Month: May 2019

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday that the purchase of S-400 defense systems from Russia was a done deal, adding that Ankara would also jointly produce S-500 defense systems with Moscow.    U.S. officials have called Turkey’s planned purchase of the S-400 missile defense system “deeply problematic,” saying it would risk Ankara’s partnership in the joint strike fighter F-35 program because it would compromise the jets, made by Lockheed Martin Corp.    However, Erdogan said at a televised question-and-answer session with university students in Istanbul that Turkey had carried out technical work and found that such a problem did not exist.    “They [the U.S.] are passing the ball around in …

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Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May will present a “new bold offer” to lawmakers with “an improved package of measures” in a final attempt to get Brexit withdrawal agreement legislation through Parliament.  After failing three times to get Parliament’s approval for May’s deal to withdraw from the European Union, the government will now put legislation that will enact that deal before Parliament for a vote in early June.  “I will not be simply asking MPs to think again. Instead I will ask them to look at a new and improved deal with a fresh pair of eyes — and to give it their support,” May wrote in The Sunday Times newspaper.  …

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Austria raced Saturday toward a snap election as Chancellor Sebastian Kurz pulled the plug on his coalition with the far right after its leader was caught on video offering to fix state contracts with a woman posing as a Russian oligarch’s niece.  The far-right Freedom Party’s Heinz-Christian Strache resigned as vice chancellor and party leader after the video was released by two German news organizations. He acknowledged that the video was “catastrophic” but denied breaking the law.  Kurz, a conservative who formed a coalition with the Freedom Party a year and a half ago, said the apparent video sting, in which Strache discusses contracts in return for financial or political …

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The leader of France’s far-right National Rally is predicting that a group of like-minded right-wing populists will achieve `’an historic feat” in next week’s Europe-wide elections. Marine Le Pen is joining leaders of other nationalist parties Saturday in Italy for a rally organized by League leader Matteo Salvini in front of Milan’s Duomo cathedral ahead of the May 23-26 European Parliamentary elections.   Le Pen said she believes the Europe of Nations and Freedom parliamentary group “will perform a historic feat to pass from the 8th place in Europe to third or maybe second.”   Analysts believe that the two …

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Austria’s vice chancellor has resigned. Heinz-Christian Strache stepped down Saturday after two German newspapers — Der Spiegel and the Sueddeutsche Zeitung — posted video footage of him appearing to offer state contracts to a potential Russian benefactor. Strache said Saturday he was the “victim of a targeted political attack,” but admitted that his actions in the video were “stupid and a mistake.” Political analysts say the scandal throws into the question the governing coalition between Strache’s anti-immigration Freedom Party and Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s center-right People’s Party. Neither politician has commented on the future of their alliance.   …

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Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz called a crisis meeting late on Friday after two German newspapers published footage purportedly showing his deputy discussing state contracts with a potential Russian backer in return for political support. Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache was filmed talking about the contracts with someone posing as the niece of a Russian oligarch in Ibiza in July, 2017, months before parliamentary elections, Der Spiegel and Sueddeutsche Zeitung said.  Strache did not reply to a request for comment on the video. Reuters was not able to verify the authenticity of the footage independently, and the German newspapers did not say how …

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The United Nations said on Friday at least 18 health centers have been attacked in the past three weeks in northwestern Syria, prompting a confrontation between western powers and Russia and Syria at the Security Council over who is to blame. While the area is nominally protected by a Russian-Turkish deal agreed in September to avert a new battle, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces — backed by Russians — have launched an offensive on the last major insurgent stronghold. Some three million civilians are at risk, the United Nations said. “Since we know that Russia and Syria are the only …

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Brexit talks appear to have collapsed a day after British Prime Minister Theresa May set out a timetable for her exit from office — the latest sign of a government in tatters. Britain’s Labor party head Jeremy Corbyn has sent a letter to May saying the Brexit talks have “gone as far as they can” because of the instability of her government and its refusal to change its position.  The two major British parties have been at a stalemate for weeks over a deal outlining the conditions by which Britain will withdraw from the European Union. The deadline for withdrawal …

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Germany on Friday authorized battery-powered scooters on its streets and cycle paths but banned them from pavements to protect pedestrians as the two-wheeled craze continues to spread across Europe. Following fierce debate over road safety and the impact on traffic, the upper house adopted a proposal by Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer to approve the “electric propulsion vehicles” for road use. They are either loved or loathed in Europe’s biggest economy. “In Germany, souls are divided over e-scooters. Rarely has a new technology aroused such strong popularity — and such strong rejection,” said Achim Berg, president of Germany’s IT federation Bitkom. …

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