Month: November 2018

Police fired tear gas and used water cannon to disperse protesters in Paris who are angry over rising fuel costs and President Emmanuel Macron’s economic policies, the second weekend of “yellow vest” protests that have caused disruption across France. Several hundred protesters had converged on the Champs Elysees where they faced police sent to prevent them from reaching the nearby presidential Elysee Palace. Some protesters sang the national anthem while others carried signs with slogans saying “Macron, resignation” and “Macron, thief.” ​Fears of extremists For more than a week, protesters clad in the fluorescent yellow jackets that all motorists in …

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French terror laws are contradicting basic principles of justice, according to Amnesty International. The group argues that legislation introduced to replace the state of emergency following recent terror attacks places undue restrictions on terror suspects before they have committed any crime, with little judicial oversight. Henry Ridgwell reports. …

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The United States has welcomed a report that Iran’s largest commercial lender, Bank Melli, has seen its German branch disconnected from phone and internet service under pressure of U.S. sanctions. In a Thursday report, German business newspaper Handelsblatt said Germany’s part state-owned telecom provider Deutsche Telekom had cut off Bank Melli’s Hamburg office. It was not clear when the branch lost its phone and internet services.  Handelsblatt quoted Deutsche Telekom as sending Bank Melli a message, saying: “We have to assume that you can no longer make any payments” for telecom services. There was no immediate response from Deutsche Telekom to a VOA …

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Tensions in Kosovo rose again Friday after police arrested three ethnic Serbs, including two police officers, on suspicion of involvement in the killing earlier this year of a leading Serb politician in the north of the country. The three men were arrested in the Serb-dominated town of Mitrovica, 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of the capital, Pristina, as suspects in the January slaying of Oliver Ivanovic, police said in a statement. A fourth Serb was arrested for resisting police. A fifth person is still at large, police said. Police said they seized evidence for the investigation into Ivanovic’s killing during …

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From Senegal to Ethiopia, artists, governments and museums are eagerly awaiting a report commissioned by French President Emmanuel Macron on how former colonizers can return African art to Africa. The study by French art historian Bénédicte Savoy and Senegalese economist Felwine Sarr, being presented to Macron on Friday in Paris, is expected to recommend that French museums give back works that were taken without consent, if African countries request them. That could increase pressure on museums elsewhere in Europe to follow suit. The experts estimate that up to 90 percent of African art is outside the continent, including statues, thrones …

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Pope Francis named the Vatican’s top sex abuse investigator and a close U.S. ally to an organizing committee for a February abuse prevention summit whose stakes have grown after the Holy See blocked U.S. bishops from taking action to address the scandal. Abuse survivors and women working at the Vatican will also contribute to the preparatory committee. Notably absent from the lineup announced Friday was Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, who heads the pope’s sex abuse advisory commission, though one of his members, the Rev. Hans Zollner, is the point-person for the group. In addition to Zollner, the committee includes Maltese …

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Cities in Russia, Japan and Azerbaijan are about to find out which one of them gets to host the 2025 World Expo, an event expected to draw millions of visitors and showcase the local economy and culture. The 170 member states of the Paris-based Bureau International des Expositions are voting Friday on whether to award the Expo to Yekaterinburg, Osaka or Baku. Past world’s fairs brought the world such wonders as the Eiffel Tower, the Ferris Wheel and Seattle’s Space Needle — and today’s version is aimed at finding solutions to challenges facing humanity. World Expos are held every five …

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Official figures show more than 1.8 million people have applied for asylum in Germany in the past five years. The figures, first reported Friday by German daily Bild, show a sharp rise in asylum requests from 123,581 in 2013 to 723,938 in 2015. This year to date, figure has returned to about 2013 levels. In a response to a question from opposition Free Democratic Party lawmakers, the government said almost a third of asylum-seekers — about 573,000 — originated from Syria. The second and third most numerous groups were Afghans and Iraqis, with about 203,000 and 176,000 applicants respectively since …

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French terror laws are contradicting basic principles of justice, according to the human rights group Amnesty International. It argues that legislation introduced to replace the state of emergency following recent terror attacks places restrictions on would-be terrorists before they have committed a crime, with little judicial oversight. France, which this month marked the third anniversary of the Paris attacks that killed 130 people, says the new laws are needed to counter the scale of the terror threat.   Following the November 2015 attacks on Paris’ Bataclan theater and surrounding streets, and at the national stadium in the northern suburb of …

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