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Hong Kong police opened fire on protesters early on Monday, Cable TV reported, as chaos erupted across the city, a day after officers fired tear gas to break up rallies as activists blocked roads and trashed shopping malls in the financial hub.
Chancellor Angela Merkel led a series of commemorations in the German capital over weekend to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which divided the city during the Cold War until 1989. The wall was built by Communist East Germany to prevent its citizens fleeing to the capitalist west. As Henry Ridgwell reports, the hope and optimism in the years following the wall’s destruction have been replaced with fears over the resurgent tensions between Russia and the West
Australian officials are warning of “catastrophic fire danger” as dozens of bushfires blazed in the state of New South Wales.
As of early Monday, 64 fires were burning the New South Wales Rural Fire Service said in a tweet. Of those, more than 40 were out of control.
At 6am there’s 64 bush and grass fires across NSW, 40 not yet contained. Many of these fires won’t be contained ahead of tomorrow’s dangerous fire weather. Catastrophic fire danger has been declared for Tuesday in Sydney and Hunter areas. Use today to get ready. #nswrfspic.twitter.com/Qto5IF8PUH
It warned residents in the area to expect conditions to get worse as high temperatures and gusting winds are forecast for Tuesday.
“Don’t wait for the last minute and ring for a firetruck because it may not get there,” said Jeremy Fewtrell, deputy commissioner of New South Wales Fire and Rescue. “We just don’t want to lose more people.”
Three people have been confirmed dead and more than 150 homes have been destroyed.
New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian declared a state of emergency Monday. It will stay in place for at least a week.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialists won Spain’s national election on Sunday but large gains by the upstart far-right Vox party appear certain to widen the political deadlock in the European Union’s fifth-largest economy.
After a fourth national ballot in as many years and the second in less than seven months, the left-wing Socialists held on as the leading power in the National Parliament. With 99% of the votes counted, the Socialists won 120 seats, down three seats from the last election in April and still far from the absolute majority of 176 needed to form a government alone.
The big political shift came as right-wing voters flocked to Vox, which only had broken into Parliament in the spring for the first time.
The far-right party led by 43-year-old Santiago Abascal, who speaks of “reconquering” Spain in terms that echo the medieval wars between Christian and Moorish forces, rocketed from 24 to 52 seats. That will make Vox the third leading party in the Congress of Deputies and give it much more leverage in forming a government and crafting legislation.
The party has vowed to be much tougher on both Catalan separatists and migrants.
Abascal called his party’s success “the greatest political feat seen in Spain.”
“Just 11 months ago, we weren’t even in any regional legislature in Spain. Today we are the third-largest party in Spain and the party that has grown the most in votes and seats,” said Abascal, who promised to battle the “progressive dictatorship.”
Right-wing populist and anti-migrant leaders across Europe celebrated Vox’s strong showing.
Marine Le Pen, who heads France’s National Rally party, congratulated Abascal, saying it was impressive how his work “is already bearing fruit after only a few years.”
In Italy, Matteo Salvini of the right-wing League party tweeted a picture of himself next to Abascal with the text “Congratulations to Vox!” above Spanish and Italian flags. And in the Netherlands, anti-Islam Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders also posted a picture of himself and Abascal and wrote “FELICIDADES” — Spanish for congratulations — with three thumbs-up emojis.
Sunday’s results means there will be no end to the stalemate between forces on the right and the left in Spain, suggesting the country could go many more weeks or even months without a new government.
The mainstream conservative Popular Party rebounded from their previous debacle in the April vote to 87 seats from 66, a historic low. The far-left United We Can, which had a chance to help the Socialists form a left-wing government over the summer but rejected the offer, lost some ground to get 35 seats.
The undisputed loser of the night was the center-right Citizens party, which collapsed to 10 seats from 57 in April after its leader Albert Rivera refused to help the Socialists form a government and tried to copy some of Vox’s hard-line positions.
Sánchez’s chances of staying in power will still hinge on finally winning over the United We Can party and several regional parties, a complicated maneuver that he has failed to pull off over the past few months.
“These elections have only served for the right to grow stronger and for Spain to have one of the strongest far-right parties in Europe,” said United We Can leader Pablo Iglesias. “The only way to stop the far-right in Spain is to have a stable government. We again extend our hand to Pedro Sánchez.”
Vox has already joined forces with the Popular Party and Citizens to take over many city and regional governments in the past year. Those three groups would readily band together to oust Sánchez, who is seen by the right-wing opposition as too soft on the Catalan secessionist movement.
Julia Giobelina, a 34-year-old web designer from Madrid, was angry at having to vote for the second time this year but said she cast her ballot in hopes of stopping the rise of Vox.
“They are the new fascism,” Giobelina said. “We citizens need to stand against privatization of health care and other public services.”
Spain returned to democracy in the late 1970s after a near four-decade right-wing dictatorship under the late Gen. Francisco Franco. The country used to take pride in claiming that no far-right group had seats in the national Parliament, unlike the rest of Europe.
That changed in the spring, but the Socialists’ April victory was still seen by many as a respite for Europe, where right-wing parties had gained much ground.
Vox relied on its anti-migrant message and attacks on laws that protect women from domestic abuse as well as what it considers leftist ideology disguised as political correctness. Still, it does not advocate a break from the EU in the very pro-EU Spain.
But it has flourished after recent riots in Catalonia by separatists, capitalizing on Spanish nationalist sentiment stirred up by the country’s worst political conflict in decades. Many right-wingers were also not pleased by the Socialist government’s exhumation of Franco’s remains last month from his gargantuan mausoleum so he could no longer be exalted in a public place.
Dozens of people cheered and shouted “President! President!” on Sunday as Abascal voted in Madrid.
“Only by getting rid of Sánchez we can preserve Spain as it is, not by reaching agreements with the (Catalan) separatists,” said Alfonso Pedro Monestilla, a 59-year-old civil servant who voted for Vox.
The debate over Catalonia, however, promises to fester.
The three Catalan separatist parties won a combined 23 seats on Sunday. Many Catalans have been angered by the decision last month by Spain’s Supreme Court, which sentenced to prison nine Catalan politicians and activists who led a 2017 drive for the region’s independence. The ruling has triggered massive daily protests in Catalonia that left more than 500 people injured, roughly half of them police officers, and dozens arrested.
More protests are expected beginning Monday.
Some of Catalonia’s 5.5 million voters said they wanted their vote to deliver a message that politicians had to resolve the situation.
“We are a bit tired, but I hope that the Spanish government understands that there is no other remedy than taking us into account,” said Cari Bailador, a retired teacher in Barcelona.
Thousands of people marched in Paris and other French cities against Islamophobia targeting Western Europe’s largest Muslim population.
Muslims joining the march through the rainy streets of the capital say they have had enough.
Mohamed, here with his sister Khadija, says the two feel completely integrated in French society. But he says he’s faced discrimination — including being asked to change his name during a job interview to something more traditionally French.
A man (M) carries banner reading, French and Muslims, proud of our identity, Paris, Nov. 10, 2019. (Lisa Bryant/VOA)
A recent IFOP poll finds four in 10 French Muslims also believe they are discriminated against because of their religion. Another survey finds more than 60 percent of respondents considered Islam incompatible with French values.
While anti-Islamic attacks are not new, several recent events helped catalyze this protest. Last month, two Muslims were shot and seriously wounded outside a mosque in southwestern France.
France’s conservative Senate also approved an amendment banning veiled women from accompanying their children on school outings. The lower house is unlikely to pass it. But it followed an incident where a far-right lawmaker demanded a woman visiting a regional council to remove her headscarf — leaving her son in tears.
Wafa, a mother of three, says she’s had a similar experience. She’s a trained computer technician, but she says she can’t find a job because of her veil.
Many non-Muslims joined the protests in Paris, Nov. 10, 2019. (Lisa Bryant/VOA)
Sixty-eight-year-old Julia Fernandez was among the many non-Muslims who joined the march.
She likened the current climate to the anti-Semitism of the 1930s, before the Holocaust.
Still the march was controversial, with some of the organizers accused of ties to fundamentalist Islam. A number of leftist politicians opted not to join the protest.
Former Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Saturday attacked right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro for impoverishing working Brazilians and vowed to unite the left to win the 2022 elections in a speech one day after being freed from jail.
Lula’s wide-ranging, 45-minute speech to cheering supporters focused broadly on defeating Bolsonaro and improving the economic conditions of the working class.
Lula, who was president from 2003 to 2010, also took aim at a long list of political enemies, including Bolsonaro, Economy Minister Paulo Guedes and Justice Minister Sergio Moro, a former judge who initially ruled to convict Lula.
“I want to tell them, I’m back,” the 74-year-old told hundreds of supporters dressed in red, the color of his Workers Party, outside the metalworkers union where he got his political start.
He said Guedes seeks to remake Brazil economically in the image of Chile, long seen as a model of financially conservative governance, but that those policies are the reason for the widespread street protests paralyzing its Latin American neighbor.
Court ruling
A judge ordered that Lula be freed on Friday, a day after Brazil’s Supreme Court issued a broader ruling ending the mandatory imprisonment of convicted criminals after they lose their first appeal. Lula had been imprisoned on a corruption conviction carrying a nearly nine-year sentence.
Bolsonaro told reporters in Brasilia, “Let’s not give space to compromise with a convict.”
Earlier on Twitter, the president called for supporters to rally around his government’s agenda, which has included a severe tightening of public spending, saying that they must not allow Brazil’s next phase of recovery to be derailed.
“Do not give ammunition to the scoundrel, who is momentarily free but full of guilt,” Bolsonaro said.
While Bolsonaro did not mention Lula by name, his left-wing rival took direct aim at the president.
“If we work hard, in 2022 the so-called left that Bolsonaro is so afraid of will defeat the ultra-right,” he said.
Ineligible to run
Lula, who left the presidency with sky-high approval ratings, is ineligible to stand for office until 2025 under Brazil’s “Clean Record” law because of a conviction for taking bribes. But his release is expected to energize the left ahead of next year’s municipal elections.
He was imprisoned in 2018 after being found guilty of receiving bribes from construction companies in return for public contracts.
Lula has maintained his innocence. On Saturday he repeated that Justice Minister Moro, prosecutors and police were lying about his guilt for political reasons.
“[I’m] not responding to criminals, jailed or freed. Some people deserve to be ignored,” Moro responded on Twitter.
Bolivian President Evo Morales denounced the actions of “violent groups” early Saturday, hours after police forces were seen joining scattered protests, but the military weighed in later, saying it would not “confront the people” in a standoff over a disputed election.
Morales, Latin America’s longest-standing leader, won the election on October 20, but a delay of nearly a day in the vote count has sparked allegations of fraud and led to protests, strikes and roadblocks.
On Friday night, local television showed police in several Bolivian cities marching alongside protesters in apparent acts of disobedience and joining chants regularly used by the opposition.
Adding to the pressure on Morales, the Armed Forces said in a statement on Saturday “that we will never confront the people to whom we have a duty and we will always ensure peace, co-existence and the development of our homeland.”
Criticism from foreign ministry
In a tweet in the early hours of Saturday, Morales repeated accusations that “violent groups” were launching a coup against the state. The foreign ministry released a statement saying some police officers had “abandoned their constitutional role of ensuring the security of society and state institutions.”
At a news conference later in the day, Morales called an urgent meeting with the four political parties represented in parliament. By Saturday afternoon, at least two opposition parties had rejected Morales’ invitation and one had accepted.
Morales said he would also invite international organizations, including the Vatican, the United Nations and the Organization of American States, which is conducting an audit of the October vote.
Luis Fernando Camacho, a civic leader from the eastern city of Santa Cruz who has become a symbol of the opposition, and Carlos Mesa, the runner-up in October, reiterated their calls for Morales — the country’s leader since 2006 — to step down.
“What we want here is to unite all Bolivians in a single cause. We want President Evo Morales to leave,” Camacho told a news conference.
March set for Monday
Camacho plans to lead a march to the government palace on Monday with a symbolic resignation letter for Morales to sign.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro tweeted his support for Morales on Saturday.
“We denounce before the world the attempted coup d’etat in progress against the brother President Evo Morales,” said Maduro, who has been accused of corruption and human rights violations.
Waving separatist flags and chanting, “Freedom for political prisoners!” thousands of supporters of Catalan independence gathered in Barcelona for concerts and rallies on Saturday, while some protesters faced off with police, a day before Spain heads to the polls for a general election.
Mostly organized by secretive Catalan protest group Democratic Tsunami, the demonstrations aim to force Spaniards to reflect on the prison sentences handed down last month to nine separatist leaders who spearheaded a failed independence bid in 2017, organizers said.
In one protest called by CDR, another separatist group that favors direct action such as blocking highways, several hundred demonstrators tried to reach the Spanish police headquarters, the flashpoint of some of last month’s riots, but were blocked by police.
Tense exchanges
There were tense moments as masked protesters, singing the Catalan anthem, threw eggs and other objects at the police and tried to barricade the road with waste bins. Officers responded by chasing them through central Barcelona’s restaurant-packed streets until the crowd dispersed.
Local media said there was no immediate word of any arrests. A spokesman for the Catalan police could not confirm whether any arrests were made during the protest.
The election campaign has been dominated by the Catalonia separatist issue after weeks of sometimes violent protests that followed the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Catalan leaders.
Attending the rally, Jovita Mezquita, 69, praised Democratic Tsunami’s initiatives, including its first protest, which disrupted Barcelona’s airport in mid-October.
“We have to be imaginative,” she said.
“We have to do things that have impact in the world,” she added, arguing that separatists were not taken into account in the rest of Spain.
‘Very complicated’
But away from the protests, some Barcelona residents were skeptical that things could change for the region, where separatism is a highly divisive issue.
“I see [it as] very complicated for the situation in Catalonia to be resolved, because at the national level, that is to say at the Spanish level, I do not see that there is a great desire to do it,” said Maria Rodriguez, a 33-year-old actress.
Democratic Tsunami, which advocates nonviolent action, called on supporters to demonstrate across the region Saturday afternoon and suggested there would be more to come if Spanish politicians refused to engage with separatists.
“As long as there is no dialogue, instability will continue,” it said in a statement late Saturday. “The [Spanish] state will not be able to continue with repression without having a citizens’ response.”
The group, whose leadership remains unknown, said the controversial app it uses to organize events had received more than 1,000 attacks.
The campaign for Catalan independence has been mostly peaceful for years, but some protests turned violent last month, with a minority of mostly young demonstrators torching cars and launching petrol bombs at police.
Extra police
Madrid sent around 2,500 additional national police officers — including anti-riot units — to support Catalonia’s regional police force ahead of the election, a national police spokesman in Barcelona told Reuters.
The goal is to “guarantee that everyone can exercise their right to vote,” the spokesman said.
A Catalan police spokeswoman declined to comment on the force’s security plans.
Carme Martin, 68, who attended Saturday’s protest, said she could understand some of the youths’ frustration after last month’s riots in Barcelona.
“I don’t like violence but [I understand] if it is defensive,” she said.
Chancellor Angela Merkel led a series of commemorations Saturday in the German capital to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which divided the city during the Cold War until it was breached and torn down on November 9, 1989.
Merkel, who grew up in Communist East Germany, said, “The Berlin Wall is gone and that teaches us that no wall that excludes people and restricts freedom is so high or so wide that it cannot be broken through.”
November 9 also is the anniversary of Kristallnacht, when Jews were attacked across Nazi Germany in 1938 — a foretaste of the horrors that would follow in the Holocaust.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, left, shakes hands with visitors prior to a memorial service in the chapel at the Berlin Wall Memorial in Berlin, Germany, Nov. 9, 2019.
“The 9th of November, which reflects in a special way both the horrible and the happy moments of our history, makes us aware that we have to face hatred, racism and anti-Semitism resolutely,” Merkel said in a speech at the Chapel of Reconciliation, located where the Berlin Wall once stood. “It urges us to do everything in our power to defend freedom and democracy, human dignity and the rule of law.”
Presidents Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany, Janos Ader of Hungary, Andrzej Duda of Poland, Zuzana Caputova of Slovakia and Milos Zeman of the Czech Republic, from right, put flowers in a crack inside the Berlin Wall, Nov. 9, 2019.
International attendance
Leaders from Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic also attended a ceremony at Bernauer Strasse, site of one of the last remaining sections of the Berlin Wall. They placed roses between gaps in the barrier that divided the city for 28 years.
Germany President Frank-Walter Steinmeier paid tribute to the pro-democracy protesters in the former Soviet bloc countries.
“In gratitude, we remember today with our friends the historical events of 30 years ago,” Steinmeier said. “Without the courage, without the will for freedom of the Poles, the Hungarians, the Czechs and the Slovaks, the peaceful revolutions in Eastern Europe, and German unity, would not have been possible.”
A weeklong series of events in Berlin was capped off Saturday night with a concert at the famous Brandenburg Gate, involving several German and international performers.
Visitors stay underneath the skynet artwork “Visions In Motion” in front of the Brandenburg Gate as they attend stage presentations to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in Berlin, Germany, Nov. 9, 2019.
Then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan famously gave a speech in front of the landmark in 1987, demanding of his Soviet counterpart: “Mr. [Mikhail] Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” A statue of Reagan, who died in 2004, was unveiled Friday next to the Brandenburg Gate.
The wall was constructed in 1961 to stop the flood of East Germans fleeing to capitalist West Berlin to escape communist rule. It was officially called the “anti-fascist protection rampart” by the East German government. Hundreds of people were shot dead trying to cross it.
Following growing pressure across the Warsaw Pact countries in 1989, pro-democracy protests spread to East Germany.
On November 4, 1989, a half-million demonstrators gathered in Alexanderplatz in East Berlin. Five days later, a government spokesperson mistakenly said the East Germans were now free to travel to the West, prompting tens of thousands to rush to crossing points along the 43-kilometer barrier.
In the confusion, border guards opened the gates and thousands of people surged across the frontier, cheered by crowds on both sides of the wall. Within hours, Berlin residents were taking pickaxes to the concrete wall, as the city erupted in wild celebrations.
People reenact the symbolic wall opening, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the falling wall in the outdoor area of the German-German museum in Moedlareuth, Germany, Nov. 9, 2019.
The fall of the wall is seen as a key moment in the collapse of communism. Just two years later, the Soviet Union imploded and the Cold War was declared over.
Tensions between East-West
However, tensions between East and West have resurfaced. Relations between Russia and the West plummeted following Moscow’s forceful annexation of Crimea and support for rebel fighters in eastern Ukraine in 2014. Arms control treaties have been ditched, and many world leaders have warned of a new Cold War.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also attended the ceremonies to mark the fall of the Berlin Wall. In a speech on the eve of the anniversary, Pompeo warned that “the West lost our way in the afterglow of that proud moment,” adding that the U.S. and its allies should “defend what was so hard won.”
“We thought we could divert our resources away from alliances, and our militaries. We were wrong,” Pompeo said. “Today, Russia — led by a former KGB officer once stationed in Dresden [President Vladimir Putin] — invades its neighbors and slays political opponents.”
Tourist take photos at the remains of the Berlin Wall after commemorations celebrating the 30th anniversary of its fall, at Bernauer Strasse in Berlin, Nov. 9, 2019.
Pompeo also criticized Russia’s treatment of the political opposition. He said China was now using methods of oppression against its own people that would be “horrifyingly familiar to former East Germans.”
Beijing labeled Pompeo’s comments as “extremely dangerous” and said they exposed his “sinister intentions.”
Pompeo also warned that NATO needed to evolve as the alliance approaches its 70th anniversary. His comments followed sharp criticism from French President Emmanuel Macron, who warned this week in an interview with The Economist that NATO was becoming “brain-dead” in the absence of U.S. leadership.
Washington has repeatedly called on European NATO members to meet the bloc’s military spending target of 2% of gross domestic product, warning it will no longer shoulder the burden of European defense.
Hundreds of pilgrims Saturday from India’s minority Sikh community crossed the international border with Pakistan without a visa for the first time in 72 years to pay homage to one of their holiest shrines.
The rare instance of cooperation to facilitate the religious journey comes amid a sharp deterioration in already tense ties between the nuclear-armed rival countries sparked by recent Indian actions in the disputed Kashmir region. Both India and Pakistan control portions of the Himalayan territory but claim it in its entirety.
Indian pilgrims, including senior politicians and officials, traveled through a newly established 4.1-kilometer cross-border corridor, featuring fenced-off sides and leading straight to the shrine in the Pakistani town of Kartarpur in Punjab province.
Known as the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib, the temple is believed to have been built on the site where the founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak, spent last 18 years of his life before he died there in the 16th century.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan inaugurated the border corridor, just in time for the 550th anniversary of Guru Nanak’s birth on November 12.
“I congratulate you and I am happy to be with you today to see that for the first time people can now come from India [through the corridor] to pay the homage,” Khan told thousands of Sikh devotees inside the newly built sprawling complex around the temple.
The “historic” opening of the Kartarpur corridor, he said, is a testimony to Pakistan’s commitment to regional peace. “We believe the road to prosperity of the region and a bright future for our coming generation lies in peace,” the Pakistani leader asserted.
Khan went on to urge Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to work for a negotiated settlement to the Kashmir dispute so the two countries can jointly fight poverty and bring regional prosperity to their two nations.
“I asked Modi, ‘Why can’t we resolve this issue?’ What is happening in Kashmir is beyond territorial issue, it’s about human rights … They are being treated like animals. If PM Modi is listening to me, then I would say that peace prevails through justice. Give justice to the people of Kashmir,” he said.
Indian Sikh pilgrims help a man on a wheelchair as they visit the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib, in Kartarpur, Pakistan, Nov. 9, 2019.
Former Indian Sikh prime minister, Manmohan Singh, was among the first pilgrims to cross over into Pakistan to pay respect to the shrine.
“I hope India and Pakistan relations improve enormously as a result of this beginning. It is a big moment,” Singh told reporters.
Traditionally strained bilateral relations plunged to historic lows last August when New Delhi ended the special constitutional autonomy for Indian-administered Muslim-majority Kashmir region and bifurcated it into two union territories.
Indian authorities simultaneously imposed a security lockdown and a communications blackout, though it has since been partially eased.
Islamabad rejected the move as a violation of longstanding United Nations resolutions that describe Kashmir as a disputed territory. Pakistan also downgraded diplomatic ties with India.
The territorial dispute has sparked two of the three wars the neighbors have fought since gaining independence from Britain in 1947.
The minority Sikh community in India has demanded access to the shrine for decades. But bilateral tensions blocked progress until last year when Pakistan itself offered to open the Kartarpur crossing.
A large number of devotees from countries such as Canada, Australia and Britain also come to Kartarpur through regular entry points and airports in Pakistan to attend the event. Foreign diplomats based in Islamabad also were flown to Kartarpur to witness the inaugural ceremony.
Saturday was the first time since 1947 — when British India was divided into the two separate states of India and Pakistan — that Indian Sikh devotees were able to cross the border and undertake a visa-free visit to the shrine.
Until now, pilgrims had to go through a drawn-out visa process, often hampered by mutual tensions, and undertake a long journey through Pakistan to reach the temple.
Earlier in the morning, Prime Minister Modi, while inaugurating his side of the corridor, flagged off hundreds of pilgrims from the Indian border city of Gurdaspur.
The United States welcomed the opening of the Kartarpur border crossing as an “impressive project” and congratulated both India and Pakistan on this initiative.
“We see this as a positive example of neighbors working together for mutual benefit. The newly opened corridor is a step toward promoting greater religious freedom,” State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus noted in a video message she released via Twitter.
The border corridor, under a bilateral pact, would give year-round visa-free access to about 5,000 Indian Sikhs each day to the temple, arriving in the morning and returning in the evening.
Pakistan has constructed a road and a bridge over the Ravi River, along with dozens of fully equipped immigration reception centers for pilgrims. Officials said the dining area near the shrine can host more than 2,500 pilgrims simultaneously, where they will be served free food during Guru Nanak’s birth celebrations.
Pakistani officials say the massive construction effort has turned the temple into the world’s largest Sikh Gurdwara complex. Already built, or under construction, are a new courtyard, dormitories, locker rooms, a library, a museum, and an embankment to protect the shrine from floods — all in consultation with experts from the Sikh community, the officials noted.
Are the West’s secrets safe in the hands of Britain’s politicians?
It is a question Britain’s intelligence officers are asking themselves — so, too, their counterparts in the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence-sharing relationship that includes the U.S., Australia, Canada and New Zealand. It’s a tie-up that’s been called the most successful espionage alliance in history.
Not since the 1970s, when some British MI5 officers thought Labour Party leader Harold Wilson, who won four general elections, and his most trusted advisers were KGB assets have Britain’s spooks been so uneasy about their political masters. The worries about Wilson and his aides at that time provoked treasonous plots by conservative-leaning rogue elements of the security agencies, which even drew in members of Britain’s royal family.
As Britain heads into its most consequential election possibly in the last 100 years, a vote that will determine whether Britain will leave the European Union or not, fears are mounting within the country’s security circles that Britons can’t trust their own leaders. This includes both those at the top of the country’s main opposition Labour Party as well as among the ruling Conservatives, a party once synonymous with Queen and Country.
For the past year, a former head of Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency, Richard Dearlove, has led a chorus of intelligence warnings about Jeremy Corbyn, widely seen as Labour’s most leftwing leader since the 1920s, and his clique of advisers. Last month, Dearlove said in a TV interview he was “troubled” by Corbyn’s “past associations,” sparking a furious reaction from senior Labour lawmakers, who warned of ‘deep state’ meddling.
FILE – A general view shows the MI6 building in London, Britain, March 5, 2015.
Britain’s Conservative-leaning newspapers have taken up the warnings, with The Sun newspaper headlining midweek: “Intelligence Services and Foreign Office ‘Fear Jeremy Corbyn Would Risk National Security’ if He Wins Election.”
Former intelligence chiefs and government insiders say the flow of secret information Britain is supplied from the “Five Eyes” network could start drying up because of a lack of trust by Western partners in Corbyn and his advisers.
Writing in The Times newspaper, retired Labour politician Jack Straw, a former foreign secretary, dismissed allegations of “deep state” interference and warned Western security agencies could “lessen intelligence co-operation with us,” if Corbyn wins the election. He warned Britain’s spooks also would be chary of disclosing some of their most sensitive information with a Downing Street occupied by Corbyn.
“This would not be any ‘deep-state conspiracy,’ but the human reaction of people who give their careers to keep us safe, sometimes at serious personal risk to their own lives,” Straw said.
A former defense secretary, John Hutton, who served in Labour governments, has underscored that a Corbyn premiership would affect the ‘Five Eyes’ espionage alliance and “place a major question mark over the continued operation of a vital source of intelligence.”
At the very least, Corbyn has a radical and what critics say is an anti-Western world-view, notably out of step, they add, with Labour’s previously more centrist leaders. He’s been a long-standing critic of NATO and has called for it to be disbanded, decrying it as an “instrument of Cold War manipulation.” He also has been an opponent of Britain possessing nuclear weapons. He’s voted as a lawmaker against every military action proposed by the government of the day, including intervention in Kosovo.
FILE – Britain’s Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn arrives for a general election campaign in London, Britain, Oct. 31, 2019.
Corbyn dubs as “friends” Hamas and Hezbollah, and at the height of the IRA’s bombing campaign he spoke at official commemorations to honor the Irish republican dead. And he was on the board of a far-left Labour publication that praised the IRA’s 1984 Brighton bombing, which nearly killed then prime minister Margaret Thatcher. In an editorial, the publication said, “It certainly appears to be the case that the British only sit up and take notice [of Ireland] when they are bombed into it.”
Last year, he provoked fury in the House of Commons when he questioned the British government’s blaming of the Kremlin for the Novichok poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the southern English cathedral town of Salisbury. Corbyn argued Russia should be involved in the investigation.
Dearlove accuses Corbyn of giving aid and comfort to Britain’s enemies. “He has enthusiastically associated himself with groups and interests which I would not say were the friends of the British nation,” Britain’s former top spy said last month.
The alarm of the security establishment is wider than just Corbyn, though, when it comes to the current top echelons of the Labour Party. Seamus Milne, the Labour leader’s director of strategy and his closest adviser, has been an outspoken critic of Western policies throughout a long career as a columnist at the Guardian newspaper. He has argued Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea was “clearly defensive” and the consequence of a NATO manipulated breakup of the Soviet Union.
That insight earned Milne the rebuke of a fellow Guardian contributor, Oliver Bullough, an author of several books on Russia, who accused Milne of living in a “parallel universe.” He noted “the destruction of the USSR was not some Versailles-style treaty imposed from outside. Russia, Ukraine and Belarus did it themselves.”
Conservative lawmaker Bob Seely, a former British army officer and member of the British parliament’s foreign affairs committee, has accused Milne of echoing Kremlin propaganda. In 2014, Milne participated in a conference in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, where he conducted an onstage discussion with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
FILE – A Russian flag flies outside Russia’s embassy in central London, Britain, March 15, 2018.
Some British intelligence insiders say in the event of a Labour election win, the heads of Britain’s security agencies likely would insist on withholding the most sensitive information from Milne, as well as another Corbyn policy adviser, Andrew Murray, a former member of the Communist Party, and regular contributor to Britain’s Communist newspaper, the Morning Star.
Speaking to VOA recently, Norman Roule, who was in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations for 34 years, and served as a division chief and chief of station, says “the U.S. intelligence relationship with the British is the closest on the planet.” He added: “We share so much information with each other, and it’s shared so deeply and immediately that if we have a difference of views, it’s usually because one of us hasn’t gotten around to seeing the other’s file yet,” he added.
Roule said the intelligence agencies would try to remain constant in their work regardless of who was in Downing Street. “You know we don’t really pay attention to what the policymakers argue about and would try to ignore policy differences that creep up and sooner or later the politicians will move on,” he added.
Other U.S. intelligence officials are less sanguine. One former top level CIA official told VOA: “If we have doubts or fears, we will avoid uploading especially sensitive data — some officers will just take it upon themselves to do it, whether there is an order from on high or not.”
Dearlove and other members of Britain’s security establishment have dismissed the idea of a “deep state” working against a Labour government, saying every government of whatever stripe has been loyally served by the British intelligence community.
But it isn’t only Labour that is prompting the anxiety of both British and other Western intelligence agencies. The Conservatives, too, are a cause for unease. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was blocked by his predecessor in Downing Street, Theresa May, from seeing top secret information when he served as foreign secretary on the grounds he couldn’t be trusted because of his tendency to be indiscrete.
FILE – Boris Johnson, then Britain’s foreign secretary, arrives at 10 Downing Street for a weekly meeting of the cabinet, in central London, Britain, Dec 11, 2017.
As London mayor previously, he had let slip confidential information before it was due to be made public, angering May, who was then Home Secretary. The BBC reported that when Johnson became Foreign Secretary, Downing Street would sometimes convene smaller meetings, or ‘pre-meets,’ to discuss especially sensitive matters so as to exclude Johnson.
Additionally, Johnson’s Conservative Party has accepted large donations from London-based Russian oligarchs with ties to the Kremlin and Russia’s FSB security agency, according to a still-under-wraps cross-party parliamentary committee report. Last week, Downing Street prompted a political outcry by deciding to delay the publication of the report until after next month’s general election.
Downing Street has been accused of sitting on the report detailing the security threat posed by Russia to Britain. The 50-page dossier examines allegations that a Kremlin-sponsored influence campaign may have distorted the result of the 2016 Brexit referendum. The report raises concerns about the flow into the Conservative Party of Russian money from oligarchs linked to the Kremlin, along with a high level of Russian infiltration into the higher ranks of British politics, business, high society and the legal profession.
Members of the cross-party intelligence and security committee said they expected Johnson to approve publication ahead of the election. Dominic Grieve, a former attorney general who chairs the committee, said the report “comments directly on what has been seen as a perceived threat to our democratic processes.”
The U.N. children’s fund warns essential humanitarian programs for hundreds of thousands of children in Syria will have to be cut because it has run out of cash.
With just eight weeks left until the end of the year, the U.N. children’s fund reports only 53 percent has been met of its $295 million appeal for 2019. Unless this major funding shortfall is urgently closed, it reports many children will be denied the lifesaving assistance they need.
UNICEF spokeswoman Marixie Mercado says these forced cuts come at a particularly difficult time of the year.
“With temperatures dropping quickly, UNICEF’s aim is to provide 578,000 children zero to 14 years old in camps, collective shelters, host communities and areas of acute need with crucial winter clothing. At this point, we have funds for 356,000 children. Without additional funding, 220,000 children will go without,” Mercado said.
UNICEF reports 5.5 million children across the country require assistance. The agency is unable to help them all. But Mercado noted it provides hundreds of thousands of Syria’s most vulnerable children with essential services that can make the difference between life and death for many.
“In northeast Syria, home to some of the most vulnerable children in the country, UNICEF’s work in 2019 has included vaccinating over half a million children, providing nearly 150,000 children with psychosocial support, and enabling over 100,000 children to enroll in formal education,” Mercado said.
Providing aid to children in this area has become more difficult since Turkish military forces invaded this Kurdish-controlled region last month. Despite the increased security risks, which limit freedom of movement, UNICEF says the most serious obstacle to reaching children in urgent need is the lack of money.
Mercado said some of the programs threatened by the shortfall include emergency water, sanitation and hygiene support, routine immunization, and specialized health and nutritional feeding for malnourished children.
She said mine-risk education for 170,000 people at particular risk also will go by the wayside. She noted one in two Syrians is at risk of stepping on an unexploded ordnance. Children are particularly vulnerable.
