The border was drawn in 1921, splitting communities and sometimes property, as the British government sought to create a home for the majority Protestant population of Northern Ireland at a time when the largely Catholic Republic of Ireland won its independence.Today, that 310-mile (500-kilometer) frontier is largely invisible. The only way motorists know they have crossed into Northern Ireland is from the speed limit signs, which use miles per hour measurements, rather than the metric system used in the south. Keen observers might notice a slight change in the pavement as well.As Brexit takes effect Friday, residents on both sides of the border are concerned about protecting the relative peace and prosperity after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. That accord helped end three decades of sectarian violence between paramilitary groups that wanted to reunify Ireland and those who insisted the six counties of Northern Ireland should remain part of the UK.FILE – Lisa Partridge, 28, who grew up with the Protestant Loyal Orange Institution, is reflected in a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II at the Orange Hall, in Portadown, Northern Ireland, Dec. 19, 2019.Lisa Partridge, a 28-year-old tour operator raised in a British military family, remembers how it was “completely normal to check under the family car for a bomb every morning before you went to school.””Nobody would want to go back to that life,” she said.Central to the deal was the fact that both the U.K. and the Republic of Ireland were EU members, which allowed authorities to tear down hated border posts that had slowed the passage of people and goods as police and soldiers tried to halt the flow of arms and militants. With the end of onerous border controls, trade flowed freely between north and south spurring economic development in both communities.The British and Irish governments have promised to preserve those gains, but people on both sides of the border are concerned that Brexit may re-ignite tensions.”Who’s to know what way it’s going to go?” said Gary Ferguson, 27, as he milked the cows on his father’s farm. “It’ll make us or break us.”Signs of the conflict, known here as “The Troubles,” are still evident, even if rust and moss have softened their hard edges.In the village of Belcoo in Northern Ireland, an old railway bridge blown up by the British army sits partially submerged in the river that separates Northern Ireland from the town of Blacklion in the Irish Republic. An old customs post splits the small village of Pettigo between north and south. In Belfast, “peace walls” still seek to prevent violence by separating Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods.FILE – An old railway bridge blown up by the British Army in the 1970s is partially submerged in the Belcoo River that separates Northern Ireland from the town of Blacklion, Republic of Ireland, Dec. 23, 2019.To ensure there would be no hard border between north and south, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson agreed to different rules for trade between Northern Ireland and the EU than those that apply to the rest of the UK.Unionists see this as weakening the ties between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K., raising concerns that the reunification of Ireland is now more likely.In Portadown, the Protestant Orange Order still holds weekly protests to assert its British identity.”This is Britain. (It) says so on the map,” said David Reid, 33, walking in Belfast with his 1-year-old son in the shadow of a peace wall that separates his Protestant community from a Catholic one. “Me personally, it just doesn’t feel like it. It feels like you’re down in Ireland.”On the other side of the border in Castlefinn, in Ireland’s County Donegal, Tom Murray runs three pharmacies and says his primary goal is to protect the economic gains of the last two decades.FILE – Pharmacist Tom Murray, 46, stocks shelves at his pharmacy in Castlefinn, Ireland, just over the border from Northern Ireland, Dec. 23, 2019.”I think Ireland should always be a united country and should be free of the shackles of Britain,” said Murray, 46. “But at the same time, we have to accept that there’s 1 million people living a mile away who identify as British. I think we have to protect their identity, their culture, their Britishness every bit as much as we have to protect my Irishness. Otherwise it just won’t work.”Gerry Storey, 83, of the Holy Family Boxing Club in Belfast has been working to bridge the divide by bringing Protestant and Catholic youths together in the boxing ring.”When you come in here, you don’t talk politics. You don’t swear. And there’s no football jerseys,” Storey said. “In here everybody is treated fairly and squarely. And it doesn’t care who or what you are.”Ferguson, a fifth-generation Protestant dairy farmer in Stewartstown, Northern Ireland, agrees: “Irish, British, it doesn’t matter.””As long as the farming stays OK, that’s all,” he said. “And no wars start.”
 
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A man who tried to steal an original copy of the 1215 Magna Carta, considered to be one of the most important documents in the history of democracy, from an English cathedral was found guilty Thursday of criminal damage and attempted theft.Mark Royden, 47, had denied smashing a glass box housing the priceless manuscript in Salisbury Cathedral in southern England in 2018.Salisbury Crown Court heard he had set off a fire alarm in the cathedral cloisters before stunning visitors by hitting the glass case with a hammer, causing three holes in it and damage estimated at 14,000 pounds ($18,400).Failing to break through the safety glass, he tried to run out of the cathedral but was grabbed by maintenance workers and visitors, including an American tourist.The parchment, one of only four original copies still surviving, was not damaged.A key manuscript in English history, the Magna Carta is a charter of citizens’ rights curbing the arbitrary power of medieval kings which among other things guaranteed the right to a fair trial.King John agreed to place his seal on the document in June 1215 at Runnymede near Windsor, west of London, as a means of ending an uprising by rebel barons.Prosecutors said when questioned by police Royden had appeared to question the authenticity of the document.”The historical importance of the Magna Carta in establishing the right to justice cannot be overstated – which is somewhat ironic given Mark Royden’s repeated denials of his crime in the face of overwhelming evidence,” said Rob Welling of the Crown Prosecution Service.”Had he succeeded in taking it, Royden would have deprived the nation of what is said to be the most beautiful surviving copy from 1215.”Royden was released on bail and will be sentenced at a later date. The charter is back on display in Salisbury cathedral.
 
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As Europe’s political establishment bids farewell to Britain and its EU membership with a mix of sorrow and some jubilation, many Europeans are not paying much attention this latest chapter of the very long process popularly known as “Brexit.” Lisa Bryant took the pulse of some Parisians, and filed this report for VOA from the French capital.
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In an effort to contain the coronavirus, Wuhan, the Chinese city of about 11 million people, has locked down thousands of foreigners, including African students, most on scholarships. They are now trapped in the city where the virus was first detected and continues to spread.Twenty-eight-year-old Michael Njomo arrived in Wuhan city last September.
He applied for a competitive scholarship to study administrative management and was awarded it after several attempts.
The new coronavirus emerged just when he was settling in at Huazhong University of Science and Technology. The WhatsApp group for Kenyan students in China stopped talking about academics, and started checking on each other and sharing information about the disease.
He says the death toll kept rising and before he knew it, the city was under lockdown.  He says he and his colleagues are afraid to circulate in the city.
“Some of them are very scared here in their rooms, like the whole day they remain indoors,” he said. “Those are the directions we have been given by the authorities here, to avoid much interaction.  If you pay much attention on that [the death toll], I don’t know what will happen to you because there is so much information from different people.  The more you listen to them, the more you pay attention, the more scared you become.”People wearing face masks walk down a deserted street in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei Province, Jan. 28, 2020.Njomo and his colleagues spoke to VOA via a WhatsApp call from a room they said they shared.
Some countries have started evacuating their many thousands of citizens stranded in Wuhan. Njomo and other Kenyans are still not sure of their fate but are hopeful.
“If a situation comes that we can be evacuated from Wuhan to a safer place, everybody will accept that. Maybe somewhere like the embassy, somewhere like Beijing is ok.  It’s not that far from Wuhan to Beijing, but I don’t know what plans our ambassador has for us,” he said.
John (not his real name), a final year student of engineering at Huazhong University, was meant to come home in the next couple of months.He questions Kenya’s capacity to deal with the virus if it made its way to the country and said he preferred they stay in China.”Of course everyone would love to go back home, but again you look at where your home is, and you are also not sure of your status regarding the disease,” he said. “To me, I think its better just to stay here and ensure that I am safe wherever I am because you might go back home and take it to everyone and as you know, at home, facilities are not that good to handle the situation.”Kenya’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs says 85 Kenyans are stuck in Wuhan.
In a press statement, the ministry said the Kenyan Embassy in Beijing is in touch with the Kenyan citizens who have been affected by the lockdown in Wuhan.FILE – Kenya Airways planes are seen parked at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport near Nairobi, Kenya, Nov. 6, 2019.The Foreign Ministry warned Kenyans not to travel to China unless it was absolutely necessary.  
As some airlines suspended flights to China, Kenya Airways, the national carrier, said it will not suspend its flights to China.  The announcement came just after Kenyan Ambassador to China Sarah Serem called on the airline to stop flights to the country until the virus is contained.
At a briefing for journalists this week, Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director John Nkengasong said that if the virus makes its way to African countries, it would be hard to contain.
“The surveillance system is as good as the health system in member states, and we all know that we are at very different levels of strength in the member states. Some countries have very strong surveillance systems, some have weak surveillance systems and some, we are working with them to strengthen their systems there,” he said.Kenya reported Tuesday the first suspected case of coronavirus infection in January. The Ministry of Health said Thursday it sent samples to South Africa for further tests.
Sudan, Ethiopia and Ivory Coast are the other African countries that reported suspected cases.
 
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Russia and China are waging a “digital war” with fake news and disinformation to undermine democracy in Europe, and the European Union must develop tools to fight back, a top EU official said Thursday.European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova, who leads efforts to preserve democratic principles across the bloc, said the two countries have “weaponized information” and won’t back down until Europe stands up to them.”There are specific external actors, namely Russia and increasingly China, that are actively using disinformation and related interference tactics to undermine European democracy,” Jourova told a conference of disinformation experts and policymakers in Brussels.The two countries “will feel comfortable doing so until we demonstrate that we will not tolerate this aggression and interference,” she said.She said that “digital war” is a favored method of Russia and China because “they see that it’s efficient, it’s cheap, and I am not naive enough to believe that some talk will discourage them from doing that.”Jourova cited as examples the fake news reports from Russia surrounding the shooting down of a Malaysian airlines flight over eastern Ukraine in 2014 and in the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter in Salisbury, England in 2018.Europe must find the best way to “defend ourselves and our territory and use the most efficient tools to do that,” including funding and new policies, she said.Experts at Thursday’s conference said Russia’s aim is to sow confusion and to undermine western organizations like the EU and NATO, while China uses more subtle methods, combined with a lot of money, to persuade decision-makers and influence policy. 
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European countries on Thursday stepped up efforts to contain the virus infecting central China, sending a plane to evacuate hundreds of Europeans from the country and halting even more flights to China. Italian authorities kept some 7,000 people on a cruise ship while they checked for a possible infection.An A380 plane took off from a former military airport at Beja, 200 kilometers (120 miles) southeast of Lisbon carrying just its pilots and crew.Captain Antonios Efthymiou said the flight was going first to Paris, to pick up a team of doctors and extra crew, before heading to Hanoi and then China. He told Portuguese media it would bring back about 350 Europeans. He said the crew would take special medical precautions but did not elaborate on them.Portuguese Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva said the flight was coordinated between European Union countries and Chinese authorities.China has reported 170 deaths and at least 7,800 infections from the virus that emerged in the central city of Wuhan. More people have now been infected by this coronavirus in China than were sickened there during the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic. Sports, transport and cultural events have been cancelled across the country, and over 50 million people are under a government lockdown in central China.In Europe, there have been 10 confirmed cases of the virus: five in France, four in Germany and one in Finland.Italian health authorities, meanwhile, were screening 6,000 passengers and 1,000 crew aboard a cruise ship docked north of Rome after a passenger from Macao came down with flu-like symptoms, officials said Thursday.The Costa Crociere cruise line said the 54-year-old woman and her partner, who has no symptoms, were immediately put into isolation Wednesday and the case reported to Italian maritime authorities. Passengers of the Costa Smeralda were being kept on board Thursday pending checks to determine the type of virus.The ship had sailed from Mallorca, Spain, to Civitavecchia on a weeklong Mediterranean cruise but no passengers were allowed off for a planned walk in sunny Rome on Thursday.”All the planned mechanisms were activated. Health authorities are on board, doing checks,” Italian Coast Guard Cmdr. Vincenzo Leone said at the port of Civitavecchia. “The situation is under control. There’s a security cordon on the dock.”The Czech Republic, meanwhile, announced it was stopping issuing visas to Chinese citizens due to the outbreak. More than 600,000 Chinese tourists are estimated to have visited the Czech Republic last year, especially its old-world capital city of Prague.On the retail front, Swedish furniture and home goods retailer IKEA announced all its stores in mainland China would remain closed to protect its customers and staff from the outbreak. The stores are a favorite haunt of Chinese city dwellers both for shopping and for hanging out.Scandinavian Airlines announced it was halting all its flights to Beijing and Shanghai due to the virus beginning Friday until Feb. 9th. SAS, which has 12 regular weekly flights from Scandinavia to China, said Thursday that ”the safety of our passengers and employees is our highest priority.”Spain’s Iberia national airline halted the three return flights a week it runs between Madrid and Shanghai because of the virus, a move it said would continue through the month of February.Those announcements followed earlier moves to halt or reduce flights to China by other European airlines, including British Airways, Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, Swiss, Air France and KLM. 
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The European Parliament gave the green light for Britain’s departure from the European Union Wednesday evening, hours before Brexit becomes reality. The vote was overwhelming, 621 to 49, but it was an emotional departure.After being part of some sort of a European union for nearly half a century, it took only a few seconds for Britain to see its departure overwhelmingly approved by the European Parliament.The next step promises to be difficult, as Britain negotiates its future relationship the EU, especially on trade matters. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had this message for London:“It’s very clear the tradeoff is simple: The more united the United Kingdom does commit to uphold our standards for social protection and workers’ rights, our guarantees for the environment and other standards and rules ensuring fair competition, the closer and better the access to the single market,” she said.Emotional splitBut many lawmakers stuck to the emotional part of the split.“To all of you, I will say that I will miss you,” a French lawmaker said. “The EU will not be the same without you. My deep feeling is there is no good Brexit.”“If the British people ever decide to come back, our arms will be open,” a Spanish lawmaker said.Others warned that Britain’s departure should spark soul-searching about what is broken with the EU.“We European decisionmakers must realize that an increasing number of fellow citizens have turned their backs against the European projects, it’s for a reason,” a Belgian lawmaker said. “It’s because many believe that too often policies adopted at the European level have served the few rather than the many.”Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage along with other MEPs wave British flags ahead of a vote on the Withdrawal Agreement at the European Parliament in Brussels, Jan. 29, 2020.Leave vs RemainFor British Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage and other populist lawmakers, it was a time for victory.“We love Europe, we just hate the European Union. … I’m hoping this begins the end of this project. It’s a bad project,” he said.But Britain’s Remain camp at the EU parliament vowed they would be back. Among them, Aileen McLeod, of the pro-independence Scottish National Party.  “Scotland is a European nation,” she said. “And I look forward to an independent Scotland rejoining the EU, and we will, soon…”Britain’s last day as an EU member is Friday. The British flag will be lowered at EU institutions. But in many ways, the farewell — with EU lawmakers locking arms and singing an old Scottish song — has already happened.
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European diplomats are sounding an upbeat note about coming trade talks with the United States, seemingly unfazed by President Donald Trump’s tough talk and tariff threats aimed at securing new concessions from the European Union.“When we fight, we make headlines,” said Stavros Lambrinidis, head of the EU delegation in the United States, at a reception at his Washington residence last week. “But when we work together, we make history.”Trump set an ominous tone for the negotiations, which the Americans hope to conclude this year, during his Jan. 21 appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Noting a hard-won trade deal that settled only some of his country’s trade issues with Beijing, Trump suggested it will be even “more difficult to do business [with the EU] than China.”In his public remarks on the issue, Trump has focused on traditional areas of trade, including agriculture and automobiles, with repeated threats to boost tariffs on European vehicles.But the Europeans appear to likely to try to convince the Americans that the key to progress for the two traditional allies lies in closer cooperation in areas of high tech and cybersecurity.At his reception, Lambrinidis said there is “no question” the development of Artificial Intelligence will change the world as we know it. But he said the Western democracies should work together to develop the technology in ways that ensure it cannot be used for authoritarian purposes, as China is doing to control the Muslim Uighurs in its Xinjiang province.”Will Americans and Europeans get together and work on that, or will we miss the opportunity?” he asked.FILE – EU commissioner for Trade Phil Hogan arrives for the inaugural meeting of the college of commissioners, Dec. 4, 2019, at the European commission headquarters in Brussels.Guarding new frontiersPhil Hogan, the EU’s newly-minted trade commissioner, sounded a similar note in remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington earlier this month.Calling the 2020s “a pivotal moment in time,” Hogan said the West faces “profound challenges, many of which are totally new,” and which could “shape, divide and diminish us” if the U.S. and the EU fail to address those challenges together.Trade politics has ceased to be “exclusively about trade,” Hogan said, arguing it has become “a proxy for security, technology, geopolitics and more.”“In particular,” he said, “trade has become a tool in the global struggle for technological supremacy.”Lambrinidis reminded his audience that the EU remains the largest source of foreign investment to the United States and that American companies place roughly 60% of their own foreign investment in Europe, reflecting their confidence in the EU’s open, free markets.FILE – U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he holds a news conference at the 50th World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 22, 2020.The European Green DealAddressing another potential sore point in U.S.-EU relations, Lambrinidis defended Europe’s efforts to deal with climate change, and in particular the so-called European Green Deal, an ambitious program aimed at making the continent carbon-neutral by 2050.Trump was largely dismissive of such efforts at Davos, saying, “We must reject the perennial prophets of doom … [who] always demand the same thing — absolute power to dominate, transform and control every aspect of our lives.”But Lambrinidis cited the example of a plastic spoon, which he said takes five seconds to make and is used on average for five minutes, but takes five centuries to decompose. “How can you say we’re crazy, that this doesn’t matter?” he asked.The EU’s green agenda “will – with certainty – pose an enormous challenge” to the global trading system, said Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, a native of Denmark and a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.”But I actually think that is a price worth paying for,” he wrote in response to emailed questions from VOA. While free trade is about “maximizing efficiency and wealth creation,” he wrote, “climate change is about living on the planet as we know it.” 
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Britain’s departure from the European Union was backed by European lawmakers Wednesday, after a debate that mixed warm words of love with hard-headed warnings to the country not to seek too many concessions during upcoming trade talks on a future relationship.
    
The European Parliament overwhelmingly approved Britain’s departure terms from the EU, the final major decision in the four-year Brexit saga. The vote was 621 to 49 in favor of the Brexit deal that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson negotiated with the other 27 EU leaders in the fall of last year.
    
While backing Britain’s departure in the wake of the country’s vote to leave in a referendum in June 2016,  EU countries are already preparing for the possibility that talks on a new trade deal with Britain could collapse by the end of the year, and no-deal contingency planning for a chaotic end to the transition period is necessary.
    
After Britain’s departure on Friday, the U.K. will remain within the EU’s economic arrangements until the end of the year though it won’t have a say in policy as it will not be a member of the EU anymore.
    
“We will always love you and you will never be far,” said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on a day when some legislators were moved to tears.
    
Britain is the first country to leave the EU and for many in Europe its official departure at 11 p.m. London time on Friday, Jan. 31 is a moment of enormous sadness and reduces the number in the bloc to 27.
    
The parliament’s chief Brexit official, Guy Verhofstadt, said that “this vote is not an adieu,adding that it isonly an au revoir.”
    
With only two days to spare, legislators approved the withdrawal agreement that will end the 47-year membership of Britain. At the same time, the vote cut the 73 U.K. parliamentarians from the 751-seat legislature where die-hard Brexiteers have been a disruptive force for years.
    
“That’s it. It’s all over,” said Nigel Farage, who has campaigned for Brexit for two decades. On departing the scene, the man who arguably did more than anyone else to move the country to vote for Brexit waved Britain’s Union Flag.
    
Now, negotiations move on how to cooperate in the future. Britain is seeking to thrash out a comprehensive trade deal within 11 months.
    
That timetable is viewed as ambitious by many observers of trade discussions, which can often drag on for years.
   
 “We will not yield to any pressure,” French President Emmanuel Macron said. “The priority is to define, in the short, medium and long term the interests of the European Union and to preserve them.”
    
The EU has said such a timespan is far too short and fears remain that a chaotic exit, averted this week, might still happen at the end of the year if the transition ends without any agreement in place.
   
 “The urgency of the 11 months of the calendar should in no way lead us to rush, to accept compromises that would hurt our interests,” said Macron’s Europe minister, Amelie de Monchalin.  “A trade accord is an agreement that lasts for several decades and we should ensure that we always put fundamental issues of content before calendar issues.’’   
 
Even though the European Commission’s task force, led by Michel Barnier, is negotiating on the EU’s behalf, the impact of major nations like France and Germany on those talks is important.
    
De Montchalin said that unless Britain asks to extend the transition period before the summer, both sides will be facing a cliff-edge scenario by the end of the year where borders could be closed, tariffs imposed and rules changed overnight, to the detriment of smooth trade.
   
“That’s why we had long discussions this morning on the need to prepare for such a scenario, through contingency measures that we have to keep active to be ready for all eventual scenarios,” de Montchalin said in Paris.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a rare warning to Moscow to rein in the Syrian government’s Idlib offensive. The capture of a critical town Wednesday by regime forces is stoking fears in Ankara of a new exodus of refugees into Turkey.Erdogan, returning from a three-day tour of Africa, accused Moscow of reneging on agreements on Syria and issued an ultimatum.
    
“We have waited until now, but from this point, we are going to take our own action. This is not a threat, but our expectation is that Russia will give the regime the necessary warning,” said Erdogan.The warning came as Syrian government forces captured the rebel-held town of Marat al-Numan. The government offensive, backed by Russian air power, is advancing deeper into Idlib province, the last bastion of rebel forces and home to 3 million people.Erdogan claims the offensive violates last year’s agreement, hammered out with Moscow to protect the province. But Moscow insists the attack is targeting only terrorists, which the deal allows.  FILE – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a news conference ahead of a visit to Algeria, at Ataturk airport in Istanbul, Turkey, January 26, 2020.”Russia tells us they fight against terrorism. Who are terrorists? The people fighting to defend their own lands?” Erdogan said Wednesday, dismissing Moscow claims.Underlining Ankara’s stance, a large convoy of Turkish forces entered Idlib on Tuesday to reinforce its military presence. Under an agreement with Moscow, Turkey has 12 observation posts to monitor a de-escalation zone aimed at preventing hostilities between the rebels and Syrian forces.”Without the Russian air force, Turkey could easily take out the Assad forces,” said analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners. “They don’t have the stamina or forces to resist a well-armed and trained army backed by the Syrian militia.”Experts warn Turkish forces in Syria are vulnerable, however, given the lack of air support, with Russian anti-aircraft missiles controlling Syrian airspace.Differing interestsAnkara also has memories of the economic pain Moscow inflicted on Turkey through sanctions, following the 2015 downing of a Russian bomber by a Turkish fighter jet.”Turkey is stuck; this is the problem. Russia is the key for Turkey to resolving Syria because Ankara can’t risk a military confrontation,” said international relations professor Huseyin Bagci of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University.”But I think Putin and Erdogan’s interpretations of interests are differing more than before, and it’s not a good development [for Ankara].”FILE – People walk past destruction by government airstrikes in the town of Ariha, in Idlib province, Syria, Jan. 15, 2020.While Ankara and Moscow back rival sides in the Syrian civil war, they have been working together to resolve the conflict — a cooperation that is providing the basis of a deeper rapprochement between the countries.   
    
Analysts suggest that, given the alarm in NATO of Turkey’s deepening ties with Russia, Moscow has a powerful incentive for containing bilateral tensions.”The different approaches towards the regime of [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad of Moscow and Ankara is a real challenge,” said Zaur Gasimov, a Russian expert at the University of Bonn. “But due to certain dynamics in the region of the Middle East, the importance of intensive cooperation between Russia and Turkey is still much more important than any sort of confrontation for Moscow.”Moscow appears to be trying to play down tensions over Idlib.”Russia is committed to the strict implementation of its obligations undertaken in Syria,” said a Russian foreign ministry statement Wednesday in reaction to Erdogan’s criticisms.Syrian refugeesHowever, the fate of the rebel-held city of Idlib is seen as a red line for Ankara.  “My impression is that he [Assad] wants to lay siege to Idlib city, and that’s where the real headache starts for Ankara,” said Yesilada. “Because there are already a half-million refugees huddled on our border, and if Idlib comes under attack, another half-million goes to border.”Syrians drive through the city of al-Mastouma, in Idlib province, as they flee a government offensive, Jan. 28, 2020.Turkey has been hosting more than 3.5 million Syrians, with its “open-door policy” to those seeking refuge from the civil war. But Erdogan is warning his country cannot take any more refugees.  Ankara claims the cost of hosting Syrians is more than $40 billion. Mounting public discontent is cited as the driver behind the defeats suffered by Erdogan’s AKP in last year’s local elections. The prospect of a new exodus from Idlib could be politically fatal for the Turkish president.”All the polls show a deep distaste for Syrians, given the economic difficulties in Turkey,” said Yesilada. “They drive the wages down; there are social problems. If you take another half-a-million refugees in or try to feed them across the border in Syria, it’s going to be a major blow to Erdogan’s popularity, which is already sinking, because his open-door policy has completely backfired.”At this month’s opening ceremony in Istanbul of a new Russian natural gas pipeline, Erdogan described Russian relations as “strategic.” But the deepening crisis in Idlib is likely to add to increasing questions over the price of that relationship.”Turkey needs Russia desperately in Syria. Without Russian cooperation, Idlib cannot be solved. But this relationship is not one of equals. There is a significant imbalance, the more this goes on, the more the question can be asked what is Turkey getting out of this,” said Turkish analyst Mehmet Ogutcu of the London Energy Club.
 
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The United Nations has been hacked.An internal confidential document from the United Nations, leaked to The New Humanitarian and seen by The Associated Press, says that dozens of servers were “compromised” at offices in Geneva and Vienna.Those include the U.N. human rights office, which has often been a lightning rod of criticism from autocratic governments for its calling-out of rights abuses.One U.N. official told the AP that the hack, which was first detected over the summer, appeared “sophisticated” and that the extent of the damage remains unclear, especially in terms of personal, secret or compromising information that may have been stolen. The official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity to speak freely about the episode, said systems have since been reinforced.The level of sophistication was so high that it was possible a state-backed actor might have been behind it, the official said.There were conflicting accounts about the significance of the incursion.“We were hacked,” U.N. human rights office spokesman Rupert Colville. “We face daily attempts to get into our computer systems. This time, they managed, but it did not get very far. Nothing confidential was compromised.”The breach, at least at the human rights office, appears to have been limited to the so-called active directory – including a staff list and details like e-mail addresses – but not access to passwords. No domain administration’s account was compromised, officials said.The United Nations headquarters in New York as well as the U.N.’s sprawling Palais des Nations compound in Geneva, its European headquarters, did not immediately respond to questions from the AP about the incident.Sensitive information at the human rights office about possible war criminals in the Syrian conflict and perpetrators of Myanmar’s crackdown against Rohingya Muslims were not compromised, because it is held in extremely secure conditions, the official said.The internal document from the U.N. Office of Information and Technology said 42 servers were “compromised” and another 25 were deemed “suspicious,” nearly all at the sprawling United Nations offices in Geneva and Vienna. Three of the “compromised” servers belonged to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which is located across town from the main U.N. office in Geneva, and two were used by the U.N. Economic Commission for Europe.Technicians at the United Nations office in Geneva, the world body’s European hub, on at least two occasions worked through weekends in recent months to isolate the local U.N. data center from the Internet, re-write passwords and ensure the systems were clean.The hack comes amid rising concerns about computer or mobile phone vulnerabilities, both for large organizations like governments and the U.N. as well as for individuals and businesses.Last week, U.N. human rights experts asked the U.S. government to investigate a suspected Saudi hack that may have siphoned data from the personal smartphone of Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder and owner of The Washington Post, in 2018. On Tuesday, the New York Times’s bureau chief in Beirut, Ben Hubbard, said technology researchers suspected an attempted intrusion into his phone around the same time.The United Nations, and its human rights office, is particularly sensitive, and could be a tempting target. The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, and her predecessors have called out, denounced and criticized alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and less severe rights violations and abuses in places as diverse as Syria and Saudi Arabia.Dozens of independent human rights experts who work with the U.N. human rights office have greater leeway – and fewer political and financial ties to the governments that fund the United Nations and make up its membership – to denounce alleged rights abuses.Jake Williams, CEO of data firm Rendition Infosec and former U.S. government hacker, said of the U.N. report: “The intrusion definitely looks like espionage.”He noted that accounts from three different domains were compromised. “This, coupled with the relatively small number of infected machines, is highly suggestive of espionage,” he said after viewing the report.“The attackers have a goal in mind and are deploying malware to machines that they believe serve some purpose for them,” he added.The U.N. document highlights a vulnerability in the software program Microsoft Sharepoint, which could have been used for the hack.Matt Suiche, a French entrepreneur based in Dubai who founded cybersecurity firm Comae Technologies, said that based on the report from September: “It is impossible to know if it was a targeted attack or just some random internet scan for vulnerable SharePoints.”But the U.N. official, speaking to The Associated Press on Tuesday, said that since then, the intrusion appeared sophisticated.“It’s as if someone were walking in the sand, and swept up their tracks with a broom afterward,” the official said. “There’s not even a trace of a clean-up.”
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The BBC said on Wednesday it will cut around 450 jobs from its news division as part of an 80 million pound savings drive and modernization program.The corporation said it would reorganize its newsroom along a “story-led” model where staff will be assigned to stories and not attached to individual programs.
“We need to reshape BBC News for the next decade in a way which saves substantial amounts of money,” said Fran Unsworth, director of News and Current Affairs. “We are spending too much of our resources on traditional linear broadcasting and not enough on digital.”
  
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An Istanbul court has defied the European Court of Human Rights, ruling in favor of the continued detention of prominent philanthropist Osman Kavala. In December, the European Court demanded the immediate release of Kavala, who is on trial for sedition.Kavala and 15 other civil society activists are accused of supporting anti-government protests in 2013 against then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is now president.  The protest action came to be known as the Gezi movement, named after an Istanbul park where the unrest started. Prosecutors are calling for life imprisonment without parole.The ECHR condemned the case, calling for an end to Kavala’s more than two years in prison and describing it as “arbitrary” and “politically motivated.”The Istanbul court ruled Tuesday the ECHR decision was provisional because Ankara was appealing the verdict and that Kavala should remain in jail.”The court’s decision is flawed because the European Court ruling was clear in its call for Kavala’s immediate release,” said Emma Sinclair Webb, Turkey researcher for New York-based Human Rights Watch.”We saw multiple signs of how unfair this trial is,” said Webb, speaking after attending Tuesday’s court hearing. “The lawyers for Kavala raised many objections to the way witness evidence is used in this case. The court turns a deaf ear to all objections. It’s a shocking indication that once again, Turkey’s judiciary seems to be under heavy pressure of the executive.”Tuesday’s court hearing was marred by chaos, with Kavala’s lawyers challenging the judge’s decision to hear some witnesses without their presence, prompting the lawyers to walk out of the room.  Ankara strongly rejects the ECHR verdict, maintaining that the judiciary is independent. But observers note the case has strong political undertones.  Three months ahead of Kavala’s prosecution, Erdogan accused him of “financing terrorists” and that Kavala was a representative for “that famous Jew [George Soros,] who tries to divide and tear up nations.” Erdogan did not elaborate on the comments about George Soros, who is an international philanthropist.Erdogan’s allegations against Kavala resemble the prosecution case against the jailed activist.Kavala is a pivotal figure in Turkey, using his wealth to help develop the country’s fledgling civil society after a 1980 military coup.
 
“Osman Kavala is very prominent within the civil society in this country,” said Sinan Gokcen, Turkey representative of Swedish-based Civil Rights Defenders. “He is not a man of antagonism; he is a man of preaching dialogue, a man of building bridges.”FILE – Lawyers for jailed philanthropist Osman Kavala hold a press conference in Istanbul, Turkey, Oct. 31, 2018.Gokcen works to support Turkish human rights defenders and says Kavala’s prosecution has far-reaching repercussions for civic society.”It means that they [the Turkish government] can detain any member of civil society in Turkey regardless of what this person is defending or advocating and can keep this person as long as they want despite any legal mechanism. We feel unprotected. In a way, we feel powerless to end such a situation. We feel powerless and intimidated,” added Gokcen.Turkey is in the grip of a legal crackdown following a 2016 failed coup blamed by the president on dissident military elements with links to Turkish-Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen. Gulen lives in self-imposed exile in the United States and is a staunch opponent of Erdogan.Hundreds of journalists, human rights defenders and members of the wider Turkish civic society have been prosecuted and jailed. The government says it is defending democracy, but critics argue the crackdown is more about silencing critics.Human Rights Watch Monday called on the United Nations to review Turkey’s “human rights crisis and the dramatic erosion of its rule of law framework.” On Tuesday, Turkey faced its third Universal Periodic Review (UPR) before the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.Ankara claims it remains committed to human rights and cites its plans to introduce a package of legal reforms. But critics cite the ongoing prosecutions as evidence of the government’s real intentions.”The huge number of journalists, politicians, and perceived government critics in prison and on trial flies in the face of the Turkish government’s public statements about the state of human rights in the country,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch.With the U.N. having few tools to sanction Turkey, the European Union is seen as offering the best hope by human rights advocates of applying pressure on Ankara.Turkey’s EU membership bid is already frozen, in part due to human rights concerns. But Ankara is seeking to extend a customs union, along with visa-free travel for its citizens with the EU.  “It’s time all European countries should be speaking out very loud and clear on cases like this [Kavala],” said Sinclair-Webb.But even high-profile cases like Kavala’s have seen Brussels offer only muted criticism of Ankara. German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to Istanbul Friday for talks with Erdogan saw little criticism of Turkey’s human rights record. Instead, discussions focused on Ankara’s recent deployment of soldiers to Libya and the upholding of an EU-Turkish agreement controlling migrants entering Europe.”There are many issues to talk about with Turkey,” said Sinclair Webb. “Syria, Libya, Turkey, hosting so many refugees from Syria, and this often takes priority over Turkey’s domestic human rights crisis. This means there isn’t sufficient clarity on cases like this. What we are seeing is Turkey defying Europe’s human rights court.”
 
Some analysts suggest Brussels could yet be lobbying behind the scenes for Kavala’s release, tying Ankara’s calls for extra financial assistance for refugees to gestures on human rights. 
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In a groundbreaking case in France, energy giant Total is being sued for allegedly failing to adequately fight climate change.The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday by environmental groups and local authorities who feel it has potential global implications.The legal action against Total will be the first use of a 2017 French law to sue for climate inaction. The legislation requires major French companies to draft so-called “vigilance plans” to prevent environmental damage, among other areas. The plaintiffs said Total has not done so when it comes to climate change.  “We’re filing a lawsuit against them because they’re still not making the energy transition necessary to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees,” said Paul Mougeolle, who represents Notre Affaire a Tous, an environmental NGO that has filed a separate climate action case against the French government.  “Total has 1% of greenhouse gases worldwide — more than the carbon footprint of France,” Mougeolle said. “So, we think Total has a special responsibility towards this energy transition.”Fourteen local authorities and five civil society groups have joined the Total lawsuit, which reflects a broader grass-roots uprising on climate in Europe and elsewhere.  This alliance said companies that contribute to climate change should help pay the price for mitigating it and dealing with the consequences.France’s central Val de Loire region is part of the lawsuit.Regional councilor Benoit Faucheaux describes last summer’s devastating drought, which dried up rivers in his region of central France. Experts said climate change will make such droughts longer, more frequent and more devastating.  “We hope Total will change its business model, that it will shift from that situation where it produces energy and fossil energies (to) another model where they are involved in energy transition,” Faucheaux said.Sebastien Mabile of Seattle Advocates law group, which has taken on the case, is uncertain about its chances — because it’s a legal first. But if it succeeds, he said, its impact could be big.  “Because Total … operates in 130 countries,” Mabile said. “So, this case can have implications all over the world, such as the U.S., Africa, in all of the oil and gas basins.”Total faces a separate but somewhat similar lawsuit for allegedly failing to plan for potential human and environmental impacts of an Ugandan oil project. The company did not respond VOA’s requests for comment.
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The pressure on Britain’s disgraced Prince Andrew increased Tuesday after the revelation by U.S. authorities that he has failed to cooperate with the FBI’s investigation into his ties with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Lawyer Lisa Bloom, who represents five of Epstein’s alleged sexual trafficking victims, said Tuesday that it’s time for Andrew “to stop playing games and to come forward to do the right thing and answer questions.”
Bloom said her clients were “outraged and disappointed at Prince Andrew’s behavior.”
Andrew remained out of the public eye Tuesday. Buckingham Palace and his legal team maintained a “no comment” policy one day after U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said Andrew has provided “zero cooperation” to the FBI and the U.S. prosecutors seeking to speak with him about Epstein.
The statement Monday by Berman, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, was the first official confirmation that the leading U.S. law enforcement agency had sought — and failed — to obtain evidence from Andrew, third child of Queen Elizabeth II, despite his pledge in November that he would cooperate with legitimate law enforcement agencies.
The U.S. decision to make the 59-year-old prince’s silence public may be part of a strategy to increase public calls for him to cooperate.FILE – Financier Jeffrey Epstein looks on during a bail hearing in his sex trafficking case, in this court sketch in New York, July 15, 2019.Andrew is being sought for questioning as a witness who may be able to shed light on the illegal activities of Epstein, who died in a New York prison in August while awaiting trial on sexually abusing teenage girls. There’s no indication that U.S. officials are pursuing criminal charges against the prince.
The FBI only has limited ways to try to convince Andrew to give evidence.
U.S. officials have not provided details, so it’s not clear if the FBI made an informal request through Andrew’s lawyers or went through formal police channels, which if successful would have led to an interview conducted by U.K. police, possibly with an FBI agent present.
“They can’t compel him to do any of those things,” said British lawyer Ben Keith, a specialist in extradition and law enforcement. “The next stage after that is to issue a formal Mutual Legal Assistance Request, which would go through the Foreign Office and be dealt with in the court system.”
That could lead, Keith said, to the prince giving evidence via video link to U.S. investigators.
Andrew has been accused by a woman who says that she had several sexual encounters with the prince at Epstein’s behest, starting when she was 17.
Virginia Roberts Giuffre says after meeting Epstein as a teenager in Florida in 2000, he flew her around the world and pressured her into having sex with numerous older men, including Andrew, two senior U.S. politicians, a noted academic, and the attorney Alan Dershowitz, who is now part of President Donald Trump’s impeachment defense team.
Giuffre has said she had sex with Andrew three times, including once in London in 2001 at the home of Epstein’s girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell. Giuffre claims that she was paid by Epstein for her sexual encounters.
Andrew and Dershowitz have denied any wrongdoing. But the royal family forced Andrew to step down from his royal duties and charity patronages in November after giving a disastrous television interview in which he defended his friendship with Epstein and failed to express sympathy for the girls and women who Epstein abused.
Andrew is also being pursued by several lawyers representing Epstein victims who are pushing civil suits against Epstein’s estate.
Those lawyers could choose to bring their request to a British high court, seeking to have an examiner take a statement from Andrew or pursue other ways to obtain his evidence. So far they are only making public calls for him to make himself available and threatening to subpoena Andrew if he travels to the U.S.
The complex legal situation may make Andrew reluctant to visit the U.S., where his evidence is sought on both criminal and civil cases, but lawyers say it’s unlikely to restrict his travel to other countries.
New York criminal defense lawyer Ron Kuby says it’s unlikely the prince will ever voluntarily agree to an interview and said the FBI doesn’t have the means to force him to.
“The likelihood of him participating is very, very small,” Kuby said. “Why would he? The last time Prince Andrew spoke on the relevant topic he was yanked from public life and universally ridiculed.”
Andrew, eighth in line to the throne, has been seen at occasional royal family events since November but has not commented on Epstein since his TV interview backfired.  
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Members of Turkey’s largest journalism trade union rallied outside Ankara’s Communications Directorate on Monday to protest the government’s mass cancellation of state-issued press credentials.According to the Journalist’s Union of Turkey, known by its Turkish acronym TGS, and international press advocacy groups, such as the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), up to 1,400 press cards have been canceled in recent months.Most of the journalists targeted for cancellation, observers say, report for independent news outlets or publications critical of the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.Although journalists are permitted to work without press cards, the passes are the only documents that allow reporters to access Parliament and other government buildings.”As journalists, we don’t need permission from anyone,” Esra Koçak, Ankara-branch chairman of TGS, told independent Turkish news agency Bianet. “We want to protect people’s right to receive information, which is our only motto.”Indefinite reviewIn 2019, Turkish communications officials announced plans to change the traditionally yellow press card to turquoise and require all reporters to submit applications for the new cards no later than Jan. 26, 2020.FILE – Journalists are seen during a stake-out in Istanbul, Turkey, Oct. 31, 2018.Since that announcement was made, hundreds of applications for renewal have remained under indefinite review without explanation, and journalists left in bureaucratic limbo have been instructed to await a ruling on the status of their individual applications.Although some reporters were told they could continue using their old yellow cards in the meantime, Ankara officials invalidated all yellow cards on the Jan. 26 deadline.Officials with Turkey’s Communications Directorate did not respond to requests for comment, but the agency’s director, Fahrettin Altun, took to Twitter Monday to deny allegations of mass decredentialing.”Reports regarding the cancellation of press passes is not accurate,” he wrote, appending a diagram showing several phases of the press card application process.Turkish communications officials, he wrote in further posts, must first determine whether applicants are “professionally engaged in journalistic activity, whether he/she is affiliated with a terrorist organization and whether he/she has been engaged in any action or conduct that tarnishes the integrity of the profession.”Altun put the number of the unconcluded applications at 894.Some cards reactivatedAfter several hours of protests on Monday, some journalists found that their cards were at least partially reactivated, suddenly indicating a “still in use” status on government web portals, leading some to questions whether the government had begun walking back the restrictions.”It appears that the Directorate decided to correct the mistake,” said a TGS spokesperson. “We call on the officials to issue the new press passes that have been put on hold for the past year with no reason provided.”Ankara’s Communications Directorate has reported to President Erdogan’s office since June 2018, when Turkey scrapped its parliamentary system for an executive presidential system of governance.FILE – Journalists work on a hilltop in Ceylanpinar, Sanliurfa province, southeastern Turkey, covering Ankara’s incursion into Syria, Oct. 20, 2019.According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, 15 reporters and the top editor of Istanbul-based Evrensel have been denied reporting credentials, as have journalists working for other left-leaning dailies such as BirGün and Cumhuriyet.”Turkey’s decision to cancel the press cards for hundreds of journalists is yet another attack on independent reporting and is absolutely unacceptable,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “Authorities should immediately restore the journalists’ press credentials, and should ensure that passes are granted in an impartial process.”Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, known by its French acronym RSF, ranked Turkey 157 out of 180 countries in its 2019 annual World Press Freedom Index.”After the elimination of dozens of media outlets and the acquisition of Turkey’s biggest media group by a pro-government conglomerate, the authorities are tightening the vice on what little is left of pluralism – a handful of media outlets that are being harassed and marginalized,” said the RSF report, which identifies Ankara as the world’s second largest jailer of journalists.The 2019 RSF index ranked the United States 48 out of 180, a three-slot drop from 45th place in 2018, as “rhetorical attacks from the government and private individuals alike grew increasingly hostile.”CPJ reported that Turkey revoked press credentials of some 900 journalists after the attempted coup in 2016. 
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The European Union on Tuesday slapped sanctions on seven people accused of undermining Ukraine’s sovereignty for their role in organizing Russian local elections in the Crimean Peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014.The seven, who will see their assets frozen and face travel bans in Europe, include a top official in Crimea and senior electoral commission officers in the city of Sevastopol whom the EU blame for running the elections on Sept. 8.”Through their involvement in the elections, these people actively supported actions and implemented policies which undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine,” EU headquarters said in a statement.The move means that 177 people and 44 “entities” – organizations, associations or companies – are now under EU sanctions over allegations of undermining Ukraine’s territorial integrity.The EU imposed sanctions on Russia after it annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and the bloc refuses to recognize Moscow’s authority there. It has separate sanctions targeting the Russian economy which are due to remain in place until at least July 31. 
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A moderate earthquake shook buildings in western Turkey on Tuesday, sending people running into the streets for safety, Turkish media reports said. Authorities said there were no immediate reports of any injury or major damage.
    
The quake came just four days after a strong earthquake struck eastern Turkey on Friday, toppling buildings and causing 41 deaths. More than 1,600 people were also hurt in the 6.8-magnitude quake.
    
Turkey’s emergency and disaster management agency, AFAD, said Tuesday’s quake measured 4.8 and was centered near the town of Kirkagac, in Manisa province. It occurred at 2:26 p.m. (1126 GMT) at a depth of 6.99 kilometers (4.34 miles). The Istanbul-based Kandilli seismology center said the quake measured 5.1.
    
Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu told reporters there were no initial reports of damage or injuries. Turkish media said the quake was felt in Istanbul and Izmir.
    
In Manisa, people ran out into the streets in panic when they felt the shaking, private NTV television said. An abandoned house collapsed in one village near Kirkagac, the station reported.
    
Earthquakes are frequent in Turkey, which sits atop two major fault lines. Manisa was hit by a magnitude 5.4 earthquake on Jan. 22 which caused a few derelict structures to collapse.
    
Turkey’s worst quake in decades came in 1999, when a pair of strong earthquakes struck northwest Turkey, killing around 18,000 people.
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The European Union will “never, never, never” compromise on the integrity of its single market, its chief Brexit negotiator warned Britain on Monday, saying London must now face reality after underestimating the costs of leaving.Some British politicians have suggested Brussels might be flexible on its rules in order to protect trade flows in talks due to begin in the coming weeks after Britain’s formal exit from the bloc on Friday.But Michel Barnier, speaking in the British region of Northern Ireland widely seen as most at risk from Brexit, warned negative consequences were unavoidable.”There will be no compromise on the single market. Never, never, never,” Barnier told an audience at Queen’s University Belfast, describing the single market as the foundation of EU’s international influence.Michel Barnier, the European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator, speaks to the media at Government Buildings in Dublin, Ireland, Jan. 27, 2020.”Leaving the single market, leaving the customs union will have consequences. And what I saw … in the last year, is that many of these consequences have been underestimated in the UK,” he said. “Now we have to face the reality.”Hard choicesBarnier said that while Brussels was willing to be flexible and pragmatic in trade talks, Britain’s choices have made frictionless trade with the EU impossible.If no trade agreement is reached, Britain still faces the risk of a cliff-edge Brexit in 2021 when an 11-month status quote transition ends, he added.”If we have no agreement, it will not be business as usual and the status quo, we have to face the risk of a cliff edge, in particular for trade,” Barnier said.The EU has repeatedly said the level of access UK products can continue to enjoy will be proportionate to the commitments London makes on EU rules, particularly in relation to state aid.”It is not clear to me whether, when the UK leaves the EU and the Single Market, it will also choose to leave Europe’s societal and regulatory model. That is the key question, and we are waiting for an answer,” Barnier said.Northern IrelandIrish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar earlier Tuesday said there would have to be some checks on goods going from Britain into Northern Ireland, despite British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s repeated insistence that these will not be needed.Johnson’s willingness to allow some EU regulations to apply in Northern Ireland to prevent the need for a border on the island was the crucial concession he offered last year to obtain a withdrawal deal with the bloc.Barnier was asked repeatedly by journalists in Belfast whether trade talks could avoid the need to have checks, but he would only say the text of the withdrawal agreement that governs it was binding and could not be revisited.”The Withdrawal Agreement must be applied with rigor and discipline by all sides. It cannot be re-opened under the guise of implementation,” Barnier said. Implementation will be crucial in building trust for the trade talks, he added.Varadkar earlier on Monday told Britain’s BBC that the European Union would have the upper hand in trade talks, having the “stronger team” due to its larger population and market. Johnson’s aim of getting a deal by the end of 2020 “will be difficult,” Varadkar added.
 
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The United States is refusing to rule out shrinking the size of its military presence in Africa despite warnings that without Washington’s help, critical counterterror efforts could fall apart.French Defense Minister Florence Parly delivered the latest plea for continued U.S. involvement in the counterterror fight Monday during talks with top U.S. military officials at the Pentagon.But following the meeting, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Washington had to take into account other urgent priorities.”We are focused on great power competition, first with China, then Russia,” Esper told reporters. “My aim is to adjust our [military] footprint in many places. No decisions have been made.”French Minister of Armed Forces Florence Parly and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper speak during a news conference at the Pentagon in Washington, Jan. 27, 2020.France currently has about 4,500 troops in Africa, taking a lead role in countering terror groups linked to Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaida across the Sahel region.Earlier this month, in response to the death of 13 French soldiers during a combat mission in Mali late last year, France said it would send another 220 troops to the region.And France is not alone in sounding the alarm about the growth of terror groups on the Sahel.A increasing number of Western diplomats have warned that IS, in particular, is using the region to regroup following the loss of its self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq.The concern has run so deep, that during an anti-IS coalition meeting hosted this past November in Washington, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that partner nations were already looking to West Africa and the Sahel as “a preferred, initial area of focus” outside of Syria and Iraq.“We agreed at the working level that West FILE – French President Emmanuel Macron visits French troops in Africa’s Sahel region in Gao, northern Mali, May 19, 2017.”There is a lot of collaboration in terms of logistics but also in terms of intelligence,” Niagale Bagayoko, a lead researcher and chair of the African Security Sector Network, told VOA. “That is one of the reasons why the French are presently eager to see the Americans to stay involved in the continent, in particular.”French officials have also emphasized that while they understand Washington’s desire to rebalance its forces across the world to better confront adversaries like China and Russia, they are not asking for a lot.”It’s a classic case of burden sharing where a limited U.S. support leverages an immesnse effort carried out by France and Europe,” Parly said Monday.Yet despite French officials expressing hope that “good sense” would prevail and that Washington would maintain its support for the French-led counterterror operations, U.S. defense officials have increasingly signaled such help may not be forthcoming.”France has reached out to other European allies. I think it’s time for other European allies to assist, as well, in the region,” Esper told reporters Monday. “That could offset whatever changes we make as we consider next steps in Africa.”VOA’s Salem Solomon contributed to this report.
 
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This week Secretary of State Mike Pompeo heads to London as British officials weigh whether or not to allow Chinese telecom giant Huawei to take part in the country’s buildout of its 5G network.The British government is expected to make the decision Tuesday.  FILE – Signage is seen at the Huawei offices in Reading, Britain, May 2, 2019.A senior U.S. official said the two nations are having “very close” and “very vigorous conversations.” Another official said Britain has not told the U.S. about the final decision.  The U.S. says Huawei could provide China a “back door” for spying, a claim that Huawei rejects.  In a Friday phone call with Johnson, U.S. President Donald Trump told the British Prime Minister that giving Huawei the go-ahead would cause a major rift in transatlantic relations and jeopardize intelligence-sharing between Washington and London.U.S. officials have also voiced frustration with decisions by some European nations to grant Huawei some access in the roll-out of their 5G network.“They announced a toolkit that many of us consider to be inadequate,” a senior U.S. official said, referring to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “no-spy” pact from Huawei as she decided to allow the Chinese telecom company to take part in Germany’s 5G roll-out.Under the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020, the U.S. Defense Secretary should brief Congressional defense committees by March 15 on the implementation of a plan for fifth generation information and communications technologies, including steps to work with U.S. allies and partners to protect critical networks and supply chains. 
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Britain’s Prince Andrew has provided “zero cooperation” to the American investigators who want to interview him as part of their sex trafficking probe into Jeffrey Epstein, a U.S. prosecutor said Monday.Speaking at a news conference outside Epstein’s New York mansion, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said prosecutors and the FBI had contacted Andrew’s lawyers and asked to interview him.”To date, Prince Andrew has provided zero cooperation,” said Berman, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan.The Associated Press has asked Buckingham Palace for comment.Andrew announced last year that he was withdrawing from his royal duties amid renewed public attention on a woman’s claim that she had several sexual encounters with the prince at Epstein’s behest, starting when she was 17.FILE – A combination photo of the front-pages of British newspapers on Nov. 21, 2019, headlining the scandal surrounding Britain’s Prince Andrew.Virginia Roberts Giuffre says that after meeting Epstein in Florida in 2000, the millionaire flew her around the world and pressured her into having sex with numerous older men, including Andrew, two senior U.S. politicians, a noted academic, wealthy financiers and the attorney Alan Dershowitz, who is now part of President Donald Trump’s impeachment defense team.All of those men have denied the allegations. Epstein killed himself in his jail cell last summer while he was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.Giuffre has said she had sex with Andrew three times, including once in London in 2001 at the home of Epstein’s girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.Andrew and Maxwell have both denied any knowledge that Epstein was sexually abusing teenage girls. In a TV interview last fall, Andrew insisted he was out having pizza with his children on the night Giuffre says they were together in London.U.S. Attorney General William Barr has vowed to aggressively investigate and bring charges against anyone who may have helped Epstein.Andrew, in the statement he released in November announcing his intention to “step back from public duties,” said he regretted his “ill-judged association with Jeffrey Epstein.””Of course, I am willing to help any appropriate law enforcement agency with their investigations, if required,” he wrote.Berman made his remarks about the case during a joint appearance with members of Safe Horizon, a nonprofit victim services agency, to discuss a new New York law that made it easier for people to sue over childhood sexual abuse.He wouldn’t discuss the Epstein investigation in detail but reiterated that the case didn’t end with his death.”Jeffrey Epstein couldn’t have done what he did without the assistance of others, and I can assure you that the investigation is moving forward,” Berman said.Numerous women who said they were sexually abused by Epstein as teenagers have claimed in lawsuits and interviews that he got help recruiting young girls from both Maxwell and several assistants.Giuffre’s lawyers have, for months, been calling on Andrew to agree to be interviewed both by investigators and by the lawyers helping the women with those civil lawsuits.Two guards who were supposed to be monitoring Epstein the night he was found dead have been charged with falsifying the jail’s log books to indicate they were performing checks on prisoners, when they were actually sleeping or browsing the internet.
 
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Greece is pushing back against Turkish demands that it demilitarize 16 Aegean islands. The Turkish government maintains it is defending Turkey’s rights and remains committed to negotiation, but analysts warn Turkey’s increasingly “robust diplomacy” threatens to isolate Ankara and escalate regional tensions.  “Greece does not provoke, does not violate the sovereign rights of others, but it doesn’t like to see its own rights violated,” said Greek Defense Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos Saturday.FILE – In this June 26, 2019 file photo, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, center left, arrives to NATO headquarters in Brussels.Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar on Wednesday accused Greece of keeping troops on the islands in violation of the 1936 Treaty of Lausanne, which governs the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece.  The dispute dates to 1974 when Athens started to militarize the islands off the Turkish coast in response to Turkey’s invasion of the Mediterranean island of Cyprus after a pro-Greek coup.Akar’s focus on the dispute is widely seen as part of a broader policy. “Turkey is asking today for the islands’ demilitarization, when there [is] an incredible historical increase of Turkish jets violating Greek airspace,” said political scientist Cengiz Aktar of the University of Athens.”It’s a message Turkey is an aggressive force in the eastern Mediterranean, and Turkey gives the impression it wants a hot conflict with its neighbor, Greece.”Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses his ruling party’s legislators, in Ankara, Jan. 14, 2020.Last week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan further ratcheted up tensions, announcing that Turkish research ships will be deployed in contested Cypriot waters to search for hydrocarbons.  The discovery of large natural gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean by Israel and Cyprus has unleashed a scramble by regional countries for the fossil fuel.  Ankara accuses Greece and other regional countries of seeking to shut it out of the believed bounty of vast energy reserves.”We won’t let anyone violate our rights in any way. This is not a threat,” said Akar Wednesday, adding, “It’s not a weakness to say that we want good relations with our neighbor.””The strategy that Turkey is following is it should protect its legitimate rights in the Mediterranean,” said former Turkish Ambassador Mithat Rende. “The strategy is to have an equitable solution to the matter. And Turkey has made it clear it’s ready to talk.”The policy of diplomacy, backed by strength, however, appears to be backfiring. Athens is looking to its European Union partners to push back against Ankara.FILE – German Chancellor Angela Merkel attends a weekly cabinet meeting at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Dec. 18, 2019.On Friday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel held talks in Istanbul with Erdogan in a bid to shore up Turkey’s commitment to the migrant deal.Given the EU’s limited ability to rein in Turkey, which has the largest navy and air force in the region, analysts predict further muscle-flexing.”When you enter a policy of confrontation, you can’t step back; you are trapped; otherwise, you look weak,” said Aktar.But the Turkish government could well be calculating, that whatever the outcome of its policy, it will be a win.”I don’t think there will be a military clash,” said Sezer. “But, it’s a risk. It’s a dangerous situation, the longer it goes on. But this would be an opportunity for the government because it will prove to the people all those countries in the region are real threats to Turkey,” he added.
 
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ELAZIG, TURKEY — Turkey called off rescue operations on Monday in eastern areas hit by Friday’s earthquake after emergency workers recovered the body of a final person they were searching for in a collapsed building, bringing the death toll to 41, authorities said.The magnitude 6.8 quake caused 37 deaths in Elazig province, about 550 km (340 miles) east of Ankara, and four in neighboring Malatya. More than 1,600 others were hurt, including 86 still being treated in hospitals, though none were in serious condition, the government said.Forty-five people had been rescued from under ruined buildings, Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Authority (AFAD) said.Authorities have warned residents not to enter damaged buildings because of the danger of collapse and further aftershocks, leaving many without a home in a region where temperatures fell to -6C (21F) on Monday morning.Addressing reporters in Elazig, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said the government would provide financial support to those whose homes were damaged. Some 1,000 temporary homes would be built, and some schools and mosques were now being used as shelters, he added.Urbanization Minister Murat Kurum said authorities had started demolishing 22 damaged buildings in Elazig. Construction of some 2,000 new houses in the province was expected to be completed by year end, he added.Turkey has a history of powerful earthquakes. More than 17,000 people were killed in August 1999 when a 7.6 magnitude quake struck Izmit, a city southeast of Istanbul. In 2011, a quake in the eastern city of Van killed more than 500. 
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