Six European nations say they will join a fledgling financial system to bypass U.S. sanctions against Iran, challenging U.S. President Donald Trump days before he meets leaders of some of those nations in London.

In a joint statement Friday, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden said they are in the process of become shareholders of the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX). Britain, France and Germany launched INSTEX in January to enable companies to trade with Iran without using U.S. dollars or going through U.S. banks, thereby shielding such companies from U.S. sanctions.

Trump has been toughening U.S. sanctions against Iran since November 2018 as part of a campaign of “maximum pressure” on Tehran to reach a new deal to stop its perceived malign behaviors. Earlier last year, he pulled the U.S. out of a 2015 deal in which world powers eased sanctions on Iran in return for curbs on the Iranian nuclear program. Trump said that deal was not tough enough on Tehran.

EU commitments

The Trump administration has warned other nations not to engage in various transactions with Iran or face secondary U.S. sanctions. But the 28-member European Union has pledged to do what is necessary to uphold its nuclear deal commitments, seeing the deal as a major contributor to global nonproliferation and Mideast stability.

In their joint statement, the six European nations said: “In light of the continuous European support for the agreement and the ongoing efforts to implement the economic part of it and to facilitate legitimate trade between Europe and Iran, we are now in the process of becoming shareholders of INSTEX, subject to completion of national procedures.”

The statement did not clarify what those procedures are, or how long the six nations will take to complete them.

Britain, France and Germany have said INSTEX initially will facilitate trade with Iran in humanitarian goods, such as food, medicine and medical devices that the U.S. has declared to be exempt from its sanctions.

The three nations also have said they eventually will expand INSTEX to cover other types of trade, raising the possibility that such transactions will defy U.S. sanctions. But there have been no announcements of any companies using INSTEX to engage in humanitarian or other trade with Iran since its January launch.

In an interview with the Al Arabiya network earlier this month, U.S. Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook reiterated that Washington opposes the use of INSTEX for any “sanctionable activity” and has expressed that view to Britain, France and Germany. He also reiterated his skepticism that Iran will create its own INSTEX counterpart that meets international standards against money laundering and terrorism financing.

Counterpart mechanism

Iran has said it created the counterpart mechanism in April, calling it the Special Trade and Finance Instrument (STFI). But European officials have not acknowledged the establishment of any Iranian counterpart mechanism that satisfies their financial transparency requirements.

Four of the nations that agreed to join INSTEX, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway, are NATO allies of Washington, as are Britain, France and Germany. Trump is to meet the leaders of those seven nations at a NATO summit in London, Dec. 2-4.

The White House has said the summit will focus on the alliance’s “unprecedented progress on burden-sharing” in defense spending and the “need … to ensure its readiness for the threats of tomorrow … and those posed by terrorism.”

The State Department did not immediately respond to a VOA Persian request for comment on the decision by six more European nations, four of them NATO members, to join a financial channel that has drawn U.S. warnings against using it for sanctionable transactions.

Iran nuclear deal critic Mark Dubowitz, chief executive of the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, dismissed the latest European announcement about INSTEX as a symbolic act with little consequence.

“As long as the Trump administration is willing to enforce U.S. sanctions, very few companies will risk punishment to process transactions through INSTEX. President Trump should make this clear when he meets his NATO counterparts in the coming days,” Dubowitz said in an email to VOA Persian. “To reinforce this message, the Treasury Department should sanction the Iranian INSTEX counterpart STFI, which is linked to several sanctioned entities.”

An FDD policy brief published in May said all of STFI’s shareholders are Iranian banks or controlled by Iranian banks that have been sanctioned by Washington for illicit activities.

Dismissive of INSTEX

Iranian officials also have been dismissive of INSTEX, complaining that its European creators have been too slow to get companies to start using it. They also have threatened to continue violating more provisions of the 2015 nuclear deal unless European powers provide Tehran with adequate economic compensation for the U.S. sanctions.

Iran has seen its currency slump and its unemployment and inflation soar under the strain of sanctions and rampant government corruption and mismanagement.

Iran so far has committed four violations of its 2015 commitments regarding the amount and quality of nuclear materials it can stockpile and produce at certain sites. The steps have slightly reduced the time it would take for Iran to accumulate enough material to make a nuclear bomb, a breakout period that was meant to be at least one year under the deal. Western powers accuse Iran of seeking nuclear weapons, a charge it denies.

Importante décision aujourd’hui de six pays européens de rejoindre INSTEX. Engagement fort des Européens pour soutenir le #JCPOA et l’autonomie d’action européenne. Nous attendons de l’#Iran qu’il revienne dans le cadre de cet accord. https://t.co/AQJpg6JCE8

— Jean-Yves Le Drian (@JY_LeDrian) November 29, 2019

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, in welcoming the decision by the six other European nations to join INSTEX, echoed their call for Iran to reverse its violations of the nuclear deal in a Friday tweet. But neither he nor the other nations set a deadline for Iran to return to full compliance or warned what would happen if Tehran ignored that call.

A Nov. 24 article by Iran’s state-approved Mehr news agency cited Deputy Foreign Minister Gholamreza Ansari as saying that “despite heavy pressure and sanctions,” Iran’s trade volume with Europe in the first nine months of 2019 reached $3.8 billion, of which $3.3 billion was European exports to Iran.

Taken together, the European Union and Switzerland export over three times more medicine to Iran than China, India, Turkey, Japan, South Korea, UAE, and United States combined. Europe is an irreplaceable trade partner for Iran and that’s why efforts like INSTEX are so important. pic.twitter.com/fjm8Q1QMM1

— Esfandyar Batmanghelidj (@yarbatman) November 29, 2019

Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, founder of the “Bourse & Bazaar” media company that supports business diplomacy between Europe and Iran, tweeted that European medicine exports are a significant part of that ongoing trade.

“Europe is an irreplaceable trade partner for Iran and that’s why efforts like INSTEX are so important,” he said.

This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service.

…

Albanians began the week on a high note, as they prepared to celebrate the country’s Independence Day, and finished it in heartbreak, Friday burying loved ones who perished in the worst earthquake to hit the Balkan country in decades.

Forty-nine people died, including seven children ages 2 to 8, and 900 were injured; 5,200 people are without shelter; and 1,200 buildings were destroyed in the 6.4-magnitude quake Tuesday. The panic has been palpable as people refuse to go home. They also have been rattled by several aftershocks, including one that registered at 5.0.

Seismologist Rexhep Koçi told VOA that while there was the likelihood for more aftershocks, they would be increasingly weaker.

The port city of Durrës, 33 kilometers west of the capital, Tirana, saw the highest death toll, with 25 people killed. Farther north, in the small town of Thumanë, the quake killed 23 people, six of whom belonged to one family, and all but one younger than 30. They were buried Friday. One person also died in the nearby small town of Kurbin.

WATCH: A vigil for quake victims in Tirana

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Tirana residents turned out in the city center to honor the victims, placing candles in a makeshift memorial by the statue of Albanian national hero Gjergj Kastrioti, known as Skanderbeg.

The state of emergency declared Wednesday for Durrës and Thumanë was extended to the heavily damaged town of Laç. Prime Minister Edi Rama said he made the decision after opposition leader Lulzim Basha suggested it. Rama appeared to put on hold the acrimony often on display between the two political rivals.

“In this case, our concerns and ideas converge,” Rama said, inviting the opposition to participate in the Committee for Earthquake Relief.

For Rama, the tragedy hit close to home as his office confirmed that among the dead was his son Gregor’s fiancée, Kristi Reçi, who died along with her parents and brother in Durrës.

Helping hands

As search-and-rescue operations were closing, with one person unaccounted for in Durrës, providing aid to survivors has become the focus.

WATCH: Drove Video of Aid Distribution in Durres, Albania

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Physician Shkëlqime Ladi said doctors are on hand to help with immediate needs.

“We are focusing more on the psychological aspect of the affected. Their psychological state is aggravated,” she told VOA in Laç.

In Durrës, volunteers and residents are offering condolences and support.

“We feel very bad for the families, people who have lost their lives. If needed, we can take people in. We have a house, it is not a problem at all,” Durrës resident Hysen Mnalla told VOA.

Erald Peposhi is one of a group of students from Tirana who went to Durrës to help. They delivered 180 meals and 300 sandwiches.

“We are here to help those who are left homeless. As you can see, there are people that need food, and we hope the situation improves soon,” he said Friday.

For the second time since the earthquake, the European Union has activated its Civil Protection Mechanism to help Albania.

Right after the earthquake, EU sent crews from Greece, Italy and Romania to help with search and rescue and now the government has asked for experts to help assess the damage.

EU Ambassador to Albania Luigi Soreca said Friday that the European Union and its member states are standing with Albania and working nonstop to provide assistance “in this very difficult moment.”

“It is a week of deep sorrow and tragedy for Albania,” Soreca said in a statement. “Our heartfelt condolences go once again to the Albanian people and especially to the families, friends and communities of those who have lost their lives.”

Neighboring Kosovo, Italy, Greece and Montenegro have sent in crews. The United States has also offered help.

‘Repaying the help I received in 1999’

Her voice trembling and in tears, Emine Imeri, a volunteer from the Drenica region in Kosovo, told VOA in Thumanë the situation reminded her of 20 years ago when Albania welcomed thousands from Kosovo as they fled ethnic cleansing by Serbian forces in the Balkans conflict.

“The entire Drenica, the entire Kosovo, has mobilized. We regret that we had to repay the favor in such circumstances. We would have preferred to repay what they did for us 20 years ago for a happy occasion,” she said.

She also said she hoped the aid they brought would help.

“People took their coat off their back to send it here,” she said.

It was just one example of the outpouring of help from the new country, 90% of whose population are ethnic Albanians.

People spontaneously came from Kosovo, operated mobile kitchens, gathered donations and opened their homes for those in Albania wanting to find shelter or to escape the aftershocks. On Friday alone, individuals and businesses from Kosovo delivered 100 tons of much needed necessities.

Kosovo’s Security Force sent troops across the border to help, and outgoing Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj allocated 500,000 euros for earthquake relief. He visited Durrës on Friday, as did his likely successor, Albin Kurti.

Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi visited Thumanë the day after the tragedy.

Subdued independence

The earthquake struck two days before Albania’s 107th anniversary of independence. There was no celebration, but a show of solidarity gave solemnity to the day.

Albanian President Ilir Meta and Prime Minister Rama, who have been fighting bitterly over political matters, appeared together in Vlora Thursday, where independence was declared.

The Independence Day coincided this year with the U.S. Thanksgiving Day, and many Albanian Americans rallied to collect donations, holding several fundraisers to help one of the poorest countries in Europe.

“I am so heartbroken for my people back home, for those who have lost lives and loved ones,” New York City Assemblyman Mark Gjonaj, an Albanian American, told VOA.

Marko Kepi, of the Albanian American organization Albanian Roots, organized a fundraiser that raised nearly $1 million in less than a day.

“This fundraiser is simply to help those who have lost their homes and to help those families who lost their loved ones, do whatever we can so they can have some sort of peace of mind, that they are not alone, they have support and they are not going to be left out in the street,” he said.

Armand Mero reported from Tirana, Ilirian Agolli reported from Durrës, Pëllumb Sulo reported from Laç.

…

Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said on Friday he would offer his resignation to parliament to allow lawmakers to choose a new government, in a move that follows weeks of violent anti-government protests.

Abdul Mahdi’s decision came in response to a call for a change of leadership on Friday by Iraq’s top Shi’ite Muslim cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, his office said in a statement.

“In response to this call, and in order to facilitate it as quickly as possible, I will present to parliament a demand (to accept) my resignation from the leadership of the current government,” said the statement, signed by Abdul Mahdi.

The statement did not specify when he would tender his resignation. Parliament is due to convene on Sunday.

The announcement came after weeks of anti-government unrest in which security forces have killed around 400 mostly peaceful demonstrators and the country has careered towards a serious escalation of violence.

…

As he prepared to announce his candidacy for president on Sunday, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg took a page from an old political playbook.

Appearing in a black church in the city’s Brooklyn borough last week, the multibillionaire media mogul apologized for long pushing a now-defunct policing tactic that had disproportionately targeted African American and Hispanic residents.

Known as “stop and frisk,” the controversial policy, imposed between 2003 and 2013, allowed New York City police to stop, temporarily detain, and search anyone suspected of carrying weapons and other contraband. 

“I was wrong,” Bloomberg declared to the congregation. To those who had been wronged by the policy, he said, “I apologize.” 

Criminal justice policy records

Bloomberg is the latest Democratic candidate forced to reckon with a criminal justice policy record that critics view as too punitive to minorities.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has been criticized for backing a 1994 crime bill that helped trigger a federal prison population explosion, while South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg has faced questions over policing tactics in his hometown.

Others, including Senators Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, have had to justify their law enforcement policies as a former mayor of Newark, New Jersey, and a California prosecutor, respectively. 

That Democrats are under scrutiny over criminal justice issues is unusual. Historically, Democratic presidential candidates ran on platforms of civil rights and criminal justice reform while Republicans campaigned as tough law-and-order candidates, according to criminal justice experts.     

But as the 2020 campaign enters the crucial primary phase, Democratic candidates are being forced to disavow criminal justice policies they once championed, while Republican President Donald Trump — who hardly discussed criminal justice in 2016 — is touting himself as a leading reform candidate.

Trump says he can make that claim because he signed into law a sweeping piece of legislation known as the First Step Act last December. The legislation, which has released or reduced the prison sentences of thousands of inmates convicted of drug offenses, has earned Trump praise from many African Americans. 

“It’s sort of a switch in what people thought was the standard left-right divide,” said Noah Weinrich of Heritage Action for America, a conservative grassroots organization.

So what happened?

The short answer is the country has changed. The 1994 Crime Bill now under attack from liberals and African Americans was enacted during the Clinton administration, near the height of a violent crime epidemic in the country when heavy-handed policies enjoyed broad public support.

But as crime has steadily declined over the past two decades to historically low levels, support for those measures has eroded and politicians on both sides of the aisle have increasingly embraced overhaul proposals.

Behind the 1994 Crime Bill

Biden helped craft the legislation when he was a U.S. senator and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and now is taking heat for the legislation’s more onerous side effects.   

“Today, crime and murder rates are at historic lows and American communities are safer than they have been in generations,” said Lauren-Brooke Eisen, acting director of the Justice Program at New York University’s Brennan Center. “That’s significant because that allows the bipartisan conversations about how to best reduce the number of people who have been incarcerated.” 

To be sure, criminal justice reform is not among the most pressing concerns for voters who care more about issues such as health care, immigration and jobs, according to polling.

But public support for measures, such as eliminating mandatory minimum sentencing, has been on an upswing in recent years. That has prompted not only the large field of Democratic candidates but also the Republican president to campaign on criminal justice issues. Today, instead of incarceration, politicians increasingly talk about rehabilitation and redemption.

“Now we’re at a point in the country where we’re looking at our criminal justice system and saying maybe sentencing is what we need to think about and how do we best get our nonviolent criminals back into being productive members of society,” veteran Republican strategist David Avella said.

Last December, growing bipartisanship for criminal justice reform culminated in the enactment of the First Step Act.

Considered the most sweeping overhaul in a generation, the First Step Act allows for the early release of some nonviolent offenders, while providing inmates with in-prison job training to ease their reintegration into society and reduce recidivism rates. To date, more than 3,000 prisoners have been released and nearly 1,700 others have received sentence reductions under the program.

“Last year we brought the whole country together to achieve a truly momentous milestone,” Trump said last month at the historically black Benedict College in South Carolina, where he received an award for signing into law the First Step Act. “They said it couldn’t be done.”

Trump was an unlikely champion of the bill. When he first ran for president in 2016, he was seen as an obstacle to reform.

While his platform was notably silent on the issue, he consistently pushed for tough-on-crime policies over the decades, advocating lengthy sentences for violent offenders and effusing about New York City’s stop-and-frisk policies. 

Then, after he was elected in 2016, Trump appointed his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as a senior White House adviser. Given a broad policy platform, Kushner zeroed in on an issue that he said was very close to his heart: prison reform.

Kushner’s father imprisoned

His father, real estate developer Charles Kushner, spent 14 months in a federal prison in the 2000s for illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and witness tampering. Jared Kushner later called his father’s incarceration “obviously unjust.”

“When I had my personal experience, I wish that there was somebody who was in my office in the White House, who cared about this issue as much as I do, and if they’d been focused on it in making a difference, perhaps that would have made an impact on a lot of people who I came to meet and care about,” he told CNN’s Van Jones, a prominent African American advocate of the First Step Act, last year.  

Kevin Ring, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, an advocacy organization that lobbied for the legislation, said Kushner played an indispensable role in championing the bill and that Trump deserves credit for signing it into law.

“No one would have thought four years ago or three years ago that President Trump would have signed a law like that,” Ring said. “Everyone would have been skeptical that he would have supported any reform. So because he did it, I see no reason not to celebrate that.”

But Democratic candidates were in no mood to celebrate Trump’s action. They have denounced other Trump administration policy decisions that they say have set back years of progress on criminal justice. These include the Justice Department’s recent decision to resume federal executions.

“I find it hypocritical of him to tout whatever advances have been made in the First Step Act given his history,” Democratic candidate Harris said at the Bipartisan Justice Center event after Trump received the award.  

Harris, who had initially opposed the First Step Act for not going far enough to address criminal justice reform before voting for it, has faced criticism for not embracing criminal justice reform when she was San Francisco’s top prosecutor and later California’s attorney general.

…

For medieval history buffs, the Czech town of Kutna Hora has two great attractions: St. Barbara’s Church, often called a cathedral because of its grandeur, and the Sedlec Ossuary, located beneath the Cemetery Church of All Saints outside the town. St. Barbara’s is one of the best examples of Gothic architecture in central Europe and is a UNESCO world heritage site. But visitors are more attracted to the ossuary, a chapel containing bones of more than 40,000 people, arranged in decorative patterns. Those decorations are now being dismantled so that the centuries-old bones can be cleaned while the church undergoes a renovation. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports how it is done.
 

…

The Taliban said Friday they were ready to restart peace talks with the United States, a day after President Donald Trump made a surprise visit to U.S. troops in Afghanistan and said he believed the radical group would agree to a cease-fire.

Trump’s Thanksgiving Day visit was his first to Afghanistan since becoming president and came a week after a prisoner swap between Washington and Kabul that has raised hopes for a long elusive peace deal to end the 18-year war.

“The Taliban wants to make a deal and we are meeting with them,” Trump told reporters after arriving in Afghanistan Thursday.

“We say it has to be a cease-fire and they didn’t want to do a cease-fire and now they want to do a cease-fire, I believe. It will probably work out that way,” he said.

Meetings with US officials

Taliban leaders have told Reuters that the group has been holding meetings with senior U.S. officials in Doha since last weekend, adding they could soon resume formal peace talks.

On Friday, Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the hardline Islamist insurgent group, said they were “ready to restart the talks” that collapsed after Trump had called them off earlier this year.

“Our stance is still the same. If peace talks start, it will be resumed from the stage where it had stopped,” Mujahid told Reuters.

Trump canceled peace negotiations in September after the militant group claimed responsibility for an attack in Kabul that killed 12 people, including an American soldier.

“We are hoping that Trump’s visit to Afghanistan will prove that he is serious to start talks again. We don’t think he has not much of a choice,” said a senior Taliban commander on conditions of anonymity.

US troops in Afghanistan

There are currently about 13,000 U.S. forces as well as thousands of other NATO troops in Afghanistan, 18 years after an invasion by a U.S.-led coalition following the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaida attacks on the United States.

About 2,400 U.S. service members have been killed in the course of the Afghan conflict.

A draft accord agreed in September would have thousands of American troops withdrawn in exchange for guarantees that Afghanistan would not be used as a base for militant attacks on the United States or its allies.

Still, many U.S. officials doubt the Taliban could be relied upon to prevent al-Qaida from again plotting attacks against the United States from Afghan soil.
 

…

In a British election dominated by Brexit, young voters who had no say in the country’s decision to leave the European Union could hold the key to victory. That is, if they can be bothered to vote.

It has long been a truth in British politics that young people vote in lower numbers than older ones. In the last election in 2017, just more than half of under-35s voted, compared to more than 70% of those older than 60.

But that may be changing. According to official figures, 3.85 million people registered to vote between the day the election was called on Oct. 29 and Tuesday’s registration deadline _ two-thirds of them under 35. The number of new registrations is almost a third higher than in 2017.

Amy Heley of Vote for your Future, a group working to increase youth participation, says the figure is “really encouraging, and shows that politics has been so high profile recently that it is encouraging more young people to vote.”

New voters are unimpressed

That doesn’t mean, however, that young voters like what they see. Many appear unimpressed with the choice between Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservatives, the main opposition Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn and a handful of smaller parties.

“I think they’re all unlikeable,” said Callum Nelson, a 21-year-old law student attending a question session with local candidates at his London college. “I’m tempted to exercise my right to spoil my ballot.”

About 46 million people are eligible to vote in the Dec. 12 election to fill all 650 seats in the House of Commons, including hundreds of thousands who were too young to take part in the U.K.’s 2016 Brexit referendum. Britain’s voting age is 18, although Labour and other parties, including the centrist Liberal Democrats and environmentalist Greens, want it lowered to 16.

The current election campaign is a product of that 2016 vote, in which Britons decided by 52%-48% to leave the European Union after more than four decades of membership.

More than three years on, the country remains an EU member. Johnson pushed for the December election, which is taking place more than two years early, in hopes of winning a majority and breaking Britain’s political impasse over Brexit. He says that if the Conservatives win a majority, he will get Parliament to ratify his Brexit divorce deal and take the U.K. out of the EU by the current Jan. 31 deadline.

Labour says it will negotiate a new Brexit deal, then give voters a choice between leaving on those terms and remaining in the bloc. It also has a radical domestic agenda, promising to nationalize key industries and utilities, hike the minimum wage and give free internet access to all.

While most opinion polls give Johnson’s Conservatives a substantial lead overall, the surge in new young voters is good news for Labour, which is seeking to defy the odds and win a general election for the first time since 2005.

Young voters are more likely than their older compatriots to oppose Brexit, which will end Britons’ right to work and live in 27 other European nations and will have a major — though as yet unknown — economic impact.

Other issues

Matt Walsh, a senior lecturer in journalism at the University of Cardiff, said young voters also strongly back abolition of tuition fees and stronger action against climate change, both policies “at the center of the offer that the Labour Party is putting forward to young people.”

Labour’s strategy “is to try and grab those missing voters, get them registered and get them to vote and support Labour policies,” he said.

Labour is spending more than its main rival on social media ads, churning out a stream of memes and messages on Facebook and Instagram. It is also outspending the Conservatives on Snapchat, whose users tend to be younger than those on the other networks. Twitter has banned all political advertising.

Labour also pushed to get young people to register to vote before the Nov. 26 deadline, spreading the message through tweets from celebrity supporters, including grime artist Stormzy. Corbyn posted a link to the government’s voter registration website 26 times on Twitter and 31 times on Facebook in the month before the deadline. Johnson, in contrast, didn’t post the link or the word “register” at all on Twitter, and just once on Facebook.

While some analysts are forecasting an electoral “youthquake,” others are cautious. This is a rare winter election, and turnout could suffer if Dec. 12 is a wet, cold day. It’s also difficult to know how much the voters’ decision will be motivated by Brexit and how much by domestic issues.

“At this point, I’m kind of sick of Brexit,” said Susie Chilver, a first-year politics student at the University of Bristol, in southwest England. “So, the things that are swaying it for me are things like social housing, and things like health care, more about social issues than foreign policy.”

Konstantinos Matakos, senior lecturer in the department of political economy at King’s College London, said there is an assumption that young voters are “leaning more Labour.” But he says their geographical spread, and whether they show up on polling day, will ultimately determine their impact on the outcome.

“It’s not a straightforward assumption to say that this surge in the registration rates will undoubtedly benefit Labour in terms of gaining electoral seats,” he said.

Some young voters agree that Labour shouldn’t take their support for granted.

“People think that students will definitely vote for Labour,” said Molly Jones, a 19-year-old student at London’s Westminster Kingsway College. “But a lot of them who I’ve spoken to, it’s not like that. They will vote for the Liberal Democrats, or the Greens, or even the Conservatives.

“All the parties are just a mess at the moment, and all the leaders are terrible,” she said. “It makes it really hard to vote for someone — you just hold your nose and vote.”
 

…

Dozens of French activists blocked an Amazon warehouse south of Paris in a Black Friday-inspired protest, amid increased opposition to the post-Thanksgiving sales phenomenon that has seen a group of French lawmakers push to ban it altogether.

Protesters from climate group Amis de la terre (Friends of the Earth) spread hay and old refrigerators and microwaves on the driveway leading to the warehouse in Bretigny-sur-Orge on Thursday. They held signs in front of the gates reading “Amazon: For the climate, for jobs, stop expansion, stop over-production!”

The activists were later dislodged by police.

More demonstrations are expected as Black Friday looms into view. French climate groups are planning “Block Friday” demonstrations Friday.

Their objections are garnering some support within France’s National Assembly. Some French lawmakers want to ban Black Friday, which has morphed into a global phenomenon even though it stems from a specifically U.S. holiday: Thanksgiving Thursday.

A French legislative committee passed an amendment Monday that proposes prohibiting Black Friday since it causes “resource waste” and “overconsumption.”

The amendment, which was put forward by France’s former environment minister, Delphine Batho, will be debated next month. France’s e-commerce union has condemned it.

On Europe 1 radio Thursday, France’s ecological transition minister, Elisabeth Borne, criticized Black Friday for creating “traffic jams, pollution, and gas emissions.”

She added that she would support Black Friday if it helped small French businesses, but said it mostly benefits large online retailers.

…

When AIDS was first identified, more than 40 years ago, it was considered a death sentence. Since then, it has become a chronic but treatable disease. The yearly World AIDS Day observance is a way to make people realize AIDS is still with us and, despite advances, the epidemic isn’t over. VOA’s Carol Pearson reports

…

Festive floats and giant balloons are on the move in New York City for Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, an annual, nationally-televised spectacle. Blustery weather had threatened to ground the balloons, a crowd favorite not permitted to fly in strong winds.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio drew cheers from the crowd when he declared the balloons “are going to fly” even if a “little lower.” Handlers are keeping the massive inflatables only a couple meters above them.

In the past, strong winds have caused some helium-inflated characters to detach from tethers, leading to injuries.

This year’s parade, the 93rd sponsored by American retail department store Macy’s, includes a canine cartoon character, Snoopy, as an astronaut.

The event features about 8,000 marchers, two dozen floats and many marching bands — ending with an appearance by Santa Claus.

Among the performers scheduled for this year are singers Celine Dion, Ciara, Kelly Rowland and Idina Menzel.

For many Americans, the holiday to give thanks also marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season.

…

When opposition leader Keiko Fujimori leaves prison, her supporters will applaud her freedom and her detractors will lament what they consider more impunity for the corrupt, but the reality is the future is far from clear for the woman who twice almost won Peru’s presidency.

The Constitutional Tribunal narrowly approved a habeas corpus request to free Fujimori from detention while she is investigated for alleged corruption. But the magistrates noted the 4-3 decision does not constitute a judgment on her guilt or innocence with regards to accusations she accepted money from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht.

The daughter of imprisoned former President Alberto Fujimori — who herself was jailed in October 2018 — could be returned to a cell.

“Although the Constitutional Tribunal has freed her for a strictly procedural matter, it has not absolved her of any of the charges, and it also did not dismiss the new charges made by the Public Ministry,” political analyst Iván García Mayer said.

It is unclear when Fujimori will be freed, but authorities said after Monday’s court ruling that it could happen later in the week.

The 44-year-old will leave prison to a changed political landscape, facing the tough task of rebuilding her political party and career, both of which have been eroded by scandals. Her Popular Force party held a majority in congress until September, when President Martín Vizcarra dissolved the legislature in a popular move he described as necessary to uproot corruption.

The conservative Popular Force will participate in January legislative elections, but Fujimori is not expected to be a candidate and some expect the party to fade in the vote.

As leader of Popular Force, Fujimori managed to undermine the government of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, fueling the impeachment of the now imprisoned ex-president for lying about his ties with Odebrecht.

But now Fujimori herself has been ensnared by a corruption scandal that has toppled political and businesses leaders around Latin America.

In 2016, Odebrecht recognized in a plea agreement with the U.S. Justice Department that it paid some $800 million in bribes to officials throughout the region. The bribes included some $29 million in Peru for public works contracts during the administrations of President Alejandro Toledo and two of his successors. Corruption allegations have hit all of Peru’s presidents between 2001 and 2016.

Prosecutors accuse Fujimori of laundering $1.2 million provided by Odebrecht for her 2011 and 2016 presidential campaigns. They opened an investigation into the campaigns after seeing a note written by Marcelo Odebrecht, head of the Brazilian mega-company, on his cellphone that said: “increase Keiko to 500 and pay a visit.”

Fujimori denies the accusations against her and says prosecutors and Peru’s election body have received Popular Force’s accounting books for inspection.

Her jailing capped a striking downfall for a politician who went from first lady at age 19, to powerful opposition leader, to within a hair’s breadth of the presidency.

Hundreds of mostly young people protested Monday’s ruling freeing her, calling it another demonstration of impunity for the corrupt.

But Fujimori’s supporters have painted “Free Keiko” signs around Lima. Her husband, Mark Villanella, had been on a more than week-long hunger strike outside the jail holding Fujimori.

Fujimori’s father, a strongman who governed Peru from 1990 to 2000, remains a polarizing figure. Some Peruvians praise him for defeating Maoist Shining Path guerrillas and resurrecting a devastated economy, while others detest him for human rights violations. He is serving a 25-year sentence for human rights abuses and corruption.

Keiko Fujimori assumed the role of first lady following the traumatic divorce of her father and Susana Higuchi.

She graduated in business administration from Boston University in 1997 and returned to the United States in 2000 to obtain a master’s degree in business from Columbia University.

She tried to follow in her father’s presidential footsteps and forge a gentler, kinder version of the movement known as “Fujimorismo.”

She finished second in the 2011 election and five years later lost in a razor-thin vote, coming within less than half a percentage point of defeating Kuczynski.

Now, emerging into a new Peru with a dissolved congress and widespread dislike for political elites, Fujimori faces a tough situation, analysts say.

She “is in a very bad position; it will be very difficult for her to recover because the immense majority believe she really committed acts of corruption,” said analyst and sociologist Fernando Rospigliosi.

“She is not going to recover in the medium term,” he said.

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Africa 54 – November 28, 2019
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