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European and Chinese leaders are urging swift ratification of the trade deal they agreed to in December, after tensions over accusations of human rights abuses in China delayed approval of the deal by European Union lawmakers.  The EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) took seven years of negotiations and was finally agreed to in principle December 30, 2020, following a virtual summit between EU and Chinese leaders. Europe said it was the most ambitious trade deal China had ever undertaken with a third party.  However, EU Commission Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said last week that efforts to get the deal ratified by lawmakers in the European Parliament had been halted.  FILE – European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis speaks at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, March 10, 2021.“We have … for the moment suspended some efforts to raise political awareness on the part of the commission, because it is clear that in the current situation, with the EU sanctions against China and the Chinese counter-sanctions, including against members of the European Parliament, the environment is not conducive to the ratification of the agreement,” Dombrovskis told Agence France-Presse on May 4.  The suspension follows tit-for-tat sanctions imposed over China’s treatment of the Uyghur population in Xinjiang province.  The United States, along with several other Western states, has described the treatment of the Uyghur population as genocide. Washington imposed sanctions on several Beijing officials in March. Officials had also voiced reservations over the China-EU trade deal.  The EU followed days later with its own measures, targeting four Chinese officials linked to Beijing’s policies in Xinjiang.  China retaliated by sanctioning five lawmakers in the European Parliament — the very body tasked with approving the trade deal — said Alicia García-Herrero, a senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank, who spoke to VOA from Hong Kong.  “At the end of the day, the ratification happens at the European Parliament. So, in a way, the target of the sanctions was somehow too involved in the decision to ratify,” García-Herrero said.  She added that tensions between China and Europe over Xinjiang and the crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong mean ratification of the trade deal looks unlikely anytime soon. Beijing denies any persecution of the Uyghur population and has urged Western nations to stop interfering in what it calls the “internal affairs” of Hong Kong.  Market expansionAnalysts say the CAI could benefit German carmakers who already have a strong presence in China and are looking to expand the production and sales of electric vehicles.  FILE – German Chancellor Angela Merkel takes her seat during the weekly cabinet meeting at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, May 5, 2021.Speaking May 5, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the trade deal should not be abandoned.  “Despite all the difficulties that we will certainly encounter in ratification, it is nevertheless a very important initiative that opens up greater reciprocity in access to our reciprocal markets,” Merkel told reporters.  The agreement was meant to open China’s huge market to European companies and provide greater transparency. From the beginning, many in Europe saw the deal as deeply flawed, García-Herrero said.  “Every single piece of market access that Europe was getting, when you read the details, it’s not actually as big,” she said.  Garcia-Herrero added that the investment deal is a key part of China’s expansion plans.  “Europe is kind of the one and only big developed economic area where China can still buy companies,” she said.  Beijing is pushing Europe to ratify the agreement.  “The China-EU Comprehensive Agreement on Investment aims to be mutually beneficial, to be beneficial to China, to (the) European Union and to the world,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters last Thursday. “China is willing to communicate and cooperate with (the) EU to promote the realization of the deal as early as possible, to benefit people from both sides and to positively signal to the international community that China supports maintaining an open economy.”   Meanwhile, the EU has unveiled separate plans to block foreign companies that are supported by state subsidies from buying European businesses or bidding for public contracts. Analysts say that would impact Chinese state-backed companies looking to expand in Europe.   
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Disquiet is growing within France’s military ranks, with the publication of a second open letter — this time by serving soldiers — warning growing Islamism, delinquency and violence threaten the country’s very survival.This latest open letter by members of France’s armed forces is making headlines — and stirring debate. Like one last month signed by some 20 retired generals, it too warns of civilian insurrection — fueled, it claims, by President Emmanuel Macron’s alleged concessions to fundamentalist Islam.But this newest missive, published late Sunday by right-wing magazine Valeurs Actuelles, is from an anonymous group of solders currently serving in the army. They describe serving in countries like Afghanistan and Central African Republic—and losing friends in the fight against fundamentalist Islam which they claim Macron is caving into at home.The group endorses the earlier letter by the generals—and criticizes the president for allegedly disrespected those officers. But it says the military will maintain order in France, should civil war break out.Macron’s government blasted the generals’ letter as defying Republican principles and the army’s duty. It says its signatories will be punished.  Critics also include far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon. In remarks to French media, he called for an investigation claiming the generals’ letter amounted to a call for a coup.But a recent poll suggests the majority of French support that letter. An online petition backing this latest letter by serving officers quickly got nearly 1,000 signatories within hours.  News reports suggest up to 2,000 French soldiers also back the generals’ call.So does the main opposition Far-right National Rally party.Leading National Rally politician, Thierry Mariani, told French radio Monday the military are loyal to the country. The letters’ authors, he said, were simply voicing today’s reality.The letters come amid heightened concern about radical Islam here, following a spate of terrorist attacks. Government legislation, aimed to boost the anti-terrorism response and crack down on extremist groups, has drawn criticism from the left for going too far— and the right for not going far enough.
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Boris Johnson’s resounding victory in local and regional elections in Britain last week is dismaying not just for the country’s storied Labour Party, but also for mainstream leftist parties on the continent of Europe, most of which are also struggling for electoral relevancy.  From Italy to Germany, France to the countries of Central Europe, the traditional parties of social democracy are largely in the doldrums and have increasingly become political bystanders rather than participants. Britain’s Labour Party saw its vote slump by an extraordinary 25% last week in the elections for local and regional governments in England.  Labour politicians had thought their drubbing by Johnson in the general election of 2019 would mark their historic low-point — but they did even worse last week.  Speaking as the vote tallies started to unfold, and as scores of local government seats in former Labour strongholds in the north of England and the Midlands fell to the Conservatives, also known as Tories, embattled Labour leader Keir Starmer admitted his party had “lost the trust of working people.” His deputy, Angela Rayner said Sunday she is determined to “show that the Labour Party speaks for the working class.” But while Labour and its counterparts in Europe largely grew out of trade union movements and still consider themselves parties of the working-class, the working-class voters they claim to represent are rejecting them in droves.FILE – Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson holds up a pint during a visit to The Mount Tavern Pub and Restaurant on the local election campaign trail in Wolverhampton, West Midlands, Britain, Apr. 19, 2021. (Jacob King/PA Wire/Pool via Reuters)“Labour’s plight is similar to other traditional center-left parties on our continent,” according to Ian Birrell, a columnist with opinion-site Unherd.com. “Once their leaders could rely on a powerful alliance of middle-class progressives backed by the massed ranks of working-class voters to win elections.”  Now, he says, the “brothers and sisters of socialism find themselves rebuffed, rejected and sliding into irrelevance across their European heartlands.” Europe’s traditional left-wing parties have been in disarray for several years with 2019 being an especially gloomy year for them as they battled a head wind of disapproval from their traditional working-class supporters, who deserted to newly emerging populist parties or to traditional center-right parties who adopted successfully populist positions. They have suffered a seemingly non-stop series of electoral blows in most countries — Spain being an exception. Labour’s sister parties in Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Holland all plumbed historic new lows. The rising electoral clout of Green parties, notably in Germany, which is now more popular than Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD), isn’t helping. And they have been squabbling about how to rebuild winning electoral coalitions with moderates insisting a shift to the center is in order and progressives demanding more radical policies.  Labour’s pains  In the immediate aftermath of their defeat last week Labour politicians can’t agree on what went wrong for them. Some are blaming the defeat on the lackluster quality of the party’s top spokespeople, including party leader Starmer, a former human rights lawyer and one time director of public prosecutions. Starmer has responded with a reshuffle of his shadow Cabinet. FILE – Former Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn addresses demonstrators during a ‘Kill the Bill’ protest in London, April 3, 2021. The demonstration is against the contentious Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill going through Parliament.Others, including Starmer’s predecessor as Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, insist more radical socialist policies, including the nationalization of a swathe of the British economy, would resonate with the working people. “It is new ideas from across our movement — not reshuffles or cosmetic tweaks — that will bring hope back,” Corbyn said Monday.  Much the same internecine battle has been playing out in other mainstream European parties of the left.FILE – Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Italy’s League party leader Matteo Salvini pose for a picture after a news conference following their meeting in Budapest, Hungary, Apr. 1, 2021.Italy’s Democratic Party (PD) has seen its so-called “Red Belt” in the country’s north and center unbuckled in recent years by the populists of Matteo Salvini’s Lega party— an echo of the dismantlement of Labour’s “Red Wall” in the north of England by Johnson’s populist-minded Conservatives. The never-ending struggle for mastery between the PD’s reformists and traditional leftists resulted in the resignation in March of party leader Nicola Zingaretti, who said he was quitting because he was “ashamed of the power struggles” within the party. Only five governments in the European Union are headed by the traditional center-left parties — an extraordinary decline from earlier in the century. In 2012 socialist Francois Hollande won the French presidency in 2012, but in 2017 his party only secured a dismal 6% of the French presidential vote.FILE – French president Francois Hollande picks up ballots before voting in the first round of the presidential election in Tulle, central France, Apr. 23, 2017.In the Netherlands, the Labour Party was swamped by the greens, liberals, hard-left and populist right challengers and lost three-quarters of their lawmakers in the 2017 election.Only in Scandinavia, Malta and Spain has the traditional left been able to buck the trend of defeat — either by forming short-term alliances with hard left fringe parties or by adopting tough anti-migrant policies.  No Biden boost European leftist leaders had hoped that Joe Biden’s win on the other side of the Atlantic in November would be the harbinger of a resurgence of the traditional political left in Europe. But so far that has failed to materialize. Political commentator Janan Ganesh suggests there aren’t any lessons for Europe’s social democratic parties to learn from the U.S. “If the Democrats stand out from a center-left malaise, it is for reasons that are not much imitable outside the U.S.” according to Ganesh, political commentator for The Financial Times. He argues the Democrats — so too the Republicans — are protected by a strict two-party system. “The liberal, labour and green veins of thought, so often distinct in Europe, are crammed into just one U.S. movement,” notes Ganesh.  Race adds a structural advantage. “The leftward tilt of minorities can be overdone [Republicans have gained, especially among Latinos] but it holds often enough to matter. Few democracies have the ethnic diversity of the U.S., so few parties of the left have the electoral reach of the Democrats,” he maintains. Working-class voters have become increasingly socially conservative and more nationalist, while progressive activists and younger metropolitan voters are embracing very different identity politics, says British academic Matt Goodwin. Ahead of last week’s election he predicted Labour would likely perform badly.He says the traditional left is being pulled apart by new cultural divides. “If you look at the polling data and the evidence on where Labour is at the moment I think one of the big concerns for Keir Starmer and his team is that they don’t seem to be cutting through on cultural factors,” he says.  
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A diplomatic dispute between Morocco and Spain over Madrid’s decision to host a leader of the Western Saharan independence movement has soured what had been improving relations across the Mediterranean Sea.   Brahim Ghali, the leader of the Polisario Front, which wants for independence of the Sahrawi people in Western Sahara, is being treated at a hospital in Logroño in northern Spain, after he was infected with COVID-19.   His presence in Spain has angered Morocco which has accused the leftist government in Madrid of endangering relations with Rabat.   The Polisario Front fought a long war against Morocco to win the independence of the disputed Western Saharan territory. Despite a truce in 1991, both sides have been at loggerheads for years.   The United Nations classifies Western Sahara, a Spanish colony until 1975 with a population of one million people, as a “non-self-governing territory.”  The Polisario Front has demanded an independence referendum while Rabat claims the territory as part of Morocco.   Spain has tried to appear neutral on the Western Sahara issue, but analysts suggest that Morocco will use the diplomatic dispute between Rabat and Madrid over the presence of Ghali in Spain to exert pressure on Spain to change its policy.   Rabat complains   Moroccan Foreign Minister Naser Burita  asked whether Spain wanted to “sacrifice relations with Morocco” by failing to inform Rabat of Ghali’s presence in Spain.   “Why doesn’t Spain consider it should have to inform Morocco of the presence of Ghali? Would they rather consort with the enemies of Morocco? This is a test of our relationship,” Burita said in an interview at the weekend with EFE, the Spanish state news agency.   Burita was referring to Algeria when he mentioned Morocco’s enemies as the neighboring North African state champions the cause of the Polisario Front.    The minister said Morocco had supported Spain when former Catalan regional president Carles Puigdemont staged a failed independence declaration in 2017, plunging Spain into its worst political crisis for decades.    Morocco last month summoned Ricardo Díez-Hochleitner, the Spanish ambassador to Rabat, to complain about Ghali’s presence in Spain.   Rabat also accused Madrid of allowing Ghali to enter Spain with a false passport and identity, adding that there are several complaints against Ghali in Spain for allegations of “war crimes and human rights violations.”  Ghali has been accused by a dissident Polisario Front group based in Spain called ASADEDH, who accuse him of torture and crimes against humanity, charges that Spanish authorities are investigating.    The dissidents claim members the Western Saharan independence movement held them in camps in Algeria against their will.   FILE – Spain’s Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez speaks during a media briefing at San Carlos Palace in Bogota, Colombia, Feb. 26, 2021.Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya told journalists Spain admitted Ghali for “strictly humanitarian” reasons, saying he was recovering from coronavirus.   Spain’s National Court, which deals with serious cases of terrorism and fraud, has summoned the militia leader to appear on June 1 to answer allegations of torture made by Polisario Front dissidents.   “Ghali has been summoned to appear on June 1 if he is well enough to attend the hearing,” a court spokesman told VOA.   Gonzalez said Spain’s justice system would deal with any allegations against the Polisario leader but it had nothing to do with the Spanish government.  “If the justice system believes Ghali must answer to the justice system, then he will appear before the court,” she added during a press conference last week.  “It will not be the government that intervenes in the independent and free operation of justice in our country. Justice will do what it has to do and the government will fully respect it as it cannot be otherwise in a democratic country.”   Spanish media reported that Ghali had given a false name and used an Algerian diplomatic passport to enter Spain.   Ignacio Cembrero, a Spanish journalist who has written widely about Morocco, said Rabat will try to use the Ghali row to change Spain’s policy on Western Sahara.     Spain under pressure  At present, Spain maintains a solution to the issue can only come from an agreement brokered by the United Nations but, Cembrero contends, Morocco may try to push Spain to change this stance to one more sympathetic to Rabat.  “In public Spain would never admit that it had changed its policy,” Cembrero told VOA.   “However, in private Spain may act more favorably towards Morocco’s ambitions to rule Western Sahara. Over the years, Spain has quietly helped Morocco by aiding it at the United Nations and in its legal battles at the European Court of Justice.”   Spain has sought to distance itself over international disputes over Western Sahara, conscious of the possible effect this could have on trade and security relations between the close neighbors, experts said.   Last week, a fresh disagreement erupted between Morocco and Germany over the disputed territory, with Rabat recalling its ambassador in Berlin.   Morocco accused Germany of “distancing itself from the spirit of constructive solution with a destructive attitude on the issue of the Moroccan Sahara,” the Moroccan Foreign Ministry said in a statement.   FILE – U.S. and Moroccan flags emblems are seen outside the provisional consulate of the U.S in Dakhla, Morocco-administered Western Sahara, Jan. 10, 2021.After the U.S. recognized the Moroccan right to control over Western Sahara in January, Germany called for a closed-door UN Security Council meeting to discuss the issue.   The German government said it was “surprised” by Morocco’s move to recall its ambassador.   “We are all the more surprised by this measure as we are working with the Moroccan side in a constructive way to resolve this crisis,” the German Foreign Ministry said. 
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Helmut Jahn, a prominent German architect who designed an Illinois state government building and worked on the design of the FBI headquarters in Washington, was killed in a bicycle accident outside Chicago. Jahn, 81, was struck Saturday afternoon while riding north on a village street in Campton Hills, about 90 kilometers (55 miles) west of Chicago. Jahn failed to stop at a stop sign at an intersection and was struck by the two vehicles, headed in opposite directions, Campton Hills Police Chief Steven Miller said in a news release. Jahn was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident. Authorities say the driver of one of the vehicles that struck Jahn was taken to a hospital for treatment of non-life threatening injuries. A profile posted on the website of his firm, Jahn, says he was born in Germany in 1940 and graduated from Technische Hochschule in Munich. He moved to Chicago in 1966 to study under legendary architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, a creator of modernist architecture, at the Illinois Institute of Technology.  Jahn’s professional career began in 1967 when he joined CF Murphy Associates, which later became Murphy/Jahn. He worked on several major projects, including Chicago’s McCormick Place and the United Airlines terminal at O’Hare International Airport, which includes a walkway famous for its colorful lighting. He also had a hand in the design of the J Edgar Hoover Building, the FBI headquarters in Washington.  Jahn’s work internationally includes the Sony Center in Berlin and the Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, Thailand.  “Helmut had an exceptional career both for its length and for the consistent quality of the work,” Reed Kroloff, dean of the Illinois Institute of Technology’s College of Architecture, told the Chicago Tribune on Sunday. “At his height, he was one of the most influential architects in the world. Not only formally, but technically. He engaged early on with building-skin technologies that were very advanced. He created buildings of every variety.” One of his more controversial buildings was the James R. Thompson Building, a glass-sheathed, Illinois government office building in Chicago’s Loop that opened in 1985. It was put up for sale last week. State officials say the 17-story building is a drain on state finances because it is inefficient to operate and in need of hundreds of millions of dollars in repairs. Jahn taught at the University of Illinois Chicago, Harvard University, Yale University and the Illinois Institute of Technology.
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One of Britain’s most wanted fugitives, a 35-year-old suspected of involvement in a plot to traffic huge quantities of cocaine, has been arrested in Dubai, authorities said Sunday. Michael Paul Moogan, from Liverpool, had been on the run for eight years since a raid on a Rotterdam cafe that is suspected of being a front for meetings between drug traffickers and cartels. The cafe was “central to a plot to bring hundreds of kilos of cocaine into the U.K. every week,” Dubai police said in a statement. Moogan used different identities to elude capture and entered the emirate under a false name and nationality.  After he was tracked down, he was put under surveillance before being taken into custody April 21.  “This arrest is the result of years of investigation involving a range of law enforcement partners in the U.K., Europe and Middle East,” Nikki Holland, director of investigations at the U.K.’s National Crime Agency (NCA), said in a statement. The NCA said it had targeted Moogan and his associates over suspicions they were involved in plans to import drugs from Latin America to the European Union.  Its investigators linked Moogan and two other British men to Rotterdam’s Café de Ketel, which was open to the public but could only be entered via a security system. At the time of the raid, only one of the men, Robert Hamilton, a 71-year-old from Manchester, could be found, it said. He was jailed for eight years in 2014.  “The other man, Robert Gerard, 57, from Liverpool, handed himself in to the NCA after three years on the run, claiming the pressure was too much,” the NCA said, adding that Gerard was sentenced to 14 years. “We are extremely grateful to those partners for their assistance in ensuring Moogan now faces justice,” Holland said. “He will be returned to the United Kingdom to face trial.”
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More than 1,200 migrants in several decrepit, overcrowded fishing boats on Sunday reached a tiny Italian island in a span of 12 hours, as human traffickers exploited calm seas and warm weather to launch multiple vessels, the mayor said. The first of the migrants arrived at 5 a.m., Lampedusa Mayor Salvatore Martello told Sky TG24 TV at 5 p.m. It was the biggest number of migrants to come ashore this year in a single day at an Italian port. “I’ve said all you need is a day of good weather to see (all) these boats,” Martello said. He appealed to Premier Mario Draghi to put migration on the agenda even as the government is heavily focused on guiding Italy’s economic and social recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. By late afternoon, at least nine boats full of migrants disembarked on the island, which has an initial processing center for migrants coming ashore and requesting asylum. Italian news reports said Italian coast guard and customs police boats escorted the vessels to Lampedusa after they were spotted in the Mediterranean a few kilometers offshore. The island, which lives off tourism and fishing, is closer to northern Africa than to the Italian mainland. A newspaper in Sicily, Il Giornale di Sicilia, said they arrived on wooden or metal boats. Many the migrants were reported to be from Bangladesh and Tunisia. Most of those reaching Lampedusa were men, but there were some women and children, including a newborn, the newspaper said.  Late spring, when weather is generally good, has seen Libya-based migrant traffickers launch many unseaworthy vessels toward European shores. In recent years there have been surges in the number of migrant arrivals, either being rescued at sea, escorted by military vessels or sailing unassisted directly to Italian shores when seas are calm. In recent years, a few thousand migrants rescued at sea arrived in one day.  Right-wing leader Matteo Salvini, whose anti-migrant League party is part of Draghi’s coalition government, pressed Draghi to take action. “A meeting with Draghi is needed, with millions of Italians in difficulty we can’t think about thousands of clandestine” migrants, Salvini tweeted. He added that some 12,000 migrants have arrived so far this year, many in recent weeks. The last few governments before Draghi have insisted, largely in vain, that fellow European Union nations take in more of the migrants that step ashore in Italy. Many of the migrants, including those rescued at sea by charity boats, cargo ships or military vessels in the waters north of Libya, are economic migrants who are unlikely to be granted asylum.  Because Italy has so few repatriation agreements with countries whose citizens seek asylum, many of the migrants wind up staying in Europe, some of them heading north from Italy to other countries.
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The leader of the Scottish National Party, Nicola Sturgeon, has vowed to start the push for a second referendum on Scottish independence as her party made major gains in elections this weekend for Scotland’s devolved Parliament, but fell short by one seat of securing an overall majority. Sturgeon is wasting no time in laying down the gauntlet to London. She told Britain’s ruling Conservatives not to pick a fight with the Scots and not to seek to obstruct an independence referendum she aims to hold before the end of 2023. Hailing the election result as “historic,” and highlighting the fact that the SNP had won more votes and a higher share votes cast than any party since Scottish devolution in 1999, she said, “To any Westminster politician who tries to stand in the way of that, I would say you’re not picking a fight with the SNP, you’re picking a fight with the democratic wishes of the Scottish people. “The only people who can decide the future of Scotland,” she added, “are the Scottish people, and no Westminster politician can or should stand in the way of that.” Election staff members count votes for the Scottish parliamentary election at a counting center in Glasgow, Scotland, May 8, 2021.Despite failing to secure an overall parliamentary majority, Sturgeon can count on the backing of the Scottish Greens, which will give her control of 72 seats in the 129-seat parliament, sufficient to pass legislation authorizing an independence plebiscite.  The Scottish Parliament oversees public services, education and policing north of the English border, but has no powers over defense and foreign affairs issues. Scots voted in 1997 to transfer some powers from the British Parliament in London. The stage is now set for a monumental struggle between Edinburgh and London, one that could herald the breakup of the United Kingdom, which itself would have untold international repercussions for Britain, politicians and analysts say. Buoyed by his own election triumph in local and regional government elections in England in which his ruling Conservatives routed the main opposition Labour Party in northern England and the Midlands, Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson has called for a summit with the leaders of the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, saying the United Kingdom is “best served when we work together.” Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks at Jacksons Wharf Marina in Hartlepool following local elections, Britain, May 7, 2021.Johnson has consistently expressed uncompromising opposition to holding yet another referendum on Scottish independence. The last plebiscite was held in 2014 when 55% voted to remain part of the U.K. Scotland remains evenly split now on the central issue of secession, according to opinion polls, although a slim majority in most recent surveys appear to back breaking away. Brexit — Britain’s exit from the European Union — is seen as a key driver of support for the SNP. The Scots (and Northern Irish) never wanted to leave the EU and voted in the 2016 Brexit referendum to stay in the bloc, in Scotland’s case overwhelmingly by 62% to 30%. Sturgeon has used Brexit to argue that Scotland should get another opportunity to hold a plebiscite on independence, nicknamed Indyref2. Earlier this year Johnson said there should be a 40-year gap between the first and a second Scottish independence referendum — similar to the interval between British referendums on Europe in 1975 and 2016.  “Referendums in my experience, direct experience, in this country are not particularly jolly events,” he told the BBC. “They don’t have a notably unifying force in the national mood, they should be only once-in-a-generation,” he added. FILE – A Yes campaign sign for the Scottish independence referendum stands backdropped by Edinburgh Castle, in Edinburgh, Scotland, Sept. 18, 2014.The British parliament would have to endorse holding another referendum, according to constitutional lawyers. However, the SNP is exploring legal avenues, and a prolonged struggle in the courts and acrimonious political tussle is in the offing. The SNP has steered clear of suggesting it would call a wildcat referendum along the lines of what Catalonian separatists did in Spain in 2017, which triggered a violent standoff between Madrid and Barcelona. Nationalists currently recognize that a nonlegal vote could easily be sabotaged by a boycott campaign the British government would almost certainly mount that would call on union-supporting Scots to ignore the vote. Nonetheless, Britain seems likely to be thrust into another time-consuming and energy-sapping political and constitutional fight just as it is trying to plot a new diplomatic and trade course for itself in the wake of Brexit, analysts and U.S. diplomats say.  U.S. officials say privately they are concerned with the prospect of Britain, a key foreign-policy and defense ally, being preoccupied by more domestic upheaval. U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is banking on London to assist it in strengthening Western democracy.  There are also Washington worries about the implications for Britain in the event that Scotland does break away. A diminished Britain might struggle to keep its permanent U.N. Security Council seat and there are major questions about what would happen to Britain’s nuclear-armed submarines, based in Scotland. Opponents of Scottish independence are seizing on the SNP’s failure to win an outright parliamentary majority to argue against Sturgeon’s aim of holding a second independence referendum. “Her failure to win an overall majority reduces her ability to claim a mandate for a second independence referendum,” argued Sunday Times columnist Alex Massie. “The SNP has won another battle, but the war goes on and the path to a fresh plebiscite on the national question is neither clear nor easy,” he wrote. “The SNP strategy,” he added, “is clear and built for the long term: depict Boris Johnson as an ‘overlord’ and the unionist parties as ‘democracy deniers’ frustrating the manifest preferences of the Scottish people. This is, the nationalists suggest, less an argument about the merits of independence than one about basic democratic principles.” Speaking on Britain’s Sky News, Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, would not say whether the British government would challenge in the courts a move by the Scottish Parliament to hold a referendum in court.  “We are not going to go there. It’s not an issue for the moment,” he said. He said there are more important priorities for the U.K. “The priority for politicians has to be the recovery from the pandemic,” he said, adding, “instead of concentrating on the things that divide, let’s concentrate on the things that unite.” 
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  Russia showed off its military might with parades across the country on Sunday to commemorate the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. President Vladimir Putin reviewed the main Victory Day parade on Moscow’s Red Square, featuring some 12,000 troops, nearly 200 pieces of military hardware, and aircraft and helicopter flyovers. Putin watched the display with Soviet war veterans from a review platform. Since coming to power two decades ago, Putin has sought either as president or prime minister to restore symbols of the Soviet and Russian past to boost patriotism. Russian President Putin takes part in a commemoration ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Victory Day, in Moscow, Russia, May 9, 2021. (Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Pool via Reuters)Putin, during his address on the 76th anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany, vowed that Russia will defend its national interests and denounced what he asserted was the return of “Russophobia.” “We will firmly defend our national interests to ensure the safety of our people,” Putin said. This year’s parade comes as the ruling United Russia party faces parliamentary elections in September, with polls showing declining support for the pro-Kremlin party to 27 percent. 
 
Russia’s relations with the West have also nosedived over everything from the fate of jailed opposition leader Aleksei Navalny to the conflict in Ukraine. 
 
In recent weeks, the United States and Russia have expelled each other’s diplomats in a series of retaliatory moves, while Moscow and EU member states been involved in similar tit-for-tat diplomatic disputes. 
 
The military parades come after Russia recently deployed more than 100,000 troops near the border with Ukraine and in annexed Crimea. The buildup prompted alarm in Western capitals over Moscow’s intentions amid an uptick in fighting between Ukrainian government forces and Russia-backed separatists in the country’s east. 
 
Russia has since withdrawn most of the troops but left behind some military equipment and continues to conduct naval exercises in the Black Sea. 
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An Italian judge murdered by the mafia in Sicily takes a step towards sainthood Sunday, almost three decades after being declared a martyr by pope John Paul II.The beatification of Rosario Livatino will take place in the cathedral in Agrigento, the Sicilian town near where he was gunned down aged 38 on September 21, 1990.In a preface to a new book about the judge, Pope Francis hailed him as a “righteous man who knew he did not deserve that unjust death”.An undated photo obtained from Italian news agency Ansa shows Italian judge Rosario Livatino.Livatino, who prayed in church every day before going to court, had been involved in a mass trial against mafioso and was about to launch a new case when he died.He was found in a ditch by the roadside a few miles from his home. He had refused armed protection.Many of his notes were later found to be marked STD, for “sub tutela Dei”, a Latin invocation meaning “under the protection of God” which judges of the Middle Ages used before taking official decisions.The notes also showed he asked God’s forgiveness for the risks his work exposed his parents to, once he learned that the bosses of the Cosa Nostra had him in their sights.When John Paul II visited Livatino’s parents in 1993, he said the judge was “a martyr for justice and indirectly for the faith”.Under Church law, if martyrdom is established, then beatification — the penultimate accolade before canonization — moves ahead quickly without the proof of miracles required of other candidates for sainthood.The two mafia members who killed Livatino, identified by a man who drove past at the moment of the crime, were given life sentences.’Blasphemous’Livatino was one of the first investigating magistrates in Italy who moved to seize assets belonging to the mafia, according to Luigi Ciotti, a priest known for his own fight against organized crime.”He understood that would lead to a weakening of the clans, their loss of control and also of social control,” Ciotti wrote in another biography of the murdered judge.Today, a cooperative of young people bears Livatino’s name and cultivates land confiscated from the Sicilian mafia.Less than two years after Livatino’s death, anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino were also murdered by the mob. Since he was elected pope in 2013, Francis has spoken out repeatedly against organized crime groups. In an open-air mass in Sicily in September 2018, during a trip to honor a priest killed by the mafia 25 years earlier, the Argentine pontiff condemned those who belong to the mafia as “blasphemous”.”You can’t believe in God and belong to the mafia,” he said.His impassioned plea echoed the words of John Paul II who, during his May 1993 trip to the island, had also called on mobsters to abandon crime, and urged Sicilians to revolt against the mafia. 
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Seven people died Saturday in two avalanches in the French Alps, according to authorities who had warned Friday of the instability of the snowpack because of warmer temperatures.The first fatal slide was triggered late in the morning in the town of Valloire in the sector of the Col du Galibier at 2,642 meters above sea level. Four people, aged 42 to 76 and from the surroundings of Grenoble, were killed.Two groups of hikers, composed of three and two people, were swept away and only one of them survived, found in good health by the emergency services.Six soldiers from the High Mountain Gendarmerie Platoon (PGHM), two helicopters and two avalanche dogs had been hired to search for the victims.The second avalanche occurred around 2 p.m. in the Mont Pourri sector, which rises to 3,779 meters in the Vanoise massif, on the other side of the department. Three people died, according to the prefecture.The authorities had warned Friday that the risk of avalanches was “particularly high” this weekend, as temperatures have softened after heavy snowfall on the mountains in recent days.”With weather like today’s, it’s tempting to go out in the mountains, but it’s also extremely tricky,” Valloire Mayor Jean-Pierre Rougeaux told AFP by phone.Five people had already died Monday in two avalanches in Isère and in the Hautes-Alpes.Since the start of the 2020-21 season, before the avalanches on Saturday, 28 people had already died in similar conditions, according to the National Association for the Study of Snow and Avalanches (Anena), which publishes each year of accident statistics.
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Pro-independence parties won a majority in Scotland’s parliament on Saturday, paving the way to a high-stakes political, legal and constitutional battle with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson over the future of the United Kingdom.Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the result meant she would push ahead with plans for a second independence referendum once the COVID-19 pandemic was over, adding that it would be absurd and outrageous if Johnson were to try to ignore the democratic will of the people.”There is simply no democratic justification whatsoever for Boris Johnson, or indeed for anyone else, seeking to block the right of the people of Scotland to choose our own future,” Sturgeon said.”It is the will of the country,” she added after her Scottish National Party (SNP) was returned for a fourth consecutive term in office.The British government argues Johnson must give approval for any referendum and he has repeatedly made clear he would refuse. He has said it would be irresponsible to hold one now, pointing out that Scots had backed staying in the United Kingdom in a “once in a generation” poll in 2014.The election outcome is likely to be a bitter clash between the Scottish government in Edinburgh and Johnson’s United Kingdom-wide administration in London, with Scotland’s 314-year union with England and Wales at stake.The nationalists argue that they have democratic authority on their side; the British government says the law is on its side. It is likely the final decision on a referendum will be settled in the courts.’Irresponsible and reckless'”I think a referendum in the current context is irresponsible and reckless,” Johnson told the Daily Telegraph newspaper.Alister Jack, the U.K. government’s Scotland minister, said dealing with the coronavirus crisis and the vaccine rollout should be the priority.”We must not allow ourselves to be distracted — COVID recovery must be the sole priority of Scotland’s two governments,” he said.FILE – The Scotland-England border is shown at Berwick-Upon-Tweed, Scotland, May 4, 2021.The SNP had been hopeful of winning an outright majority, which would have strengthened its call for a secession vote, but it looked set to fall one seat short of the 65 required in the 129-seat Scottish parliament, partly because of an electoral system that helps smaller parties.Pro-union supporters argue that the SNP’s failure to get a majority has made it easier for Johnson to rebut its argument that it has a mandate for a referendum.However, the Scottish Greens, who have promised to support a referendum, picked up eight seats, meaning overall there will be a comfortable pro-independence majority in the Scottish assembly.Divided about plebisciteScottish politics has been diverging from other parts of the United Kingdom for some time, but Scots remain divided over holding another independence plebiscite.However, Britain’s exit from the European Union,  opposed by a majority of Scots; a perception that Sturgeon’s government has handled the COVID-19 crisis well; and antipathy to Johnson’s Conservative government in London have all bolstered support for the independence movement.Scots voted 55%-45% in 2014 to remain part of the United Kingdom, and polls suggest a second referendum would be too close to call.Sturgeon said her first task was dealing with the pandemic and the SNP has indicated that a referendum is unlikely until 2023. But she said any legal challenge by Johnson’s government to a vote would show a total disregard for Scottish democracy.”The absurdity and outrageous nature of a Westminster government potentially going to court to overturn Scottish democracy, I can’t think of a more colorful argument for Scottish independence than that myself,” she said.
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While thousands flock daily to health clinics and ad-hoc vaccination points across Spain, health workers also fan out across the country to take shots to some of those who are the most vulnerable to the coronavirus.More than 1 million Spaniards are considered by social services to be in need of help to feed and care for themselves. Some of these people are homebound and cannot respond to calls to go to vaccination points when their turns come.So, on the island of Mallorca, health workers take the jabs to them.Pilar Rodríguez is one of three nurses in the town of Sa Pobla in the interior of the island administering shots there and in nearby villages.On her rounds of the area on foot, she is welcomed amiably by older people, many unable to leave their chairs or beds. So far, Rodríguez said, she and her colleagues have vaccinated upward of 70 people at their homes in the rural area. They have all received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the shot leading Spain’s campaign.Rodríguez and her co-workers carry the vaccines in hand-held coolers to the first home on their day’s circuit, where they prepare the shots. From that first stop, they walk to the other homes to make sure they avoid any jolts a car could deal the shots.“Rain or storm, the vaccines must reach the homes,” Rodríguez said.Spain has set the goal of vaccinating 70% of its adult population — 33 million people — by the end of August. After being slowed by delays in shipments from drugmakers, Spain has sped up its vaccination efforts and now has gotten at least one shot to almost 13 million people.The government’s priority is the elderly and most vulnerable. It has completely vaccinated 95% of people over age 80.
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The fight to make the French language kinder to women took steps forward, and back, this week.
 
Warning that the well-being of France and its future are at stake, the government banned the use in schools of a method increasingly used by some French speakers to make the language more inclusive by feminizing some words.  
 
Specifically, the education minister’s decree targets what is arguably the most contested and politicized letter in the French language — “e.” Simply put, “e” is the language’s feminine letter, used in feminine nouns and their adjectives and, sometimes, when conjugating verbs.
 
But proponents of women’s rights are also increasingly adding “e” to words that normally wouldn’t have included that letter, in a conscious — and divisive — effort to make women more visible.
 
Take the generic French word for leaders — “dirigeants” — for example. For some, that masculine spelling suggests that they are generally men and makes women leaders invisible, because it lacks a feminine “e” toward the end. For proponents of inclusive writing, a more gender-equal spelling is “dirigeant·es,” inserting the extra “e,” preceded by a middle dot, to make clear that leaders can be of both sexes.  
 
Likewise, they might write “les élu·es” — instead of the generic masculine “élus” — for the holders of elected office, again to highlight that women are elected, too. Or they might use “les idiot·es,” instead of the usual generic masculine “les idiots,” to acknowledge that stupidity isn’t the exclusive preserve of men.  
 
Proponents and opponents sometimes split down political lines. France’s conservative Republicans party uses “ élus”; the left-wing France Unbowed tends toward ”élu · es.”
“It’s a fight to make women visible in the language,” said Laurence Rossignol, a Socialist senator who uses the feminizing extra “·e.”  
 
Speaking in a telephone interview, she said its opponents “are the same activists who were against marriage for people of the same sex, medically assisted reproduction, and longer abortion windows. … It’s the new banner under which reactionaries are gathering.”  
 
But for the government of centrist President Emmanuel Macron, the use of ”·e” threatens the very fabric of France. Speaking in a Senate debate on the issue on Thursday, a deputy education minister said inclusive writing “is a danger for our country” and will “sound the death knell for the use of French in the world.”  
 
By challenging traditional norms of French usage, inclusive writing makes the language harder to learn, penalizing pupils with learning difficulties, the minister, Nathalie Elimas, argued.
 
“It dislocates words, breaks them into two,” she said. “With the spread of inclusive writing, the English language — already quasi-hegemonic across the world — would certainly and perhaps forever defeat the French language.”  
 
Arguments over gender-inclusive language are raging elsewhere in Europe, too.
A fault-line among German speakers has been how to make nouns reflect both genders. The German word for athletes, for example, could be written as “Sportlerinnen” to show that it includes both men and women, as opposed to the more usual, generic masculine “Sportler.” For critics, the addition of the feminine “innen” at the end — sometimes with the help of an asterisk, capital letter or underscore — is plain ugly.  
 
Italy has seen sporadic debate over neutralizing gendered titles for public officials, or making them feminine when they normally would remain masculine, such as “ministra” instead of “ministro” for women Cabinet members. Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi prefers to be called “sindaca” rather than “sindaco.”  
 
Inclusive language has also been a long battle for feminists and, more recently, of LGTBQ+ groups in Spain, although there is no consensus on how to make progress. Politics also play into the issue there. Members of the far-right Vox party have insisted on sticking with the traditional “presidente” when referring to Spain’s four deputy prime ministers, all of them women, rather than opting for the more progressive “presidenta,” even though the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language has accepted usage of that feminine noun.
 
The French Education Ministry circular that banished the “·e” formula from schools did, however, accept other more inclusive changes in language that highlight women.
 
They include systematically feminizing job titles for women — like “présidente,” instead of “président,” or ambassadrice” rather than “ambassadeur” for women ambassadors. It also encouraged the simultaneous use of both masculine and feminine forms to emphasize that roles are filled by both sexes. So a job posting in a school, for example, should say that it will go to “le candidat ou la candidate” — man or woman — who is best qualified to fill it.
 
Raphael Haddad, the author of a French-language guide on inclusive writing, said that section of the ministry circular represented progress for the cause of women in French.
 
“It’s a huge step forward, disguised as a ban,” he said. “What’s happening to the France language is the same thing that happened in the United States, with ‘chairman’ replaced by ‘chairperson,’ (and) ‘’fireman’ by ‘firefighter.’”  
 
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The European Union cemented its support for Pfizer-BioNTech and its novel COVID-19 vaccine technology Saturday by agreeing to a massive contract extension for a potential 1.8 billion doses through 2023.EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tweeted that her office “has just approved a contract for a guaranteed 900 million doses” with the same amount of doses as a future option.The new contract, which has the unanimous backing of the EU member states, will entail not only the production of the vaccines, but also making sure that all the essential components should be sourced from the EU.The European Commission currently has a portfolio of 2.6 billion doses from half a dozen companies. “Other contracts and other vaccine technologies will follow,” von der Leyen said in a Twitter message.Pfizer-BioNTech had an initial contract of 600 million doses with the EU.Saturday’s announcement also underscores the confidence the EU has shown in the technology used for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which is different from that behind the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.The active ingredient in the Pfizer-BioNTech shot is messenger RNA, or mRNA, which contains the instructions for human cells to construct a harmless piece of the coronavirus called the spike protein. The human immune system recognizes the spike protein as foreign, allowing it to mount a response against the virus upon infection.The announcement of the huge contract extension comes as the European Union is looking for ways to meet the challenges of necessary booster shots, possible new variants and a drive to vaccinate children and teenagers.America’s Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech have already said that they would provide the EU with an extra 50 million doses in the 2nd quarter of this year, making up for faltering deliveries of AstraZeneca.In contrast to the oft-criticized Anglo-Swedish AstraZeneca, von der Leyen has said that Pfizer-BioNTech is a reliable partner that delivers on its commitments.Two weeks ago, the EU launched legal proceedings against AstraZeneca for failing to respect the terms of its contract with the 27-nation bloc.The AstraZeneca vaccine had been central to Europe’s immunization campaign, and a linchpin in the global strategy to get vaccines to poorer countries. But the slow pace of deliveries has frustrated the Europeans and they have held the company responsible for partly delaying their vaccine rollout.So far, von der Leyen said, the EU has made some 200 million doses available to its 450 million citizens while almost as many have been exported from the bloc.
 
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