Thousands protest in Kosovo, demand Serb minister be fired

January 24, 2015

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Thousands of ethnic Albanians protested in Kosovo's capital Saturday against a minority Serb politician's denial of war crimes against them and demanded the government take over the management of the country's crucial mining complex.

Waving Albanian flags and banners, they called for the dismissal of the Serb Minister Aleksandar Jablanovic, whose comments minimizing Serbia's role in the 1998-99 Kosovo war especially angered the families of some 1,000 ethnic Albanians still missing.

Police estimated 12,000 protesters showed up. A handful threw rocks at the government building in Pristina, breaking several windows. Jablanovic is part of the governing coalition along with former Kosovo guerrillas who fought a separatist war against Serbia. Some 10,000 people died in the war when Serbian troops launched a brutal crackdown on separatist ethnic Albanians. The violence was halted by NATO's 78-day bombing of Serbia, which forced Serb troops in 1999 to give up control of the overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian territory.

Saturday's protest follows a week of demonstrations throughout Kosovo organized by opposition parties. Kosovo seceded from Serbia in 2008 but Serbia has never accepted its independence. Many ethnic Albanians fear Belgrade is gaining a foothold in Kosovo fifteen years after the end of the war.

The protests also followed a strike by over 400 miners at Kosovo's Trepca mining complex demanding the government takes over the administration to stop the mine from being liquidated. Protesters also want to keep Serbia from having a say about the mine's future. Trepca's riches are considered government property but the mine is administered by the Kosovo Property Agency, an independent body set up back when Kosovo was part of Yugoslavia.

Italy prepares to elect new president

16 January 2015 Friday

Italy’s parliament will convene Jan. 29 to begin electing a new head of state to replace President Giorgio Napolitano. The clock is ticking for Premier Matteo Renzi to find a candidate who can help boost his own flagging political career.

Napolitano resigned Wednesday from the Quirinal Palace, officially because, with his 90th birthday approaching in June, he felt too old to continue, but unofficially, some commentators say, because of growing disgust at endless squabbling among Italian politicians.

Whatever the case, the resignation of the respected former communist plunged Italy into uncertainty.

There are no obvious front runners to replace him.

Italy tried first to find a successor for Napolitano in 2013 when he completed his first seven year term in office.

But Napolitano subsequently agreed to serve a partial second term as president when none of the candidates could obtain a majority. This time he has insisted he would not step into the breach again if there is another stalemate, posing a major test for 40-year-old Renzi.

Renzi has predicted a new head of state will be chosen before the start of February on a fourth ballot of the election involving more than 1,000 voters from the upper and lower houses of parliament and representatives nominated by regional governments.

In the first three votes, a super-majority of two thirds is needed to elect the new president, while a simple majority suffices after that.

“We'll reasonably have the name of the new president by the end of the month,” Renzi said Wednesday.

Renzi’s Democratic Party in theory has 445 votes.

But since the vote is secret as many as 140 dissident party members known as “snipers” may vote against Renzi’s preferred candidate, meaning he must reach a compromise on someone acceptable to conservative former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and the center-right parties in the government coalition.

Pundits expect the next president could be a low profile figure from the Catholic center such as Sergio Mattarella, a former constitutional court judge, Anna Finocchiario, a Democratic Party senator, who would be first woman in the role, or Pierluigi Castagnetti, former head of the defunct Italian Popular Party close to the Vatican.

More high profile candidates mooted are former EU Commission president Romano Prodi, former prime minister Giuliano Amato and Roberto Pinotti, the current defense minister.

Stefano Folli, a respected commentator for la Repubblica newspaper, noted that many candidates being touted are lacklustre. “The names circulating at the moment are an indication that nobody has a clear idea who the next president could be.”

Also mentioned often are former mayor of Rome Walter Veltroni and Piero Fassino, the mayor of Turin.

Whoever wins must help Renzi get his package of political and electoral reforms through parliament now that his opinion poll ratings are flagging for the first time since he took office in February.

The initial popularity for Renzi's energetic style, developed as mayor of Florence, has waned as the Italian economic recession shows few signs of ending.

Until December, Renzi still won considerable approval at home for confidently vaunting Italy’s rotating six month presidency of the European Union, which ended Dec. 31, 2014.

Assessing the six months Italy was at the helm in Brussels, however, commentators conclude that all too little was achieved of any substance. Renzi worked hard to make himself seem a visionary European, for instance visiting Tirana and saying that Italy strongly backs letting Albania join the EU together with other Balkan countries.

In Ankara, Renzi’s rhetoric extended to reiterating Italy’s traditional support for Turkish membership of the European Union.

In both cases, such high-sounding pledges cost him and Brussels little. The European Commission has long since ruled out any new members joining the EU before 2020.

Against this background, the electors in coming days will be discussing the candidates for Italy’s 13th presidential race in a series of campaign dinners being held in politicians’ favorite restaurants around Rome.

The outcome of the contest will be a severe test of Renzi’s political caliber now that he can no longer rely on Napolitano, who during nine years in office, deftly guaranteed Italy’s stability during one of the most turbulent periods of the peninsula’s history.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/todays-news/153095/italy-prepares-to-elect-new-president.

Hungarian Foreign Minister to visit Turkey

22 January 2015 Thursday

Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Peter Szijjarto, will pay an official visit to Turkey on Jan. 25 and 26, according to a statement issued by the Turkish Foreign Ministry on Thursday.

Turkey-Hungary bilateral relations and recent regional and international developments are to be discussed during Szijjarto's visit.

The two ministers will sign a cooperation agreement, the statement said.

Previously, Szijjarto expressed that Budapest will continue to be supportive of Turkey's integration with the European Union.

In his last visit to Ankara, Szijjarto told The Anadolu Agency "Turkey could give a new dynamism and new impetus for all of Europe."

Turkey applied for EU membership in 1987. Accession talks began in 2005.

However, negotiations hit a stalemate in 2007, due to issues pertaining to the island of Cyprus and the reluctance of German and French governments at the time.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/todays-news/153550/hungarian-foreign-minister-to-visit-turkey.

Amid pressure, bailout critic is new Greek finance minister

January 27, 2015

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece's new left-wing prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, picked an outspoken bailout critic as his new finance minister Tuesday, signaling his resolve to take a tough line with eurozone lenders in an effort to write off a massive chunk of rescue debt.

Economist Yanis Varoufakis, 53 — who has described the bailout as "fiscal waterboarding" — took up the position amid a rating agency warning of a worsening financial situation that sent the country's stock market sharply lower.

The governing Syriza party on Tuesday announced a Cabinet that includes officials from its coalition ally, the anti-bailout and right-wing Independent Greeks. Moody's ratings agency described Syriza's election win Sunday as "credit negative," arguing it would prolong risks to financing, economic growth and bank liquidity. The agency said it expected the government's "policy uncertainty" to slash 2015 growth to 1 percent from the 2.9 percent predicted in the state budget.

The main stock index in Athens fell on the news, sliding 5.4 percent before recovering some losses to close down 3.7 percent amid losses across Europe. Tsipras won a landmark general election victory after campaigning on a pledge to renegotiate the bailout deal and seek forgiveness of more than half the debt — a message that resonated with voters who have suffered through harsh austerity measures that have included pension and salary cuts.

"We are determined to implement our program with courage and determination and not take one step back," said senior Syriza official Dimitris Stratoulis, who was appointed deputy minister for state welfare.

Theodoris Dritsas, incoming deputy minister for marine affairs, said the new government would halt plans to privatize more of the country's main port of Piraeus — despite official interest from six bidders for a two-thirds stake.

"Public ownership of the port will remain. The privatization ... stops here," Dritsas said. Despite Tsipras' choice of coalition partner, preferring an anti-bailout party with which he has major ideological differences over the centrist Potami, analyst Christian Schulz at Berenberg Bank said pragmatism will probably prevail in Athens before Tsipras' government comes to a head-on collision with Greece's creditors.

"You cannot spend money you do not have, you cannot renege on your contract with your creditors and expect them to simultaneously grant you a big new loan, and you cannot boost growth by scaring businesses away and making your labor market more rigid," Schulz said in a note.

Schulz said the risk of Greece eventually having to leave the euro — turning itself into "a Venezuela without oil or an Argentina without the beef" — has increased from 30 to 35 percent. "This is not our main scenario," he said. "But it is a serious risk."

The new Cabinet was sworn in Tuesday. Tsipras chose economist and veteran left-wing politician Giannis Dragasakis as deputy prime minister and expanded powers for the ministries of development, environment, interior and public works — reducing the number of ministries from 19 to 11.

Panos Kammenos, the Independent Greeks leader, was named defense minister. Finance Minister Varoufakis has been a vocal critic of Greece's bailout agreements, arguing that repayment of the country's huge rescue package loans should be linked to growth, a policy change he argues would benefit eurozone lenders.

Nicholas Paphitis in Athens contributed.

Greece's first radical left prime minister sworn in

January 26, 2015

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Tieless and eschewing the traditional religious swearing-in ceremony, but with a surprise coalition deal in the bag and a sanguine international reception, radical left leader Alexis Tsipras took over Monday as austerity-wracked Greece's new prime minister.

Hours earlier, the 40-year-old's Syriza party trounced the outgoing, conservative government in Sunday's national elections, on a platform of easing social pain and securing massive debt forgiveness. Although Syriza fell tantalizingly short of a governing majority in the 300-seat parliament, Tsipras moved quickly Monday to secure the support of 13 lawmakers from the small, right-wing populist Independent Greeks party, raising his total to 162.

"We have the required majority," Tsipras told Greek President Karolos Papoulias, shortly before being sworn in as prime minister, the youngest Greece has seen in 150 years and the first incumbent to take a secular oath rather than the religious one customarily administered by a Greek Orthodox official.

Initial reactions from international markets and officials from Greece's bailout creditors were markedly unflustered. "We stand ready to continue supporting Greece, and look forward to discussions with the new government," International Monetary Fund director Christine Lagarde said.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutchman who chairs eurozone finance ministers' meetings, said that even though "there is very little support for debt write-offs," there is room to "come back to debt sustainability issues" in the future— if necessary.

His views were echoed by the prime minister of Finland, a country that has long been among the most unmovable on austerity issues. Alexander Stubb said that even if he opposes forgiving Greece's debts outright, he would be prepared to discuss extending loan repayments.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki congratulated Syriza and Tsipras, and said the U.S. looked forward to working with the new government on "domestic reforms and international efforts to foster Greece's economic recovery."

"There's no question, Greece has made significant progress on a very difficult economic adjustment and reform program," Psaki said. "There are indications that the economy is poised for renewed growth, but many challenges remain."

The alliance between Syriza and the Independent Greeks — two ideologically opposed parties who share only their opposition to the bailout — boosted stock markets across Europe that had fallen on news of the uncertain election results and fear of a second election. After a topsy-turvy session in Athens, stocks closed 3.2 percent down.

Syriza won 36.3 percent of the vote in Sunday's early general elections, 8.5 percentage points ahead of former Prime Minister Antonis Samaras' conservatives. Nazi-rooted Golden Dawn, whose leadership is in prison awaiting trial for allegedly running a criminal organization, came third at 6.3 percent.

The Independent Greeks have pledged to support Syriza in Parliament with its 13 lawmakers, party leader Panos Kamenos said. Syriza officials said the Independent Greeks would take certain cabinet positions, although no details have been revealed so far.

Tsipras has promised to renegotiate Greece's massive bailout agreements, but insists he will not take any unilateral action against lenders from other eurozone countries and the IMF. Tsipras' choice to deal with the nationalist Independent Greeks — a party aligned in Europe with the UK Independence Party — rather than the centrist Potami caused concern that he could take a tough line in negotiations with rescue lenders.

Potami leader Stavros Theodorakis described the Independent Greeks as "far right and anti-European." Syriza's financial planning official, Giorgos Stathakis, confirmed Monday that the new government had no plans to meet with negotiators from the "troika" of the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund and would instead seek talks directly with governments.

Greek voters swung to the once-marginal left-wing party after five years of punishing austerity measures demanded under 240 billion euro ($268 billions) bailout deals threw hundreds of thousands of people out of work and left nearly a third of the country without state health insurance.

Thousands of supporters turned out to watch Tsipras speak in central Athens after his opponents conceded. "The Greek people have written history," he said, to cheers. "Greece is leaving behind the destructive austerity, fear and authoritarianism, it is leaving behind five years of humiliation and pain."

Outside the party's campaign tent in central Athens, supporters hugged each other and danced in celebration. "It's like we've been born again and finally feel some hope," said Litsa Zarkada, a former government cleaning worker. "We were thrown into the street just before we could take our pension. We have been through so much."

The new government faces an immediate cash shortage, with a dwindling primary surplus, upcoming loan repayments, and limits on the money it can raise using treasury bill auctions. Megan Greene, chief economist at Manulife Asset Management, said the government will be unable to afford to run its day-to-day operations and pay back debt that falls due in March in the absence of additional cash from international creditors.

"Syriza and its creditors are stuck in a Gordian Knot, and both sides will need to cave on something. Neither Greece nor its creditors want Greece to default or exit the eurozone, so a compromise will probably be found," Greene told the AP.

Derek Gatopoulos in Athens and Raf Casert in Brussels contributed to this story.

Tsipras moves to form anti-austerity Greek government after crushing victory

26 January 2015 Monday

Greek leftwing leader Alexis Tsipras will move on Monday to build a stable government that can take on international lenders and reverse years of painful austerity following a crushing election victory by his Syriza party.

Fresh from his defeat of conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, the 40-year-old Tsipras will meet the head of the small Independent Greeks party which, like Syriza, opposes Greece's bailout deal.

Syriza won 149 seats in the 300-seat parliament in Sunday's election, two short of an absolute majority, but the result marked a comprehensive rejection of the years of austerity demanded by the European Union and International Monetary Fund in return for the 240 billion-euro bailout.

"Greece leaves behind catastrophic austerity, it leaves behind fear and authoritarianism, it leaves behind five years of humiliation and suffering," Tsipras told thousands of cheering supporters gathered in Athens on Sunday.

Syriza's campaign slogan "Hope is coming!" resonated with voters worn down by huge budget cuts and heavy tax rises during the years of crisis that have sent unemployment over 25 percent and pushed millions into poverty.

Tspiras aims to move swiftly to create the first euro zone government elected to undo the orthodox conservative polices of strict budgetary rigor that German Chancellor Angela Merkel has championed for the bloc's most troubled economies.

He expects to be sworn in as prime minister on Monday and have a government in place by Wednesday morning at the latest, according to a Syriza official.

For the first time in more than 40 years, neither the New Democracy party of Samaras nor the center-left PASOK, the two forces that had dominated Greek politics since the fall of a military junta in 1974, will be in power.

Tsipras is due to meet Independent Greeks leader Panos Kammenos at 10.30 a.m (0830 GMT) and also expects to talk to the heads of two other parties, the centrist To Potami and the communist KKE, a sign he may look for their support even if they do not join a formal coalition.

The Independent Greeks, a rightwing party with a hardline stance against illegal immigration, disagrees with Syriza on many social issues which could create tensions but it shares its opposition to the international bailout.

The 40-year-old Tsipras, who promises to keep Greece in the euro, has toned down his rhetoric and said he will negotiate an agreement with the "troika" of the EU, European Central Bank and IMF.

However, he has promised Greek voters to renegotiate the country's huge debts, causing consternation in Berlin which has insisted that Athens honor the terms of its 2010 bailout deal.

Together with last week's decision by the ECB to pump billions of euros into the euro zone's flagging economy despite objections from Germany, Syriza's victory marks a turning point in the long euro zone crisis.

But after the euphoria of election night, hailed by flag-waving crowds in Athens, Tsipras faces daunting challenges and can expect strong resistance to his demands from Germany in particular.

With Greece unable to tap the markets because of sky-high borrowing costs and facing about 10 billion euros of debt payments this summer, he will have to seek a deal to unlock more than 7 billion euros of outstanding aid by the time the bailout is due to expire on Feb. 28.

The euro hit an 11 year-low versus the dollar after initial results came out, as markets reacted to the prospect of a standoff within the EU, although many analysts believe a Syriza government can reach a settlement with its partners.

However, Syriza's victory will also encourage other anti-austerity forces in Europe and add impetus to calls for a change of course away from the focus on budget belt-tightening and structural reform favored by Berlin.

Those calls have come not just from anti-system movements such as Podemos in Spain but also from leaders such as French President Francois Hollande, who congratulated Tsipras on his win, and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/todays-news/153791/tsipras-moves-to-form-anti-austerity-greek-government-after-crushing-victory.

Greece's Syriza seeks coalition partners after poll win

January 26, 2015

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece's left-wing Syriza party prepared to launch coalition talks Monday, hours after a landmark general election victory fought on a pledge to rewrite the country's massive bailout deal with the eurozone.

Alexis Tsipras' party just missed a majority in parliament after defeating Prime Minister Antonis Samaras' conservative coalition by a wider margin than expected. With 99.8 percent of the vote counted, Syriza had 149 seats in the 300-member parliament with 36.3 percent of the vote. The conservatives were on 27.8 percent, and the extreme right Golden Dawn party in third place with 6.28 percent.

Tsipras is to meet the leader of the right-wing Independent Greeks party, an anti-bailout ally, on Monday morning, with the party already expressing willingness to join a coalition. "I believe that by the end of the day, Mr. Tsipras will be in a position to form a government," senior Syriza official Dimitris Stratoulis told private Mega television.

Tsipras' choice to start power-sharing negotiations with Independent Greeks rather than the centrist Potami caused concern that he could take a tough line in negotiations with rescue lenders. Syriza's financial planning official, Giorgos Stathakis, confirmed Monday that the new government had no plans to meet with negotiators from the "troika" of the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund and would instead seek talks directly with governments.

Stocks on Japan's Nikkei index were down 0.25 percent on eurozone concerns. Greek voters swung to the once-marginal left-wing party after five years of punishing austerity measures demanded under 240 billion euro ($268 billions) bailout deals threw hundreds of thousands of people out of work and left nearly a third of the country without state health insurance.

Thousands of supporters turned out to watch the 40-year-old Tsipras speak in central Athens after his opponents conceded. "The Greek people have written history," he said, to cheers. "Greece is leaving behind catastrophic austerity, fear and autocratic government."

Outside the party's campaign tent in central Athens, supporters hugged each other and danced in celebration. "It's like we've been born again and finally feel some hope," said Litsa Zarkada, a fired government cleaning worker. "We were thrown into the street just before we could take our pension. We have been through so much.

The new government faces an immediate cash shortage, with a dwindling primary surplus, upcoming loan repayments, and limits on the money it can raise using treasury bill auctions. Megan Greene, chief economist at Manulife Asset Management, said the government will be unable to afford to run its day-to-day operations and pay back debt that falls due in March in the absence of additional cash from international creditors.

"Syriza and its creditors are stuck in a Gordian Knot, and both sides will need to cave on something. Neither Greece nor its creditors want Greece to default or exit the eurozone, so a compromise will probably be found," Greene told the AP.

"If Syriza forms a coalition with the Independent Greeks, that suggests the new government will engage in dangerous brinkmanship with Greece's creditors as it tries to negotiate funding to stave off utter bankruptcy over the next few months."

Extreme right party headed for 3rd place in Greek election

January 26, 2015

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — The specter of Neo-Nazism is no longer haunting Greece. It looks like it is here to stay.

The extreme right, anti-immigrant Golden Dawn party, which has Nazi roots, appears headed for a third-place finish in Sunday's election. Its showing comes despite the fact that the party's leader and most of its lawmakers are behind bars, facing charges of participating in a "criminal organization" accused of murders, brutal attacks on migrants and others, extortion and arson.

With more than 90 percent of the voting precincts reporting, Golden Dawn was receiving 6.3 percent of the vote, narrowly leading the centrist Potami ("River") with 6.04 percent. Both parties exceeded the 3 percent minimum required to gain seats in the 300-member parliament — with each forecast to win 17 seats.

Its share of the vote doesn't match the 9.39 percent it received in last June's European Parliament election in which Golden Dawn also finished third. It also trails the 6.92 percent won in the previous national election, in June 2012.

But considering the exposure of a series of crimes allegedly committed by its members, including the Sept. 2013 murder of a leftist rapper, Pavlos Fyssas, the result obtained Sunday may be even more significant. This is no longer merely an angry protest vote, a one-off voters' tiff with "corrupt politicians." This is an established vote and a hardened electorate.

"They can no longer plead ignorance. They have dipped their hands in blood," Communist lawmaker Liana Kanelli commented on Sunday's result. Golden Dawn leader Nikos Mihaloliakos and his top lieutenants were not free to campaign ahead of the election, since they were behind bars. They were free to stand as candidates because they have not yet gone to trial. Some of them, including Mihaloliakos, may soon be set free when their 18-month maximum pre-trial detention limit is reached.

In a taped statement Sunday, Mihaloliakos celebrated his party's performance. "We achieved this great victory despite the fact that we could not be guaranteed an equal and so-called democratic election as the regime likes to call it, shunned by all (media), facing mudslinging and slander from all sides ... having to campaign through a payphone. We have a fresh mandate ... everyone fought to keep Golden Dawn away and they lost. Golden Dawn won," Mihalioliakos said in his taped message.

In a further twist, if the radical left Syriza party, the winner of the election, fails to achieve an outright majority, a prospect still possible early Monday, it might fail to form a government and return the mandate, given to it by the President of the Republic. In that case, the second party takes up the mandate and, if it fails in turn, the third party does. The prospect of a handcuffed Mihaloliakos, escorted by police to meet the Greek president to be asked to try to form a government, sends jitters throughout the political class. And, if it gets the chance, Golden Dawn is certain to exploit the occasion for maximum effect to ridicule the democracy they despise and whose benefits they are trying to exploit.

Greek radical left wins election, threatening market turmoil

January 26, 2015

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — A radical left-wing party vowing to end Greece's painful austerity program won a historic victory in Sunday's parliamentary elections, setting up a showdown with the country's international creditors that could shake the eurozone.

Alexis Tsipras, leader of the communist-rooted Syriza party, immediately promised to end the "five years of humiliation and pain" that Greece has endured since an international bailout saved it from bankruptcy in 2010.

"The verdict of the Greek people ends, beyond any doubt, the vicious circle of austerity in our country," Tsipras told a crowd of rapturous flag-waving supporters. Syriza appeared just shy of the majority that would allow it to govern alone. With 97.6 percent of polling stations counted, Syriza had 36.4 percent — and 149 of parliament's 300 seats — versus 27.8 percent for Prime Minister Antonis Samaras' conservatives.

If Tsipras, 40, can put together a government, he will be Greece's youngest prime minister in 150 years, while Syriza would be the first radical left party to ever govern the country. The prospect of an anti-bailout government coming to power in Greece has revived fears of a bankruptcy that could reverberate across the eurozone, send shockwaves through global markets and undermine the euro, the currency shared by 19 European countries.

The already battered euro was down 0.3 percent Monday, at $1.117, on the news of Syriza's victory. That was its lowest since April 2003. Syriza's rhetoric appealed to many in a country that has seen a quarter of its economy wiped out, unemployment above 25 percent and average income losses of at least 30 percent.

Tsipras won on promises to demand debt forgiveness and renegotiate the terms of Greece's 240 billion euro ($270 billion) bailout, which has kept the debt-ridden country afloat since mid-2010. To qualify for the cash, Greece has had to impose deep and bitterly resented cuts in public spending, wages and pensions, along with public sector layoffs and repeated tax increases.

Samaras soon conceded defeat Sunday, saying he had received a country "on the brink of disaster" when he took over in 2012 and was close to ushering it out of the crisis. "I was asked to hold live coals in my hands and I did," he said.

The country's progress in reforms is reviewed by inspectors from the International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank, collectively known as the troika, before each installment of bailout funds can be released.

Tsipras pronounced the troika and its regular debt inspections "a thing of the past." Greece's creditors insist the country must abide by previous commitments to continue receiving support. In Germany, Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann told ARD network that he hoped "the new Greek government will not make promises it cannot keep and the country cannot afford."

The election results will be the main topic at Monday's meeting of eurozone finance ministers. Belgium's minister, Johan Van Overtveldt, said there is room for some flexibility, but not much. "We can talk modalities, we can talk debt restructuring, but the cornerstone that Greece must respect the rules of monetary union — that must stay as it is," Van Overtveldt told VRT network.

JPMorgan analyst David Mackie said negotiations between the new government in Athens and creditors "are likely to be very difficult" but cannot drag on indefinitely. "If Greece is unable to honor its obligations this year, then economic, financial and banking stress is likely to lead either to an agreement, or to a second round of elections, or to an EMU exit," he said, referring to Greece's membership in the eurozone.

But Re-Define think tank analyst Sony Kapoor said that while Greece has failed the eurozone and EU authorities, they have also failed Greece. "The Greek rescue package was financially unsustainable, economically wrong-headed, politically tone-deaf and socially callous," he said. "Syriza deserves a chance, and their victory will force the EU to confront the elephant in the room: unpayable debt and bad policy decisions."

He noted that Syriza's moderation of its rhetoric before the election "is promising, making it likely that it will govern closer to the center than many think." A Syriza official said Tsipras would meet Monday with the head of the small Independent Greeks party, which elected 13 lawmakers, "to confirm the support and possible participation of the Independent Greeks in the new government." Apart from their mutual opposition to austerity, the two parties disagree on practically every other issue.

The official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak on the record, said Tsipras would likely be sworn in as prime minister later Monday, and the new government would be formed in the following couple of days.

The centrist Potami (river) party was battling for third place with the Nazi-inspired Golden Dawn, whose leader and several lawmakers campaigned from prison, where they are awaiting trial on charges of participating in a criminal organization.

Raf Casert in Brussels and Derek Gatopoulos in Athens contributed.

Greeks go to polls in critical snap general election

January 25, 2015

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greeks were voting Sunday in an early general election crucial for the country's financial future, with the radical left Syriza party of Alexis Tsipras tipped as the favorite to win, although possibly without a large enough majority to form a government.

Tsipras had been firmly ahead of conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras' New Democracy party in opinion polls leading up to the election, which is being held nearly two years ahead of time. But polls also showed a significant portion of voters were undecided two days before the vote.

Syriza has run on a campaign of renegotiating the country's 240 billion euro international bailout deal, and has pledged to reverse many of the reforms pushed through to qualify for the rescue loans that have kept Greece financially afloat for the past four years.

The anti-bailout rhetoric has renewed fears of Greece's ability to definitively emerge from its financial crisis that saw a quarter of its economy wiped out, sent unemployment soaring and hammered the euro, the currency shared by 19 European countries.

The country's creditors insist Greece must abide by its commitments to continue receiving support, and investors and markets alike have been spooked by the anti-bailout rhetoric. Greece could still face bankruptcy if a solution is not found, although talk of 'Grexit' - Greece having to leave the joint currency - and a subsequent potential collapse of the euro itself has been far less fraught than during the last general election in 2012.

Samaras' campaign focused on the gradually improving economy, which grew for the first time in six years in the third quarter of 2014, and has promised to reduce some taxes if re-elected. He has warned of the potentially dire consequences of reneging on bailout conditions — to the point that his critics accused him of running a fear campaign.

But Syriza's promises of ending the crushing austerity Greeks have been living under since 2010 have wooed many voters infuriated by the deterioration in their standard of living and ever increasing tax bills.

The big question is whether any party will win the required 151 of parliament's 300 seats to form a government alone. The Greek political scene has fractured during the financial crisis, with voters abandoning the two formerly dominant parties — the conservatives and the socialists — in favor of a smattering of smaller parties.

In their final day of campaigning Friday, both Tsipras and Samaras appealed to the undecided voters, which opinion polls put at around 10 percent in the days before the election. Without the required 151 seats, whichever party wins will have to try forming a coalition government with another party. The first three parties each have three days to try and form a coalition government to avoid a second election being called within a month.

Another option, however, would be for the winner to seek support for a minority government, where other parties would vote along government lines without participating itself in a power-sharing deal. Opinion polls ahead of the vote showed the new centrist Potami, or River, party vying for third place with Nazi-inspired Golden Dawn, whose leader and several top lawmakers are in jail awaiting trial on charges of participating in a criminal organization.

Whichever government emerges, it has a series of formidable tasks ahead of it, the most pressing of which is concluding frozen negotiations with bailout inspectors to release a 7.2 billion euro ($8.1 billion) loan installment originally due late last year.

The inspectors "must come soon," Finance Minister Gikas Hardouvelis said Saturday. The new government will also have to negotiate some kind of relief for Greece's 320 billion euro debt and bolster weak growth.

A look at who's in the running for the Greek elections

January 23, 2015

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece goes to the polls Sunday in a snap general election that has thrown into question whether the country will abide by the terms of its international bailout agreement if the left-wing Syriza comes to power.

A minimum 3 percent is needed to enter parliament, and 151 of the 300 seats to form a government. The top vote-winner earns a 50-seat bonus. If no party reaches the threshold, a coalition must be formed to avoid repeat elections.

Here is a look at the parties: Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left). Leader: Alexis Tsipras, 40. Widely tapped to win, though possibly without enough votes to form a government on its own, Syriza has seen a meteoric rise during Greece's financial crisis. Tsipras has pledged to repeal many bailout commitments, saying he will not be bound by the signatures of previous governments. Critics accuse Syriza of being unrealistic and nebulous over how it will fund promised spending. The party has also struggled to contain occasionally wild comments by some of its more radical members — including suggestions of leaving the euro, printing money and defaulting on Greece's debt.

New Democracy. Leader: Antonis Samaras, 63. The conservative party has headed the current two-party governing coalition since 2012. Samaras has promised some tax cuts, and points to figures showing Greece is gradually emerging from a six-year recession. But his popularity has suffered from the austerity measures his government imposed. New Democracy has been accused of running a fear campaign against Syriza, warning of the potentially dire consequences of not adhering to bailout terms, including bankruptcy and leaving the eurozone.

To Potami (The River). Leader: Stavros Theodorakis, 51. The new centrist party founded last year by a former journalist is vying for third place and is seen as a potential kingmaker if Syriza fails to garner enough seats to govern alone. Staunchly pro-European, it has attracted voters from across the political spectrum. Theodorakis has campaigned on a slogan of "changing everything without destroying the country" and says many bailout terms were onerous but that Greece must cooperate with its European partners. Opinion polls show it at about 5 percent.

Golden Dawn. Leader: Nikos Mihaloliakos, 57. The extreme right-wing, Nazi-inspired populist party went from near total obscurity to vying for third place, running on an anti-bailout, nationalist, virulently anti-immigrant platform. Mihaloliakos and most of his top lawmakers are campaigning from prison, where they are awaiting trial on charges of participating in a criminal organization. Opinion polls put them at about 5 percent.

Pasok (Panhellenic Socialist Movement). Leader: Evangelos Venizelos, 58. Once a formidable power that led Greek politics for much of the past 40 years, Pasok has been hammered by its role in signing successive bailout deals and imposing austerity measures. After an ignominious defeat in 2012, Pasok continued hemorrhaging supporters, leaving it currently polling at around 4 percent. Venizelos took over the party in 2012 after a gamble by its former leader and prime minister, George Papandreou, to call a referendum on a hard-won bailout deal fell through.

KKE (Communist Party of Greece). Leader: Dimitris Koutsoubas, 59. Proudly pro-Soviet, the communist party has changed little to none of its rhetoric over the past decades, railing against capitalism, the European Union and NATO. It is the only major party to openly advocate Greece exiting the euro and the European Union. It has ruled out providing any support to a potential Syriza-led government, and refused in 2012 to participate in a coalition government, saying its role was in opposition.

Independent Greeks. Leader: Panos Kamenos, 49. Kamenos founded the right-wing populist anti-bailout party in 2012 after splitting with New Democracy. Despite being ideologically the polar opposite of Syriza, the two have implied they would be open to forming a coalition government. One of the Independent Greeks' lawmakers recently quit the party and joined Syriza. It is polling at just over 3 percent.

Movement of Democratic Socialists. Leader: George Papandreou, 62. The former prime minister who first signed Greece's bailout deal, Papandreou split about a month ago from the Pasok party his father founded in the 1980s and with which he first came to power in 2009. Polls show him struggling to get into parliament, currently polling at 3 percent. He has pledged to put critical decisions to a referendum — the very move that cost him his premiership in 2012.

Austerity-battered Greeks favor radical left before vote

January 23, 2015

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — The winds of political change are coursing through austerity-weary Greece, but a financial whirlwind may lurk round the corner.

Opinion polls ahead of Sunday's closely-watched national election agree: The radical left opposition Syriza party, which has vowed to rewrite the terms of Greece's international bailout, is poised to defeat Prime Minister Antonis Samaras' conservatives. To govern — in a historic first for the Greek left — it may need the backing of a smaller party, but most seem willing to oblige.

"I want this government to go. It has disappointed me," said Babis Limnaios, 41, an Athens electrician who last voted in 2004 for the conservatives but will now back Syriza. "I want them to change everything — tax, health care, education."

Communist-rooted Syriza has alarmed markets and investors with its talk of massive debt forgiveness and riding roughshod over the bailout deals. But the mood is less fraught than in the last national election in 2012, when many saw a Syriza victory as a precursor to a possible Greek exit from the eurozone, the 19 nations that now share the euro currency.

For one, Greece's European partners are less exposed to fallout from a Greek financial collapse. The eurozone has a bailout fund and the European Central Bank has committed to buy the bonds of troubled countries, if needed. And despite erratic bombshells from some Syrizan officials — one candidate suggested printing euros if push comes to shove — the party is straining to play up its mainstream, Eurocentric aspects.

Still, Greece's next government faces an enormous to-do list. It must consolidate reforms, keep running balanced budgets, strengthen weak growth after a six-year recession, conclude frozen talks with bailout inspectors to secure a 7.2-billion-euro ($8.1 billion) loan tranche and negotiate further relief for its bloated, 320-billion-euro ($359 billion) debt.

Creditors insist Athens must honor its bailout commitments if it is to receive continued support. If things go wrong, Greece could again face default — despite its 240-billion-euro ($269 billion) bailout and years of belt-tightening — and find its eurozone membership untenable.

Samaras, whose New Democracy party governed since May 2012 in a coalition with its Socialist former archrivals, has promised some tax relief, saying economic growth and investment will gradually reduce unemployment. He was forced to call Sunday's vote to end an impasse over the election of Greece's new president.

Syriza's 40-year-old leader, Alexis Tsipras — a former Communist youth member — favors a radical approach: Writing off most of Greece's debt, a burden he describes as "not just unbearable, it objectively cannot be repaid."

Tsipras voiced confidence Friday that he can strike a "viable, mutually acceptable and beneficial" deal with creditors by the end of June, after which Greece will need to pay maturing bonds worth more than 10 billion euros that are held by the ECB.

Syriza wants to ditch primary surplus targets, while still pursuing a balance between non-debt-related spending and revenues. It proposes to restore the minimum monthly salary from 586 to 751 euros ($657 to $842), provide free power and food coupons to 300,000 households, raise the tax-free income threshold from 5,000 to 12,000 euros ($13,500), reverse public sector firings and liberalize labor laws.

Greece's electoral system gives a 50-seat boost to the first party, making it effectively impossible for the runner-up to form a coalition if the winner fails. In a deeply polarized campaign, the conservatives have demonized Syriza, stoking middle class fears of bankruptcy and a return to the old drachma currency.

"The only thing they haven't said so far is that, if Syriza wins, it will round up your children and seize your women," Tsipras joked. But the invective doesn't seem to be working. Opinion polls published on the last day of campaigning showed Syriza increasing its lead, with five surveys giving Tsipras an advantage of between 5.2 and 6.7 percentage points — a gain of about 2 points in a week.

In the name of national salvation, Greeks have suffered five years of gruesomely high unemployment, during which the economy shrank by a quarter and average incomes by a third. Jobs, where available, are mostly underpaid or part-time, offering no social security or prospects for advancement. Health care services have deteriorated, pensions have been slashed, and most apartment blocks lack central heating because so many residents can't pay.

Meanwhile, the average tax burden has multiplied. The final straw was last year's decision to make permanent a hated new property tax. That hurts, because for decades ordinary Greeks had invested in real estate. Since 2009, however, market prices — but not taxable values — have dropped 40 percent and rents have shrunk.

Cinema production electrician Gerasimos Soulis said he would vote for Syriza but without great conviction in its ability to enact change. "Jobs have opened, but they're not jobs. It's like you're making pocket money," he said. "We are trying with a third of the money to do what we used to do. And we're happy that we now have a third, because they made us grow accustomed to having nothing."

What remains doubtful is whether Syriza will secure the minimum 151 seats in Greece's 300-member parliament that it needs to govern alone. If not, it must look for a partner from a smaller party. Tsipras said Friday that he is "one step" away from an absolute majority, which would spare him an alliance with "the forces of yesterday, which have every reason to want to trip Syriza up after the election." But he indicated that he would compromise, if needed, to avoid a second election a month later.

With the politically untouchable, Nazi-inspired Golden Dawn party, whose leadership is in jail awaiting trial for running a criminal organization, and the Communist Party — which refuses to cooperate with anyone — out of the picture, possible partners include the new, centrist but untried Potami (River) party or the once-formidable PASOK Socialists.

Friday's polls suggested Golden Dawn has made late gains and is challenging Potami for third place. A third option for Syriza could be governing with the populist right-wing Independent Greeks, who agree with Syriza on need to end the austerity but disagree on about everything else.

Raphael Kominis in Athens and Costas Kantouris in Thessaloniki, Greece, contributed to this story.

Radical Left political outsiders prepare for power in Greece

January 22, 2015

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Dressed in an open-collar shirt and blue suede shoes, Alexis Tsipras arrives at his party's headquarters for a live Q-and-A session on Twitter. The session is moderated by a leftwing newspaper that normally sells less than 2,000 copies a day. But Tsipras is reaching a much bigger audience: Foreign camera crews pack the tiny studio, and soon the hashtag #asktsipras is trending worldwide.

Tsipras is Greece's unlikely man of the moment. His radical left Syriza party is poised to win Greece's general election on Sunday — riding a wave of anger over austerity measures imposed as a condition for an international bailout. The telegenic Tsipras has long railed the loudest against the draconian cut-backs that have ruined countless Greek families, and he's now reaping the rewards of a promise to scrap or renegotiate the bailout.

The prospect of victory for the traditionally far-left party that vows to challenge Greece's rescue package rattled international markets and revived fears of a "Grexit" — a departure of Greece from the euro currency that could renew trouble for the entire European project.

Yet days before the vote, market anxiety has eased and opinion polls suggest the gap between Syriza and conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras is widening in Syriza's favor — giving Tsipras a shot at outright victory or several options to form a coalition government.

"What have five years of sacrifice got us? In a word: Nothing," Tsipras wrote in an article Thursday. "All we got is despair: 1.3 million unemployed, 3 million without health insurance, and pensioners who cannot afford to buy medicine."

Syriza is demanding that half the country's 240 billion euro ($275 billion) bailout debt be canceled and that future repayment be linked to growth, arguing that Greece's economy will ultimately collapse under the weight of an unsustainably high national debt that is around 175 percent of GDP.

The party's success lies in offering a message of optimism, after six grueling years of recession. It campaigned under the slogan "Hope is on the way." Cardboard placards carrying that message have been stapled to lampposts across Athens.

Opponents accuse Tsipras of peddling false promises that will risk bankruptcy. Yet it appears that optimism is what many voters want to hear. "I hope that perhaps with these upcoming elections something will change for the better," said Athens voter Andreas Psychoulis, a tile installer who has fallen behind on tax payments.

"I don't want to cheat," he said. "I want to pay, but I don't have it." Tsipras, a 40-year-old civil engineer, has also banked on his image as a political renegade, rarely wearing a tie as he challenges the elite in a country where politicians typically come from a privileged background, and parliamentary seats often pass from father to son.

"I think people have got the message that Tsipras does not have connections with the major interests, those who until now have not been paying their taxes," Nikos Pappas — Tsipras' chief of staff — told The Associated Press.

Tsipras started his political career at age 28 as a candidate for mayor of Athens in 2006, winning a surprising 10.5 percent of the vote at a time when his party still struggled to make the 3 percent threshold needed to send representatives to parliament.

He was elected leader of the party two years later, presiding over its astonishing rise in popularity. He unified the structure of a party founded as a loose coalition of small left-wing groups and dissidents from the still proudly pro-Soviet Greek Communist Party.

Tsipras was once himself a member of the Communist youth, and the man tipped to be Greece's next finance minister, economist Giannis Dragasakis, narrowly lost a Communist leadership contest in 1991. Some experts say that a triumph for Syriza — fully named the Radical Left Coalition — could spell trouble for Social Democratic parties across Europe, with voters possibly heeding more radical solutions for their economic woes. Greece's Socialist Pasok party, until recently the nation's main political force, has seen its support wiped out in the financial crisis after backing successive bailout agreements and joining the Samaras government in coalition.

"I think a Syriza victory would definitely reverberate around Europe, not least because you have similar parties emerging in other countries," said Vincenzo Scarpetta, a political analyst at the London-based think-tank Open Europe.

"Around Europe you are seeing this type of grand coalition, and the example of Greece is quite clear. You have seen how much support for Pasok has decreased," said Scarpetta. "Part of the rhetoric used by anti-establishment parties like Syriza is that (opponents) 'are all the same.'"

AP television producer Theodora Tongas in Athens contributed.

Greek premier Samaras promises fast growth, low taxes, jobs

January 10, 2015

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has promised speeded-up growth, lower taxes and plenty of new jobs if his conservative New Democracy party holds on to power in national elections in 15 days.

Addressing supporters and party officials Saturday, Samaras promised there will be no more cuts in salaries or pensions. By 2021, he says faster than predicted economic growth would add at least 770,000 jobs and bring GDP almost to levels it reached before a deep financial crisis hit in 2008. Although Greece's economy returned to growth in 2014, there are still about 1.25 million unemployed, over a quarter of the workforce.

Samaras says jobs will be created mostly in the agriculture and tourism sectors.

German city of Dresden braces for anti-Islam protest

January 25, 2015

DRESDEN, Germany (AP) — A group that has staged regular anti-Islam protests in Germany's eastern city of Dresden is holding its first march since canceling its previous demonstration over a terror threat.

The group calling itself Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West, or PEGIDA, was mentioned as a possible target in an online posting. Dresden authorities last Monday in response banned all protests for security reasons.

The threat identified PEGIDA's co-founder Lutz Bachmann. He since has resigned after German media published Facebook messages in which he called refugees "dirty" and posed as Adolf Hitler. PEGIDA insists it isn't racist.

On Saturday night, about 1,000 people from a group calling itself Patriotic Europeans Against the Americanization of the West, or PEGADA, clashed with 600 counter-protesters in the nearby city of Erfurt.

More than 200,000 apply for asylum in Germany in 2014

January 14, 2015

BERLIN (AP) — More than 202,000 people applied for asylum in Germany last year, the interior minister said Wednesday, with large numbers coming from war-torn areas in the Mideast and Afghanistan.

The figures represented a 60-percent rise compared to 2013, and Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere announced them as the country grapples with how to integrate newcomers. It was the third highest number of asylum seeker applications ever recorded, de Maiziere said in a statement.

The ministry said the agency processing asylum requests and local communities had been receiving financial support to help deal with the high numbers of new arrivals. Cities and rural communities have been struggling to provide housing for the influx. In recent months, asylum seekers across Germany have been put up in tent cities, former army barracks, retired cruise ships and gyms.

In Berlin, the reception center for asylum seekers was shut temporarily in September because officials couldn't handle the high numbers of applicants. Meanwhile, protests against new asylum homes have increased across the country with demonstrators trying to prevent refugees from moving into their neighborhoods.

Big crowds attending weekly rallies in the city of Dresden by a group calling itself Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West, or PEGIDA, have also been outspoken in their rejection of asylum seekers.

In the 1990s, Germany received even higher numbers of refugees who were escaping from the wars in Yugoslavia. In 2014, about 41,000 people, or 20 percent of all asylum seekers, were Syrian refugees and they usually were granted asylum. About 30 percent came from the Balkans region — their applications were generally rejected because "they didn't fulfill the needed requirements."

Among the 202,834 applications, 173,072 people applied for refugee status for the first time, while the others had applied previously. Only 127,023 applied in 2013.

NATO: Interim rapid-response force now operational

January 14, 2015

BERLIN (AP) — NATO's secretary-general says a core version of the alliance's new agile expeditionary force is now operational.

Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Berlin on Wednesday that the interim force is made up of troops from Germany, Norway, the Netherlands and "some others." He says "an interim solution is in place and we are focused on a more permanent high-readiness force.

Stoltenberg says it's too early to say when the full permanent force will be in place or how it will be paid for, though it will have to be funded through a combination of NATO's budget and individual nations' contributions.

The "spearhead" force, conceived to be sent at short notice to aid at-risk members, was approved by NATO leaders in September amid concerns over Russia's actions in Ukraine.

New Charlie Hebdo reaches global audience, dismays Muslims

January 14, 2015

LONDON (AP) — A week ago, Charlie Hebdo was a niche publication little known outside France, with a circulation of 60,000. On Wednesday the satirical newspaper's first issue since last week's deadly attack on its staff went on sale with a print run of 3 million copies and front-page coverage around the world.

Readers in France mobbed newsstands to buy a copy and European newspapers reprinted Charlie Hebdo's cartoons as a gesture of solidarity. But the decision to depict the Prophet Muhammad on the cover, holding a sign saying "Je suis Charlie" (I am Charlie), angered many Muslims, who called it a renewed insult to their religion.

MUSLIM ANGER

Many Muslims believe their faith forbids depictions of the prophet, and reacted with dismay — and occasionally anger — to the latest cover image. Some felt their expressions of solidarity with Charlie Hebdo after last week's attack had been rebuffed, while others feared the cartoon would trigger yet more violence.

"You're putting the lives of others at risk when you're taunting bloodthirsty and mad terrorists," said Hamad Alfarhan, a 29-year old Kuwaiti doctor.

"I hope this doesn't trigger more attacks. The world is already mourning the losses of many lives under the name of religion."

Abbas Shumann, deputy to the Grand Sheik of Cairo's influential Al-Azhar mosque, said the new image was "a blatant challenge to the feelings of Muslims who had sympathized with this newspaper."

But he told The Associated Press that Muslims should ignore the cover and respond by "showing tolerance, forgiveness and shedding light on the story of the prophet." An angry reaction, he said, "will not solve the problem but will instead add to the tension and the offense to Islam."

In Jordan, the Muslim Brotherhood said it would stage a protest after Friday prayers in Amman in response to the paper's Muhammad cartoon. Spokesman Murad Adaileh said the brotherhood strongly condemned both the killings and the "offensive" against the prophet.

That was a widely expressed sentiment. Ghassan Nhouli, a grocer in the Lebanese port city of Sidon, said the magazine and the killers "are both wrong."

"It is not permitted to kill and also it is not permitted to humiliate a billion Muslims," he said.

The Iranian government has strongly condemned the killings, but Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif said that in a world of widely differing cultures, "sanctities need to be respected."

"I think we would have a much safer, much more prudent world if we were to engage in serious dialogue, serious debate about our differences and then what we will find out that what binds us together is far greater than what divides us," he said.

Egyptian cartoonist Makhlouf appealed for peace with his own spin on the Charlie Hebdo cover, replacing Muhammad with an ordinary Middle Eastern man carrying a placard reading "I am an artist" in French.

"I am for art and against killing," he added in Arabic. "May God forgive everyone." The image was widely circulated on social media.

TURKISH TENSION

Turkey was rare among Muslim-majority nations to have publications running Charlie Hebdo images. But the decision has raised tensions in the officially secular country.

Police stopped trucks leaving the printing plant of newspaper Cumhuriyet after it said it would reprint some of the cartoons Wednesday. The vehicles were allowed to distribute the paper once officials had determined that the image of the Prophet Muhammad was not shown.

The paper printed a four-page selection of cartoons and articles — including caricatures of Pope Francis and French President Francois Hollande — but left out cartoons likely to offend Muslims. However, two Cumhuriyet columnists used small, black-and-white images of the new Charlie Hebdo cover as their column headers.

A small group of pro-Islamic students staged a protest outside the paper's office in Ankara, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported, and police intensified security outside Cumhuriyet's headquarter and printing center as a precaution.

EAGER EUROPEANS

Across Europe, there was high demand for scarce copies of the latest edition, and several newspapers ran extracts from Charlie Hebdo.

Spain's El Pais published two pages of the cartoons with Spanish translation, though it did not include any images of the prophet.

A small Italian newspaper, Il Fatto Quotidiano (The Daily Fact), published Charlie Hebdo as a 16-page supplement, in French with Italian translations of the captions.

"Why are we doing it?" editor Antonio Padellaro wrote in a front-page column. "Because last Friday, when we called the surviving top editor of Charlie Hebdo, we heard him say, 'Thanks, you're the only Italian newspaper who asked us.'"

Physical copies of the paper were hard to find, though newsagents in several countries said they hoped to have some in stock by the end of the week.

In Sweden, the 320-strong Pressbyran chain of newsagents said it would sell the issue, but only online, not in stores. Spokesman Fredrik Klein said the decision was "as a security measure and out of concern for our staff."

There was brisk bidding for copies of Charlie Hebdo on Internet auction sites. On the Irish version of eBay, emailed electronic copies were selling at prices starting around 6.50 euros ($8), while hard copies attracted bids over 200 euros ($240). On British eBay, bidding on one copy went above 95,000 ($145,000), though it was unclear whether the bids were genuine or an attempt to make mischief.

Michael Collingwood of Sgel, Charlie Hebdo's Spanish distributor, said he normally received 40 copies but had been promised 1,000 this time by the paper's French distributor. He figured he could sell eight times that number.

"I don't know why they only printed 3 million," he said. "Everyone wants it."

Associated Press writers Hussain al-Qatari in Kuwait City, Omar Akour in Amman, Jordan, Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Sarah El Deeb and Jon Gambrell in Cairo, Desmond Butler in Ankara, Matthew Lee in Geneva, Frances D'Emilio in Rome, Ciaran Giles in Madrid, Shawn Pogatchnik in Dublin, Karl Ritter in Stockholm and Jan Olsen in Copenhagen contributed to this report.

Zambia: Edgar Lungu sworn in as new president

January 25, 2015

LUSAKA, Zambia (AP) — Edgar Lungu was sworn in as Zambia's new president Sunday.

"I am humbled eternally and debted to you all, my fellow citizens," said Lungu at the inauguration ceremony. "The bottom line is that we want the country to go forward and to banish poverty in our midst."

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, congratulated Lungu. Mugabe was attending as chairman of the 15-nation Southern Africa Development Community. Also at the ceremony was Kenneth Kaunda, Zambia's first president.

Lungu, the candidate of the ruling Patriotic Front, was declared the winner of Zambia's presidential election late Saturday night. The poll was called after President Michael Sata died in October. Lungu received 48.3 percent of the vote, while Hakainde Hichilema of the United Party for National Development came in second with 46.7 percent after votes were tallied from all 150 constituencies in the southern African nation, said acting Chief Justice Lombe Chibesakunda.

Lungu, who heads Zambia's justice and defense ministries, will serve out the remainder of Sata's term until elections next year. Sata died after a long illness. Earlier Saturday, before the results were announced, Hichilema, the opposition leader, held a briefing in which he described the election as a sham.

"The election was stolen and does not reflect the will of the people," he said. Zambia's electoral commission chairwoman Ireen Mambilima has dismissed the allegations, saying the process was transparent.

Zambians voted on Jan. 20, and the polls were extended by an extra day, due to heavy rain in certain areas. During the election campaign, Lungu, who belongs to the same party as the late president, said he wants to complete economic development projects initiated by Sata.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon congratulated Zambia "for the peaceful manner in which the country organized its presidential election, despite difficult weather conditions," according to a statement released by his spokesman.

Israeli center-left alliance looks to unseat Netanyahu

January 29, 2015

JERUSALEM (AP) — When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dissolved his unwieldy coalition and called new elections last month, he appeared almost certain to be returned once more to office. But a new center-left alliance has surged past his Likud party in the polls, turning the March 17 contest into a toss-up.

After joining forces with former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to create a joint grouping they call "The Zionist Camp," Labor Party leader Isaac Herzog is looking, to increasingly many Israelis, like a viable alternative to Netanyahu. He promises to reverse the country's slide toward international isolation and corrosive social inequality.

Much of the Israeli public has tired of Netanyahu's lengthy rule, but many still see him as the most suitable person to fill the top job. Herzog and Livni have chipped away at this sense of Netanyahu inevitability by embracing some nationalist terminology, drafting high-profile parliamentary candidates and fomenting a snowballing sense that they might actually win.

Part of the strategy is an agreement that they would split a four-year term, with Herzog stepping aside for Livni halfway through. Few in Israel expect this to happen — there is essentially no chance for any one party to win a full majority in parliament, and coalition partners would likely then demand their own turn at a "rotation." Yet the two-versus-one narrative, polls suggest, has bred momentum.

"It's either him, or us," their campaign slogan reads. Polls consistently show the joint slate formed by Herzog's Labor and Livni's Hatnuah leading Netanyahu's Likud by several seats. Netanyahu may still enjoy an edge when it comes to cobbling together a coalition, thanks to nationalist and religious allies. But with several centrist wild cards in the mix, as well as individuals with personal grudges against the incumbent, matters seem more wide-open than before.

Even the ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties, traditionally among Netanyahu's most loyal partners, have said they would consider joining a government headed by Herzog. Herzog and Livni recently added respected economist Manuel Trajtenberg as their prospective finance minister and Amos Yadlin, a retired general who now heads a prestigious think-tank, to be their future defense minister.

With the added firepower, Herzog has been closing the gap with Netanyahu over who the public sees as most suitable to be prime minister, said pollster Mina Zemach. "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts," she said of his merger with Livni. "The main result of the move is that it created hope."

A recent survey conducted by the Panels Politics Polling Institute found that only 38 percent of Israelis wanted Netanyahu as their next prime minister. The poll surveyed 508 people and had a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.

But even without a solid majority, Netanyahu still enjoys a "plurality" among the Israeli public, and the complexities of Israeli politics will complicate any effort to unseat him, said Gideon Rahat, a political scientist at Jerusalem's Hebrew University. He said the Israeli political system is so fractured that the next government will likely not be the product of the vote itself but rather the political machinations that follow.

Herzog and Livni have gotten a boost by renaming their joint list "The Zionist Camp" in an attempt to reclaim a label that in recent years has been brandished by the right. The argument has been that Netanyahu's Jewish settlement policies, in perpetuating Israel's rule over millions of Palestinians, are risking the country's Jewish majority. Considering that Zionism aimed at establishing a Jewish state, they argue, the true Zionist would seek a pullout from the West Bank, as Herzog and Livni do.

The move risks alienating Israel's Arab minority, but could draw critical votes from the Jewish center. "The right for many years has been trying to steal the Israeli identity, the Zionist identity," Labor lawmaker Stav Shaffir told The Associated Press.

The opposition also blames Netanyahu for Israel's high cost of living and its ever-growing gap between rich and poor, as well as for deteriorating relations with the U.S., Israel's closest and most important ally.

Netanyahu, in turn, has branded the duo's slate as "anti-Zionist" and insisted only he could stand up to international pressure and cope with Israel's myriad of diplomatic and security challenges. Kalman Gayer, who advised former prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon, said the union between Herzog and Livni was mutually beneficial. Herzog gets leadership credentials from Livni's past as a foreign minister; Livni, who previously headed the essentially defunct Kadima Party, gets the established political mechanism of the Labor Party, which led Israel for its first 29 years of existence.

"This combination gives each one of them something they didn't have on their own," he said. Herzog, 54, has been a leading lawmaker for a decade and served as a low-level Cabinet minister in a series of governments. But he has often been dismissed as a soft-spoken apparatchik. Becoming prime minister would mark a culmination of a family dynasty that has enjoyed royalty status in the founding Labor Party. His late father, Chaim Herzog, was president of Israel from 1983-93 and was its ambassador to the United Nations. His uncle was legendary Foreign Minister Abba Eban.

"What is happening now is that you don't see Herzog and Livni as these hapless losers anymore," said Bradley Burston, a columnist for the liberal Haaretz daily. "The assumption was 'well, I don't like Netanyahu, but he is the only possibility,' and now you don't hear that as much."

Russia defiant after more threats from West over Ukraine

January 26, 2015

MOSCOW (AP) — A defiant President Vladimir Putin on Monday called the Ukrainian army a "NATO foreign legion," reflecting his readiness to stand up to the West regardless of rising economic costs, as Standard & Poor's rating agency downgraded Russia's credit rating to junk.

While the Russian ruble tumbled further on the news of the downgrade, Putin's spokesman shrugged off the Western threat of more sanctions as "short-sighted." The Kremlin's uncompromising stance is rooted in its desire to prevent Ukraine from ever joining NATO by securing a broad autonomy for the rebellious provinces in the east. To avoid being called a party to the conflict, as Ukraine and the West see it, Russia is pushing the Ukrainian government to speak directly to the rebels.

The latest rebel offensive, which involved the deadly shelling of a strategic port city of Mariupol over the weekend, appeared aimed at pressuring Kiev into such talks. Speaking to students in St. Petersburg, Putin said the Ukrainian leadership was to blame for the upsurge in violence and accused it of using civilians as "cannon fodder" in the conflict.

"(Ukraine's army) is not even an army, it's a foreign legion, in this case a NATO foreign legion," Putin said, adding that it's serving the goal of "the geopolitical containment of Russia, which absolutely don't coincide with the national interests of the Ukrainian people."

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg dismissed the claim and accused Russia of sending large numbers of heavy weapons to the rebels. "We have seen a substantial increase in the flow of equipment from Russia to the separatists in Ukraine," he said.

A Russian envoy at the 57-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe rejected those claims, arguing that the rebels are using old Soviet-era weapons they seized from the Ukrainian arsenals.

Andrey Kelin, who spoke after the OSCE called a special session on the uptick in fighting, said the rebels are using "very old Soviet equipment" dating back to the mid-1960s. Ever since the separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine flared up in April following Moscow's annexation of Crimea, Russia has denied Western accusations that it has backed the insurgents with troops and weapons.

But even though Ukrainian troops and the rebels use the same types of Soviet-built arms, the sheer number of heavy weapons in the rebels' possession has been seen in the West as a proof of Moscow's involvement in the conflict.

From the onset of the conflict, which has claimed more than 5,100 since April, Russia urged the Ukrainian authorities to offer broad powers to the east and provide amnesty to the rebels. A cease-fire deal signed in September by representatives of the government and the insurgents included some of those provisions along with a pledge to withdraw foreign fighters and place OSCE monitors on the Russian-Ukrainian border, but it has been violated by both parties and fighting has continued.

A lull in fighting in December raised hopes for a peaceful settlement, but hostilities escalated again in recent weeks as the rebels launched a series of new offensives. Russia blamed the renewed fighting on the Ukrainian side, saying it has tried to settle the conflict by force.

"They used a peace break exclusively to regroup their forces, and they started it all over again," Putin said. "It's a real tragedy." In Sunday's phone conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Monday's call with French President Francois Hollande, Putin blamed the new round of hostilities on Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko stonewalling his proposal to pull back heavy weapons from the line of division agreed in September. The Kremlin said that Putin again emphasized the need for Kiev to speak to the rebels.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov argued that the rebels had launched an offensive to protect the areas under their control from Ukrainian artillery barrage. "To expect that they (the rebels) would simply reconcile themselves to being bombed would be naive," Lavrov said. "They started to act... with the goal of destroying Ukrainian army positions being used to shell populated areas."

The tough statements came in the wake of Western threats that Russia would face further sanctions for its actions following the shelling of Mariupol, where 30 people were killed by rocket fire on Saturday.

Donetsk, the main rebel stronghold, was wracked by artillery explosions throughout the day, but there was no fighting in Mariupol on Monday. A road leading out of the city into rebel territory was closed off by Ukrainian forces, making it unclear whether the rebels had advanced closer to the city outskirts. The city streets were quiet as the families of those killed Sunday gathered to bury their dead.

Separatist leaders initially announced over the weekend that they had begun an offensive on Mariupol, but quickly backtracked and blamed Ukraine for the carnage after the extent of civilian casualties became known. The OSCE said the shelling of Mariupol came from rebel-controlled territory.

Fighting near Mariupol has raised fears that the rebels could try to seize the city to build a land corridor into Crimea. President Barack Obama said Sunday that Washington would work with its European partners to "ratchet up the pressure on Russia" in response to the latest violence. EU foreign ministers will hold an extraordinary session on Thursday to discuss the situation in Ukraine.

Lavrov warned the West against using the events to "whip up anti-Russian hysteria," and Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the threat of more sanctions as "destructive and short-sighted." ''Such threats and blackmail haven't succeeded in forcing Russia to change its continuous stance, and they never will," Peskov said.

The Russian currency tumbled by nearly 7 percent to about 68.5 rubles to the dollar on the news of Standard & Poor's decision to downgrade the nation's credit grade by one notch to junk status. The agency dropped the rating to BB+ from BBB- as it sees the country's financial buffers at risk amid a slide in the country's currency and weakening revenue from oil exports.

Russia's economy has been hit hard by the double impact of weaker prices for its energy exports as well as Western sanctions.

Laura Mills in Moscow, Yuras Karmanau in Kiev, Ukraine, Evgeny Maloletka in Mariupol, Ukraine, Lorne Cook in Brussels and George Jahn in Vienna contributed to this report.