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French President Heads to East Africa

French President Emmanuel Macron heads to East Africa late Monday, on a three-nation trip aimed at expanding French military, business, cultural and environmental ties on the continent and countering newer players in the region, starting with China.

Beyond a stop in former French colony Djibouti, Macron’s four-day visit includes two rising Anglophone powerhouses, Ethiopia and Kenya — where his visit to Nairobi will be a first by a French president since Kenya’s 1963 independence.

It will also give a nod to other important players, with meetings expected in Ethiopia between Macron and African Union Commission chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat, and in Kenya with newly elected Congolese president Felix Tshisekedi, whose controversial December win was initially criticized by France.

More broadly, it picks up a fundamental theme of Macron’s presidency — reasserting French influence on the world stage, starting with Africa — at a time when he is dogged by problems at home.

“From the start of his presidency, Macron and his team have always made it clear that Africa as a whole is regarded as a priority continent of engagement,” said Paul Melly, a specialist in French-Africa policy at London-based think-tank Chatham House.

After first focusing on France’s traditional ties in primarily francophone West Africa, particularly the restive Sahel region, Macron is now rolling out a second phase of his Africa policy, Melly said, aimed “to put some serious economic effort in the east and the south of the continent.”

Goodbye yellow vests — hello Djibouti

The trip is also the French president’s first extended overseas visit in weeks, following November’s yellow vest uprising. The crisis has subsided for now, and Macron’s approval rating is on the rise after having launched a lengthy national ‘Great Debate’ as a stop-gap measure. Still, a permanent exit strategy remains elusive.

The plane ride to East Africa should give him time to consider “that for the Great Debate, as for airline travel, what counts is the landing,” France’s Le Dauphine Libere wrote in an editorial.

Like recent French presidents, Macron has called for opening a new chapter in French-Africa relations, proclaiming that France-Afrique, a term referring to shadowy business and political ties with former colonies, is old history. Still his first stop is to a familiar country, Djibouti, where he meets longtime leader, Ismail Omar Guelleh, and visits France’s biggest military base in the world.

With its strategically located port, the tiny Horn of African nation is also in hot demand by other nations, hosting a raft of military bases, including the only permanent US base in Africa, and China’s first overseas base.

In an OP-ED carried in the French daily L’Opinion, Djibouti’s ambassador to France, Ayeid Mousseid Yahya, hailed Macron’s visit to Djibouti — only the second by a French president in 20 years — as “an important moment to relaunch strategic ties.”

“It would be very strange if a French president didn’t visit Djibouti” during a trip to the region, Melly said, suggesting the stopover to see French soldiers gives Macron a pretext “without being seen as giving too much of an endorsement” to authoritarian Guelleh.

Cultural ties on spotlight in Ethiopia

A very different agenda and political landscape await Macron in Ethiopia, one of Africa’s most populous and fastest growing countries, which has seen dramatic reforms under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. In both Ethiopia and Kenya, he greets countries in mourning following Sunday’s crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane heading to Nairobi.

Ethiopia “awaits Macron with impatience,” Ethiopia’s first female president and former ambassador to France, Sahle-Work Zewde, told France’s TV5Monde news channel, calling for a reinforcement of “secular ties” with France.

In the ancient town of Lalibella, renowned for its ancient rock-hewn churches, the president is expected announce French support for Ethiopian cultural conservation efforts — echoing a theme aired early on in his presidency, when Macron vowed to return looted artifacts to former francophone colonies.

“It’s a cultural outreach to Africa which, at the moment, other western countries are lagging behind,” said Melly of Chatham House. “This sort of cultural diplomacy, recognizing the inherent value of your counterpart’s culture, matters.”

Ethiopia is also a key French export market, and Macron will be accompanied by dozens top business leaders for both the Ethiopian and Kenyan legs of his journey. Beyond a defense agreement signed between Addis Ababa and Paris, business deals are expected to be cinched in both countries, including more than $3 billion worth of contracts in Kenya.

China in background

A subtext of Macron’s trip is the growing clout of other foreign powers in Africa, starting with China. “Macron in Djibouti to counter China’s growing influence,” read Monday’s headline in France’s conservative Le Figaro newspaper, echoing others.

To be sure, China has secured contracts to build Djibouti’s port, railway to Ethiopia and soon-to-be economic zone. It set up its first military base overseas in the country in 2017, and currently sells more weapons in sub-Saharan Africa than any other nation, according to The Economist.

But while China is a sizable foreign investor whose expansion in Africa worries traditional players, analyst Melly believes France and other Western countries have an edge in other ways. While China may cinch infrastructure development contracts, for example, French businesses may later land contracts to manage projects when they’re up and running.

“A strong point is that conditions attached to western engagement are predictable,” Melly said, said of French and other aid. “They’ve very public and out there. Sometimes African governments like to work with clarity.”

“You don’t counter Chinese strategic influence by trying to block it” in Africa, Melly added. “You balance it by remaining engaged.”

Development and environment

Macron appears to be following this thinking. Since taking office nearly two years ago, he has visited Africa multiple times. As president, he set a goal to sizably increase official development aid to 0.55 percent by 2022, a years-long high for France — albeit still below the 0.7 percent international target.

“The challenge will be to use this power wisely and to ensure that aid increases are not only invested as effectively as possible to fight extreme poverty, but also to help mobilize other actors,” Friederike Röder director of anti-poverty advocacy group One France, wrote in an editorial last year.

In Kenya, Macron also gets to burnish his green credentials, as he joins President Uhuru Kenyatta in opening the third edition of the One Planet Summit — an initiative Macron launched in 2017 to drive a global fight against climate change.

The gathering promises to offer a positive counterpoint to France, where the French leader has been sharply criticized by environmental groups for failing to put his climate-friendly rhetoric into action.
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Erdogan Slams Women’s Day Rally Over ‘Rude’ Behavior

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday accused International Women’s Day protesters of being led by political rivals and of “disrespect” during the Islamic call to prayer, after Friday’s march was broken up by police firing tear gas.         

Thousands of people took to the streets of Istanbul on Friday in defiance of a ban by authorities, crowding the famous Istiklal avenue, before a police crackdown brought the demonstration to a chaotic end.

In his comments on Sunday, Erdogan referenced an unverified viral video showing women and men continuing to chant during the call to prayer.

“A group which came together in Taksim led by the (main opposition Republican People’s Party) CHP and (pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party) HDP supposedly for women’s day behaved rudely with whistling and chanting during the call to prayer,” Erdogan said.

The avenue is close to Taksim square, a traditional rallying point.

The president has been holding daily rallies across the country and often slamming the opposition ahead of local elections on March 31. He has accused the CHP of being in an alliance with the HDP, which Erdogan says is a political front for Kurdish insurgents.

The “March 8 Feminist Night march” group issued a statement on Sunday decrying the attempt to use Friday’s rally as “election material” in the press and on social media.

“Police violence against tens of thousands of women taking part/trying to take part in the night march cannot be covered up with polarising language… fake news and hate,” the group said, without making any direct reference to Erdogan.

In his statement the Turkish leader also played a short clip of the video as well as footage of an opposition rally from 2011 and said that participants did not carry the Turkish flag.

“(The opposition is) attacking our liberty and our future with this disrespect to our flag and our call to prayer,” he said during a rally in the southern city of Adana.

Although polls suggest Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) remains dominant, the opposition may make larger gains as the economic slowdown and the weaker Turkish lira impacts households.

Erdogan often says that his Islamic-rooted party has given greater freedom to Muslims in Turkey where until a few years ago, women were banned from wearing the Islamic headscarf, known as the hijab, in state institutions and universities.

But he has been accused by critics of eroding the secular pillars of modern Turkey.

The call to prayer has been at the centre of controversy in the Turkish republic since its foundation in 1923.

From 1932 to 1950, the call to prayer was banned in Arabic in Turkey.

Most recently in 2018, there was a row after CHP MP Ozturk Yilmaz called for it to be in Turkish rather than Arabic.
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Center of Christianity Has its First Mormon Temple

Europe’s largest Mormon temple will be dedicated over three days starting Sunday. Russell Nelson, president of the world’s 16 million Mormons, will be in Rome for the dedication ceremonies. No expense has been spared on Italy’s first temple, a magnificence, Mormons say, that is justified by faith.

The entire leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, widely known as the Mormon Church, has for the first time gathered outside of the United States for a very special occasion, the dedication of its temple in the eternal city. For the more than 25,000 Italian Mormons and the many others who will travel to Rome, this temple has special significance, as Italy’s representative of the Mormons, Alessandro Dini-Ciacci explains.

“Rome is the center of Christianity. Here’s where the apostles Peter and Paul, the early apostles of the Church of Christ came to preach and bear their testimony. We are followers of Jesus Christ. We love the Savior,” says Dini-Ciacci. “The temple we just built as a statement of our belief in Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world in our belief that life goes on after we die and that families can be together. That is the focus of our temples. The ordinances that bind families together.”

The Mormons have 162 temples in different parts of the world and 40 more have already been announced for a church growing in numbers. No expense was spared for Rome’s towering white “house of the Lord.”

“The temple was built with the finest materials, is very refined, as our offering of love. Our show of love for the Savior and his father. That’s why we choose the best materials possible,” said Dini-Ciacci. “There’s Carrara marbles, stained glass, fine fabrics. It is all a tribute to our heavenly father.”

Elder Dini-Ciacci said it took a decade to build the 3,800 square meter temple.

He would not give a figure for how much the temple cost but simply said “it’s a cost of faith.” One of the 10 commandments of the Mormons, he added, is to keep the law of tithing which allows the church to pay for temples and all operations. He said the money spent on temples is far less than what the Church spends on humanitarian aid.

Members of the Church abide by rules which include chastity outside of marriage.

“We keep the Ten Commandments. We ask people to treat their bodies as temples. So we ask them not to pollute them with drugs or alcoholic beverages. We ask them not to smoke. That is what we believe was revealed to one of our prophets for the benefit of all out members,” said Dini-Ciacci.

The church’s leader, Prophet Russel Nelson, met with Pope Francis on Saturday at the Vatican. It was the first time a head of the Church of Latter Day Saints met with a pope. While the two churches differ in doctrine, they share concerns like human suffering, the importance of religious liberty and of building bridges of friendship.

 
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Russians Rally Against Moves to Tighten Control on Internet

Activists in Russia have kicked off demonstrations against a new bill, which its critics say is part of an effort by President Vladimir Putin’s government to increase state control over the Internet and facilitate censorship.

Several dozen people rallied in the Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk on March 10 to protest against the proposed legislation. Backers of the bill say it is designed to ensure the operation of the Internet in the country if access to servers abroad is cut off.

Activists later gathered on Moscow’s Sakharov Avenue for a sanctioned rally.

Protest actions were also scheduled in the western city of Voronezh and other Russian cities.

The so-called “sovereign Internet” bill, which passed in the first reading in the lower chamber of Russia’s parliament on February 12, faces two more votes in the State Duma before heading to the upper house.

Aleksandr Isavnin of the Roskomsvoboda movement, one of the organizers of the planned, sanctioned rally on Moscow’s Sakharov Avenue, told RFE/RL: “Our state has paid attention to the fact that the Internet is being used to freely exchange information, including by opposition forces, and therefore it wants very much to put it under control.”

The name Roskomsvoboda is short for Russian Freedom Committee and plays off Roskomnadzor, the name of the state communications, Internet, and media oversight agency.

Nikolai Lyaskin, an aide to opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, called the bill yet another step by the authorities to “tighten the screws” on Internet freedom, and urged the Russians to rally against “this madness.”

The bill reflects persistent tension between Russia and the West, where governments have accused Moscow of using cyberattacks and social-media activity to sow discord abroad and increase its global clout.

Proponents say it aims to make what they call the Russian segment of the Internet more independent, and argue that the legislation is needed to guard Russia against potential cyberattacks.

The bill calls for the creation of a system that would protect Russia in the event of cyberwar while also filtering Internet traffic to the country, but there has been debate about how realistic that is and how much it would cost.
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Germany Tightens Travel Advice on Turkey

Germany changed its travel advice for visitors to Turkey on Saturday, warning its citizens that they risked arrest for expressing opinions that would be tolerated at home but might not be by Turkish authorities. 

“It cannot be ruled out … that the Turkish government will take further action against representatives of German media and civil society organizations,” an updated Foreign Ministry travel advisory read. 

“Statements which are covered by the German legal understanding of the freedom of expression can lead in Turkey to occupational restrictions and criminal proceedings.” 

The advice, which a ministry spokeswoman confirmed was updated on Saturday, noted that several European journalists, including Germans, had been denied accreditation in Turkey without explanation. In the last two years German nationals have also been increasingly arbitrarily detained, it said. 

Turkish authorities are suspicious about any connections to the network of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who Ankara says orchestrated a 2016 coup attempt, the ministry said. 

But it added that any tourists who had taken part in meetings abroad of organizations banned in Turkey risked being detained, as did Germans who made, or endorsed, statements on social media critical of the Turkish government. 
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Turnout Falls to Lowest Yet in French ‘Yellow Vest’ Protests

Turnout at “yellow vest” protests across France, a backlash against high living costs that has lasted nearly four months, fell Saturday to its lowest level yet.

People wearing the neon high-visibility vests that have come to symbolize the movement were joined in Paris by others donning pink tops, as child-care workers turned out against a reform of their unemployment subsidies.

Demonstrators on the Champs-Elysees avenue were pushed back at one point by water cannons, and sporadic clashes with police erupted in other cities including Lyon, Bordeaux and Toulouse, though the protests largely passed peacefully.

Some protesters staged a “flash mob” at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport, waving French flags and dancing in one of the terminals, television footage on BFM TV showed.

Some 28,600 people turned out overall, according to the Interior Ministry, with 3,000 of those in Paris — down from 39,300 across France the previous Saturday, and a far cry from the nearly 300,000 who blocked roads and marched in cities in mid-November.

​Next weekend

Some campaigners are calling for a bigger show of force next weekend, when a series of town hall-style debates launched by President Emmanuel Macron to try to quell anger is due to end.

What started out last November as an outcry against Macron’s plan to hike fuel taxes — part of his bid to push a cleaner energy model — has morphed into a broader, leaderless movement decrying the government as out of touch with the hardships faced by some households and low-income workers.

Macron dropped the fuel tax increase and budgeted an extra 10 billion euros ($11 billion) to help the poorest workers.

Since riots in December, recent demonstrations have been largely peaceful. On Saturday in Paris, 19 people had been arrested by 6:35 p.m., police said.

In an Ifop poll taken March 7-8 for the online news site Atlantico, 54 percent expressed sympathy with the “yellow vests,” up from 50 percent in mid-February, but down from a peak of 72 percent.

Macron’s popularity has also improved in recent weeks. An Ipsos poll released March 6 gave him an approval rating of 28 percent, up 8 points since December.
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Bodies of Climbers Spotted on Pakistan’s ‘Killer Mountain’

Searchers have spotted the bodies of two climbers from Britain and Italy in Pakistan days after the pair disappeared while trying to scale one of the world’s highest peaks, officials said Saturday. 

Tom Ballard and Daniele Nardi were caught in bad weather about two weeks ago while trying to climb the 8,125-meter Nanga Parbat, nicknamed “Killer Mountain,” using a route that has never been successfully completed. 

The search for Nardi, 42, and Ballard, 30, officially ended when the bodies of the pair were identified “beyond reasonable doubt” through telescope and aerial photos, the Italian ambassador to Pakistan said.  

“With great sadness I inform that the search for @NardiDaniele and Tom Ballard is over as @AlexTxikon and the search team have confirmed that the silhouettes spotted on Mummery [trail] at about 5,900 meters are those of Daniele and Tom. R.I.P,” Stefano Pontecorvo, tweeted (@pontecorvoste). The Italian diplomat was personally monitoring the rescue effort. 

Pakistani military helicopters were used to fly search teams to the site. 

Nardi’s family, in a message posted on his Facebook page, also confirmed his death along with that of his British climbing partner, saying they were “heartbroken.” “A part of them will always remain on Nanga Parbat.” 

Organizers said Nardi and Ballard had last established contact with their base camp on the evening of Feb. 24, saying they would be moving upward the next day.  

Ballard’s mother, Alison Hargreaves, also died in Pakistan while trying to climb K2, the world’s second-tallest mountain at 8,611 meters. Months before her 1995 death, Hargreaves had scaled Mount Everest alone, without supplementary oxygen or support. 

Both Ballard and Nardi stood among the top 10 Himalayan Alpinists in their own right, wrote veteran Pakistani climber Nazir Sabir on his Facebook page. 

“We are all so sad two more friends are gone, disappearing into the higher heavens and yet again the ‘Killer Mountain’ takes a toll as they become an eternal part of the Diamir [district, or west-side] Face of Nanga Parbat,” Sabir said. 
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Baby of Islamic State Teenager in British Furor Dies

The infant son of Shamima Begum, a teenager who left London to join the Islamic State group in Syria, has died, a spokesman for the U.S. backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said on Friday.

Begum, whose first two children also died, was stripped of her British citizenship last month on security grounds after she was discovered in a detention camp in Syria.

The 19-year-old left London to join IS when she was 15. She had sought to return to Europe with her third child, who was born about three weeks ago.

SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali said the child had died. Begum has said in media interviews her son was named Jarrah.

Begum married Yago Riedijk, a Dutch fighter for IS who surrendered to Syrian fighters and was being held in a Kurdish detention center in northeastern Syria.

A British government spokesman said: “The death of any child is tragic and deeply distressing for the family.

“The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has consistently advised against travel to Syria since April 2011. The government will continue to do whatever we can to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism and traveling to dangerous conflict zones.”

The family’s London-based lawyer on Friday said the baby’s death had been confirmed, after saying earlier that there were strong but still unconfirmed reports of the infant’s death.

The fate of Begum has illustrated the ethical, legal and security conundrum that governments face when dealing with the families of militants who swore to destroy the West.

The U.S-backed SDF is now trying to take Islamic State’s last, small patch of ground in eastern Syria. They have slowed their offensive on the jihadist enclave at Baghouz near the Iraqi border to allow many thousands of people to pour out in an exodus that has lasted weeks.

 
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Women’s Day Spurs Femicide Protests Across Turkey

In Turkey, International Women’s Day saw nationwide protests, with many focusing on the growing scourge of violence against women. According to rights groups, hundreds of women are slain yearly in Turkey.

In Istanbul’s Kadikoy district, the heart of the Asian side of the city, hundreds of women gathered, holding placards condemning violence against women.

“We are here to demand the police and judiciary take these endless murders of women seriously. I have had enough of these killings,” said Sibel, who wanted to give only her first name. 

Police presence

Despite a heavy police presence, the Kadikoy demonstration passed without incident. But thousands of women gathered in Istanbul’s main Istiklal Street area, where hundreds of riot police, backed by armored cars, used rubber bullets and tear gas to break up a procession. 

In Izmir, on Turkey’s western Aegean coast, police using clubs broke up a Women’s Day demonstration, arresting seven. However, most commemorations and protests, held in many towns and cities across Turkey, ended without incident.

The scale and extent of the protests, in the face of strict laws controlling demonstrations, reflect a growing assertiveness regarding women’s rights and violence against women. Last month saw nationwide outrage through social media and protests over the death of Sule Cet, 23.

Police initially treated Cet’s death as a suicide after she fell from the 20th floor of an office building, where she worked overnight. After intense pressure from an attorney representing Cet’s family, police finally treated her case as a homicide, with her boss and another man now standing trial for rape and murder.

Anger about the case was exacerbated when the defense attorney said Cet was not a virgin and that she should not have been drinking with her boss late at night. The case, which has engrossed millions, has become a focal point for women’s rights groups across Turkey and the source of growing anger about an increasing number of killings. Cet’s name has become a leading hashtag, while talk shows and social media have become platforms for people’s outrage about the way the case has been handled.

“Cet’s case raises so many issues that are wrong about the way cases of murdered women are handled,” said law professor Istar Gozaydin, who is also a presenter of a women’s rights television program.

“In the judicial process, we see the private lives of the victims being routinely mentioned or the character of the victim being impugned, like raising whether the victim is a virgin or not. Also, the figures of murdered women given by authorities are not very reliable. They are designated as accidents or considered as suicides, which we saw in Sule Cet’s case,” added Gozaydin, who is doing research on violence against women for the European Union.

This week, the Umut, a prominent nongovernmental organization, said that 477 women were slain and 232 were injured by men in 2018, and that Turkish media reported 1,760 femicide cases over the past four years.

In 2012, Turkey’s AK political party made the country the first signatory of the Council of Europe’s convention to protect women. The document is intended to prevent violence against women, provide victim protection and “end the impunity of perpetrators.” 

“On paper, the legal regulations and structures are very sufficient [in Turkey] to stop violence and murders against women,” said Gozaydin. “But the way the judiciary and police enforce these procedures and laws is very, very problematic. That’s why the judicial process should be monitored very closely to achieve a fair trial.”

Seen as major problem

Experts suggest there is a growing awareness within Turkish society about the scale of violence against women. A survey released this month by Istanbul’s Kadir Has University found that 60 percent of the participants viewed violence as “the biggest problem that women face in society.”

The issue appears to be crossing the deep political divide between religious and secular Turkey. “It [violence against women] has become the target issue of so many people to give their reaction,” said Gozaydin. “It is just not limited to the secular group or just women. It is much wider.”
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Activist Sees Key Role for Youth in Peace Efforts

The United Nations says 1.8 billion people in the world are below age 30. Most live in developing countries, with hundreds of millions in areas of conflict.

Actor Forest Whitaker, a U.N. goodwill ambassador, says young people too often are viewed in a negative light. He says they are seen as a problem rather than the solution to unresolved conflicts.  

Speaking to VOA on Friday on the sidelines of a U.N. Human Rights Council meeting, Whitaker said his foundation, the Whitaker Peace and Development Initiative, trains young people to become mediators in four systems of conflict resolution and education. He said young women and men also are trained in information and communication technologies, life skills and entrepreneurial skills.

Efforts in South Sudan

Whitaker said many are applying their skills within their own communities as part of a peace and reconciliation program his foundation is running in South Sudan.

“They are in the middle of mediating conflicts that have to deal with cattle issues,” he said. “They are in the middle of mediating conflicts that have to do with revenge killings, that have to do with territorial rights. … They go out into the communities as well, sometimes, and interpret in their native language or native tongue the peace agreements to the communities.”

Whitaker said young people apply their expertise on many fronts. He said they often are called upon by the countries themselves to act as mediators.

He said many of the people his foundation works with in South Sudan are decommissioned child soldiers. Similar programs exist in post-conflict situations for young people who were recruited as child soldiers by the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, he said.

The foundation has projects in Mexico and the United States and soon will begin working with young people on peace and reconciliation issues in South Africa.
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British Army Vets May Face ‘Bloody Sunday’ Trial as Tensions Rise

Sectarian tensions are rising in Northern Ireland — and not only because of Brexit and the possibility that the island of Ireland will once again be divided by a so-called “hard border.”

The province is also on edge about whether former British paratroopers will face trial for the deaths of 14 unarmed protesters, who were shot 47 years ago in a massacre that became known as Bloody Sunday.

Prosecutors are expected to make their decision public next week, but the signs are that several of the ex-paratroopers, now in their 70s, are more likely to face murder charges for their roles in the shootings in 1972 than previously thought.

Justice campaigners have told the British media that they know soldiers will face prosecutions for the killings. Some of the army veterans themselves have said they expect to be charged.

Whatever the decision by the prosecutors, which comes after a seven-year police inquiry, it is bound to cause a political storm. The province’s Irish nationalist mainly-Catholic minority will be furious if there are no prosecutions; while pro-British mainly-Protestant Unionists are already up in arms at the very idea that the army veterans could stand trial.

The families of the dead will be told of the decision on March 14, the day after the British parliament votes on whether to leave the European Union, and if so how. That vote, already a source of mounting sectarian anxiety in the British-run province, could determine whether border checks are reinstated on the frontier separating the six counties of Northern Ireland from the 26 counties of the Irish Republic.

On Tuesday, the head of Northern Ireland’s civil service warned of risks in the event of a no-deal Brexit and the reimposition of customs and immigration checks along the border. In a letter to the province’s main political parties in Northern Ireland, David Sterling noted a no-deal scenario could impose “additional challenges for the police” because of heightened community tensions.

And the head of Northern Ireland’s police service, George Hamilton, has warned that if Brexit results in fixed-frontier customs and security posts on the island of Ireland, it could energize a new generation of violent Irish republicans.

Midweek, three letter bombs apparently posted from the Irish Republic and sent to transport hubs in London were intercepted, adding to concerns of the old sectarian conflicts being reignited over the issue of a hard border.

“Letter bombs posted to London this week were a stark reminder that the peace process is still fragile and the threat posed to it by Brexit cannot be ignored,” The Times newspaper warned.

‘Very unfortunate timing’

The Bloody Sunday massacre of civil rights protesters is one of the deepest wounds of the “Troubles,” the decades-long conflict that was brought to an end with the U.S.-brokered 1998 Good Friday Peace Agreement. The conflict left more than 3,700 people dead as Irish Republican Army (IRA) gunmen battled the British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary, as well as Protestant paramilitaries with ties to British intelligence agencies, in their war for a united Ireland.

There are mounting concerns at the highest levels of the British government about how the prosecutors’ decision will play out against the backdrop of Brexit.

“It is an ill wind,” a senior British government official told VOA. “This is very unfortunate timing and we could have done without it, but it is beyond our control,” he added.

Fears of the reigniting of the “Troubles” have been fanned by a recent explosion in the British province and hijackings in Northern Ireland’s second largest city, Londonderry — which Catholics call Derry, and where the Bloody Sunday massacre took place.

The Bloody Sunday shootings came Jan. 30, 1972, when soldiers from the 1st Parachute Regiment opened fire on civil rights demonstrators in Londonderry’s Bogside district. The demonstrators were protesting internment — the mass arrest and imprisonment without trial of suspected IRA members.

Thirteen people were killed where they stood and a 14th person later died of his wounds. Fourteen other people were injured. The shootings attracted worldwide condemnation and fury in Irish-American communities.

Bloody Sunday investigation

The police inquiry was mounted after a 12-year-long investigation into the killings conducted by Mark Saville, a British judge, which was set up after years of pressure from the victims’ families and supporters in the United States, who dismissed an initial British probe as a whitewash.

Saville concluded that the British soldiers had “lost control” and he detailed a break down in the chain of command, saying the paratroopers fatally shot fleeing civilians and those who tried to aid wounded civilians. The report said the soldiers had concocted lies to defend their actions and, contrary to their claims, none of them had fired in response to attacks by petrol bombers or stone throwers or gunmen. The civilians were not posing any threat, according to the Saville report.

Eighteen ex-paratroopers have been under investigation, and four are thought likely to be charged. Under British regulations, they cannot be named, as yet. One of them, a partly paralyzed 77-year-old, told Britain’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper that it was a “scandalous betrayal” by successive British governments for allowing the cases to proceed.

“I think it is utter rubbish. But I think we will be charged,” he added.

British army veterans are also criticizing the investigation, saying it is unfair to charge people so long after the event. Former British foreign minister Boris Johnson has said any prosecutions against the veterans will be about politics, not justice.

But relatives of the Bloody Sunday victims have welcomed the possible prosecutions, saying that justice should be done.

“If these soldiers aren’t prosecuted, then the families will be angry, and for good reason,” according to Leo Young, one of the protesters, whose younger brother was killed.
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International Women’s Day

Women around the world marked International Women’s Day with celebrations, protests, and demands for equality and an end to gender violence.
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Pope: Anti-Semitism Part of Wave of `Depraved Hatred’

Pope Francis on Friday branded anti-Semitism part of a wave of “depraved hatred” sweeping some countries and urged everyone to be vigilant against it.

In comments to members of the American Jewish Committee during a visit to the Vatican, he also reiterated that it was sinful for Christians to hold anti-Semitic sentiments because they shared a heritage with Jews.

“A source of great concern to me is the spread, in many places, of a climate of wickedness and fury, in which an excessive and depraved hatred is taking root,” Francis said. “I think especially of the outbreak of anti-Semitic attacks in various countries.”

Francis did not name any of those countries, but government statistics released last month showed more than 500 anti-Semitic attacks occurred last year in France, which has Europe’s biggest Jewish community. That was a 74 percent increase from 2017.

“I stress that for a Christian any form of anti-Semitism is a rejection of one’s own origins, a complete contradiction,” Francis said.

A European Union study last month showed that more than one in three European Jews have considered emigrating in the past five years because they no longer feel safe.

Episodes of anti-Semitism have coincided with the rise of populist or nationalist parties in predominantly Christian countries such as Italy, Germany, Poland and Hungary. In Britain, nine lawmakers quit the Labour party last month, citing the leadership’s handling of anti-Semitism in the party as a reason for leaving.

In December, 20 cobblestones commemorating members of two Italian Jewish families who were deported to Auschwitz or killed in Rome were dug up and stolen in what the Jewish community said was an anti-Semitic attack.

On Monday, Pope Francis announced that he has decided to open fully the Vatican’s secret archives on Pope Pius XII, something which Jews have been seeking for decades.

Some Jews have accused Pius, who reigned from 1939 to 1958, of turning a blind eye to the Holocaust during World War Two by not speaking out forcefully. The Vatican has said Pius worked quietly behind the scenes to save Jews and avoid worsening the situation for many.
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Russia Telecoms Giant MTS to Pay $850 Million in US Corruption Case

Russia’s leading telecoms firm said Thursday it had agreed to pay $850 million to settle a U.S. corruption case over huge bribes paid to the family of Uzbekistan’s former president.

The case shed light on massive corruption in Uzbekistan under former president Islam Karimov, who ruled the ex-Soviet republic from 1990 until his death in 2016.

MTS, based in Moscow and listed on the New York Stock Exchange, said the settlement had been agreed with the U.S. Justice Department and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The deals “mark the closure of the investigations into the company’s acquisition and operation of its former subsidiary in Uzbekistan,” MTS said in a statement.

MTS complies 

In agreeing to the fine “MTS affirmed its commitment” to complying with anti-corruption legislation, it said.

MTS was in a long-running dispute with the Uzbek authorities, which seized the company’s local subsidiary in 2012 after cancelling its operating licenses for alleged tax evasion.

The Uzbek subsidiary, which had 9.5 million subscribers by the end of 2011, filed for bankruptcy in 2013.

The SEC said that MTS had “bribed an Uzbek official” related to Karimov to obtain and retain business operations in Uzbekistan, a Central Asian nation of more than 32 million people.

“The company engaged in egregious misconduct for nearly a decade, secretly funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to a corrupt official,” the SEC said in a statement. 

‘$1 billion worth of payments’

An investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project previously said that the subsidiary, which was known as Uzdunrobita before it was acquired by MTS, had paid hundreds of millions of dollars to companies owned by Karimov’s daughter Gulnara.

The OCCRP, an NGO that works with investigative reporters mainly in Eastern Europe, alleged that MTS made payments in 2004 and 2007 to purchase stakes in the company. 

MTS was not the only telecoms company involved. “Karimova squeezed more than $1 billion worth of payments… out of international telecom-related companies,” OCCRP said.

Some commentators in Russia expressed dismay that the U.S. was fining Russian companies for operations in third countries.

“What concern does the U.S. have about the faraway Uzbekistan and Russian operators?” said a journalist on BFM business radio, pointing out that “the money will go to the American budget, not the Uzbek one.”

End to economic isolation

Uzbekistan is led by Karimov’s former prime minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who has moved to end the country’s economic isolation and removed visa restrictions for travelers from European Union countries and the United States.

Gulnara Karimova, once a high-profile diplomat and pop singer, was being held under house arrest after being convicted on fraud and money laundering charges in 2017 and sentenced to five years.

Uzbek authorities this week said she had violated the terms of her house arrest and had been sent to prison where she would remain until the end of her sentence.
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