Month: November 2018

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire will meet retailers and insurers on Monday to assess the economic impact of nationwide protests against rising fuel costs, he said on Sunday.

Protesters clad in fluorescent jackets, dubbed “yellow vests,” have blocked highways across France since Nov. 17, setting up burning barricades and deploying convoys of slow-moving trucks, often denying access to shopping centers and some factories.

French retailers have warned that prolonged protests could hit the Christmas shopping season and threaten jobs, while President Emmanuel Macron has shown no sign of backing down on taxes introduced last year on diesel and petrol to encourage people to switch to cleaner forms of transport.

The unrest reached new heights in Paris on Saturday, when police clashed violently with thousands of demonstrators on the Champs-Elysees.

“Tomorrow I will bring together at the Economy and Finance Ministry representatives from retailers, merchants, craftsmen, chambers of commerce and employers federation Medef to assess the economic situation, its impact on sales and on our economy and the consequences we must draw,” Le Maire told BFM TV.

Police detained 101 people in Paris and there 24 people were injured in the clashes on the Champs Elysees.

“I saw a violence that is not acceptable. It is urgent to rebuild the nation’s unity and restart a dialogue,” Le Maire said.

Some yellow vests have called for a third weekend of protests on the Champs Elysees via a Facebook page called “Act 3 Macron resigns!”
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It took Britain’s Theresa May and 27 other European Union leaders just 40 minutes to sign the Brexit deal after two years of tortuous negotiations, but the trials and tribulations of Britain’s withdrawal agreement approved Sunday in Brussels are far from over.

As they endorsed the 585-page the agreement, and a 26-page accompanying political declaration that sets out the parameters of negotiating a possible free trade deal between Britain and the European Union, powerful political foes in London plotted strategies to undo it.

There is little evidence Britain’s embattled prime minister will have sufficient support to win legislative endorsement of the deal in a House of Commons vote next month. That was clearly on the minds of European Commission officials Sunday as EU leaders gave their backing to the terms of Britain’s split from Brussels after 44 years of membership.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker warned that Britain cannot expect to get a better deal, if its parliament rejects the agreement. “Now it is time for everybody to take their responsibilities, everybody,” he said.

“This is the deal, it’s the best deal possible and the EU will not change its fundamental position when it comes to this issue, so I do think the British parliament — because this is a wise parliament — will ratify this deal,” he added.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte warned British lawmakers that no better deal was on offer from the European Union, urging them to back the agreements.

“If I would live in the UK I would say yes to this, I would say that this is very much acceptable to the United Kingdom,” Rutte said, because the deal “limited the impact of Brexit while balancing the vote to leave”. In a bid to help the prime minister, he said May had “fought very hard” and now there was “an acceptable deal on the table”.

“You know I hate [Brexit], but it is a given,” he told reporters. “No one is a victor here today, nobody is winning, we are all losing.”

Opposition in Britain

Maybe it is a “given” in Brussels, but in Britain that is another matter altogether.

Both Remainers and Leavers in the British Parliament are warning that May doesn’t have the necessary support with the all the opposition parties lined up against the deal and as many as 100 lawmakers, Remainers and Leavers among them, from May’s ruling Conservatives pledging to vote against it as well.

Iain Duncan Smith, a former Conservative leader, said he would continue to oppose the deal because it “cedes huge amounts of power” to the European Union.

In Scotland, first minister and leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party Nicola Sturgeon said, “This is a bad deal, driven by the PM’s self defeating red lines and continual pandering to the right of her own party. Parliament should reject it and back a better alternative.”

She wants a second Britain-wide referendum, like a majority of Britons, according to recent opinion polls.

The agreement calls for Britain to stay in the bloc’s customs union and largely in the EU single market, without the power to influence the rules, regulations and laws it will be obliged to obey for a 21-month-long transition period following formal withdrawal on March 29. The deal would allow an extension of “up to one or two years” should the negotiations over “the future relationship” not be completed by the end of 2020.

May is campaigning to sell the agreement to the British public, hoping she she can build enough support in the wider country to pressure the House of Commons to endorse the deal. European Parliament approval is almost certain.

May’s warning

In an open letter to the British public published Sunday, May promised to campaign “with my heart and soul to win that vote and to deliver this Brexit deal.” If she is unable to do so, Britain would be plunged into what May herself has called, “deep and grave uncertainty.”

Her aides say she is banking on the “fear factor,” daring the House of Commons to vote down a deal which if rejected would leave Britain most likely crashing out of the bloc, its largest trading partner, without any agreements, which would be costly economically and would almost certainly push the country into recession.

Ominously, the Northern Ireland party, the Democratic Unionist Party, whose 10 lawmakers May’s minority government relies on to remain in power, says it will vote against the deal. And DUP leader Arlene Foster warned Sunday she is ready to collapse the government to block a deal that would see Northern Ireland treated differently than the rest of Britain.

And a senior Labour lawmaker Tony Lloyd said there was a “coalition of the willing” in the Parliament ready to reject May’s deal and support a softer Brexit. So, if the deal is voted down, what then? A vote against could trigger a general election, a second Brexit referendum or even more negotiations, despite Brussels’ threat there can be no other deal.

 
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Turkish authorities detained two people following a drive-by shooting near the Austrian Embassy in capital Ankara early Sunday.

The governor’s office said in a statement the two suspects were detained and their weapon confiscated. It said the suspects were thought to be under the influence of alcohol after having drunk late into the night.

 

The governor’s office said the suspects shot into the air from a moving car near the Austrian Embassy at 0400 am (0100 GMT). There were no reports of damage or injuries.

 

Official Anadolu news agency said they were in a white car and security forces briefly closed down roads near the embassy in Ankara. According to the agency, crime scene investigators found many shell casings overnight.

 

Video from the night showed police at the scene and numerous police cars.

 

It is unclear if the embassy was the target. All was normal in the area Sunday morning.

 

In August, three bullets hit the gate and reinforced window outside the U.S. Embassy in Ankara in a drive-by shooting. No one was injured. The U.S. embassy is located on the same boulevard as the Austrian one, about 130 meters (427 feet) away.

 

 
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Tens of thousands of people rallied across Europe on Saturday against sexist violence, with more than 30,000 turning out in Paris, where a separate protest against rising fuel prices brought clashes. 

 

Anti-violence rallies across France drew around 50,000 people in all, according to organizer Caroline de Haas, to answer a citizen collective’s call for a “feminist tidal wave” of outrage against gender violence brought into sharp focus by the #MeToo movement. 

 

Elsewhere, a thousand people braved driving rain in Rome, while similar protests drew several hundred demonstrators in Geneva and Athens. 

 

“The fight against violence against women is progressing daily but our society has a long way to go — everyone must act and fight as this is everybody’s business,” President Emmanuel Macron tweeted in offering his moral support. 

 

Authorities put the Paris turnout at 12,000 and similar marches in Lyon, Marseille and Rennes at between 1,000 and 2,400, but de Haas felt moved to salute “the largest [feminist] mobilization France has known,” far bigger than a rally that drew 2,000 last year.  

 

Participants clad in purple, the color of the #NousToutes women’s activist protest movement, shouted slogans including “Sick of rape,” “End impunity for aggressors” and “A woman is never responsible for the violence she suffers,” while also demanding government resources to tackle the issue. 

 

“I am here to support all the victims and continue this struggle, which started long before I came along,” said French actress Muriel Robin, who had organized a similar rally last month in the capital. 

Men, too

 

The rallies drew a number of men, including Tanguy, a 19-year-old student who turned out in the western city of Rennes to declare backing for “a movement which is not based on sex — it’s not a fight pitting men against women but a fight by men and women, together, against inequality.” 

 

The #NousToutes movement started out in France in September, inspired by the #MeToo campaign that began last year. Since then, the number of cases of sexual violence reported to police in France has risen 23 percent. 

 

Latest French government figures say 2017 saw 225,000 cases of domestic violence against women by their partners, while 2016 saw 123 deaths. 

 

A day ahead of Sunday’s U.N.-designated International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, there were further marches in a number of cities across Europe.  

 

Macron last year made sexual equality a priority of his presidency. 

 

But “if the money is not forthcoming, public policy won’t follow on,” warned de Haas, speaking two days after several civil organizations called for a huge increase in public resources dedicated to the problem.  
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So versatile were Leonardo da Vinci’s talents in art and science and so boundless his visionary imagination, he is known to the world as the universal genius.

But not to Italy’s nationalist-tilting government, which is livid about plans by the Louvre museum in Paris for a blockbuster exhibit next year with as many as possible Leonardo masterpieces loaned from Italian museums to mark the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance artist’s death.

“It’s unfair, a mistaken deal,” Italian Culture Ministry Undersecretary Lucia Borgonzoni said of a 2017 agreement between a previous government and the Louvre. “Leonardo is an Italian genius,” she told The Associated Press this week.

Borgonzoni is a senator from the League, the “Italians-first” sovereignty-championing party in the nearly six-month-old populist government.

She was elaborating on comments earlier this month, in Italian daily Corriere della Sera, in which she said of Leonardo: “In France, all he did was die.”

Leonardo was born in 1452 in the Tuscan town of Vinci, Italy, and died in Amboise, France, in 1519.

Borgonzoni criticized how as part of the 2017 arrangement, Italy also pledged to program its own exhibits so they won’t compete with the Louvre mega-show.

The Louvre declined to comment on Italy’s objections, nor say which artworks it requested from Italy, noting it’s nearly a year before the four-months-long exhibit opens on Oct. 24, 2019.

Exhibit curator, Vincent Delieuvin, part of the Louvre’s staff, also serves on the Italian Culture Ministry’s committee which evaluated proposals from museums worldwide for the celebrations. He didn’t reply to an emailed request for comment.

“While respecting the autonomy of museums, national interests can’t be put in second place,” Borgonzoni told Corriere. “The French can’t have everything.”

And it appears they won’t get all they want.

The Uffizi Galleries in Florence is considering loaning the Louvre several Leonardo drawings. But director Eike D. Schmidt said his museum is nixing the Louvre’s request for its stellar trio of Leonardo paintings because “simply, these works are so extremely fragile. No museum in the world would ever lend them.”

Last summer, when the three Leonardos were moved one flight up in the Uffizi so they would have a room all to themselves, the transfer required preparations “like it was an expedition to Mount Everest, or a space trip to the Moon,” with restoration experts on hand just in case anything got damaged, Schmidt said in a phone interview.

One of the three paintings, “Adoration of the Magi,” only came back to the Uffizi last year, after five years of restoration work in Florence.

In 2007, when “Annunciation,” a painting on wood by a 20-year-old Leonardo depicting the Archangel Gabriel proffering a lily to the Virgin, was about to leave the Uffizi for a Tokyo exhibition, a senator from the conservative Forza Italia (Let’s Go Italy) party and several Florentines chained themselves to a museum gate in a vain attempt to thwart the precious masterpiece from being flown to Japan.

The Uffizi director at the time opposed that loan, but the then-culture minister decided that the painting’s transfer as good for Italy.

For the 2019 celebrations, the Uffizi will loan an early Leonardo work, “Landscape Drawing for Santa Maria Della Neve,” to the Leonardiano Museum in Vinci. Depicting the countryside near Vinci, the drawing is displayed only for a few weeks every four years because of fears prolonged exposure to light will damage it.

Schmidt sounded hopeful the Louvre would understand the Uffizi’s refusal.

“We fully understand why the ‘Mona Lisa’ cannot travel,” he said, referring to the Louvre’s star Leonardo painting.

But while the Louvre won’t ever let the portrait of the woman with the fascinating smile leave its confines, it did send two other Leonardo paintings to Milan for an exhibition during the 2015 Expo in that northern Italian city. In all, the Louvre has five of his paintings, the most of any one museum.

Anniversary committee head Paolo Galluzzi, who directs the Galileo Museum in Florence, insisted that nationalism wasn’t a factor in evaluating anniversary proposals.

“Many could claim him. He was born in Vinci, trained in Florence, and developed in Milan,” Galluzzi said by telephone. “Politicians have different optics,” but in the “world of culture and science we don’t bother with these things.”

Ultimately, he said, what is being celebrated next year is a “universal genius.”
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European Council President Donald Tusk and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez agreed to a deal Saturday on the future of Gibraltar, removing a key obstacle one day before a European Union meeting intended to endorse the Brexit deal.

 

Spain had demanded changes to the agreement and an accompanying declaration on a new EU-Britain relationship to clarify that the future of Gibraltar, which was ceded to Britain in 1713 but still is claimed by Spain, be decided in direct talks between Madrid and London.

Sanchez had warned he could boycott the summit on Sunday if London and EU member states did not confirm his country’s right to a veto over any future accord involving Gibraltar. 

The deal was reached after British and Spanish negotiators talked through the night with EU officials.

Sanchez said the deal “is going to allow us to have direct negotiations with the U.K. regarding Gibraltar” and added Spain would vote in favor of Brexit.

British Prime Minister Theresa May said of the deal, “I will always stand by Gibraltar. The U.K. position on the sovereignty of Gibraltar has not changed and will not change.” 

EU head Jean-Claude Juncker said after meeting with Sanchez that solidarity and dialogue were “the European way of finding solutions.”

Spain does not currently have veto power on the Brexit agreement, which does not have to be approved unanimously, but it would prevent any free-trade deal between Britain and the European Union, which would require the approval of all 27 EU member states.

The Brexit package is also facing strong opposition in the British parliament, which must vote in favor for it to take effect. Otherwise, Britain would leave the bloc on March 29, 2019, without an agreement to mitigate economic disruption.

As negotiators from EU member nations attended a pre-summit meeting in Brussels Saturday, May was scheduled to discuss the disputed British territory with Juncker and Tusk.

In an open letter published in the Sunday British newspapers, May made a direct appeal to Britons, asking them to support the deal to leave the EU, even though the support of her own Conservative Party seemed unsure. 

 

“It will be a deal that is in our national interest — one that works for our whole country and all of our people, whether you voted ‘Leave’ or ‘Remain,’ ” she said, adding she would campaign “heart and soul” to get her Brexit deal through Britain’s Parliament. 

Former British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson called Saturday for the appointment of a minister to oversee preparations for a “no-deal” British exit from the EU.

“It is very important that we show we are negotiating with confidence and conviction and we have a new secretary of state with powers …to make things happen and get this country ready if we have to go out on WTO (World Trade Organization) terms.”

EU diplomats were hopeful a draft of the clause would be approved by late Friday. And they were concerned Sanchez would want to discuss the issue with top-level officials on Sunday in an attempt to show determination and to curry favor with voters before December’s regional election.

The clause is seen by some experts as a major opportunity for Spain, one of whom is Ignacio Molina of the Elcano Royal Institute, a Madrid-based research organization.

“Madrid saw Brexit as an opportunity to reconfigure the status of the territory which is administered by the United Kingdom,” Molina wrote on the Agenda Publica’s website.

Molina wrote that Spain could go “all-out” and raise the issue of sovereignty or take a more modest approach to “resolve concrete problems in the areas of regulation, tax and cross-border freedom of movement.”
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French terror laws are contradicting basic principles of justice, according to Amnesty International. The group argues that legislation introduced to replace the state of emergency following recent terror attacks places undue restrictions on terror suspects before they have committed any crime, with little judicial oversight. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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The United States has welcomed a report that Iran’s largest commercial lender, Bank Melli, has seen its German branch disconnected from phone and internet service under pressure of U.S. sanctions.

In a Thursday report, German business newspaper Handelsblatt said Germany’s part state-owned telecom provider Deutsche Telekom had cut off Bank Melli’s Hamburg office. It was not clear when the branch lost its phone and internet services. 

Handelsblatt quoted Deutsche Telekom as sending Bank Melli a message, saying: “We have to assume that you can no longer make any payments” for telecom services. There was no immediate response from Deutsche Telekom to a VOA Persian request for comment on the move. 

Bank Melli is among dozens of Iranian banks subjected to U.S. sanctions reimposed by the Trump administration Nov. 5 to isolate Iran’s financial sector and pressure Tehran to end perceived malign behaviors. 

U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew in May from a 2015 deal in which his predecessor and five other world powers granted Iran sanctions relief in return for a freeze on its sensitive nuclear activities.

In a Friday tweet, the U.S. Embassy in Berlin posted a link to the Handelsblatt article about Bank Melli, which the embassy accused of funneling cash to Iran-backed terrorist groups. Tehran calls itself a victim rather than a perpetrator of terrorism. 

The U.S. Embassy in Berlin added two hashtags to the tweet, saying “sanctions are working” and “thank you Deutsche Telekom.” U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell retweeted the post on his personal account. 

Iranian state media had no reaction on Friday to the reported cutoff of telecom services to Bank Melli’s German branch. 

Bank Melli Hamburg managing director Helmut Gottlieb told Handelsblatt that the move has left the branch “almost paralyzed.” 

Germany and other EU nations that remain a party to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal have criticized the reimposition of U.S. sanctions and said they will try to shield European companies from the measures. 

But Handelsblatt quoted German business sources as saying numerous German companies have been filing weekly reports to the U.S. Embassy in Berlin to show that they are abiding by the U.S. sanctions. Washington has warned international companies that they must choose between doing business with Iran and maintaining access to the U.S. market. 

The Handelsblatt article did not quote Deutsche Telekom as explicitly citing U.S. sanctions as the reason for the cutoff of services to Bank Melli. 

In an editorial published Friday, Handelsblatt criticized the Deutsche Telekom move as “cynical.” It also accused the German government and central bank of “doing nothing” to ensure that Bank Melli can make legal payments to German institutions.

“Where is the help for German companies? Where is the defense of Germany’s sovereignty?” the German publication asked.

An earlier Handelsblatt report published Oct. 2 quoted the German central bank as saying it cannot force German institutions to accept payments from an Iranian bank. The article also said officials of Germany’s economics and finance ministries declined to express a position on the issue. 

This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service 
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Tensions in Kosovo rose again Friday after police arrested three ethnic Serbs, including two police officers, on suspicion of involvement in the killing earlier this year of a leading Serb politician in the north of the country.

The three men were arrested in the Serb-dominated town of Mitrovica, 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of the capital, Pristina, as suspects in the January slaying of Oliver Ivanovic, police said in a statement. A fourth Serb was arrested for resisting police. A fifth person is still at large, police said.

Police said they seized evidence for the investigation into Ivanovic’s killing during raids in four locations. Police showed photos of a drone, automatic weapons and ammunition and other equipment found in the raids.

Prosecutor Syle Hoxha said they have questioned more than 40 witnesses to date in the case. Nobody has yet been charged in the slaying.

Thousands protest

Thousands of Serbs protested in Kosovo towns, some blocking all main roads leading to Northern Mitrovica, as well as several border posts with Serbia. No violence was immediately reported.

Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians fought a bloody war with Serbia from 1998-1999, which ended with a 78-day NATO air campaign in June 1999.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, which Belgrade still refuses to recognize.

Interpol an issue

Earlier this week, tensions soared after Kosovo failed to become a member of the international police organization, Interpol, following intense lobbying by Serbia. Kosovo slapped a 100 percent tax on goods imported from Serbia in apparent retaliation.

In Belgrade, Serbia President Aleksandar Vucic said the arrests were a “demonstration of force” that he said was designed to frighten the Serbs in Kosovo and avert attention from the taxes that Kosovo imposed in violation of a regional trade agreement.

“We must prepare ourselves for long-term support for our people (in Kosovo) that won’t be easy, simple or cheap,” Vucic said. “Serbia will not agree to new rules and new blackmail against our country and our people.”

Vucic spoke after a meeting with the members of the Serbian government. He held meetings earlier Friday with security officials and the ambassadors for Russia and China, Serbia’s allies in its refusal to recognize Kosovo’s independence.

Calls for calm

Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj’s Cabinet appealed for calm and said the police operation was not linked to any political development.

NATO-led peacekeepers in Kosovo, a force known as KFOR, also urged calm and said “there was no unlawful operation or military action and there has never been any threat to safety and security of the citizens.”

KFOR said in a statement that the situation “remains stable and under control on the ground,” but acknowledged rising tensions “at political level due to some international and economic developments.”

Haradinaj met with ambassadors of Western powers including the United States, Britain, Germany, and France, for talks on the country’s situation and to explain the tax on Serb and Bosnian goods.

Serbs see ‘game of nerves’

Ethnic Serb leaders in Kosovo also called for calm and asked Serbia and the international community to assist them.

Goran Rakic, mayor of Northern Mitrovica, told The Associated Press that ethnic Serb leaders had formed a crisis center and called on the international community and Serbia for help. He said he had talked by phone with Vucic.

Vucic’s adviser Nikola Selakovic said the arrests of four Serbs in Kosovo were designed to “spread fear, intimidate and demonstrate force” against the Serbs in Kosovo.

“This is a game of nerves, a walk on thin line. The goal is to provoke our reaction which would be immediately used for measures against us,” Selakovic said.
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