Month: January 2017

Iraqi troops are preparing for the battle to liberate west Mosul from Islamic State militants after retaking the eastern part of the country’s second largest city. The Iraqi government said its forces now control all districts of Mosul east of the Tigris River after mopping up the last pockets of IS fighters. (RFE/RL’s Radio Farda)
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Russia’s consumer protection agency prolonged a ban on sales of alcoholic liquids not intended for internal consumption by another 60 days after dozens of people died from drinking lethal bath lotion.
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The leaders of Kosovo and Serbia agreed at a summit in Brussels on January 25 to hold further high-level talks on establishing normal relations after a flare-up in tensions this year.
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The U.S. Senate’s number two Democrat has backed calls for an independent investigation into allegations that Russian hackers interfered the U.S. presidential election last year.
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European Union countries were urged Tuesday to halve food waste by 2030, but lawmakers stopped short of making the target binding — to the disappointment of environmental activists.

The European Parliament’s environment committee in Brussels voted in favor of new regulations calling on EU nations to aim to reduce food produced and never eaten to 30 percent by 2025 and 50 percent by 2030.

“[The vote] fulfilled a moral obligation,” MEP Simona Bonafe, the committee member charged with drafting the text, told Reuters by telephone.

About one-third of all food produced globally for human consumption is lost or wasted every year, either spoiled after harvest and during transportation, or thrown away by shops and consumers.

Yet almost 800 million people worldwide go to bed hungry every night, according to United Nations figures.

Reducing food waste would also help curb planet-warming gases linked to agriculture, which accounts for about 20 percent of overall greenhouse gas emissions.

Bonafe said that, although some countries, including France and Italy, already have in place measures to fight food waste, there was no common EU norm on the subject to date.

“We have filled the gap,” she said.

The 50 percent target was introduced as an amendment to the European Commission’s Circular Economy Package, a new legal framework to foster sustainable growth due to be enforced later this year.

To become law, it has to receive the final go-ahead by the EU Parliament in plenary session and European environment ministers.

Environmental activists said the amendment was a step in the right direction but didn’t go far enough.

“It is disappointing that MEPs did not back a binding target,” said Meadhbh Bolger, resource justice campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe.

“This means that the target may not be taken seriously by some member states,” added Martin Bowman of British campaigning group This is Rubbish.

An estimated 88 million tons of food is wasted in EU countries every year, costing about 143 billion euros ($153.61 billion), which activists say could feed the 55 million people living in food poverty in Europe more than nine times over.
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Brazil’s top labor prosecutor said President Michel Temer’s proposals to modernize the country’s labor laws were illegal in a report published on Tuesday that provided ammunition to workers’ unions fighting the reforms.

Updating outdated labor laws to allow outsourcing and more flexibility in contracts and work hours is part of Temer’s plan to reduce business costs and pull Brazil from its worst recession on record. But his proposal has come under fire even before it was discussed in Congress.

“In times of crisis, workers need more protection not less,” Prosecutor-General for Labor Ronaldo Fleury, whose office in responsible for chasing labor law violations from slavery to child labor, said at a news conference.

Fleury said the government’s proposal to do away with the eight-hour workday limit to allow more temporary employment and two other proposals already in Congress to expand outsourcing and allow workers to be paid per hour worked were unconstitutional and broke international labor conventions.

The bill sent by Temer to Congress would double the limit on temporary work contracts from three to six months. It would also allow longer workdays though keep the 44-hour week.

Presenting his report to labor leaders, Fleury said this would mean lower salaries, less benefits and precarious work conditions, and he rejected the government’s claim it would create more jobs and reduce Brazil’s record 12 percent unemployment.

Temer is struggling to restore fiscal discipline and revive Latin America’s largest economy, and his unpopular belt-tightening measure face increasing resistance. Congress enacted a public spending ceiling in December, but lawmakers are expected to water down a key bill to reform the costly pensions system, main contributor to a growing fiscal deficit.

Brazil’s biggest labor confederation with 7.4 million union workers, the CUT, said it plans to start nationwide protests against the pension and labor law reforms once Brazil gets back from its summer holidays and Carnival, kicking off with a national teachers strike on March 15.

“These proposals will take us back to the time of the industrial revolution when the working class was fighting to reduce 12- or 14-hour workdays,” said the CUT’s national labor secretary Maria das Graças Costa.
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A Polish court ruled Tuesday in favor of the government in its standoff with a major new World War II museum fighting for its survival.

The conflict revolves around the Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk, which has been under development since 2008 and was scheduled to open within weeks.

The Supreme Administrative Court’s decision is a victory for the populist and nationalistic Law and Justice ruling party, allowing it to take control of one of the last public institutions that had remained independent following the party’s rise to power in 2015.

“This is very bad,” museum director Pawel Machcewicz said. “This ruling means that the Museum of the Second World War will be liquidated on the last day of January. It means that I will be gone and that the new director can try to change the exhibition or delay the opening.”

The ruling party opposed the museum because it takes an international approach to telling the story of the war, focusing on the civilian suffering of the many nations caught up in the global conflict. Party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski had for years vowed that if he ever had power he would change the institution to focus it exclusively on Polish suffering and military heroism.

The move is in line with what the ruling party calls its “historical policy” of harnessing the state’s power to create a stronger sense of national identity and pride.

After assuming power in late 2015, Culture Minister Piotr Glinski moved to try to take control of the museum by merging it with another museum that exists only on paper, the Museum of Westerplatte and the War of 1939 — a legal maneuver aimed at pushing Machcewicz out.

That sparked months of legal wrangling as Machcewicz resisted the merger.

After the court’s decision Tuesday, the Culture Ministry issued a statement saying that it would move ahead with its merger and that on February 1 “a new cultural institution will be created — the Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk. The combination of both Gdansk institutions with a similar business profile will optimize costs … and strengthen their positions on the museum map of Poland and the world.”

Machcewicz said that even though he was losing his job, he still planned to keep fighting for the survival of the exhibition, one created with the help of some of the world’s most renowned war historians.

“The culture minister can come with heavy equipment and destroy an exhibition that cost 50 million zlotys ($12 million). But he can’t just change some elements, because the exhibition is like a book that is protected by copyright laws,” Machcewicz said. “And I am ready to sue the minister if he tries to change the exhibition.”
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France has given refugee status to 60 migrants who were among the thousands forced last October to leave the makeshift camp in Calais known as the “jungle.”
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Peace talks between the Syrian government and rebels groups continue Tuesday in Kazakhstan, after an opening day in which officials said there was no major breakthrough.

The officials said the talks in Astana, backed by Russia and Turkey, did not feature direct negotiations, but rather the two sides communicated indirectly through mediators.

The negotiations are focusing on cementing a nationwide cease-fire mediated by Russia, Iran and Turkey in December – a truce that has largely held. 

Prior Syrian peace talks, including the last negotiations a year ago, made little progress in bringing an end to the conflict that began in March 2011.

“It is our most sincere desire that these talks will bring light at the end of the tunnel for the Syrian crisis,” said Kazakhstan’s Foreign Minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov as he opened the talks. “It is now upon each of us to make the real breakthrough that Syrian people rightfully deserve.”

After the first of several rounds of Monday’s meetings, Syria’s U.N. Ambassador Bashar Jaafari accused the opposition of “not acting responsibly.” 

He criticized allegations that Syrian military operations in the Wadi Barada area outside of Damascus were in violation of the cease-fire.Syria has said Islamist militants from the group formerly known as the Nusra Front are involved in the fighting, which has affected the water supply in the Syrian capital.Jaafari said because the Islamist group is not covered by the cease-fire, anyone who defends the group is “on the wrong side.”

Other parts of Syria have been quiet since the truce, among them the rebel-held northwestern province of Idlib. Istanbul Kultur University professor Bora Bayraktar told VOA’s Turkish service that the fate of Idlib is a key issue for the peace talks. “So far, Assad’s government has fought to gain control of Syrian regions like Aleppo, Homs and Hama that border Turkey and Lebanon, and it has achieved some success with the help of Iran and Russia,” he said. “If Assad and his allies try to do the same thing in Idlib, which borders Turkey, this would create a new roadblock to solidifying the cease-fire.”

 

Syria’s main rebel groups suspended their participation in the peace process earlier this month, in protest at what they said were frequent violations of the cease-fire.

The chief rebel negotiator participating in the talks, Mohammad Alloush, said the rebels “are men of peace,” and negotiations on a political resolution to the conflict can only happen when the cease-fire is a “reality on the ground.”

 

Syrian opposition divided over talks

Russia’s Interfax news agency reported that Syria’s government delegation, led by Syrian U.N. ambassador Jaafari, was ready for direct talks with the Syrian opposition in Astana. But some Syrian opposition figures have said they believe Damascus is looking to negotiate only with the Turkey backed opposition factions attending the Astana talks. Those factions include Syria’s Kurdish National Council (KNC).

Two opposition groups based in Syrian Kurdish controlled northern Syria and opposed by Turkey were not invited to the meetings.

 

One is the Syrian Democratic Forces, a U.S.-backed Kurdish-led coalition that battles the Islamic State militant group in Syria. In an interview Monday with VOA’s Kurdish service, its spokesman Talal Silo said, “We will not commit to any decision that comes out of this (Astana) conference.” Silo was speaking in the Syrian Kurdish controlled northern region of Hasakah.

 

The second Syrian Kurdish opposition group excluded from the talks is the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the main Kurdish political group in northern Syria. In a separate interview with VOA in Hasakah, its leader Salih Muslim said, “This conference doesn’t have any chance of success if effective opposition groups such as Syrian Democratic Forces are not involved.” 

The main Syrian rebel umbrella group in the previous negotiations, the High Negotiations Committee, also was not invited to Astana, but said it hopes the meeting will be a step forward to U.N.-mediated peace talks in Geneva on February 8. 

U.N. Special Envoy on Syria Staffan de Mistura is among the participants in the Astana talks, which were due to end Tuesday.

Yildiz Yazicioglu with VOA’s Turkish service and Zana Omer with VOA’s Kurdish service contributed to this report.
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The White House warned that it intends to prevent China from taking over territory in international waters in the South China Sea by building islands out of reefs and then using them for defensive purposes.
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U.S. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that withdraws the United States from the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal.
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The Trump administration is moving quickly to implement new foreign and domestic policies and reverse some old ones. During the first official briefing on Monday, the new White House press secretary revealed some areas in which this new administration may be taking a different approach. White House correspondent Mary Alice Salinas has more.
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Powerful storms have hit parts of the United States in the past two days, killing about 20 people and causing much property damage. Zlatica Hoke has more.
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The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that the Belarusian men’s canoe and kayak team was wrongly banned from the Rio de Janeiro Olympics on doping charges.
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Kosovar President Hashim Thaci has called on neighboring Serbia to recognize his country’s independence and complete a process of normalizing relations “based on the values of the European perspective of the two countries.”
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Britain has indicated that is will seek a so-called “hard” exit from the European Union, likely to include leaving the Single Market, the world’s largest free trade bloc. The country is looking for new trading partners around the world, but  the government will find it difficult to balance voters’ demands for lower immigration with the need for new free trade deals.

The British government says its vision is of a more global Britain, trading freely with growing economies like India and China once it is outside the European Union.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson visited several Indian cities last week, eager to build bridges before Britain drops out of the European Union.

“We may be leaving the EU, we may be we may be taking back control of our borders. But my Indian friends, I say to you, that does not mean we want to haul up the drawbridge,” he said.

But critics say Britain is doing just that even as it asks India to open trade talks.

Tightening of visa system

Education is a major British product. But numbers of Indian students in Britain are falling fast, halving in just five years. India blames Britain’s tightening visa system.

Pratik Dattani is British director for the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

“It is not all one way traffic, that the UK can sell internationally and not bring anything in,” said Dattani. “There has to be an open policy in terms of allowing immigration.”

That could be a tough sell to Britons who voted to leave the EU hoping it would cut immigration.

Britain is hoping for flexibility. At the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, Indian ministers voiced willingness to discuss a deal. But no formal talks can take place until after Britain has left the European Union. Even then, a deal would likely take years to reach agreement, says Dattani.

“India and the EU have been negotiating a free trade agreement for seven or eight years. And many of the areas that have meant it has taken such a long time have been asks from the UK itself,” said Dattani.

Seeking new trade deals

Britain says it will look to the Commonwealth for new trade deals when it leaves the European Union. A Commonwealth heads of government meeting is due to take place later this year in London.

“That is an opportunity really for the British government to show the rest of the Commonwealth, of which India is a massive part, that Britain is open for business,” he said.

Despite the big ambitions, analysts say Britain will find it difficult to strike quick trade deals after it leaves the European Union. That has raised fears in London that businesses could face a so-called cliff edge the day Britain leaves the bloc.

 

 
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The prime minister of Mauritius has officially handed over the office to his son in a controversial transition of power.

Outgoing Prime Minister Anerood Jugnauth, 86, said Monday, “The job of prime minister involves great responsibility. It is a great burden. I have carried it, but now it is time to make way for the youth….”

Pravind Jugnauth, the new prime minister, is 55, and was the finance minister before the handover.

The transition was made without the benefit of an election, prompting accusations of nepotism and calls for a new election.

“Everywhere on the island it can be seen that the population is against the ‘father and son deal’ which has not gone through an election,” said Paul Berenger, a former prime minister and a member of the opposition Mauritian Militant Movement.

Berenger said demonstrations will be held to oppose the appointment of the new prime minister.

Mauritius is a model of political stability in Africa, however the handover has created an uproar on the Indian Ocean island, best known as a dream beach holiday destination.
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Moldovan President Igor Dodon has said he does not believe his country will ever be part of the European Union and that in order to be fully unified, it is necessary “to find common ground with Russia.”
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Britain’s envoy in Kabul said he expects the United States and NATO allies to “stay strong and stay long” in Afghanistan. In an interview with RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan, Ambassador Dominic Jermey also said that Britain sees better relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan as a top priority this year.
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Donald Trump’s U.S. presidency is just a few days old, but an ethics watchdog is ready to file a lawsuit against him for allegedly violating an obscure clause in the Constitution. 

The progressive Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, says it intends to file the lawsuit Monday in federal court in Manhattan.

The emoluments clause prohibits foreign powers, including governments, from giving payments or gifts to the president without the approval of Congress. 

Monetary damages not sought

According to The New York Times, which first reported the story Sunday, the suit is not seeking any monetary damages, but is instead asking the court to stop the president from taking payment from foreign “entities.”

CREW says because Trump has refused to completely divest from his businesses, “he is now getting cash and favors from foreign governments, through guests and events at his hotels, leases in his buildings and valuable real estate deals abroad.”

Sherri Dillon, one of Trump’s lawyers, said earlier this month,”No one would have thought when the Constitution was written that paying your hotel bill was an emolument.” 

CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said in a statement, “We did not want to get to this point.It was our hope that President Trump would take the necessary steps to avoid violating the Constitution before he took office.” 

Trump’s son: Suit is ‘harassment’

Eric Trump told The New York Times that CREW’s lawsuit is “purely harassment for political gain,” and characterized the move as “very, very sad.”

President Trump said recently he is creating a trust in which his two adult sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric, along with one of his Trump Organization executives, will run his global business interests.The plan falls short, however, of demands that he sell all his holdings and place his wealth in a blind trust in which he would have no idea how his money is invested. 

Ethics analysts say that anything short of placing Trumps’s extensive assets in a blind trust leaves him open to repeated questions about whether actions he takes as president would benefit his financial interests. 

CREW says when President Trump sits down to negotiate trade deals with various countries “the American people will have no way of knowing whether he will also be thinking about the profits of Trump the businessman.” 

“President Trump has made his slogan ‘America First,” said Bookbinder.”So you would think he would want to strictly follow the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause, since it was written to ensure our government officials are thinking of Americans first, and not foreign governments.” 

Norm Eisen, an Obama administration ethics lawyer, is a member of CREW’s legal team.He told The Times that the suit is a way of getting a copy of Trump’s federal tax returns to properly evaluate the president’s business dealings with – and how much he owes to – foreign governments such as China and Russia. 
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U.S. President Donald Trump has said he “recognizes the rights” of the hundreds of thousands of people around the world who protested in support of a “Women’s March” in Washington against him.
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A look at the best news photos from around the world.
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Somalia’s Upper House of parliament has elected its speaker on Sunday, the last major step toward holding the presidential election that has been delayed several times already.

The 54-member Upper House elected senator Abdi Hashi Abdullahi with 43 out of 51 votes. His opponent, Mustaf Mohamed Qodah, got only nine votes.

Former CEO of Goobjoog Media Abshir Mohamed Ahmed was elected as the first deputy speaker, and Mowlid Hussein Guhad became the second speaker of the upper house.

Speaking to VOA after the election, the first deputy speaker said he was delighted to be elected and vowed to serve the people.

“To get people’s confidence who trust you with their future is not an easy thing, but we will do what we can to serve them” Ahmed added.

The Lower House elected it speaker on January 11, and Sunday’s upper house leadership election paves the way for the long-awaited presidential election delayed four times amid allegation of vote-buying and intimidation.

Somalia’s current president and prime minister are among dozens of candidates vying for the post of president.

The presidential vote is set for Tuesday (January 24) but an electoral official who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity said the date will be pushed again possibly into next month.
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Germany must brace itself for turbulent times under U.S. President Donald Trump, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Sunday, adding that free trade and trans-Atlantic cooperation to fight extremism and terrorism were key for Berlin.

Steinmeier, who in August said Trump was a “Hassprediger” or “hate preacher”, wrote in the mass-circulation Bild newspaper that some members of the new U.S. administration understand the importance of allies like Germany.

“I know, we must prepare ourselves for turbulent times, unpredictability and uncertainty,” Steinmeier said. “But I am convinced that we will find in Washington attentive listeners, who know that even big countries need partners in this world.”

Trump unsettled German leaders with remarks such as that Britain will not be the last country to leave the European Union and with threats to impose high tariffs on imports from China and Mexico.

Their response after he took office on Friday has been mixed.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, who attended the opening of a museum outside Berlin as Trump was being sworn in on Friday, has said she would seek compromises with Trump on issues like trade and military spending and that she would work on preserving the important relationship between Europe and the United States.

Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said on Friday Germany should prepare for a rough ride under the new U.S. president and that Europe would have to craft a new economic policy geared toward China should Trump pursue protectionism.
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Valery Rodos’s father was one of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s most brutal and notorious executioners. He has spent decades searching his soul for the ways that the past shaped his life.
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Local officials in Yemen have said at least two suspected Al-Qaeda militants were killed in what they said was a U.S. drone strike.
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