An Italian offshore supply vessel on Saturday rescued 65 migrants, including women and children, fleeing Libya to Europe on a crowded, wooden boat.

The migrant boat was drifting after its engine stopped working and was spotted by the Seabird, an NGO monitoring aircraft flying over the central Mediterranean. Those on board were not wearing life vests and were eventually rescued in international waters by the Asso Ventinove supply vessel near the Bouri oilfield following a request to do so from the Seabird. An Associated Press journalist flying with Seabird witnessed the rescue.

A Libyan coast guard vessel arrived on the scene shortly afterward to inspect the empty boat. It is common for Libyan authorities to retrieve engines following rescues.

The Asso Ventinove reported that all the people rescued, including five children, appeared in good health. In radio communication with the Seabird, the captain said he was waiting for orders from the rescue and coordination center in Rome to assign them a safe place to disembark the migrants.

So far this year some 44,000 people have reached European shores by crossing the central Mediterranean from Tunisia and Libya, often at the hands of smugglers who put them on unseaworthy boats. Roughly half of those who arrived disembarked on Lampedusa, an Italian island closer to North Africa than Italy.

Despite the increasing arrivals, many fail.

As of Sept. 25, more than 25,000 people had been intercepted by the EU-trained and equipped Libyan coast guard this year and returned to the war-torn country, according to the U.N. migration agency.

Once disembarked, the migrants are often placed in squalid detention centers where they are subject to extortion, torture and abuse.

There were also more than 1,100 deaths recorded by the IOM in the Central Mediterranean this year.

 
…

Turkey’s newest park is an underwater museum of 14 shipwrecks that lie beneath the waves of the Dardanelles Strait, a glimpse into the fierce battles between the Ottoman and Allied forces in World War I.

Turkish photographer Savas Karakas was one of the first to board a boat and dive to the seabed grave when the park opened Saturday. There, he says, he was able to reconnect with his grandfather who fought in the Gallipoli campaign of 1915.

“My grandfather’s hands were disfigured and burned in action, and I was always scared of them,” said Karakas, who lives in Istanbul and whose given name means “war,” after the battle.

“But when I come to Gallipoli and dive, the rusted metal and steel of the wrecks reminds me of my grandfather’s hands, and I hold his hand under the water.”

The Gallipoli Historic Underwater Park opened 106 years after Ottoman and allied German forces halted an invasion by British, French, Australian and New Zealand troops.

The Ottoman resistance remains a point of deep pride in modern Turkey. At the time, it thwarted the Allies’ plan to control the straits connecting the Aegean to the Black Sea, where their Russian naval allies were penned in.

Heavy British losses included the 120-meter HMS Majestic battleship, which is the first stop for divers at a depth of 24 meters off the coast of Seddulbahir.

It and other vessels are largely intact on the sea floor.

“We are a fortunate generation because we … can still visit those monuments,” said Ali Ethem Keskin, another underwater photographer from Istanbul.

“When I started diving … I felt the moment that they were sunk, and I felt the stress of war,” he said. “I sensed the panic they felt at that moment.” 
…

After enduring a decade of war in Syria, Boshra al-Moallem and her two sisters seized their chance to flee. Her brother, who escaped years earlier to Belgium, had saved enough money for their trip, and word was spreading online that a new migration route into Europe had opened through Belarus.

But the journey proved terrifying and nearly deadly. Al-Moallem became trapped at the border of Belarus and Poland for 20 days and was pushed back and forth between armed guards from each side in an area of swamps. She endured cold nights, mosquitoes, hunger and terrible thirst. Only after she collapsed from exhaustion and dehydration did Polish guards finally take her to a hospital.

“I didn’t expect this to happen to us. They told us it’s really easy to go to Europe, to find your life, to run [from] war,” the 48-year-old said as she recovered this week in a refugee center in eastern Poland. “I didn’t imagine I would live another war between the borders.”

Al-Moallem is one of thousands of people who traveled to Belarus in recent weeks and were then pushed across the border by Belarusian guards. The European Union has condemned the Belarusian actions as a form of “hybrid war” against the bloc.

Originally from Homs, Al-Moallem was displaced to Damascus by the war. She said Belarusian officials tricked her into believing the journey into the EU would be easy and then used her as a “weapon” in a political fight against Poland. But she also says the Polish border guards were excessively harsh, denying her water and using dogs to frighten her and other migrants as the guards pushed them back across to Belarus, over and over again.

For years, people fleeing war in the Middle East have made dangerous journeys across the Mediterranean and Aegean seas, seeking safety in Western Europe. But after the arrival of more than a million people in 2015, European Union nations put up concrete and razor-wire walls, installed drone surveillance and cut deals with Turkey and Libya to keep migrants away.

The far less protected path into the EU through the forests and swamps of Eastern Europe emerged as a route only after the EU imposed sanctions on the regime of the authoritarian Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, following a flawed election and a harsh crackdown on protesters.

Suddenly people from Iraq, Syria and elsewhere were flying to Minsk, the capital of Belarus, on tourist visas and then traveling by car — many apparently aided by smugglers — to the border.

The three EU countries that border Belarus — Poland, Lithuanian and Latvia — accuse Lukashenko of acting to destabilize their societies.

If that is indeed the aim, it is working. Poland denied entry to thousands of migrants and refused to let them apply for asylum, violating international human rights conventions. The country has had its behavior criticized by human rights groups at home and abroad.

Stanislaw Zaryn, a spokesman for Poland’s special services, told The Associated Press that Polish forces always provide help to migrants if their lives are endangered. In other cases, while it might pain them not to help, Zaryn insisted that Poland must hold its ground and defend its border because it is being targeted in a high-stakes standoff with Belarus, which is backed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Poland is of the opinion that only by thoroughly securing our border with Belarus are we able to stop this migration route, which is a route artificially created by Lukashenko with Putin’s support. It was artificially created in order to take revenge on the entire European Union,” Zaryn said.

With six migrants found dead along the border so far and small children returned to Belarus this week, human rights workers are appalled. They insist Poland must respect its obligations under international law to allow the migrants to apply for asylum, and not push them back across the border.

“The fact that these are Lukashenko’s political actions directed against Poland and directed against the European Union is obvious to us,” said Marianna Wartecka with the refugee rights group Fundacja Ocalenie. “But this does not justify the actions of the Polish state.”

Archbishop Wojciech Polak, the head of Poland’s Roman Catholic Church, also weighed in, giving his support to medics seeking access to the border to help. “We should not allow our brethren to suffer and die on our borders,” he said.

Lukashenko denies that his forces are pushing people into Poland, but his state media have seized on Poland’s response to depict the EU as a place where human rights are not respected.

After traveling from Syria to Lebanon, al-Moallem, who was an English teacher in Syria, flew to Minsk, and from there took a taxi with her sisters and a brother-in-law to the border. Belarusian forces then guided the group to a spot to cross into Poland.

Crying as she told her story in English, al-Moallem said that Belarusian forces told them: “It’s a really easy way to get to Poland. It’s a swamp. Just go through the swamp and up the hill, and you will be in Poland.”

“And when we were trying to get up the hill, Polish border guards pushed us back. Families, women, men, children. The children were screaming and crying,” she recalled. “I was asking Polish border guards, ‘Please just a drop of water. I’m so thirsty. I’ve been here without a drop of water.’ ”

But all they would do is snap back: “Go to Belarus. We are not responsible for you.”

That happened repeatedly, with the Belarusian forces taking them back, sometimes giving them nothing more than some bread, and then returning them the next night.

During her ordeal, she took videos of the desperate migrants with her phone and posted some to Facebook. Her videos and her account to the AP provide rare eyewitness evidence of the crisis at the border.

Such scenes unfold largely out of public view because Poland, following Lithuania and Latvia, declared a state of emergency along the border, which prevents journalists and human rights workers from going there.

The Polish government’s measures, which also involve bolstering border defenses with soldiers, are popular with many Poles. The conservative ruling party, which won power in 2015 on a strong anti-migrant platform, has seen its popularity strengthen in opinion polls amid the new crisis.

Despite Poland’s efforts, there are reports that some asylum-seekers have managed to cross into the EU undetected and headed farther west, often to reunite with relatives in Germany.

Al-Moallem says she and her relatives plan to leave the center where they are staying now and travel across the EU’s open borders to their brother in Belgium. They plan to seek asylum there. All she wants, she said, is for her family to be reunited after years of trauma and “to feel safe.”
…

Polls closed Saturday in Georgian municipal elections, a day after the dramatic arrest of ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili, who called from police custody for the country’s “peaceful transition to a genuine democracy.” 

The detention on Friday of Georgia’s foremost opposition figure upon his return from exile raised the stakes in the polls seen as a key test for the increasingly unpopular Georgian Dream ruling party. 

In comments to AFP through a representative, who visited him in prison on Saturday, Saakashvili said, “Georgia needs a peaceful transition towards a genuine democracy where political opponents are not locked up on falsified charges or forced into exile.” 

“I am not seeking any political office. I am just determined to fight to the end against the oligarchic rule which kills Georgian democracy,” he said. 

He was likely referring to former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, a powerful oligarch and ruling party founder who is widely believed to be calling the shots in Georgia despite holding no political office. 

The founder of Georgia’s main opposition party, the United National Movement (UNM), and president from 2004 to 2013, Saakashvili, 53, said Friday that he had returned from Ukraine, where he heads a Ukrainian government agency steering reforms. 

The flamboyant pro-Western reformer, who in 2003 led the peaceful “Rose Revolution” that ousted Communist-era elites and still commands a fiercely loyal following, was detained shortly after his arrival in connection with a 2018 conviction in absentia on abuse-of-office charges. 

He has denied wrongdoing and denounced his sentence of six years in jail as politically motivated. Following his arrest, he went on a hunger strike, Georgia’s rights ombudsperson said. 

‘We are all equal’

Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili defended the decision to detain Saakashvili, saying that “we are all equal before the law, political leaders and ordinary citizens.” 

Both the ruling party and the opposition said after polls closed at 1600 GMT that they were set to win the elections. 

Turnout stood at 41% by 5 p.m. (1300 GMT), said the central election commission, which was expected to start releasing vote results on Sunday. 

Standing in a long queue of voters outside a polling station in central Tbilisi on Saturday afternoon, painter Luka Samushia, 27, said: “It will be difficult for the government to falsify vote results if the turnout is high. 

“They must go. They can’t jail Saakashvili and remain in power,” he added. 

The municipal elections were being watched inside and outside Georgia for signs of the ruling party backsliding on democracy. 

Critics have accused Georgian Dream — in power since 2012 — of using criminal prosecutions to punish political opponents and journalists. Interpol turned down requests from Tbilisi to issue a red notice against Saakashvili. 

Opposition parties decried widespread fraud and refused to take their seats after last October’s parliamentary elections, which Georgian Dream won narrowly. 

They have since staged mass protests, demanding snap polls. 

The EU mediated an interparty agreement in May, under which Georgian Dream pledged to hold a snap parliamentary vote if it won less than 43% in Saturday’s local elections. 

The ruling party withdrew from the pact in July, but the European Union and the United States urged the EU-aspirant country’s government to implement the agreement that envisages sweeping political and judiciary reforms. Saakashvili insists the deal remains in place.

With concerns mounting in the West over the ruling party’s democratic credentials, the United States has hinted at possible sanctions against Georgian Dream officials. 
…

Authorities advised people to limit time outdoors Saturday in parts of La Palma as the erupting volcano on the Spanish island spewed red-hot lava and thick clouds of black smoke.

Emergency services lifted a stay-home order, however, that had been in effect in Los Llanos de Aridane, El Paso, and areas of Tazacorte — places near the volcano that had been affected by poor air quality.

“In response to the improvement in air quality measurements in the area, the lockdown in Tazacorte, El Paso and Los Llanos de Aridane will be lifted,” the services said in a statement.  

They advised people to continue to avoid spending a “prolonged amount of time” outside, and said vulnerable groups including children and the elderly should remain indoors.

The Cumbre Vieja volcano began its fiery eruption on September 19 and has destroyed more than 800 buildings. About 6,000 people have been evacuated from their homes on the island, which has a population of about 83,000 and is one of an archipelago making up the Canary Islands in the Atlantic.

On Friday, lava flowed from a new vent in the volcano, which the Canaries Volcanology Institute described as a new “focus of eruption.”

The volcano was experiencing “intense activity,” Miguel Angel Morcuende, director of the Pevolca response committee, told a news conference Friday. But he also put the eruption into the context of the wider island.

“Less than 8% of the island is affected by the volcano. The rest is leading a normal life,” he said.
…

Kosovo’s border crossing with Serbia was reopened on Saturday as Serbs removed trucks and cars and NATO troops moved in under a European Union-mediated deal to end a dispute between the neighboring countries over car license plates.

Kosovo special police forces withdrew from the border crossing in the north of the country nearly two weeks after Serbs blocked roads to protest at Kosovo’s decision to introduce temporary license plates for all cars from Serbia.

The Kosovo government said the license plate requirement was imposed in retaliation for Serbian measures taken against drivers from Kosovo since 2008, when Kosovo declared independence from Serbia.

“From this weekend and for the next two weeks, KFOR will maintain a temporary, robust and agile presence in the area, in accordance with the mentioned arrangement,” said a statement by the NATO-led peacekeeping force, called KFOR.

Serbia, which lost control over Kosovo after NATO bombing in 1999, does not recognize Kosovo’s independence and therefore its right to take actions such as registering cars.

This month’s confrontation boiled over into violence, but the two countries – with mediation by EU special envoy Miroslav Lajcak – struck a deal Thursday.

Under the deal, stickers will be used on license plates to cover state symbols, and NATO, which has some 3,000 troops in Kosovo, will be allowed to control the area.

Local Serbs chatted Saturday with Slovenian soldiers, who are part of the NATO force, as they removed barricades while Kosovo police vehicles stood at the border crossing.

The deadline for their withdrawal was 4 p.m. (1400 GMT). As Serbia moves towards EU membership it must resolve all outstanding issues with Kosovo. The two parties agreed to an EU-mediated dialog in 2013, but little progress has been made.

Kosovo’s independence was backed by Western countries including the United States and Britain, but it is still not recognized by five EU member states and its membership of the United Nations is blocked by Serbia’s traditional ally Russia.

 
…

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian will hold talks with United States’ Secretary of State Antony Blinken on October 5. The two will aim to work on restoring confidence between the two countries, said a statement issued by Le Drian’s office.

Diplomatic relations between the United States and France hit a low point last month, after Australia cancelled a previous $40 billion submarine deal with France to build instead at least eight nuclear-powered submarines with U.S. and British

technology.

In retaliation, France briefly withdrew its ambassador to the United States, although the envoy has since returned to Washington.

U.S. President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron have already held talks since the row over the submarine deal, pledging to begin “in-depth consultations” on bilateral relations.
…

Starting Monday, Britain will deploy military tanker drivers to deliver fuel to gas stations, many of which were still dry on Friday after a chaotic week that saw panic-buying, fights at the pumps and drivers hoarding gas in water bottles. 

With an acute shortage of truck drivers straining supply chains to the breaking point, the government said Friday that 200 military tanker personnel, 100 of whom are drivers, will complete their training over the weekend and start deliveries on Monday. 

“While the situation is stabilizing, our armed forces are there to fill in any critical vacancies and help keep the country on the move by supporting the industry to deliver fuel to forecourts,” said Defense Minister Ben Wallace. 

Shortages of workers in several sectors in the wake of Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic have sown disarray through some sectors of the economy, disrupting deliveries of fuel and medicines and stranding more than 100,000 pigs on farms. 

Retailers said more than 2,000 gas stations were dry, and Reuters reporters across London and southern England said dozens of pumps were still closed. 

‘Completely fed up’

Lines of often irate drivers snaked toward those gas stations that were still open in London. 

“I am completely, completely fed up. Why is the country not ready for anything?” said Ata Uriakhil, 47, an Afghanistan-born taxi driver who was first in a line of more than 40 cars outside a closed supermarket petrol station in Richmond. 

“When is it going to end?” Uriakhil said. “The politicians are not capable of doing their jobs properly. The government should have been prepared for this crisis. It is just incompetence.” 

Uriakhil said he had lost about 20% of his normal earnings this week because he has been waiting for fuel rather than picking up customers. 

The Petrol Retailers Association (PRA) said members reported on Friday that 26% of pumps were dry, 27% had just one fuel type in stock and 47% had enough petrol and diesel. 

“Independents, which total 65% of the entire network, are not receiving enough deliveries of fuel compared with other sectors such as supermarkets,” Gordon Balmer, PRA executive director, told Reuters. 

Ministers say the world is facing a global shortage of truck drivers and that they are working to ease the crisis. They deny that the situation is a consequence of an exodus of EU workers following Britain’s departure from the bloc, and have dismissed concerns the country is heading toward a winter of shortages and power cuts. 

Though there are shortages of truck drivers in other countries, EU members have not seen fuel shortages. 

Farms struggling 

The Conservative government this week changed tack on immigrant workers to allow some foreign workers to come in for three months to drive trucks and fill gaps in the poultry sector.

In addition, farmers are warning that a shortage of butchers and abattoir workers could force a cull of tens of thousands of pigs. 

The pig industry implored retailers to continue buying local pork and not cheaper EU products, saying businesses would go bust and livestock would be culled if producers were not given immediate support. 

The weekly slaughter of pigs has dropped by 25% since August after the pandemic and Britain’s post-Brexit immigration rules combined to hit a meat processing industry that was already struggling for workers. 

“As a result of the labor supply issues in pork processing plants, we currently have an estimated 120,000 pigs backed up on U.K. pig farms that should have gone to slaughter,” the National Pig Association said in a letter to retailers. 

“The only option for some will be to cull pigs on farm.” 

The pig association said that despite attempts to persuade the government to ease immigration rules, it appeared to have reached an impasse. 
…

“It’s easy to be green,” Boris Johnson said at the United Nations General Assembly last week.

He and other European leaders equally committed to net-zero carbon emissions, however, may discover turning green is not so simple, and there may be a high electoral price to pay, analysts say.

The energy crisis buffeting the continent has placed Johnson and other European leaders in the difficult position of decrying fossil fuels while urgently prioritizing affordable access to them to avoid a political backlash by voters and businesses furious at the spiking costs of heating homes and running factories.

Energy prices have hit a seven-year high and stockpiles of gas and coal are dwindling. Russia has not increased its natural gas exports. Natural gas price jumps are largely due to a surge in Asian demand and low supplies in Europe, which has seen a 250% to 280% rise in wholesale gas prices this year. Electricity prices are also soaring because natural gas is used across the continent to generate a large percentage of electricity.

Spiking prices are coming at a delicate time for governments as they plan to speed a net-zero transition to post-fossil energy generation, which they say will eventually see cheaper prices. Consumers and voters, though, won’t see the benefits of cheaper post-fossil energy for some time — now they are just seeing higher costs caused by the energy squeeze compounded in some cases by carbon and green taxes.

Some advocates fear the energy-price crisis will be seen by voters as a harbinger of things to come and prompt a backlash against net-zero policies.

From Britain to Germany, Europe’s mainstream party leaders have been scrambling to respond to the surge in support for Green parties and carbon-neutral policies as their voters grow increasingly anxious about the impact of climate change. Many governments have announced ambitious carbon-reduction targets to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

In June 2019, Britain, which will host the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP26, later this year, became the first G7 country to enshrine in law a commitment to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Delivering on radical climate action will be complicated and harder than governments are letting on, though, some analysts and politicians, both advocates for radical climate action and their opponents, warn. The energy-price crisis is due to be discussed by EU national leaders when they meet in Brussels for a summit later this month, say EU officials. Last month, Spain warned the European Commission that emission reduction measures “may not stand a sustained period of abusive electricity prices.”

Even before the energy crunch, some government ministers and think tanks had been warning that it was not clear Europeans are ready to make the sacrifices necessary for a carbon-free future and might become more reluctant as the transition from fossil fuels plays havoc with living standards and lifestyles.

Earlier this year Britain’s Tony Blair Institute for Global Change warned, “Meeting our future targets will have direct impacts on the lives and livelihoods of people across the country.” In its study Polls Apart? Mapping the Politics of Net Zero, the London-based institute founded by Britain’s former prime minister said, “While climate change has moved up the political agenda, and all the major parties are committed to delivering net zero, we are still in the early stages of understanding how the politics of climate change will evolve — and, crucially, how a political coalition can be built and maintained.”

The institute said an examination of British voter attitudes and values suggested “politicians can be confident there is a strong and sustained desire for climate action,” but also cautioned that “the development of a long-term political coalition to support the action needed for net zero is under threat.”

Similar conclusions have been reached by other think tank studies about the likely political struggles ahead to implement the European Commission’s net-zero proposal to cut pollution by at least 55% from 1990 levels by 2030.

In a paper for the London School of Economics, Patrick Bayer, a lecturer in the School of Government and Public Policy at Scotland’s University of Strathclyde, and Federica Genovese, an environmental policy expert at England’s University of Essex, warned of the need to get buy-in from the general public as the proposals “will make it more expensive to run appliances, drive cars, and heat homes.”

They questioned whether proposed EU compensation plans for the most vulnerable and the poorest “will be enough to hedge the economic resentment and social anxiety that tend to spark upheavals across the continent.”

The LSE paper was written before the energy price crisis started to unfold across Europe last month. Some opponents of radical climate action plans have seized on the current crisis. “If consumers come to believe that net zero exposes them to punitive cost or insecurity of supply, they will rightly reject it,” Charles Moore, former editor of The Daily Telegraph, warned last month.

Craig Mackinlay, a British Conservative lawmaker and member of a group in the House of Commons critical of net-zero plans, challenged Johnson in Parliament last month about the costs of implementing the government’s carbon-emission targets and has warned “extravagant plans for a greener country will provide cold comfort for ordinary people.”

Mackinlay has warned that British government projections on how much it will cost to turn Britain green are seriously flawed and underestimate the true costs.

The British government formally accepts the cost projections of a Climate Change Committee, which estimates the country will have to spend over $67 billion a year until 2050 to shift Britain away from fossil fuels. That is around 1% of the country’s gross domestic product. Internal government documents recently showed, however, that Britain’s own Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy suspects the projection is flawed and estimates costs to be 40% higher.

Some independent experts have been even more scornful and have pointed out that New Zealand’s government, which is also thinking about adopting a 2050 net-zero benchmark, believes it could cost advanced economies as much as 16% of their GDPs to rid themselves within three decades of fossil fuels.

The costs to strip out gas boilers, switch from gas and diesel cars to electric or hydrogen-powered vehicles and to move households and businesses to renewable energy sources as industrial processes are reimagined will have to be shared among governments, homeowners, producers and consumers. That will have political and electoral repercussions, according to analysts, who point to how carbon taxes and higher fuel costs roiled France in 2018 and 2019 with the Yellow Vests protests.

Electorates seem hesitant already about embracing climate action — or at least worried about prohibitions and costs. Germany’s Green Party, the strongest in Europe, saw its share of the vote increase in last month’s federal elections but was disappointed not to get a much bigger jump.

“The election result makes one thing clear,” Volker Wissing, general secretary of the pro-business Free Democrats told broadcaster ARD Monday. “People don’t want climate protection at the expense of prosperity, and people also don’t want prosperity at the expense of nature and environment. That’s why we need to bring these things together and work out a solution as to how we can reconcile climate protection and prosperity.”
…

A 49-year-old lawyer who favors closer ties with the European Union pledged to unseat Viktor Orban as Hungary’s prime minister, after she won the first round of a contest that will produce his challenger in an election next year.

Klara Dobrev, the leftist Democratic Coalition’s candidate, won the first round of primary vote ahead of another leftist, Budapest mayor Gergely Karacsony, who also campaigned on a pro-European agenda.

In next year’s parliamentary vote Orban will, for the first time since he came to power in 2010, face a united front of opposition parties that also includes the Socialists, the liberals and the formerly far-right – and now center-right – Jobbik.

Opinion polls put Orban’s nationalist Fidesz party and the opposition coalition neck and neck, raising the prospect of the tightest election in more than a decade.

Orban and Fidesz have held office largely due to an election system that favors big parties, though Karacsony, 46, unexpectedly defeated the Fidesz candidate in the 2019 Budapest mayoral election.

Either Dobrev – who preliminary results showed won 34.8% of the votes in the primary – or Karacsony – with 27.3% – could yet win through to face Orban for leadership of the country next year.

Dressed in the blue and yellow colors of the EU, Dobrev told a news conference late on Thursday that, after a fair race, she was ready for the second round.

“We will not stop until we defeat Viktor Orban and his regime,” Dobrev said, a vice president of the European Parliament who has pledged to reduce poverty and work for adoption of the euro.

Karacsony has promised a more just tax system and to heal political divisions.

Conservative Peter Marki-Zay, mayor of a southern Hungarian city, was in third place with 20.4% in the primary, for which opposition voters turned out in higher-than-expected numbers, with more than 633,000 people casting votes nationwide.

There will be a runoff next month among possibly the three top vote-getters.  

While Dobrev leads now, it is not clear whom Marki-Zay would back in the second round if he decided to step down. Dobrev is also the candidate of a party led by her husband, former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany, a deeply divisive figure who admitted in 2006 in a leaked speech that he lied about the economy to win national elections.

Orban has portrayed the opposition, especially Karacsony and Dobrev, as puppets of Gyurcsany.
…

Ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili said Friday he had returned from exile to Georgia, despite the threat of arrest and ahead of local elections in the Caucasus country gripped by a protracted political crisis.

“I risked my life and freedom to be back,” Saakashvili said in a video on Facebook, adding that he was in Georgia’s western city of Batumi on the Black Sea coast.

“I call on everyone to go to the elections and vote for the United National Movement,” he said, referring to Georgia’s main opposition party which he founded.

The 53-year-old flamboyant pro-Western reformer was Georgian president from 2004 to 2013 and swept to power in a wave of street protests.

He called on his supporters to gather on Tbilisi’s main thoroughfare on Sunday.

Earlier on Friday he wrote on Facebook: “Good morning. I am back in Georgia after eight years.”

Georgia’s interior ministry told the independent Formula TV channel that “Saakashvili did not cross Georgia’s state border.”

Saakashvili’s return from Ukraine — where he heads a government agency steering reforms — has raised the stakes ahead of Saturday’s municipal elections, seen as a key test for the increasingly unpopular ruling party.

Saakashvili is wanted by Georgian authorities on abuse of office charges which he says are politically motivated.

He left Georgia in 2013 when his second and last term as president ended.

On Monday, he announced his planned return from Ukraine, saying he would be flying to Georgia’s capital Tbilisi on Saturday evening and posting a copy of his ticket.

Political turmoil

Georgia’s Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said at the time that “if Saakashvili sets foot on Georgian soil, he will be immediately arrested and brought to prison.”

Western capitals have accused Georgian authorities of a political witch-hunt and Interpol turned down requests from Tbilisi to issue a red notice against Saakashvili.

Georgia plunged into political turmoil last year, when opposition parties denounced elections won narrowly by the ruling Georgian Dream party as rigged.

In May, European Council President Charles Michel mediated an inter-party agreement under which Georgian Dream pledged to call snap parliamentary polls if it garners less than 43% of the vote in Saturday’s local elections.

But in July the ruling party unilaterally withdrew from the agreement, sparking harsh criticism from the European Union and the United States.

In his video address Monday, Saakashvili insisted the EU-brokered deal remained in force, saying the upcoming elections “are a referendum on (Georgian Dream founder Bidzina) Ivanishvili’s removal from power.”

Oligarch Ivanishvili — Georgia’s richest man and a former prime minister — is widely believed to be calling the shots in Georgia but insists he is no longer a political player.

Critics accuse him of using prosecutions to punish political opponents and critical journalists.

With concerns mounting in the West over the ruling party’s democratic credentials, the United States has hinted at possible sanctions against Georgian Dream officials.

In recent years Saakashvili has positioned himself as an enemy of what he says are corrupt oligarchs whose “informal power suffocates what’s left of democracy in Eastern Europe.” 

 
…

As Armenia and Azerbaijan mark the one-year anniversary of the start of their campaign in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, Baku is vowing to rebuild the region, and Turkish companies see an economic bonanza. Dorian Jones in Istanbul reports.
…

A London Metropolitan Police officer has been sentenced to life in prison without parole after pleading guilty in July to the murder of Sarah Everard, whose disappearance and death in March sparked nationwide grief and outrage.

Wayne Couzens confessed to abducting Everard on the evening of March 3, 2021, during a 50-minute walk home from her friend’s house in south London. Prosecutors said he falsely accused her of violating COVID-19 restrictions to lure her into his car.  

Everard’s body was discovered a week later near Ashford in County Kent, about 90 kilometers southeast of London.  

Following Couzen’s sentencing Thursday, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick told reporters she was “absolutely horrified” Couzens used his position as a police officer to deceive and coerce Everard into his vehicle. She said his actions were “a gross betrayal of everything policing stands for.” 

She said she knows for some, the bond of trust in the police has been damaged, but she pledged the police department’s dedication to the public remains undiminished.  

Sarah Everard’s disappearance caused a nationwide outcry in Britain, with thousands expressing grief and anger regarding the safety of women in London and elsewhere. Women also then began sharing experiences of being threatened or attacked – or simply facing the everyday fear of violence when walking alone.

The incident prompted British opposition Labour Party lawmaker Jess Phillips to pay tribute to the 118 women in Britain who have died at the hands of men over the last 12 months by reading their names aloud in Britain’s House of Commons.

Some information in this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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The wrangling over who will control Germany’s government has begun among the top four finishing parties following parliamentary elections.

The Social Democrats (SPD), led by Olaf Scholz, defeated outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) 25.8% to 24.1%, handing the conservative party its worst ever defeat.  

But since neither party won enough votes to control the Bundestag – the lower house of parliament – they must work with the third-place finishers, the Green party, which received 14.8% of the vote, and fourth place finishers, the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), which received 11.5%.

The Greens and FDP agreed Tuesday to meet with each other first before discussions with the SPD or CDU. A photo was released to the media showing Green party candidate Annalena Baerbock with FDP leader Christian Lindner.

While the two parties have some common ground, they have traditionally belonged to rival ideological camps and have different approaches to issues including the economy and fighting climate change.

During media briefings with reporters Wednesday, both parties said they have scheduled meetings with the SPD and CDU, as well another meeting with each other.  

But traditionally, the Greens have leaned more toward the SPD’s left-center politics, and the FDP has been more aligned with the more conservative CDU, and their leadership indicated Wednesday that may not have changed.

When asked which coalition his party preferred, FDP General Secretary Volker Wissing said, “Our preference was based on content and since the parties’ content has not changed, the preference of course remains the same.”

At her own news conference, while stressing they were meeting with all parties, the Green party leader Baerbock, said that since SPD was the winner of the election, it was important to meet with them first.  

The Green and FDP leaders said they scheduled talks with the two first-place finishing parties for this Saturday and Sunday, followed by deliberations with their own party membership.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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Kosovo agreed on Thursday to withdraw police units from its northern border with Serbia to end a mounting dispute over vehicle license plates that briefly escalated into violence and prompted NATO to step up its patrols.

The accord negotiated in Brussels calms the latest flare-up in a decades-old standoff between Serbia and Kosovo but does not resolve a bigger issue blocking European Union membership talks: that Serbia and its former province Kosovo should normalize relations following Pristina’s 2008 independence.

“We have a deal,” said Miroslav Lajcek, the EU’s envoy dealing with one of Europe’s toughest territorial disputes. “After two days of intense negotiations, an agreement on de-escalation and the way forward has just been reached,” he said on Twitter, where he posted the details.

U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Gabriel Escobar was in Brussels to show support for E.U.-led talks, which he said showed the potential for more progress in the Balkans.

“I think we can make enormous strides in helping the Balkans get over a very difficult period during the ’90s and hopefully, eventually become more integrated with the European Union,” Escobar said on a briefing call with reporters.

However, Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic played down hopes of any broader breakthrough for now. Serbia does not recognize Kosovo’s independence.

“I think the agreement is fair for the citizens. I would like us to be able to find more lasting solutions. That would not include recognition of Kosovo,” Vucic told a news conference in Serbia, where he was hosting European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Special stickers

Under the agreement, NATO troops will replace the Kosovar police units on the border, who will withdraw from Saturday. From Monday, both countries will place special stickers on car license plates to remove national symbols and allow the free movement of citizens.

NATO has had some 5,000 troops in Kosovo under a United Nations mandate since June 1999, overseeing a fragile peace following a U.S.-led bombing campaign to end ethnic conflict.

The new agreement ends a ban instigated by Kosovo for all drivers from Serbia to show a temporary, printed registration. Pristina said its move was in retaliation for measures in force in Serbia against drivers from Kosovo since 2008.

Lajcek said he was working on a longer-term solution.

The confrontation was a reminder to the wider world of the larger Kosovo-Serbia dispute that was the EU’s to resolve, diplomats said. One senior diplomat in Brussels said the latest flare-up was, in part, an attempt to get Brussels’s attention as the process towards EU membership has stalled.

Ahead of a Balkan-EU summit on Oct. 6 in Slovenia, Reuters reported on Tuesday that the 27 member states have so far been unable to agree a declaration reaffirming their 18-year-old pledge of future EU membership for the western Balkan states.
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Britain’s business minister said Wednesday the army would begin driving fuel tankers in response to shortages at gas stations around the nation brought on by a dearth of truck drivers.

For about a week now, a shortage of around 100,000 truck drivers in Britain has made it difficult for oil companies to get gasoline from refineries to fueling stations. The British Petrol Retailers Association (PRA) reported Wednesday that more than a third of the nation’s 8,500 gas stations remain without fuel.

The situation has left long lines of motorists trying to buy fuel at stations that did have gasoline.

Business Minister Kwasi Kwarteng told reporters they could expect to see soldiers driving tanker trucks to help get gasoline to the stations in a few days. He added that he felt the situation was stabilizing, noting that the inflow of gasoline matched sales on Tuesday. 

The situation had been exacerbated by panic buying among some motorists, but Kwarteng said people were “behaving quite responsibly” over the last day or so, and he encouraged them to continue buying fuel as they normally would.

The British business minister said Britain was not alone in facing a truck driver shortage. He said Poland is facing a shortage of about 123,000 drivers, and the United States is facing a similar situation. 

In a release on their website, the PRA reported “early signs that the crisis at pumps is ending,” with more of the association’s members reporting they are now receiving deliveries of fuel. 

They expect the percentage of stations without fuel is likely to improve further over the next 24 hours.

The driver shortage, however, is raising fears in Britain’s retail sector that if it continues much longer, it could create problems for the holiday season.

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters. 
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Russia threatened Wednesday to block Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube after Russian state-backed broadcaster RT’s German-language channels were deleted, and said it was considering retaliating against German media.

YouTube said on Tuesday that RT’s channels had breached its COVID-19 misinformation policy, a move Russia’s Foreign Ministry described as “unprecedented information aggression.”

Russian state communications regulator Roskomnadzor said it had written to Google and demanded the restrictions be lifted. It said Russia could seek to partially or fully restrict access to YouTube if it failed to comply.

Google declined to comment Wednesday.

The Kremlin said it may have to force YouTube to comply with Russian law, saying there could be zero tolerance for breaches.

“Of course there are signs that the laws of the Russian Federation have been broken, broken quite blatantly, because of course this involves censorship and obstructing the spread of information by the media,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

The foreign ministry said Russian authorities had been approached with “a proposal to develop and take retaliatory measures against the YouTube hosting service and the German media.”

Christian Mihr, executive director at Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Germany, said the threat of action against German journalists was “completely inappropriate.”

Moscow has increased pressure on foreign tech firms in the past year, fining social media companies for failing to delete content Russia deems illegal and punitively slowing down the speed of Twitter.

That pressure led Google and Apple to remove an anti-government tactical voting app from their stores on the first day of a parliamentary election earlier this month, Kremlin critics said.

Berlin denied an allegation by the Russian foreign ministry that YouTube’s decision had been made with clear and tacit support from the German authorities and local media.

“It is a decision by YouTube, based on rules created by YouTube. It is not a measure [taken by] the German government or other official organizations,” German government spokesperson Steffen Seibert told reporters.
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