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Friday, June 6, 2014

Left opposition leads Greece euro vote

May 26, 2014

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — The left-wing opposition Syriza party has succeeded in capturing first place in Greece's election for the European Parliament, leading the conservative New Democracy party by about 3.5 percent.

The radical left party, which has been fiercely critical of the austerity policies pursued since 2010 by the heavily indebted country and imposed by its creditors, claimed an important victory in Greece's local and regional elections by winning the Attica region, where almost 30 percent of all Greek voters are registered.

With about 55 percent of all votes cast counted, Syriza leads New Democracy, the senior party in Greece's coalition government, by 26.6 percent to 23 percent. It is set to send six deputies to the new European Parliament to New Democracy's five.

The extreme right Golden Dawn party was third with 9.4 percent, despite the fact that its leader and several lawmakers are in jail, pending trial, and several others face indictments, for criminal acts ranging from murder to arson to extortion. The formerly marginal neo-Nazi organization, which had polled less than 0.5 percent in the previous European election in 2009, will send have 3 deputies in the new European parliament.

The Olive Tree center-left list, led by the socialist PASOK party, New Democracy's partner in the coalition government, is earning 8.01 percent and will elect 2 eurodeputies. Voters also elected 2 MEPs from center-left list To Potami, a newly-formed party formed recently by journalist Stavros Theodorakis and whose candidate list was composed exclusively of political novices.

Also electing 2 lawmakers is the Greek Communist Party, while the right-wing-populist Independent Greeks just made it over the 3 percent threshold to elect one MEP. Voting went off mostly without incident. And celebrations by winners were muted and small-scale.

Early Sunday, two shots were fired at the socialist party headquarters with an AK-47 assault rifle, police said. The building was empty at the time and no one was hurt. The coalition government insisted that it will continue with its reform policies, while trying its best to correct iniquities. It ruled out new national elections.

"The Greek people have sent a message to the government and rejected Syriza's call for a profound change," said Prime Minister Antonis Samaras. "Today's result has torn apart any pretense to popular support (for the government) even though they pretend not to understand," said Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras, who called for national elections.

In the regional elections, Syriza succeeded in snagging two of Greece's thirteen regions, including Attica, the largest prize, which includes the capital, Athens. New Democracy won six regions and a dissident conservative won one over the official New Democracy candidate. The socialists won two regions, and one each went to a joint conservative-socialist candidate and one endorsed by the Independent Greeks.

In mayoral elections, Athens and Thessaloniki, the two biggest cities, were won by the incumbents, both center-left. Piraeus, the port of Athens, was won by an independent candidate who is a manager for the powerful local Olympiakos soccer club. He defeated the conservative incumbent. His boss, Olympiakos' owner, ran as a municipal councilor.

Berlin votes on development for historic airport

May 25, 2014

BERLIN (AP) — Berlin voters are casting ballots on whether to develop or preserve as leisure space a big part of the former Tempelhof airport, the hub of the historic 1948-49 Berlin Airlift.

The airport in the heart of the German capital was used by Allies to supply the city by air during the Soviet Union's blockade of Berlin's western sector and closed in 2008. Its vast runways and grassy spaces are bigger than Monaco and have been transformed into a popular site for kite-flying, barbecues and cycling.

City officials want about a third of the land for housing because of Berlin's growing population. Opponents argue citizens were not properly consulted and that Berliners would lose unique leisure space to development.

The referendum Sunday is binding if 625,000 voters back either proposal.

French far right surges to lead in Europe vote

May 26, 2014

PARIS (AP) — France's far-right National Front party emerged from Sunday's European Parliament election as the country's leading political party, partial results showed, a victory that the prime minister called a political "earthquake."

The Interior Ministry said the anti-immigration National Front captured 26 percent of the vote, nearly six points ahead of its closest rival, the conservative party of former President Nicolas Sarkozy, which had 20.6 percent.

The partial but official results had a one-point edge on polling firms whose projections gave the National Front 25 percent of the vote. Polling firms showed high-profile candidates in the party, including party leader Marine Le Pen, comfortably winning their races for some of France's 74 allotted seats in the European Parliament.

"The sovereign people have spoken ... acclaiming they want to take back the reins of their destiny," Le Pen said, calling the results "the first step in a long march to liberty." Prime Minister Manuel Valls said the election results were "more than a news alert."

"It is a shock, an earthquake," Valls said. "The moment we are living through is serious, very serious, for France and for Europe." Valls' governing Socialists were trailing in a humiliating third place, according to the partial results, largely reflecting the deep unpopularity of President Francois Hollande.

The National Front won a record 11 towns in March municipal elections and two seats in French parliamentary voting in 2012. The party campaigns against immigration, particularly from Muslim countries. It also opposes the European Union and the euro currency, blaming them for France's high unemployment and social woes.

The EU results mean the party, which held three seats before, will drastically raise its profile in the parliament, which sits in Brussels and Strasbourg, France. It wants to create a powerful group among like-minded European parties.

The Interior Ministry put the provisional turnout at 43 percent of voters, slightly higher than in the 2009 vote.

After anti-EU parties surge, what's ahead?

May 26, 2014

BRUSSELS (AP) — Europe's voters have spoken, and the result "is a shock, an earthquake," France's prime minister said.

Official but still partial returns from the 28-nation European Parliament elections show an unprecedented surge by Euroskeptics and outright anti-EU politicians. The likely upshot is that the trade bloc will find it more difficult to agree on a range of issues, including how much to liberalize its internal market in services, what to include in a proposed trade agreement with the United States and how to strike the balance between different energy sources.

By winning a larger share of seats in the European Parliament, more of Europe's outsiders also have a better platform to influence politics in their home countries. "European politics will be different from today on," said Doru Frantescu, policy director and co-founder of VoteWatch Europe, an independent Brussels-based organization that tracked opinion polls in the run-up to the elections that finished Sunday.

Mainstream parties may hang on to more than 70 percent of the seats in the EU's 751-member parliament, Frantescu said as returns were still being tallied. So when the transnational legislature's two biggest blocs — the conservatives and the Socialists — concur, they still should get their way.

But when they don't, foes of the EU as it now exists will have more votes and access to the parliament's internal machinery to demand that their views be considered. Frantescu predicted the trade bloc, now present in many areas of Europeans' lives, will also interpret the election outcome as meaning it must refocus its efforts to stimulate Europe's sluggish economy and reduce joblessness.

"The signal sent by the electorate is that clearly it wants the European Union to be more effective, it wants it to deliver more results to the citizens, it wants it to solve economic issues and unemployment," Frantescu said. "These are the reasons for which people have turned toward the far left, toward the far right, toward Euroskeptics in general."

In a statement early Monday, Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, appeared to agree. "This is the moment to come together and to define the union's way forward," Barroso said. "The concerns of those who voted in protest or did not vote are best addressed through decisive political action for growth and jobs, and through a truly democratic debate."

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Dutch finance minister and chairman of the group of EU countries that use the euro, said Monday that the election results contained an economic message: "We have to pick up our pace, we have to deliver results" on raising levels of prosperity, he said during an economic forum in Sintra, Portugal.

Dutch politician Geert Wilders and his anti-EU and anti-immigrant Party for Freedom were not among the big election winners. But Wilders said one effect of a jump in voter support for skeptics and parties hostile to the EU had been woefully underestimated: the fallout it would have on European national politics.

"What would (Prime Minister David) Cameron in the United Kingdom do if (anti-EU politician Nigel) Farage would get one out of three votes? He would change his policies," Wilders told reporters. In France, the anti-EU, far-right National Front party led by Marine Le Pen got one in four votes, the best showing by any of the country's parties, incomplete but official returns showed Sunday. Socialist Prime Minister Manual Valls went on television to say the verdict of voters showed it was important for his government to push through the spending cuts and tax cuts it has been promising.

"There is not a single minute to lose," Valls said. "I owe you the truth," he told the French. "We need to show courage because France must reform. For too long, left and right together, we have avoided deeply addressing things."

Independent observers like Janis Emmanouilidis, director of studies at the European Policy Center think tank, have predicted one undeniable fact will blunt the impact of the anti-EU surge: the sheer variety of groups that will be represented in the parliament that divides its time between Brussels and Strasbourg in France.

They include left and right, parties that want the EU reformed and others that want it abolished, respectable figures from academia and others from groups accused of being racists or neo-Nazis. The Sweden Democrats, an extreme-right and nationalist party, won two seats in the European Parliament, and leader Jimmie Akesson said its critical stance toward the EU helped it attract votes.

"I think it is good that criticism toward the EU is growing all over Europe," he said. But he wouldn't comment on whether he will cooperate with France's National Front. "It is one of the parties we are trying to gain an understanding of."

In Poland, marginal anti-EU politician Janusz Korwin-Mikke was elected to the parliament after declaring that it corrupts politicians and should be turned into a brothel.

Far right, Euroskeptics make big gains in EU vote

May 26, 2014

BRUSSELS (AP) — Far-right and Euroskeptic parties made sweeping gains in European Parliament elections Sunday — triggering what one prime minister called a political "earthquake" by those who want to slash the powers of the European Union or abolish it altogether.

Voters in 21 of the EU's 28 nations went to the polls Sunday, choosing lawmakers for the bloc's 751-seat legislature. The other seven countries in the bloc had already voted in a sprawling exercise of democracy that began Thursday in Britain and the Netherlands.

One of the most significant winners was France's far-right National Front party, which was the outright winner in France with 26 percent support— or 4.1 million votes. "The sovereign people have spoken ... acclaiming they want to take back the reins of their destiny," party leader Marine Le Pen said in a statement. She called the results "the first step in a long march to liberty."

The National Front like other far-right parties across Europe promote anti-immigrant and often anti-Semitic policies. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, in an impassioned televised speech, called the National Front win "more than a news alert ... it is a shock, an earthquake."

French President Francois Hollande's office announced he would hold urgent talks first thing Monday with top government ministers in what French media called a crisis meeting. All of Europe will have to deal with the fallout, analysts and politicians said.

Pro-European parties "have to take very seriously what is behind the vote," said Martin Schulz of the Socialist group in parliament. Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the Liberal caucus in the European Parliament, conceded as much but said even after the vote, two-thirds of the European lawmakers would be "people who are in favor of the European Union."

Despite the Euroskeptic gains, established pro-EU parties were forecast to remain the biggest groups in the parliament. The conservative caucus, known as EPP, was forecast to win 211 seats, down from 274, but enough to remain the parliament's biggest group.

The National Front was not the only party benefiting from widespread disillusionment with the EU. Nigel Farage, leader of the fiercely Euroskeptical UKIP party, believed he was on track for a historic victory.

"It does look to me (like) UKIP is going to win this election and yes, that will be an earthquake, because never before in the history of British politics has a party that is seen to be an insurgent party ever topped the polls in a national election," he said.

"I don't just want Britain to leave the European Union," he added. "I want Europe to leave the European Union." The first official results announced late Sunday had UKIP at about 30 percent, some 12 percent higher than the last European elections in 2009.

In Denmark, with 95 percent of votes counted, the main government party, the Social Democrats, retained their five seats to remain the biggest party. But the big winner in the elections was the populist, opposition Danish People's Party, which won three more seats for a total of four. A year-old party in Germany that wants that country to stop using the euro single currency reportedly won 6.7 percent of the vote.

In Greece, with a quarter of the votes counted, the leftist Euroskeptic Syriza party led with 26.49 percent. The extreme right Golden Dawn party was third with 9.33 percent. Doru Frantescu, policy director of VoteWatch Europe, an independent Brussels-based organization, said Europe's mainstream political parties won enough seats to still muster a majority on issues where they concur.

"The problem comes when the left, the Socialists and EPP will not agree on issues," Frantescu said. In the incoming European Parliament, he said, fringe parties will be able to exert more pressure on key topics, ranging from how liberal to make the internal European market for services or the proper mix of energy sources to which clauses should be scrapped in a proposed trade and investment agreement with the U.S.

In the Netherlands, however, the right-wing Euroskeptic Party for Freedom surprisingly dropped a seat from five to four. Its outspoken leader, Geert Wilders, said in a statement his party looked forward to working with Le Pen in Europe, calling the National Front leader "the next French president."

In Italy, early projections indicated that the main government party, the Democrats led by Premier Matteo Renzi, had beaten off a challenge by the anti-euro 5-Star Movement of comic Beppe Grillo. The center-left Democrats were forecast to win 40 percent, while Grillo's anti-establishment movement would garner 22.5 percent.

Despite the gains, unity may be hard to find in the fractured Euroskeptic camp. Le Pen has said she will work with Wilders' party but Britain's Farage has ruled out cooperating with both those parties, which have stridently anti-immigrant platforms.

"We won't work with right-wing populists," Alternative for Germany's leader Bernd Lucke also said after the vote, insisting his party was generally in favor of the EU despite its rejection of the common currency.

Grillo in the past has said his movement wouldn't ally itself with Le Pen's party, claiming the 5-Stars have a different "DNA." Conservative caucus leader Joseph Daul put a brave face on the results Sunday.

"One thing remains certain: EPP is the responsible political force in Europe, which keeps Europe open," he said. The European Parliament estimated turnout was narrowly up from the last election in 2009, at 43.1 percent, reversing years of declining turnouts.

Voters also put new parties in the European Parliament, with preliminary results showing that Sweden elected the first lawmaker from a feminist party and the Dutch returned one representative for the Party for the Animals.

"You know that we have created history don't you? We inspire the world. This is the force of love!" the Feminist Initiative's main candidate, Soraya Post, proclaimed in front of cheering supporters in Stockholm.

AP correspondents John-Thor Dahlburg in Brussels, Jill Lawless in London, Elaine Ganley in Paris, Frank Jordans in Berlin and Ciaran Giles in Madrid contributed.

Europeans voting to choose new parliament

May 25, 2014

BRUSSELS (AP) — From Portugal to Finland, voters of 21 nations on Sunday were deciding the makeup of the next European Parliament, a sprawling exercise in democracy that will help determine the European Union's future leaders and course.

Opinion polls were predicting that candidates who want to slash the EU's powers or even abolish it could scoop up as many as a third of the seats — which would be the strongest showing ever of disillusionment with the bloc.

When official returns are announced Sunday night, they could herald changes in EU policy in areas ranging from border control and immigration to a new trade and investment agreement being negotiated with the U.S.

Europeans in seven other nations have already voted. Unofficial exit polls reported a surge in support for Britain's anti-EU UKIP party. In the Netherlands, however, the right-wing Euroskeptic Party for Freedom dropped from second to fourth place, the pollsters reported.

The 751-seat parliament is the only popularly elected body in the 28-nation European Union. Never before have so many candidates been bent on radically curtailing the EU's powers, ending their country's membership or shutting down the union entirely.

"We believe the best people to govern Britain are the British people themselves. We believe in running our own country, being proud of our democracy, controlling our borders," UKIP leader Nigel Farage told The Associated Press in an interview. "We want our country back. It's been sold out."

However, many Europeans remain attached to the EU, associating it with greater economic opportunity and prosperity. One of them is Spanish grain and olive farmer Fidel del Olmo. "If Europe had not existed, Spanish agriculture would have disappeared," del Olmo said, citing the EU subsidies he and other farmers receive.

"For me, Europe is something of a nation because now we depend on it for almost everything," said the 57-year-old farmer from central Spain. "This is something people don't understand. They think the politicians just go there and that's it."

In Belgium, where voters on Sunday were also choosing the country's parliament and regional legislatures, authorities stepped up security measures after an armed attack on the Brussels Jewish Museum killed three people on Saturday.

AP correspondents Jill Lawless in London and Ciaran Giles in Madrid contributed.

Britain's UKIP party surges in Euro election

May 26, 2014

LONDON (AP) — Early results from Britain's European Parliament elections show that the country's Euoskeptic party is surging ahead of the country's more established parties, indicating it is on track to make its biggest-ever win.

The first official results announced late Sunday show that votes for the U.K. Independence Party, or UKIP, are at about 30 percent, some 12 percent higher compared to the last round of European elections in 2009.

That puts it ahead of Britain's ruling Conservatives, which topped the polls in 2009, and the opposition Labor Party. UKIP, which holds no seats in the British Parliament, has seen an unprecedented surge in its popularity and profile in the past months as Britons grow disaffected with the main political parties over issues including immigration and Britain's relationship with the EU.

The party advocates pulling Britain out of the 28-nation bloc and limiting the right of EU citizens to enter Britain. UKIP leader Nigel Farage declared that a win for his party will deliver an "earthquake" to British politics.

The Liberal Democrats, the junior partner in the coalition government, suffered the biggest defeat, trailing behind the Green Party and losing at least 5 of its 11 seats. Party leaders have acknowledged the Liberal Democrats could well lose all its seats.

A total of 73 Members of the European Parliament will be elected from nine regions in England as well as Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Poland gives democracy award to Crimean Tatar

June 03, 2014

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland has honored a Crimean Tatar community leader with a new prize aimed at promoting democracy.

Mustafa Dzhemilev on Tuesday received the Lech Walesa Solidarity Award at a ceremony attended by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Ukraine's President-elect Petro Poroshenko. Dzhemilev was a dissident during the Soviet era, when his people — an ethnic Turkic group — were persecuted. More recently he has protested Russia's annexation of Crimea.

He received the prize as Poles celebrated the 25th anniversary of the elections that heralded the collapse of communism. Kerry has criticized what he says is a new rash of human rights abuse against Tatars in Crimea since the annexation.

Poroshenko, who was in Warsaw on his first trip abroad in his new role, called Dzemilev "a great Ukrainian hero."

Colombia's president, challenger head to runoff

May 26, 2014

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Former Finance Minister Oscar Ivan Zuluaga finished first in the opening round of Colombia's presidential election Sunday, delivering a blow to President Juan Manuel Santos' re-election bid but failing to win the majority of votes needed to avoid a runoff ballot in three weeks against the incumbent.

With nearly all polling stations counted, Zuluaga had 29 percent of the votes, compared to 26 percent for Santos. Conservative Party candidate Marta Lucia Ramierz was in third of the five-candidate field with less than 16 percent.

Relentless attacks in the campaign's final stretch and the arrest of an adviser on charges of spying appeared not to have eroded support for Zuluaga, who had emerged as Santos' toughest challenger thanks to the backing of his one-time boss and mentor, the still-popular former President Alvaro Uribe.

Despite all the advantages of running as an incumbent, Santos limped to the finish line Sunday. One powerful ally, Sen. Roy Barreras, told The Associated Press that the second-place finish came like a "bucket of cold water."

Santos framed the runoff a battle between the "past and future," foreshadowing what is likely to be a bitter showdown in the June 15 second round over the future of the current peace talks with Colombia's biggest rebel movement and the conservative Uribe's polarizing legacy for a no-holds-barred military offensive against the guerrillas.

"The choice is between those of us who want to put an end to the war and those who want a war without end," Santos told supporters in Bogota, who responded with shouts of "Peace for Colombia!" As Uribe's defense minister and now president, Santos is credited with handing the rebels some of their biggest battlefield defeats, but he made the peace negotiations initiated 18 months ago with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the centerpiece of his campaign.

Concerns that rebel leaders, on the ropes after a decade-long U.S.-backed offensive, will not be punished for any crimes have been fueling mistrust of the negotiations. Although Zuluaga said he also favors a negotiated settlement, he's also threatened to end talks, saying that if elected he would give FARC negotiators a week to demonstrate their commitment to peace by declaring a permanent cease-fire.

But those policy differences were largely swamped in the past two weeks by a string of bitter attacks and startling revelations. It began with media reports that Santos' campaign manager, J.J. Rendon, received $12 million from the nation's biggest drug traffickers to help negotiate their surrender. Rendon quickly resigned after acknowledging he interceded in the case, though he denied taking any money.

Meanwhile, Zuluaga's campaign came under fire after a computer expert who worked for him was arrested for allegedly hacking into the emails of the president and FARC negotiators. Zuluaga denounced the arrest as a desperate ploy to derail his campaign. But the emergence of a clandestinely shot video in which Zuluaga listened as the computer expert outlined his strategy to undermine the peace talks cast doubt on the candidate's claim that he had no knowledge of the consultant's alleged activities.

The tensions came to a head in a feisty exchange at a televised debate where Santos accused his rival of being Uribe's "puppet" and Zuluaga fired back: "You must show me respect." None of the three other candidates were able to capitalize on the last-minute feuding. It apparently did disgust many voters, however. Only 40 percent of the 33 million eligible voters bothered to cast ballots, producing Colombia's lowest turnout in at least four decades.

Bogota-based political analyst Pedro Medellin said that for Santos to pick up lost ground to Zuluaga, he will have to tack further to the left. One place the president is already looking is the Democratic Pole party, one of the strongest supporters of a peace talks and whose presidential candidate, Clara Lopez, finished a whisker behind Ramirez.

But signing a peace agreement didn't even rank among the top five concerns of voters in a recent Gallup poll, and in focusing on the talks Cuba, Santos risks losing support among many working class Colombians who haven't benefited as much from the country's recent economic boom.

Associated Press writers Camilo Hernandez, Libardo Cardona and Cesar Garcia contributed to this report.

French fight Muslim rebels in C. African Republic

May 24, 2014

BAMBARI, Central African Republic (AP) — French forces in Central African Republic fired mortars and exchanged sustained gunfire Saturday with Muslim rebels who controlled the country until earlier this year.

The substantial engagement by the French in the central town of Bambari included targeting and destroying a rebel vehicle by firing on it from a Gazelle helicopter. French forces fired warning shots and mortars as two rebel vehicles approached a bridge in the town, said a French military officer on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press.

The rebel forces maintain the French forces overreacted, saying they had only crossed the bridge to relieve a small unit they had at a checkpoint down the road. Many local residents had earlier demonstrated against the French forces and blocked the bridge to prevent them from passing.

The alliance of rebel groups known as Seleka was forced from power in January nearly a year after its fighters overthrew the president. Christian militias have said they are seeking revenge for atrocities committed during Seleka's rule. The sectarian violence has left thousands dead and forced nearly 1 million people to flee their homes.

The exchange Saturday shows that former Seleka rebels, who have been in disarray since they were forced from power, have not been defeated and may be gaining strength. Hundreds of the Muslim fighters had gathered more than two weeks ago to choose Gen. Joseph Zindeko as their new leader. He was once a commander of a rebel base in the capital, Bangui. At that time, the rebels said they intended to create a political wing so they can participate in reconciliation talks.

Around 2,000 French troops and nearly 5,000 African peacekeepers are trying to stabilize Central African Republic, a country about the size of Texas. Last month, the U.N. Security Council authorized a nearly 12,000-strong peacekeeping force to bolster the troops already in the country to protect civilians, though the U.N. force is not expected to be operational until September.