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Saturday, May 16, 2015

Macedonia divided: Corruption, armed rebellion splits nation

May 16, 2015

SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) — Macedonia's short history of independence has been a troubled one — and its political turmoil appears to be getting worse.

The government in this Balkan nation of about 2 million people is reeling from a massive wiretap scandal and a gunbattle between police and ethnic Albanian gunmen that left 18 dead in a border town a week ago. In a region with a long and bloody history of ethnic conflicts and political instability, the developments have caused consternation both domestically and abroad.

Months of accusations between rival politicians locked in a power struggle have plunged the country into one of its deepest political crises since Macedonia gained independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991.

Potential trouble looms again on Sunday, when the opposition plans an anti-government rally billed as the largest Macedonia has ever seen in the capital, Skopje. The protests are supposed to continue for days, and a rival pro-government protest has been called for Monday.

Sunday's opposition rally "will be a historic day of reckoning for the current government of Macedonia," said Nikola Dimitrov, a former national security adviser. "The increasingly authoritarian regime of (Prime Minister Nikola) Gruevski will face a crowd of citizens craving freedom, democracy, rule of law and accountability."

Dimitrov, now a fellow at The Hague Institute for Global Justice, predicted that "in an all-or-nothing situation, (the government) will be ready to pay a very high price to survive." At the heart of the crisis is a massive cache of wiretapped conversations that the head of the opposition Social Democrats, Zoran Zaev, has been releasing since January. Zaev claims that Gruevski, in power for nearly a decade, was behind the mass wiretapping of more than 20,000 Macedonians, including ministers, politicians, police, journalists, judges, foreign ambassadors and religious leaders.

Those conversations, which Zaev said were leaked to him by "patriots" in the domestic intelligence service, purport to reveal corruption at the highest levels of government, including the mismanagement of funds, spurious criminal prosecutions of opponents and even attempted cover-ups of killings. He has demanded that Gruevski resign and new elections be held.

Opposition parties have been boycotting parliament for nearly a year since accusing the governing coalition of fraud in the April 2014 election. Gruevski, who has won successive elections since 2006, angrily rejects the accusations. He accuses Zaev of participating in a coup plot backed by unnamed foreign spy agencies seeking to overthrow his conservative government.

Some Macedonians are worried. "I am afraid that Macedonia could enter into civic conflict with unpredictable consequences," said Julijana Petrovska, a 64-year-old retired economist. "People are so stubborn ... and divided that things could get out of control easily."

But others blame the opposition for creating instability. Zaev "started to publish recordings he got from foreign spies and now he wants to seize power illegally, without elections," said Jovan, a 23-year-old law student who would only give his first name for fear of reprisals. "He is the one the most responsible for this crisis."

The government has come under growing criticism from the West, including from the 28-nation European Union, which Macedonia hopes to join one day. EU officials have expressed concern over the harassment of the press and apparent meddling in court cases in Macedonia, among other issues.

The ambassadors of Britain, Germany, France, Italy and the EU met Gruevski recently and issued a strongly worded statement saying the government "has not made progress toward accounting for many allegations of government wrongdoing" arising from the wiretap disclosures.

"Continued inaction" will undermine the country's efforts to join the EU and NATO, they said. The government says it's doing what it can. On Thursday, Gruevski attended a Western ambassador-brokered meeting with Zaev and the heads of two ethnic Albanian parties in the first direct talks since the political crisis began in January. The four agreed to meet again Monday and to ensure that future demonstrations are peaceful.

The interior and transport ministers, Gordana Jankuloska and Mile Janakieski, and top intelligence chief Saso Mijalkov — a relative of Gruevski — resigned a few days ago, saying they did so to calm the situation. The three were the voices most heard on the recordings.

Meanwhile, the ghost of Macedonia's brief 2001 armed conflict between government forces and the country's ethnic Albanian minority, which fought for greater rights, hovers over the country once more. Clashes in the border town of Kumanovo earlier this month killed 10 gunmen and eight police and wounded 37 police. Some gunmen wore insignia used by ethnic Albanian rebels during their insurgencies in Serbia and Macedonia in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

It is still unclear how the fighting in Kumanovo began. The government said police forces mounted an operation after tracking an armed group of about 50 men to a house there. Last month Macedonian police said a smaller group attacked a border watchtower, briefly taking two Macedonian border guards hostage before releasing them unharmed.

Political analyst Saso Ordanovski said he thinks the gunmen were mercenaries. "Somebody paid them to draw attention away from what is going on at the moment in the country," Ordanovski said. Gruevski, he argued, "is the one who benefits the most from the incident ... He is facing the growing revolt and demands from abroad that he must do something."

Ali Ahmeti, who heads the ethnic Albanian junior government coalition partner, said he had been in contact with the gunmen but it was unclear what their motives were. He said they had asked for his help in brokering their surrender. Saying that most ethnic Albanians do not back an insurgency, Ahmet called for an international investigation into the clashes.

Dimitrov, the former security adviser, said there was only one way to resolve the crisis. "Regardless of how much time it will take, and how difficult it will be, there can only be one sustainable outcome: an interim government to clean up the system, introduce robust checks and balances, promote justice, and prepare for free and fair elections," he said.

Hungary honors its 700,000 victims of Soviet labor camps

May 13, 2015

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Karoly Miklosi was heading to his job at a print shop in February 1945 when the Soviets nabbed him for slave labor.

They took the 18-year-old first to Romania, then to what is now central Ukraine for what Hungarians call "malenky robot," a distorted translation of the Russian words for "menial work." He spent the next nearly three years as a Soviet prisoner, digging ditches, harvesting crops and dismantling factories.

Hungary this year is commemorating the estimated 700,000 of its civilians and soldiers taken away 70 years ago to the Gulag, the forced-labor camps of the Soviet Union. It is sponsoring historical conferences, art exhibits, educational events, memorials to victims and trips to some of the places in Hungary where the prisoners were rounded up.

About 300,000 of the deported never returned and the topic was firmly taboo during the nation's communist era, which ended in 1990, said Maria Schmidt, a historian and director of the House of Terror Museum in the Hungarian capital of Budapest.

In all, historians say Soviet authorities sent about 15 million people to such camps between 1930s and the 1950s. "People were not told they were being taken for slave labor to the Soviet Union, but that they were being drafted for small, local jobs like peeling potatoes," Schmidt explained to an Associated Press reporter. "They thought they would be able to go home in a few hours. They often spent three, four, or five years in the Soviet camps. Some never returned home."

Desperate to let his family know what had happened, Miklosi threw a letter out of the train that was taking him to the labor camp. A photo of that letter is part of an exhibit now at the House of Terror. Miklosi only returned home on Dec. 13, 1947, after his father's determined Soviet boss at a Budapest weapons factory had him tracked down through the International Red Cross.

"The aim of the memorial year is to call attention to the fact that the suffering of the Hungarian people did not end with the end World War II," Schmidt said. "When the Red Army crossed the Hungarian border, it immediately began gathering up those it thought could be politically dangerous. They included prisoners of war, those rounded up for political reasons, those of German descent or with German names and civilians captured at random."

After his capture, Miklosi told officials he was born in 1927, hoping to fool the Soviets into believing he was not yet 18, as some underage prisoners were being released. The scheme backfired, because the Soviets kept him anyway, and later the Red Cross spent many fruitless months looking for someone with the same name who was born in 1926. Finally, Miklosi's identity was confirmed and he was sent home.

"I'm not complaining, because I was young," said Miklosi, who still remembered being constantly hungry and homesick. "The ones in trouble were those who had children, a wife. By the third year ... they had lost their minds. I could stand the pace. I toughened up."

During his 34 months in captivity, Miklosi lived in different prison barracks and braved temperatures of minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit). He was forced to do jobs like cleaning ditches in an apple orchard, dismantling a blown-up sugar factory and harvesting wheat with a scythe. Those who tried to escape were beaten, often killed.

"The Soviet Union lost 26 million people in World War II," said Schmidt. "It simply needed manpower to rebuild the country, so they took these many hundreds of thousands of people from Hungary for slave labor."

Now 88, Miklosi, who later became a photographer and a painter, spends his afternoons on a stool at a Budapest train station, selling his autobiography out of a briefcase. "I've been selling the book for nearly 10 years. At least 3,000 teachers have bought it," said Miklosi, whose primary goal was for his five grandchildren to learn about his labor camp experiences. "I want today's youth to know about it."

Jim Heintz contributed to this story from London.

Greek leader holds government meeting as recession returns

May 13, 2015

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece's prime minister was holding his second ministerial meeting in as many days Wednesday, when official data confirmed the cash-strapped country is back in recession amid concern over much-delayed bailout talks with creditors.

Alexis Tsipras has said his radical left-led government has done as much as it can to strike a deal to get more bailout loans, insisting the ball is now in the court of the creditors. At stake is a 7.2 billion euro ($8 billion) rescue loan installment, and failure to reach an agreement could lead Greece to default on its obligations within weeks — triggering a chain of events that could force the country to leave the euro.

The head of Greece's GSEE umbrella private sector union, Yiannis Panagopoulos, said the country's drop back into recession, at the most crucial point of the bailout talks, highlights the need for a swift agreement "so that Greece can remain in the euro."

Official flash estimates showed that the economy shrank by 0.2 percent in the first three months compared with the previous quarter. Following the 0.4 percent contraction in the last quarter of 2014, the country is now technically back in recession less than a year after it emerged from a downturn as severe as the Great Depression.

Panagopoulos told The Associated Press that any deal with creditors must safeguard "fundamental social issues," which were "trampled underfoot" by previous austerity measures that included income cuts, tax hikes, scrapping of job protections and increases to the retirement age.

He said an agreement with creditors should respect the government's promises to restore labor rights and fight new pension cuts, but admits he is not optimistic. "Our creditors have toughened their positions," he said, adding that time was lost — and goodwill squandered — with negotiations "on terms and names," instead of how to restart growth.

He said a deal is better than nothing. "Otherwise we will no longer be talking about recession but rather a total collapse that will have terrifying repercussions on all of Greek society," Panagopoulos said.

Eurobank analyst Platon Monokroussos said the economic downturn in the first quarter was less severe than expected, and forecasts slight growth for the year as a whole. "Expectations for another record year for Greek tourism are supporting expectations for a growth recovery in (the second half), provided of course that an agreement will official creditors will be reached before the present bailout arrangement expires" in late June, he said.

The finance ministry said Wednesday that the January-April budget deficit was about a sixth the size expected, at 500 million euros, while — excluding debt servicing costs — there was a surplus of over 2 billion euros, much better than the 290 million euro target.

However, much of the savings were made through deferring payments for a second month in a row. The government is desperate for cash to pay its creditors — as well as civil servants and pensioners — and last month forced local authorities, hospitals and universities to allow it access to their cash reserves. The target was to raise some 2 billion euros, although so far only 600 million have flowed in as many entities refused to comply.

French president to make rare visit to Haiti

May 12, 2015

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — French leader Francois Hollande on Tuesday will make the second visit ever by a sitting president of France to its once prized possession of Haiti, where bountiful resources and brutal plantation slavery made it the European nation's most profitable colony some 250 years ago.

For Haiti's government and business community, Hollande's visit with a delegation of French ministers and executives is a welcome opportunity to encourage more investment and highlight progress made since a devastating 2010 earthquake obliterated much of Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas. Over the last week, the French leader has been touring the region, stopping in French Caribbean islands and Cuba, where he said his country would be a "faithful ally" as Havana reforms its centrally planned economy.

But for some citizens of impoverished Haiti, Hollande's visit is reminding them of the debilitating costs of the country's successful slave revolt for independence. In 1825, crippled by an international embargo enforced by French warships, Haiti agreed to pay France an "independence debt" of 150 million gold francs to compensate colonists for their losses of land and slaves. It was later reduced to 90 million gold coins.

"We Haitians know that a big reason why we are suffering today is because we were forced to pay France for our freedom. If we were not punished for our independence long ago we would have had a better time," Jean-Marc Bouchet said on a dusty, unpaved street in Port-au-Prince.

The slave uprising when it was territory known as St. Domingue secured Haiti's independence from France in 1804 and transformed it into world's first black republic. But the debt to France crippled the Caribbean nation, which did not finish paying off the indemnity to French and American banks until 1947.

Over the years, French administrations have acknowledged the historic wrong of slavery in Haiti and other former colonies. In 2001, the French government recognized the slave trade as a crime against humanity. And during the first visit to Haiti by a sitting French president, Nicolas Sarkozy spoke about the "wounds of colonization" during a five-hour visit to Haiti a few weeks after the 2010 quake.

But French leaders, like those of other former colonial powers, have consistently dismissed assertions that they needed to pay any kind of financial debt. With an eye on the old grievance, France cancelled all of Haiti's $77 million debt during Sarkozy's administration.

On Sunday, Hollande acknowledged his country's historic role in the Atlantic slave trade as he helped inaugurate a $93 million slavery memorial in Guadeloupe. "France is able to look at its own history because France is a great nation that is afraid of nothing, especially not afraid of itself," he said in the French island.

During that visit, Hollande also made mention of France's "debt" to Haiti, but French officials stressed that he was referring to a "moral debt," not a financial one. They say it echoes comments he made in 2013 when Hollande said France's "debt" to Africa "cannot be the subject of a transaction."

The campaign to win reparations from France was a cornerstone of the second administration of former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. France dismissed Aristide's demands. Two years ago, leaders of more than a dozen Caribbean countries launched an effort to seek compensation from France, Britain and the Netherlands for what they say is the lingering legacy of the Atlantic slave trade.

3 Baltic nations request permanent NATO troop presence

May 14, 2015

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — The three Baltic countries — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — are asking NATO to permanently deploy ground troops to their nations as a deterrent against an increasingly assertive Russia.

The countries' defense chiefs requested a brigade-size unit of NATO troops — one battalion of 700-800 troops in each country — in a joint letter this week to the supreme allied commander in Europe, said Capt. Mindaugas Neimontas, a spokesman for Lithuania's chief of defense.

"It is necessary because of the security situation," Neimontas told The Associated Press on Thursday. "It's not getting better in our region, so it will be a deterrent." The Baltic countries — former Soviet republics that regained independence amid the collapse of the Soviet Union over two decades ago — have been alarmed by Moscow's intervention in Ukraine and the increasing activity of Russian forces in the Baltic Sea.

NATO forces, including from the U.S., have also stepped up military exercises in the Baltics and other Eastern European nations in the wake of the Ukraine crisis. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the request would be "assessed carefully," but gave no commitment beyond that.

Speaking to reporters at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Antalya, Turkey, Stoltenberg underlined that the alliance has already increased its military presence in the Baltic region and is in the process of establishing quick response forces that will make it easier to reinforce the Baltic states if needed.

"The main message is that NATO is ready. And NATO is prepared. And we will defend all allies against any threat," Stoltenberg said. Vladimir Chizhov, Russia's ambassador to the European Union, said the Baltic request was motivated by "local politics rather than a genuine security situation."

"Because nobody is threatening the Baltics — at least, nobody that I know of," he said.

Karl Ritter in Stockholm and John-Thor Dahlburg in Brussels contributed to this report.

UK PM Cameron meets Nicola Sturgeon meet for Scotland talks

May 15, 2015

LONDON (AP) — Prime Minister David Cameron is meeting Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland's first minister and leader of the Scottish National Party, for their first talks since Britain's election.

The two leaders are expected to discuss the transfer of greater governing powers from London to Scotland when they meet later Friday in Scotland. The pro-independence SNP rocked Britain's political landscape last week when it swept almost all of Scotland's seats in Parliament — 56 of 59 — in the general election.

Sturgeon says those results showed that Scots are keen to see substantially increased powers for the Scottish parliament, including the right to decide the territory's own minimum wage and its business taxes.

Cameron declared immediately after the Conservatives' election victory that he was committed to devolving powers to Scotland as soon as possible.

Turkey, Greece welcome relaunch of Cyprus unity talks

May 12, 2015

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — The foreign ministers of Greece and Turkey on Tuesday welcomed a decision by Cyprus' rival Greek and Turkish communities to relaunch stalled talks aimed at reunifying the island, calling it an opportunity that should not be squandered.

Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias and Turkey's Mevlut Cavusoglu also vowed during a joint news conference to continue to work to improve the often-frosty relations and said the countries had agreed to increase security and prevent accidents in the Aegean Sea.

"We agreed on a set of measures which we believe will increase maritime safety," Cavusoglu said. Greece and Turkey have historically had strained ties and are still at odds over several issues, including territorial disputes in the Aegean Sea and over the divided island of Cyprus.

Greek Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and new Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci agreed late Monday to relaunch talks on May 15 to reunify Cyprus. The island was split into a breakaway Turkish Cypriot north and an internationally-recognized Greek Cypriot south in 1974 when Turkey invaded after a coup by supporters of union with Greece.

Hopes for a breakthrough over Cyprus got a boost after Akinci, a left-wing moderate, defeated hard-line incumbent Dervis Eroglu in an election last month. "We have good reason to be optimistic," Cavusoglu said. "This opportunity that we have needs to be put into good use."

Despite efforts to build bridges, major differences remain between NATO allies Greece and Turkey who have reached the brink of war three times since in the last four decades. But Kotzias also said Greece and Turkey were "elements of stability" in a volatile region.

"We delved on how we can further strengthen this existing stability," Kotzias said. "Our common wish is for the problems we have in the Aegean Sea to be resolved. We want tensions there to be reduced."

Kotzias was in Turkey to attend the NATO foreign ministers' meeting in the Turkish Mediterranean city of Antalya that starts Wednesday.

Young critics of Venezuela government put hope in elections

May 13, 2015

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Last year, Rafael Rico was covering his baby face with a vinegar-soaked rag and dodging tear gas canisters as he clashed with Venezuelan riot police.

This week, the 23-year-old engineering student is canvassing on the resort island of Margarita as he campaigns to represent the South American country's opposition coalition in upcoming legislative elections.

Rico is the youngest of a crop of new candidates who raged in the streets against Venezuela's socialist administration last spring, but are now putting their faith in the ballot box as the best way to force President Nicolas Maduro from power. More than a third of the candidates running in the opposition coalition's primary elections on Sunday are younger than 40.

"You have to protest, but you also have to vote," Rico said, borrowing from his stump speech. "The repression and human rights violations that we saw in 2014 showed that just going into the streets without also winning elections doesn't give you the results you need."

Last year's sometimes bloody demonstrations against the country's mounting economic chaos petered out after a government crackdown. But the problems young people protested — including severe shortages and the world's highest inflation — have only worsened amid a plunge in oil prices. Oil revenues fund almost all of Venezuela's government spending.

The country's opposition coalition, which holds a third of the legislature, now has a shot at dominating an election for the first time since the late President Hugo Chavez launched his socialist revolution 16 years ago. If the coalition wins, it's expected to use its legislative power to mount a recall referendum against Maduro.

Elections for the National Assembly are scheduled every five years and must be held by the year's end. The head of elections said last week that this year's contest will be in late November or early December. Polls show the opposition coalition would win if the vote were held today.

But positive polls don't guarantee an electoral victory. The opposition has mostly benefited from discontent with the ruling party, and has not won its advantage through its own campaigning, said Luis Vicente Leon, director of local pollster Datanalisis.

"The opposition's opportunity is potential energy, and its challenge is to make it kinetic energy," Leon wrote in a newspaper column this week, warning that the coalition won't see results unless it works hard.

The opposition might have fielded many more young candidates if it hadn't decided to forgo primaries in most districts, a choice that upset emerging leaders like Rico who now must fight their way to the general election.

The coalition is made up of dozens often disagreeing parties, and insiders hand-picked 125 candidates from their own political cliques to run against the socialist party in the general election, leaving just 42 slots up for grabs for the 109 candidates competing in Sunday's primary.

It's another example of the discord that has hobbled the country's opposition for years. "They could have said, 'We're going to go to full primaries across the country, we want to bring in students who were fighting for democracy last year,' but they didn't do that," said David Smilde, a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America. "It's because they have a lot of politicians there who have a sense of entitlement. There are a couple dozen parties in the coalition, and they all have leaders and some want to be candidates."

This year's opposition primaries are actually slightly more open than usual. In 2010, coalition leaders pre-selected candidates for all but 22 congressional seats. Just 10 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots in those primaries. Turnout this time is expected to be even lower because of a lack of publicity.

By contrast, the socialist party will hold primaries for nearly 100 seats this June, and has mandated that half of candidates be younger than 30, capitalizing on the power of the youth vote in a country where four out of 10 registered voters are younger than 35.

Opposition legislator Enrique Marquez said the opposition is too broke to hold more primary contests. The coalition already is asking each candidate to contribute 150,000 bolivars, about $500 at the widely used black market exchange rate, to cover election costs.

The opposition has also been battered by a steady government crackdown on its leaders and the closure or sale of combative media outlets. Some candidates in Sunday's primaries are still jailed on charges related to last year's protests, including Daniel Ceballos, the former mayor of the restive city of San Cristobal. In a quirk of Venezuelan law, a win could be a get-out-of-jail card for the 31-year-old politician because legislators receive immunity from prosecution during their terms.

Rico is working to persuade voters to turn out on Sunday, but like many in the opposition, he doubts the upcoming elections will be fair and fears Maduro will curtail the National Assembly's power if the ruling party loses its majority. If he can't achieve the change he wants through the ballot box, he knows what he'll do.

"We have to show our discontent in elections. And if they don't respect the vote, we'll be in the street again," he said.

AP Writer Fabiola Sanchez contributed to this report.

Abuse of 10-year-old causes others to speak out in Paraguay

May 12, 2015

CIUDAD DEL ESTE, Paraguay (AP) — The fate of a pregnant 10-year-old has not only become a national debate in Paraguay but has underscored what activists say is a problem with child rape in this poor South American nation and led other victims to speak out.

Cristina Britez de Mendoza is the director of a shelter for troubled youth in Ciudad del Este, a gritty and bustling town of 350,000 that sits across the border from Brazil and Argentina. She said many of the children she works with have been sexually abused, such as a 12-year-old girl who gave birth last month. The girl lives at the shelter with the baby.

"When the other children play, this girl wants to play, too," said Britez de Mendoza, who attended a rally to demand stiffer penalties for sex abusers. "She is still a child." Monday's rally in Ciudad del Este drew 200 people under the banner of "No More Abuse!" and participants said it was unprecedented in this city with little culture of social protest. Another protest was held in the capital of Asuncion.

The rallies came amid a fierce debate over what is best for the 10-year-old rape victim who is being denied an abortion. In Paraguay, the procedure is banned in all cases — even rape — except when the mother's life is in danger.

The decision to not give the girl an abortion has sparked international and local condemnation, with United Nations human rights experts on Monday blasting Paraguay for failing to protect her. "The Paraguayan authorities' decision results in grave violations of the rights to life, to health, and to the physical and mental integrity of the girl as well as her right to education, jeopardizing her economic and social opportunities," the four experts said in a statement.

Looking on at Monday's protest in Ciudad del Este, a 17-year-old told The Associated Press she had been repeatedly raped by her stepfather from the time she was 9 until she was 14, when she told her mom about the abuse.

"If I had seen protests like this before, maybe I would have spoken up sooner, or maybe it wouldn't have happened to me," said the girl, who is not being identified in line with The Associated Press policy of not naming the victims of sexual abuse.

She said her mother confronted her stepfather, who denied the abuse and still lives in the house. The girl said she is now physically strong enough to fend off his advances, but for a few years she was afraid of men and ate heavily — at one point she weighed 89 kilograms (196 pounds) — to make herself less attractive.

"I try not to be at home so I don't have to see him," she said through tears. "He makes me sick." About 600 girls 14 or under become pregnant each year in this country of 6.8 million people. Studies by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control say thousands of children in the United States also give birth each year.

In Paraguay "these cases are very common. What's needed is the political will to get us out of this hole," said Britez de Mendoza, who runs the shelter in Ciudad del Este. In the case of the 10-year-old, the girl's stepfather, who is accused of raping her, was arrested over the weekend and placed in isolation to prevent other inmates from attacking him. The girl's mother is being held at a female prison for neglecting to take care of her daughter.

In response to the calls for a therapeutic abortion for the girl, Paraguayan Health Minister Antonio Barrios has responded that she is in good health at a hospital and that the pregnancy, at five months, is too advanced.

The president of the country's Episcopal Conference, Msgr. Claudio Gimenez, decried the possibility of a therapeutic abortion, saying Paraguay is already split over the case. "Some want to legalize abortion, the killing of an innocent who still is in a period of gestation," he said. "And for the other side, those who oppose that idea."

Some protesters said they thought the controversial case of the 10-year-old is the tip of the iceberg. "How many thousands of other girls are raped and we just don't hear about it because they don't have the baby or don't report it?" said Sebastian Martinez, 34.

Associated Press reporter Pedro Servin contributed to this report from Asuncion, Paraguay.

After failed coup, Burundi president urges halt to protests

May 16, 2015

BUJUMBURA, Burundi (AP) — President Pierre Nkurunziza thanked his security forces for crushing a military coup that tried to topple him, and he urged an immediate halt to the protests that have erupted in Burundi in recent weeks since he decided to seek a third term.

Nkurunziza's motorcade rolled into the capital on Friday and he returned to the presidential palace, said his spokesman, Gervais Abayeho. The president did not appear in public. His jubilant supporters cheered his return and the failure of the coup. Maj. Gen. Godefroid Niyombare, a former intelligence chief, had announced Wednesday while Nkurunziza was in Tanzania that he had relieved the president of his duties.

That triggered fierce fighting in the capital between his forces and those loyal to Nkurunziza. The city was calm but tense Friday, with many businesses closed. Some residents who don't support the government emerged from their homes to resume protests.

Three army generals accused of trying to topple Nkurunziza were arrested when they were found hiding in a house, while another senior security official was caught at the border while trying to flee to Tanzania, Abayeho said. He added that Niyombare remained at large and a manhunt was underway.

The United States government said it was alarmed by reports of retaliatory attacks and the growing risk of violence and atrocities. U.N. officials, too, urged authorities to ensure that a campaign of reprisals do not take place against the supporters of the coup and other opponents.

The U.S. urgently called on Nkurunziza to condemn and stop the use of violence by police and the ruling party's Imbonerakure youth militias against those who participated in protests against a third term, State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said.

Washington opposes attempts to seize power unlawfully, but also believes that Nkurunziza's decision to disregard the 2003 peace accords that ended civil war by seeking a third term "has created instability and violence," Rathke said.

Rathke said the U.S. was taking steps to impose visa ineligibilities on those responsible for violence and called on other governments to do the same. The U.S. also warned that it cannot provide military training or assistance to units that commit human rights violations, and welcomed the decision by donors to reduce or withdraw assistance to Burundi in response to violence.

In New York, members of the U.N. Security Council called for the swift return of the rule of law and a genuine dialogue to create conditions for peaceful, transparent, inclusive and credible elections. In a statement, they also specifically condemned those who facilitate violence, and called on the Burundi authorities to address the crisis while respecting fundamental freedoms.

In his speech, which was posted on his website in Burundi's official language of Kirundi, Nkurunziza thanked "the security and defense forces for the efficiency with which they fought the coup against the democratically elected institutions."

He said "peace reigns throughout the country, even in Bujumbura where this small group of criminals wanted to commit the irreparable," a reference to the coup plotters, and he added that they had been preparing their actions "for a long time, since last year and before."

Nkurunziza called for an immediate end to all hostilities and urged dialogue. "We therefore urge the immediate cessation of the demonstrations, that those who have claims do so in dialogue and consultation, not through force and revolt," he said.

The protests began April 26, a day after the ruling party made Nkurunziza its presidential candidate, and at least 15 people have been killed in the unrest. Opponents said his plan violated the constitution as well as the peace accords that ended a civil war. The constitution states a president can be popularly elected to two five-year terms, but Nkurunziza maintains he can run for a third because parliament voted him into office the first time, leaving him open to be popularly elected to two terms.

More than 105,000 Burundians have fled to neighboring countries recently, according to the U.N., and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein warned Friday that the country is at risk of descending further into chaos.

He urged authorities to ensure that the instigators of the failed coup are not harmed and that there are no reprisals against their perceived supporters, journalists, human rights activists and the many civilian protesters.

At the United Nations, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke to Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta about Burundi and emphasized the need for regional leaders "to join efforts to help resolve the crisis," said deputy spokesman Farhan Haq. Ban plans to talk to Nkurunziza and other regional leaders in the coming days, he added.

Haq then summarized Ban's statement from Thursday that urged "all political and security leaders to clearly and openly reject the use of violence, refrain from acts of revenge and rein in their militants."

Nkurunziza's motorcade drove to Bujumbura from the northern city of Ngozi, where he was greeted by many supporters after returning from Tanzania, Abayeho said. Smoke was still billowing from the building housing the Radio Publique Africaine, which was among four popular independent radio stations and a TV station attacked in the fighting.

The national broadcaster that the coup plotters tried to seize was heavily guarded by army personnel, and many police checkpoints were set up along a highway in southern Burundi. The U.S. Embassy was closed Friday, a day after the State Department ordered the departure of nonemergency government personnel and dependents of embassy staff. Rathke said the U.S. could offer only limited emergency services to U.S. citizens and underscored a travel warning urging all Americans to leave Burundi as quickly as possible.

Dozens of Nkurunziza supporters turned out in the Kamenge area of the capital to celebrate his return, blowing whistles and carrying balloons with the ruling party colors. Supporter Aloys Ntabankana said they were happy over Nkurunziza's return, and he decried those who tried to oust him.

"The thing they wanted to do in Burundi would have sunk Burundi into chaos. It would have been a civil war. People would have died because of the coup against Nkurunziza," he added. Burundi descended into civil war in 1993 following the army assassination of the country's first democratically elected President Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu. That conflict, which opened longstanding ethnic tensions between majority Hutus and minority Tutsis, lasted until 2005.

Nkurunziza, a Hutu, took over as president and embarked on a campaign of ethnic reconciliation and economic rehabilitation. But a youth wing of his party has been accused of human rights violations, including killing political opponents.

Jerome Delay in rural southern Burundi, Edmund Kagire in Kigali, Rwanda, Bradley Klapper in Washington and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

Russian court rejects demand to imprison Kremlin foe Navalny

May 13, 2015

MOSCOW (AP) — A Moscow court on Wednesday turned down authorities' request to turn a suspended sentence for opposition leader Alexei Navalny into prison time.

Navalny was convicted in December of fraud and given a three-and-a-half-year suspended sentence. His brother was sent to prison on charges of defrauding a French cosmetics company in a verdict seen as a political vendetta by the Kremlin.

Russia's prison service, backed by prosecutors, have appealed to convert Navalny's earlier suspended five-year sentence in a separate criminal case into a prison term, citing his recent misdemeanors such as Navalny's 15-day arrest for campaigning on the subway for an unauthorized rally.

Navalny, a leading foe of President Vladimir Putin who spearheaded the 2011-2012 mass protests in Moscow, rejected the accusations and argued that they have no basis in Russian law. The Lyublinsky district court on Wednesday rejected the prosecutors' demand.

Speaking to reporters after the verdict, Navalny said that official requests to put him behind bars are part of the Kremlin-driven efforts to hamper his opposition activities and also test a level of public support for him.

"As of now, the presidential administration has decided that a fallout from my conviction would be too big," he said.

Russian opposition: 220 Russian soldiers died in Ukraine

May 12, 2015

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian opposition activists published a report Tuesday that they claim proves that Russia is deeply involved in the war in Ukraine, seeking to counter overwhelming state media reports casting the events as a local uprising against the Ukrainian government.

Prominent Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov was working on the report, entitled "Putin.War," after Russian President Vladimir Putin, at the time of his murder in February. Drawing on media accounts, testimonies from relatives and other representatives of dead soldiers and confidential sources, the 64-page report maintains that hundreds of Russian troops have died fighting in a war that has cost Russia hundreds of millions of dollars.

Opposition activist Ilya Yashin, who presented "Putin.War" in Moscow, said that by conservative estimates at least 220 Russian soldiers had died in two battles in eastern Ukraine within the past year.

Yashin said the real number of losses may have been much greater but that he would give figures only for deaths that could be confirmed. The Russian Defense Ministry has denied that any of its soldiers have fought in Ukraine, saying that the Russians who have joined the armed separatists were volunteers.

The report claimed the soldiers were released from their duties in the army and listed as volunteers. The Defense Ministry promised to pay compensation if the soldiers were killed or wounded, but failed to live up to its commitments, the report said.

Ilya Yashin, one of the opposition activists presenting the report, said Russian government actions have harmed the country's standing in the world and economic well-being. "The policies pursued by Putin, the isolationism into which he has forced our country, this war he has waged against our brother nation, all of it goes against the interests of Russia," he said.

Nemtsov was shot dead on Feb. 27 in central Moscow. Five suspects, including a Chechen police officer, were arrested in the killing, but investigators haven't named a suspected mastermind and the motive remains unclear.

Yashin said he believed it was possible that Nemtsov may have been murdered because of his investigation. "That is one of the theories of what may have been behind his killing," he said. Yashin said researchers on the report had been subject to intimidation, but that they would not be deterred.

"They killed Nemtsov, so we took over. If they don't let us work, others will take our place," he said. According to Nemtsov's sources, at least 150 Russian soldiers died in August 2014. Their relatives received 2 million rubles (now worth about $40,000) in compensation and signed non-disclosure documents.

Around 70 Russian soldiers died in January and February in fighting around the city of Debaltseve, the report said, adding that their family members were unable to receive compensation and appealed to Nemtsov for help.

Many Russian citizens engaged in fighting in eastern Ukraine have freely admitted where they come from, but stopped short of confirming they are fighting under Moscow's orders.