The corruption scandal at the European Parliament deepened this week as officials said they would seek to lift immunity on two more lawmakers accused of taking bribes from Qatar.

The Gulf state has warned that the investigation could impact economic ties between Europe and Qatar, a key emerging supplier of energy to the EU as it tries to reduce reliance on Russia.

Andrea Cozzolino, an Italian member of the European Parliament, and his Belgian colleague, Marc Tarabella, are the latest suspects in a corruption scandal that has rocked Brussels. Both men deny taking bribes from Qatar.

Following a yearlong investigation, Belgian police last month raided offices and homes linked to current and former members of the European Parliament. They discovered around $1.6 million in cash.

Police said nearly $158,000 was discovered inside the home of Greek MEP Eva Kaili, one of 14 vice presidents of the parliament. She is accused of taking bribes from Qatar.

“The purpose of the bribery was to favor this Gulf country in the economic, financial and political decisions of the European Parliament,” Eric van Duyse, a spokesperson for the Belgian Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office, told reporters December 13.

Qatar links

The European Parliament voted last month to strip Kaili of her role as vice president.

In November, following a visit to Qatar ahead of its hosting of the FIFA World Cup, Kaili spoke strongly in favor of the Gulf state during a debate with other European lawmakers, accusing its critics of hypocrisy.

“Today the World Cup in Qatar is a proof actually of how sports diplomacy can achieve a historical transformation of the country, with reforms that inspired the Arab world. I alone said that Qatar is a front-runner in labor rights,” Kaili said November 21.

“[Qatar] committed to a vision by choice and they opened to the world. Still, some here are calling to discriminate [against] them — they bully them and they accuse everyone that talks to them or engages [with them] of corruption. But still they take their gas,” she added.

Kaili’s partner, Francesco Giorgi, an Italian parliamentary assistant, is also accused of involvement in the bribery allegations. It’s reported that police found $789,000 in his hotel room, stashed in a suitcase. Both Kaili and Giorgi deny the accusations and are being held in custody pending the investigation.

An Italian former member of the European Parliament, Pier Antonio Panzeri, and an Italian lobbyist named as Niccolo Figa-Talamanca are also being investigated by Belgian police. They also deny the accusations.

Visa deal

There are growing demands for recent policy decisions on Qatar to be re-examined in the wake of the bribery allegations, said Andre Wolf of the Berlin-based Centre for European Policy, an expert on EU-Qatar relations.

“In the last couple of months, there was a legislative procedure regarding the liberalization of visas for citizens of Qatar to Europe, to the EU, and apparently [Qatar] tried to exert influence on the decision-making regarding this legislation,” Wolf told VOA. “This legislation has already been passed. It has been suspended now as a consequence of the ongoing investigation.”

Qatar denies trying to bribe EU officials. It has warned that relations with Europe are at risk.

Gas shortage

Germany and Belgium are among European nations that have signed deals to buy Qatari liquified natural gas, or LNG, as the bloc tries to wean itself off Russian energy in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

In a statement, the Qatari mission to the EU said last month, “The decision to impose such a discriminatory restriction that limits dialogue and cooperation on Qatar before the legal process has ended will negatively affect regional and global security cooperation, as well as discussions around global energy.”

Analyst Wolf said the timing of the scandal was delicate. “Qatar, with its developed infrastructure and its relative proximity to Europe, will be an important player and will be ever more important for overall gas imports to Europe,” he said.

World Cup

Wolf added that Qatar was angered by European criticism of its human rights and equality laws during its hosting of last month’s World Cup.

“It also affected, I think, some rather deeply rooted issues related to culture and religion, which should better not be blended with the World Cup or other political issues. But I think the bilateral relations can overcome this period because it’s in both their interests to cooperate,” he told VOA.

The president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, warned last month that the criminal proceedings were damaging trust in the EU. “Trust that has taken years to build but only moments to destroy will need to be rebuilt, and this work starts now,” Metsola said.
…

Mourners pour into St. Peter’s Square for the funeral of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI to pay their final respects to the German theologian who made history by retiring and to participate in a rare requiem Mass for a dead pontiff presided over by a living one, The Associated Press reports.
…

Mourners poured into St. Peter’s Square early Thursday for the funeral of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI to pay their final respects to the German theologian who made history by retiring and to participate in a rare requiem Mass for a dead pontiff presided over by a living one.

Thick fog shrouded the Vatican before dawn as police manned metal detectors and barricades and herded well-wishers into the square. Heads of state and royalty, clergy from around the world and thousands of faithful are flocking to the Vatican, despite Benedict’s requests for simplicity and official efforts to keep the first funeral for an pope emeritus in modern times low-key.

Many hailed from Benedict’s native Bavaria and donned traditional dress, including boiled wool coats to guard against the morning chill.

“We came to pay homage to Benedict and wanted to be here today to say goodbye,” said Raymond Mainar, who traveled from a small village east of Munich for the funeral. “He was a very good pope.”

The former Joseph Ratzinger, who died December 31 at age 95, is considered one of the 20th century’s greatest theologians and spent his lifetime upholding church doctrine. But he will go down in history for a singular, revolutionary act that changed the future of the papacy: He retired, the first pope in six centuries to do so.

Pope Francis has praised Benedict’s courage to step aside, saying it “opened the door” to other popes doing the same. Francis, for his part, recently said he has already left written instructions outlining the conditions in which he too would resign.

Francis was due to preside over the funeral, which authorities estimated some 100,000 would attend, higher than an original estimate of 60,000, Italian media reported, citing police security plans.

Only Italy and Germany were invited to send official delegations, but other heads of state and government took the Vatican up on its offer and come in their “private capacity.” They included several other heads of state, at least four prime ministers and two delegations of royal representatives.

Early Thursday the Vatican released the official history of Benedict’s life, a short document in Latin that was placed in a metal cylinder in his coffin before it was sealed, along with the coins and medallions minted during his papacy and his pallium stoles.

The document gave ample attention to Benedict’s historic resignation and referred to him as “pope emeritus,” citing verbatim the Latin words he uttered on February 11, 2013, when he announced he would retire.

The document, known as a “rogito” or deed, also cited his theological and papal legacy, including his outreach to Anglicans and Jews and his efforts to combat clergy sexual abuse “continually calling the church to conversion, prayer, penance and purification.”

The funeral rite calls for Benedict’s coffin to be carried out from the basilica and placed before the altar as the faithful recite the rosary. The ritual itself is modeled on the code used for dead popes but with some modifications given Benedict was not a reigning pontiff when he died.

After the Mass, Benedict’s cypress coffin was to be placed inside a zinc one, then an outer oak casket before being entombed in the crypt in the grottos underneath St. Peter’s Basilica that once held the tomb of St. John Paul II before it was moved upstairs.

While the ritual is novel, it does have some precedent: In 1802, Pope Pius VII presided over the funeral in St. Peter’s of his predecessor, Pius VI, who had died in exile in France in 1799 as a prisoner of Napoleon.

Some 200,000 paid tribute to Benedict during three days of public viewing in the basilica, with one of the last, Friar Rosario Vitale, spending an hour praying by his body. He said Benedict had given him a special dispensation to begin the process of becoming a priest, which was required because of a physical disability.

“So today I came here to pray on his tomb, on his body and to say ‘thank you’ for my future priesthood, for my ministry,” he said.

Benedict never intended his retirement to last as long as it did — at nearly 10 years it was longer than his eight-year pontificate. And the unprecedented situation of a retired pope living alongside a reigning one prompted calls for protocols to guide future popes emeritus to prevent any confusion about who is really in charge.

During St. John Paul II’s quarter-century as pope, Ratzinger spearheaded a crackdown on dissent as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, taking action against the left-leaning liberation theology that spread in Latin America in the 1970s and against dissenting theologians and nuns who didn’t toe the Vatican’s hard line on matters like sexual morals.

His legacy was marred by the clergy sexual abuse scandal, even though he recognized earlier than most the “filth” of priests who raped children, and actually laid the groundwork for the Holy See to punish them.

As cardinal and pope, he passed sweeping church legislation that resulted in 848 priests being defrocked from 2004-2014, roughly his pontificate with a year on either end. But abuse survivors still held him responsible for the crisis, for failing to sanction any bishop who moved abusers around and identifying him as embodying the clerical system that long protected the institution over victims.

“Any celebration that marks the life of abuse enablers like Benedict must end,” said the main U.S. survivor group SNAP.
…

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday sent a frigate armed with the country’s latest Zircon hypersonic missile on a trans-ocean cruise in a show of force as tensions with the West escalate over the war in Ukraine.

Russia says the Zircon missile can evade any Western air defenses by flying at an astounding 11,265 kilometer per hour.

Here is a glance at the ship and its weapons.

Pride of the Russian navy

Commissioned by the navy in 2018 following long trials, the Admiral Gorshkov is the first ship in the new series of frigates that were designed to replace the aging Soviet-built destroyers as a key strike component of the Russian navy.

Armed with an array of missiles, the ship is 130-meters long and has a crew of about 200.

In 2019, it circled the world oceans on a 35,000-nautical mile journey.

Intensive tests

The Admiral Gorshkov has served as the main testbed for the Zircon, Russia’s latest hypersonic missile.

In recent years, Zircon has undergone a series of tests, including being launched at various practice targets. The military declared the tests successful, and Zircon officially entered service last fall.

Zircon is intended to arm Russian cruisers, frigates and submarines and could be used against both enemy ships and ground targets. It is one of several hypersonic missiles that Russia has developed.

Putin praises Zircon as ‘unique’

Putin has hailed Zircon as a potent weapon capable of penetrating any existing anti-missile defenses by flying nine times faster than the speed of sound at a range of more than 1,000 kilometers.

Putin has emphasized that Zircon gives the Russian military a long-range conventional strike capability, allowing it to strike any enemy targets with precision.

Russia’s hypersonic weapons drive emerged as the U.S. has been working on its own Conventional Prompt Global Strike capability that envisions hitting an adversary’s strategic targets with precision-guided conventional weapons anywhere in the world within one hour.

Putin heralded Zircon as Russia’s answer to that, claiming that the new weapon has no rival, giving Russia a strategic edge.

Months before ordering the invasion of Ukraine, Putin put the U.S. and its NATO allies on notice when he warned that Russian warships armed with Zircon would give Russia a capability to strike the adversary’s “decision-making centers” within minutes if deployed in neutral waters.

Speaking via video link during Wednesday’s sendoff ceremony, Putin again praised Zircon as a “unique weapon” without an “equivalent for it in any country in the world.”

Other Russian weapons

Russia has commissioned the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicles for some of its ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles that constitute part of Russia’s strategic nuclear triad. Putin has hailed Avangard’s ability to maneuver at hypersonic speeds on its approach to target, dodging air defenses.

The Russian military also has deployed the Kinzhal hypersonic missiles on its MiG-31 aircraft and used them during the war in Ukraine to strike some priority targets. Kinzhal reportedly has a range of about 1,500 kilometers.

Patrol duty

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to Putin on Wednesday that the Admiral Gorshkov will patrol the Atlantic and Indian oceans and the Mediterranean Sea but didn’t give further details.

Shoigu said the Admiral Gorshkov’s crew will focus on “countering the threats to Russia, maintaining regional peace and stability jointly with friendly countries.” He added the crew will practice with hypersonic weapons and long-range cruise missiles “in various conditions.”

Some military experts say a single, hypersonic missile-armed warship is no match for the massive naval forces of the U.S. and its allies.

But others noted that the frigate’s potential deployment close to U.S. shores could be part of Putin’s strategy to up the ante in the Ukrainian conflict.

“This is a message to the West that Russia has nuclear-tipped missiles that can easily pierce any missile defenses,” pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergei Markov wrote in a commentary.
…

Iran warned France on Wednesday of consequences after satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo published cartoons depicting supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that Tehran deemed to be insulting. 

The weekly magazine had published dozens of cartoons ridiculing the highest religious and political figure in the Islamic republic as part of a competition it launched in December in support of the three-month-old protest movement in Iran. 

“The insulting and indecent act of a French publication in publishing cartoons against the religious and political authority will not go without an effective and decisive response,” tweeted Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. 

“We will not allow the French government to go beyond its bounds. They have definitely chosen the wrong path,” he added, without spelling out the consequences. 

Later Wednesday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said it had summoned French Ambassador Nicolas Roche. 

“France has no right to insult the sanctities of other Muslim countries and nations under the pretext of freedom of expression,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said. 

“Iran is waiting for the French government’s explanation and compensatory action in condemning the unacceptable behavior of the French publication,” he added. 

Seen by supporters as a champion of freedom of speech and by critics as needlessly provocative, Charlie Hebdo’s style is controversial, even within France. 

But the country was united in grief when in January 2015 it was targeted in a deadly attack by Islamist gunmen who claimed to be avenging the magazine’s decision to publish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. 

‘Not last word’

The issue in the latest controversy contained a variety of sexual images depicting Khamenei and fellow clerics. Other cartoons pointed to the authorities’ use of capital punishment as a tactic to quell the protests.

“It was a way to show our support for Iranian men and women who risk their lives to defend their freedom against the theocracy that has oppressed them since 1979,” Charlie Hebdo director Laurent Sourisseau, known as Riss, wrote in an editorial. 

All the cartoons published “have the merit of defying the authority that the supposed supreme leader claims to be, as well as the cohort of his servants and other henchmen,” he added. 

Nathalie Loiseau, a French member of the European Parliament and former minister loyal to President Emmanuel Macron, described Iran’s response as an “interference attempt and threat” to Charlie Hebdo.  

“Let it be perfectly clear: The repressive and theocratic regime in Tehran has nothing to teach France,” she said. 

Khamenei, the successor of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, is appointed for life. Above day-to-day politics, criticism of him is prohibited inside Iran. 

Khomeini in 1989 famously issued a religious decree, or fatwa, ordering Muslims to kill the British author Salman Rushdie for what he deemed the blasphemous nature of Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. 

Many activists blamed Iran last year when the writer was stabbed at an event in New York, but Tehran denied any link. 

The Iranian regime has been shaken by three months of protests triggered by the September 16 death in custody of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian Kurd who was arrested for allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code for women. 

It has responded with a crackdown that Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights said has killed at least 476 people in protests, which Iranian officials generally describe as “riots.” 

Charlie Hebdo published the caricatures in a special edition to mark the anniversary of the deadly attack on its Paris office, which left 12 people dead, including some of its best-known cartoonists. 

“Eight years later, religious intolerance has not said its last word,” its director said. “It continues its work in defiance of international protests and respect for the most basic human rights.” 
…

Pope Francis praised Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s “acute and gentle thought” as he presided over a packed Wednesday general audience in the Vatican, while thousands of people paid tribute to the former pope on the final day of public viewing in St. Peter’s Basilica.

Francis was greeted by an enthusiastic crowd in the Paul VI auditorium and shouts of “Viva il papa!” or “Long live the pope” as he arrived for his weekly catechism appointment with the faithful.

This week’s audience was conducted as tens of thousands of people continued to flock to St. Peter’s to pay their respects to Benedict’s body, lying in state, before the official viewing ends Wednesday evening. From Monday through midday Wednesday, nearly 160,000 people had passed through the basilica, the Vatican said.

“It is my duty to come,” said Małgorzata Nowska, a Polish resident of Rome as she paid her respects Wednesday. She said she wanted to give Benedict “a last hug, a last prayer.”

Francis is due to preside over the late German pope’s funeral on Thursday, an event that is drawing heads of state and royalty despite Benedict’s requests for simplicity and Vatican efforts to keep the first Vatican funeral for an emeritus pope in modern times low-key. Only Italy and Germany were invited to send official delegations, and the Italian government announced Wednesday that Italian and European Union flags would fly at half-staff on public buildings across the country Thursday.

Francis drew applause when he opened his remarks by giving a shout-out to all those who were outside paying tribute to Benedict, whom he called a “great master of catechesis.”

“His acute and gentle thought was not self-referential, but ecclesial, because he always wanted to accompany us in the encounter with Jesus,” Francis said.

Later Wednesday, Vatican officials were to place Benedict’s body in a cypress coffin — the first of three coffins —along with a brief, written summary of his historic papacy, the coins minted during his pontificate and his pallium stoles.

After the funeral in the piazza, the remains will be carried back into the basilica, where the coffin will placed inside a zinc one, and then finally into another made from oak.

In keeping with Benedict’s wishes, his remains will be placed in the crypt once occupied by the tomb of St. John Paul II in the grottos underneath the basilica. John Paul’s tomb was moved upstairs into the main basilica ahead of his 2011 beatification.

Benedict, who was elected pope in 2005 following John Paul’s death, became the first pope in six centuries years to resign when he announced in 2013 he no longer had the strength to lead the Catholic Church. After Francis was elected pope, Benedict spent his nearly decade-long retirement in a converted monastery in the Vatican Gardens.

“We can’t forget the example that he gave in his resignation, that he more or less said, ‘Look, I’m not in this for the prestige, the power of the office, I’m in it for service, as Jesus taught,'” recalled Cardinal Timothy Dolan, whom Benedict named archbishop of New York in 2009 and cardinal in 2012.

Thursday’s rite takes into account the unusual situation in which a reigning pope will preside over a funeral for a retired one, making important changes to a funeral ritual for popes that is highly codified.

Two key prayers, from the diocese of Rome and the Eastern rite churches, that were recited during John Paul’s funeral, for example, will be omitted because Benedict wasn’t pope when he died and because both branches of the Catholic Church still have a reigning pope as their leader: Francis. 

While the funeral will be novel, it does have some precedent: In 1802, Pope Pius VII presided over the funeral in St. Peter’s of his predecessor, Pius VI, who had died in exile in France in 1799 as a prisoner of Napoleon, the Vatican noted Wednesday.
…