Month: June 2018

A rescue boat saved 59 migrants at sea off Libya on Saturday and Italy immediately said it would not welcome them, setting up a fresh standoff with Malta and adding to tensions among European governments over immigration.

The migrants on board Open Arms, a boat run by the Spanish Proactiva Open Arms charity, include five women and four children, said Riccardo Gatti, head of the organization’s Italian mission.

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, leader of the right-wing League Party, said there would be no exception to his policy of refusing to let humanitarian boats dock in Italy and added that Malta was the nearest port of call.

“They can forget about arriving in an Italian port,” he tweeted.

Maltese Home Affairs Minister Michael Farrugia, shot back on Twitter that the rescue had taken place closer to the Italian island of Lampedusa than to Malta. He told Salvini to “stop giving false information and involving Malta without any reason.”

Gatti told Italian radio broadcaster Radio Radicale that the migrants on board included Palestinians, Syrians and Guineans and were all in good condition.

He later told Reuters that Open Arms had received no authorization from any country to dock and did not know where it would take the migrants.

German ship docked

On Wednesday, Malta let the German charity ship Lifeline dock in Valletta with 230 migrants on board, after it was stuck at sea for almost a week following Italy’s decision to close its ports to rescue vessels run by nongovernmental organizations.

However, Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said the gesture was a one-time solution, and the following day Malta announced it would not allow any more charity boats to dock.

European Union leaders on Friday came to a hard-fought agreement on migration that Salvini and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said was positive for Italy.

However, the agreement does not oblige other EU states to share the burden of sea rescues.

More than 650,000 migrants have come ashore in Italy since 2014, mostly after being rescued at sea off the Libyan coast by private and public groups. Italy is sheltering about 170,000, but the number of arrivals has plummeted this year.

Despite the decline in arrivals, there are still daily stories of disasters as migrants make the perilous crossing from Africa to Europe. The Libyan coast guard said around 100 were thought to have drowned off Tripoli on Friday.

That tragedy raised the political temperature in Italy, where the government dismissed opposition accusations that it was responsible because of its crackdown on NGOs and said the best way to save lives was by preventing departures from Libya.

“The fewer people set sail, the fewer die,” Salvini said.
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Fourteen European Union countries have said they are prepared to sign deals with Germany to take back asylum seekers who had previously registered elsewhere, part of an effort to placate Chancellor Angela Merkel’s restive Bavarian allies.

 

In a document sent to leaders of her coalition partners, seen by Reuters, Merkel listed 14 countries, including some of those most outspoken in their opposition to her open-door refugee policy, which had agreed to take back migrants.

Under the EU’s Dublin convention, largely honored in the breach since Merkel’s 2015 decision to open Germany’s borders, asylum seekers must lodge their requests in the first EU country they set foot in.

Merkel needs breathing space in her standoff with Bavaria’s Christian Social Union, whose leader, interior minister Horst Seehofer threatened ahead of this week’s Brussels summit to defy Merkel by closing Germany’s borders to some refugees and migrants, a move that would likely bring down her government.

EU leaders agreed at the summit to share out refugees on a voluntary basis and create “controlled centers” inside the European Union to process asylum requests.

According to the document seen by Reuters, the bilateral agreements will make the deportation process for refugees who have earlier registered elsewhere far more effective.

“At the moment, Dublin repatriations from Germany succeed in only 15 percent of cases,” the document says. “We will sign administrative agreements with various member states… to speed the repatriation process and remove obstacles.”

Among the countries that have said they are open to signing such agreements are Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, countries which have opposed any scheme to share out asylum seekers across the continent.

The other countries named are Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Lithuania, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden. Austria, where new Chancellor Sebastian Kurz is an immigration hard-liner who governs in coalition with the far right, is absent from the list.
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The U.S. ambassador to Estonia says he has resigned over frustrations with President Donald Trump’s comments about the European Union and the treatment of Washington’s European allies.

In a private Facebook message posted Friday, James D. Melville wrote: “For the President to say EU was ‘set up to take advantage of the United States, to attack our piggy bank,’ or that ‘NATO is as bad as NAFTA’ is not only factually wrong, but proves to me that it’s time to go.”

Melville is a senior U.S. career diplomat who has served as the American ambassador in the Baltic nation and NATO member of Estonia since 2015. He has served the State Department for 33 years.

The U.S. Embassy in Tallinn did not immediately comment.
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June 30 marks Asteroid Day, a U.N.-sanctioned campaign to promote awareness around the world of what’s up in the sky. In Milan, scientists are assembling a new telescope that uses “insect vision” to spot risky celestial objects. Faith Lapidus explains.
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Istanbul’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) pride march will go ahead on Sunday even though the governorship of the Turkish city banned it citing security concerns, the organizers of the event said on Friday.

In a statement published on the Facebook page of Istanbul LGBTI+ Pride Week, the organizers said the decision to ban the march was discriminatory and illegitimate.

“This march is organized in order to fight against the violence and discrimination fuelled by that governorship decision,” the organizers said.

“We would like to inform the press and the public that we will go ahead with our prideful march with the same ambition as we had before.”

Gay pride parades have been banned in Istanbul for the last three years. Although homosexuality is not a crime in Turkey, unlike in many other Muslim-majority countries, there is widespread hostility to it across Turkish society.

On Thursday, authorities in the Turkish capital Ankara banned the screening of movie Pride, a 2014 comedy-drama with LGBT themes, citing risks to public safety.

Civil liberties in Turkey have become a particular concern for the West after a crackdown following an attempted military coup in July 2016.

Turkey has detained about 160,000 people and dismissed nearly the same number of state employees since the coup attempt, the United Nations said in March. Of those, more than 50,000 have been formally charged and are being kept in jail during trial.
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There is momentum for improving Turkey’s frayed relations with the West even as it warms up to Russia, a senior Turkish government adviser told VOA on condition of anonymity, days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was re-elected.

Erdogan’s adviser said that in February, during a visit by then-U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, both sides committed to the creation of a road map to address many differences that had sent relations between Washington and Ankara plunging to a crisis point. The adviser noted that bilateral relations were “better than six months ago, thanks to steps agreed on during Tillerson’s visit.”

He said the process led to the recent withdrawal of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia from the Syrian city of Manbij.

Ankara accuses the YPG of being linked to Kurdish insurgents fighting in Turkey. Washington, however, has backed the militia in the war against Islamic State. The YPG’s presence in Manbij with U.S. forces had become a focal point in Turkey’s tense relationship with the United States, a NATO ally.

Ankara trumpeted the Kurdish militia withdrawal as a triumph and a template for a further rollback of YPG-controlled areas across northern Syria. “We expect this process to continue,” said the adviser.

Regarding areas of contention, he said, “There is a process to compartmentalize issues of disagreement.”

“Each issue is being addressed separately by working groups,” he added, so as to prevent differences on one issue from affecting others.

The adviser, however, acknowledged that no progress had been made on the key issue of a Turkish request for the extradition of Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Ankara alleges Gulen initiated a failed 2016 coup that claimed 250 lives. The cleric, who lives in self-imposed exile in the United States, denies the accusations. The U.S. says extradition is a matter for the courts.

Adding to the souring of ties is the imprisonment in Turkey of U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson. He has been jailed for nearly two years and is currently on trial on charges of supporting Gulen.

U.S. President Donald Trump has strongly criticized the case, with some members of Congress accusing Ankara of hostage-taking. Erdogan has linked the Brunson case to calls for Gulen to be extradited.

The Brunson case has become a lightning rod for wider U.S. concerns about Turkey. The worsening of bilateral relations is countered by Ankara’s warming ties with Moscow.

Missile system purchase

Erdogan spokesman Ibrahim Kalin on Friday reaffirmed Turkey’s controversial purchase of a Russian S-400 missile system. Washington strongly opposes the deal, warning the missiles could compromise NATO systems.

The S-400 controversy comes as Ankara and Moscow increasingly cooperate over Syria. While Turkey strongly backs Syrian rebels, it is working with Russia and Iran, which support the Damascus government, to end the civil war under a peace effort named the Astana Process.

The Erdogan adviser sought to allay concerns by Turkey’s NATO allies about its intentions toward Moscow.

“Turkey is not moving away from the West,” he said. “Our relationship with Russia is specific to working on Syria, based on a necessity of cooperation. Our relationship with the West is a strategic relationship.”

“The situation is a failure of the West to intervene in the Syrian conflict. It left a vacuum, which Russia filled. That has created a situation where we have to work with Russia,” added the adviser.

Fears of a potential pivot toward Moscow are fueled by criticism of the decline in human rights in Turkey and Erdogan’s authoritarianism. Critics increasingly draw parallels between Erdogan’s rule and that of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Following Turkey’s June 24 elections, Erdogan is likely to use his renewed electoral mandate to answer critics regarding his democratic credentials. International monitors have criticized the fairness of the election, which he won by a wide margin, but the actual voting and counting were broadly accepted by the rival candidates.

The Turkish president also reportedly is set to lift the much-criticized emergency rule introduced after the failed coup. This past week also saw an Istanbul court release from jail Mehmet Altan, a high-profile Erdogan critic; however, police raids on those who oppose the president, including some news media, continue.

Analysts suggest such moves will be welcomed by Turkey’s Western allies, in particular the European Union. Human rights concerns are major obstacles to relations, but Brussels needs Turkey to continue a migrant deal that has markedly reduced the number of people seeking sanctuary in Europe.

With Turkey currently hosting more than 3 million refugees, mainly from Syria, Erdogan is also looking to build on that cooperation.

“There is a need for a strategic cooperation on refugees. The problem is going to continue with instability in the region. Turkey cannot take any more [refugees],” said the adviser.
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European leaders have agreed to extend their sanctions against Russia for its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. The EU leaders said in statement Friday the sanctions have been extended for six months.

The decision was made at the leaders’ summit in Brussels after they had a “very short discussion” on Ukraine, an anonymous source told AFP, the French news agency.

The United States, meanwhile, is also holding to sanctions against Russia for its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.

The U.S. intelligence community also concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to help Trump win the White House and special counsel Robert Mueller has already indicted Russian individuals and entities in a scheme to influence the vote.

Meanwhile, as the date and venue for President Donald Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin were announced, the U.S. leader continued to dismiss allegations that Moscow interfered with his 2016 election.

Trump has long disparaged the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller into Trump campaign links with Russia as a “witch hunt,” but suggested in a new Twitter comment that he accepts Russian denials that it interfered.

“Russia continues to say they had nothing to do with Meddling in our Election!” Trump declared.

Trump’s view contrasted with a Wednesday comment by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, saying that when Trump and Putin meet, Trump is sure to warn the Russian leader that it is “completely unacceptable” to interfere in U.S. elections.

The July 16 talks between the two leaders in Helsinki will be their first full-fledged meeting after previous shorter encounters at international gatherings. They are occurring at a difficult time in Washington-Moscow relations.

But as the summit was announced, Trump railed against Mueller and his 13-month probe in a string of tweets, saying in one of them, “There was no collusion and there was no obstruction of the no collusion.”

The White House said Trump and Putin will discuss “a range of national security issues.” The Kremlin said the two leaders will talk about “the current state and prospects for development of Russian-U.S. relations.”

The Trump-Putin summit will come after the U.S. leader’s attendance at the July 11-12 NATO summit in Brussels and July 13 meetings with British Prime Minister Theresa May and Queen Elizabeth in London.

Despite the sanctions against Russia, Trump has, even in the face of opposition from Western allies, shown an inclination to foster better with relations with Putin. He suggested earlier this month that Russia should be readmitted to the G-7 conclave of leaders of some of the biggest world economies after Moscow was suspended from the group when it annexed Crimea.

Trump said Wednesday that “getting along with Russia and with China and with everybody is a very good thing.” Trump said he and Putin would discuss Syria, Ukraine and “many other subjects.”

 

As relations between the two countries have chilled, they have traded cuts in their diplomatic entourages.

Before he left office and Trump assumed power, former U.S. President Barack Obama ordered the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats and shut down two Russian recreational retreats in the U.S. in response to the election meddling. In a tit-for-tat action in mid-2017, Russia ordered the U.S. to cut 755 members of its embassy and consulate staffs in Russia.

Three months ago, the U.S. expelled 60 Russian officials from the U.S. and ordered the closure of the Russian consulate in the western city of Seattle in response to the Russian poisoning of former Moscow spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the British city of Salisbury.

 
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A trade deal with the European Union expected to be ratified this year will accelerate growth of Vietnam’s export-reliant economy without help from the U.S. market, analysts say.

The European Union-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement signed in 2015 should speed annual economic growth by half a percent to more than 7 percent by 2019, according to data from the business consultancy Dezan Shira & Associates.

European Union members Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom already take 9 percent of all exports from Vietnam, and 28 states belong to the whole bloc.

Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade said Tuesday the two sides had finished a legal review of the deal, the Vietnamese Communist Party news website Nhan Dan Online reported.

The deal signed by negotiators in December 2015 must pass the European Parliament as well as Vietnamese lawmakers.

“It should give Vietnam better access to European markets, not just the usual garments and footwear but also for seafood and other agro-processing products,” said Adam McCarty, chief economist with Mekong Economics in the capital Hanoi. “Generally, it will be good.”

​Top trading partners

Vietnam counts the European Union, with a market of about 500 million people, as its No. 3 trading partner after China and the United States. Their trade totaled about $50.4 billion last year.

Vietnam relies on exports of garments, auto parts and consumer electronics to stoke a GDP that already outgrows most of the world. It had hoped the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal would open tariff-free access to the United States until U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from it last year.

The EU-Vietnam deal will eliminate import tariffs on 99 percent of all goods within a decade and open Vietnam to European services such as health care, packaging and conference hosting.

Elimination of tariffs will save money for manufacturers based in Vietnam and selling to Europe.

“It won’t be able to compensate, because the U.S. is still the largest and most important economy, but it gives businesses opportunities,” said Song Seng Wun, Southeast Asia-focused economist in the private banking unit of CIMB in Singapore.

For the European Union

The European Union pursued the trade deal with Vietnam so its companies could better access an increasingly wealthy consumer market of about 93 million people. Foreign investors favor Vietnam for its low wages, creating domestic jobs that in turn drive consumer spending.

Tariff cuts should help imports of European luxury goods to Vietnam, said Maxfield Brown, senior associate with the consultancy Dezan Shira & Associates in Ho Chi Minh City.

The agreement also gets the EU into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a 10-member trading bloc to which Vietnam belongs.

The EU failed to finish a trade agreement with the association in 2009, after two years of talks, in part because the bloc could not reconcile the varied agendas of all member states.

Final steps

Analysts say a Vietnamese trade ministry meeting this month with the EU’s trade commissioner indicates that a deal is nearly done. The two sides “reached consensus” at that meeting on all content of an investment protection agreement, the Communist Party news website said.

In a possible snag, European Parliament members had voiced concerns last year over human rights in Vietnam. Some suggested more debate in Vietnam on political rights and freedom of expression.

Vietnam may want the final trade deal to scrap its classification by the EU as a non-market economy, McCarty said. That designation would further liberalize the Vietnamese trade in footwear, he said.

Today’s rules, which the EU set to head off export dumping, give Vietnam a “headache,” he said.

European investment in Vietnam had already picked up over the past two years in anticipation of a finished free trade deal, Brown said.

As of last year, 24 countries from Europe had made a combined 2,000 investments in Vietnam. They were worth a total of $21.5 billion.

Foreign direct investment, or FDI, in export manufacturing plants still comes largely from Asian countries, such as Japan, Singapore and South Korea.

“It’s gotten to this stage, so there’s an incentive for both sides to get over the finish line and open up the market for European manufacturers, exporters and get Vietnam more FDI,” Brown said.
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U.S. and Russian leaders have agreed to meet July 16 to discuss long-standing disagreements on global issues such as conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. elections and NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe. The summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin comes on the heels of the NATO summit in Brussels, but the two leaders have chosen neutral territory to meet. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.
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Russia’s leading social network is cracking down on chat groups created to shame women during the World cup amid growing complaints of sexist abuse during the tournament.

Social network VKontakte told The Associated Press on Thursday it issued warnings to the administrators of such groups. VKontakte reminded administrators that “offensive behavior is unacceptable” and told them to better moderate their sites, including blocking content.

But sexist comments continued to appear Thursday on at least one of the targeted sites, which was named after an offensive Portuguese phrase for the female anatomy.

The site’s administrators openly criticize what they call inappropriate behavior by Russian women who celebrate with foreign fans during the World Cup.

Several female fans, journalists and others have complained of groping, sexist comments or other misconduct at the World Cup, being hosted in 11 Russian cities.
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European Union leaders were gathering Thursday to examine new ways to stop migrants entering Europe, desperate to ensure that their differences over managing the flows do not tear the 28-nation bloc apart.

The number of people arriving in Europe seeking sanctuary or better lives has dropped significantly, but anti-migrant parties have consolidated their powers, winning votes as they exploit fear of foreigners.

The political crisis caused by the EU’s inability to share responsibility for those entering is undermining German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s leadership. It’s also helped bring an anti-European government to power in Italy.

Italy, the main landing point for migrants along with Greece, has begun to refuse entry to ships carrying people rescued from the Mediterranean Sea. The EU’s smallest member state, the island of Malta, is also resisting appeals to do more. France has been involved, criticizing Rome in a major diplomatic row.

“Europe has many challenges, but that of migration could determine the fate of the European Union,” Merkel told German lawmakers Thursday before heading for a two-day summit in Brussels.

Merkel is fighting a battle at home and abroad against critics who accuse her of endangering European security with her welcoming approach to migrants. Her conservative coalition is under pressure from the far-right Alternative for Germany.

The party has received a surge in support since 2015 – when well over one million people entered Europe, mostly fleeing conflicts in Syria and Iraq – and populist leaders in southern and eastern Europe have rejected her calls for a wholesale reform of Europe’s migration system.

With Merkel’s coalition allies demanding that migrants be turned away at the border with Austria, EU officials fear any such move would set off a domino effect. Austria in turn could close its border with Italy, and Rome might then close its ports.

The leaders will discuss the establishment of Orwellian-sounding “regional disembarkation platforms,” in an effort to prevent people from reaching Europe. The plan, yet to be fleshed out, involves placing people leaving Africa bound for Europe in centers in countries like Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Niger and Tunisia.

“A precondition for a genuine EU migration policy is that Europeans effectively decide who enters European territory,” EU Council President Donald Tusk said in an invitation letter to the leaders. “Failure to achieve this goal would in fact be a manifestation of our weakness.”

The scheme is likely to prove extremely expensive – and no African country has expressed an interest so far in taking part. Big questions also remain over whether people would be left languishing at these centers with little hope of getting to Europe and no means or will to return home. Under international law, people legitimately in fear for their lives and safety are within their rights to try to reach a safe place and apply for asylum.

On the island of Malta, meanwhile, screening began Thursday for 234 people who spent nearly a week at sea on a humanitarian rescue vessel, to determine whether they are eligible for asylum and relocation to one of eight EU nations.

The government said three babies and three adults were being treated in hospital.

Malta Prime Minister Joseph Muscat opened the country’s main port to the German-run ship Lifeline after other EU nations agreed to accept some of the people. He said those deemed “economic migrants” will be sent back to where they came from.

Maltese officials seized the ship, citing irregularities in the rescue. The captain is under investigation.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin is boasting about his country’s prospective nuclear weapons, saying they are years and even decades ahead of foreign designs.

Speaking Thursday before the graduates of Russian military academies in the Kremlin, Putin said the new weapons represent a quantum leap in the nation’s military capability. He said Russia has achieved a “real breakthrough” in designing new weapons.

The Russian leader singled out the new Avangard hypersonic vehicle and the new Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile, which are set to enter service in the next few years. Putin also mentioned the Kinzhal hypersonic missile that has already been put on duty with the units of Russia’s Southern Military District.

Those systems were among an array of new nuclear weapons Putin presented in March amid tensions with the West.
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Two major auto trade groups on Wednesday warned the Trump administration that imposing up to 25 percent tariffs on imported vehicles would cost hundreds of thousands of auto jobs, dramatically hike prices on vehicles and threaten industry spending on self-driving cars.

A coalition representing major foreign automakers including Toyota Motor Corp, Volkswagen AG, BMW AG and Hyundai Motor Co, said the tariffs would harm automakers and U.S. consumers. The administration in May launched an investigation into whether imported vehicles pose a national security threat and President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to quickly impose tariffs.

“The greatest threat to the U.S. automotive industry at this time is the possibility the administration will impose duties on imports in connection with this investigation,” wrote the Association of Global Automakers representing major foreign automakers. “Such duties would raise prices for American consumers, limit their choices, and suppress sales and U.S. production of vehicles.”

The group added: “Rather than creating jobs, these tariffs would result in the loss of hundreds of thousands of American jobs producing and selling cars, SUVs, trucks and auto parts.”

On Friday, Trump threatened to impose a 20 percent tariff on all imports of EU-assembled cars. On Tuesday, Trump said tariffs are coming soon.

“We are finishing our study of Tariffs on cars from the E.U. in that they have long taken advantage of the U.S. in the form of Trade Barriers and Tariffs. In the end it will all even out — and it won’t take very long!” Trump tweeted.

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, representing General Motors Co, Ford Motor Co, Daimler AG , Toyota and others, urged the administration in separate comments filed Wednesday not to go forward.

“We believe the resulting impact of tariffs on imported vehicles and vehicle components will ultimately harm U.S. economic security and weaken our national security,” the group wrote, calling the tariffs a “mistake” and adding imposing them “could very well set a dangerous precedent that other nations could use to protect their local market from foreign competition.”

The Alliance said its analysis of 2017 auto sales data showed a 25 percent tariff on imported vehicles would result in an average price increase of $5,800, which would boost costs to American consumers by nearly $45 billion annually.

Automakers are concerned tariffs would mean less capital to spend on self-driving cars and electric vehicles.

“We are already in the midst of an intense global race to lead on electrification and automation. The increased costs associated with the proposed tariffs may result in diminishing the U.S.’ competitiveness in developing these advanced technologies,” the Alliance wrote.

Toyota said in a statement Wednesday that new tariffs “would increase the cost of every vehicle sold in the country.” The automaker said the tariffs would mean even a Toyota Camry built in Kentucky “would face $1,800 in increased costs.”

Both automotive trade groups cited a study by the Peterson Institute for International Economics that the cost to U.S. jobs from the import duties would be 195,000 jobs and could be as high as 624,000 jobs if other countries retaliate.

The German Association for Small and Medium-sized Businesses said the “pattern of rising protectionism is very likely to continue if the U.S. decide to impose tariffs on foreign automobiles and automobile parts, thus causing tremendous damage to both economies.”

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, a state that produced nearly 1 million vehicles and 1.7 million engines built by foreign automakers last year, urged the Commerce Department not to invoke the tariffs. She said job losses from new levies could be “devastating.”

The proposed tariffs on national security grounds have been met by opposition among many Republicans in Congress.

Trump has made the tariffs a key part of his economic message and repeatedly lamented the U.S auto sector trade deficit, particularly with Germany and Japan. Some aides have suggested that the effort is a way to try to pressure Canada and Mexico into making more concessions in ongoing talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Thursday the department aimed to wrap up the probe by late July or August. The Commerce Department plans to hold two days of public comments in July on its investigation of auto imports.

The Commerce Department has asked if it should consider U.S. owned auto manufacturers differently than foreign automakers.

The Association of Global Automakers rejected that contention, saying its members’ American workers “are no less patriotic or willing to serve their country in a time of crisis than any other Americans.”

The group questioned national security as grounds to restrict auto imports. “America does not go to war in a Ford Fiesta,” they added.

The Alliance said “there is no basis to claim that auto-related imports are a threat to national security” and noted that 98 percent of U.S. auto imports came from U.S. national security allies.
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“I know quite a few people that, if the World Cup wasn’t in Russia, would have gone this year,” said Joe White, co-founder of Three Lions Pride, an LGBT group cheering for England’s team at the World Cup.

He and his co-founder, Di Cunningham, have been in Russia for the competition, showing up to games with a rainbow-striped Three Lions Pride flag, despite Russia’s five-year-old ban on what has been nicknamed “gay propaganda.”

Russia’s World Cup organizing committee has said in a statement that all visitors, regardless of sexual orientation (or race, gender, religion, ability, or other typical motivations for discrimination) are welcome at the World Cup, which runs through July 15.

The committee has even specifically promised to allow the display of rainbow pride flags at matches — a promise that has been tested by gay activists. So far, the government has kept its word.

The “gay propaganda” law, passed in 2013, makes it illegal for Russian citizens to present homosexual behavior as a norm in the presence of minors. But the law has been criticized for being open to interpretation, which makes it a potential tool for persecuting LGBT — lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender — people.

In addition to Russian citizens, businesses, organizations and foreign visitors in Russia are subject to the law. Anti-gay violence has risen since the law was passed.

Vitaly Milonov, a member of the State Duma and one of the authors of the gay propaganda law, told The Associated Press before the World Cup opened that he wanted tighter, not looser, restrictions on LGBT fans during the international competition.

“I want to remind them that no matter how much they try lobbying, their hideous way of life is condemned all over the world,” he said in a story published June 1. “They do not have the right to propagandize their hideousness.”

Despite Moscow’s pledge to allow the display of the pride flag, Cunningham was briefly delayed June 18 at a security gate in Volgograd when she tried to enter the stadium with a pride flag. While she was eventually allowed to enter and display her flag at the England-Tunisia match that day, that hesitance is why White said it’s important for LGBT fans to show up in a country that is not seen as gay-friendly.

“I think the visibility of fans in the stadium is really making a big difference,” White said. “People are coming to terms with the fact that homophobia isn’t acceptable as part of the game, whether they’re being abusive toward players or toward fans.”

‘Diversity houses’

The group FARE, Football Against Racism in Europe, set up “diversity houses” in Moscow and St. Petersburg to give LGBT fans, as well as members of ethnic minorities, a safe place to gather and socialize.

On June 14, the owner of the St. Petersburg venue changed his mind just 12 hours before the house was set to open, forcing the group to find a new headquarters. They eventually landed in a St. Petersburg arts and cultural center because for some, fellowship with other LGBT fans is an essential part of the World Cup experience.

But White said outreach is also a component of the trip. He said it was important to him to socialize not only among his own crowd, but also to mingle with “people from other countries that may never have even thought about LGBT fans.”

It is a different style of activism for Peter Tatchell, a British gay-rights advocate who was briefly arrested June 14 in Moscow’s Red Square for protesting brutality toward gay men in the Russian republic of Chechnya.

Chechnya serves as home base for Egypt’s national team during the World Cup competition. White said people should give Tatchell “a huge amount of credit” for standing up for the rights of LGBT Russians. And he counts it as a win that Tatchell was charged with breaking a protest law and not the gay propaganda law.

Beyond World Cup

But the social diplomacy of pride groups attending football matches is a more subtle art than a protest in Red Square. For White, Cunningham and other gay fans, just showing up for the matches, flying the flag, and mingling with fellow football fans can be powerful.

White and his colleagues recognize that the relaxed policing of the gay propaganda law may go away once the World Cup concludes July 15. And the 2022 World Cup is scheduled for Qatar, where homosexuality is a criminal offense.

“The one thing [we] really would count as a success is making sure that when the World Cup finishes, we don’t just forget about the plight of LGBT Russians, that we continue supporting them,” White said. “We can support, from our privileged position in the U.K., the LGBT community in Russia or communities that aren’t as lucky as we are with the rights afforded to them. We can show that we stand in solidarity not just during World Cup but throughout the year, as well.”
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Poland suddenly backtracked Wednesday on a disputed Holocaust speech law, scrapping the threat of prison for attributing Nazi crimes to the Polish nation, but leaving the possibility of fines in place.

The original law, passed five months ago, was presented as an attempt to defend the country’s “good name” but mostly had the opposite effect. There was widespread suspicion that the true intent was to suppress free inquiry into a complex past, and the law was compared by some to history laws in Turkey and Russia.

The amendments were unexpectedly presented to lawmakers by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in the morning, passed with lightning speed in both houses of the legislature by the afternoon, and then signed by the president before nightfall.

“This small corrective strengthens our position, as we defend Poland’s good name, because during those few months we were able to awaken the awareness of many our partners, also in Israel,” Morawiecki said in defending the whole legislative effort.

The original version of the law had called for prison terms of up to three years for falsely and intentionally accusing the Polish nation of Holocaust crimes that were committed by Nazi Germany. The ruling Law and Justice party said it needed a tool to fight back against foreign media and politicians who have sometimes used expressions like “Polish death camps” to refer to German-run camps in occupied Poland. Even former U.S. President Barack Obama once used such terminology, causing deep offense.

Polish authorities insisted that nobody would be punished for any statement backed up by facts and that there would be no criminal punishment for discussing cases of Poles who denounced or killed Jews during the war.

Crisis with Israel

But the law nonetheless sparked a major diplomatic crisis with Israel, where Holocaust survivors and politicians feared that it was an attempt to whitewash the episodes of Polish anti-Semitism. The United States warned the law threatened academic freedom and could harm Poland’s “strategic” relationships. 

Ukraine strongly opposed the law as well because it criminalized denying atrocities committed by Ukrainian nationalists against Poles.

Those strained ties with its allies deepened Poland’s international isolation at a sensitive time of a bitter dispute with the European Union over rule of law.

Polish Holocaust scholars argued that the original law would have been useless against people outside Poland and feared it was mostly meant to suppress a growing body of scholarly research about Polish violence against Jews.

The focus on the dark side of Polish wartime history is deeply unsettling to many Poles, who fear it has come to overshadow the heroic aspects of Poland’s resistance to Nazi Germany and the massive suffering inflicted on the country. During the war, nearly 6 million Polish citizens were killed — 3 million Jews but almost as many Christian Poles.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the amendments and issued a conciliatory joint statement with Morawiecki late Wednesday that expressed a common desire for dialogue and acknowledged many of Poland’s positions.

But Poland’s government will now have to face the anger of nationalist voters, who saw the original law as an attempt to defend national honor. Many feel that the nation’s dignity has been debased by the focus on Polish wartime anti-Semitism, which they see as pushing from view acts of Polish resistance against the Nazis and the help given to Jews by thousands of Poles.

One nationalist lawmaker, Robert Winnicki, described the changes as caving in to Jewish interests. He even tried to block the podium in the lower house in protest, but the vote went ahead anyway. Meanwhile, liberal opponents bitterly criticized the ruling party for introducing the law in the first place, calling it a disaster that had deeply harmed the country’s international position.

Still seen as a success

Morawiecki, the prime minster, argued that the legislation had still been a success because it had created greater global awareness of Poland’s wartime tragedy and heroism.

He described the joint declaration with Netanyahu as one positive result.

“We have defended the honor of our forefathers,” Morawiecki said. “This is a very good day for Poland, for Poland’s history.”

During difficult questioning in the Senate, he pushed back against the idea that Poland was doing the bidding of foreign interests and insisted that “nobody is writing our laws for us. This is a sovereign decision.”

The legislation keeps in place the possibility of lawsuits and fines for the same offenses. Morawiecki suggested Poland would use the law against any offending foreign media, saying they could face fines of even 100 million dollars or euros. It wasn’t clear how that would work in practice.

The dispute with Israel had sparked a wave of anti-Semitic comments in Poland — even by officials and state-run media commentators — as well as anti-Polish hate speech in Israel and elsewhere.

The joint Polish-Israeli declaration condemned both anti-Semitism and “anti-Polonism,” or prejudice against Poles, and Morawiecki welcomed the formal acknowledgement of its existence.

The law was never put into practice because the president had sent it to the Constitutional Tribunal for review, expressing some doubts about it.
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