A Russia blogger has gone viral with a video prank that inadvertently goes to the heart of a debate over how much public support for Russian President Vladimir Putin enjoys after 20 years in power and counting.   The discussion was launched after blogger Bashir Dokhov posted a video to Youtube in which he glues a large portrait of the Russian leader on the wall of a Moscow apartment elevator.”I’ll put a camera in the corner, too,” says Dokhov, while setting up the joke. “God forbid someone should steal him.”Putin’s picture remained, but reactions to seeing the Russian leader weren’t kind.  Four-letter words abound as startled Russians enter the lift. “Why is he here?” asks one passenger. “What a nightmare!” exclaims another, who then proceeds to bow before the portrait while laughing as her friend snaps a picture.“It’s the worst thing that could possibly happen to our home,” says yet another resident.  But not to Youtube. The video already has had more than 2 million views and counting after just three days.     Putin’s popularity  Beyond the intended laughs, the video has renewed a long simmering debate in Russia: How popular is Vladimir Putin really?  According to polls, Putin has been Russia’s lone towering figure in politics for most of his 20 years in power —  with popularity ratings any western politician would envy.  State polling agencies find the Russian leader’s support at about 73%. Independent Russian pollsters, such as the respected Levada Center, peg that number a bit lower — at 68%.“The rating is rather stable and went up in 2019,” explains Levada’s Denis Volkov to VOA, noting the Kremlin leader’s numbers fluctuated amid the introduction of an unpopular pension reform the year prior.  Putin’s peak came in 2014, when Russia’s annexation of Crimea from neighboring Ukraine saw Putin’s numbers soar to 86%.Yet dig deeper and the numbers vary.  Putin’s trust and “electoral ratings” — which ask whether you would vote to reelect the president were an election held next week — prompt far less impressive results. Just 33%, according to a 2019 poll.  Case in point that the Kremlin pays attention: Putin announced a slew of reforms during his annual state of the nation speech last month — later installing a new Prime Minister amid promises that the focus of his 4th term in office would be improving Russians lives.The other point of the speech? Constitutional reforms aimed — perhaps — at extending Putin’s influence beyond the end of his current and final term in 2024.  Indeed, Kremlin critics have long argued that even the most scientifically rigorous samples are skewed by a lack of political alternatives, state propaganda, or misleading questions by pollsters.  In that regard, Kremlin opponents saw the elevator stunt as a simple up or down vote on Putin’s performance. A case of reality at last unfiltered.“You watch these types of videos and don’t understand why Putin is still in power. There’s no more myth of 86% support,” tweeted Alexander Golovach, a lawyer affiliated with opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, in referring to Putin’s peak approval rating.A Russian prankster glued a massive portrait of President Vladimir Putin to the inside of a residential elevator. He then placed a camera in the elevator to record people’s reactions pic.twitter.com/EwMradd3yl— The Moscow Times (@MoscowTimes) February 11, 2020“Ingenious! It’s the best sociological survey of those I know,” wrote one viewer in responding to the video on Youtube. “And probably the most honest!”Yet another factor in the Russian leader’s numbers? Geography.   Surveys show Putin’s support is strongest in the regions where the leader has garnered support with a mix of anti-western rhetoric and traditional conservative values.   Yet critics note those same surveys provide Russians a rare opportunity to reach out to Moscow with problems of more immediate concern. “Why bite the hand that feeds?” the argument goes.  Russia’s urban centers certainly have been ground zero of opposition protests — a sentiment perhaps reflected in the Moscow elevator stunt.  Indeed, the prank’s author insisted his “elevator sample” wasn’t scientific in the least.   In an interview Monday with Echo of Moscow radio, the blogger Bashir Dokhov, admitted he’d simply culled the most entertaining reactions.“There were lots of times when people didn’t react at all,” says Dokhov. “Others just took selfies.”  
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Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is threatening to escalate fighting against Syrian government forces following Monday’s killing of Turkish soldiers. The warning comes in the face of calls for restraint from Moscow, but Erdogan is facing growing domestic pressure for an uncompromising stance.”We have given the necessary response and retaliated in kind, but this is not enough,” Erdogan said Tuesday. The Turkish military claimed to have hit more than 100 targets of Damascus forces Monday.  The strikes were in response to the killing of five Turkish soldiers by artillery from Syrian forces in Idlib province.  Erdogan said Tuesday he would announce what new military steps he will take. He met Monday with his military commanders to discuss the Syrian situation.  In the space of a week, 12 Turkish soldiers have been killed by regime forces in Idlib. The Turkish president is facing growing domestic pressure to hit back.”What are you waiting for? Don’t beat around the bush while Turkish soldiers are being martyred in attacks carried out by soldiers of another state,” Meral Aksener, leader of the IYI Party, said in a meeting of her party’s parliamentary group.”(Syrian leader Bashar al-) Assad is a murderer, a criminal and the source of hostility,” said Devlet Bahceli, the MHP leader and parliamentary coalition partner of Erdogan’s AKP. Bahceli turned up the pressure on Erdogan, calling on Turkish forces to march on Damascus, saying until Assad’s removal, there will be “no peace.””By saying such things, they [Bahceli and Aksener] are cornering Erdogan. They are pressuring him, he may feel compelled into taking steps he doesn’t want,” said international relations teacher Soli Ozel of Istanbul’s Kadir Has University.Analysts point out Bahceli’s party is increasingly making inroads into Erdogan’s AKP nationalist voter base. “The basis of [Turkish] foreign relations needs to be viewed through the prism of domestic policy,” said analyst Sezer Aydin.Turkish soldiers drink tea in the Syrian province of Idlib, Feb. 10, 2020. Turkey said it hit back at Syrian government forces on Monday, after “intense” Syrian shelling killed five of its soldiers and wounded five others.Erdogan appears to be leaving all options on the table with the Turkish army continuing to ramp up its deployment into Idlib.Ankara set up 12 military observation posts across Idlib as part of the 2018 agreement with Moscow to create a de-escalation zone aimed at ending fighting between Syrian government and rebel forces.  While Moscow backs Damascus and Ankara backs the rebels, the two countries have been cooperating to end the civil war. But the escalating violence in Idlib is putting increasing pressure on that cooperation.Tuesday, Moscow called on Ankara to end its military operations against Damascus and to enforce the 2018 deescalation agreement in Idlib. Russian diplomats accuse Turkish military forces of failing to disarm groups designated as terrorists in Idlib, a charge Ankara denies.On Tuesday, a Russian diplomatic delegation visiting Turkey to seek a solution to Idlib left for home after talks ended in deadlock.Turkish-Russian relations came under further pressure. “We genuinely hope that the [Turkish] government reviews its relations with Russia,” Bahceli said, describing recent diplomatic efforts over Idlib as “nothing but a fairy tale.”Damascus forces backed by Russian airpower are continuing to advance in Idlib. Tuesday saw rebels lose control of the last part of the critical M5 highway, which links Damascus with Aleppo, one of Syria’s main cities.U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo holds a joint news conference with Kazakh Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tleuberdi (not pictured) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, Feb. 2, 2020.While tensions between Moscow and Ankara escalate, Washington has been quick to offer support to its NATO ally. “My condolences to the families of the soldiers killed in yesterday’s [Monday’s] attack in Idlib. The ongoing assaults by the Assad regime and Russia must stop,” tweeted U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “I’ve sent Jim Jeffrey to Ankara to coordinate steps to respond to this destabilizing attack. We stand by our NATO Ally #Turkey,” he added.U.S. ambassador Jeffrey is the Special Representative for Syrian Engagement and Special Envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. Arriving Tuesday in Turkey, Jeffrey said threats were coming from Assad, and he will closely cooperate with “our ally” Turkey and wants to provide “any support possible.”Ankara’s recent rapprochement with Moscow has deeply strained Turkish-U.S. ties, with fears Turkey was abandoning its traditional Western allies.”Washington wishes to put an end to this estrangement,” said Ozel. “If you look at the statements coming from the American authorities and NATO, and they are giving more and more support for Turkey and Turkey’s position and Turkey is edging closer and closer to the United States and its allies in NATO.””Even in Ankara, they finally realize they cannot go so far with Russia, the interests are opposite to one another,” he added. “But Erdogan will not want to confront the Russians as they do have a lot of leverage over Turkey.”   Washington’s strong support of Ankara, analysts say, could strengthen Erdogan’s hand when he speaks by telephone Wednesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a call that analysts say could well determine Erdogan’s course of action in Idlib and broader trajectory of Turkish foreign policy.
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It could have been a scene taken from “The Thick of It,” the internationally acclaimed British comedy series satirizing the inner workings of the British government.The country’s top political reporters, collectively known as the Lobby, were summoned last week to No. 10 Downing Street for a special post-Brexit briefing, but once they had arrived, those considered hostile to Brexit or Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government were excluded.That provoked the fury of the entire Lobby with all reporters walking out in protest. Britain’s main national newspapers reacted in anger — with even pro-Johnson tabloid newspapers criticizing the rare upset of the well-established protocols of parliamentary reporting and the Conservative government’s seeming determination to pick and choose who receives briefings.“Information which should be available on the record, and of a type which was briefed freely in the past, is now being handed out as a favor to selected journalists in the expectation of favorable coverage,” said Adam Boulton, political editor of Sky News. “No. 10 is trying to control the media, and everyone in our democracy should be afraid,” he tweeted.Last week’s spat came just days after Cabinet ministers were told to boycott a flagship BBC morning radio news program, which has a reputation for criticizing government officials. The squabble is being seen as an opening skirmish in what’s likely to turn into a long-running Johnson campaign to try to refashion key British institutions in ways more favorable to the ruling Conservatives, also known as Tories.Dominic Cummings a British political strategist and special adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson walks into 10 Downing Street in London, July 30, 2019. Prime Minister Johnson and his chief strategic adviser, Dominic Cummings, an iconoclast who’s been likened to Steve Bannon, U.S. President Donald Trump’s onetime firebrand counselor, appear determined to remake the BBC and the civil service, curb what they see as judicial overreach and political activism by judges, sidestep the so-called mainstream media and shake up Britain’s liberal-leaning universities.Not since Britain’s Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, took on public institutions in the 1990s, lambasted reporters as “moaning minnies,” (Note: minny is a carp fish) and described her Cabinet ministers as lacking a backbone, has Britain’s so-called establishment been so nervous — and outraged.The wider war was declared by Cummings in his less than discreet blog last month when he complained about what he dubbed “The Blob,” a reference to the 1988 remake of a Hollywood science fiction movie of the same name in which an amorphous, amoeba-like organism devours everything in its path. Cummings’ “blob” is an eclectic mix of cautious bureaucrats, academics, the mainstream media, judges and the traditional mouthpieces of British business, the Confederation of British Industry, the CBI, and the Institute of Directors.FILE – The sun shines through a European Union flag hanging outside Parliament in London, Oct. 28, 2019.For Cummings and his boss they are reactionary forces, which are pro-European Union, liberal-leaning and far too politically correct — as well as lacking optimism about post-Brexit Britain and Downing Street’s upbeat vision of a “global Britain.”Recently, Cummings called for “weirdos and misfits” to apply for jobs in Downing Street and the government quarter of Whitehall, saying what the new Johnson government needs is “true cognitive diversity” and not “more drivel about ‘identity’ and ‘diversity’ from Oxbridge humanities graduates.”Graduates from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge have traditionally dominated the corridors of British power.The Johnson-led and Cummings-advised government is moving quickly to combat the blob. Ministers are talking about decriminalizing non-payment of television licenses, which partly fund the BBC. And they are considering a judicial shake-up which could see Britain’s Supreme Court disbanded. Judges could see more restrictions introduced to hedge in their discretionary powers when sentencing.FILE – A street cleaner clears fall leaves from the front of 10 Downing Street, London, Britain, Nov. 6, 2019.The Downing Street door is being slammed shut on the CBI and the Institute of Directors. None of their officials was invited this month to a keynote Johnson speech outlining his plans for post-Brexit Britain.And when it comes to the mainstream media, the government is copying the Trump White House by using social media sites — from Twitter to YouTube — to promote its governing narrative. On Brexit night, Johnson did not appear on any national television programs to welcome in a new era; instead Downing Street posted a broadcast straight to the internet.Johnson supporters say the British prime minister has no choice but to take on the blob. Allister Heath, editor of The Sunday Telegraph and a prominent Johnson cheerleader, says, “It’s now or never – Boris must beat the Blob or be suffocated by it.” He says the blob exists, “but no longer in small town America: its new home is Whitehall, and it has developed a predilection for gobbling up Tory politicians and advisers.”Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrives for an EU summit in Brussels, Dec. 12, 2019. Others, though, see the Johnson game plan as having political affinity with the populist shake-up under way in Hungary, where Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a champion of what he once dubbed “illiberal democracy,” has taken on his country’s public institutions and battled a not dissimilar cast of foes.Last month, Orban praised Johnson as one of the “the most courageous, the most dynamic” leaders and one of the most likely “to effect change.” A former Johnson aide and influential Conservative commentator, Tim Montgomerie, returned the compliment at two research group events in December and January in Budapest, Hungary, where he praised Orban for “interesting early thinking on the limits of liberalism” and compared the two populist leaders.He said, “Long-term trends in economics and culture” are “changing how people align themselves,” and predicted Johnson’s Britain and Orban’s Hungary would forge a “special relationship.”But not all Johnson supporters are as sanguine and fear the British prime minister may be over-reaching by taking on too many powerful institutions at once. Writing in the business daily City AM, Michael Hayman, a co-founder of Seven Hills, a London-based communication consultancy, warned, “Boris has a war to fight, and he’s going to need all the friends he can get.”
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President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump will host the administration’s third state dinner in April, for King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain, the White House announced Tuesday.The fancy, black-tie dinner — a diplomatic tool often reserved for America’s staunchest allies — is part of a state visit scheduled for April 21 to celebrate close ties between the two countries, press secretary Stephanie Grisham said.”The visit will celebrate our two countries’ close friendship and shared history, and reaffirm our commitments to stand together to address today’s global challenges,” Grisham said in a statement.King Felipe and Trump met in the Oval Office in June 2018 during a royal tour of the U.S. to mark the 300th anniversaries of the founding of New Orleans and San Antonio, cities with historical ties to Spain.FILE – President Donald Trump, right, speaks while meeting with Spain’s King Felipe VI, left, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, June 19, 2018.Trump, at the time, praised the “outstanding” relationship between the U.S. and Spain and cited excellent cooperation between them on trade and military defense.”Just about everything you can have,” Trump said. “So we love Spain.”The relationship has weathered a few bumps in the road, however. One area of cooperation has been a long-term agreement that allows the U.S. to use two military bases in Spain. But with Trump threatening Europe with tariffs, it has been suggested that Spain might eventually dangle the base deal as leverage.Spain’s new foreign minister, Arancha Gonzalez Laya, told the Spanish daily El Pais in an interview published Sunday that she wants “to find a meeting point and a balance in which the United States finds things it considers important and Spain too. Obviously, access to the American market for Spanish products is important.”The interview followed a telephone conversation she had with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.Gonzalez Laya has said she plans to visit the U.S. in February.Past relationshipA pre-Iraq war meeting in 2003 in the Azores between President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar represented a new peak for Spain’s standing with the U.S.But the subsequent decision by Aznar’s successor, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq after he took office in 2004 soured ties considerably.Barack Obama’s arrival at the White House saw relations improve, and he and Zapatero were seen as good friends. The relationship has held steady with Trump first hosting former premier Mariano Rajoy in 2017 and preparing to meet new Socialist Premier Minister Pedro Sanchez.The Trump administration’s previous state dinners were for France in April 2018 and Australia in September 2019.
 
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Ukraine’s first and currently only television channel in the Crimean Tatar language says it is on the brink of shutting down operations due to lack of government funding.ATR hasn’t received $2 million that the government allocated for the channel in this year’s state budget, a statement by the channel said on Feb. 10.The channel said it received $610,000 on its account on Dec. 28, but couldn’t access the money because banks were closed that day so it had to return the money, as required by law.A portion of the $2 million that was allocated this year was transferred to ATR’s account, but the channel said the state treasury had blocked access to it.In response, ATR has launched a fundraising campaign and is broadcasting from an empty studio without presenters and guests.ATR is a part of a media holding that is majority-owned by Lenur Islyamov and initially stopped broadcasting in Crimea after the occupying Russian authorities refused to issue a broadcasting license after annexing the Ukrainian peninsula in 2014.It resumed broadcasting on June 17, 2015, in Kyiv via satellite throughout Ukraine, including in Crimea, supported mostly with government money.Islyamov said in a statement that without the channel, Ukraine will never get back Crimea.”We know who our focus group is. We know it is the people who support us, those people who know about us, and those who want to return to Crimea with us,” he said. “Without us, we won’t be able to return to Crimea. We are the bridge that is being laid to Crimea.”Due to the financial shortfall, ATR has slashed 90 percent of its own programming, dismissed 45 percent of its staff, reduced news broadcasts, and stopped broadcasting live, Islyamov said.In addition to ATR, a children’s TV channel and a radio channel are part of the holding.Separately in January, Ukraine’s public broadcaster shut down international broadcasting and closed its Crimean Tatar-, Arabic-, and English-language departments. 
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British police said on Tuesday that two more arrests had been made over the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants found in the back of a truck near London last year while investigations indicated they had died of overheating and lack of oxygen.
The victims, who included two 15-year-old boys, were found on an industrial estate in Grays in Essex, about 20 miles (32 km) east of London in October.Mostly from Nghe An and Ha Tinh provinces in north-central Vietnam, their deaths shone a light on the human smuggling trade.Autopsies had concluded that the provisional cause of death was a combination of hypoxia – oxygen deprivation – and hyperthermia – overheating – in an enclosed space.Essex Police said a 22-year-old man had been arrested in Northern Ireland on Sunday on suspicion of manslaughter and facilitating unlawful immigration. He was now in custody in Essex.Last week, British police along with German authorities detained Gheorghe Nica, 43, who was wanted on a European Arrest Warrant, at Frankfurt Airport.Nica, who lives near Grays, appeared in court on Saturday accused of 39 counts of manslaughter and one count of conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration and is due to reappear at London’s Old Bailey court on March 16.”Our teams are continuing to progress hundreds of lines of inquiry and are working with the National Crime Agency and other law enforcement agencies from across the globe to further their lengthy and complex investigation,” Essex Police said.Maurice Robinson, the British driver of the truck who hailed from Northern Ireland, admitted last November plotting to assist unlawful immigration and acquiring criminal property.British authorities are also trying to extradite Eamonn Harrison, 23, from Ireland on charges of manslaughter, human trafficking and immigration offenses. He is due at Dublin’s High Court on Wednesday.Police have said the Vietnamese victims were found not long after the container arrived in Britain from Zeebrugge in Belgium. The refrigerated unit was picked up at Purfleet dock, not far from Grays, while police believe the truck cab was driven over from Ireland. 
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The Kremlin said on Tuesday that a senior Ukrainian-born Russian official was now in charge of managing Moscow’s relations with Ukraine, a move likely to be seen by some politicians in Kyiv as further evidence of a slight thaw in ties.President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Dmitry Kozak, deputy head of the Russian presidential administration, was now the most senior Kremlin official when it came to Ukraine.Kozak, a lawyer by education, was born in what used to be Soviet Ukraine.Vladislav Surkov, seen as a hardliner by many in Kyiv, had previously overseen Russia’s relations with Ukraine, a role that saw him negotiate and advise Putin on the subject. Peskov said Surkov still worked for the Kremlin, but did not elaborate.Relations between Moscow and Kyiv were derailed after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014 and Moscow-backed separatists launched an uprising in the Donbas, eastern Ukraine, that has killed more than 13,000 people. Russia denies any role in the conflict.Russia and Ukraine are wrangling over how to implement a peace deal on the Donbas, but major disagreements remain and full normalisation is far off.Under Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, there has been some movement however with a peace summit held in Paris in December with the leaders of Russia, France and Germany. That was followed by a large-scale prisoner swap.Zelenskiy on Tuesday appointed a former lawyer called Andriy Yermak as his chief of staff.Yermak, who was involved in negotiating prisoner swaps with Russia, told the Ukraine 24 TV channel on Monday that he had met Kozak and thought he was an improvement over Surkov.”It seems to me that he (Kozak) is more inclined to dialogue. And on the issues on which I spoke with him, I can say that we had constructive communication, without which nothing would be possible of what we have already seen,” Ukraine’s UNIAN news agency cited Yermak as saying. 
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Ireland’s main opposition party Fianna Fail won the most seats in the country’s 160-seat parliament, one more than the outsider, left-wing Sinn Fein, which scored an unprecedented result in Saturday’s general election. Sinn Fein, notorious for its links with the outlawed Irish Republican Army, won nearly 25% of the vote in a tight race with two mainstream parties, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports, the success of an outsider party reflects voter discontent with politics as usual.
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Germany’s closely watched impending decision on whether and to what extent to allow Huawei, the Chinese tech giant, to enter its next generation telecommunications infrastructure may yield a result as early as Tuesday, sources tell VOA.The decision “is imminent,” says Emily Haber, German ambassador to the United States, in answer to a question raised by VOA Monday afternoon concerning the German government’s stance with regard to Huawei.“Any decision we take will factor in the relevance of the trustworthiness of the provider,” Haber added.VOA has since learned from diplomatic sources that “imminent” could mean as early as Tuesday February 11th when German lawmakers convene in Berlin.Jacob F. Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics, thinks Germany could end up following Britain’s precedence and reach a compromise solution “between Merkel’s permissive ‘few limits suggestion and the more restrictive line called for by many backbench MPs, led by Norbert Roettgen,” Kirkegaard told VOA.Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel is seen as wanting to work with Beijing in order to secure German business interests in China, while Roettgen, also a member of the governing Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and chairman of the influential Foreign Affairs Committee in the Bundestag, has made  no secret of his mistrust of Huawei.Roettgen pinned his tweet from November 23rd following a CDU vote in which he declared the unanimous vote a huge victory and an unambiguous declaration of where CDU stands on this issue.Unser #Initiativantrag zu #5G wurde beim #cdupt19 einstimmig beschlossen – ein Riesenerfolg! Die Debatte kommt in den #Bundestag. Klare Position der @CDU gegen Einfluss ausländischer Staaten in deutsche kritische Infrastruktur & für eine europäische Lösung! pic.twitter.com/W3uvLAxWJU— Norbert Röttgen (@n_roettgen) November 23, 2019CDU position “against foreign influence in critical German infrastructure” as well as its determination to find a European solution are “clear,” he tweeted, “next comes the parliamentary debate” which could take place Tuesday in Berlin, sources tell VOA.In Kirkegaard’s opinion, Germany could also impose a ceiling on Huawei’s market share and attempt to prevent the company from supplying “core network” components, a measure Britain has recently announced, in spite of Washington’s strong objection.He nonetheless points out that given the 5G technology’s largely “cloud”-based feature, it remains “technically unclear” how core and peripheral distinction could be meaningfully established.Should the German parliament vote Huawei out of Germany’s 5G telecommunications infrastructure, it would be a huge surprise to many, including Kirkegaard. Should it happen, it would constitute a “huge defeat for Merkel,” he says, even as Merkel’s party is thrown into turmoil as her designated successor Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer announced her decision to step down as chairman of the CDU on Monday.It remains to be seen whether the latest development within the CDU could affect the German parliament’s debate on Huawei.Speaking along with the German ambassador at an event hosted by the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies Monday afternoon, Piotr Wilczek, Poland’s ambassador to the United States, said “there’s been a big effort” on the part of all EU countries “to provide Brussels with our positions” on the issue of Huawei.“Now we’re in the process of discussing this in more detail,” Wilczek said, in answer to VOA’s question on his country’s position with regard to Huawei. “Poland and I believe Romania are the only countries that have signed a declaration with the United States, stating just that we’ll be very careful in choosing providers and providers should be very reliable,” he added, without naming any company by name.“This is a very complicated issue … a difficult decision,” he says, “because it’s about the quality of services, of various providers; we know some of them are very much advanced, and some of them are not so much advanced but perhaps more reliable.”Earlier, Norbert Roettgen, the German lawmaker who has openly expressed his concerns about Huawei, stated that when it comes to which providers to be let in, “You don’t just need technical certainty, you need the suppliers to be politically trustworthy, too.” A bill that Roettgen helped draft requires that any company designated as “untrustworthy” be excluded “from both the core and peripheral networks.”Roettgen tweeted on February 8 that the United States and the EU “could team up to counter China’s 5G dominance.”  “We share the same security concerns and should cooperate to expand alternatives.”  He added that “but to do so, we must know that tariffs against Brussels are off the table.  Partners don’t threaten one another,” in a reference to tariffs U.S. President Donald Trump has said he would impose on a number of European imports, including on German automobiles.The #USA & EU could team up to counter #China’s #5G dominance. We share the same security concerns & should cooperate to expand 🇪🇺 alternatives. But to do so we must know that tariffs against Brussels are off the table. Partners don’t threaten one another. https://t.co/ZPvZFKWNYq— Norbert Röttgen (@n_roettgen) February 8, 2020Huawei has repeatedly denied that it is beholden to the Chinese government and its political demands. China’s top envoy to Berlin has made it clear that Beijing “will not stand idly by” should Germany’s decision on Huawei turns out to be unfavorable to Beijing. “If Germany were to make a decision that led to Huawei’s exclusion from the German market, there will be consequences,” Wu Ken is quoted as saying. Whichever way Germany decides, its decision likely will have significant impact on the other European Union countries. Political influence aside, the fact that Germany takes up about 30% of the EU’s 5G market is “enough for pan-EU operators to follow its lead,” according to the Peterson Institute’s Kirkegaard.
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A Belfast couple were on Tuesday set to become the first same-sex couple to get married in Northern Ireland after a change in the law.Robyn Peoples, 26, and Sharni Edwards, 27, were due to wed at 2:00 pm (1400 GMT) in Carrickfergus, near Belfast, after the new legislation came into effect on Monday.It followed campaigning by Amnesty International and partner organizations in the “Love Equality” campaign, which hailed the occasion “a landmark moment for equality in Northern Ireland.””We didn’t set out to make history — we just fell in love,” Edwards said ahead of the nuptials in a statement released by the campaign.”We are so grateful to the thousands of people who marched for our freedoms, to the Love Equality campaign who led the way, and the politicians who voted to change the law.”Without you, our wedding wouldn’t have been possible. We will be forever thankful.”Her soon-to-be wife Peoples added: “While this campaign ends with Sharni and I saying ‘I do,’ it started with people saying ‘no’ to inequality. By standing together, we’ve made history.”British MPs in London passed legislation last July, while Northern Ireland’s devolved government was suspended, to allow gay marriages and same-sex civil partnerships.The move, which brought the province into line with the rest of the UK, was opposed by a group of local lawmakers but they failed in a last-minute bid in October to block its implementation.London spent the intervening months drawing up new regulations to apply to the marriages and partnerships — with the first permitted to happen this week.In the meantime, Northern Ireland’s political parties also agreed to restart power-sharing in Belfast.Activists, British MPs including Northern Ireland Secretary of State Julian Smith, and others will celebrate the occasion at a parliamentary event in London later on Tuesday.Sara Canning, the partner of journalist Lyra McKee who was killed by dissident republicans in the Northern Irish city of Londonderry last year, helped to campaign for the change.”Of course, this historic moment is a little bittersweet. It had been our dream too. Lyra and I should have been an engaged couple now, planning our own wedding day,” she said in the statement.
 
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A storm battered Europe with hurricane-force winds and heavy rains, killing at least seven people and causing severe travel disruptions as it moved eastward across the continent Monday and bore down on Germany.After striking Britain and Ireland on Sunday, the storm moved on, leaving a trail of damage including power cuts for tens of thousands of homes across Europe.A woman and her 15-year-old daughter died in Poland after the storm ripped off the roof of a ski rental equipment building in the mountain resort of Bukowina Tatrzanska and sent it hurtling onto people standing near a ski lift, police said. Three people also were injured in the incident.In Sweden, one man drowned after the boat he and another person were sailing in on the southern lake of Fegen capsized. The victim was washed ashore and later died. The other person is still missing, according to the Aftonbladet daily.Two men, one in the north of Slovenia and another in southern England, also died after their cars were hit by falling trees. And in Germany, a driver died after crashing his truck into a trailer parked by workers clearing storm debris off a highway in the southern state of Hesse.The jib of a crane is seen after it fell onto the roof of Frankfurt Cathedral during a storm, in Frankfurt, Germany, Feb. 10, 2020.Police in the Czech Republic said the storm likely was to blame for a car accident that killed the man driving and injured a woman passenger. Investigators think a tree fell on the car, which skidded off the road and and overturned.The number of Czech households without electricity reached 290,000, according to power company CEZ.Britain, which bore the brunt of the storm on Sunday, was assessing the damage and working to get power restored to 20,000 homes. However, for parts of northern England and Scotland, the respite is set to be brief, with forecasts of blizzards and snow.Many parts of the country were mopping up after a month and a half’s rain fell in just 24 hours in some places and rivers burst their banks. Though 360 flood warnings have been removed as the storm moves on, around 75 remain in place across the country.The River Irwell burst its banks in northwest England, prompting authorities to evacuate residents. And in the Scottish town of Hawick, which borders England, a guest house and bistro collapsed into the raging River Teviot. No one was injured.In another dramatic scene, a driver managed to escape unhurt in the early hours of Monday when a car fell nose-first into a sinkhole in a residential street in the town of Brentwood, east of London. Six properties had to be evacuated due to the unstable ground that is said to have been linked to a partially collapsed sewer. The emergency services made the scene safe just before daybreak.The British government said it was offering financial compensation through its emergency Bellwin scheme. Under the scheme, local authorities dealing with the storm can apply to have certain costs reimbursed.Transport authorities were also working hard to clear up the mess. Network Rail, which runs the country’s rail infrastructure, said thousands of engineers had “battled horrendous conditions” after the storm blew trees, sheds, roofs and even trampolines onto the tracks.Ferries were operating across the English Channel after being closed down on Sunday, though P&O Ferries said in a tweet that further disruptions were possible.Airlines operating to and from U.K. airports were still being affected by the storm, with more than 100 flights canceled.”We’re getting in touch with those affected, and have brought in extra customer teams to help them with a range of options including a full refund or an alternative flight between now and Thursday,” British Airways said in a statement.The storm had largely passed through France by midday, though meteorologists warned that the Mediterranean island of Corsica could later see winds as high as 200 kph (124 mph). Up to 130,000 homes stretching from Brittany, in western France, through Normandy and the northern regions were without power Monday morning.In Germany, utility companies were also scrambling to restore power to some 50,000 homes in northern Bavaria, where a top wind of over 160 kph (100 mph) was recorded. The storm resulted in a record amount of electricity being fed into the German grid from wind turbines, equivalent to almost 44 nuclear power plants.Train travel across Europe’s biggest economy was also severely disrupted, leaving many commuters unable to get to work. Deutsche Bahn said Monday it was slowly resuming long-distance rail services in the north of the country but warned travelers to expect further disruptions. Airlines canceled hundreds of flights from German airports.The storm, which was dubbed Sabine in Germany, also led to school closures in several cities and regions, including North Rhine-Westphalia state, where several people were injured by falling branches and toppling trees. Parts of a construction crane fell onto the roof of Frankfurt Cathedral overnight.Even though there were no reported fatalities in Belgium, the storm had an emotional impact in the central town of Zottegem, where a scenic 150-year-old poplar tree was snapped at its roots, before falling and being pulverized on a country road.The tree had been granted protected status by the Flemish regional government and locals now plan to have a special remembrance service on Friday.”The tree meant so much to everyone,” Stefan Fostier, the driving force behind the initiative, told The Associated Press. “It will be a moment to honor the tree.”
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Ukraine’s foreign minister said on Monday he saw no preparations taking place for a promised summit over the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine, adding that he had little hope it would make any progress even if it goes ahead.The leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany met in Paris in December to discuss the long-running Ukraine crisis and agreed to get together again within four months to keep the dialogue open.FILE – Ukrainian Minister for Foreign Affairs Vadym Prystayko gestures while speaking to the media during a news conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, Jan. 10, 2020.”I am confident that when leaders say they will meet in April then they will … what I don’t see though is the preparation,” Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko told reporters during a visit to Italy.”Before the December meeting … (preparations) started half a year beforehand. Now we have two months to go and I have not seen anything prepared. Maybe it will be a much faster process than last time and maybe we will make much more progress. I am sorry, but I doubt it.”The conflict in eastern Ukraine that broke out in 2014 has killed more than 13,000 people, left a large swathe of Ukraine de facto controlled by Moscow-backed separatists, and aggravated the deepest east-west rift since the Cold War.The December summit did not produce the sort of breakthrough some had hoped for, such as an agreement on expanding a cease-fire zone, but it did lead to a prisoner exchange deal.Prystaiko welcomed the subsequent large-scale prisoner swap that took place at the end of last year, but noted that more people had died in continued fighting in January 2020 than in the same month a year earlier.”We haven’t managed to achieve a cease-fire. … But even if we have just an exchange of prisoners, that is a good step for Ukrainians,” he said.
 
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The British government said Monday it is seriously studying the feasibility of a bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland, an audacious idea that has been floated by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.Johnson’s spokesman, James Slack, said the proposal was being taken seriously and “a range of officials” were studying it.”There is a proper piece of work being undertaken into this idea,” he said. “The PM is ambitious in terms of infrastructure projects.”Johnson has promised to build major new infrastructure to better connect parts of the U.K. in the wake of Britain’s divisive exit from the European Union. He also has vowed to boost regions outside the economically dominant southeast of England.He has mentioned the bridge idea several times, and claimed it would “only cost about 15 billion pounds” ($20 billion).But engineers say spanning the deep and stormy Irish Sea would be difficult. The distance is 12 miles (19 kilometers) at its narrowest; one of the most likely routes for a bridge, between Larne in Northern Ireland and Portpatrick in Scotland, is about 28 miles (45 kilometers).The water is up to 1,000 feet (300 meters) deep and the sea bed holds thousands of unexploded bombs dumped by Britain’s defense ministry after World War II.Johnson has a mixed track record with big projects. As mayor of London between 2008 and 2016 he touted a “Boris Island” airport in the River Thames estuary and a lush “garden bridge” in the middle of the city. Neither was ever built.Ian Firth, a fellow at the Institution of Civil Engineers, said building a Scotland-Northern Ireland bridge had “a huge number of technical challenges” but was probably achievable.”At the end of the day it’s about money,” he said. “Anything is possible if you throw enough money at it.” 
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France on Monday condemned a bid by Iran to put a satellite in space, urging Tehran to abide by international obligations on its controversial ballistic missile program.”France condemns this launch which calls on technologies used for ballistic missiles and, in particular, intercontinental ballistic missiles,” the French foreign ministry said in a statement after Iran said it “successfully” launched a satellite Sunday but failed to put it into orbit.Recalling Iran’s obligations under a 2018 U.N. Security Council resolution, the ministry added: “Iran’s ballistic program hurts regional stability and affects European security. France calls on Iran to fully respect its international obligations in this matter.” 
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A court in the Russian city of Penza has sentenced seven activists from a group known as “Set'” (the Network) to prison terms of between six years and 18 years on terrorism charges that opposition figures have denounced.On Monday, the Privolzhsky district court found the men, aged between 23 and 30 years, guilty of being members of a terrorist group.Some of the defendants were also found guilty of possessing illegal weapons and explosives, and attempted illegal drug sales.The group members were arrested in October 2017 with the Federal Security Service (FSB) accusing them of creating a terrorist group with cells in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Penza, and Omsk, as well as In neighboring Belarus.Investigators said the group planned to organize a series of explosions in Russia during the presidential election and the World Cup soccer tournament in 2018 “to destabilize the situation” in the country and to organize an armed mutiny.Rights activists have said the case was fabricated. Some of the activists claimed that they were tortured while in custody, but the Investigative Committee rejected the claims.Opposition leader Aleksei Navalny described the sentences as “horrific” in a post on Twitter, saying testimony about an “imaginary terrorist organisation” was “beaten out using torture.””Any minister in the Russian government is 10 times more of a criminal and a threat to society than these guys,” he added.The court called Dmitry Pchelintsev and Ilya Shaursky the group’s leaders and sentenced them to penalties of 18 years and 16 years in prison, respectively.Andrei Chernov was sentenced to 14 years, Maksim Ivankin to 13 years, Mikhail Kulov to 10 years, and Vasily Kuksov to 9 years in prison.Arman Sagynbaev received six years in prison.Before the sentences, Amnesty International called the terror charges “a figment of the Russian security services’ imagination that was fabricated in an attempt to silence these activists.”The London-based human rights watchdog called the case “the latest politically-motivated abuse of the justice system to target young people.”Two other activists initially arrested in the case, Igor Shishkin and Yegor Zorin, made deals with the investigators and testified against the others.Shishkin received 3 1/2 years in prison in January 2019, while the case against Zorin was closed in September 2018.
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Trains, flights and ferries have been cancelled and weather warnings issued across the United Kingdom as a storm with hurricane-force winds up to 80 mph (129 kph) batters the region.
At least 10 rail companies in Britain have sent out “do not travel” warnings, and nearly 20 others have told passengers to expect delays as strong winds on Sunday are expected to damage electrical wires and clutter train tracks with broken tree limbs and other debris.
London’s Heathrow Airport and several airlines decided to consolidate flights Sunday to reduce the number that would be cancelled by heavy winds. British Airways was offering to rebook customers for domestic and European flights out of Heathrow, Gatwick and London City airports. Virgin Airlines cancelled some flights.
Storm Ciara, named by the Met Office national weather agency, was also supposed to bring heavy rains, prompting the agency to issue 22 emergency flood warnings and 149 flood watch alerts.
The Humber Bridge near Hull in northern England restricted traffic due to the high winds, banning high-sided trucks and camper vehicles.
High waves in the Irish Sea forced ferry companies to cancel several trips.
A 10-k run in London that was expected to draw 25,000 runners was also cancelled.  
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Switzerland on Sunday voted strongly in favor of a new law against homophobia in a referendum despite opposition from the populist right wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP), according to a projection.The projection published by GFS Bern polling and research group found that 62 percent had voted in favor of the reform, with a margin of error of three percent.The new law will widen existing legislation against discrimination or incitement to hatred on ethnic or religious grounds to include sexual orientation.”This is a historic day,” Mathias Reynard, a lawmaker from the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland who initiated the reform, told Swiss channel RTS 1.”It gives a signal which is magnificent for everyone and for anyone who has been a victim of discrimination,” he said.The change was passed by the Swiss parliament in 2018 but critics, who believe it will end up censoring free speech, had forced a referendum on the issue.Eric Bertinat, an SVP local lawmaker in Geneva, told AFP before the vote that he believed the law was “part of an LGBT plan to slowly move towards same-sex marriage and medically assisted reproduction” for gay couples.Marc Frueh, head of the Federal Democratic Union of Switzerland (EDU), a small party based on Christian values, said after the projection: “I accept defeat.””We will keep a close eye on how the law is implemented by the courts,” he told RTS 1.All of Switzerland’s major parties except the SVP, the biggest political force in parliament, support the law.Rights campaigner Jean-Pierre Sigrist, founder of an association of gay teachers, had said before the referendum that the new law might have stopped him getting beaten up outside a bar in Geneva four decades ago.”And maybe I would not have been laughed at when I went to the police,” the 71-year-old told AFP, adding that he hoped the reform would help to counter a resurgence of intolerance against gay people.Sigrist said he supported freedom of expression, “but not the freedom to say anything at all.”‘No to Special Rights!’Under the new law, homophobic comments made in a family setting or among friends would not be criminalized.But publicly denigrating or discriminating against someone for being gay or inciting hatred against that person in text, speech, images or gestures, would be banned.The government has said it will still be possible to have opinionated debates on issues such as same-sex marriage, and the new law does not ban jokes — however off-color.”Incitement to hatred needs to reach a certain level of intensity in order to be considered criminal in Switzerland,” Alexandre Curchod, a media lawyer, told AFP.But he admitted that there could be exceptions “if it can be shown that, under the cover of artistic production or joking, someone is in fact engaging in incitement.”Gay rights campaigners were divided over the legislation.A group called “No to Special Rights!” is opposed, arguing that the gay community does not need special protection. 
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Ukraine’s president has asked Pope Francis for help in securing the release of prisoners of war held by Russia and by Russia-backed separatist fighters in eastern Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelenskiy made the request after a meeting Saturday with the pontiff at the Vatican. “[The pope] does everything possible to achieve peace and harmony throughout the world,” Zelenskiy said in a tweet after their meeting. “I asked for help with the release of Ukrainians captured in Donbas, Crimea and Russia,” he said. Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea in March 2014. A month later, fighting broke out in eastern Ukraine, and the conflict has since killed more than 13,000 people and displaced more than 1 million. Since being elected in May 2019, Zelenskiy has overseen two major swaps of prisoners with Russia and the separatist fighters it backs in eastern Ukraine. Pope Francis, the 83-year-old head of the Roman Catholic Church, has several times voiced hope for an end to the conflict. Francis offered a prayer ahead of the key summit involving Zelenskiy and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Paris in December 2019. The pope also called for peace in eastern Ukraine in his Christmas message. The overwhelming majority of observant Ukrainians are Orthodox Christian; only a small percentage consider themselves Roman Catholic. However, Greek or Eastern Rite Catholics are the second-largest Christian denomination in the country and recognize the pope as their spiritual leader. Medal for ZelenskiyDuring the photo session of the meeting, which was open to reporters, Francis gave Zelenskiy a medal of St. Martin of Tours and said he hoped the saint “will protect your people from war.” Zelenskiy arrived in Italy on Friday, when he met with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. Talks in Rome were reported to focus on Vitaliy Markiv, a Ukrainian national guardsman sentenced in 2019 by an Italian court to 24 years in prison for his role in the deaths of an Italian photojournalist and his translator during fighting near the eastern Ukrainian city of Slovyansk in 2014. 
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Five British nationals including a child have been diagnosed with the new coronavirus at a French mountain village, and health officials said they were checking who else might have been exposed, including at local schools. In total, 11 people, including the five who tested positive, have been hospitalized in southeastern France and were being examined, the French health ministry said  Saturday, adding that none was in serious condition. The group of Britons included holidaymakers and a family currently residing in the Alpine village and ski resort, Les Contamines-Montjoie. They shared neighboring apartments in a chalet and temporarily hosted a British man believed to have contracted the virus at a business congress in Singapore before his short visit to France in late January, the ministry added. Two schools will be shut next week for checks, regional health official Jean-Yves Grall said, after it emerged that the 9-year-old who tested positive had attended lessons and French classes in different establishments. Two other children were also part of the group of 11 now in hospitals in the cities of Lyon, Saint-Etienne and Grenoble, and they had been schooled in the area, too, according to Etienne Jacquet, mayor of Les Contamines-Montjoie. Some parents in the village, nestled in the mountains close to the Mont Blanc peak and the Swiss city of Geneva, said Saturday that they had received little information so far and were being cautious. “Our children were meant to go to a concert tonight. We took the decision not to take them to not expose other people,” said Beatrice Louvier, adding that her 10-year-old daughter was in the same classroom as one of the three British children. Peak ski seasonThe cases coincide with one of the busiest periods of the ski season for area resorts, as schools in the Paris region begin midterm holidays. British schools will also be on midterm break later this month. Health officials said they were trying to determine who had come into prolonged and close contact with the British group. Several tourists who had just arrived in Les Contamines-Montjoui brushed off the risks and said they would see through their holidays. “The percentage chance of getting infected is not really high,” said Frenchman Stanislas Des Courtis, who was visiting with his two teenage sons. “The ski area is big, and there are not so many places where [people] can gather here all together.” But local resident Catherine Davout, who helps manage flat rentals in the area, said she had already had several cancellations. Business meeting The new cases emerged after authorities began to retrace the travels of a British man who has been confirmed by Britain to have contracted the virus, French health officials said. They had formed “a cluster, a grouping around one original case,” according to Health Minister Agnes Buzyn, who identified the person as a Briton who had returned from Singapore and stayed in France between January 24 and 28. The French government said Singaporean authorities were looking into a business congress that took place in a hotel there on January 20-23 and was attended by 94 foreigners, including the British man at the center of the Alpine cases. As of Saturday, Singapore had 40 cases of the virus. Of the 11 total cases in France, earlier ones include an 80-year-old Chinese man in a serious condition, while the others have shown signs of improvement, according to medical officials. The epidemic began in Wuhan, China, and the vast majority of cases have been in China. 
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Syrian government forces captured new areas from insurgents in their efforts to control a key highway in the northwest Saturday, as Turkey sent more reinforcements into the war-torn country, state media and opposition activists said.The weekslong government offensive has created a humanitarian crisis with about 600,000 people fleeing their homes in Syria’s last rebel stronghold since the beginning of December, according to the United Nations.Rebels control much of Idlib province and parts of the neighboring Aleppo region that is home to some 3 million people — many of them displaced from other parts of Syria.The Syrian offensive appears aimed for now at securing a strategic highway in rebel-controlled territory, as opposed to an all-out campaign to retake the entire province, including the city of Idlib, the densely populated provincial capital.“Our aim is to clear the highway and evict terrorists from it,” a Syrian commander on the ground told state TV. He was referring to the M5 highway, which links the capital Damascus with the northern city of Aleppo.The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said government forces still have 30 kilometers (18 miles) of the highway to clear before it comes under full control of the army for the first time since 2012.Syrian state TV reported Saturday that government forces captured four villages in Aleppo province near the highway. It added that Syrian troops and demining experts have cleared explosives and mines from the recently captured town of Saraqeb that sits on an intersection where the M5 meets with the M4 highway, linking Syria’s coast with the country’s east.Syrian state media and the Observatory later reported that government forces captured the village of al-Eis and its strategic hill just east of the M5.The new push came as Turkey, a main backer of the opposition, sent more reinforcements into Idlib, according to the Observatory and Idlib-based media activist Taher al-Omar who is embedded with militants.The Observatory said a convoy consisting of 430 vehicles entered Syria since Friday night, raising the number of vehicles that entered Syria since last weekend to well over 1,000.A rare clash on Feb. 3, between Turkish troops and Syrian soldiers left seven Turkish soldiers and a Turkish civilian dead as well as 13 Syrian troops.On Friday, Turkey’s Defense Ministry warned the army would respond “even more forcefully” to any attack on Turkish observation posts in the area, adding: “Our observation posts will continue carrying out duties.”The violence has also raised tensions between Russia and Turkey, which have been working together to secure cease-fires and political talks, despite backing opposite sides of the conflict.
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Cyborgs, trolls and bots can fill the internet with lies and half-truths. Understanding them is key to learning how misinformation spreads online.As the 2016 election showed, social media is increasingly used to amplify false claims and divide Americans over hot-button issues including race and immigration. Researchers who study misinformation predict it will get worse leading up to this year’s presidential vote. Here’s a guide to understanding the problem:MISINFORMATION VS. DISINFORMATIONPolitical misinformation has been around since before the printing press, but the internet has allowed falsehoods, conspiracy theories and exaggerations to spread faster and farther than ever.Misinformation is defined as any false information, regardless of intent, including honest mistakes or misunderstandings of the facts. Disinformation, on the other hand, typically refers to misinformation created and spread intentionally as a way to confuse or mislead.Misinformation and disinformation can appear in political ads or social media posts. They can include fake news stories or doctored videos. One egregious example of disinformation from last year was a video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that was slowed down to make her sound as if she were slurring her words.Research indicates that false claims spread more easily than accurate ones, possibly because they are crafted to grab attention.Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology analyzed more than 126,000 stories, some true and some false, that were tweeted millions of times from 2006 through the end of 2016. They found that misleading or incorrect stories traveled six times faster — and reached more people.Online misinformation has been blamed for deepening America’s political polarization and contributing to distrust in government. The risks were highlighted in 2016 when Russian trolls created fake accounts to spread and amplify social media posts about controversial issues.WAR OF THE BOTS AND CYBORGSThe disposable foot soldiers in this digital conflict are bots. In the social media context, these autonomous programs can run accounts to spread content without human involvement.Many are harmless, tweeting out random poems or pet photos. But others are up to no good and designed to resemble actual users.One study by researchers at the University of Southern California analyzed election-related tweets sent in September and October 2016 and found that 1 in 5 were sent by a bot. The Pew Research Center concluded in a 2018 study that accounts suspected of being bots are responsible for as many as two-thirds of all tweets that link to popular websites.While flesh-and-blood Twitter users will often post a few times a day, about a variety of subjects, the most obvious bots will tweet hundreds of times a day, day and night, and often only on a specific topic. They are more likely to repost content rather than create something original.And then there’s the cyborg, a kind of hybrid account that combines a bot’s tirelessness with human subtlety. Cyborg accounts are those in which a human periodically takes over a bot account to respond to other users and to post original content. They are more expensive and time consuming to operate, but they don’t give themselves away as robots.“You can get a lot from a bot, but maybe it’s not the best quality,” said Emilio Ferrara, a data science researcher at the University of Southern California who co-wrote the study on Twitter bots. “The problem with cyborgs is they are much harder to catch and detect.”SPOT THE BOTSBots can be hard to spot, even for the best researchers.“We have 12 ways that we spot a bot, and if we hit seven or eight of them we have pretty high confidence,” said Graham Brookie, director of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that studies connections between social media, cybersecurity and government.Nonetheless, Brookie recalled the case of a Twitter account from Brazil that was posting almost constantly — sometimes once per minute — and displayed other bot-like characteristics. And yet, “It was a little grandma, who said, ‘This is me!’”Their prevalence and the difficulty of identifying them has made bots into a kind of digital bogeyman and transformed the term into an insult, used to dismiss other social media users with different opinions.Michael Watsey, a 43-year-old New Jersey man who often tweets his support for President Donald Trump, said he has been repeatedly called a Russian bot by people he argues with online. The accusations prompted Twitter to temporarily suspend his account more than once, forcing him to verify he is a human.“All I’m trying to do is uses my First Amendment right to free speech,” he said. “It’s crazy that it’s come to this.”TROLLS AND SOCK PUPPETSThe word troll once referred to beasts of Scandinavian mythology who hid under bridges and attacked travelers. Now it also refers to people who post online to provoke others, sometimes for their own amusement and sometimes as part of a coordinated campaign.Sock puppets are another oddly named denizen of social media, in this case a type of imposter account. While some users may use anonymous accounts simply to avoid identifying themselves, sock-puppet accounts are used by the owner to attack their critics or praise themselves. In October, Utah Sen. Mitt Romney acknowledged operating a secret Twitter account under the name “Pierre Delecto,” which he used to defend himself against criticism.FAKED VIDEOS: DEEP, CHEAP AND SHALLOWDeepfakes are videos that have been digitally created with artificial intelligence or machine learning to make it appear something happened that did not. They are seen as an emerging threat, as improvements in video editing software make it possible for tricksters to create increasingly realistic footage of, say, former President Barack Obama delivering a speech he never made, in a setting he never visited. They are expensive and difficult to create — especially in a convincing way.Facebook announced last month that it would ban deepfake videos — with exceptions for satire. Beginning in March, Twitter will prohibit doctored videos, photography and audio recordings “likely to cause harm.” Material that is manipulated but isn’t necessarily harmful may get a warning label. And YouTube bans “deceptive uses of manipulated media” that could pose serious risk of harm.By contrast, shallowfakes, cheapfakes or dumbfakes are videos that have been doctored using more basic techniques, such as slowing down or speeding up footage or cutting it.Examples include a doctored video posted by Britain’s Conservative Party before December’s U.K. election that made it seem like a Labour Party official was struggling to respond to a question about Brexit.Because they’re easy and inexpensive to make, cheapfakes can be every bit as dangerous as their fancier cousin, the deepfake.“Deepfakes are getting more realistic and easier to do,” said John Pavlik, a journalism professor at Rutgers University who studies how technology and the internet are changing communication habits. “But you don’t have to have special software to make these simpler ones.”Researchers who study Americans’ changing media habits recommend that people turn to a variety of sources and perspectives for their news, use critical thinking when evaluating information on social media, and think twice about reposting viral claims. Otherwise, they say, misinformation will continue to flow, and users will continue to spread it.“The only solution,” Ferrara said, “is education.” 
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Ireland began voting in a general election Saturday, with Prime Minister Leo Varadkar hoping to secure a new term on the back of Brexit but voters likely to judge him more on his domestic record.Polls opened across the country at 0700 GMT, although a small number of islands off the west coast voted Friday to allow for rough seas that could disrupt the transport of ballots by boat.About 3.3 million people are eligible to vote to elect 159 members of the Dail, the lower chamber of parliament in Dublin.Varadkar’s Fine Gael party has been in power since 2016 but polling suggests they are trailing center-right rivals Fianna Fail and republicans Sinn Fein.On Monday, Sinn Fein, the former political wing of the IRA paramilitary group, were out in front with 25%, Fianna Fail with 23% and Fine Gael with 20%.“This election is wide open,” Varadkar said at his final campaign stop in the western town of Ennis on Friday. “It’s a three horse race, three parties, all within shouting distance of each other.”A ‘Brexit election’Varadkar launched his campaign after successfully helping to broker a deal cushioning Britain’s EU exit, Jan. 31, by avoiding a hard border with British-run Northern Ireland.An open frontier was a key requirement of the 1998 peace agreement that largely ended three decades of violence over British rule in the north, which left more than 3,000 dead.Varadkar has warned voters that Brexit is “not done yet,” as London prepares for talks with Brussels to secure a longer-term trade deal in record time before the end of this year.Failure to do so could present an “existential threat” to the Irish economy, he said.But experts suggest he may have miscalculated the public mood with surveys indicating Brexit was a low concern among the electorate.Issues closer to homeOther parties have hammered Fine Gael over failings in health care, housing and homelessness. Varadkar acknowledged he understood that Friday.“You want us over the next three years to focus on issues like health and housing with the same passion and intensity that we’ve focused on Brexit in the past three years,” he said.Varadkar is Ireland’s first mixed race and openly gay premier who has come to represent a more socially progressive Ireland after years of dominance by the Roman Catholic church.But despite Brexit, and landmark votes to overturn strict abortion laws and introduce same-sex marriage, some predict he could be on his way out.“Varadkar is young, he’s gay, he looks like part of the new Ireland,” Eunan O’Halpin, of Trinity College Dublin, told AFP. “Yet his personal popularity appears to have dipped, and that of his party has dipped very significantly.”NegotiationsPolls close at 2200 GMT and votes start being counted at 0900 GMT Sunday.A three-way race led by left-wing Sinn Fein is a new dynamic for the Republic, where governments have been historically dominated by Fine Gael and Fianna Fail.Since 2016 Fianna Fail have propped up Fine Gael in government with a confidence and supply arrangement that could implicate them in the perceived failings of the government.“(Young people) blame the current government and coalition of parties in government for this mess,” said O’Halpin about the housing shortage.Despite its opinion poll lead, Sinn Fein, which wants to unite Northern Ireland with the Republic, is only fielding 42 candidates and cannot form a majority government even if they all win.Both Varadkar and Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin are adamant they will not form a coalition with Mary Lou McDonald’s party.On Friday, Martin said Sinn Fein, which was once led by Gerry Adams, “have not cleaned themselves from their bloody past.”“The only party who can lead an alternative government is Fianna Fail,” he said in his home city of Cork.
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Photographer  Olivier Toscani made a career out of provocative advertising campaigns for Benetton, the Italian clothing maker famed for its colorful knitwear. But that decades-long relationship has been severed after Toscani outraged relatives of victims in the deadly 2018 Genoa bridge collapse. Toscani told RAI television this week, “Who cares about a bridge collapse?He was responding to a public flap over a photograph of founding members of the Sardines political protest movement alongside key members of the Benetton family, which controls the company that maintained the bridge. The president of the committee to remember the 43 people who died August 14, 2018, in the Morandi Bridge collapse called the remarks “inopportune and confused.'' `'It could be that [Toscani] travels by helicopter and using a bridge is for commoners,'' Egle Possetti said. `'Unfortunately, many Italians travel over bridges every day, and unfortunately some people will remain forever under ‘that bridge,' certainly not due to some stray lightning strike. Forty-three innocent deaths count little for him, but for us they were everything.'' 'Deeply pained'Toscani apologized in an interview with La Repubblica published Thursday.I am sorry. More: I am ashamed to apologize. I am humanly destroyed and deeply pained.” But the damage was done. Benetton said in a statement Thursday that the group “completely disassociates itself from Mr. Toscani’s remarks and acknowledges the impossibility of continuing the professional relationship with its creative director.” It added that chairman Luciano Benetton “and the entire company renew their sincere closeness to the families of the victims and to all those who have been involved in this terrible tragedy.” The Benetton family, as controlling stakeholder in the Autostrade highway company that maintained the Morandi bridge, has been embattled ever since the accident as the government squabbles over whether to revoke its agreement to operate thousands of kilometers of Italian toll highways. So the photo showing the founders of the Sardines movement alongside the Benettons was widely criticized as a misstep by the less than three-month-old group. Since its founding in November, the group has mobilized tens of thousands to protest the growing popularity of right-wing leader Matteo Salvini. The leaders said their appearance in the photo, at the Benetton cultural center Fabrica, had been “naive.” 
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The European commissioner for human rights urged Moscow Friday to investigate a violent assault on a journalist and a lawyer in Russia’s province of Chechnya.Elena Milashina, from the independent Novaya Gazeta, said she and Marina Dubrovina, a lawyer accompanying her on a trip to Chechnya, were pushed and beaten by a dozen people in the lobby of their hotel late Thursday. Milashina long has exposed human rights violations in Chechnya.The regional branch of Russia’s Interior Ministry in Chechnya said it was looking into the incident.The Kremlin has relied on Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov to keep the North Caucasus region stable after two devastating separatist wars. International rights groups have accused Kadyrov’s feared security forces of extrajudicial killings, torture and abductions of dissenters.The Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović on Friday condemned the assault on the journalist and the lawyer as “the latest of a series of worrying attacks on human rights defenders and critics” in Chechnya.Mijatović noted that “ the climate of hostility against independent civil society activists, human rights defenders, lawyers and journalists in Chechnya is often fomented by virulent and threatening speech of political leaders, including at the highest levels” of the regional leadership.She urged the Russian authorities to “urgently reverse this unacceptable situation and uphold their obligations to ensure that human rights defenders can work safely and freely.” Mijatović emphasized that those responsible for the assault must be punished.
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