Strolling down the quayside in Izmir, a liberal bastion on Turkey’s Aegean Coast, Kubilay Mutlu and his Street Orchestra sing of “the naked emperor” and the collapse of sultanates in a bid to rally “no” voters ahead of Sunday’s historic referendum.

With mainstream media saturated by pro-government campaigning ahead of the vote on broadening President Tayyip Erdogan’s powers, those opposed to the changes are seeking alternative channels to get their message across.

“No” supporters have complained of threats and bans from the authorities, and a report by one non-governmental group said television coverage of the “yes” campaign had been ten times more extensive than that of the opposition.

“What we want to stress, despite the pessimistic picture, is that ‘no’ is a very important option. Let’s use our right to object,” said Mutlu, whose band, made up of teachers and students from a local university, put their song “One ‘no’ is enough” on video-sharing site YouTube.

Referendum to be decided Sunday

Sunday’s referendum will decide on the biggest change in Turkey’s system of governance since the foundation of the modern republic almost a century ago, potentially replacing its parliamentary system with an executive presidency.

Erdogan and his supporters say the change is needed to give Turkey stronger leadership at a time of turbulence. Opponents fear increasingly authoritarian rule from a president they cast as a would-be sultan who brooks little dissent.

The vote is being held under a state of emergency imposed after a failed military coup nine months ago, meaning there are “substantive” limitations on freedom of expression and assembly, according to the Venice Commission, a panel of legal experts at the Council of Europe.

Turkey has purged more than 113,000 people from the police, judiciary, military and elsewhere since the coup attempt, and has closed more than 130 media outlets, raising concerns among Western allies about deteriorating rights and freedoms.

Many opposition leaders jailed

The leaders of the pro-Kurdish opposition HDP, parliament’s third-largest party, have been jailed over alleged links to Kurdish militants along with a dozen of its MPs and thousands of its other members. The HDP opposes the constitutional changes.

“The extremely unfavorable environment for journalism and the increasingly impoverished and one-sided public debate that prevail in Turkey at this point question the very possibility of holding a meaningful, inclusive democratic referendum campaign,” the Venice Commission said last month.

Turkish officials have said international observers are free to monitor all aspects of the referendum and have repeatedly rejected the notion that the media is muzzled, saying that outlets shut down in the purges were closed on terrorism-related charges, not for their journalism.

Erdogan was quoted in February as saying there was more press freedom in Turkey than in many Western countries.

Dominating the airwaves

A stream of music videos exhorting people to vote “no” have emerged on social media, as opposition politicians complain that the playing field ahead of the vote is far from level.

In one such video, which has had close to 400,000 views on YouTube, a women’s group appeals to listeners to use “power of laughter” in a song entitled “ha ha ha, hayir,” a play on the Turkish word for “no.”

“They have the media, meeting halls, municipalities and resources in their hands. But stubbornly we try to touch people on the streets, through social media,” Dilara Yucetepe, who was part of the project, told Reuters.

Another “no” video draws on imagery from anti-government demonstrations in 2013, when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in what grew from a protest against the redevelopment of an Istanbul park into a broad show of defiance.

Opposition leader interviewed

State broadcaster TRT interviewed Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the main opposition CHP, on Friday evening and was set to interview a spokesman for the HDP on Tuesday, a development the party described on its Twitter feed as “seemingly unbelievable.”

Such appearances are relatively rare, all but drowned out by the multiple speeches each day by Erdogan, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim and others broadcast live on all the major networks.

According to a report by the Unity for Democracy (DIB), an opposition-affiliated organization, live television broadcasts from March 1-20 period dedicated 169 hours to Erdogan, 301.5 hours to the ruling AK Party and 15.5 hours to the nationalist MHP, which supports the “yes” campaign.

The CHP had 45.5 hours of coverage while the HDP had none, the report said. A Turkish court last week banned the HDP’s “no” campaign song on the grounds that it contravened the constitution and fomented hatred.

In a report published on the party’s website, CHP lawmaker Necati Yilmaz said “no” campaigners had faced 143 incidents of pressure, threats and bans by the end of March.

“While the state’s resources and financial power are being used to boost the ‘yes’ vote, its legal, administrative and security forces are used to clamp down on ‘no,’” he said.
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President Donald Trump gave his official approval Tuesday for Montenegro to join NATO, marking another step forward in the tiny Baltic country’s quest for NATO acceptance.

The White House says Trump looks forward to meeting with Montenegro and other NATO leaders next month in Brussels to welcome the 29th member of the alliance.

The White House statement said Montenegro’s accession will signal other countries seeking to join NATO that “the door to membership in the Euro-Atlantic community of nations remains open and that countries in the Western Balkans are free to choose their own future.”

The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly last month to support Montenegro’s NATO bid.

Trump is scheduled to meet Wednesday with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House.

As recently as January, Trump called NATO “obsolete” because it had not defended against terrorist attacks. He also complained other NATO countries are not paying their fair share for defense.

“A lot of these countries are not paying what they are supposed to be paying, which I think is very unfair to the United States,” Trump told The Times of London.  “With that being said, NATO is very important to me.  There are five countries that are paying what they are supposed to. Five. It is not much.”

Russia has described Montenegro’s NATO membership as a “provocation” due to the country’s geographical proximity to Russia. The Kremlin has long seen the Balkans as inside its “sphere of influence.”
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A refugee camp in northern France burned down Monday night after a massive brawl involving more than 150 migrants broke out between rival groups of Kurds and Afghans, French authorities said.

The fire destroyed most of the Grande-Synthe migrant camp near Dunkirk and the fighting left several people injured, according to the regional prefect, Michel Lalande.

As many as 1,600 migrants were living in the camp at the time of the fire, many of whom lost all the meager possessions they had, Lalande said.

Around 500 migrants were taken to nearby gymnasiums, but the rest are unaccounted for, Lalande and Damien Careme, mayor of Grande-Synthe, told reporters Tuesday.

“There is nothing left but a heap of ashes,” Lalande said. “It will be impossible to put the huts back where they were before.”

Grande-Synthe was set up last year by the medical aid group Doctors Without Borders and housed mostly Kurdish refugees. Its population swelled in October after the notorious Calais refugee camp, located about 25 miles away, was shuttered and destroyed.

A large number of migrants arrived from Afghanistan recently, further increasing the camp population.

Corenne Torre, head of the group’s French operation, told the Associated Press that authorities are scrambling to find the unaccounted-for migrants.

“We just don’t know where they are,” she said, adding that some could be hiding in fear of authorities or fear of rival gangs at the camp.

Investigators are still trying to determine the exact cause of the fire, though Lalande and Careme said authorities believe it was set intentionally as part of Monday night’s brawl.

Torre said 10 migrants went to the hospital with injuries sustained during the fire. At least six migrants were wounded during the brawl, three of whom suffered stab wounds. Another migrant was left in critical condition after being hit by a car outside the camp.

Riot police intervened in the brawl, which led to further fighting between migrants and authorities.

Migrants have gathered for decades along the coast in northern France, with hopes of reaching Britain.

The Grande-Synthe camp has seen several violent incidents in recent months, with the most recent coming last week when migrants tried to block traffic and climb onto vehicles on a nearby highway.
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Two world champions are among seven Russian athletes who were approved by track and field’s governing body on Tuesday to compete internationally while their country remains banned for doping.

The IAAF so far has approved 10 Russians this year to compete as neutrals.

The new list includes 110-meter hurdler Sergei Shubenkov and high jumper Maria Kuchina. Both won gold medals at the 2015 world championships in Beijing and could now defend their titles in London in August.

Russia was banned from the track at last year’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, but two athletes had been approved to compete: middle-distance runner Yulia Stepanova, a key whistleblower of Russia’s doping program, and long jumper Darya Klishina, the only Russian who took part on the track in Rio.

To be approved, athletes must show an IAAF doping review panel they have been adequately tested for drugs over a lengthy period by non-Russian agencies.

However, the IAAF said the athletes are still “subject to acceptance of their entries by individual meeting organizers,” such as the Diamond League series. The 14-meet circuit opens on May 5 in Doha, Qatar.

Shubenkov is set to be in demand as the reigning world champion, worlds bronze medalist in 2013 and two-time European champion.

Shubenkov and Kuchina, a past world and European indoor champion, were unable to compete at the world indoors in Serbia last month while their cases were under review.

“There can be no time constraints on a process which has been established to safeguard the rights and aspirations of the world’s clean athletes and is about rebuilding confidence in competition,” IAAF President Sebastian Coe said in a statement.

Kuchina is set to compete as Maria Lasitskene after getting married.

The IAAF said the other approved athletes are: high jumper Daniil Tsyplakov, who placed fifth at the 2015 worlds, pole vaulters Illia Mudrov and Olga Mullina, and race walkers Sergey Shirobokov and Yana Smerdova.

The IAAF previously cleared three Russians to compete as neutrals – pole vaulter Anzhelika Sidorova, sprinter Kristina Sivakova and hammer thrower Alexei Sokirsky.

The names of 17 athletes whose applications were rejected this year by the review panel have not been published, the IAAF said, adding it had received about 100 applications. Only 38 of those were endorsed by the Russian track federation, which remains suspended by the IAAF.
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God comes first in this mountaintop village on Turkey’s Black Sea, the saying goes. Then, according to adoring villagers, comes local boy Recep Tayyip Erdogan, today one of the most transformational, polarizing figures in modern Turkish history.

Nestled among tea plantations, the village of Dumankaya in the rugged province of Rize oozes the fervent loyalty that has propelled Erdogan, 63, to one electoral triumph after another since he took power as prime minister in 2003.

Now the Turkish president is hoping that pious Muslim bedrocks of support like Dumankaya will help deliver him another win, this time in Turkey’s April 16 referendum. The vote could extend Erdogan’s rule for many years and, in his opponents’ view, further erode Turkey’s challenged democracy.

For many Turks, Sunday’s vote on whether to expand the powers of the Turkish presidency is not a dry constitutional matter. For people on both sides of the political divide, it’s all about the outsized ambitions of one man, Erdogan.

Fisherman Birol Bahtiyar, wearing a cap emblazoned with a “Yes” slogan, dismissed suggestions by opponents that the referendum was a power-grab by Erdogan or that he was leading Turkey into a one-man regime.

“In the past 14 years, Turkey stepped into a new age,” said the 49-year-old as he and his friends fixed their nets at Rize’s harbor. “I will vote yes because I trust him. There is no such thing as a one-man rule. We still have an assembly, a parliament. We have confidence [in the proposed system].”

The constitutional amendments would shift Turkey’s system from a parliamentary to a presidential system, in one of the most radical political changes since the Turkish republic was established in 1923. Opponents fear that the changes will give the president near-absolute powers with little oversight, turning the NATO country that once vied for European Union membership into an authoritarian state.

For ‘the people’

But for the socially conservative and pious residents of Rize, such arguments ring hollow. To them, the region’s most famous son is a reformist leader who has brought unprecedented economic growth and prosperity to Turkey and provided improved health care, education and large infrastructure projects.

In Erdogan — whose parents and siblings were born in Dumankaya (Smoky Rock in English for the fog that frequently hangs over it) — they see a local who has given a greater voice to the pious — who felt marginalized under previous governments, which enforced secular laws barring Islamic headscarves in schools and public offices.

They believe Erdogan — who has ruled Turkey for over a decade, first as prime minister and as president since 2014 — is a strong leader who has provided political stability, ending the political squabbles that plagued Turkey in the 1990s.

Voters in Rize have backed Erdogan by a wide margin in a long string of election victories and promise to do so again on April 16. They support his ambition to turn Turkey into one of the world’s top powers by 2023, when the country marks its centenary.

Mehmet Celik, a Dumankaya resident, sees the president as a larger-than-life trail-blazer and fighter against Turkey’s perceived enemies.

“For us, God comes first. Then comes Recep Tayyip Erdogan,” said Celik. “He supports the people and the people support him.”

Two sides to coup

Celik believes Erdogan rescued Turkey from last summer’s failed coup and feels that a strong presidency would protect Turkey from greater calamity. Turkey has blamed the coup on the followers of the U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, a charge Gulen has denied.

“They [the Gulenists] would have ruined us. If we had fallen into their hands, we would have been destroyed. Why would we not vote ‘Yes?”‘ Celik said. “If our president did not exist, we would have been in a miserable state.”

But critics say Erdogan has used the coup attempt to purge his critics. More than 150,000 people have been taken into custody, fired or forced to retire from Turkey’s armed forces, judiciary, education system and other public institutions since the coup attempt.

Ismail Erdogan, a cousin of Erdogan and the chief administrator of Dumankaya, points at a long list of projects either launched or completed under Erdogan’s rule, including a major coastal highway, the Recep Tayyip Erdogan University, a hospital.

“He brought infrastructure, natural gas. He is bringing an airport. We had never seen such things. He brought a giant hospital,” Ismail Erdogan said, describing his cousin as a serious child who liked to talk about soccer and commanded respect even at an early age.

Speaking in a recently renovated local government building in Dumankaya, Ismail Erdogan also praised his cousin for standing up to Europe, following a dispute last month over restrictions imposed by the Netherlands and Germany on Turkish ministers holding referendum campaigns there.

“Let’s not [join] the European Union, we don’t need it,” Ismail Erdogan said. “We are self-sufficient.”

Erdogan campaigned in Rize recently to court the votes of his fellow townsmen, symbolically launching the start of construction for an airport that will serve Rize and the neighboring province of Artvin. In a speech laced with nationalist and anti-European rhetoric, Erdogan also promised that the construction of mountain tunnel pass would soon be finished.

Among the crowd of adoring supporters — waving flags and banners emblazoned with the word “Yes” — was 22-year-old religious studies student Leyla Erdeniz. Her affection for Erdogan runs so deep that she moved to Rize to study at the university named after him.

“A ‘Yes’ result will be very beneficial to our country,” the university student said. “There will be no trace left of the old Turkey.”
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The Trump administration must decide by the end of this month whether to grant Belarus continued relief from U.S. economic sanctions despite a stiff government crackdown on street demonstrations last month.

The renewal decision is considered a low-level priority for the administration, which is facing bigger questions about U.S. relations with Russia and China, and with most major diplomatic positions still unfilled.

But whether the United States renews the sanctions relief or instead returns to blacklisting nine major Belarus companies is an early test for the Trump administration on the importance it puts on human rights versus efforts to coax countries in Russia’s orbit to turn to the West.

The sanctions waivers, which began in 2015 and were extended twice last year, were tied to domestic political reforms and intended to encourage Belarus, which has long historical ties to Russia, to move closer to the European Union and the United States.

Now, however, U.S. officials are alarmed by the arrests of hundreds of people last month during an attempt to hold a street protest in the capital Minsk, and concerned if continuing sanctions relief could be seen as ignoring the crackdown.

Belarus authorities last month raided a human rights group’s offices and used violence against peaceful protesters, rights groups say.

“This most recent crackdown sharpened people’s focus,” said a U.S. congressional aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Now there is a real question about whether or not they [the sanctions] should be reimposed.”

April deadline

The decision must be taken by the end of April. If the administration makes no decision, the sanctions will be reimposed.

NATO members, including Poland and the Baltic states, feel threatened by what they see as increased Russian intervention in Europe, including Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014.

“Belarus is so important from a strategic point of view and it’s so dependent economically on Russia that we are really very concerned,” said Piotr Wilczek, the Polish ambassador to the United States. “Belarus is becoming more and more part of this wider Russian problem we have.”

The Trump administration is inclined to renew the sanctions relief, but likely would wait until the last minute “to make sure they don’t do anything awful,” said a U.S. official, also speaking on condition of anonymity.

State and Treasury Department officials declined to comment in detail on the Belarus sanctions. The Belarus Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to comment.

President George W. Bush in 2006 blacklisted top Belarus officials, including President Alexander Lukashenko, for undermining the country’s democratic processes or human rights abuses. The United States later added large Belarus companies to the sanctions list.

But in 2015, Lukashenko released political prisoners and indicated he was open to better relations with the West. That October, President Barack Obama temporarily lifted sanctions on nine Belarus companies, including petrochemical conglomerate Belneftekhim and tire manufacturer Belshina.

Now, however, Lukashenko appears to be keeping his country firmly in Moscow’s orbit. In a letter to him last week, four U.S. senators said they were concerned over the crackdown and that he decided to allow Russia to conduct “provocative” military exercises in Belarus later this year.
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Hungary’s right-wing president has signed controversial legislation on foreign universities that critics warn could force the closure of a top international institution founded by U.S. financier George Soros.

The approval Monday by President Janos Ader came less than a day after tens of thousands of protesters rallied in central Budapest against the legislation, which is seen as targeting Central European University.

Soros founded CEU — an English-language institution of about 1,400 students from more than 100 countries — in 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union. At that time, the financier’s move was widely hailed as helping Hungary transition from decades of communism to democracy by providing exposure to democratic ideals.

The legislation signed Monday requires all 28 foreign universities operating in Hungary to have campuses in their home countries, as well. Critics have for months pointed out that CEU is the only university among the 28 with no overseas branch, fueling widespread fears the law aims to deny young people access to the Western-leaning CEU and its pro-democracy curriculum.

The new law further bars colleges and universities based outside the European Union from awarding Hungarian diplomas without the consent of the respective governments.

Without such consent, the law will ban the university from enrolling new students after Jan. 1, 2018, and force it to close in 2021.

State media quoted the president Monday as insisting the new law “does not infringe [on] freedom of learning or of teaching” enshrined in Hungary’s constitution.

However, last week the U.S. embassy in Budapest issued a statement critical of the legislation, while accusing lawmakers who backed it of targeting the Soros-founded university. Embassy Charge d’ Affaires David Kostelancik also said that Washington will continue to advocate for CEU’s “unhindered operation in Hungary.”

Prime minister viewed harshly in West 

Right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose ruling Fidesz party crafted the legislation, is viewed in much of Europe and beyond as an autocrat and a xenophobe who has long viewed the liberal internationalist Soros as an ideological foe.

Orban is an outspoken critic of EU migration policy and has loudly criticized sanctions against Russia that were imposed by the EU and the United States after Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.

The online U.S. publication Politico described him in 2015 as “Europe’s new dictator.”

Last October, thousands of demonstrators marched in Budapest to protest the sudden closure of the country’s largest-selling opposition newspaper, Nepszabadsag. 

Those protests also targeted Orban, who has long been accused of stifling press freedoms and isolating private media outlets critical of his controversial anti-migrant stance.

The newspaper’s shutdown came just weeks after it published reports alleging widespread corruption within Orban’s ruling party, including close allies of the prime minister.
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Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven major industrialized nations meet on Monday for an annual gathering, with Europe and Japan seeking clarity

from the United States on an array of issues, especially Syria.

The two-day summit in Tuscany comes as the United States moves a Navy strike group near the Korean peninsula amid concerns over North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, and as the West’s relations with Russia struggle to overcome years of mistrust.

But the civil war in Syria is likely to dominate talks, with Italy hoping for a final communique that will reinforce United Nations’ efforts to end six years of conflict.

The meeting will give Italy, Germany, France, Britain, Canada and Japan their first chance to grill the new U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on whether Washington is now committed to overthrowing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Mixes messages

President Donald Trump had hinted he would be less interventionist than his predecessors and more willing to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses if it was in U.S. interests.

Given this, the U.S. attack on Syria last week in retaliation for what it said was a chemical weapons attack by Assad’s forces on Syrian civilians confounded many diplomats.

However, there is uncertainty over whether Washington now wants Assad out, as many Europeans are pushing for, or whether the missile strikes were simply a warning shot.

The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said over the weekend that regime change in Syria was a priority for Trump, while Tillerson said on Saturday the first priority was the defeat of Islamic State.

The mixed messages have confused and frustrated European allies, who are eager for full U.S. support for a political solution based on a transfer of power in Damascus.

“The Americans say they agree, but there’s nothing to show for it behind (the scenes). They are absent from this and are navigating aimlessly in the dark,” said a senior European diplomat, who declined to be named.

Libyan worries

The foreign ministers’ discussions will prepare the way for a leaders’ summit in Sicily at the end of May.

Efforts to reach an agreement on statements and strategy ahead of time – a normal part of pre-meeting G-7 diplomacy – has gone very slowly, partly because of a difficult transition at the U.S. state department, where many key positions remain unfilled.

Some issues, such as trade and climate change, are likely to be ducked in Tuscany. “The more complicated subjects will be left to the leaders,” said an Italian diplomat, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

However, the foreign ministers will talk about Libya.

Italy is hoping for vocal support for a United Nations-backed government in Tripoli, that has struggled to exert its influence in the city, let alone in the rest of the violence-plagued north African country.

The Trump administration has not yet defined a clear policy and Rome fears Washington may fall into step with Egypt, which supports general Khalifa Haftar, who operates in eastern Libya.

The struggle against terrorism, relations with Iran and on-going instability in Ukraine will also come up for discussion, with talks due to kick off at 4.30 p.m. (1430 GMT).
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Swedish authorities have arrested second person in connection with Friday’s truck attack in Stockholm that killed four people and wounded 15 others.

There were no immediate details about the additional suspect and how that person is connected to the 39-year-old Uzbek national suspected of ramming a stolen truck into an upscale shopping hub

The suspected terrorist was previously known to Swedish intelligence services, but authorities say he was not a part of any ongoing investigations.

“Nothing indicates we have the wrong person,” said the head of Sweden’s national police, Dan Eliasson, in comments to reporters Saturday. “On the contrary, suspicions have strengthened as the investigation has progressed.”

Photos taken at the scene Friday showed the vehicle was a truck belonging to beer maker Spendrups, which said its truck had been hijacked earlier in the day.

Witnesses say the truck drove straight into the entrance of the Ahlens Department Store on Drottninggatan, the city’s biggest pedestrian street, sending shoppers screaming and running. Television footage showed smoke coming out of the store after the crash.

Following the attack, Stockholm’s central train station was evacuated and nearby buildings were locked down for hours. Police say they have increased security at the country’s borders.

Sweden’s King Carl Gustaf expressed his condolences for the victims and their families in a brief statement.

“We follow developments but as of now our thoughts go to the victims and their families,” he said. The king cut short a visit to Brazil on Friday to return home.

A number of European leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and London’s mayor, Saddiq Khan, have released statements indicating their solidarity with Sweden.

“One of Europe’s most vibrant and colorful cities appears to have been struck by those wishing it — and our very way of life — harm,” said European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

French President Francois Hollande voiced his “horror and indignation” over the assault. Paris’ Eiffel Tower went dark for five minutes Friday to honor the victims of the attack.

The U.S. State Department also condemned the attack, adding, “Attacks like this are intended to sow the seeds of fear, but in fact they only strengthen our shared resolve to combat terrorism around the world.”
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Tens of thousands of Swedes turned out in Stockholm Sunday for what they called a “lovefest” after Friday’s terrorist truck attack killed four people and injured 15.

A 39-year-old Uzbek believed to have extremist sympathies is under arrest for allegedly ramming a stolen truck into a crowd at the Ahlens department store.

“Fear shall not reign. Terror cannot win,” Mayor Karin Wanngard told a crowd estimated at 50,000.

One woman held a poster reading: “We don’t respond with fear, we respond with love.”

Friday’s attack apparently had little effect on liberal Sweden’s global reputation as an open and welcoming society.

One participant at Sunday’s rally told the Associated Press that the fact the suspect is a refugee means nothing.

“This is a sick individual and has nothing to do with his refugee status. I think most Stockholmians realize that just because you are a refugee or a Muslim doesn’t mean you are a terrorist.”

Police arrested the Uzbek-born suspect hours after the truck attack. He was known to intelligence services since last year when he disappeared before he could be deported after his application for asylum was rejected. Authorities knew he had pro-extremist sympathies.

But no group has claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack and no motive is known.

Police say they have arrested a second person in connection with the attack, but have given no further information.

Photos taken at the scene Friday showed the vehicle was a truck belonging to beer maker Spendrups, which said its truck had been hijacked earlier in the day.

Witnesses say the truck drove straight into the entrance of the Ahlens Department Store on Drottninggatan, the city’s biggest pedestrian street, sending shoppers screaming and running. Television footage showed smoke coming out of the store after the crash.
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Pope Francis, who is scheduled to visit Egypt later this month, decried Sunday’s blast at a Coptic Church in Egypt’s Nile Delta that killed 21 worshippers and wounded dozens more.

At the end of his Palm Sunday Mass, the leader of the world’s Roman Catholic Church said, ” I pray for the dead and the victims. May the Lord convert the hearts of people who sow terror, violence and death and even the hearts of those who produce and traffic in weapons.”

Earlier, in his homily, Francis denounced the suffering in the world today.

He said those who ” . . . suffer from slave labor, from family tragedies, from diseases . . . They suffer from wars and terrorism, from interests that are armed and ready to strike.”

Before the beginning of the Mass, Francis and a group of cardinals, holding elaborately braided palm fronds, walked through the crowd at Saint Peter’s Square.

In Jerusalem, worshippers at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher celebrated Palm Sunday by waving palm branches during the procession next to the newly restored Tomb of Jesus.

The church in Jerusalem’s Old City is believed to be the burial site of Jesus.

Palm Sunday marks Jesus’ triumphant entry in Jerusalem more than 2,000 years ago and the beginning of the Christian Easter Holy Week.

 
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Norwegian police set off a controlled explosion of a “bomblike device” found in central Oslo Saturday, a suspect is being held in custody, and the security police are investigating, authorities said.

A Reuters reporter described a loud bang shortly after the arrival of Oslo’s bomb squad.

“The noise from the blast was louder than our explosives themselves would cause,” a police spokesman said, while adding that further investigation would be conducted at the scene.

The device had appeared to be capable of causing only a limited amount of damage, the police said earlier.

Police declined to give information about the suspect.

Norway’s police security service said in a tweet it had taken over the investigation from local police.

Oslo’s Groenland area, a multi-ethnic neighborhood that is home to popular bars and restaurants as well as several mosques, is also where the city’s main police station is located, less than a kilometer from where the device was found.

In neighboring Sweden, a truck Friday plowed into crowds in Stockholm, killing four people and wounding 15 in what police said was an apparent terror attack.

In 2011, right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik set off a car bomb in Oslo that killed eight people and destroyed Norway’s government headquarters, before going on a shooting rampage that killed 69 people at nearby Utoeya island.
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Britain’s foreign minister, Boris Johnson, canceled plans Saturday to visit Moscow, just hours before he was due to depart London, as tensions escalated between the U.S. and Russia over Syria.

Russian leaders, who have dubbed as illegal the U.S. action to punish the government of President Bashar al-Assad for its use of chemical weapons, ramped up the war of words late Friday when the country’s prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, warned America was “one step away from military clashes with Russia.”

In an apparent show of force, a Russian frigate armed with cruise missiles, reportedly was heading into the Mediterranean. According to Russian state media, the ship, the Admiral Grigorovich, will dock at Tartus on the Syrian coast.

Russia also has pledged to bolster Syria’s air defenses.

News of the cancelation of the British foreign minister’s trip was relayed first by Johnson himself, who tweeted: “I will now not travel to Moscow on Monday 10 April.” He said his priority was to hold talks with Western allies about Syria and Russia’s support for Assad.

British officials say that Johnson’s trip was called off after the British foreign minister consulted his American counterpart, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who himself is due to visit the Russian capital in a few days.

They said Johnson wants to spearhead efforts to help shape a “coalition of support” against Russian activity in Syria. In a statement later, Johnson said, “Developments in Syria have changed the situation fundamentally.”

A Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman described the cancelation as “absurd.”

Johnson was due to hold talks with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, and the two diplomats were expected to hold a joint news conference.

“It seems that our Western colleagues live in their own kind of reality in which they first try to single-handedly make collective plans, then they single-handedly try to change them, coming up with absurd reasons,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova in a statement.

“Unfortunately, stability, and consistency have long stopped being the hallmark of Western foreign policy,” she added.

As the diplomatic turmoil unfolded, activists Saturday claimed Syrian government warplanes had again struck Khan Sheikhoun, the rebel-held town targeted earlier in the week in an alleged chemical weapons attack by the Syrian regime.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the London-based pro-opposition watchdog that gathers information from activists on the ground, claimed a woman was killed and three people wounded after being machine-gunned by jets in an eastern neighborhood.

The warplanes carrying out Saturday’s alleged raid are believed to have flown from al-Shayrat, the airbase targeted Thursday by the U.S. in a punitive barrage of 59 Cruise missiles strike, the greatest show of America firepower in more than a decade. Tuesday’s chemical attack left scores dead, including children and women, according activists. U.S. officials so far have not commented on the claimed raid. In addition, there was no confirmation by other monitors.

There also was an unconfirmed report of a U.S.-led raid against the Islamic State in the countryside around Raqqa, the terror group’s de facto capital in Syria. The observatory quoted local activists as saying missiles struck the village of Hanida, to the west of the city.

 
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Officials say the top US diplomat will urge Russia to rethink its continued support for the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad. More from Nike Ching.
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U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson heads to Moscow on April 12, just days after the United States launched missile strikes on a Syrian airbase in response to a Syrian chemical weapons attack that killed civilians.

Officials say the top U.S. diplomat will urge Russia to rethink its continued support for the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad.

Britain’s foreign minister, Boris Johnson, said on Saturday he had canceled a visit to Moscow that was scheduled for April 10. “Developments in Syria have changed the situation fundamentally,” said Johnson in a statement.

Secretary of State Tillerson is scheduled to travel to Moscow on Wednesday, after he attends the G-7 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Italy from April 9 to 11.

The State Department did not respond to VOA’s inquiry on whether Tillerson’s Moscow trip has been changed or canceled since the U.S. military strikes.  

Analysts say Washington needs the diplomatic follow-up, though, after the military action.

The top U.S. diplomat, known as a man of few words, had harsh comments for Russia, which Washington blamed for failing to rein in its ally, Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

“Either Russia has been complicit or Russia has been simply incompetent,” said Tillerson on Thursday night. He was referring to the Kremlin’s failure to prevent the Assad government from allegedly conducting a poison gas attack that killed scores of people in rebel-held Idlib province.

In 2013, the Syrian government agreed to surrender its chemical weapons under the supervision of the Russia government. Prior to the recent gas attack, Tillerson said Assad’s future would be decided by the Syrian people. After the attack, he took aim at Assad’s government and Russia’s support for him.

Experts said the U.S. military strike could complicate Tillerson’s diplomatic mission to Moscow, and that an escalation of tensions between the U.S. and Russia over the future of Assad also is possible. 

“For sure this means further immediate bumps in the bilateral relationship,” former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst told VOA.

He said despite the fact that the missile strikes were quite limited and Washington had warned Moscow ahead of time so that Russian soldiers would not be in danger, Moscow’s reaction was rather strong.

Herbst, now director of the Atlantic Council’s Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center, said Russia’s decision to suspend the de-confliction mechanism, which is intended to avoid accidents, was not well considered.

“While de-confliction serves the interest of both U.S. and Russian, it is more important to Moscow” because U.S. conventional forces are far superior and “Russian forces are more at risk in case of an incident,” said Herbst.

“The strikes undoubtedly change the tone of the conversation, given the de-confliction protocols, between Russia and the U.S. have been suspended in Syria,” Michael Kofman from Center for Naval Analyses told VOA.

Professor Doga Ulas Eralp of American University in Washington told VOA on Friday that Tillerson “now has to scramble to broker a deal” that would allow a sustainable coordination mechanism between the two countries “if the U.S. is determined to escalate its military engagement in Syria.”

Middle East Institute scholar Daniel Serwer told VOA the military strikes “shoot the Syria agenda item to the top.” The key question is whether Tillerson can get something going with the Russians on a political solution in Syria,” he added.

Former U.S. officials say the Syrian chemical attack is a major challenge to the nascent relationship between the Trump administration and the Kremlin.

“It is vital that the U.S. corrects course and that the current administration moves quickly from a set of alarming and ignorant comments to having a real policy and strategy for managing and mitigating Putin’s negative impacts on world peace and security,” said former U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Daniel Baer.

Alexei Arbatov, director of the Center of International Security at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations in Moscow, told VOA’s Russian service that while the U.S. missile strike in Syria complicates U.S.-Russian relations, “the reaction of the Russian Foreign Ministry thus far has been quite restrained, and it is not rejecting the possibility of agreements and cooperation with the United States.”

While Washington is willing to work with Moscow in areas of practical cooperation, the State Department said Secretary Tillerson will make it clear the U.S. is committed to holding Russia accountable when international norms are violated.

 
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Kosovo President Hashim Thaci bowed to pressure from traditional allies the United States and NATO on Friday by putting off plans to establish an army strongly opposed by the country’s minority Serbs.

Nearly two decades after the Kosovo war, relations between Serbia and the ethnic Albanian-majority government in Kosovo remain strained. Serbia continues to regard Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008, as a renegade province.

Thaci last month found a way to bypass Serb opposition in parliament to constitutional amendments required for an army by drafting changes to an existing law on the Kosovo Security Forces that would allow the KSF to acquire heavy weapons. This would effectively turn it into a military force.

But Washington and NATO, which has kept forces in Kosovo since intervening in 1999 to stop Serbia’s killings of ethnic Albanian civilians in a counter-insurgency campaign, voiced concern that the move could unravel Kosovo’s fragile peace.

The Pristina government ordered the creation of a national army in 2014 but minority Serb deputies said they would block the required constitutional amendments.

On Friday, Thaci – a former Kosovo guerrilla commander – sent a letter to parliament asking it not to vote on his amendments so as to allow Western diplomats more time to convince Serbs to approve the amendments.

“The representatives of the Serb community should not think for any single second that Kosovo will not create its armed forces,” Thaci told a conference in the capital Pristina attended by the U.S. ambassador and other West European envoys.

The KSF is currently a lightly armed, 2,500-member force trained by NATO and tasked with crisis response, civil protection and disposal of ordnance from the 1999 conflict.

NATO and the United States do not oppose the creation of an army in principle but say the constitution must be changed first, which would require the votes of 11 Serb deputies in the 120-seat parliament.

“We do not expect the people of Kosovo to wait forever on this [formation of the army], nor do we believe any party should veto,” U.S. Ambassador Greg Delawie said.

“Kosovo needs a legitimate capability to defend itself before KFOR [NATO mission] can consider leaving.” KFOR retains around 4,500 troops in Kosovo.
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Hundreds of thousands of children are paying a heavy price in the three-year conflict between the government of Ukraine and Russian-backed rebels in Donetsk and Luhansk in the eastern part of the country.

Although the war has taken thousands of lives and injured many more, the U.N. children’s fund said the conflict has been all but forgotten by the world and become an “invisible crisis” to all except those forced to suffer from ongoing violence, abuse and deprivation. 

Among those hardest hit are the more than 200,000 children living along the “contact line,” a 15-kilometer zone that divides government and rebel-controlled areas where the fighting is most intense.

“These are children that are surviving death, that are living constantly with the sound of shelling, that have witnessed death. Some children have even witnessed the death of loved ones,” said Giovanna Barberis, UNICEF’s Ukraine representative.

Barberis has frequently traveled to the contact line and seen the hardships and suffering of the children, who live in a state of constant fear and uncertainty. The trauma has taken a huge emotional and psychological toll, according to Barberis.

“Parents, teachers, school directors and psychologists describe striking behavior changes among children as young as 3 years old,” she said. “Children are very anxious. They wet their beds. They have nightmares. In some cases, they act quite aggressively and often withdraw from their families and friends.”

Barberis said some children no longer seek safety in bomb shelters because they think such attacks are “normal now.”

“Families and children are getting used to living in a very abnormal and exceptional situation,” she said. “But this does not mean that they cope well with the situation.”

Escalating hostilities

There have been multiple violations of the Minsk peace agreement since it was signed in September 2014 by representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics.

In its latest report on the situation in Ukraine, the U.N. Human Rights Mission found that a sharp escalation of hostilities between January 29 and February 3 had “a devastating impact” on all aspects of life for civilians living along the contact line. It said seven civilians were killed and 46 wounded in those six days.

In addition, “Several hundreds of people are isolated and deprived of basic necessities,” according to the report. The nearest grocery store is seven kilometers away, and children crossing the contact line have “to walk up to three kilometers to go to school.”

UNICEF’s Barberis told VOA that it often was not safe to go to school, so children had difficulty gaining regular access to education.

“We have estimated that from the beginning of the conflict, something like 740 schools were damaged or destroyed,” she said, “and just these last few weeks, when we had the deteriorating situation of the areas along the contact line … something like seven schools were damaged.”

Barberis said children in eastern Ukraine require urgent and sustained support to help them come to grips with the daily trauma of war. However, she noted, UNICEF has received less than one-third of the $31.2 million it needs to support children and families affected by the conflict.

“Children should not have to live with the emotional scars from a conflict they had no part in creating,” Barberis said.
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Russia on Friday condemned the U.S. strike on a government-controlled air base in Syria, saying it would bolster Syria’s air defenses in response. President Vladimir Putin’s office called the action a “significant blow” to the Russia-U.S. relationship. The tension comes just ahead of a visit to Russia by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. VOA’s Daniel Schearf reports from Moscow.
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A few days before the July 2014 missile attack on Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, a Ukraine Army-operated Buk missile launcher was located not near fighting in the east, as Moscow has long insisted, but hundreds of kilometers to the west.

That’s what a team of journalists and researchers at Bellingcat, a Britain-based investigative website, has concluded after lengthy analysis of digital images taken by a Ukrainian army chaplain.

Bellingcat, which specializes in using open-source information such as social media posts to analyze conflicts, was one of the first groups to produce evidence debunking key elements of the Russian government’s claim that Ukrainian forces shot down MH17 on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 people aboard. Bellingcat’s conclusion — that Moscow doctored images in order to buttress allegations that Kyiv was responsible for the single worst atrocity of the war — was later corroborated by arms control researchers at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies at Monterey in California.

Bellingcat’s new report says metadata from a series of digital images prove that the exact same Buk missile launcher that Moscow claims was within striking range of MH17 on the day of the attack was actually stationed at Mirgorod Air Base in Poltava, central Ukraine — well outside of firing distance.

“The only operational Buk missile launcher observed within firing range of MH17 on July 17, 2014, was the Russian Buk 332, from the Kursk-based 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade,” a surface-to-air combat unit of the Russian ground forces that was stationed in eastern Ukraine at the time, Bellingcat reported.

Kyiv-based political scientist Yuri Lesnichiy of the Institute of Analysis and Forecasting says the new information will prove vital to undercutting the Kremlin narrative surrounding the tragedy.

“Such high-profile investigations … carry across particular information and the Kremlin finds it difficult to twist the facts that the Europeans will believe in,” he told VOA’s Russian Service.

Immediately after MH17 was shot out of clear blue skies over the frontlines in eastern Ukraine, Russia’s RIA state news agency reported that Russian-backed separatists had successfully shot down a Ukrainian military aircraft. They retracted the story upon learning that it was a civilian airliner that had been brought down.

In March, Ukraine asked the United Nations’ highest court to order Russia to stop funding and equipping pro-Russian separatists. In that filing, they cited a September 2016 six-country investigation team led by the Netherlands, which said MH17 had been shot down with a Russian-manufactured Buk surface-to-air missile from an area controlled by pro-Russian forces.

Russia denies sending troops or military equipment to eastern Ukraine and has dismissed findings of the September 2016 probe as biased and politically motivated.

This report was translated by Svetlana Cunningham and produced in collaboration with VOA’s Russian Service.
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The European Parliament on Thursday supported easing travel rules for Ukrainians, driving on a Western integration viewed with great suspicion by Moscow.

Ukraine has been the scene of the worst confrontation between Russia and the West in Europe since the Cold War with Moscow annexing Crimea from Kyiv in 2014 and backing separatist rebels in the east of the country.

The West has sided with Ukraine, where Russia intervened after a Moscow-allied president was toppled by street protests demanding an end to corruption and closer EU ties. Russia denies direct military involvement in its southern neighbor.

European lawmakers voted 521 to 75 to grant Ukrainians holding biometric passports the right to visit for up to 90 days for tourism, business or visiting relatives and friends.

“Great day for the people of Europe and Ukraine,” said Anna Maria Corazza Bildt, a Swedish member of the Parliament.

The visa waiver, which does not give Ukrainians the right to work in the EU, is expected to take effect this summer.

The pro-Western government in Kiev is moving closer to the EU and NATO. But a weak economy and endemic corruption would hinder any move to accession, and some states would be unwilling to further anger Ukraine’s Soviet-era ruler, Russia, by incorporating it into an alliance it views as hostile.

The waiver covers all EU states except Ireland and Britain, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland – not in the EU but members of Europe’s free-travel Schengen zone.

Kyiv’s Europe Minister Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze said the vote on Thursday was “a strong signal to the aggressor that Ukraine is on its way back to the European family.”

Three years of fighting in Ukraine’s industrial east killed more than 10,000 people.

While the heaviest battles have died down, the conflict is still simmering and peace efforts are stalled amid mutual recriminations by Kyiv, EU and NATO on the one side, and Russia and the rebels on the other.
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Hungarian charities on Thursday criticized a draft law that would require them to declare foreign funding, saying it would clamp down on freedom of speech and undermine their work with migrants and other vulnerable groups.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party said it would present a bill to parliament this week requiring nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) with a yearly foreign income of 7.2 million forints ($25,000) to register with authorities.

The bill said “foreign interest groups” could use their funding of local NGOs to “pursue their own interests” in Hungary, threatening the country’s political and economic interests.

“This is an attempt to discredit NGOs in the eyes of the public,” said Anika Bakonyi, project manager at the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, a human rights watchdog group.

The Fidesz announcement came a day after parliament approved a law that could force out a university founded by Hungarian-born financier George Soros, despite protests against the move and condemnation abroad.

Orban, a critic of liberal civil organizations that receive grants from Soros’ Open Society Foundation, said last week that Central European University had violated regulations in awarding diplomas, an allegation the college rejected.

European lawmakers have demanded disciplinary action against Hungary over the crackdown on foreign universities, the latest step by Orban to subdue independent institutions — including the judiciary, central bank, NGOs and media.

Goran Buldioski, the Hungarian-based director of the Soros-funded Open Society Initiative for Europe, said he expected small civil society organizations would suffer the most.

This “long-term policy” of the government was designed “to eradicate all voices that speak freely,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “We find it totally unnecessary, stigmatizing and discriminatory.”
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Far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon is threatening to turn France’s presidential election into a four-way race, the latest opinion polls show, confirming a surge of support for him after a strong showing in a TV debate this week.

Two polls conducted after a televised debate among candidates Tuesday night showed the 65-year-old Communist-party-backed candidate just a percentage point or two behind third-placed conservative Francois Fillon in an unpredictable contest in which over a third of voters are still undecided.

A Harris Interactive poll published Thursday showed centrist Emmanuel Macron holding onto a narrow first round lead over far-right leader Marine Le Pen, with the two frontrunners on 25 and 24 percent respectively.

Voting starts April 23

The two-stage election will be April 23 and May 7.With just over two weeks to go until voting starts, the big move, however, was the surge by Melenchon, a veteran campaigner of the far left.

Intentions to vote for him climbed to 17 percent in the first round, up from 13.5 percent two weeks ago, while Fillon, whose campaign has struggled as he faced nepotism allegations, saw his score hold steady at 18 percent.

A separate Elabe poll published Wednesday evening showed Melenchon up 2 points from a week ago, also at 17 percent, and also narrowing the gap with Fillon, who was up 1 point at 19 percent. It had Le Pen and Macron on 23.5 percent each.

Both polls showed Macron beating Le Pen comfortably in the second round.

Winning performance

A political showman who excoriates establishment politicians with his rapid-fire discourse, Melenchon was seen by pollsters as the most convincing performer in the four-hour TV debate Tuesday night that was watched by more than 6 million people.

He clashed with Le Pen during the debate over her focus on the tensions created by religion in politics, but his policies advocating greater worker protection, and his hostility to the European Union in its current form, are similar to hers.

He would also pull France out of NATO and called during the debate for the debt of troubled euro zone states to be effectively written off to allow massive new investment to spur growth.

Founder of the “France Unbowed” party, he has split the left-wing vote and turned the Socialists into also-rans after five years of rule by Socialist President Francois Hollande marked by high unemployment and low economic growth.

Pollsters say Melenchon is gaining votes from Hamon, who is struggling to stay above a 10 percent rating in the polls, but he is also getting votes from further afield.

Unexpected supporters

Gianni Pierson, 38, from the staunchly conservative town of Provins where Fillon campaigned Wednesday, had traditionally voted on the right, and plumped for ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy at the last election in 2012.

Partly as a result of losing his job as a salesman, he has turned more to the left, first Hamon, but now, he told Reuters, “almost made my choice for Melenchon” after being inspired by his performance in debates.

In a potential boost for Hamon though, Socialist Finance Minister Michel Sapin confirmed Thursday that he would vote for the party’s official candidate.

Some other senior Socialists, including Jean-Yves Le Drian have jumped ship to join Macron.

The 29-year-old ex-banker was until 2016 a minister on the Socialist government, but is running as an independent having formed his own political movement called En Marche! (Onwards!) 
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Russian authorities have made safe an explosive device found in a residential building in St. Petersburg, the TASS news agency reported on Thursday.

A law enforcement source told Reuters that fire engines had turned up at the building in question and that people living in flats on two stairwells had been evacuated.

The city is still reeling after a bomb ripped through the St. Petersburg metro on Monday, killing 14 people.

An explosion in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don early Thursday, injured one person, a law enforcement source told TASS.

REN-TV cited witnesses as saying that the explosion happened near a school on Sadovaya Street and that a maintenance worker was injured in the blast.
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Australia and New Zealand warned Thursday that extremists may be planning an attack on the commemoration of a World War I campaign in Turkey this month.

Australian Veterans Affairs Minister Dan Tehan urged the nearly 500 Australians and New Zealanders registered to travel to Gallipoli, Turkey, to mark ANZAC Day April 25 to exercise a high degree of caution, but offered no specifics about the alleged threat. ANZAC Day is an annual holiday commemorating the April 25, 1915, landings in Gallipoli — the first major military action fought by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps during World War I.

Australian Federal Police deputy commissioner Mike Phelan declined to release details of what prompted the warning, saying only that the government had received information that extremists may attack the services planned on the Gallipoli peninsula. Phelan said there was no specific plot linked to the alert.

“It is just that terrorists may indeed try to carry out a terrorist attack during the celebrations,” Phelan told reporters in the nation’s capital, Canberra. “That is all we have got at this stage.”

Tehan said Australia and New Zealand were working closely with Turkish authorities on security arrangements, but that the commemoration was scheduled to continue as planned.

For the past two years, Australian police have said they thwarted planned attacks on ANZAC Day celebrations in Australia. In 2015, police in Melbourne arrested five teenagers on suspicion of plotting an Islamic State group-inspired attack intended to coincide with the city’s ANZAC service. In 2016, police arrested a 16-year-old and charged him with planning an attack on an ANZAC ceremony in Sydney.

In a statement, New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully urged New Zealanders in Turkey to be vigilant in public places and monitor the media for updates on potential safety risks.
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Switzerland and Italy are in a diplomatic dispute over Switzerland’s decision to close three secondary border crossings at night in a bid to fight crime.

Italy’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday summoned the Swiss ambassador for urgent talks, emphasizing that the closings violate Europe’s norms on free circulation.

In an email, the press office of the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs said Ambassador Giancarlo Kessler “took note” of the message from Italian authorities and pledged to keep them informed on the results from what it characterized as an experiment.

Italian mayors in the affected region had protested the closures as penalizing Italians who legitimately cross the border for work or other reasons.

The crossings from the Italian provinces of Como and Varese have an average nightly traffic of 90 vehicles during the week and 110 vehicles on weekends, 20 percent of which are Swiss vehicles, according to Swiss authorities.

Switzerland started closing the three border crossings at night on April 1 as part of a six-month pilot program. The move, approved by the Swiss parliament, follows a brief surge of migration into the Italian-speaking Swiss region of Ticino last summer from Italy, which has seen the arrival of tens of thousands of migrants rescued at sea.

The populist Swiss People’s Party, which has the most seats in parliament, has led the push to restrict access both to citizens of European Union countries who want to work in Switzerland and to migrants who have arrived in Europe from Africa and the Middle East.

Switzerland is not a member of the European Union, but adheres to the “Schengen zone” rules that allow for unimpeded cross-border travel and trade on the continent.

Kessler said Switzerland “had informed the Italian authorities on several occasions” about the project, including during a meeting of their two countries’ foreign ministers last month, according to the foreign affairs department.
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Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar’s philanthropy promised $100 million over the next five years to support journalism and fight fake news, the foundation announced Wednesday.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which broke the story of the controversial Panama Papers, is the first organization to receive funds from the Omidyar Network – a three-year grant of up to $4.5 million “to expand its investigative reporting”.

“Across the world, we see a worrying resurgence of authoritarian politics that is undermining progress towards a more open and inclusive society,” Matt Bannick, Omidyar Network Managing Partner, said. “A lack of government responsiveness and a growing distrust in institutions, especially the media, are eroding trust. Increasingly, facts are being devalued, misinformation spread, accountability ignored, and channels that give citizens a voice withdrawn.”

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Formally announcing the commitment at the Skoll World Forum on social entrepreneurship in Oxford, England, the Omidyar Network has also promised support to the Anti-Defamation League, devoted to fighting anti-Semitism, and the Latin American Alliance for Civic Technology (ALTEC).

Established in 2004 by Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam, the Omidyar Network supports organizations to foster economic and social change.

Reporting on the Panama Papers revealed secret, so called offshore financial accounts that were hiding assets to avoid tax payments.

 
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A gap is widening between the Trump administration and European allies over the future of President Bashar al-Assad and how to end the six-year war in Syria.

While U.S. officials have shifted the focus away from Assad having to relinquish power, European leaders remain adamant he has no future as ruler of Syria. His departure, they say, remains a crucial part of any solution to a conflict that has left an estimated 470,000 dead.

Following Tuesday’s toxic gas attack on a town in northern Syria, the worst chemical weapons attack in the war since mid-2013, European leaders are intensifying their rhetoric. On Tuesday, Britain’s Theresa May called “on all the third parties involved to ensure that we have a transition away from Assad.”

Photo Gallery: Aftermath of gas attack on  Khan Sheikhoun

European politicians gathered for an international conference hosted by the European Union in Brussels on Syria drew a link between what seems to be the use of a more deadly nerve agent than seen in previous claimed chemical weapons attacks, and the Trump administration’s shift on Syria.

Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Assad’s future was up to the Syrian people to decide, while the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said removing him was no longer a Washington priority.

On Monday, just hours before the gas attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun, Haley hardened her rhetoric, referring to the Syrian leader as a “war criminal” guilty of “disgusting” actions against his people.” She said Syrians “don’t want Assad anymore.”

In the wake of the chemical weapons attack, U.S. officials in Washington did not publicly indicate any likely shift in administration policy. The White House and U.S. State Department condemned the attack as “heinous,” dubbing it a likely war crime.

But officials placed the emphasis on the need for Russia and Iran, Assad backers, to do something. Tuesday, the White House press secretary didn’t outline any punitive steps in response to an attack the administration says was carried out by the Assad regime.

Russian, Iranian influence

Tillerson demanded Tuesday that Moscow and Tehran “exercise their influence over the Syrian regime and to guarantee this sort of horrific attack never happens again.” He added that “Russia and Iran also bear great moral responsibility for these deaths.”

On Wednesday, Moscow reiterated its denial the Assad regime was responsible for the attack that has left close to 100 dead, according to local activists, and more than 400 injured. Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement it believed a rebel “terrorist warehouse” was hit by a conventional airstrike from Syria’s military, causing the release of “toxic substances.”

The Defense Ministry claimed chemical weapons were being stored for use in neighboring Iraq. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konoshenkov said,“On the territory of the depot there were workshops, which produced chemical warfare munitions.”

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said “all the evidence” he had seen in relation to the incident “suggests this was the Assad regime who did it in the full knowledge they were using illegal weapons in a barbaric attack on their own people.”

Johnson added he did “not see how a government like that can continue to have any kind of legitimate administration over the people of Syria.”

Focus on Assad

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said, “There is one thing which cannot happen, that a dictator who committed horrible crimes in the region remains untouched.”

The European Union’s foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini also said she could see no way Assad can remain as Syria’s ruler. “It seems completely unrealistic to believe that the future of Syria will be exactly the same as it used to be in the past,” she told reporters in Brussels.

But it is unclear what the Europeans can or would be willing to do without U.S. support, according to analysts.

They note that European influence on shaping international policy on the Syrian conflict is waning, despite the fact Europe is the largest provider of humanitarian aid in Syria. This week’s EU co-hosted international conference on humanitarian assistance to Syria has attracted minimal participation from the United States, Russia and Turkey.

Instead of sending its foreign minister, Russia is only represented at the gathering by its EU ambassador, Vladimir Chizhov. Washington has sent the State Department’s under-secretary for political affairs, Thomas Shannon. That contrasts with last year when then Secretary of State John Kerry attended.

Damascus calculation

Analyst Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute in Washington, says he believes Damascus has taken note of the Trump administration’s policy shift when it comes to Assad’s future and that may have shaped the decision behind launching Tuesday’s attack.

“Assad also knows full well that the U.S. is increasingly distancing itself from any consideration of intervention in Syria, so what has Assad got to lose?” he argued. “If all he suffers is a few days of international condemnation, then he comes out of things just as secure as he was beforehand.”

 
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The European Union is determined to stick to a deal with Turkey to stem the flow of undocumented migrants into the bloc, European Council President Donald Tusk said on Tuesday.

Tusk, who met Bulgaria’s President Rumen Radev, welcomed Sofia’s efforts to boost security on its southeastern border with Turkey to prevent migrants from crossing. He said Brussels would provide additional financing if the situation worsened.

“We are determined to keep routes of illegal migration in this region closed,” Tusk told reporters. “We remain committed to the full implementation of the EU-Turkey statement. The EU is honoring its commitments, just like we expect Turkey to continue keeping its part of the deal.”

The EU-Ankara agreement came into force in March 2016 after more than a million refugees and migrants from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond reached Europe in 2015, many crossing to Greek islands from Turkey.

“Should further difficulties arise on Bulgaria’s borders, the EU has already planned emergency funding, and stands ready to react quickly in support of Bulgaria,” Tusk said.

Turkey has said it may cancel the migrant readmission agreement, under which it takes back people who enter Greece through irregular routes. It was angered after several EU states prevented Turkish politicians from holding rallies to drum up support for plans to give President Tayyip Erdogan new powers in a referendum.

Bulgaria, the EU’s poorest member, expressed concern about a possible new migrant influx given that Turkey-EU tensions are running high.

“It is extremely important for us to develop good neighborly relations with Turkey,” Radev said. “At the same time, rising tensions between the EU and Turkey create the greatest risk for Bulgaria.”
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The referendum in Turkey to extend President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s powers is a couple of weeks away, and polls indicate the outcome remains too close to call. The “No” campaign, having little access to mainstream media, is increasingly turning to social media, and human rights groups accuse prosecutors of targeting those who adopt such a strategy.

Turkish law student Ali Gul’s video on why to vote “No” highlights, in a humorous way, the dangers of concentrating too much power in one person’s hands. It was an instant hit on social media. At the end of the video, Gul rhetorically asked, “Will I get arrested if this video is popular?”

Within days of its success, Gul issued another video, and he said he knew he would be arrested for making it.

Youth ‘deserve freedom’

“I am now going to the prosecutor to give a statement,” he said. “I will probably be arrested after that.  But it is not important, I am not afraid. The children and youth of this nation deserve freedom and happiness — and not fear, imprisonment and death.”

Gul was indeed arrested and jailed — but not for the video. He was detained instead for tweets posted two years ago that were deemed insulting to the president, a crime that carries three years in jail. Gul denied writing them, but his attorneys warned that he was destined to remain in pretrial detention for many months.

Turkey researcher Emma Sinclair Webb of U.S. based Human Rights Watch said there appears to be a systematic campaign of intimidation against “No” campaigners on social media.

“I think actually clamping down on individuals, making them a target for punitive measures pre-referendum because they have had a prominent voice in the ‘No’ campaign, is all about creating a chilling effect which will give the message loud and clear to the general public that you are not welcome to discuss what is at stake in the referendum and you are not welcome to publicly voice opposition of it,” she said.

Scores of arrests, closures

Meanwhile, independent mainstream media have been all but crushed. Under emergency rule, introduced after July’s failed coup, more than 150 journalists have been jailed and 170 media outlets closed, all critical of the government. The government claims the prosecutions and closures are all related to terrorist actions and coup plotting.

Most news TV channels broadcast at least three or four campaign speeches a day in support of a “Yes” vote on the presidential powers issue, while the “No” campaign is all but invisible, accounting for only 10 percent of coverage.

For the “No” campaign, social media have become vital, but with more than 2,500 prosecutions for insulting the president in the past six months, social media postings are not without risks.  

Observers warn such pressure is likely to intensify as the referendum campaign ends.
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Turkish gold imports rose 17-fold to 28.2 tons in March, as Turks looking to hedge currency risk ahead of a referendum in two weeks time followed President Tayyip Erdogan’s calls to buy gold instead of dollars.

After the sharpest falls in the Turkish lira since the 2008 financial crisis last November, Erdogan called on Turks to sell dollars and buy lira or gold to prop up the local currency. Gold imports have been rising year-on-year ever since.

“People have started opting for gold rather than foreign currencies,” said Mehmet Ali Yildirimturk, a gold specialist in Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar, adding that a moderate recovery in the lira had also made gold more affordable again.

Gold imports to Turkey rose almost eightfold to 36.7 tons in December after Erdogan’s calls, their highest monthly level in just over two years, according to data from the Precious Mines and Metals Markets of the Istanbul bourse.

Prices in Turkey surged from 132 lira ($36) for 24-carat gold in January to 153 lira in February. On Tuesday, gold prices were around 148 liras.

Gold is seen as a safe place to park assets during times of uncertainty. Turkey holds a referendum on April 16 on constitutional changes which would significantly boost Erdogan’s powers, with polls suggesting a tight race.

($1 = 3.6664 liras)
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