European Union leaders were gathering Thursday to examine new ways to stop migrants entering Europe, desperate to ensure that their differences over managing the flows do not tear the 28-nation bloc apart.

The number of people arriving in Europe seeking sanctuary or better lives has dropped significantly, but anti-migrant parties have consolidated their powers, winning votes as they exploit fear of foreigners.

The political crisis caused by the EU’s inability to share responsibility for those entering is undermining German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s leadership. It’s also helped bring an anti-European government to power in Italy.

Italy, the main landing point for migrants along with Greece, has begun to refuse entry to ships carrying people rescued from the Mediterranean Sea. The EU’s smallest member state, the island of Malta, is also resisting appeals to do more. France has been involved, criticizing Rome in a major diplomatic row.

“Europe has many challenges, but that of migration could determine the fate of the European Union,” Merkel told German lawmakers Thursday before heading for a two-day summit in Brussels.

Merkel is fighting a battle at home and abroad against critics who accuse her of endangering European security with her welcoming approach to migrants. Her conservative coalition is under pressure from the far-right Alternative for Germany.

The party has received a surge in support since 2015 – when well over one million people entered Europe, mostly fleeing conflicts in Syria and Iraq – and populist leaders in southern and eastern Europe have rejected her calls for a wholesale reform of Europe’s migration system.

With Merkel’s coalition allies demanding that migrants be turned away at the border with Austria, EU officials fear any such move would set off a domino effect. Austria in turn could close its border with Italy, and Rome might then close its ports.

The leaders will discuss the establishment of Orwellian-sounding “regional disembarkation platforms,” in an effort to prevent people from reaching Europe. The plan, yet to be fleshed out, involves placing people leaving Africa bound for Europe in centers in countries like Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Niger and Tunisia.

“A precondition for a genuine EU migration policy is that Europeans effectively decide who enters European territory,” EU Council President Donald Tusk said in an invitation letter to the leaders. “Failure to achieve this goal would in fact be a manifestation of our weakness.”

The scheme is likely to prove extremely expensive – and no African country has expressed an interest so far in taking part. Big questions also remain over whether people would be left languishing at these centers with little hope of getting to Europe and no means or will to return home. Under international law, people legitimately in fear for their lives and safety are within their rights to try to reach a safe place and apply for asylum.

On the island of Malta, meanwhile, screening began Thursday for 234 people who spent nearly a week at sea on a humanitarian rescue vessel, to determine whether they are eligible for asylum and relocation to one of eight EU nations.

The government said three babies and three adults were being treated in hospital.

Malta Prime Minister Joseph Muscat opened the country’s main port to the German-run ship Lifeline after other EU nations agreed to accept some of the people. He said those deemed “economic migrants” will be sent back to where they came from.

Maltese officials seized the ship, citing irregularities in the rescue. The captain is under investigation.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin is boasting about his country’s prospective nuclear weapons, saying they are years and even decades ahead of foreign designs.

Speaking Thursday before the graduates of Russian military academies in the Kremlin, Putin said the new weapons represent a quantum leap in the nation’s military capability. He said Russia has achieved a “real breakthrough” in designing new weapons.

The Russian leader singled out the new Avangard hypersonic vehicle and the new Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile, which are set to enter service in the next few years. Putin also mentioned the Kinzhal hypersonic missile that has already been put on duty with the units of Russia’s Southern Military District.

Those systems were among an array of new nuclear weapons Putin presented in March amid tensions with the West.
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Britain’s royal family are to move out of the famous front wing of London’s Buckingham Palace later this year as part of a multi-million pound building repair project, palace aides said on Thursday.

The royal household will “decant” from the east wing of the palace, the public facade which houses the balcony on which Queen Elizabeth and her family appear for significant events, as part a program of urgent work to replace aging electrical wiring and heating systems.

“In terms of the outward appearance of the front of the palace I think that people will notice very little change,” said a palace spokesman, adding there would be no need for scaffolding.

News of the renovations was revealed by royal aides as they gave details of the “Sovereign Grant”, the annual government handout that covers staffing costs, upkeep of royal palaces and travel expenses.

The grant is based on 15 percent of surplus revenue from the Crown Estate, a property portfolio belonging to the monarchy, from two years previously. In 2016, this percentage was raised to 25 percent for a decade to pay for the overhaul of Buckingham Palace.

That meant the royals received 76.1 million pounds for 2017-18 and next year will get 82.2 million pounds. Michael Stevens, the queen’s treasurer, known as Keeper of the Privy Purse, said the cost of the monarchy to every Briton last year equated to 69 pence, up four pence from last year.

Buckingham Palace was originally a large house townhouse built in 1703 and acquired by George III in 1761. It was extended in the reign of Queen Victoria while the front was refaced in 1914 when George V was king. The 10-year overhaul will cost 369 million pounds ($485 million).

The emptying of the east wing will mean the queen’s children Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward moving their offices, while Andrew and Edward, who also have overnight rooms in the wing, will have to be found accommodation elsewhere in the palace.

It will not directly affect the 92-year-old monarch and her husband Prince Philip, 97, whose private apartments are located in the north wing, nor heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles whose London home is Clarence House.

However, 10,000 items including paintings and other works of art will have to be moved, put in storage or sent out on loan while 120 members of staff are being relocated.

Anti-monarchy republicans in Britain say the true cost of the royals to taxpayers is at least 345 million pounds a year because some items such as security are ignored. Meanwhile newspapers have often been critical of the amount spent on minor royals and travel expenses.

This year’s report revealed that by far the biggest travel expense was incurred by Prince Charles and his wife Camilla whose trip to India, Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei amounted to 362,149 pounds.
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Kremlin officials say there is an agreement for Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump to hold a summit in a third country.

The announcement came Wednesday as U.S. national security adviser John Bolton was in Moscow for talks with Putin and other senior Russian officials. Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said details about the venue for a Trump-Putin summit would be announced Thursday.

The meeting is expected to take place after Trump attends the NATO summit July 11-12 and visits Britain on July 13. Vienna and Helsinki are among the venues being considered.

‘Sad state’ of bilateral relations

Earlier, Putin told Bolton his visit to Moscow increased the chances of a restoration of Russian-U.S. relations.

Putin said relations between the two countries were “not in the best shape.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters “the sad state” of bilateral relations between the two countries would be discussed, as well as a range of international issues.

Bolton had said he hoped his one-day visit would lay the groundwork for what would be the first summit between Putin and Trump.

“President Trump asked me to come and speak to Russian authorities about the possibility of a meeting between him and President Putin, and there will be an announcement on that tomorrow simultaneously, in Moscow and Washington, on the date and the time of that meeting,” Bolton said during a Moscow press conference.

Asked if current tensions between Washington and Moscow might impede progress toward “deliverables,” or concrete bilateral agreements, at the summit, Bolton struck an optimistic tone.

“I think the fact of the summit is itself a deliverable, and I don’t exclude that they will reach concrete agreements,” he said.

“But there are a lot of issues to talk about that have accumulated, and I think it was one of the reasons why President Trump believes so strongly that it was time to have this kind of meeting. And as you can see, President Putin agreed,” he added. “So, there will be other preparatory meetings. I don’t doubt that [U.S. Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo and [Russian Foreign Minister] Sergey Lavrov will get together, and I would expect there would be other preparatory meetings, as well.”

Former NATO Deputy Secretary-General Alexander Vershbow expressed concern that “the intentions [of the prospective summit] are not entirely clear,” and that he suspected there wasn’t much common ground between the countries to build on.

Faith in Bolton

“I think it’s a good thing that Bolton was sent to Moscow to meet with his counterparts and President Putin, because this kind of meeting does need to be fully prepared,” Vershbow told VOA’s Russian service. “But there’s still a lot of questions about whether there are any major issues that are within reach of any resolution, given how deep our differences are on issues like Ukraine, [and Russia’s] continued efforts to marginalize the United States in Syria.

“For someone like me, who is a bit skeptical of where President Putin is taking his country and where he’s taking European security, I’m actually relieved to have Bolton as the man on the front line,” Vershbow said of Trump’s top adviser, who is renowned in Washington for his hawkish views on Moscow. “I know [Bolton] does believe strongly in Western values, and he has been strong in condemning Russian aggression against Ukraine and against Georgia 10 years ago. But at the end of the day, he answers to President Trump and … may be under instructions to be maybe a bit more flexible than his own instincts would tell him.”

Evelyn Farkas, former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, told VOA that Trump’s willingness to meet with Putin contradicted American and European measures to penalize Russia’s gross violations of international laws.

“I think the challenge that Russia poses is one that it poses not just to the United States but to the international community, which is that Russia is pushing back against the international order, against international laws,” she said.

“With its 2008 invasion of Georgia, followed by the attempted annexation of Crimea — which changed borders by force for the first time in Europe since World War II — that woke everyone up,” she said.

Beyond military aggression, Farkas said evidence of Russian meddling in foreign elections, its alignment with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — despite his use of chemical weapons on his own civilians — and the March 2018 poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain all indicate a Kremlin that deliberately undermines international law.

“Russia is saying, ‘We don’t care. We’re going to make new rules, or there are going to be no rules. The rules don’t apply to us,'” she said.

The Kremlin has denied charges of election meddling and attempted assassinations on foreign soil.

Contradictions

“On the positive side, our Congress and the executive branch are continuing to pressure Russia to change its behavior to stop all of these negative actions. On the negative side, our president gives signals that run counter to the policy, in essence saying, ‘Why don’t we allow Russia back into the Group of Seven?’ That flies in the face of sanctions. The reason Russia was kicked out unanimously by all the members of the G-7 was because Russia had attempted to change borders by force for the first time since World War II. And one of the punishments besides sanctions was throwing them out of the G-7.

“So that’s one example of the president seeming to contradict the overriding policy,” she said. “There’s also, of course, the many things he has said about Vladimir Putin.”

Trump and Putin have met twice on the sidelines of international summits and have spoken several times by telephone.​

This story originated in VOA’s Russian service. Yulia Savchenko reported from Aspen, Colorado.
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Two major auto trade groups on Wednesday warned the Trump administration that imposing up to 25 percent tariffs on imported vehicles would cost hundreds of thousands of auto jobs, dramatically hike prices on vehicles and threaten industry spending on self-driving cars.

A coalition representing major foreign automakers including Toyota Motor Corp, Volkswagen AG, BMW AG and Hyundai Motor Co, said the tariffs would harm automakers and U.S. consumers. The administration in May launched an investigation into whether imported vehicles pose a national security threat and President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to quickly impose tariffs.

“The greatest threat to the U.S. automotive industry at this time is the possibility the administration will impose duties on imports in connection with this investigation,” wrote the Association of Global Automakers representing major foreign automakers. “Such duties would raise prices for American consumers, limit their choices, and suppress sales and U.S. production of vehicles.”

The group added: “Rather than creating jobs, these tariffs would result in the loss of hundreds of thousands of American jobs producing and selling cars, SUVs, trucks and auto parts.”

On Friday, Trump threatened to impose a 20 percent tariff on all imports of EU-assembled cars. On Tuesday, Trump said tariffs are coming soon.

“We are finishing our study of Tariffs on cars from the E.U. in that they have long taken advantage of the U.S. in the form of Trade Barriers and Tariffs. In the end it will all even out — and it won’t take very long!” Trump tweeted.

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, representing General Motors Co, Ford Motor Co, Daimler AG , Toyota and others, urged the administration in separate comments filed Wednesday not to go forward.

“We believe the resulting impact of tariffs on imported vehicles and vehicle components will ultimately harm U.S. economic security and weaken our national security,” the group wrote, calling the tariffs a “mistake” and adding imposing them “could very well set a dangerous precedent that other nations could use to protect their local market from foreign competition.”

The Alliance said its analysis of 2017 auto sales data showed a 25 percent tariff on imported vehicles would result in an average price increase of $5,800, which would boost costs to American consumers by nearly $45 billion annually.

Automakers are concerned tariffs would mean less capital to spend on self-driving cars and electric vehicles.

“We are already in the midst of an intense global race to lead on electrification and automation. The increased costs associated with the proposed tariffs may result in diminishing the U.S.’ competitiveness in developing these advanced technologies,” the Alliance wrote.

Toyota said in a statement Wednesday that new tariffs “would increase the cost of every vehicle sold in the country.” The automaker said the tariffs would mean even a Toyota Camry built in Kentucky “would face $1,800 in increased costs.”

Both automotive trade groups cited a study by the Peterson Institute for International Economics that the cost to U.S. jobs from the import duties would be 195,000 jobs and could be as high as 624,000 jobs if other countries retaliate.

The German Association for Small and Medium-sized Businesses said the “pattern of rising protectionism is very likely to continue if the U.S. decide to impose tariffs on foreign automobiles and automobile parts, thus causing tremendous damage to both economies.”

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, a state that produced nearly 1 million vehicles and 1.7 million engines built by foreign automakers last year, urged the Commerce Department not to invoke the tariffs. She said job losses from new levies could be “devastating.”

The proposed tariffs on national security grounds have been met by opposition among many Republicans in Congress.

Trump has made the tariffs a key part of his economic message and repeatedly lamented the U.S auto sector trade deficit, particularly with Germany and Japan. Some aides have suggested that the effort is a way to try to pressure Canada and Mexico into making more concessions in ongoing talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Thursday the department aimed to wrap up the probe by late July or August. The Commerce Department plans to hold two days of public comments in July on its investigation of auto imports.

The Commerce Department has asked if it should consider U.S. owned auto manufacturers differently than foreign automakers.

The Association of Global Automakers rejected that contention, saying its members’ American workers “are no less patriotic or willing to serve their country in a time of crisis than any other Americans.”

The group questioned national security as grounds to restrict auto imports. “America does not go to war in a Ford Fiesta,” they added.

The Alliance said “there is no basis to claim that auto-related imports are a threat to national security” and noted that 98 percent of U.S. auto imports came from U.S. national security allies.
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“I know quite a few people that, if the World Cup wasn’t in Russia, would have gone this year,” said Joe White, co-founder of Three Lions Pride, an LGBT group cheering for England’s team at the World Cup.

He and his co-founder, Di Cunningham, have been in Russia for the competition, showing up to games with a rainbow-striped Three Lions Pride flag, despite Russia’s five-year-old ban on what has been nicknamed “gay propaganda.”

Russia’s World Cup organizing committee has said in a statement that all visitors, regardless of sexual orientation (or race, gender, religion, ability, or other typical motivations for discrimination) are welcome at the World Cup, which runs through July 15.

The committee has even specifically promised to allow the display of rainbow pride flags at matches — a promise that has been tested by gay activists. So far, the government has kept its word.

The “gay propaganda” law, passed in 2013, makes it illegal for Russian citizens to present homosexual behavior as a norm in the presence of minors. But the law has been criticized for being open to interpretation, which makes it a potential tool for persecuting LGBT — lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender — people.

In addition to Russian citizens, businesses, organizations and foreign visitors in Russia are subject to the law. Anti-gay violence has risen since the law was passed.

Vitaly Milonov, a member of the State Duma and one of the authors of the gay propaganda law, told The Associated Press before the World Cup opened that he wanted tighter, not looser, restrictions on LGBT fans during the international competition.

“I want to remind them that no matter how much they try lobbying, their hideous way of life is condemned all over the world,” he said in a story published June 1. “They do not have the right to propagandize their hideousness.”

Despite Moscow’s pledge to allow the display of the pride flag, Cunningham was briefly delayed June 18 at a security gate in Volgograd when she tried to enter the stadium with a pride flag. While she was eventually allowed to enter and display her flag at the England-Tunisia match that day, that hesitance is why White said it’s important for LGBT fans to show up in a country that is not seen as gay-friendly.

“I think the visibility of fans in the stadium is really making a big difference,” White said. “People are coming to terms with the fact that homophobia isn’t acceptable as part of the game, whether they’re being abusive toward players or toward fans.”

‘Diversity houses’

The group FARE, Football Against Racism in Europe, set up “diversity houses” in Moscow and St. Petersburg to give LGBT fans, as well as members of ethnic minorities, a safe place to gather and socialize.

On June 14, the owner of the St. Petersburg venue changed his mind just 12 hours before the house was set to open, forcing the group to find a new headquarters. They eventually landed in a St. Petersburg arts and cultural center because for some, fellowship with other LGBT fans is an essential part of the World Cup experience.

But White said outreach is also a component of the trip. He said it was important to him to socialize not only among his own crowd, but also to mingle with “people from other countries that may never have even thought about LGBT fans.”

It is a different style of activism for Peter Tatchell, a British gay-rights advocate who was briefly arrested June 14 in Moscow’s Red Square for protesting brutality toward gay men in the Russian republic of Chechnya.

Chechnya serves as home base for Egypt’s national team during the World Cup competition. White said people should give Tatchell “a huge amount of credit” for standing up for the rights of LGBT Russians. And he counts it as a win that Tatchell was charged with breaking a protest law and not the gay propaganda law.

Beyond World Cup

But the social diplomacy of pride groups attending football matches is a more subtle art than a protest in Red Square. For White, Cunningham and other gay fans, just showing up for the matches, flying the flag, and mingling with fellow football fans can be powerful.

White and his colleagues recognize that the relaxed policing of the gay propaganda law may go away once the World Cup concludes July 15. And the 2022 World Cup is scheduled for Qatar, where homosexuality is a criminal offense.

“The one thing [we] really would count as a success is making sure that when the World Cup finishes, we don’t just forget about the plight of LGBT Russians, that we continue supporting them,” White said. “We can support, from our privileged position in the U.K., the LGBT community in Russia or communities that aren’t as lucky as we are with the rights afforded to them. We can show that we stand in solidarity not just during World Cup but throughout the year, as well.”
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Poland suddenly backtracked Wednesday on a disputed Holocaust speech law, scrapping the threat of prison for attributing Nazi crimes to the Polish nation, but leaving the possibility of fines in place.

The original law, passed five months ago, was presented as an attempt to defend the country’s “good name” but mostly had the opposite effect. There was widespread suspicion that the true intent was to suppress free inquiry into a complex past, and the law was compared by some to history laws in Turkey and Russia.

The amendments were unexpectedly presented to lawmakers by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in the morning, passed with lightning speed in both houses of the legislature by the afternoon, and then signed by the president before nightfall.

“This small corrective strengthens our position, as we defend Poland’s good name, because during those few months we were able to awaken the awareness of many our partners, also in Israel,” Morawiecki said in defending the whole legislative effort.

The original version of the law had called for prison terms of up to three years for falsely and intentionally accusing the Polish nation of Holocaust crimes that were committed by Nazi Germany. The ruling Law and Justice party said it needed a tool to fight back against foreign media and politicians who have sometimes used expressions like “Polish death camps” to refer to German-run camps in occupied Poland. Even former U.S. President Barack Obama once used such terminology, causing deep offense.

Polish authorities insisted that nobody would be punished for any statement backed up by facts and that there would be no criminal punishment for discussing cases of Poles who denounced or killed Jews during the war.

Crisis with Israel

But the law nonetheless sparked a major diplomatic crisis with Israel, where Holocaust survivors and politicians feared that it was an attempt to whitewash the episodes of Polish anti-Semitism. The United States warned the law threatened academic freedom and could harm Poland’s “strategic” relationships. 

Ukraine strongly opposed the law as well because it criminalized denying atrocities committed by Ukrainian nationalists against Poles.

Those strained ties with its allies deepened Poland’s international isolation at a sensitive time of a bitter dispute with the European Union over rule of law.

Polish Holocaust scholars argued that the original law would have been useless against people outside Poland and feared it was mostly meant to suppress a growing body of scholarly research about Polish violence against Jews.

The focus on the dark side of Polish wartime history is deeply unsettling to many Poles, who fear it has come to overshadow the heroic aspects of Poland’s resistance to Nazi Germany and the massive suffering inflicted on the country. During the war, nearly 6 million Polish citizens were killed — 3 million Jews but almost as many Christian Poles.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the amendments and issued a conciliatory joint statement with Morawiecki late Wednesday that expressed a common desire for dialogue and acknowledged many of Poland’s positions.

But Poland’s government will now have to face the anger of nationalist voters, who saw the original law as an attempt to defend national honor. Many feel that the nation’s dignity has been debased by the focus on Polish wartime anti-Semitism, which they see as pushing from view acts of Polish resistance against the Nazis and the help given to Jews by thousands of Poles.

One nationalist lawmaker, Robert Winnicki, described the changes as caving in to Jewish interests. He even tried to block the podium in the lower house in protest, but the vote went ahead anyway. Meanwhile, liberal opponents bitterly criticized the ruling party for introducing the law in the first place, calling it a disaster that had deeply harmed the country’s international position.

Still seen as a success

Morawiecki, the prime minster, argued that the legislation had still been a success because it had created greater global awareness of Poland’s wartime tragedy and heroism.

He described the joint declaration with Netanyahu as one positive result.

“We have defended the honor of our forefathers,” Morawiecki said. “This is a very good day for Poland, for Poland’s history.”

During difficult questioning in the Senate, he pushed back against the idea that Poland was doing the bidding of foreign interests and insisted that “nobody is writing our laws for us. This is a sovereign decision.”

The legislation keeps in place the possibility of lawsuits and fines for the same offenses. Morawiecki suggested Poland would use the law against any offending foreign media, saying they could face fines of even 100 million dollars or euros. It wasn’t clear how that would work in practice.

The dispute with Israel had sparked a wave of anti-Semitic comments in Poland — even by officials and state-run media commentators — as well as anti-Polish hate speech in Israel and elsewhere.

The joint Polish-Israeli declaration condemned both anti-Semitism and “anti-Polonism,” or prejudice against Poles, and Morawiecki welcomed the formal acknowledgement of its existence.

The law was never put into practice because the president had sent it to the Constitutional Tribunal for review, expressing some doubts about it.
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Britain’s Prince William strolled along a trendy Tel Aviv boulevard with Israeli Eurovision song contest winner Netta Barzilai on Wednesday to the delight of cheering onlookers. But there was no “chicken-dance,” Barzilai’s signature move performed as part of her women’s empowerment hit “I’m Not Your Toy” during the 2018 song-fest.

William, second in line to the throne, is on the first official visit by a British royal to Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

He later traveled to the occupied West Bank and met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the Muqata, the headquarters of the Palestinian government in Ramallah, where William was given a red carpet welcome that included an honor guard and a band.

The prince and Abbas made no immediate comments to reporters.

In downtown Tel Aviv, William walked with the purple-braided singer along Rothschild Boulevard. The tree-lined avenue at the

heart of the city’s financial districts contains shops, restaurants and galleries.

The day before he had focused in his first engagements on honoring the memory of victims of the Nazi Holocaust.

William and Barzilai chatted at a kiosk, described as one of the first refreshment stands in Tel Aviv. They were served

“Gazoz,” a retro Israeli soft drink made from flavored syrup and fizzy water.

“We love William,” a clutch of female tourists, standing among a cheering crowd held back by barriers, shouted at the

36-year-old prince. He smiled in response.

On Tuesday, William, wearing a button-down shirt and long trousers, walked along the Tel Aviv shore as beachgoers snapped photographs.

After meeting Barzilai, he chatted with environmental activists at a rooftop reception at Beit Ha’ir, a Tel Aviv museum, where he poked fun at his choice of attire for the beach visit a day earlier.

“Yesterday, it was a little bit tricky: I turned up like this on the beach. I was like, really?”

Asked if he should have opted for swim wear, William said: “No. I wouldn’t. You see, there’s too many cameras around. But

another time I might have done. I’ll get beach-ready for Israel the next time.”

In the West Bank, territory captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, the prince is scheduled to meet Palestinian

youngsters after seeing Abbas.

William met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Tuesday. Unlike William, Netanyahu did perform the chicken dance when he met Barzilai in May. The video, which the prime minister posted on his social media pages, went viral.

William’s trip, which ends on Thursday with a visit to holy sites, is at the behest of the British government. Until now it

had been British policy not to make an official royal visit until the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was resolved.

British officials have given no detailed explanation for the change in policy, other than saying that the time was right for

the visit, during which William hoped to shine a spotlight on the young generation of Israelis and Palestinians and their

hopes for the future.
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The Senate in the Netherlands has approved a bill that bans wearing full-face cover in many public places. The 44-31 vote Tuesday ends a sensitive debate on religious freedom and women’s right to wear what they want. The bill bans wearing any type of clothing that completely covers the face except for the eyes in educational institutions, on public transportation, in hospitals and in government institutions. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Tuesday he met with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to discuss energy issues and U.S. sanctions on Russia.

Russia is one of the world’s biggest crude oil and natural gas producers, and the United States has been urging global energy producers to boost output to stem an increase in prices.

“We met. We discussed energy issues, among other things. We touched upon questions related to sanctions,” Novak said in a press briefing in Washington. “We can’t sidestep these difficult questions, so of course we touched upon them during our contact.”

Novak said he had also met with U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry to discuss energy cooperation.

The meetings occurred while energy executives and ministers from around the globe converged on Washington for the triennial World Gas Conference, the industry’s biggest summit.

The U.S. Congress imposed economic sanctions in recent months against Russia that – among other things – seek to prevent companies from participating in Russian pipeline projects or oil and gas development efforts.

The sanctions were designed to punish Russia for its 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and for meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Moscow denies it interfered in the election.

Russia depends heavily on pipeline networks to get its energy production to European markets, and is also keen to develop energy reserves in its Arctic.

Novak has said in the past that the United States should not be permitted to impose such sanctions without a vote of the United Nations Security Council, of which Russia is a permanent member.

The United States has been urging increased supply from the world’s biggest producers, including OPEC members, to help stem an increase in oil prices that threatens economic growth.

It is also renewing sanctions against OPEC-producer Iran after abandoning a global deal meant to stem its nuclear ambitions, and urging consumers of its oil to stop their imports completely – another factor pushing up oil prices.

Perry told reporters on Monday, before meeting with Novak, that he was “amenable to having conversations, to creating a relationship” with Russia.

“He had invited me to, actually, to come visit some of the things that they are doing in the Arctic,” Perry said. “I think we’ve got our issues with Russia, but I’m one of those that believe you need to be having conversations with folks and finding places that we can work together.”
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