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Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced high-level intelligence and diplomatic talks with Egypt on Friday. The bilateral talks are the first since the 2013 ousting of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.  The move is an effort by Ankara to counter its growing isolation, says Huseyin Bagci of Turkey’s foreign policy institute. “There is an increasing block, increasing antipathy towards Turkey, Turkey cannot go like this, Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, it is too much,” he said. Last year, Cairo further turned up the pressure on Ankara, signing a deal with Athens to explore for energy in Mediterranean waters contested by Greece and Turkey. But regional analyst Sinan Ulgen says conciliatory Turkish words towards Egypt are not enough for a diplomatic breakthrough. FILE – Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis meets with Egyptian President Fattah el-Sisi at the Maximos Mansion in Athens, Greece, Nov. 11, 2020.Despite the opening towards Egypt, Ulgen said, “ultimately whether this new turn is going to be effective and deliver results does hinge on what Turkey does.” Ankara’s support of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt — or, as it’s called in Arabic, Ikhwan, which was ousted from power in 2013 by the current President Fattah el-Sisi — remains a key point of tension between the countries, says regional analyst Cem Gurdeniz.   “Egypt right now is acting against Turkey just because of the Turkish government’s wrong policy, based on the theological background, like Ikhwan policy,” Gurdeniz said. “When Turkey leaves the religious policy, I am sure Turkey-Egypt relations will be better.” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was a close ally of ousted Egyptian leader Morsi and publicly wept over the Sisi-led crackdown on Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood supporters. Analyst Bagci says Erdogan will have to make painful concessions. “Tayyip Erdogan and Sisi probably will not shake hands as presidents in the foreseeable future, but Turkey will not (be) supporting Muslim brothers as before,” he said. With Egypt and Turkey backing rival sides in the recent Libyan civil war and competing for influence in Sudan, analysts suggest Turkish-Egyptian rapprochement could ease regional tensions. But difficult diplomatic talks are predicted, given the recent animosity and distrust between them.
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European policymakers are welcoming U.S. President Joe Biden’s stimulus package amid hopes the $1.9 trillion package approved by the U.S. Congress midweek will help boost their economies, too. “Help is here,” Biden tweeted after the vote on one of the most sweeping spending bills in American history.  The U.S. president largely had Americans in mind with the tweet, but Europeans are expecting spillover benefits from the legislation that was passed exactly one year after the World Health Organization officially announced the global coronavirus pandemic. Britain’s Financial Times newspaper said the legislation is “almost as historic as the pandemic it seeks to address.” Its editorial board noted that the “Biden plan is also of great significance to the wider world economy.” FILE – President Joe Biden, accompanied by Vice President Kamala Harris, looks up after signing the American Rescue Plan, a coronavirus relief package, in the Oval Office of the White House, March 11, 2021.European investors are also showing their appreciation. Stocks opened higher Thursday after the House of Representatives passed Biden’s sweeping COVID-19 relief bill, which is designed to help supercharge the country’s economic recovery. Earlier this week the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) upgraded its 2021 global economic forecast, largely thanks to vaccine rollouts and the U.S. stimulus package. It predicts the surge in government spending will boost American domestic growth this year from a previous forecast of 3.2 percent to 6.5 percent and it noted there will be benefits for other economies, including European ones, as a result of increased American demand and trade.  Global gross domestic product growth is now expected, says the OECD, at 5.6% this year, more than a percentage point above the organization’s December forecast, FILE – European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde addresses European lawmakers during a plenary session at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 8, 2021.Christine Lagarde, head of the European Central Bank, praised the Biden bill — known as the American Rescue Plan — and urged member states of the European Union on Thursday to increase their spending more quickly, and to reform their economies to spur future growth.  The EU passed an $857 billion stimulus package in 2020 but most national governments won’t start getting the money until much later this year.  “The big difference between the Biden stimulus — debated, voted by the two houses, signed into law, checks in the mail — and our massive fiscal stimulus here in Europe is that there is a bit of a lagged time between the two,” she said. “The next generation EU [spending package] is critically important in order to help stimulate the European economies from the fiscal point of view,” she said. Inflation fearsBut the scale of the U.S. stimulus package, coming on top of two previous massive spending measures, is being questioned by some, who fear the measure will overheat the U.S. economy and they are sounding the alarm about inflation risk. “Households are already sitting on an estimated $1.6 trillion of excess savings, due to a combination of state largesse, a stronger than expected rebound last summer, and an unwillingness or inability for consumers to spend on the activities they would usually want to over the past year. As restrictions are eased, the opportunities for pent-up demand to go wild are therefore huge, although highly uncertain,” according to Ryan Bourne, author of “Economics In One Virus” and an economist at the Cato Institute, a libertarian research organization.  Jeremy Warner, a business columnist for London’s Daily Telegraph, questioned the size of the stimulus. “Coming on top of the two previous stimulus packages, neither of which have yet been fully utilized, it’s a huge sum of money — nearly three times as big as the stimulus (former U.S. president) Barack Obama persuaded Congress to enact in the aftermath of the financial crisis — raising the question of whether the U.S. economy actually needs such a mighty, additional shot in the arm.” FILE – Former U.S. treasury secretary Larry Summers speaks in Washington, April 16, 2015.Some progressive American economists have also questioned the Biden package, including Larry Summers, a former treasury secretary for former U.S. president Bill Clinton and onetime adviser to former president Barack Obama, who fears stimulus might cause “inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation, with consequences for the value of the dollar and financial stability.” Countering concernsBiden officials say their biggest fear when designing the package was not doing too much but of doing too little. They argue Washington’s response to the 2008-09 financial crash was inadequate and they didn’t want to repeat that mistake, hence the scale of the stimulus. They say the stimulus will help America avoid being stuck in the low-growth economic dynamics Europe and Japan have been trapped in since the financial crash.   The U.S. Federal Reserve has also dismissed fears of runaway inflation as misplaced, saying it will be vigilant and intends to keep interest rates low to dampen any inflation that emerges. The Fed chairman, Jerome Powell, says the biggest risk is of a temporary jump in prices.  
 
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Britain is preparing for tens of thousands of Hong Kong citizens to apply for special visas to settle in Britain after the government launched a new plan offering fast-track citizenship to some residents of the former British colony, in response to China’s crackdown on basic freedoms.An online application process was launched last month, and Britain says it expects around 300,000 Hong Kong citizens to apply in the first five years.Among them is Finn Lau, a 27-year-old exile who is now living in London and studying part time at a university.As a student in 2014, Lau was a key player in the “umbrella” pro-democracy protests against interference from China. A new job took him to Britain in 2019, just weeks before protests reignited over Beijing’s attempt to impose an extradition bill on the territory that would allow criminal suspects to be sent to mainland China.FILE – Protesters gather with flags to mourn the loss of Hong Kong’s political freedoms, in Leicester Square, central London, Dec. 12, 2020.Lau has just submitted his application.“Some people may think that the BN(O) scheme is not a direct tool that could [be used as] leverage against the [Chinese Communist Party], because the CCP won’t be hurt by the BN(O) scheme,” Lau told VOA.“But on the other hand, some people may think that this offers a kind of lifeboat to Hong Kongers. And perhaps there is a third group of people who may think that the BN(O) scheme or lifeboats could offer people [the chance] to carry capital out of Hong Kong, which is indirectly [antagonizing] … Beijing.”While grateful, Lau and other Hong Kong exiles want Britain to do more.“We just think that maybe some more actions could be carried out by the U.K. government. For example, maybe some sort of Magnitsky-style sanctions under which the assets of some Hong Kong government officials, like Carrie Lam, could be frozen by the U.K. government.”Britain has said it is considering such sanctions. Reacting to new legislation passed Thursday by Beijing, which will effectively allow China to choose candidates in Hong Kong’s elections, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said, “This is the latest step by Beijing to hollow out the space for democratic debate in Hong Kong, contrary to the promises made by China itself.“This can only further undermine confidence and trust in China living up to its international responsibilities and legal obligations as a leading member of the international community,” Raab said, adding that Britain was assessing the legislation for a possible breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration.Meanwhile, Lau and other exiles continue to fight for Hong Kong’s freedom — buoyed by Britain’s BN(O) visa. But Lau said that even on the streets of London, he does not feel safe from the long arm of China’s Communist Party.
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Catalonia’s separatist movement suffered a setback this month when a deeply divided European Parliament cleared the way for exiled separatist leader Carles Puigdemont to be extradited to Spain to face trial for sedition. Catalan activists are condemning the action as a defeat for democracy in Europe. Jonathan Spier narrates this report from Alfonso Beato in Barcelona.
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“The monarchy is above reproach,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson confidently declared a year ago. This week, following excoriating allegations by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex about the royal family, the British leader seemed more restrained.Johnson told reporters midweek that he has the “highest admiration” for Queen Elizabeth but would not comment on other royal family matters — a position his top Cabinet ministers are adopting in the wake of the much publicized, two-hour interview with Harry and Meghan, as the duke and duchess are called, by media mogul Oprah Winfrey in which issues of race and family dynamics were raised.Johnson told lawmakers in the House of Commons, “When it comes to matters to do with the royal family, the right thing for prime ministers to say is nothing, and nothing is the thing that I propose to say.”Other Britons are being less circumspect in their reaction to a combustible broadcast in which Meghan, an American and a former actress, alleged that an unnamed member of the royal family expressed “concerns” about the skin color of the couple’s first child, Archie, before his birth.This undated image released March 7, 2021 courtesy of Harpo Productions shows Britain’s Prince Harry (L) and his wife Meghan (C), Duchess of Sussex, in a conversation with US television host Oprah Winfrey.Meghan also claimed that the distress of life as a member of Britain’s storied first family drove her to suicidal thoughts until the couple withdrew from royal duties and moved to the United States.She claimed the royal household had been unfriendly and dismissive of her deteriorating mental health and was unhelpful in her plea for medical assistance. Harry professed that his family said nothing publicly to counter what he saw as racist coverage of his wife in Britain’s tabloid press.Generational divideThe interview has split Britons largely along the same political and demographic fault lines as Brexit, feeding seemingly into a culture war over British identity, self-image and traditions.Since the broadcast, polls show that people over 55 years old are more likely to support the royal family and are suspicious of Meghan’s self-portrayal as an innocent ingénue and victim of a cold-hearted royal family.Younger Britons, especially those in their 20s, are much more likely to believe the couple’s claims about the toxicity of the royal family and to sympathize with Meghan’s claims of racism. They see her alleged treatment as a reflection of a more widely discriminatory country.An outright majority of the over-65-year-olds believe the couple have been treated fairly by the royal family, while 61% percent of 18-24-year-olds believe Harry and Meghan were not, according to a YouGov poll.Conservative voters are more likely to side with Buckingham Palace. Labor and Liberal Democrat supporters align more with Harry and Meghan.Buckingham Palace officials have drawn some comfort in another post-broadcast opinion poll, conducted for the Daily Mail newspaper, that suggests most Britons think the Duke and Duchess were wrong to have given their explosive interview, that they have let down the queen and should be stripped of their royal titles.But the poll also showed the interview may have damaged the queen’s reputation, with her popularity falling.The clear generational divide over the interview suggests there may be problems ahead for the heir apparent, Prince Charles, who will need to reconnect with younger people if the future of the monarchy is to remain assured, royal commentators say.That is “now his defining challenge,” said Daniel Finkelstein, a columnist for The Times newspaper.Some commentators sympathetic to Harry and Meghan, as well as younger Britons, say the royal family missed an opportunity to future-proof the monarchy by using the couple’s more contemporary and progressive appeal to help the hereditary institution transition from 94-year-old Elizabeth to Charles, and subsequently, to his elder son, Prince William.Since the interview, Britain’s social media platforms, newspapers and broadcasting studios have been dominated by often-intemperate debates about Harry and Meghan versus the royal family.The raging rhetoric has already claimed one media job with the departure of TV host Piers Morgan, who left “Good Morning Britain” after more than 40,000 viewers complained about his vitriolic dismissal of Meghan’s allegations, which he called a “diatribe of bilge.”A passerby gestures to journalist and television presenter Piers Morgan, after he left his high-profile breakfast slot with the broadcaster ITV, following his long-running criticism of Prince Harry’s wife Meghan, in London, Britain, March 10, 2021.Palace responseBuckingham Palace has clearly sought to avoid fueling the furor with a restrained three-paragraph statement that emphasized the royal family’s continuing love for the estranged couple and their son and registered the royals’ sadness in learning of the anguish Meghan said she endured.It also said the family is ready to address as a private matter the issues raised in the interview, including race.This handout provided by Buckingham Palace shows a statement issued on behalf of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, March 9, 2021.The statement also had a hint of a bite, noting that “some recollections may vary” between the royal family’s and those of the aggrieved couple. Nonetheless, the personal tone of the statement was an “attempt to shut down the public debate,” royal commentator Rhiannon Mills told viewers of Sky News.Other analysts say the palace seems determined to avoid a repeat of the so-called “briefing war” that was waged by Harry’s parents, Prince Charles and Princess Diana, after their marriage collapsed. Charles, Diana and their staffs leaked venomous allegations against each other to try to manipulate press coverage of their tumultuous separation and acrimonious divorce.On Thursday, in answer to a shouted question during a royal visit, William refuted the notion that the royal family is racist. William also said he had not yet spoken to his brother but would do so.Whether Buckingham Palace’s statement cools the determination of those ready to wage a culture war over the royal dispute remains to be seen.Politicians remain cautiousJohnson is not alone among most British politicians to remain wary of engaging too closely in the public debate over the interview, which they fear has the potential to go off in political directions that are hard to predict.“It is never wise for a family dispute to be aired in public,” Conservative lawmaker David Amess said.Some members of the country’s main opposition Labor Party have engaged more, seeing some potential advantage in expressing clear sympathy with the so-called “royal dissidents.”But Labor leader Keir Starmer has been cautious in his remarks, saying he was sorry for the royal turmoil, while offering that the issues raised by Meghan about racism and mental health are serious.“This is bigger than the royal family. For too many years, we have been too dismissive and too willing to put these issues to one side,” he said.In private, some of Johnson’s ministers have expressed frustration over the timing of the royal dust-up. They say it distracts public attention from the success of Britain’s rollout of coronavirus vaccines and the planned easing this month of pandemic restrictions, which they hope will exorcise public anger over what many see as a bungled handling of the pandemic last year.More worryingly, they say, a race debate risks tarnishing the post-Brexit image the Johnson government has been marketing of a global and modern Britain ready to embrace the world.  
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Prince William on Thursday defended Britain’s royal family against accusations of racism made by his brother Prince Harry and sister-in-law Meghan, saying the royals are “very much not a racist family.”
In comments made during a visit to an east London school, William became the first royal to directly address the explosive interview broadcast Sunday in the U.S. that his brother and the Duchess of Sussex gave to Oprah Winfrey.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 12 MB480p | 17 MB540p | 22 MB720p | 48 MB1080p | 95 MBOriginal | 263 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioBuckingham Palace’s sought to respond to Harry and Meghan’s allegations of racism and mistreatment in a 61-word statement, but it has failed to quell the controversy.
William, second in line to the throne after his father Prince Charles, says he hadn’t yet spoken to Harry in the aftermath of the interview, “but I will do.”  
Harry and Meghan’s comments have rocked the royal family — and touched off conversations around the world about racism, mental health and even the relationship between Britain and its former colonies.
Those tensions have only built as the public waited to see how the royal family would respond.  
Meghan, who is biracial, said in the interview she was so isolated and miserable as a working member of the royal family that she had suicidal thoughts. She also said Harry told her there were “concerns and conversations” by a royal family member about the color of her baby’s skin when she was pregnant with their son, Archie. 
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The British Natural History Museum said it has recovered fragments of the first meteorite collected in the United Kingdom in 30 years and one of the rarest ever discovered.  On the night of February 28, a fireball was seen streaking across the sky over southwestern Britain, dazzling onlookers and exciting scientists. No fragments from a meteorite — what a meteor is called once it lands on Earth — had been recovered in the nation since 1991.  Museum researchers asked people to look in an area north of the town of Cheltenham in Gloucestershire County. They received calls from the town of Winchcombe. Scientists went door to door asking people if they had seen anything. Several had, including a family that said a piece landed in their driveway.Researchers were even more excited when they realized the fragment was an extremely rare type known as a carbonaceous chondrite, which has never been found in Britain.Researcher Sara Russell explained that with about 65,000 known meteorites in the world, only 51 of them have been a carbonaceous chondrite, a mineral substance that is believed to date back 4.6 billion years to about the time the solar system was forming.  The coal-black mineral contains all the original ingredients that created asteroids, comets, and ultimately, planets like the Earth.Russell said she had the opportunity to work with material gathered on an asteroid from a recent Japanese space mission.“This material looks exactly like the material they are collecting,” she said. 
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More women continue to enter politics and government at the highest levels, but there is still widespread gender inequality globally for women in government and legislatures, the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the United Nations said Wednesday.In its FILE – Martin Chungong, Secretary General of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, speaks to the press in Doha, April 10, 2019.“When you consider that 70% of front-line workers of the COVID pandemic — health care workers, service workers — are women, this level of representation [in government] is simply at odds with reality,” IPU Secretary General Martin Chungong said at the report’s launch.The number of women holding the top job — president or prime minister — rose by only two — to 22. More than half of countries led by women are in Europe.But the number of countries where women hold half or more of ministerial portfolios dropped from 14 to 13. Twelve countries have no women ministers at all — Armenia, Azerbaijan, Brunei, North Korea, Papua New Guinea, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Vietnam and Yemen. “It is important to have women cabinet ministers because that’s the most important decision-making body in any government,” said U.N. Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. A look at women in politics around the globe (map, downloadable version)Americas Chungong urged governments to use tools such as temporary quotas to “level the playing field” and improve women’s participation and representation in political life.He points to Nicaragua, which leads globally both in women ministers — first place — and in parliament — fourth place — as representative of strong female representation across the Americas, including in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica and Mexico.“When we look at their representation in parliament, the Americas are first because, again there are strong measures that have been taken to ensure that there are women on every rung of the political ladder,” Chungong said. “When you have strong political will, when that will is translated into legislation, into policies, into strong advocacy within political parties, this can make a difference and we see that.”In North America, President Joe Biden’s administration has more than doubled the percentage of women in the Cabinet from his predecessor.“The new Cabinet in the United States is turning out to be the most gender-balanced in the country’s history,” Chungong said. “Women in charge of ministerial portfolios rose from 17% in 2020 to 46% in 2021.”This includes the first elected female vice president in U.S. history, Kamala Harris, and women holding senior national security positions and running important agencies, including the Treasury, Commerce and Energy.FILE – Women gather to celebrate the victory of Kamala Harris in Painganadu near the village of Thulasendrapuram, where Harris’ maternal grandfather was born and grew up, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, India, Nov. 8, 2020.Having powerful role models is important for women of all ages. Chungong noted that in the Caribbean nation of Jamaica, where Harris’ father is from, women’s representation in parliament grew in the aftermath of her rise.“I think many Jamaican women looked up to Kamala Harris as a model and were spurred to go into politics,” he said. “Jamaican society said, ‘Yes, if we can have such a high-profile woman in a major country in the world, why shouldn’t we give a chance to our women?’”In sub-Saharan Africa, Namibia had the most progress over the past year, increasing the number of female ministers in its government from 15% to 39%. Rwanda still dominates the region, with the highest percentage of female ministers and parliamentarians.In Asia, just under 25% of the nearly 3,000 members of China’s National People’s Congress are women. Mongolia had the biggest increase of women ministers in the region, jumping from 6.7% to 18.8%. Barriers A concerning obstacle for women seeking to enter politics is violence targeting them.FILE – Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, United Nations Executive Director of U.N. Women, speaks in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Nov. 5, 2019.“Women find it difficult to be exposed to the violence, which impacts on their family, on their mental health, on their well-being, only because they want to take part in addressing matters that affect their own lives,” U.N. Women Chief Mlambo-Ngcuka said.She also urged countries to reconsider minimum age requirements for legislators, which in many countries is 35 years old, to encourage the participation of younger women in politics.“We need to make sure we remove those barriers to encourage and facilitate the entry of more women,” she said. “Maybe political parties and parliaments need to have special measures and quotas for young people.” The IPU has been compiling data about women in politics on its map since 2005.  
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