Voters in Turkey are heading to the polls Sunday for landmark parliamentary and presidential elections that are expected to be tightly contested and could be the biggest challenge Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan faces in his two decades in power.

The vote will either grant the increasingly authoritarian Erdogan a new five-year term in office or set the NATO-member country on what his opposition contender calls a more democratic path.

Polling began at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) and will close at 5 p.m. (1400 GMT). Media organizations are barred from reporting partial results until an embargo is lifted at 9 p.m. (1800 GMT). There are no exit polls.

For the first time in his 20 years in office, opinion polls indicate that the populist Erdogan, 69, is entering a race trailing behind an opponent. Opinion surveys have given a slight lead to Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the 74-year-old leader of the center-left, pro-secular Republican People’s Party, or CHP, and the joint candidate of a united opposition alliance. If neither candidate receives more than 50% of the votes, the presidential race will be determined in a run-off on May 28.

More than 64 million people, including 3.4 million overseas voters, are eligible to vote in the elections, which are taking place the year Turkey marks the centenary of the establishment of the republic. Voter turnout in Turkey is traditionally strong, showing continued belief in this type of civic participation in a country where freedom of expression and assembly have been suppressed.

The elections come as the country is wracked by economic turmoil that critics blame on the government’s mishandling of the economy and a steep cost-of-living crisis.

Turkey is also reeling from the effects of a powerful earthquake that caused devastation in 11 southern provinces in February, killing more than 50,000 people in unsafe buildings. Erdogan’s government has been criticized for its delayed and stunted response to the disaster as well as the lax implementation of building codes that exacerbated the misery.

Internationally, the elections are being watched closely as a test of a united opposition’s ability to dislodge a leader who has concentrated nearly all powers of the state in his hands.

Erdogan has led a divisive election campaign, using state resources and his domineering position over media as in previous years. He has accused the opposition of colluding with “terrorists,” of being “drunkards” and of upholding LGBTQ rights which he says are a threat to traditional family values.

In a bid to woo voters hit hard by inflation, he has increased wages and pensions and subsidized electricity and gas bills, while showcasing Turkey’s homegrown defense industry and infrastructure projects.

He has extended the political alliance of his ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, with two nationalist parties to include a small leftist party and two marginal Islamist parties.

Kilicdaroglu’s six-party Nation Alliance, has promised to dismantle an executive presidential system narrowly voted in by a 2017 referendum that Erdogan installed and return the country to a parliamentary democracy. They have promised to establish the independence of the judiciary and the central bank, institute checks and balances and reverse the democratic backsliding and crackdowns on free speech and dissent under Erdogan.

The alliance includes the nationalist Good Party led by former interior minister Meral Aksener, and two parties that splintered from the AKP and are led by former prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu and former finance minister Ali Babacan, as well as a small Islamist party.

The country’s main Kurdish political party, currently Turkey’s second largest opposition grouping that the government has targeted with arrests and lawsuits, is supporting Kilicdaroglu in the presidential race.

Also running for president is Sinan Ogan, a former academic who has the backing of an anti-immigrant nationalist party. One other candidate, the center-left politician Muharrem Ince dropped out of the race on Thursday following a significant drop in his ratings but his withdrawal was considered invalid by the country’s electoral board and votes for him will be counted.

Voters will also be casting ballots to fill seats in the 600-member parliament. The opposition would need at least a majority to be able to enact some of the democratic reforms it has promised.

Balloting in the 11 provinces affected by the earthquake has given rise to concern about the registration of nearly 9 million voters.

Around 3 million people have left the quake zone for other provinces, but only 133,000 people have registered to vote at their new locations. Political parties and non-governmental organizations planned to transport voters by bus but it was not clear how many would make the journey back.

Many of the quake survivors will cast votes in containers turned into makeshift polling stations erected on school yards.
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The Group of Seven (G-7) rich nations is set to agree on establishing a new program to distribute vaccines to developing countries at next week’s summit of leaders, Japan’s Yomiuri newspaper said Saturday.

In addition to the G-7, G-20 nations such as India and international groups such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank will participate, it added, citing Japanese government sources.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the COVAX facility, backed by WHO and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), delivered nearly 2 billion doses of coronavirus vaccine to 146 countries.

However, COVAX faced setbacks in ensuring equitable access, as wealthy nations prioritized shots for their citizens while insufficient storage facilities in poorer nations caused supply delays and disposal of millions of close-to-expiry doses.

The new program aims to pool rainy-day funds for vaccine production and purchases, as well as investment in low-temperature storages and training of health workers to prepare for the next global pandemic, the Yomiuri said.

Japan, this year’s chair of the G-7 meetings, looks to build support from emerging nations on wide-ranging issues such as supply chains, food security and climate change to counter the growing influence of China and Russia.

Saturday’s meeting of G-7 finance ministers agreed to offer aid to low- and middle-income countries to help increase their role in supply chains for energy-related products.

At a meeting Saturday, G-7 finance and health ministers called for a new global financing framework to “deploy necessary funds quickly and efficiently in response to outbreaks without accumulating idle cash,” they said in a statement.

The G-7 will collaborate with the WHO and the World Bank, which manages an international pandemic fund, to explore the new funding scheme ahead of an August meeting of G-20 finance and health ministers in India, they said.

The G-7 grouping of Britain, Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, is considering whether to issue a statement on a global pandemic response at the May 19-21 summit in Japan’s city of Hiroshima, the Yomiuri said.  
…

Driving through the city of Hatay in Turkey is like touring a war zone in the months after a battle. Some apartment buildings are gutted, others are massive piles of rubble and tangled metal.

“This city was a rose garden,” says Ali Kandenir, a 62-year-old truck driver, in a settlement of tents housing families displaced in the February earthquakes that killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria. “Now the city is gone.”

Kandenir says he is among those who intend to show his anger at the polls this weekend, when Turkey votes in what could be its most significant election in decades. But other voters in this tent city say the opposite, that they will proudly reelect their current leader for another term.

Kandenir lives about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) away in a temporary metal housing unit known as a container. He is trying to collect small amounts of humanitarian aid because his home — along with billions of dollars in property — was destroyed in the earthquakes.

As Kandenir describes how he fled his home in the rain in early February as the earth shook beneath him, his wife, Gul Kandenir, wipes tears from her face.

“The people here are in pain,” she says.

Divided voters

Ali Kandenir’s face grows slightly redder as he continues telling his story.

Too many people died in the earthquakes, he says, and there was too much destruction. He says Turkey’s refugee population — the largest in the world — is taking resources from people who are suffering.

“Rescue teams came but it was not fast enough,” he says. “My brother survived because we could pull him from the rubble ourselves.”

As he speaks, Devlet Ipek, a 48-year-old mother of four pops out of her nearby tent and watches us through a chain link fence. She invites us in.

Ipek says she thinks the government has responded to the disaster as well as possible and that she plans to vote for it to remain in power.

She says the Islamic nature of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s administration is welcomed, as are, in her opinion, the millions of refugees in Turkey.

“They are afraid because there is no security in Syria,” she says. “Why should they go?”

Opposition issues

Erdogan has led Turkey for more than 20 years, and some political parties say they believe this election may be their chance to step in.

“It’s possible for us to win in the first round,” says one member of the Republic People’s Party, the leading opposition party, who does not want to be identified. If one presidential candidate does not win more than 50% of the first vote, a second round will be held in two weeks.

If his party wins, he says, they have promised to reform the justice system and to expel refugees within two years.

But analysts say Turkey’s skyrocketing prices are the voters’ biggest concern. The cost of food and rent has doubled, tripled or even quadrupled in some parts of Turkey.

“It’s not a normal time to have an election,” says Ipek, as the wind loudly flaps her plastic tent walls. “But that’s what we are doing, so we will do it.”
…

The family of a Frenchman released this week after he had been jailed by Iran said on Saturday he was “relieved” to be back in France.

On Friday, Benjamin Briere, whose ordeal in Iran lasted three years, and French-Irish citizen Bernard Phelan, held since October, were freed from their prison in the northeastern city of Mashhad, the French foreign ministry said.

There had been grave concerns about the health of the men, both of whom had been on hunger strikes to protest their conditions.

‘Relieved’ 

Briere, 37, was first detained while traveling in Iran in May 2020 and later sentenced to eight years in prison for espionage.

“We were able to hold him in our arms at 1930 (1730GMT) on Friday, May 12, after three years of hell,” Briere’s family said in a press release.

“He is, like all of us, relieved, calm, and he is trying to realize that he’s really here, with us,” they said. “He is, however, very weak, physically and morally, a return to normal life will be long and certainly difficult, but now he is in good hands.” 

Dozens of foreigners jailed 

The pair were among some two dozen foreigners jailed in Iran, who campaigners see as hostages held in a deliberate strategy by Tehran to extract concessions from the West.

Four more French citizens, described previously as “hostages” by the French foreign ministry, are still in prison by Iran.

A fifth individual, French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah was released from prison in February but appears still unable to leave the country.

Several U.S., German, British, Swedish and other European citizens, such as Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele — who was arrested in February 2022 — also remain detained.

“All our thoughts now turn toward the five other French hostages still held in Iran,” Briere’s family said.

“Our thoughts are also with other families of European hostages held in Iran, with whom we share this heavy and painful battle,” they said. “We send them strength and courage, and we continue to fight alongside them,” they added.
…

New developments:

Germany says it is preparing a new weapons package for Ukraine worth $3 billion, reportedly the nation’s largest package since Russia invaded its neighbor last year.
Russia says its forces launched attacks on Ukrainian troops and military facilities on front lines in Kupyansk, Bundman and western Bakhmut.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in Rome on Saturday for expected talks with Italian political leaders and the pope.

Zelenskyy’s trip comes as Russia again launched a drone attack on Kyiv and shelled cities in central and southern Ukraine, causing material damage, amid reports of some Ukrainian gains in Bakhmut, where heavy fighting has been under way for months.

Kyiv’s air defenses shot down all the drones launched by Russia overnight, the capital’s military administration reported Saturday, without specifying the number of drones.

There were no reports of damage or casualties, it said. It was the sixth drone attack on Kyiv this month.

In the central city of Khmelnytskyy, people were wounded and critical infrastructure was damaged by Russian shelling overnight, the region’s military administration reported early Saturday.

Khmelnytskyy Mayor Oleksandr Symchyshyn said schools, medical facilities, administrative buildings, industrial objectives, and high-rise residential buildings were damaged. “The number of wounded is currently being established,” he said.

The mayor of the southern city of Mykolayiv, Oleksandr Syenkevych, said three people were wounded in overnight shelling that damaged a factory and several residential buildings.

In Rome, Zelenskyy is to meet President Sergio Mattarella, Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, and Pope Francis during his visit, whose details have not been revealed for security reasons.

Zelenskyy on Sunday is due to receive the prestigious Charlemagne Prize in the northern German city of Aachen.

It remains unclear if he will attend the ceremony in person and if he would also travel to Berlin for meetings with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Germany’s Der Spiegel reported Saturday that Berlin has put together a new package of military equipment for Ukraine worth $3 billion, the biggest since Russia’s invasion began.

The package will include 20 Marder infantry fighting vehicles, 30 Leopard 1 tanks, 15 Gepard antiaircraft tanks, 200 reconnaissance drones, four additional Iris-T antiaircraft systems including ammunition, additional artillery ammunition, and more than 200 armored combat and logistics vehicles, the article said.

Zelenskyy’s trip to Italy comes a day after Ukraine said it had recaptured some territory in the bitterly contested city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region.

Russia has acknowledged its forces retreated from positions north of Bakhmut, with Defense Ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov telling the media that Russian forces “occupied a new frontier” at the Berkhivske reservoir, some 2 kilometers from Bakhmut.

Konashenkov said Friday that Ukraine had launched an assault with more than 1,000 troops and up to 40 tanks after advancing the day before in the Soledar direction “along the entire line of contact” with a length of more than 95 kilometers.

The gains, if confirmed, would be the biggest for Ukraine in six months.

It is unclear if the developments were part of a long-planned counteroffensive.

There also were reports of Ukrainian advances to the south, suggesting a coordinated push by Kyiv to encircle Russian forces in Bakhmut.
…

Sprinkle the sequins and pump up the volume: The 67th Eurovision Song Contest reaches its climax on Saturday with a grand final broadcast live from Liverpool. There will be catchy choruses, a kaleidoscope of costumes and tributes to the spirit of Ukraine in a competition that for seven decades has captured the changing zeitgeist of a continent.

Here’s what to expect as acts from across Europe — and beyond — vie for the continent’s pop crown.

Who’s Competing?

This year, 37 countries sent an act to Eurovision, selected through national competitions or internal selections by broadcasters. The host country is usually the winner of the previous year’s event, but 2022 runner-up Britain is hosting this time around on behalf of the winner, Ukraine.

Twenty-six countries will compete in Saturday’s final at the Liverpool Arena, beside the River Mersey in the port city that gave birth to The Beatles. Six countries automatically qualify: last year’s winner and the “Big Five” who pay the most to the contest — France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the U.K.

The other 20 finalists, chosen by public votes in two semifinals on Tuesday and Thursday, are: Albania, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Israel, Lithuania, Moldova, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden and Switzerland.

Wait — Australia?

Eurovision is about spirit, not just geography. Eurovision is hugely popular in Australia, and the country was allowed to join the competition in 2015. Other entrants from outside Europe’s borders include Israel and Azerbaijan.

Who Are This Year’s Favorites?

It’s hard to predict victors in a contest whose past winners have ranged from ABBA to Finnish cartoon metal band Lordi, but bookmakers say Swedish diva Loreen, who won Eurovision in 2012, is favorite to score a double with her power ballad “Tattoo.”

Finland’s Käärijä was a crowd-pleaser in the semifinals with his pop-metal party tune “Cha Cha Cha,” and Canadian singer La Zarra, competing for France, is also highly ranked for her Edith Piaf-esque chanson “Évidemment.”

And never underestimate left-field entries like Croatia’s Let 3, whose song “Mama ŠČ!”is pure Eurovision camp: an antiwar rock opera that plays like Monty Python meets “Dr. Strangelove.”

What Happens During The Final?

Around 6,000 fans will attend the final, hosted by long-time BBC Eurovision presenter Graham Norton, “Ted Lasso” star Hannah Waddingham, British singer Alesha Dixon and Ukrainian rock star Julia Sanina.

Each competing act must sing live and stick to a three-minute limit, but otherwise is free to create its own staging — the flashier the pyrotechnics and more elaborate the choreography, the better.

Russia’s war in Ukraine will lend a solemn note to a contest famed for celebrating cheesy pop. The show will open with a performance by last year’s winner, Ukrainian folk-rap band Kalush Orchestra. Ukrainian singer Jamala, who won the contest in 2016, will perform a tribute to her Crimean Tatar culture.

One person who won’t be appearing is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He asked to address the final by video — but organizer the European Broadcasting Union said “regrettably,” that would breach “the nonpolitical nature of the event.”

How Is The Winner Decided?

After all the acts have performed, viewers in participating nations can vote by phone, text message or app – though they can’t vote for their own country. This year for the first time, viewers in nonparticipating countries can also vote online, with the combined “rest of the world” votes being given the weight of one individual country.

National juries of music industry professionals also allocate between one and 12 points to their favorite songs, with an announcer from each country popping up to declare which has been granted the coveted “douze points” (12 points).

Public and jury votes are combined to give each country a single score. Ending up with “nul points” (zero points) is considered a national embarrassment. It’s a fate the U.K. has suffered several times.

How Can I Watch?

Eurovision is being shown by national broadcasters that belong to the European Broadcasting Union, including the BBC in Britain, and on the Eurovision YouTube channel. In the United States, it’s being shown on NBC’s Peacock streaming service.
…

A senior adviser to the Biden administration and other experts say that deepening cooperation between China and Russia could overturn decades of stable international nuclear arms control.

Pranay Vaddi, the U.S. National Security Council’s senior director for arms control, said that China and Russia have been deepening cooperation on key technologies for nuclear weapons while strengthening ties with Iran, according to Bloomberg.

“We’re entering a different period,” Vaddi said. He told Bloomberg that during the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union agreed to maintain a nuclear balance and limit certain types of weapons. The Cold War lasted from 1947 through 1991, and since then more countries have been developing the technologies and materials needed for weapons of mass destruction.

According to a report earlier this month in the South China Morning Post, citing the Chinese site of Russian state media, Sputnik News, a subsidiary of Russia’s state atomic energy corporation, Rosatom, will be allowed to export highly enriched uranium to a power plant in southeast China over the next three years. The CFR-600 power plant in Xiapu, Fujian province has two fast neutron reactors, each capable of producing 600 megawatts of power.

The uranium-235 that Russia will supply to China for the project is mainly used to fuel nuclear reactors. However, it can also be used for manufacturing nuclear weapons.

Tian Li, vice president of the nuclear power branch of the China Electric Power Promotion Council, was quoted by the South China Morning Post as saying the Fujian plant would not be used for military purposes.

Military experts believe that Russia’s aid may help China expand its nuclear arsenal faster.

Anthony Cordesman, emeritus chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told VOA Mandarin in an interview, “We now live in a nuclear world once again. And it is not something that seems likely to go away over the next 10 to 20 years.”

Most people alive today “didn’t grow up at a time when basically the United States and Russia seemed to be on the edge of an actual possible nuclear conflict. The last real test of whether nuclear weapons were likely to be used was the Cuban Missile Crisis,” he said, referring to the 1962 face-off over Moscow’s placement of nuclear missile sites in Cuba.

When Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Russia in March, President Vladimir Putin announced that Rosatom and the China Atomic Energy Agency had signed a long-term cooperation project contract to develop fast neutron reactors and closed nuclear fuel cycle systems.

Cordesman said while the agreement does not necessarily mean the two countries will cooperate to develop nuclear weapons or delivery systems, “it certainly does empower China” at a time when it is estimated to be wanting to expand its nuclear weapons arsenal from 250 to more than 1,200. He said China also has three new missile sites under construction and is producing nuclear submarines that can launch nuclear missiles.

Alex Wellerstein, an historian of science and nuclear technology and professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology, told VOA Mandarin in an email, “The International Panel on Fissile Materials estimates that China already has some 14 metric tons of HEU (highly enriched uranium) and around three metric tons of separated plutonium (see here for a full report from a few years ago). It is enough to build as many warheads as they could ever desire, even if those estimates were significantly off.”

Patty-Jane Geller, a former senior policy analyst for Nuclear Deterrence and Missile Defense at the Heritage Foundation, published an analysis in March saying nuclear cooperation between China and Russia goes back to the 1950s when the Soviet Union, consisting of Russia and 14 surrounding countries, provided material and technical assistance to China’s nuclear program. Rising tensions between the two countries during the Cold War led to a halt of nuclear aid, but their cooperation resumed in the 21st century, years after the Soviet Union fell in 1991.

“This development means that the more fuel Russia provides, the more plutonium China can produce. And the more plutonium China can produce, the more nuclear weapons it can build,” she said.

Three senior GOP lawmakers said in a March letter to U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan that cooperation between China and Russia is a “direct threat to U.S. security” and called on the Biden administration to “use all tools at its disposal” to stop the “dangerous” cooperation.

A Pentagon report released in 2020 predicted that China would “at least double” the size of its nuclear warhead stockpile over the next decade. But by the end of 2022, it had already done so. Geller predicted that with help from Russia, China might be able to accelerate this buildup even further.

Some military experts worry that Xi might use China’s nuclear weapons in a conflict related to Taiwan, a self-governing island that China considers its own territory. The U.S. is expected to announce $500 million in direct military assistance for Taiwan, money that would come from tapping into a congressional authorization in the 2023 budget allocating $1 billion for Taiwan, according to The Hill.

James Stavridis, a retired U.S. Navy admiral and former commander with NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, told The Washington Post that if the U.S. and China enter a conventional war, there’s a high risk of escalation to a nuclear war.

“Two great powers who face each other in combat are unlikely to avoid using tactical nuclear weapons, at least at sea,” Stavridis said. “Once that threshold is crossed, it is but a short step to a much broader nuclear conflict.”
…

Experts from the United States and several other countries will begin working with Ukrainian counterparts within weeks to collect evidence and identify individuals involved in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine who can be prosecuted for the crime of aggression, a U.S. diplomat told VOA.

VOA was told this week that the work, to be conducted by the newly formed International Center for Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression, was given the go-ahead at a meeting in Warsaw of the year-old Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group, which comprises the United States, European Union and Britain.

“The United States will be sending the senior prosecutor; the other countries made various pledges,” explained Beth Van Schaack, the State Department ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice, on the sidelines of the Warsaw meeting.

“The institution will be launched at the end of this month … bringing together experts who will be working side by side with Ukrainian counterparts in order to lay the groundwork for the application of individual criminal responsibility for the crime of aggression committed in Ukraine,” she said.

Hazel Cameron, head of department at the U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office, told VOA the international partners are helping Ukraine collect evidence to ensure international justice in the future. Britain is already providing expertise and resources, including mobile units for collecting and documenting the evidence, she said.

“In the highest possible standards — justice has to be done and seen,” she said.

The new center, to be based at The Hague, is an outgrowth of the Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group that was launched in May 2022 to support the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine (OPG) in its investigation and prosecution of conflict-related crimes, according to a State Department website.

More than 80,000 cases registered

In more than a year since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the OPG has registered more than 80,000 cases of war crimes committed by members of Russia’s forces.

In their Warsaw meetings Thursday and Friday, several speakers echoed sentiments expressed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a recent visit to The Hague, where he said impunity from prosecution “is the key that opens the door to aggression.”

“If you look at any war, any war of aggression in history, they all have one thing in common: The perpetrators of the war didn’t believe they would have to stand to answer for what they did,” he said in the Dutch city, home to the International Criminal Court (ICC) which issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in March.

‘Crimes against humanity’

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in his virtual address at this week’s session, said Russian attacks against civilians in Ukraine, including the systematic torture and killings in active regions, are “intended to steal Ukraine’s very future.”

“These acts are part of the Kremlin’s widespread and systematic attack against Ukrainian civilians. They constitute crimes against humanity. And they are still being committed today. The United States is committed to pursuing accountability for Russia’s atrocities, including war crimes.”

U.K. Secretary of State for Foreign Commonwealth Affairs James Cleverly said Russian crimes in Ukraine cannot be ignored. “It’s clear that the scale of the accountability challenge is huge and responding requires a coordinated international approach on several fronts.”

Russia has previously denied targeting civilians and has not responded to allegations that its forces committed atrocities or tortured Ukrainians, including a recent request by a U.N.-backed Human Rights Council commission.

While the effort to collect and document the evidence of Russian war crimes is taking shape, it is still unclear when and in what forum any future trials might take place.

“Everyone understands there is a gap in the international system of accountability,” explained Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin on the sidelines of the Warsaw meetings.

He told VOA the ICC “has jurisdiction, but not in our case. The [U.N.] Security Council will never refer this case to the ICC while Russia is a member of the Security Council,” where Moscow has veto power.

Watch video: Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group Discusses Steps to Pursue War Crimes

As a result, Kostin said, Ukraine has proposed the establishment of a new mechanism “based on the practice of different previous tribunals, starting with the Nurenberg one” that prosecuted Nazi war criminals after World War II.

He said the idea for a special tribunal is gaining ground and now is supported by 37 countries.

Van Schaak said the United States and its partners fully support the creation of a special tribunal.

“Indeed, we are totally united on the need of creating some kind of the dedicated tribunal to prosecute individuals who are responsible for either planning or executing the war of aggression commented against Ukraine,” she said, adding that the world has not seen this scale of atrocities and crimes since World War II.

Kostin said there is no country that has not been affected by Russia’s war against Ukraine.

“The world should understand that this is a global war. And the creation of a special tribunal is not only to punish the crime of aggression against Ukraine but also to create the mechanism to deter the future aggression.”
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Troops from Azerbaijan and Armenia exchanged fire with weapons including mortars and drones on their joint border Friday, killing one soldier from each side two days before top-level talks on a long-term peace deal. 

It was the second straight day of exchanges of fire ahead of Sunday’s planned meeting in Brussels between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azeri President Ilham Aliyev. 

One Azeri soldier died in Thursday’s hostilities. 

The two ex-Soviet states have fought two wars in 30 years focusing on the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, recognized as part of Azerbaijan but populated mainly by ethnic Armenians. 

In a six-month conflict in 2020, Azerbaijan recovered swaths of territory lost in an earlier war that gripped the region amid the collapse of Soviet rule. 

In the latest skirmish, Armenia’s Defense Ministry said its forces came under fire with mortars and small arms near the village of Sotk, close to the border. The ministry said drones were also deployed. 

“In the wake of enemy fire, the Armenian side has one killed in action and one wounded,” the ministry said, adding the weapons exchanges eventually died down. 

Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry said it had cut short a drone attack by Armenia on its positions in the Kalbajar district on its side of the border. It later reported that one of its servicemen had been killed and that Azeri troops controlled the situation.

Tensions have risen while efforts intensify to get the two rivals to reach a peace deal despite differences on border demarcation and other issues. Talks have generally been staged under the jurisdiction of the European Union or Russia, which brokered the truce that ended the fighting in 2020. 

Foreign ministers from both sides met last week in the United States. 

Azerbaijan last month installed a checkpoint at the entry to the Lachin Corridor – the only road linking Armenia to Karabakh – in a move that Yerevan said was a “gross violation” of the 2020 cease-fire. 

On Thursday, each side said it was acting in self-defense and blamed the other for firing first. 

Armenia said four of its servicemen had been injured. Pashinyan said that incident was an attempt by Azerbaijan to disrupt peace talks. 

The latest clashes are also seen as a test of Russia’s ability to influence events in the South Caucasus. 

Russia is a formal ally of Armenia through a mutual self-defense treaty, but also strives for good relations with Baku. Moscow says the 2020 peace accord it brokered is the only basis for a long-term solution.  
…

Iran on Friday released two French citizens, including one also holding Irish nationality, as Paris urged Tehran to free other foreigners jailed by the Islamic republic.

French-Irish citizen Bernard Phelan, held since October, and Frenchman Benjamin Briere, who was first detained while traveling in Iran in May 2020, were freed from their prison in the northeastern city of Mashhad, the French foreign ministry said.

They rapidly boarded a special flight to Paris and landed at the capital’s Le Bourget airport — no longer used for commercial flights — in the evening, according to AFP TV images.

There had been grave concerns about the health of both men, both of whom had been on hunger strikes to protest their conditions.

President Emmanuel Macron said on Twitter: “Free, finally. Benjamin Briere and Bernard Phelan can reunite with their loved ones. It’s a relief.”

Briere’s sister Blandine Briere, who has led the campaign for his release, told AFP: “We are avoiding a tragedy. I have no words to describe the joy we feel.”

“We cannot tell you how relieved we are,” added Phelan’s sister Caroline in a statement.

Neither man was expected to speak publicly for some time and both families requested privacy.

The pair were among some two dozen foreigners jailed in Iran who campaigners see as hostages held in a deliberate strategy by Tehran to extract concessions from the West.

‘Difficult ordeal’

Phelan, 64, a Paris-based travel consultant, was arrested in October in the city of Mashhad. In April, he was jailed for six and a half years on national security charges strongly rejected by his family.

With Iran rocked by anti-regime protests since September, Phelan was accused of taking photos of a burned mosque and police officers, and sending images to a British newspaper, the family said.

Phelan went on a dry hunger strike in January to protest his detention, refusing both food and water. But he stopped the action at the request of his family, who feared he would die.

Briere, 37, was first detained while traveling in Iran in May 2020 and later sentenced to eight years in prison for espionage.

Although acquitted by an appeals court, he remained in prison in a situation described as “incomprehensible” by his family.

Briere also went on hunger strikes to protest his conditions.

“This release had to happen before there was a catastrophe. There was a real risk to his life,” his lawyer told AFP.

‘Regain full freedom’

Iran’s foreign ministry described the release of Briere and Phelan as a “humanitarian action.”

Four more French citizens, described previously as “hostages” by the French foreign ministry, are still in prison in Iran.

Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said she had spoken earlier Friday to her Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir Abdollahian and made clear “France’s determination to ensure that the other French citizens still detained in Iran also rapidly regain their full freedom.”

Several U.S., German, British, Swedish and other European citizens, such as Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele arrested in February 2022, also remain detained.

The holding of foreigners by Tehran has increased tensions with the West at a time when the Islamic republic is under scrutiny for its crackdown on the protest movement that erupted in September.

Activists also are alarmed by a surge in the number of executions by Iran. On Saturday, Tehran hanged Swedish-Iranian dissident Habib Chaab on terrorism charges.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned his conservative supporters Friday that they could face reprisals should his secular rival rise to power in momentous weekend polls. 

Erdogan has been trying to rally his base ahead of elections Sunday that put his Islamic style of rule in the largest Muslim-majority member of NATO on the line. 

Opinion surveys show challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu with a slight advantage and within a whisker of breaking the 50% threshold needed to avoid a runoff on May 28. 

The opposition was helped by the withdrawal of a third-party candidate Thursday who was hurting Kilicdaroglu’s efforts to hand the Turkish leader his first national electoral defeat. 

Erdogan was uncharacteristically coy about making predictions about the outcome of Turkey’s most consequential election of modern times. 

“The ballot box will tell us Sunday,” he said in response to a direct question from a TV presenter about whether he would win. 

The 69-year-old tried to raise the stakes for his faithful during a rally in a conservative Istanbul district that forms one of the hotbeds of his support. 

He warned that Kilicdaroglu’s opposition alliance was driven by “vengeance and greed.”

“Do not forget,” he told the flag-waving crowd. “You may pay a heavy price if we lose.” 

He later added that Western governments were using the opposition to impose their will on how Turkish society worked. 

“Hey, the West, it’s my nation that decides!” he cried. 

The message appeared to resonate with religious voters such as Sennur Henek. 

“Erdogan is our chief and we are his soldiers,” the veiled 48-year-old said. 

Eroding support 

But Erdogan’s other daily speeches hint at a growing realization that he might not be able to pull out one of his trademark come-from-behind wins. 

The Turkish leader has been slowly losing support from key segments of the population that rallied around him during a more prosperous decade following his rise in 2003. 

Some polls show young people who have known no other leader supporting Erdogan’s rival by a 2-to-1 margin. 

Kurds who once put trust in his efforts to end their cultural persecution are now also overwhelmingly backing Kilicdaroglu’s campaign. 

And an economic crisis — Turkey’s worst in a quarter-century and one most blame on Erdogan’s unorthodox financial beliefs — has pushed other groups to lose faith in his government. 

This has left the president with few options but to try to rally his most hardcore nationalist and religious supporters to show up and vote in large numbers. 

The “incendiary rhetoric is designed to rally Erdogan’s base to get out and vote, but also to cast doubt on official results should things not go the president’s way,” analyst Hamish Kinnear of the Verisk Maplecroft risk consultancy said. 

Fight for democracy  

Some veteran Turkey watchers view the vote as an existential battle for Turkey’s democratic future after years of crackdowns on dissent. 

“Either Erdogan will lose, giving Turkey a chance of restoring full democracy, or he will win and likely remain in power for the rest of his life,” Washington Institute senior fellow Soner Cagaptay said. 

Kilicdaroglu appears to sense the undercurrents of discontent running through Turkish society. 

The former civil servant has tried to run an inclusive campaign that ignores Erdogan’s personal attacks and focuses on pledges to restore economic order and civil liberties. 

“You will be able to criticize me very easily,” he told young people during the campaign. 

He has surrounded himself with economists trusted by Western investors and some former Erdogan allies who could help peel away the president’s nationalist vote. 

The 74-year-old also accused unnamed Russian actors of trying to meddle on Erdogan’s behalf in the election — a charge “strongly” denied by the Kremlin on Friday. 

Diluting powers  

Kilicdaroglu said his immediate goal after the election would be to launch a process aimed at stripping the presidency of many of the powers Erdogan amassed after a failed 2016 coup. 

The bloody putsch attempt was a watershed moment in Turkey’s history. 

Erdogan responded with a purge that jailed thousands of soldiers for life and stripped tens of thousands of Turks of their government jobs. 

Kilicdaroglu wants to return the power that Erdogan won through a contested constitutional referendum the following year back to parliament. 

That would require the opposition to win Sunday’s parallel legislative election. 

Polls show Erdogan’s right-wing alliance edging out the opposition bloc in the parliamentary ballot. 

But the opposition would win a majority if it secured support from a new leftist alliance that represents the Kurdish vote. 
…

A war of words is brewing between the U.S. and South Africa after the U.S. ambassador to the country said he would “bet his life” on U.S. intelligence that South African weapons were loaded onto a Russian vessel when it docked at a Cape Town naval base in December. The South African government hit back, saying that while it would investigate the matter, the U.S. ambassador’s remarks had “undermined” the relationship between the two nations.

Pretoria summoned U.S. Ambassador Reuben Brigety on Friday, amid a diplomatic spat that has put relations between the two friendly nations at their lowest ebb in years.

The demarche was issued after Brigety’s extraordinarily strident comments to South African media on Thursday in which he said the U.S. had observed South African weapons being loaded onto a Russian vessel, the “Lady R,” which docked at the port of Simon’s Town in Cape Town between December 6 and December 8 last year.

He said it showed South Africa was not neutral on the Ukraine conflict as Pretoria has always claimed.

“The arming of Russia, by South Africa, with the vessel that landed in Simon’s Town, is fundamentally unacceptable,” he said. “We are confident that weapons were loaded onto that vessel, and I would bet my life on the accuracy of that assertion.”

The South African government seemed caught by surprise by the ambassador’s comments, responding hours later that they were setting up an independent investigation into the matter led by a retired judge.

But Vincent Magwenya, a spokesman for President Cyril Ramaphosa also hit back at Brigety’s remarks, saying the U.S. and South Africa had already discussed the matter privately.

“It is, therefore, disappointing that the U.S. ambassador has adopted a counter-productive public posture that undermines the understanding reached on the matter,” Magwenya said.

A spokesman for the Department of International Relations and Cooperation said Friday that minister Naledi Pandor would also be speaking to her U.S. counterpart, Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

However, Kobus Marais, shadow defense minister for South Africa’s main opposition Democratic Alliance said the U.S. accusations were “deeply concerning.”

“If these allegations are indeed true it would be a gross violation of South Africa’s international obligations and a betrayal of the trust of our most important trade and investment allies,” Marais said.

There have long been questions surrounding why the ship docked in Cape Town last year.

Despite western efforts to get Pretoria’s support for Kiev since the Russian invasion

began last year, the South African government has maintained friendly relations with Moscow.

The country’s foreign minister held bilateral talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey

Lavrov earlier this year and – despite U.S. consternation – hosted Russian war ships in February for joint military exercises.

Steven Gruzd, a Russia expert at the South African Institute of International Affairs, told VOA that Pretoria could face economic fallout from its stance.

“South Africa is jeopardizing its access to the American market through something like the African Growth and Opportunity Act, those privileges would be revoked and then there would be real economic costs,” he said.

South Africa also has invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend a summit in the country in August, despite the fact there’s an arrest warrant out for him by the International Criminal Court and Pretoria is a signatory to the court.

If he shows up, South Africa is legally obliged to arrest him. This has led to calls by some within the ruling party to look into restructuring the agreement with the ICC.
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A California peace activist who has worked to remove land mines from war-torn regions and replace them with grape vines, fruit trees and vegetables was named the 2023 World Food Prize laureate Thursday at a ceremony in Washington.

The Des Moines, Iowa-based foundation awarded its annual prize to Heidi Kuhn, founder of Roots of Peace. Since founding her nonprofit in the basement of her San Rafael, California, home in 1997, Kuhn’s organization has helped remove thousands of mines and assist farmers in more than a half-dozen countries. The group recently signed an initial agreement to begin work in Ukraine.

Kuhn, 65, said she formed the idea of starting her group after hosting an event at her home for dignitaries advocating for the eradication of land mines.

“Looking back on it, perhaps it was a vision of turning blood into wine, killing fields into vineyards and hatred into love,” Kuhn said in an interview last week.

Kuhn was named the winner of the prize, which carries a $250,000 award, at an event featuring Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, and Terry Branstad, the World Food Prize Foundation president and former U.S. ambassador to China. Kuhn, who was visiting minefields in Azerbaijan when the award was announced, will be formally given the prize at an event in October in Des Moines.

“Her work shows the world the vital role that agriculture must have in the resilient recovery from conflict to restoration of peace,” Branstad said during the announcement. “For making her mission to turn mines to vines, I am so pleased to announce that the 2023 World Food Prize laureate is Heidi Kuhn.”

‘I will do something special’

Kuhn said she created her nonprofit after becoming sick with cancer at age 30 while heading a TV production company and raising three children, ages 1, 3 and 5.

“My little prayer was, ‘Dear God, grant me the gift of life and I will do something special with it,'” said Kuhn, who survived the cancer and had another child.

After learning about the world’s estimated 60 million land mines, and in part inspired by Princess Diana’s efforts to ban the explosives, Kuhn said she met with vintners in California’s Napa Valley and began a fledgling effort that has steadily grown over the decades.

Roots of Peace started in Croatia and then went on to establish programs in Afghanistan, Angola, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Israel, Iraq, Palestinian areas, and Vietnam.

Besides lining up crews to remove mines, Roots of Peace completes market assessments to help determine how farmers can make a living off the newly cleared land. In Vietnam, for example, the group helped plant more than a million pepper trees that resulted in a harvest of high-grade pepper that is now sent to the U.S.

‘Off to a mine field’

While her organization has become established with funding from a variety of government and private sources, Kuhn said, her transition from raising four young children to heading an international mine-clearing organization still can seem strange, even to her.

“It is rather bizarre to be raising four kids, and then their mother is going off to a mine field,” Kuhn said. “It is unusual.”

Norman Borlaug, an Iowa native who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his work to alleviate hunger through wheat research and other efforts, established the World Food Prize in 1986. The award has been given to 52 people in honor of their achievements in improving the quality, quantity and availability of the world’s food supply.
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Serbian citizens have handed over nearly 6,000 unregistered weapons in the first three days of a monthlong amnesty period that is part of an anti-gun crackdown following two mass shootings last week, police said Thursday. 

Police also have received nearly 300,000 rounds of ammunition and about 470 explosive devices during the same period, the Serbian Interior Ministry said on Instagram. 

The effort to rid Serbia of excessive guns was launched after 17 people were killed in two mass shootings last week and 21 were wounded, many of them children. One of the shootings took place in a school for the first time ever in Serbia. 

Authorities have told citizens to give up unregistered weapons by June 8 or face prison sentences. Other anti-gun measures include a ban on new gun licenses, stricter controls on gun owners and shooting ranges, and tougher punishment for the illegal possession of weapons. 

The school shooter was a 13-year-old boy who used his father’s gun to open fire on his fellow students at an elementary school in central Belgrade on May 3, police have said. A day later, a 20-year-old man opened fire with an automatic weapon in a rural area south of the capital.

On Wednesday, police arrested the father of the suspected village shooter for illegal possession of weapons. 

Serbia is estimated to be among the top countries in Europe in gun possession per capita. The weapons are partly left over from the wars in the 1990s.  

The two shootings have sparked calls for changes and more tolerance in Serbia’s society. Thousands have marched in opposition-led protests in Belgrade and other towns, demanding resignations of populist government ministers, as well as a ban on television stations that air violent content and host war criminals. More protests are planned on Friday. 

Serbia’s populist president, Aleksandar Vucic, has accused opposition parties of using the tragedy for political ends. He has announced plans for a rally in late May. 

Vucic, a former ultranationalist who now says he wants to take Serbia into the European Union, has faced accusations of promoting hate speech against opponents, curbing free speech with a tight grip over mainstream media and taking control of all state institutions. He has denied this.
…

Italy is having second thoughts on renewing a controversial investment pact with China.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) deal was on the table during May 5 talks in Rome between Chinese Foreign Ministry official Wang Lutong and his Italian counterparts, according to the Italian news outlet Decode39. It was also under discussion when Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Italy in February this year.

A senior Italian government official has told Reuters that his country is highly unlikely to renew the agreement when it expires early next year, but that it needs time for further discussions with Beijing.

The deal was sealed in a five-year memorandum of understanding signed during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Rome in March 2019, making Italy the only country in the Group of Seven advanced economies to participate in China’s global infrastructure program. But it has so far failed to produce the hoped-for economic returns, Italian officials told Reuters.

Italian politics also are a factor. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni criticized the deal, which was negotiated by her predecessor before she came to power last September. In an interview with Reuters last year, Meloni said, “There is no political will on my part to favor Chinese expansion into Italy or Europe.”

Former Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte had hoped the agreement would boost the Italian economy and increase exports to China. But the deal aroused the concern of allies such as the United States despite Italy’s insistence that it was purely commercial.

Since the BRI memorandum was signed in 2019, the two countries have made progress in energy manufacturing and joint investment between Italian sovereign funds and Chinese funds, but less so on infrastructure, which is more sensitive for Italy’s NATO allies and the U.S.

Two ports

A key element of the agreement calls for the development of the Italian ports of Genoa and Trieste. These are the busiest ports in Italy, and Trieste is strategically located at the north end of the Adriatic Sea with overland links to Central and Eastern Europe.

Italian Minister of Enterprise and Manufacturing Adolfo Urso recently said the port of Trieste would not fall into Chinese hands, arguing it has become more important than ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “We must understand that rebuilding Ukraine is the engine of European economic revival, just like the Marshall Plan after World War II,” he said.

China has said little publicly about Italy’s hesitation. Jia Guide, the Chinese ambassador to Italy, acknowledged in an April 26 interview with the Italian news outlet Sole 24 Hours that the memorandum of understanding is not a legally binding treaty.

“It embodies the political will of the two sides to strengthen practical cooperation in various fields. Adhering to win-win cooperation is the unchanging mainstream between China and Italy, and it truly conforms to the fundamental and long-term interests of the two peoples,” he said.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has cited “fruitful outcomes” since the signing of the agreement and said there is “a need for both sides to further tap into the potential of our Belt and Road cooperation.”

Nicola Casarini, a senior research fellow at the Wilson Center, told VOA Mandarin that a renewal of the agreement would lead to more Chinese investment in Italy and provide Italian companies with better market access in China. A decision not to renew, he said, would be seen by Beijing as an unfriendly signal but would likely not prompt retaliatory measures.

“Since China is trying to mend ties with Europe as a whole, I think it is pretty unlikely that the Chinese government will single out Italy in terms of commercial reprisals, as it did in the case of Lithuania,” he said.

“Why? Because that will elicit a backlash from the rest of the European partners of Italy. In that case, China-Europe relations will worsen.” He said China was more likely to adopt “more sophisticated” measures such as diverting trade away from Italy toward other European partners such as France and Germany.

The deal has failed to boost Italy’s underperforming economy in the past four years as expected. Italian exports to China totaled $18.1 billion (16.4 billion euros) last year compared with $14.2 billion (13 billion euros) in 2019. Chinese exports to Italy rose to $62.8 billion (57.5 billion euros) from $34.6 billion (31.7 billion euros) over the same period, according to Reuters.

Taiwan Strait

Meloni, meanwhile, has been more outspoken about the Taiwan Strait issue than her predecessor. In an interview with Taiwan’s Central News Agency before being elected, she said she would strengthen cooperation with Taiwan, a move likely to anger Beijing.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is preparing to establish a representative office in Milan, which would be its second official agency in Italy and essentially function as a consulate.

Italy, meanwhile, sent a delegation to Taiwan to discuss cooperation in semiconductors at the end of last month but postponed a visit to Taiwan by a delegation of Italian politicians, also scheduled for April. Chinese officials have yet to react sharply to Italy’s warming partnership with Taiwan.
…

German prosecutors on Thursday charged a German Iranian dual national in an attempted arson attack near a synagogue on the orders of the government in Tehran. 

Babak J. was instructed by an intermediary “acting on behalf of unknown Iranian state agencies” in November 2022 to carry out an arson attack on a synagogue in the region of North Rhine-Westphalia, the federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement. 

Subsequently, the accused is said to have sought to persuade an acquaintance to set fire to a synagogue in Dortmund using a Molotov cocktail but was refused. 

Babak J.’s handler allegedly later named another synagogue — in the city of Bochum rather than in Dortmund — as a target, prosecutors said.   

“The accused refrained from attacking the well-monitored synagogue in Bochum itself for fear of discovery,” they said. 

Instead, the suspect tried to set fire to a school building adjoining the synagogue in the western German city, according to prosecutors. 

Germany has seen a series of incidents of anti-Semitic violence in recent years, bringing back memories of the country’s Nazi past. 

Germany this month reported a new record in the number of politically motivated crimes last year, although the number of anti-Semitic crimes declined by almost 13% to 2,641 incidents. 

Most of the offenses, 84%, were attributed to the far-right. 

The decline was however “no reason to give the all-clear,” the interior ministry said in a statement. 
…

Britain is reportedly preparing to designate the Wagner group – a Russian private army that is deeply involved in the invasion of Ukraine – as a terrorist organization. The European Union and the United States are debating similar moves. That would put the group in the same bracket as Islamic State and al-Qaida. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
…

Britain is preparing to designate the Wagner Group — a Russian private army that is deeply involved in the invasion of Ukraine — as a terrorist organization, according to The Times of London newspaper, citing government sources. 

The European Union and the United States are debating similar designations, which would put the group in the same bracket as Islamic State and al-Qaida. 

Wagner mercenaries, many of whom have been recruited from Russian prisons, are spearheading Russia’s fight for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. The battle for the city has been raging for months. Ukrainian and Western governments say Wagner has suffered tens of thousands of casualties.

Wagner operates closely with the Russian government. The group is blamed for widespread atrocities in Ukraine, including the torture and killing of prisoners of war and civilians, among them children. Wagner commanders deny the accusations, despite widespread evidence on the ground and testimony from former mercenaries.

Members of the group — including its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin — are already subject to American, European Union and British sanctions. Britain has been building a legal case for the last two months and could designate Wagner as a terrorist group within weeks, according to the Times report. The British government declined to comment.

Belonging to or promoting Wagner, or even displaying its logo, would become a criminal offense, said Tanya Mehra of the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, based in The Hague.

“It may deter companies maybe to do business with Wagner. But it’s doubtful what effect it will have because Wagner is getting their financial resources, not so much from Europe, but from the activities they’re carrying out, the illegal activities in Africa. So what could be the benefits? It is maybe more symbolic,” Mehra told VOA in an interview.

Wagner mercenaries have operated in Syria and several African countries, including Libya, the Central African Republic, Mali and Sudan, typically offering governments security services in return for access to mineral wealth and support for Russia’s geopolitical aims. 

Wagner fighters are accused of widespread human rights abuses. In one incident in March 2022, around 300 civilians died in an attack on the Malian town of Moura, which was then controlled by jihadist forces. 

Speaking at the time, witnesses accused Malian forces and Russian Wagner fighters of summary executions. Amadou, who ran a stall in Moura, spoke to Reuters after fleeing the attack for the Malian capital, Bamako. He did not want to give his family name.

“They [the Malian army] came with a lot of white men, we can call them Russians. They didn’t understand one other. … They took 15 to 20 people. They lined them up about 100 meters from us. They made them kneel down and they shot them,” Amadou said.

Lawmakers in the French National Assembly voted unanimously Tuesday to designate the Wagner group as a terrorist entity. The resolution was non-binding but increases the pressure on the European Union to take action.

In Washington, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is pushing for the United States to classify Wagner as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. The U.S. attorney general said in March he would not object to the move. “I think they’re an organization that is committing war crimes, an organization that’s damaging the United States,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said March 1, noting that the designation is made by the State Department.

Such a move by Washington could have a big impact on Wagner, said Mehra, of the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism.

“In the U.S., if they would be designated as a terrorist group, it would have the most far-reaching consequences — as anyone who will be providing material support to the Wagner group could also face criminal prosecution. So that would mean that states or certain government officials from African states, who would be engaging with Wagner could be liable for criminal prosecutions,” Mehra said.

However, governments should be wary of using the terrorist designations as a political tool, Mehra added.

“When you’re looking at Wagner group, they’re not just an ordinary terrorist organization. We are maybe blurring the distinction here and I think it’s important to be careful about that. In fact, Wagner is a private military security company. And Wagner has very strong interconnectedness with the Russian state,” she said. 

“I think by designating them as a terrorist group, we do have to look at the long-term effect of it and whether or not it is now being used only solely as a political instrument, or whether that we are really talking about adding another layer of sanctions and whether they would really also meet the criteria … to be designated as a terrorist group,” Mehra said. 
…

The number of people internally displaced globally hit a record 71.1 million at the end of last year, according to a report released Thursday by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.

The figure represents a 20% increase from 2021.

Among the drivers of new displacements last year were the war in Ukraine, which the report said accounted for 17 million displacements, and massive floods in Pakistan that caused eight million displacements.

SEE ALSO: A related video by VOA’s Heather Murdock

Worldwide, conflict and violence were responsible for leaving 62.5 million people internally displaced at the end of 2022.

Nearly three-quarters of internally displaced people around the world were in 10 countries: Syria, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ukraine, Colombia, Ethiopia, Yemen, Nigeria, Somalia and Sudan.

“Conflict and disasters combined last year to aggravate people’s pre-existing vulnerabilities and inequalities, triggering displacement on a scale never seen before,” said Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, which established the IDMC.

Some information in this report came from Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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New developments:

Support for Ukraine on agenda as G-7 finance ministers meet in Japan.
British Defense Ministry says Russia likely added up to 10,000 prisoners to those recruited to fight in Ukraine.   

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it is not yet time for his forces to launch a long-anticipated counteroffensive to recapture territory held by invading Russian troops.

“We still need a bit more time,” Zelenskyy said in an interview with British media outlets released Thursday.

Preparations include training of Ukrainian forces by Western partners, as well as shipments of ammunition, tanks and air defense systems to boost the capabilities of the Ukrainian side.

“With [what we have] we can go forward and be successful,” Zelenskyy said. “But we’d lose a lot of people. I think that’s unacceptable.”

Late Wednesday, Adm. Bob Bauer, who chairs the NATO Military Committee, told reporters that Ukraine will be able to fight with better weapons, while having fewer soldiers available than Russia.

“The Russians will have to focus on quantity,” he said. “Larger number of conscripts and mobilized people. Not well-trained. Older materiel, but large numbers, and not as precise, not as good as the newer ones.”

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
…