European Union leaders met Tuesday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, pledging to strengthen ties and support the eastern European nation, particularly on the issue of Russia and energy security.

Zelenskiy hosted EU Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for the 23rd EU-Ukraine summit, a meeting held annually to enhance political and economic relations. 

The energy issue was high on the agenda. The Ukrainian leader has expressed strong opposition to the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which will link Russia to Germany, bypassing his country and, Zelenskiy says, increasing Europe’s energy reliance on Russia.

Ukraine, in conflict with Russia since Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, wants to ensure it will remain a key transit country even after gas begins flowing through the pipeline. 

Speaking to reporters following the meeting, Zelenskiy said, “Energy security is also a guarantee of Ukraine’s independence and national sovereignty. The completion of the Nord Stream 2 [pipeline] opens up new challenges for Ukraine in addition to the existing ones.” 

Von der Leyen said the EU understands his concerns and pledged to work with Ukrainian experts “to secure sufficient supply for Ukraine.” 

During the meeting, the EU and Ukraine signed an “open skies” agreement to facilitate air travel between Ukraine and EU member states, by opening the market to low-cost airlines. 

Von der Leyen and Michel commended Zelenskiy on progress the nation has made, but added Ukraine needs to continue “staying focused on implementing reforms” in order to take their “partnership to the next level,” referring to possible EU membership. 

Zelenskiy expressed frustration at the lack of a firm timeline for that goal. He said, “It is already clear that we are following the same path, but where is the finish line on this path?” 

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
…

It was late last Christmas Eve when the European Union and Britain finally clinched a Brexit trade deal after years of wrangling, threats and missed deadlines to seal their divorce.

There was hope that now-separated Britain and the 27-nation bloc would sail their relationship toward calmer waters.

With Christmas closing in again one thing is clear — it wasn’t to be.

Britain’s Brexit minister on Tuesday accused the EU of wishing failure on its former member and of badmouthing the U.K. as a country that can’t be trusted. David Frost said during a speech in Lisbon that the EU “doesn’t always look like it wants us to succeed” or “get back to constructive working together.”

He said a fundamental rewrite of the mutually agreed divorce deal was the only way to fix the exes’ “fractious relationship.” And he warned that Britain could push an emergency override button on the deal if it didn’t get its way.

“We constantly face generalized accusations that we can’t be trusted and that we aren’t a reasonable international actor,” Frost added — a response to EU claims that the U.K. is seeking to renege on the legally binding treaty that it negotiated and signed.

Post-Brexit tensions have crystalized into a worsening fight over Northern Ireland, the only part of the U.K. to share a land border with an EU country, which is Ireland. Under the most delicate and contentious part of the Brexit deal, Northern Ireland remains inside the EU’s single market for trade in goods, in order to avoid a hard border with EU member Ireland.

That means customs and border checks must be conducted on some goods going to Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K., despite the fact they are part of the same country. The regulations are intended to prevent goods from Britain entering the EU’s tariff-free single market while keeping an open border on the island of Ireland — a key pillar of Northern Ireland’s peace process.

The U.K. government soon complained the arrangements weren’t working, saying the rules impose burdensome red tape on businesses. Never short of a belligerent metaphor, 2021 has already brought a “sausage war,” with Britain asking the EU to drop a ban on processed British meat products such as sausages entering Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland’s British Unionist community, meanwhile, says the Brexit deal undermines the 1998 Good Friday peace accord — which sought to protect the rights of both Unionist and Irish Nationalist communities — by weakening Northern Ireland’s ties with the rest of the U.K.

The bloc has agreed to look at changes to the Protocol, and is due to present proposals on Wednesday. Before that move, Britain raised the stakes again, with Frost demanding sweeping changes to the way the agreement is governed.

In his speech in the Portuguese capital, Frost said the Protocol “is not working.”

“It has completely lost consent in one community in Northern Ireland,” he said. “It is not doing the thing it was set up to do – protect the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement. In fact it is doing the opposite. It has to change.”

Most contentiously, he said the EU must also remove the European Court of Justice as the ultimate arbiter of disputes concerning trade in Northern Ireland and instead agree to international arbitration. He said the role of the EU court “means the EU can make laws which apply in Northern Ireland without any kind of democratic scrutiny or discussion.”

The EU is highly unlikely to agree to the change. The bloc’s highest court is seen as the pinnacle of the free trade single market, and Brussels has vowed not to undermine its own order.

Ireland’s Deputy Prime Minister, Leo Varadkar, said Britain’s demand was “very hard to accept.”

“I don’t think we could ever have a situation where we had another court deciding what the rules of the single market are,” he said.

Some EU observers say Britain’s demand to remove the court’s oversight shows it isn’t serious about making the Brexit deal work.

Frost repeated the U.K.’s threat to invoke Article 16, a clause allowing either side to suspend the agreement in exceptional circumstances. That would send already testy relations into a deep chill and could lead to a trade war between Britain and the bloc — one that would hurt the U.K. economy more than its much larger neighbor.

The economically tiny but symbolically charged subject of fish, which held up a trade deal to the final minute last year, is also stoking divisions now.

France wants its EU partners to act as one if London wouldn’t grant more licenses for small French fishing boats to roam close to the U.K. crown dependencies of Jersey and Guernsey, just off France’s Normandy coast.

In France’s parliament last week, Prime Minister Jean Castex accused Britain of reneging on its promise over fishing.

“We see in the clearest way possible that Great Britain does not respect its own signature,” he said.

In a relationship where both sides often fall back on cliches about the other, Castex was harking back to the centuries-old French insult of “Perfidious Albion,” a nation that can never be trusted.

Across the English Channel, U.K. Brexit supporters often depict a conniving EU, hurt by Britain’s departure, doing its utmost to make Brexit less than a success by throwing up bureaucratic impediments.

“The EU and we have got into a low equilibrium, (a) somewhat fractious relationship,” Frost conceded. “(It) need not always be like that, but … it takes two to fix it.”
…

A report produced by the British parliament says a state of “groupthink” among government officials led to a costly delay in ordering a nationwide lockdown in the first days of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The 151-page report from the joint science and health committees in the House of Commons says Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Cabinet deliberately engaged in a “slow and gradualist approach” in the first few months of 2020 as officials sought to manage instead of suppress the spread of the virus. 

The joint inquiry says the virus was able to take hold across Britain because of that “fatalistic” strategy, which was finally abandoned as the country’s National Health Service risked being overwhelmed by the rapidly rising number of cases. 

The report also criticized Johnson’s government for its “slow, uncertain and often chaotic” testing and tracing system, while noting a failure between national and local governments and other public bodies to share data. 

The lawmakers concluded the government’s response to the pandemic was “one of the most important health failures” in Britain’s history.

In an interview with Sky News, Stephen Barclay, Johnson’s Minister for the Cabinet Office, repeatedly declined to apologize for the government’s actions. 

“We followed, throughout, the scientific advice,” he said. “We got the vaccine deployed extremely quickly, we protected our [National Health Service] from the surge of cases.”

“Of course, if there are lessons to learn we’re keen to do so,” he added. 

The final report was compiled from hours of testimony given by more than 50 witnesses, including former health secretary Matt Hancock and Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s former special adviser, who has emerged as a vocal critic of Johnson’s handling of the pandemic.

In France, officials have released a new study that shows people who are vaccinated against COVID-19 are far less likely to die or be hospitalized, even in the presence of the delta variant.

Researchers compared the outcomes of 11 million vaccinated people against an equal number of unvaccinated people beginning in December 2020. The study found the risk of someone contracting the coronavirus was reduced by 90% about 14 days after receiving a second dose of the Pfizer, Moderna or AstraZeneca vaccines. The single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine was not included in the study, since it was authorized much later in France.

The study says the vaccines are nearly as effective against the delta variant, with 92% protection for people between 50 and 75 years old, and 84% for people 75 years old and older. It also says the vaccines maintained their high level of effectiveness during the five months the study was conducted.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters, Sky News, and Agence France-Presse. 

 
…

The German city of Cologne says it will start allowing mosques to broadcast the call to prayer, or azan, over loudspeakers. 

The city said Monday the call to prayer could be broadcast on Friday afternoons for up to five minutes.

Mosques will need to apply for a permit to broadcast and must comply with volume limits. The permit will last for two years.

“Permitting the call of the muezzin is a sign of respect,” Cologne Mayor Henriette Reker tweeted last week. 

She said those who arrive at the city’s main train station are greeted by the sound of church bells from the cathedral. She said adding the Muslim call to prayer shows the city is one of religious freedom and diversity. 

Christian church bells ring out daily in many German cities and towns. 

In Muslim countries, the call to prayer is routinely broadcast five times a day. 

Cologne, a city of 1 million, has about 35 mosques and is home to one of Germany’s largest Muslim communities. 

 
…

With Afghanistan facing humanitarian and economic crises, G-20 leaders are set to meet virtually Tuesday to discuss ways to meet aid needs and address security concerns following the Taliban’s August takeover. 

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi is hosting the summit, with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, U.S. President Joe Biden, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and leaders from European G-20 nations among those expected to participate. 

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell pledged help Monday, saying at an EU ministerial meeting that the “humanitarian and socioeconomic situation in Afghanistan is on the verge of collapse.” 

“Today we agreed on having a calibrated approach to give direct support to the Afghan population in order to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe, while certainly not recognizing the Taliban,” Borrell said. “We will deliver the aid through our multilateral partners while respecting our agreed principles of engagement.” 

Guterres said Monday that Afghanistan is facing “a make-or-break moment” as he called on the world to act. 

Before the Taliban takeover, international aid accounted for 75% of Afghanistan’s state spending, but governments and international organizations have cut off such funding and frozen Afghanistan’s assets. 

Guterres said Monday that banks in Afghanistan are closing and that health care and other essential services have been suspended in many places. He warned the humanitarian crisis, which is affecting half the country’s population, is growing. 

“The Afghan people cannot suffer a collective punishment because the Taliban misbehave,” Guterres said. 

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.
…

The Italian glassblowers of Murano have survived plagues and pandemics. They transitioned to highly prized artistic creations to outrun low-priced competition from Asia. But surging energy prices are shattering their economic model. 

The dozens of furnaces that remain on the lagoon island where Venetian rulers transferred glassblowing 700 years ago must burn around the clock, otherwise the costly crucible inside the ovens will break. But the price for the methane that powers the ovens has skyrocketed fivefold on the global market since October 1, meaning the glassblowers face certain losses on orders they are working to fill, at least for the foreseeable future.

“People are desperate,” said Gianni De Checchi, president of Venice’s association of artisans Confartigianato. “If it continues like this, and we don’t find solutions to the sudden and abnormal gas prices, the entire Murano glass sector will be in serious danger.” 

A medium-size glassblowing business like that of Simone Cenedese consumes 12,000 cubic meters (420,000 cubic feet) of methane a month to keep his seven furnaces hissing at temperatures over 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,800 degrees Fahrenheit) 24 hours a day. They shut down just once a year for annual maintenance in August.

His monthly bills normally range from 11,000 to 13,000 euros ($12,700 to $15,000), on a fixed-price consortium contract that expired September 30. Now exposed to market volatility, Cenedese is projecting an increase in methane costs to 60,000 euros ($70,000) in October, as the natural gas market is buffeted by increased Chinese demand, uncertain Russian supply and worryingly low European stockpiles.

Artisans like Cenedese now must factor in an insurmountable increase in energy costs as they fill orders that had promised to lift them out of the pandemic crisis that stilled the sector in 2020.

“We cannot increase prices that have already been set. … That means for at least two months we are forced to work at a loss,” said Cenedese, a third-generation glassblower who took over the business his father started. “We sell decorations for the house, not necessities, meaning that if the prices are not accessible, it is obvious that there will be no more orders.” 

Cenedese, like others on the island, is considering shutting down one of his furnaces to confront the crisis. That will cost 2,000 euros ($2,300) for the broken crucible. It also will slow production and imperil pending orders.

His five glassblowers move with unspoken choreographed precision to fill an order of 1,800 Christmas ornaments speckled with golden flakes bound for Switzerland.

One starts the process with a red-hot molten blob on the end of a wand that he rolls over gold leaf, applying it evenly before handing the form to the maestro, who then re-heats it in one oven before gently blowing into the wand to create a perfect orb. It is still glowing red when he cuts it from the wand, and another glassblower grabs it with prongs to add the final flourish, a pointy end created from a dab of molten glass applied by an apprentice.

As that dance progresses, another starts, weaving and bobbing into the empty spaces. Together, they can make 300 ornaments a day, working from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. 

“No machine can do what we do,” said maestro Davide Cimarosti, 56, who has been working as a glassblower for 42 years.

Murano glassblowers decades ago transitioned from wood ovens, which created uneven results, to methane, which burns at temperatures high enough to create the delicate crystal clarity that makes their creations so highly prized. And it is the only gas that the glassblowers are permitted to use, by law. They are caught in a global commodities Catch-22.

For now, artisans are hoping the international market calms by the end of the year, although some analysts believe volatility could persist into the spring. If so, damage to the island’s economy and the individual companies could run deep. 

The Rome government has offered relief to Italian families confronting high energy prices but so far nothing substantial to the Murano glassblowers, whose small scale and energy intensity make them particularly vulnerable. The artisans’ lobby is meeting with members of parliament this week in a bid to seek direct government aid, which De Checchi said is possible under new EU rules put in place after the pandemic.

Beyond economic losses, the islanders fear losing a tradition that has made their island synonymous with artistic excellence. 

Already, the sector has scaled back from an industry with thousands of workers in the 1960s and 1970s to a network of mostly small and medium-sized artisanal enterprises employing some 300 glassblowers. Venice’s glassblowing tradition dates back 1,200 years, and on Murano it has been passed down from father to son for generations. But even at its reduced size and despite its creative rewards, it struggles to attract young people to toil in workshops where summertime temperatures can reach 60 degrees Celsius (140 degrees Fahrenheit).

“The value of this tradition, this history and this culture is priceless. It goes beyond the financial value of the glass industry in Murano,” said Luciano Gambaro, co-owner of Gambaro & Tagliapietra. “Over 1,000 years of culture can’t stop with a gas issue.” 

 
…

European Union officials have warned that the bloc “is at risk of collapse” unless it challenges a ruling by Poland’s top court over the supremacy of EU law, which is seen as a central pillar of European integration. 

Vera Jourova, the EU commissioner from the Czech Republic, said Monday: “If we don’t uphold the principle in the EU that equal rules are respected the same everywhere in Europe, the whole Europe will start collapsing. That is why we will have to react to this new chapter which the Polish constitutional court started to draw.” 

Large rallies were held across Poland over the weekend in support of EU membership following the ruling by the country’s Constitutional Tribunal last Thursday. 

An estimated 100,000 people gathered in Warsaw on Sunday to show support for Poland’s EU membership. Among them was Donald Tusk, the former president of the European Council until 2019 and now leader of Poland’s opposition Civic Platform Party. 

“What is it that brought us all here today? A pseudo-Court of Justice, a group of masqueraders in judicial robes, by order of the party’s leader, in violation of the constitution, decided to take Poland out of the EU,” Tusk told the crowd gathered in the Polish capital. 

The protests were triggered after judges in Poland’s highest court last week ruled that the national constitution had primacy over EU law.

Didier Reynders, the EU’s justice commissioner, threatened retaliation against Poland Monday. 

“We are waiting now for new decisions of the (EU) Court of Justice about the situation in Poland — also possible daily financial sanctions,” he told reporters. 

Reynders had indicated earlier that those sanctions could amount to over $1 million per day until Poland accepts the legal rulings of the bloc.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki originally brought the case to Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal in March. He has refused to implement two rulings made in July by the EU’s Court of Justice, which accused the Polish government of political interference in the judiciary. 

The prime minister has denied such interference and said Monday that Poland is not seeking an exit from the EU.

“This is a harmful myth, which the opposition uses for its own lack of ideas about Poland’s responsible place in Europe,” he said on Facebook. 

Government supporters have staged counterprotests and say the government was right to challenge the EU. 

“They appropriate rights that they do not have the right to appropriate, and they want to interfere more and more,” government supporter Zygmunt Miernik told The Associated Press.

So, how close is Poland to leaving the European Union? 

“There is a big concern in many European capitals and in Brussels that the more pressure the European Union exerts on Poland, the more likely ‘Polexit’ becomes. And I think this is a pitfall,” Piotr Buras, a Warsaw-based analyst with the European Council on Foreign Relations, said in an interview with VOA. 

“This threat of Polexit — of Poland leaving the European Union — is overblown. Poland is a country where more than 80% of the population is in favor of EU membership. Poland is very much dependent on the internal market and also on the EU funds, including the (COVID-19) recovery fund,” Buras added. 

That COVID-19 recovery fund is worth $66 billion. The EU has threatened to withhold the money unless Poland implements the changes to its judicial system. 

Poland and some other member states, including Hungary, have repeatedly clashed with the EU over the rule of law, media freedom and minority rights. 

“The battle we have now is basically about will the European Union allow this to happen, that populist, autocratic governments disregard the European standards and European laws, leading to an erosion of the EU foundations,” Buras said. 

Those foundations have been shaken by the Polish ruling. European officials say the bloc must stand by its core principles, but so far, the Polish government shows little sign of changing course. 

 
…

Next month, the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26, will get under way, setting the climate agenda for decades to come, and ahead of the summit, Western leaders have been scrambling to make promises to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Some economists, however, are warning that in the pledge-making rush, political leaders are making promises they’re unlikely to be able to keep without major economic damage and are not being honest with voters about the huge transformation that’s going to be needed, and the large costs involved, most of which are likely to be shouldered by taxpayers and households.

One hundred and twenty-nine countries and 400 cities have promised to reach net zero emissions by 2050 or before. To meet their goals, policymakers will have to take drastic action and climate action activists hope they will agree on radical plans at the international climate talks in Glasgow next month.

The International Energy Agency has said all new crude oil, natural gas and coal projects will have to be shelved, if the world is to keep the global temperature rise within 2°C compared with the pre-industrial level. Climate scientists say that goal has to be met to stave off the more catastrophic impacts of global warming.

British economist Liam Halligan, among others, questions whether meeting ambitious carbon removal targets are possible without derailing economies already struggling to regain footing in the wake of a pandemic that has disrupted supply chains, roiled energy markets and boosted inflation.

Turbulence on the global energy market, which is seeing the price of natural gas and oil soar, is giving a taste of the wrenching costs consumers and governments will face to make good on net zero promises, he says. “The West will be begging for more fossil fuel while virtue signaling at COP26,” he said in a recent commentary published in the British newspaper, The Telegraph. 

Booming consumer demand for goods as economic recovery gets under way is largely responsible for unprecedented energy price increases, but the start of the transition away from coal and natural gas to renewable power generation sources is also contributing, cautions Halligan.

Last week, Britain’s energy regulator, the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets, or Ofgem, said 23% of what households are paying now for electricity goes toward energy transition costs. In Britain, electricity prices throughout September were three times higher than at any time in the last decade and households are likely to see their overall energy costs, including what they pay for natural gas heating and fuel for their cars, increase.

Analysts are warning that British households face a winter of higher bills. Britain’s energy industry is also now warning of a rising risk of winter blackouts.

Spain has warned the European Commission that emission reduction measures “may not stand a sustained period of abusive electricity prices.”

Rising prices are coming at a delicate time for governments as they plan to speed their 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’re just seeing higher costs caused by the energy squeeze compounded in some cases by carbon and green taxes.

Policymakers face a trade-off between the high upfront cost of moving quickly toward net zero carbon targets, and the long-term damage to economic growth caused by climate change, if they delay action, say analysts.

Earlier this year the research firm Oxford Economics warned about a disorderly and costly transition to a low-carbon future, but it said in a report that the economic impact of future climate change would be worse and would severely impact livelihoods in a large number of countries — some catastrophically so. 

The research firm found that 3 degrees Celsius of warming by 2100 has the potential to reduce the level of global GDP in 2100 by 21%.

Even so, central European countries are already pushing back on European Union plans for a set of new green policies, which will raise consumer bills, and are urging caution. Last week, several of the poorer EU member states, including Poland and Slovakia, opposed proposals put forward by the European Commission to introduce new taxes on polluting fuels and to impose a 2035 deadline to ban the sale of new cars with combustion engines.

Energy prices are expected to rise further in the EU as the cost of carbon permits under the bloc’s carbon emissions trading scheme continues to rise. The rapid rise in energy costs is exacerbating inflation across central Europe.

In September, Poland’s annual inflation rate rose to 5.8%, the highest in two decades, and the country’s central bank last week increased interest rates for the first time in nine years, a move that could retard the country’s post-pandemic recovery.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban last week blamed EU green policies for energy price increases. “The price projections for the whole green program proved to be a mistake, and that is why Europe is suffering high energy prices,” Orban said in a video post on his Facebook page.

A handful of national leaders have been critical of what they see as a rush to net zero and a failure, they say, to evaluate the costs associated with energy transition.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has declined to set net zero emissions or other climate change targets. He’s considering skipping COP26, say Australian officials. 
…

The mynah bird squawks from a new cage in the French ambassador’s sunlit living room in Abu Dhabi, a far cry from its life as the pet of a young Afghan woman who has since found refuge in France. 

Talkative, yellow-beaked “Juji” had a brief star turn on social media, its story of survival amid the frenzied evacuations from Taliban-run Afghanistan striking a chord with a global audience. 

While scenes from the American-led airlift from Kabul after 20 years of war — such as Afghans falling to their deaths after trying to cling to the wheels of a military transport jet — gripped the world, France also was intensely involved in evacuating those who had risked their lives to cooperate with its government over the years.

French Ambassador Xavier Chatel was scrambling to support the efforts at Al-Dhafra air base in the United Arab Emirates. Thousands of Afghan evacuees flooded the base near the UAE capital, along with military bases across the region, to be screened by American, French and other authorities over 12 sweltering days in August.

“There were many exhilarating stories because there were artists, there were musicians, there were people who were so relieved that they could be evacuated,” Chatel told The Associated Press Sunday from his residence overlooking the waters of the Persian Gulf. “But at the same time there was also an outpouring of distress.”

About 2,600 Afghan interpreters, artists, journalists, activists and military contractors squeezed onto flights out of Kabul to Abu Dhabi on their way to Paris with barely enough time to consider all they’d left behind. French authorities had started evacuations around a year ago, with 2,400 people airlifted from Kabul in the months before the fall, Chatel said. 

Amid the chaos at Al-Dhafra, Chatel received a security alert. Officers, on the lookout for al-Qaida and Islamic State extremist threats, had discovered illegal cargo on board. 

A woman no older than 20 appeared, clutching a mystery cardboard box. Packed inside was her beloved pet with clipped wings — the famously chatty mynah, common in its range across Southeast Asia.

But because of sanitary concerns, there was no way she could take the small bird with her to Paris. 

She was in tears, Chatel said. He declined to disclose details about the young woman and her circumstances for privacy reasons, except to say that “she had lost everything. She had lost her country. She had lost her house, she had lost her life.” 

Chatel’s story of what happened next took hold on Twitter last week and turned Juji into a minor sensation, providing an uplifting counterpoint to the economic and humanitarian crises afflicting Afghanistan amid the Taliban takeover. 

After receiving detailed instructions about Juji’s dietary preferences — cucumbers, grapes, bread slices and the occasional potato — Chatel decided to adopt the bird, promising he’d take good care of it.

The young woman found the ambassador on Twitter soon after landing in France. Top of her mind upon starting a new life as a refugee was her pet stranded on the Arabian Peninsula.

Chatel replied with videos of Juji snacking on fruit, flitting around its white cage and even learning French from his marble-floored living room. After chirping in Pashto for its first few days in Abu Dhabi, Juji had managed to utter something akin to “Bonjour.” 

“[The young woman] told me something which still remains with me,” Chatel said. “The fact that the bird was still alive and that he was well looked after gave her faith and hope to start again.” 

Exactly why the story was so avidly embraced on social media remains a mystery, Chatel said. But there were no good news days out of Afghanistan during the anguished withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces.

A suicide bomber blew himself up at Kabul airport in late August, killing scores of Afghans and 13 U.S. service members, and those who managed to escape their homes for new lives abroad were grappling with feelings of bewilderment and guilt. With the country’s economy in free fall, ordinary people have struggled to survive.

At Al-Dhafra air base in August, you could see the fear in people’s faces, Chatel said. Children cried at the sound of popping balloons. One woman said she had “forgotten” her parents in a traumatic haze at Kabul airport. Parents arrived with stories of children they’d abandoned. 

Until Chatel can devise a way to reunite Juji with its former owner, he said the black-winged bird remains a reminder to France of those frantic days, and the courage of those embarking on new lives and the emotional toll of so many left behind. 

“In the middle of this,” Chatel said, “in the middle of these hundreds of people arriving here, there was this girl and there was this bird.” 
…

Austria’s new Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg pledged on Monday to work closely with his predecessor Sebastian Kurz, who quit in the face of corruption allegations, fueling opposition assertions that the new leader will simply do Kurz’s bidding.

The Greens, the junior partner to Kurz’s conservatives, had demanded Kurz’s head after he and nine others including senior aides were placed under investigation last week on suspicion of varying degrees of breach of trust, corruption and bribery.

Kurz, who denies wrongdoing, has been the undisputed leader of his party until now and is taking on an additional role as his party’s top lawmaker in parliament. His opponents say he will continue to control policy from those positions and act as “chancellor in the shadows.”

“I believe the accusations that have been made (against Kurz) are false and I am convinced that at the end of the day it will turn out that there was nothing to them,” Schallenberg, a career diplomat who has become a close Kurz ally, said in a statement to media.

“I will of course work very closely… with Sebastian Kurz,” he said in his first public pronouncement after moving from his position as foreign minister.

Schallenberg said he wanted to provide “responsibility and stability” but his remarks did little to appease the opposition.

“My impression is that he intends to do exactly that: go back to business as usual and act as if nothing happened,” the leader of the liberal Neos party, Beate Meinl-Reisinger, calling on Schallenberg to actively fight corruption.

Pulling the strings

Kurz also pushed back against opposition criticism.

“I am not a chancellor in the shadows,” he said on Twitter, pledging to support the government in its work.

Anti-corruption prosecutors say they suspect conservative officials in the Finance Ministry used state funds to pay for manipulated polling and coverage favorable to Kurz to appear in a newspaper starting in 2016, when Kurz was seeking to become party leader. He succeeded and won a parliamentary election the next year with pledges to take a hard line on immigration.

Critics accuse Kurz of overseeing a system or network that flouted rules on issues like party funding and appointments to state jobs in pursuit of power for him and allies. Kurz, who is under investigation separately for perjury, says all accusations are false.

“All opposition parties agree there is no change to the Kurz system. He still has all the strings in his hands and designated Chancellor Schallenberg is part of this Kurz system,” Kai Jan Krainer of the Social Democrats, who was on a parliamentary commission of inquiry that looked into possible corruption under a previous Kurz government, told ORF radio.

At Schallenberg’s swearing-in, President Alexander Van der Bellen said public trust in political institutions had been badly damaged by the investigation and text-messages it revealed that appeared to show Kurz and his allies acting cynically behind the scenes.

“The rearranged government now has a great responsibility not just to successfully continue this government’s projects but also responsibility for restoring the public’s trust in politics,” Van der Bellen said in his speech.

In some of the text-message exchanges, widely reported by Austrian media, Kurz calls a rival an “ass” and appears to instigate coalition deadlock, which he said he wanted to prevent. He expressed regret at the wording of some texts in his resignation speech on Saturday.
…

British police said on Monday they would be taking no further action after conducting a review of evidence relating to sex crime allegations against Queen Elizabeth’s son, Prince Andrew, and the late U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein. 

London’s police chief, Cressida Dick, said in August that detectives would look at the allegations for a third time although they would not start an investigation, after Virginia Giuffre filed a U.S. lawsuit accusing the prince of sexual assault, which he has always denied. 

“As a matter of procedure MPS (Metropolitan Police Service) officers reviewed a document released in August 2021 as part of a U.S. civil action,” the police said in a statement on Monday. “This review has concluded, and we are taking no further action.” 

In her civil lawsuit, Giuffre, 38, has accused Andrew of forcing her to have sex when she was underage at the London home of Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell. 

She also said Andrew, 61, abused her at Epstein’s mansion in Manhattan, and on Epstein’s private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands. 

The British royal, the ninth in line to the throne, has always denied those allegations or having any relationship with Giuffre. 

He was forced to step down from royal duties over his friendship with Epstein, who committed suicide in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 while being held on sex-trafficking charges. 

The Sunday Times had reported this week that London police had spoken to Giuffre regarding her allegations. 

“The Metropolitan Police Service continues to liaise with other law enforcement agencies who lead the investigation into matters related to Jeffrey Epstein,” the police said in their statement. 

Last week, lawyers for Andrew, the queen’s second son, were given permission to examine a confidential 2009 agreement between Epstein and Giuffre, which they hope will absolve him from all liability in the case.  
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The United States and Britain warned their citizens on Monday to avoid hotels in Afghanistan, days after dozens were killed at a mosque in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group active in Afghanistan, Islamic State Khorasan. 

The Taliban, which seized power in August and declared an Islamic emirate, are seeking international recognition and assistance to avoid a humanitarian disaster and ease Afghanistan’s economic crisis. 

But, as the hard-line Islamist group transitions from a rebel army to a governing power, they are struggling to contain the threat from the Afghanistan chapter of IS.  

“U.S. citizens who are at or near the Serena Hotel should leave immediately,” the U.S. State Department said, citing “security threats” in the area. 

“In light of the increased risks you are advised not to stay in hotels, particularly in Kabul (such as the Serena Hotel),” Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office added. 

Since the Taliban takeover, many foreigners have left Afghanistan, but some journalists and aid workers remain in the capital. 

The well-known Serena, a luxury hotel popular with business travelers and foreign guests, has twice been the target of attacks by the Taliban. 

In 2014, just weeks before the presidential election, four teenage gunmen with pistols hidden in their socks managed to penetrate several layers of security, killing nine people, including an AFP journalist and members of his family. 

In 2008, a suicide bombing left six dead. 

In August, during a chaotic evacuation of foreign nationals and at-risk Afghans, NATO countries issued a chorus of warnings about an imminent threat, telling people to stay away from Kabul airport.  

Hours later, a suicide bomber detonated in a crowd gathered around one of the airport gates, killing scores of civilians and 13 American service members.  

The attack was claimed by IS Khorasan, which has since targeted several Taliban guards and claimed a devastating bomb attack in Kunduz city on Friday that ripped through a mosque during Friday prayers, the bloodiest assault since US forces left the country in August. 
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Jailed former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who has been on a hunger strike since October 1, needs to be hospitalized, as his condition is worsening, his doctor said Sunday in a television interview.

Saakashvili declared a hunger strike after he was arrested on October 1 and incarcerated in the city of Rustavi, hours after he announced he had returned to Georgia following an eight-year absence.

Saakashvili was convicted in absentia in 2018 for abuse of power during his presidency, charges he says were politically motivated.

He had lived in Ukraine in recent years, but last month announced plans to fly to Georgia for local elections held on October 2, despite facing prison. He said he wanted to help “save the country” amid a protracted political crisis.

Nikoloz Kipshidze, Saakashvili’s doctor, said that he had been discussing his condition with doctors at the prison where he is being held, not far from the capital, Tbilisi.

“I spoke with them for half an hour about how to get through this night. I plan to visit him again tomorrow. We will probably need to transfer him to hospital,” the doctor said on Georgian television.

There was no immediate comment from prison authorities.

This article includes information from Reuters.
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Beekeepers Mustafa Alti and his son Fehmi were kept busy tending to their hives before wildfires tore through a bucolic region of Turkey that makes most of the world’s prized pine honey.

Now the Altis and generations of other honey farmers in Turkey’s Aegean province of Mugla are scrambling to find additional work and wondering how many decades it might take to get their old lives back on track.

“Our means of existence is from beekeeping, but when the forests burned, our source of income fell,” said Fehmi, 47, next to his mountainside beehives in the fire-ravaged village of Cokek. “I do side jobs, I do some tree felling, that way we manage to make do.”

Nearly 200,000 hectares of forests — more than five times the annual average — were scorched by fires across Turkey this year, turning luscious green coasts popular with tourists into ash.

The summer disaster and an accompanying series of deadly floods made the climate — already weighing heavily on the minds of younger voters — a major issue two years before the next scheduled election.

Signaling a political shift, Turkey’s parliament this week ended a five-year wait and ratified the Paris Agreement on cutting the greenhouse emissions that are blamed for global warming and abnormal weather events.

But the damage has already been done in Mugla, where 80 percent of Turkey’s pine honey is produced.

Turkey as a whole makes 92 percent of the world’s pine honey, meaning supplies of the thick, dark amber may be running low worldwide very soon.

Turkey’s pine honey harvests were already suffering from drought when the wildfires hit, destroying the delicate balance among bees, trees, and the little insects at the heart of the production process.

The honey is made by bees after they collect the sugary secretions of the tiny Basra beetle (Marchalina hellenica), which lives on the sap of pine trees. 

Fehmi hopes the beetles will adapt to younger trees after the fires. But he also accepts that “it will take at least five or 10 years to get our previous income back.”

His father Mustafa agrees, urging President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government to expand forested areas and plant young trees.

“There’s no fixing a burned house. Can you fix the dead? No. But new trees might come, a new generation,” Mustafa said.

For now, though, the beekeepers are counting their losses and figuring out what comes next.

The president of the Mugla Beekeepers’ Association, Veli Turk, expects his region’s honey production to plunge by up to 95 percent this year.

“There is pretty much no Marmaris honey left,” he said.

“This honey won’t come for another 60 years,” he predicted. “It’s not just Turkey. This honey would go everywhere in the world. It was a blessing. This is really a huge loss.”

Beekeeper Yasar Karayigit, 45, is thinking of switching to a different type of honey to keep his passion — and sole source of income — alive.

“I love beekeeping, but to continue, I’ll have to pursue alternatives,” Karayigit said, mentioning royal jelly (or “bee milk”) and sunflower honey, which involves additional costs.

“But if we love the bees, we have to do this,” the father of three said.

Ismail Atici, head of the Milas district Chamber of Agriculture in Mugla, said the price of pine honey has doubled from last year, threatening to make the popular breakfast food unaffordable for many Turks.

He expects price rises to continue and supplies to become ever scarcer.

“We will get to a point where even if you have money, you won’t be able to find those medicinal plants and medicinal honey,” Atici said.

“It’s going to be very hard to find 100 percent pine honey,” beekeeper Karayigit agreed. “We have had so much loss.”

Looking ahead, the president of the Turkey Beekeepers’ Association, Ziya Sahin, suggests selectively introducing the Basra beetle to new areas of Mugla, expanding coverage from the current 7% to 25% of local pine forests.

“If we conduct transplantation of the beetle from one area to another and continue this for two successive years, we can protect the region’s dominance in the sector,” Sahin said.

“There will be a serious drop in honey production if we don’t do this,” he added, calling this year the “worst” of his 50-year career.

Yet despite the pain and the troubled road ahead, the younger Alti has no plans to quit.

“This is my father’s trade. Because this is passed down from the family, we must continue it,” Fehmi said.
…

Outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel was in Israel Sunday, meeting with Israeli leaders. She called on Iran to return to negotiations on a new nuclear deal. Under her leadership, Israel and Germany have had close relations including cooperation on Iran and its nuclear program. The visit comes as Iran says it has 120 kilograms of enriched uranium.

The trip marked the eighth time that Germany’s Angela Merkel had traveled to Israel since she became chancellor 16 years ago. And in her last official visit, the Israeli Cabinet held a special session in her honor. Under her leadership, Germany has become Israel’s closest friend in Europe with close cooperation on all issues including Iran.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett used the occasion to warn the world that Iran is moving closer to a nuclear bomb.

He said that Iran’s nuclear program is at its most advanced point ever,” adding, “The world waits, the Iranians delay, and the centrifuges spin.”

Merkel said that Israel’s security will always be important to Germany, no matter who leads Germany. She also urged Iran to return to negotiations on a future nuclear deal. Her visit came as Iranian officials announced they had enriched 120 kilograms of uranium to 20 percent. Iran has maintained its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

The original 2015 agreement among Iran, Germany, China, France, Russia, Britain and the United States, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), provided Iran with relief from sanctions in exchange for limits on its nuclear program.

Israel opposed the agreement, saying it could pave the way for Iran to become a nuclear power eventually. And Israeli officials welcomed the 2018 decision by then-U.S. President Donald Trump to leave the deal. Since then, they say, Iran has moved forward on getting a bomb and is closer than ever.  

Chancellor Merkel also visited Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Memorial.

Merkel said that she considers it a stroke of good fortune given to us by history that after the crimes against humanity that were the Shoah, it has been possible to reset and reestablish relations between Germany and Israel to the extent that we have done.

She said that the situation with Iran is difficult but that without an agreement with Tehran, it will be even more difficult. Merkel’s meeting with Bennett followed talks between the Israeli leader and U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington in August.

Biden has offered to rejoin the deal if Iran returns to full compliance with its nuclear provisions. The U.S. and Iran have held indirect talks about rejoining the accord if Tehran returns to full compliance with its nuclear terms. Talks, however, have stalled.
…

Left-leaning Italian lawmakers and politicians on Sunday called for measures to outlaw pro-fascism groups a day after anti-vaccine protesters, incited by extreme-right leaders, stormed a union office in Rome.

Twelve protesters were either detained or arrested, authorities said Sunday, including Giuliano Castellino, leader of the extreme-right Forza Nuova party. Some 10,000 demonstrators turned out Saturday to express their outrage at a government-imposed requirement that employees have a “Green Pass” to enter their workplaces starting next Friday.

The passes certify that a person has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, recently recovered from the infection or tested negative within two days.

Cries of “Giuliano! Giuliano!” rose from the crowd Saturday. Castellino, who due to past violence has been banned from demonstrations in Rome, was allegedly one of the Forza Nuova members who exhorted supporters to storm the national headquarters of the CGIL labor confederation. Labor unions in Italy have supported the Green Passes to make workplaces safer for employees.

Scores of demonstrators used sticks, metal bars and rolled-up Italian flags to force their way inside and trash the place.

Later, hundreds of demonstrators clashed with police as they tried to reach the square outside Chigi Palace, home to the premier’s office and near the Italian parliament.

“The assault on CGIL headquarters and the attempt to repeat that at Chigi Palace leaves one shocked,” wrote l’eco del sud.it, a southern Italian news website.

After the storming of the union headquarters, demonstrators then headed down Rome’s Via Veneto, a boulevard that winds past the U.S. embassy. As a precaution, Italian security officials decided to usher Nancy Pelosi, the U.S. Speaker of the House, out of a nearby church where she had been attending Mass, her office said Sunday.

Earlier Saturday, Pelosi had a private audience at the Vatican with Pope Francis.

Dozens of protesters on Saturday night also stormed the emergency room at the Umberto I Polyclinic, where a demonstrator had been taken after feeling ill, and it took hours to remove them, hospital officials said. Gov. Nicola Zingaretti of Lazio, the region including Rome, said the culprits appeared to have participated in the anti-vaccine protests.

In the melee at the clinic, a nurse was struck in the head by a bottle and two police officers suffered bruises, the Corriere della Sera newspaper reported.

Among those calling for the outlawing of pro-fascism groups was Giuseppe Conte, Italy’s former premier and the new leader of the populist 5-Star Movement.

“We cannot accept these manifestations of thuggery,” Conte said.

The Italian Constitution bans any recreation of fascist parties, following the demise of Benito Mussolini’s fascist dictatorship before and during World War II.

Conte spoke to reporters outside the GCIL headquarters, where hundreds of supporters demonstrated Sunday in solidarity. Similar demonstrations drew supporters in Florence, Bologna and Milan.

A Democratic Party lawmaker, Emanuele Fiano, said he’ll present a motion in parliament on Monday pressing Premier Mario Draghi’s government to outlaw by decree Forza Nuova and similar movements.
…

A Russian plane crashed over the Tatarstan region Sunday, killing 16 people and injuring seven, the emergencies ministry said.

The L-410 Turbolet plane crashed with 23 people on board, including a group of parachute jumpers, around 9:23 a.m. local time near the town of Menzelinsk, the ministry said, adding that seven people had been rescued from the debris. 

All seven are hospitalized, with one “in very serious condition.”

The L-410 is a twin-engine short-range transport aircraft.

Although Russia has improved aviation safety standards in recent years, crashes, especially of aging planes, in remote regions, are not uncommon.

One Antonov transport plane, model An-26 crashed last month, killing six people. Another crashed in Kamchatka in July, killing all 28 people on board.

Some information for this report comes from Reuters and AFP. 

 
…

Britain will tell the European Union again next week that “significant change” to the Northern Ireland protocol is vital for the restoration of genuinely good relations between London and Brussels.

The protocol was part of the Brexit divorce settlement Prime Minister Boris Johnson negotiated with the EU, but London has said it must be rewritten less than a year after it took effect because of the barriers businesses face when importing British goods into the province.

European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic, who oversees post-Brexit relations with Britain, said Thursday that the EU’s executive would finalize measures next week aimed at resolving post-Brexit trading issues in Northern Ireland by the end of the year or early 2022.

But Sefcovic reiterated that he would not renegotiate the protocol and that solutions would have to be found within the terms of a deal designed to keep an open border between Northern Ireland and EU-member Ireland.

The European Commission’s measures are expected to be presented Wednesday.

Use of Article 16

Britain’s Brexit Minister David Frost is to give a speech to the diplomatic community in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, on Tuesday. He is expected to say endless negotiation is not an option and that London will need to use the Article 16 safeguard mechanism if solutions cannot be agreed upon rapidly, according to extracts of his speech released by his office Saturday.

Article 16 allows either side to take unilateral action if the protocol is deemed to have a negative impact.

“No one should be in any doubt about the seriousness of the situation. … The EU now needs to show ambition and willingness to tackle the fundamental issues at the heart of the protocol head on,” the speech transcript said.

Frost is also expected to signal a desire to free the protocol from the oversight of European judges.

“The role of the European Court of Justice in Northern Ireland and the consequent inability of the U.K. government to implement the very sensitive arrangements in the protocol in a reasonable way has created a deep imbalance in the way the protocol operates,” the transcript said. “Without new arrangements in this area the protocol will never have the support it needs to survive.” 

Reacting to publication of Frost’s stance on the ECJ, Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said the British government had created a new “red line” barrier to progress that it knows the EU cannot move on.
…

When Russian regulators approved the country’s own coronavirus vaccine, it was a moment of national pride, and the Pavlov family was among those who rushed to take the injection. But international health authorities have not yet given their blessing to the Sputnik V shot.

So when the family from Rostov-on-Don wanted to visit the West, they looked for a vaccine that would allow them to travel freely, a quest that brought them to Serbia, where hundreds of Russian citizens have flocked in recent weeks to receive Western-approved COVID-19 shots.

Serbia, which is not a member of the European Union, is a convenient choice for vaccine-seeking Russians because they can enter the allied Balkan nation without visas and because it offers a wide choice of Western-made shots. Organized tours for Russians have soared, and they can be spotted in the capital, Belgrade, at hotels, restaurants, bars and vaccination clinics.

“We took the Pfizer vaccine because we want to travel around the world,” Nadezhda Pavlova, 54, said after receiving the vaccine last weekend at a sprawling Belgrade vaccination center.

Her husband, Vitaly Pavlov, 55, said he wanted “the whole world to be open to us rather than just a few countries.”

Vaccination tours

Vaccination tour packages for Russians seeking shots endorsed by the World Health Organization appeared on the market in mid-September, according to Russia’s Association of Tour Operators.

Maya Lomidze, the group’s executive director, said prices start at $300-$700, depending on what’s included.

Lauded by Russian President Vladimir Putin as world’s first registered COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V emerged in August 2020 and has been approved in some 70 countries, including Serbia. But the WHO has said global approval is still under review after citing issues at a production plant a few months ago.

On Friday, a top World Health Organization official said legal issues holding up the review of Sputnik V were “about to be sorted out,” a step that could relaunch the process toward emergency use authorization.

Other hurdles remain for the Russian application, including a lack of full scientific information and inspections of manufacturing sites, said Dr. Mariangela Simao, a WHO assistant director-general.

Apart from the WHO, Sputnik V is also awaiting approval from the European Medicines Agency before all travel limitations can be lifted for people vaccinated with the Russian formula.

Getting into Europe

The long wait has frustrated many Russians, so when the WHO announced yet another delay in September, they started looking for solutions elsewhere.

“People don’t want to wait; people need to be able to get into Europe for various personal reasons,” explained Anna Filatovskaya, Russky Express tour agency spokeswoman in Moscow. “Some have relatives. Some have business, some study, some work. Some simply want to go to Europe because they miss it.”

Serbia, a fellow-Orthodox Christian and Slavic nation, offers the Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Chinese Sinopharm shots. By popular demand, Russian tourist agencies are now also offering tours to Croatia, where tourists can receive the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, without the need to return for a second dose.

“For Serbia, the demand has been growing like an avalanche,” Filatovskaya said. “It’s as if all our company is doing these days is selling tours for Serbia.”

The Balkan nation introduced vaccination for foreigners in August, when the vaccination drive inside the country slowed after reaching around 50% of the adult population. Official Serbian government data shows that nearly 160,000 foreign citizens so far have been vaccinated in the country, but it is unclear how many are Russians.

In Russia, the country’s vaccination rate has been low. By this week, almost 33% of Russia’s 146 million people have received at least one shot of a coronavirus vaccine, and 29% were fully vaccinated. Apart from Sputnik V and a one-dose version known as Sputnik Light, Russia has also used two other domestically designed vaccines that have not been internationally approved.

Amid low vaccination rates and reluctance by the authorities to reimpose restrictive measures, both Russia and Serbia have seen COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations reach record levels in the past weeks.

The daily coronavirus death toll in Russia topped 900 for a second straight day on Thursday, a day after reaching a record 929. In Serbia, the daily death toll of 50 people is the highest in months in the country of 7 million that so far has confirmed nearly 1 million cases of infection.

Pavlova said the “double protection” offered by the Pfizer booster shots would allow the family “to not only travel around the world, but also to see our loved ones without fear.”

Since the vaccine tours exploded in popularity about a month ago, they have provided welcome business for Serbian tour operators devastated by the pandemic in an already weak economy. The owner of BTS Kompas travel agency in Belgrade, Predrag Tesic, said they are booked well in advance.

“It started modestly at first, but day by day numbers have grown nicely,” Tesic said.

He explained that his agency organizes everything, from airport transport to accommodations and translation and other help at vaccination points. When they return for another dose in three weeks, the Russian guests also are offered brief tours to some of popular sites in Serbia. 
…

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said Saturday that he planned to step down in an effort to defuse a government crisis triggered by prosecutors’ announcement that he is a target of a corruption investigation.

Kurz, 35, said he had proposed that Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg replace him. But Kurz himself will remain in politics: He said he would become the head of his conservative Austrian People’s Party’s parliamentary group.

Kurz’s party had closed ranks behind him after the prosecutors’ announcement on Wednesday. But its junior coalition partner, the Greens, said Friday that Kurz couldn’t remain as chancellor and demanded that his party nominate an “irreproachable person” to replace him.

Opposition leaders had called for Kurz to go and planned to bring a no-confidence motion against him Tuesday in parliament.

“What we need now are stable conditions,” Kurz told reporters in Vienna. “So, in order to resolve the stalemate, I want to make way to prevent chaos and ensure stability.” 

Kurz and his close associates are accused of trying to secure his rise to the leadership of his party and the country with the help of manipulated polls and friendly reports in the media, financed with public money. Kurz, who became the People’s Party leader and then chancellor in 2017, has denied wrongdoing and until Saturday made clear he planned to stay on.

In Saturday’s statement, he insisted again that the accusations against him “are false and I will be able to clear this up — I am deeply convinced of that.”

Kurz said he would keep his party’s leadership as well as becoming its parliamentary group leader.

Kurz’s first coalition with the far-right Freedom Party collapsed in 2019. The chancellor pulled the plug after a video surfaced showing the Freedom Party’s leader at the time, Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache, appearing to offer favors to a purported Russian investor.
…