The United States and Europe appear deeply divided over the health of the transatlantic relationship following a key security conference in Germany over the weekend, attended by hundreds of political and military leaders from around the world.German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier opened the conference with a speech that accused Washington of ‘rejecting the idea of an international community’ – and warned of growing threats from Russia and China.U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, center, shakes hands with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, right, as US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper watches during the 56th Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, Feb. 14, 2020.The U.S delegation, headed by U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, rejected claims of a transatlantic rift. “Those statements do simply not fact in any significant way or reflect reality,” Sexretary of State Pompeo told the conference Saturday. “I am happy to report that the death of the transatlantic alliance is grossly over exaggerated. The West is winning. We are collectively winning. We are doing it together.”For proof, Pompeo said Europe should look to the tens of thousands of U.S. troops defending NATO’s border with Russia, and America’s lead role in defeating Islamic State.Secretary Pompeo also pledged $1 billion to help eastern European countries end their dependence on Russian gas, with the aim of boosting U.S. liquified natural gas exports.For Europe, the diagnosis appears very different. French president Emmanuel Macron said the U.S. was undergoing ‘a rethink of its relationship with Europe’ – and the continent must take charge of its own destiny. “When I look at the world as it is being shaped, and that is the theme of your conference this year, there is indeed a weakening of the West,” Macron said. “Fifteen years ago, we thought that our values were universal, that we were going to dominate the world in the long term, that we were dominant in terms of technology, military and so on, and then I look at the horizon of 10-15 years, we are going to be increasingly pushed by other agendas and other values, they are emerging.”Macron added that it was time to have a ‘strategic dialogue’ with Russia. Moscow’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told the conference it was time to ‘abandon the cultivation of the phantom Russian threat.’ Many other European nations cited Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine as evidence of the very real dangers.Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks on the second day of the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, Feb. 15, 2020.This year’s focus on cyber security saw Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg take the stage, amid widespread accusations that social media platforms are facilitating states like Russia and China to interfere in Western democracy.“We were slow to understand the kind of information and operations that Russia and others were running online,” admitted Zuckerberg, before defending his record. “We take down now more than a million fake accounts a day across our network… We will continue doing our best, we are going to build up the muscle to do it, to basically find stuff as proactively as possible, we will try to draw the lines in the right places.”Conference organizers hailed diplomatic progress in other areas, including a public meeting between the presidents of rivals Azerbaijan and Armenia.There were high level meetings on Libya and Syria – with little tangible progress.The theme of the conference was meant to be ‘Westlessness’, defined by its protagonists as the purported decline of Western democracy. The U.S. delegation flatly dismissed those concerns, insisting the West has never been in better health.They left the conference with a clear message: China is adversary number one – and European allies should wake up to the threat.
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Storm Dennis roared across Britain Sunday, lashing towns and cities with high winds and dumping so much rain that authorities urged residents to protect themselves from “life-threatening floods” in Wales and Scotland.The Met Office, Britain’s national weather service, issued more than 250 flood warnings for England, Scotland and Wales.As the winds churned up enormous waves in the North Atlantic and the North Sea, the bodies of two men were pulled from the water Saturday in two separate searches off England’s eastern coast.Severe flood warnings were issued for the River Neath in south Wales and local media reported the River Taff had burst its banks in the Welsh town of Pontypool.In one 24-hour period, Tredegar in southeast Wales was hit by 105 mm (4.1 inches) of rain, while coastal Welsh village of Aberdaron was blasted by hurricane-force winds up to 91 mph (146 kph).Hundreds of flights were canceled because of the high winds while train services were repeatedly disrupted by flooding. The travel chaos affected tens of thousands of passengers on a key weekend for British families as schools closed for the midwinter break.On Saturday, around 75 British army personnel and 70 reservists helped out communities in the flood-hit Calder Valley region in West Yorkshire, constructing flood barriers and repairing damaged flood defenses.
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A surprisingly simple idea to help homeless people has gone viral – and is spreading around the world. The ‘Take One, Leave One’ concept aims to offer warm clothing to the homeless. As Henry Ridgwell reports, the idea seems to have originated in Mexico, before spreading to the United States, and now to London and across Europe – with social media key in stimulating grassroots goodwill to tackle a growing problem.
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With Colombian military snipers in position, Howard Buffett descends from a helicopter and trudges through the wet grass in steel-toed boots chewed through by his dog’s teeth. Waiting under a tin-roofed shack is a small group of coca farmers. They’ve never heard of multibillionaire investor Warren Buffett, but after decades of neglect by their own government they’re grateful for the outstretched hand of his eldest son, whom they refer to simply as “the gringo.” “There’s a saying here: The less you know, the better,” said Ruben Morantes, his leathery skin and calloused hands a testament to a lifetime of tillage in one of Colombia’s most dangerous territories, where outsiders are traditionally mistrusted. For nearly two decades Buffett has crisscrossed the world, giving away part of his father’s fortune to promote food security, conflict mitigation and public safety. But his latest gamble is one of the most daunting yet: helping Colombia kick its cocaine curse. He is focusing on Tibu, heart of the remote, notoriously lawless Catatumbo region bordering Venezuela where Buffett accompanied President Ivan Duque. Tibu has the second-largest coca crop in all of Colombia — 28,200 acres (11,400 hectares), according to the United Nations. Drug production and violence have skyrocketed in the area since armed groups filled the void left by retreating rebels who signed a peace deal with the government in 2016. Foundation’s plansThe Howard G. Buffett Foundation has committed to spending $200 million over the next few years to transform the impoverished municipality into a model of comprehensive state building. Plans include strengthening security forces and helping farmers to secure land titles and substitute coca — the raw material for cocaine — with licit crops like cacao. Howard Buffett plants a cocoa plant at a farm in La Gabarra, Colombia, Jan. 29, 2020. Buffett began working in Colombia in 2008, helping pop star Shakira set up schools in her hometown of Barranquilla.The first component is building 300 kilometers (185 miles) of roads to connect the municipality’s 37,000 residents for the first time with national and international markets. It’s a challenge made more difficult by lurking guerrillas who last year detonated a homemade bomb as army engineers were working on the road, killing five people and injuring several others. “The only way we have confidence that farmers can grow legal crops is if they can get those crops to market,” Buffett told farmers during a visit last month with Duque to La Gabarra, a rural outpost in Tibu. It was the first time any Colombian president had visited the blood-soaked hamlet. The plan envisions providing subsidies and training for farmers as they switch crops, as well as helping them find buyers. It also aims to strengthen infrastructure for local law enforcement. But some experts worry that Buffett’s enthusiasm for speeding Colombia’s development is no match for entrenched corruption in rural areas run like political fiefdoms. There’s also the challenge posed by thousands of Venezuelan migrants who lack roots in the community and are being targeted for recruitment by criminal gangs. A lot is riding on Buffett’s investment. Not since the start of the U.S.-led Plan Colombia two decades ago have so many resources converged on a single geographical area, said Alvaro Balcazar, who helped the government negotiate with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia the section of the peace deal focusing on illicit crops. “There’s no precedent for something on such large a scale,” Balcazar said. “But the region is strategic for consolidating peace in Colombia.” Son’s pursuitsLike his father, Buffett, 65, has a reputation for folksy, Midwestern plain speech and self-effacing humor. Although he’s a three-time college dropout, his father wants him to succeed him as the non-executive chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, the $550 billion conglomerate that owns companies such as Duracell, Dairy Queen and GEICO insurance as well as major stakes in leading U.S. airlines and banks. But he’s spent much of his adult life roving the world, taking wildlife photos and writing books. He’s also a corn farmer and made headlines in 2017 by briefly serving as the sheriff of Macon County, Illinois, where he lives and his foundation is based. He began exploring the world as a teenager on a trip to Soviet-controlled Prague in 1969 to visit one of the many exchange students his mother hosted at their home in Omaha, Nebraska.  As a philanthropist, his priority now is helping Colombia and El Salvador, whose fight against drug trafficking directly affects the U.S. Between the two countries he has already spent or committed $310 million, including the funding in El Salvador of a new police forensics center and a modern system to help the country’s prosecutors track criminal investigations. As a volunteer police officer who logged 678 hours on patrol last year, Buffett has seen firsthand the human toll caused by drug addiction. A few weeks before traveling to Colombia, he and a partner were staking out a motel in Decatur, Illinois, at 1 a.m. when they arrested a man possessing crack. With him was a woman who said she had a drug problem, so Buffett paid for her to stay at the hotel two nights. Later, he referred her to a county rehab facility paid for with a gift from the Buffett Foundation in the hope she would get help. “These are people who need our help,” he said. “They’re not criminals.” Colombia’s President Ivan Duque, left, and Howard Buffett laugh during a tour of a cocoa farm in La Gabarra, Colombia. The Howard G. Buffett Foundation has committed to spending $200 million over the next few years to develop the municipality.He has turned to Latin America after years of focusing much of his attention on Africa and especially Rwanda, where he works with the government on sustainable agriculture. He spent so much time at his farm in South Africa in the 1990s that he obtained permanent residency. Worked with ShakiraBuffett began working in Colombia in 2008, helping pop star Shakira set up schools in her hometown of Barranquilla. He’s also funded an army unit removing thousands of landmines strewn across former conflict zones. Leveraging his business contacts, he established a program to help around 100 families in southern Colombia switch from growing coca to producing high-quality coffee for Nespresso. While an enthusiastic supporter of the 2016 peace deal, he has nonetheless struck a close relationship with Duque, a law-and-order conservative who rode into office attacking the agreement. Duque has vowed to slash cocaine production in half by the end of 2023. Production of the drug skyrocketed after his predecessor — Nobel Peace Prize laureate Juan Manuel Santos — halted aerial eradication in 2015 because of health concerns related to the herbicides used. But reaching that goal requires huge resources the government doesn’t have, as well as overcoming the indifference of urban voters who are removed from the conflict and have their own growing list of demands. That’s where Buffett steps in. The $200 million Buffett has pledged for Tibu is more than triple what the government has spent the past two years altogether on public works in 170 high-risk municipalities that are part of a rural development rescue plan mandated by the peace deal. The U.S. Agency for International Development spends $230 million annually in Colombia, although its projects are spread across the country. Beyond the big check, longtime partners praise the Buffett Foundation for being independent and nimble. It’s funded from an annual gift in Berkshire Hathaway stock by Warren Buffett, so it can take risks few are willing to attempt, development experts say. “We’re accountable mainly to the IRS [Internal Revenue Service],” joked Buffett, who sees setbacks like a venture capitalist who must eat crow before finding wild success. “If you’re a charity, and you’re going to have your annual banquet to raise a lot of money, you can’t stand up there and tell people how you had these five failures and this one success. People aren’t going to write checks,” he said. “We’ll make a decision in five minutes if we know what we want to do.” Howard Buffett, left, talks to Colombia’s President Ivan Duque aboard an air force plane before departing from Bogota, Colombia, Jan. 29, 2020. Duque has vowed to slash cocaine production in half by the end of 2023.He is skeptical of the U.S. government and United Nations, preferring not to work with either. “The reason is because we can’t depend on them,” said Buffett, who said he was burned badly by USAID in 2011 when it abandoned a joint $10 million seed program for starving farmers in South Sudan just as fighting broke out in the world’s newest independent state. “The bullets started flying and they pulled out. But it’s like, you’re in South Sudan, so of course bullets are going to fly,” he said. Partners who produceInstead, the foundation relies on partners known for delivering results quickly with slim overhead — a combination he says is hard to find among the “beltway bandits” profiting from U.S. foreign aid outlays. One accompanying him to Catatumbo is Portland, Oregon-based Mercy Corps, which is helping farmers sort through Colombia’s bureaucratic maze to obtain land titles. In a nod to his father’s reputation for common sense, Buffett seeks frequent counsel from the so-called “Oracle of Omaha.” “He’s my sounding board, kind of like my conscience in a way,” Buffett said. “But he never asks, Why are you doing that?' orWhy you’re taking that risk?’ ” In Tibu, after cracking a few jokes and planting a cacao tree, he seemed beside himself with joy even as the presidential committee hustled to quickly depart as heavy fog threatened to maroon them in the middle of nowhere. “I know Emilio is very worried about leaving,” Buffett told the farmers through a translator, referring to Duque’s post-conflict adviser, Emilio Archila. “But I’m not, because there’s lots of chocolate here.” 
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U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said Saturday that consultations were still underway on setting a start date for a seven-day trial of reduced violence negotiated with the Taliban in Afghanistan.   “That is a moving date because we are still doing consultations, if you will, … so I can’t give you a hard date right now,” Esper told reporters in Munich, Germany, after attending a security conference there. U.S. officials have said a successful implementation of the temporary reduction in violence would pave the way for a comprehensive peace deal with the insurgent group that could end America’s longest war and bring home about 13,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan. “Where we are right now is on the doorstep of a reduction-of-violence period. If we decide to move forward, if all sides hold up — meet their obligations under that reduction in violence — then we’ll start talking about the next part, whether to move forward [with the comprehensive peace agreement],” Esper said. As part of the short-term agreement, he added, the United States will suspend “a significant part of our operations,” though the Pentagon chief declined to discuss details. U.S. officials say the deal binds the Taliban to halt major attacks, including roadside and suicide bombings, against Afghan and U.S.-led international forces anywhere in the country. FILE – A captured Taliban insurgent is presented to the media after he was detained with car explosive devices in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, Dec. 10, 2019.Some risk, but ‘promising’Earlier, Esper told an audience at the Munich Security Conference the reduction in violence was not without risk but looked “very promising” and “we have to give peace a chance.” He went on to reiterate that “the best if not the only way forward in Afghanistan is through a political agreement, and that means taking some risk.” Taliban sources have said the seven-day period will begin February 22 and the comprehensive peace agreement is expected to be signed on February 29. U.S. and Taliban representatives have negotiated the draft peace agreement during months of meetings in the Gulf state of Qatar. If signed, it immediately could lead to a gradual withdrawal of American forces, bringing the force down to 8,600 personnel in the initial few months. Taliban sources say the agreement will require all foreign troops to leave Afghanistan within two years. Insurgent sources say international guarantors such as the United Nations, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Germany, Norway and Qatar will witness the signing ceremony. The agreement will require the Taliban to open negotiations within 10 days with an inclusive Afghan delegation that represents all political and ethnic groups in the country, including the government in Kabul. That intra-Afghan dialogue will discuss a permanent nationwide cease-fire and power-sharing in postwar Afghanistan. Germany and Norway have both offered to host Taliban-Afghan negotiations, but no final decision has been made. U.S. officials have stressed the troop drawdown plans, however, will be linked to progress in intra-Afghan negotiations and effective implementation of Taliban undertakings, including a further reduction in insurgent violence. FILE – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo shakes hands with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani with U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper alongside at the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, Feb. 14, 2020.Ghani skepticalAfghan President Ashraf Ghani also spoke Saturday at the Munich conference and reiterated his skepticism about the U.S.-led peace process. “The concern that the Taliban could be using a peace process as a ‘Trojan horse strategy’ is there, but you can’t end this war without engaging in a process and testing them,” Afghan media quoted Ghani as saying. Between the signing of the U.S.-Taliban deal and the start of intra-Afghan negotiations, the insurgent group and Afghan authorities would be expected to release prisoners. Taliban officials say they already have given their list of thousands of insurgents being held in Afghan prisons. The troop drawdown agreement was expected to be signed last September, but continued deadly Taliban attacks on Afghan and U.S. troops prompted President Donald Trump to halt the peace process. The negotiations resumed in December, and marked progress has been achieved since then. 
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U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has said China tops the list of the Pentagon’s potential adversaries, followed by Russia and what he called “rogue states” like North Korea and Iran. Esper made the comments at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, where hundreds of world leaders and military personnel are gathered to discuss global conflicts. Henry Ridgwell reports from the meeting.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy vowed Saturday to end the separatist conflict in the east of his country, where fighting between Russia-backed rebels and Ukrainian troops has killed more than 14,000 people since 2014.Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Zelenskiy said he hopes to end the conflict by the end of his presidential term in 2024.“If in five years, we will end the war, bring our people back, then I did (became president) for a reason,” he said.The conflict in eastern Ukraine erupted in April 2014, weeks after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, and has devastated the country’s industrial heartland.Thanking the United States for supporting Ukraine in its conflict with Russia, Zelenskiy expressed hope to “start afresh” Kyiv’s relations with the U.S. now that proceedings for President Donald Trump’s impeachment are over.Ukraine and Zelenskiy were at the center of the impeachment hearings. In a phone call in July that triggered a congressional inquiry, Trump pressured Zelenskiy to investigate the involvement of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son with Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company.In Munich, Zelenskiy said he wants to visit the White House, and he invited Trump to Kyiv.“We have a good relationship with the U.S., and I’m grateful to Americans for their support,” he said.Zelenskiy, a 42-year-old comic actor with no political experience, won Ukraine’s presidential election in 2019 on promises to end the fighting. He has expressed willingness to negotiate a peace agreement with Russia.However, several contentious issues complicate the peace process, including Ukraine regaining control of its border and allowing elections that would give rebel-controlled regions more autonomy.Zelenskiy said Saturday in Munich he wants local elections held across Ukraine, including certain areas of the east, in October. But the votes can’t take place while fighting continues, he said.“People in Donbass need elections that would be recognized as legitimate. But they can’t be that if held not in accordance with Ukrainian laws, to the sound of gunfire and without (Kyiv’s) control of Ukraine’s border,” the president said.Zelenskiy announced discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin in April about another exchange of prisoners. There are currently 200 Ukrainians held in the rebel-controlled areas, Zelenskiy said.
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Airbus said Saturday it “deeply regrets” the U.S. decision “to increase tariffs on aircraft imported from the EU.”The European aerospace corporation said in a statement the new tariffs would heighten “trade tensions between the US and the EU, thereby creating more instability for US airlines that are already suffering from a shortage of aircraft.”The U.S. Trade Representative’s Office said Friday tariffs on aircraft imported from the European Union would rise from 10% to 15%.The tariff hike is expected to go into effect on March 18.The Airbus statement said the tariffs create “more instability for US airlines that are already suffering from a shortage of aircraft.”The jet shortage U.S. airlines are experiencing follows the decision by U.S. plane builder Boeing to take its popular 737 MAX planes out of service after crashes that claimed the lives of 346 people.Talks between the U.S. and the European Union are expected to continue.
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Turkey is deploying tanks and armor in Syria’s Idlib province as Damascus continues its offensive against the last rebel enclave. But in an apparent gesture to Moscow, Ankara is pledging to crack down on radical elements in Idlib, along with calls for “a lasting cease-fire.”  Damascus’s forces are claiming they are advancing against the rebels’ last stronghold. But in a sign of the intensifying fighting, rebels claimed to have to shot down a Syrian government military helicopter Friday, the second this week.  A screen grab taken from a video published by jihadists of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham allegedly shows a Syrian military helicopter being downed, Feb. 12, 2020, in Syria’s war-torn province of Idlib.Ankara reportedly is stepping up its arming of rebels with sophisticated anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons, along with deploying hundreds of armored vehicles and tanks.  The escalating military presence follows Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s vow to drive back Damascus’s forces from Idlib if they don’t withdraw by the end of February. The ultimatum followed the killing of 14 Turkish soldiers this month by Syrian troops.However, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar appeared to strike a different note Thursday, pledging to crack down on radicals in Idlib. Akar said they would be “dealt with by force” and that “all measures” would be considered against them.  The Turkish defense minister was referring to the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which Damascus forces are battling in Idlib. The radical group is now a mainstay of rebel groups in Idlib.  Moscow blames Ankara for the Damascus offensive, claiming it had failed to disarm and remove radical groups as part of a 2018 Sochi agreement aimed at creating a de-escalation zone in Idlib.“The Turkish side had taken upon itself an obligation to neutralize terrorist groups” in Idlib, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov Friday.Blame gameErdogan had dismissed Moscow’s calls to disarm radical groups, claiming the Russians were responsible for the Idlib fighting, in an increasingly acrimonious blame game.Washington, sensing an opportunity to create a disagreement between Ankara and Moscow, strongly backed Erdogan’s stance in Idlib. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo dispatched Ambassador Jim Jeffrey for emergency talks Wednesday. Jeffrey, speaking to reporters Tuesday ahead of negotiations, appeared to suggest every kind of support would be considered, stoking Ankara’s hopes of military support.U.S. National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien appeared to rule out such a move Wednesday, however, asking, “What are we supposed to do to stop that? We’re supposed to parachute in as a global policeman and hold up a stop sign and say stop this, Turkey? Stop this, Russia? Stop this, Iran? Stop this, Syria?”U.S. special envoy for Syria and the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS Jim Jeffrey speaks during a news conference at the State Department in Washington, Nov. 14, 2019.A slap at Washington Turkish pro-government media were quick to hit back Friday against Washington, accusing its NATO ally of duplicity. “James Jeffrey’s deceit can clearly be read on his face. He is running wild at the peak of insolence. Who can call him human,” wrote columnist Taner Korkmaz of the Turkish daily Yeni Safak.Turkish Chief of Staff Yasar Guler spoke Thursday with his Russian counterpart, General Valery Gerasimov, about the situation in Idlib, the Turkish military announced on Twitter. “Erdogan is still a pragmatic man. He still thinks he can win. He can persuade Putin to give him some favors in Syria,” said analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners.Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu is scheduled to meet his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, Sunday on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.Displaced Syrians pass a house still on fire as they flee shelling on the town of Abyan, in the western rebel-held part of the northern Syrian province of Aleppo, near the border with Turkey, Feb. 12, 2020.No refugee exodusInternational relations expert Soli Ozel of Istanbul’s Kadir Has University says Ankara could be looking to Moscow to save the 2018 Sochi agreement based on rebels giving up territory.   “The best solution is for the Turkish military to withdraw north of the M4 and leave the two highways to the regime,” Ozel said. “And the regime will send a couple of hundred thousand refugees, and we will be stuck with them, at least not in Turkey.”Ozel claims Erdogan’s priority in Idlib is to avert another significant exodus of refugees into Turkey, given the country is hosting of 3.5 million Syrians from the civil war.  The United Nations said Thursday more than 800,000 Syrians had been displaced by fighting in Idlib, with 64,000 sleeping outside and another 14,000 under trees in sub-freezing temperatures. Many reportedly are moving toward the Turkish border.“The level of tolerance of Turkish society for an extra number of Syrians is zero,” Ozel said. “It would generate a lot of tensions. I would be very concerned with inter-communal violence through the vilification of the Syrians, and it would be a pretty precarious situation, I think.”President of Turkey and leader of Justice and Development (AK) Party Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks at the party’s group meeting at Grand National Assembly of Turkey in Ankara, Feb.12, 2020.Sliding economyA slowing economy is exacerbating Turkish discontent over Syrians, with youth unemployment at nearly 25%. Erdogan’s ratings in opinion polls, along with his AKP, are on the slide.Analysts also warn of a potential security threat of an exodus from Idlib, given the presence of large numbers of jihadists.“These radical elements can easily escape into areas of large concentrations of Syrian nationals. In some places, Syrians in Turkey are the majority,” said Haldun Solmazturk, head of the Ankara-based research group the 21st Century Turkey Institute. “If these groups feel betrayed by Turkey, they could use terrorist methods against Turkey,” Solmazlurk said.Ankara already is seeking to curtail the threat of a new refugee exodus. “They are building in a band within 30 miles of the Turkish border, thousands of temporary houses,” Yesilada said.“Which means that if [Syrian leader Bashir al-] Assad wishes to take them back, Turkish military forces will defend those settlements? [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel has reportedly vaguely promised to help finance those settlements. But would these people stay in such settlements with Assad breathing down their necks,” he added. 
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The European Union is being urged to become more militarily involved in Africa’s Sahel region amid a possible drawdown of U.S. troops and a fast-growing Islamist insurgency.Fallout from escalating unrest in the arid scrubland edging the Sahara dessert — threatening to push deeper into sub-Saharan Africa and potentially export instability and migration across the Mediterranean Sea — offers a powerful argument for more European action. That is also the message from France, the United States and the EU’s own executive arm.But it’s not clear whether EU member states have much appetite for more military action. And current EU policy in the region, some analysts say, appears disjointed and scattershot.This pictured taken July 2, 2018 shows the logo of five-nation French-backed anti-terror unit, the “G5 Sahel” force.“We have more than 20 Sahel strategies from European countries,” said Bakary Sambe, director of the Timbuktu Institute, a Senegal-based research group. “That means there is no coordination — while the terrorist groups are coordinating, are trying to support each other and are multiplying their attacks against the countries.”Creating a cohesive European Sahel strategy will be tested next month, during a Brussels meeting that will involve the five African nations most affected by the conflict, known as the G5 Sahel, and EU leaders.   Adding to the pressure are chances the United States may cut troops in Africa — along with a newly released government report describing a U.S. strategic shift from reducing to containing the armed threat in the Sahel. Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger make up the G5 Sahel.The March meeting with G5 leaders “will be the occasion to see how we can have a more effective strategy in the short, medium and long term” in the region, European Council President Charles Michel told Radio France Internationale, or RFI, in an interview this week. European Council President Charles Michel talks to the media during a news conference in Skopje, North Macedonia, Jan. 24, 2020. Guns not enoughExperts say guns alone won’t solve a spiraling humanitarian crisis that has killed thousands of soldiers and civilians, displaced hundreds of thousands of people, and left millions in need of assistance. Attacks in three of the most affected Sahel countries — Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger — have doubled each year since 2015, according to the U.S. government-funded Africa Center for Strategic Studies. “We begin to fear the very existence of the Sahel states is threatened,” African Union Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat told Le Monde newspaper, ahead of a recent AU summit that focused on the conflict, among other threats.  French President Emmanuel Macron meets soldiers of Operation Barkhane, France’s largest overseas military operation, in Gao, northern Mali, May 19, 2017.For now, former colonial power France is shouldering most of Europe’s military response. Earlier this month, Paris announced it was adding 600 troops to its 4,500-person Operation Barkhane force in the region.   But Barkhane’s presence has fueled public protests in the region — a key subject of a January summit in the French town of Pau between French President Emmanuel Macron and Sahel leaders. Moreover, the deaths of 13 French soldiers in a November helicopter collision has fed criticism at home that France is mired in a conflict it cannot win.A potential U.S. drawdown in the Sahel would mark another setback. Earlier this month, French Defense Minister Florence Parly headed to Washington to lobby against the possibility.  French Minister of Armed Forces Florence Parly speaks during a news conference at the Pentagon, Jan. 27, 2020.France’s Operation Barkhane “will not collapse if the United States withdraws their military assets,” defense expert Elie Tenenbaum told Le Monde, but it would see fewer fighter plane dispatches and reduced intelligence operations, among other changes. “The position of the United States is very clear — they don’t want to be involved in hard strategies, like France,” said analyst Sambe. “They invest in soft power. They empower West African countries to develop strategies against violent extremism.”Yet for now, at least, hard power is also in demand.“We need very strong military actions to stop the jihadist groups before they reach the coastal regions and link up with criminal networks, drugs and weapons,” Sambe said, naming countries like Senegal, Ghana and Guinea.  French President Emmanuel Macron, right, greets Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita prior to a meeting at the G5 Sahel summit in Pau, southwestern France, Jan.13, 2020.Some African countries are responding. Chad was mulling deploying a battalion to the tri-border region of Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali that is considered the epicenter of the violence.Mali plans to recruit 10,000 new soldiers — even as President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita told RFI his government was in contact with armed groups as a way to explore other “avenues” to end the violence.  At the same time, the AU announced it would not start using a new fund for security operations until 2023, after it received less than half the contributions it hoped for.  European responseIn Europe, France is pushing for greater EU involvement in counterterrorism operations in the Sahel, notably through a new special forces task force called Takuba. But so far, not many EU countries have agreed or expressed interest in joining.  And crucially, analysts say, France is not getting enough buy-in from its most important European partner, Germany. “France believes Germany hasn’t done enough” in the Sahel, Le Monde wrote this week, even as the Germans “reproach France for not working collectively.”“France now wants better engagement from European countries so it can really be seen as cooperation between Sahelian countries and Europe — not just France alone,” analyst Sambe said, “but I don’t think the European countries are following France in this strategy.”France is not alone in urging greater European participation.“The French are calling on Europe to step up and do more” in the Sahel, the head of U.S. Africa Command, General Stephen Townsend, said in January, adding, “I absolutely think that is the right thing to do.”European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell gives a press briefing after his meetings with Iranian leaders, in Tehran, Feb. 3, 2020.EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell offered a similar message last month, saying Europe “must absolutely do more” in the Sahel, while adding the bloc had agreed to enhance its strategic cooperation.  To be sure, the EU has not been inactive. The so-called Sahel Alliance, grouping France, Germany, the EU and development institutions, has designated billions of dollars for regional development initiatives. Overall, the EU counts among the region’s biggest humanitarian donors, contributing more than $200 million to the crisis last year alone.  Experts also note that having more boots on the ground is only a partial answer to the jihadist insurgency. What is needed, many say, is better governance and more investment in education and development.“France has a very military approach in the region,” analyst Sambe said. “But I always say you have never seen a Kalashnikov [rifle] killing an ideology.”  
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NATO says it will draw down troop levels in Afghanistan if the Taliban show they are willing and able to end violence in the country. That announcement followed a tentative deal struck between the U.S. and the Taliban this week. NATO’s secretary-general made the comments at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, where world leaders assembled to discuss the numerous threats facing the world. VOA’s Henry Ridgwell reports from the conference.
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Kosovo and Serbia have signed a deal to reopen a highway and resume rail service between them. The agreement, signed Friday on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, was brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy for the Belgrade-Pristina talks, Ambassador Richard Grenell.  Grenell said the deal represented “historic progress on economic development. Agreements on air, rail and highway connections will facilitate the flow of people and goods between Kosovo and Serbia.” The move came after a January deal signed in Berlin to launch direct commercial flights between Pristina and Belgrade. Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi, writing on Twitter, called the agreement “another milestone! First, the deal on air traffic and today we signed the deal on railways and highways between Kosovo and Serbia. A great step towards reaching a final peace agreement between two countries.” Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that the deal “will create a better future and ensure peace for the coming decades.” Stalled talksEuropean Union-mediated talks between Serbia and Kosovo over normalizing relations stalled after the previous Kosovo government imposed 100% tariffs on Serbian goods to protest efforts by Belgrade to block Kosovo’s accession into international organizations. Belgrade has said it will not return to the negotiating table until the tariffs are lifted. Kosovo authorities have been under relentless pressure from Western allies to remove the tariffs. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appealed for action to new Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti.  In a letter to Kurti, Pompeo said, “Now is the time to realize comprehensive normalization with Serbia, centered on mutual recognition, which is essential to Kosovo’s full international recognition.”  “Ending tariffs on goods from Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina will be important in bringing parties back to [the] negotiating table,” he added. Kurti has pledged to abolish the tariffs on Serbian imports, but he announced that he would introduce “measures of full reciprocity in trade, politics and economy” with Serbia. On Monday, Kosovo will mark its 12th anniversary of independence, which has been recognized by more than 110 countries including the United States, but not by Serbia and its ally, Russia. 
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Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is calling on the Bulgarian authorities to stop trying to intimidate journalists, who the watchdog says are subjected to “personal and offensive” verbal attacks and threats by very senior officials.In a statement on February 13, Pauline Ades-Mevel, the head of RSF’s EU and Balkans desk, said European Parliament President David Sassoli should “clearly condemn these disgraceful attacks,” saying the bloc “cannot allow journalists to be threatened in such an institutional and systematic manner” in a member state.At a press conference in Sofia on February 4, Prime Minister Boyko Borisov likened journalists to turkeys and, in an attempt to mock them, tried to imitate the gobbling of a turkey for a few seconds, the Paris-based media watchdog said.The next day in Brussels, Prosecutor-General Ivan Geshev turned on the editor of the investigative news website Bivol, whose articles have suggested that the official has been involved in questionable transactions.Instead of responding to Atanas Tchobanov’s questions, Geshev started putting questions to the journalist that showed he had information about his private life.Meanwhile, a Bulgarian member of the European Parliament, Aleksandr Yordanov, called Tchobanov a “little provocateur” when the journalist asked him a about a case of corruption in which one of his colleague is allegedly involved.And on February 11, Bulgarian National Assembly deputy speaker Valeri Simeonov accused two journalists with the commercial TV channel bTV of being “corrupt” and asked prosecutors to investigate them for failing to report alleged links between the owner of online casino Efbet and gambling czar Vasil Bozhkov, who has recently been arrested on charges on charges of tax fraud, attempted bribery, and organized crime.The bTV Media Group defended its reporters, Venelin Petkov and Anton Hekimyan, saying that “the journalist’s role is to report the truth after verifying and investigating.””Bulgaria has been experiencing a serious media crisis for the past decade because many media outlets are owned by just a few oligarchs and journalists are constantly subjected to harassment,” according to RSF.The country ranks 111th out of 180 countries listed on RSF’s World Press Freedom Index — the lowest ranking of any EU member state.
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A fire swept through a Haitian children’s home run by a Pennsylvania-based nonprofit group, killing 13 children, health care workers said Friday.
Rose-Marie Louis, a child-care worker at the home, told The Associated Press that she saw 13 children’s bodies being carried out of the Orphanage of the Church of Bible Understanding in the Kenscoff area outside Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital.
Marie-Sonia Chery, a nurse at the nearby Baptist Mission Hospital, confirmed that 13 boys and girls had died.
Louis, who worked at the home, said the fire began around 9 p.m. Thursday and firefighters took about 1.5 hours to arrive. The orphanage had been using candles for light due to problems with its generator and inverter, she said.
About half of those who died were babies or toddlers and the others were roughly 10 or 11 years old, Louis said.
Catiana Joseph, a doctor at the Baptist hospital, gave a different account, saying the victims were between three and 18 years old. There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy.
Rescue workers arrived at the scene on motorcycles and didn’t have bottled oxygen or the ambulances needed to transport the children to the hospital, said Jean-Francois Robenty, a civil protection official.
“They could have been saved,” he said. ”We didn’t have the equipment to save their lives.”
Robenty said officials believed other children’s bodies remained inside and emergency workers were trying to pull them out on Friday.
Orphanage workers on the scene said they believed two bodies were still inside.
The Associated Press has reported on a long-standing series of problems at two children’s homes run by the Church of Bible Understanding.
The Church of Bible Understanding lost accreditation for its homes after a series of inspections beginning in November 2012. Haitian inspectors faulted the group for overcrowding, unsanitary conditions and not having enough adequately trained staff.
Members of the religious group were selling expensive antiques at high-end stores in New York and Los Angeles and using a portion of the profits to fund the homes.
The Associated Press made an unannounced visit to the group’s two homes, holding a total of 120 kids, in 2013 and found bunk beds with faded and worn mattresses crowded into dirty rooms. Sour air wafted through the bathrooms and stairwells. Rooms were dark and spartan, lacking comforts or decoration.
The Church of Bible Understanding, based in Scranton, Pennsylvania, operates two homes for nearly 200 children in Haiti as part of a “Christian training program,” according to its most recent nonprofit organization filing. It has operated in the country since 1977. It identifies the homes as orphanages but it is common in Haiti for impoverished parents to place children in residential care centers, where they receive lodging and widely varying education for several years but are not technically orphans.
“We take in children who are in desperate situations,” the organization says in its tax filing for 2017, the most recent year available. “Many of them were very close to death when we took them in.” The nonprofit reported revenue of $6.6 million and expenses of $2.2 million for the year.
A member of the organization who identified himself only as “Jim” on a phone call referred questions on the fire to their lawyer in Haiti, whom he would not identify.         
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Jewish leaders called Friday for better policing of hate speech on social media platforms over concerns prompted by recent attacks that people on the margins of society are being incited online to violence.Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis and chief rabbi of Moscow, said online radicalization was giving rise not only to more anti-Semitic incidents, but also hate crimes directed at Muslims and others.“The strength and power given by social media to people on the margins of society is causing chaos,” he said, citing attacks in New Zealand, Germany and the United States.“Last year, 2019, there were quite a few attacks against houses of worship — mosques, synagogues and churches.”The event, sponsored by Goldschmidt’s organization and the World Jewish Congress, came on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, which was being attended by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, though he was not present for the discussion.Goldschmidt said that with legal protections for free speech, it was hard for governments to police hate speech effectively, but that private companies had more flexibility.“A private company that gives a platform, whether it’s a theater or a Facebook page, definitely has the ability and the right to limit speech,” he said.Michel Friedman, a prominent German Jewish leader, said, however, that governments could do more if they made the issue a priority, saying that authorities have been effectively combating online financial crimes.“If we are able when it’s about the economy to react very quickly on cyber crime, why not hate crime?” he said.But regulating what can and can’t be said is a thorny issue, said Alex Samos, former chief security officer of Facebook.“Discussions about what is lawful or not lawful speech are extremely complicated,” he said.He noted that there are many different layers to Facebook — private pages, public groups, private groups and the person-to-person Messenger application which, to monitor, would be akin to listening in on private phone calls.“I don’t think that anybody here would say that Deutsche Telekom should listen in to every phone call in Germany, and if you say something racist someone pops in and tells you you’re wrong,” he said.He also stressed that social media had given voice to far more than just hate speech, saying that the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements in the U.S. were able to address long-standing issues of racism and sexual harassment and sexual assault only because a broader group of people were able to speak out.“Those two problems existed 30 years ago, the difference is that the people who decided what political topics were acceptable in the United States were 40 middle-aged white men,” he said.“People love to focus on the negative impact of new things, but there’s a huge amount of positive impact from allowing a much broader set of people to speak in a democracy.”
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French President Emmanuel Macron has unveiled a plan to protect glaciers and biodiversity in the French mountains. During a visit to the Alpine resort town of Chamonix on Thursday, Macron spoke of the importance of fighting climate change and preserving biodiversity to mark the launch of the French biodiversity office. He also visited a shrinking glacier above Chamonix to draw attention to the effects of global warming. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports Macron’s action came a day after the European Space Agency published satellite images of a large iceberg that broke off from a glacier in the Antarctica.
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The United States is trying to ease concerns about its decision to withdraw conventional troops from Africa and replace them with specialized military trainers.Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Thursday the move will leave “roughly the same number of troops on the continent,” while giving U.S. commanders the capability to bolster partner forces.Speaking with reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels, Esper said the move to swap out combat troops for trainers is based on observations by U.S. Africa Command Commander, General Stephen Townsend.“He [Townsend] thinks it’s a better fit than what we currently do,” Esper said. “The SFABs (Security Force Assistance Brigades) are specifically designed to do that train-and-assist mission, which we know partner countries there want.”The Pentagon announced Wednesday that it would start bringing home members of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division in the coming weeks, the first of many moves expected to impact the 6,000 U.S. troops currently in Africa.”It frees up, collectively, to train, over 4,000 troops” for great power competition missions, per @EsperDoD to reporters on decision to pull combat troops from Africa & replace them w/military trainers— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) February 13, 2020Officials have yet to announce how many conventional forces will be leaving, but Esper said Thursday they will be replaced by roughly a couple of hundred forces from the Army’s 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade.The brigade has previous experience working with the Afghan military and building relationships there, something that defense officials hope will pay off as they begin their missions in Africa.”We have some spotlight countries, as we call them, where we either want to build or sustain important relationships,” Esper said.Still, there are questions about how successful the trainers can be, stemming in part from their experience in Afghanistan.”The U.S. Army continues to struggle with staffing these units with the required number of skilled personnel, and with keeping personnel assigned to these units long enough to create enduring partnerships with a foreign force,” the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction said in a June 2019 report.The report also warned, “there still is not enough theater-specific training focused on the host nation’s security institutions, systems, processes and weapons.”Defense officials say they are aware of the criticisms but note that some of the concerns, like the turnover rate, apply equally to conventional forces like the ones currently in Africa. They also say the trainers will be better positioned to respond to the needs of individual partner nations.U.S. military officials also contend that American military training available through the Security Force Assistance Brigade will continue to be superior to anything offered by Russia or China, especially in the fight against terrorist groups linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State.”China and Russia do very little to help Africans combat the brutal terrorist networks plaguing them,” Africa Command’s General Stephen Townsend said in a statement Thursday, following talks in Kenya and Somalia.”U.S. training, equipment and advice directly support our African partners,” he added.  But despite what Townsend and others view as a growing terror threat, Esper on Thursday ruled out sending more U.S. forces, particularly to West Africa and the Sahel.”The Sahel is principally a CT [counterterror] mission,” Esper said. “I’m not looking to put more troops in that fight.”In West #Africa, “I’m not looking to put more troops in that fight. The French are” per @EsperDoD “They [#France] are asking the European partners to provide more help””What I’m looking to do to deal w/CT [counterterrorism] threats that threaten the [US] homeland” per Esper— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) February 13, 2020 #alShabaab? @CarlaBabbVOA: “Al Shabaab has been identified by AFRICOM officials as one that wants to attack the homeland…”@EsperDoD: “I’m not sure where you got that information… I’ve not seen a final assessment on that”— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) February 13, 2020″The French are,” he said, adding that both France and the U.S. are urging European nations to do more.During a visit to the Pentagon last month, French Defense Minister Florence Parly said that while she understood the U.S. need to reposition troops away from the region, some U.S. capabilities, such as intelligence and surveillance, were irreplaceable.Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb contributed to this report. 
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Spanish opposition parties are calling for an investigation of a mysterious midnight meeting between Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez and a senior Spanish cabinet official in Madrid’s airport last month, arguing that the session undercut Europe-wide sanctions against the Venezuelan government of President Nicolas Maduro.Lawmakers demanded at a stormy parliamentary session Wednesday that Transport Minister Jose Luis Abalos explain what was discussed at the meeting with Rodriguez, who along with 24 other Venezuelan officials is barred from entering the European Union.Abalos acknowledges that he arranged the brief stopover for Rodriguez when her aircraft landed in Spain on its way to Turkey on Jan. 20. The government argues that it seeks to negotiate democratic elections in Venezuela and that transit lounge meeting was designed to avoid a diplomatic incident.“I achieved not creating a problem in the diplomatic sphere with a government with which we want to have elections without coups,” said Abalos, echoing Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s repeated calls for elections in Venezuela “as soon as possible.”EU sanctions violatedHowever, Eliot Abrams, the U.S. State Department’s special envoy for Venezuela, told the Spanish newspaper ABC that the meeting did violate the EU sanctions, which bar leading Venezuelan officials from entering EU territory including its air space. He called for the Spanish media and Congress to investigate the Madrid stopover.Since word of the airport meeting was first leaked to the media by sources in the Spanish police, Abalos has offered shifting explanations of the encounter. After first saying that the meeting consisted of only a casual greeting, he later admitted they had talked for 20 minutes on board her airplane.Second meeting heldSpanish news outlets have since reported that Abados and Rodriguez held a second meeting for an hour in the airport’s VIP lounge.The incident has heightened suspicion among Spain’s conservative opposition that the Socialist-led government is backing away from its previous support for Venezuela’s democratic opposition.Sanchez was among the first European leaders to recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as the interim president of Venezuela, but he has since formed a new coalition that relies on the support of the far-left Podemos party, which has longstanding ties to Maduro.Sanchez notably failed to meet with Guaido during a tour of Europe last month by the Venezuelan National Assembly president, who is recognized as interim president by the United States and more than 60 other countries. Guaido did secure meetings with the leaders of Britain, France, Germany and other nations.’Motives’ questionedThe apparent snub, which was blamed on a scheduling conflict, prompted a subtle rebuke from the United States. “We don’t know the motives of [Prime Minister] Sanchez, but urge chiefs of government to meet with the interim president to know firsthand what happens on the ground,” said Carrie Filipetti, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of State for Cuba and Venezuela.Despite that concern, U.S. President Donald Trump praised the “close friendship and shared history” between the United States and Spain this week in announcing a coming state visit to Washington by Spain’s King Felipe and his wife.
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Italy’s far-right leader, Matteo Salvini, Thursday defended his position not to allow more than 100 migrants, who had been rescued at sea, to disembark from a coast guard vessel for six days last July. He said it was a shared decision with other members in the government.
Salvini, who was interior minister and deputy prime minister at the time, added that it was his duty to defend his nation as a citizen and even more so as a minister.He said he does not think he will be found guilty in a trial.The far-right leader was speaking one day after the Senate voted to lift his immunity from prosecution that had until now shielded him as a former Cabinet minister from being sent to trial. Now magistrates in Sicily will be able to press charges against him for abuse of power and kidnapping.It is not clear when such a trial will begin but should Salvini be convicted, he could face a sentence of six months to 15 years in prison. He could also be barred from holding public office.Salvini continues to promise he will return to power and says he believes in the impartiality of the judiciary.
Some Italians are voicing skepticism about the consequences of the vote now that the Senate has acted. Many say they doubt anything will occur because they think the judicial system moves very slowly.  
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The career U.S. diplomat who was ousted from her post in Ukraine by President Donald Trump, then was criticized by him as she testified at his impeachment hearings, warned that the State Department is facing a crisis with senior leaders who lack “vision.”
Marie Yovanovitch, accepting an award at Georgetown University on Wednesday, portrayed the department as “in trouble” and under threat even as she sought to encourage her audience of mostly students not to give up on diplomacy as a career.
Yovanovitch urged students to follow in her footsteps because the U.S. “needs diplomats that are ready and capable.”
“This country needs a robust foreign policy,” Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine, said as she accepted the Trainor Award for excellence in diplomacy from the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University.
But she noted that the State Department is being “hollowed out” under Trump and that the art of diplomacy has become less of a priority under his administration.
“Right now, the State Department is in trouble,” Yovanovitch said in accepting the award. “Senior leaders lack policy vision, moral clarity and leadership.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been criticized by former diplomats and others for not coming to the defense of Yovanovitch, a charge he has denied.
Yovanovitch praised the “quiet work of diplomacy” as a way to ensure peace and prosperity in the world.
“It sounds so old-fashioned in our high-tech world, but diplomacy is about human interaction, and creating relationships of trust is more important than ever,” she said. “It’s not as exciting as sending in the Marines, but it’s cheaper and usually more effective in the long term.”
The award, named for Raymond “Jit” Trainor, a former official at the Walsh School of Foreign Service, is presented annually to “an outstanding practitioner” of diplomacy. Recipients have included former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo and former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Thomas Pickering, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Yovanovitch showed courage not just at diplomatic posts in Russia and elsewhere but in her willingness to testify before Congress, when she was publicly denounced on Twitter by Trump.
“She has, in every sense of the word, acted in the highest tradition of those who serve our country,” said Pickering, himself a recipient of the Trainor Award.
Yovanovitch was making her first public appearance since her testimony to Congress about her efforts to press the government of Ukraine to address longstanding U.S. policy concerns about corruption. At that time a back-channel effort led by Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani sought to push the government of the eastern European nation to dig up political dirt to help Trump’s reelection.
Giuliani was part of a campaign that led the Republican president to order Yovanovitch’s removal from her post ahead of schedule last spring. Trump appeared to threaten her, saying she “would go through some things,” in a July phone call with the leader of Ukraine that was at the center of the impeachment case against Trump.
Yovanovitch made light of the call during the Georgetown ceremony in one of her few direct references to impeachment. “When you go through some things,” she said, drawing laughter, “to fall back on cliche you have to dig deep a little bit.”
She did not address the back-channel efforts explicitly but warned about the state of diplomacy more broadly at a time when authoritarianism seems to be on the rise.
“To be blunt, an amoral, keep ’em guessing foreign policy that substitutes threats, fear and confusion for trust cannot work over the long haul,” she said.
Yovanovitch, who was removed from her post in May 2019 with no public explanation, described to Congress a “concerted campaign” against her based on “unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives.”
Trump publicly criticized her as she testified, saying on Twitter that “everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad.” Yet, in a nearly 34-year career at the State Department, she received a series of promotions under both Republican and Democratic administrations, with positions that included ambassador to Kyrgyzstan and Armenia.
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Pentagon chief Mark Esper will join hundreds of global leaders in Germany Friday for the three-day Munich Security Conference.Numerous security flashpoints around the world, from Syria, Yemen and Iran to Hong Kong, Ukraine and Libya, add to the growing tension and unease ahead of the summit, which takes place against the backdrop of the coronavirus outbreak and a global climate emergency.The United States’ large delegation is a sign that the Washington wants to counter accusations that it is disengaging, says analyst Elisabeth Braw of Britain’s Royal United Services Institute, who is attending the annual Munich conference.”As we speak actually the U.S. is beginning its largest military exercise in Europe in a quarter of a century,” noted Braw in an interview with VOA. “And that’s worth remembering when we talk about the U.S. disconnecting or disengaging from Europe.”US-Iran tensionsWashington’s biggest showdown in Munich is likely to be with Iran, which is sending Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif to the summit. He and several other world leaders and government ministers will be given around 15 minutes to address the conference, before question and answer sessions. Several bilateral meetings usually take place on the sidelines of the conference, which is seen as a key annual event to sustain dialogue between global strategic rivals.The U.S. killed top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike earlier this year.  Retaliatory air strikes by Iran on U.S. bases culminated in the accidental shooting down of a Ukrainian Airlines passenger jet, killing all 176 people on board.Conference host, former German Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger, hopes the conference will offer a lifeline for the Iran nuclear deal that the U.S. withdrew from, with Europe at the forefront of negotiations.FILE – Wolfgang Ischinger, chairman of the Munich Security Conference is seen during his closing speech at last year’s Munich Security Conference, in Munich, southern Germany, Feb. 17, 2019.”To stick to it and to expand on it through negotiations on ballistic systems, regional security architecture, the fight against terrorism. Could Iran stop supporting Hezbollah?” Ischinger suggested at a press conference Wednesday ahead of the conference.The killing of Soleimani on Iraqi soil triggered a backlash from Baghdad, and a non-binding vote in the Iraqi parliament to expel the five-thousand U.S. troops in the country.NATO is discussing taking over the training mission for Iraqi forces battling Islamic State – a proposal welcomed by U.S. Secretary of Defense Esper, who spoke to reporters en route to Europe.”To the degree that NATO can offset the U.S. presence, that would over time allow us to bring some forces home,” Esper said.Meanwhile the conflict in Syria continues to destabilize the Middle East region, with Ankara warning of revenge against Damascus for the deaths of Turkish soldiers in clashes this week.The escalating war in Libya is also top of the European agenda, with fears growing of a proxy war as global powers back rival sides in the conflict. The EU fears a spike in migrant arrivals across the Mediterranean. Europe is also pushing for the climate change to top the security agenda at the meeting.There is hope that peace talks may be progressing in Afghanistan, with reports the U.S. and the Taliban could be close to a deal.FILE – Participants are seen during a podium discussion at last year’s Munich Security Conference, in Munich, southern Germany, Feb. 17, 2019.Coronavirus fearsChina’s foreign minister Wang Yi will attend the conference against the backdrop of the coronavirus outbreak, the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, and U.S.-led efforts to halt the rise of Chinese telecoms firm Huawei.The director-general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, will update the conference on the global fight against the spread of the coronavirus, which has been officially named as ‘COVID-19’. The WHO recently warned that the global threat from the virus could exceed that of terrorism.Meanwhile Russia’s support for rebel forces in eastern Ukraine continues to stoke tensions with Europe. France recently called for re-engagement with Moscow, and President Emmanuel Macron will attend the Munich Security Conference for the first time. His message will not be universally welcomed, says analyst Braw.”Many central and eastern Europeans would be very concerned if other European countries and the U.S. made overtures towards Russia.”Moscow will be represented by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.As global tensions soar, leaders from across the world will be confined to the historic Bayerischer Hof hotel in central Munich, for three days of what will likely be fiery talks.
 
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British Finance Minister Sajid Javid announced his resignation Thursday, a development that came unexpectedly as Prime Minister Boris Johnson reorganizes his Cabinet.Javid’s resignation followed reports of tensions between him and Johnson’s top advisor, Dominic Cummings.His announcement came less than one month before he was scheduled to unveil his first budget and as the government tries to negotiate a new relationship with the European Union by the end of the year.The 50-year-old Javid is a former banker who transitioned into politics, serving first as interior minister.Javid said in his first speech before parliament his experience as a banker prepared him to be a politician because both professions are disliked by the public. 
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France marks the 60th anniversary of nuclear weapons tests that turned it into one of the world’s first nuclear powers.  That was at the height of the Cold War.  But critics claim more than three decades of testing — first in Algeria and later French Polynesia — left many scars, including victims who remain uncompensated. On February 13, 1960, France conducted its first nuclear test in Algeria’s southern Sahara desert. “Hurray for France,” then-French President Charles de Gaulle wrote at the time.  But Jean-Claude Hervieux has other memories. He joined the French testing efforts in Algeria as an electrician. He recalls another nuclear test, in 1962, which didn’t go according to plan.  Radioactive dust and rock escaped from underground. Hervieux and others witnessing the testing ran for cover. Two French ministers were among them. The group showered in military barracks to decontaminate. He laughs because it wasn’t often French ministers are seen in the buff.  A danger sign is seen at a French nuclear test site in In-Ekker, near Ain Meguel in southern Algeria, Feb. 25, 2010.France ended up conducting more than 200 nuclear tests until a later president, Jacques Chirac, ended them in 1996. Most took place in French Polynesia. But 17 took place in Algeria between 1960 and 1966, ending four years after Algeria’s independence from France. “It’s part of the whole issue of decolonization and Algerians in general asking for recognition of colonization crimes,” said Brahim Oumansour, a North Africa analyst at the French Institute of International Relations in Paris. He said that proper recognition and financial compensation for the Algerian tests could cost millions of dollars.  Hervieux spent a decade working on nuclear test sites in Algeria and later French Polynesia. Now 80 and living in France’s Lyon area, he says he’s physically fine — although he used to get some questionable radioactive testing results from the French government.  Roland Desbordes is a former French physicist and spokesman for an independent French atomic safety research group called CRIIRAD. He’s visited the Algerian test sites.  Desbordes said he detected radiation levels in some places that were colossal. Algerian nomads visited the sites to collect material left by the French. He believes the French government should declassify key information about the explosions. But he also blames Algerian authorities for failing to properly seal the desert sites.  France’s nuclear compensation commission, CIVEN, said more than 1,600 claims have been filed under a 2010 French law that finally acknowledged health problems related to the testing.Only about one-third have met compensation criteria that include about two dozen possible radiation-related cancers. Almost all the claims came from France and its overseas territory. Of the 51 claims from Algeria, only one has been compensated.  CIVEN Director Ludovic Gerin said the commission can only judge the Algerian claims it receives. He said the sicknesses described in the few that did come in didn’t match compensation criteria. And he said the commission couldn’t actively go out and search for other victims.
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Political and military leaders from across the world head to Germany for the three-day Munich Security Conference that opens Friday. As Henry Ridgwell reports from Munich, from Iran to Hong Kong, Ukraine to Libya, there is no shortage of security flashpoints — and the conflicts are taking place against the backdrop of the coronavirus outbreak and a global climate emergency.
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