French President Emmanuel Macron leaves a France roiled by ongoing yellow vest protests for another tumultuous region — the Middle East — and talks with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah el-Sissi on regional politics and weapons sales, shadowed by the looming U.S. troop pullout from Syria.

Macron’s three-day Egypt visit, his first official trip there since taking office in 2017, underscores that country’s role as vital ally in the fight against terror and hub of stability in a restive region.

Crucially, too, Cairo is a big-spending client for French weapons manufacturers, buying warships and fighter planes, with more potential sales in the pipeline.

​Human rights pressure

But the French president is facing heavy pressure to speak out against allegations of widespread human rights violations in Egypt, including those reportedly using equipment purchased from France. Adding to the pressure is a letter written to Macron by the family of a French teacher killed in police custody in 2013, calling for the “truth” behind his death.

“I imagine that President Macron is going to attempt to walk a fine line,” between raising rights concerns and prioritizing regional stability and security, said Dana Stroul, senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Macron’s first task on his arrival Sunday is less controversial: visiting the temples of Abu Simbel in Upper Egypt with his wife, Brigitte. Talks later with Sisi are expected to range from reinforcing economic cooperation, to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to Libya and Syria.

​Place on world stage

Since taking office in 2017, the 41-year-old Macron has pushed for greater French clout on the world stage. He has hosted summits on climate change, peace, the Sahel and Libya. He criticized the Trump administration’s decision to pull out of Syria, saying “an ally must be dependable,” and that France would remain militarily involved in the region.

But Paris is no substitute for Washington, experts note, and French troops are already stretched in the Sahel. Still, Stroul believes France can partially help fill the U.S. withdrawal gap in other ways.

“What the French and the Europeans can do is play a much more robust diplomatic role in insisting the U.N. process be used for a political transition in Syria, and more robustly using sanctions and the potential to contribute to reconstruction as a leverage,” Stroul said.

Those measures, she added, will help ensure “the U.S. withdrawal does not just leave a vacuum for Russia, Iran and other adversaries to fill.”

​Weapons deals

Potential weapons deals are also expected to headline Macron’s Egypt talks. One of the world’s top arms exporters, France has supplied Egypt with warships and cruise missiles over the years, and Cairo was the first client to buy French Rafale fighter jets, says Paris-based defense expert Pierre Tran.

“Egypt is a very important arms client for France,” Tran said. “It effectively bailed out France by buying two Mistral helicopter ships that France had to buy back from Russia” because of a canceled deal.

France’s La Tribune newspaper speculated Egypt would agree to buy dozen more Rafale fighter jets during Macron’s visit, but the French presidential palace has reportedly said there will be no announcements during this visit. Discussions over the Egyptian purchase of two more French corvette warships, on top of four already bought, are also at “an advanced stage,” France’s Le Monde newspaper reported.

Activists detained, tortured

More certain is pressure at home for the president to speak out about rights abuses, including those tangling French weapons sales. Human rights advocates blame Egypt for detaining and torturing scores of activists over the years since the 2013 coup, among other repressive measures.

An October report by rights group Amnesty International claims French military and security equipment was used by Egyptian security forces in “brutal repression.”

And a recent report by nongovernmental group Front Line Defenders described worker abuse at an Alexandria shipyard building corvettes in partnership with the French company Naval Group, a practice that reportedly flouts France’s laws requiring French firms to establish mechanisms to prevent right abuses.

“France has been nurturing the dictatorship by equipping it with weapons and surveillance equipment, which has allowed the regime to go after the population and human rights activists,” said Antoine Madelin, international advocacy director at the Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights, or FIDH.

During talks with Sissi in Paris in 2017, Macon gave the Egyptian president a list of Egyptian prisoners of whom he demanded the release, and the government says rights remain a priority for the French president.

“We engage in open and regular dialogue with Egypt on the issue of human rights,” a French foreign ministry spokeswoman told reporters ahead of Macron’s trip, saying such talks would continue including on individual rights cases.

But rights groups say Macron’s government has not done enough.

“The French government is facing a moral failure for not putting human rights in front of its economic interests,” Madelin of FIDH said.

Adding to the pressure is a recent letter to Macron by the family of slain French teacher Eric Lang, who had been living in Cairo for 20 years. In 2013, he was allegedly beaten to death while being detained in an Egyptian prison. Six Egyptians were jailed for his killing, but the family has blamed Egyptian police.

 

“We don’t understand why our country abandoned a French citizen and didn’t put all its political weight to shed light on his death,” wrote Lang’s sister and mother.

Still Egypt’s role as a key stabilizer and regional, if waning powerhouse, is key for France and other western countries. Both countries are concerned by the turmoil in Libya, migration, and other sources of regional instability, including terrorism.

On Libya, French efforts to increase its influence in the North African country’s politics has led to a power rivalry with Italy that some analysts believe undermines U.N. peace efforts. Both European countries hosted summits last year on Libya’s future. December 2018 elections in Libya, agreed to during the French summit, have been postponed amid ongoing fighting by rival militias, among other roadblocks.
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Five people were killed Friday when a helicopter and a small tourist airplane collided near the border between France and Italy.  

  

Italy’s mountain rescue service said rescue workers found two people injured at the crash site and evacuated them. 

 

Officials said the helicopter was carrying skiers to a glacier in the northwestern Italian region of Val d’Aosta when it collided with the tourist airplane about 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) over the Rutor glacier.  

  

It was not immediately clear how the crash happened. The identities and nationalities of the victims had not yet been released.

 

Italy’s Val d’Aosta region is popular with skiers. A website for the region says skiers frequently access the area by helicopter during winter.
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Russia will help Cuba repair state-run airline Cubana’s mostly grounded fleet, likely by year’s end, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov was quoted as saying by Cuban news agency Prensa Latina on Friday.

Cubana had to cancel most domestic flights last year due to a lack of flightworthy planes and lease aircraft from other companies. The carrier uses mainly Russian and Ukrainian-made Ilyushins, Tupolevs and Antonovs partly because U.S. sanctions prevent it from buying planes with a certain share of U.S. components. Cuba’s cash crunch restricts it from paying for expensive repairs and spare parts.

After a high-level Russian-Cuban intergovernmental commission meeting in Moscow, Borisov said both sides had checked the repairs needed and had written contracts, without giving details on costs.

“Everything has passed to the practical stage and I consider that the Cuban fleet will be re-established in 2019,” he said after meeting with Cuban Vice President Ricardo Cabrisas.

“We agreed in the future to work on creating a services center in Cuba dedicated to the aviation fleet in order to avoid a repetition of a negative situation.”

One of the aircraft Cubana leased, a 39-year-old Boeing 737, crashed in May killing all but one of the 113 onboard. An investigation is underway.

Plans for Russia to upgrade Cuba’s rail network are also advancing, Borisov was cited as saying.

In 2017, state-owned monopoly Russian Railways (RZD) said it was negotiating to upgrade more than 1,000 km (621.37 miles) of Cuban railroads and install a high-speed link between Havana and the beach resort of Varadero, in what would be Cuba’s biggest infrastructure project in decades.

An RZD executive told Reuters in November 2017 the deal would be worth nearly 2 billion euros and signed by the end of the year. Since then, however, the deal’s completion has not been announced.

“We agreed to divide it into stages and optimize the necessary credits in order to carry out this project,” Borisov was cited as saying. “I expect it to be put into practise in a near future.”

 
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Rescue crews in Spain appeared to be centimeters of rock away late Friday from the space where a 2-year-old boy is believed to be trapped underground after falling into a borehole 12 days ago. 

 

Julen Rosello fell down the narrow 110-meter-deep borehole (360 feet) on Jan. 13 while his family was preparing a countryside Sunday lunch. His parents had another young son who died in 2017, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported. 

 

The tragic accident in Malaga province gripped Spaniards from day one and the country has followed closely every turn of an extremely complex and frequently hampered search-and-rescue mission. 

 

The dry waterhole, only 25 centimeters in diameter (about 10 inches), is too narrow for an adult to get into and hardened soil and rock blocked equipment from progressing to the place two-thirds of the way down where Julen is thought to be. 

 

Officials have been trying to create alternative routes to the toddler. A series of small explosions set off since Thursday afternoon, including a fourth one late Friday, helped workers dig most of a 3.8-meter-long horizontal tunnel (about 12½ feet) to the cavity. 

 

The tunnel is 70 meters (230 feet) underground, and a vertical shaft had to be drilled over the past few days to bring miners and rescue experts up and down during the painstaking engineering feat. 

 

Jorge Martin, a spokesman with the Malaga province Civil Guard, said the most recent controlled explosion was needed to complete the last 45 centimeters (about 18 inches). 

 

“This controlled micro-explosion needs to be extremely precise due to the proximity to the place where Julen supposedly is,” Martin told reporters at the site. 

 

The only sign of the toddler found so far is hair that matched his DNA, but officials have refused to comment on whether he could have survived so long. 

 

In one of the few media interviews the child’s parents have given, father Jose Rosello said the family was “heartbroken” by the long wait but hoping for “a miracle.” 

 

El Pais reported that the couple lost Julen’s older brother, Oliver, when the 3-year-old suffered a heart attack during a walk on the beach two years ago.
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U.S. authorities expect to soon hand down a sentence in the case of Maria Butina, the 30-year-old Russian woman now held in a U.S. jail who has pleaded guilty of conspiring to influence American politics, accused of conspiracy and acting as a foreign agent. VOA’s Ricardo Marquina-Montanana traveled to the Siberian city of Barnaul to speak with Butina’s family about a case being watched around the world. Igor Tsikhanenka narrates.
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The World Refugee Council called Thursday for up to $20 billion stolen by government leaders and now frozen in the United States, Britain and other countries to be reallocated by courts to help millions of displaced people forced to flee conflict, persecution and victimization. 

 

The council also called for people responsible for the growing crisis of refugees and internally displaced people — including government leaders, military officers, and opposition and rebel figures — to be held accountable, all the way to the International Criminal Court. 

 

Chaired by former Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy, the 24-member council, which was formed in May 2017, includes former heads of state and ministers, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Leymah Gbowee, and leading business, civil society and human rights officials. 

 

Displacement at postwar peak

The 218-page report it launched Thursday goes beyond what the United Nations has done, at a time when the number of people forcibly displaced from their homes is 68.5 million, the highest since World War II. Its release also comes as populist and nationalist political figures “are exploiting people’s anxieties, fears” about refugees, Axworthy said, 

 

Tanzania’s former President Jakaya Kikwete, a council co-chair, said the current crisis is a consequence of some countries’ internal policies, authoritarianism, sectarianism, violence and conflicts, “but the other aspect is that the attitude towards refugees has changed.” 

 

“In the past people have been welcoming, friendly,” he said. “Now people are … closing the doors for people who are … fleeing from danger. But they say, ‘No, no, you can’t come’ … and refugees are being blamed as being the problem.”  

Kikwete said “unscrupulous politicians” are using refugees to get votes “because when you tell your people they’re dangerous,” they react, and the politicians become popular. 

 

At the same time, the report said, “the humanitarian commitment of nations, once a norm, has given way to nativism. Xenophobia — fear and exclusion of the ‘outsider’ — has gathered force in America, Europe, Australia and elsewhere.” 

 

The U.N. refugee agency, which relies on voluntary contributions, is seriously underfunded, and its head, Filippo Grandi, called in his latest report on forced displacement for “a new and far more comprehensive approach” to the crisis “so that countries and communities aren’t left dealing with this alone.” 

 

Axworthy told a news conference: “What we’ve really proposed is a way in which you have to get out of the box in which refugees are seen simply as ‘a humanitarian issue.’ ”  

“There has to be a much stronger level of involvement,” he said, in matters of security, development, human rights, accountability and finance for the world’s 25.4 million refugees and 40 million internally displaced, along with 3.1 million asylum seekers. 

 

Axworthy said the World Bank has estimated that there are between $15 billion and $20 billion “in purloined assets that various political leaders have stolen from their people.” 

 

Swiss actions

How much of that can be recovered, he said, depends on how many governments and countries are prepared to give their courts the right to reallocate the money. He pointed to Switzerland, which has done just that, as a model. 

 

Fen Osler Hampson, the council’s executive director, said Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s regime has complained it doesn’t have access to $3 billion in bank accounts frozen in the United States. He said there are several hundred million dollars belonging to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s family frozen in London bank accounts. And in the case of South Sudan, he said, “the generals have several hundred millions that are frozen in bank accounts in Nairobi.” 

 

“All it takes is political will to introduce that legislation” to give courts the right to reallocate that money, Hampson said.  

The World Refugee Council’s argument is that refugees and internally displaced people, the majority of them women and children, are the most vulnerable in the world and should therefore have the primary claim on those assets, he said. 

 

Other prospects for new money, Hampson said, are to leverage the vast resources of the private sector and create “refugee bonds,” similar to “green bonds” to tackle climate change. 

 

Another proposal is a kind of cap-and-trade system in which a country unwilling to resettle refugees for political reasons could contribute money to developing countries saddled with the huge costs of hosting millions of refugees, Hampson said. 

 

Remove the ‘impunity’

As for accountability, Axworthy said using the International Criminal Court to prosecute Myanmar’s military leaders for alleged crimes against humanity for the crackdown that led over 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh would “take away the impunity” for those responsible for massive displacement. 

 

The council also called for the drafting of a new protocol to the 1951 Refugee Convention requiring “collective responsibility for refugees.”  

  

And it urged nations to promote the achievements and contributions of refugees to counter the negative narrative of opponents and populists. 

 

“For example, Syrian refugees in Turkey have established an estimated 6,000 businesses providing 100,000 jobs,” the report said. “In Sweden, the intake of about 600,000 refugees and migrants has produced some of the highest growth rates in Europe and aided in addressing the challenges of an otherwise aging population.”
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A Muslim party said it would launch a legal bid to change the name of Bosnia’s Serb region, enraging all Serbian parties in the volatile country and 

prompting calls for calm from the European Union. 

The largest Bosnian Muslim party, SDA, said Wednesday that the name Republika Srpska (Serb Republic) discriminated against 

Bosniaks and Croats there, and that it would challenge it in the 

constitutional court.

Under the 1995 Dayton peace accords that ended Bosnia’s 1992-95 war, the country is split into two highly autonomous regions, the Serb-dominated Serb Republic and the federation dominated by Muslim Bosniaks and Croats, linked via a weak central government.

SDA leader Bakir Izetbegovic said the legal challenge was a response to “intensified attacks on Bosnia and its integrity” by Bosnian Serb nationalist leader Milorad Dodik. 

Dodik, who heads the Serb SNSD party, said the initiative was anti-constitutional and that Serbs will halt their work in the central government.

“If the appeal is accepted, we will call a special session of the Republika Srpska National Assembly at which we will 

decide about the future status of the RS [Serb Republic],” Dodik said after meeting other Serb politicians. He currently chairs Bosnia’s inter-ethnic three-man presidency as its Serb member.

‘Polarizing’ actions

The EU delegation in Bosnia issued a statement saying: “We call on all political parties to refrain from political maneuvers aimed at distracting attention from the real issues facing Bosnia.

“Polarizing statements and actions … will not facilitate the formation of new authorities at a crucial moment for the country’s EU path,” the delegation added. 

Bosnia is hoping to become an EU candidate this year. 

Bosnia’s international peace overseer, Valentin Inzko, said the name challenge “in the midst of discussions on government formation is irresponsible and counterproductive, and further undermines the trust between constituent peoples and their political representatives.”

Following parliamentary and presidential elections in October, a dispute between Serb, Croat and Bosniak presidency members over Bosnia’s integration into NATO has delayed the formation of the central government.

The Bosniak and Croat pro-NATO presidency members refuse to approve Dodik’s candidate for the job of prime minister unless 

he pledges support for NATO integration. But pro-Russian Dodik is strongly against it.
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U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has inched up slightly in the eyes of women’s groups who said on Wednesday he has delivered on some promises to make the global organization a feminist institution but faces a major backlash and resistance.

The Feminist U.N. Campaign, a coalition of women’s rights groups, advocates and U.N. staff, gave him a grade of B-, up from the C+ it gave him a year ago.

The coalition launched its report card after the secretary-general said he would be a feminist leader when he took office two years ago.

Global movement

In that time, the #MeToo campaign against sexual harassment and assault has become a global movement.

Guterres has promoted women’s rights and equality publicly, sought gender parity in leadership and rolled out efforts against sexual harassment and gender-based violence, the report said.

But an internal backlash and bureaucracy threaten his progress. His efforts to make structural changes have met “considerable resistance” from staff and member states that resist women’s rights, it said.

Lyric Thompson, an author of the report and a director at the Washington-based International Center for Research on Women, said she thinks Guterres has “a genuine intent and interest in being a champion” of women’s rights.

“The question is can he do everything in his power to be a feminist leader who enables that transformation and who makes it the new normal?” she said to the Thomson Reuters Foundation. The U.N. is “years away” from being a feminist institution, and attitudes of immunity and privilege operate to scuttle equality efforts, she said.

Just last week, a U.N. survey showed one third of its staff and contractors experienced sexual harassment in the past two years.

More than 30,000 people answered the survey, complaining of offensive jokes, remarks and sexual stories and of being touched in ways that made them uncomfortable.

The U.N. has tried to increase transparency and strengthen how it deals with such accusations over the past few years after a string of sexual exploitation and abuse accusations against U.N. peacekeepers in Africa.

The head of the U.N. agency for HIV and AIDS is stepping down in June, six months before his term ends, after an independent panel said his “defective leadership” tolerated “a culture of harassment, including sexual harassment, bullying, and abuse of power.”

‘Considerable progress’

The secretary-general’s office said it was pleased that the women’s groups saw improvement in Guterres’ handling of gender issues and agreed that more needs to be dome.

“At the same time, we believe the secretary-general has achieved considerable progress within the complex U.N. system at achieving real reforms to make the U.N. a better workplace for women and men alike,” his office said.

Guterres, the former prime minister of Portugal, was sworn in December 2016 after a campaign in which many countries urged selection of a woman. The U.N. has not been headed by a woman since its creation in 1945.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Wednesday in his latest effort to build support for a Turkish-controlled military security zone in Syria.

“The U.S. has already expressed a positive stance. Neither do we have problems [concerning the safe zone] with Russia,” said Erdogan at a joint press conference in Moscow.

Erdogan is proposing a 250-kilometer-long and 32-kilometer-deep zone in northeast Syria to protect the Turkish border from the Syrian YPG Kurdish militia. Ankara accuses the YPG of links to Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey.

​However, the Turkish president envisages the zone not only providing security, but also an opportunity to ease Turkey’s refugee burden and growing economic difficulties.

At the Moscow press conference, Erdogan said the safe zone will allow Syrian refugees in Turkey to return.

The Turkish president said around 300,000 Syrians out of the 4 million that have sought refuge in Turkey have returned to two other regions in Syria captured from the YPG by Turkish forces in the past year.

“There is a huge amount of discontent in Turkey about Syrians,” said political analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners. “The average, poor AKP [Erdogan’s party] voter, they see Syrian refugees as a competitor for limited public resources. It’s a huge problem for Erdogan.”

Ankara claims the cost of hosting Syrian refugees is over $30 billion.

The deteriorating economic situation exacerbates the Turkish public’s discontent over the refugees. Many economists predict Turkey will go into recession this year. Recent opinion polls indicate Erdogan’s AKP party’s commanding lead over its rivals is rapidly eroding, just ahead of critical local elections in March.

Housing projects

With a possible eye to kick-starting the economy, Erdogan earlier this month unveiled plans for major housing projects for returning Syrians in the proposed buffer zone in Syria.

“My plan would be to build two-story houses with gardens of 500-square meters so the inhabitants could begin a new life,” Erdogan said, adding that a buffer zone “would also block migration completely.”

Former senior Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen believes Ankara is looking to the EU to fund the construction project.

“For reconstruction of Syria, it will not be the U.S. because the U.S. say they will not take part in the construction as long as Assad stays,” Selcen said.

“The EU seems to be quite willing to play that role because they fear a new influx of refugees emanating from Syria. And Erdogan saw that clearly when dealing with the EU,” he added.

Turkey’s construction industry has been among the hardest hit by the country’s economic slowdown.

“More or less, the private construction industry is coming to a complete standstill,” Yesilada said. “It accounts for 10 percent of the GDP. In terms of employment, it’s hugely important, as it’s a labor-intensive industry. The entire construction industry is one of the pillars of economic growth.”

A senior economist for an international bank, speaking anonymously, claims Turkey’s construction sector could be in doldrums for a decade, due to the sector’s heavy debts and excessive unsold inventories.

Economic boost

International relations professor Huseyin Bagci of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University said projects in Syria may well be able to boost Turkey’s beleaguered construction industry.

“There is no doubt Syria has to be rebuilt, and the Turkish contribution is going to be immense,” Bagci said. “We have been doing this in the good old times of 2008, 9, and 10. Turkey was building [in Syria] hotels, streets, train stations, many things. Why not start again? Reconciliation with Syria in economic terms would be perfect for Turkey.”

Bagci said, however, that any major reconstruction projects would require Ankara’s reopen diplomatic relations with Damascus. Erdogan steadfastly refuses to normalize ties until Syrian President Bashar al-Assad relinquishes power.

Analysts suggest Europe would also likely balk at providing significant financial support for projects in Turkey’s proposed safe zone without the Syrian intervention receiving international validation from the United Nations.

Syrian projects may not be enough to boost Turkey’s construction sector very much.

“It’s feasible TOKI [Turkish State constructor] can build satellite cities in Syria,” Yesilada said, “but turkey is a country where 600,000 new units are sold annually. In Syria, you are going to get a tenth of that a year. So, it’s going to help, but it’s not a lifesaver.”

Selcen also questions the number of Syrians who are ready to return.

“There are not significant numbers of Syrians returning,” he said. “The Syrians that are 3 million or so in Turkey. They are here to stay for the foreseeable future. And if you were in their shoes, would you want to leave a place like Istanbul for a destroyed country like Syria?”
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A new study by a defense analysis company indicates there was a 33 percent drop in global terror attacks in 2018, and terrorism fatalities fell to a 10-year low.

Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Center released its annual Global Attack Index on Wednesday, saying one of the central reasons for the decrease in incidents and fatalities was the decrease in violence in Syria, where the government has gained control of territory previously occupied by Islamic State militants.

Attacks by IS in 2018 declined by nearly 75 percent compared to 2017. 

The study said in addition to Syria, IS was also affected by losses in Iraq, which “noticeably reduced” the militants’ capability to operate, forcing them to switch to “lower intensity insurgent operations.”

With violence down in Syria, Afghanistan became the deadliest country worldwide in 2018 in terms of nonmilitant fatalities. Jane’s said attacks rose by almost one-third last year, while fatalities rose 80 percent.

Ukraine also saw a marked rise in violence. In the east, home to a Russia-backed separatist insurgency, attacks have been rising 18.4 percent over the past year. The report attributed that rise “almost entirely” to two pro-Russia separatist groups operating in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region where the separatist movement is strongest.

The report said it recorded 15,321 attacks in 2018, which resulted in a total of 13,483 nonmilitant fatalities.

Jane’s has been issuing its reports since 2009. It said the 2018 study showed the lowest fatality numbers since it began issuing the report 10 years ago.
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