China on Sunday hosts the annual summit of leaders from the BRICS countries — the emerging markets of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. They represent 40 percent of the global population, and observers say the talks are aimed at showcasing the nations’ combined economic might as a counter to Western domination of world affairs.

As host, China hopes to make the meeting in the southeastern city of Xiamen a landmark event. However, it is hamstrung by sharp differences among member countries on several issues, as well as lurking suspicions that China is using the Beijing-headquartered group as a platform to advance its political and business interests.

“There is no doubt that Beijing senses an opportunity to burnish its credentials as the ‘sole champion’ of globalization and multilateralism at a time when the United States, under the Trump administration, seems to be turning inward and away from multilateralism,” Mohan Malik, a professor at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies at Honolulu, told VOA in an emailed response. “Lacking friends and allies, Beijing is keen to set up as many multilateral forums and financial institutions as possible to bring small- and medium-sized developing countries into its orbit.”

Some in China believe that the BRICS platform offers an opportunity to push for these causes and perhaps enhance Chinese President Xi Jinping’s image as a world leader. The question, however, is whether Russia and India, which have an array of differences with Beijing, are interested in it.

Internal squabbles

Analysts note that Moscow has serious reservations about China’s Belt and Road Initiative, an infrastructure development project making progress in central Asia, where Russia has plans to implement a similar program, called the Eurasian Economic Union. Separately, China and India have had their disagreements.

This past week, the two Asian giants carefully backed down from one of their biggest disagreements in the Himalayan region in years, agreeing to de-escalate a 10-week-old standoff on their disputed border. India did not confirm that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would attend the Xiamen summit until after the agreement was signed.

Recent years have seen China taking the lead in establishing or expanding homegrown international organizations where Western countries have little or no role. Beijing has also ensured that these organizations are headquartered in China.

In addition to BRICS, there is China’s National Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

BRICS Plus

More recently, China has been pushing a new proposal of BRICS Plus, which aims to bring non-BRICS countries into the organization.

China argues that doing so would strengthen the organization and make it a more potent force.

“BRICS is not an exclusive club. The impact of BRICS cooperation reaches far beyond the five countries,” said Foreign Minister Wang Yi at a recent press conference in Beijing. “I believe the BRICS Plus model will fully release the vitality of BRICS cooperation.”

Not everyone sees the proposal the same way, and it has met with stiff resistance and suspicion.

“China wants to be the leader of the organization, and the other four may not agree and that is why China is pushing to recruit more members,” said Oliver Rui, a professor of finance and accounting at the China Europe International Business School.

Some say China’s push to expand the organization is aimed at strengthening its position in BRICS, instead of making it stronger.

“Wang Yi’s idea of inviting other developing countries to join the partnership under the BRICS Plus concept would potentially unravel BRICS and transform it into just another SCO-like bloc, led and dominated by China [and Russia], that is likely to be anti-West in orientation and bolster Chinese leadership and serve Chinese interests,” Malik said.

For now, Beijing has been forced to abandon its effort to formalize the idea at the Xiamen summit, which begins Sunday and wraps up Tuesday.

Still, Foreign Minister Wang said China would stick to BRICS’ existing practice, which allows the host nation to invite other countries to the summit as a one-time opportunity. He also said that more would be done to help explain BRICS Plus and the rationale behind the idea.

BRICS without mortar

With a divide over expansion and a lack of clarity over the role the organization should play — whether it should have an economic or political agenda or both — some feel BRICS has yet to find that bonding element to hold the five countries together.

“I think the BRICS is kind of falling apart, due to many different kinds of reasons,” Rui said. “First, these five countries, naturally, they should not be a part of one organization.”

The group is not a trade bloc capable of influencing trade flows and decisions in the World Trade Organization. And the organization’s partners often complain of a huge trade balance in favor of Beijing because Chinese business tends to sell a lot more than it buys from these countries.

Beijing, however, is optimistic.

At the press conference, the Chinese foreign minister defended BRICS, saying that it reflects the aspirations of emerging markets and works for strengthening their economic situation. “It also plays an increasingly important role in promoting international peace and development,” he said.

VOA’s Joyce Huang contributed to this report.
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Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan labeled as a “scandal” the decision of a U.S. court to indict 19 people, among them 15 members of a Turkish security detail, accused of attacking peaceful demonstrators during Erdogan’s visit to Washington on May 16.

Speaking to reporters in Istanbul Friday, Erdogan called the indictment “a clear and scandalous expression of how justice works in America,” adding that he would discuss the issue with U.S. President Donald Trump during a trip to New York this month.

“The only thing I can say about this matter … as you know our foreign minister summoned the U.S. ambassador to the ministry and conveyed the necessary warnings. This is a complete scandal. It is a scandalous sign of how justice works in the United States.”

Video showed Turkish security agents beating and kicking protestors outside the residence of the Turkish ambassador to the U.S. in Washington, following a meeting between Erdogan and President Donald Trump.

Erdogan said the security officials, among them the head of Erdogan’s security operation, were protecting him from members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) after U.S. police failed to do so.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry repeated Ankara’s criticisms of “serious negligence” by U.S. security authorities who did not “secure our delegation’s safety” and conveyed its reaction to the U.S. ambassador to Ankara.

The charges against Erdogan’s security agents sent a clear message that the U.S. “does not tolerate individuals who use intimidation and violence to stifle freedom of speech and legitimate political expression,” U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement.
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Hungary’s prime minister is asking the European Union to pay for half of the cost of anti-migrant fences it built on its southern borders, some 440 million euros ($523 million). 

In a letter dated Thursday to EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said the fences erected in 2015 protect not just Hungary “but entire Europe against the flood of illegal migrants.”

Orban said Europe needed to show solidarity with Hungary’s border protection efforts, not just with Greece and Italy, the countries that have received the brunt of the migration influx. 

EU leaders have criticized Hungary for failing to show solidarity because it refuses to take in any asylum-seekers sought to be relocated from Greece and Italy until their asylum requests are decided.
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Aid groups have criticized efforts by European leaders to stem the flow of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, arguing Europe’s economy needs more workers. One nongovernmental organization in Italy has been trying to fill the gap by training African migrants to work as beekeepers and then pairing them with local honey producers in need of employees. Ricci Shryock reports for VOA from Alessandria, Italy.
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Frankfurt’s city center, an area including police headquarters, two hospitals, transport systems and Germany’s central bank storing $70 billion in gold reserves, will be evacuated on Sunday to allow the defusing of a 1.8-metric ton World War II bomb.

A spokesman for the German Bundesbank said, however, that “the usual security arrangements” would remain in place while experts worked to disarm the bomb, which was dropped by the British air force and was uncovered during excavation of a building site.

The Bundesbank headquarters, less than 600 meters (650 yards) from the location of the bomb, stores 1,710 metric tons of gold underground, around half the country’s reserves.

“We have never defused a bomb of this size,” bomb disposal expert Rene Bennert told Reuters, adding that it had been damaged on impact when it was dropped between 1943 and 1945. Airspace for 1.5 kilometers (nearly a mile) around the bomb site will also be closed.

Frankfurt city officials said more than 60,000 residents would be evacuated for at least 12 hours. The evacuation area will also include 20 retirement homes, the city’s opera house and the diplomatic quarter.

Bomb disposal experts will use a wrench to try to unscrew the fuses attached to the bomb. If that fails, a water jet will be used to cut the fuses away, Bennert told Reuters.

The most dangerous part of the exercise will be applying the wrench, Bennert said.

Roads and transport systems, including the underground, will be closed during the work and for at least two hours after the bomb is defused, to allow patients to be transported back to hospitals without traffic.

It is not unusual for unexploded bombs from World War II air raids to be found in German cities, but rarely are they so large and in such a sensitive position.
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The United States has ordered Russia to close its consulate in San Francisco and two other annexes by this weekend, the State Department said Thursday.

The move was in response to a demand from Moscow that Washington reduce its diplomatic staff in Russia.

“In the spirit of parity invoked by the Russians, we are requiring the Russian Government to close its Consulate General in San Francisco, a chancery annex in Washington, D.C., and a consular annex in New York City,” State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said in a statement Thursday, adding that the deadline for the closures is September 2.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed his “regret” about the closures shortly after the announcement was made.

Thursday’s announcement marked the latest chapter in a diplomatic spat largely caused by new U.S. sanctions on Russia put in place last month.
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Turkey has been pressuring countries around the world to close or hand over control of schools linked to an influential Muslim cleric who was a close ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan before becoming his most worrisome foe.

Influential and polarizing, Fethullah Gulen has been accused of being behind a corruption probe of Erdogan’s government in 2013, which shattered their friendship. He also is accused of masterminding the July 2016 coup attempt in Turkey that left 250 people dead and 2,200 injured.

The reclusive 76-year-old cleric denies those allegations. He espouses a moderate form of Islam with an eye on political clout, and he built a financial empire in Turkey that included banks, media, construction companies and schools. He is reported to have 3 million to 6 million followers in Turkey, including high-ranking government and military officials.

The schools began expanding internationally in 1993, and at one point there were Gulen-linked schools, cultural centers or language programs in more than 100 countries. In the United States, it’s the largest group of so-called charter schools, which receive tax funds. It has about 140 schools in 28 states, taking in more than $2.1 billion from taxpayers.

While some schools include teaching Islam, others reportedly have no religious content. Generally focused on math and science, the schools have earned praise from some parents, often because the quality of education is better than is generally available in some poverty-wracked countries.

Accused of hidden agenda

In Pakistan, for instance, they provide an alternative to the madrassas that have been accused of breeding extremism. The schools also are popular among Africa’s middle class.

But they have been accused of having a hidden agenda: instilling a sense of deep loyalty among students that is part of an alleged long-term strategy of infiltrating governments, starting with Turkey, to spread a socially conservative agenda. The schools typically pursue visas for Turkish nationals — almost all men — to teach and even populate the school boards.

Gulen’s critics point to a video that surfaced in 1999 that purportedly came from a speech he gave.

“You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence until you reach all the power centers,” he said in the video. “If they do something prematurely, the world will crush our heads, and Muslims will suffer everywhere… You must wait for the time when you are complete and conditions are ripe, until we can shoulder the entire world and carry it.”

Gulen has said the video was manipulated and that the only purpose of the schools is education.

In the United States, there are allegations that some Gulen schools were involved in improper contracting and ordered teachers to kick back part of their salaries to the organization. While the FBI wouldn’t say if it is investigating the schools, there have been several news reports saying they were being probed, going back to 2011.

The Gulen organization, also known as the Hizmet movement, denies those accusations.

“We are very disappointed that in a quest to consolidate power and cast aspersions on Mr. Gulen, the Erdogan regime has decided to target K-12 schools that provide education, opportunity and hope to tens of thousands of students around the world, many of whom lack access to quality education in a safe environment,” said Alp Aslandogan, executive director of the Alliance for Shared Values, a nonprofit that serves as a voice for cultural organizations affiliated with Hizmet.

“Especially in countries such as Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan, where violent radical groups targeted girls attending schools, these schools have been offering life-changing opportunities to both boys and girls. These schools operate completely independent of Mr. Gulen, as he has said many times, and in targeting them, Erdogan is only intensifying his cruel crackdown and robbing young girls and boys of a chance for a better life.”

Extradition demands

The Turkish government wants Gulen extradited from the United States — he has lived in a guarded compound in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania since 1999. Turkey says his Fethullah Gulen organization (FETO) is a terrorist group.

Ankara has shuttered thousands of schools, foundations and organizations linked to Gulen since the coup attempt. Turkish authorities have fired more than 100,000 government workers alleged to have ties to Gulen, and imprisoned about 50,000 people. Five hundred people, including top army generals, are on trial for Gulen links; Gulen himself is being tried in absentia.

The campaign against Gulen’s enterprises has expanded outside the country, too. On virtually every foreign trip by Erdogan, reports have emerged that he has pressed for Gulen schools to be closed or handed over to a Turkish foundation.

“These schools are one of the ways for FETO to finance its operations,” an official at the Turkish Embassy in Washington, D.C., told VOA. “They are a source of money. They can also be used as a source to recruit followers.”

The Turkish effort has resulted in the closure of schools in more than a dozen countries.

Turkey has begun denying visas to Kyrgyzstan citizens who study at schools affiliated with the Gulen movement; their families also are being denied.

Kyrgyzstan’s Ministry of Education and Science responded by saying the restriction was an attempt to discredit the educational institutions known as Sapat.

“Placing Sapat schools on the same footing as terrorist organizations and imposing certain sanctions on students and members of their families only on the grounds that they are studying in Sapat schools are unacceptable and the statements of Turkish officials are irresponsible,” the ministry said.

In Saudi Arabia and Malaysia, Turkish teachers and staff have been deported to Turkey, where they appeared likely to be arrested.

In February, Turkmenistan court sentenced 18 men to up to 25 years in prison — and confiscated their property — on offenses relating primarily to incitement to social, ethnic, or religious hatred and involvement in a criminal organization. Most were affiliated with Gulen schools.

Rights groups have called on the Turkmen government to free the men and quash their sentences.

“The way Turkmenistan’s courts prosecuted and tried these men bears no resemblance to justice,” said Rachel Denber, deputy Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

Ankara turning up the heat

During his visit to Albania in 2015, Erdogan asked authorities to close down the network of Turkish colleges that was the biggest private educational group in Albania. Since the failed coup, the pressure from Ankara has increased.

Several countries, including Angola and Uzbekistan, have cited unspecified “national security reasons” in shutting down Gulen schools and expelling the Turkish staff and their families.

Some countries appeared to choose closure rather than get involved in the hassles of overseeing a switch in who runs the schools.

Rwanda’s Ministry of Education ordered the Gulen-affiliated Hope Academy to close on June 2, just over two months after it had been granted permission to open. The ministry cited Turkey’s request to transfer control of the school to a Turkish foundation.

Other countries have resisted Turkey’s pressure. While accreditation was halted for one school in Georgia, at least six others remain open, with some education experts urging the country to defend its national interests because the schools have good reputations. But several schools are said to be likely transferred to the Turkish-government-owned Maarif Foundation, sources told VOA.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, some Gulen schools work with the nation’s Bosna Sema educational institutions, which employ about 500 Turks. Turkish Ambassador CIhad Erginay urged the government to close down the schools, calling Gulen’s movement a terrorist organization.

VOA’s Africa, East Asia Pacific, Eurasian, South and Central Asia divisions contributed to this report.
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Turkey’s foreign ministry says the country protests “in the harshest way” a U.S. court decision to indict 19 people, including 15 Turkish security officials.

The statement published late Wednesday follows Tuesday’s grand jury decision in Washington to charge the defendants with attacking peaceful demonstrators during a visit by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on May 16.

Turkey has repeatedly told U.S. officials that security outside the ambassador’s home was negligent and didn’t ensure the safety of Erdogan’s entourage amid sympathizers of an outlawed Kurdish militant group, according to the statement.

The ministry called the indictment “biased” and “regretful,” claiming it also accused people who had never been to the U.S.

It announced Turkey would follow legal paths to fight the decision.
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Moscow and Washington should re-establish direct contacts between their military and foreign policy chiefs, Russia’s new ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, said Wednesday.

“The time has come to resume joint meetings of Russia’s and the United States’ foreign and defense ministers in a ‘two plus two’ format,” Antonov said in an interview published on the Kommersant business daily’s website.

Military contacts between Moscow and Washington were frozen in 2014 due to the Ukraine crisis.

Antonov also called for meetings between the heads of Russia’s Federal Security Service and Foreign Intelligence Service and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency.

A “working cooperation” between Russia’s Security Council and the U.S. National Security Council could also help fight terrorism and cyberthreats and help strategic stability, he said.

Antonov, a former deputy foreign minister, is subject to European sanctions over his role in the conflict in Ukraine.
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Three weeks before Germany’s election and with at least one poll suggesting nearly half of all voters don’t know what they will do, the government has unveiled an updated online tool to help them decide.

Around two dozen young people from around Germany helped launch the “Wahl-O-Mat” (roughly Vote-O-Meter) on Wednesday – a website that matches people with a party after they answer a series of policy questions.

One of the first to try was Hubertus Heil, general secretary of the Social Democrats (SPD), junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition.

“I got 100 percent,” he beamed after completing the 10-minute process.

Participants choose whether they agree, disagree or are neutral about 38 issues identified in recent months by 26 young people chosen from 500 volunteers. The issues center on key topics such as increased video surveillance, raising taxes on diesel cars, and setting limits on migration.

Merkel is widely expected to win a record-tying fourth term, with her CDU/CSU conservatives maintaining a two-digit lead over the SPD despite continuing concerns over her 2015 decision to allow in over a million migrants.

But it remains unclear which parties will be involved in the next coalition government.

A poll by the Allensbach Institute last week showed that 46 percent of voters had not made up their minds on how to vote – the highest rate since in two decades so close to an election, which is being held on September 24.

The voter tool is available online at www.wahl-o-mat.de or via apps on mobile phones. A pared-down analogue version will also tour Germany over the next three weeks for those not online.

The tool has been around before, and less official versions have been available in other countries. But Thomas Krueger, head of the Federal Agency for Civic Education, which created it, expects many millions of hits.

It was used over 13.2 million times in the last national election in 2013 and even more people are expected to participate this time, he said.

“We’ve seen that about six percent of those who were not planning to participate in the election changed their minds after using the tool,” he said.

Markus Blume, general secretary of the CSU, the Bavarian sister party of Merkel’s CDU, said voter participation had been higher in recent state elections and he hoped the trend would continue for the national election.

“Germany is experiencing a re-politicization because people realize we are living in uncertain times, that a great deal is at stake in this parliamentary election, and that it’s not irrelevant who’s elected.”

Richard Hilmer, director of the Berlin think tank Policy Matters, said the tool was critical, especially for younger voters who had not been involved in politics before.

“Interest is definitely higher in this election, but so is uncertainty. It remains to see how that will affect participation. It could well be that if people remain uncertain that they simply stay home.”
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday threw her weight behind the European Commission in its row with Warsaw over freedom of Poland’s court system.

The previously reticent Merkel, speaking in Berlin, said she took the issue “very seriously” and would talk about it with Commission President Jean-Claude Junker on Wednesday.

In July, the commission, the European Union’s executive, gave Warsaw a month to address its concerns about reforms it saw as interfering with an independent judiciary.

Warsaw’s reply signaled that the ruling nationalist and euroskeptic Law and Justice (PiS) party had no intention of backing down and even doubted the commission’s right to intervene.

While two of the new Polish laws questioned by the commission have been sent back for reworking by an unexpected presidential veto, a third one, giving the justice minister powers to fire judges, has become law.

The commission said it undermined the independence of the courts and therefore EU rules.

“This is a serious issue because the requirements for cooperation within the European Union are the principles of the rule of law. I take what the commission says on this very seriously,” Merkel said at a news conference.

“We cannot simply hold our tongues and not say anything for the sake of peace and quiet,” she said.

‘Political emotions’

Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro said Merkel’s remarks showed the criticism was political, rather than factual.

“I’m convinced that Polish government will be executing its targets despite political emotions that appear in politicians’ statements,” Ziobro told reporters in Warsaw.

“Every country which is independent within the EU has its own laws and should settle its problems within democratic mechanisms,” he said in remarks broadcast on state TV.

In its reply to the commission on Monday, the Polish foreign ministry said the legislative process of overhauling its judiciary was in line with European standards.

It called the commission’s concerns groundless and noted that judiciary was the province of national governments, not the commission.

“We have received the reply from the Polish government. Regarding the point that we have no competence in this sphere, this is something that we would actually quite powerfully refute,” a commission spokeswoman said.

“The rule of law framework sets out how the commission should react should clear indications of a threat to the rule of law emerge in a member state. The commission believes that there is such a threat to the rule of law in Poland,” she said.

The commission said in July that it would launch legal action against Poland over the judicial reforms. It also said that if the government started firing Supreme Court judges, the commission would move to suspend Poland’s voting rights in the EU — an unprecedented punishment that would, however, require the unlikely unanimous support of all other EU governments.

Merkel’s remarks on Tuesday followed openly critical statements from French President Emmanuel Macron, who said last Friday that Poland was isolating itself within the EU and Polish citizens “deserved better” than a government at odds with the bloc’s democratic values and economic reform plans.

Logging

In another unprecedented sign of defiance against the EU, the Polish government ignored an order by the EU’s highest court to cease logging in the Bialowieza forest.

The court will convene September 11 to decide how to react to Warsaw’s failure to honor the injunction, the first in EU history.

As the EU’s spats with the PiS government get increasingly tense, the bloc’s member states are due to discuss again this autumn whether the situation in their largest ex-communist peer merits launching an unprecedented Article 7 punitive procedure.

The maximum punishment under the procedure, however unlikely, would be stripping Poland of its voting rights in the EU over not respecting democratic principles on which the bloc is built.
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The Archbishop of Paris is on a 100 million-euro ($120 million) fundraising drive to save the crumbling gargoyles and gothic arches of the storied Notre-Dame cathedral.

Every year, 12 million to 14 million people visit the 12th-century Parisian landmark on an island in the Seine river. Groundbreaking for the structure occurred in 1163 and construction was completed in 1345. Pollution and exposure to elements over time have resulted in losses of large chunks of stone.

“If we don’t do these restoration works, we’ll risk seeing parts of the exterior structure begin to fall. This is a very serious risk,” said Michel Picaud, president of the Friends of Notre-Dame charity set up by the archbishop.

Church officials, who have created what they are calling a “stone cemetery” from fallen masonry, say the cathedral remains safe to visit.

Entry to the cathedral is free, and the French state, which owns the building, devotes 2 million euros a year to repairs.

But that is not enough to embark on major restoration works, the last of which were carried out during the 1800s, officials at the cathedral and charity said.

Hugo’s book

Notre-Dame has long drawn tourists from around the world.

It is most famous in popular culture as the locale for 19th-century author Victor Hugo’s “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame” and films of the same name, including the 1939 classic with Charles Laughton and the 1996 Disney musical animation.

The latter in particular raised the cathedral’s profile for modern-day tourists from China to the United States.

“It’s the movie for me. I just think of the Hunchback of Notre-Dame, and the book as well. After reading that book, I actually really wanted to come see it,” said U.S tourist Claire Huber as she visited the cathedral.

Church authorities hope the cathedral’s worldwide fame will attract donors, particularly from the United States.

“Gargoyles are what people want to see when they come to Paris. If there are no more gargoyles, what will they see?” Notre-Dame communications chief Andre Finot said.
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Moroccan authorities have arrested a man suspected of supplying gas canisters to a jihadist cell that carried out a double attack in Catalonia earlier this month that killed 16 people, a source from the Spanish investigation said.

The cell accumulated around 120 canisters of butane gas at a house in a town south of Barcelona with which, police say, it planned to carry out a larger bomb attack.

Police believe the cell accidentally ignited the explosives on Aug. 16, the eve of the Barcelona attack, triggering a blast that destroyed the house in the town of Alcanar.

The remaining attackers then decided to use hired vans to mow down crowds along Barcelona’s most famous avenue and later mount an assault in the resort town of Cambrils.

Moroccan police arrested the man in the city of Casablanca, the source said, without giving further details.

Spain’s interior minister, Juan Ignacio Zoido, said on Tuesday that Moroccan authorities had arrested two people linked to the attacks but declined to give details about them.

Spanish news agency EFE said the second man was arrested in the city of Oujda and was a relative of one of the members of the Barcelona cell. The source did not confirm that.

Zoido, speaking after a meeting with the Moroccan interior minister in Morocco’s capital Rabat, said Spanish and Moroccan authorities were working closely together in the investigation.

Most of the suspected attackers were Moroccan and an imam suspected of radicalizing the cell traveled there shortly before the attack took place.

Six of the attackers were shot dead by police and two died in the explosion at the house in Alcanar. Four other people were arrested over the assaults, two of whom have now been released under certain conditions.
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A United Nations human rights panel called on the Russian Federation on Monday to step up prosecutions of racist attacks by ultra-nationalists and neo-Nazis and of hate speech by politicians.

Russian authorities must intensify measures to “vigorously combat racist behavior in sports, particularly in football, and ensure that sports regulatory bodies investigate manifestations of racism, xenophobia and intolerance,” the U.N. Committee against Racial Discrimination (CERD) said.

Fines or administrative sanctions should be imposed for such cases. The panel, referring to “the upcoming (2018) World Cup, expresses its concern that racist displays remain deeply entrenched among football fans, especially against persons belonging to ethnic minorities and people of African descent.”

Russia has pledged to crack down on racism and fan violence as it faces increased scrutiny before hosting the World Cup finals next summer. Russian Premier League champions Spartak Moscow and rivals Dynamo Moscow were each fined 250,000 rubles ($4,250) over fans’ racist behavior, the Russian Football Union (RFU) said last month.

The 18 independent experts, who reviewed Russia’s record and those of seven other countries at a session that ended on Friday, issued their findings on Monday.

Igor Barinov, head of the Federal Agency for Ethnic Affairs of the Russian Federation, told the panel on Aug. 4 that Moscow had taken measures against the propagation of racist ideas.

Russia consistently combats the glorification of Nazism — made a crime in 2014 — the propaganda of Nazi ideas and attempts at racial hatred or discrimination, he said. In 2016, officials had identified 1,450 extremist crimes, 993 had been sent to court and 934 people were found guilty, he said.

The U.N. panel said violent racist attacks had decreased in recent years, but added: “Violent racist attacks undertaken by groups such as neo-Nazi groups and Cossack patrols, targeting particularly people from Central Asia and the Caucasus and persons belonging to ethnic minorities including migrants, the Roma and people of African descent, remain a pressing problem.”

It called for an end to “de facto racial profiling by the police,” decrying arbitrary identity checks and “unnecessary arrests.”

“Racist hate speech is still used by officials and politicians, especially during election campaigns, and remains unpunished,” it said, recommending investigations.

Russia still lacks anti-discrimination legislation and the definition of extremist activity in its federal law “remains vague and broad,” it said.

Regarding Crimea, seized by Russia from Ukraine in 2014, the panel voiced concern at the fate of Crimean Tatar representative institutions, such as the outlawing of the Mejlis, the Crimean Tatar’s semi-official legislature, the closure of several media outlets, and “allegations of disappearances, criminal and administrative prosecutions, mass raids, and interrogations.”

 
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U.S. President Donald Trump, who met with his Finnish counterpart at the White House on Monday, said the United States was “very protective” of the Baltic region, especially in terms of the northern European states’ relations with Russia.

“We are very protective of that region,” Trump said at a joint news conference with visiting Finnish President Sauli Niinisto after the two held talks in the Oval Office.

“That’s all I can say,” Trump added. “We are very, very protective. We have great friends there, great relationships there.”

He added that he thought Russia respected Finland and that he hoped the United States would also develop a good relationship with Russia.

“I say it loud and clear, I’ve been saying it for years,” Trump told reporters. “I think it’s a good thing if we have great relationships, or at least good relationships, with Russia. That’s very important.”

Niinisto said “the U.S. and NATO presence in Europe — and in the Baltic Sea — are most important, and they are increasing rapidly.” He also said small but positive steps had been made toward reopening dialogue between NATO and Russia.

The two leaders also discussed terrorism, and Trump said the United States stood in solidarity with Finland against terrorist threats. “We must all work together to deny terrorists safe havens, cut off their finances and defeat their very wicked ideology,” the American president said.

Earlier this month, a man stabbed eight people in western Finland, killing two of them in the city of Turku. Finnish police said at the time that it was too early to link the attack to international terrorism.

Niinisto said his talks in the Oval Office with Trump also included a discussion of the Arctic region, where climate changes and rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide have greatly reduced ice levels and are endangering the environment.

“If we lose the Arctic, we lose the globe,” Niniisto said.
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Poland said on Monday that the legislative process overhauling its judiciary is in line with European standards and called the European Commission’s concerns about rule of law in the country groundless.

On July 26, the Commission said it would launch legal action against Poland over the reforms and gave Warsaw a month to respond to concerns that the process undermines the independence of judges and breaks EU rules.

Last month, Polish President Andrzej Duda signed into a law a bill giving the justice minister the power to replace heads of ordinary courts, but after mass street protests blocked two other bills.

The vetoed bills would have empowered the government and parliament to replace Supreme Court judges and most members of a high-level judicial panel.

“In response … the Polish side emphasized that the legislative process which has the primary goal of reforming the justice system is in line with European standards and answers social expectations that have been growing for years, therefore the Commission’s doubts are groundless,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

The ministry also said that “in the spirit of loyal cooperation” it has provided the European Commission with all necessary information on the situation in Poland.

Poland’s right-wing, eurosceptic government says the reforms are needed to streamline a slow, outdated legal system and make judges more accountable to the people. It has already tightened control of state media and took steps that critics said politicized the constitutional court.
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The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is urging U.S. President Donald Trump to stop his attacks on the press, saying they “degrade” the essential role of the media in a democracy.

The OSCE’s media freedom representative, Harlem Desir, Monday said Trump’s comments about the media are “deeply problematic,” adding that such statements, especially those identifying the media as “the enemy of the people,” could make journalists more vulnerable to being targeted with violence.

“I urge the United States administration to refrain from delivering such attacks on the media,” said Desir in a letter addressed to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Desir highlighted remarks Trump made last week in Phoenix, Arizona in which the president accused the media of being “truly dishonest,” “fake,” “crooked,” and of making up stories and deepening divisions within the country.

Desir said the comments are “particularly worrying given the United States’ long-standing position as one of the global leaders in defending free speech and press freedoms.” He said the media play a key role in democracies to hold governments accountable and to offer a platform for diverse voices.

The Vienna-based OSCE monitors security and election issues across the group’s 57 member states, including Europe, much of central Asia, Russia and the United States.

Trump has popularized use of the term “fake news” to criticize news media and reporters that he contends treat him unfairly.

A poll released last week by Quinnipiac University found that the majority of Americans agrees with Trump: 55 percent of voters said they disapprove of the way in which the news media report on Trump, compared to 40 percent who approve.

An even larger number of voters – 62 percent – said they disapprove of Trump’s negative comments about reporters and their employers. Thirty-five percent of those surveyed said they agree with Trump on such issues.
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Italy is being accused of paying off Libyan militias linked to people smugglers in order to stop trafficking migrants across the Mediterranean for a month.

The claim, which coincides with an 86 percent fall in the number of asylum-seekers reaching Italy this month, compared to August of last year, comes as European and African leaders met in Paris to discuss how to stem the migrant flow roiling Europe.

According to Middle East Eye, a London-based news site, the Italian government has been paying off local brigades in the city of Sabratha, 80 kilometers west of the Libyan capital, Tripoli. The alleged payoffs involve cash, aid and equipment, and are channeled through the city’s municipal authorities, which are controlled by the militias, the site claims.

Earlier this month, the Italian Development Cooperation Agency announced it shipped 11 tons of aid to Sabratha University Hospital. Italian government spokespersons are refusing to respond to the payoff allegations, but last week the Reuters news agency reported an armed group has been stopping migrant boats from setting off across the Mediterranean from Sabratha beaches.

There have also been reports that trafficking from nearby Zawiya has come to a virtual standstill. The trafficking trade may have been disrupted, too, by the arrest in recent days of Fahmi Salim Musa Bin Khalifa, nicknamed the “king of smuggling,” by a mainly Islamist militia, known as the Rada Special Deterrence Force, in Tripoli.

A Rada statement said, “He is considered to be one of the biggest smugglers across the [Mediterranean] Sea, and owns transporters. He is also very active in sending death boats [migrant boats] across the [Libyan] shores of Zuwara and Sabratha.” Zuwara is a port city in northwestern Libya, 60 kilometers from the Tunisian border.

Drop in crossings

In explaining the sharp drop in numbers during July and August, Italian authorities say weather conditions have been highly changeable in what is normally peak season for crossings, but the weather has been highly favorable, according to seafarers.

Another explanation offered has been the Libyan coast guards have been more effective in their interdiction efforts, because of training and equipment offered by the Italian navy. An Italian warship is docked at Tripoli’s port.

According to analysts, some coast guard units are also tied to the militias.

On Saturday, Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti met mayors from southern Libya to renew a commitment to fight people trafficking as part of an agreement signed earlier this year between Rome and the internationally recognized government of Fayez al-Sarraj, who heads one of Libya’s three rival governments.

The meeting focused on helping to shape economic alternatives to human trafficking and contraband smuggling in Libyan towns that profit from the migrant trade. “Youngsters in those areas and the whole of Libya deserve a future of hope, free from the threats of criminal organizations,” Italy’s Interior Ministry said in a joint statement with the Libyans.

“Libya looks forward to the timely support of Italy and the European Union,” the statement continued.

From Libya to Italy

Since 2014, more than 600,000 migrants have reached Italy by sea from Libya, where people smugglers linked to dozens of mainly town-based militias have operated with impunity in the turmoil that has engulfed the country since the fall of Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.

Italy’s coalition government of Paolo Gentiloni has been stepping up efforts to curb the migrant influx.

Last month, Italian authorities introduced a code of conduct for NGOs operating humanitarian migrant rescue vessels in the Mediterranean.

The charities were accused of at best acting as a “pull factor,” encouraging asylum-seekers to risk the perilous crossing and, at worst, actually coordinating with the people smugglers and facilitating the trafficking.

Five of eight aid groups that operate migrant rescue ships, which pick up about 40 percent of the migrants rescued in the Mediterranean, have refused to sign up to the code, which discourages them from patrolling in Libyan territorial waters.

Paris meeting

At the meeting Monday in Paris, Italy was to push the European Union to try to replicate with Libya a deal struck last year with Turkey that largely shut down the migrant route through the Balkans.

Analysts warn such a deal would be unworkable when it comes to Libya, given its lack of an effective central authority. The Italians, with German support, have been pushing for a concerted interdiction effort along Libya’s southern borders.

Minniti also met Monday with the interior ministers of Chad, Libya, Mali and Niger to discuss strengthening controls on sea and land borders. Rome wants the U.N. refugee agency and the International Organization for Migration involved in setting up migrant centers in Niger and Chad.

Meanwhile, with full migrant centers, Italian authorities are considering using property confiscated from the mafia to house asylum-seekers.
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The European Union and Britain start a third round of Brexit negotiations on Monday, with London looking to move discussions to the future relationship and Brussels demanding more clarity on the terms of the divorce first.

Almost five months after the two-year divorce process began, the Brexit discussions have made little headway, interrupted by a British general election as well as the summer. As things stand, Britain has little idea what relationship it will have with the other 27 countries of the EU past the Brexit date of March 2019.

On the EU side, the frustration is increasingly evident. On Monday, Germany’s main business lobby group criticized the British government for what it called an unclear stance on the future. The head of the Federation of German Industries — an influential group in the EU’s biggest economy — said that “appreciable progress can hardly be expected” during four days of talks this week.

Dieter Kempf said that there doesn’t appear to be a single agreed British government position. He added that British proposals on customs arrangements after the U.K. leaves the EU would require “disproportionately high bureaucratic effort” and are impractical for companies.

Kempf said that the U.K. must make clear statements on the terms of its withdrawal.

The EU has insisted that key issues of the withdrawal must be dealt with before any post-Brexit discussions can begin. Britain is hoping those discussions can begin as soon as October.

The bloc says that is impossible until there has been “sufficient progress” in agreeing terms of the divorce, including how much Britain must pay to settle its existing commitments to the EU.

Britain’s Brexit minister, David Davis, acknowledged that this week’s talks will be mainly technical, but urged EU negotiators to show “flexibility and imagination.”

“We want to lock in the points where we agree, unpick the areas where we disagree, and make further progress on a range of issues,” he said Monday.

In recent weeks Britain has released a series of position papers on aspects of Brexit ahead of the resumption of talks, but they received a muted reception from Brussels.

Meanwhile, Britain’s main opposition Labour Party announced Sunday that it backs the U.K. staying in the EU single market, which guarantees tariff-free trade, and customs union during a “transition period” of several years after Brexit, arguing that would give much-needed certainty to businesses and consumers. In return for remaining a member of the single market, Britain would have to agree to abide by the EU’s four freedoms, including the freedom of movement within the bloc. And by remaining in the customs union, Britain would not be able to carve out its own trade deals, possibly with the United States.

The government has also called for a transition period, but insists Britain will be out of the single market and customs union once Brexit actually takes place.

Geir Moulson contributed from Berlin. Lawless wrote from London.
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Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama has named a restructured Cabinet with a goal of increasing the country’s economic growth from 3.8 to 5 percent in four years.

Rama on Sunday told his Socialist Party leadership that his Cabinet would be reduced from 20 to 14 ministerial posts, making it “a smaller but more cooperative one.”

The new structure merges the finance ministry with the economy ministry, and the energy ministry with the transport and infrastructure ministry. A new ministerial post has been created to oversee the Albanian diaspora and to coordinate with businesses.

Most of the appointees are holdovers from the previous government, but serving in different positions. Four are new appointments. The new Cabinet preserves an equal number of women and men.

The left wing Socialists secured a second mandate in a June election, winning 74 seats in the 140-seat parliament and can run the government without allies.

The opposition Democratic party won 43 seats while the Socialist Movement for Integration Party that was in Rama’s governing coalition in the previous mandate secured 19 seats. Four other seats were won by a smaller political grouping.

The Democrats said the Cabinet picks represented “the return to power of the former communist elite” that would lead to “deepening Edi Rama’s and a small group’s private reigning.”

Rooting out corruption, fighting drug trafficking, improving pay and lowering unemployment are some of the key issues in Albania, a NATO member since 2009 that wants to launch membership negotiations with the European Union next year.

The new Cabinet will be subject to a vote when parliament convenes early next month.
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A Jordanian official said Sunday that Jordan is negotiating with Germany over the legal status of German troops to be stationed in the kingdom, amid reports that disagreements delayed deployment.

The German magazine Der Spiegel reported that Germany seeks immunity in Jordan for 250 soldiers who are part of the U.S.-led campaign against Islamic State group extremists. The report says Jordan balked at the demand.

The Jordanian official said talks with Germany are “subject to international diplomatic rules” and “equal mutual treatment.” He demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters on the issue.

Germany’s Defense Ministry played down the report saying the negotiation process is ongoing and that “we are in fruitful talks with Jordan.”

“We already started the deployment… and are expecting to be fully operational by October,” said a spokesman for the German Defense Ministry, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with department policy.

Germany chose Jordan after previous host Turkey prevented German lawmakers from visiting the troops there.
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A 51-year-old German woman died Sunday from injuries suffered in the Aug. 17 vehicle attack in Barcelona, raising the overall death toll in Spain’s recent attacks to 16, health officials in Catalonia said.

The woman died in the intensive care unit of Barcelona’s Hospital del Mar, according to the regional health department.

The latest death raises the toll to 14 in the van attack in Barcelona’s popular Las Ramblas boulevard. Another man was stabbed to death in a carjacking that night as the van driver made his getaway, and another woman died in an Aug. 18 vehicle-and-knife attack in the nearby coastal town of Cambrils.

More than 120 people were wounded in the attacks. Authorities say 24 remain hospitalized, five of them in critical condition.

On Saturday, an estimated 500,000 peace marchers flooded the heart of Barcelona shouting “I’m not afraid” — a public rejection of violence following extremist attacks, Spain’s deadliest in more than a decade.

Emergency workers, taxis drivers, police and ordinary citizens who helped immediately after the Las Ramblas attack led the march. They carried a street-wide banner with black capital letters reading “No Tinc Por,” which means “I’m not afraid” in the local Catalan language.

The phrase has grown from a spontaneous civic answer to violence into a slogan that Spain’s entire political class has unanimously embraced.

Spain’s central, regional and local authorities tried to send an image of unity Saturday by walking behind the emergency workers, despite earlier criticism that national and regional authorities had not shared information about the attackers well enough with each other.

In a first for a Spanish monarch, King Felipe VI joined a public demonstration, walking in Barcelona along with Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and other officials. A separate anti-violence rally was held in the northern town of Ripoll, home to many of the attackers.

Eight suspects in the attacks are dead, two are jailed under preliminary charges of terrorism and homicide and two more were freed by a judge but will remain under investigation.

 
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Britain’s main opposition Labour Party is announcing a policy shift which opens the possibility of the country remaining in the European Union’s single market and customs union for several years as part of a “soft” Brexit, a spokesman said on Saturday.

The party would propose the same “basic terms” as Britain’s current relationship with the EU during a transition period following Brexit in 2019, and after that for all options to be open, a spokesman for Labour said.

His comments came in response to a report in Britain’s Guardian and sister newspaper Observer in which shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer backed “continued membership of the EU single market beyond March 2019, when Britain leaves the EU,” so that Labour would become the party of a “soft Brexit” and offer a smoother economic outcome.

Jeremy Corbyn’s party would also “leave open the option of the UK remaining a member of the customs union and single market for good, beyond the end of the transitional period”, the paper said.

However, a longer-term arrangement would only be considered if a Labour government could by that point have persuaded the rest of the EU to “agree to a special deal on immigration and changes to freedom of movement rules,” the paper said.
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Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who is also a former governor of Ukraine’s Odesa region, has accused the authorities of Georgia and Ukraine of planning to accuse of planning a coup in Georgia.

Saakashvili wrote on Facebook on Saturday that the Georgian authorities “in complete coordination with officials in Ukraine” were planning to make the accusation soon.

“They promised [Ukrainian President Petro] Poroshenko that they would file the charges before September 10,” he wrote.

Saakashvili said the charges would give Ukrainian authorities “a legal basis” for detaining him if he entered Ukraine.

He added that the charges were risible and politically motivated.

Earlier the same day, Nika Gvaramia, the head of Georgia’s Rustavi-2 television, said he believed charges of plotting a coup might be filed against Saakashvili.

Background

Saakashvili, 49, once a lauded pro-Western reformist, served two terms as Georgia’s president, from January 2004 to November 2013.

His popularity declined toward the end of his second term, in part because of a five-day war with Russia during which Moscow’s forces drove deep into the South Caucasus country, and his long-ruling party was voted out of power in a 2012 parliamentary election.

In 2015, Saakashvili forfeited his Georgian citizenship by accepting an offer from his old college friend, Poroshenko, to become governor of Ukraine’s southwestern Odessa Oblast province — a post that required Ukrainian citizenship.

Saakashvili, who harbors Ukrainian political ambitions, resigned as governor of Odessa in November 2016, complaining of official obstruction and corruption. He accused Poroshenko of dishonesty and said his central government had sabotaged democratic reforms required for membership to the European Union and NATO.
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Several people have reportedly been detained in Moscow at a sanctioned demonstration in support of internet freedom.

One demonstrator was detained on Saturday while wearing a T-shirt reading, “Putin is worse than Hitler,” referring to President Vladimir Putin.

Several other demonstrators were detained while wearing symbols supporting equal rights for the LGBT community.

Some at the rally, which had been approved by local officials, shouted, “Russia will be free,” and “Russia without censorship.”

According to Moscow officials, about 1,000 people attended the rally.

Similar demonstrations were held in several other Russian cities, including St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Izhevsk and others.

Demonstrators were calling for changes to legislation restricting the internet that were included in the so-called Yarovaya package of laws — named after conservative State Duma member Irina Yarovaya.

Last month, Russia’s parliament approved legislation that forbids the use of certain web tools that allow internet users to access certain websites that have been banned by officials.

Protesters also called for the release of people jailed for purportedly disseminating “extremist” material via the internet and for the resignations of the leadership of Roskomnadzor, the state agency that monitors and regulates the internet.
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The EU’s commissioner for migration says Brussels may withhold development aid and impose trade and visa restrictions on migrant-source countries in Africa and Asia to force them to take back failed asylum-seekers.

In an interview with Britain’s The Times published Saturday, Dimitris Avramopoulos said EU chiefs “are considering stopping funding of major development projects. We invested in these regions to create opportunities and keep people there.”

He said countries which failed to cooperate with repatriations could face blanket visa restrictions. Germany recently threatened to withhold visas from the ruling elites of migrant-source countries that do not accept returnees.

But Avramopoulos appeared to indicate a much broader visa embargo is now being contemplated, saying “thousands of foreigners, from diplomats and doctors to students and researchers” would be impacted by the travel restrictions now under discussion.

“The EU is not afraid to make use of leverages in trade or visa policy. Let’s be honest: it is neither good for Africa nor for Europe that so many people cross the Mediterranean,” he said.

This is the first time EU commissioners have threatened to block access to European markets in response to a long-running migration crisis that’s roiling the continent and threatening to upend traditional party politics and empower populist nationalists.

The “hard borders” approach now being considered is being condemned by humanitarian NGOs, which often embrace a “no border” ideology.

On Monday, President Emmanuel Macron of France will chair talks featuring European and African leaders in Paris in a renewed bid to thrash out a more effective strategy to stem migrant flows. African leaders are likely to argue they need more development aid.

Italy’s dilemma

The following day EU national leaders will hold one of their regular summits in which the migration issue will figure prominently.  Both Italy and Germany have national elections in coming months and Italy’s Paolo Gentiloni and Germany’s Angela Merkel will likely want to show voters they are shutting down migrant routes.

Italy will push the EU to try to replicate with Libya a deal that was struck with Turkey last year, which largely shut down the migrant route through the Balkans. But analysts say such a deal would be unworkable when it comes to Libya given the lack of an effective central authority in the northern Africa state.

The migration influx has morphed into a political crisis for Italy’s left-leaning coalition government. In municipal elections earlier this year the coalition lost ground to center-right parties such as Matteo Salvini’s Northern League, which has called for a “stop to the invasion.”

Italy’s right-wing Forza Italia party has campaigned for the denial of landing rights to NGO ships carrying migrants. And even the maverick radical Five Star Movement is moving to an anti-immigrant position, calling for a halt to any new migrants being lodged in Rome.

Gentiloni has accused fellow EU nations of “looking the other way,” and not doing enough to assist Italy with the surge in migrants crossing the Mediterranean. A burden-sharing system across the EU has failed with just a few thousand taken off Italy’s hands by other EU member states.

Libya has become the main gateway to Europe for migrants and refugees from across sub-Saharan Africa, and also from the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, Syria and Bangladesh. Many are fleeing war and persecution, but most who are using Libya are seeking to escape poverty. Italy has become the main point of arrival of those rescued off the coast of Libya.

As the economic migration has grown, with only a small proportion of asylum-seekers coming from countries engulfed in war, so sentiment in Italy has shifted with Italians becoming enraged at the strain the influx is having on the country’s migrant facilities, which are now all full, and the appearance of migrants even in far-flung villages.

600,000 asylum seekers

This week, police evicted more than a hundred Eritreans and Ethiopians from an abandoned office building near Rome’s central railway station. The occupants — who had been given refugee status — complained that Italy doesn’t help asylum-seekers integrate, fails to house them and provide language classes.

In fact, the Italian authorities do, housing many in villages across the country, providing months-long language tuition and up to 45 euros a day per refugee. But many refugees bolt the system, preferring to live in large cities such as Rome, Naples, Milan and Bologna and to try their luck.

The sheer numbers — more than 600,000 asylum-seekers have entered Italy since 2014 — are overwhelming. And the assistance asylum-seekers do receive is increasingly infuriating ordinary Italians in villages migrants are sent to for temporary periods. “I don’t get that money from the government and we are struggling as well — we don’t have enough jobs for our kids and now migrant kids will be competing for the few jobs that are around,” says Anna-Maria Bianchi, a mother-of-two from a Lazio village just north of Rome.

The only good news as far as Italian authorities are concerned is that there has been a fall-off in the rate of new arrivals this August and July. Official figures show arrivals in Italy from North Africa dropped by more than 50 percent in July from a year earlier and August arrivals are down even further, according to the International Organization for Migration.

The decline is being put down to several factors — from changeable sea conditions to a heightened Libyan coastguard presence and a reduction in humanitarian rescue-refugee operations.  There are also several probes by Italian authorities, who say NGOs have been colluding with people-traffickers. 
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NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday the alliance would closely watch Russian military exercises in western Russia and Belarus next month, urging Moscow to be transparent about the drills.

The maneuvers, the largest in years, with tanks, naval and air units operating in and around the Baltic and North Sea, have raised NATO’s concern that the official number of troops participating might be understated.

‘Watching very closely’

“We are going to be watching very closely the course of these exercises,” Stoltenberg told reporters after meeting Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo on a visit to check on the deployment of the U.S.-led alliance’s forces in the country’s east.

“All countries have the right to exercises of their armed forces, but the countries should also respect the obligation to be transparent.”

Russia has said that 13,000 troops will participate in the Sept. 14-20 drills, which under an international agreement is the limit for not requiring the presence of external observers. Western estimates have put the number of troops involved much higher.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday the drills were purely defensive and concerns about troop numbers were “inflated hype of an artificial nature” in Western media.

“We would like to emphasize that it is precisely these actions which lead to increased military tension in Europe,” the ministry said in a statement.

More meetings

Stoltenberg will meet with Polish, Turkish and Romanian foreign ministers later on Friday before visiting NATO troops in Poland’s Orzysz, about 57 kilometers (35 miles) south of Russia’s Baltic Sea enclave of Kaliningrad, where Moscow has stationed nuclear-capable missiles and an S-400 air missile defense system.

“[The NATO deployment] is a clear signal that an attack on one ally is an attack on the whole alliance,” Stoltenberg said. “The matter here is to prevent conflicts and not to provoke them.”
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A man armed with a knife was detained Friday evening outside London’s Buckingham Palace, and two police officers were injured while arresting him, police said.

The Metropolitan Police force says two officers suffered minor injuries while detaining the suspect, who is being held on suspicion of grievous bodily harm and assaulting police.

Police said the officers did not require hospital treatment. No other injuries were reported.

A large number of police vehicles could be seen in the Mall, the wide road outside the palace.

Police said it was too early to say whether the incident was terrorism-related.

Buckingham Palace is one of London’s main tourist attractions, and the London home of Queen Elizabeth II.

The queen, however, usually spends August in Scotland at her Balmoral estate with family members.

Police stepped up patrols around major U.K. tourist sites after attacks with vehicles and knives earlier this year on Westminster Bridge, which is near Parliament, and London Bridge.

Buckingham Palace, which is surrounded by tall gates, has seen past security breaches. Last year, a man convicted of murder climbed a wall while the queen was at home, and was detained in the grounds.

In 1982, an intruder managed to sneak into the queen’s private chambers while she was in bed. Elizabeth spent 10 minutes chatting with him before calling for help.

A palace spokeswoman said the palace did not comment on security issues.
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A court in Azerbaijan on Friday jailed the head of an independent news agency pending an investigation on tax evasion charges, a move that the opposition denounced as an attack on the freedom of speech in the ex-Soviet nation.

The court in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, put Turan news agency director Mehman Aliyev in prison for three months. He was arrested on Thursday night.

Tax authorities have accused Aliyev of failing to pay the equivalent of nearly $22,000 in taxes in 2014-2016.

Turan has denied the charges. It said in a statement that its bank accounts have been blocked by authorities, forcing it to halt operations starting Sept. 1.

International rights groups have repeatedly criticized the oil-rich Caspian nation for cracking down on independent media and opposition activists.

The opposition Musavat party and National Council movement criticized Aliyev’s arrest as the latest attack on media freedom and called for his release.

“The tax agency has been used as a weapon against independent media,” the National Council said in a statement.

 
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A bitter exchange of words erupted between France and Poland on Friday after French President Emmanuel Macron sharply criticized Poland’s opposition to plans to change European Union rules on “posted workers” — the cheap labor from eastern countries sent to more prosperous EU nations.

On a trip Friday to Bulgaria, Macron said the Polish reluctance to reform the bloc’s labor rules is “an illustration of the mistakes made by this government.”

His comments came on the final leg of a three-day visit to Central and Eastern Europe that has included meetings with Austrian, Czech, Slovak and Romanian leaders but not with Polish officials.

“Poland has decided to isolate itself from Europe and its refusal to revise this directive doesn’t change my confidence in [getting] a positive outcome” on the rules change, Macron said, adding Poles “deserved better.”

“The [Polish] prime minister will have difficulty explaining why it’s good to pay the Poles badly,” Macron said.

Poland is the largest source of posted workers, about 300,000 to 400,000 a year. Critics say having posted workers leads to lower wages and fewer jobs for workers from wealthy nations and reduces the taxes coming in to fund social programs in wealthy nations.

Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo hit back, calling the French leader’s criticism “arrogant,” advising him to “mind the business of his own country.” She also accused France of trying to “take apart one of the pillars of the EU” — the free movement of workers among the bloc’s 28 nations.

“The future of Europe will not be decided by the president of France, or by any other individual leader, but jointly, by all the member states,” she said.

Later Friday, Poland’s deputy foreign minister urgently summoned a French diplomat to express his “indignation” over Macron’s criticism of the Polish government.

On Thursday, Szydlo vowed to defend “Poland’s interests and Poland’s workers,” but added that “all member states are putting their heads together” over the issue.

Posted workers, while abroad, continue to pay into the tax and social security systems of their home countries, allowing their employers to hire them for less than workers in Western countries where government taxes are generally higher. The largest number work in construction, but many also work caring for the elderly.

Macron, said Poland “cannot be the country that gives Europe its direction.”

Bulgarian President Rumen Radev said it was important not to violate the EU’s basic principle of free movement when it considers changes to rules on posted workers. He said new rules should seek a balance between the older and newer EU members, such as Poland, Bulgaria and Romania.

Radev said he shared Macron’s “anguish about social dumping.”

“Bulgaria is against all social security fraud,” he said.

Bulgaria’s prime minister said he regretted divisions that have emerged in the EU over the issue.

“Poland and Hungary are our friends and it is fatal that there is such confrontation in the European Union,” said Prime Minister Boyko Borisov Friday after talks with Macron.

Borisov said officials would discuss the issue with Szydlo when she visits Bulgaria in September. He said Bulgaria wanted a solution on posted workers before it takes over the rotating presidency of the EU on January 1, 2018.

An estimated few thousand Bulgarian workers have relocated to other EU states working in construction, trucking and shipbuilding.

Macron and Borisov also discussed business, investment and Europe’s passport-free Schengen travel zone, which Bulgaria wants to join. Bulgaria also wants to join the Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, an international organization representing many of the globe’s advanced economies.

The leaders discussed defense issues and Bulgaria’s plans to upgrade its military, spending 1.8 billion euros ($2.12 billion) on new hardware between 2017 and 2029.

Scislowska reported from Warsaw, Poland. Veselin Toshkov in Sofia, Bulgaria, Sylvie Corbet in Paris and Vanessa Gera in Warsaw also contributed to this report.
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