all “decent people” to participate in the demonstrations.

“Our demands are reasonable, simple and lawful: political competition [and] access to presidential elections for Navalny and other candidates,” it said in an statement on Friday.

It added that authorities should “leave activists, volunteers, monitors and others alone and give them the opportunity to freely participate in election campaigns.”

Critic of Putin

Navalny is a fierce critic of Putin, who has held power as prime minister or president since 1999 and is expected to seek a new six-year term in the March election. Putin is virtually assured of victory as the tightly controlled political system leaves little room for surprises.

A 41-year-old lawyer who has produced numerous reports alleging corruption among key Putin allies, Navalny has opened more than 60 campaign offices and held rallies nationwide since announcing his bid for the Kremlin in December.

Russia’s Central Election Commission, however, said in June that Navalny was ineligible to run for public office because of a financial-crimes conviction in one of two high-profile cases that he says were fabricated by authorities for political reasons.

Two previous nationwide demonstrations spearheaded by Navalny earlier this year led to mass detentions and rattled Russian officials with their substantial youth turnout.

Kremlin opponents and human rights activists say the government frequently violates the constitutional right to free assembly when it withholds permission for demonstrations or places restrictions on where and when they can be held.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, said last month that Russian police were “systematically” interfering with Navalny’s attempts to run for president by raiding his campaign offices, “arbitrarily” detaining campaign volunteers and carrying out “other actions that unjustifiably interfere with campaigning.”

The Kremlin has dismissed Navalny, who finished second in Moscow’s 2013 mayoral election with around 27 percent of the vote, as a convict and a marginal political figure.

With reporting by RFE/RL’s Russian service, Current Time TV, Ekho Mosvky, Fontanka and RIA-Novosti.
…

The U.S. government and an European security organization are calling on Russia to find and prosecute the people who killed a prominent Russian journalist 11 years ago.  

Both the U.S. State Department and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe issued statements Saturday urging Russia to prosecute those responsible for the death of Anna Politkovskaya who was killed in her Moscow apartment building on October 7, 2006.  

“Ms. Politkovskaya’s reporting brought to light the violation of human rights in Russia and the suffering of victims of the war in the North Caucasus region,” said Heather Nauert, a State Department spokesperson. “The unsolved murders of Ms. Politkovskaya – a dual U.S. – Russian citizen – and other journalists in Russia, as well as threats against journalists exposing more recent abuses in Chechnya, have only worsened an atmosphere of intimidation for the independent press.”

Harlem Desir, OSCE representative on freedom of the media, said, ” It is unacceptable that the masterminds behind (Politkovskaya’s)  and other journalists’ assassination remain at large. This vicious circle of impunity has a continuing effect on the situation of media freedom in  Russia.”

Politkovskaya was internationally renowned for her extensive reports in the Novaya Gazeta newspaper on human rights abuses and corruption in Chechnya and other parts of the Russian Caucasus plagued by a deadly Islamist insurgency. She also was a sharp critic of the Kremlin and its policies in Chechnya, as well as of the republic’s  leader, Ramzan Kadyrov.

The Committee to Protect Journalists named Politkovskaya one of the world’s top press freedom figures in the fall 2006 edition of its magazine, Dangerous Assignments.
…

The Legion of Christ religious order, stained by revelations that its founder sexually abused seminarians and fathered several children, is facing a new credibility scandal: The rector of its diocesan seminary in Rome is leaving the priesthood after admitting he fathered two children of his own.

In a letter released by the Legion on Saturday, the Rev. Oscar Turrion said he fell in love with a woman a few years ago during a time of turmoil in the Legion, fathered a son and, a few months ago, a daughter.

Turrion, 49, had been rector of the Pontifical Maria Matter Eclesiae International College since 2014. The institution is a residence for diocesan seminarians who study at Rome universities. Currently some 107 seminarians live there, most from India, Latin America and Africa, down from about 200 a few years ago.

The issue is particularly delicate because of the international diocesan character of the seminary: Bishops entrusted their seminarians to the Legion to provide them with a wholesome living environment while they complete their studies. 

In a statement, the Legion said it was “conscious of the impact that the negative example” of Turrion’s case had on seminarians and the Christian faithful, and said it was committed to a path of renewal. 

Earlier scandal 

The Vatican took over the Legion in 2010, after revelations that its late founder, the Rev. Marcial Maciel, sexually abused seminarians and fathered at least three children with two women. It ordered up a wholesale reform, but the scandal hurt the Legion’s credibility and stained the legacy of St. John Paul II, who had been a leading Maciel supporter. 

Several priests have since left the order, the number of seminarians has fallen and the Legion has been forced to close some schools and sell off some of its real estate assets.

Legion spokesman the Rev. Aaron Smith declined to provide details of the Turrion case, citing the family’s privacy. He confirmed that the mother of the child was an adult when she conceived the couple’s first child.

Priest apologizes

In his letter, Turrion said he never used Legion funds to provide for his family, relying instead on donations from friends. 

The Legion said Turrion first informed the order of the birth of his daughter in March, at which time he took a leave and a new rector was named. In October, he revealed he had had a son “a few years ago” with the same woman and announced he intended to leave priestly ministry.

In his letter, Turrion said he was at peace and asked for prayers.

“I ask everyone forgiveness for the lack of trust that this implies,” he wrote. “I ask forgiveness for my bad example and the negative witness I have given.”
…

Danish police say divers have found the decapitated head, legs and clothes of a Swedish journalist, who was killed after going on a trip with an inventor on his submarine.

Copenhagen police investigator Jens Moeller Jensen said Saturday that the body parts were found Friday in plastic bags with a knife and heavy metal pieces to make them sink near where Kim Wall’s naked, headless torso was found in August.

Inventor Peter Madsen, who is in pre-trial detention, has said Wall died after being accidentally hit by a heavy hatch in the submarine. But police have said 15 stab wounds were found on the torso found at sea off Copenhagen on Aug. 21. Her arms are still missing. 

The police have charged Danish inventor Peter Madsen with killing Wall, a charge carrying a sentence of five years to and life in prison. He was arrested after his submarine sank and he was rescued.

Wall’s cause of death hasn’t yet been established yet. 

 
…

The investigation into Russian influence on the US elections has renewed attention to the Russian ban on US adoptions – a response to American sanctions about 5 years ago. Donald Trump Jr. said that was the topic when he met with a Russian lawyer during his father’s election campaign. As Svetlana Prudovskaya of VOA’s Russian service reports, the adoption ban has impacted families and children in both countries.
…

Pope Francis on Friday denounced the proliferation of adult and child pornography on the internet and demanded better protections for children online — even as the Vatican confronts its own cross-border child porn investigation involving a top papal envoy.

Francis met with participants of a Catholic Church-backed international conference on fighting child pornography and protecting children in the digital age. He fully backed their proposals to toughen sanctions against those who abuse and exploit children online and improve technological filters to prevent young people from accessing porn online.

Francis said the Catholic Church knew well the “grave error” of trying to conceal the problem of sexual abuse — a reference to the church’s long history of cover-up of priests who have raped and molested children around the world.

He said an international, cross-disciplinary approach was needed to protect children from the dark net and the “corruption of their minds and violence against their bodies.”

Using terms that are certainly new to papal lexicon, Francis denounced “extreme pornography” on the web that adults consume and the increasing use of “sexting” and “sextortion” among the estimated 800 million minors who navigate the internet.

“We would be seriously deluding ourselves were we to think that a society where an abnormal consumption of internet sex is rampant among adults could be capable of effectively protecting minors,” he said.

Vatican scandal

The conference was planned some two years ago, but it unfolded precisely at the time when the Vatican was confronted with a kiddie porn scandal of its own. The Vatican recalled from its embassy in Washington one of its senior diplomats who has been caught up in an international child porn investigation. Canadian police have issued an arrest warrant for Monsignor Carlo Capella, accusing him of accessing, possessing and distributing child pornography during a visit to an Ontario church over Christmas. He is now in the Vatican, where prosecutors have opened an investigation.

The Vatican in 2013 criminalized child porn possession, distribution and production, with sanctions varying from up to two years and a 10,000-euro fine ($11,170) to 12 years and a 250,000-euro fine.

Some U.S. church officials and critics balked at the recall, saying the Vatican should have waived diplomatic immunity and allowed Capella to face charges in the U.S. or Canada. Vatican officials have defended the recall as consistent with common diplomatic practice and suggested that Capella will face a criminal trial in the Vatican if the evidence warrants it.

Participants at the congress offered sobering statistics about the problem: Last year, Interpol identified five child victims of online abuse every day, while the Internet Watch Foundation identified more than 57,000 websites containing child sexual abuse images.

Call to action

The conference, which drew leading researchers in public health, Interpol, the U.N., government representatives as well as executives from Facebook and Microsoft, issued a 13-point call to action that it presented to Francis on Friday.

Their declaration demands that:

Lawmakers and governments improve laws to protect children online and punish perpetrators of child porn production
Technology companies develop better ways to block redistribution of porn and attack the proliferation of child porn images already on the web
Law enforcement agencies improve information sharing and ensure help for young victims of online exploitation
Health professionals enhance training to recognize signs of abuse and increase research into the effects of viewing porn on young minds
Faith leaders, governments and civil society to increase awareness about the problem.

Francis said he wanted each of them to remember that children look to adults, with light in their eyes and trust in their heart, to protect them.

“What are we doing to make sure they are not robbed of this light, to ensure that those eyes will not be darkened and corrupted by what they will find on the internet?”
…

The European Union and India agreed Friday to step up cooperation in countering violent extremism and radicalization, particularly online, and in enhancing maritime security in the Indian Ocean and beyond.

A joint declaration issued at the end of the 14th EU-India Summit said the two sides aim to deal effectively with the threat posed by foreign terrorist groups and terrorist financing.

It said they were also looking forward to a resumption of exercises between EU and Indian naval ships.

The two sides also discussed the crisis involving more than 500,000 Rohingya Muslims fleeing from violence in Myanmar, and called for a de-escalation of tensions and their voluntary return home in safety and dignity.

The EU delegation was headed by European Council President Donald Tusk, and the Indian side by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

In a speech, Tusk referred to remaining differences in negotiations between the two sides on an ambitious free trade agreement they have been negotiating since 2007.

The EU has been seeking reduced restrictions on investment in India’s retail, insurance and banking sectors and lower import duties on foreign cars, while India wants more opportunities in Europe for its information technology services and business outsourcing.

“Free and fair trade agreements are not only economically important for our companies and citizens to prosper,” Tusk said. “Above all, they strengthen and defend the rules-based international order and our way of life.”

The free trade agreement is to cover market access in goods, services and public procurement, as well as create a framework for investment protection, intellectual property and competition.

The EU is India’s largest trading partner, accounting for 13.7 percent of its overall trade, ahead of China and the United States.

The total value of EU-India trade in goods stood at $90 billion in 2016.
…

Human Rights Watch urged Uzbekistan on Thursday to stop new politically motivated arrests at a time when it has been freeing some prominent political prisoners, saying such a “revolving door” cast doubt on its announced reform drive.

In less than two weeks, the Central Asian nation has released two dissidents imprisoned under the previous president, Islam Karimov, while detaining two others.

The releases have been welcomed by the West, but the New York-based Human Rights Watch said the fresh arrests “cast a pall over what would otherwise be a sign of hope.”

Human rights activist Azam Farmonov was freed on Tuesday after 11 years in prison and Solijon Abdurakhmanov, a journalist imprisoned since 2008, was released on Wednesday.

They joined a string of Karimov-era political prisoners set free by his successor, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who took power in the mostly Muslim nation of 32 million people following his autocratic predecessor’s death in September 2016.

Mirziyoyev, who seeks to attract foreign investment to modernize Uzbekistan’s Soviet-style economy, has ordered some 16,000 people struck off a blacklist of potential extremists and dissidents and taken other steps to liberalize the country.

But when one of those dissidents, prominent writer Nurulloh Muhammad Raufkhon, returned from exile last month, he was detained and charged with spreading anti-government propaganda.

The writer was later released but still faces the charges.

Another dissident, Bobomurod Abdullayev, a journalist accused of publishing stories critical of the government on an opposition website, was also arrested and charged last month. He remains in detention.

“The release of Azam Farmonov and Solijon Abdurakhmanov after long years of abuse was positive news, but there should be no revolving door for political arrests,” said Steve Swerdlow, Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch.

“President Mirziyoyev should see to it that all political prisoners are released and that all of Uzbekista’s citizens are guaranteed the fundamental right to peacefully express critical opinions.”

In Raufkon’s case, Uzbek police have said that while he may have been struck off the blacklist, the charges against him – leveled in absentia in May – were never dropped and he did not contact authorities about them before returning to Uzbekistan.

Police have not commented on Abdullayev’s status.
…

Women’s rights groups on Thursday denounced police raids on their offices in several Polish cities that resulted in the seizing of documents and computers, a day after women staged anti-government marches to protest the country’s restrictive abortion law.

The raids took place Wednesday in the cities of Warsaw, Gdansk, Lodz and Zielona Gora. They targeted two organizations, the Women’s Rights Center and Baba, which help victims of domestic violence and which also participated in this week’s anti-government protests.

Women’s rights activists said Thursday the loss of files would hamper their work, and accused authorities of trying to intimidate them. Prosecutors denied the accusation, saying the timing of the raids a day after the women’s marches was purely coincidental.

Some fear the ruling Law and Justice party, led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, is following in the footsteps of neighboring Hungary, where non-governmental groups have faced harassment under Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

“This is an abuse of power because even if there is any suspicion of wrongdoing, an inquiry could be done in a way that doesn’t affect the organizations’ work,” Marta Lempert, the head of the Polish Women’s Strike, which organized this week’s street protests, told The Associated Press.

The women’s groups said they were told by police that prosecutors were looking for evidence in an investigation into suspected wrongdoing in the Justice Ministry under the former government. At the time the Justice Ministry provided funding to the women’s groups.

“We are afraid that this is just a pretext or warning signal to not engage in activities not in line with the ruling party,” The Women’s Rights Center said in a statement.

Anita Kucharska-Dziedzic, who heads the group Baba, said police entered her office in Zielona Gora, western Poland, on Wednesday at 9 a.m. and worked until 6 p.m. removing files.

She told the AP her group has never been aware of any wrongdoing by Justice Ministry officials that her group was in contact with.

She also said she now expects to have problems continuing her projects due to the loss of files, and is also concerned because the documents contained private information on domestic abuse victims who have sought the group’s help.

Jacek Pawlak, a spokesman for prosecutors in Poznan, where the investigation is being led, said the raids were part of an ongoing investigation but would not divulge what the probe was about. He said there was no attempt to harass the women’s organizations.

This week’s street demonstrations came on the first anniversary of a mass “Black Protest” by women dressed in black that stopped a plan in parliament for a total ban on abortion.

Despite that success the women’s rights activists marched to protests the fact that abortion is still illegal in most cases, calling for a liberalization of the law.

 
…

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has visited Belarus, emphasizing plans to bolster military ties with the ex-Soviet nation.

Speaking at the start of Thursday’s talks with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Maduro said that “cooperation in the military sphere has been very successful and we need to expand it.”

Maduro didn’t elaborate and details of military cooperation aren’t immediately known.

Lukashenko said that Belarus would like to develop cooperation with Venezuela in energy, agriculture and construction.

Belarus, Russia’s neighbor and ally, has exported wheat, fertilizers and medicines to Venezuela.

Maduro’s visit to Belarus comes a day after his trip to Russia, where he met with President Vladimir Putin and thanked him for political and diplomatic support.
…

The Senate Intelligence Committee revealed it is still actively investigating whether elements of President Donald Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia to sway the 2016 U.S. election. VOA Senate correspondent Michael Bowman reports the committee’s chairman and the top Democrat said aggressive Russian meddling could become even more expansive, and all U.S. states must beware.
…

Greece welcomed Wednesday a decision by senior archaeologists to conditionally permit a major tourism project in Athens, saying it cleared the way for the country to turn the site into one of Europe’s biggest coastal resorts.

The 8-billion-euro ($9.4 billion) project to develop the disused Hellenikon airport site is a key term of Greece’s international bailout and is closely watched by its official creditors and potential investors in the crisis-hit country.

Greek developer Lamda signed a 99-year lease with the state in 2014 for the 620-hectare (1,530-acre) area, once the site of Athen’s airport. But the project has faced delays, partly over a long-running disagreement between developers and those who fear it will damage the environment and cultural heritage.

Protection urged for part of site

After three inconclusive meetings in recent weeks, the Central Archaeological Council, an advisory body, recommended Tuesday that about 30 hectares (74 acres) of the 620-hectare plot under the project be declared an archaeological site.

“The decision is fine,” Deputy Economy Minister in charge of investments, Stergios Pitsiorlas, told Reuters. “The fact that a small area is declared of archaeological interest shields the whole process from future litigation.”

Pitsiorlas said the recommendation meant that archaeologists will have a closer supervision of construction work.

Backed by Chinese and Gulf funds, Lamda submitted its detailed development plan for Hellenikon in July, setting off a licensing process that will wrap up with a decree.

The Council approved the plan Tuesday and designated specific areas where construction should not be allowed. It was not immediately clear how the Council’s recommendation could affect Lamda’s construction plan.

​Impact on development

Lamda said it was waiting to be officially notified over the decision before making any public statement, saying “the importance of the archaeological findings has been included from the beginning in the company’s undertakings.”

It said it should be able to assess the impact of the Council’s decision on its development plan once it has reviewed the resolutions and accompanying diagrams.

The recommendation is not binding, however, the culture ministry always respects the body’s decisions.

Greece on Monday overcame another hurdle to the project by winning an appeal over objections by forestry officials.

Hellenikon has become a major political issue in Greece, which is slowly emerging from a multi-year debt crisis.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, whose leftist party strongly opposed it before coming to power in 2015, is now seen as keen to implement the deal to help boost economic activity and reduce unemployment, the euro zone’s highest.

Referring to the council’s decision, Deputy Foreign Minister Giannis Amanatidis said it was “a complicated process which was resolved in the best possible way.”
…

The human rights group Amnesty International urged European nations on Thursday to stop sending Afghans who do not qualify for asylum back to their “deeply unsafe” home country, saying the policy risked causing serious harm to those affected.

The call comes after a steady rise in violence over recent years as the Taliban has gained ground across the country and cities including the capital Kabul have been hit by a wave of suicide attacks.

“Amnesty International is calling on all European countries to implement a moratorium on returns to Afghanistan until they can take place in safety and dignity,” the group said in a report issued on Thursday.

Sharp increase in return of refugees

It said the Afghan government should not cooperate with sending people back, despite its dependence on foreign aid.

The report follows a sharp increase in the number of Afghans returned from Europe, either as a result of forced deportation or “assisted voluntary return.” It said the total almost tripled from 3,290 to 9,460 between 2015 and 2016.

“In their determination to increase the number of deportations, European governments are implementing a policy that is reckless and unlawful,” said Anna Shea, Amnesty International’s Researcher on Refugee and Migrant Rights.

She said governments were being “wilfully blind” to evidence that violence was at a record high.

Afghans have been among the main groups of asylum seekers in Europe, with 108,455 first time asylum seekers registered in the European Union in the 12 months to the end of June, second only to Syrians, according to EU statistics agency Eurostat.

However numbers have fallen over the past year, dropping 24 percent between the first and second quarters and 83 percent between the second quarter of 2017 and the same period in 2016.

Afghanistan ‘deeply unsafe’

European governments, faced by voters angry at hundreds of thousands of arrivals from the Middle East, Africa and South and Central Asia over recent years, have cracked down, pledging to send rejected asylum seekers back to their home countries.

The policy has proved particularly controversial in Afghanistan, where many European governments say that despite widespread violence, safety is sufficient to allow returns to some parts of the country.

According to United Nations figures, at least 1,662 civilians were killed and 3,581 wounded in the first half of the year, with nearly 20 percent of civilian casualties coming in the capital Kabul itself.

“Afghanistan is deeply unsafe, and has become more so in recent years. Yet European countries are returning people to Afghanistan in increasingly large numbers, even as the violence in the country escalates,” the report said.

 
…

Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank and Richard Henderson have won the Nobel Prize for chemistry for their work to simplify and improve the imaging of biomolecules.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the award Wednesday along with its $1.1 million prize.

The scientists developed a way to generate three-dimensional images of molecules, which the academy said has brought biochemistry “into a new era.”

“Researchers can now freeze biochemicals mid-movement and visualize processes they have never previously seen, which is decisive for both the basic understanding of life’s chemistry and for the development of pharmaceuticals,” the academy said.

 
…

Spain’s Catalonia region, which held an independence referendum Sunday amid a violent crackdown by federal police, could declare independence late this week or early next week.

Carles Puigdemont, the region’s leader, told the BBC the regional government would act once final vote counts are in.

Puigdemont plans to make a public statement Wednesday evening.

Catalonia authorities said 90 percent of those who voted Sunday wanted to break away from Spain and declare an independent republic.

Voters braved sometimes violent attempts by federal police to close polling stations and prevent Catalans from casting ballots in the referendum, which Spain’s high court had earlier declared invalid.

Local authorities said about 900 people were injured in confrontations with police. The crackdown prompted international criticism and calls for dialogue between Madrid and the regional government.

Labor strikes and protests shut down transportation and businesses across Catalonia on Tuesday, while Spain’s king criticized the regional government, saying its “irresponsible behavior” put the stability of Catalonia and all of Spain at risk.

On Wednesday, Spain’s National Court said it was investigating two officials in Catalonia’s police force for sedition in connection with violent protests in September. Catalonia’s police force allegedly didn’t attempt to contain the unrest that resulted when national police forces raided regional government offices in a bid to quash the independence movement.

The leaders of two pro-independence civil groups are also being investigated on similar charges, a court spokesman said.
…

In a historic, unprecedented move, a Georgian political party has nominated an openly gay candidate for public office.

Running on the non-parliamentary opposition Republican Party ticket, Nino Bolkvadze, a 40-year-old lawyer and LGBT rights advocate, is seeking a city councillorship in Tbilisi, the nation’s capital and largest city.

“I want Georgia to be a better place for my children,” said Bolkvadze, a single mother of two teenage girls who was shunned by her family for coming out on the country’s most popular TV show two years ago.

Established by dissidents some four decades ago and once outlawed by the Soviet Supreme Court, Georgia’s Republican Party became a full member of The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, a liberal-centrist political group of the European Parliament, in 2007.

“Do not vote for Nino simply because she is gay, there are plenty of reasons why voters should choose her,” said Tamar Kordzaia, the Republican Party’s secretary general. She went on to list some concerns that Bolkvadze vows to tackle: “Single mothers’ programs; representing minorities; working with vulnerable social groups; creating LGBT shelters.”

Kordzaia said Bolkvadze, as both a lawyer and activist, has had direct experience working on those issues.

Politically tactical move

“Ahead of local elections, we announced [that] our doors were open for anyone willing to participate in politics,” Kordzaia told VOA’s Georgian Service, recalling how Bolkvadze’s nomination was formulated. “There were only two prerequisites—a candidate must not be pro-Russian and shall be of liberal ideology.”

Bolkvadze, one of the first to respond, was nominated amidst the tumult of a constitutional amendment forged by parliament’s ruling Georgian Dream coalition, in which legislators sought to shore up conservative populist support by constitutionally protecting marriage as “a union between a man and a woman.” While Georgian law has long defined marriage as a “voluntary union of a man and woman,” it had not been constitutionally inscribed.

LGBT activists, including Bolkvadze, say violence against sexual minorities, not same sex marriage, is Georgia’s number one LGBT issue, and yet parliamentarians appear to be pursuing a more cosmetic, populist agenda instead of tackling the more immediate threat of violence driven by homophobia.

“LGBT rights are grossly violated, and [the local] environment is hostile,” said Bolkvadze. “Almost daily I encounter cases of physical violence, stabbing, or killing. All motivated by hatred.”

Legislative proposals

Aside from nominating Bolkvadze, Georgia’s Republican Party is also advancing a “Civil Contract of Partnership,” a bill that, if passed, would legally recognize civil partnerships between same sex couples. By introducing civil partnership into legislation regulating inheritance and property transactions between couples, Republican Party officials say sexual minorities would have a legal framework within which they could exercise their rights.

Policy in the Southern Caucuses nation, where Russia controls two breakaway regions, is closely tied to the Georgian Orthodox Church.

“[The] government’s homophobic policy is backed by the church,” Bolkvadze said. “The two together are oppressive institutions.”

According to International Republican Institute polls, Georgia’s Orthodox Church ranks number one among Georgia’s most trusted institutions, whereas parliament ranks tenth.

Republican Party officials are also calling to revisit state financing for the church, a move that, according to some experts, has a legal basis.

“The constitution itself is contradictory on this,” said Paul Crego, a researcher at the U.S. Library of Congress who has studied Georgia since 1970s, who spoke with VOA’s Georgian Service in August.

“It talks about freedom of religion and conscience, and then it gives the Georgian Orthodox Church a special place,” he said. “There is also a [2002] concordat, (a treaty between parliament and the church0that ratifies some of that special status. There are some people who think that the concordat made the Orthodox Church a state church. Not quite, but close, in some areas.”

For a Georgian political party, nominating an openly gay candidate it is not considered a winning strategy. But Levan Tsutskiridze, executive director at The Hague-headquartered Eastern European Centre for Multiparty Democracy, calls it is a milestone for Georgian political culture, where minorities have long been left out.

“Political parties have been shying away from discussing their issues,” said Tsutskiridze, who called the nomination a “bold move” that could backfire in the short-term while paying dividends over time.

“Projections are not the best for Republicans at this election, but if they position themselves as a liberal party, their ideology will pay off electorally.”

LGBT milestone

For members of Georgia’s long oppressed LGBT community, Bolkvadze’s political debut is an inspiration.

“Incrementally, society will get used to LGBT people and realize that we are like everyone else we are able to coexist in the same society peacefully,” says Giorgi Tabagari, an LGBT activist.

Peaceful coexistence is something LGBT activists have had to fight for. Especially since May 2013, when police failed to contain anti-gay, Orthodox activists in downtown Tbilisi as gay rights activists were gathering along a main thoroughfare to mark International Day Against Homophobia.

At least twelve people, including three policemen, were hospitalized after sustaining injuries in separate incidents that day, which Tbilisi’s EU delegation condemned as “scenes of brutal intolerance and violence.”

Later, Tbilisi City Court dropped criminal charges against Orthodox priests who physically assaulted rights activists.

Although Tabagari, the LGBT activist, does not believe Bolkvadze’s nomination will significantly change politics in Georgia, “It will always serve as a precedent, and hopefully other political parties will be more open to bold political steps of this sort.”

Meanwhile, Bolkvadze continues her legal work and, so far, hasn’t seen any backlash from her candidacy.

“I still take public transport, still walk around, as I used to do before this announcement,” she says. “So far, so good. No aggression has been expressed.”

This story originated in VOA’s Georgian Service. 
…

One year from now, if all goes according to plan, the African Union mission in Somalia will withdraw 1,500 soldiers from the country, in a crucial first step toward Somalia shedding its reliance on outside troops to maintain security and fight off Islamist militant group al-Shabab.

But the plan depends on Somali government forces being ready to protect the government and civilians from the al-Qaida-linked militants.

Last month, Somalia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Abukar Osman, told the U.N. Security Council that “the Somali National Army is not ready to take over the security of the country.” Premature withdrawal of AMISOM, he said, might be a “recipe for disaster.”

That’s why the opening of a new Turkish military base in Mogadishu is being hailed by some analysts as a possible turning point in the decades-long effort to stabilize Somalia. Turkey, which backs the Somali federal government, plans to train thousands of troops for the Somali National Army in hopes the SNA will become cohesive and powerful enough to handle the al-Shabab threat by itself.

The SNA has existed in one form or another since 2004, when the first transitional government since Somalia’s 1990s civil war was created. But a host of factors including corruption, clan rivalries, poor training and a lack of funding have undermined all attempts to make the SNA bigger and stronger.

Ahmed Moallim Fiqi, the former director of Somali National Intelligence and Security Agency, says the Turkish training base is Somalia’s best opportunity to acquire a unified, effective army.

“This has to be the factory that produces the security forces, to enable the reintegration of a balanced army and to equip them before they are put to operation,” he says.

Turkey said it wants to do that. At the opening of the base on Saturday, the chief of staff of the Turkish army, General Hulusi Akar, said that his government plans to help Somalia until the country gets “militarily stronger.”

The Turkish ambassador to Somalia, Olgan Bekar, said his government wants to “help the Somalis reclaim authority and restore order in the country.”

AMISOM threatening to leave

Fiqi says the government of Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, better known by his nickname, Farmajo, is feeling the pressure to get its forces in order.

“The Somali government is under constant reminder that time is running out for AU troops, and the only troops who can replace them are Somali soldiers,” he says.

The AU force, AMISOM, arrived in Somalia in 2007 as al-Shabab emerged to fight Ethiopian troops who invaded in late 2006 to oust a six-month-old Islamist government from power. AMISOM troops have been the main defender of Somalia’s fledging federal governments since Ethiopians left at the start of 2009.

Uganda, Burundi, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti supply the current force of 22,000 AMISOM troops, which ended al-Shabab’s control over most of Mogadishu and other Somali cities. But after taking thousands of casualties, the countries have made noise about bringing their soldiers home.

Earlier this year the Somali government unveiled a structure for the future Somali security forces. The plan projects Somalia will have at least 18,000 regular troops and 4,000 special forces, bringing the total to 22,000.

According to military experts, the number of troops currently available to the government is likely half of that, because officials have struggled to keep soldiers on duty due to lack of regular pay.

Heightening the confusion, the troops were trained in different countries, including Uganda, Ethiopia and Djibouti, by different armies. About 500 special forces who make up the battle-tested Danab (“lightning”) unit were trained by the United States. EU forces gave some instruction, as did the United Arab Emirates.

Somali military officials say the newly-opened Turkish base will make sure all SNA troops receive the same training.

“It’s very important for the army, when they are trained outside the country, that they are brought here to have harmonized training,” says General Abdullahi Mohamed Ahmed, a senior military officer at the Somali Defense Ministry.

Finding funds

Last week, the government took steps to ease the funding shortage. Farmajo flew to Saudi Arabia to smooth relations ruffled by the diplomatic dispute between the Saudi kingdom and Qatar. Before his departure, the Somali Cabinet reaffirmed its strict neutrality in the matter.

That must have been what the Saudis wanted to hear, because upon Farmajo’s return, the government announced that it received $50 million in financial aid from Saudi Arabia, and said it will use that money to pay salaries and provide rations to the army.

Fiqi says if army can get strong enough to handle security on its own, all of Somalia’s neighbors should be pleased.

“It helps the security of the region because the countries who sent troops to Somalia say they have done so because of a threat coming from Somalia,” he says. Building a Somali army that contains that threat, he says, will give those countries “greater confidence in the Somali government.”

 
…

Spain’s National Court has decided to extradite a suspected Russian hacker to the United States.

Pyotr Levashov, a 37-year-old known as one of the world’s most notorious hackers, was arrested earlier this year while vacationing with his family in Barcelona. U.S. authorities had requested his arrest, for they want him on fraud charges and unauthorized interception of electronic communications.

The Spanish court said Tuesday the U.S. extradition request has been approved. Russia in September filed a counter-extradition request for Levashov hours before the original extradition hearing.

Authorities in the U.S. have linked Levashov to a series of powerful botnets, or networks of hijacked computers capable of pumping out billions of spam emails.

Levashov’s lawyers have alleged his arrest was politically motivated and argued that he should be tried in Spain.
…

France’s interior minister says the man who fatally stabbed two young women in Marseille was a Tunisian who had lived in Italy.

Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said on France-Inter radio Tuesday that the assailant had Italian residency and a valid Tunisian passport. The attacker was killed by soldiers after Sunday’s stabbings, which were claimed by the Islamic State group.

Collomb urged more information-sharing among governments about such cases.

One of the seven IDs the attacker used in previous encounters with French police was a Tunisian passport identifying him as Ahmed H. A judicial official said Tuesday that authorities have determined that is the Marseille attacker’s true identity.

Italian news agency ANSA said Rome prosecutors had opened a terrorism investigation into Hanachi’s contacts in Italy, after reports emerged that he had lived in Aprilia, south of Rome, from about 2006-2014. Italian daily La Repubblica said he lived in an area with a sizeable Tunisian community, and had married, then divorced, an Italian woman.

The area — Aprilia, Latina and Fondi — has already seen four people expelled from Italy for alleged radicalization-related reasons, La Repubblica said.

Citing state security, Italy has since 2015 expelled more than 200 people who are suspected of radicalizing others or recruiting would-be jihadis — offenses that wouldn’t necessarily hold up in court but which the Interior Ministry uses as reason to expel them.

The French interior minister also said he has ordered an investigation into why the Marseille attacker had seven encounters with French police and had no residency papers, but wasn’t expelled from the country. His latest arrest was just two days before the stabbing, when he was picked up for shoplifting and released.
…

Police in Las Vegas, Nevada say a man opened fire on a country music concert late Sunday, killing at least 58 people and wounding more than 515 others, in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

An edited list of mass shootings that have taken place in other parts of the world:

Paris, France

November, 2015

Terrorists claiming allegiance to Islamic State carried out several coordinated attacks in the city, including shootings of pedestrians on the street and a mass shootings at the Bataclan theatre. One hundred and thirty people were killed in the combined attacks.

Paris, France

January, 2015

Islamist gunmen stormed the office of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical weekly magazine, and killed 12 people, including the paper’s top editors and cartoonists, in anger over its satirical cartoons of Islamic terrorists and the Prophet Muhammad.

Nairobi, Kenya

September, 2013

Al-Shabab Islamist militants, who are based in Somalia, attacked the upscale Westgate mall in Nairobi, killing nearly 70 people and wounding about 175. The siege latest for three days before government troops could end the attack.

Utoya, Norway

July, 2011

A gunman disguised as a policeman opened fire at a youth camp for political activists on the small island of Utoya, northwest of Oslo. The gunman, who had been linked to an anti-Islamic group, killed 68 campers. Separately, the gunman set off a bomb in Oslo that killed 8 people.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

April, 2011

A 23-year-old former student returned to his public school in Rio de Janeiro and opened fire on the students, killing 12 children and seriously wounding more than a dozen others, before shooting himself in the head.

Baku, Azerbaijan

April, 2009

A Georgian citizen of Azerbaijani descent killed 12 students and staff at the Azerbaijan State Oil Academy. Several others were wounded.

Winnenden, Germany

March, 2009

A 17-year-old boy shot and killed 15 people at his school, Albertville Technical High School, in southwestern Germany.

Mumbai, India

November, 2008

Islamist terrorists carried out a series of shooting and bombing attacks across the city over the span of several days, including mass shootings at two hotels, the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel and the Oberoi Trident. The attacks left 164 people dead and a further 308 people were wounded.

Moscow, Russia

October, 2002

A group of armed Chechen militants seized the crowded Dubrovka theater and took 850 people hostage. At least 170 people died in the terrorist attack.

Erfurt, Germany

April, 2002            

A 19-year-old student opened fire at his secondary school, killing 16 people, including 13 teachers, two students, and one policeman, before killing himself.

Port Arthur, Australia

April, 1996

A 28-year old man opened fire at a cafe on a historic penal colony site in Tasmania, killing 35 people and wounding 23. It was the worst mass-murderer in modern Australian history.

Dunblane, Scotland

March, 1996 

A gunman killed 16 children and one teacher at Dunblane Primary School before killing himself.

Montreal, Canada

December, 1989

A 25-year-old gunman shot 28 people at the École Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec, killing 14 women, before committing suicide.

 
…

Hundreds of people took to the streets in Barcelona to protest a police crackdown in Catalonia to stop an independence referendum in the region.

Protestors, many of them students, waved the Catalan independence flag Monday and held up signs demanding more democracy outside the headquarters of the Spanish police in Barcelona. Demonstrations also took place in several other Catalan cities, including Girona and Lleida.

The violence followed a police crackdown during Sunday’s independence referendum. Officials in Catalonia said nearly 900 people were injured when police tried to keep residents from voting in the referendum, deemed unconstitutional by the Spanish courts.

Video from Sunday showed police dragging people from polling stations and beating and kicking would-be voters and demonstrators.

Spain’s Interior Ministry said Monday that more than 430 National Police and Civil Guard agents suffered injuries from the clashes.

Amnesty International says its observers witnessed “excessive use of force” by Spanish police.

European leaders on Monday urged dialogue between Spain’s government and authorities in Catalonia. A spokesman for the European Commission said the referendum was “not legal” but said that “violence can never be an instrument in politics.”

The commission, the executive arm of the 28-nation EU, said in a Twitter message that “these are times for unity and stability, not divisiveness and fragmentation.”

EU chief Donald Tusk appealed to Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajov on Monday to “avoid further escalation and use of force” in the standoff.

 
…

Turkey’s armed forces chief, General Hulusi Akar, is in Tehran for talks with Iran’s political and military leadership, including President Hassan Rouhani. His visit precedes President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit, scheduled for Wednesday, and comes as analysts suggest the use and threat of and military force are increasingly becoming part of Turkish foreign policy.

Analysts point out preliminary talks before a presidential visit are traditionally carried out by the Turkish Foreign Ministry, but note Akar’s agenda in Tehran had a strong military flavor.

Tehran and Ankara have issued thinly-veiled military threats to the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government, following its independence referendum last month. It passed with 92 percent of the vote.

News agencies on Monday reported the Iranian military had moved up heavy artillery to the Iraqi Kurdish border. The deployment matches that of the Turkish armed forces already massed on Turkey’s Iraqi Kurdish frontier, ostensibly for military drills.

“Turkey is now looking at a change in its foreign policy,” noted former Turkish ambassador to Iraq Unal Cevikoz. “Turkey is considering the threat of the use of force and the use of force as a viable option for realizing its foreign policy objectives, and that is dangerous.”

Cevikoz noted a possible increase in the Turkish military’s influence over foreign policy. Possible evidence of a growing military role in diplomatic affairs included an August visit by Russian and Iranian armed forces chiefs to the Turkish capital, Ankara. The visits reportedly focused on the ongoing civil war in Syria, where all of these countries have their military forces deployed.

Historic military role

Such a scenario is not new to Turkey. Throughout the 1990s, the peak of fighting by the Kurdish insurgent group the PKK, the military held sway over much of Turkish foreign policy.

In the 2000s, as part of his policy to demilitarize Turkish society, then-Prime Minister Erdogan ended the military role in foreign policy.

“Turkey believed that if Turkey wants to have a peaceful and stable environment in the Middle East, this could be achieved not through security policies or use of military power, but through enhancing economic cooperation,” noted Cevikoz, who now heads the Ankara Policy Center.

The 2015 collapse in Ankara’s peace process with the PKK, and the Syrian civil war, are seen as the impetus for a recalibration in Turkish foreign policy.

“When Syria became a very important area where international terrorism is now finding a fertile ground and when the civil war expanded in Syria, I think that saw Turkey is shifting back to its security policies,” Cevikoz said.

Some analysts see a more robust foreign policy backed up by force as a necessity.

“In such a turbulent and difficult region with a variety of security threats, Turkey needs hard power as part of a portfolio of instruments to influence regional developments,” said Sinan Ulgen, a visiting scholar with the Carnegie Institute in Brussels. “In that sense, hard power in this region is necessary even if it’s to advance a diplomatic objective.”

Domestic policies

Domestic politics could also be a factor driving Ankara’s more robust foreign policy approach, analysts note. In 2019, Turkey faces presidential and general elections; both are predicted to be close.

“President Erdogan increasingly has presidential elections in sight,” said former senior Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen, who is now a regional analyst.

Ankara has strained relations with several of its Western allies. And analysts warn there are questions over its future commitment to NATO as Erdogan’s rapprochement with Moscow deepens. The Turkish President has described his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin as “a valuable friend.”

Erdogan is also looking to improve ties as he heads to Tehran.

Cevikoz said if Turkey is “serious about the secularization of its foreign policy,” then it will “have to coordinate with countries like Iran and Russia,” which are not allies.

But that will not be a permanent alliance, he said, which “in a way will leave Turkey as a kind of lone wolf in the region.”
…

Animals that make the water their home are uniquely sensitive to changes in their liquid world. Oysters are very good at filtering dirty water, and crayfish are very sensitive to changes in water quality. Now scientists in the Czech Republic are using these sensitive bottom dwellers to monitor water quality in a business where clean water matters. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
…

Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont says the region has won the right to demand an independent state after Sunday’s controversial referendum on independence. Spain’s government has banned the vote it declared unconstitutional and has sent police and riot forces to stop the balloting. Clashes between the police and voters left hundreds of people injured. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
…

Muslim women in Austria were forced by police to remove their face coverings, as a law banning religious and other coverings came into effect Sunday.

Under the ban, wearing a ski mask off the slopes, a surgical mask outside hospitals and party masks in public is now also prohibited.

Those who defy the ban could face a fine of nearly $180.  Police are authorized to use force if people resist showing their faces.

The government says the law, which says faces must be visible from the hairline to the chin, is about protecting Austrian values.

Muslim groups have condemned the law, saying just a tiny minority of Austrian Muslims wear full-face veils.  Full veils remain rare in Austria despite the surge of migrants and refugees into Europe in 2015, but they have become a target for right-wing groups and political parties.

The law, similar to ones in France and Belgium, also applies to visitors including the large numbers of Arab tourists who vacation in the Alpine country.
…

Spain wants to bring a halt to Sunday’s independence referendum in Catalonia, calling it a “farce.”

Enric Millo, Madrid’s representative in Catalonia, said Catalonia’s president Carles Puigdemont and his team “are solely responsible for all that has happened today and for all that can happen if they do not put an end to this farce.”

Police in riot gear smashed the front door of a polling station with a hammer in Catalonia Sunday where the regional leader was expected to cast his vote in the banned independence referendum.

Scuffles between the police and voters erupted outside the polling center in Sant Julia de Ramis, near the Catalan city of Girona.

Catalan leader Puigdemont was scheduled to cast his vote at Sant Julia de Ramis, but instead voted at Cornella del Terri in the province of Girona.

Catalans began voting Sunday in the disputed independence referendum, while police seized the ballots of at least one polling station.

Spain’s Interior Ministry said on Twitter more ballot boxes would be snatched as police continued their deployment in Catalonia.

A regional government spokesman said voters could cast their ballots at any polling station, instead of their designated one, since Spanish authorities have sealed off some polling stations and confiscated ballots. Clashes between police and voters were reported in several districts.

There are reports of Spanish police firing rubber bullets at voters. A Catalan spokesman says 73 percent of polling stations are open, but their computer system is suffering constant hacking attacks.

Jordi Turull, Catalonia’s government spokesman, called on Catalans to continue to carry out their right to vote “in a civic and peaceful manner,” in the face of police blocking voters from some polling stations.

Turull said the police actions are reminiscent of the “repression that is a reminder of the Franco era,” a reference to Spain’s dictatorship from 1939 – 1975.

Spain’s Constitutional Court suspended the vote and the Spanish central government says the vote is illegal.

Hundreds of people in favor of the referendum camped out in schools and other designated polling places in an attempt to keep them open for Sunday’s vote.

Millo, the highest-ranking Spanish security official in the northeastern region, said Saturday police had already blockaded half of the more than 2,300 polling stations designated for the referendum vote.

He said Spanish authorities also had dismantled the technology Catalan officials had planned on using for voting and counting ballots, which he said would make the referendum “absolutely impossible.”

Catalan officials said they would move forward with the vote despite the actions taken by Spain’s central government.

Police have received orders to avoid the use of force.

Spanish Culture Minister Inigo Mendez de Vigo said Friday the independence vote violates Spanish law and the government will not accept the results of the referendum.

Catalonia represents a fifth of Spain’s $1.32 trillion economy and enjoys wide self-government. The region has about 5.5 million eligible voters.

It is not clear if the Catalans would vote for independence.

Polls in the northeastern region show support for self-rule waning as Spain’s economy improves. But the majority of Catalans say they do want the opportunity to vote on whether to split from Spain.
…

Spanish riot police burst into polling stations across Catalonia on Sunday confiscating ballot boxes and voting papers to try to halt a banned referendum on a split from Spain as Madrid asserted its authority over the rebel region.

Police broke down doors to force entry into voting stations as defiant Catalans shouted “Out with the occupying forces!” and sang the anthem of the wealthy northeastern region. In one incident in Barcelona, police fired rubber bullets.

The referendum, declared illegal by Spain’s central government, has thrown the country into its worst constitutional crisis in decades and deepened a centuries-old rift between Madrid and Barcelona.

Despite the police action, hundreds-strong queues of people formed in cities and villages throughout the region to cast their votes. At one Barcelona polling station, elderly people and those with children entered first.

“I’m so pleased because despite all the hurdles they’ve put up, I’ve managed to vote,” said Teresa, a 72-year-old pensioner in Barcelona who had stood in line for six hours.

The ballot will have no legal status as it has been blocked by Spain’s Constitutional Court and Madrid for being at odds with the 1978 constitution.

A minority of around 40 percent of Catalans support independence, polls show, although a majority want to hold a referendum on the issue. The region of 7.5 million people has an economy larger than that of Portugal.

However much voting takes place, a “yes” result is likely, given that most of those who support independence are expected to cast ballots while most of those against it are not.

Large crowds

Organisers had asked voters to turn out before dawn, hoping for large crowds to be the world’s first image of voting day.

“This is a great opportunity. I’ve waited 80 years for this,” said 92-year-old Ramon Jordana, a former taxi driver waiting to vote in Sant Pere de Torello, a town in the foothills of the Pyrenees and a pro-independence bastion.

The Catalan government said voters could print out ballot papers at home and lodge them at any polling station not closed down by police.

Elsewhere, people were not able to access the ballot boxes.

In a town in Girona province where Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont was due to vote, Civil Guard police smashed glass panels to open the door and search for ballot boxes.

Puigdemont voted in a different town in the province. He accused Spain of unjustified violence in stopping the vote and said it created a dreadful image of Spain.

“The unjustified, disproportionate and irresponsible violence of the Spanish state today has not only failed to stop Catalans’ desire to vote… but has helped to clarify all the doubts we had to resolve today,” he said.

Catalan emergency services said 38 people were hurt, mostly with minor injuries, as a result of police action. The government said 11 police officers were injured in clashes.

Around 70 polling stations had been raided by police, Spanish Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido said.

The aim of the raids was to seize referendum material and not to target people wanting to vote, another senior government official said.

“We have been made to do something we didn’t want to do,” said Enric Millo, the central government’s representative in Catalonia, at a news conference.

One analyst said the scenes being played out across Catalonia on Sunday would make it harder for Madrid and Barcelona to find a way forward.

“I think it is going to make the clash more intense and make it more difficult to find a solution,” said Antonio Barroso of Teneo Intelligence.

Puigdemont originally said that if the “yes” vote won, the Catalan government would declare independence within 48 hours, but regional leaders have since acknowledged Madrid’s crackdown has undermined the vote.

Markets have reacted cautiously but calmly to the situation so far, though credit rating agency S&P said on Friday that protracted tensions in Catalonia could hurt Spain’s economic outlook. The region accounts for about a fifth of the economy.
…