Month: March 2018

With the results of Russia’s presidential elections now nearly a week old, Russia’s domestic political analysts and foreign observers alike have largely arrived at the same conclusion: The March 18 contest brought few surprises for Russians and Westerners alike.

While the Kremlin insists the elections were fair and transparent, a number of Russia’s leading political analysts are voicing concerns and predicting a succession crisis in the country in 2024, when Russian constitutional terms limits say Putin, now 65, will be ineligible to seek another consecutive term.

The Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which sent hundreds of election observers to monitor polling, said the election was conducted in an orderly fashion but lacked real choice. Putin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov, however, said the results were highly significant — and that they speak for themselves.

“Elections that took place on March 18 demonstrated that our society is fully consolidated,” Peskov said in a statement to the press. “And it is not consolidated because of someone’s attacks, but, rather, thanks to the plans of further development of the country, which the election results demonstrated.”

Compared to Soviet elections

However, a number of Russian political scientists disagree with this assessment. Among them is Dmitry Oreshkina, a political scientist, journalist and the 2001 Person of the Year, according to the Rambler web portal — Russia’s largest.

“[Putin] won. What am I unhappy about? The elections resemble Soviet elections,” Oreshkina said in an interview with VOA’s Russian Service on Thursday.

“Firstly, there was no alternative to Putin,” he added, referring to the fact that although Putin won his fourth term, with 77 percent of the vote from a field of eight candidates, numerous news outlets have reported that his campaign was exempt from most election laws and restrictions.

“Similarly, Soviet ballots only had one name on them,” Oreshkina added. “Secondly, the electorate was [coerced into going] to the polls. People can’t risk taking a political stance. Their bosses tell them they need to go, so they go.”

No real transparency

Ekaterina Shulman, senior lecturer in public policy at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, said polling results reported by Kremlin officials lack any real transparency.

“One of the post-elections scandals [in Russia] is the statement of Russia’s internal affairs minister [Sergey Shoigu] that 99 percent of the military and their family members have voted, and 89 percent of those supported Russia’s commander-in-chief,” said Shukman, who is also a host for Echo of Moscow radio. “That is crazy, because the military personnel vote at the same polls as everyone else — with the exception of military communities and military bases abroad — and there’s absolutely no way to know who they voted for. This makes this statement either deeply speculative or proof of fraud.”

Succession crisis?

As for Russia’s future, Kirill Rogov, a political expert and journalist who has championed Russian independent media, believes that the country will face an intractable succession crisis.

“Everything will be focused on what happens in 2024,” he told VOA. “The elites are going to find the succession issue unacceptable, because whoever Putin’s successor is, [this successor] would have to — despite staying loyal to Putin — reshuffle the elites in order to maintain power.”

Oreshkin challenged the notion of any succession within Putin’s lifetime, saying the former KGB spy will continue to lead the country in whatever capacity he sees fit, for as long as he sees fit.

“Who is going to be Putin’s successor? Putin himself. We don’t know yet in what capacity, whether he’ll be prime minister or the leader of a new state, but he’ll find it hard to leave,” Oreshkin said. “And each year it’ll only become harder.”

This story originated in VOA’s Russian Service.
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The sale of one Turkey’s largest media conglomerates to a pro-government businessman is being seen as the ruling AKP party strengthening its control of the media.

The sale came as parliament on Thursday passed legislation widening government control of the internet, one of the last remaining platforms for critical and independent reporting.

Dogan Media Company, owns a chain of prominent newspapers and TV channels. The company was reportedly sold to Demiroren Holding, whose owner, Erdogan Demiroren, has close ties to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“Demiroren will probably do to Dogan media what he did when he bought independent newspapers Milliyet and Vatan, and turn it into a government mouthpiece,” analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners predicted. “With this sale, there is nothing left in the mainstream media for a guy or girl out there who is seeking independent information, that period is now over in Turkish media.”

“The process of gathering the Turkish media industry in one hand according to the Putin model is completed,” Kadri Gursel, a leading Turkish journalist, tweeted.

​Bitter struggle ends

The sale of Dogan Media ends a prolonged bitter struggle between owner Aydin Dogan and Erdogan.

For decades, Dogan was Turkey’s most powerful media tycoon. With most of Turkey’s media gradually coming under the direct or indirect control of the ruling AKP party, Dogan media remained one of last sources mainstream independent reporting, observers said.

In 2009, Dogan’s Hurriyet newspaper provoked Erdogan with a report on a German court linking prominent AKP party officials to a charity fraud. Shortly afterward, tax authorities placed a multibillion-dollar fine on the media company, nearly bankrupting it.

A series of court cases have also been launched against the media tycoon and other family members, with prosecutors demanding heavy prison sentences for the alleged crimes.

“The prospect of spending rest of his life in jail is what I think finally forced his decision to sell,” analyst Yesilada said. “It’s symbolic because AKP has this mentality of conquest of its enemies. In the end, Dogan surrendered and this should serve as a lesson as to whatever enemies Erdogan has left, if he has a grudge against you, you should run.”

The government denied such allegations, insisting the judiciary is independent.

Internet gains

There are still a number of critical newspapers and satirical magazines, but Dogan media is the only newspaper distributor outside government control. Observers suggest publications critical of the government could face distribution problems in the future.

In Turkey, the internet is increasingly becoming a platform for independent journalism. Many journalists who’ve been fired for reporting critical of Erdogan have continued working on the growing numbers of web publications.

Some news stations have also begun broadcasting on the internet to maintain independence.

New controls on internet, broadcasting

But Thursday’s action by the Turkish parliament put sweeping new legislation in place to control broadcasting on the internet.

“Now considering Dogan Media is being sold, there is not much of the mainstream media let alone independent media, the only area is left is the internet,” law professor Yaman Akdeniz, an expert on cyber freedom at Istanbul’s Bilgi University, said. “People follow not only local produced news media on (the) internet, but also Turkish broadcasts by the BBC, VOA and DW, as news sources. So the government is trying to take action to control these before the elections, which might be early this summer.”

Among the new reforms: the powers of the state regulator for radio and television have been extended to internet broadcasting.

The regulator is controlled by representatives of the ruling AKP party. Under the new legislation, internet broadcasters will have to apply for a license from the regulator.

“Hypothetically, they (the regulators) could declare these programs incite terrorism, so they could close down the programs or revoke their licenses. They could ask (for) the blocking of the website,” professor Akdeniz said.

Observers point out that a growing number of Turkish reporters working overseas are broadcasting internet programs, particularly Germany. The ability of Turkish authorities to impose controls on these is likely limited, observers said.

Well-informed public

Recent surveys found more than 70 percent of Turks have access to the internet, and 70 percent of Turkish youth rely solely on the internet for news.

“The underlying truth (is) these media takeovers and current internet censorship will be completely ineffective,” analyst Yesilada said. “The Turkish public intends to remain well-informed, and despite these shocks within a few years, different networks and ways will develop for them to remain informed.”

Turkish authorities have already banned more than 170,000 websites, but observers point out that Turks have become increasingly savvy on the internet, using various means to circumvent restrictions, such as by using virtual private networks (VPN).

But authorities are quickly becoming adept, too.

“Fifteen VPN providers are currently blocked by Turkey,” cyber rights expert Akdeniz said. “It’s becoming really, really difficult for standard internet users to access banned content. It’s not a simple but a complex government machinery now seeking to control the internet.”
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Allegations of illicit Libyan campaign financing now grabbing French headlines are also revisiting — and potentially revising — the tangled, roller-coaster relationship between Paris and Tripoli.

Once centered on arms and oil sales, France’s strategic interests toward the North African country have since morphed to concerns about security and migration flows to Europe, following the chaotic aftermath of Libya’s 2011 uprising.

From welcoming former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to Paris, to leading a NATO campaign that helped to unseat him, Paris has taken a more proactive policy toward Libya and other parts of the Middle East in recent years, some analysts say — starting under the centre-right presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy.

Today, Sarkozy is under formal investigation over allegations he received more than $60 million in illegal campaign financing from late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to fund his successful 2007 run for president. Now 63, the ex-leader forcefully denies the accusations, saying they have made his life “hell” and cost him re-election five years later.

Behind the claims are a raft of shady characters, a twisting narrative and hazy facts. Sarkozy’s accusers include French-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine, who allegedly delivered the Libyan funds to Sarkozy and his chief of staff in briefcases stuffed with big bills.

A turning point

They also include a number of top former Gadhafi officials, including the Libyan leader’s son, Saif Al-Islam Gadhafi.

To be sure, the Libyan probe is not the first judicial investigation involving a former French president — Sarkozy himself has faced two others. But it is particularly striking given the source of the financing and its broader fallout.

“It’s a very important turning point,” said geopolitical analyst Philippe Moreau Defarges and author of a new book on globalization. “In France a president of the Republic is untouchable. And now, he can be indicted like anybody else.”

Sarkozy lost his re-election bid to Socialist Francois Hollande in 2012. His subsequent run for president in 2016 died in the center-right primaries. But his five years in office were marked by a frenetic governing style and a dramatic shift in France’s Libyan policy — reflecting some say, the start of a more assertive French foreign policy in the Middle East and elsewhere.

“When it comes to Africa and the Middle East, Paris has come a long way from the freedom fries’ dovishness of the mid-2000s,” Foreign Affairs magazine wrote last year, referring to France’s refusal to support the US-led intervention in Iraq in 2003, under Sarkozy’s predecessor, Jacques Chirac.

A controversial visit

Shortly after taking office, Sarkozy’s dispatched his then-wife Cecilia to Libya, on a mission to rescue five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor, accused of deliberately infecting Libyan children with HIV.

In December 2007, Sarkozy invited Gadhafi to Paris, a visit marked by the Libyan leader pitching an enormous Bedouin tent in the French capital and blocking traffic as his motorcade tooled around the city. The visit translated into billions of dollars of contracts and French jobs. But opposition politicians and rights activists were outraged.

So was Sarkozy’s then-secretary of state for human rights, Rama Yade. France was “not a doormat for a leader — terrorist or no terrorist — to wipe his feet of the blood of his crimes,” Rama Yade said.

Then came the Libyan uprising in March 2011. Sarkozy became the first Western leader to support the rebel opposition. France and Britain headed a NATO military campaign that ultimately helped to bring about Gadhafi’s death. Shortly after Sarkozy switched alliances, just days after the uprising began, Seif al-Islam Gadhafi first came out with allegations about the campaign financing.

In an interview with Africanews channel this week, the younger Gadhafi reportedly said he and other key witnesses were willing to testify against Sarkozy. He said the former director of Libya’s intelligence services had a recording of the first meeting between Gadhafi and Sarkozy, before Sarkozy’s election bid.

In Le Figaro’s report of Sarkozy’s statements to investigating magistrates, the former president argues Gadhafi had plenty of time to deliver proof of any alleged wrongdoing.

During the seven months in 2011 when the Libyan leader was still alive, “nothing prevented him to hand over the documents, photos, recordings, bank withdrawals,” that he and his aides claimed to possess, Sarkozy reportedly said.

Meanwhile, Libya tipped into chaos. A 2014 British parliament report partly faulted both Sarkozy and former UK Prime Minister David Cameron for being overly hasty and using faulty intelligence to push for the 2011 military intervention that helped to seed the subsequent turmoil.

It cited claims by a US official that Sarkozy pushed for the campaign to get a bigger share of Libyan oil, increase France’s position in the Middle East — and for his own political interests.

“Sarkozy is a showman, he likes to be seen, he likes to be talked about,” analyst Moreau Defarges said.

Caution toward Libya

To be sure, French-Libyan relations have been marked by plenty of other rocky moments. Ties fed on French weapons deals in the 1970s frayed in the 1980s as France and Libya backed opposing sides in Chad’s civil war.

In 1989, French operated UTA Flight 772 was blown up over the Sahara desert, killing all 170 people on board. Paris blamed the Libyan government. Only in 2004 did Libya agree to pay compensation to families of the victims, as part of Gadhafi’s bid to end Libya’s international isolation.

Sarkozy’s successors, Socialist Francois Hollande and now Emmanuel Macron, have since wrestled with a fractured and turmoil-torn Libya that has become a magnet for both Islamic State militants as well as Europe-bound African migrants.

Last July, Macron hosted a summit in Paris gathering both the UN-backed government in Tripoli and the eastern commander Khalifa Haftar in a bid to reach peace. But critics claim the initiative only made the situation worse by giving Haftar legitimacy.

Macron also announced a plan to rescue African migrants in Libya, following reports some were being sold as slaves. But he and other European governments have been faulted for also supporting the Libyan coastguard in turning back migrants at sea.

Sarkozy’s presidency also casts a long shadow, analyst Moreau Defarges believes.

“The problem with Sarkozy is he wanted to be so high profile, so important,” he said. “And I think Hollande and Macron did not forget that lesson; that with Libya, one must be very, very cautious.

“Libya can be a trap,” Moreau Defarges added. “And there’s a chance that Sarkozy can be destroyed by this trap.”
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Turkey’s largest media group said Thursday it is in talks with a business group close to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for the sale of its outlets, a development that further curtails independent journalism in the country that has taken an increasingly authoritarian turn under his leadership.

 

In a notice to Turkey’s capital markets board, Dogan Holding said it was negotiating the sale of outlets — including flagship Hurriyet newspaper, the mass-circulation daily Posta, CNN-Turk and Kanal D television channels and Dogan New Agency — to Demiroren Holding. Dogan Holding said the sale was worth $890 million.

 

Dogan news outlets were among the few relatively independent media in a landscape that is dominated by TV stations and newspapers allied to Erdogan. If a deal is reached, Dogan-owned media would be the latest outlets to end up in the hands of businesses close to the leader.

 

The possible sale is widely seen as a culmination of a long-standing battle between the government and Dogan Holding’s owner, Aydin Dogan, who also has business interests in energy and real estate.

The media magnate was slapped with a multi-billion tax fine in 2009 that forced him to sell Milliyet and Vatan newspapers to Demiroren Holding. The fine largely served to intimidate media organizations, which, keen not to fall afoul of the government, fired journalists critical of the government and trimmed critical reporting.

 

The Turkish leader has further tightened his grip on media since a failed military coup in 2016 blamed on a network of followers of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen.

 

More than 150 journalists are in jail, mostly on terrorism-related charges, while over 150 media outlets, from broadcasters to newspapers and magazines, have been shut down for alleged links to terror groups, leaving thousands unemployed.

 

The government insists the journalists have been jailed for criminal activity, not journalistic work.

 
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A little more than 40 hours after leaving Moscow’s Yaroslavsky station, the Vorkuta Express pulled into its terminus after a 2,000-kilometer journey through the taiga forests and tundra of Russia’s far north. The city lies 150 kilometers inside the Arctic Circle, seemingly at the edge of human habitation.

Its monochrome extremes overwhelm the senses: vast Arctic ice fields punctured with the scars of creaking coal mines.

The city is dying. The fall of the Soviet Union left Vorkuta vulnerable to market forces. In the 1990s, eight of the 13 coal mines closed, and two-thirds of the residents have left in the past 30 years. In 2016, a series of explosions in one of the largest mines killed 36 people and dealt another blow to Vorkuta’s future.

WATCH: In Russia’s Dying Arctic City, Residents Plea for Putin to Offer Lifeline

Largely cut off from the rest of Russia, 70,000 people remain in the decaying city. Amid the decline, Nadezhda Kozhevnikova is trying to run a clothing store. She said Vorkuta has been forgotten.

“As far as I understand, we have enough coal reserves for another 50 years. There is demand for coal. So, why are mines not being set up? None are being developed. Nothing is being done,” Kozhevnikova said.

Politics haven’t helped

And yet, few Vorkuta residents voted for change. Seventy-three percent backed President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia Party in an election Sunday that international observers said was neither free nor fair.

As his students practiced on miniaturized drills and machinery, Victor Telnov wasn’t interested in debating democracy. As director of the Vorkuta College of Mining and Economics, he’s teaching the next generation the skills that will be vital to Vorkuta’s survival. He said Russians must put their faith in Putin.

“As a well-known public figure recently said, ‘Do not have any illusions. This time, we do not elect a president, but a commander-in-chief.’ This election is emblematic, for Russia and for the world community. We show how much we are united as Russians.”

​Built by Stalin’s gulag labor

Vorkuta rose from the ice-bound wastelands in the 1930s, built by the forced labor of Josef Stalin’s gulags. Up to 200,000 political prisoners are buried in the permafrost. Gulag prisoners also built the railway, Vorkuta’s only land link with the outside world. The small airport is often closed because of the weather.

Deep beneath the ice, Anatoly Vorobyov and his colleagues mine the same seams of coal that once powered the Soviet Union. He has a short wish list for Putin.

“At the very least, I hope the current standards will be preserved — wage stability, a steady supply of workers who are given everything they need. I mean a social package and all that,” Vorobyov said. “As an improvement, we would certainly like a salary increase. And maybe a new highway to Vorkuta. That would be cool for all the residents.”

A craving for stability, and yet a longing for a faster escape route from this decaying town.

In the 1990s, miners’ wages in Vorkuta went unpaid for 10 months. Memories of that trauma are frozen in the minds of many voters. Life in Vorkuta may seem bleak under Putin’s Russia, but the people here know it could get a lot worse.
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About 150 kilometers inside the Arctic Circle lies the Russian city of Vorkuta, a mining outpost that is rapidly being reclaimed by the elements. Many residents abandoned the city after the fall of the Soviet Union, but 70,000 people remain, largely cut off from the rest of Russia, seemingly trapped in a decaying city. Henry Ridgwell reports on the challenges facing this remote icebound settlement, far beyond the bright lights and billionaire mansions of Moscow.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin will try to bolster Russia’s image through hosting the World Cup in much the same way as Adolf Hitler used the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany, Britain’s foreign minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday.

Russia is hosting the World Cup this Summer and opposition Member of Parliament Ian Austin said Putin would use the tournament to improve Russia’s image, comparing it to when Hitler’s Germany hosted Olympics.

Johnson, appearing before lawmakers, said he agreed with that assessment.

“Your characterization of what is going to happen in Moscow in the World Cup, in all the venues – yes, I think the comparison with 1936 is certainly right,” he replied.

Johnson was being questioned over the chemical poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in the English city of Salisbury this month.

Britain has blamed Russia for the attack and has expelled 23 of its diplomats but Russia denies involvement.

Britain has also said it will not send ministers or members of the royal family in delegations to the World Cup, but Johnson said it would be unfair on the players for the England team itself to withdraw.

He was concerned however about the safety of English fans and the ability of the British embassy and consular services to protect them.

Clashes between English and Russian fans marred the 2016 European Championship in France.

British police have previously expressed confidence that Russia would deal with any trouble among their own supporters as well as visiting ones.

Johnson said applications to go to Russia for the World Cup were about a quarter of what they were at this stage ahead of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

“It is up to the Russians to guarantee the safety of England fans going to Russia,” he added.

“At the moment we are not inclined actively to dissuade people from going because we want to hear from the Russians what steps they are going to take to look after our fans.”
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With Turkish led military forces scoring a decisive victory in Syria against the YPG Kurdish militia, speculation is rife in Turkey of early general and presidential elections.

Sunday’s capture of the key Syrian town of Afrin from the YPG was perfectly choreographed to coincide with Turkey’s Martyrs Day.  The symbolism was not lost on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who has linked his fortunes to the military incursion, declaring the Syrian campaign the most important since Turkey’s war of independence.

Ankara calls the YPG “terrorists”, linking the militia to a decades long Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey.  Erdogan’s political message has been obediently followed by most the media, which is under direct or indirect government control.

“It (Syrian operation) has shored up his political position.  There is already talk of bringing the elections forward,” observes political columnist Semih Idiz of Al Monitor website, “I think that discussion will be more animated now, and Erdogan and his political advisors may try and strike while the iron is hot.” General and presidential elections have to be called by 2019.

Critics have accused, usually anonymously, Erdogan of deliberately orchestrating the Syrian military campaign to create the grounds for an election victory.  An accusation he strongly rejects.

Rules changing

But early election rumors are fueled by the passing of a series of electoral reforms earlier this month by Erdogan’s ruling AKP party.  The reforms include allowing of electoral alliances between political parties.  It allows the formalization of an existing pact between the AKP and the nationalist MHP Party.  

The electoral reforms also included controversial measures critics say removed voter fraud protections and opened the door to gerrymandering.  Both charges the government rejected.  

But Erdogan has repeatedly rejected speculation of early polls, insisting the election will be held as scheduled in November 2019.  Throughout his 15 years in power, first as prime minister and then head of state, Erdogan has never called early polls.

“I don’t think Erdogan wants early elections” claims political analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners, “Erdogan is operating under two assumptions.  Continuing to push the (Syrian) Kurdish militia away from border will continue to give him a boost in the polls, and he thinks by continuing to pump more fiscal stimulus into the economy, he can increase voter satisfaction,”

The Turkish economy is booming, thanks to billions of dollars of stimulus by the government through major infrastructure projects and cheap loans to companies.

Erdogan has pledged to expand military operations to remove the YPG Kurdish militia from all its border. But military and economic realities could yet force Erdogan’s hand, “He will soon grasp his goals are simply not possible,” warns analyst Yesilada.  “The advance of the Turkish forces toward east in Syria are going to be prevented by the United States and economic turbulence and withdrawal of portfolio investments from Turkey will slow down the Turkish economy.  Soon Mr. Erdogan will grasp this is as good as it gets, it does not get any better.”

Economic alarm bells have already starting ringing about the sustainability of Turkish economic growth.  Earlier this month the international financial rating agency, Moody’s, reduced Turkey’s rating, citing concerns about an over heating economy and future sustainability to repay its financial debts.  Such concerns have resulted in the Turkish currency touching record lows.  Experts warn of looming growing economic and financial problems.

Changing political landscape

But the dilemma facing Erdogan is that while the Syrian military operation appears broadly popular, opinion polls have provided only a mixed picture on whether that has transferred into electoral gains for him personally and his AKP Party.

“While AKP may be gaining (Turkish) nationalists voters they are losing in the Kurdish population,” observes analyst Yesilada,”remembering up to 50 percent of Kurds voted for AKP previously, whereas probably one-third of nationalists vote AKP.  The losses among Kurds is more significant than the gains to be made from the nationalist base.”

Kurds roughly account for 20% of the Turkey’s electorate.  Another complicating factor in Erdogan’s electoral calculations, is in the past Kurds who voted for his AKP Party did not have a strong electoral alternative, as many AKP Kurdish voters are deeply hostile to the pro Kurdish HDP.  But a new center right IYI party is actively targeting Erdogan’s Kurdish vote.  With most opinion polls only predicting a narrow majority for an Erdogan presidency and some polls indicating his ruling AKP even losing it majority, observers suggest early polls remains a gamble.
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Supporters of Hungary’s right-wing Fidesz party in Ercsi may not have met a refugee but there’s one thing they know for sure: they don’t want them in their town.

Three years after hundreds of thousands of refugees crossed into Hungary en route from the Middle East and Africa to Western Europe, residents of this sleepy town south of Budapest say concerns about a migrant “invasion” will be a decisive factor when they vote in national elections on April 8.

That suits Fidesz and its leader Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has appealed to the anxieties of his core supporters with talk about the importance of “ethnic homogeneity”.

“Europe is now under invasion,” Orban told a rally in Budapest on March 15. “Their (the opposition’s) task is to win power and implement the grand plan: to break Hungary, which stands in the path of immigrants.”

Orban’s pledge to preserve Hungary’s sovereignty and uphold Christian values, delivered in his trademark bruising, combative manner, has delivered landslide victories in the past two parliamentary elections and is likely to do the same in April.

Orban is seen as one of Europe’s most divisive leaders, however. U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein recently accused him of being a racist and xenophobe after he said he did not want his country to be “multi-colored”.

Hungary’s foreign minister responded that the comments were “outrageous” and called on Zeid to resign.

Most of the voters interviewed by Reuters in Ercsi said they had never met a refugee, but that did not stop them identifying immigrants as a danger.

“We are enough as we are. We don’t need any migrants,” said Maria Pulai, 69, who has been an Orban supporter for more than two decades and now actively campaigns for Fidesz.

She proudly showed a photo with the Hungarian leader taken on her mobile phone when he visited Ercsi to support the local party candidate.

“I have never met (any refugees),” Pulai said with the trace of a smile. “But I watch television all the time so I’ve learned a lot. We do not need them here.”

Shift further right

Orban has been hitting the country’s anti-immigration nerve ever since migrants fleeing war and economic hardship started crossing Hungary’s southern border with Serbia in 2015, leading Budapest to shut off the route with a border fence.

The flow slowed to a trickle in 2016 but Orban has kept up the rhetoric and it is now the backbone of his election agenda.

With his firm grip on state media and his business allies in control of regional newspapers, Orban’s message gets amplified in places like Ercsi, where many people only watch the state news channel showing immigrants causing trouble in western European cities night after night.

Orban’s original vision was that Fidesz would aim to dominate Hungarian politics over the next two decades by standing up for national interests.

He appealed to conservative Hungarians who believe their country is struggling to protect its identity, a strategy which has worked partly due to a fragmented opposition.

Now he appears to be also seeking to occupy some of the far-right territory abandoned by the radical nationalist opposition party Jobbik, which has toned down its message in an attempt to move toward the center.

The shift further to the right and to radicalization could be risky for Orban because it’s a “one-way street”, said Peter Kreko, director of liberal Hungarian thinktank Political Capital.

“Fidesz has closed itself into a cage with this campaign which is targeted at its core voters,” Kreko said.

In February Jobbik teamed up with the Socialists and the small liberal party LMP to back an independent candidate in a by-election in southern Hungary and unexpectedly beat Fidesz. But it is reluctant to form alliance with the left for the parliamentary elections.

If Jobbik and the left manage to coordinate and field joint candidates then Fidesz could be in trouble, Kreko said.

“The big test … will come in April,” he said.

Fidesz’s voter base has changed in recent years, with some educated conservative voters disappointed by the emphasis on populist anti-migrant messages at the expense of measures to improve healthcare and education.

The party has gained ground with the less educated and pensioners instead, analysts said. To court them, Orban recently announced a one-off handout and state refunds of heating bills.

Orban also plays up the idea that “external forces and international powers” like the European Union and the United Nations want to meddle in Hungary’s internal affairs and force the country to accept migrants.

Scores gathered in Ercsi’s theater in early March to hear a Fidesz lawmaker speak and watch a slideshow about the threats of migration and how Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros is using his network of foundations to foster multicultural societies all over the world.

Orban and Soros, allies in dismantling communism during the 1980s, are now frequently at loggerheads. Orban accuses Soros of interfering in Hungarian politics by supporting opposition groups. Soros has described Orban as a dangerous autocrat.

Economy on track

Fidesz won the last parliamentary election in 2014 comfortably with 2.26 million votes, or 45 percent of all votes cast. Political analysts estimate the party’s core supporters this time at between 1.8 to 2.2 million.

According to Hungarian thinktank Policy Agenda, Fidesz’s support in 2014 was strongest in small towns and villages, where jobs are scarce and many people are employed in public works programs, and it has probably managed to retain this support.

On a sunny Sunday in nearby Dunaujvaros, opposite the huge concrete gates of the former communist steelworks, locals flock to a market where they can buy cheap clothes, food and home appliances. Fidesz is campaigning actively on the ground.

Pal Balonyi, a 68-year-old pensioner going to the market with his granddaughter, said he has always been a conservative voter and will vote for Fidesz again in April even if he does not agree with all of the government’s policies.

Balonyi, who worked in Germany for three years as a house painter, said Orban had put the economy on the right track and had a clear national vision.

“And he has put Western politicians right, this is also an factor I consider. I have worked abroad, and we are treated like second-class citizens everywhere.”

 
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Water stress is increasingly driving migration around the world, but efforts to adapt to worsening shortages could help, a new U.N. study suggests.

Water stress — not just shortages, but water-quality issues — is expected to drive more people from their communities permanently and cause rapid growth of cities, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Two-thirds of the world’s people suffer some water scarcity for part of each year, with communities dependent on agriculture affected the most, said FAO director-general Jose Graziano da Silva in a video message for the 8th World Water Forum in Brazil.

Finding ways to adapt to that reality — rather than simply responding to disasters caused by water shortages — is the most effective way to deal with the problem, the FAO said.

Water use has increased six-fold worldwide over the past century, said the study, which drew on a survey of more than 180 research papers on water scarcity and migration issues.

As climate change brings increasingly irregular rainfall, worsening droughts and higher temperatures, water scarcity will likely increase, particularly as demand for agricultural water remains high, the study said.

Investment in preparing for water crises — such as adopting more water-smart agricultural practices — could cut the need for people to migrate, the study said, although drawing a clear link between water scarcity and migration remains complicated.

Experts believe drought played a role in the early stages of the Syrian conflict when 1.5 million farmers headed to cities as the country suffered its worst drought on record, said Charles Iceland of the World Resources Institute, a research body.

Drought was clearly not the major factor, he said, but instead exerted an additional pressure alongside political and social issues.

He said much of the world would face water scarcity by 2040 as populations and temperatures rise. Combating that would require changes including in agriculture, such as adopting water-saving drip irrigation, he said.

About 70 percent of freshwater used each year goes to agriculture, experts have estimated.
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A British parliamentary committee on Tuesday summoned Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to answer questions as authorities stepped up efforts to determine if the personal data of social-media users has been used improperly to influence elections.

The request comes amid allegations that a data-mining firm based in the U.K. used information from more than 50 million Facebook accounts to help Donald Trump win the 2016 presidential election. The company, Cambridge Analytica, has denied wrongdoing.

However, the firm’s board of directions announced Tuesday evening that it had suspended CEO Alexander Nix pending an independent investigation of his actions. Nix made comments to an undercover reporter for Britain’s Channel 4 News about various unsavory services Cambridge Analytica provided its clients.

“In the view of the board, Mr. Nix’s recent comments secretly recorded by Channel 4 and other allegations do not represent the values or operations of the firm and his suspension reflects the seriousness with which we view this violation,” the board said in a statement.

Facebook also drew continued criticism for its alleged inaction to protect users’ privacy. Earlier Tuesday, the chairman of the U.K. parliamentary media committee, Damian Collins, said his group has repeatedly asked Facebook how it uses data and that Facebook officials “have been misleading to the committee.”

“It is now time to hear from a senior Facebook executive with the sufficient authority to give an accurate account of this catastrophic failure of process,” Collins wrote in a note addressed directly to Zuckerberg. “Given your commitment at the start of the New Year to ‘fixing’ Facebook, I hope that this representative will be you.”

Facebook sidestepped questions on whether Zuckerberg would appear, saying instead that it’s currently focused on conducting its own reviews.

​Personal data

The request to appear comes as Britain’s information commissioner said she was using all her legal powers to investigate the social-media giant and Cambridge Analytica.

Commissioner Elizabeth Denham is pursuing a warrant to search Cambridge Analytica’s servers. She has also asked Facebook to cease its own audit of Cambridge Analytica’s data use.

“Our advice to Facebook is to back away and let us go in and do our work,” she said.

Cambridge Analytica said it is committed to helping the U.K. investigation. However, Denham’s office said the firm failed to meet a deadline to produce the information requested.

Denham said the prime allegation against Cambridge Analytica is that it acquired personal data in an unauthorized way, adding that the data provisions act requires services like Facebook to have strong safeguards against misuse of data.

Chris Wylie, who once worked for Cambridge Analytica, was quoted as saying the company used the data to build psychological profiles so voters could be targeted with ads and stories.

Undercover investigation

The firm found itself in further allegations of wrongdoing. Britain’s Channel 4 used an undercover investigation to record Nix saying that the company could use unorthodox methods to wage successful political campaigns for clients.

He said the company could “send some girls” around to a rival candidate’s house, suggesting that girls from Ukraine are beautiful and effective in this role.

He also said the company could “offer a large amount of money” to a rival candidate and have the whole exchange recorded so it could be posted on the internet to show that the candidate was corrupt.

Nix says in a statement that he deeply regrets his role in the meeting and has apologized to staff.

“I am aware how this looks, but it is simply not the case,” he said. “I must emphatically state that Cambridge Analytica does not condone or engage in entrapment, bribes or so-called ‘honeytraps,’ and nor does it use untrue material for any purposes.”

Nix told the BBC the Channel 4 sting was “intended to embarrass us.”

“We see this as a coordinated attack by the media that’s been going on for very, very many months in order to damage the company that had some involvement with the election of Donald Trump,” he said.

The data harvesting used by Cambridge Analytica has also triggered calls for further investigation from the European Union, as well as federal and state officials in the United States.
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Despite tensions, sanctions and recriminations between the United States and Russia, two American astronauts will join a Russian cosmonaut blasting off Wednesday from Kazakhstan for the International Space Station.

Even when things get nasty between the two countries, experts say the space program rarely suffers.

The United States has depended entirely on Russia to deliver astronauts to the ISS since the end of the space shuttle program in 2011.

After President Barack Obama imposed sanctions on Russia in 2014 for annexing Crimea, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin suggested U.S. astronauts could get to the International Space Station by trampoline.

But the launches continued.

“The politicians can be very cute and make their statements. But that doesn’t seem to have had an impact on day-to-day work on the International Space Station,” said Cathleen Lewis, a curator in the Space History Department at the National Air and Space Museum.

Cold War collaborators

U.S.-Russia cooperation in space dates back to the mid-1970s, during the Cold War.

In the race to the moon, both sides suffered losses. Three U.S. astronauts died in the first Apollo mission in a fire on the launchpad in 1967; the Soviet Union lost a cosmonaut in a crash later that year.

The two sides agreed to cooperate on a space project. In 1975, an American Apollo spacecraft and a Russian Soyuz spacecraft met in orbit, where cosmonauts and astronauts shook hands.

In addition to the political achievement, it was a major engineering feat to make the two crafts compatible.

“That created a bond, but also the knowledge that we could do this, even in the height of the Cold War, and probably one of the worst periods of the Cold War,” Lewis said. “Both sides could get together and do this, unperturbed by the politics around them.”

Reaching beyond Earth

Today, the United States, Russia and 13 other countries collaborate on the International Space Station.

Lewis says that kind of cooperation will likely be essential as humans reach beyond Earth.

“It’s going to take a lot of resources to make either the moon or Mars habitable for humans,” she said.

For now, collaboration is the only option for ISS crews. However, SpaceX and Boeing expect to bring human launch capability back to U.S. soil in a year or so.
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