budapest — Hungary’s NATO allies are turning up the pressure on Prime Minister Viktor Orban to swiftly approve Sweden’s accession to the alliance after his MPs refused an opportunity to vote on the issue this week.

Sweden applied to join the alliance in May 2022 in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February of that year. But Hungary has repeatedly delayed ratification.

Hungary is now the only country preventing Sweden from joining NATO after Turkey finally gave its approval last month. Ankara had initially raised concerns over Sweden’s purported harboring of Kurdish separatist groups, which Turkey considers terrorists.

No-show vote

With Hungary’s parliament currently on winter recess, opposition MPs convened an extraordinary session of lawmakers Monday in an attempt to force a vote.

Lawmakers from Orban’s Fidesz Party refused to attend, though, despite Orban declaring last month that he supports Sweden’s accession to NATO and would urge his party to approve the application at the first opportunity.

Tompos Marton of Hungary’s Momentum Party was among the opposition lawmakers pushing for Monday’s vote.

“What is quite ridiculous for us is that we understood why Turkey was pushing the issue. They had demands. However, in Hungary, there was no demand articulated at all,” Marton told VOA Wednesday, adding that many suspected Orban had different motives.

“On the one hand, we could say that it’s a miscalculation, they [Fidesz] just didn’t catch the flow, didn’t understand the situation. On the other hand, there are also understandings that the only person who benefits from this is [Russian President] Vladimir Putin. And Mr. Orban has done a few favors for him already, and why not another one?” Marton said.

Agnes Vadai, a lawmaker with the opposition Democratic Coalition, echoed those concerns.

“Orban is personally responsible. He wants to favor Putin, and through that, breaking the unity of NATO,” she told Reuters.

The Hungarian government repeatedly refused VOA requests for an interview. In the past, Orban has denied favoring Putin but has called for an immediate cease-fire in Ukraine, arguing that Western support for Kyiv will only prolong the war.

Allied pressure

Hungary’s NATO allies are turning up the pressure. U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman spoke to reporters after attending Monday’s session of parliament in Budapest.

“The prime minister pledged to convene parliament to urge parliament to act at its earliest opportunity,” he said on Monday. “Today was an opportunity to do that, and we look forward to watching this closely, and to Hungary acting expeditiously.”

U.S. Senator Ben Cardin, chairman of the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said earlier this month that Hungary was “the least reliable” NATO ally and that Washington should consider imposing sanctions, along with a suspension of the U.S. Visa Waiver Program for Hungarian citizens.

A German government spokesperson said Tuesday that Hungary’s approval of Sweden’s accession was a “matter of loyalty” to the NATO alliance.

Hungary’s demands

Orban has made no specific demand of Sweden but has indicated displeasure over its criticism of perceived democratic backsliding in Hungary.

Fidesz MPs want Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson to visit Budapest before they approve his country’s NATO membership.

“If it is important for the Swedes, then obviously they will come to Budapest. Or at least they will make steps that will lead to the Hungarian MPs to vote for the accession with good hearts,” Gergely Gulyas, Orban’s chief of staff, told reporters in Budapest February 1. “I think it is better if we start running to jump a hurdle if we know that we can jump over it.”

Meanwhile, Kristersson has said he will visit Budapest only after Hungary has approved his country’s accession to NATO, adding that Sweden’s membership and Hungary’s perceived offense at the criticism of its democracy should not be linked.

Loss of face

With his country now isolated among allies, Orban is looking for a way out, said analyst Peter Kreko, executive director of the Political Capital think-tank in Budapest.

“Fidesz and Orban maneuvered themselves into a dead end. And they do not seem to be able to correct the mistake, because right now, I think they put themselves in the center of attention to an extent that it’s just more difficult to leave this situation without a loss of face,” Kreko told VOA.

“I do think Orban will not let this situation go until he receives some kind of public recognition,” said Kreko. “I think for Orban, this is partially an ego game. This is about showing that he deserves respect in the international domain.”

Hungary’s parliament is scheduled to return from recess on February 26. It is not clear if or when a vote on Sweden’s accession will take place.
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London — Britain’s Prince William returned to public duty on Wednesday following his wife Kate’s surgery and news that King Charles had cancer, as his younger brother Prince Harry was set to return to the United States after a flying visit to see their father. 

William, the heir to the throne, had postponed all his planned engagements to look after his three children after Kate, 42, underwent planned abdominal surgery on Jan. 16, and spent two weeks in hospital recovering.  

Since then, his father has undergone treatment at the same hospital for an enlarged prostate, before Buckingham Palace announced on Monday that subsequent tests on the 75-year-old monarch had revealed he had a form of cancer. 

On Wednesday, William, 41, made his first official public appearance since the series of health blows to the royals when he carried out an investiture – a ceremony to hand out state honors – at Windsor Castle and will later attend a gala dinner for London’s Air Ambulance Charity. 

With the king postponing public duties as he has out-patient treatment and Kate not expected to return to engagements until after Easter, the onus will be on the remaining royals especially William and Charles’ wife Queen Camilla, to provide the public face of the monarchy. 

Royal author Robert Hardman said William had already taken on substantial state duties towards the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign when she was hampered by mobility issues. 

“In that regard, it’s not that different but obviously there’s the burden of expectation,” Hardman told Reuters. “On many occasions he will have to stand in, he’ll be sort of quasi head of state in much the same way that Prince Charles was when the queen was infirm.” 

On Tuesday, the king travelled with Camilla to Sandringham House, his home in eastern England, after a brief meeting of about 30 minutes with his estranged son Prince Harry who had just flown in to see his father after the king told him he had cancer. 

Harry has barely been on speaking terms with many of the Windsors following his criticism of the monarchy since stepping down from royal duties almost four years ago.  

A royal source said there were no plans for him to see his elder brother William during his visit to Britain. After only about 24 hours in Britain, Harry was seen at Heathrow Airport from where he was expected to fly home to California where he now lives with wife Meghan and their two children. 

Despite the diagnosis, Charles is planning to continue with much of his private work as monarch and dealing with state papers. He will hold his regular weekly audience with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak by phone on Wednesday, Sunak’s spokesman confirmed.  

Buckingham Palace has not given any details of the condition other than to say it was not prostate cancer, but said the king was remaining “wholly positive” and looking forward to returning to public duty as soon as possible.
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washington — Azerbaijan is set to hold snap presidential elections on Wednesday, with seven candidates vying for the top position. Incumbent President Ilham Aliyev is widely expected to secure victory, though no official reason has been given for the early election. 

The leading opposition parties, the Azerbaijan Popular Front Party (APFP) and the Musavat Party, are boycotting the elections, claiming that the vote will not be held in a transparent and objective manner. 

“We should protest Ilham Aliyev’s desire for power for life. He has been in power for 20 years by falsifying elections,” Ali Karimli, chairman of the APFP has said. 

Many local political activists and human rights defenders do not consider the elections credible. 

“There is no democratic election environment in Azerbaijan,” political analyst Nasimi Mammadli told VOA. “In fact,” he added, “freedom of assembly has been banned in the country. There are serious problems with the media freedom. There are problems with the freedom of expression. There are reports of more than 250 political prisoners in the country.”  

According to Seymur Hazi, deputy chairman of the APFP, the elections in Azerbaijan do not meet modern standards. 

“Due to many parameters, it is very difficult to call the process taking place in Azerbaijan an election,” he said. 

The head of the National Front Party, Razi Nurullayev, one of the seven presidential candidates, said it’s not right to criticize the elections without actively participating in the process. 

“Even if the elections are not free and democratic, if you are an opposition party, and if you want to lead the people, you must endure those hardships. You have to see the process with your own eyes, you have to gather experience and you have to join the struggle,” he said. 

The Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has issued an interim report detailing the political atmosphere on the eve of the elections. The ODIHR has noted that six candidates participating in the elections have openly supported the president in the past. 

Elections amid pressure on media

The elections come during an increased crackdown on journalists over the past couple of months. At least 10 journalists have been detained since late 2023. Many of the journalists working for Abzas Media, an online media outlet, have been accused of smuggling foreign currency. If convicted, they could face up to eight years in prison. The journalists deny the accusations and link their persecution to investigations into suspected corruption among high-ranking officials in Azerbaijan. 

“In the last three months, there have been numerous detentions and arrests of journalists and managers of several online media outlets, several of which were in the reporting period. This, along with the restrictive nature of the new media law, the prohibition of foreign funding of media, and the country-wide blocking of some major critical media websites, was raised as concerns by several ODIHR EOM [election observation mission] interlocutors,” the ODIHR report said, referring to a 2022 media law. 

Concern about fair elections

The elections follow the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe’s (PACE) resolution to suspend the mandate of the Azerbaijani delegation. The organization has cited “serious concerns” regarding Azerbaijan’s ability to conduct free and fair elections, among other things, as the basis for its decision. 

German Member of Parliament Frank Schwabe, in an interview with VOA, said that one of the reasons for PACE’s decision to suspend Azerbaijan was that its monitoring mission was not invited to observe the elections. 

“Azerbaijan not just invited, they organized dozens of election observation missions, which I would call fake election observation missions,” he said. 

According to Schwabe, “the very difficult” situation in Azerbaijan makes it impossible to think of free and fair elections there. 

“The outcome of the elections of the 7th of February are already clear. Everyone knows it,” he said. 

Parliament not observing vote

The European Parliament has also announced that it will not be observing the snap presidential election. 

“The European Parliament will not observe this election process and therefore will not comment on the process or the results that will be announced later,” co-chairs of the European Parliament’s Democracy Support and Election Coordination Group (DEG) David McAllister and Thomas Tobe said in a January 15 statement. “No individual member of the European Parliament has the authority to observe or comment on this election process on behalf of the parliament.” 

Authorities claim that all conditions have been created for holding democratic and free elections in the country. The Central Election Commission has said that the presidential candidates have all the opportunities provided by law, including equal opportunities to conduct election campaigns. 

“I can say that all conditions and necessary circumstances exist for holding fair, transparent and free elections in our country,” Chairman of the Supreme Court and Judicial-Legal Counsel Inam Karimov said during his speech at the regional seminar-deliberation held in Baku on January 8. 

The country’s current leader — Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev — has been in power since 2003 and has since won elections in 2008, 2013 and 2018 by a wide margin. According to many international rights organizations, none of those elections was considered free or fair by international observers. 

Constitutional amendments following the referendums in 2009 and 2016 increased the presidential term from five to seven years and removed the limit on the number of terms a president can serve. 

This story originated in VOA’s Azerbaijani Service. 
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Strasbourg, France — The EU unveiled plans for stringent rules on Tuesday to tackle child sexual abuse, giving victims more time to bring their abusers to justice.

It is estimated that one in five children in the European Union suffer from some form of sexual abuse or exploitation, European Commission Vice President Dubravka Suica told a news conference.

The commission is seeking to expand the type of criminal offenses related to child sexual abuse, with new technologies blamed for a proliferation of new forms of abuse.

Reported cases have been rising across the 27-country EU, with concerns that easy-to-use AI tools will spur an even bigger spread of harmful content.

In 2022, 1.5 million cases of child sexual abuse were reported across the bloc, up from one million in 2020, Suica told reporters in Strasbourg.

The new rules would update crime definitions to include abusive material in deepfakes or AI-generated content, and livestreaming abuse.

New offences would also include possessing or exchanging so-called pedophile “handbooks” — in which abusers provide guidance to each other, said Ylva Johansson, the EU’s internal affairs commissioner.

The proposals will be debated by the European Parliament and the EU’s member states before any formal adoption.

“New technologies and the digital era we live in have, unfortunately, increased the threat and the abuse both offline and online,” Suica said.

The commission’s proposals would update rules from 2011.

The plans include changing the statutes of limitations, because officials said that all too often, victims were only able to come forward years after the event, and were unable to mount a case.

Under the new rules, the statutes would not start until the victim turns 18, and there would be varying limits of 20 and 30 years depending on the gravity of the crimes.

The aim was to “make sure that the perpetrator can still be prosecuted”, Johansson said.

Regulators are increasingly turning to the world’s biggest digital companies to do more to protect children online.

Big tech firms, including Google and Facebook-owner Meta, teamed up last year to tackle the issue under a new program called Lantern.

They would share signals of activity that violate their policies on child exploitation so that platforms can move quicker to detect, take down and report harmful content.

The commission proposed a law in 2022 to stop the online spread of child sexual abuse imagery, but the proposal is currently blocked because some member states worry it would allow mass surveillance of private communications.
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London — King Charles III’s cancer was caught early and the whole country is hoping for a speedy recovery, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Tuesday, as the monarch’s son Prince Harry reportedly flew from the U.S. to visit his father.

Buckingham Palace announced Monday evening that the king has begun outpatient treatment for an undisclosed form of cancer. It was found during his recent hospital treatment for an enlarged prostate but is a “separate issue” and not prostate cancer, the palace said.

“Thankfully, this has been caught early,” Sunak told BBC radio, adding that as prime minister he would “continue to communicate with him as normal.”

“Many families around the country listening to this will have been touched by the same thing and they know what it means to everyone,” Sunak said. “So we’ll just be willing him on and hopefully we get through this as quickly as possible.”

Less than 18 months into the reign that he’d famously waited decades to begin, the 75-year-old monarch has suspended public engagements but will continue with state business — including weekly meetings with the prime minister — and won’t be handing over his constitutional roles as head of state.

The palace said Charles, who has generally enjoyed good health, “remains wholly positive about his treatment and looks forward to returning to full public duty as soon as possible.”

The king’s younger son, Prince Harry — who quit royal duties in 2020, moved to California and has a troubled relationship with his father — has spoken to Charles about the diagnosis and “will be traveling to the U.K. to see His Majesty in the coming days,” said the office of Harry and his wife, Meghan. British media reported that he was en route Tuesday from Los Angeles.

Charles became king in September 2022 when his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, died at the age of 96 after 70 years on the throne.

News of the king’s diagnosis comes as his daughter-in-law Kate, Princess of Wales, recovers from abdominal surgery that saw her hospitalized for about two weeks.

Kate is taking a break from royal duties as she recovers. Her husband, Prince William, who is heir to the throne, also took time off to help look after her and the couple’s three children, but is due to preside over a ceremony at Windsor Castle and a charity dinner on Wednesday.

Charles departed from royal tradition with his openness about his prostate condition. For centuries Britain’s royal family remained tight-lipped about health matters.

Disclosing information about his cancer diagnosis — albeit in a limited way — is another break with tradition.

When U.K. monarchs had real power, news of illness was withheld for fear it might weaken their authority. The habit of secrecy lingered after royals became constitutional figureheads.

The British public wasn’t told that Charles’ grandfather, King George VI, had lung cancer before his death in February 1952 at the age of 56, and some historians have claimed that the king himself wasn’t told he was terminally ill.

In the final years of Elizabeth’s life, the public was told only that the queen was suffering from “mobility issues” when she began to miss public appearances towards the end of her life. The cause of her death was listed on the death certificate simply as “old age.”

When and how much to disclose about illness remains a difficult subject for many public figures. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has been criticized for not telling President Joe Biden or other key leaders that that he was being treated for prostate cancer, even when he was hospitalized in intensive care in January for post-surgery complications.

Buckingham palace said that the king “has chosen to share his diagnosis to prevent speculation and in the hope it may assist public understanding for all those around the world who are affected by cancer.”

Charles took the throne intending to preside over a slimmer monarchy with fewer senior royals carrying out ceremonial public duties. But with Charles and Kate both temporarily sidelined, Prince Harry self-exiled to California and Prince Andrew largely banished from view because of his association with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the royal “Firm” risks becoming severely overstretched.

William and Charles’ wife, Queen Camilla, are both expected to take on extra public engagements during the king’s treatment.

There are no current plans to call on the “counsellors of state” — senior royals, including the queen and the heir to the throne — to deputize for the monarch on constitutional duties such as signing legislation and receiving ambassadors.
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BRUSSELS — The European Union’s executive arm shelved an anti-pesticides proposal Tuesday in yet another concession to farmers after weeks of protests blocked major capitals and economic lifelines across the 27-nation bloc.

Although the proposal had languished in EU institutions for the past two years, the move by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was the latest indication that the bloc is willing to let slip some environmental concerns to keep the farming community on its side. 

Farmers have insisted that measures like the one on pesticides would only increase the bureaucratic burden and keep them behind laptops instead of on tractors and add to the price gap between their products and cheap imports produced by foreign farmers without similar burdens. 

The pesticides “proposal has become a symbol of polarization,” von der Leyen told the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France.”To move forward, more dialogue and a different approach is needed.”

She acknowledged that the proposals had been made over the heads of farmers. 

“Farmers need a worthwhile business case for nature-enhancing measures. Perhaps we have not made that case convincingly,” von der Leyen said.

It is unclear when new proposals will be drafted. EU parliamentary elections are set for June, and the plight of farmers has become a focal point of campaigning, even pushing climate issues aside over the past weeks. 

The decision to shelve the proposal on pesticides represented the EU’s latest act of political self-retribution in reaction to protests that affected the daily lives tens of millions of EU citizens and cost businesses tens of millions of euros due to transportation delays.

Last week, von der Leyen announced plans to shield farmers from cheaper products exported from wartime Ukraine and to allow farmers to use some land they had been required to keep fallow for environmental reasons. 

The European Commission is set to announce more measures late Tuesday on how to reach its stringent targets to counter climate change. Environmentalists fear their could be more concessions there, too. 

In France, where the protests gained critical mass, the government promised more than $436 million in additional financial support. 

Meanwhile, protests continued in many EU nations. On Monday night, farmers in the Netherlands blocked several roads and highways with their tractors and torched hay bales and tires.

Police in the rural province of Gelderland said they took action against farmers blocking roads, but there were no immediate reports of arrests. 

In recent weeks, farmers have protested from Poland to Greece, and from Ireland over Germany to Lithuania.

 
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london — Germany is debating a ban on the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party amid mass protests across the country against far-right extremism. The discussion follows revelations last month that senior AfD politicians attended a secret meeting where the forcible deportation of migrants, including German citizens, was discussed.

Details of the meeting, published by the investigative organization Correctiv on January 15, evoked painful memories in Germany, a country especially sensitive to fears of far-right extremism given its 20th-century history.

However, any action against the AfD would be highly controversial as the party is polling in second place ahead of crucial elections later this year.

An estimated 150,000 protesters joined hands around the German parliament building in Berlin on Saturday to form what they called a symbolic “firewall” against right-wing extremism. Similar demonstrations were held in cities across Germany.

Senior German politicians were among those attending the protests. “I want to make it very clear that the civil society is sending out a signal here, that the civil society is standing up, opening its mouth and making it clear that the AfD will never gain power in this country. We will all take a clear stand against it,” Saskia Esken, head of the ruling Social Democratic Party, told Reuters.

Explosive revelations

Nationwide protests have been held every weekend since mid-January, when the Correctiv article was published. The group’s managing director, Jeannette Gusko, described the revelations as “explosive.”

“At the meeting, neo-Nazis, donors and AfD politicians spoke very specifically about the realization of the expulsion of millions of people from Germany. And this is a situation in which the AfD has a real option to gain power. We knew that the research was politically explosive,” Gusko told Reuters. “We knew that, but what is happening now is certainly unique in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany.”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz briefly joined a protest march in Potsdam, outside Berlin, and welcomed the show of anger at the AfD.

“There are a lot of demonstrations planned against the right-wing extremist enemies of our democracy,” Scholz said in a televised address on January 19. “I find that’s right and good. If there is something in Germany which must never ever find a place again, it is the national race ideology of the Nazis. The repulsive relocation plans by these extremists is just that.”

AfD response

AfD co-chairperson Alice Weidel has called the report a “left-wing campaign.” Among those attending the meeting was Roland Hartwig, who was Weidel’s senior aide in the AfD. Local media reported that Hartwig has not held that position since the Correctiv article was published.

“It is scandalous when left-wing activists attack a private meeting with Stasi-like secret service and subversive methods in order to eavesdrop and spy on innocent citizens,” Weidel said.

“The real enemies of the constitution are those who call for a ban on parties, for the deprivation of basic civil rights and the so-called protection of the constitution exploited as a political instrument, because they cannot accept the possibility of a democratic transfer of power to the opposition,” she said on January 16, one day after the Correctiv article was published.

Germany’s painful history before and during World War II, under Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, makes it acutely sensitive to fears of right-wing extremism.

“Germany in particular has a history that they cannot afford, in any way, shape or form, to allow anything like this to happen,” said Matt Qvortrup, a professor of political science and international relations at Coventry University in England, and an author on Germany.

Calls for ban

There are growing calls for the AfD to be banned. Qvortrup said it’s vital that action is taken.

“The forced transfer of people to other places sounds very familiar in a German context. And frankly, Germany cannot afford that. In this case, the Article 21 of the German constitution says anything that will undermine or challenge the German democratic order is unconstitutional,” he told VOA. “There is then a process whereby the Ministry of the Interior will refer a particular party to the Supreme Court.”

That would be a highly controversial step against the AfD, a party that is polling in second place nationally, on around 20%.

“People will say, ‘Well, they’re not that bad yet, they’re not that dangerous.’ But that’s what we’ve always said. … I think democracies have to fight back. Democracies can’t just think they will last forever,” Qvortrup added.

Election campaigns are already underway in some parts of Europe ahead of EU parliamentary elections scheduled for June, where right-wing populist parties are expected to do well. Meanwhile, state elections are due in September in the east of Germany, traditionally a stronghold for the AfD party.
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BUDAPEST — The U.S. envoy to Budapest along with ambassadors from some other NATO allies including Denmark and Poland attended the Hungarian parliament on Monday in a surprise show of pressure on Budapest to approve Sweden’s bid to join the alliance. 

The extraordinary meeting of parliament was called by the opposition to vote on ratification on Monday, but lawmakers from his ruling Fidesz party went ahead with their boycott of the session and now ratification will be further delayed.  

Hungary is the only NATO country not to ratify Stockholm’s membership application, a process that requires the backing of all members, souring relations with the United States and raising concerns among its allies.  

“Its extremely unpleasant that up to today, they [Fidesz] have been blocking Sweden’s NATO accession,” Mate Kanasz-Nagy, lawmaker of the opposition LMP party told parliament, his words echoing in the half-empty room as the envoys sat in the public gallery. 

“He [Orban] wants to favor [Russian President] Putin, thus breaking the unity of NATO,” Agnes Vadai, lawmaker of the opposition Democratic Coalition said.  

The ambassadors did not make any remarks before entering parliament but are expected to comment after the session. 

Sweden’s NATO bid could be ratified when Hungary’s parliament reconvenes for a normal session, the Fidesz party’s parliamentary group said earlier on Monday, adding that first it expects a visit by the Swedish prime minister to Budapest. 

Parliament will reconvene after the winter break in late February.  

“If this is an important issue for the Swedes, then obviously the Swedish prime minister will come to Budapest,” Fidesz said in an emailed reply to Reuters questions. 

The office of Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and his foreign minister did not immediately reply to requests for comment. 

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said late on Friday that it would be “fair” if Kristersson visited Budapest before the ratification, just as the Swedish leader had also gone to Turkey before the Turkish ratification.  

Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has better ties with Russia than other EU states and most NATO members, says his government backs Sweden joining the alliance but the relevant bill has been stranded in parliament since mid-2022.  
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ATHENS — A powerful bomb blast in central Athens has sent shock waves across the country with authorities concerned about what they call a new era of terrorism.

Surveillance footage showed the powerful blast exploding in front of the nation’s Labor ministry, shattering its steel-and-glass façade and gutting offices as far up as the sixth floor.

Surrounding buildings were also scarred, and metal at a nearby construction site was mangled and melted. 

There were no casualties in Saturday’s blast, but authorities said the fallout could have been bloody if the explosion had hit the Greek capital’s busiest boulevard, an area teeming with bars, coffee shops and restaurants, during business hours.

It was the first terrorist attack to mar the streets of Athens in five years, and Public Order Minister Michalis Chrysochoides said authorities are seriously concerned about the resurgence of terrorism.

Greece has seen hits like this in the past, and he said authorities will do everything to safeguard democracy and the country’s image.

The attack was claimed by a new urban guerilla group calling itself the Revolutionary Class Self-Defense. 

Security experts suspect the new group includes militant recruits drafted by terrorists remaining at large after the country’s most deadly terror group was disbanded some 20 years ago.

Since then, several smaller groupings have emerged, staging sporadic low-grade attacks, but none of this intensity. At least 5 kilograms of explosives were used.

Stavros Balaskas, a police investigator, said counterterrorism officials were focusing on forensic evidence to track the culprit from a list of potential suspects.

Surveillance footage Balaskas says, shows a man making his way across the road to the ministry, hanging a sack of explosives on a steel railing and leaving.

Members of the group claimed responsibility in telephone calls to a local newspaper and television station 40 minutes ahead of the explosion.

Authorities expect the group will issue a proclamation to explain who they are and the reasons they targeted the Labor Ministry.

Until then, investigators warn, the fear of a follow-up hit, potentially with victims, looms.

 
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Paris — Paris voters Sunday backed a proposal from the capital’s Socialist Mayor Anne Hidalgo to triple parking charges on hefty SUV-style cars, according to official results from city hall.

Parisians voted 54.55% in favor of charging cars weighing 1.6 tons or more 18 euros ($19.50) per hour for parking in the city center, or 12 euros farther out.

But only 78,000, or 5.7%, of the 1.3 million eligible voters bothered to vote at the 39 voting stations set up around the French capital.

Hidalgo hailed a “clear choice of Parisians” in favor of a measure that is “good for our health and good for the planet.”

Fully electric cars will have to top two tons to be affected, while people living or working in Paris, taxi drivers, tradespeople, health workers and people with disabilities will all be exempt.

“It’s an ecological issue, but it’s also a societal issue, and it’s about how cities need to evolve in a changing environment,” said Gregoire Marchal, a 43-year-old cinema distributor, after voting in favor of the measure at a polling station in Paris’s 10th district.

“I do have a car, but I think it’s great that we can ask ourselves the question and change our behavior,” he added.

Not all voters were happy.

“I’m sick of all these diktats from Mrs. Hidalgo,” said Jeannine, 75, in the wealthier 8th district, where more of the cars appear to be SUVs.

SUVs an ‘aberration’

Hidalgo herself voted at a school in the city’s 15th district a little before 6 p.m. local time.

On Hidalgo’s watch — the capital city has pedestrianized many streets — including the banks of the river Seine and built a network of cycle lanes to discourage driving and reduce harmful transport emissions.

The environmental group, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), has dubbed SUVs an “aberration,” saying they burn 15 percent more fuel than a classic coupe and cost more to build and purchase.

City hall has further pointed to safety concerns about taller, heavier SUVs, which it says are “twice as deadly for pedestrians as a standard car” in an accident.

The vehicles are also singled out for taking up more public space — whether on the road or while parked — than others.

Paris officials say the average car has put on 250 kilograms (550 pounds) since 1990.

Hidalgo, whose city will this summer host the 2024 Olympics, rarely misses a chance to boast of the environmental credentials of the town hall and its drive to drastically reduce car use in the city center.

35 million euros a year

But drivers’ groups attacked the scheme, Yves Carra of Mobilite Club France dismissing the “SUV” classification as “a marketing term” that “means nothing.”

He argued that compact SUVs would not be covered by the measures, which would however hit family-sized coupes and estate cars.

Conservative opposition figures on the Paris council say this imprecise targeting of the referendum “shows the extent of the manipulation by the city government.”

Even among fuel-burning cars, “a new, modern SUV… does not pollute more, or even pollutes less, than a small diesel vehicle built before 2011,” said drivers’ group 40 millions d’automobilistes.

France’s Environment Minister Christophe Bechu told broadcaster RTL the SUV surcharge amounted to “a kind of punitive environmentalism” — even if drivers should “opt for lighter vehicles.”

Hidalgo’s transport chief David Belliard, of the Green party, says around 10 percent of vehicles in Paris would be hit by the higher parking fees, which could bring in up to 35 million euros per year.

Paris’ anti-SUV push has not gone unnoticed elsewhere in France, with the Green party mayor in Lyon planning a three-tier parking fee for both residents and visitors from June.

The last city referendum in Paris, on banning hop-on, hop-off rental scooters from the capital’s streets, passed in an April 2023 vote — but only drew a turnout of seven percent.
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Athens — Angry Greek farmers are demanding the government follow through on promises to compensate them for income lost following a spate of severe weather last year. The farmers have taken to the streets to vent their frustrations.

Angry farmers are protesting rising inflation, foreign competition and the growing costs of combating climate change.

Dumping mounds of chestnuts and apples on the pavement of an agricultural fair, tens of thousands of farmers took to the streets in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki over the weekend, rejecting as their leaders put it, tax breaks, and a string of other relief measures introduced by the government in Athens.

“These handouts are crumbs,” said Rizos Maroudas, one of the protest leaders. “The government may be playing tough, but farmers will prove tougher.”

Agriculture associations in Thessaly, the farming heartland of Greece, are scheduled to meet Tuesday to escalate protests, including setting up blockades across the country’s main highways.

Much of the farmers’ demands echo similar protests that have been gripping Europe for weeks now. But in Greece, farmers want the government to deliver on promises made months ago: compensation for thousands of crops and livestock destroyed in deadly floods and rainstorms that battered the farming heartland in September.

In a rash of measures recently announced, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said the state would settle farmers’ overdue power and water bills, and that a tax rebate of diesel fuel would be extended for another year.

“This is all the funding the federal budget can provide at this time,” said government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis. “If we could offer more we would. But we don’t want to make phony promises,” he added.

The government has called on farmers to return to the negotiating table to seek a compromise solution with the prime minister himself.

Greece’s farmers have snubbed the offer, saying they have no time to spare for what they call a “photo-op.”
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