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Biden hits Germany with lightning-quick visit focused on Middle East, Ukraine

Berlin — President Joe Biden made a lightning-fast, pomp-filled visit to Germany Friday, making an in-person push for transatlantic unity and scooping up Germany’s highest civilian honor.  

Biden also met in Berlin with Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, President Emmanuel Macron of France, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the United Kingdom, to discuss a range of issues behind closed doors – including how to continue to support Ukraine against Russian aggression, and the rapidly changing situation in the Middle East.  

“They talked about President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy’s victory plan and how we can all work together to try to see if we can’t get to a just peace that President Zelensky and the Ukrainian people will approve of,” said John Kirby, White House national security spokesperson. “And of course, you know, can implement.”

And the brutal conflict in Gaza injected itself into Friday’s state visit, with news that Israeli forces had killed the leader of the U.S.-designated terror group Hamas, who was the mastermind behind the October 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war. 

Standing on the tarmac minutes after landing in Germany late Thursday, Biden addressed the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar by Israeli troops, calling it a “good day for the world.”

“Now’s the time to move on,” he said. “Move on, move toward a cease-fire in Gaza, make sure that we move in a direction that we’re able to make things better for the whole world. It’s time for this war to end and bring these hostages home.”

Biden said he would dispatch Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to Israel to discuss plans for the day after.

Kirby said the administration’s priority is freeing the remaining hostages held by Hamas.

“The president believes that, certainly, with Sinwar’s killing yesterday, that there’s a unique opportunity here for us all to kind of grab hold of, to see what we can do to end the war and to get a cease-fire. And we still believe that a cease-fire actually in the north, too, but we still believe a cease-fire is important for Gaza to get those hostages home.”

For Germany, this frenzied one-day visit – which included a brief meeting with a 102-year-old Holocaust survivor, Margot Friedlander – was suffused with meaning and history.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier — who awarded Biden the nation’s highest honor, Germany’s Grand Cross special class of the Order of Merit — began his reflection of the significance of Biden’s visit with an anecdote from the early 1980s, when a young U.S. senator visited Bonn, then the capital of the divided nation.  

In true German style, Steinmeier joked, the bureaucrat accompanying the 40-year-old senator made copious notes, saying he was “keenly interested” in Germany, and concluded that the young senator might have a “significant political future.” 

“What a remarkable understatement,” said Steinmeier before he pinned the 8-pointed golden star to Biden’s suit lapel. “Today, you are the 46th president of the United States – and under your leadership, the transatlantic alliance is stronger, and our partnership is closer than ever.” 

Steinmeier continued, “Maybe the most precious service to democracy, the most joyful and reassuring thing for people is to know that even this most powerful man in the world is – in the end – a fundamentally decent human being.” 

VOA asked White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan if part of Biden’s mission in Germany was to shield foreign policy against a possible Donald Trump presidency.

“What the president is trying to do is to make our commitment to Ukraine sustainable and institutionalized for the long term,” Sullivan replied. “And every other ally agreed that that was the responsible thing to do.”  
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Ukraine evacuates thousands from embattled Kharkiv town

Kyiv, Ukraine — Ukraine on Friday said it was evacuating thousands of people from an embattled northeastern town that Kyiv retook from Russia about six months after Moscow launched its invasion in 2022.

Kupiansk, a key rail hub in the northeastern Kharkiv region, has suffered deadly shelling attacks in recent months as Moscow’s forces get within a few kilometers of the town.

The region’s governor had warned on Tuesday that authorities were no longer able to guarantee electricity and water to residents due to “constant shelling” and ordered all civilians in Kupiansk and three nearby communities to leave.

“In total, about 10,000 people need to be evacuated. The pace of evacuation is increasing every day,” Governor Oleg Sinegubov said in a video on his Telegram account published Friday.

Kupiansk was seized by Moscow shortly after it invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and Ukrainian forces retook it around six months later.

It was home to just under 30,000 people before the war. Repeated Russian artillery strikes have badly damaged many of its buildings and left dozens of civilians dead.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy unveiled an ambitious “victory plan” this week setting out his vision to end the war with Russia.

Russia has been pushing ahead in eastern Ukraine for months, capturing tens of small towns and villages as Kyiv’s overstretched troops grapple with exhaustion and manpower shortages. 
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South Korea says North troop dispatch to Russia is ‘grave security threat’

seoul, south korea — South Korea said on Friday that it believes North Korea has sent troops to Russia, marking a grave security threat to the international community that Seoul will respond to with all available means, the presidential office said in a statement.

Separately, the country’s spy agency said North Korea was participating in the war in Ukraine and had decided to send 12,000 troops, including a special forces unit, Yonhap news agency reported.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol held an unscheduled security meeting with key intelligence, military and national security officials to discuss North Korean troops’ involvement in Russia’s war against Ukraine, it said.

“The participants … shared the view that the current situation where Russia and North Korea’s closer ties have gone beyond the movement of military supplies to actual dispatch of troops is a grave security threat not only to our country but to the international community,” it said.

South Korean officials have previously said it was likely true that some North Korean personnel were in Russia and involved in its war with Ukraine but have not given a clear answer on the nature or the scale of any such deployment.

Yoon’s office said South Korea together with its allies have been closely tracking North Korea’s troop dispatch to Russia from the initial stages. It did not, however, provide any intelligence to backup the assertion of troop deployment.

It also did not specify if it had information on whether North Korean troops were involved in combat.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service could not be immediately reached for confirmation of the report on the number of North Korean troops.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused North Korea on Thursday of deploying officers alongside Russia and preparing to send thousands of troops to help Moscow’s war effort, although NATO’s chief Mark Rutte said there was no evidence of Pyongyang’s presence at this stage.

Zelenskyy said about 10,000 North Korean soldiers are preparing for deployment to fight Ukraine but Kyiv’s Western allies have yet to confirm its assertion that Pyongyang is sending troops, though they say they are studying it.

Since their leaders’ summit in the Russian far east last year, North Korea and Russia have dramatically upgraded their military ties and they met again in June to sign a comprehensive strategic partnership that includes a mutual defense pact.

South Korean and U.S. officials have said North Korea has been supplying ballistic missiles and other munitions to Russia.

Since September last year, the North has shipped at least 16,500 containers of weapons to Russia and Russia has fired missiles from those shipments in Ukraine, Washington has said.

Russia and North Korea both deny they have engaged in arms transfers.

The Kremlin has also dismissed South Korean assertions that North Korea may have sent some military personnel to help Russia against Ukraine.
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Turkey’s ruling party uses misinformation to downplay scope of femicide

The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is facing mounting criticism over the rise of gender-based violence in Turkey, which ranks among the world’s worst countries for violence against women. 

Just last week in Istanbul, a 19-year-old Turkish man killed two young women — first, his 19-year-old girlfriend at his home, and then a woman, also 19, whom he met in the city. He beheaded the second victim and threw her head over a wall onto a crowded street before taking his own life. 

Critics contend that the traditional values-based policies of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) are contributing to a growing number of femicides — the killing of women — and Turkey’s entrenched domestic violence problem.  

“We Will Stop Femicide Platform,” a Turkish advocacy group known by the initials KCDP, reported 3,185 women were killed by men between 2008 and 2019, and at least 1,499 from 2020 to September 2024, with the number of femicides rising each year. The deaths of about 1,030 women were also found suspicious.  

More than 1.4 million women reported they had faced domestic abuse between January 2013 and July 2024, the Turkish Minute news site reported, citing data received from the Family and Social Services Ministry by the daily newspaper Birgün. 

Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of Istanbul and other cities in Turkey last week accusing Erdogan of failing to protect women from violence. 

In the facing of such accusations, Erdogan vowed last week to strengthen legal regulations concerning crimes against women and children and promised to set up a new unit at the Justice Ministry to monitor such cases.  

However, the Bursa Women’s Platform, which organized sit-in protests in Turkey’s Bursa province, accused Turkish authorities of acting only on “social media reactions rather than the testimonies of those subjected to violence.” 

Human Rights Foundation, a New York-headquartered international watchdog, accused the Erdogan government this week of failing to “adequately prevent femicide and violence against women, children, and gender minorities.” 

The Turkish government exercises “increasing control over social media platforms” posing “serious threats to freedom of expression,” the HRF said Thursday in a letter to the United Nations Human Rights Council. 

Independent research published this year in Frontiers in Psychology argued that the Turkish government’s tightening grip over what people can see in the media and the ruling party’s gender policies based on the stereotypes of women’s societal role and appearances contribute to the stigmatization of feminism and dehumanization of women. 

Erdogan’s own words have been cited as contributing to the problem. In widely quoted remarks made in 2014, he said it is “against nature” to “put men and women on equal footing,” and argued that feminists do not understand the importance of motherhood.  

“President Erdogan and the AKP have increasingly taken an explicitly anti-feminist stance, in particular over the last decade. Consequently, anti-feminism in Turkey has taken on a top-down outlook,” said a recent article in the peer-reviewed academic journal Mediterranean Politics. 

The article said an “environment created by the AKP” had empowered anti-feminist actors in Turkey to push back against legal reforms advocating for gender equality and women’s rights. 

The paper uncovered an AKP-linked Turkish network of social media accounts including conservative civil society organizations, media representatives, social media influencers, writers and academics, celebrities” who articulate and amplify anti-feminist sentences, while exerting “significant influence in political sphere.”  

VoxEU, a forum for columns by leading economists, published a study in March finding that victim-blaming is common in Turkish society, along with an attitude that a woman should not provoke her husband. 

Hardliners from Erdogan’s party have argued that a man’s testimony should be given more weight than a woman’s in domestic violence cases.  

Turkish judges hand down lenient sentences to domestic abusers, or otherwise impose minimal sanctions against abusers who violate civil protection orders. Law enforcement, the analysts and activists say, is often slow to react to instances when these civil protection orders are violated.  

KCDP and others have documented instances when women were killed by men against whom they had taken out restraining orders. Women are particularly prone to facing violence at home, and the perpetrators are overwhelmingly spouses, men they are romantically involved with, family members, or other acquaintances.  

In July 2021, Turkey withdrew from The Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, also known as the Istanbul Convention. Turkey was the first country to sign the Istanbul Convention in May 2011.  

Turkish authorities claimed to be acting because the Istanbul Convention had been “hijacked by a group of people attempting to normalize homosexuality,” which it said, “is incompatible with” the country’s “social and family values.” 

On October 8, Erdogan said Turkey’s “withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention has not had the slightest negative impact on women’s rights,” adding “there is no opposition party that can teach us a lesson on women’s rights” or “help us strengthen women’s status.” 

Republican People’s Party leader Ozgur Ozel disagreed. 

“This government has not only failed to protect women and children but is also stepping back from positive actions. The clearest example is the sudden withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention in 2021,” Turkiye Today cited Ozel as saying on October 8. 
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Biden, Scholz to discuss antisemitism concerns during Germany meeting

berlin — U.S. President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will discuss increased reports of antisemitic acts in both countries over the last year as war has raged in the Middle East when they meet Friday in Berlin, a Biden administration official told reporters on the eve of Biden’s state visit to Germany.

“This is an area where the United States and Germany have worked very closely,” said the official, who was not named as a condition of the Wednesday night briefing.

The official added that while Biden is unlikely to hold a specific event centered on antisemitism during his one-day visit, the issue is “very important to President Biden, and one that he has, that we have, discussed with the German government over the years and continue to do so.”

The official did not give any more details on engagements or plans.

Watchdogs have sounded the alarm in both countries: According to a German government report, antisemitic incidents rose by about 83% last year. In the United States, the Anti-Defamation League has said that U.S. antisemitic incidents “skyrocketed” in the months after Hamas militants attacked Israel last October.

Biden has clearly tied the recent rise in anti-Jewish acts to a growing backlash over his staunch support of Israel.

In May, he spoke at the first Holocaust Remembrance Day since the start of the war on October 7, 2023. He warned of a “ferocious” rise in antisemitic incidents and said that, at the height of university protests, “Jewish students [were] blocked, harassed, attacked, while walking to class.”

He said protesters used “antisemitic posters, slogans calling for the annihilation of Israel, the world’s only Jewish state.”

Earlier this month, he spoke of his belief that “without an Israel, every Jew in the world’s security is less stable.”

He added, “It doesn’t mean that Jewish leadership doesn’t have to be more progressive than it is, but it does mean it has to exist, and that’s what worries me most about what’s going on now.”

Germany’s World War II history makes it particularly sensitive to this type of hatred, but critics say it has taken steps that stifle legitimate criticism.

In November, weeks into the Gaza conflict, a German museum canceled a show by a South African artist after she expressed support for the Palestinian cause. Candice Breitz, the artist, who is Jewish, called the act another example of “Germany’s increasingly entrenched habit of weaponizing false charges of antisemitism against intellectuals and cultural workers of various descriptions.”

In March, police canceled a conference of pro-Palestinian activists because a planned speaker had previously made antisemitic remarks. They blocked him from entering Germany and cut power to the Berlin building where conference participants had gathered to watch him on a livestream.

On the first anniversary of the war, Scholz warned against growing anti-Jewish sentiment and affirmed his support for Israel.

“We will never accept antisemitism and blind hatred of Israel. The Jewish people here in Germany have the full solidarity of our state,” he said.

A difficult definition

Key to managing antisemitism is the question of whether criticism of Israel is, by definition, antisemitic.

The Federal Association of Research and Information Centers for Antisemitism, Germany’s antisemitism watchdog, uses a working definition from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, describing antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.” Although its definition of antisemitism does not mention Israel, many of its cited examples of antisemitism do.

The U.S. State Department also uses that definition, but when the White House produced its first strategy on antisemitism last year, before the start of the Gaza war, the strategy was not based solely on that definition.

One Jewish rights group that worked with the White House on the strategy said the decision to codify the definition of antisemitism “would only have made it harder to recognize and respond to antisemitic attacks in context” and “would have opened the door to infringement of First Amendment rights.”

That group, T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, also opposed a proposed bill in Congress using the group’s definition, with CEO Rabbi Jill Jacobs saying in a statement: “The profoundly misguided Antisemitism Awareness Act does nothing to keep Jews safe, while also threatening the civil liberties fundamental to this country.”

Second gentleman Douglas Emhoff, who led the rollout of the White House strategy, said it is more important to look at what antisemitism does than what it is.

“At its core, antisemitism divides us, erodes our trust in government, institutions and one another,” he said. “It threatens our democracy while undermining our American values of freedom, community and decency. Antisemitism delivers simplistic, false and dangerous narratives that have led to extremists perpetrating deadly violence against Jews.”

History professor Jonathan Elukin of Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, said the definition of antisemitism has shifted over the centuries. He focuses on antisemitism in the medieval and early modern periods — before Israel was founded.

This iteration of antisemitism in the U.S., he told VOA, is “more associated with a kind of larger sense of an anti-Western, anti-modern kind of feeling, both on the far right and on the far left. They both seem to be converging in some ways on resentment, hatred, suspicion, anxiety about the Jews.”

As for the sentiment on the far right, he said, “I think it’s more a kind of tribal nostalgic sense that America is supposed to be or was thought to be kind of a Christian nation.”

He said the debate over definitions obscures a problem.

“Does it even matter whether it fits some kind of arbitrary notion of antisemitism, which in itself is a very arbitrary and time-bound definition?” he asked.

But, he said, talking about the problem is a start.

“In the short term, obviously it requires education, activism, political leadership to draw the line at acceptable or what’s not acceptable expressions of anti-Jewish sentiment,” he said. “Both here and abroad.”

Kim Lewis contributed to this report.
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Russian meddling threatens Moldovan election, EU referendum 

Moldovan analysts are warning of a Russian “large-scale hybrid war” against their country as it moves toward a presidential election on Sunday, when a referendum on future relations with the European Union will also be held.

Moldova’s incumbent president, Maia Sandu, supports the country’s integration with Europe and enjoys a comfortable lead in opinion polls over her 11 challengers. Sunday’s referendum will ask Moldovan voters whether they support declaring the country’s EU accession as a strategic goal in its constitution.

In an interview with Voice of America’s Russian Service, Victor Zhuk, director of Moldovan State University’s Institute of Legal, Political and Sociological Research, said that Russia believes now is the time to direct all its efforts to preventing Moldova from taking the “European path.”

“There will be a referendum and presidential elections now, and parliamentary elections in 2025, so Russia believes that it is necessary to conduct a large-scale hybrid war against our country,” he said.

According to Zhuk, three of the candidates running against Sandu are “pro-Russian politicians.” He added that while a fourth candidate, former prosecutor and lawmaker Alexandr Stoianoglo, “personally advocates the European path of Moldova,” he was nominated by the Party of Socialists, led by former Moldovan President Igor Dodon, “who also opposes the referendum and the European path.”

“So, the Russian Federation has the ability to torpedo public consciousness in the republic from the outside with various fake news, and there are political parties inside that destabilize the situation and oppose Moldova’s accession to the EU,” Zhuk said.

Alleged attempts at bribery

Sergiu Musteata, a Moldovan historian and dean of the history and geography faculty of Moldova’s Ion Creanga State Pedagogical University, contended that Russia has attempted to “bribe” Moldovan voters to cast their ballots in a way that serves Russia’s interests. He alleged that this attempted bribery involved people connected to Ilan Shor, a fugitive pro-Russian Moldovan oligarch.

“Various people from Ilan Shor’s entourage and even priests were invited to Moscow for instructions, from where they returned with money,” Musteata told VOA. “Now the special services and police of the Republic of Moldova have spoken out on this matter and stated that more than $100 million has been invested in this election campaign against Maia Sandu and against the referendum.”

Earlier this year, Shor reportedly obtained Russian citizenship and identity documents after being sentenced in June 2023 to 15 years in prison for alleged involvement in a $1 billion bank fraud and other illicit schemes. That same month, Moldova’s Constitutional Court declared Shor’s pro-Moscow opposition party unconstitutional.

Shor has been sanctioned by the U.S. and EU for attempts to destabilize Moldova.

According to Musteata, Russia is supporting candidates in Moldova who oppose Sandu while at the same time “calling for a boycott of the referendum, which is very important for the future pro-European vector of the country.” More than 33% of eligible voters must participate for the referendum to be considered valid.

‘Inevitable’ move

Sandu has consistently condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — a position that, according to Zhuk, is shared by a majority of Moldova’s voters.

“Of course, they always think that in the event of Ukraine’s defeat, Russia’s aggression against the Republic of Moldova is practically inevitable,” he said.

On Tuesday, White House national security communications adviser John Kirby told reporters in Washington:

“In recent months, the U.S. government, Moldovan President Sandu, the Moldovan security services, and other allies and partners have warned that Russia is seeking to undermine Moldovan democratic institutions in the lead-up to the presidential election and referendum on Moldova’s EU membership.

“Now, with Moldova’s election just days away, we remain confident in our earlier assessment that Russia is working actively to undermine Moldova’s election and its European integration.”

Kirby said Russia in recent months has put millions of dollars “toward financing its preferred parties and spreading disinformation on social media in favor of their campaigns.” He added that Shor “has invested tens of millions of dollars per month into nonprofit organizations that spread narratives about the election that are in line with Russian interests.”

Kirby concluded by saying that “the United States will continue to support Moldova and the Moldovan people, and to expose and counter Russian efforts to undermine Moldovan democracy.”

This article originated in VOA’s Russian Service.
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Georgian groups defy ‘foreign agent’ law, team up to monitor crucial election

TBILISI, GEORGIA — An uneasy calm has descended on the streets of Tbilisi ahead of a crucial election on October 26, widely seen as a referendum on Georgia’s future.

Beneath the surface, there is palpable tension.

Campaign billboards, most for the ruling Georgian Dream Party, vie for voters’ attention with countless European Union, NATO and Ukrainian flags hanging from windows and graffitied on the city’s red brick buildings alongside anti-Russian slogans.

Six months ago, tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Tbilisi to protest the reintroduction of a so-called “foreign agent” law, which compels any organization receiving more than 20% of its funding from overseas to register with the government and submit to detailed financial investigation.

A brutal crackdown on the demonstrations prompted Western powers to impose sanctions on some Georgian officials.

Critics say the law mimics Russian legislation used to silence political opponents and independent media. The Georgian government insists the law is necessary to show who is funding political organizations.

Defiance

The foreign agent law came into force in September. However, most foreign-funded civil society groups have refused to comply. Dozens of the organizations are now working together to act as election monitors amid fears that Georgian Dream may not easily give up power, even if they lose the election.

Among the chief targets of the foreign agent law is Eka Gigauri, head of the anti-corruption group Transparency International. Alongside other prominent civil society leaders, she appears on government propaganda posters, accused of selling out Georgia and getting rich on foreign money. Their faces are marked with red crosses.

“This is a matter of dignity,” Gigauri told VOA. “We are not spies. We are not undermining the interests of the country. We are the patriots of this country, and we served this country and the people of this country for many years.”

Transparency International has refused to register as a foreign agent, risking prosecution and heavy fines for the organization and its staff.

“We are using all the legal tools, everything, to fight, to resist, not to comply, to inform the citizens about the wrongdoings of the government,” she said. “Still, we see that at any time, the government can enforce this law.

“And now especially, when there is this preelection period and the majority of the NGOs are involved in observing the elections, definitely it will be [an] additional obstacle for us if it happens. However, it did not happen yet.”

Transparency International said most foreign-funded civil society organizations have refused to comply with the new law, with only 41 organizations having so far registered as foreign agents.

Free media

Tabula Media, an independent multimedia organization, is one of several groups seeking to circumvent the legislation.

“We had to reestablish the organization in an EU country — Estonia — which deeply complicates financial operations,” Tabula editor-in-chief Levan Sutidze told VOA.

“We are familiar with this path and where it leads. It leads to Russia, to the complete silencing of critical voices, to the annihilation of independent media outlets and NGOs, and it will have catastrophic consequences in the future,” Sutidze said. “Even if the situation worsens, we will not submit to this insult.”

The investigative organization Realpolitika has also registered its headquarters in Tallinn, Estonia, in a bid to avoid prosecution under the foreign agent law.

“For now, this law does not apply to us. However, this could change after the election,” said editor-in-chief Aka Zarqua.

“Pressure from the international community and the backlash within Georgian society have both contributed to the government not fully enforcing this legislation before the election, and we can see their partial retreat,” Zarqua said. “It’s clear that October 26 will be decisive in this regard.”

Backlash

For some civil society groups, navigating the foreign agent law has been a traumatic process.

The pro-democracy organization Shame was founded in 2019 after the ruling Georgian Dream Party allowed a visiting Russian prime minister to address lawmakers from the speaker’s chair in the Georgian parliament, prompting widespread outrage.

In August, the organization decided to comply with the foreign agent law and register with the government “because we believed there was no other way to save the organization and continue its work if Georgian Dream somehow managed to win the election and the law remained enforced,” according to Dachi Imedadze, Shame’s head of strategy.

The organization, however, reversed its decision after a bitter public backlash.

“It escalated into conspiracy theories and personal attacks, with people calling us traitors,” Imedadze said.

Shame is now campaigning to get young people to vote.

“One-third of young people, aged 18 to 25, do not participate in elections. This represents approximately 250,000 potential voters,” Imedadze told VOA. “Our main target audience is this group, many of whom will be voting for the first time in this election.”

‘Russian swamp’

Nino Lomjaria, a former public defender of Georgia, now heads Georgia’s European Orbit, a civil society group partly funded by the U.S.-based Soros Foundation.

Lomjaria and her team have traveled across the country urging people to turn out and vote. Their election leaflets mimic the election ballot but offer only two choices.

“It says: ‘Are you choosing European well-being or the Russian swamp?’” she said.

Georgian Dream insists it is not pro-Russian and wants to join the EU. Party leaders say they are seeking to improve relations with Moscow to avoid further conflict, accusing critics and rivals of being part of a “global war party” that is seeking to profit from war with Russia.

Lomjaria scoffs at that accusation.

“We know who starts wars. We know that the ‘global war party’ is Russia. It’s not the West. And for us, the European Union is the safe place. That’s why we want to join this community, because we consider that being the member of the European Union, being the member of NATO, this is something where we will find peace and stability,” she told VOA.

Election monitors

Georgia’s European Orbit has joined a coalition of nongovernmental organizations that are planning to monitor the election, “which is composed of up to 30 organizations,” Lomjaria said.

“And our plan is to be present at every polling station to observe the whole process of voting and vote tabulation. We will have evidence of how elections have been conducted in this country, and we will litigate if we find out that there was some manipulation or electoral fraud,” she said.

Gigauri of Transparency International doubts Georgia’s judicial system is robust enough to cope with such a crisis.

“The state institutions in Georgia are captured. This is a very unfortunate fact and the reality. Definitely it’s very difficult for everyone to operate. But we also see that more and more, it is very difficult for those institutions to deal with the resistance from the people,” Gigauri told VOA.

The government insists it will respect the election result.

“Georgian Dream is based on democratic principles, and therefore it will respect every decision made by the Georgian people. We will accept the people’s decision, whatever it may be,” Nikoloz Samkharadze, chairman of the parliamentary Foreign Relations Committee, told VOA in an interview.

“At the same time, I want to emphasize that we are confident the vast majority of Georgians will support Georgian Dream.”
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Death of ex-One Direction member Liam Payne at 31 shocks fans around the world

Buenos Aires, Argentina — The death of Liam Payne, who shot to stardom as a member of British boy band One Direction and grappled with intense global fame while still in his teens, sent shockwaves across the world Thursday as Argentine investigators continued their investigation at the scene.

Fans, music-industry figures and fellow musicians paid tribute to Payne, 31, who died after falling from a hotel balcony in Argentina.

As fans and media bombarded the Casa Sur Hotel in the trendy Palermo neighborhood of Argentina’s capital, the forensics unit worked inside on Thursday collecting evidence.

The Buenos Aires police said they found Payne’s hotel room “in complete disarray,” with packs of clonazepam, a central nervous system depressant, as well as energy supplements and other over-the-counter drugs strewn about and “various items broken.” They added that a whiskey bottle, lighter and cellphone were retrieved from the internal hotel courtyard where Payne’s body was found.

The day before, police said that Payne “had jumped from the balcony of his room,” without elaborating on how they came to that conclusion. The Associated Press could not confirm details of the incident, as the investigation is ongoing. The medical examiner’s office said it was conducting an autopsy.

Police said they had rushed to the hotel Wednesday in response to an emergency call just after 5 p.m. local time that had warned of an “aggressive man who could be under the influence of drugs or alcohol.”

A hotel manager can be heard on a 911 call recording obtained by The Associated Press saying the hotel has “a guest who is overwhelmed with drugs and alcohol … He’s destroying the entire room and, well, we need you to send someone, please.” The manager’s voice becomes more anxious as the call goes on, noting the room has a balcony.

Payne was known as the tousle-headed, sensible one of the quintet that went from a TV talent show to a pop phenomenon with a huge international following of swooning fans. In recent years he had acknowledged struggling with alcoholism, saying in a YouTube video posted in July 2023 that he had been sober for six months after receiving treatment. Representatives for Payne did not immediately return emails and calls.

Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood, who performed with One Direction in 2014, said he was “shocked and saddened.”

“God bless Liam, thinking of all his loved ones. He will be dearly missed,” Wood wrote on X.

Paris Hilton also sent condolences on X, saying the news was “so upsetting.” The Backstreet Boys said in a social media post that their hearts go out to “Directioners around the world.”

Dozens of One Direction fans flocked to the Casa Sur Hotel after the news broke, forming lines that spilled into the cordoned-off street outside, where police stood sentinel. Forensic investigators were seen leaving the building, from where Payne’s body was removed around three hours after the fall. Young women filming with their cellphones expressed shock and heartbreak as a makeshift memorial with rows of candles and bouquets quickly grew.

“I didn’t think he was going to die so young,” 21-year-old Isabella Milesi told the AP.

Payne was one of five members of One Direction, which formed after each auditioned for the British singing competition “The X Factor” in 2010, two years after Payne’s first attempt to get on the show. Aged 16 the second time around, Payne sang Michael Bublé’s version of “Cry Me a River,” appearing nervous at the start but warming up with the audience’s cheers and applause.

After each singer failed to make it through the competition as a solo act, Simon Cowell and his fellow judges combined Payne, Zayn Malik, Harry Styles, Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson into what would become one of the most successful boy bands ever — even though they lost the competition.

Each member had his own persona, with Payne — who hailed from Wolverhampton in England’s West Midlands region — known as the responsible one. The band became known for their pop sound and romantic hits including “What Makes You Beautiful,” “Night Changes” and “Story of My Life.”

Payne had prominent solos on songs including “Stole My Heart” and “Change Your Ticket,” co-writing several of the band’s hits. One Direction had six Top 10 hits on the Billboard charts by the time they disbanded in 2016 and a highly loyal fan base, known as “Directioners,” many of them teen girls.

“I’ve always loved One Direction since I was little,” said 18-year-old Juana Relh, another fan outside Payne’s hotel. “To see that he died and that there will never be another reunion of the boys is unbelievable, it kills me.”

With his meteoric rise to fame, Payne had said that it took some time to adjust to life in the public eye.

“I don’t think you can ever deal with that. It’s all a bit crazy for us to see that people get in that sort of state of mind about us and what we do,” he said in a 2013 interview with the AP after recounting an experience where a fan was in a state of shock upon meeting him.

One Direction announced an indefinite “hiatus” in 2016, and Payne — like each of his erstwhile bandmates — pursued a solo career, shifting toward EDM and hip-hop.

While Styles became a huge solo star, the others had more modest success. Payne’s 2017 single “Strip That Down,” featuring Quavo, reached the Billboard Top 10, and stayed on the charts for several months. He put out an album “LP1” in 2019, and his last release — a single called “Teardrops” — was released in March.

In 2020, to mark the 10th anniversary of One Direction, Payne shared a screenshot of a text message he sent to his father on the day he joined the group, which read: “I’m in a boyband.”

“What a journey … I had no idea what we were in for when I sent this text to my dad years ago at this exact time the band was formed,” he wrote.

Payne had a 7-year-old son, Bear Grey Payne, with his former girlfriend, the musician Cheryl, who was known as Cheryl Cole when she performed with Girls Aloud. She was an “X Factor” judge during One Direction’s season, although their relationship began years later.

Payne was previously engaged to Maya Henry, from August 2020 to early 2022. Henry released a novel earlier this year that she said was based on their relationship.

In addition to his son, he is survived by his parents, Geoff and Karen Payne, and his two older sisters, Ruth and Nicola.
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UK foreign minister to visit China to rebuild damaged ties

London/Beijing — British Foreign Secretary David Lammy will visit China on a two-day visit starting on Friday in a bid to improve relations between the two countries after years of tensions over security concerns and alleged human rights abuses.

Lammy will hold talks with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing before visiting Shanghai to meet British businesses operating in China, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Thursday.

“It’s all about bringing a consistent, long-term and strategic approach to managing the U.K.’s position on China,” the spokesperson told reporters, adding that Britain was prepared to challenge China where needed but also identify areas for co-operation.  

Mao Ning, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, said the talks would focus on improving cooperation in various fields.  

It will be only the second visit by a British foreign minister in six years after Lammy’s Conservative predecessor James Cleverly’s trip last year. Before that, there had been a five-year gap in a visit to China by a British foreign minister.

Labour, who won a landslide election victory in July, is seeking to stabilize relations with Beijing after clashes over human rights, Hong Kong, and allegations of Chinese espionage.

Starmer told President Xi Jinping in the first conversation between the two in August that he wanted Britain and China to pursue closer economic ties while being free to talk frankly about their disagreements.

China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng and British finance minister Rachel Reeves last month discussed how they can work together to boost economic growth.

Following the exchange, Beijing said it was willing to resume the UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue – an annual forum for talks on trade, investment and other economic issues, which had not taken place since 2019.

Under the previous Conservative government, Britain expressed concern about China’s curbing of civil freedoms in Hong Kong, which was under British control until 1997, and its treatment of people in its western Xinjiang region.

Britain and China also traded accusations over perceived spying.

China is Britain’s sixth-largest trading partner, accounting for 5% of total trade, British government figures show.
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Watchdog: ‘Serious questions’ over Meta’s handling of anti-immigrant posts

Meta’s independent content watchdog said Thursday there were “serious questions” about how the social media giant deals with anti-immigrant content, particularly in Europe. 

The Oversight Board, established by Meta in 2020 and sometimes called its “supreme court,” launched a probe after seeing a “significant number” of appeals over anti-immigrant content. 

The board has chosen two symbolic cases — one from Germany and the other from Poland — to assess whether Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, is following human rights law and its own policies on hate speech. 

Helle Thorning-Schmidt, co-chair of the board and a former Danish prime minister, said it was “critical” to get the balance right between free speech and protection of vulnerable groups. 

“The high number of appeals we get on immigration-related content from across the EU tells us there are serious questions to ask about how the company handles issues related to this, including the use of coded speech,” she said in a statement. 

The first piece of content to be assessed by the board was posted in May on a Facebook page claiming to be the official account of Poland’s far-right Confederation party. 

An image depicts Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk looking through a peephole with a black man approaching him from behind, accompanied by text suggesting his government would allow immigration to surge. 

Meta rejected an appeal from a user to take down the post despite the text including a word considered by some as a racial slur. 

In the other case, an apparently AI-generated image was posted on a German Facebook page showing a blond-haired blue-eyed woman, a German flag and a stop sign. 

The accompanying text likens immigrants to “gang rape specialists.”  

A user complained but Meta decided to not to remove the post.  

“The board selected these cases to address the significant number of appeals, especially from Europe, against content that shares views on immigration in ways that may be harmful towards immigrants,” the watchdog said in a statement. 

The board said it wanted to hear from the public and would spend “the next few weeks” discussing the issue before publishing its decision. 

Decisions by the board, funded by a trust set up by Meta, are not binding, though the company has promised to follow its rulings. 
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Germany outlines measures to strengthen domestic wind industry

Germany plans to introduce measures aimed at boosting its domestic wind industry, the economy ministry said on Thursday, amid concerns from European governments and companies over Chinese firms gaining momentum on the continent.

The measures will focus on improving cybersecurity, reducing dependency for critical components like permanent magnets, and ensuring fair competition in global markets, the ministry said following a meeting with unnamed European wind turbine manufacturers and suppliers in Berlin, without giving further details or a time frame.

China accounts for about 60% of global rare earth mine production, but its share jumps to 90% of processed rare earths and magnet output.

“We must continue improving conditions to keep this industry competitive and ensure future value creation within Germany and Europe. These measures are a crucial step,” Economy Minister Robert Habeck said in a statement.

The plan will also address securing financing for increased production and adjusting public funding mechanisms to prevent market distortion.

The ministry did not immediately respond to a request for further details.  

Tensions are high between Beijing and the European Union, the world’s two largest wind markets. The European Commission launched an investigation in April into whether Chinese companies are benefiting from unfair subsidies.
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