Month: May 2024

amsterdam — Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Prime Minister Mark Rutte joined around 4,000 people Saturday for the country’s annual World War II remembrance ceremony amid restricted public access and heightened security due to the war in Gaza. 

The ceremony on Amsterdam’s central Dam square, with the traditional two minutes of silence at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT) to commemorate the victims of World War II, passed smoothly despite fears that there might be protests. 

Normally some 20,000 people attend the Dam commemoration without having to register. But earlier this week, municipal authorities announced unprecedented security measures to keep the ceremony safe and avoid possible disruptions linked to the Israel-Hamas war. 

At the opening of a Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam in March, pro-Palestinian protesters opposed to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza set off fireworks and booed Israeli President Isaac Herzog as he arrived on a visit. 

Every town and city in the Netherlands holds its own remembrance ceremony on May 4 and tens of thousands of people attend the events. Then on May 5, the Netherlands marks the anniversary of its liberation from Nazi occupation in 1945. 
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washington — Supporters of two U.S. nationals seen as unjustly imprisoned overseas are raising concerns about what they see as a murky process by which the U.S. government decides whether to designate such individuals as wrongfully detained.

Granting a wrongful detention designation to a U.S. national means the U.S. special envoy for hostage affairs is authorized to work with a coalition of government and private sector organizations to secure the detainee’s freedom.

Hostage rights advocates and relatives of the two U.S. nationals jailed in Iran and Russia tell VOA they want answers as to why the pair have been waiting months or years for a wrongful detention designation, while other Americans jailed in the same two countries have received the designation much more quickly.

Designations are granted if a review by the secretary of state concludes that the U.S. national’s case meets criteria  defined in the Levinson Act of 2020.

One U.S. national whose case has been under review for years is 62-year-old retired Iranian ship captain Shahab Dalili. After immigrating to the U.S. with his family in 2014 upon being granted permanent residency, he returned to Iran in 2016 to attend his father’s funeral and was arrested.

Iranian authorities sentenced Dalili to 10 years in prison for allegedly cooperating with a hostile government, a reference to the U.S. His family denies the charge.

While not a U.S. citizen, Dalili is considered a “U.S. national” under the Levinson Act, by virtue of his lawful permanent resident status.

The other U.S. national, whose case has been under review for months, is Alsu Kurmasheva, a 47-year-old U.S.-Russian dual citizen and Prague-based journalist with VOA sister network RFE/RL.

Kurmasheva had traveled to Russia last year to visit her elderly mother, but authorities blocked her from departing in June and confiscated her U.S. and Russian passports. They jailed her in October and charged her with failing to register as a foreign agent and with spreading falsehoods about the Russian military, offenses punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

RFE/RL and the U.S. Agency for Global Media say the charges were filed in reprisal for Kurmasheva’s work as a journalist.

Asked about Kurmasheva at a Tuesday news briefing, U.S. State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said the Biden administration remains “deeply concerned” about her detention and believes she should be released.

He said a “deliberative and fact-driven process” is underway regarding a wrongful detention designation in her case, but he declined to elaborate.

Speaking with reporters last August, Patel said Dalili’s case “has not yet been determined wrongfully detained” and declined to say more. There has been no update since then, Dalili’s son Darian told VOA.

In contrast to the unresolved status of Dalili’s eight-year detention, two Iranian Americans whom Iran freed from detention last September in a prisoner exchange with the U.S., and whom U.S. officials declined to name, received wrongful detention designations in what appears to be a relatively quick time.

The two individuals, whose backgrounds are revealed for the first time in this report as a result of a VOA open-source investigation, are San Diego-based international aid worker Fary Moini and Boston-based biologist Reza Behrouzi of Generate:Biomedicines.

Moini and Behrouzi were among five Americans released by Iran in the September exchange. The first indications that the two had been detained in Iran came from images of them published by news outlets and by White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan as the group traveled to the U.S. via Qatar.

A day later, Iran’s NourNews site named the two previously unidentified Americans as “Reza Behrouzi” and “Fakhr al-Sadat Moini,” but gave no detail of their backgrounds. NourNews spelled Moini’s first name differently than “Fary,” the name she uses publicly in the U.S.

U.S. officials said all five of the Americans had been designated as wrongfully detained, including three previously known detainees who had been jailed for years: Siamak Namazi, Morad Tahbaz and Emad Sharghi.

VOA contacted the State Department to ask when, where and why Moini and Behrouzi were detained in Iran, but it declined to provide an on-the-record response. Neither of the two responded to VOA requests for comment sent by email and through their social media profiles.

But Behrouzi and Moini were active on their Facebook and X accounts until three months and 11 months respectively before their release, indicating both were detained for less than a year.

Upon hearing from VOA about the State Department’s silence on Moini’s and Behrouzi’s detentions in Iran, Darian Dalili said he believes “something is not right” about how they got their designations.

“I think a lot of it has to do with the prominent status of these two people, whereas my father [Shahab Dalili] is a regular father of two,” the younger Dalili said.

Nizar Zakka — a Lebanese American who spent almost four years in what the U.S. said was unjust detention in Iran until being freed in 2019 — has urged the Biden administration to seek Shahab Dalili’s release as a wrongfully detained U.S. national.

Zakka told VOA he was happy that Moini and Behrouzi were released. But he said their attainment of wrongful detention designations in what appears to be a matter of months, while Dalili has waited years without securing that status, shows the designation process is not transparent.

“The public has a right to know how two people freed by Iran in return for the U.S. unfreezing a huge sum of Iranian funds got their designations, whereas Dalili has not,” Zakka said. “U.S. nationals like Dalili also should not be left behind,” he added.

 

Russian American journalist Kurmasheva’s wait for a U.S. decision on whether she is wrongfully detained after more than six months of Russian imprisonment also contrasts with the case of American reporter Evan Gershkovich of The Wall Street Journal.

Gershkovich was arrested in Russia on March 29, 2023, on spying charges while working in the country as an accredited journalist. Twelve days later, Secretary of State Blinken announced his determination that Gershkovich was wrongfully detained.

Kurmasheva’s husband, Pavel Butorin, told VOA he does not know why Gershkovich got his designation so quickly while his wife continues to wait.

“The designation of Evan’s detention as wrongful was the right thing to do,” Butorin said. “But the designation process is opaque, and I don’t know where we are in it. I do know the State Department will prioritize those individuals formally designated as wrongfully detained in a prisoner exchange, so the designation is important for Alsu.”

Hostage rights advocate Diane Foley, president of U.S. nonprofit group Foley Foundation, told VOA she believes a big factor in Kurmasheva’s wait for a designation is her dual citizenship.

Foley said Gershkovich’s case for a designation was clearer because he is solely a U.S. citizen. She said Kurmasheva’s Russian citizenship means she is subject to Russian media regulations that the U.S. must examine to determine if she is jailed in violation of the detaining country’s own law, one of the criteria of the Levinson Act.

“That is what slows everything down,” Foley said. “But we are pushing for Alsu to get the designation because she is a press freedom advocate and there is no excuse for Russia to retaliate by detaining her on a technicality.”
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berlin — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Union leaders denounced Saturday a recent spate of attacks on politicians in Germany, including one that sent a member of the European Parliament to the hospital with serious injuries. 

Matthias Ecke, 41, a member of Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD), was hit and kicked Friday by a group of four people while putting up posters in Dresden, capital of the eastern state of Saxony, police said. An SPD source said his injuries would require an operation. 

Shortly before, what appeared to be the same group attacked a 28-year-old campaigner for the Greens, who was also putting up posters, police said, although his injuries were not as severe. 

“Democracy is threatened by this kind of thing,” Scholz told a convention of European socialists in Berlin. 

The attacks exemplify increased violence in Germany in recent years, often from the far-right, targeting especially leftist politicians. The BfV domestic intelligence agency says far-right extremism is the biggest threat to German democracy. 

Saxony premier Michael Kretschmer, a conservative, said such aggression and attempts at intimidation recalled the darkest era of German history, a reference to Nazi rule. 

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, a former German conservative minister, and the Italian head of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, both condemned the attack on Ecke. 

“The culprits must be brought to account,” von der Leyen said on X. 

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser vowed “tough action and further protective measures” in response to the attacks. 

Far-right support 

The heads of the SPD in Saxony, Henning Homann and Kathrin Michel, issued a statement in which they blamed the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) for the rise in violence. 

“These people and their supporters bear responsibility for what is happening in this country,” they said. 

The AfD did not immediately reply to a request for comment. The party says it is the victim of a campaign by the media and political establishment. 

The AfD has seen a surge in support in the past year take it to second place in opinion polls nationwide. It is particularly strong in the eastern states of Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg, where surveys suggest it could come first in regional elections in September. 

Nationwide, the number of attacks on politicians of parties represented in parliament has doubled since 2019, according to government figures published in January. 

Greens party politicians face the most aggression, according to the data, with attacks on them rising sevenfold since 2019 to 1,219 last year. AfD politicians suffered 478 attacks and the SPD was third with 420. 

Theresa Ertel, a Greens candidate in municipal elections in Thuringia this month, said she knew of party members who no longer wanted to stand because of the aggressive political atmosphere. 

The Greens in her region had agreed that information stands should always have at least three staff for extra safety. 
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LONDON — London Mayor Sadiq Khan has a lot of cleaning up to do.

Khan, who made history Saturday by becoming the city’s first mayor elected to a third term, has pledged to make the River Thames swimmable.

It wasn’t a top campaign issue, but it’s an audacious goal considering the waterway was declared biologically dead not long before his birth in the city in 1970 and flows as an open sewer of sorts when heavy rains overwhelm London’s ancient plumbing system.

Taming the Thames would not be Khan’s first swim upstream. His narrative is built around overcoming the odds.

As he frequently points out, he is the son of a bus driver and a seamstress from Pakistan. He grew up in a three-bedroom public housing apartment with seven siblings in South London. He attended a rough school and went on to study law. He was a human rights lawyer before he was elected to Parliament in 2005 as a member of the center-left Labor Party, representing the area where he grew up.

In 2016, he became the first Muslim leader of a major Western capital, overcoming an opponent whose mayoral campaign was “at least somewhat Islamophobic,” said Patrick Diamond, a public policy professor at Queen Mary University of London.

“It was seen as an affirmation of him in terms of his status as a leading Muslim politician, but also as an affirmation of London in terms of its diversity, its liberalism, its cosmopolitanism,” Diamond said. “That was significant in a country which doesn’t historically have a very strong track record for having diversity in its senior politicians.”

Khan has faced subtle and overt discrimination throughout his career due to his ethnicity and religion. Some of the sharpest barbs have come from former U.S. President Donald Trump, who has feuded with him since Khan assailed Trump’s campaign pledge in 2015 to ban Muslims from entering the United States.

During a campaign rally Wednesday in Wisconsin, Trump said London and Paris were “no longer recognizable” after they “opened their doors to jihad.”

Khan, who has referred to Trump as the “poster boy for racists,” responded by saying Thursday’s election was a chance to “choose hope over fear and unity over division.”

“One of the things that he does incredibly well, and I would defy anyone to disagree with this, is representing London’s different and diverse communities,” said Jack Brown, a lecturer in London studies at King’s College London. “He hasn’t got absolutely everything right, but he is kind of a bringer together of different communities.”

Khan, who was ahead of the national Labor Party in calling for a cease-fire in Gaza, has taken a lot of flak for large pro-Palestinian marches in the city since the Israel-Hamas war. But he’s also known for speaking out against antisemitism and for building bridges with Jewish leaders, Brown said.

Despite his success at the polls, Khan is not an incredibly popular mayor. He’s been blamed for a lot of problems, many of which are beyond his control.

The mayor of London doesn’t have the authority of mayors in Paris or New York because power is shared with the city’s 32 boroughs and the financial district.

Khan has a 20-billion-pound ($25 billion) budget that primarily goes toward transport, policing and working with councils and developers to achieve his affordable housing targets that he has fallen far short of meeting. Borough councils are responsible for schools, rubbish collection, social services and public housing.

His time in office has been overshadowed by crises: first the U.K.’s break from the European Union, which weakened London’s thriving financial services industry, and then the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to a cost-of-living crisis.

He has touted measures he put in place such as freezing rail and bus fares and providing free meals for all primary school pupils among his biggest achievements.

Khan has deflected much criticism by blaming his difficulties on a Conservative government that has impeded his plans. He said a projected win by Labor in a national election later this year would change his fortunes.

“For too long we’ve had a government that appears to be anti-London, that thinks the way to level up our country, to make it more equal, is make London poorer,” Khan told The Associated Press.

But Diamond said a Labor government will face the same fiscal problems as the current administration and is unlikely to suddenly make Khan’s life easier.

“You can’t always play the party politics card,” Diamond said. “The general sense in London is that Sadiq Khan does that too often. Or you can blame the Conservative government once or twice, but if it’s your only message, I think people maybe get a little bit tired and switch off to some extent.”

Khan has been criticized by opponents for a rise in crime — particularly incidents involving knives. He has responded by pledging more support for programs that work with youths to prevent crime while blaming government funding cuts.

In the outer suburbs, Khan has come under fire for expanding the city’s Ultra Low Emission Zone that fines drivers of more-polluting older cars 12.50 pounds (about $16) a day. Although the policy was introduced in central London in 2015 by his predecessor, Boris Johnson, it has widely been attributed to Khan because of its unpopular expansion, although it only applies to a small fraction of vehicles.

His main opponent, Susan Hall, a London Assembly member, vowed to “stop the war on motorists” and scrap the program on her first day in office if elected.

Khan, who has made cleaning up London’s air pollution a personal mission since he developed asthma as an adult, considers those efforts among his biggest wins.

Making the Thames swimmable in the next decade would expand his mission from clean air to clean water. Brown said that might be a more tangible achievement — given that air pollution is often invisible — but it’s probably not something that won over a lot of voters.
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PARIS — France’s world-leading cosmetics sector is counting on talks between Xi Jinping and Emmanuel Macron next week to help minimize the impact on French companies of tough new Chinese import rules requiring the sharing of formulas and manufacturing know-how. 

President Xi’s first visit to Europe in five years comes amid a backdrop of tense trade relations, with the European Union threatening China’s electric vehicle and green energy industries with tariffs. 

But progress toward an agreement between France and China on the regulation of cosmetics, including lipstick and fragrances, could be a bright spot in discussions in Paris next week. 

President Macron’s office said ahead of the meeting that cosmetics would be a topic of “great attention,” and that they sought to “find a solution that also protects the interests of our companies.” 

France is the world’s leading cosmetics exporter, shipping nearly 2 billion euros ($2.15 billion) worth of makeup and skin care products to China last year, second in importance only to aerospace products. 

New Chinese safety rules due to come into effect next year threaten that trade. 

From May 2025, cosmetics exporters will be required to share detailed information on their manufacturing processes with Beijing and receive Chinese inspectors in their factories, a measure that raises concerns about losing control of intellectual property. 

Under a plan proposed in talks between the two sides in the past year, French authorities would take responsibility for assuring the safety of some of its exports without the need for Chinese inspections. 

France would grant some similar measures to China, but it was not clear what areas those would cover. 

“This reciprocity will assure the highest standards of safety to Chinese consumers,” said Emmanuel Guichard, secretary general of France’s cosmetics industry association FEBEA, adding that the plan could be formalized during talks between Xi and Macron. 

FEBEA’s members include L’Oreal, LVMH and Coty. 

Under the agreement, France’s consumer and anti-fraud watchdog DGCCRF would ensure the safety of a number of French manufacturers that qualify for “white list” status. 

The agency said in a report issued Friday on its recent activities that it held its first meeting on certification of French cosmetics for export to China with China’s National Medical Products Administration, or NMPA, in December. 

The Elysee did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

The DGCCRF did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The NMPA could not be reached for comment on a holiday weekend. Sunday is Labor Day in China, recognized as a national holiday. 
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KYIV, UKRAINE — Russia launched an overnight drone attack on Ukraine’s Kharkiv and Dnipro regions, injuring at least six people and hitting critical infrastructure, commercial and residential buildings, regional officials said on Saturday.

The Ukrainian Air Force said the Russian forces launched 13 Shahed drones targeting the regions in the northeast and center of the country. The air defense units downed all the drones, the Air Force commander said.

However, debris from the downed drones struck civilian targets in Kharkiv in the northeast, injuring four people and sparking a fire in an office building, the regional governor said.

Oleh Synehubov, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said a 13-year-old child and a woman were being treated at a hospital. Two other women were treated on site. Emergency services were bringing the fire under control, he said.

In the industrial Dnipropetrovsk region, two people were wounded, said Serhiy Lysak, the regional governor. He said a critical infrastructure facility and three houses were damaged.
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PARIS — Freshly cooked bread, select cheeses and a broad veggie offer will be among the meals to be offered to athletes and visitors during the 2024 Paris Olympics — including, of course, gourmet dishes created by renowned French chefs.

About 40,000 meals are expected to be served each day during the Games to the more than 15,000 athletes from 200 different countries housed at the Olympic village.

Visitors, too, will be able to enjoy some specially created snacks at the different venues.

French food services company Sodexo Live!, which was selected to oversee the catering at the athletes’ village and 14 venues of the Paris Games, said it has created a total of 500 recipes, which will notably be offered at a sit-down eatery for up to 3,500 athletes at the village, meant to be the “world’s largest restaurant.”

“Of course, there will be some classics for athletes, like pasta,” said Nathalie Bellon-Szabo, global CEO of Sodexo Live! But the food will have a “very French touch.”

Athletes will also have access to “grab and go” food stands, including one dedicated exclusively to French cuisine cooked up by chefs.

Renowned French chef Amandine Chaignot, who runs a restaurant and a café-bistro in Paris, on Tuesday unveiled one of her recipes based on the iconic croissant.

“I wanted the recipe I suggested to be representative of the French terroir, but I wanted athletes to enjoy it at the same time,” she told The Associated Press. “It was quite obvious for me to make a croissant that I could twist. So, you have a bit of artichoke puree, a poached egg, a bit of truffle and a bit of cheese. It’s both vegetarian and still mouthwatering.”

Every day, during the July 26-August 11 Games, a top chef — including some awarded with Michelin stars — will cook in front of the athletes at the Olympic Village, “so they’ll be able to chat and better understand what French cuisine is about — and to understand a bit of our culture as well,” Chaignot said.

Daily specials will be accompanied by a wide range of salads, pastas, grilled meat and soups. Cheeses will include top quality camembert, brie and sheep’s milk-based Ossau-Iraty from southwestern France.

The Olympic Village will also feature a boulangerie producing fresh baguettes and a variety of other breads.

“The idea is to offer athletes the chance to grab a piping-hot baguette for breakfast,” said baker Tony Doré, who will be working at the Olympic Village’s main restaurant.

Athletes will even be able to participate in daily bakery trainings, and learn to make their own French baguette, said Doré.

In an effort to provide as many options as possible, meals offered will revolve around four cuisines: French, Asian, African and the Caribbean and international food.

Paris 2024 organizers have promised to make the Games more sustainable and environment-friendly — and that includes efforts to reduce the use of plastic. To this effect, the main restaurant at the village will use only reusable dishes.

Additionally, organizers say all meals will be based on seasonal products and 80% will come from France.

Plant-based food will represent 60% of the offer for visitors at the venues, including a “vegetarian hot-dog,” said Philipp Würz, head of Food and Beverage for the Paris 2024 Committee.

There’s “a huge amount of plant-based recipes that will be available for the general public to try, to experience and, hopefully, they will love it,” said Würz.

The urban park at the Place de la Concorde, in central Paris, will offer visitors 100% vegetarian food — a first in the Games’ history. The place will be the stage for Paris 2024’s most contemporary sporting disciplines: BMX freestyle, 3×3 basketball, skateboarding and breakdancing.
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