In a first in Europe, women hold more than half of the seats in Iceland’s new parliament, final election results showed Sunday.

Of the 63 seats in the Althing, 33 were won by women, or 52 percent, according to projections based on the final results.

No other European country has had more than 50 percent women lawmakers, with Sweden coming closest at 47 percent, according to data compiled by the World Bank.

Five other countries in the world currently have parliaments where women hold at least half the seats, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union: Rwanda (61 percent), Cuba (53 percent), Nicaragua (51 percent) and Mexico and the United Arab Emirates (50 percent).

Unlike some other countries, Iceland does not have legal quotas on female representation in parliament, though some parties do require a minimum number of candidates be women.

Iceland has long been a pioneer in gender equality and women’s rights, and has topped the World Economic Forum’s ranking of most egalitarian countries for the past 12 years.

It offers the same parental leave to both men and women, and its first law on equal pay for men and women dates back to 1961.

Iceland was the first country to elect a woman as president in 1980, and since 2018 it has had a pioneering gender-equal pay law that puts the onus on employers to prove they are paying the same wages to men and women.

Saturday’s election saw the left-right coalition government widen its majority.

However, Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir’s Left Green Movement emerged weakened while her right-wing partners posted strong scores, casting doubt over her future as prime minister.
…

Iceland’s government was poised to win a majority in Saturday’s election, early results showed, though it remained to be seen if Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir’s left-right coalition would agree to continue in power together.

The three-party coalition has brought Iceland four years of stability after a decade of crises.

Jakobsdottir’s Left-Green Movement, the conservative Independence Party and the center-right Progressive Party were together credited with 38 of 63 seats in parliament, with more than a third of votes counted.

But the Left-Green Movement was seen losing crucial ground to its right-wing partners, putting Jakobsdottir’s future as prime minister — and the coalition itself — in doubt.

“We will have to see how the governmental parties are doing together and how we are doing,” Jakobsdottir told AFP, as the early results showed her party losing one seat in parliament from the 11 it won in 2017.

A clear picture of the political landscape was however only expected to emerge later Sunday when all votes had been counted.

A record nine parties are expected to win seats in the Althing, Iceland’s almost 1,100-year-old parliament, splintering the political landscape more than ever before.

That makes it particularly tricky to predict which parties could ultimately end up forming a coalition.

“I know that the results will be complicated, it will be complicated to form a new government,” Jakobsdottir said.

The largest party looked set to remain the Independence Party, whose leader Bjarni Benediktsson is eyeing the post of prime minister.

It was seen holding on to its 16 seats.

But the election’s big winner appeared to be the center-right Progressive Party, which was seen gaining four seats, to 12.

‘Different opportunities’

“Because there are so many parties, I think there will be a lot of different opportunities to form a government,” Jakobsdottir told AFP earlier in the week.

During her four-year term, Jakobsdottir has introduced a progressive income tax system, increased the social housing budget and extended parental leave for both parents.

Broadly popular, she has also been hailed for her handling of the COVID-19 crisis, with just 33 deaths in the country of 370,000.

But she has also had to make concessions to keep the peace in her coalition.

She said Saturday that if returned to power, her party would focus on the “huge challenges we face to build the economy in a more green and sustainable way,” as well addressing the climate crisis where “we need to do radical things.”

This is only the second time since 2008 that a government has made it to the end of its four-year mandate on the sprawling island.

Deep public distrust of politicians amid repeated scandals sent Icelanders to the polls five times from 2007 to 2017.

‘Free-for-all’

Outgoing Finance Minister Benediktsson is a former prime minister who comes from a family that has long held power on the right.

He has survived several political scandals, including being implicated in the 2016 Panama Papers leak that revealed offshore tax havens, and is standing in his fifth election.

He said he was optimistic after the early results.

“These numbers are good, (it’s a) good start to the evening,” he told public broadcaster RUV.

But there are five other parties all expected to garner around 10-15% of votes which could band together to form various coalitions.

They are the Left-Green Movement, the Progressive Party, the Social Democratic Alliance, the libertarian Pirate Party and the center-right Reform Party. A new Socialist Party is also expected to put in a strong showing.

“There is not a clear alternative to this government. If it falls and they can’t continue, then it’s just a free-for-all to create a new coalition,” political scientist Eirikur Bergmann said. 
…

Germany’s 60 million eligible voters will set their country on a new course in Sunday’s parliamentary elections.

The winning lawmakers will decide who will replace the country’s outgoing and popular chancellor, Angela Merkle.

The newly elected politicians will likely have to form a coalition government, meaning it may take some weeks before Merkle’s replacement is announced.

Merkle, the driving force behind Germany’s position as Europe’s leading economy, is stepping down after 16 years in Germany’s top job, in a government led by Merkle’s center-right Christian Democratic Union.

Merkle has been reluctant to throw her support behind any of the leaders of the various political parties who are vying for her job, including her vice chancellor, Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Party.

On Saturday, however, the German leader attended a rally for Armin Laschet, leader of the Christian Democrats.

 
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International recognition of the Taliban “at the present juncture is not on the table,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Saturday at the United Nations.

Among the Taliban’s promises are ensuring an inclusive government; respecting human rights, especially for women; and preventing Afghanistan from becoming a haven for terrorists.

But the interim Taliban government, Lavrov said, fails to reflect “the whole gamut of Afghan society — ethno-religious and political forces — so we are engaging in contacts, they are ongoing.”

Russia, the United States, China and Pakistan, he said, are working to hold the Taliban to the promises they made when they seized control of Afghanistan in mid-August. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said the Taliban’s desire for such recognition is the only leverage the world has.

“What’s most important … is to ensure that the promises that they have proclaimed publicly [are] to be kept,” Lavrov added at news conference Saturday afternoon.

Lavrov addressed a wide range of topics, including the Iran nuclear deal and Russian mercenaries in Mali.

On Iran, Lavrov urged a greater effort from the U.S. to rejoin the deal.

“It seems evident they should be more active” in “resolving all issues related” to the accord, Lavrov told reporters, according to Agence France-Presse.

Negotiations stuck

Talks in Vienna among representatives from Iran, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany have stalled, and Iran is no longer in compliance with the nuclear agreement, Lavrov said, “simply because the United State has left it.”

The deal was struck in 2015 and called for Iran to undo most of its nuclear program and allow international monitoring. In exchange, it would receive sanctions relief. Former U.S. President Donald Trump left the deal in 2018, and Iran resumed nuclear activities. U.S. President Joe Biden has said he wants to rejoin the agreement if Iran returns to compliance.

Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, said Friday that the talks would resume “very soon,” but Tehran has not been specific about the timeframe, according to AFP.

On Mali, Lavrov said the country had turned to a private military company to help it combat terrorism, something France and the U.S. oppose. Lavrov said the Russian government had nothing to do with any agreement between Mali and Russia’s Wagner Group.

Earlier Saturday at the General Assembly annual meeting, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said it was crucial that Afghanistan not be used to spread terrorism globally, and he called on world leaders to help minorities in the country, along with women and children.

The Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in August after the U.S. decision to withdraw troops from the country following 20 years of war the U.S and its allies initiated after the al-Qaida terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

No ‘misuse’ of Afghan situation

“It is important to ensure that the land of Afghanistan is not used to spread terrorism and perpetuate terrorist attacks,” Modi said.

“We also have to be alert that no nation should be able to misuse the delicate situation in Afghanistan for their own selfish motives, like a tool,” Modi added in an apparent reference to Pakistan, locked between Afghanistan and India.

Modi’s appeal to protect women in Afghanistan came amid indications the Taliban have been limiting women’s rights since they seized Kabul, despite recent statements that they were willing to ease restrictions on women and girls. Women were largely banned from public life under the Taliban’s previous reign in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.

The prime minister of India, which competes with China for influence in Kashmir and in the Indian Ocean region, also cited the need to shield oceans from “the race for expansion and exclusion.”

Other speakers Saturday at the assembly included leaders from Ethiopia, Mali and Haiti.
…

Britain will issue up to 10,500 temporary work visas to truck drivers and poultry workers to ease chronic staff shortages, the government announced Saturday, in a U-turn on post-Brexit immigration policy.

The short-term visas, to run from next month until late December, come as ministers try to fix a shortfall of drivers and other key workers that has hit fuel supplies and additional industries.

A shortage of tanker drivers has caused long lines at gas stations in recent days, as people ignore government pleas not to panic-buy fuel after some stations closed thanks to the lack of deliveries.

The decision to expand the critical worker visa scheme is a reversal by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose government had tightened post-Brexit immigration rules insisting that Britain’s reliance on foreign labor must end.

The government had resisted the move for months, despite an estimated shortage of around 100,000 heavy goods vehicle (HGV) drivers and warnings from various sectors that supplies would run short.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps nevertheless insisted he was taking action “at the earliest opportunity” and that a broader package of measures announced would ensure pre-Christmas preparations “remain on track.”

“The industries must also play their part with working conditions continuing to improve and the deserved salary increases continuing to be maintained in order for companies to retain new drivers,” he added.

‘Skills boot camps’

The new measures will focus on rapidly expanding the number of new domestic drivers, and include deploying Ministry of Defense driving examiners to help provide thousands of extra tests over the next 12 weeks.

Meanwhile the education ministry and partner agencies will spend millions of pounds training 4,000 people to become HGV drivers, creating new “skills boot camps” to speed up the process.

Nearly 1 million letters will also be sent to all drivers who hold an HGV license, asking any not currently driving to come back to work.

Johnson has been under increasing pressure to act, after the pandemic and Brexit combined to worsen the driver shortage and other crises emerged, including escalating energy prices.

As well as threatening timely fuel supplies, the lack of truck drivers has hit British factories, restaurants and supermarkets in recent weeks and months.

U.S. burger chain McDonald’s ran out of milkshakes and bottled drinks last month, fast-food giant KFC was forced to remove some items from its menu, while restaurant chain Nando’s temporarily shut dozens of outlets because of a lack of chicken.

Supermarkets are also feeling the heat, with frozen-food group Iceland and retail king Tesco warning of Christmas product shortages.

‘It’s ridiculous’

This week it was the turn of the fuel sector, with growing lines of cars clogging the approaches to gas stations following some closures and panic-buying, particularly in southeast England.

Drivers appeared less than reassured Saturday, as lines again formed for fuel.

Mike Davey, 56, had been waiting more than half an hour to fill up at a station run by the supermarket chain Tesco in Kent, southeast of London.

“I just want to get some fuel to get to work. People are just like filling up jerry cans — it’s ridiculous,” he told AFP.

“Maybe they need to bring some army drivers in,” Davey added.

The government has so far resisted calls to deploy soldiers to help deliver gasoline directly.

As part of the measures announced, taxpayers will also help pay for some adult HGV license applications in the next academic year, which can cost thousands of pounds, through an adult education budget fund. 
…

Icelanders were voting Saturday in a general election dominated by climate change, with an unprecedented number of political parties likely to win parliamentary seats.

 

Polls suggested there wouldn’t be an outright winner, triggering complex negotiations to build a coalition government.

 

A record nine parties could cross the 5% threshold needed to qualify for seats in Iceland’s parliament, the Althing. Upstart parties include the Socialist Party, which is promising to shorten the workweek and nationalize Iceland’s fishing industry. 

 

High turnout was expected, as one-fifth of eligible voters have already cast absentee ballots.

 

Climate change is high among voters’ concerns in Iceland, a glacier-studded volcanic island nation of about 350,000 people in the North Atlantic. 

 

An exceptionally warm summer by Icelandic standards — 59 days of temperatures above 20 degrees Celsius (68 F) — and shrinking glaciers have helped drive global warming up the political agenda.  

Polls showed strong support for left-leaning parties promising to cut carbon emissions by more than Iceland is already committed to under the Paris climate agreement. The country has pledged to become carbon-neutral by 2040, a decade ahead of most other European nations. 

 

The current government is a coalition of three parties spanning the political spectrum from left to center-right, and led by Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir of the Left Green Party. It was formed in 2017 after years of political instability. 

 

Jakobsdottir remains a popular prime minister, but polls suggest her party could fare poorly, ending the ongoing coalition. 

 

“The country is facing big decisions as we turn from the pandemic,” Jakobsdottir said during televised debates on Friday night in which party leaders vowed to end Iceland’s reliance on oil and many wanted to raise taxes on the rich. 
…

Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Germans Saturday to give her would-be successor Armin Laschet their vote to shape Germany’s future, in a last-ditch push to shore up his beleaguered campaign 24 hours before Germans vote.

 

Laschet, 60, has been trailing his Social Democrat challenger Olaf Scholz in the race for the chancellery, although final polls put the gap between them within the margin of error, making the vote one of the most unpredictable in recent years.

 

Merkel had planned to keep a low profile in the election battle as she prepares to bow out of politics after 16 years in power. But she has found herself dragged into the frantic campaign schedule of the unpopular chairman of her party, Laschet.

 

In the last week of the campaign, Merkel took Laschet to her constituency by the Baltic coast and on Friday headlined the closing rally gathering the conservatives’ bigwigs in Munich.

 

Merkel tugged at the heartstrings of Germany’s predominantly older electorate on Friday, calling on them to keep her conservatives in power for the sake of stability — a trademark of Germany.

 

“To keep Germany stable, Armin Laschet must become chancellor, and the CDU and CSU must be the strongest force,” she said.

 

A day before the vote, she travelled to Laschet’s hometown and constituency Aachen, a spa city near Germany’s western border with Belgium and the Netherlands, where he was born and still lives.

 

“It is about your future, the future of your children and the future of your parents,” she said at her last rally before the polls, urging strong mobilization for her conservative alliance.

 

She underlined that climate protection will be a key challenge of the next government  but said this would not be achieved “simply through rules and regulations”.

 

“For that we need new technological developments, new procedures, researchers, interested people who think about how that can be done, and people who participate,” she said.  

 

Laschet is a “bridge-builder who will get people on board” in shaping Germany to meet those challenges, she said.

 

Hundreds of thousands of people had descended on the streets on Friday urging change and greater climate protection, with a leading activist calling Sunday’s election the vote “of a century”.

 

‘Could backfire’

   

With the clock ticking down to the election, Scholz was also staying close to home at the other end of the country to chase down last votes.

 

Taking questions from voters in his constituency of Potsdam — a city on the outskirts of Berlin famous for its palaces that once housed Prussian kings — Scholz said he was fighting for “a major change in this country, a new government” led by him.  

 

He also gave a glimpse of the future government he hopes to lead, saying that “perhaps it may be enough to, for instance, form a government between the SPD and the Greens”.

 

Scholz, currently finance minister in Merkel’s coalition government, has avoided making mistakes on the campaign trail, and largely won backing as he sold himself as the “continuity candidate” after Merkel in place of Laschet.

 

Described as capable but boring, Scholz has consistently beaten Laschet by wide margins when it comes to popularity.

 

As election day loomed, Laschet’s conservatives were closing the gap, with one poll even putting them just one percentage point behind the SPD’s 26 percent.

 

Laschet went into the race for the chancellery badly bruised by a tough battle for the conservatives’ chancellor candidate nomination.

 

Nevertheless, his party enjoyed a substantial lead ahead of the SPD heading into the summer.

 

But Laschet was seen chuckling behind President Frank-Walter Steinmeier as he paid tribute to victims of deadly floods in July, an image that would drastically turn the mood against him and his party.

 

As polls showed the lead widening for the SPD, the conservatives turned to their greatest asset — the still widely popular Merkel.

 

Yet roping in the chancellor is not without risks, said political analyst Oskar Niedermayer of Berlin’s Free University.

 

“Merkel is still the most well-liked politician. But the joint appearances can become a problem for Laschet because they are then immediately being compared to each other,” he said.

 

“And it could therefore backfire because people could then think that Merkel is more suitable than Laschet.”

 

 
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Women in Turkey’s Kurdish-majority province Diyarbakir cycled their well-decorated bikes to raise awareness about female cyclists in traffic. VOA’s Mahmut Bozarslan has filed this report, narrated by Ezel Sahinkaya.
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Young climate activists from Greta Thunberg’s Friday for Future movement resumed mass street protests on Friday for the first time since the pandemic began, demanding drastic action from global leaders ahead of U.N. climate talks in November.

From Nairobi to Washington, marchers — including Thunberg, who joined protests in Berlin — carried placards and homemade banners during the demonstrations, which drew fewer protesters than before COVID-19 in most cities.

“It’s slightly disappointing there are less people than there used to be, but people will come back. The problem is not going away,” said Erin Brodrick, 17, one of about 250 protesters in London’s Parliament Square.

Before the pandemic, the square often overflowed with activists during larger Friday marches.

Brodrick said young people “feel really scared about the future of the planet” as they see climate change impacts strengthen and emissions continue to rise, despite a raft of political promises to slash them.

But because underage protesters cannot vote, “what else can I do but come out here?” she said, wielding a green “Planet Over Politics” sign.

In Barcelona, about 200 youth activists, children and parents joined a protest around a cloth depicting the Earth, showing their support for a court action launched in June aimed at forcing the Spanish government to boost its climate policy.

Gathered in the Catalan capital’s main square, they also demanded a stop to a planned expansion of Barcelona’s airport.

Filip Frey, a 23-year-old Polish activist studying engineering in Barcelona, said younger people will be the ones who pay for the selfish actions of politicians who “only care about their publicity, their money, their power.”

“We are just furious and angry,” he said, urging society as a whole to join the youth protests. “If we don’t do anything, nothing will change and we will just burn or drown.”

‘Not being heard’

In Nairobi, where about 30 activists in green-and-white T-shirts gathered in a central park, many said there was little evidence politicians were listening to their pleas to work faster to cut emissions and curb climate risks.

“Young people have been speaking up for years now and there is a lot of impatience … We want to begin seeing governments taking rapid action,” said Elizabeth Wathuti, head of campaigns for the Wangari Maathai Foundation, a local environmental group.

“We’ve been speaking out about this, but our voices are not being heard,” she said, adding that “we’re the ones that have to live with the consequences of the inaction.”

Patricia Kombo, another activist, said one aim of the protest was to push politicians to commit to more aggressive action on climate change ahead of the upcoming international COP26 U.N. climate negotiations in Glasgow, starting Oct. 31.

“We’ve had a lot of climate talks but what we get is empty promises. We want real climate action at COP26 because we can’t wait any longer,” she said as activists waved signs saying, “Stand up for climate justice” and “Later is too late.”

Protesters gathered in Washington said they were pushing for a comprehensive $3.5 trillion national U.S. climate bill and an immediate transition to green energy, said Magnolia Mead, one of the organizers.

Jamie Minden, 18, a student at Washington’s American University, said the movement’s return to large-scale protests was crucial to keeping up pressure for climate action.

“It is so critical to get back out in the streets – it’s not the same online,” she said. Street protests “get a lot more attention.”

Activist Shelby Grace Tucker, 14, who had come to the protest from Baltimore, said getting back on the streets felt “really empowering” and was a way for younger people – who might not otherwise be able to garner attention, to “still make a difference.”

Merging movements

To weather the pandemic, Fridays for Future largely moved online, with education programs and other events, though small groups continued to protest on the streets.

But the group also used the time to try to broaden the movement and coordinate its work with social pushes on other issues including race.

Sasha Langeveldt, 24, a Black Fridays for Future activist now working for the Friends of the Earth nonprofit, said that as activists grew older the movement needed to focus more on turning protesters into voters.

Langeveldt said young people were increasingly taking climate action into their own hands as well, citing an online green jobs summit in London she is helping organize in October. “We want to show politicians things can actually change,” she said.

Rowan Riley, 29, a London architect at the protest, agreed, saying he was now part of the London Energy Transformation Initiative, working on changing building design and regulation with climate change and renewable energy in mind. “We have to find other ways to influence things. It’s not always about the numbers at protests,” he said.

Carrying a “Grandparents and Elders” flag at the London march, Pat Farrington, 78, said she wanted to see governments “take everything more seriously.”

That should include training more young people for green jobs like installing insulation or solar panels, and doing more to help the public understand the potential economic benefits of a climate-smart transition.

“Right now, people say, ‘I can’t afford a posh electric car,’ and they feel their pockets are being picked,” she said. 

 

 
…

Fatima Alzahra Shon thinks neighbors attacked her and her son in their Istanbul apartment building because she is Syrian.  

 

The 32-year-old refugee from Aleppo was confronted on Sept. 1 by a Turkish woman who asked her what she was doing in “our” country. Shon replied, “Who are you to say that to me?” The situation quickly escalated.

 

A man came out of the Turkish woman’s apartment half-dressed, threatening to cut Shon and her family “into pieces,” she recalled. Another neighbor, a woman, joined in, shouting and hitting Shon. The group then pushed her down a flight of stairs. Shon said that when her 10-year-old son, Amr, tried to intervene, he was beaten as well.

Shon said she has no doubt about the motivation for the aggression: “Racism.”

 

Refugees fleeing the long conflict in Syria once were welcomed in neighboring Turkey with open arms, sympathy and compassion for fellow Muslims. But attitudes gradually hardened as the number of newcomers swelled over the past decade.

 

Anti-immigrant sentiment is now nearing a boiling point, fueled by Turkey’s economic woes. With unemployment high and the prices of food and housing skyrocketing, many Turks have turned their frustration toward the country’s roughly 5 million foreign residents, particularly the 3.7 million who fled the civil war in Syria.

 

In August, violence erupted in Ankara, the Turkish capital, as an angry mob vandalized Syrian businesses and homes in response to the deadly stabbing of a Turkish teenager.

 

Turkey hosts the world’s largest refugee population, and many experts say that has come at a cost. Selim Sazak, a visiting international security researcher at Bilkent University in Ankara and an advisor to officials from the opposition IYI Party, compared the arrival of so many refugees to absorbing “a foreign state that’s ethnically, culturally, linguistically dissimilar.”  

 

“Everyone thought that it would be temporary,” Sazak said. “I think it’s only recently that the Turkish population understood that these people are not going back. They are only recently understanding that they have to become neighbors, economic competitors, colleagues with this foreign population.”

 

On a recent visit to Turkey, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi acknowledged that the high number of refugees had created social tensions, especially in the country’s big cities. He urged “donor countries and international organizations to do more to help Turkey.”

 

The prospect of a new influx of refugees following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan has reinforced the unreceptive public mood. Videos purporting to show young Afghan men being smuggled into Turkey from Iran caused public outrage and led to calls for the government to safeguard the country’s borders.

 

The government says there are about 300,000 Afghans in Turkey, some of whom hope to continue their journeys to reach Europe.

 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who long defended an open-door policy toward refugees, recently recognized the public’s “unease” and vowed not to allow the country to become a “warehouse” for refugees. Erdogan’s government sent soldiers to Turkey’s eastern frontier with Iran to stem the expected flow of Afghans and is speeding up the construction of a border wall.

 

Immigration is expected to become a top campaign topic even though Turkey’s next general election is two years away. Both Turkey’s main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, and the nationalist IYI Party have promised to work on creating conditions that would allow the Syrian refugees’ return. waste collection fees foreigners there to propel them to leave.  

 

Following the anti-Syrian violence in the Altindag district of Ankara last month, Umit Ozdag, a right-wing politician who recently formed his own anti-immigrant party, visited the area wheeling an empty suitcase and saying the time has come for the refugees to “start packing.”

 

The riots broke out on Aug. 11, a day after a Turkish teenager was stabbed to death in a fight with a group of young Syrians. Hundreds of people chanting anti-immigrant slogans took to the streets, vandalized Syrian-run shops and hurled rocks at refugees’ homes.

 

A 30-year-old Syrian woman with four children who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals said her family locked themselves in their bathroom as an attacker climbed onto their balcony and tried to force the door open. The woman said the episode traumatized her 5-year-old daughter and the girl has trouble sleeping at night.

 

Some shops in the area remain closed, with traces of the disturbance still visible on their dented, metal shutters. Police have deployed multiple vehicles and a water cannon on the streets to prevent a repeat of the turmoil.

 

Syrians are often accused of failing to assimilate in Turkey, a country that has a complex relationship with the Arab world dating back to the Ottoman empire. While majority Muslim like neighboring Arab countries, Turks trace their origins to nomadic warriors from central Asia and Turkish belongs to a different language group than Arabic.

 

Kerem Pasaoglu, a pastry shop owner in Istanbul, said he wants Syrians to go back to their country and is bothered that some shops a street over have signs written in Arabic instead of Turkish.

 

“Just when we said we are getting used to Syrians or they will leave, now the Afghans coming is unfortunately very difficult for us,” he said.

 

Turkey’s foreign minister this month said Turkey is working with the United Nations’ refugee agency to safely return Syrians to their home country.

 

While the security situation has stabilized in many parts of Syria after a decade of war, forced conscription, indiscriminate detentions and forced disappearances continue to be reported. Earlier this month, Amnesty International said some Syrian refugees who returned home were subjected to detention, disappearance and torture at the hands of Syrian security forces, proving that going back to any part of the country is unsafe.

 

Shon said police in Istanbul showed little sympathy when she reported the attack by her neighbors. She said officers kept her at the station for hours, while the male neighbor who threatened and beat her was able to leave after giving a brief statement.

 

Shon fled Aleppo in 2012, when the city became a battleground between Syrian government forces and rebel fighters. She said the father of her children drowned while trying to make it to Europe. Now, she wonders whether Turkey is the right place for her and her children.

 

“I think of my children’s future. I try to support them in any way I can, but they have a lot of psychological issues now and I don’t know how to help them overcome it,” she said. “I don’t have the power anymore. I’m very tired.

 
…

Fresh volcanic eruptions in Spain’s Canary Islands prompted the cancellation of flights, airport authorities said Friday, the first since the Cumbre Vieja volcano came to life again.

New evacuations were also ordered as large explosions and new openings were reported at the volcano on La Palma island on Friday.

A large cloud of thick, black ash spewed into the air, forcing several airlines to call off flights.

La Palma had six inter-island flights scheduled for Friday operated by Binter, Canaryfly and Air Europa, while the national carrier Iberia had a single service from Madrid to the mainland. All were scrapped.

They were the first flights to be cancelled since the volcano erupted on Sunday.

“It is not yet possible to say when we can resume flights,” Spanish carrier Binter said on Twitter.

Authorities also ordered new evacuations, adding to the 6,100 people already forced to leave to area this week, including 400 tourists.

The compulsory evacuation order was issued in parts of El Paso town on La Palma island “given the increased risk for the population due to the current eruptive episode,” the regional government said.

According to the European Union’s Copernicus Earth Observation Program, the lava has so far destroyed 390 buildings and covered more than 180 hectares of land.

Video footage from the civil guard showed a garden in the area completely covered in thick ash.

Visiting the island, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced La Palma would be declared a zone affected by a catastrophe” which opens financial aid to residents.

Toxic gas fears

The speed of the lava flowing from the mouth of the volcano has steadily slowed in recent days, and experts are hoping it will not reach the coast.

If the molten lava pours into the sea, experts fear it will generate clouds of toxic gas into the air, also affecting the marine environment.

Authorities set up a no-go zone this week to head off curious onlookers.

No casualties have been reported so far but the damage to land and property has been enormous, with the Canaries regional head Angel Victor Torres estimating the cost at well over $470 million.

The eruption on La Palma, home to 85,000 people, was the first in 50 years.

The last eruption on the island came in 1971 when another part of the same volcanic range — a vent known as Teneguia — erupted on the southern side of the island.

Two decades earlier, the Nambroque vent erupted in 1949.

 
…

Germany is preparing to bid farewell to Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is stepping down after elections scheduled for Sunday. She has led Europe’s biggest economy for the past 16 years and has played a major role in Europe and on the global stage. 

Merkel was Germany’s first female chancellor and its first leader to have been raised in the former East Germany. 

Her political career began as the Iron Curtain was falling in Europe. After German reunification in 1990, she was appointed minister for women and youth by her mentor, former Chancellor Helmut Köhl.

German media dubbed her ‘Köhl’s girl’ — but she quickly emerged from his shadow and became leader of the Christian Democrats (CDU) in 2000. She narrowly won the 2005 election and led a coalition government of the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats. 

She faced her first major crisis just three years later with the 2008 global financial crash. Amid a run on German banks, Merkel sought to steady nerves. Standing beside her finance minister in October 2008, she told Germans that the state would protect them: “We say to savers that their deposits are safe, and the German government stands behind that.” 

The banking crisis turned into a euro debt crisis. Merkel was reluctant to underwrite the Eurozone. She became a figure of hate in Greece, which implemented deep spending cuts to stay in the single currency. Europe teetered on the brink, but the euro survived. 

“Europe fails when the euro fails,” Merkel said in 2012. “Europe wins when the euro wins. The euro wins if we create a stability union that actually deserves the name because it is supported by a strong foundation of solidity, growth and solidarity.” 

“Merkel is known as a ‘crisis chancellor’,” Nico Friedl, parliamentary correspondent for Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, who has charted Merkel’s career across two decades, said. 

“She has had to overcome several global crises during her time in office, not only for Germany, but also within the European Union, and with transatlantic partners as well as China and Russia,” he said. 

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014 brought conflict to Europe’s borders. Merkel kept up dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin, taking part in the “Normandy format” talks between Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France to try to end the conflict. 

“Angela Merkel’s style is to talk and talk and talk and talk, and even with China, even with Russia,” said Ursula Weidenfeld, author of the Merkel biography “Die Kanzlerin” (The Chancellor). “She is the one who tries to stay talking, to stay negotiating. She’s the last woman standing even in the European negotiations, and she doesn’t call it a day before the night comes. So that is the thing which she did with Vladimir Putin too,” Weidenfeld told VOA. 

Merkel’s biggest challenge came with the 2015 migrant crisis. She refused to close Germany’s borders as refugees and migrants poured into Europe. More than 1 million migrants arrived in Germany, many escaping the war in Syria. It prompted a fierce backlash from many in her own party and drove support for the far right. 

Merkel was unapologetic. “If we have to start excusing ourselves for showing a friendly face in times of crisis, then this is not my country,” she said. 

Six years on, Merkel has said she has no regrets about her actions in 2015. 

“She believed that these people should be treated properly, that they shouldn’t be stuck behind borders,” Friedl said. 

 “But that did more to divide Europe rather than to unify it. The question of how the bloc should handle migration is still not solved today,” she added.

Weidenfeld agreed. 

“It was successful in making Germany open to immigration and coming to anything like an immigration law, which had been impossible for years before. But on the other hand, it was one of her big mistakes because she wasn’t successful in negotiating this on the European level. So, it has been something like unfinished work.” she said. 

In 2016 came Brexit and the threat of the breakup of the European Union. Months later, Donald Trump was elected U.S. president. Transatlantic relations were visibly strained. 

“Once she recognized there will be no way to find a relationship to that president which could be constructive, she just turned around and made friends with his daughter,” Weidenfeld said.

Merkel shared the stage with Trump’s oldest daughter, Ivanka, and International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde, at the Women 20 Summit in Berlin in 2017. Asked directly whether she was a feminist, Merkel was ambivalent. 

“The history of feminism is one where there are things that apply to me and then there are things that don’t. And I don’t want to decorate myself with a title I don’t actually have,” she said.

By this year, her view had changed. 

“Today I have thought my answer through more and so I can say ‘yes: we should all be feminists’,” Merkel told an audience in Düsseldorf September 10. 

Merkel was often the only woman among powerful men but she did not seek to capitalize on that position, Friedl said. 

“In fact, it was the opposite. She also took a lot of criticism that she didn’t use her role and position to further the emancipation of women and equal rights,” Friedl said. 

Merkel has changed Germany during her 16 years in power, biographer Weidenfeld said. 

“Angela Merkel from the start tried to find a new role for Germany in the 21st century. [She] always tried to be the moderator, to be the facilitator, and even to be the one who pays the bill at the end,” Weidenfeld said. 

However, Weidenfeld said the “crisis chancellor” failed to look to the future. 

“She always solved the problems and the issues which were on the table. But in terms of investing in resilience and investing in political lines which are longer than two or three or four years, like climate change, she didn’t do enough,” Weidenfeld said. 

Merkel was born in Hamburg in West Germany, but moved to what was then East Germany when she was three months old after her father became pastor at a church near Templin, a quiet town in the countryside 90 kilometers north of Berlin. Merkel’s family still lives in the town and she has a house there, which she frequently visits. 

Templin Mayor Detlef Tabbert knows the family well and has met the chancellor on several occasions. 

“I am sure that the chancellor herself has many of the characteristics that make the people of Templin and of northeastern Germany unique: her quiet composure, her down-to-earth nature and what you also see in her is this Prussian tenacity — that when you start something, you stick with it to the end,” Tabbert told VOA. 

“People in Templin — the majority of them — are very proud that a woman from Templin became the chancellor as well as the most powerful woman in the world,” he said. 

The end of Merkel’s leadership is imminent. So, what comes next? 

“Nobody knows, and she says she doesn’t know it either,” Weidenfeld said. 

“You could expect her to appear again in the public, probably in an American university. She loves America,” he said. 

In an August poll by YouGov, Angela Merkel’s approval ratings were higher than those of any other current world leader in five major European countries and the United States.

Meanwhile a survey by Pew Research published Wednesday showed that Merkel has all-time high ratings in most of the 16 advanced economies it surveyed in North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. Overall, some 77% of almost 18,000 respondents said they had confidence in Merkel to do the right thing in world affairs. Greece was the only country where a majority of respondents lacked confidence in the German leader. 

There is palpable concern among some in Germany over who will fill Merkel’s role on the global stage. Jürgen Hardt, a long-time MP in Merkel’s Christian Democrats, said Germans should be confident in the future. 

“It’s always difficult for people to imagine how a new candidate, a future chancellor might act compared to the 16-year successful term of Angela Merkel. In 2005 I had a long talk to businesspeople and they asked me who might be the next chancellor candidate of the Christian Democrats. And my answer was Angela Merkel. And they were all laughing at me because they cannot imagine that this lady might become chancellor. This is what I always tell those people that now have question marks on looking for example to Armin Laschet [the current Christian Democrats’ candidate], or others on the campaign trail,” Hardt told VOA. 

For Germany, for Europe, and for the West, Merkel’s departure marks the end of a political era. 
…

A potential deal to bring as many as 1,000 Russian mercenaries to Mali is likely to further destabilize the country, according to senior U.S. officials who are urging the interim government to instead focus on elections.

Word of the not-yet-finalized deal, with Russia’s Wagner Group, has already rankled some French and European officials. And it now appears to be drawing increased attention from the United States, itself wary of Russian efforts across Africa.

“We continue to be concerned about the rise … of malign influences on the continent,” a senior administration official said Friday in response to a question from VOA about the potential deal with Moscow.

“We don’t think looking to outside forces to provide security is the way forward,” the official said.

“That is not how to best start down the road to true stability,” the official added, stressing the need to move ahead with a transition to a “fully elected, democratic government.”

The comments came just days after Mali celebrated its independence, with an estimated 3,000 people taking to the streets of Bamako to protest Western anger over the deal with Russia, some of them calling concerns about the tentative agreement “foreign meddling.”

The deal, first reported by Reuters, would pay Wagner $10.8 million a month to train Mali’s military and provide security for senior officials.

Malian authorities have also been increasingly vocal in expressing displeasure with the U.S. and France, which announced in June that it would bring home about 2,000 counterterrorism forces it had in Mali and neighboring countries.

“If partners have decided to leave certain areas, if they decide to leave tomorrow — what do we do?” Prime Minister Choguel Maiga asked in remarks posted on the country’s Le Jalon news site. “Should we not have a plan B?”

In a possible effort to ease such concerns, the U.S. sent the commander of U.S. forces for Africa, General Stephen Townsend, to Mali on Thursday, where he and other U.S. officials met with Malian transitional President Assimi Goita and Defense Minister Sadio Camara.

“Malian and international partner forces have shed blood together while fighting against the terrorists that threaten innocent civilians in Mali and the Sahel,” Townsend said in a statement Friday, following the visit.

“We want to continue this long-standing partnership,” he added.

Following France’s announcement that it would be reducing its counterterrorism forces in Mali and the Sahel, the Pentagon said it would continue to “assist building partner capacity” in the region.

And recent meetings of the U.S.-led Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS have focused on stopping the spread of the Islamic State and other terror groups in Africa, and in Mali in particular.

However, while U.S. AFRICOM is working with a number of partners in West Africa and the Sahel, security assistance to Mali itself has been limited, under U.S. law, because of the coup.

Much of the concern focuses on IS-Greater Sahara, which is thought to have at least several hundred fighters in the region, and on the al-Qaida-affiliated Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, also known as JNIM.

U.S. and European military officials have also long expressed concerns about Russian involvement in Africa, warning of the corrosive influence of mercenaries with the Wagner Group, who are often perceived to be doing the Kremlin’s dirty work.

“They are everywhere,” Vice Admiral Hervé Bléjean, director-general of the European Union Military Staff, told a forum this past June. “They bring nothing to the country except immediate security answers, maybe, at the price of committing a lot of … violations of human rights and atrocities.”

On Friday, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters the presence of Wagner Group mercenaries in Mali would be “a red line for us.”

“It would have immediate consequences on our cooperation [with Russia] on many other issues,” he added. 

VOA’s Bambara Service and Margaret Besheer contributed to this report.
…

Namibian activists and opposition members stormed parliament this week over a deal with Germany to atone for a colonial genocide more than a century ago.

Opposition lawmakers also called for a renegotiation of the deal, in which Germany has agreed to fund about $1.3 billion in development projects over 30 years to redress land taken and tens of thousands killed from 1904 to 1908. Critics said the amount was insufficient.

Activist Sima Luipert vowed legal action if the Namibian parliament approved a bill accepting the deal. She said the deal, which the Namibian and German governments reached in May, violated the participation and informed consent rights of the ethnic Ovaherero and Nama peoples.

Hundreds gather

Luipert was one of about 300 protesters at the Namibian parliament Tuesday objecting to the bill. Some in the group jumped over gates to voice their opposition.

The Landless People’s Movement, which led the protest, said it wanted to ensure opposition to the bill was heard. Group spokesman Eneas Emvula said, “Part of the people that walked this long journey to parliament, from Katutura, alongside Independence Avenue, are actually members of parliament and leaders of the opposition political parties within parliament.”

Namibian Vice President Nangolo Mbumba said everyone has a right to protest. But he also underscored that opponents of the deal who wanted direct compensation would not get it.

“People thought because this is a genocide negotiation issue, the descendants of those communities, the victims, they would now be compensated individually,” Mbumba said. “The Jewish people were being compensated as survivors; so are the Mau Maus. We are talking after 117 years, if you count from 1904. It is four generations already.”

Supporters say the agreement, which took years to negotiate, is acceptable for an atrocity committed by a Germany that existed before World War I.

 
…

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michele Bachelet reported the human rights situation in Belarus continues to worsen, as President Alexander Lukashenko stiffens repressive measures to quell dissent.

The High Commissioner has submitted her latest update on Belarus to the U.N. Human Rights Council.  

This latest report examines alleged human rights violations in Belarus since May 2020. Bachelet said the government has refused to cooperate or grant access to U.N. experts to undertake their probe, so all information has been gathered remotely. 

She called the findings very disheartening. 

“I am deeply concerned by increasingly severe restrictions on civic space and fundamental freedoms, including continuing patterns of police raids against civil society organizations and independent media, and the arrests and criminal prosecutions of human rights activists and journalists on what routinely appear to be politically motivated charges,” Bachelet said.

The report noted more than 650 people currently are imprisoned because of their opinions. Last year, it said, nearly 500 journalists and media professionals were detained, with at least 68 subjected to ill treatment. Journalist Raman Pratasevich is among 27 journalists who remain in detention. He was arrested in May after his flight from Greece to Lithuania was diverted by Belarus authorities to the capital Minsk. 

Bachelet said she is alarmed by persistent allegations of widespread and systematic torture and ill-treatment of protesters who have been arbitrarily arrested. She said even children have been subjected to abuse while in detention and at least four protesters have died in police custody. 

“Gender-based violence in detention also continues to be of serious concern,” Bachelet said. “The Office has received reports of sexual violence committed by law enforcement officials, primarily, but not exclusively, against women and girls. These include reports of sexual assault, threats of sexual assault, psychological violence, and sexual harassment against both women and men.” 

Bachelet said thousands of people have fled to neighboring countries in search of asylum since the 2020 presidential election. 

Belarus Ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Yuri Ambrazevich, said the report is full of baseless statements and accusations. He said the experts have ignored his government’s position. 

He questions the authority of the Council to act as a court and judge his country’s actions. He said the mandate issued to the experts to examine his country’s human rights situation has no legitimacy. 

 
…

Officials on the Spanish Canary Island of La Palma say the Cumbre Vieja volcano continued to erupt Friday, spewing lava and ash, and threatening the homes and livelihoods of the island’s 85,000 residents.

Pictures and drone video taken of a single home that was surrounded but spared by the advancing lava has made it a symbol of the natural disaster that began Sunday.

The Associated Press, citing a European Union monitoring agency, reports nearly 400 buildings have been destroyed by the advancing lava flow, including homes, businesses and banana plantations.

The manager of the island’s banana producer’s association, Sergio Caceres, told the Reuters news service about 15% of La Palma’s 140-million-kilogram annual banana crop could be at risk if farmers are unable to access plantations. 

 

There was a single giant lava river 600 meters wide, moving quickly across the island. Officials say that changed Wednesday after reaching a plain, but lava continues to move at about four meters an hour. They say as it slowed, the lava grew thicker, rising as high as 15 meters. 

Experts originally had predicted the lava would hit the Atlantic Ocean early this week, but National Geographic Institute in the Canary Islands chief María José Blanco said the lava flow likely will not reach the Atlantic Ocean before the weekend, with some scientists saying it might never reach the sea. Blanco said there is a second lava flow that has come to a complete halt. 

Blanco said seismic activity on La Palma was now “low” but molten rock is still being thrown out of the volcano — 26 million cubic meters so far.

Officials said earlier this week the island may be dealing with the eruption and its aftermath for as long three months. 

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters. 
…

Poland’s broadcasting regulators extended the license of Discovery Inc.-owned TVN24 at the last moment Wednesday but also adopted a resolution to pressure the American company to sell its majority stake in the TV news channel, which airs coverage that is critical of Poland’s government.  

 

The National Broadcasting Council, known by the Polish acronym KRRiT, had delayed the renewal of TVN24’s license for almost two years. The independent television channel is watched by millions of people daily in Poland. Its current license expires on Sunday.

 

Discovery said the news of the extensions was “bittersweet” because it showed there has been no reason to delay or deny the extension renewal.  

 

It said in a statement that the regulator’s resolution is a reason for concern and “undermines the democratic legislative process itself.”

 

“The rule of law, freedom of the press and stability for foreign investments are still very much at risk” in Poland, Discovery said.  

 

Poland’s governing Law and Justice party has at times denounced the TVN24 channel. It is also trying to push a law through parliament to ban non-European ownership of broadcasters, a move viewed as an effort to curb media freedom in Poland. However, the party cannot be sure of winning enough votes for the law.

 

Before extending TVN24’s license, the council unanimously adopted a resolution stating that says owners from outside Europe cannot hold more than a 49% stake in radio or TV stations in Poland.  

 

The resolution is seen as a step intended to force Discovery to sell majority of its stake in TVN24 and its sister channels in Poland, without the need for the controversial law to be adopted.

 

The leader of the ruling Law and Justice party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, has repeatedly said he wants Poland’s media to be controlled by Polish owners.  

 

Since it came to power in 2015, the party has turned state-owned station TVP into its mouthpiece.

 
…

Britain is in talks with U.S. nuclear reactor company Westinghouse on building a new atomic power plant on Anglesey in Wales, the British newspaper The Times reported.

If it gets the go-ahead the new plant at Wylfa would be able to generate enough electricity to power more than 6 million homes and could be operational in the mid-2030s, The Times said.

Japan’s Hitachi Ltd scrapped plans to build a nuclear power plant at the Wylfa site a year ago after it failed to find private investors or secure sufficient government support for the project.

The decision left only the British arm of France’s EDF and China General Nuclear Power Corp building in the nuclear sector, where around half of UK plants are set to close in the next few years.

The partners are building the first UK nuclear power plant in decades at Hinckley Point in west England and are planning a second in Sizewell in east England.

Nuclear power provided around 16.8% of Britain’s electricity generation in 2019, according to National Grid, while gas was used to generate 38.4%.

The recent spike in gas prices combined with a fall in renewable generation due to low wind speeds had underlined the need for more nuclear capacity, The Times said, citing a government source.

“If our current situation shows anything it is that we need more stable home grown, low carbon generation in the UK,” the source told the newspaper. “This is an important project that we’re very keen to try and get off the ground.” 

 

 
…

Exiled former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont was arrested in Italy on Thursday, his lawyer and an aide said, four years after fleeing following an independence referendum that Madrid ruled unconstitutional.

The European MEP was expected to appear in court on Friday at a hearing that could see him extradited to Spain to face sedition charges.

The Catalan leader — who has been based in Belgium since the 2017 referendum — was detained in Alghero, Sardinia, his chief of staff, Josep Lluis Alay, wrote on Twitter.

“At his arrival at Alghero airport, he was arrested by Italian police. Tomorrow (Friday), he’ll appear before the judges of the court of appeal of Sassari, who will decide whether to let him go or extradite him,” Alay said.

Puigdemont’s lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, tweeted that the exiled separatist leader was arrested on his arrival in Italy, where he was travelling in his capacity as an MEP.

He said the arrest was made on the basis of a warrant issued in October 2019 that had since been suspended.

Puigdemont, 58, is wanted in Spain on allegations of sedition over his attempts to have the Catalan region break away from Madrid through the 2017 referendum.

His arrest comes a week after the left-leaning Spanish government and regional Catalan authorities resumed negotiations to find a solution to Spain’s worst political crisis in decades.

In March, the European Parliament rescinded immunity for Puigdemont and two other pro-independent MEPs, a decision that was upheld in July by the EU’s General Court.

However, the European Parliament’s decision is under appeal and a final ruling by the EU court has yet to be made.

Following Thursday’s arrest, Madrid expressed “its respect for the decisions of the Italian authorities and courts.”

“The arrest of Mr Puigdemont corresponds to an ongoing judicial procedure that applies to any EU citizen who has to answer to the courts,” the Spanish government said in a statement.

The statement added Puigdemont should “submit to the action of justice like any other citizen.”

‘Persecution’

New Catalan president Pere Aragones — a separatist but more moderate than his predecessor — condemned what he called the “persecution” of Puigdemont.

“In the face of persecution and judicial repression, the strongest condemnation. It has to stop,” he wrote on Twitter.

He added that “self-determination” was the “only solution.”

Besides Puigdemont, former Catalan regional ministers Toni Comin and Clara Ponsati are also wanted in Spain on allegations of sedition.

The October 2017 referendum was held by Catalonia’s separatist regional leadership despite a ban by Madrid and the process was marred by police violence.

A few weeks later, the leadership made a short-lived declaration of independence, prompting Puigdemont to flee abroad.

Others who stayed in Spain were arrested and tried.

However, Puigdemont did not benefit from the pardon granted in June to nine pro-independence activists who had been imprisoned in Spain. 

 
…

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday that it would take “time” and “actions” to repair ties with the U.S. in the wake of a submarine deal that undercut a French agreement to supply Australia with diesel subs. 

Last week, the United States, United Kingdom and Australia announced a deal under which the U.K. and U.S. will instead supply Australia with nuclear-powered submarines. 

The move angered France, which withdrew its ambassadors from the U.S. and Australia. 

Earlier in the week, Le Drian expressed concern about what he characterized as “deceit” by one of its oldest allies. 

He told reporters at the United Nations this week that the United States had gone behind France’s back and had hidden the new deal for months. 

According to State Department spokesperson Ned Price, Le Drian and Blinken “spoke about plans for in-depth bilateral consultations on issues of strategic importance. They discussed the EU strategy for cooperation in the Indo-Pacific.” 

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron spoke by phone in an attempt to rebuild trust between the NATO allies. 

Some information for this report came from Reuters. 
…