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The Italian president swore in the former chief of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, as prime minister on Saturday at the head of a unity government called on to confront the coronavirus crisis and economic slump.All but one of Italy’s major parties have rallied to his side and his cabinet includes lawmakers from across the political spectrum, as well as technocrats in key posts, including the finance ministry and a new green transition portfolio.Much now rests on Draghi’s shoulders.He is tasked with plotting Italy’s recovery from the pandemic and must immediately set to work on plans for how to spend more than 200 billion euros ($240 billion) in European Union funds aimed at rebuilding the recession-bound economy.If he prevails, Draghi will likely bolster the entire eurozone, which has long fretted over Italy’s perennial problems. Success would also prove to Italy’s skeptical northern allies that by offering funds to the poorer south, they will fortify the entire bloc.But he faces enormous challenges. Italy is mired in its worst downturn since World War Two, hundreds of people are still dying of COVID-19 each day, the vaccination campaign is going slowly and he only has limited time to sort things out.Italy is due to return to the polls in two years time, but it is far from certain that Draghi will be able to survive that long at the head of a coalition that includes parties with radically opposing views on issues such as immigration, justice, infrastructure development and welfare.Highlighting Italy’s political instability, Draghi’s government is the 67th to take office since 1946 and the seventh in the last decade alone.CABINET MIXPresident Sergio Mattarella asked him to take over after the previous coalition collapsed amid party infighting. Draghi has spent the past 10 days drawing up his plans and unveiled his 23-strong cabinet on Friday, which included eight women.Eight of the ministries went to technocrats, with the rest split amongst the six main parties that back the government — four for the 5-Star Movement, the largest group in parliament, three each for the Democratic Party, the League and Forza Italia and one apiece for Italia Viva and LEU.As finance minister, Draghi called on an old colleague, Daniele Franco, the deputy governor of the Bank of Italy, while the sensitive job of justice minister was handed to the former head of the constitutional court, Marta Cartabia.He also looked outside the political sphere for two new roles — technological innovation, which was entrusted to the former head of telecoms firm Vodafone, Vittorio Colao, and ecological transition, given to physicist Roberto Cingolani.These twin positions play into demands by the European Union that a sizeable chunk of its recovery fund should be used to promote the digitalisation of the continent and to shift away from a dependence on fossil fuels.Draghi, a reserved figure who has no profile on social media platforms, will unveil his program in the upper house of parliament on Wednesday and the lower house on Thursday.Confidence votes will be held in both chambers and with just the far-right Brothers of Italy outside the cabinet, he looks likely to win the biggest majority in Italian history.However, some members of the 5-Star Movement, which was created in 2009 as an anti-system, anti-euro protest group, have said they might vote against Draghi, threatening a party schism. 
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The European Union on Saturday called on China to reverse its ban on the BBC World News television channel imposed in apparent retaliation for Britain’s pulling of the license of state-owned Chinese broadcaster CGTN.The EU said in a statement that Beijing’s move further restricted “freedom of expression and access to information inside its borders,” and violated both the Chinese constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The statement also said that Hong Kong’s announcement that its public broadcaster would also stop carrying BBC broadcasts added to the “erosion of the rights and freedoms that is ongoing” in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory since the imposition last year of a sweeping new national security law.”The EU remains strongly committed to safeguarding media freedom and pluralism, as well as protecting the right to freedom of expression online and offline, including freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information without interference of any kind,” the statement said.BBC Banned from Broadcasting in China Country’s broadcast regulator says network has ‘undermined China’s national interests and ethnic solidarity.’ While Britain is no longer in the EU, it remains a member of the Council of Europe, which oversees a 1989 agreement linking broadcasting licenses. Britain, the U.S. and foreign correspondents based in China have also expressed dismay over the BBC ban.China’s move Thursday was largely symbolic, because BBC World was shown only on cable TV systems in hotels and apartment compounds for foreigners and some other businesses. However, it comes against the backdrop of growing conflict between Beijing and Western governments over a slew of issues ranging from human rights to trade and the COVID-19 pandemic in which Chinese criticisms over foreign media coverage have played a prominent role.China’s National Radio and Television Administration said BBC World News coverage of the country violated requirements that news reporting be true and impartial, reflecting complaints over BBC reports about the government’s initial response to the virus outbreak in China. Other complaints were over allegations of forced labor and sexual abuse in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang, home to Uighurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups. The EU statement specifically linked the ban to BBC reporting on those topics.It wasn’t clear whether BBC reporters in China would be affected. Last year, Beijing expelled foreign reporters for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times amid disputes with the Trump administration and complaints over media criticism of the ruling Communist Party.Britain’s communications watchdog, Ofcom, revoked the license for CGTN, China’s English-language satellite news channel, on Feb. 4, citing links to the Communist Party, among other reasons.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Ofcom acted on “political grounds based on ideological bias.”Losing its British license was a major blow for CGTN, which is part of a global effort by the party to promote its views and challenge Western media narratives about China, into which it has poured enormous resources. CGTN has a European operations hub in London. 
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An investment deal agreed to in principle between the European Union and China at the end of last year is facing criticism both in and outside the EU. Analysts point to the expected approval of the deal as evidence of Beijing’s uncanny ability to assess the power game within the EU.“If you look at China’s policy, as far as we can tell, over the last decade, toward Europe, they’re very much about dividing Europe into different sections — Central and Eastern Europe [as one bloc], Germany and France and Britain when Britain was still part of the EU [as another bloc], very much focused on appealing to these countries’ national economic self-interest. You know, it’s worked,” said Didi Kirsten Tatlow in a phone interview. Tatlow is a senior fellow in the Asia Program at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin.Tatlow cited China’s handling of its relationship with Germany as a case in point.FILE PHOTO: China’s President Xi Jinping meets German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, May 24, 2018.“They’ve been focusing on Germany for a long time,” she said. “I don’t think China has bottomless pockets, I think it’s very, very good at playing its cards.”Beijing, she said, not only “opened its doors to car and all kind of other German manufacturers,” it has also given Berlin unusual political access. “Let’s remember Germany is the country in Europe that has had these so-called ‘cabinet meetings’ with China for years now,” adding that participation in the meetings as seen as a “high-level honor” by some.In addition to successfully cultivating ties with major powers such as Germany and France, Tatlow said, Beijing has used all the tools at its disposal, including market access, to lure other countries into its orbit. As an example, she cited China’s decision to ink a deal with Slovakia on meat exports shortly before a Beijing-hosted summit with 17 Central and Eastern European countries this week.Even so, uneasiness about getting too close to Beijing has been fermenting among EU member states, Tatlow and others say. Whether that will lead one of the 27 member states to veto the investment agreement with Beijing is still uncertain.”In theory, it only takes one country to veto the deal,” said Jakub Janda, director of the European Values Center for Security Policy, based in Prague.But, he said in a phone interview, the small and medium-sized EU countries may be reluctant to use that power because they need support from Germany and France on other core interests, such as EU agricultural subsidies for Poland, or German backing of the Baltic states in their relationship with Russia.Janda regrets that the EU, under Germany’s leadership, failed to use the negotiations on the investment deal to advance its democratic values and support for human rights, especially since Beijing’s strong desire for a deal gave the EU leverage.The EU insists there are other mechanisms in place to discuss human rights, but Janda believes Beijing will take political concerns seriously only if they are linked to trade — an area that matters to it.“If you only raise the human rights issue through the EU-China human rights dialogue channel, and you tell China what you’re doing in [Xinjiang] is genocide of the Uighur people, the response you’ll get is, ‘No, we’re not.’ And that’s that.”Speaking to an international audience gathered at the Atlantic Council, a think tank in Washington, Charles Michel, president of the EU Council, defended the investment deal.FILE – European Council President Charles Michel is seen on a screen as he speaks with EU leaders during an EU Summit video conference, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, at the European Council building in Brussels, Nov. 19, 2020.“The relationship with China is an important question in Europe,” he said, suggesting that through dialogue, the EU could help pressure the Chinese government on human rights. He also credited the investment deal with bringing down certain barriers for EU companies doing business in China, including requirements on joint ventures.Still, the EU leadership’s support for the investment deal has come under fire in civil society. The proposed pact “further entrenches Europe’s existing strategic dependency on China and runs counter to Europe’s core values,” says a widely circulated open letter signed by academics, human rights activists and former politicians.Citing the Chinese leadership’s “insistence on the centrality of the Chinese Communist Party in all parts of China’s economic and social life,” the signatories wrote that “the agreement and the hopes attached to it are products of a bygone era” when there were more legitimate hopes for Chinese liberalization from within.
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World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday all hypotheses regarding the origins of COVID-19 remain open, following his discussions with investigative team members about the findings during their visit to China.
 
The WHO-led international team this week completed a visit to China where they investigated the origins of COVID-19, including a visit to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where some have speculated the virus could have originated.
 
At a news conference before departing China, WHO scientist Peter Ben Embarek told reporters their initial findings led them to believe it was highly unlikely the virus originated in a lab.FILE – Peter Daszak and Thea Fischer, members of the World Health Organization team tasked with investigating the origins of the coronavirus disease, sit in a car at Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China, Feb. 2, 2021.But at the agency’s regular briefing in Geneva, Tedros indicated nothing is off the table.  
 
“Having spoken with some members of the team, I wish to confirm that all hypotheses remain open and require further analysis and studies,” he said.
 
Tedros also cautioned, as he had in prior briefings, that the mission would not find all the answers, but he said it has added important information that takes us closer to understanding the origins of the virus. Tedros said the mission achieved a better understanding of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and identified areas for further analysis and research.
 
He said he expects a summary of the report to be finished in the next week and when it is published, he will discuss the findings.
 
Meanwhile, Tedros said the number of reported COVID-19 globally fell for the fourth consecutive week, and that the number of deaths also fell for the second consecutive week.
 
He credited the declines to stringent public health measures being implemented. Tedros urged nations not to let their guard down and relax those measures just yet.
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The Istanbul head of the opposition Republican People’s Party, Canan Kaftancioglu, is credited with masterminding the 2019 victory over the ruling party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the city’s mayoral elections. The stunning defeat of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party has now led Kaftancioglu to set her sights on ousting Erdogan, if she can avoid jail – as Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty says Russia is violating a bilateral investment treaty by targeting the organization’s news operations within Russia under its controversial “foreign agent” law.
The assertion, made public by RFE/RL in a statement issued on February 11, comes as Russian regulators have hit the company with a series of fines in recent weeks.
Media regulator Roskomnadzor has demanded RFE/RL comply with strict requirements to label content published and broadcast within Russia as financed by foreign sources. Those demands include prominent 15-second disclaimers shown at the start of every television, radio, or video program, be it online or broadcast.
RFE/RL, one of three foreign news organizations to be labeled as a “foreign agent” and the only one facing fines, has not complied. In response, Roskomnadzor has served RFE/RL with 260 notices of violations. When they go through the court system in the coming weeks, the total fines levied will amount to almost $1 million.
In its statement, the company said Moscow’s move violated a bilateral investment treaty signed in 1994 between Russia and the Czech Republic that obligates Moscow to treat Czech investments in Russia fairly. It called on Russia to negotiate to try to resolve the dispute.
If Russia is not willing to do so, the treaty allows for international arbitration proceedings against Moscow, the company said.
“These punitive measures by the Russian government are a nervous reaction aimed at driving RFE/RL out of business at a time when our audience in Russia is skyrocketing,” said Daisy Sindelar, the organization’s acting president and editor in chief.
“We intend to use every legal avenue available to defend our operations in Russia, so we can continue to deliver the accurate, unflinching journalism our audiences expect and depend on,” she said.Prague HQ
Funded by the U.S. Congress, RFE/RL is a private nonprofit organization incorporated under Delaware law in the United States. RFE/RL’s global headquarters have been based in the Czech Republic since moving there from Munich in 1995, and its operations there are executed through a Czech legal entity called a “branch.”
For that reason, the company argues its investments in Russia are covered under the 1994 treaty between Prague and Moscow.
With dozens of employees in Prague, about 50 full-time staff in Russia, and close to 300 freelance reporters across the country, RFE/RL’s Russian-language operations — TV, radio, and online — make it one of the largest independent foreign news organizations within Russia.
 
Press watchdogs have said the effort appears aimed at closing all of RFE/RL’s operations in Russia, which currently reach nearly 6.7 million people a week.
 
First passed in 2012 and expanded several times since, the “foreign agent” law gives authorities the power to brand nongovernmental organizations, human rights groups, and news media deemed to receive foreign funding for political activity as “foreign agents,” a label that carries pejorative Soviet-era connotations.
 
The law subjects these organizations to bureaucratic scrutiny and spot checks and requires them to attach the “foreign agent” label to their publications. They also must report on their spending and funding.
 
Among other things, the law requires certain news organizations that receive foreign funding to label content within Russia as being produced by a “foreign agent.” It also puts RFE/RL journalists at risk for criminal prosecution.
 
RFE/RL executives have said Russian regulators singled out the organization for punishment as compared with other foreign news organizations. The only other news organizations to be hit with the “foreign agent” designation and ordered to label their content, but not yet fined, are Voice of America and a small Czech outlet called Medium-Orient — neither of which currently have a physical presence in the country.
 
Last month, a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers called for new sanctions against Moscow if the Kremlin moves to enforce the fines and stringent restrictions.
 
Since early in Vladimir Putin’s presidency, the Kremlin has steadily tightened the screws on independent media. The country is ranked 149th out of 180 in the World Press Freedom Index produced by Reporters Without Borders.
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European Union leaders Friday signed an $814-billion package of grants and low-interest loans intended to help the bloc’s member nations recover from the record recession brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
The package is the central component of a $908-billion recovery plan approved by the EU last year. Member nations must ratify the plan to allow the European Commission – the EU’s executive arm – to borrow funds on the market.
 
At a news conference in Brussels, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen urged EU nations to move quickly, because the commission will go to the market, raise the funds and disburse them as soon as possible. She expected the first of the recovery money by about the middle of the year.  
 
The 27-member governments have until the end of April to submit detailed plans on how they will spend the money. Under EU guidelines, the plans must dedicate at least 37 percent of their budgets to addressing climate change and at least 20 percent to “digital transformation” – updating their nation’s technology infrastructure. The funding will be available for three years.
 
The commission says that so far, 19 EU countries have submitted draft plans, while seven other countries have plans underway.
 
Von der Leyen also told reporters the European Commission hopes to see 70 percent of the EU population vaccinated for COVID-19 by the end of summer – September 21.
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China’s broadcasting regulator says it has taken the BBC World News off the air for what it called “serious content violations.”
 
The decision comes one week after Britain’s broadcasting regulator, the Office of Communications, revoked the license of the state-owned China Global Television Network.  The office said the Chinese Communist Party oversees the network’s editorial policy, a violation of a British law forbidding political bodies from controlling broadcast license holders
 
On Thursday, the Chinese National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA)  said the BBC “was found to have seriously violated regulations on radio and television management” in its China-related reports, and “undermined China’s national interests and ethnic solidarity.”
 
From her Twitter feed, Australia-based BBC World News Presenter Yalda Hakim said that according to NRTA, the BBC was responsible for a “slew of falsified reporting” on issues including the treatment of the Uighur ethnic minority in the western Xinjiang region and China’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
In a statement posted on Twitter, the BBC said it is “disappointed” by China’s actions.
  
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A storied Russian liberal politician has sparked an outbreak of infighting among the country’s opposition groups after mounting a scathing attack on Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny, arguing the path he would take the country down wouldn’t lead to a life free of repression.
 
“Everyone must decide whether to support Navalny or not,” Grigory Yavlinsky wrote this week. “But you need to understand. A democratic Russia, respect for people, and a life without fear and repression are incompatible with Navalny’s policies,” he added.
 
Yavlinsky, who ran twice for the Russia’s presidency, in 1996 against Boris Yeltsin and in 2000 against Vladimir Putin, founded the Yabloko party, which favors free-market economics and social liberalism. He’s been critical of Navalny in the past and this week repeated his accusation that Navalny, Russia’s most high-profile opposition politician, is xenophobic and an authoritarian nationalist.
 
The attack by Yavlinsky has split the party he founded and triggered broader opposition infighting. It comes amid signs the recent protests against the Kremlin, and demands for Navalny to be freed from jail, are not resonating with most Russians, and that the paramilitary style crackdown on the dissenters is deterring others from considering protesting or enlisting in any future political action.
 
A poll conducted by the independent Levada Center carried out between January 29 and February 2 suggests there is little public appetite for agitation. Navalny survived a near-fatal poisoning, which he blames on the Kremlin and was arrested last month in Moscow on his return following life-saving treatment in Germany.  
 
In the past two weeks, pro-Navalny supporters were on the streets in more than a hundred cities across Russia’s 11 time zones, with the largest protests mounted in the Russian capital and St. Petersburg. More than 11,000 people have been arrested at rallies opposing the jailing of Navalny, who started out as a blogger and became known as an anti-corruption campaigner.FILE – Liberal politician Grigory Yavlinsky participates in a march in memory of murdered Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov, in central Moscow, Russia, Feb. 24, 2019.The poll found that just 15% of Russians would be prepared to participate in future pro-Navalny protests, four percent less than the pollster found in November 2020. The percentage rose to 17% when asked if they would join rallies to protest economic conditions. Those figures represent Russians’ lowest willingness to protest since March 2018, according to the pollster.
 
The pollster also found that only 22% viewed the recent political protests positively. Younger respondents, who tend to get their news from the Internet and non-government media sources, viewed the protests slightly more favorably than older Russians, who generally receive their news and views from government-owned or controlled channels.  
 
Government-sponsored channels have mounted unrelenting scorching attacks on Navalny and his allies, accusing them of being agents of foreign powers.
 
Among all respondents, two out of five said they view the protesters negatively. Another 37% expressed indifference to the political protests. Nonetheless, Russians do expect more political agitation in the future with 45% of people expecting more trouble, a jump from 23% last November, the highest it has been since 1998.
 
The poll findings are dismaying for Navalny supporters, who are in the process of taking stock and reorganizing to adjust for the high number of dedicated activists currently in detention. Navalny’s team last week said it intends to shift tactics and mount neighborhood flash mobs this Sunday instead of urging large numbers of supporters to take to the streets, risking more detentions and giving the security services an easy target to hit.  
 
Neighborhood flash mobs is a tactic pro-democracy activists have been using in recent weeks in neighboring Belarus.  
 
Navalny’s key aides are urging Russians to gather near their homes on February 14, Valentine’s Day, to shine torches and light candles in heart shapes. Navalny made multiple heart gestures to his wife Yulia in the courtroom where he was sentenced to two years and eight months on February 2.FILE – A still image taken from video footage shows Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny making a hand gesture forming a heart during the announcement of his court verdict in Moscow, Russia, Feb. 2, 2021.He was convicted of violating the terms of his parole from a 2014 sentence for fraud in a case his supporters, international rights groups and Western governments say is spurious and politically motivated.  
 
Opposition infighting is par for the course. President Vladimir Putin’s foes are drawn from across the political spectrum, from right-wing ultra-nationalists to old-school Communists, and with a variety of liberal groups in the middle. In 2016, an effort to stitch together a broad alliance of opposition groups, called the Democratic Coalition, was short-lived.  
 
It fell apart when the leaders, who were meant to be working together to try to gain political influence, resumed their competition and tried to elbow each other out of the way.  
 
The Kremlin gave it the coup de grace when it leaked to the government-sponsored NTV channel a video of former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, a key liberal opposition politician, and one of the founders of the Democratic Coalition, in which he was heard disparaging his political partners.  
 
Different coalition configurations were tried before and have been since, too, but keeping opposition groups marching, agitating and campaigning as one also has always been difficult and temporary. Yavlinsky’s public criticism of Navalny this week has exposed once again the splits and political animosities.
 
Navalny’s allies have urged Yabloko to expel Yavlinsky, and opposition social media forums have seen acrimonious exchanges, raising the prospect that opposition groups once again will end up squabbling and taking off in disparate directions in the run-up campaign to parliamentary elections in September.  
 
Navalny was himself a member of Yabloko, but he was expelled in 2007 over what other members saw as unacceptable “nationalist” views. In the past, the Kremlin critic has participated in ultranationalist rallies and has been critical of migrants, using language his critics say make him unsuitable to be the figurehead of the opposition to Putin.  
 
Navalny denies he is a xenophobe, and says he was expelled from Yabloko because he made little secret he wanted to replace Yavlinsky.
 
But some Yabloko leaders are infuriated with Yavlinsky’s attack, which they say is ill-timed and will put off voters. Other opposition figures say Yavlinsky shouldn’t criticize someone now in jail as a political prisoner and unable to defend himself.
 
Last week, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the exiled former oil tycoon who emerged as a prominent critic of Putin after a 10-year spell in a Russian jail, said he disagrees with Navalny on some issues, “But when a person becomes a political prisoner he must be supported.” 
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