New Talks Begin Over Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict

Foreign ministers from Armenia and Azerbaijan met in Geneva Friday with representatives from France, Russia and the U.S. in an attempt to resolve the conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region that has left hundreds dead.The three powers co-chair the Minsk Group, set up by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in 1992 to mediate the conflict.A third cease-fire in Nagorno-Karabakh collapsed Monday.The ongoing fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia erupted Sept. 27 and has killed hundreds of people, marking the biggest escalation since a 1994 cease-fire over the breakaway region.The predominantly ethnic Armenian territory declared its independence from Azerbaijan in 1991 during the collapse of the Soviet Union, sparking a war that claimed the lives of as many as 30,000 people before a 1994 cease-fire.Many observers are concerned fighting could expand into a wider conflict involving Turkey, an ally of Azerbaijan, and Russia, which considers the region to be in its sphere of influence.On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin called for Turkey to be invited to the talks.According to Reuters, the U.S. mission in Geneva confirmed U.S. participation in the talks and called for “Armenia and Azerbaijan to stop targeting civilian areas and to implement their agreed-upon commitments to a ceasefire.”According to AP, Azerbaijani forces pushed further into Nagorno-Karabakh Friday.

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As Anger Rises, Thousands of Muslims Protest French Cartoons

Thousands of Muslims in Pakistan poured out of prayer services to join anti-France protests on Friday, as the French president’s vow to protect the right to caricature the Prophet Muhammad continues to roil the Muslim world.
 
An estimated 2,000 worshippers celebrating the Mawlid, the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad, took to the streets in the eastern city of Lahore. Crowds led by Islamic parties chanted anti-France slogans, raised banners and clogged major roads en route to a Sufi shrine. Dozens of people furiously stomped on French flags and cried for the boycott of French products. In Multan, a city in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province, thousands burned an effigy of French President Emmanuel Macron and demanded that Pakistan sever ties with France.  
 
More gatherings were planned for later Friday in Pakistan, including the capital, Islamabad, where police were out in force to prevent possible demonstrations outside the French Embassy. The atmosphere was tense as police positioned shipping containers to block the roads.
 
Other protests, largely organized by Islamists, are expected across the region, including in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. 
In Afghanistan, members of the Islamist party Hezb-i-Islami set the French flag ablaze. Its leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, warned Macron that if he doesn’t “control the situation, we are going to a third world war and Europe will be responsible.”  
 
The protests come amid rising tensions between France and Muslim-majority nations, which flared up earlier this month when a young Muslim beheaded a French schoolteacher who had shown caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in class.
 
Those images, republished by the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo to mark the opening of the trial for the deadly 2015 attack against the publication, have stirred the ire of Muslims across the world who consider depictions of the prophet blasphemous.  
 
A series of attacks that French authorities have attributed to Muslim extremism ensued. On Thursday, a knife-wielding Tunisian man carrying a copy of the Quran killed three people at a church in the Mediterranean city of Nice. That same day, a Saudi man stabbed and lightly wounded a security guard at the French consulate in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, prompting France to urge its citizens there to be on “high alert.”
 
Over the past week, protests and calls to boycott French products have spread rapidly from Bangladesh to Pakistan to Kuwait. Social media has been pulsing with anti-France hashtags. Muslim leaders, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in particular, have loudly criticized France for what they see as the government’s provocative and anti-Muslim stance.
 
Thursday’s attack in Nice also drew condemnations from leaders of countries that had voiced outrage over the caricatures, such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt.  
 
In a Friday sermon aired live on Egyptian state TV, the country’s minister of religious endowments appeared to denounce any violent retaliation for the cartoons.  
 
“Love of the prophet cannot be expressed by killing, sabotaging or responding to evil with evil,” said Mohamed Mokhtar Gomaa, addressing dozens of worshippers at a mosque in Egypt’s Delta province of Daqahleya. 

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Powerful Quake in Aegean Sea Leaves 6 Dead; Buildings Toppled in Turkey, Greece

Officials in Greece and Turkey say rescue efforts are continuing into the night after a powerful earth struck Friday in the Aegean Sea between the Turkish coast and the Greek island of Samos, killing at least 14 people and injuring hundreds amid collapsed buildings and flooding caused by a minor tsunami.
Video clips showed several damaged buildings, some partially or completely collapsed, as emergency services attended the scene.
Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency reported12 people died, one due to drowning, while 419 people were injured.
On the Greek island of Samos two teenagers, a boy and a girl, were found dead in an area where a wall had collapsed. Haluk Ozener, director of the Istanbul-based Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute, reported a small tsunami struck the Seferihisar district south of Izmir, the city in western Turkey that was the worst affected.
Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency  said search and rescue operations continued at 17 collapsed or damaged buildings. Izmir’s governor said 70 people had been rescued from under the rubble.
The European-Mediterranean Seismological Center said the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.9 with an epicenter 13 kilometers north-northeast of Samos and 32 kilometers off the coast of Turkey. The United States Geological Survey put the magnitude at 7.0. It is common for preliminary magnitudes to differ in the early hours and days after a quake.
Multiple aftershocks struck the region.
Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency said three injured people were pulled from the wreckage of a building in Izmir. Izmir mayor Tunc Soyer told CNN Turk that about 20 buildings collapsed. The city is the third largest in Turkey with about 4.5 million residents.
Media reports say the quake was felt as far away as Britain and Bulgaria. 

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US Private Investment Initiatives Pump Billions Into Africa

How big is the U.S. commitment to Africa?   
 
Let us count the ways, says Victoria Whitney, chief operating officer of the Prosper Africa initiative, launched in 2018.  She says that in the past year, the initiative, which spans 17 U.S. government agencies, has facilitated more than $22 billion worth of deals in more than 30 African countries, with agreements focusing on small and medium-sized African businesses.  
 
This week, she announced new measures that aim to harness private U.S. investment and pour it into African entrepreneurship.  
 
“This new continent-wide program is going to provide a really wide range of services – think business consulting and transition facilitation, targeted policy interventions, really the core tenets of the Prosper Africa Initiative – and is expected to deliver billions more dollars in exports and investment and create hundreds of thousands of jobs by 2026,” she told journalists in a teleconference. “I really think this new program is going to be a game changer.”
 
Prosper Africa is one of many U.S. government initiatives aimed at bringing private investment into the continent.
 
The International Development Finance Corporation is the federal government’s development finance institution. It works on financing private development projects in lower- and middle-income countries. Since its launch at the beginning of 2020, it has invested more than $8 billion in 300 projects in Africa, along with the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is working on $10 billion worth of deals.   
 
“Adam Boehler, Prosper Africa’s executive chair as well as CEO of the DFC, he describes it really well in the way that he does,” Whitney said. “He said, for years we lacked the type of investment infrastructure to really be on the board.  And when people would sort of say, where is the United States, well, we didn’t have the best answer.  But because of the BUILD Act, because of Prosper Africa, we do have an answer.  We’re saying, we’re new but we’re big time, as he had said, and you’re going to see much, much more from us.”FILE – Construction cranes tower over the Rosebank suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa, Sept. 4, 2018.Martyn Davies, managing director of emerging markets and Africa at Deloitte, told VOA he’s noticed an increase in private investment initiatives from American investors, and that it makes sense.   
 
“I think there was previously a lot stronger interest in the infrastructure, and infrastructure assets, but I think the challenges of navigating through often challenging public-sector bureaucracies … has resulted in a dampening, I think, to an extent, of some of the infrastructure plays,” he said. “I think, however, going forward, I think U.S. multinationals remain incredibly well positioned, especially in terms of brand recognition and the like, toward the African continent.”  
 
Sean Cairncross, CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, another U.S. government initiative, is working to build a global investment platform to attract U.S. capital to Africa. Investing in African entrepreneurs, he said, just makes sense, and aligns with this administration’s foreign policy.   
 
“This partnership is well-aligned with our key priorities, which is seeking new and innovative opportunities for blended finance,” he said. “It’s a priority that this administration is, like I say, 100% behind and the interagency coordination on this is, I think, an unheralded piece of the Trump administration’s foreign development push.”  
 
Whitney acknowledges that the world of investment seems abstract and complicated. So, she said, here’s a real-life example of how the program has worked for one Ghanaian entrepreneur:   
 
“Eugenia Akuete first started a shea cosmetics company, and she turned to USAID for technical assistance as well as some market intelligence, matchmaking, and networking support,” Whitney said. “And then she also received seed capital and technical assistance from USADF, both Prosper Africa leading partners.  And she attended numerous USAID-sponsored training sessions and conferences.”  
 
Today, she said, Akuete’s products are available in more than 1,000 Target stores in the U.S. And on the continent, 10,000 shea nut pickers have jobs.    

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German Third Quarter Economy Grows 8.2 Percent

German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier expressed optimism Friday when data for the third quarter of 2020 showed the German economy bounced back strongly compared to the previous three months, when the country was hit by the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic.
 
At a news conference in Berlin, Altmaier said figures from the Federal Statistical Office indicate the country’s gross domestic product grew by 8.2% from July to September compared to the second quarter, “well above” expectations, and the government now expects a full-year decline in GDP of 5.5%, down from the September forecast of a 5.8%.
 
Altmaier said the good third quarter suggests the German economy can continue to grow even during a pandemic. He said that also gives the government hope as it faces a second wave of COVID-19 and heads into what could be difficult winter months.
 
Germany is set to enforce new restrictions on Monday, closing bars, restaurants and other “leisure” sections of the economy to slow the current surge in infections.
 
Altmaier told reporters, as optimistic as he is, the recovery is “subject to further developments of the pandemic.”
 
But, he added, “we have a real chance of achieving this growth.”
 
Altmaier said he expects the economy to fully recover from the pandemic by 2022.

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Culture War Erupts in Poland After Court Decision to Ban Most Abortions

Women’s rights activists have called a national strike and thousands of people have joined demonstrations to protest a decision by Poland’s Constitutional Court to ban nearly all abortions. Roderick James narrates this report filed by Pablo Gonzalez in Warsaw for VOA.
Camera: Pablo Gonzalez
Video editor: Henry Hernandez
Contributor: Ricardo Marquina

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Tanzania Opposition Rejects Early Election Results

The political opposition is rejecting early results of Tanzania’s presidential and parliamentary election, saying the vote was illegitimate due to widespread fraud. Presidential challenger Tundu Lissu called on the international community not to accept figures emerging from Wednesday’s voting.  
 
One day after Tanzanians cast votes in Wednesday’s election, opposition figures in the East African country said they reject the whole election process.
 
Lissu told reporters Thursday in Dar es Salaam that results were full of irregularities and called on international bodies to take action.
 
“We are asking our people to take this matter into their own hands through peaceful, mass, and democratic action and protests. We are asking regional and international [bodies] that sent observers here, particularly the African Union. We ask those who sent observers to observe this election, not to confer any recognition to these illegitimate results,” Lissu said.
 
The ruling party and government spokespeople have said they’ll have no comment until after all votes are counted.
 
Tanzania’s National Election Commission (NEC) chairman Semistocles Kaijage dismissed the reports of pre-ticked ballots as false and advised citizens to ignore them. He said there have been some reports circulating on social media regarding the presence of pre-ticked ballot papers in Kawe, Pangani and Kigoma constituencies.Kaijage noted that those reports of the allegations have not yet been submitted to the National Electoral Commission. He urged all citizens to ignore those reports, saying they are invalid and unproven.
 
Early results show the majority of votes going to the ruling CCM party, led by President John Magufuli.
 
Absalom Kibanda, a political analyst, says that although it is very early to talk about a ruling party victory, as there are 264 constituencies, it’s a bad beginning and a bad sign to opposition parties.  If that continues, he added, Tanzanians may find that they have very weak opposition parties in the coming parliament, compared to the previous period of five or 10 years.
 
The official, final election results are expected later Friday.
 

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Ivorian Refugees in Ghana Fear Increased Electoral Violence

Ivory Coast’s 2010 election violence killed 3,000 people and sent thousands more fleeing into Ghana.  Now, many of those refugees fear the Ivorian election this Saturday could spark new unrest, as Stacey Knott reports from Ampain Refugee Camp.
Camera: Stacey Knott   Produced by: Stacey Knott

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Ivory Coast Voters Choose Country’s Next President Saturday

Ivory Coast voters will decide Saturday whether President Alassane Ouattara will claim a controversial third term.During his final campaign rally Thursday, Ouattara told thousands of supporters to vote and not allow themselves to be prevented from voting, telling them to protect polling stations.Concerns about election violence have grown in recent weeks following demonstrations and attacks. The home of top opposition candidate Pascal Affi N’Guessan was set on fire and an office of his Ivorian Popular Front party was attacked.Two other candidates, former president Henri Konan Bedie, leader of the Democratic Party of the Ivory Coast, and Independent candidate Kouadio Konan Bertin, are seeking to unseat Quattara.Quattara decided to seek reelection in August following the July death of his favored successor, Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly.Quattara rejected claims by opponents, who said his run for a third term violated the constitution, arguing the two-term limit does not apply to him under a new constitution adopted in 2016.

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Activists Hail Canadian Parliamentary Committee Report on Uighur ‘Genocide’

After the Canadian parliamentary Subcommittee on International Human Rights concluded last week that China’s treatment of the Uighurs in the Xinjiang region amounts to genocide, some experts and international human rights activists say the international community could be entering a new phase of action to hold officials in Beijing accountable.In its Oct. 21 statement, the committee said the detention of nearly 2 million Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims, forced labor, “pervasive” state surveillance and repressive control were “a clear attempt to eradicate Uighur culture and religion.”“Based on the evidence put forward during the Subcommittee hearings, both in 2018 and 2020, the Subcommittee is persuaded that the actions of the Chinese Communist Party constitute genocide as laid out in the Genocide Convention,” the committee said in a news release.The U.N. Genocide Convention defines genocide as acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.Kyle Matthews, executive director of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University, said the committee’s move represents the first time a national legislative body has described the treatment of Uighurs in China as genocide.“This will put pressure [on] the executive branch of government to follow suit and respond accordingly,” Matthews told VOA.China has been accused internationally of arbitrary detention, forced indoctrination and torture of over a million Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims in internment camps in Xinjiang since 2017.Approval by governmentThe committee called on the Canadian government to recognize the campaign as genocide, condemn China, and sanction officials involved in “grave human rights abuses.” It also asked the government to push for international access to the region and support organizations raising awareness on Uighurs.Committee chair Peter Fonseca told VOA that the suggestions included in the statement were “a unanimous proclamation on the part of the multiparty members of the subcommittee.”He said the committee report will be presented to the Foreign Affairs Committee, which can approve or reject its findings.Some experts say the findings are likely to proceed further in the country’s legislative branch and be presented to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Cabinet for approval.“The government has often followed the suggestions of the committee,” Ilan Orzy, director of operations at the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights, told VOA.Orzy said the Canadian government followed such a proceeding with regard to the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar.Canada recognized the actions by Myanmar authorities against the Rohingya minority as genocide in September 2018.The Canadian government has yet to announce whether it will act on the committee suggestions. In a statement shared with VOA, Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne said his government takes genocide allegations “very seriously.”“We will continue to work in close collaboration with our allies to push for these to be investigated through an international independent body and for impartial experts to access the region so that they can see the situation firsthand and report back,” Champagne said.‘‘We remain deeply disturbed by the troubling reports of human rights violations in Xinjiang and have publicly and consistently called on the Chinese government to end the repression of Uighurs,” he said.‘Vocational training’China rejects the claim that it is running a repressive campaign against Turkic minorities in Xinjiang. Beijing officials say they have sent Uighurs who were “poisoned” by religious extremism or who lagged behind in society to “vocational training centers” to deradicalize them and teach them new work skills.Last Thursday, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian called the committee’s statement “groundless” and called on Canada to stop interfering in China’s internal affairs under the pretext of Xinjiang-related matters.“The so-called genocide in Xinjiang is a rumor and a farce fabricated by some anti-China forces to slander China,” Zhao said at a press conference.Some observers charge that a possible move by the Canadian government to approve the committee findings and recognize the Uighur genocide could encourage other countries to follow suit.U.S. stanceLast Friday, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, a Foreign Relations Committee member, urged the U.S. government to formerly recognize the issue as genocide.Tuesday, a bipartisan group of senators introduced a resolution to declare the Uighur campaign genocide.Peter Irwin, a senior program officer at the Washington-based Uyghur Human Rights Project, told VOA that those resolutions show the international community is ready to go beyond condemnation of China’s policies in Xinjiang toward holding party officials accountable.“The Canadian [parliamentary] subcommittee, to their credit, took the time to study the issue intensively, calling witnesses and analyzing reports, and concluded that what’s happening amounts to genocide,” Irwin said.Dolkun Isa, president of the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, said that discussions of genocide-labeling means those countries understand the severity of the Uighur situation, and their policymakers are willing to adjust their responses to the crisis.“There is growing momentum to recognize the situation as a genocide, and the decision of the subcommittee has greatly contributed to that. It is our hope that this move will be the start of a more meaningful and concrete push by the international community to demand that China stops the Uighur genocide,” Isa told VOA.

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Ukraine’s Zelenskiy Promises Action as Allies Sound Alarm Over Reform Rollback

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy promised swift action on Thursday and warned Ukraine could lose international aid and support after a Constitutional Court this week ruled to abolish some anti-corruption laws. The court said it saw as excessive the punishment set for false information on officials’ asset declarations and struck down some critical powers of the key anti-graft body NAZK, which in turn said the court had destroyed the anti-corruption system. Ukraine’s patchy performance on reforms and tackling entrenched corruption has derailed a $5 billion program agreed in June with the International Monetary Fund at a time its economy is in sharp downturn due to the COVID-19 pandemic. FILE – The International Monetary Fund logo is seen in Washington, April 21, 2017.The European Union’s delegation to Kyiv warned that its financial assistance was tied to Ukraine’s performance on corruption. A further deterioration could threaten Ukraine’s prized visa-free access to the EU countries, a member of the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee has warned. “We will not have money. We will not have support. Projects on which agreement was reached will be canceled, as well as World Bank support. We will have a big hole in the budget,” Zelenskiy said in a statement. “The recent decisions of the [court] undermine trust in Ukraine, outrage Ukrainians,” he said in a separate post on Twitter, adding that he wanted new legislation introduced as soon as possible to rectify the situation. The United States, Canada, Britain and the European Union have backed Ukraine with aid and sanctions on Russia after the 2014 Maidan street protests that ousted a Kremlin-backed leader but have repeatedly pressed Kyiv to quicken the pace of reforms. “The G-7 ambassadors are alarmed by efforts to undo the anti-corruption reforms that followed the Revolution of Dignity,” a statement said. “Too much progress has been made, Ukraine must not go back to the past.” In a separate statement, the EU said the court decision “calls into question a number of international commitments which Ukraine assumed in relation to its international partners, including the EU.”  
 

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NATO Allies Growing Weary of Turkish Aggression

The United States is pushing NATO countries to work with Turkey in hopes of healing divisions that have seen Ankara move closer to Russia, but at least one of those allies is bracing for more turmoil.Greece, embroiled in a dispute with Turkey over rights and resources in the eastern Mediterranean, has repeatedly put its FILE – Greek Minister of National Defense Nikos Panagiotopoulos speaks to journalists in Kastanies on March 1, 2020.Turkey has “become increasingly more self-confident … coupled with a rising element of aggressive rhetoric, a confrontational attitude and the revisionist political position,” Greek Minister of National Defense Nikos Panagiotopoulos said Thursday, during a virtual talk sponsored by the German Marshall Fund.”At some point, something needs to be done,” he said. “Unfortunately, this entails elements of being unpleasant.”Panagiotopoulos and others say that newfound aggressiveness was on display Wednesday, when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out at the West, and France, during a speech to members of his political party.FILE – Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses his ruling party lawmakers at the parliament, in Ankara, Oct. 28, 2020.”They literally want to relaunch the Crusades,” Erdogan said, referring to the French government’s defense of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.The Turkish leader also said the West is “once again headed to a period of barbarity.”Turkey has also incurred the wrath of Western countries, specifically fellow NATO allies, after carrying out tests last week of its Russian-made S-400 air defense system.Talking to reporters Wednesday, a top U.S. State Department official said Washington was prepared to take a harder line with Ankara, warning the threat of sanctions was very real.“Sanctions is very much something that is on the table,” Assistant Secretary of State R. Clarke Cooper told reporters. “Operationalizing such an asset or system incurs further risk of sanctions and further risks of restrictions.”The United States has banned Turkey from participation in its F-35 stealth fighter jet program, and threats of additional sanctions, from the U.S. or other European countries, are not new.But Panagiotopoulos said Thursday that he believed Turkey was likely to make the Russian air defense system operational sooner rather than later and that NATO might be running out of time to take meaningful action.A U.S. Marines F-35B Lightning II fighter aircraft prepares to land on the flight deck in the South China Sea.Such concerns, though, have repeatedly been cast aside by Turkish officials, something that troubles Panagiotopoulos.“Russia cannot be counted out,” he said, adding Ankara’s purchase of the S-400 air defense system is “enough to prove that potentially Turkey, whether it wanted to or inadvertently, would prove to be a source of undermining NATO’s cohesion from within.”Reuters contributed to this report.

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La Nina Seen Continuing Into 2021, Affecting Temperature, Weather Patterns

The World Meteorological Organization predicts La Nina will continue through January and is expected to usher in drier and wetter conditions than normal in different parts of the world.The latest seasonal forecasts indicate the La Nina event will cause drier than normal conditions in much of East Africa and lead to increased rainfall in southern Africa. Central Asia is likely to see below normal rainfall earlier than usual.The WMO reports some of the Pacific islands and the northern region of South America will see some of the most significant precipitation anomalies associated with this year’s La Nina event — a cooling of ocean surface water along the Pacific coast of the South American tropics that occurs on average every two to seven years.Some countries and regions are particularly vulnerable to changes in weather patterns.WMO humanitarian expert Gavin Iley told VOA the Greater Horn of Africa was an area of particular concern.“As we know, it is already being beset by problems, with locust infestation,” Iley said. “And generally, the models are suggesting below normal rainfall for quite a large portion of the Greater Horn of Africa. So, obviously that could have a number of impacts … in areas like Somalia. … So, we always need to keep an eye on the latest outlook.”WMO said governments can use weather forecasts to plan ways to reduce adverse impacts in climate-sensitive sectors like agriculture, health, water resources and disaster management.WMO Deputy Director of Climate Services Maxx Dilley said governments can use La Nina forecasting to adapt their strategies to the changing weather patterns.“You can imagine in the agricultural sector that some crops will do well under wet conditions and others will do better under dry conditions,” Dilley said. “And there are agricultural management practices that can be adjusted to take account of whether it is expected to be wet or dry.”Dilley said WMO increasingly is trying to tailor these forecasts to specific concerns, such as food security or human health. For example, he said, wet conditions alone do not provoke outbreaks of dengue fever or malaria. He said temperature, humidity and vegetation create the conditions for mosquitoes to breed.So, rather than just giving a rainfall forecast, he said, meteorologists will provide a forecast that is correlated with these diseases and can be used for dengue fever or malaria control.

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Khalilzad Renews Afghan Peace Push as US Reduces Troops 

The U.S. peace envoy for Afghanistan reconciliation has resumed his diplomatic efforts to press warring Afghan parties to reduce battlefield hostilities and accelerate ongoing negotiations to reach a deal that ends the country’s nearly 20-year war.Zalmay Khalilzad’s renewed push comes as President Donald Trump’s administration says it has brought down the U.S. military presence in the war-ravaged country to 4,500 troops.Khalilzad returned this week to Doha, Qatar, where teams representing the Afghan government and the Taliban insurgency have been negotiating since September 12. They have not made headway because of lingering disputes over procedural matters.FILE – U.S. Army General Scott Miller, center, commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, is seen at the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan, Nov. 6, 2018.A spokesman for the Taliban, Mohammad Naeem Wardak, said Thursday that their political leaders in Doha met with Khalilzad and his team the previous evening, and that the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, General Scott Miller, also attended.On the agendaWardak said the two sides discussed “the importance and full implementation” of the peace agreement signed by the Taliban and the U.S. in February. Wardak added that the removal of names of top Taliban leaders from a U.N. so-called blacklist and alleged U.S. violations of the agreement also were discussed.The U.S. side has so far not commented on the meeting.The February 29 peace pact called for all American and NATO forces to leave Afghanistan by May 2021. In return, the insurgents are required to fight terrorism on Afghan soil and open peace talks with Kabul to negotiate a comprehensive cease-fire, as well as a political power-sharing deal.White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien said Wednesday that the peace agreement sealed after 19 years of war “we hope and expect” has put Afghans “on a path toward lasting peace.” He credited Trump’s working to end America’s longest war. “We are ending the American involvement in Afghanistan. It does not take place overnight, but if you look at Afghanistan, where we had 15,000 troops, we are now down to 4,500 troops,” O’Brien said while delivering a public talk at Washington’s Hudson Institute.FILE – National security adviser Robert O’Brien speaks during a press briefing at the White House in Washington, Sept. 4, 2020.“We are on a pathway to get our soldiers, sailors and Marines home after the tremendous sacrifices of blood and treasure that the country has made over the past 19 years,” he said.While explaining a recent tweet by Trump that he wanted all American troops out of Afghanistan by Christmas, the national security adviser said that “as soon as conditions permit,” the president has pledged to live up to his commitment.“He’s even tweeted recently like many other past presidents in times of war that he would like them home by Christmas, and whether we get them home by Christmas, or surely thereafter, American troops are coming home,” O’Brien emphasized.Some skepticismCritics are skeptical, however, about whether the intra-Afghan peace negotiations will produce any tangible outcomes soon or help reduce the deadly violence in Afghanistan.Expressing his frustration over the rise in violence and the slow movement of the peace talks, Khalilzad criticized the Afghan rivals Wednesday for their “intransigence and a refusal to abandon animosity” in favor of a formula for political cooperation to end the war.“I return to the region disappointed that despite commitments to lower violence, it has not happened. The window to achieve a political settlement will not stay open forever,” said Khalilzad. The Afghan-born diplomat urged both negotiating teams to “move past procedure and into substantive negotiations.”The United Nations warned Tuesday that the Afghan peace process had failed to slow the number of civilian casualties in the conflict. It said nearly 6,500 Afghan civilians had been killed and wounded in the country since the start of 2020, although the figures represented a 30 percent drop compared with the same period last year.

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Spain Investigates Russian Links to Catalan Separatists

Russian agents offered military aid to Catalan separatists at the height of their failed bid to break away from Spain in 2017, according to a judicial investigation in Spain.These are the extraordinary allegations at the heart of an investigation launched by a judge in Barcelona who is probing alleged links between the Catalan independence movement and a Russian misinformation campaign designed to destabilize Europe.Police arrested 21 suspects in Barcelona on Wednesday on the orders of Judge Joaquin Aguirre, including three men who were close to the former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont who fled Spain shortly after the failed declaration of independence three years ago.In one recording presented in court documents, one of those detained by police allegedly mentions an offer by Russian agents to provide Puigdemont with 10,000 troops to help in a theoretical armed conflict with Spanish forces. The offer never materialized.Fake news offensive”Russian interference as a geopolitical strategy was a fact during the fall of 2017 when (the Russians) spread fake news and disinformation,” Judge Aguirre said in a ruling, citing online items backing the Catalan separatists spread by Russian news platforms.The Spanish government had accused Russia in 2017 of meddling in the Catalan conflict, a charge that Russian officials denied at the time.
In what appeared to be an ironic repost to the court allegations, the Russian Embassy in Madrid tweeted: “It is necessary to add two zeros to the number of soldiers and the most shocking thing about this conspiracy: the troops should be transported by Mosca and Chato, airplanes assembled in Catalonia during the (Spanish) Civil War and hidden in a safe place in the Catalan Sierra until they receive the order to act through encrypted publications.”A woman holds a sign during a protest against police raids and the arrest of Catalan separatists, in Barcelona, Spain, Oct. 28, 2020.TimingThough the investigation relates to events three years ago which threatened to tear apart one of Europe’s largest economies, it has ramifications in today’s polarized political environment.Spain’s minority left-wing coalition government depends on the Catalan separatist party Esquerra Republicana, ERC, for support as talks are under way to pass a budget for 2021.  Spain has had no full year spending plan for the past four years and in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic this budget is crucial to finance the country’s recovery.“It is evident that the Spanish government has no appetite to find a solution to the conflict in Catalonia,” said Raul Murcia, a spokesman for ERC, told VOA.Regional elections are planned in Catalonia in February when separatist parties are likely to win a majority but not more than 50% of the vote, according to recent polls.The Catalan separatist movement has always proclaimed non-violent beliefs, even though last year there were violent clashes with police after nine leaders were jailed for up to 13 years for their roles in the 2017 breakaway bid.Wider investigationThe investigation also targets the alleged misuse of public funds for the separatist movement in Spain as well as the allegedly active role of Russian-backed disinformation campaigns to discredit Madrid.Those arrested face allegations of embezzlement and money laundering.Investigations revealed that money intended for Barcelona’s provincial government and a regional entity for promoting sports teams had been diverted illegally, the Spanish government said in a statement after the arrests.
Josep Lluis Alay, a close collaborator of Puigdemont, was one of those detained. Others included David Madi and Oriol Vendrell, two former politicians for Catalonia’s major separatist parties.A demonstrator is detained by police officers during a protest against police raids and the arrest of Catalan separatists, in Barcelona, Spain, Oct. 28, 2020.In the wake of the early morning raids, Puigdemont tweeted that Alay and the others “must be immediately released. Acting against political dissidents is a huge violation of fundamental rights”.After the breakaway attempt failed, Puigdemont fled Spain hidden in the boot of a car to France then flew to Brussels, where he has campaigned to raise support for his cause internationally. Puigdemont is currently a European Parliament member.Another suspect, Oriol Soler, is a publisher who is considered one of the top strategists of the separatist movement.Assange connectionHe is being investigated for allegedly meeting Russian contacts and the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange when he was seeking refuge at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to promote the separatist cause and discredit Spain internationally.In a court document which was made public, it said the alleged meeting between Soler and Assange in September 2017 “falls within the strategy of misinformation and destabilization in which the Kremlin has also participated as part of its general narrative that the European Union is on the brink of collapse, the principal message of the news outlets controlled by the Kremlin.”Benet Salellas, Soler’s defense attorney, said that his client is innocent and “denounces that the justice system is being utilized to fight against the Catalan independence movement”.The arrests sparked several small protests across Catalonia.The issue of independence has consistently divided the region’s 7.5 million inhabitants.In a recent poll earlier this month for the Catalan regional government, 46.3% of Catalans opposed breaking away from Spain, while 45.5% backed independence. 

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Demonstrators Close Khartoum Bridges to Protest Fuel Price

People in Sudan’s cities are protesting after the ministry of energy on Tuesday doubled the price of fuel to help reduce a budget deficit.  The price of fuel in Sudan has jumped four times in two years and helped spark mass protests that in 2019 led to the ouster of former president Omar al-Bashir. Sudan’s transitional government raised the price of fuel on Tuesday, to help trim a budget deficit and bring an end to fuel shortages.Smugglers were taking advantage of low prices to purchase fuel in Sudan and sell it at a higher price in neighboring countries.Minister of Energy Khariy Abdelrahman said we hope this decision will result in the hoped-for results by creating fuel abundance and stop the smuggling.  The price of fuel in Sudan has now jumped four times in two years.  One price hike triggered the mass protests that in 2019 led to the ouster of former president Omar al-Bashir.With the latest increase, diesel will be sold at 46 Sudanese pounds, or about 83 U.S. cents per liter, and regular gas will be sold at 56 pounds per liter.But thousands rallied in Khartoum on Thursday to protest the new prices and call for the government to retract the increase.  Alaa Gassim is one of the protesters who blocked two main bridges Wednesday night in Khartoum.Gassim says increasing the fuel prices adds trouble to people’s lives.  He says he wishes this step was preceded by consideration of individuals’ monthly income.  People should take a strong stand against this pricing and totally reject it, he adds. Protester Abduelkarim Hassan, who stopped his car in on the Fitihab Bridge Wednesday, seems determined to make the government back down.Hassan says he was one of the anti-Bashir protesters and hoped for change.  He says he will participate in protests and all resisting campaigns until the transitional government backs off on its decision or increases salaries or leaves.  Economic analysts like Professor Mohamed Al-Nayer think the decision is unfortunate and avoidable in the current time.Mohamed says the decision is indeed unfortunate and the economic situation in Sudan isn’t ready for such decision.  He says it is possible to take such a step if economic stabilization was accomplished, with stabilizing the exchange rates and decreasing inflation rates.   The U.S. has agreed to remove Sudan from its list of state sponsors of terrorism, a move that should give Sudan access to international loans and create new ties with countries and investors. The government is hoping that move will boost the economy, which has struggled for years under the weight of political isolation and U.S. sanctions. 

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