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Queen Marks 50th Anniversary of Investiture of Charles as Prince of Wales

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth held a reception at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday to mark the 50th anniversary of the investiture of her oldest son Charles as Prince of Wales.

Senior royals including Charles’s own sons William and Harry and their wives Kate and Meghan attended the party which the palace said paid tribute to the prince’s 50 years of service to Wales.

Charles was created Prince of Wales, the title traditionally held by the heir to the British throne, in July 1958 when he was nine. He was formally invested with the title at a televised ceremony at Caernarfon Castle in July 1969.

The regalia that Charles wore for the occasion, along with the coronet, sword and other regalia used in the ceremony, were on display at the reception.

Joining the royals were figures from the prince’s Welsh charities while there were musical performances by students from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and a speech by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.

Charles, 70, has waited longer than any of his predecessors to become monarch and would be the oldest-ever king at the start of his reign when he succeeds his 92-year-old mother, who herself holds the record for the longest reign in British history.
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General: No F-35 jet Sale to Turkey if it Buys Russia System

The top U.S. commander for Europe says he would recommend the United States not sell its high-tech F-35 fighter jet to Turkey, if Ankara moves ahead with plans to buy a Russian missile defense system.

 Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, head of U.S. European Command, says Turkey should reconsider its plan to buy the S-400 from Russia this year or forfeit other future American military aircraft and systems. He says the S-400 surface-to-air missile defense system would be a threat to the F-35.

Scaparrotti says U.S. officials are currently in Turkey explaining the consequences of the S-400 purchase.

The State Department in December approved the sale of a $3.5 billion Patriot missile defense system to Turkey. The F-35 delivery to Turkey has been delayed as negotiations about the S-400 continue.

 
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Rise in Populism Eroding Women’s Rights, Global Leaders Warn

From access to abortion to equal work opportunities, women’s rights are being eroded by a rise in global populism, a group of female leaders warned Monday.

There has been a resurgence in nationalist-populist sentiment in many countries around the world, from Brazil to Turkey, the Philippines, Russia and the United States.

That has led to a deliberate rolling back of rights gained through the “sacrifices and struggles” of generations of women, the newly-formed Group of Women Leaders for Change and Inclusion said in an open letter ahead of International Women’s Day.

“More and more nationalistic, populist regimes are starting to suggest that women’s empowerment is a challenge to power,” said Argentina’s former foreign minister Susana Malcorra, a founder member.

“There are number of places where we see this happening as a trend. And in our view, if we don’t speak up loudly about it, it will be hard to reverse,” she told Reuters in a phone interview from Madrid.

U.S. President Donald Trump in 2017 imposed a gag rule that banned U.S.-funded groups globally from discussing abortion, forcing them to accept the restriction or reject it and lose funding.

The gag rule has forced the closure of health clinics and outreach programs by charities that fear non-compliance could lead to the loss of their U.S. health care aid, which totals about $8 billion a year.

This comes at a time when abortion rights are under scrutiny in other countries around the globe.

Last year, Ireland ended its strict abortion ban, while the conservative government in Poland pushed to tighten its already restrictive abortion laws.

Argentina rejected a measure to legalize abortion, and the election of a far-right president in Brazil was expected to slow efforts to legalize abortion there.

The World Economic Forum said in a 2018 global report that there were fewer women working last year than men, mostly because a lack of child care kept them from jobs or from progressing to senior roles.

It will be 202 years before women can earn the same as men and have equal job opportunities, it said.

Meanwhile, Kenyan lawmakers last November blocked a push to give one in three parliamentary seats to women.

“We need to make policies that make sure women don’t derail from their careers because they become mothers, that also allows for partners to share the responsibilities,” said Malcorra.

The letter signed by nearly 40 female leaders — from Irina Bokova, ex-head of U.N. cultural agency UNESCO, to Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde — urged action to protect basic women’s rights before it was too late.

“We are losing something and we’re not even conscious of it,” Malcorra said. “We want to make sure that people understand that the situation is serious and could become critical.”
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EU Executive Hits Back at Hungary’s Orban Ahead of Elections

The European Union executive accused Hungary’s nationalist government on Monday of distorting the truth about immigration into the bloc, marking a further deterioration in their troubled relationship ahead of European Parliament elections in May.

The EU has long been critical of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s stance on migrants and his record on democratic freedoms. Orban says the EU has imperiled Europe’s Christian civilization by allowing mass immigration.

Orban has recently stepped up his anti-immigration campaign with billboards and inserts in state media that vilify European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker and Hungarian-born U.S. billionaire George Soros, accusing them of being in cahoots to bring large numbers of Muslim immigrants into Europe.

“The Commission has been unambiguous about our opinion of the Hungarian government campaign that distorts the truth and seeks to paint a dark picture of a secret plot to drive more migration to Europe, allegedly,” European Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas told a news briefing.

The Hungarian campaign has triggered renewed calls to expel Orban’s ruling Fidesz party from the biggest group in the European Parliament, the center-right European People’s Party (EPP). The EPP will discuss the issue March 20.

The EPP’s candidate to head the next European Commission, senior German lawmaker Manfred Weber, has said he no longer rules out expelling Fidesz.

“Viktor Orban has severely damaged the EPP with his statements and poster campaign,” Weber told the German weekly Spiegel in a weekend interview. “That’s why I expect him to apologize and end the action.”

‘Useful idiots’

But Orban, speaking to the German Welt am Sonntag weekly, dismissed seeking the expulsion of Fidesz as “useful idiots” who played into the hands of the EPP’s left-wing rivals.

“We can chalk it up to the start of the European Parliament campaign,” Zoltan Novak of the Centre for Fair Political Analysis, a Hungarian think-tank, said of Orban’s tactics. “He wants to be the antithesis to the mainstream elite.”

“He wants to embody another Europe, one that rejects immigration … federalization and further EU integration.”

The EPP currently has 217 lawmakers in the 750-strong EU legislature, 12 of them from Fidesz. The EPP is expected to remain the biggest faction in the new European Parliament but will most likely be weakened, surveys show.

The EU has been largely unsuccessful in taming Orban. A probe launched in 2018 against Budapest for weakening the rule of law in the ex-communist country has proven largely ineffective beyond causing Hungary reputational damage.

Brussels is considering making access to EU budget funds from 2021 conditional on respecting democratic principles.

Hungary and most other ex-communist EU members receive large sums from the budget for infrastructure and other projects.
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Macron Unveils Plan for ‘European Renaissance’ Ahead of EU Vote

French President Emmanuel Macron has made an impassioned defense of a new Europe in a newspaper column published in each of the 28 member states in which he laid out his ideas for a “European renaissance” ahead of EU elections in May.

Calling the vote decisive and warning of a Europe in danger, his words are intended as a wake-up call for the bloc as he seeks to push fundamental reform of the European Union.

Macron’s column coincides with rising tensions in the West, shaken by U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First” policies and Britain’s departure from the EU. A more assertive China and Russia also pose major challenges.

A number of proposals made in the column to appear on Tuesday in newspapers ranging from The Guardian in Britain to Die Welt in Germany and El Pais in Spain aim at protecting and defending Europe’s citizens while giving the bloc new impetus in the face of global competition.

“In a few weeks, the European elections will be decisive for the future of our continent. Europe has never been as necessary since World War II as it is now and yet never has Europe been in such danger,” Macron wrote. “Nationalism offers nothing. It is a project of rejection.”

Proposals include creating a European agency to protect democracies which would provide experts to safeguard elections from manipulation and a ban on financing by foreign powers of European political parties.

Macron also suggested reviewing the Schengen system and creating a common border police and European asylum office. The French leader is focused on championing a “Europe that protects” for the May 26 European election as he seeks to convince voters with plans aimed at reforming Europe’s trade, competition, digital and climate policies, including creating a European climate bank to finance the ecological transition.

He also urged a ban on companies that threaten European strategic interests and called for a type of Europe first policy as America and China have done.

As part of efforts to convince European citizens not to back nationalists, Macon also urged for European institutions and states to take part in a “Conference for Europe” by year-end. Its objective would be to propose changes to the bloc’s political project without taboos, including reviewing existing treaties.

“In this Europe, the people will have truly taken back control of their destiny; in this Europe, Britain, I am sure, will find its place,” Macron wrote.
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British PM May Promises $2 billion Fund for Brexit-Backing Towns

British Prime Minister Theresa May will on Monday set out plans for a $2.11 billion (1.6 billion pound) fund to help to boost economic growth in Brexit-supporting communities, particularly in the north of England.

The “Stronger Towns Fund,” details of which appeared in newspapers last month, is seen by many as part of May’s efforts to win support for her Brexit deal from opposition Labour lawmakers who represent areas that voted strongly in favor of leaving the European Union.

Britain is due to leave the bloc at the end of the month and May, whose exit deal with Brussels was rejected by a large majority of lawmakers in January, has promised parliament will get to vote on a revised deal by March 12.

The government said the fund would be targeted at places that had not shared fairly in the country’s prosperity and would be used to create new jobs, help to train people and boost economic activity.

“Communities across the country voted for Brexit as an expression of their desire to see change; that must be a change for the better, with more opportunity and greater control,” May said in a statement.

“These towns have a glorious heritage, huge potential and, with the right help, a bright future ahead of them.”

The opposition Labour Party’s finance spokesman, John McDonnell, said the fund was “Brexit bribery.”

“This towns fund smacks of desperation from a government reduced to bribing Members of Parliament to vote for their damaging flagship Brexit legislation,” he said in a statement.

One billion pounds has already been allocated, with more than half going to towns across the north of England. A further 600 million pounds will be available for communities around the country to bid for, the government said.
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Dutch Husband of Shamima Begum Wants to Take her Home

The Dutch man who married a British teenager after she ran away to join the Islamic State group says he wants to return home to the Netherlands with Shamima Begum and their newborn son.

Yago Riedijk, 27, told the BBC from a Kurdish-run detention center that he met Begum within days of her arrival in Syria when she was 15. He said in an interview aired Sunday that the marriage was “her own choice.”

When asked if marrying a 15-year-old was appropriate, he said: “To be honest, when my friend came and said there was a girl who was interested in marriage, I wasn’t that interested because of her age, but I accepted the offer anyway.”

Riedijk says that while he fought for IS, he now rejects the group and tried to leave it.

Begum fled east London with two other friends to travel to Syria to marry IS fighters in 2015 at a time when the group’s online recruitment program lured many impressionable young people to its self-proclaimed caliphate.

Begum, now 19, resurfaced at a refugee camp in Syria and recently told reporters she wanted to come home. But her apparent lack of remorse has triggered criticism in Britain and the family has expressed its own shock at her lack of repentance.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid has revoked her citizenship — even while saying he wouldn’t make a decision that would render a person stateless. Her family has insisted she isn’t a dual citizen. The case will be argued in the courts.

Although it’s unclear if Begum has committed a crime, her comments — and those of her husband — throw into sharp relief larger questions about how Western societies will deal with others who joined IS, but want to return to their home countries now that the extremist group is on the verge of collapse.

 
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Israeli Leader Condemns Attack on French Synagogue Memorial

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has condemned an attack on a Holocaust memorial in the French city of Strasbourg.

Netanyahu on Sunday condemned the “horrific, anti-Semitic” defacing of a monument marking the site of a synagogue destroyed by the Nazis in 1940.

French police on Saturday launched an investigation the incident, in which a heavy memorial stone was moved off its base in the eastern city. The incident comes amid a rise in anti-Semitic attacks in France in recent months, including spray-painting of swastikas on around 80 Jewish gravestones last month.

Netanyahu called upon “all leaders of enlightened countries to join in denouncing it in a systematic and continuous fashion. The first way to combat anti-Semitism is to denounce, to condemn it unequivocally.”
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44 Migrants Detained on Ferry in Calais

French authorities say about 50 migrants attempted to scurry aboard a cross-Channel ferry that had arrived from Dover, England into the northern French port of Calais late Saturday.

Officials say 44 of the refugees were apprehended, dashing their hopes of reaching England on the vessel’s return trip.

Two of the migrants fell into the water, but were quickly rescued.

Maritime officials say ferry traffic was delayed for several hours as police searched the ship.

Authorities say at least 100 migrants stormed into the port Saturday night.

The French news agency, AFP,  reports that police were continuing to look Sunday morning for a least four more migrants the police believed were still hiding out on the same ship where the other migrants had been apprehended.

 
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Estonia Votes in Parliamentary Election

Voters in Estonia are going to the polls Sunday for a parliamentary election.

Prime Minister Juri Ratas and his center-left Center Party are the front-runners, but they are expected to get some stiff competition from the far-right EKRE party, which has promised generous social spending.

In 2007, Estonia became one of the first nations to be hit by a modern type of enemy assault that has since been dubbed cyberwarfare. The attack came from Russia.

Since the cyberattack, Estonia, a former Soviet republic, has evolved into what many consider the most technologically advanced country in the world.

Key to that effort is e-Estonia, a unique project that links government officials to all citizens through a maze of platforms based on the “X-Road,” a government platform also used by major private companies.

Through the X-Road, citizens can participate in such activities as health care, banking, taxpaying, policing and education through a broadband or fiber optic network connecting the whole country. Legislators can digitally enact laws through a program called e-cabinet, while citizens use i-voting to elect and communicate with politicians. And there is free Wi-Fi virtually everywhere.

Throughout most of its history, the Baltic nation of 1.3 million people has been dominated and exploited by larger neighbors. But now, analysts say, the e-Estonia project has helped put the nation’s past behind it.
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Milan Anti-Racism Rally Draws Tens of Thousands

Tens of thousands of people have marched in Italy’s financial capital against policies by the populist government that they say promote racism.

The Milan city official in charge of migrant policy, Pierfrancesco Majorino, put the number of marchers under the banner “People First” at 200,000.

He wrote on Twitter: “Salvini, count us” aimed at League leader Matteo Salvini, who as interior minister has blocked the arrival in Italy of humanitarian ships that have rescued migrants fleeing Libya.

The demonstration, which finished in front of the Duomo cathedral, had a festival mood with bongo drums, trumpets and DJ music.

The head of the CGIL labor confederation, Maurizio Landini, said Italy’s government “is promoting the wrong policies, and is not fighting inequalities.”

 
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Erdogan Threatens to Reverse Local Election Results 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose AK Party is facing major defeats this month in local elections, is being accused of behaving like a “dictator” after his threat to remove victorious pro-Kurdish mayoral candidates.

Erdogan, addressing supporters this week, issued a stark threat to voters in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast: Candidates deemed sympathetic to the PKK Kurdish separatist group who are elected will be removed.

“If you happen to send the opportunities provided by the state to Qandil [where PKK leaders are based in neighboring northern Iraq], we will once again, immediately and without waiting any further, appoint our trustees,” Erdogan said.

The warning was aimed at Turkey’s second-largest opposition party, the pro-Kurdish HDP. Ankara accuses the HDP of being the political wing of the PKK, a charge it denies. Already, dozens of elected HDP mayors have been removed from office and jailed, accused of aiding the PKK.

The HDP’s leadership is calling on voters to take back control of the towns and cities seized by Ankara.

The pro-Kurdish party dismisses terrorist allegations against its candidates. “If they remove any of our successful candidates, it’s not that the elected mayors are terrorists but rather Erdogan is a dictator,” said Ertugrul Kurkcu, honorary president of the HDP.

Validated candidates

Kurkcu points out the Higher Election Board, which administers elections in Turkey, has validated all the HDP’s mayoral candidates. The HDP claims any alleged transgressions by its candidates during campaigning should be a matter for the Turkish judiciary, rather than the president.

Erdogan’s warning is being interpreted as an attempt at voter intimidation.

“This is a kind of a threat to Kurdish voters: If you want to have peace and tranquility in the region, you have to elect my candidates. If you vote for the opposition, I will sack the mayors. I am going to lead you like sheep,” said Kurkcu. “But after all these huge struggles for democracy, I do not see honorable Kurds or honorable citizens who will accept this threat. Instead, it provokes anger and rebellion.”

Kurkcu’s position may be well-founded. The HDP “will sweep all Kurdish-majority cities and towns despite massive intimidation and black propaganda,” predicted analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners.

Analysts say there is growing anger among many Kurds over the security crackdown that has been in place since the collapse of the 2015 peace process with the PKK.

Towns ravaged

In Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast, many towns and city centers were reduced to rubble as security forces ousted Kurdish fighters. Human rights groups say more than 200,000 people have been left homeless.

Along with over 80 pro-Kurdish HDP mayors removed from their posts and imprisoned, dozens of the party’s parliamentary deputies languish in jail, including its former charismatic leader, Selahattin Demirtas. They are all being held on terrorism charges.

State-appointed trustees now administer nearly all towns and cities in southeast Turkey. Many of the cultural reforms encouraging the Kurdish language have been rolled back, including the use of Kurdish on official signs.

Erdogan, in his early years in power as prime minister, had positioned himself as an advocate for Kurdish rights. He was rewarded electorally with his AK Party, securing more votes than the HDP in polls.

However, the collapse of the peace process with the PKK amid mutual recriminations saw Erdogan abandon the courting of Kurds and turn toward  Turkish nationalism. “There is a lot of distrust by Erdogan. Erdogan was sincerely believing in the peace process and believes the PKK and HDP abused this,” said international relations professor Huseyin Bagci of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University.

​Aligned with nationalists

Since the December 2015 general election, Erdogan’s AK Party has deepened its relationship with Turkey’s hard-line Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which has been in the forefront of calls for a crackdown on the pro-Kurdish movement.

With the Turkish economy mired in recession and public discontent mounting, Erdogan now depends on the MHP’s support in the March elections. Analyist Yesilada said Erdogan has little choice but to continue his hard-line rhetoric against the pro-Kurdish movement.

“AKP doesn’t have the votes to retain Istanbul and Ankara,” Yesilada said. “Erdogan has to throw something to [MHP Chairman Devlet] Bahceli. … So we will see the worst manifestations of populism.”

However, the HDP is determined to make Erdogan pay a heavy electoral price.

“In western Turkey, our party is not listing candidates in seven major cities,” said Kurkcu, “meaning that we are directing our voters, around 10 percent of the electorate, to add their vote to the general opposition. This is not a vote for the main opposition but rather against Erdogan.”

The HDP’s surprise move could prove decisive, with opinion polls indicating the opposition ahead in many of Turkey’s main cities and Istanbul too close to call. Analysts suggest a serious setback for the AKP could be the impetus for Erdogan again resetting the political agenda by reaching out to Kurds and abandoning his Turkish nationalist ally.
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