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Report: Briton Held in UAE After Wearing Qatar Shirt

Britain is assisting a British national arrested in the United Arab Emirates, the Foreign Office said Tuesday following reports that a man was being detained for having worn a Qatar football shirt there.

The UAE, along with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt, cut all ties with Qatar in June 2017 over allegations that the tiny, energy-rich state supports Islamic extremists.

The Foreign Office warns in its advice for visitors to the UAE of subsequent new laws.

“Showing sympathy for Qatar on social media or by any other means of communication is an offense,” it says.

“Offenders could be imprisoned and subject to a substantial fine.”

The UAE hosted the recent Asian Cup 2019 football tournament. Qatar beat Japan 3-1 in the final on Friday to win the competition for the first time.

Qatar thrashed the UAE 4-0 in the semi-finals when their players were pelted with shoes and plastic bottles.

The Guardian newspaper reported that Ali Issa Ahmad, 26, had traveled to the UAE for a holiday, bought a ticket for the second round match between Qatar and Iraq on January 22 and wore a Qatar shirt to the game.

“We are providing assistance to a British man arrested in the UAE, and are in touch with the local authorities,” a Foreign Office spokesman said, when asked by AFP about the case.

Ahmad’s friend Amer Lokie said he had called him on Thursday in his one permitted phone call.

Ahmad “says he was arrested and beaten after being accused of wearing a football shirt which promoted Qatar,” Lokie told The Guardian.

Lokie said Ahmad was released but it seemed he had then been assaulted by security forces, “went to the police station to report the assault and was accused of… making false allegations against UAE security officials.”
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Pope Says He Is Committed to Stopping Sexual Abuse of Nuns

Pope Francis, whose papacy has been marked by efforts to quell a global crisis over sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy, said on Tuesday he was committed to stopping the abuse of nuns by priests and bishops, some of whom had used the women as sex slaves.

Francis made his comments on the plane returning from Abu Dhabi in response to a reporter’s question about an article last week in a Vatican monthly magazine about the abuse of nuns in the Catholic Church.

Recently more nuns, encouraged by the #MeToo movement, have been coming forward to describe abuse at the hands of priests and bishops. Last year, the International Union of Superiors General, which represents more than 500,000 Catholic nuns, urged their members to report abuse.

“It is true … there have been priests and even bishops who have done this. I think it is still going on because something does not stop just because you have become aware of it,” Francis said.

“We have been working on this for a long time. We have suspended some priests because of this,” he said, adding that the Vatican was in the process of shutting down a female religious order because of sexual abuse and corruption. He did not name it.

“I can’t say ‘this does not happen in my house.’ It is true. Do we have to do more? Yes. Are we willing? Yes,” he said. Francis said former Pope Benedict dissolved a religious order of women shortly after his election as pontiff in 2005 “because slavery had become part of it [the religious order], even sexual slavery on the part of priests and the founder.” He did not name the group but Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said it was a French order.

Before he became pope, Benedict was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican department that investigates sexual abuse. The pope at the time was John Paul.

Then-cardinal Ratzinger wanted to investigate the religious order where women were being abused but he was blocked, Francis said, without saying who prevented the probe.

After he became pope, Ratzinger reopened the investigation and dissolved the order, Francis said.

Pope Francis has summoned key bishops from around the world to a summit later this month at the Vatican to find a unified response on how to protect children from sexual abuse by clergy. Asked if there would be some kind of similar action to confront abuse of nuns in the Church, he said: “I want to move forward. We are working on it.”
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Germany’s Merkel Drops Hint of  ‘Creative’ Brexit Compromise

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday offered a way to break the deadlock over the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union, calling for a “creative” compromise to allay concerns over the future of Irish border arrangements.

The United Kingdom is due under British and European law to leave the EU in just 53 days yet Prime Minister Theresa May wants last-minute changes to a divorce deal agreed with the EU last November to win over lawmakers in the British parliament.

May is seeking legally binding changes to the deal to replace the Northern Irish backstop, an insurance policy that aims to prevent the reintroduction of a hard border between EU-member Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland.

While Merkel said she did not want the so-called Withdrawal Agreement renegotiated, she added that difficult questions could be resolved with creativity, the strongest hint to date that the EU’s most powerful leader could be prepared to compromise.

“There are definitely options for preserving the integrity of the single market even when Northern Ireland isn’t part of it because it is part of Britain while at the same time meeting the desire to have, if possible, no border controls,” Merkel said.

“To solve this point you have to be creative and listen to each other, and such discussions can and must be conducted,” Merkel said at a news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo.

Merkel said the Irish backstop issue could be solved as part of a discussion over a separate agreement on the future relationship between the European Union and the United Kingdom, offering May a potential way out of the deadlock.

Merkel’s stance on Brexit is driven by an eagerness to preserve the integrity of the EU and its internal market, which are crucial to Germany’s post-war identity and prosperity, while also keeping Britain close to the bloc even after it leaves.

Keen to avoid the economic disruption a no-deal Brexit would bring to Germany’s economy, which slowed sharply last year, Merkel also values Britain as a like-minded partner and wants to keep its security expertise close at hand.

“We can still use the time to perhaps reach an agreement if everyone shows good will,” Merkel said.

Last-minute deal?

Britain’s labyrinthine crisis over EU membership is approaching its finale with an array of options including no-deal Brexit, a last-minute deal, a snap election or a delay.

May said she would seek a pragmatic solution when she tries to reopen talks with Brussels though Brexit-supporting lawmakers in her Conservative Party have warned they will vote against her deal unless there are substantial changes.

In Brussels, a group of British lawmakers met the head of the EU civil service and said Martin Selmayr appeared to indicate that the EU might bind itself to new legal conditions.

While European Commission Secretary General Selmayr, the long-time lieutenant of President Jean-Claude Juncker, had reiterated the EU line that it would not reopen the withdrawal agreement, Labour lawmaker Hilary Benn told reporters: “I got the impression that they might be prepared to consider some additional statement or legal protocol.”

But Selmayr was quick to fire back on Twitter: “On the EU side, nobody is considering this.”

The German EU official said the lawmakers gave “inconclusive” answers when he asked whether any EU assurances could help May win support for her deal.

Selmayr has been in charge of the bloc’s preparations for the event of Britain failing to agree on an orderly withdrawal and his role in meeting the lawmakers was seen by some British commentators as a sign of a harder line from Brussels than that from Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, a former French minister.
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For Migrants in Russia, Shattered Dreams and Uncertain Futures

Long before she became just one of the financially destitute legions of street sweepers that dot Moscow’s bitterly cold winter landscape, Shaknoza Ishankulova had simply wanted to do the right thing.

It was 2008, and the recent Uzbekistan National University graduate was ecstatic to secure a teaching post at a Tashkent high school, finally making good use of her diploma in secondary education.

Twenty-two years old and eager to guide younger Uzbeks toward a better life, she was shaken when Uzbekistan’s notoriously vast culture of entrenched corruption revealed itself in the form of a personal mentor and supervisor — a deputy principal at the school who notified her that, if she wished to keep her job, a full third of her weekly salary would have to be kicked back to him.

It was his cut, he explained, for having hired her in the first place.

Years passed before Shaknoza gathered the courage to broach the issue with the school’s principal, a suspiciously wealthy public servant who promptly dismissed the complaint as naively frivolous.

Taking her cue from the anti-corruption initiatives she had seen in Uzbekistan, marketed in the form of public service announcements since 2005, Shaknoza escalated her complaint to Russia’s Ministry of Education, and was summarily placed on paid leave pending further investigation. 

Two years and a cancer battle later, Shaknoza’s case had wound its way through ministry proceedings, leaving her fate in the hands of her employer, who summarily fired her, demanded reimbursement for the two years of salaried leave, and permanently blacklisted her from any professional employment.

Like many unemployed Uzbek nationals, Shaknoza was lured by Moscow’s abundance of service sector jobs that paid more than similar work in Tashkent. After spending nearly a year as a sweeper, she lucked out by landing a relatively well-paid waitressing job, only to lose the position when a Russian supervisor publicly castigated her for making conversation with foreign diners, an experience she attributed to the ethnic workplace discrimination many Uzbeks face in Russia.

Tall and slender with distinctly Asian facial features and straight shoulder-length hair, Shoksana, appearing older than her 34 years, is now a cashier and produce vendor at one of Moscow’s many 24-hour convenience stores.

Speaking with VOA on a frigid afternoon in Moscow, her bare hands balled in fists as she stood stock still in seemingly arctic gales, the former high school teacher said she has done reasonably well for herself when compared to fellow migrants sleeping 10 to a room on the city’s outskirts.

Making $37 per 24-hour shift, each of which is followed by 24 hours off, she said the salary is enough to share a two-room apartment with three other laborers: two Uzbek men and a woman, with whom she shares the bedroom.

After feeding and clothing herself, she says, she sends a small amount home to her mother.

“But it’s not enough to save anything,” she said, explaining that she lacks the resources to get ahead in Moscow and that, as a blacklisted whistleblower, any path back to Tashkent is surely a dead end.

Millions seek opportunity

By 2017, Russia was home to nearly 12 million migrants — the world’s third largest foreign-born population.

Much like in western European nations and the United States, the large numbers of immigrants have triggered unease, and a majority of Russians have become increasingly intolerant of the newcomers.

A 2018 survey by the Washington-based Pew Charitable Trust showed that nearly 70 percent of Russian nationals felt the country should allow fewer or no migrants in the future.

While many of the migrants from China, eastern Europe and the West possess a broad range of professional skill sets, the vast majority of Russia’s lowest-paid laborers hail from impoverished central Asian countries, of which Uzbeks are the largest group.

This makes them the most visible targets of anti-immigrant vitriol.

Some high-level Russian officials have relayed largely context-free statistics that they portray as an immigrant-fueled crime wave for which Uzbeks in particular are to blame.

“If you create a ranking of criminality, you will find citizens of Uzbekistan at the top,” Moscow chief prosecutor Sergei Kudeneyev told Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper in 2014. “They have committed 2,522 crimes; next is Tajikistan, with 1,745 crimes; and in third place there is Kyrgyzstan, whose citizens committed 1,269 crimes.”

“The unremitting crime rates among foreign citizens are causing serious concern, particularly since crimes of this nature draw a lot of public attention,” Russian President Vladimir Putin told a gathering of top security officials in 2016. During the televised statement, the president demanded a swift crackdown on foreign criminals.

Alexander Verkhovsky of SOVA, the Center for Information and Analysis, a think tank in Moscow, questioned the veracity and transparency of these datasets.

“Any statistics on working migrants are very blurry,” he said. “While there are police crime statistics — or at least crime documentation — that may indicate a given perpetrator’s country of origin, that specific data is never published in full.

“In general, data on crimes is organized by categories of crime, and even whether these crimes may have been committed by or against a foreigner,” he said. But by the time police records are internally digested into statistics and prepared for public presentation via the prosecutor’s office, hard data about specific countries of origin has been scrubbed.

“You never get to see the complete data,” he said.

A 2016 report by Columbia University’s Eurasia.org news site suggests migrants who have committed crimes may have acted in response to a series of new Russian laws that drastically increased living costs.

Migrant work permit requirements unveiled in 2015 required applicants to “undergo a battery of tests for HIV, tuberculosis, drug addiction and skin diseases.” Permit holders, the report says, were also required to purchase health insurance, acquire taxpayer identification numbers, and be tested on Russian language, history and laws.

Failure to satisfy requirements within a month of arriving in Russia subjected migrants to a $152 fine.

“Once migrants have jumped through all the hoops, they must pay 14.5 thousand rubles ($219) for their work permit and another four thousand rubles ($61) every month to renew the document,” the report says. “All told, this costs almost $1,000 per year.”

A December 2018 SOVA report on hate crimes that was compiled from official statistics and field research said although attacks targeting foreigners are decreasing, ethnic migrants are among the most vulnerable to violent attacks on Russian soil.

“People perceived as ethnic outsiders constituted the largest group of victims in 2017,” says the report, which recorded 28 ethnically motivated attacks, down from 44 attacks (7 fatal) in 2016.

“Migrants from Central Asia were the most numerous group in this category of victims … followed by individuals of unidentified non-Slavic appearance,” the report states. “Most likely, the overwhelming majority of these people were also from Central Asia, since their appearance was described as Asian.”

Foreigners targeted

All of the migrants VOA spoke with mentioned that they had been intimidated by racists or nationalists, swindled into weeks of free labor by dishonest employers, or were the victims of robbery.

Oibek Usupov, a construction worker from Tashkent, recounted the time he and his brother accepted jobs at an apartment development, wherein the employer required them to sign contracts to work throughout the winter. They received a small advance up front, followed by a handful of paychecks well below what they were promised.

Once the units began selling, the developer said, they would be reimbursed in full. Then payments stopped and, a week before spring, it was announced the project had been bought out by another developer.

The new boss, Usupov told us, said prior contracts weren’t binding because his company hadn’t authorized them.

“We lost months of back pay,” he said.

Adkham Enamov, an Uzbek artist who lives an hour north of Moscow, says he became stranded in Russia after intermediaries who sold his paintings at a famous Moscow arts bazaar disappeared with the profits.

“At the time, my dream was to see Moscow, to sell my paintings in Russia, but I didn’t know that half of Moscow are artists,” he said. “So my current dream is to see my motherland, to return in good health.”

Emanov, 46, who speaks very little Russian, has a 16-year-old son with cerebral palsy. His purpose in Moscow was to cover the medical expenses stacking up in Tashkent.

And then in early 2018, tragedy struck when his 4-year-old daughter, Nama, died from an undiagnosed illness.

“She was buried without me due to the Muslim tradition,” he said, referring to the Sharia ritual of washing and burying the dead within 24 hours of passing. “Well, I sent some money there. Not much.”

After a long, reflective pause, he added, “I should come back being quite rich, but my dream didn’t come true.”
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Catalans Push to Block Spain Budget Bill, Pressuring Socialists

Catalan pro-independence parties said Monday they would file parliamentary amendments opposing the Spanish government’s 2019 budget proposal, potentially putting at risk the budget and the administration of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialists.

Sanchez’s minority Socialist government came to power last June and holds just a quarter of the seats in parliament, meaning it relies on the backing of anti-austerity Podemos, Catalan nationalists and other small parties to pass laws.

The two Catalan parties, ERC and PDeCAT, said they would file full parliamentary amendments against the budget proposal, which faces its first vote next week, unless Sanchez is open to some of their political demands.

Under Spanish parliamentary procedure, such amendments can block the entire budget bill.

Failure by parliament to approve the government’s 2019 budget bill could prompt a snap election before the next scheduled vote in 2020.

PDeCAT, the party that holds the Catalan presidency, wants the government to launch a nationwide dialogue forum between political parties “to address politically the Catalan issue,” their parliamentary spokesperson Carles Campuzano told Reuters.

ERC, the party that has led recent polls in Catalonia, went further and requested an authorized referendum on the region’s independence.

The trial of 12 Catalan independence leaders starts Feb. 12. Spain’s public prosecutor is seeking prison terms of up to 25 years for the leaders on charges of rebellion and misuse of public funds for their role in Catalonia’s failed 2017 breakaway from Spain.

Feb. 12 is also the last day the two parties could withdraw their amendments over the budget proposal.

On Feb. 14, all proposed amendments to the budget bill will be voted on in a simple majority vote. If they pass, the budget proposal would be effectively rejected, raising pressure on Sanchez to call an election.
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French Military Stops ‘Hostile Progression’ Into Chad

The French military said it has helped to repel a column of 40 pickup trucks entering northern Chad from Libya.

The French Defense Ministry said Monday that it used Mirage 2000 fighter jets to launch air strikes on the armed group in the trucks Sunday.

The military said the “intervention, in response to a request from Chadian authorities, helped hinder this hostile progression and disperse the column.”

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the incursion from Libya.

 
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European Countries Call For Presidential Election in Venezuela

Britain, along with Spain, France and Sweden and Denmark on Monday recognized Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the South American country’s interim president. 

The European countries want Venezuela to hold a presidential election as soon as possible to end its political and humanitarian crises. 

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt posted on Twitter: “Nicolas Maduro has not called Presidential elections within 8 day limit we have set. So UK alongside European allies now recognizes @jguaido as interim constitutional president until credible elections can be held. Let’s hope this take us closer to ending humanitarian crisis.”

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Monday in Madrid that “…we are working for the return of full democracy in Venezuela…”

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told France Inter Radio that the Venezuelan crisis would end “peacefully” with an early presidential election. 

A “free and fair election” did not bring Maduro to office, Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom told Swedish broadcaster SVT. 

Denmark’s Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen tweeted “Denmark recognizes the President of the National Assembly @jguaido as the interim President of #Venezuela until new free and democratic elections take place.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov criticized Monday’s European declarations as “Attempts to legitimize usurped power” and “interference in Venezuela’s internal affairs.”

Maduro on the Spanish television program Salvados, broadcast Sunday said: “We don’t accept ultimatums from anyone. It’s like if I told the European Union: ‘I give you seven days to recognize the Republic of Catalonia, and if you don’t, we are going to take measures.’ No, international politics can’t be based on ultimatums. That was the era of empires and colonies.” 

He also called on U.S. President Donald Trump to refrain from supporting Guaido, saying “You are making mistakes that are going to stain your hands with blood”
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Progressive Politician Seeks Polish ‘Spring’ with New Party

A former lawmaker who is openly gay launched a progressive party in Poland ahead of two elections this year, presenting a program Sunday that includes phasing out coal production and liberalizing the abortion laws.

At an inaugural convention in Warsaw, Robert Biedron announced the new party’s name, Wiosna, or “Spring,” and vowed to work to unify the bitterly divided country. 

“The last years were cold and gloomy. Instead of conversations we got constant conflict; instead of the good of the community, party interests,” Biedron told a crowd of thousands. “Let this finally come to an end. We need a spring that will renew this gloomy landscape.” 

Biedron, 42, has long been the hope of many progressive Poles, thanks to his charisma, energy and relative youth. He got his start in politics as an LGBT activist during the 1990s and became the first openly gay member of parliament in 2011. He most recently served as mayor of Slupsk in northern Poland.

The left-wing political scene in Poland since communism fell in 1989 has been dominated by ex-communists who are now aging and in some cases, have been discredited by corruption scandals. Many of those hoping for a party focused on progressive mainstays like green energy and women’s rights eagerly anticipated the launch of Biedron’s party.

It remains unclear how much support he will be able to muster in an era when right-wing nationalists have gained popularity in Europe. Some of Biedron’s positions also could prove unpopular. 

In a country heavily dependent on coal for jobs and energy, he said he would focus on fighting the associated heavy smog by phasing out coal production by 2035. 

Biedron’s unapologetically secular program included ending the teaching of religion from public schools, a direct challenge to the Catholic Church that holds great sway in Poland. 

Biedron said he wants to give women in the country with Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws the right to terminate pregnancies to the 12th week. Some conservatives already have accused him of trying to make Poland a “civilization of death.” 

“Poland is a woman,” Biedron said. “Her suffering is our suffering.”

At the convention, Biedron presented himself as an alternative both to ruling right-wing ruling party, Law and Justice, and the main opposition party, the centrist pro-business Civic Platform party. He portrayed the new party as a chance for change after years of hostility between the two political camps.

Civil Platform governed from 2007-2015 and oversaw fast economic growth, but Biedron faulted it for ignoring growing economic equality and struggles of many Poles. 

He said his party would raise the minimum pension to 1,600 zlotys ($425) per month, noting some older Poles now get only 1,000 zlotys ($270).

Some activists and critics of the Law and Justice-led government have accused Biedron of further weakening an already divided opposition with poor prospects of unseating the ruling party. 

Biedron told the convention crowd he would continue the legacy of Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz, a supporter of women and minorities who was fatally stabbed in mid-January amid the heavy ideological animosity.

“We do not want any more of this Polish-Polish war,” Biedron declared. 

However, he also vowed to form a Justice and Reconciliation Commission to hold Law and Justice’s leader and others to account for allegedly violating “the freedom and rights enshrined in the constitution.”

Among those at the convention was 18-year-old Jakub Przybysz. He said he liked Biedron’s goal of separating church and state and legalizing same-sex partnerships that confer some rights. But he sees Biedron confronting an uphill battle.

“Perhaps the time hasn’t come for this yet, but even the smallest change in this direction would be good,” Przybysz said.
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Nissan Cancels Plans to Make SUV in UK

Nissan announced Sunday it has cancelled plans to make its X-Trail SUV in the UK — a sharp blow to British Prime Minister Theresa May, who fought to have the model built in northern England as she sought to shore up confidence in the British economy after it leaves the European Union.

Nissan said it will consolidate production of the next generation X-Trail at its plant in Kyushu, Japan, where the model is currently produced, allowing the company to reduce investment costs in the early stages of the project.

That reverses a decision in late 2016 to build the SUV at Nissan’s Sunderland plant in northern England, which employs 7,000 workers. That plant will continue to make Nissan’s Juke and Qashqai models. The announcement Sunday made no mention of any layoffs relating to the X-Trail SUV decision.

“While we have taken this decision for business reasons, the continued uncertainty around the UK’s future relationship with the EU is not helping companies like ours to plan for the future,” Nissan Europe Chairman Gianluca de Ficchy said in a statement.

Less than two months before Britain is scheduled to leave the European Union on March 29, Britain still doesn’t have an agreement on what will replace 45 years of frictionless trade. This has caused an enormous amount of concern among businesses in Britain, which fear the country is going to crash out of the vast EU trade bloc without a divorce deal, a scenario economists predict would hurt the U.K. economy.

The Nissan decision, first reported by Sky News, is a major setback for May’s Conservative government, which had pointed to Nissan’s 2016 announcement that Sunderland would make the SUV — months after the country’s Brexit referendum — as proof that major manufacturers still had confidence in Britain’s economic future.

Nissan’s announced its plans to build the X-Trail and Qashqai models in Sunderland after the government sent a letter to company officials offering undisclosed reassurances about its ability to compete in the future.

British politicians have sharply criticized May’s Brexit deal and voted it down in Parliament.

May’s government has refused to rule out a no-deal Brexit, saying the threat strengthens her hand with EU negotiators. Parliament voted last week to give May more time to try to iron out a compromise with the bloc.

Nissan’s change of heart comes just days after Britain’s carmakers issued a stark assessment about Brexit’s impact on the industry, warning that their exports are at risk if the U.K. leaves the EU without an agreement.

Investment in the industry fell 46 percent last year and new car production dropped 9.1 percent to 1.52 million vehicles, in part because of concerns over Brexit, the Society of Motor Manufacturing said.

The group’s chief executive, Mike Hawes, described the threat of a no-deal Brexit as “catastrophic.”

He says the drop in investment is only a foreshadowing of what could happen if the U.K. leaves the EU on March 29 without a deal.

“With fewer than 60 days before we leave the EU and the risk of crashing out without a deal looking increasingly real, UK Automotive is on red alert,” Hawes said Thursday. “Brexit uncertainty has already done enormous damage to output, investment and jobs.”

 
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Head of Ukraine’s New Orthodox Church Assumes Office

The newly elected head of the independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church has officially assumed office in the capital of Kiev, a month after the church severed its centuries-long ties with the Russian Orthodox Church.

Metropolitan Epiphanius I, 40, was enthroned during a lavish service at St. Sophia Cathedral in central Kiev on Sunday, a month after the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople granted independence to a new Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who is running for re-election in the country’s March 31 presidential race, and his arch-rival Yulia Tymoshenko both attended the ceremony.

In Moscow, the Russian Orthodox Church spokesman on Sunday dismissed the Kiev ceremony as a “pathetic spectacle.”

      
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Pope Francis to Attends Inter-Faith Conference in Abu Dhabi

Pope Francis has made dialogue with Islam one of the cornerstones of his papacy. Since he became pope in 2013, he has visited several countries with large Muslim populations. On Sunday he will become the first Pope to go to the Arabian Peninsula when he visits the United Arab Emirates.

Pope Francis was invited by Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan to take part in an interfaith conference. The pope will spend less than 48 hours in the United Arab Emirates and is due to make only two public addresses during his visit.

Pope Francis released a video message last week ahead of his visit.

He paid tribute to the UAE as “a land that is trying to be a model of coexistence, of human brotherhood, and a meeting place among diverse civilizations and cultures, where many find a safe place to work and live freely in the respect of diversities.”

The pope will celebrate an open-air mass in Abu Dhabi’s Zayed Sports City on Tuesday. The stadium can hold 43,000 people but 135,000 tickets have been handed over so thousands are expected to also follow the mass from outside the stadium.

About 10 percent of the population in the United Arab Emirates — nearly one million — are Catholics, most of them foreign workers from Asia.

On Monday, the pope’s day will be entirely dedicated to inter-religious dialogue. He will first visit a mosque, one of the biggest in the world, where he will meet privately with the Council of Elders, an organization based in Abu Dhabi, which aims to promote peace and tolerance among Islamic communities. The Council of Elders organized the Human Fraternity Meeting and Conference where the pope will speak.

The pope said, he is pleased with this meeting offered by the Lord to write a new page in the history of relations among religions and confirm that all are brothers despite our differences.

Pope Francis also said that, “Faith in God unites and does not divide, it draws us closer despite differences, it distances us from hostilities and aversion.”

Since his election, the Pope has already visited half a dozen predominantly Muslim nations. He has condemned using violence in the name of God and urged inter-religious dialogue.

The war in Yemen, in which the UAE is involved as part of a Saudi-led coalition, could cast a shadow on the trip.

 
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Analysts Call Scrapping INF ‘Strategic Catastrophe’ for Kremlin

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday suspended the Cold War-era Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in response to a similar move by the United States on Friday.

“The American partners have declared that they suspend their participation in the deal. We suspend it as well,” Putin announced during a televised meeting with foreign ministers and military brass.

The U.S. vowed to withdraw from the INF Treaty in six months unless Moscow ended what it called violations of the landmark 1987 arms control pact.

Putin said Russia would start work on creating new missiles, including hypersonic weapons, and told ministers not to initiate disarmament talks with Washington.

During the meeting, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the United States of violating the INF and other arms deals, joining a chorus of Russian defense officials and legislators who condemned Washington for gambling with global security. Yury Baluyevsky, former chief of the General Staff, even said Russia was prepared to respond “militarily.” 

Impact assessments vary

Numerous Moscow-based arms control experts, however, offered a more measured assessment of the standoff.

“U.S. withdrawal from #INF doesn’t presage nuclear crisis on the model of early 60s or early 80s, but it ushers in new strategic environment where stability is no longer regulated by arms control agreements,” tweeted Dmitri Trenin, director of the Moscow-based Carnegie Center and a former Soviet army official who was directly involved in U.S.-Russia nuclear talks in Geneva.

“In that [environment], survival requires deterrence [plus communication and] restraint,” he wrote. “Cool heads, above all.”

Independent Russian military analyst Aleksandr Goltz, however, offered a much bleaker view.

“My assessment is that for the next three, four or maybe five years, we’re reasonably safe, as it will take the United States years to design, test and deploy medium-range missiles,” said Goltz. “But make no mistake, we are now witnessing the total destruction of all systems of nuclear arms control.

“The problem is that the INF Treaty is very deeply interconnected with the New START Treaty,” he said, referring to a separate arms pact that limits both countries to fewer than 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads. “If START does not survive, in 2021 we’ll find ourselves in a situation shaping up for the next Cuban missile crisis.”

WATCH: What’s the INF Treaty Dispute About?

Asked whether there’s a chance the INF treaty could still be saved, Goltz said there was none.

“No, absolutely no chance. Because Trump has said he would only continue with the INF Treaty if China joined, and this is completely impossible,” said Goltz, explaining that 90 percent of China’s arsenal is deployed for medium range, implying that Beijing INF compliance would be tantamount to  eradicating its arsenal.

Blaming both countries for the mutual suspension, he said Russia, in his opinion, stood to lose far more in a new arms race.

“This is an absolute strategic catastrophe for the Kremlin,” he said. “We are returning to the situation of the 1970s or early 1980s, where the U.S. can deploy warheads that reach Moscow or St. Petersburg in six or seven minutes, which is just a strategic disaster. I mean, within minutes you can do nothing.”

Arms control expert Alexei Arbatov, a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, however, called himself a “hopeless optimist” who called six months “a very long” time to resolve differences.

“U.S. and Russian officials are centimeters apart on key differences,” he said, describing technical discrepancies that violate INF strike range guidelines.

According to the Washington-based Arms Control Association, the treaty requires the United States and Russia “to eliminate and permanently forswear all of their nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers.”

Arbatov said the treaty could be resuscitated immediately if Russia could prove its missiles are technically INF-range compliant, and the U.S. can prove that anti-ballistic launch systems in Poland and Romania aren’t designed to defend against a Russian nuclear assault on Europe. 

“This has been at the surface for quite a long time … but only political hostilities, intransigence and total distrust” between the countries is impeding a swift resolution. 

Neither side liked treaty

“And I blame both sides,” he added. “Americans have never much cared for the treaty, because it doesn’t really concern their security,” he said, alluding to the fact that the INF strike range includes Russia’s European neighbors, but not U.S. soil.

“And Russians never cared for it because many argued that it required Russia to destroy too many missiles and left the country unable to target American missile defenses,” he said. “Neither side was really interested in saving the treaty, for the wrong reasons, and both sides were mistaken. 

“I only hope that during the next six months, the position on both sides will change.”

Asked whether he anticipated any kind of nuclear standoff reminiscent of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Arbatov was dismissive.

“Unless Russia positions nuclear warheads in Cuba, Venezuela or Nicaragua, then, no, we’re not even close,” he said.

Accusations on both sides 

The U.S. and NATO accuse Russia of violating the INF restrictions by developing land-based, intermediate-range cruise missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads and hitting European cities on short notice, but the Kremlin, which last week displayed its missiles to foreign military attaches in Moscow, says the missiles’ short range puts them outside the INF Treaty.

U.S. officials said there was no way of verifying that information because the missiles have been shown publicly only in a “static display” that gives no indication of their flying distance.

On Saturday, Russia’s Lavrov told Putin that the U.S. has been in breach of INF provisions since 1999, a charge the U.S. denies.

“According to our information, the United States started violating that undated treaty in 1999 when it began trials of combat unmanned flying vehicles with specifications similar to those of ground-launched cruise missiles banned by the treaty,” he told Russia’s state-run TASS news outlet.

Lavrov also castigated the U.S. for a Romania-based anti-ballistic missile system capable of firing Tomahawk medium-range cruise missiles. The United States says that system is designed to defend against “rogue” states such as Iran and provides no protection against Russia’s nuclear arsenal.

The INF has largely deepened Russia’s international isolation, and Russia accuses the United States of inventing a false pretext to abandon the treaty in order to develop new missiles. 

Some information for this report came from AP and Reuters. 
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