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Paris — France’s far-right has never been closer to power after winning the first round of snap legislative elections Sunday. It’s a stunning result that could see the far-right taking control of the government — and a far-right prime minister ahead of the Paris Olympics — if it wins big in the second round runoff July 7.

The left and center are now calling for an alliance against extremism in one of Europe’s most important countries.

The far-right National Rally — and its leader, Marine Le Pen have been celebrating the latest results. She has spent years revamping the image of her anti-immigrant party from a racist fringe movement to an acceptable political alternative.

Her work appears to have paid off Sunday — the National Rally captured one-third of the vote, well ahead of President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party and its allies, which placed third, with just over 20%.

A leftist alliance called the New Popular Front came second, with roughly 28% of the vote.

Turnout was the highest in years, showing the stakes many voters place in these surprise, snap legislative elections. They were called by Macron — three years ahead of schedule — after the far-right’s strong showing in last month’s European Parliament elections.

Analysts say Macron is gambling his party and his reform plans can somehow prevail, after years of gridlock in France’s National Assembly, or lower house.

But the far-right’s platform — tough on crime and illegal immigration and focused on common worries — is resonating.

National Rally President Jordan Bardella — possibly France’s next prime minister, if his party wins the majority of seats — called on voters to rally behind his ticket in the runoff.

Not everyone is sold. At a polling center in northeastern Paris, considered a leftist stronghold, many voters are dismayed at a possible National Rally victory.

“With our current government, we already had some right-wing policies, but that would only make things worse. Particularly with respect to the right to demonstrate, of the rights of minorities and everything,” said Paris voter Matthieu Maguet.

Emmanuela Konan won’t say how she voted — but she says a National Rally win will be difficult for the country.

Christine Pekar voted for Macron’s alliance.

“I think he showed political courage in pushing through all the reforms he did over the last seven years,” she said.

In Paris and elsewhere in the country, people rallied against the far-right after the first results were announced.

Leftist politicians are calling for an alliance against extremism.

So is France’s ruling party — and Macron’s prime minister, Gabriel Attal. To give mainstream parties a chance, he said, his alliance will pull out of runoff elections in areas where it’s not likely to win.

But divisions between Macron and the left are big. And, despite efforts to curb them, there’s a chance the National Rally could prove unstoppable.

 
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Brussels, Belgium — The EU accused Facebook owner Meta on Monday of breaching the bloc’s digital rules, paving the way for potential fines worth billions of euros.

The charges against the US tech titan follow a finding last week against Apple that marked the first time Brussels had levelled formal accusations under the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA).

The latest case focuses on Meta’s new ad-free subscription model for Facebook and Instagram, which has sparked multiple complaints over privacy concerns.

Meta’s “pay or consent” system means users have to pay to avoid data collection, or agree to share their data with Facebook and Instagram to keep using the platforms for free.

The European Commission said it informed Meta of its “preliminary view” that the model the company launched last year “fails to comply” with the DMA.

“This binary choice forces users to consent to the combination of their personal data and fails to provide them a less personalized but equivalent version of Meta’s social networks,” the EU’s powerful antitrust regulator said in a statement.

The findings come after the commission kickstarted a probe into Meta in March under the DMA, which forces the world’s biggest tech companies to comply with EU rules designed to give European users more choice online.

Meta insisted its model “complies with the DMA.”

“We look forward to further constructive dialogue with the European Commission to bring this investigation to a close,” a Meta spokesperson said.

Meta can now reply to the findings and avoid a fine if it changes the model to address the EU’s concerns.

If the commission’s view is confirmed however, it can slap fines of up to 10 percent of Meta’s total global turnover under the DMA. This can rise to up to 20 percent for repeat offenders.

Meta’s total revenue last year stood at around $135 billion (125 billion euros).  

The EU also has the right to break up firms, but only as a last resort. 

In EU’s crosshairs

Under the DMA, the EU labels Meta and other companies, including Apple, as “gatekeepers” and prevents them forcing users in the bloc to consent to have access to a service or certain functionalities.

The commission said Meta’s model did not allow users to “freely consent” to their data being shared between Facebook and Instagram with Meta’s ads services.

“The DMA is there to give back to the users the power to decide how their data is used and ensure innovative companies can compete on equal footing with tech giants on data access,” the EU’s top tech enforcer, commissioner Thierry Breton, said.

The commission will adopt a decision on whether Meta’s model is DMA compliant or not by late March 2025.

The EU has shown it is serious about making big online companies change their ways.

The commission told Apple last week its App Store rules were hindering developers from freely pointing consumers to alternative channels for offers.

The EU is also probing Google over similar concerns on its Google Play marketplace.

Apple and Meta are not the only companies coming under the scope of the DMA. Google parent Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and TikTok owner ByteDance must also comply.

Online travel giant Booking.com will need to adhere to the rules later this year.

Privacy complaints

Meta has made billions from harvesting users’ data to serve up highly targeted ads. But it has faced an avalanche of complaints over its data processing in recent years.

The European data regulator in April has also said the ‘pay or consent’ model is at odds with the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which upholds the privacy of users’ information.

Ireland — a major hub for online tech giants operating in the 27-nation bloc — has slapped Meta with massive fines for violating the GDPR.

The latest complaint by privacy groups forced Meta last month to pause its plans to use personal data to train its artificial intelligence technology in Europe. 
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Budapest — Hungary takes over the EU’s rotating presidency on Monday, promising to be an “honest broker” despite widespread concerns over what critics see as an authoritarian, Russia-friendly government.

Nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has run the central European country since 2010 aiming to transform it into an “illiberal democracy,” frequently clashes with Brussels on rule-of-law and human rights issues.

He is also the only EU leader who has maintained ties with Russia despite its invasion of Ukraine. He has refused to send arms to Kyiv and repeatedly criticized sanctions against Moscow over the war.

Last year, the European Parliament adopted a non-binding resolution highlighting Hungary’s “backsliding” on democratic values, and questioning how it could “credibly” assume the bloc’s six-month presidency.

Budapest insists it is ready to assume “the duties and responsibilities” steering the bloc of 27 countries.

“We will be honest brokers, working loyally with all member states and institutions,” Hungarian EU Affairs Minister Janos Boka said in mid-June as he unveiled the presidency’s program.

“At the same time, we believe Hungary has a strong mandate to pursue a strong European policy. Our work will reflect this vision of Europe,” he added.

Hungary’s program slogan? “Make Europe Great Again” — echoing the rallying cry of Orban’s “good friend” former US president Donald Trump — which already caused a stir in Brussels.

After Hungary last held the EU presidency in 2011, Orban boasted about handing out “flicks,” “smacks,” and “friendly slaps” to the “excitable tormentors” of the European Parliament.

This time, the nationalist leader, 61, is even more combative, having vowed to “occupy Brussels” during the campaign for European elections in early June, banking on a right-wing breakthrough.

But even though far-right parties made gains, Orban’s Fidesz party currently stands isolated, unable to find a group in the European Parliament that suits it.

On Sunday, Orban announced he wanted to form his own group, together with Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FPOe) and the centrist ANO party of ex-Czech premier Andrej Babis.

They still need parties from at least four other countries to join them.

Last week, Orban failed to derail a deal to return Ursula von der Leyen as head of the powerful European Commission and two others from a centrist alliance taking the other top jobs.

Meanwhile, von der Leyen put off a courtesy visit to Budapest, originally planned for the presidency opening. A new date has not been set.

To garner support for Hungary’s program, Orban toured key European capitals last week.

Among the country’s seven priorities for its EU presidency are stemming “illegal migration” and bringing the Western Balkans countries “one step closer” to EU membership.

Orban can use the presidency to set the agenda, but he cannot achieve results without the commission’s support, Daniel Hegedus, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund told AFP.

He also noted that the Hungarian premier has limited opportunity to act as a spoiler, as the outgoing Belgian presidency and EU institutions have rushed to conclude important decisions.

Last week, the European Union adopted a fresh sanction package against Russia and formally launched “historic” accession talks with Ukraine.
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U.S. presidential candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump are back on the campaign trail following their first debate last week. Biden’s sometimes-struggling performance in that debate has some members of his political party looking at who might replace him as their nominee. VOA correspondent Scott Stearns has our story.
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Sofia, Bulgaria — Bulgaria’s Orthodox Church elected Daniil, a 52-year-old metropolitan considered to be pro-Russian, as its new leader Sunday in a vote that reflected the divisions in the church and wider society since Russia invaded Ukraine more than two years ago.

Growing divisions between pro-Russian and anti-Russian factions within the senior clergy began after some of them attempted to warm relations with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which was recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople in 2019. Russian and most other Orthodox patriarchs refused to accept the designation that formalized a split with the Russian church.

Unlike his late predecessor, who in his last prayers criticized Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, Daniil has taken the side of the Moscow Patriarchy in its dispute with the Ecumenical Patriarch over the independence of Ukraine’s Orthodox Church.

Daniil also criticized the expulsion last fall of a Russian and two Belarusian clerics accused of spying for Moscow, and in his prayers, he blamed people who called Russia an “aggressor.”

The 52-year-old bishop, born Atanas Nikolov, studied theology in Sofia and eventually went to serve as a monk in a monastery. He belongs to the first generation of young Bulgarians who joined the church after the fall of communism.

The bells of the golden-domed Alexander Nevski cathedral in downtown Sofia announced the election of a new patriarch by the 138 delegates at the church council.

Shortly after, council speaker Cyprian said that “Vidin metropolitan Daniil was elected by the clergy and the people as Holy Bulgarian Patriarch and Sofia metropolitan.”

Daniil was clad in the green-and-gold patriarchal attire and put upon his head the white veil, symbol of his office.

In a tight second-round ballot, Daniil won support of 69 delegates against Grigory, the metropolitan of Vratsa, who was backed by 66 delegates. The patriarch is elected for life unless he steps down.

Daniil succeeded the soft-speaking and charismatic Patriarch Neophyte, who passed away in March aged 78 after leading the church for 11 years.

A church procession accompanied the newly elected patriarch to the cathedral, where he was enthroned in a sumptuous ceremony, attended by other Orthodox church representatives as well as Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians.

Bartholomew is considered first among equals among Eastern Orthodox patriarchs, which gives him prominence but not the power of a Catholic pope. Large portions of the Eastern Orthodox world are self-governing under their own patriarchs.

Though the church in Bulgaria is fully separate from the state, its constitution names Eastern Orthodoxy as the “traditional religion,” followed by some 85% of its 6.5 million people.
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Athens, Greece — Firefighters were battling a series of wildfires near the Greek capital, Athens, on Sunday evening, as the country braces for another scorching summer.

Greece faces a tough wildfire season after its warmest winter and earliest heat wave on record, with temperatures hitting 44°C (111°F).  

“Today in Attica two extremely dangerous fires that broke out in residential areas and spread rapidly due to strong winds in Keratea and Stamata were tackled,” Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Minister Vasilis Kikilias said late on Sunday.  

He said there was no longer an active front in Stamata, north of Athens, though there were some minor reignitions in the eastern area of Keratea.  

He said, “Ground forces will remain in the field throughout the night.”

Since Sunday midday, the authorities have called for the evacuation of at least eight areas near the capital, with flames destroying cars and houses.  

Ert channel reported that a 45-year-old-man died from cardiac arrest while trying to flee fires in suburban Athens.  

According to the police, the man was found unconscious in the yard of a house in Rodopoli and taken to the hospital, where he died.  

“Today is the hardest that the fire brigade has faced in this year’s firefighting season,” fire department spokesperson Vasilis Vathrakogiannis said on Sunday afternoon, during an emergency press briefing.

“The situation is very difficult, as strong winds continue to blow; they have not subsided and the outbreaks are many,” the mayor of Lavreotiki, Dimitris Loukas, told Athens News Agency Sunday afternoon.

He said a nearby military air base was not currently in danger from the flames.

A fire brigade spokesman noted that wind speeds had exceeded 60 km per hour in Keratea, while in Stamata, the blaze was fanned by strong northerly winds exceeding 70 km an hour.

Island fires

A fire also broke out Sunday in an industrial zone in Ritsona, near the island of Evia.  

Black smoke filled the sky above Ritsona after the fire started in a recycling factory, burning various flammable materials that were in the grounds around it, including tires and mattresses.  

Firefighters are fighting to prevent the flames from spreading beyond the recycling plant to other factories in the area.

The fire also approached a refugee center, but the Athens News Agency reported that this was not believed to be in danger.

Separately, a large wildfire broke out on Serifos island on Saturday afternoon but was also brought under control by firefighters early Sunday.

“All of southwestern Serifos has burned. We are talking about an area where the fire stopped at the sea,” Serifos Mayor Konstantinos Revintis told MEGA TV.  

The fire caused damage to houses, cottages, warehouses and chapels, according to the mayor.

The Fire Danger Forecast Map issued for Sunday by the Civil Protection Ministry predicted a very high category 4 risk of fire for Attica, the Peloponnese, Crete, the North and South Aegean Regions, and central Greece.  

A wildfire ignited Saturday afternoon in the area of Mount Parnitha — known as “the lungs of Athens” — was controlled Saturday evening with the help of reinforcements from other regions as well as volunteer firefighters.

More than 40 wildfires erupted across Saturday in Greece with wind speeds exceeding 100 kilometers per hour, according to fire brigade sources.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called on Greeks to brace for a difficult wildfire season in his weekly Facebook post on Sunday.

“The difficult times are still ahead of us. Our effort is continuous. In this effort, our allies are new tools that build a new culture of prevention and responsibility,” he said.
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New York — The monthlong celebration of LGBTQ+ Pride reached its exuberant grand finale on Sunday, bringing rainbow-laden revelers to the streets for marquee parades in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and elsewhere across the globe.

The wide-ranging festivities functioned as both jubilant parties and political protests, as participants recognize the community’s gains while also calling attention to recent anti-LGBTQ+ laws, such as bans on transgender health care, passed by Republican-led states.

“We’re at a time where there’s a ton of legislation, anti-LGBTQ+ legislation,” Zach Overton, 47, said at the New York parade. “It feels like we’re taking a step backwards in the fight for equality and so it’s a great moment to come out and be with our community and see all the different colors of the spectrum of our community and remind ourselves what we’re all fighting for.”

Thousands of people gathered along New York’s Fifth Avenue to celebrate Pride. Floats cruised the street as Diane Ross’ “I’m Coming Out” played from loudspeakers. Pride flags filled the horizon, and signs in support of Puerto Rico, Ukraine and Gaza were visible in the crowd.

This year, tensions over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza are also seeped into the celebrations, exposing divisions within a community that is often aligned on political issues.

Protesters temporarily blocked the New York parade on Sunday, chanting: “Free, free, free Palestine!” Police eventually took some of them away.

Pro-Palestinian activists disrupted pride parades earlier in June in Boston, Denver, and Philadelphia. Several groups participating in marches Sunday said they would seek to center the victims of the war in Gaza, spurring pushback from supporters of Israel.

“It is certainly a more active presence this year in terms of protest at Pride events,” said Sandra Perez, the executive director of NYC Pride. “But we were born out of a protest.”

The first pride march was held in New York City in 1970 to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall Inn uprising, a riot that began with a police raid on a Manhattan gay bar.

Nick Taricco, 47, who was at the New York parade with Overton, said he attended Friday’s opening of the Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center, where President Joe Biden spoke. Taricco said he has concerns about politics in the U.S., including the presidential election.

“Even given how old he is, I still think that’s the direction we need to go in,” Taricco said of Biden. “But it’s a very uncertain time in general in this country.”

Ireland Fernandez-Cosgrove, 23, celebrated at the New York parade.

“New York City is a great place to live, but this is one of the only days where you can come out and be openly queer and you know you’re going to be OK and safe about it,” she said. “I came out here today with my partner to be able to be ourselves in public and know that other people are going to be supporting us.”

In addition to the NYC Pride March, the nation’s largest, the city also played host Sunday to the Queer Liberation March, an activism-centered event launched five years ago amid concerns that the more mainstream parade had become too corporate.

Another one of the world’s largest Pride celebrations also took place Sunday in San Francisco.

Tens of thousands of revelers packed sidewalks along Chicago’s parade, a scaled-back event from previous years. City officials shortened the North Side route and the number of floats this year from 199 to about 150 over safety and logistical concerns, including to better deploy police into evening hours as post-parade parties have become more disruptive in recent years. Chicago’s parade, one of the largest in the U.S., routinely draws about 1 million people, according to the city. Sunday’s crowd estimates were not immediately available.

Additional parades were scheduled in Minneapolis and Seattle.

On top of concerns about protests, federal agencies have warned that foreign terrorist organizations and their supporters could target the parades and adjacent venues. A heavy security presence was expected at all of the events.
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THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Long-serving Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte urged his country to support Ukraine and international cooperation in his final address to his compatriots Sunday, as an inward-looking new government is set to take over the Netherlands in two days.

“It is crucial that our country is embedded in the European Union and NATO. Together we are stronger than alone. Especially now,” the 57-year-old Rutte said from his office in The Hague.

After leading the country for 14 years, he will take his experience with consensus-building to Brussels, where he will take over as NATO’s new secretary-general later this year.

He stressed the need to continue support for Ukraine, “for peace there and security here.” The new government, expected to take office on Tuesday, has pledged to maintain assistance. But far-right populist Geert Wilders, whose party won the largest block of seats in last year’s election, has expressed pro-Russia views and Kremlin backers cheered his victory at the polls.

Rutte described the MH17 tragedy in 2014 as “perhaps the most drastic and emotional event” during his tenure. The passenger jet was shot down over eastern Ukraine as it traveled from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, killing all 298 passengers and crew, including 196 Dutch citizens.

A Dutch court convicted two Russians and a pro-Moscow Ukrainian in 2022 of involvement in the downing of the Boeing 777.

Known for cycling to meetings and his dedication to politics, Rutte highlighted his country’s positive attributes.

“There is no war here, you can be who you are, we are prosperous,” he said in the 12-minute speech.

He acknowledged that there had been low points during his tenure, including a child benefits scandal that wrongly labeled thousands of parents as fraudsters.

Wearing a white shirt with several of the top buttons undone, Rutte said that his time in office had added some “gray hairs and wrinkles” to his appearance. 
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ATHENS — Greek firefighters were battling a wildfire south of Athens on Sunday amid strong winds, just hours after managing to contain blazes in a mountainous area also near the capital as well as on an island in the Aegean Sea.

Dozens of firefighters, backed up by 17 water-carrying aircraft, fought to tame the new fire in a sparsely-populated area near the town of Keratea, some 35 kilometers (22 miles) south of Athens.

Greek television showed at least one house in flames as smoke from burning pine and olive trees billowed into the sky.

With hot, windy conditions across much of Greece, dozens of wildfires broke out over the weekend and authorities advised people to stay away from forested areas.

Firefighters were still engaged on the island of Serifos where a fire had broken out amid low vegetation on Saturday and spread quickly, fanned by strong winds, damaging houses and prompting the evacuation of several hamlets.

The wildfire, which at one point had raged across 15 kilometers (9.3 miles), damaged holiday homes and storehouses, the island’s mayor, Kostas Revinthis, told Greek television.

Another fire in the mountainous forest of Parnitha near a nature reserve just outside Athens had eased by Sunday morning, officials said.

The strong winds are not expected to abate until later on Sunday, meteorologists said.

Wildfires are common in the Mediterranean country but have become more devastating in recent years as summers have become hotter, drier and windier, which scientists link to the effects of climate change.

After last summer’s deadly forest fires and following its warmest winter on record, Greece developed a new doctrine, which includes deploying an extra fire engine to each new blaze, speeding up air support and clearing forests.
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Vienna — Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FPO), Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz and the populist Czech ANO party led by Andrej Babis are forming a new alliance in the European Parliament, they announced on Sunday.   

The move would reorder but possibly also split nationalist forces in the assembly, provided four more parties join. Parties from at least a quarter of the European Union’s 27 member states are needed to officially form a new political group.   

While Fidesz has remained outside larger groupings since it parted ways with the mainstream center-right European People’s Party (EPP) in 2021, the FPO is part of the Identity and Democracy political group along with Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party in France. ANO is not part of a political group.   

“Today is a historic day because today we are entering a new era of European politics,” FPO leader Herbert Kickl said in an address to the media attended by Babis and Orban convened at short notice in a Vienna hotel.   

“This alliance is meant as a rocket that will bring other parties on board at the European level to join forces and give Europe a better future,” Kickl said of the “new patriotic Alliance.”   

Former Czech prime minister Babis said the new group would be called Patriots for Europe.   

All three men cited the fight against illegal immigration, which has long been a pressing concern for them, as well as transferring more powers from Brussels back to member states.   

In this month’s European Parliament election, nationalist parties capitalized on voter disquiet over spiraling prices, migration and the cost of the green transition, and are looking to translate their seat gains into more influence on EU policy.   

While the FPO has a clear lead in Austrian opinion polls ahead of a Sept. 29 parliamentary election, Orban faces a growing threat in Hungary from the new opposition party Tisza, which said this month it would join the EPP in the European Parliament.   

“Today we are creating a political formation that in my view will be off to a flying start and will very quickly become the largest group of the European right,” Orban said.   

“This will happen within days and then the sky is the limit,” he said.   

The three men took no questions but the FPO said a press conference would be held in Brussels or Strasbourg soon with other parties joining the alliance. 
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GENEVA — Two people have died and a third is missing after torrential rains triggered a landslide in southeastern Switzerland, police said Sunday.

Violent storms lashed the Alpine country with rain this weekend, with hundreds of people evacuated in the west after the Rhone River and its tributaries broke their banks.

“The bodies of two people were found by rescuers in connection with the landslide in the Fontana region,” police in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino said in a statement.

According to local daily La Regione, the dead were two women who were on holiday in the region.

Emergency services were assessing the best way to evacuate 300 people who had arrived for a football tournament in Peccia, while almost 70 more were being evacuated from a holiday camp in the village of Mogno.

The poor weather was making rescue work particularly difficult, police had said earlier, with several valleys inaccessible and cut off from the electricity network.

The federal alert system also said part of the canton was without drinking water.

In the western canton of Valais, the civil security services said “several hundred” people were evacuated and roads closed after the Rhone overflowed in different locations.

Extreme rainfall also struck southeastern Switzerland last weekend, leaving one dead and causing major damage. 
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GABORONE, Botswana — Violent extremist groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group are growing in size and influence across Africa, fueling worries that as they improve their tactics they could attack the U.S. or Western allies.

U.S. defense and military officials described the threats and their concerns about growing instability in Africa, where a number of coups have put ruling juntas in control, leading to the ouster of American troops and a decline in U.S. intelligence gathering.

“Threats like Wagner, terrorist groups and transnational criminal organizations continue to sow instability in multiple regions,” Air Force Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in opening remarks Tuesday at a conference of African chiefs of defense in Botswana. “I think we can all agree, what happens in one part of the world, does not stay in one part of the world.”

Wagner is the Russian mercenary group that has gone into African nations to provide security as Western forces, including from the U.S. and France, have been pushed out. The group is known for its brutality, and human rights organizations have accused its members of raping and killing civilians.

While Brown only touched briefly on the terror threat in the region, it was a key topic among others at the conference and spurred questions from military chiefs in the audience after his speech. They wanted to know what the U.S. could do to help stem the spread of insurgents in West Africa, the Gulf of Guinea and the Sahel.

This is the first time that the chiefs of defense conference has been held on African soil. And it is the first time the U.S. joint chiefs chairman has visited a sub-Saharan country since 1994, when Gen. John Shalikashvili visited Rwanda and Zaire.

A senior U.S. defense official said al-Qaida linked groups — such as al-Shabab in Somalia and Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin, known as JNIM, in the Sahel region — are the largest and most financially viable insurgencies. JNIM is active in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger and is looking to expand into Benin and Togo, which it uses as hubs to rest, recuperate, get financing and gather weapons but also has increased attacks there.

At the same time, the Islamic State group has key cells in West Africa and in the Sahel. The defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a threat assessment, said the Islamic State cells were getting increasing direction from the group’s leadership that relocated to northern Somalia. That has included how to kidnap Westerners for ransom, how to learn better military tactics, how to hide from drones and how to building their own small quadcopters.

A U.S. military airstrike in Somalia on May 31 targeted Islamic State militants and killed three, according to U.S. Africa Command. U.S. officials have said the strike targeted the group’s leader, but the defense official said Monday that it’s still unclear if he was killed.

Roughly 200 Islamic State insurgents are in Somalia, so they are vastly outnumbered by al-Shabab, which has grown in size to between 10,000 and 12,000.

The growth of the insurgent groups within Africa signals the belief by both al-Qaida and the Islamic State group that the continent is a ripe location for jihadism, where extremist ideology can take root and expand, the official said.

And it comes as the U.S. was ordered to pull out its 1,000 troops from Niger in the wake of last July’s coup and also about 75 from Chad. Those troop cuts, which shut down a critical U.S. counterterrorism and drone base at Agadez, hamper intelligence gathering in Niger, said Gen. Michael Langley, head of U.S. Africa Command.

Surveillance operations before the coup gave the U.S. a greater ability to get intelligence on insurgent movements. Now, he said, the key goal is a safe and secure withdrawal of personnel and equipment from both Agadez and a smaller U.S. facility near the airport.

Langley met with Niger’s top military chief, Brig. Gen. Moussa Salaou Barmou, during the conference, and said military-to-military communications continue but that it’s yet to be determined how much the new transitional government will deal with the U.S.

Currently, he said, there are about 400 troops still at Agadez and 200 near the airport.

But, he added that “as we’re in transition and resetting, we need to maintain capabilities to get enough intelligence to identify warnings of a threat out there.”

Langley said the U.S. is still trying to assess the militant groups’ capabilities as they grow.

“Yes, they’ve been growing in number. Have they been growing in capability where they can do what we call external ops attacks on the homeland and attacks on allies, whether we’re talking about Europe or anyone? That’s what we closely watch,” he said. “I’d say it has the potential as they grow in numbers.”

Both Langley and Brown spoke more extensively about the need for the U.S. and African nations to communicate more effectively and work together to solve security and other problems.

And Brown acknowledged that the U.S. needs to “do better at understanding the perspectives of others, ensuring their voices and expertise don’t get drowned out.”

The U.S has struggled to maintain relations with African nations as many foster growing ties to Russia and China.

Some African countries have expressed frustration with the U.S. for forcing issues, such as democracy and human rights, that many see as hypocrisy, given Washington’s close ties to some autocratic leaders elsewhere. Meanwhile, Russia offers security assistance without interfering in politics, making it an appealing partner for military juntas that seized power in places like Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso in recent years.
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TOKYO — The Paris Olympics open next month and the agency that oversees doping enforcement is under scrutiny following allegations it failed to pursue positive tests of Chinese swimmers who subsequently won medals — including three gold — at the Tokyo Games in 2021.

The focus on the World Anti-Doping Agency and China’s swimmers raises questions for athletes about the fairness of the competitions and the effectiveness of doping control at the Olympics.

“It’s hard going into Paris knowing that we’re going to be racing some of these athletes,” American swimmer Katie Ledecky, a seven-time Olympic champion, said in a television interview. “I think our faith in the system is at an all-time low.”

Rob Koehler, who worked as a deputy director of WADA until 2018, offered a similar tone.

“Athletes have zero confidence in the global regulator and World Aquatics,” Koehler, the director general of athletes’ advocacy body Global Athlete, told The Associated Press. “Transparency is needed more than ever. Without it, the anti-doping movement will crumble and athletes will never feel they have a level playing field.”

The background

From January 1-3, 2021, 23 elite Chinese swimmers tested positive for the banned substance trimetazidine — a heart medication known as TMZ — while competing in the Chinese city of Shijiazhuang and staying in a local hotel.

Chinese authorities investigated but did not sanction the swimmers and said they had unwittingly ingested the banned substance. They blamed food/environmental contamination and said the drug had gotten into spice containers in the hotel kitchen.

The investigation was carried out by the Chinese Minister of Public Security, China’s national police force.

WADA accepted the explanation and argued, in part, it was not possible to send its own investigators to China during what officials said was a “local COVID outbreak.”

Several of those athletes later won medals at the Tokyo Olympics, including gold medals in three events.

Eleven of the 23 Chinese swimmers were named this month on the country’s national team to compete in Paris, including Zhang Yufei, who won gold in the 200-meter butterfly and the women’s 4×200 freestyle relay. She also won two silver medals in Tokyo.

Also on the list for Paris is 200 individual medley Olympic gold-medalist Wang Shun, and 200 breaststroke world-record holder Qin Haiyang.

The criticism of WADA

WADA has been criticized for seeming to look the other way at aspects of the Chinese anti-doping agency’s investigation and reporting. It has also not published any of the science behind its decision.

The Chinese agency, known as CHINADA, did not report the positive tests to WADA until mid-March. And in early April 2021 it told WADA it had begun an investigation. On June 15 of that year, it told WADA that environmental contamination was the cause and said it was not pursing an ADRV — an anti-doping rules violation.

Had an anti-doping rules violation been found, CHINADA should have filed a mandatory provisional suspension with a public disclosure forthcoming.

Many questions have been asked since the case became public this year, including by a bipartisan group of U.S. senators. Why did it take 2 1/2 months to report the findings, and why was the investigation begun even later? WADA attributes the “certain delays” to COVID restrictions.

Why was there an apparent delay in inspecting the hotel kitchen? Why was the residue still around, particularly in light of China’s tough sanitation rules during the pandemic? And where did the TMZ come from and how did it land in a spice container? Why were the national police involved in a sports doping case?

The New York Times and German broadcaster ARD broke the story in April of this year.

WADA’s defense

Basically, WADA says it had no grounds to challenge the findings of CHINADA. WADA did say, however, it did not agree with all of CHINADA’s investigation “for largely technical reasons.”

WADA says it accepted the contamination theory because: the levels of TMZ were very low; the swimmers were from different regions of China; and the swimmers were in the same place when the positive tests occurred. Also, competing swimmers stayed in another hotel. Three were tested and none tested positive.

Legally, WADA argued that it could have appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport but was advised not to by external lawyers. It would have been a narrow appeal that would not have kept the athletes from competing at the Tokyo Olympics.

WADA has appointed retired Swiss prosecutor Eric Cottier to review the handling of the case. Fairly or not, his impartiality has been questioned.

The banned medication

Trimetazidine is listed as a “metabolic modulator” and is banned by WADA — in competition and out of competition. It is believed to help endurance and recovery time after training. One of the best-known TMZ cases involved Chinese swimmer Sun Yang, who was suspended for three months in 2014 after testing positive for the substance. He also served a four-year suspension for a separate doping violation.

Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva tested positive for TMZ weeks before the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. She said the substance had belonged to her grandfather and had accidentally contaminated her food. She was allowed to skate in Beijing, but was was eventually handed a four-year suspension.

WADA said Valieva’s contamination scenario “was not compatible with the analytical results.” In the case of the Chinese swimmers, WADA said “the contamination scenario was plausible and that there was no concrete scientific element to challenge it.”

Strict Liability

The principle of “Strict Liability” — athletes are responsible for what they ingest — is at the heart of the WADA code, and is there to ensure all athletes are treated equally. Some question if the principle was followed in this case.

WADA’s rules specify that a “mandatory provisional suspension” should have taken place after the positive tests, which were carried out at a WADA-approved laboratory in Beijing. The local anti-doping agency — in this case, CHINADA — should have issued the suspension.

“CHINADA’s handling of the case, and WADA’s subsequent response, did not adhere to the most essential rule in the code — the principle of Strict Liability,” Steven Teitler, the legal director of the Netherlands doping agency, wrote in a white paper examining the case.

WADA further muddied the water in a fact sheet it published. It said “even for mandatory provisional suspensions there are exceptions.” It said there were multiple precedents for the decision to exonerate the Chinese athletes, precedents that did not seem to have been widely known.

This has raised more questions about how the agency follows its own rules.

The anti-doping system relies on national agencies like CHINADA to enforce the rules, which can clash with the wishes of high-profile athletes and the prestige they might bring to a country and its government.
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NANTERRE, France — One year after a French teenager with North African origins was killed by police — a shooting that sparked shock and days of rioting across France — his mother led a silent march Saturday to pay homage to her son.

It comes at a politically fraught time. Hate speech is blighting the campaign for snap parliamentary elections taking place this weekend, and an anti-immigration party that wants to boost police powers to use their weapons and has historic ties to racism and antisemitism is leading in the polls.

Several hundred family members, friends and supporters gathered in the Paris suburb of Nanterre to remember 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk, who was shot dead at point-blank range by a police officer at a traffic check on June 27, 2023.

Within hours of his death, Merzouk, a delivery driver from a working-class neighborhood, became a symbol. For many across France, he was the embodiment of young French Black and North African men who, studies show, face police checks and discrimination more frequently than their white counterparts.

”My son was executed,” his mother, Mounia, told the crowd. “When I go back home, no one is there. I don’t have my baby anymore. When I go to his room, it’s empty.” She expressed fear that she might run into the police officer who killed her son and has been released pending further investigation.

Friends wore white T-shirts with Merzouk’s photo, and fellow residents of his housing project held a banner reading “Justice for Nahel.” The march ended at the spot where he was killed, and an imam sang and read a prayer.

There was no visible police presence, though organizers of the march recruited guards to ensure security for the event. Merzouk’s mother asked politicians to stay away, to avoid politicking or tensions the day before France’s parliamentary elections.

On Sunday, French voters will cast ballots in the first round of snap elections for the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, that could lead to the country’s first far-right government since the World War II Nazi occupation.

French opinion polls suggest the National Rally party could dominate the next parliament after the July 7 second round and get the prime minister’s job. In that scenario, centrist President Emmanuel Macron would retain the presidency until 2027 but in a sharply weakened role.

“This march, happening now, it is a powerful symbol,” said Assa Traore, who has been fighting for justice since her brother Adama died in the custody of French police in 2016.

“It means that history can’t write itself without us. We, from the working-class neighborhoods, are the first-hand victims of these elections,” said the 39-year-old with Malian roots who marched alongside Merzouk’s family. “We … are afraid every day that our sons, brothers, or husbands will be killed. Racism and racial profiling are our daily life.”

Merzouk’s death, which was captured on video, stirred up long-simmering tensions between police and young people in housing projects and disadvantaged suburbs, many of whom are French-born youth with immigrant family backgrounds. Fueled by TikTok, riots spread with unprecedented speed before a mass police crackdown. The unrest caused, according to French authorities, more than $1 billion in damage.

The officer who fired the shot cited self-defense, and an extreme-right figure started a crowdfunding campaign for the policeman that drew $1.6 million before being shut down.

Citing security concerns, notably in impoverished areas in French suburbs or “banlieues,” the far-right National Rally wants to give a specific new legal status to police. If police officers use their arms during an intervention, they would be presumed to have acted in self-defense. Currently police officers have the same legal status as all French citizens and have to prove they acted in self-defense.

The left-wing coalition New Popular Front, meanwhile, wants to ban the use of some police weapons and dismantle a notoriously tough police unit.

Among those marching Sunday was Lina Marsouk, a 15-year-old student from Nanterre who described watching relatives undergo brutal police checks. “I have been traumatized by these scenes,” she said.

Born and raised in France and with Algerian roots, she also described being told ”go back to your country” while visiting nearby Paris.

”I have always lived here,” she said. “These comments are hurtful. I feel sad and disappointed that France turned this way.”
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SAN FRANCISCO — In an increasingly divisive political sphere, Becka Robbins focuses on what she knows best — books.

Operating out of a tiny room in Fabulosa Books in San Francisco’s Castro District, one of the oldest gay neighborhoods in the United States, Robbins uses donations from customers to ship boxes of books across the country to groups that want them.

In an effort she calls “Books Not Bans,” she sends titles about queer history, sexuality, romance and more — many of which are increasingly hard to come by in the face of a rapidly growing movement by conservative advocacy groups and lawmakers to ban them from public schools and libraries.

“The book bans are awful, the attempt at erasure,” Robbins said. She asked herself how she could get these books into the hands of the people who need them the most.

Beginning last May, she started raising money and looking for recipients. Her books have gone to places like a pride center in west Texas and an LGBTQ-friendly high school in Alabama.

Customers are especially enthusiastic about helping Robbins send books to places in states like Florida, Texas and Oklahoma, often writing notes of support to include in the packages. Over 40% of all book bans from July 2022 to June 2023 were in Florida, more than any other state. Behind Florida are Texas and Missouri, according to a report by PEN America, a nonprofit literature advocacy group.

Book bans and attempted bans have been hitting record highs, according to the American Library Association. And the efforts now extend as much to public libraries as school libraries. Because the totals are based on media accounts and reports submitted by librarians, the association regards its numbers as snapshots, with many bans left unrecorded.

PEN America’s report said 30% of the bans include characters of color or discuss race and racism, and 30% have LGBTQ+ characters or themes.

The most sweeping challenges often originate with conservative organizations, such as Moms for Liberty, which has organized banning efforts nationwide and called for more parental control over books available to children.

Moms for Liberty is not anti-LGBTQ+, co-founder Tiffany Justice has told The Associated Press. But about 38% of book challenges that “directly originated” from the group have LGBTQ+ themes, according to the library association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. Justice said Moms for Liberty challenges books that are sexually explicit, not because they cover LGBTQ+ topics.

Among those topping banned lists have been Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer, George Johnson’s All Boys Aren’t Blue and Nobel laureate Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.

Robbins said it’s more important than ever to makes these kinds of books available to everyone.

“Fiction teaches us how to dream,” Robbins said. “It teaches us how to connect with people who are not like ourselves, it teaches us how to listen and emphasize.”

She’s sent 740 books so far, with each box worth $300 to $400, depending on the titles.

At the new Rose Dynasty Center in Lakeland, Florida, the books donated by Fabulosa are already on the shelves, said Jason DeShazo, a drag queen known as Momma Ashley Rose who runs the LGBTQ+ community center.

DeShazo is a family-friendly drag performer and has long hosted drag story times to promote literacy. He uses puppets to address themes of being kind, dealing with bullies and giving back to the community.

DeShazo hopes to provide a safe space for events, support groups and health clinics, and to build a library of banned books.

“I don’t think a person of color should have to search so hard for an amazing book about history of what our Black community has gone through,” DeShazo said. “Or for someone who is queer to find a book that represents them.”

Robbins’ favorite books to send are youth adult queer romances, a rapidly growing genre as conversations about LGBTQ+ issues have become much more mainstream than a decade ago.

“The characters are just like regular kids — regular people who are also queer, but they also get to fall in love and be happy,” Robbins said.
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