Syria and Russia say two Israeli war planes operating in Lebanese air space carried out an attack early Monday on an air base in central Syria.

Israel’s military did not comment on the strikes against the T4 base in Homs province. 

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 14 people were killed, including Iranian forces.

In February, Israel accused Iranian forces of using the same site to send a drone to Israeli territory. It responded by attacking Syrian air defense and Iranian military targets within Syria, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to “continue to harm anyone who tries to harm us.”

Initial Syrian state media reports Monday blamed the United States, which along with France denied responsibility.

“However, we continue to closely watch the situation and support the ongoing diplomatic efforts to hold those who use chemical weapons, in Syria and otherwise, accountable,” Pentagon spokesman Christopher Sherwood said in a statement.

Syria has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons throughout the conflict that began in 2011, including the most recent suspected chemical attack Saturday in a rebel-held suburb of Damascus that killed at least 40 people.

Late Sunday, the White House said President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron strongly condemned chemical attacks in Syria and agreed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government “must be held accountable for its continued human rights abuses.”

“They agreed to exchange information on the nature of the attacks and coordinate a strong, joint response,” the White House said about a phone call between the two leaders.

Macron’s office added that the two sides “exchanged information and analysis confirming the use of chemical weapons.”

Trump used Twitter earlier Sunday to say there would be a “big price to pay” for what he called the “mindless chemical attack” Saturday.

In a rare direct condemnation of Russia’s leader, Trump declared, “President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible” for their support of “Animal Assad.”

He further called for Syria to open the area of the alleged chemical attack to allow in verification and medical teams.

The Russian foreign ministry rejected claims of a chemical attack, saying, “The spread of bogus stories about the use of chlorine and other poisonous substances by (Syrian) government forces continues.

“We have warned several times recently against such dangerous provocations,” the Moscow statement said. “The aim of such deceitful speculation, lacking any kind of grounding, is to shield terrorists and to attempt to justify possible external uses of force.”

Iran said U.S. claims about the attack were aimed at justifying new American military action. A year ago, after an earlier chemical weapons attack by Syria, Trump launched 59 Tomahawk missiles into Syria, targeting the military base that was home to the warplanes that carried out the attack. 

Trump did not say how the U.S. might respond to Saturday’s suspected chemical attack. But Homeland Security and counterterrorism adviser Thomas Bossert told ABC News, “I wouldn’t take anything off the table.”

The United Nations Security Council will meet Monday about the alleged attack, after nine countries demanded an urgent session. The European Union said “evidence points toward yet another chemical attack” by the Syrian regime.

Trump also said that if his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, “had crossed his stated Red Line In The Sand,” to hold Assad accountable for previous chemical attacks, “the Syrian disaster would have ended long ago! Animal Assad would have been history!”

Trump’s rebuke of Putin was unusual. 

The U.S. leader has been reluctant during his nearly 15-month presidency to accept the conclusion of the U.S. intelligence community that Putin directed a 2016 campaign to meddle in the U.S. presidential election to help Trump win. U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller has been conducting a wide-ranging criminal investigation of the Trump campaign’s links to Russia, but Trump has repeatedly rejected the notion there was any collusion with Russia.

The alleged chemical attack occurred late Saturday amid new attacks on the last rebel enclave in eastern Ghouta.

First responders said they discovered families suffocated in their homes and shelters with foam on their mouths. Relief workers said more than 500 people, mostly women and children, were brought to medical centers with difficulty breathing, foaming at the mouth and their eyes burning.

The Civil Defense and Syrian American Medical Society said patients gave off a chlorine-like smell, and some had blue skin, an indication of oxygen deprivation.

“Dropping poison gas in a way that attacks women and children down in the shelters is a way to try to panic the civilians into leaving and cut the ground underneath the rebels,” University of Pennsylvania political science professor Ian Lustick told VOA.

Trump’s rebuff of Putin and Iran, which has forces in Syria, came as Syrian state television said Sunday an agreement has been reached for rebels to leave Douma, their last stronghold near Damascus.

The accord calls for the Jaish al-Islam fighters to release all prisoners they were holding in exchange for passage within 48 hours to the opposition-held town of Jarablus in northern Syria near the Turkish border. Russia said last week that Jaish al-Islam accepted a deal to leave Ghouta, which houses tens of thousands of people. However, the evacuations stalled over reports that the rebel group remained divided over the withdrawal. 

The pact was reached just hours after the suspected chemical attack.
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U.S. President Donald Trump has blamed his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and Russia, as well Iran, for enabling an alleged poisonous attack in Syria late Saturday. Syrian activists and medical sources say at least 40 people have died. The suspected chlorine attack came during a government offensive to retake rebel-held areas near Damascus after the collapse of a truce with the Army of Islam rebel group. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.
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As Orthodox Christians around the world celebrated Easter on Sunday, a town on Greece’s Peloponnese peninsula observed the holy day by burning an effigy of Judas at sea.

The ritual burning of Judas is a custom also observed by Roman Catholics in parts of Latin America as a symbolic punishment for Judas’ betrayal of Christ for a monetary reward.

The tradition dates back centuries in some places. In the Greek town of Ermioni, it has been observed the past 25 years.

About 20 small boats circled around a raft bearing a wire model of Judas that floated off Ermioni and then the figure was set ablaze. More than 1,000 locals and visitors watched from shore and also listened to music and saw a laser show.

In older times, the Judas effigy was made of straw. Sometimes, topical variations on the theme are introduced. In at least two villages in Crete this year, the Judas figure was made to resemble Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

A darker side of the custom is an implied hostility in some cases toward Jews as the “killers of Christ.’”

The tradition even led to an international incident in mid-19th century Greece.

Worried about offending James de Rothschild, founder of the French branch of the famous Jewish banking family who was in Greece to negotiate a loan, the government banned the burning of Judas in Athens in 1847. An outraged mob then ransacked the house of a Jew who was a British subject.

Britain demanded restitution equal to a sizeable percentage of the Greek budget. The Greek government refused, and Britain imposed a naval blockade in 1850. France and Russia took Greece’s side and the British lifted their blockade after six months. A restitution agreement was reached the following year.

Orthodox Easter came a week later than the holiday this year for Western-based Christian churches, with significant observances in Russia, Greece, Ukraine, Serbia and Kosovo.

In Russia, President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev attended Easter services at Christ the Savior Cathedral, Moscow’s largest church.

In Kyiv, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko attended Easter services at the Volodymyrskiy Monastery.

Serbia celebrated the day in a highly charged atmosphere over Kosovo, the former Serbian province whose predominantly Muslim, ethnic Albanian people declared independence a decade ago.

Kosovo is considered by Serbian nationalists to be the cradle of the Balkan nation’s statehood and religion. On the eve of Easter, Serbian Orthodox Church Patriarch Irinej urged political leaders never to accept Kosovo’s independence, even if the price is abandoning the country’s proclaimed goal of joining the European Union.

 
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Prosecutors said Sunday they still do not know why a 48-year-old German national drove a van into a crowd of people in the western city of Muenster, killing two and injuring 20 more.

The man, whose name was not released, then shot himself in the van. Officials said six of those injured were in critical condition.

Police also said Sunday that they believe he acted alone. They said the driver was well-known to police, had a history of run-ins with the law and had expressed suicidal thoughts to a neighbor last month.

Muenster Police President Hajo Kuhlisch said the man’s four apartments, two in Muenster and two in Saxony, and several cars had been searched thoroughly.

Inside the van, police found illegal firecrackers that were disguised as a fake bomb, a fake pistol and the real gun that the driver used to kill himself.

Inside the apartment, where the man was living, they found more firecrackers and a “no-longer usable AK-47 machine gun” and several gas bottles and canisters containing gasoline and bio-ethanol, but did not know yet why they were stored there.

Authorities identified the victims as a 51-year-old woman from northern Germany and a 65-year-old man from Broken, near Muenster.  

Merkel ‘deeply shocked’

Muenster Mayor Markus Lewe told reporters Saturday that “all of Muenster mourns over this horrible thing,” expressing compassion for the families of those killed and wishes for a swift recovery for those injured.

A spokeswoman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel called reports of the event “terrible news.” Merkel released a statement saying she is “deeply shocked by the terrible events in Muenster.”

A White House statement released late Saturday said U.S. President Donald Trump had been briefed on the incident.

“While the German authorities have not yet announced a motive for this cowardly attack on innocent people, we condemn it regardless, and pledge any support from the United States Government that Germany may need,” the statement said.

Germany has been on high alert for terror attacks since a truck crashed into a Christmas market in Berlin two years ago, killing 12 people.

Saturday was also the one-year anniversary of an April 7 attack in Stockholm, Sweden, where a truck crashed into a crowd of people in front of a department store. Five people died in that attack. The attacker claimed to be a member of the Islamic State terror group.

 
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German authorities said six people have been detained Sunday allegedly in connection with a plan to carry out an extremist attack on Berlin’s half-marathon.

In a joint statement, prosecutors and police said, “There were isolated indications that those arrested, aged between 18 and 21 years, were participating in the preparation of a crime in connection with this event.”

Berlin police tweeted that six people were arrested after a joint operation with the Berlin’s prosecutor’s office.

The German daily Die Welt first reported that police was able to stop a plan to attack race spectators and participants with knives.

The paper also reported the main suspect apparently knew Anis Amri, a Tunisian asylum seeker who killed 12 people when he hijacked a truck and drove it into a crowded Berlin Christmas market in December 2016.

The arrests came after Germany special force police raided the homes of suspected members of a far-right group in Berlin, Germany’s federal prosecutor’s office said.

Authorities did not say if the two cases were connected.

At least eight people are allegedly involved. The chief federal prosecutor’s office said apartments in the states of Berlin, Brandenburg and Thuringia were searched on Sunday for weapons.

Though no one has been detained, officials believe the suspects are members of the Reichsbuerger (Citizens of the Reich) group — an organization that does not recognize modern-day Germany as a legitimate state and does not accept current rules.

The group believes the former “Deutsche Reich” is still alive, despite Nazi Germany’s defeat in World War II. They identify with a state system from 1871-1918, the German Kaiserreich area.  

Authorities said the accused formed the group in 2017. Besides efforts to acquire weapons, German police is also investigating the killings of some people. Officials said the group is ready to kill targeted people, if necessary.

Investigators said in a statement that they were assisted in their searches by the anti-terrorism GSG 9 police unit.

According to the domestic intelligence service, it is estimated the Reichsbuerger has several thousand members.

In October 2016, a member was shot and killed by a police officer in Bavaria when a special force team was about to enter his home to apprehend hunting and sports guns.

Sunday’s raids, however, were not linked to the incident in Muenster on Saturday, where a man drove a van into a group of people sitting outside a restaurant, killing two people. The man then shot himself to death, the prosecutor’s office said.
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The United States has called on Russia to end its unmitigated support for the Syrian government immediately and “work with the international community to prevent further, barbaric chemical weapons attacks.”

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement that the United States is closely following reports April 7 of another alleged chemical weapons attack, this time targeting a hospital in Douma, Syria.

The statement said “Russia, with its unwavering support for the regime, ultimately bears responsibility for these brutal attacks, targeting of countless civilians, and the suffocation of Syria’s most vulnerable communities with chemical weapons.”

​Accusations of chemical bombs

Rebels claimed Syrian government forces dropped barrel bombs containing poisonous chemicals on civilians Saturday, killing dozens, as Syria continued its offensive against the last rebel-held town in eastern Ghouta.

Syrian state media denied the rebels’ claim, as troops launched an assault on Douma, near the capital Damascus.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the medical relief group Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) said at least 30 people in Douma had been killed in airstrikes Saturday, with dozens more injured.

SAMS said a chlorine bomb hit Douma hospital, however Observatory director Rami Abdulrahman said he could not confirm the use of chemical weapons.

The fighting comes after other rebel groups in Ghouta accepted a safe passage to rebel-held areas northeast of Aleppo.

Government troops advance

The cease-fire effectively ended Friday, when Syrian troops have launched a ground and air assault on Douma.

The government forces pressed their offensive against the last rebel-held town in eastern Ghouta under the cover of airstrikes as shelling of civilian areas on both sides claimed more lives, state media and opposition activists said.

Syrian government forces resumed their offensive on rebel-held Douma on Friday afternoon after the10-day truce collapsed over disagreement regarding evacuation of opposition fighters. Violence resumed days after hundreds of opposition fighters and their relatives left Douma for rebel-held areas in northern Syria.

A reporter for Lebanon’s Al-Manar TV embedded with Syrian troops near Douma said government forces advanced toward Douma from the towns of Misraba and Madiara that were recently captured by troops. Al-Manar TV is run by Lebanon’s Hezbollah group that has sent thousands of fighters to Syria to back government forces.

​Street fighting expected

The government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media said government forces captured several farms Saturday on the southern and western edges of the city that is home to tens of thousands of people. SCMM said the area controlled by the Army of Islam in and around Douma is 19 square kilometers (7.3 square miles).

By Saturday evening, state media was reported that troops are approaching Army of Islam fortifications on the edge of the town adding that street battles could begin soon. It said warplanes bombarded the group’s headquarters and command and control center.

State TV said Army of Islam fighters pelted several neighborhoods in Damascus with mortar shells killing six civilians and wounding more than 30.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the bombardment of Douma killed eight people and wounded 48, including 15 children.

On Friday, opposition activists said 40 people were killed in Douma while state media said four were killed in government-held Damascus.

Turkish forces in the north

In northern Syria, the Turkish military said on its Twitter account that it has established the ninth observation post in the rebel-held province of Idlib as part of the de-escalation agreement with Russia and Iran. Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency said the military convoy reached the town of Morek in Idlib province.

Eastern Ghouta was also part of the same de-escalation plan signed last year in the Kazakh capital Astana. Turkey’s presidential spokesman said that the Turkish military presence in Idlib would serve as a “guarantee” against attacks to ensure that it does not meet the same fate as eastern Ghouta.

This story was written by VOA News with contributions from Associated Press writers Zeynep Bilginsoy in Istanbul and Jim Heintz in Moscow.
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Hungary is set to hold parliamentary elections Sunday, with the ruling Fidesz party expected to win. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has put his uncompromising anti-migrant rhetoric at the center of the campaign — to the alarm of the European Union, which has accused Hungary of putting fundamental democratic freedoms at risk. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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The 2018 World Cup of freestyle wrestling opened Saturday in the U.S. state of Iowa without Russia and Iran, two traditionally strong teams in the sport.

Iran, the six-time defending champ, pulled out in March without citing a reason, although many tied it to the resignation of the Iranian federation president, Rasoul Khadem, over issues related to the country’s state policy of refusing to compete against Israeli competition.

Khadem quit in protest after United World Wrestling (UWW) ruled that an Iranian wrestler threw a match at the Under-23 World Championships in November to avoid having to face an Israeli opponent and temporarily banning the athlete and his coach.

Russia pulled out of the tournament a week ago after saying it did not have enough time for the visa process needed to get the athletes cleared for the journey to Iowa City.

UWW invited Mongolia and India to replace Iran and Russia the annual meet, considered the second-biggest event outside of the World Championships, which will be held in Hungary in October.

“Our team was poised to do well [even if] Russia and Iran [were competing], so that’s a little bit disappointing,” said Rich Bender, the director of USA Wrestling.

“Certainly, in light of the current political situation and the relations between our governments and the drama around what’s going on in our State Departments, with their embassy and ours, this was not the year to wait until the last minute to apply,” he said of the Russians.

Bill Zadick, the U.S. freestyle coach, said, “It’s disappointing that they [Russians and Iranians] weren’t able to make it to the event because they have great wrestling traditions.”

“Despite our difference in politics on the government side, our federations share a brotherhood and have a really positive relationships that I think both sides value,” he added.

The U.S. team beat India in its first match, while Mongolia beat Kazakhstan.

Some material for this report came from AP, Sioux City Journal, Des Moines Register and Interfax.
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Former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont called again on the Spanish government to begin negotiations over Catalonia’s secession declaration.

The former separatist leader renewed the call Saturday at a news conference in Berlin, one day after being released from a German prison in Neumuenster after two weeks of detention.

“The path for political negotiations based on mutual respect, this is what Europe expects. This is what the Catalan people ask for. This is what the Catalan economy, society and culture need,” Puigdemont said.

Puigdemont was arrested in Germany as he travelled from Finland to Belgium, where he had been in self-imposed exile after fleeing Spain in October.

The Spanish government has accused Puigdemont of provoking an uprising by attempting to declare Catalonia an independent state after a referendum last year the government says was illegal. Madrid has also accused Puigdemont of misusing public money.

Puigdemont was released on bail Friday pending a decision by German judges on whether to extradite him from Spain.

The Schwesig state court decided the charge of rebellion did not warrant extradition, but Puigdemont can still be extradited on the less serious charge of misuse of funds to hold Catalonia’s banned independence referendum.

This story was written by VOA News.
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Millions of people worldwide face financial ruin; their assets wiped out because of a catastrophic illness or accident that saddles them with staggeringly high health bills they are unable to pay.

This nightmare scenario rarely, if ever, occurs in countries that have universal health coverage. Such systems insulate people from the financial disasters that occur in countries where national health schemes do not exist.

“Today, about 100 million people fall into poverty because of health expenditure,” said Rudiger Krech, World Health Organization director for health systems and innovation. He told VOA that every country, poor and rich alike, can afford universal health coverage.

“It is not just a matter of money, but of political will, of political choice. So, you can afford health coverage for everyone, even if you are not one of the most affluent countries in the world,” he said.

For example, he said that relatively low-income countries such as Cuba and Costa Rica have developed good health systems; while in the United States, one of the world’s richest countries, “people have to pay huge amounts of their salaries and their income for health services.”

“We call these catastrophic health expenditures because people are losing their fortune because they had a big accident or an open-heart surgery,” he said. “So, this still pulls people into poverty.”

Half of world lacks full coverage

The World Health Organization reports at least half of the world’s population lacks full coverage for essential health services. More than 800 million people, or nearly 12 percent of the world’s population, spend at least 10 percent of their household budgets to pay for health care, WHO said. In 2015, it said the world spent an eye-watering $7.3 trillion on health, representing close to 10 percent of global Gross Domestic Product.

WHO is on a mission to make it possible for all people and communities to receive the health services they need without suffering financial hardship. As such, it is using this year’s World Health Day, April 7, to promote the U.N. Sustainable Development Goal that calls for the adoption of universal health coverage in 90 percent of the world’s countries by 2030.

“I think this is a goal that people all over the world should aspire toward,” said Shih-Chung Chen, Taiwanese minister of health and welfare.

“I will not say that it will be achieved by 2030,” Chen told a group of visiting journalists, “but I think all countries should have the willingness to try to achieve this, and that is why we want to participate in the World Health Assembly. That would allow us to contribute toward that goal.”

Last year, China blocked Taiwan from participating in the WHA as an observer and, so far this year, Taiwan has not received an invitation to attend.

Taiwan’s system

“I think that in order to ensure that health is a basic human right, no country’s experience should be left out,” said the Taiwanese health minister. “We are extremely proud of our universal health coverage system. I think this would be a very important way for us to share with the world.”

Taiwan’s single payer National Health Insurance, a compulsory program that was launched in 1995, provides comprehensive, affordable coverage for the island’s more than 23 million inhabitants. The government calculates “a family of four pays roughly $100 U.S. per month as the premium.” This comes to about 2 percent of the average household income. Average life expectancy in Taiwan has risen to 80 years, on a par with Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.

“More than 85 percent of the people in Taiwan report very high satisfaction with our national health Insurance,” Chen said.

Low health expenditure

The health minister told VOA that Taiwan’s total health expenditure is 6 percent of GDP, the lowest in the world, compared with more than 16 percent for the United States.

“The U.S. is entirely capable of providing universal health care to its citizens,” he said. “However, because the U.S. has a multitude of systems in place that have been there for a long time and there are a lot of stakeholders involved, it would be a bit difficult. In addition, the U.S. places a lot of importance on freedom of choice.”

Chen said the world could learn a lot from Taiwan’s health insurance program. Unfortunately, he said Taiwan was not able to help because it is barred from participating in international organizations such as the World Health Organization.

Krech told VOA it was the United Nations, not WHO, that decided whether Taiwan could be included in international health matters.

“We are talking to Member States and obviously Taiwan is not a Member State. But, it is Chinese Taiwan and Chinese Taipei and, therefore, it is under this “One China” policy.

“That does not bar us from discussing with representatives of Chinese Taipei, at all,” he said. “We have regular exchanges. We see what is happening.”

This story was written by Lisa Schlein.
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The Catholic Easter custom of hunting brightly colored eggs and chocolate bunnies may be over now, but in the Orthodox world, Easter comes one week later. And it brings with it, its own unique traditions. One of them is the centuries-old practice of drawing elaborate patterns on Easter eggs decorated and painted using hot wax. Mariia Prus and Konstantin Golubchik produced this report from Alexandria, Virginia that is narrated by Katherine Gypson.
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The United Nations human rights office is echoing a recent call by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for an independent investigation into Israel’s use of force against Palestinians who staged protests in Gaza on March 30. The call came Friday as Israeli troops again clashed with Palestinians staging “right of return” border protests.

What began as a peaceful demonstration along the Gaza-Israeli border Friday turned deadly shortly after the U.N. human rights office in Geneva called for restraint by both the Israeli security forces and Palestinians. Spokeswoman Liz Throssell told reporters U.N. officials feared a repeat of last month’s riots, which resulted in the deaths of 16 people and injuries to more than 1,000.  

She said several hundred protesters reportedly were wounded by live ammunition. She noted the victims reportedly were unarmed or did not pose a serious threat to the Israeli security forces, who were well protected. The rights office said Israeli security forces used excessive force last month. Throssell told VOA that Israel denies the accusation.

“From what we have documented, it is certainly that the killings and the injuries do actually point to an excessive use of force and, in particular lethal force,” said Throssell. “And, that was in a situation where there was no threat of death or serious injury. And, that is why we have made this call. This is a law enforcement issue. This has law enforcement principles.” 

Under international human rights law, firearms may be used only as a last resort, only in response to an imminent threat of death or risk of serious injury. Throssell said international law obliges Israel’s security forces to respect the rights of peaceful assembly.  

She said in the context of a military occupation, as is the case in the self-governing Palestinian territory, the unjustified and unlawful recourse to firearms by law enforcement resulting in death may amount to a willful killing and a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

The Palestinians have constructed protest tent camps along the entire length of the Gaza Strip in five locations. They are expected to stay in place for six weeks.

The protests are designed to commemorate the Nakba or “catastrophe” when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had to flee their land or were expelled during the 1948 war that led to the creation of Israel. Israel has deployed more than 100 snipers along the Gaza Strip.

 
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When calls to a Polish domestic violence helpline in Britain plunged last year, its founder Ewa Wilcock was puzzled.

Since its launch in 2014, she had been receiving more calls from compatriots living in Britain than she could handle. Yet they halved — to just over a dozen a month — in mid-2017.

“People would start the conversation saying they were not sure if they should be calling at all because they were afraid of the social services,” Wilcock told Reuters by phone from Cheshire in northwest England.

Wilcock soon discovered that myths were spreading among Poles on social media — and by abusers — that parents who reported domestic violence would lose their children, making victims too scared to seek help.

“Some people said that social services remove children from homes and put them up for adoption,” she said.

“[They said] that foster families get a lot of money for caring for children, that it’s a great business.”

There is no reliable data on domestic violence among the 900,000 Poles in Britain — its largest overseas-born population — but nearly 2 million people, mostly women, are physically or emotionally abused by a partner or relative each year.

“They are ashamed to tell family in Poland,” Wilcock said. “They don’t want them to worry, but they have no one to talk to in Britain.”

Scared

Services provided by Polish charities are often the first point of contact because they make the process of accessing support and finding safety less intimidating for victims.

“When you’re stressed, it’s very difficult to communicate even in your own language,” domestic violence counselor Anna Janczuk told Reuters.

“It’s even more difficult using a second language and finding appropriate words to describe what is happening,” said Janczuk, who runs the London-based nonprofit Familia Support Centre, which provides legal and psychological consultations.

Katarzyna Zatorski, a family solicitor based in the northern town of Huddersfield, said most of her Polish clients dealing with domestic violence are referred to her by Polish charities.

“The most difficult thing is to seek a lawyer’s help,” she told Reuters by phone. “If it’s difficult for a Briton, then it’s much more difficult for someone living in a foreign country.”

Hanna, who declined to give real name, said her husband used to suffocate and beat her, once breaking her nose. He told her that social workers would take their daughter away if she reported him.

“I didn’t know what to start with, how to do it, because I was very scared,” she said.

“In a situation like this, you don’t even know what your name is. When you speak about legal matters, you don’t understand the meaning of certain expressions.”

Without Janczuk’s support “nothing” would have changed, Hanna said, nearly a year after she left her abusive husband.

“Contact [with Janczuk] calmed me,” she said.

Volunteers

Wilcock’s helpline only takes calls twice a week, while Janczuk’s support center is open for less than 20 hours a week because of funding shortages.

“Some funders don’t like it that we help just one minority,” Janczuk said, sitting next to a donated computer in the modest room from which she runs her organization with the support of volunteers.

“We are doing more than the limited resources that we have allow us to do,” said Janczuk, who helps about 25 victims of domestic violence per month.

“Sometimes it’s just this one piece of information that we give the victims that allows them to go on.”

Hanna said she still calls Wilcock’s helpline about once a month when she is worried about issues like child custody.

She used to call every week.

“If they were open more than twice a week, I would have called them more often,” she said.
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The European Union said Friday Facebook has told it that up to 2.7 million people in the 28-nation bloc may have been victim of improper data sharing involving political data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica.

EU spokesman Christian Wigand said EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova will have a telephone call with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg early next week to address the massive data leaks.

The EU and Facebook will be looking at what changes the social media giant needs to make to better protect users and how the U.S. company must adapt to new EU data protection rules.

Wigand said that EU data protection authorities will discuss over the coming days “a strong coordinated approach” on how to deal with the Facebook investigation.

Separately, Italy’s competition authority opened an investigation Friday into Facebook for allegedly misleading practices following revelations that the social network sold users’ data without consent.

Authority chairman Giovanni Pitruzzella told Sky News24 that the investigation will focus on Facebook’s claims on its home page that the service is free, without revealing that it makes money off users’ data.

The investigation comes as Italian consumer advocate group Codacons prepares a U.S. class action against Facebook on behalf of Italians whose data was mined by Cambridge Analytica. Codacons said just 57 Italians downloaded the Cambridge Analytica app, but that an estimated 214,000 Italians could be affected because the data mined extended to also the users’ friends.

A top Facebook privacy official is scheduled to meet with the authority later this month.

This story was earlier corrected to show that the EU call will take place with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg not with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
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A German court ruled Thursday that Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont cannot be extradited to Spain on charges of revolution and can be freed from a German jail on bail.

Puigdemont supporters say they expect Catalonia’s former president to be out of jail by Friday morning.

The judges in Schleswig in northern Germany based their ruling on German law, saying while rebellion may be a crime in Spain, it is not a criminal offense in Germany.

The judges also ruled Puigdemont could still be extradited to Spain on charges of embezzling public funds not rebellion, but could only be tried for embezzlement if he is sent back.

If Puigdemont posts bail, he can only leave Germany with prosecutors’ permission, inform them when he changes his address, and must report to police once a week.

Pro-independence Catalans celebrated when they heard the German court’s decision and some cried openly.

Spanish officials and the country’s supreme court have not yet commented on the German ruling.

German police arrested Puigdemont on a Spanish warrant last week. He crossed into Germany from Belgium, where he fled on October to avoid arrest.

He is wanted in Spain on charges of inciting rebellion by defying the central government and going ahead with a Catalan independence referendum in October, leading to a violent police crackdown.

Twenty-four other Catalan separatist leaders are also facing rebellion charges.

Pro-independence lawmakers won a slim majority in December’s parliamentary elections in Catalonia. But parliament has been unable to name a new president since Puigdemont fled, and the future of independence is murky.

Catalonia, in northeast Spain, and its capital Barcelona are major tourist destinations. It has its own language and distinct culture. But the separatist crisis has hurt tourism and the regional economy.

Catalan separatists call the region a powerful economic engine that drives Spain, and they have demanded more autonomy.

Those who want to stay united with Spain fear the region will sink into an economic abyss without the central government, its ties to the European Union, and its numerous existing bilateral relations.

This story was written by VOA News.
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A District of Columbia judge on Thursday sentenced two Turkish-Americans to one year and one day in prison after they pleaded guilty of assaulting pro-Kurdish demonstrators during Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Washington last year.

Sinan Narin, 46, of Virginia and Eyup Yildirim, 51, of New Jersey each pleaded guilty in December to one count of assault with significant bodily injury in connection with the May 2017 clashes with protesters near the Turkish ambassador’s residence.

Judge Marisa Demeo of the Superior Court for the District of Columbia accepted their plea agreements and imposed the previously agreed upon sentence on each.

The two have been in jail since their arrest last June and will receive credit for time already served, the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia said.

The street brawl that led to the pair’s arrest started after a small group of Kurdish demonstrators gathered near the Turkish ambassador’s residence to protest Erdogan’s arrival, only to be confronted by the president’s supporters, security guards and other members of his delegation.

WATCH: Demonstration at Turkish Embassy in DC Turns Violent

Video of the confrontation recorded by a VOA journalist showed what appeared to be Erdogan’s security guards pushing, shoving and kicking the protesters, some of whom were carrying Kurdish flags.

A grand jury last August indicted 19 people — 15 members of Erdogan’s security detail, the two Turkish-Americans and two Turkish-Canadians — on charges of conspiracy to commit a crime of violence, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

But U.S. prosecutors later dropped charges against 11 of the guards for what a government official described as “evidentiary reasons.”

Criminal charges against the other four bodyguards remain pending, as do ones against the two Canadian citizens of Turkish ancestry.

The Turkish-Canadians have not been arrested, and it remains unclear whether they’ll be extradited to the U.S. to stand trial.
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A U.N. rights watchdog called on Hungary on Thursday to crack down on hate speech by politicians against Roma, Muslims and other minorities, and to repeal a law allowing migrants to be deported without a chance to seek

asylum.

It urged the nationalist government to reject draft laws known as the “Stop-Soros Package” that would empower the interior minister to ban nongovernmental organizations that support migration and pose a “national security risk.”

The government says the bill is meant to deter illegal immigration that Prime Minister Viktor Orban says is eroding European stability and has been stoked in part by Hungarian-born U.S. financier George Soros. It says its policies are to ensure Hungarians can live in safety.

Orban, seeking a third consecutive term Sunday, has campaigned on a strong anti-migration message, although a U.N. panel expert said the timing of the watchdog’s comments, at the end of a four-week meeting, was not directed at voters.

The U.N. Human Rights Committee voiced concern at “hate crimes and about hate speech in political discourse, the media and on the internet targeting minorities, notably, Roma, Muslims, migrants and refugees, including in the context of government-sponsored campaigns.”

The panel issued its findings and recommendations after its 18 independent experts reviewed Hungary’s record on upholding civil and political rights.

“The concern we saw in Hungary is that sometimes hate speech is accompanied by hate crimes which are directed against minorities and against migrants,” Yuval Shany, the panel vice chair, told Reuters TV.

​Security issue

Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto defended Hungary’s policies, telling the U.N. panel last month: “First and foremost, it is a firm conviction of the government that the Hungarian people have the right to live a life in security, without fear of terrorist atrocities.”

In 2015, the central European country had a “sad experience” when 400,000 migrants passed through on their way to Western Europe, “ignoring all rules,” he said.

The U.N. panel also decried a Hungarian law adopted a year ago that allows for automatically removing all asylum applicants to transit zones for indefinite confinement.

People should be allowed freedom of movement while their asylum claims are examined to see whether they are refugees fleeing war or persecution, the committee said.

The panel added that Hungary should repeal a June 2016 law that enables police to summarily expel anyone entering irregularly.

The committee also voiced concern at the “prevalence of anti-Semitic stereotypes” and how “high-ranking officials have nurtured conspiracy theories relating to George Soros.”

Orban has waged a billboard and media campaign asserting that Soros would “settle millions from Africa and the Middle East,” among other allegations.

Soros, who is Jewish, has rejected the campaign against him as “distortions and lies” meant to create a false external enemy.
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Three buses believed to be carrying expelled diplomats have departed from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

Before the Thursday morning departure, journalists outside the embassy compound saw people leaving the residences, placing luggage on trucks. Some toted pet-carriers.

Russia last week ordered 60 American diplomats to leave the country by Thursday, in retaliation for the United States expelling the same number of Russians.

The moves were part of a deepening dispute over the nerve-agent poisoning in Britain of a Russian former double-agent and his daughter. Britain alleges Russian involvement, which Moscow vehemently denies.

More than 150 diplomats have been expelled by Britain and allies, and Russia has ordered reciprocal moves.
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Hungary’s foreign minister is rejecting accusations his government is racist, but said it does not accept that a multicultural society is better than a homogeneous one. 

“We don’t accept that multiculturalism is a value by itself,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó told VOA on Wednesday in an interview at the United Nations. “We don’t accept that multiculturalism would be better than a homogeneous society, for example. We think it’s up to the given nation, it’s up to the given society, to decide what is considered to be a value.”

Szijjártó was responding to a question about remarks made by the U.N. high commissioner for human rights last month, accusing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban of being a “racist,” a “bully” and a “xenophobe” because Orban said he did not want Hungary to be “multicolored.”

The foreign minister added that Hungary has been “a homogeneous united Hungarian Christian society” for 1,100 years and considers “this as a value.” 

His comments came amid a rise in nationalist and anti-immigrant sentiment throughout parts of Europe.

Migration

Migration has been a key election issue in several recent European elections, and Hungary is no different. This Sunday, Hungarians will vote in general elections, and Orban and his right-wing Fidesz party are overwhelmingly favored to stay in power.

Szijjártó is at the United Nations this week for negotiations on a Global Compact on Migration. In December, the United States pulled out of the discussions, saying the proposed pact was not consistent with Trump administration immigration policies.

“We agree with the American administration that this is a very biased, very unbalanced and very extremely radically pro-migration document,” Szijjártó told VOA on Wednesday. “So this goes totally against our migration policy, just like it goes against the migration policy of the current administration here.”

But despite its objections, Szijjártó said Hungary would remain in the migration negotiations and seek changes to the document. 

UN agreement

The U.N. discussions are part of a process to draft a multilateral agreement that would cover all aspects of safe, orderly and regular migration. The United Nations estimates there are about 244 million migrants in the world,  or just over 3 percent of the world’s population.

Hungary’s location at the crossroads of two popular migration routes brought it more than 440,000 mostly Syrian and Afghan refugees and migrants in 2015, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Most were passing through to reach other European Union countries, but the massive influx was seen as disruptive and unwelcome by the Hungarian government.

Hungary has since constructed fences along its southern border and enacted legislation that has significantly reduced irregular migration across its territory. 

“We don’t think it’s a fundamental human right that to wake up in the morning, you finger-point on some country on the globe that you want to live there,” Szijjártó said. “And in order to get there you violate borders and you make everything to get there.”

The foreign minister told VOA that Hungarians do have a fundamental human right to live in safe conditions in their own country and that security comes first. 

“We will never accept that anyone gives priority to the questionable rights of migrants against the right of the Hungarian people to have a safe life back in Hungary,” he said.
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The Turkish president has been hosting his Iranian and Russian counterparts in Ankara, part of an effort to end the Syrian civil war. While the presidents are backing opposing sides in the conflict, they are increasingly working together, Dorian Jones reports from Ankara.
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William spreads cream over a lemon sponge cake, as another cook ladles steaming platefuls of paella. The kitchen staff is in rush mode on a recent weekday, not to serve a hungry restaurant crowd, but prison officials on their lunchtime break. 

Welcome to Eysses detention center in Villeneuve-sur-Lot, a picturesque southern French town abutting the Garonne River better known for its medieval architecture than its penal population. But, in some ways, Eysses inmates like William are test cases for a sweeping government effort to slash recidivism and tackle one of Europe’s highest rates of prison overcrowding. 

Last month, President Emmanuel Macron outlined measures that would scrap or reconsider short-term prison sentences in favor of options such as home detention with electronic tagging, and building 7,000 cells over the next four years to ease overcrowding. Proposals also call for creating jobs to reinforce probation and re-insertion programs for an inmate population that has soared from 48,000 in 2001 to nearly 70,000 today.

“Sentences must be credible and understandable, not necessarily in terms of being the most severe possible,” said Macron.

Some call Macron’s plan soft on crime, while others suggest it doesn’t go far enough, particularly when it comes to radicalism flourishing in French jails. Yet, it has drawn support for encouraging experiments, like the Respect pilot rolled out just over a year ago at Eysses, which is based on a Spanish model.

“We don’t have results yet,” when it comes to shrinking the number of repeat offenders, Eysses detention head Philippe Sperandio said. “But we see a drop in physical violence among inmates; there are fewer infractions.” 

The 18 prisons that have launched Respect since 2015 also report a drop in suicide rates. Another 20 are expected to introduce the pilot project over the next two years. 

Options to delinquency

Respect is run in only one Eysses wing, and getting into the program is competitive. Those accepted must a sign a contract listing a series of obligations, and risk expulsion for infractions like possessing a cellphone. Rules include spending 25 hours weekly either working or participating in educational or health-related activities. Inmates also take shifts cleaning up communal spaces; but, the plusses include keys to their cells — a powerful symbol of limited liberty, even if guards have copies. 

“Just getting up in the morning, going to work, participating in activities, helps them to get back into life and to realize there are other possibilities besides delinquency and crime,” says prison psychologist Ludmilla Issanchou. 

Detention head Sperandio recounts one departing inmate telling him he had never experienced anything like Respect before. 

“Will that help ensure he won’t come back? I don’t know,” he added. “But he sees things differently. He knows what he’s lost.” 

For 32-year-old pastry maker William, the pilot program marks a sharp break from previous penitentiary experiences during his decade behind bars. 

“Some are hotter then others,” he says. “Here, we have a semblance of liberty within the walls, even if there are always bars.” 

​In the small prison garden, guard Carol Cerjak helps several inmates pull out the last of the winter greens. The pilot has also helped to build better relations between guards and inmates, Eysses staff say – a stark contrast from other French prisons, where several attacks by radicalized inmates unleashed a nationwide prison guard strike in January over prison conditions. 

“I am very rarely confronted by violence, and we’re a lot more relaxed,” Cerjak says. “You see a prisoner coming here, and a week later, they’re completely different.” 

Not for radicalized inmates

A recent report by the Council of Europe, the region’s top rights watchdog, counted French jails among the most overcrowded in western Europe, and France among the few where the penal population is rising. While Danish and Dutch prisons average one prisoner per cell, it found France averages 117 inmates per 100 cells, with even higher rates in areas like Paris. 

Alternatives to 24/7 incarceration encouraged under Macron’s reforms have their limits, however. For the country’s roughly 1,600 radicalized inmates — whose numbers have swollen with returning jihadi fighters, and those charged for plotting or carrying out attacks at home — the answer is building more cells and isolation blocks to stop the spread of radical Islam. 

“The idea is not to ostracize them so they leave embittered,” says Justice Ministry spokesman Youssef Badr, describing small units and one-on-one attention for radicalized inmates. “There’s real effort made to rehabilitate them.”

Experts suggest countering radicalism should include more open systems, pointing to Denmark, where inmates wear their own clothes, participate in sports and cook their own meals to prepare for life outside. 

Yet, “if one of these jihadists in open spaces become violent and kills people, it would be very politically costly for the government,” says leading prison expert Farhad Khosrokhavar, “so they don’t dare do it.” 

“They stress the repressive side and not the integration side,” he adds. “And that is the attitude, I would say, of many European governments nowadays.” 

At Eysses, inmate Jean-Luc digs his hands deep into the earth, preparing the prison garden for spring planting. After 29 years behind bars, he is a believer of Respect’s “tough love” approach. 

“I’ve been in some where even a dog wouldn’t enter,” he says. “Here, Respect gives us back our dignity.”
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The family of a British-Iranian woman jailed in Iran on espionage charges has demanded that the British government take a bigger role in securing her release, two years after the young mother was detained while visiting relatives. 

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is being held in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison. The 39-year-old was arrested at Tehran’s airport as she tried to leave Iran in April 2016 and later sentenced to jail for five years on charges of seeking to overthrow the government. Nazanin and her family have maintained she was in Iran on vacation.

In an interview with VOA, her husband, Richard, said their hopes had been raised in recent weeks that her release was imminent — but she is caught in the middle of a diplomatic tussle between London and Tehran. 

“The head of the prison, of Evin prison, said to her, ‘Look, I’ve approved your release. I approved your release months ago, but it’s not in my hands.’ And then the judge in charge of parole said, ‘Look, we can move you to guarded house arrest if you want something, but we can’t release you at the moment. There’s this problem between the British government and the Iranian government over the interest calculation on an old debt,’” Ratcliffe told VOA.

That debt is believed to concern an arms deal that collapsed with the Iranian revolution in 1979, leaving Tehran millions of dollars out of pocket.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s family wants British Prime Minister Theresa May to become more involved in the case, given its apparent political nature.

Last year, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson pledged to leave ‘no stone unturned’ to secure Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release. He traveled to Tehran to discuss the matter with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif. Richard Ratcliffe said there has been little communication since then.

“Part of what we’re pushing for now is to meet with the foreign secretary again, to meet with him in the presence of lawyers and to talk through — given it feels like there’s a standoff between both governments — what do they think Nazanin’s rights are?”

Richard Ratcliffe hasn’t seen his daughter for two years. Gabriella was just a year old when her mother was detained, leaving her in the care of her grandparents. 

“Now, she’s a little girl. She speaks Farsi, she doesn’t speak English. Her relationship with both her parents, but certainly with me, is a much more remote relationship. We do sort of funny faces and games on the phone, but she’s still too small to really engage on the phone. And there will be — we’ll need to learn to be a parent again,” Ratcliffe said.

Family and supporters held an event in London Monday to mark the two-year anniversary of Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s detention.

In a statement Tuesday, the British Foreign Office said it is continuing to approach the case “in a way that we judge is most likely to secure the outcome we all want,” adding it would not provide a running commentary “on every twist and turn.”

Each of those twists continues to cause anguish for Zaghari-Ratcliffe, her family and friends. 
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French railway transport has been disrupted following a launch of a three-month strike to protest President Emmanuel Macron’s labor reforms. The start of the action led by the employees of the state railway SNFC was dubbed “Black Tuesday” and was followed by a street demonstration. The strike will affect railway transport for two days in every five over a three-month period. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports Tuesday protest turned unruly in some places.
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Queen Elizabeth II’s 96-year-old husband, Prince Philip, has been admitted to a London hospital for a previously scheduled hip surgery, Buckingham Palace said Tuesday.

The palace said the prince entered the King Edward VII Hospital in the afternoon and would have the surgery Wednesday. It said the hospital admission and surgery were planned.

Officials declined to provide additional details about the surgery and said “further updates will be issued when appropriate.”

The prince announced in May that he was retiring from most public duties after decades of royal service. The palace said at the time he had carried out roughly 22,000 solo royal engagements since Elizabeth ascended to the throne in 1952.

Philip has missed several public events in recent weeks, including an Easter Sunday church service in Windsor. He has been reported to be hobbled by hip pain, but the news of the planned surgery took many by surprise.

The health scare comes at a busy time for the royal family. Prince William and his wife Kate are expecting their third child this month, and Prince Harry plans to marry American actress Meghan Markle on May 19 at Windsor Castle.

Philip has sharply reduced the number of charity events he attends since announcing his retirement, but still accompanies the queen on occasion.

Philip has been in generally good health for his age, but he was briefly hospitalized over Christmas in 2011 for angioplasty treatment of a blockage in his coronary arteries. He has suffered from other ailments as well but has not spoken about them in public.

He and Elizabeth celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary in November.

The queen has praised her husband for his devotion and long years of service, calling him the rock she depends on.

 
…

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hosts his counterparts from Russia and Iran Wednesday for a second trilateral summit on Syria. The three, whose countries have a significant military presence in Syria, are increasingly cooperating to resolve the civil war under the auspices of the so-called “Astana Process.”

The deepening cooperation comes in the face of intense rivalries.  

“Since 2011, Ankara’s sole purpose was to dethrone Assad,” said Aydin Selcen, a former senior Turkish diplomat, who served widely in the region. “Whereas, Russia and Iran came to Syria upon Assad’s invitation to keep him in place and this is a contradiction,” he added, referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

All sides have so far managed their differences, out of an awareness, analysts suggest, that is based on the realization they need one another’s cooperation in efforts to secure their regional goals and ultimately bring an end to the seven-year conflict.

Under the “Astana Process,” so-called deconfliction zones have been created across Syria, in which rebel groups are concentrated. Ankara, with its close ties to those rebel groups, has worked closely with Moscow within the process. Wednesday’s meeting is expected to focus on the Syrian enclave of Idlib. Turkish forces have been steadily increasing their deployment there, creating observation posts to monitor the deconfliction zone.

The Turkish-led military campaign against the YPG Syrian-Kurdish militia is also expected to be on the agenda of Wednesday’s summit. Ankara accuses the militia of being a terrorist group linked to a decades-long Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey.

Last month, Turkish forces ousted the YPG from the Syrian enclave of Afrin, but Erdogan has pledged to expand the military operation across northern Syria up to the Iraqi border. Erdogan is expected to seek to assuage any concerns from Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Iran’s Hassan Rouhani.

“The limits of the [Turkish military] operation [in Syria] will depend on the reaction of other actors who are stakeholders in Syria,” predicted Sinan Ulgen of Brussels-based Carnegie Europe, a research institution. With Russian air defenses currently controlling most of Syria’s airspace, Moscow up until now has given its tacit support to the offensive, allowing Turkish jets to fly with impunity in Syrian airspace in support of the operation.

Turkey-Iran tensions

Tehran has called for an end to the Turkish operation. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is expected to press his concerns over the operation in the talks with Erdogan. The two leaders are scheduled for a separate face-to-face meeting.

Analysts point out Iran is likely to be increasingly concerned about the growing number of Turkish armed forces in Syria. Tehran will be aware Turkish forces seldom withdraw once deployed in a neighboring country. Regional rivalries between the two powerful neighbors are exacerbated by sectarian tensions.

“I don’t see any good relation between Erdogan and the Islamic regime of Iran because Sunni and Shia Muslims are fighting for the same land in the Middle East,” warns Iranian expert Jamshid Assadi of France’s Burgundy Business School. “They might agree on not fighting a war, but that is all.”

Tehran’s recent cooperation with Ankara over Syria is giving Iran an opportunity to further undermine Turkey’s strained ties with the United States. That, observers say, is important for Iran, given the importance of Turkey in any new sanctions by the U.S. against Iran.

Also Rouhani, like Russia’s Putin, will be aware of the looming confrontation between Turkish and U.S. forces over the Syrian town of Manbij. Erdogan has pledged to oust the Kurdish YPG militia from Manbij, where U.S. forces are also deployed. Washington sees the YPG as a key ally in its war against Islamic State. Sources in Ankara have suggested the Turkish-led operation is as much about removing the U.S. presence in Syria as is the Kurdish militia.

Tehran, like Moscow, is also aware of the important role Ankara is playing in helping to facilitate the movement of rebels toward the region near the Turkish border.

“The Moscow-Tehran-Damascus trio wants all jihadists to seek refuge near the Turkish border, which is an extremely smart move on their part,” wrote columnist Barcin Yinanc of the Hurriyet Daily News. He warned, however, that Ankara could pay a heavy price. “There is no guarantee that these Islamist and jihadist groups will not end up hitting back at Turkey in the future.” Analysts, however, point out the priority for Ankara remains its ongoing campaign against the YPG.

 
…

Poland’s prime minister claims Jews took part in their own destruction in the Holocaust. His Hungarian counterpart declares that the “color” of Europeans should not mix with that of Africans and Arabs. And the Croatian president has thanked Argentina for welcoming notorious pro-Nazi war criminals after World War II.

Ever since WWII, such views were taboo in Europe, confined to the far-right fringes. Today they are openly expressed by mainstream political leaders in parts of Central and Eastern Europe, part of a global populist surge in the face of globalization and mass migration.

“There is something broader going on in the region which has produced a patriotic, nativist, conservative discourse through which far-right ideas managed to become mainstream,” said Tom Junes, a historian and a researcher with the Human and Social Studies Foundation in Sofia, Bulgaria.

In many places, the shift to the right has included the rehabilitation of Nazi collaborators, often fighters or groups celebrated as anti-communists or defenders of national liberation. In Hungary and Poland, governments are also eroding the independence of courts and media, leading human rights groups to warn that democracy is threatened in parts of a region that threw off Moscow-backed dictatorships in 1989.

Some analysts say Russia is covertly helping extremist groups in order to destabilize Western liberal democracies. While that claim is difficult to prove with concrete evidence, it is clear that the growth of radical groups has pushed moderate conservative parties to veer to the right to hold onto votes.

That’s the case in Hungary, where Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his Fidesz party — the front-runner in the April 8 elections — have drawn voters with an increasingly strident anti-migrant campaign.

Casting himself as the savior of a white Christian Europe being overrun by hordes of Muslims and Africans, Orban has insisted that Hungarians don’t want their “own color, traditions and national culture to be mixed by others.”

Orban, who is friendly with Russian President Vladimir Putin, was also the first European leader to endorse Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential race. In 2015 he erected razor wire at Hungary’s borders to stop migrants from crossing, and has since been warning in apocalyptic terms that the West faces racial and civilizational suicide if the migration continues.

Orban has also been obsessed with demonizing the financier and philanthropist George Soros, falsely portraying the Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor as an advocate of uncontrolled immigration into Europe. In what critics denounce as a state-sponsored conspiracy theory with anti-Semitic overtones, the Hungarian government spent $48.5 million on anti-Soros ads in 2017, according to data compiled by investigative news site atlatszo.hu.

In a recent speech, Orban denounced Soros in language that echoed anti-Semitic clichés of the 20th century. He said Hungary’s foes “do not believe in work, but speculate with money; they have no homeland, but feel that the whole world is theirs.”

In nearby Poland, xenophobic language is also on the rise. The ruling party’s leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, claimed migrants carried “parasites” ahead of the 2015 elections. And when nationalists held a large Independence Day march in November — when some carried banners calling for a “White Europe” and “Clean Blood” — the interior minister called it a “beautiful sight.”

Poland’s government has also been embroiled in a bitter dispute with Israel and Jewish organizations over a law that would criminalize blaming Poland for Germany’s Holocaust crimes.

With tensions running high in February, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki listed “Jewish perpetrators” as among those who were responsible for the Holocaust. He also visited the Munich grave of an underground Polish resistance group that had collaborated with the Nazis.

In the same vein, an official tapped to create a major new history museum has condemned the postwar tribunals in Nuremberg, Germany — where top Nazis were judged — as “the greatest judicial farce in the history of Europe.” Arkadiusz Karbowiak said the Nuremberg trials were only “possible because of the serious role of Jews” in their organization, and called them “the place where the official religion of the Holocaust was created.”

Across the region, Roma, Muslims, Jews and other minorities have expressed anxiety about the future. But nationalists insist they are not promoting hate. They argue they’re defending their national sovereignty and Christian way of life against globalization and the large-scale influx of migrants who don’t assimilate.

The Balkans, bloodied by ethnic warfare in the 1990s, are also seeing a rise of nationalism, particularly in Serbia and Croatia. Political analysts there believe that Russian propaganda is spurring old ethnic resentments.

Croatia has steadily drifted to the right since joining the EU in 2013. Some officials there have denied the Holocaust or reappraised Croatia’s ultranationalist, pro-Nazi Ustasha regime, which killed tens of thousands of Jews, Serbs, Roma and anti-fascist Croats in wartime prison camps.

In a recent visit to Argentina, President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic thanked the country for providing post-war refuge to Croats who had belonged to the Ustasha regime.

The world’s top Nazi hunter, Efraim Zuroff of the Wiesenthal center, called her statement “a horrific insult to victims.” Grabar-Kitarovic later said she had not meant to glorify a totalitarian regime.

Meanwhile in Bulgaria, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, the government includes a far-right alliance, the United Patriots, whose members have given Nazi salutes and slurred minorities. Deputy prime minister Valeri Simeonov has called Roma “ferocious humanoids” whose women “have the instincts of street dogs.”

Junes, the Sofia-based researcher, says that even though hate crimes are on the rise in Bulgaria, the problem has raised little concern in the West because the country keeps its public debt in check and is not challenging the fundamental Western consensus, unlike Poland and Hungary.

“Bulgaria isn’t rocking the boat,” Junes said. “They play along with Europe.”

While populist and far-right groups are also growing in parts of Western Europe, countries like Poland and Hungary are proving more vulnerable to the same challenges, said Peter Kreko, director of Political Capital Institute, a Budapest-based think tank.

“In younger, weaker, more fragile democracies,” Kreko said, “right-wing populism is more dangerous because it can weaken and even demolish the democratic institutions.”
…

Last week’s tit-for-tat closure of U.S. and Russian consulates over the death of a former spy in Britain was intended to punish officials and diplomats, but ordinary citizens of both countries are already feeling the impact.

The fallout is most severe for Russian citizens and travel-minded Americans in the U.S. Northwest, who would normally seek visas, passport renewals and other documents at the Russian consulate in Seattle, which shut down Friday.

With Russia’s San Francisco consulate having already been closed in September, that leaves residents of the Seattle area with a minimum four-and-a-half-hour flight to the nearest functioning Russian consulate in Houston, Texas, some 3,000 kilometers (1,860) miles) away.

Gayane Yaffa, head of Russian visa services in Seattle, said her phone rang non-stop all week after the March 26 White House announcement.

“People started calling at 7 a.m. asking what to do now,” said Yaffa. “Many had already planned their trips and purchased tickets. People kept asking what to do. It was impossible to reach the consulate in Seattle, and those who succeeded were told there was no point in coming because the employees only gave out the ready passports with visas in them.”

Russia responded later last week by ordering the United States to close its consulate in St. Petersburg, the second busiest one in the country. But the impact of that closing will be less severe, since the U.S. consulate in Moscow — less than 700 kilometers (435 miles) to the southeast — will continue to operate.

Russian national Yuri Dukhovny, a Los Angeles resident, says he believes the exchange of closings is going to have a disproportionate impact on Russians.

“All conflicts between states first affect average citizens,” he said. “Many Russians need to renew passports and deal with paperwork. Not having any Russian consulates on the West Coast affects them greatly. Everything will now take forever.”

Script writer Jeremy Iverson, an American who says he moved to Russia a year ago to seek adventure, echoed that view, saying it is average Russians who ultimately will pay the price for the diplomatic gamesmanship.

“The closure of the (St. Petersburg) consulate isn’t actually going to impact American citizens  they’ll still have to go through the ILS system to mail in your documents needed for obtaining a visa,” he said. “It will impact Russian citizens who need consular services, those who are here and are trying to get passports changed, to get documentation  things like that. It’s going to be an issue for them.”

Moscow responded to the U.S. order to close the Seattle consulate with a Twitter poll asking Russian citizens which U.S. consulate should be closed in response.

What seemed like a sarcastic joke, said Russian political analyst Alexandr Konfisakhor, was actually a political tactic that appeared to shift responsibility for the decision to the will of the Russian people. Konfisakhor suggested it was a way for the Russian government to respond to the U.S. but not overdo it.

“You can get to Moscow from St. Petersburg in just a couple of hours. It means that everyone who needs a visa can easily get one. Closing a consulate in Yekaterinburg or Vladivostok would have been a much more serious inconvenience,” he said.

This story originated from VOA’s Russian Service. 
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Jailed former Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont insisted those who want independence for the northern Spanish region are not criminals.

“We want to decide our own future — is that a crime? We used ballot boxes — is that a crime?”  Puigdemont asked during a jail cell interview by a German news website.

“We were elected by the people, so what is the problem with the Spanish authorities? Why don’t they start politics in order to solve a political problem?”

German police arrested Puigdemont on a Spanish warrant last week. He is wanted in Spain on charges of inciting rebellion by defying the central government and going ahead with a Catalan independence referendum in October, leading to a violent police crackdown.

Puigdemont initially fled to Belgium to avoid arrest.

The French News Agency reported Puigdemont’s attorney has appealed the Supreme Court’s decision to prosecute him on the rebellion charges. The lawyer argued the charge implies Puigdemont advocated an uprising by violence. He said any violence that followed the October referendum was isolated and does not justify the charges.

Twenty-four other Catalan separatist leaders are also facing rebellion charges.

Pro-independence lawmakers won a slim majority in December’s parliamentary elections in Catalonia. However, parliament has been unable to name a new president since Puigdemont fled, and the future of independence is murky.

Catalonia, in northeast Spain, and its capital Barcelona are major tourist magnets. It has its own language and distinct culture, but the separatist crisis has hurt tourism and the regional economy.

Catalan separatists call the region a powerful economic engine that drives Spain, and they have demanded more autonomy.

Those who want to stay united with Spain fear the region will sink into an economic abyss without the central government, its ties to the European Union, and its numerous existing bilateral relations.
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The U.S. relationship with fellow NATO members comes under scrutiny again this week as U.S. President Donald Trump hosts a Baltic Summit at the White House on Tuesday.

According to a White House statement, Trump and President Kersti Kaljulaid of Estonia, President Raimonds Vejonis of Latvia, and President Dalia Grybauskaite of Lithuania are set to discuss how to strengthen security, business, trade, energy, and cultural partnerships between the United States and these three NATO allies.

The White House says the gathering will also highlight the countries’ recent success in meeting NATO’s defense spending pledge.

Trump has repeatedly criticized NATO member countries for not contributing their fair share to the alliance and not meeting their 2 percent defense spending benchmark. In a speech to NATO members last year, he noticeably failed to reiterate the U.S. commitment to NATO’s Article 5 pledge of mutual defense, rattling NATO allies.

Since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have grown increasingly worried about Russia’s regional military buildup and the possibility that they could suffer a similar fate as Crimea.

The countries have since pledged to boost their defense spending, counting on NATO allies to provide military assistance should Russia take any action.

Latvian President Raimons Vejonis told Latvian television last week that he expects Washington to publicly commit to the region’s security. “It is planned to adopt a declaration, from which we expect a very strong political message from the U.S. expressing support for strengthening Baltic security and expressing, once again, support for the independence of the Baltic states,” he said.

New spike in tensions

The U.S.-Baltic summit comes amid heighten tensions between Russia and the West.

Last week, the U.S. and more than two dozen countries – including the three Baltic States – expelled a total of more than 150 Russian diplomats in a show of solidarity over the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain. Russia responded by announcing the expulsion of more than 150 foreign diplomats, including 60 U.S. diplomats.

In addition to the expulsions, the U.S. and the Baltic states have been accusing Russia of conducting a barrage of cyberattacks and spreading fake news, propaganda, and disinformation online in an effort to meddle in European countries’ political systems and sway public opinion in favor of Russia’s agenda. Top U.S. intelligence officials have accused Russia of interfering in 2016 US presidential election and taking steps to undermine the 2018 midterm elections.  

“I think what we have seen in the past four or three years is the community of democratic nations is under the attack,” Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics recently told VOA’s Russian Service, referring to Russian interference.  

“The very basis of our democratic institutions are under attack through social media by fake news, and also through the influence of money, and it is very important that we stick together,” he said.

Russia test-fired its new liquid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile Sarmat on Friday. Latvia’s Defense Ministry said Thursday it was concerned by a sudden announcement from Russia that it will test-fire missiles in the Baltic Sea between Latvia and Sweden on April 4 and 6.

Last month, Trump congratulated Russian President Vladimir Putin on his re-election victory during a phone call and said the two agreed to hold talks in the “not-too-distant future.”

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Monday they discussed the meeting could take place “at a number of potential venues, including the White House.”
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German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas wants to resume dialogue with Russia and gradually improve ties after diplomatic expulsions over a nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy in England that Britain blames on Russia, he said on Sunday.

Conservative German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Maas have joined the United States and other European countries in standing with Britain in a major standoff over the attack on former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter.

Maas, a member of the Social Democrats (SPD) who are split on how tough to be on Moscow, told Bild am Sonntag much trust had been lost in the last few years due to Russia’s behavior.

“At the same time, we need Russia as a partner to settle regional conflicts, for disarmament and as an important pillar of multilateralism,” he was quoted as saying in the paper.

“We are therefore open for dialogue and are trying to rebuild trust bit by bit if Russia is ready.”

He also, however, defended the decision to expel diplomats, “to show solidarity with Britain but also as a signal of unity.”

In the last week, as part of mass expulsions on both sides, Germany expelled four Russian diplomats and Moscow has reciprocated with the same number, prompting talk of a crisis in relations between Russia and the West.

Some Social Democrats have urged the ‘grand coalition’ of their party and Merkel’s conservatives to ensure a new Cold War does not start, and business groups are also worried.

Germany relies on Russia for roughly a third of the gas it uses and, before Western states imposed sanctions on Russia over its role in the Ukraine crisis, Europe’s biggest economy exported about 38 billion euros of goods to Russia.

London accuses Moscow of being responsible for the first known use of a military-grade nerve agent on European soil since World War II and Germany has repeatedly called on Moscow to cooperate more with the investigations.
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