The bridge spanning the Suchiate River between Mexico and Guatemala was open again for business Sunday, but few migrants crossed after a failed attempt by thousands of Central Americans to barge through the previous day.More than 2,000 migrants spent the night in Tecun Uman, on the Guatemalan side of the border, uncertain of their next steps. Many got that far by traveling in caravan for greater safety and, they hoped, success in reaching the United States.Mexico, pressured by the U.S. to halt the northward flow of migrants, is offering those who turn themselves over to authorities temporary jobs in southern Mexico, likely in agriculture or construction. But many of the migrants would rather pass through the country to try to start a new life in the U.S.Volunteers spooned out a hot breakfast of beans, eggs, tortillas and coffee on Sunday to a line of migrants that stretched around the Senor de las Tres Caidas church, a blue and white Spanish colonial-style structure with a bell perched on top that’s in the heart of Tecun Uman.“We improvised this shelter because the other one was crowded,” said Alfredo Camarena, vicar of the Catholic church.Camarena estimated that more than 2,000 migrants spent the night in his church, in shelters or on the streets, and that several hundred more would arrive in the coming days.Mexican national guardsmen on Saturday slammed shut a metal fence that reads “Welcome to Mexico” to block the path of thousands of Central American migrants who attempted to push their way across the Rodolfo Robles Bridge.Beyond the fence, on the Mexican side of the border, Mexican troops in riot gear formed a human wall to reinforce the barrier as the crowd pressed forward.Mexican Gen. Vicente Hernandez stood beyond the green bars, flanked by guardsmen, with an offer: Turn yourselves over to us, and the Mexican government will find you jobs.“There are opportunities for all,” he promised.Migrants looking for permission to stay in Mexico passed through in groups of 20. As the day wore on, around 300 turned themselves over to Mexican immigration.At a less frequently used border crossing called El Ceibo, nestled among national parks near the city of Tenosique in Mexico’s Tabasco state, Guatemala’s human rights defender’s office reported Sunday that around 300 people opted to turn themselves over to Mexican authorities for processing.Mexico’s offer of employment, and not just legal status, represents a new twist in the country’s efforts to find humane solutions to the mostly Central American migrants who are fleeing poverty and violence in their home countries.Under threat of trade and other sanctions from the U.S., Mexico has stepped up efforts in recent months to prevent migrants from reaching their desired final destination: the U.S. Over the weekend, Mexican immigration officials deployed drones to look for migrants trying to sneak into the country. The National Guard presence was also heavier than usual.As the latest caravans approached Mexico on Friday, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador suggested that Mexico might be able to accommodate the migrants longer-term.“We have more than 4,000 jobs available there along the southern border, and of course shelters and medical attention — everything — but on offer is work in our country,” he said during a morning press briefing.The offer of jobs to foreigners rankles some in Mexico, a country in which half the population lives in poverty and millions are unemployed.Lopez Obrador was quick to add Friday that “the same goes for our nationals, there’s a way for them to have work.”Despite the offer, distrust ran high among the migrants congregating just south of the Mexican border with Guatemala. Some feared they would be swiftly deported if they handed themselves over to Mexican authorities.A few, relying on unfounded rumors swirling among the migrants, said they suspected a more selfish motive behind Mexico’s reinforcement of its southern border.“We’ve heard that the president of the United States has opened the doors and that he even has work for us, and that the Mexicans don’t want to let us pass because they want to keep all the work,” said Carlos Alberto Bustillo of Honduras as he bathed in the Suchiate River.The Suchiate has sometimes been a point for standoffs, as migrants group together for strength in numbers, hoping that they can force their way across the bridge, or wade across the river, to avoid immigration checks in Mexico.The water levels of the river have been low enough this weekend to allow those who dare to simply trudge across. National Guardsmen lined the banks to warn against such undertakings, with interactions that resemble a high-stakes game of chicken.Honduran Darlin Mauricio Mejia joined a dozen other migrants for a splash on the banks of the Guatemalan side of the river early Sunday.Playfully, he shouted out to the guardsmen: asking if they could cross into Mexico to grab some mangos to eat.One of the guardsmen responded, curtly: “Let’s go to immigration and they’ll help you there.” 
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Russia’s Vladimir Putin is denying that he’s planning to retain his grip on power when he relinquishes his country’s presidency in 2024.The 67-year-old Putin dismissed accusations that sweeping constitutional changes he laid out in a speech Wednesday would allow him to retain his grip on a country he’s ruled for 20 years.President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with a man after attending a wreath laying commemoration ceremony for the 77th anniversary since the Leningrad siege was lifted during World War II at the Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery, Jan. 14, 2020.Speaking Saturday while on a visit to his hometown of St. Petersburg, Putin said he understood peoples alarm but that he doesn’t want Russia to return to the Soviet-era practice of rulers dying in office without a succession plan.“In my view, it would be very worrying to return to the situation of the mid-1980s when heads of state one by one remained in power until the end of their days, [and] left office without having secured necessary conditions for a transition of power,” Putin said.“So, thank you very much, but I think it’s better not to return to the situation of the mid-1980s,” he added.But many of his critics are skeptical of his assurances.They worry Putin’s proposals, the first significant changes to the country’s constitution since it was adopted under Boris Yeltsin in 1993, are designed to ensure he keeps a grip on the levers of power after he leaves the Kremlin.Putin’s term in office is set to end in 2024, and he cannot run again as the constitution prohibits anyone serving more than two consecutive terms.FILE – Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses the State Council in Moscow, Jan. 15, 2020.The proposed constitutional changes he unveiled Wednesday, at this stage still vague, could allow him to retain power as national leader either as prime minister, a maneuver he’s used before to circumvent term limits, chairman of the country’s parliament or as head of a revamped but still ill-defined state council, his critics say.Political foes have dubbed the proposed shake-up a “constitutional coup,” which would see the presidency reduced in importance. Some former Kremlin advisers say none of the powerful factions within the Kremlin or the country’s oligarchs want Putin to go, for fear his departure would trigger internecine warfare within the governing class.In a recent interview with VOA, before Putin’s announcement, one of his former advisers, Gleb Pavlovsky, said that to a certain degree he’s trapped within the system he created. Putin can’t quit for fear that everything will fall apart, Pavlovsky said.While Putin’s proposal has prompted outrage from rights activists, liberals and his political foes, ordinary Russians, even those critical of Putin, seem resigned, with many saying they’d never expected he’d relinquish power in four years’ time.
“I feel indifferent,” Ekaterina, a 28-year-old financial adviser told VOA. “Most of my friends are just making jokes about it” because they feel impotent, she added.In 2011-2012 tens of thousands of people took to the streets following Putin’s return to the presidency for his third term, Ekaterina and others of her age group say they doubt large-scale protests to Putin’s plan will happen now. In August a series of protests were mounted against rigged elections to Moscow’s city council, but they have fizzled.FILE – Russian President Vladimir Putin, center right, and Kazakhstan’s former president Nursultan Nazarbayev, center left, attend the Victory Day military parade to mark 74 years since the end of World War II, in Red Square in Moscow, May 9, 2019.Some opposition politicians say Putin’s proposals would see Russia gravitate to a Central Asian model of governance. They accuse Putin of wanting to prolong his state leadership by following the model of Kazakhstan, where Nursultan Nazarbayev, left the presidency last year but has maintained his iron grip on his Central Asian country as chairman of an all-powerful Security Council.”It is a complete ideological switch on the part of the ruling class from a Western ideology to something else — an Eastern one or an Ancient Roman one,” said Alexander Baunov of the Carnegie Moscow Center, a think tank.The Russian leader’s “reform” proposals include also abolishing the primacy of international law now enshrined in the country’s current constitution. That possible change is alarming Russia’s beleaguered civil society groups, which are already seeing a tightening of restrictions on their work.
“As a member of the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Russia is bound by international standards on human rights, civil liberties and the rule of law — including democratic elections, protections from arbitrary imprisonment, and freedoms of the media, assembly, and association,” wrote opposition politician and journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza in the Washington Post Friday.Those commitments have long been ignored, “but by establishing the primacy of domestic statutes, the Kremlin intends to free itself from its remaining formal commitments under international law, signaling yet another milestone in its growing isolation,” he said.
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The head of the World Economic Forum says it’s “reassuring” that U.S. President Donald Trump and climate activist Greta Thunberg will both return to its annual meeting in Davos this year, noting that concerns about the environment will be a key topic.
WEF founder Klaus Schwab sees vast changes in business, society and culture over the 50 years since he created the yearly gathering in the Swiss Alps, which initially was a forum for business leaders but now is a key stop for policymakers and activists as well.
Following another year of extreme heat, out-of-control wildfires and melting ice sheets, environmental issues are considered to be the top five long-term risks confronting the global economy, WEF said last week, citing a survey of more than 750 decision-makers.
It said catastrophic trends like global warming, climate change and the extinction of animal species would top the agenda at the meeting that begins Tuesday.
The forum is shifting its focus of recent years from how technology is transforming lives to the environment and responsible business practices that promote jobs, fight climate change and work for social good along with profit-making.
The focus on environment could make for an uncomfortable subject for Trump, whose administration has called for expanded use of carbon-spewing coal, stripped away environmental protections and played down concerns among scientists about man-made climate change. Trump has also moved to take the U.S. out of the landmark 2015 Paris accord to fight climate change.
Schwab says Trump is welcome because of his role on the world stage while Thunberg will keep the focus on the environment. Both will speak Tuesday on the opening day.
“I think both voices are necessary,” Schwab said Sunday in an interview with The Associated Press. “The environment will play a particularly important role during this meeting.”
Schwab pointed to the forum’s 160 “lighthouse” projects on inclusion and equality; economic development; technology governance; regional development; corporate leadership and ecology, including a project to plant a trillion trees.
“So if Greta comes this year, she will see that we have made substantial progress,” he said, alluding to her debut at the forum last year.Time magazine chose Thunberg as its “Person of the Year” for 2019.
Schwab claimed the forum has helped air concerns about the environment since the 1970s, but said public awareness about climate issues has now exploded.
“Now we have recognized the urgency, because we know the window to act [on climate change] is closing,” he said, adding he hoped to inject “this sense of urgency into the meeting.”
He said many companies are increasingly seeing the benefits of “ESG” — environmental, social and governance — concerns in their business models.
 “Companies recognize … doing good … it’s a precondition for some long-term survival,” Schwab said.
On Friday, Schwab and the chairmen of Bank of America and Dutch nutrition company Royal DSM sent a joint open letter to corporate leaders on hand this year to set “a target to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 or sooner” if their companies haven’t done so already.
The forum chief said nearly all European Union leaders will be on hand this year, including  German Chancellor Angela Merkel.  He said the EU has a chance to lay out its vision for the future and turn the corner after three years of haggling over Britain’s departure from the bloc, which comes at the end of this month.
He also brushed aside critics who have faulted the forum as an overly exclusive vacation for the world’s out-of-touch elites.
“If I am particularly proud of something during the last 50 years, it is of having created many years ago the community of young leaders,” Schwab said, citing 10,000 young “Global Shapers” in over 400 cities who he said are engaged in issues on the ground. “We try — and I think quite successfully — to integrate the bottom-up, young generation very much.”
The Davos gathering has battled a reputation of being a haunt for the rich, powerful and famous over its five decades. Over the years, the forum has hosted celebrities like Hollywood stars Shirley Maclaine and George Clooney, Nobel Peace Prize laureates Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat, and former South African presidents F.W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela, and business gurus like Davos regular Bill Gates.  
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The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights is appealing for $375.5 million to support its efforts to promote and protect human rights in dozens of countries around the world at a time of great turbulence and erosion of fundamental rights.Human rights is one of the three main pillars of the United Nations, along with peace and security and development. And, yet the office established to be the world’s human rights watchdog is seriously short of cash.Barely half of last year’s record $321.5 million appeal was funded. The U.N. High Commissioner’s Office hopes this year’s appeal will receive more generous support from the international community.Human Rights spokesman, Jeremy Laurence, said a great deal of work lies ahead. These include monitoring nations compliance with human rights law, protecting people with disabilities, promoting gender and women’s rights, preventing conflicts, grievances and discrimination of all kinds.”This year, we aim to strengthen efforts in five key frontier areas that are having an increasing impact on fundamental human rights. These are climate change, digital technologies, inequalities, corruption and people on the move.”Laurence told VOA much of the work ahead this year will involve Africa. He said his agency will supply the resources, technical assistance and other support to help vulnerable areas improve the human rights of their people.”This year, we are establishing a new office in Sudan and we are looking at strengthening our programs in Ethiopia. We also will be looking to enhance the benefit of those countries’ political transitions on their economies and societies. And, we are also further expanding our work in the Sahel, including through our country office in Niger,” said Laurence.In the Americas, Laurence said the High Commissioner’s office will reinforce technical cooperation and protection in Venezuela. Another big project, he said will entail work to calm the situation in Bolivia, which is experiencing instability triggered by the ousting of former President Evo Morales.He said human rights officials will seek to establish a genuine and inclusive dialogue between the government and civil society to defuse the crisis. 
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A survey of 16,000 millennials in 16 countries at peace and at war indicates a majority is nervous about the future, and a large plurality believes heightened global tensions are likely to lead to a catastrophic war.  Launch of the report was commissioned last year by the International Committee of the Red Cross.The ICRC survey finds millennials are deeply pessimistic about the future they face.   The results indicate this generation of young people, now between the ages of 25 and 39, is worried about future conflicts and nuclear weapons.  Other top concerns include unemployment, increasing poverty and terrorism.Among those surveyed, 47% think there will be a third world war in their lifetime.  However, 84% believe the use of nuclear weapons is never acceptable.  ICRC legal adviser Nishat Nishat calls this extremely encouraging.”I think there is something very encouraging at the fact that millennials, my generation and people in the world, I think generally now have understood the sort of catastrophic effects nuclear weapons could have and how those effects would be just unacceptable regardless of the circumstances under which these would be used,” said Nishat. Nevertheless, Nishat notes 54% believe it is more likely than not that a nuclear attack will occur in the next decade.  The survey reveals a worrisome lack of respect for basic human values enshrined in international law.For example, international law bans torture and inhumane treatment under all circumstances.  Yet, 37% of millennials surveyed believe torture is acceptable under some circumstances. ICRC deputy head of resource mobilization Daniel Littlejohn-Carrillo, said an overwhelming majority of respondents believe combatants should avoid civilian casualties as much as possible.  However, he expresses concern that 15% support any actions needed to win a war, regardless of civilian casualties.”This strongly justifies also the work of the ICRC.  I feel, we feel in making sure that we continue to reach people, in particular that 15% of the population, to ensure that messages, that pressure on policy makers, on decision makers is really geared and oriented towards reducing civilian casualties as much as possible,” he said.Overall, 73% of respondents say addressing mental health needs of conflict victims is just as important as providing food, water and shelter.The Geneva Conventions, which regulate how wars are fought, were adopted 70 years ago.  A large majority of millennials surveyed believes more should be done to limit the ways war can be fought. 
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The coffins of 11 Ukrainians killed when Iran’s military mistakenly shot down a passenger airliner after takeoff from Tehran international airport arrived in Kyiv on Sunday as new questions emerged over Iranian officials’ cooperation in ongoing investigations into the tragedy.President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk, and other senior Ukrainian officials participated in a solemn ceremony after the 11 flag-draped coffins arrived in the Ukrainian capital carrying the bodies of nine Ukrainian International Airlines crew members and two passengers killed along with 165 other people when Flight PS752 went down on January 8.Iranian officials have said that air defenses on high alert during heightened tensions after Iranian missile strikes made an error and fired antiaircraft defenses at the Boeing 737-800.Ukrainians and officials from the four other countries that lost nationals in the disaster have demanded a “thorough, independent, and transparent” investigation.Now, the Iranian official who is leading the investigation for Tehran has appeared to backtrack on a pledge to share the crucial black boxes that were collecting flight data aboard the aircraft.Hassan Rezaifer, head of the accident investigations unit of Iran’s civil aviation authority, was quoted on January 19 by the state-run IRNA news agency as saying “the flight recorders from the Ukrainian Boeing are in Iranian hands and we have no plans to send them out,” AP reported.Work to read the data was ongoing, he was quoted as saying, “But as of yet, we have made no decision” on transferring the black boxes outside the country.Rezaifer had been quoted by the Tasnim news agency as saying French, American, and Canadian experts would work with the equipment after it was sent to Kyiv because Iranian authorities had been unable to read the black-box data.”If this effort is unsuccessful, then the black box will be sent to France,” he had added, according to Tasnim.Senior Iranian officials called for the punishment of those responsible after air-defense forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) shot down the plane.Joint StatementThe foreign ministers of Afghanistan, Britain, Canada, Sweden, and Ukraine issued a joint statement after a meeting in London on January 17 to pressure Iran to give a full accounting.Most of the victims on the flight were Iranians or dual citizens, many of them students returning to studies abroad or families returning home after visiting relatives in Iran.Meanwhile, Ukrainians gathered at Boryspil International Airport outside Kyiv for a ceremony on January 19 to honor the flight’s casualties as their bodies arrived home for burial.The incident came shortly after Iran launched missiles at military bases in Iraq that hosted U.S. forces, in an attack that was a response to a January 3 U.S. air strike that killed top Iranian military commander Major General Qasem Soleimani near Baghdad’s international airport.After initially denying it shot down the plane, Tehran eventually admitted that its forces “unintentionally” struck the airliner with a missile after it said it veered toward a sensitive military site.Thousands of Iranians took to the streets to protest their government’s actions, prompting public calls for punishment of the individuals responsible for the mistake.Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for national unity and defended the country’s armed forces in a rare sermon at Tehran’s Mosalla Mosque on January 17.He accused Iran’s enemies of using the plane crash to question the Islamic republic, the armed forces, and the IRGC, which he said “maintained the security” of Iran. 
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Goodbye, your royal highnesses. Hello, life as — almost — ordinary civilians.Prince Harry and wife Meghan will no longer use the titles “royal highness” or receive public funds for their work under a deal that lets the couple step aside as working royals, Buckingham Palace announced Saturday.Releasing details of the dramatic split triggered by the couple’s unhappiness with life under media scrutiny, the palace said Harry and Meghan will cease to be working members of the royal family when the new arrangements take effect in the “spring of 2020.”The radical break is more complete than the type of arrangement anticipated 10 days ago when the royal couple stunned Britain with an abrupt announcement that they wanted to step down. They said they planed to combine some royal duties with private work in a “progressive” plan, but that is no longer on the table.Harry and Meghan will no longer use the titles His Royal Highness and Her Royal Highness but will retain them, leaving the possibility that the couple might change their minds and return sometime in the future.Harry’s late mother, Diana, was stripped of the Her Royal Highness title when she and Prince Charles divorced.They will be known as Harry, Duke of Sussex, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. Harry will remain a prince and sixth in line to the British throne.FILE PHOTO: Britain’s Queen Elizabeth departs from St Mary Magdalene’s church on the Sandringham estate in eastern England, Jan. 12, 2020.The agreement also calls for Meghan and Harry to repay 2.4 million pounds ($3.1 million) in taxpayers’ money spent renovating a house for them near Windsor Castle, Frogmore Cottage. The use of public funds to transform the house’s five separate apartments into a spacious single family home for them had raised ire in the British press. They will continue to use Frogmore Cottage as their base in England.The deal came after days of talks among royals sparked by Meghan and Harry’s announcement last week that they wanted to step down as senior royals and live part-time in Canada.The couple’s departure is a wrench for the royal family, and Queen Elizabeth II did say earlier this week that she wished the couple had wanted to remain full-time royals, but she had warm words for them in a statement Saturday.The 93-year-old queen said she was pleased that “together we have found a constructive and supportive way forward for my grandson and his family. Harry, Meghan and Archie will always be much loved members of my family.“I recognize the challenges they have experienced as a result of intense scrutiny over the last two years and support their wish for a more independent life,” Elizabeth said.“It is my whole family’s hope that today’s agreement allows them to start building a happy and peaceful new life,” she added.Newspapers are seen for sale in London, Jan. 9, 2020. In a statement Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, said they are planning “to step back” as senior members of the royal family and “work to become financially independent.Newspapers are seen for sale in London, Jan. 9, 2020. In a statement Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, said they are planning “to step back” as senior members of the royal family and “work to become financially independent.”Despite the queen’s kind words, the new arrangement will represent an almost complete break from life as working royals, especially for Harry. As a devoted Army veteran and servant to the crown, the prince carried out dozens of royal engagements each year,Royal expert and author Penny Junor said the new setup will benefit both sides of the family.“There are no blurred lines. They are starting afresh and they are going with the queen’s blessing, I think it is the best of all worlds,” she said.It is not yet clear whether Harry and Meghan will continue to receive financial support from Harry’s father, Prince Charles, who used revenue from the Duchy of Cornwall to help fund his activities and those of his wife and sons.The duchy, chartered in 1337, produced more than 20 million pounds ($26 million) in revenue last year. It is widely regarded as private money, not public funds, so Charles may opt to keep details of its disbursal private. Much of the royals’ wealth comes from private holdings.Though Harry and Meghan will no longer represent the queen, the palace said they would “continue to uphold the values of Her Majesty” while carrying out their private charitable work.The withdrawal of Harry from royal engagements will increase the demands on his brother, Prince William, and William’s wife, Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge.Buckingham Palace did not disclose who will pay for the couple’s security going forward. It currently is taxpayer-funded and carried out primarily by a special unit of the Metropolitan Police, also known as Scotland Yard.“There are well established independent processes to determine the need for publicly funded security,” it said.Harry and Meghan have grown increasingly uncomfortable with constant media scrutiny since the birth in May of their son, Archie. They married in 2018 in a ceremony that drew a worldwide TV audience.Meghan joined the royal family after a successful acting career and spoke enthusiastically about the chance to travel throughout Britain and learn about her new home, but disillusionment set in fairly quickly.She launched legal action against a newspaper in October for publishing a letter she wrote to her father. Harry has complained bitterly of racist undertones in some media coverage of his wife, who is biracial.There has also been a breach in the longtime close relationship between Harry and William, a future king, over issues that have not been made public.The couple’s desire to separate from the rest of the family had been the subject of media speculation for months. But they angered senior royals by revealing their plans on Instagram and a new website without advance clearance from the queen or palace officials.Elizabeth summoned Harry, William and Charles, to an unusual crisis meeting at her rural retreat in eastern England in an effort to find common ground.The result was Saturday’s agreement, which is different from Harry and Meghan’s initial proposal that they planned to combine a new, financially independent life with a reduced set of royal duties.It is not known where in Canada the couple plan to locate. They are thought to be considering Vancouver Island, where they spent a long Christmas break, or Toronto, where Meghan filmed the TV series “Suits” for many years.It is not clear what Harry and Meghan’s immigration and tax status will be in Canada, or whether Meghan will follow through on plans to obtain British nationality.
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Forces loyal to Libyan military strongman Khalifa Haftar blocked oil exports from the war-ravaged country’s main ports Saturday, raising the stakes on the eve of an international summit aimed at bringing peace to the North African nation. The move to cripple the country’s main income source was a protest against Turkey’s decision to send troops to shore up Haftar’s rival, the head of Tripoli’s U.N.-recognized government, Fayez al-Sarraj. It came ahead of Sunday’s conference in Berlin that will see the United Nations try to extract a pledge from world leaders to stop meddling in the Libyan conflict — be it through supplying troops, weapons or financing. “All foreign interference can provide some aspirin effect in the short term, but Libya needs all foreign interference to stop,” U.N. Libya envoy Ghassan Salame told AFP in an interview. Call for ‘protection’But Sarraj issued a call for international “protection troops” if Haftar keeps up his offensive. “Such a protection force must operate under the auspices of the United Nations. Experts will have to advise who should participate, such as the EU or the African Union or the Arab League,” he told the Die Welt newspaper on Sunday. The presidents of Russia, Turkey and France as well as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are to join the Sunday talks, held under the auspices of the U.N. Haftar and Sarraj are also expected, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas confirmed Saturday, ahead of the first gathering of such scale on the conflict since 2018. After months of combat, which has killed more than 2,000 people, a cease-fire took effect on January 12, backed by both Ankara and Moscow, which is accused of supporting Haftar. Drastic cut in crude productionBut Saturday’s blockade raised fears over the conflict. The disruption to oil exports is expected to more than halve the country’s daily crude production, to 500,000 barrels from 1.3 million barrels, translating to losses of $55 million a day, Libya’s National Oil Company warned. “Our line at the U.N. is clear. Don’t play with petrol because it’s the livelihood of the Libyans,” warned Salame just hours before the blockade. 
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Canada’s federal government will help Newfoundland on the Atlantic coast dig out in the wake of a massive winter blizzard that buried cars and left thousands without power, a Cabinet minister said Saturday.The storm dumped as much as 76.2 cm (30 inches) of snow on St. John’s, the capital of Newfoundland, and packed wind gusts as high as 130 km per hour (81 mph). The snowfall was an all-time record for the day for St. John’s International Airport.St. John’s Mayor Danny Breen said earlier that a state of emergency declared Friday remained in effect. Businesses were closed, as was the international airport.Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan said military reservists might be called in, but details of the assistance had yet to be worked out. The immediate priority will be snow removal and clearing roads to the snowbound hospital, he said.A man is pictured in a snowy street in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, Jan. 17, 2020.”We have a real issue right now with access to the hospital,” O’Regan told reporters in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is meeting for two days in what it has called a retreat.Commenting on the scale of the blizzard, O’Regan said: “It’s snow and a hurricane, and snow and a hurricane shuts down a city.”The public safety and defense ministers, who were en route to Winnipeg, would be able to provide more details later, O’Regan said. Earlier, the provincial premier asked the government for support, including “mobilizing the Canadian Armed Forces.”Thousands remained without power, and social media showed people had begun to literally dig out of their homes after snowdrifts blocked their doorways.The Canadian Broadcasting Corp (CBC) confirmed a report of an avalanche slamming into a home in St. John’s Battery neighborhood, which sits at the entrance to the city’s harbor on the slopes of a steep hill.A picture of the home on Twitter showed the living room filled with snow. The CBC also said a 26-year-old man has been reported missing after having set out to walk to a friend’s house on Friday during the blizzard.”Help is on the way,” Trudeau tweeted.
 
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Goodbye, your royal highnesses. Hello, life as — almost — ordinary civilians.Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, are quitting as working royals and will no longer use the titles “royal highness” or receive public funds for their work under a deal announced Saturday by Buckingham Palace.The palace said Harry and Meghan will cease to be working members of the royal family when the new arrangements take effect within months, in the “spring of 2020.” They will be known as Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.The couple will no longer use the titles His Royal Highness and Her Royal Highness, but they are not being stripped of them. Harry will remain a prince and sixth in line to the British throne.The agreement also calls for Meghan and Harry to repay 2.4 million pounds ($3.1 million) in taxpayers’ money that was spent renovating their home near Windsor Castle, Frogmore Cottage.FILE – Frogmore Cottage, the home of Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, is seen in Windsor, England, Feb. 17, 2019.The couple’s departure is a wrench for the royal family, but Queen Elizabeth II had warm words for them in a statement Saturday.The queen said she was pleased that “together we have found a constructive and supportive way forward for my grandson and his family. Harry, Meghan and Archie will always be much loved members of my family.””I recognize the challenges they have experienced as a result of intense scrutiny over the last two years and support their wish for a more independent life,” Elizabeth said.”It is my whole family’s hope that today’s agreement allows them to start building a happy and peaceful new life,” she added.The announcement came after days of talks among royal courtiers sparked by Meghan and Harry’s announcement last week that they wanted to step down as senior royals and live part-time in Canada.The details of the deal solidify the couple’s dramatic break from life as working royals. Army veteran Harry will have to give up the military appointments he has as a senior royal.While he and Meghan will no longer represent the queen, the palace said they would “continue to uphold the values of Her Majesty” while carrying out their private charitable work.Buckingham Palace did not disclose who will pay for the couple’s security going forward. It currently is taxpayer-funded.”There are well established independent processes to determine the need for publicly funded security,” it said.
 
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called on Europe to support its work in Libya, where it is providing military support to the internationally recognized government, if it wants to end the conflict there. Erdogan made his remarks in a column published on the Politico website on Saturday, ahead of a summit in Berlin on Sunday that will try to stabilize the country. At the meeting, Germany and the United Nations will push rival Libyan camps fighting over the capital, Tripoli, to agree to a truce and monitoring mechanism as first steps toward peace, diplomats and a draft communique said. Turkey supports the government of Fayez al-Serraj in Tripoli and describes Khalifa Haftar, who heads the eastern Libyan National Army (LNA), as a coup plotter. “Keeping in mind that Europe is less interested in providing military support to Libya, the obvious choice is to work with Turkey, which has already promised military assistance,” Erdogan wrote. “We will train Libya’s security forces and help them combat terrorism, human trafficking and other serious threats against international security,” he added. Conversation with MerkelAs the summit loomed, the Turkish president spoke by phone with its host, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, to discuss developments in Libya and the region, Erdogan’s office said. In a sign of tensions surrounding the Libyan issue, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu criticised Greece for hosting Haftar ahead of the summit in a tweet directed at Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias. “Inviting Haftar to Greece and highlighting Greek national agenda sabotage the efforts to bring peace to Libya. We would like to remind our Greek friends that these futile efforts are in vain. @NikosDendias,” Cavusoglu wrote. Sunday’s summit will put pressure on Haftar and the LNA to halt a nine-month offensive against Tripoli after a weeklong lull in fighting. But it will not try to broker power-sharing between the two sides, said diplomats briefed on preparations. 
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The World Food Program is appealing for $62 million to provide life-saving food assistance over the next six months to 700,000 people suffering from severe hunger in the Caribbean island of Haiti.Millions of Haitians still lack proper shelter, food and other basic necessities 10 years after a devastating earthquake killed 300,000 people and displaced one-and-one-half-million.The World Food Program says one in three Haitians need urgent food assistance in both rural and urban areas.  It says one million of them are suffering from severe hunger, causing rates of acute malnutrition to rise.  Homes are seen in the Taba Isa earthquake survivor camp in Port au Prince, Haiti. (Renan Toussaint/VOA Creole)WFP spokeswoman Elizabeth Byrs says her agency is scaling up its operation to provide emergency food aid to hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable people.  “Ten years after the earthquake, WFP is still concerned about a decline in food security, with 3.7 million people severely food insecure and affected also by rising prices, drop in agricultural production, and social unrest, of course, which has heavily disrupted economic activity in Haiti,” Byrs said.Anti-government riots last year disrupted the ability of humanitarian agencies to bring food and other aid to people in the impoverished country.   Byrs says the WFP responded to this emergency by providing food to more than 230,000 of the most vulnerable.  She says it also furnished 300,000 school children with daily food, including hot meals.Byrs says donors have contributed $5 million since WFP launched its emergency appeal in December.  That means the agency still needs $57 million to continue its life-saving operation for the next six months.  She notes 80 percent of the 700,000 beneficiaries are women and children, many of whom can barely manage to find enough food for one meal a day.
 
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More than a thousand Central American migrants on Saturday surged onto a bridge spanning the Suchiate River between southern Mexico and Guatemala as Mexican National Guardsmen attempted to impede their journey north.Mexican officials allowed several dozen migrants to enter the country via the bridge, while a voice over a loudspeaker warned that migrants may not be granted asylum in the U.S., even if they make it there.Tecun UmanNearby, hundreds of guardsmen lined the river to prevent migrants from crossing into Mexico clandestinely. The voice on the loudspeaker warned, over and over, that those crossing the river “are entering Mexico illegally.”Mexico’s government has said migrants entering the country without registering will not be allowed to pass from its southern border area. But those seeking asylum or other protections will be allowed to apply and legalize their status in Mexico.Guatemalan officials have counted more than 3,000 migrants who registered at border crossings to enter that country in recent days and there were additional migrants who did not register.The bridge to Mexico was closed on Saturday after being open on the previous day. Migrants who had wanted to cross and request asylum or seek to regularize their status and find work could do so.But the migrants were wary of a trap. Mexico’s offer of legal status and potential employment carries a stipulation that would confine them to southern Mexico, where wages are lower and there are fewer jobs than elsewhere in the country.Meanwhile, Guatemala’s human rights defender’s office said there were more than 1,000 migrants gathering at another point on the Mexican border far to the north in the Peten region and there were reports that Mexican forces were gathering on the other side of the border there.In the Mexican border town of Ciudad Hidalgo, Francisco Garduño, commissioner of Mexico’s National Immigration Institute, was emphatic that migrants who try to enter the country irregularly would go no farther.“They cannot enter because it would be in violation of the law,” he told The Associated Press. He declined to talk specifics about border reinforcements, but said there were “sufficient” troops to keep things orderly.
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A French government minister warned that seditious groups bent on violence were hijacking the protest movement against pension reform that has gripped the country, after a fire Saturday damaged a renowned Paris restaurant patronized by President Emmanuel Macron.The Paris fire service said the pre-dawn blaze that singed a corner of the La Rotonde eatery was quickly extinguished. The Paris prosecutor’s office launched an investigation to determine the cause of the fire.But Marlene Schiappa, the government’s secretary of state for equality, said the blaze “probably” resulted from a criminal act. She described a climate in France “of hate and of violence that is quite incredible,” citing the restaurant fire among a list of examples.“Seditious groups want the law of ‘might is right’ to reign, to impose violence on all people who think differently from them,” Schiappa said on French news channel BFM-TV. “It is very alarming and unworthy of a democracy like France.”After six weeks of labor strikes and nationwide protests against government plans to overhaul France’s pension system, there are mounting signs of splits within the movement. As some strikers return to work and train services that have been severely disrupted by walkouts see notable improvements, more radical protesters are trying to keep the movement going.The fire at La Rotonde came just days after demonstrators shouting “Death to Macron, death to La Rotonde” marched past the eatery, restaurant manager Gerard Tafanel said.He said marchers wore the bright jackets of the ‘yellow vest’ protest movement that has demonstrated against the policies of Macron’s government for more than a year. Tafanel said a yellow vest also was found by police officers investigating Saturday’s fire.Macron’s name has been associated with the restaurant since he celebrated there during the 2017 presidential election, after qualifying for the second-round runoff that he later won.Macron was a target of protesters himself on Friday night, too.Seemingly tipped off to his presence by people inside, several dozen protesters converged on a Paris theater where Macron was watching an evening performance with his wife. Video showed protesters chanting “Macron resign” and some entering a door as surprised police tried to hold them back. A black car reported to be carrying Macron then sped away under a hail of boos.Earlier Friday, dozens of protesters also blocked the entrance to the Louvre museum and forced the famous Paris landmark to close.Transportation strikes against the pension overhaul began on Dec. 5. Saturday marked their 45th consecutive day, although the job actions are no longer as disruptive as they were earlier.Workers in other sectors of the economy have held strikes, too, including at ports and oil refineries.On Saturday, musicians, singers and other members of the striking Paris Opera drew a crowd with a free concert in front of the Palais Garnier opera house.
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Honduras and the Organization of American States failed to reach an agreement Friday to extend the mandate of an anti-corruption mission that had upset a number of national lawmakers by uncovering misuse of public funds.The mandate of the Mission to Support the Fight against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras was set to expire Sunday.“We did not reach a consensus on signing a new covenant between Honduras and the Organization of American States secretary general,” the Honduran government said in a statement.The government said it was important to take into consideration the complaints from some economic and political sectors about the behavior of some of the mission’s members. Their complaints included allegations of “excesses” by the commission and charges that it “trampled their rights and constitutional guarantees,” the statement said.Presidential minister Ebal Díaz, who participated in negotiations with the OAS, said in a video message that the government remained committed to combating corruption.But the OAS said in a statement the insurmountable hurdle was the Honduran government’s insistence that the mission stop collaborating with a special hand-selected and trained unit within the Attorney General’s Office bringing the public corruption cases.OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro considers the end of the commission’s work “a negative event in the fight against corruption and impunity in the country,” the statement said.The announcement of the resignation of the mission’s interim leader, Ana María Calderón, earlier this week amplified concerns that the body’s days were numbered.In December, Honduras’ legislature voted to recommend that the commission not continue past its original four-year mandate.President Juan Orlando Hernández invited the OAS to form the group in 2015 as public demands for his resignation arose from revelations that the country’s social security system had been bilked of millions of dollars.Composed of international lawyers and investigators, the commission set out to strengthen Honduras’ justice institutions and help them carry out investigations of public corruption. But it never had the clout or resources of a U.N.-sponsored effort in neighboring Guatemala that brought three former presidents to trial. Still, it was building capacity among a select group of Honduran prosecutors and making public officials uncomfortable.Among its achievements, the commission uncovered networks of legislative and non-profit front organizations that moved public monies back into lawmakers’ pockets.Honduran lawmakers responded by impeding its investigations and threw up hurdles to prevent the country’s prosecutors from advancing the cases. They also reduced legal sentences for corruption-related crimes and essentially blocked the Attorney General’s Office from investigating improper use of public funds for up to seven years.On Friday, congress asserted that even a renewal of the commission’s mandate without material changes would require lawmakers’ approval. Others had said it could be done with a simple exchange of letters between the government and OAS.The U.S. State Department had urged Honduras to renew the commission without changes, but analysts say Hernández may have felt emboldened to drop it as White House priorities in the region shifted to slowing migration.Honduras signed an asylum cooperation agreement and finalized implementation steps last week that would allow the U.S. to send asylum seekers from other countries to Honduras to apply for protection there. The U.S. was expected to begin shipping asylum seekers to Honduras in the coming weeks.Omar Rivera, head of the Association for a More Just Society, the Honduran chapter of Transparency International, told local press that the end of the commission was disappointing. “The worst thing we could do is lower our arms in front of delinquents, criminals and the corrupt,” he said.Adriana Beltran, director of citizen security at the Washington Office on Latin America, an advocacy organization for human rights in Latin America, said the commission was “a critical instrument to combating entrenched corruption and widespread impunity in Honduras, and because of this it enjoyed the support of the population.”“Its work threatened powerful sectors that sought to undermine its work to protect themselves from being held accountable,” Beltran added.Hernández already suffered from low approval ratings after overcoming a constitutional ban on re-election and winning in a contest marred by irregularities. Weeks of large street demonstrations against the government re-emerged this summer and in October, his brother Tony Hernández was found guilty of cocaine trafficking in a U.S. federal court.U.S. prosecutors named the president a co-conspirator in the case. He denies any involvement. His brother is scheduled for sentencing next month.The announcement comes as hundreds of Hondurans crossed Guatemala and began gathering at the Mexico border. When they left the northern city of San Pedro Sula Wednesday many chanted that Hernández had to go, a common refrain since the first caravans in 2018.Former President Mel Zelaya, who was removed from office in a 2009 coup, said the government was sending a message that it isn’t interested in fighting corruption. He called for a protest in front of the commission’s offices on Jan. 27.“It’s a logical demonstration,” Zelaya said. “Because as long as that dictatorship is governing the country, Honduras has no hope of moving forward.”
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Russian President Vladimir Putin played it differently this time.Instead of openly declaring plans to extend his rule like he did in 2011, Putin proposed constitutional amendments to appear to give more power to Russia’s parliament.Instead of announcing the move as a fait accompli, he said the people should vote and decide.And then he executed a swift, unexpected reshuffle of Russia’s leadership, putting a low-profile official with no political aims in charge of the government.Putin announced what many see as a strategy for staying in power well past the end of his term in 2024. And the proposed constitutional reforms that might allow him to remain in charge as prime minister or as head of the State Council didn’t elicit much public outrage.Neither did the resignation of Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s prime minister, whom Putin quickly replaced with the little-known tax chief, Mikhail Mishustin.There was a smattering of calls for protest: One opposition supporter urged people to join his one-man picket in front of the Presidential Administration on Saturday, while another called for protesters to turn out against the “constitutional coup” at a Sunday rally in honor of two slain activists.It was very different from what happened in 2011-2012, when efforts to engineer Putin’s return to the presidency crushed Russian hopes for liberalization and sparked massive protests in Moscow.In his speech Wednesday, Putin presented his plan to amend the constitution as a way to improve democracy. By suggesting that lawmakers could name prime ministers and Cabinet members, he also curtailed the authority of the president, who currently holds that power.Putin also said the constitution could specify a greater role for the State Council, an obscure consultative body of regional governors and federal officials, indicating that he might take a leading position there.He also sought to prioritize the primacy of Russian laws, so that the European Court of Human Rights would no longer have the authority to issue rulings that Moscow opposed.All this would “strengthen the role of civil society, political parties and regions in making key decisions about the development of our state,” Putin said Thursday in discussing the amendments with lawmakers.New Prime Minister Mishustin was praised by government officials and commentators as an “effective manager” with expertise in finance who would be able to drive Russia’s stagnating economy out of a slump.Many Russians might see that as a positive change rather than a sophisticated political plot. According to a survey released Friday by Russia’s state-funded pollster VTsIOM, 45% of the respondents saw the shakeup as Putin’s genuine desire to change the existing power structure.But opposition leaders like Alexei Navalny said the changes are not the kind that people are looking for. Putin is looking to “remain a lifelong, ultimate leader” and run Russia as “property” divided between himself and his backers, Navalny tweeted.And the announced changes do nothing to address what Russians really want, said Navalny ally Lyubov Sobol.“People demand to end corruption, people demand to improve their living conditions. They demand a reform of the health care system, they’re worried about pension reform. All these demands, they are not going anywhere,” Sobol told The Associated Press.Vladimir Milov, an opposition politician, echoed that sentiment. Russians are willing to put up with worsened living conditions if they see potential for growth in the future — but Putin’s address shows he’s not interested in that, he said.“This is the main conflict between Putin and society right now,” Milov said. “Society can’t wait for economic growth to start again, and Putin doesn’t care, he’s occupied with other things. At some point, this will backfire.”Still, the announced constitutional reforms are unlikely to trigger a new wave of protests.“All recent protests happened when discontent that has been building up for a while spilled out, triggered by something. Amending the constitution is unlikely to be a trigger,” Milov said.Denis Volkov, a sociologist with the independent Levada polling center, said the government shakeup is so vague it is unlikely to spur public anger.“What is happening is not clear. Is this about a presidency? About some other governing body? It is unclear what people should express their unhappiness about,” Volkov said. “It is hard to protest against something that’s unclear.”In addition, Volkov noted, back in 2011-2012 Putin’s approval ratings were much lower — more than half of the country wanted him out. “Right now there is no urge to replace the country’s leader,” he said.And the question remains whether the opposition will be able to galvanize people to protest. The Kremlin last year turned up the pressure on activists and politicians, sandbagging them with high-figure fines and exhausting them with arrests and trials.There are several criminal cases open against Sobol and other Navalny allies. Sobol said she owes the government more than $400,000 in fines, and expects more fines to be imposed on opposition figures.“There is a high probability that political pressure on us will continue this year,” she said.Still, Sobol vowed the opposition will continue the fight — by protesting, contesting the government’s actions in court and exposing corrupt officials.On Thursday, Navalny said in a post online that Mishustin’s wife earned some $12 million over the past nine years, according to her tax returns, even though she never owned nor ran a business. He demanded answers from Mishustin, who headed Russia’s tax service until he was named prime minister this week, and alleged there was corruption involved.Dmitry Gudkov, a former lawmaker turned opposition politician, believes an early parliamentary election is likely, since he says the Kremlin would want the vote to be this year instead of next.“They’re in a rush and want to (pass the proposed constitutional amendments) with the sitting parliament, which they fully control,” Gudkov. “Clearly that changes our strategy.”
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TECUN UMAN, GUATEMALA –  More than 200 mostly Honduran migrants rested on a bridge at the Guatemala-Mexico border waiting for the arrival of others and hoping sheer numbers will improve their chances of entering Mexico and continuing their journey north.
Across the river from Tecun Uman, in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Hidalgo, National Guard troops with riot shields trucked in throughout Friday afternoon in anticipation of the migrants’ next move.
Mexico’s government has said migrants entering the country without registering will not be allowed to pass from the border area. But those seeking asylum or other protections will be allowed to apply and legalize their status.
Guatemalan officials had counted more than 3,000 migrants who registered at border crossings to enter that country in recent days and there were additional migrants who did not register.
Sonia Eloina Hernandez, the Ciudad Hidalgo mayor, said officials were expecting a large number of migrants.
“We’re readying ourselves,” she said. “We don’t know exactly how many people are coming.”
About 148 migrants had crossed to Ciudad Hidalgo in recent days and requested asylum, Hernandez said. At least 500 more were spread around Tecun Uman waiting.
As night fell Friday, migrants tried to sleep on the Guatemala side of the bridge, heads propped on knapsacks, children lying on parents. Damp clothes hung from fences. Others killed time playing soccer along the banks of the Suchiate river.
“We have to wait to see what happens,” said Tania Mejia, a 25-year-old mother from Honduras. She had staked out a few square feet on the ground beside a tree at the bridge’s entrance with her 6-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter.
Mejia wanted to be among the first to cross, but was weighing that desire against the safety of her children and thinking she might hang back to see how things develop.
Her memories are still fresh of the first two migrant caravans she traveled with alone, one at the end of 2018 and another in the spring of 2019. She knew things could escalate if security forces tried to stop the migrants from entering Mexico.
“They say the Mexicans aren’t going to allow passage, but who knows?” she said.
If necessary, Mejia said, she might have to wade across the river like she did one of the previous times. Her hope this time is not making it to the United States, but rather to northern Mexico.
“I have a person in Mexicali who can give me a job so I went to get there,” she said.
The bridge was not closed by Mexico on Friday. Migrants who wanted to cross and request asylum or seek to regularize their status and find work could do so.
But the migrants were wary of a trap. Mexico’s offer of legal status and potential employment carries a stipulation that would confine them to southern Mexico, where wages are lower and there are fewer jobs than elsewhere in the country.
Hernandez, the mayor, said it is different now in Mexico from 2018 and early 2019, when mass caravans flowed across the border. She said the Mexican government from the municipal to the federal level is coordinated and prepared.
She expected more guardsmen to arrive in Ciudad Hidalgo “so the people don’t cross via the river, so that he who wants to enter Mexico, as our president says, ‘Welcome,’ but via the bridge.”
In Guatemala’s capital, Mauro Verzzeletti, director of the local migrant shelter, said he expected 1,000 to 1,500 people to bed down there Friday night. The migrants planned to set out again Saturday around 4 a.m.
Meanwhile, Guatemala’s human rights defender’s office said there were a bit more than 1,000 migrants gathering at another point on the Mexican border far to the north in the Peten region and there were reports that Mexican forces were gathering on the other side of the border there.
In Ciudad Hidalgo, Francisco Garduno, commissioner of Mexico’s National Immigration Institute, was emphatic that migrants who try to enter the country irregularly would go no farther.
“They cannot enter because it would be in violation of the law,” he told The Associated Press. He declined to talk in specifics about border reinforcements, but said there were “sufficient” troops to keep things orderly. 
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Russia is rapidly expanding foreign arms deals worldwide, with Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin confirming to the Russian military’s newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda December 20 that Moscow has signed military cooperation pacts with 39 countries in the last five years, many of them in Southeast Asia, including Laos, which has not been buying Russian weapons on this scale for decades.The expansion is raising eyebrows and comes as relations between Russia and NATO have broken down.Analysts said old Cold War alliances with countries such as Laos, Moscow’s appetite for barter deals, and the potential for access to railroads under construction that will provide access to seaports and trade routes along the Vietnamese, Cambodian and Thai coasts, appeal to Moscow, and the arms sales are part of a larger effort by Russia to strengthen its links with these countries.“Moscow’s motives appear to be a combination of commercial and the perhaps disruptive, in the sense that any erosion of U.S. or European defense interests is a de facto win,” Gavin Greenwood, an analyst with A2 Global Risk, a Hong Kong-based security consultancy, told VOA.He said Russia had accounted for 25% of major arms sales in Southeast Asia since 2000, and according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Moscow sold $6.6 billion in arms to Southeast Asia between 2010 and 2017, as much as the U.S. and China combined.The institute also says Russia accounted for 60% of arms sales across Asia and Oceania between 2014 and 2018.However, Russia also needs to offset falling sales to India, and the MiG-29 and Sukhoi-30 fighters purchased by Malaysia in 1995 are nearing the end of their life. Greenwood said any replacement was unlikely to be procured from Russia, as they are also considering deals with U.S. and European suppliers.Southeast Asia focusAs a result  of declining arms sales to India, Russia is falling further behind the U.S. in global arms sales, analysts say,  but it has remained the dominant player in Southeast Asia, where analysts said  South China Sea disputes, terrorism   and competition among rival states is increasing demand for high-tech weaponry.Fomin said progress in developing military cooperation with traditional partners China and India had been made alongside fresh efforts with Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos.“Their efforts to sell are obviously increasing and there’s a sense from some quarters that this is a strategic effort by Moscow – while others would say probably not, it’s commercial,” Greenwood said.Russia remains a primary supplier to Vietnam, accounting for 60% of all military sales to that country – including submarines – and is seeking opportunities in the Philippines while stepping up sales to Malaysia, Indonesia and Myanmar.Meanwhile, strategically important Laos, which forms a buffer between China and Southeast Asia, has increased its spending, acquiring Russian T-72B tanks, BRDM-2M armored vehicles, YAK 130 fighter jets and helicopters.In addition,  Russia and Laos last month launched the nine-day Laros 2019 exercise, their first joint military exercise, with more than 500 soldiers taking part alongside the recently acquired tanks, which was seen as part of a greater effort to deepen military ties with Southeast Asia.Analysts said further joint military exercises with Laos are now in the offing together with more arms and training for Laotian officers in Russian military academies.The timing could be related to Chinese railway construction, “which will connect southern-southwest China to Thailand,” Greenwood said, which would provide further seaport access.FILE – People attend a mobile exhibition installed on freight cars of a train and displaying military equipment, vehicles and weapons, in Sevastopol, Crimea.Ukraine sanctionsIncreased weapon sales worldwide can be traced to Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine six years ago. Sanctions followed and the ruble collapsed, sparking a three-year financial crisis.
 
Carl Thayer, emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales said military technology is one of Russia’s much-needed strengths.“Annexation of the Crimea was accompanied by very punishing sanctions by the United States and Russia went through a phase of trying to recover by developing its domestic market.“That didn’t work, and they had to do overseas exports and the one thing the Russians have is military technology,” Thayer told VOA, echoing Greenwood.Meanwhile, the issue for most Southeast Asian countries is that access to high-tech weaponry is limited to the U.S., which ties sales to human rights, and Russia, which offers soft loans, state-backed credits, barter deals, spares and servicing with a no such strings attached.  Don Greenlees, senior adviser at the Asialink think tank at the University of Melbourne, said U.S. costs and conditions, coupled with sanctions, mean easier options are available in Russia.“If you want really high-level military technology and you’re a Southeast Asian country you’ve either got to go to Moscow or you’ve got to go Washington. And Washington hasn’t made it terribly easy in recent years for a lot of these countries to obtain the best kit,” he told VOA.“And it’s also more expensive to buy it from Washington,” Greenlees said. “So Russia, for many of these countries, is the arms supplier of choice.”The big pictureThayer said Moscow also must act against any isolation spurred by sanctions and establish itself with Vietnam, with which it has always been a strategic partner, as a natural conduit in developing relations in Southeast Asia, but Laos  “is just one small peg in the larger picture.”Greenlees said Russia’s regional reemergence was still in its early days but from a big-picture geopolitical point of view, it’s the Sino-Russian alignment that concerns everyone.So far,  China has not complained about Russia’s push into its traditional sphere of influence.  Moreover, it also could benefit from potential sales to countries alienated by the U.S. linkage of sales to issues like human rights, which analysts said could lead to a stronger alliance between Moscow and Beijing in Southeast Asia.    “If that leads to a hardening of East-West ‘camps,’ that would be a concern to the region. It could force the issue of ‘taking sides and reduce the opportunities for small to medium sized powers to play the great powers off against each other,” Greenlees said.  
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is doubling down on support for the U.N.-backed government in Libya ahead of a Berlin conference aimed at ending the Libyan civil war.  Erdogan, who is set to attend the Sunday meeting, lashed out at Libyan rebel leader General Khalifa Haftar on Friday while announcing the deployment of Turkish forces to Libya.Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar meets Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (not pictured) at the Parliament in Athens, Greece, Jan. 17, 2020.”Haftar is a man I do not trust. … He continued bombing Tripoli yesterday,” Erdogan said in a statement. Haftar is waging war against the Turkey-backed Government of National Accord.A day earlier, Erdogan announced additional military forces would be deployed in support of the GNA. Earlier this month, Ankara sent a few dozen military personnel and equipment to Tripoli as part of a military agreement with the GNA.Haftar infuriated Erdogan by refusing to sign a cease-fire agreement Wednesday brokered by Turkey and the Russian government. Russian mercenaries linked to the Kremlin are backing Haftar, although Russian President Vladimir Putin denies arming the militia.”With these new developments, Turkey is getting more and more in a losing position,” said international relations professor Huseyin Bagci of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University. “Probably Tayyip Erdogan will face much bigger problems in Berlin than he assumed before. He [Erdogan] thought he would be in a stronger position, but with no cease-fire, he is in a much more difficult position.”Haftar and GNA Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj are expected to attend the Berlin conference. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also confirmed his attendance.German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas met with Haftar on Thursday, claiming a breakthrough. Maas tweeted Haftar “has agreed to abide by the ongoing cease-fire” and that the Berlin meeting offered “the best chance in a long time” for peace.But Turkey is voicing skepticism about the prospects for peace and has criticized the conference for excluding Turkish allies Qatar and Tunisia.  “He [Erdogan] will be taking a very hard position in Berlin,” said Bagci. “I expect more, harsher words in Berlin — he is not going there to be soft, [he] is going there to be very hard.”FILE – In this photo taken on Oct. 30, 2018, Turkey’s oil and gas drillship Conquerer is seen off the coast of Antalya, southern Turkey.Turkish oil interestsAnkara says the survival of the GNA is a strategic priority. Along with a security deal, Erdogan also signed an agreement with Sarraj that gives Turkey control of a large swath of the eastern Mediterranean. The area is believed to have vast potential reserves of hydrocarbons.  “We will start search and drilling activities as soon as possible in 2020 after issuing licenses for the areas,” Erdogan said Friday, adding that a seismic exploration vessel would soon be deployed to this field.Turkey’s deal with the GNA is strongly condemned by Greece, which claims the contested region as part of its territorial waters.  The two countries are engaged in an increasingly bitter competition for resources in the eastern Mediterranean.  Analysts note Turkey is aware that if Haftar were to prevail in the Libyan civil war, all deals it made with the GNA likely would become null and void.FILE – Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis appears at a reception, at the State Department in Washington, Jan. 8, 2020.On Thursday, Haftar flew by private plane to Athens and was taken to a luxury hotel for two days of talks with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias.In a move that could further complicate the Berlin talks, Mitsotakis underlined his determination to annul Turkey’s Mediterranean deal with the GNA.  “Greece at the level of an [EU] summit meeting will never accept any political solution on Libya that does not include as a precondition the annulment of this agreement. To put it simply, we will use our veto,” Mitsotakis said Thursday in a television interview.EU officials are also set to attend the Berlin conference, and the EU is strongly opposed to Turkey’s agreement with the GNA on the Mediterranean, saying it violates international law.FILE – Former Turkish Ambassador Mithat Rende says personal chemistry can facilitate efforts to resolve escalating tensions. (Dorian Jones/VOA)Turkey insists it’s ready to negotiate. “The GNA deal aims to protect Turkish vital national interests and Turkey is not to remain isolated,” said former Turkish Ambassador Mithat Rende. “Turkey has made it clear it’s ready to talk.”In Cairo Thursday, the seven-member East Mediterranean Gas Forum pledged to strengthen cooperation, deepening Ankara’s isolation. Turkey views the move by Cyprus, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, the Palestinian territories and Egypt as an attempt to deny what Ankara sees as its fair share of Mediterranean energy resources.Erdogan dismissed the Cairo agreement, saying, “They tried to implement a scenario to imprison our country in the Mediterranean Sea. We ended this game with the agreements we made with Turkish Cyprus and then with Libya.”Some analysts say Ankara’s stance ultimately may prove counterproductive.”Turkey wants to be in Syria, Libya and the eastern Mediterranean; it wants to be a player,” Bagci said. “Turkey wants to get more and more involved in this region. But the problem is Turkey is not wanted because it creates an atmosphere of hegemony. So this is what Turkey faces, and this is why Erdogan’s rhetoric is getting harsher.”
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More than 3,500 Central Americans had poured into Guatemala by Friday in U.S.-bound gatherings known as caravans, officials said, posing a headache for the leaders of Guatemala and Mexico amid fierce U.S. pressure to curb migration.President Donald Trump has repeatedly urged the region to prevent such groups of migrants reaching Mexico’s border with the United States, and the latest exodus from Honduras that began on Wednesday has been accompanied by U.S. border agents.The migrants, some traveling in groups as small as a dozen people while others formed caravans of more than 100, said they planned to unite at the Guatemalan border city of Tecun Uman before crossing together into Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico.Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said his government was monitoring the situation as the migrants approached, saying there were 4,000 jobs available on the southern border, as well as shelters and medical help.”We are keeping an eye on everything,” Lopez Obrador said during a regular press conference.Honduran migrants get a ride on the back of a truck as they travel north in hopes of reaching the United States, in Quezaltepeque, Guatemala, Jan. 17, 2020.Lopez Obrador did not say if Mexico would seek to keep the migrants in the southern part of the country. Most Central Americans who leave their countries escaping poverty and violence are eager to make their way towards the United States.Under U.S. pressure, Mexican security forces have increasingly broken up large groups as they head north.On Wednesday, Guatemala’s new President Alejandro Giammattei suggested Mexico would prevent any caravans from reaching the United States.About a thousand migrants entered Guatemala on Thursday, with local officials busing some of the migrants back to the Honduran border to fill out official paperwork, said Alejandra Mena, a spokeswoman for Guatemala’s migration institute.”We haven’t returned people from Guatemala and we have a total of about 3,543 people who have so far crossed the border,” Mena said.At least 600 Honduran migrants spent the night under tents in a shelter in Guatemala City on Thursday night, sleeping on mattresses.”Now we have more experience, and we know how to treat them,” said Father Mauro Verzeletti, director of the Migrant House shelter in Guatemala City.Guatemala’s former President Jimmy Morales agreed last July with the U.S. government to implement measures aimed at reducing the number of asylum claims made in the United States by migrants fleeing Honduras and El Salvador, averting Trump’s threat of economic sanctions.New leader Giammattei said a top priority would be reviewing the text of migration agreements made with the United States.
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More than two years after France promised to return colonial-era treasures to their African homes, Benin — ostensibly the first recipient of the groundbreaking policy — still awaits them. But on Friday, a small museum outside Cotonou celebrated the return of antique royal scepters gifted by a group of Paris gallery owners.In 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron sparked joy — and unease — when he announced colonial-era treasures from Africa would be returned, or shared through exhibitions and loans. The first gesture would be the speedy return to Benin of 26 objects looted by French colonial forces in 1892.But turning that promise into reality is not so easy. Only last December did France’s culture minister offer a concrete timetable, saying the objects now housed at Paris’ leading African art museum would be returned by 2021.Enter a group of Paris Left Bank gallery owners, whose private efforts are moving much more quickly than public ones. They have not only acquired and returned precious antiques to Benin for years, but raised funds to build a small museum outside Cotonou to house them.On Friday that institution, the Petit Musee de la Recade, welcomed one of its biggest troves to date: more than two dozen pieces, including 17 scepters, coming from the ancient Kingdom of Dahomey, located in parts of what is modern day Benin.Speaking by phone from Cotonou, Paris gallery owner Robert Vallois said the gesture doesn’t constitute restitution of ill-gotten art. Instead, he and his colleagues bought the antiques in France, with the specific intent of returning them to Benin.Macron’s restitution promise has been more complicated to realize. It means changing French laws and ensuring old and fragile pieces are properly housed.With French support, Benin is building a new museum in Abomey, once the capital of the Kingdom of Dahomey. Jose Pliya, head of Benin’s national agency for heritage promotion and tourism development, spoke to VOA about the process last year.”We really have to have the good condition — temperature, isolation, conservation — to welcome them … a lot of things have to be done. The training of all the conservators in Benin, how to protect the pieces,” Pliya said.Despite the roadblocks, Macron’s restitution vows add pressure on other European countries and museums with African collections.Vallois said he and his gallery group are not part of such debates. Instead, they’re following their own counsel — and what’s important to them is that the objects return to their countries of origin.
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A rare 1937 Edward VIII sovereign coin has been bought by a private collector for 1 million pounds ($1.31 million), making it the most expensive British coin ever. The coin was one of six prepared by the Royal Mint when Edward became king in 1936 and was due to be mass produced for general circulation from Jan. 1, 1937.But he abdicated in December 1936 — quitting his job as king — to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson, meaning that production was canceled and coinage with his face never entered circulation.Edward VIII insisted that the portrait show his left side, which he preferred, breaking the tradition of each new monarch facing the opposite direction to their predecessor. He wanted to show his parting to break up an otherwise solid fringe of hair, the Royal Mint said.The coin is a sovereign: a type of gold coin with a face value of one pound. It is no longer in circulation but is still accepted as legal tender in Britain.Made from 22-carat gold, it is slightly smaller and lighter than a modern pound coin, measuring 22 millimeters in diameter and weighing 7.98 grams.”The Edward VIII Sovereign is one of the rarest and most collectible coins in the world, so it’s no surprise that it has set a new record for British coinage,” said Rebecca Morgan, head of collector services for the 1,100-year-old Royal Mint. Of the six originally struck, four are in museums and institutions and two are privately owned.Their existence was not widely known until 1970, as they were locked away and not treated as part of the Royal Mint museum’s collection, because of the sensitivity of Edward’s abdication.The Royal Mint sourced this particular coin from a collector in the United States to bring it back to Britain for the new buyer.
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Russia’s foreign policy chief on Friday blamed what he described as “aggressive” U.S. policies for growing global tensions, noting Washington’s reluctance to extend a key nuclear arms pact.Sergey Lavrov, who serves as acting foreign minister in the wake of Wednesday’s resignation of the Russian Cabinet, said this week’s meeting of top U.S. and Russian diplomats on strategic stability didn’t achieve any immediate results, adding that “dialogue is continuing.”Russia-U.S. relations have been at post-Cold War lows since Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea.Speaking at an annual news conference, Lavrov said that the U.S. has stonewalled Russia’s push for extending the New Start nuclear arms treaty that expires in 2021. The agreement is the last U.S.-Russian arms control deal still in place, and Moscow has argued that its demise will remove the final barrier stemming an arms race.”We will act strongly to avoid depriving the world of agreements that control and limit nuclear weapons,” said Lavrov, who has was appointed foreign minister in 2004.”We stand for the extension of the New Start treaty without any preconditions,” he said. “I hope that the Americans hear us, but we haven’t received any coherent signals from them.”ChinaU.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has pushed for China to join nuclear arms cuts, but Lavrov described the idea as unrealistic. He pointed at Beijing’s refusal to discuss reductions in its nuclear arsenal, which is much smaller than those of the U.S. or Russia.Lavrov emphasized that the U.S. push for Russia to encourage China to change its mind doesn’t make sense. “We respect the Chinese position and we won’t persuade China to change it,” he said.EuropeTurning to other issues, Lavrov criticized Britain, France and Germany for caving in to pressure from the U.S. over a nuclear deal with Iran.Earlier this week, the three countries reluctantly triggered the accord’s dispute mechanism to force Iran into discussions over its violations, starting the clock on a process that could result in the “snapback” of U.N. and EU sanctions on Iran.The three nations are being pressed on one side by Trump to abandon the agreement like he did unilaterally in 2018, and on the other side by Iran to provide enough economic incentives for it to continue honoring the deal.Lavrov noted that the European Union boasted about creating a mechanism for trade with Iran bypassing U.S. sanctions, but never put it into action.He described the move by Britain, France and Germany as a “dangerous turn,” arguing that the three nations used the moment of heightened tensions between the U.S. and Iran to “blame Iran for all what happened.”Middle EastFollowing the U.S. drone strike that killed Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Iran announced what it said was its fifth and final step in dropping its commitments under the 2015 deal. Iran said it would no longer abide by any limitations to its enrichment activities.Turning to Libya, Lavrov said he expects the warring parties in the North African nation to observe a lasting cease-fire after their talks in the Russian capital earlier this week.He explained that the talks in Moscow between Libya’s rival leaders focused on a document spelling out conditions of a cease-fire that could serve as a basis for Sunday’s Libya talks hosted by Germany.Lavrov said he plans to attend the talks in Berlin, which will be attended by both Fayez Sarraj, the head of Libya’s U.N.-recognized government in Tripoli, and his rival, Gen. Khalifa Hifter,Sarraj and Hifter attended Monday’s talks in Moscow, but didn’t meet directly.”Their relations are tense, and they don’t want to be in one room together, let alone talk to each other,” Lavrov said.He added even though Hifter refused to sign the cease-fire document that was signed by Sarraj, the most important outcome of the talks was that the truce was still holding.
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High on the wall of a German church where Martin Luther once preached, an ugly remnant of centuries of anti-Semitism is now at the center of a court battle.
    
The so-called “Judensau,” or “Jew pig,” sculpture on the Town Church in Wittenberg dates back to around 1300. It is perhaps the best-known of more than 20 such relics from the Middle Ages, in various forms and varying states of repair, that still adorn churches across Germany and elsewhere in Europe.
    
Located about 4 meters (13 feet) above the ground on a corner of the church, it depicts people identifiable by their headwear as Jews suckling on the teats of a sow, while a rabbi lifts the animal’s tail. In 1570, after the Protestant Reformation, an inscription referring to an anti-Jewish tract by Luther was added.
    
Judaism considers pigs impure, and no one disputes that the sculpture is deliberately offensive. But there is strong disagreement about what consequences that should have and what to do with the relief.
    
A court in the eastern city of Naumburg will consider on Tuesday a Jewish man’s bid to make the parish take it down.
    
It’s the second round in the legal dispute, which comes at a time of mounting concern about anti-Semitism in modern Germany. In May, a court ruled against plaintiff Michael Duellmann, who wants the relief put in the nearby Luther House museum.
    
Judges in Dessau rejected arguments that he has a right to have the sculpture removed because it formally constitutes slander and the parish is legally responsible for that. Duellmann appealed.
    
The relief “is a terrible falsification of Judaism, a defamation of and insult to the Jewish people,” Duellmann says, arguing that it has “a terrible effect up to this day.”
    
Duellmann, a former student of Protestant theology who converted to Judaism in the 1970s, became involved in the issue in 2017, the year Germany marked the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. He says he joined vigils in Wittenberg against the sculpture and was asked if he would be prepared to sue when it became clear that the church wasn’t prepared to take it down.’Culture of remembrance’
    
Luther is said to have nailed his 95 theses to the door of another church in Wittenberg in defiance of Roman Catholic authorities in 1517, starting the German Reformation. He also is known for anti-Jewish invective, from which Germany’s Lutheran church has distanced itself.
    
Luther preached at the Town Church, now a regular stop for tourists visiting Wittenberg.
 
When the church was renovated in the early 1980s, the parish decided to leave the sandstone sculpture in place, and it was also restored. In 1988, a memorial was built on the ground underneath it, referring to the persecution of Jews and the killing of 6 million in the Nazi Holocaust.
    
In addition, a cedar tree was planted nearby to signify peace, and a sign gives information on the sculpture in German and English.
    
Pastor Johannes Block says the church is “in the same boat” as the plaintiff and also considers the sculpture unacceptably insulting. The parish, he says, “also is not happy about this difficult inheritance.”
    
However, he argues that the sculpture “no longer speaks for itself as a solitary piece,” but is embedded in a “culture of remembrance” thanks to the memorial. “We don’t want to hide or abolish history, but take the path of reconciliation with and through history,” he says.
   
 “The majority of the Town Church parish doesn’t want this to become a museum piece, but to warn and ask people to remember history on the building, with the original,” Block says.
    
Duellmann isn’t impressed. “The ‘Jew pig’ is not weakened” by the memorial, he says. “It continues to have a terrible anti-Semitic effect in the church and in society.”World Heritage siteThere are mixed opinions in the church, too. Last year, the regional Lutheran bishop, Friedrich Kramer, said he favors taking down the sculpture from the church wall and exhibiting it in public at the site with an explanation. He doesn’t favor putting it in a museum. He praised the 1988 memorial but said it has weaknesses, including a failure to address Luther’s anti-Semitism.
    
If judges do order the sculpture removed, that may not be the end of the story. Block says the church would ask authorities to assess whether it is possible to remove it from a building that is under a preservation order, and more talks with the court would probably follow.
    
The church is a UNESCO World Heritage site, a status that it gained in 1996.
    
Plaintiff Duellmann has little sympathy with the church’s preservation order dilemma. He contends that authorities deliberately failed to mention the offending sculpture at the time of the application in order not to endanger it.
    
Whatever the outcome, Block says he regrets that the case went to court.
   
 ‘We are not advocates and initiators” of the sculpture, he says. “We are heirs and are trying to deal very conscientiously with this inheritance.”
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