The European Union Commission’s president defended the bloc’s coronavirus vaccination strategy Wednesday amid growing criticism of delays in procurement and delivery. As Henry Ridgwell reports from London, the bloc is facing crises on multiple fronts.
Camera: Henry Ridgwell   
 
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The Russian government has levied a fine against the U.S. government-sponsored media outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty for violating the country’s “foreign agent” law. The $150,000 fine was assessed by Roskomnadzor, Russia’s media regulatory body.  Russia first designated RFE/RL, a sister organization of the Voice of America (VOA), a foreign agent in 2017, a step some say made its work in Russia more difficult. According to the Reuters news agency, Russia has fined the outlet several times in recent weeks. The foreign agent law gives a wide berth for the Russian government to erect bureaucratic hurdles to any nongovernmental group that receives foreign funding, Reuters reported. RFE/RL says it plans to appeal the latest fine. “We have court hearings about three times a week, and we get fined at each one,” Andrei Shary, head of RFE/RL’s Russian Service, said in an interview with the RIA news agency. “The company considers this to be unfair. Every court decision will be appealed.”
“The Kremlin’s latest move is clearly intended to limit USAGM’s ability to operate and report independently and objectively within Russia. It is unacceptable,” USAGM acting CEO Kelu Chao told VOA.  FILE – Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, attends a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Oct. 23, 2019.Congressman Michael McCaul expressed support for RFE/RL. “We’re seeing the Putin regime cracking down on free speech and on the ability of Radio Free Europe and Voice of America to operate out there in Moscow,” he told VOA’s Russian Service. “I think you’re going to see a very strong movement by the United States Congress, but I would urge that the [U.S.] president talk directly to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin about this with condemnation about the ability to have free speech in his own country and to get the truth out. And that’s what Voice of America and Radio Free Europe do,” he added.VOA Russian Service’s Danila Galperovich contributed to this report.
 
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Lithuania has rejected orders issued Wednesday from a Moscow court calling for the arrest of Leonid Volkov, an exiled ally of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny. The court orders, sent via Interpol, charge Volkov with encouraging minors to participate in unauthorized rallies, which potentially carries jail term of up to three years in Russia.“Using international tools for politically motivated prosecution is a wrong practice,” said Lithuanian interior minister Agne Bilotaite, referring to Interpol, the government-funded international police network that coordinates cross-border police operations across 194 member states.Putin, Kremlin Critic Navalny Set Battle Plans for Next Phase in Struggle for MasteryRussian opposition leaders expect Kremlin crackdown to intensify but are preparing for a long-haul stand-off with Putin The Volkov warrant “raises serious doubts about Russia‘s membership in these organizations,” Bilotaite added.The Russian court, which said Volkov will be held in Russia for two months if and when he is extradited, said the warrant was issued under the Commonwealth of Independent States, an organization of former Soviet republics to which Lithuania does not belong.The arrest warrant comes after the rise of demonstrations demanding the release of Russian opposition leader Navalny, who has been jailed since January 17.In a separate development on Wednesday, Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, who was recently detained for taking part in unsanctioned rallies in support of her jailed husband, left Russia for Germany according to a source quoted by Interfax.Volkov, a strategist who manages Navalny’s regional headquarters, fled Russia in 2019 when authorities opened a criminal probe of suspected money laundering by Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation. Navalny’s group has repeatedly called that criminal probe, among the latest of many, politically motivated.From his base in Lithuania, Volkov has been organizing protests demanding the release of Navalny, with the most recent one being planned for this Sunday.
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European Commission president Ursula Von der Leyen Wednesday acknowledged Europe was late approving and rolling out COVID-19 vaccines, saying they were overconfident vaccines could be delivered on time.
Speaking to the European Parliament, Von der Leyen, however, defended the decision to have the commission – the European Union’s executive branch – oversee vaccine orders and for all 27 EU members to roll out vaccines at the same time, saying had the bloc’s biggest states acted unilaterally, “it would have been the end of our community.”
She also defended not cutting corners on safety when it came to approval of vaccines and waiting for an additional three or four weeks for approval from the EU drug regulator, the European Medicines Agency. But Von der Leyen also said there were lessons to be learned from the process.
Von der Leyen said while they were focused primarily on the quick development of a vaccine, the EU underestimated the difficulties in producing high volumes quickly. She said, “In some ways, science overtook industry.”
She said they now fully understand the difficulties of mass production and have invested billions in improving capacity. She urged member states to plan their rollouts accordingly.
The European Commission chief also expressed regret about an initial plan to restrict exports to British-ruled Northern Ireland, which would have set up a hard border between it and EU member Republic of Ireland, reigniting tensions in that region.
She said, “Mistakes were made in the process leading up to the decision and I deeply regret that. But in the end, we got it right. And I can reassure you that my commission will do its utmost to protect the peace of Northern Ireland.
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The European Parliament has seen stormy sessions before but rarely as ugly as Tuesday’s when lawmakers scolded the bloc’s top officials for everything from their handling of the coronavirus pandemic to what they dubbed a disastrous trip last week to Moscow by Europe’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell. Several national governments had urged Borrell, a former Spanish foreign minister, to call off his trip to the Russian capital, arguing it was ill-timed in the wake of Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny’s jailing and amid the Kremlin’s paramilitary-style crackdown on street protests. Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny stands inside a defendant dock before a court hearing in Moscow, Feb. 5, 2021.Furious European lawmakers are demanding Borrell resign for the visit, widely seen as having handed the Kremlin a propaganda victory. His critics accuse him of failing to stand up to Russian bullying. Eighty-one members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have signed a letter drafted by Estonian lawmaker Riho Terras calling for Borrell to go.“Borrell’s misjudgment in proactively deciding to visit Moscow, and his failure to stand for the interests and values of the European Union during his visit, have caused severe damage to the reputation of the EU,” the letter reads. “We believe that the president of the European Commission should take action, if Mr. Borrell does not resign,” the lawmakers added.The criticisms were echoed Tuesday in the European Parliament’s chamber, even though Borrell hardened his language about the Kremlin when addressing lawmakers, telling them he would propose to EU foreign ministers next week a list of Russian names to be sanctioned over the jailing of Navalny. “I will put forward concrete proposals,” he told lawmakers, adding that he had “no illusions before the visit.”Borrell said “the Russian government is going down a worrisome authoritarian route,”  and that the country “seeks to divide us.”However, Borrell’s critics were not mollified.“We have never looked so weak and clueless about how to deal with Russia,” Belgian lawmaker Hilde Vautmans told Borrell.European delegation member Sophie in ‘t Veld arrives before a meeting at the Europe House on Dec. 3, 2019 in Valletta.Dutch parliamentarian Sophie in ‘t Veld said Borrell has a “credibility problem.”Borrell’s trip saw Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dub the EU an “unreliable partner” during a joint press conference in the Russian capital, leaving the EU’s top diplomat silent and half-smiling. European governments fumed when it emerged that Borrell only learned through Twitter during a meeting with Lavrov that the Kremlin had expelled three European diplomats for allegedly participating in demonstrations in support of Navalny.Some former and current European diplomats say Borrell probably should have abandoned the meeting upon learning about the expulsions. FILE – European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen speaks at the end of an EU summit video conference at the European Council headquarters in Brussels, Jan. 21, 2021.Ursula von der Leyen has defended Borrell. Commission spokesperson on foreign policy Peter Stano said Borrell has her full backing. Stano said Borrell’s decision to remain silent during Lavrov’s verbal lashing of the EU was understandable. He said Borrell was “a diplomat” for whom “the press conference is not a platform for discussions or confrontations.” Stano argued that Borrell had been “very vocal in the negotiations with Mr. Lavrov.”But von der Leyen is not in a strong political position to protect Borrell, analysts say, and the Moscow trip is adding to alarm about her judgment, which increasingly is being called into question by European lawmakers and national governments. The criticism of von der Leyen has focused on the bloc’s coronavirus inoculation rollout, which has been marred by logistical mistakes and hidebound bureaucracy, leaving the EU desperately short of vaccine doses. The troubled rollout has lagged behind inoculation programs in Britain and the United States, with only two doses being administered so far for every 100 Europeans, compared to seven in the U.S. and 11 in Britain. Von der Leyen and her commissioners had pushed for vaccine procurement and disbursement to be handled by the EU, arguing it would advertise the bloc’s strength and solidarity while reducing the risk of vaccine rivalry among the 27 member states. But that is not the way it has turned out, and the European Commission president is now conceding that individual member states could have vaccinated their populations more quickly had they acted alone rather than having the EU oversee vaccine purchase and distribution.On Monday, von der Leyen inadvertently added fuel to the fire by acknowledging that a country like Britain acting on its own can out-maneuver like a “speedboat” the slower-moving EU “tanker.”EU lawmakers launched an onslaught on von der Leyen for the vaccine handling, dismissing her admission of errors as not enough.“When are they going to accept that they made mistakes?” asked Croatian MEP Ivan Sincic, who said EU commissioners had been “acting blindly.”The verbal lashing has left some observers questioning whether von der Leyen will complete her full five-year term as EC president. She has rejected calls from some quarters to resign, telling reporters last week that the time to “make a final assessment” of her performance will be at the end of her term in 2024.EU officials have cautioned that public expectations are in some ways too high, and people need to be more patient, though they acknowledge people are yearning for an end to lockdowns and a resumption of their normal lives. French President Emmanuel Macron looks on during a press conference with the Belgium’s Prime Minister after a meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris, on Dec. 1, 2020.German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron have both defended von der Leyen.“What would people say if countries like France and Germany were competing with each other on vaccines?” Macron asked last week.Merkel on Friday said it would have been “a mess, and counterproductive” for member states to procure and compete for vaccines.  Other national leaders are not convinced. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been especially tough, saying recently he was “not happy with the pace” and that it was a mistake for EU member states to cast their lot together in the hunt for vaccine supplies. “There were manufacturers whose products were available sooner in Canada, the U.K,” he told Hungarian radio.He added, “We’re unable to move faster with inoculating people not because Hungarian health care is incapable of carrying out mass vaccinations rapidly, but because we have a shortage of vaccine supplies.”Hungary has broken ranks with the EU and ordered doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine. Several other countries, including the Czech Republic, Italy and Spain, are also questioning whether it was wise to entrust Brussels with cutting the deals to provide vaccines for the 450 million people living in the bloc. They, too, are now considering making their own purchases.
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Across global cities big and small, the coronavirus pandemic has forced a shutdown of cultural life. But that’s changing in the Russian capital, where a mass vaccination program is in full swing. Charles Maynes reports from Moscow.Camera:  Ricardo Marquina Montanana  Produced by: Bronwyn Benito  
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German prosecutors announced Tuesday they have charged a 100-year-old man with being an accessory to 3,518 murders committed while he was allegedly a guard at the Sachsenhausen World War II concentration camp outside of Berlin. Neuruppin prosecutor Cryll Klement told the Associated Press that the man, whose name is being withheld under Germany’s privacy laws, is alleged to have worked at the Sachsenhausen camp between 1942 and 1945 as an enlisted member of the Nazi Party’s paramilitary wing. Klement, who led the investigation, said that despite his advanced age, the suspect is considered fit enough to stand trial, though accommodations may have to be made to limit how many hours per day the court is in session. FILE – Visitors walk past the gate, inscribed with the words “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work makes you free), of the former Sachsenhausen concentration camp, now a memorial, in Oranienburg, Feb. 7, 2020.The prosecutor said the Neuruppin office was given the case in 2019 by the special federal prosecutors’ office in Ludwigsburg charged with investigating Nazi-era war crimes. The charges come less than two weeks after prosecutors in the northern town of Itzehoe filed similar charges against a 95-year-old woman who worked during the war as the secretary to the SS commandant of the Stutthof concentration camp. Chief Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Efraim Zuroff, told the AP the two new cases serve as “vital reminders to the dangers of anti-Semitism, racism and xenophobia.” He said the advanced ages of these defendants “is no excuse to ignore them and allow them to live in the peace and tranquility they denied their victims.” The Sachsenhausen concentration camp was established near Berlin in 1936 and was one of the first such camps established by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. The camp was notorious for early experiments in the killing of inmates by gas in what became a trial run for the murder of millions in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. 
 
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While China was preparing to implement a new National Security Law in Hong Kong in the summer of 2020, Jennifer was planning to relocate her family to Britain.  Hundreds of thousands of Hong Kongers are expected to move to the United Kingdom in the coming years, where they are eligible to apply for British citizenship. Many of the thousands of newly arrived are now organizing initiatives to support others planning their move to Britain.  
 
Like many others, Jennifer participated in the 2019 pro-democracy and anti-government demonstrations. But the law passed last summer has Jennifer and others worried their civil liberties could be undermined.  
 
The National Security Law would prevent and punish what it calls acts of “secession, subversion or terrorism activities” that threaten national security. The law would also allow Chinese national security organizations to set up agencies in Hong Kong. Critics say it effectively curtails protests and freedom of speech; China says it is needed to restore order and stability.  
 
Jennifer, who requested that her real name not be used, spent months online preparing to move her family:  
    
“When I came, I was quite well-prepared because I could have everything for me settled by myself, through a lot of hard work in Hong Kong. So, I did a lot of online research and approaching different organization and departments in the U.K. to arrange my place to live and arrange school for my child and arrange my account and all that. Most of the families, they come here for the children’s future,” Jennifer said.FILE – A British National Overseas passport (BNO), right, and a Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China passport are pictured in Hong Kong, Jan. 29, 2021.Despite never having lived in Britain before, she holds a British National Overseas passport. Her family is eligible to apply for a new visa that offers a path to British residency and citizenship. The British government estimates nearly 3 million people are eligible along with about 2.3 million dependents. Applications opened January 31. So far 7,000 people with a BNO passport have arrived from Hong Kong since July 2020.Hong Kong is a former British colony over which China regained control in 1997.  
 
Jennifer now shares her knowledge about the moving process with other Hong Kongers through volunteer organizations. In recent months, several organizations were established in Britain to provide support to people arriving from Hong Kong and to those planning their move.  
 
Simon Cheng is the co-founder and chairman of one such support group, Hongkongers in Britain. The volunteer-run organization hopes to fill information gaps and smooth the process for the 300,000 Hong Kongers believed to resettle in Britain over the next few years.  
 
Cheng says that while there are a lot of questions about the practicality of relocating, such as finding employment and schools, there are deeper concerns regarding China’s ability to retaliate – even in Britain.  
    
“About one month ago, we did the policy study to identify their needs and their concerns. The security would be the area of the concern. And they were a little bit worried that if they come here when they’ve been harassed, the Chinese authority would be very upset about it. We’re not sure yet about the future and potential retaliation,” Cheng said.FILE – Simon Cheng, founder of Hongkongers in Britain, attends an event protesting shrinking political freedoms in Hong Kong, in Leicester Square, central London, Dec. 12, 2020.There are dozens of YouTube channels, Facebook groups and other online platforms where relocated Hong Kongers are sharing information about the visa application and the resettling process.  
 
Neil Jameson of UK Welcomes Refugees, an umbrella group helping people enter British society, says providing the right support and information to BNO holders will test British institutions:  
    
“The problem would be landlords, the National Health Service, the police, and then they will suddenly see these papers they haven’t seen before, which is BNO passports. The vast number of people who will be coming, will be coming legitimately, do need to be welcomed, do need ideally to have a trusted group to go to in the places they choose to settle,” Jameson said.
    
Britain announced the updated British National Overseas passports visa program after the ongoing crackdown on pro-democracy activists by Chinese authorities in Hong Kong. The Chinese government announced it would stop recognizing the BNO as a valid travel document from the moment the BNO application program opened to Hong Kong residents.
 
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A metal monolith that mysteriously appeared on a field in southeast Turkey has now disappeared, Turkish media reported Tuesday, four days after it was discovered.
The three-meter-high (about 10-foot-high) metal slab bearing an ancient Turkic script, was found Friday by a farmer in Sanliurfa province. It was discovered near the UNESCO World Heritage site of Gobekli Tepe, which is home to megalithic structures dating to the 10th millennium B.C., thousands of years before Stonehenge.
The shiny structure, however, was reported gone Tuesday morning, days after authorities said they were investigating its appearance by looking through closed circuit television footage and searching for vehicles that may have transported it to the site.
It wasn’t immediately clear if it had been taken down by the authorities. Officials at the Sanliurfa governor’s office weren’t immediately available for comment.
The state-run Anadolu Agency quoted the field’s owner as saying he was baffled by both its appearance and disappearance.
“We don’t know if it was placed on my field for marketing purposes or as an advertisement,” Anadolu quoted Fuat Demirdil as saying. “We saw that the metal block was no longer at its place. Residents cannot solve the mystery of the metal block either.”
The agency also quoted local resident Hasan Yildiz as saying the block was still at the field Monday evening, but had disappeared by the morning.
The monolith bore an inscription that read: “Look at the sky, you will see the moon” in the ancient Turkic Gokturk alphabet, according to reports.
Other mysterious monoliths have similarly appeared and some have disappeared in numerous countries in recent months.
Gobekli Tepe was the setting of the Turkish Netflix mystery series, “The Gift.”
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Public opinion is mixed on how well Western governments have handled the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center, which also questioned people on their attitudes regarding compulsory vaccinations.Seventy-seven percent of Germans thought their government did a good job in handling the outbreak, while 58% of Americans say the U.S. government is doing a bad job.More than 4,000 adults were questioned in the United States, Britain, France and Germany.The survey was conducted in November and December 2020, before U.S. President Joe Biden took office in mid-January and just as vaccination programs were beginning to roll out in the United States and Britain.The European Union has been far slower in getting its vaccination programs under way, leading to some criticism of the bloc’s vaccine approval and procurement policy among EU citizens.An elderly visitor receives a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at the Cent Quatre cultural center in Paris, France, Feb. 1, 2021.France and other EU states have argued the process must not be rushed, fearing a loss of public trust. France has one of the highest levels of so-called “vaccine skepticism” in the world.A recent newspaper poll suggested that just over 40% of the adult population intend to get the coronavirus vaccine. French President Emmanuel Macron recently rejected calls for mandatory vaccines.The Pew survey questioned respondents on their attitudes to compulsory vaccinations.“In three of the countries where we asked that question, most people do not find that an acceptable idea,” report co-author Kat Devlin told VOA. “So, for instance, 75% in France do not like the idea of a government-mandated vaccine. The U.K. was the one country where we found more acceptance of the idea of a government-mandated vaccine — 62% find that an acceptable proposition.”Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 9 MB480p | 13 MB540p | 17 MB720p | 32 MB1080p | 71 MBOriginal | 224 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioThe vaccination program is accelerating in Britain, with over 12 million people having now received their first dose. Britain has also suffered the highest number of coronavirus deaths in Europe.Analysts say local elections scheduled for May will offer another measure of public approval for the British government’s handling of the pandemic. 
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The future of Turkey’s second-largest opposition party is hanging in the balance, with mass arrests and growing calls for its closure. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accuses the pro-Kurdish HDP of militant links, but the party says it’s a victim of increasing government authoritarianism. The HDP claims it’s facing an unprecedented legal crackdown with 16,000 members detained and dozens of deputies ousted from parliament and jailed under Turkey’s anti-terror legislation. Erdogan routinely refers to the HDP as the “pro-PKK party.” The PKK is a Kurdish insurgent group waging a decades-long war for minority rights in Turkey and is designated as a terrorist group by the United States and European Union. The progressive left pro-Kurdish HDP, which denies PKK links, secured six million votes in the 2018 election and 67 parliamentary deputies, making it Turkey’s second-largest party. FILE – Turkish police officers in riot gear block supporters of pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) as they try to gather for a rally in Istanbul, June 17, 2020.The HDP local elected representatives are facing the brunt of the legal crackdown. Sixty out of the 65 mayors have been jailed or replaced by trustees appointed by the Interior Ministry under anti-terror legislation. “When you can’t see ahead clearly, this affects your work in a negative way,” said Adalet Fidan, HDP mayor for Silopi in Turkey’s predominant Kurdish southeast, “because you are continuously thinking that at any moment there can be a trustee appointed to take over.”But the HDP’s existence is now in question. “Opposing the closure of the HDP means undermining justice and the fight against terrorism,” said Devlet Bahceli, the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, and Erdogan’s parliamentary coalition partner. FILE – Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli delivers a speech in Istanbul, Turkey, May 18, 2018.Bahceli, a hardline Turkish nationalist, is widely seen as the driving force behind the crackdown against the HDP. Erdogan has in the past voiced reluctance in supporting calls to ban the pro-Kurdish party.  But last month’s launching of a far-reaching prosecution against key members of the HDP is being interpreted by some observers as preparing the ground for the party’s closure. Turkey’s chief prosecutor’s office indicted 108 people for initiating fatal protests in 2014. The unrest was sparked by Ankara’s failure to offer support to Kurdish fighters besieged by the so-called Islamic State group, in the Syrian town of Kobane, on Turkey’s border. FILE – Turkish Kurds and others rally in support of Kurdish fighters who have gone to defend the Syrian town of Kobane against Islamic State extremists, in the central Turkish city of Ankara, Nov. 1, 2014.Prominent and former senior members of the HDP face life imprisonment without parole. “What we see in the indictment is a lot of tweets and politicians’ speeches which are then used to suggest and hold politicians responsible for the murder of 37 people during violent protests in 2014,” said Emma Sinclair Webb, senior Turkey researcher for the New York-based Human Rights Watch.  “Bottom line, through tweets, they committed murder, which is extraordinary,” she added. Sinclair Webb also voiced concern about HDP politicians being indicted with leading PKK members. “It shows the government sees the HDP party as no different from an armed organization, the PKK, and that is completely unacceptable as a way at looking at a democratic party which is playing by the rules of democratic elections.”  Strained relations with EUThe indictment threatens to exacerbate already strained Ankara-European Union relations. Among the accused is former HDP leader Selahattin Demirtas, who has been held in pre-trial detention since November 2016 on anti-terror charges. FILE – Supporters of Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) hold masks of their jailed former leader Selahattin Demirtas during a rally in Ankara, Turkey, June 19, 2018.The European Court of Human Rights in December ruled for Demirtas’s immediate release, saying his imprisonment was for an “ulterior political purpose.”  “The Turkish prosecutorial authorities with this latest indictment are flouting the ECHR decisions which calls for the immediate release of Selahattin Demirtas from jail,” said Sinclair Webb. While Turkey is beholden to comply with European Court decisions, Erdogan in December dismissed the Demirtas ruling as “politically motivated” and “hypocritical.” But the escalating HDP crackdown comes at an inopportune time for Erdogan, as he is seeking to improve ties with the EU, promising a new chapter in relations.  Later this month, Erdogan is scheduled to announce a raft of democratic and legal reforms. Analysts warn Brussels views Erdogan with deep skepticism. “The Turkish president’s reputation is at stake; this is the problem,” warned Huseyin Bagci, head of the Ankara-based Foreign Policy Institute. “The Europeans expect from Turkey no more words, but deeds; Turkey should act.” Electoral predictionWith Erdogan’s ruling AKP slipping in opinion polls, observers say he is becoming increasingly reliant on the support of his nationalist MHP coalition partner, which is pressing for a tougher stance against the HDP. Electoral calculations have added importance with growing speculation that the 2023 vote could be called as early as the end of the year. Analysts point out that if the HDP were to be closed down, Erdogan could secure an electoral advantage, given the vote in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast is traditionally split between the HDP and the AKP.  Fidan acknowledges she could well be living on borrowed time as HDP mayor for Silopi. “Most of the people I campaigned with during the local elections, who became mayors, some were even lawyers themselves, were taken from their post for nonsense reasons,” said Fidan. “And I fear the same thing can happen here as well, but all you can do is keep working.” 
 
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The Netherlands says it is freezing international adoptions after a government commission discovered children had been stolen or bought from their parents.  
 
In cases going back to the 1960s, the commission found abuses such as “the falsification of documents, the abuse of poverty among the birth mothers and the abandonment of children for payment or through coercion.”
 
The commission was formed as adopted adults found their documents had been either lost or fake or that their adoption was illegal.
 
The commission reviewed cases from Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Brazil, and Colombia between 1967 and 1998. However, it found that the abuse had been going on before and after this time period.  
 
Rights minister Sander Dekker said he “understood that this will be painful for some people but let us not forget … we are protecting children and their biological parents.”
 
Dekker said the job falls on the next administration to decide whether or not to renew an international adoption process without abuses. 
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A rescue ship with 422 migrants picked up off the coast of Libya, received permission from the Italian authorities to dock in the Sicilian port of Augusta late Sunday.  
 
Eight of the passengers tested positive for COVID-19 in health checks conducted onboard by the crew of Ocean Viking which patrols the Mediterranean Sea.  
 
The French-based SOS Mediterranee group, which operates the vessel said passengers included pregnant women, babies, children, and unaccompanied minors.
 
The Ocean Viking has picked up a total of 798 people since January 11, when it returned to sea after Italy had blocked it for five months.
 
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), about 95,000 migrants and asylum-seekers crossed the Mediterranean in 2020 in search for a better life in Europe. More than 1,200 did not survive the perilous journey. 
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Two gay men seized near Moscow and sent back to their native Chechnya, a region accused of brutal persecution against homosexuality, face “mortal danger,” a rights group said Saturday. The LGBT Network rights group helped the two Chechen men, Salekh Magamadov and Ismail Isayev, flee Muslim-majority Chechnya for Nizhny Novgorod east of Moscow in June last year after they were reportedly tortured by Chechen special police. The two men were detained for unknown reasons in Nizhny Novgorod on Thursday and have been sent back to the North Caucasus region, the group said in a statement. LGBT Network spokesman Tim Bestsvet said the men were detained by the Federal Security Service (FSB) domestic intelligence agency and had arrived at a police station in Chechen town of Gudermes on Saturday. “They are tired and frightened,” he told AFP Saturday. “All this time they were being pressured to refuse a lawyer,” Bestsvet said, adding that a lawyer with the LGBT Network was in Gudermes trying to get access to the men. “There have been cases when relatives brought back to Chechnya people that we had evacuated and then these people would die or, we can say, were probably murdered,” Bestsvet said, adding that Magamadov and Isayev faced “mortal danger.” The interior ministry’s Chechnya branch and the FSB were not immediately available for comment Saturday. While Magamadov is older than 18, Bestsvet said that because Isayev is 17 he can only refuse legal representation via his parents.  He added that Isayev’s father was brought to the police station Saturday and was facing pressure to refuse to let his son have an attorney. Magamadov and Isayev were arrested and tortured by Chechen special police in April 2020, Bestsvet said, officially for running an opposition Telegram channel, but “initially because of their sexual orientation.” The two men later recorded a video apology in which they said “they weren’t men,” before the LGBT Network helped them flee, Bestsvet said. They were also forced under torture to learn passages of the Quran as well as Russian and Chechen anthems, he added. Russia’s volatile republic of Chechnya has been under fire over alleged gay persecution since 2017, when gay men said they were tortured by law enforcement agencies. In 2019, the LGBT Network reported a second wave of persecution against gay people in the majority Muslim region, including two killings.  Chechen officials regularly dismiss the reports and strongman chief Ramzan Kadyrov claims the region’s population is exclusively heterosexual. Kadyrov, 36, who has ruled Chechnya with an iron grip since 2007 and oversaw vast redevelopment and Islamization in the war-torn region, is loathed by rights campaigners who accuse him of ordering kidnappings and extrajudicial killings. 
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A vessel carrying 422 migrants rescued off the coast of Libya has been given permission to dock in Italy after issuing an urgent appeal for shelter from a looming storm, its operator said Sunday.The SOS Mediterranee group, which operates the Ocean Viking rescue ship, said it had received the green light to bring the migrants ashore in the Sicilian port of Augusta after several earlier appeals went unheeded.It said it expected the vessel to arrive in Sicily on Sunday evening.The French-based group said its passengers included babies, children, pregnant women and unaccompanied minors.”They must urgently be disembarked in a safe port,” Luisa Albera, the head of the group’s rescue operations, had earlier urged, warning that weather conditions in the central Mediterranean were deteriorating.She described the health of several of the migrants as fragile.Eight tested positive for COVID-19 and were isolating aboard the ship, she added.Libya has become a key jumping off point for irregular migration to Europe in the chaotic years since the 2011 overthrow and killing of dictator Moammar Gadhafi in a NATO-backed uprising.While many migrants have drowned in rubber dinghies and rickety fishing boats, thousands have been intercepted by the Libyan coast guard and returned to Libya, with the support of Italy and the EU.NGOs have criticized those returns, arguing that Libya is not safe for the migrants.  Since the Ocean Viking returned to sea on January 11 after being blocked in Italy for five months it has picked up a total of 798 people.On Jan. 21-22, it rescued 374 people at sea off Libya and took them to Augusta.Of 424 people who boarded the Ocean Viking on Thursday and Friday, a pregnant woman and her partner were flown by helicopter to nearby Malta.More than 1,200 migrants and asylum-seekers died while crossing the Mediterranean in 2020, according to the International Organization for Migration.
 
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Sunday’s Super Bowl could have an unexpected audience of fans — in Russia. The Federation of American Football in Russia says the number of enthusiasts of the sport there runs in the tens of thousands and there are teams playing American-style football in almost every region of the country. Genia Dulot has the story.    
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Sunday’s Super Bowl could have an unexpected audience of fans — in Russia. The Federation of American Football in Russia says the number of enthusiasts of the sport there runs in the tens of thousands and there are teams playing American-style football in almost every region of the country. Genia Dulot has the story.    
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A German company is ready to remove hazardous materials stored in dozens of containers at Beirut’s port, Germany’s ambassador to Lebanon said Saturday, following efforts to secure the facility after the August 4, 2020, explosion that devastated the port and much of the city.Ambassador Andreas Kindl tweeted that the treatment at Beirut’s port for 52 containers of “hazardous and dangerous chemical material” has been completed. He added that the material was ready to be shipped to Germany.The decision to remove the material followed the August explosion that was triggered by nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate, a highly explosive fertilizer component, that had languished at the port for years. The blast killed 211 people, wounded more than 6,000 and destroyed parts of the capital.In November, Lebanon signed a deal with Germany’s Combi Lift to treat and ship abroad the containers consisting. The deal is worth $3.6 million, toward which port authorities in Lebanon will pay $2 million with the German government covering the rest.Kindl said the material that was treated had been a threat to people in Beirut.Since the August blast and a massive fire at the port weeks later, authorities have been concerned about dangerous material still at the facility. A month after the blast, the Lebanese army said military experts were called in for an inspection and found 4.35 tons of ammonium nitrate that was removed and destroyed.  
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EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell came under scathing criticism Saturday for his visit to Moscow, which several of the bloc’s member states had urged him to cancel, fearing the Kremlin would manipulate the three-day trip to its advantage.His critics, including former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, along with Western diplomats, say their worst fears were realized during Borrell’s Friday joint press conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, in which Borrell said no EU member state had yet to propose new sanctions over the recent imprisonment of President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic, Alexey Navalny.Just moments before the press conference, Kremlin officials announced their decision to expel three EU diplomats — from Germany, Poland and Sweden — for allegedly taking part in the unsanctioned Navalny rallies, a move possibly timed to humiliate Borrell.Critics say that the propaganda trap is likely to embolden Russian authorities to persist in their brutal paramilitary-style crackdown on internal dissent and civil society activists who’ve rallied for Navalny’s release.Time to resign?”Borrell has to think about resigning,” tweeted EU lawmaker Rasa Juknevičienė, a former Lithuanian defense minister, condemning the overall tenor of Borrell’s message that the EU and Russia “can cooperate despite misunderstandings.”Although it was clear before Borrell’s arrival in Moscow that the Kremlin would “mock him,” Juknevičienė tweeted, the whole of the EU has instead been ridiculed.FILE – People clash with police during a protest against the jailing of opposition leader Alexey Navalny in Moscow, Jan. 31, 2021.In a statement released Saturday summarizing his visit, Borrell said: “Diplomatic channels need to remain open, not only to de-escalate crises or incidents, but to hold direct exchanges, deliver firm and frank messages, all the more so when relations are far from satisfactory.”Borrell’s visit, which was planned before Navalny demonstrations erupted in more than 100 cities and towns across Russia, prompted some EU member states to lobby Brussels to cancel the event, fearing it was badly timed and would expose EU impotence. The Baltic states, alongside Poland and Romania, called instead for a new set of sanctions to be imposed on Russia. Their fear was that a dialogue with the Kremlin over the Navalny case at this stage would be a hopeless endeavor that would undermine EU credibility.Borrell, who went to Moscow on his own initiative in the first high-level EU trip of its type in four years, suggested he was accepting a long-standing invitation from Lavrov.Before Friday’s press conference, Borrell, a former Spanish foreign minister, warned his Russian counterparts that Navalny’s treatment had brought EU-Russian relations to a “low point,” and he reiterated EU demands for Navalny’s release.Message undercutThat message was undercut, however, when Borrell told Lavrov that no EU member state had proposed extra sanctions on Russia for now, which other EU officials said was inaccurate.Navalny was detained upon his January return to Moscow for parole violations, which his supporters say is a spurious charge, after recovering in Germany from a near-fatal poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin.His arrest has triggered the largest anti-Kremlin protests seen in Russia since 2011, and more than 10,000 of his supporters have been detained by police amid allegations of police brutality, according to rights monitors.Borrell is also drawing fire for standing silently by Lavrov’s side as the Russian foreign minister dubbed the EU an “unreliable partner” and accused European leaders of lying about Navalny, dismissing the West’s conclusion — confirmed by laboratories in Germany, France and Sweden, along with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons — that Navalny was poisoned with a Soviet-era military-grade nerve agent.FILE – Former Belgium Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt is pictured during a media conference in Brussels, March 6, 2012.”This is simply appalling,” tweeted Verhofstadt, who slammed Borrell for being ill-prepared. “Not just that Russia makes a fool of the EU but that we let it happen.”Borrell “should simply not have gone to Moscow without a message of EU strength & a mandate for sanctions to back it up,” Verhofstadt tweeted.Borrell was also criticized for failing to protest more forcefully the Kremlin’s last-minute decision to expel the trio of EU diplomats.“As expected, Lavrov outplayed Borrell,” one senior EU diplomat told FILE – A nurse displays a vial of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine for COVID-19 during a vaccination campaign inside River Plate stadium in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Feb. 2, 2021.Pro-democracy activists said the Kremlin was swift to market Borrell’s visit for propaganda purposes and to discredit Navalny. During Friday’s press conference, Borrell also praised Russia’s development of the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine.”I take the floor just to congratulate Russia on this success,” Borrell said of the vaccine, which doesn’t yet have Europe’s scientific approval. “It’s good news for the whole of mankind.”Russia’s Foreign Ministry released a video shortly afterward, which begins with a clip of Navalny last year criticizing Russian authorities for prematurely authorizing Sputnik V, ahead of full testing, with the footage then cutting to Borrell praising Russia for developing Sputnik V.    
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British diplomats are anxiously awaiting Senate confirmation of Katherine Tai as America’s new U.S. trade representative, in hopes of early progress on a U.S.-Britain trade agreement to reset the relationship following Britain’s departure from the European Union.Karen Pierce, British ambassador to the United States, told a recent audience at American University in Washington that there had been “successive rounds of formal talks” with the previous administration of President Donald Trump and that informal working groups have continued to discuss details of a possible agreement.“When Katherine Tai, the new USTR, is confirmed, we will need to talk to her about getting back to the formal stage,” Pierce said. “We would like to do that.”At the time of the Brexit campaign, which led to Britain’s withdrawal from the EU, the pro-Brexit camp had argued that the breakup would leave London free to negotiate a favorable pact with a sympathetic Trump-led administration in Washington.But President Joe Biden declared during his campaign last year that he would not enter into any new trade deals until necessary investments had been made at home. Now, Pierce said, that leaves open “the question as to what happens to trade deals already in the making, like the U.K. one.”The British envoy pointed out that Britain and the U.S. are among each other’s biggest trading and investment partners, and it would benefit both “to cement that and enhance it in a deal, but we need to see what the Biden administration has to say.”Theodore R. Bromund, a specialist in Anglo-American relations at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, said the Biden administration has every right to review what its predecessors have done but that it has essentially three choices.FILE – Katherine Tai, the Biden administration’s choice to take over as U.S. trade representative, speaks during an event at The Queen theater in Wilmington, Del., Dec. 11, 2020.He said the new team could continue the talks within the established framework, seek to revise the content and framework of the talks or abandon the project.But, he said, the two countries share deep affinities and the same high regard for human rights and the rule for law, while wages and living standards are not as far apart as with some other countries.“If the U.S. cannot negotiate a deal with the U.K., who else can it negotiate a deal with?” he asked.Agriculture, health careMichelle Egan, a professor at American University who focuses on comparative politics and political economy, said in a phone interview that some of the biggest sticking points in any trade agreement between the two countries concern agriculture and Britain’s national health system.She said Brexit has left British farmers vulnerable, making it harder for London to offer concessions in the agricultural sector.American demands for greater access to Britain’s health care industry are also a problem for London, according to Jacob F. Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and German Marshall Fund based in Brussels.In written replies to questions from VOA, Kirkegaard said Britain’s National Health Service is seen as sacred by many of its citizens. That reverence has only deepened in response to the coronavirus pandemic.FILE – UK National Health Service employee Anni Adams looks at an NHS app for tracing contacts with people potentially infected with the coronavirus disease, on the Isle of Wight, Britain, May 5, 2020.“Ultimately, it comes down to politics in both U.S. and U.K.,” he said.Pierce admitted that agriculture tends to be a difficult topic in almost any trade negotiation, “to be absolutely honest.” She added that the Biden administration’s “buy American” agenda could also pose a challenge to Britain and America’s other trading partners.“It’s obviously a great concern to America’s trading friends and partners if there’s a very strong push for ‘buy American.’ So we’ll need to talk about that,” she said.Positive notesPierce highlighted some “very good things” that are included in the deal under discussion between her country and the United States, including an emphasis on the role to be played by small- and medium-sized enterprises, or SMEs.“Both our economies rely very much on this sector,” she said. “What’s really going to get the economy going again” after the pandemic “is the SMEs, so we think that’s a plus.”She also said the prospective U.S.-British agreement would be the first free-trade agreement to look at digital commerce.
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German prosecutors have charged the secretary of the former SS commandant of Stutthof with 10,000 counts of accessory to murder, arguing that she was part of the apparatus that helped the Nazi concentration camp function.The 95-year-old also faces an unspecified number of counts of accessory to attempted murder for her service at the camp between June 1943 and April 1945, Peter Mueller-Rakow, spokesman for prosecutors in the northern town of Itzehoe, said Friday.Despite her age, the suspect will be tried in juvenile court because she was younger than 21 at the time of the alleged crimes, Mueller-Rakow said.The suspect, whom Mueller-Rakow would not identify in line with German privacy laws, is believed to be in good enough health to stand trial.She has previously been partially identified as Irmgard F. by Germany’s NDR public broadcaster, which interviewed her at the retirement home where she now lives in a small community north of Hamburg.She confirmed to NDR that she had worked as the secretary to SS officer Paul Werner Hoppe in Stutthof, but said she never set foot in the camp itself and did not know of murders taking place there.Hoppe was himself tried and convicted of being an accessory to murder and sentenced to nine years in prison in 1957. He died in 1974.NDR cited a 1954 statement Irmgard F. had made when interviewed as a witness ahead of the trial, in which she told authorities all Hoppe’s correspondence with higher SS administration had gone past her desk and that the commandant had dictated her letters daily.She also said she did not know of prisoners being gassed but told authorities at the time she was aware Hoppe had ordered executions, which she presumed were as punishment for infractions, NDR reported.The case against her will rely on new German legal precedent established in cases over the last decade that anyone who helped Nazi death camps and concentration camps function can be prosecuted as an accessory to the murders committed there, even without evidence of participation in a specific crime.”In the trial we will focus on the suspect who was in the camp as a secretary, and her concrete responsibility for the functioning of the camp,” Mueller-Rakow said.Initially a collection point for Jews and non-Jewish Poles removed from Danzig — now the Polish city of Gdansk — Stutthof from about 1940 was used as a so-called “work education camp” where forced laborers, primarily Polish and Soviet citizens, were sent to serve sentences and often died.From mid-1944, tens of thousands of Jews from ghettos in the Baltics and from Auschwitz filled the camp along with thousands of Polish civilians swept up in the brutal Nazi suppression of the Warsaw uprising.Others incarcerated there included political prisoners, accused criminals, people suspected of homosexual activity and Jehovah’s Witnesses.More than 60,000 people were killed there by being given lethal injections of gasoline or phenol directly to their hearts, shot or starved. Others were forced outside in winter without clothing until they died of exposure or were put to death in a gas chamber.Last year, a former SS private, Bruno Dey, was convicted at age 93 of more than 5,000 counts of accessory to murder for serving at Stutthof as a guard and given a two-year suspended sentence.
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The COVID-19 pandemic brought Greece’s most profitable industry, tourism, to its knees.Yet a year since the deadly bug hit this sun-kissed nation of 11 million, causing mass travel cancellations and wreaking financial havoc unseen since Greece’s economy went into freefall over a decade ago, tourism officials say they are now marshaling an industry comeback. They are preparing to reopen the country to world travelers by June 1 with a new “safe travel” plan that lets visitors bypass quarantine regulations with a negative coronavirus test taken within 72 hours of their departure.What’s more, a burst in bookings from the U.K. has industry officials banking on British travelers to spearhead the nation’s travel revival.”Greece has long been a favorite holiday destination for the British,” said Grigoris Tassios, president of the country’s hoteliers federation. “But with the rate of inoculations in the U.K. largely outpacing all others across Europe and beyond, British travelers will be among the safest to travel here by as early as May.”With more than a quarter of Israel’s population of 9 million inoculated in the world’s fastest vaccination drive against COVID-19, Israelis, too, are expected to follow suit, as are Americans.This week, U.S. health officials announced that more Americans had received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine than have tested positive for the virus.”These are all promising signs,” Tassios said. “But we still have a way to go.”FILE – Tourists look at the changing of presidential guards outside the Greek parliament , in Athens, July 31, 2020.Tourism stalledGlobal tourism has been among the industries hit hardest by the public health emergency. The pandemic has affected 75 million people employed in a sector brought to a near standstill by travel bans and closed borders.But for Greece, where tourism accounts for 20 percent of GDP, providing one in five jobs in a country still crawling out of its worst financial crisis in recent times, the stakes are higher.A recent report by the financial risk advisory services group Ernst & Young showed Europe’s weakest economy shrinking an additional 10 percent in 2020 because of an 80 percent drop in tourism revenue. It forecast a 50 percent rise this year — half of the record 30 million travelers that flooded Greece ahead of the health crisis in 2019 — but only if, as experts warn, the conservative government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis delivers on the daunting task of balancing the safety of a nation with the economic boost more visitors would bring to a country in dire need of financial recovery.It is not an easy challenge. After five strict months, three national lockdowns and a surge in infections that has seen COVID-19 cases here rocket from 3,000 in September to 160,000 this week, Mitsotakis and his closest aides are now said to be considering the fiercest national shutdown orders yet in a bid to stunt a third wave of COVID-19 sweeping Greece — and to salvage the nation’s anemic economy.But until then, tourism businesses and hoteliers, who preferred to remain closed last year, are wasting no time positioning themselves for a stake in the estimated $10 billion in revenues that British travelers are set to bring to Greece this year, beginning in June.FILE – A French family poses in front of the ancient Parthenon, at the Acropolis Hill, during a hot day in Athens, July 31, 2020.’The chips are down’As many as 2 million foreign travelers will be redeeming vouchers for vacation packages canceled last summer because of the pandemic, according to industry data. The number of Israelis and Americans following suit remains unclear.”Not opening is not an option this year,” said Alexis Komninos, a leading hotelier on the iconic island of Santorini. “The chips are down, and it’s clearly crunch time.”But while I and others in the industry are doing our part, doling out the cold cash to refurbish, rebuild and slash my prices by 40 percent in flash sales to lure British, German and other customers, the government must do its part in helping subsidize this national reopening.”This isn’t about some sort of business experiment,” said Komninos. “It is a national gambit. And if this season is lost — well, then we’re all in for a really rough ride.”Tourism ministry officials say they have received assurances from the government that it will subsidize salaries in the industry during the summer. Still, it has yet to decide when and whether incentives will be introduced to cover startup and reopening costs and support a hoteliers bill seen by some as key to any comeback in Greek tourism. 
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The Russian government said Friday it was expelling Western diplomats for attending rallies in support of jailed opposition politician Alexey Navalny. Diplomats from Poland and Sweden in St. Petersburg and from Germany in Moscow were targeted for participating in “unlawful” rallies on January 23, according to Russia’s foreign ministry. Tens of thousands of protesters filled the streets across Russia that day to express opposition to the arrest of Navalny, the Kremlin’s leading critic.  Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell hold a joint press conference following their talks in Moscow, Feb. 5, 2021.The ministry made the announcement as the European Union’s most senior diplomat told Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that the government’s treatment of Navalny represents “a low point” in relations between the 27-nation bloc and Moscow. In a statement, the ministry declared the diplomats “persona non grata” and said they must leave Russia “shortly.” A Swedish Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said the country refutes Russia’s claim that the Swedish diplomat participated in the demonstration. German Chancellor Angela Merkel denounced the move and said after discussing security issues with French President Emmanuel Macron that “We consider this expulsion to be unjustified.” Poland’s foreign ministry said in a statement that “The Polish side expects the Russian authorities to reverse this erroneous decision” or “Otherwise, Poland leaves itself the option to take appropriate steps.” After his virtual meeting with Merkel, Macron said at a Paris news conference that he “very strongly” opposes Friday’s expulsions and Russia’s arrest and alleged poisoning of Navalny. FILE – A still image taken from video footage shows Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny making a hand heart gesture during the announcement of a court verdict in Moscow, Russia, Feb. 2, 2021.A Russian court Tuesday sentenced Navalny to three-and-a-half years in prison, defying condemnation abroad and public outcry at home to send one of the Kremlin’s most vocal critics to jail.    The court found Navalny violated his parole from a prior 2014 suspended sentence by failing to notify prison authorities of his whereabouts when he was evacuated to Berlin for treatment following a near-fatal poisoning attack.   Navalny insists, and international media investigations suggest, the poison attack was carried out by Russian security services who laced his underwear with a military-grade nerve agent while the opposition leader was traveling in Siberia last August. Russian authorities deny this. FILE – Law enforcement officers stand guard during a demonstration after Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in jail, in Moscow, Feb. 2, 2021.Navalny’s sentencing triggered new protests Tuesday in Moscow and St. Petersburg that followed large demonstrations over the past two weekends, resulting in the arrest of more 1,400 protesters. Russian police beat many peaceful protesters and used stun guns against some in an attempt to suppress the opposition. Lavrov defended the Russian police response to the protests, contending it was much less forceful than some police actions against demonstrators in Western countries. 
 
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The German government on Friday welcomed President Joe Biden’s decision to formally halt the planned withdrawal of U.S. troops from Germany, arguing that the troops’ stationing there is “in our mutual interest.”
 
Last year, then-President Donald Trump announced that he was going to pull out about 9,500 of the roughly 34,500 U.S. troops stationed in Germany, but the withdrawal never actually began.
 
Biden said Thursday that the pullout would be halted until Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reviews America’s troop presence around the globe.
 
“The German government welcomes this announcement,” Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, told reporters in Berlin. He said that “we will remain in contact with the new American administration on its further plans.”
 
“We have always been convinced that the stationing of American troops here in Germany serves European and trans-Atlantic security, and so is in our mutual interest,” Seibert said. “We very much value this close, decades-long cooperation with the Americans’ forces that are stationed in Germany.”
 
Asked whether Germany would make any concrete offers to persuade the U.S. not to withdraw troops, Seibert said that Berlin will follow developments but “how these reviews go is an internal American matter.”
 
The U.S. has several major military facilities in Germany, including Ramstein Air Base, the headquarters for U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command, and Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, the largest American military hospital outside the United States.
 
Trump’s order met resistance from Congress as well as from within the military, which has long relied on Germany as a key ally and base of operations.
 
Trump announced the troop cuts after repeatedly accusing Germany of not paying enough for its own defense, calling the longtime NATO ally “delinquent” for failing to spend 2% of its GDP on defense, a benchmark that alliance members have pledged to work toward.
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