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This story originated in VOA’s Bosnian Service. WASHINGTON — U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Palmer says the U.S. welcomes an agreement that Bosnia and Herzegovina’s political leaders recently signed as part of an effort to break the deadlock in forming the government, and that he hopes Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik stop with the “hard-line rhetoric.”On Aug. 5, leaders of the country’s three most influential parties agreed on 12 key issues to resolve as a primary step toward formation of a new government. Based on that list, the leaders then agreed to finalize a deal to open a new government within 30 days.
 Matthew Palmer, U.S. State Department Director for South Central European Affairs speaks during an interview with Reuters in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina Dec. 4, 2018.Lawmakers, however, have since made little progress toward a binding agreement, as Bosnian Serb leaders are strongly opposed to membership in a western military alliance, while Bosniak and Bosnian Croat lawmakers support it.On Tuesday, Dodik, leader of Serb-majority Republika Srpska, vowed to torpedo a number of major reforms in the country, including the formation of joint armed forces and a state court and police agency, unless a state-level government is formed soon.”You know, I don’t think that those kinds of threats are really going to help create the kind of political climate conducive to compromise and agreement,” Palmer said in an interview with VOA’s Bosnian Service. “So I’m hopeful that president Dodik doesn’t maintain that kind of hardline rhetoric. I think it’s fundamentally unhelpful and creates a political climate in which you have winners and losers rather than the opportunity for everybody to come out with a little bit of what they want and in a position to accept that they’ve won something.”Palmer also said he’s optimistic that the stalled deal to form a government and submit an Annual National Program (ANP) to the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels — a required step along the path toward NATO membership — can move forward.”We think it’s a positive development that the leaders of three of the major parties were able to come together and identify compromise as the path forward on both the EU and the NATO track and on government formation,” Palmer said. “We understand in particular that both President [Željko] Komsic and President [Šefik] Dzaferovic have made clear that they would like to see an” ANP submitted to Brussels.”We’re hopeful that the presidency can come together and agree on a path forward that that works for all.”Dodik has said that the issue of NATO must not be on the agenda of the three-member state presidency session currently scheduled for Aug. 20, at which the formation of a state government will be discussed.Bosnia will not hand over the ANP to Brussels. It does not say anywhere that it will. The agreement says nothing [about it],” Dodik said.The tiny Balkan country of roughly 3.5 million residents applied for EU membership in 2016, following years of constitutional reforms and engagements with the 1995 Dayton Accords that put an end to the nearly 4-year-long Bosnian war.NATO offered a Membership Action Plan to Bosnia in 2010 but declined to “activate” it until all conditions are met. Submitting its first ANP is a key part of that process.   
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Updated at 4:18 p.m. Aug. 15.The British overseas territory of Gibraltar turned back U.S. objections on Thursday and released the Iranian supertanker Grace 1 from detention, after receiving assurances from Tehran that it would not send its crude oil cargo to Syria.”There are no longer reasonable grounds to suspect that the detention of the vessel is required,” chief minister Fabian Picardo said in a statement.Hours earlier, the U.S. signaled it wanted to block the release of the ship, which had been seized by Britain July 4. That delayed the ruling, but Chief Justice Anthony Dudley said he had not received a written request from the U.S.The U.S. could, however, could still seek to detain the ship as long as it remains in Gibraltar’s waters. It was unclear how soon the ship might sail away.The United States moves to halt the release of the Iranian supertanker Grace 1, Aug. 15, 2019, detained in Gibraltar for breaching EU sanctions on oil shipments to Syria.The Grace 1 had been carrying 2.1 million barrels of Iranian oil when Gibraltar police and British special forces seized it, one of a string of weeks of provocations involving Western nations and Tehran, most of which have occurred in the Persian Gulf or at other spots in the Mideast. The tanker was believed to be transporting the oil to Syria in violation of separate European Union and U.S. sanctions.After seizure of the Grace 1, Tehran retaliated by taking control of a British tanker, the Stena Impero, on July 19 in the strategic Strait of Hormuz — the shipping lane for about a fifth of the world’s crude — for breaking “international maritime rules.” Iran still holds the Stena Impero.FILE – A speedboat of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard moves around the British-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero in the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, July 21, 2019.Iran had repeatedly called for the release of the Grace 1, saying it had been international waters and was not headed to Syria.Tehran condemned the last-day U.S. efforts to block the release of the ship.Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Twitter, “Having failed to accomplish its objectives through its #EconomicTerrorism — including depriving cancer patients of medicine — the U.S. attempted to abuse the legal system to steal our property on the high seas. This piracy attempt is indicative of Trump admin’s contempt for the law.”The dispute over the tanker is part of the ongoing confrontation between U.S. President Donald Trump and the Iranian regime over its nuclear weapons program after the U.S. leader withdrew the U.S. from the 2015 international agreement aimed at restraining Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for lifting crippling economic sanctions against Iran.Trump subsequently reimposed U.S. sanctions, hobbling Iran’s economy, in a so-far unsuccessful effort to force Iran to renegotiate the terms of the nuclear deal. 
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This story originated in FILE – Public prosecutor Katica Janeva, right, takes an oath in Skopje, Macedonia, Sept. 16, 2015.EU and U.S. officials have implored Skopje to complete a thorough and transparent investigation of the allegations and, if warranted, proceed with prosecutions.Over the past several days, however, developments in the alleged bribery scheme went from bad to worse, when Italy’s La Verita newspaper published new footage of what appeared to be money changing hands between the suspects — both of whom claimed to have access to Janeva — and the indicted businessman that her office was about to prosecute.The suspects, who are now in detention, told the businessman he would receive leniency from the prosecutor in charge of his case if he paid them. It is not yet known if Janeva had any knowledge of the extortion scheme, but she confirmed that the voice heard on the recording was hers.A unique opportunityPendarovski described the scandal as an international embarrassment, but also a unique opportunity for Skopje’s government officials and legislators to move beyond political bickering and abide by the rule of law.”We cannot afford to leave space for speculation,” he said about whether the country could swiftly resolve the issue. “How we react on the scandal — not how individuals will react, but we as a country — will merit the EU members’ determination this fall on the eligibility of North Macedonia to join the bloc.”He also said he was appalled that some of “the main actors in this drama,” such as the investigators, were on vacation.”It is not business as usual,” he said. “The essence of the rule of law in the country has been challenged.”On Tuesday, North Macedonia’s Prime Minister Zoran Zaev drew international condemnation for using a gay slur while trying to defend his government against the corruption scandal, which has ensnared numerous justice officials.FILE – Prime Minister of Northern Macedonia Zoran Zaev speaks during a press conference in Poznan, Poland, July 5, 2019.Zaev said Tuesday that he would “not allow a few criminals, a vain journalist and — I ask the LGBT community to forgive me — one [expletive] to overthrow the government.”He was referring to a gay TV channel owner, Bojan Jovanovski, at the heart of the extortion case.Zaev, who had just returned from vacation, immediately posted an apology on Twitter that some found equally offensive.”I apologize. I used the word as a character trait, not as a sexual affiliation,” he wrote, adding that he was “fighting for the rights of the LGBT community as much as possible.”Both of North Macedonia’s major political parties, opposition VMRO-DPMNE and the ruling Social Democratic Union, have been squabbling over the drafting of a law to regulate the prosecution, which will determine the fate of the special prosecutor’s office that Janeva used to run.Whether new legislation can be ratified — a precondition for EU accession talks — will determine the pace of North Macedonia’s European accession process.
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French President Emmanuel Macron is celebrating U.S. and African veterans as well as French resistance fighters who took part in crucial but often-overlooked World War II landings on the Riviera.
 
At a ceremony Thursday in the southern town of Saint-Raphael marking 75 years since the operation to wrest southern France from Nazi control, Macron said, “your commitment is our heritage against darkness and ignorance.”
 French President Emmanuel Macron, left, talks with Ivory Coast’s President Alassane Ouattara during a ceremony marking the 75th anniversary of the WWII Allied landings in Provence, in Saint-Raphael, southern France, Aug. 15, 2019.He urged French mayors to name streets after African soldiers from then-French colonies brought in to fight. Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara and Guinea President Alpha Conde also took part in the ceremony.
 
Starting Aug. 15, 1944, some 350,000 U.S. and French troops landed on the Mediterranean coast for Operation Dragoon, which was intended to coincide with the D-Day invasion in Normandy in June but was delayed due to a lack of resources.  
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Britain’s fractious opposition politicians are giving a mixed reception to a plan by Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn to block a no-deal Brexit.Prime Minister Boris Johnson has vowed that Britain will leave the EU on Oct. 31, with or without a divorce deal. Many economists say a no-deal Brexit will cause economic turmoil.Corbyn has written to other parties saying he plans to call a no-confidence vote in Johnson’s government when Parliament returns from its summer break in September.
 
He says Parliament should then unite behind a Corbyn-led “temporary government” that would seek a delay to Brexit and call a national election.
 
Some lawmakers welcomed the idea. But Jo Swinson, leader of the pro-EU Liberal Democrats, said Thursday that the idea was “nonsense” because Corbyn is a divisive figure.
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Catholic pilgrims have held an emotional procession past fire-ravaged Notre Dame Cathedral, singing and parading with a statue of the Virgin Mary rescued from the flames.Hundreds gathered on a bridge near the cordoned-off cathedral for Thursday’s Assumption Day procession. They wound along nearby embankments toward Saint Sulpice Church on the Left Bank for a service led by Paris Archbishop Michel Aupetit.The procession would have started in the forecourt of Notre Dame, but the entire area and some nearby streets are now fenced off and under strict security. As the ceremony began, workers cleared debris from benches around the cathedral as part of decontamination efforts amid fears of residual lead poisoning from April’s fire.In the Roman Catholic Church, Assumption Day is when Mary was taken bodily into heaven.
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A newspaper in Gibraltar says the United States has applied to seize an Iranian supertanker that authorities in the British overseas territory were seeking to release from detention.The Gibraltar Chronicle says the development means a last minute application by the U.S. Department of Justice to extend the ship’s detention prompted the Supreme Court to adjourn its decision until later Thursday. The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The tanker was seized last month in a British Royal Navy operation off Gibraltar. It’s suspected of violating European Union sanctions on oil shipments to Syria, and its seizure deepened international tensions in the Persian Gulf.The Gibraltar government says it is seeking to “de-escalate” the situation over the Grace 1.
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Malaysian police said Thursday there were no signs of foul play in the death of a 15-year-old London girl who mysteriously disappeared from a nature resort, with an autopsy showing she succumbed to intestinal bleeding because of starvation and stress.Nora Anne Quoirin’s body was discovered Tuesday beside a small stream about 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles) from the Dusun eco-resort after she disappeared from her family’s resort cottage Aug. 4.Negeri Sembilan state police chief Mohamad Mat Yusop said the autopsy found no evidence the teenager had been abducted or raped. She was estimated to have been dead two or three days and not more than four when her naked body was found, he said.“For the time being, there is no element of abduction or kidnapping,” he told a news conference at a police station.“The cause of death was upper gastrointestinal bleeding due to duodenal ulcer, complicated with perforation … it could be due to a lack of food for a long period of time and due to prolonged stress,” he said.Mohamad said there were also some bruises on the girl’s legs but wouldn’t cause her death. Samples taken from her body will be sent to the chemistry department for further analysis, he said.The girl’s family can take her body back to their country if they wish, he added.Family members arrive to see the body of 15-year-old Irish girl Nora Anne Quoirin at Tuanku Jaafar Hospital in Seremban, Malaysia, Aug. 13, 2019.Quoirin’s family has said she wasn’t independent and wouldn’t wander off alone because she had learning and physical disabilities. Police believe she climbed out through an open window in the living room of the cottage but said they were investigated all aspects including possible criminal elements.Police from Ireland, France and the U.K. are in Malaysia to assist in the investigation. The girl’s mother is from Ireland and her father is French, but the family has lived in London for 20 years.The Paris prosecutor’s office Wednesday said it has opened a preliminary investigation into the girl’s death, on potential charges of kidnapping and sequestration. The prosecutor’s office wouldn’t elaborate. French authorities often open such investigations when French citizens are victims or otherwise involved in suspected crimes abroad.Quoirin’s family arrived Aug. 3 for a two-week stay at the Dusun, a small resort located in a durian orchard next to a forest reserve 63 kilometers (39 miles) south of Kuala Lumpur.Her family Wednesday thanked the more than 350 people who helped search for the girl and said that their hearts were broken.
 
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This story originated in VOA’s Albanian Service. TIRANA, ALBANIA – Press freedom advocates and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Albania are fighting a government-proposed defamation law that, critics say, would grant the country’s top media regulator too much power.According to the latest version of the draft law, Albania’s Audiovisual Media Authority (AMA) could impose fines nearing $10,000 on online media outlets that are accused of damaging a person’s reputation or infringing on their privacy before the outlets can elect to have the case heard in a court of law.In most countries, such adjudicatory powers — the review of evidence, argumentation and legal reasoning for determining rights and obligations of the parties involved — are typically restricted to the courts.If passed into law, the bill would require that online publications deemed in violation of the law could have their cases heard in court only after paying the AMA-imposed fine.For online publications with limited funding, such a law could decimate their finances, even if a court ultimately decides in their favor, especially in a country where administrative courts are extensively backlogged.’Fake news’ a major concernGovernment officials who support the law say it would regulate a crowded online publication marketplace while fighting “fake news” — a term some Albanian government officials have used to describe factual reporting that is critical of their work.While drafters of the law assure critics that its contents have been improved in ongoing parliamentary commission debates, media representatives and press freedom advocates disagree.”The proposed defamation law establishes what I would call an AMA-court, which means an institution that issues verdicts without due process,” said Elvin Luku of the Tirana-based local media watchdog, Medialook.”Such an act not only compromises the rights and fundamental principles of a free press, but, to a certain degree, strips a person penalized by the law of the right to send the case in a court of law,” said a statement issued by the Albanian Reporters Union.Caka defends proposed lawAlbanian Deputy Minister of Justice Fjoralba Caka defended the current draft of the law.”Only when a web portal refuses to withdraw the material based on made-up facts, the individual has the right to go to AMA,” she said. “AMA gives 48 hours to the publication to submit its counterpoints.”Harlem Désir, OSCE’s press freedom representative, wrote that while he appreciates the constructive cooperation apparent in “many improvements” made throughout successive drafts of the law, “further improvements to the law are still needed.” Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama in 2015 suggested jail sentences of up to three years for “defamation against high officials,” a proposal he retracted in the face of public indignation.Since that time, Rama has referred to journalists as “charlatans” and “public enemies.”  
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Norway’s first battery-powered aircraft crash-landed on a lake on Wednesday, in a setback for the country’s aviation strategy, although police said the pilot and passenger both escaped unhurt.The plane’s owner, airport operator Avinor, told Reuters last year it hoped to see commercial passenger flights on electric planes by 2025.The two-seater plane was piloted by Avinor Chief Executive Dag Falk-Pedersen, who had invited a string of high-profile passengers to showcase the opportunities of electrification.Photographs published by Norwegian media showed the Alpha Electro G2 plane, produced by Slovenia’s Pipistrel, nose-down and partly submerged at the end of a lake near Arendal in southern Norway.The cause of the crash was not immediately clear.”I made a mayday call and looked for a place to land,” Falk-Pedersen told public broadcaster NRK.”This is not good for the work we do,” he added. His passenger during the crash, Aase Marthe Horrigmo, a junior government minister, was among Avinor’s guests on Wednesday, as was Environment Minister Ola Elvestuen, who flew earlier in the day.The government has asked Avinor to develop a program for electrification of all domestic aviation by 2040.
 
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Russia said on Wednesday it had flown two nuclear-capable TU-160 bombers to a far eastern Russian region opposite Alaska as part of a training exercise that state media said showed Moscow’s ability to park nuclear arms on the United States’ doorstep.The Tupolev TU-160 strategic bomber, nicknamed the White Swan in Russia, is a supersonic Soviet-era aircraft capable of carrying up to 12 short-range nuclear missiles and of flying 12,000 km (7,500 miles) non-stop without refueling.Russia’s Ministry of Defense said in a statement that the planes had covered a distance of over 6,000 km (3,728 miles) in over eight hours from their home base in western Russia to deploy in Anadyr in the Chuktoka region which faces Alaska.It said the flight was part of a tactical exercise that would last until the end of this week and was designed to rehearse the air force’s ability to rebase to operational air fields and to practice air-to-air refueling.Russian government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta said on its website that the flight showed Moscow’s ability to base nuclear bombers within 20 minutes flight time from the United States, which it said was just over 600 km (372 miles) away.TU-160s have flown from bases in Russia to Syria where they have bombed forces opposed to President Bashar al-Assad, one of Moscow’s closest Middle East allies.The defense ministry said a total of around 10 TU-160 bombers and TU-95MS and IL-78 planes were involved in the exercise, suggesting it covered other areas too. 
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