Minggu, 19 Mei 2019

Switzerland Votes ‘Yes’ to Being Tax Home for Big Business - Bloomberg

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  1. Switzerland Votes ‘Yes’ to Being Tax Home for Big Business  Bloomberg
  2. Swiss voters approve tax and pension overhaul: TV  Reuters
  3. Switzerland votes in referendum on tighter gun laws  The Guardian
  4. Swiss Set to Back Tax Reform, Gun Control in Sunday Referendums  Bloomberg
  5. Gun-loving Swiss asked to toughen laws or risk EU tension  BBC News
  6. View full coverage on Google News

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-19/switzerland-votes-yes-to-being-tax-home-for-big-business

2019-05-19 10:10:00Z
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Voting Is Ending in India. Here’s What to Expect. - The New York Times

After 39 days of polling involving as many as 900 million voters, balloting in India’s vast parliamentary election is coming to a close on Sunday, starting a countdown to the announcement of final results on Thursday.

After sweeping to an outright majority during the last elections in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., are widely expected to lose seats this time.

Deepening concerns about the economy, and about accusations that the B.J.P.’s Hindu-first conservative creed is putting Muslims and other minorities at risk, have led many Indians who voted for Mr. Modi’s party last time to say they might switch. The biggest beneficiary of such a shift would be the Congress party, led by Rahul Gandhi.

But Mr. Modi’s popularity remains vast, particularly among India’s Hindu majority, and many Indians credit him with programs that have helped the poor and cut through red tape and corruption.

No one is counting out the B.J.P. just yet. And some analysts believe it is still possible that the party will win another majority, or at least be within striking distance of a coalition that would put Mr. Modi back in the prime minister’s office.

[Read news and opinion coverage of India’s elections by The New York Times.]

Here’s a look at how the world’s biggest election unfolded and what to expect in the next few days.

Image
Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaking at a rally in Kolkata last month.CreditAtul Loke/Getty Images

Exit polls will start being released soon after the polls close Sunday evening, but the official results will not be released until Thursday. In the meantime, the surveys will drive big headlines in the Indian news media that either the B.J.P. or Congress — or both parties — will seize on as evidence of impending victory.

“In the majority of the cases, exit polls have depicted the true picture,’’ said Josukutty Cheriantharayil Abraham, an assistant professor of political science and director of the survey research center at the University of Kerala. “It may not be correct in terms of the number of seats or vote percentage, but it could definitely show the trends, who is likely to win and lose. In the past, that's been true for the majority of the cases, but there are cases it has gone wrong.”

It also bears remembering that this is a parliamentary election — it’s about parties, not a simple choice between Mr. Modi and Mr. Gandhi. Local issues and rivalries always loom large in Indian elections. And deal-making with smaller parties organized around region or identity may yet play a big role in determining who will become prime minister.

The vote itself has taken more than five weeks, conducted entirely on hundreds of thousands of computerized voting machines that were hauled from state to state across India’s vast territory.

But the official counting will take just part of the day on Thursday, because the totals are already noted in the voting machines themselves. The votes will be analyzed, and in some cases verified against printed ballot copies generated by each voting machine, starting at 8 a.m. on Thursday. The official results are expected to be announced around noon local time.

Image
Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi of the Congress party in the Kerala district of Wayanad last month.CreditAtul Loke/Getty Images

It’s very possible that the B.J.P. will not win 272 or more out of 543 parliamentary seats being voted on this year. If that happens, it will come down to deal-making to form a coalition.

“Every leader of a major regional front knows that he or she might be able to provide the seats that will put the party over the top,” said Milan Vaishnav, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. “Many are waiting by the phone should their number be called on May 23.”

Here are three of the most influential regional parties waiting for that call.

  • Bahujan Samaj: The party counts Dalits, or low-caste Indians, as its core constituency. Mayawati, the party’s leader, has not announced whom she would back in a coalition scenario, though many believe she is amenable to the B.J.P. if the party offers her a senior role in the government.

  • Telangana Rashtra Samiti: Based in Telangana, a state in southern India, the party has no regional political rivals and is likely to win around 17 seats. The party’s leader, K. Chandrashekhar Rao, has already announced that it would join an alliance under the right terms.

  • Biju Janata Dal: A powerful party in Odisha, a state in eastern India, the B.J.D. faces competition from the B.J.P. on its home turf. It has allied with the B.J.P. before, but may think twice if its political independence is threatened.

Image
Waiting to cast votes in Neemrana, in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan, this month.CreditManish Swarup/Associated Press

For the first time, female voters are expected to cast as many as half the total ballots — and perhaps more. Given that officials expect up to 900 million total votes nationwide, that’s a huge number. But more important, it means that Indian women’s votes will at last be proportional to their numbers — even if they are not yet fairly represented in the number of parliamentary seats they hold.

[Read about how female candidates have struggled in India’s long election season.]

Both in the number of female voters, and in total turnout across the country, the 2019 elections are expected to set records, further expanding India’s role as the world’s largest democracy. Watch here for updates on turnout numbers as they are announced.

Image
The aftermath of clashes between rival groups at a campaign rally held by Amit Shah, president of the governing Bharatiya Janata Party, in Kolkata on Tuesday.CreditAgence France-Presse — Getty Images

Violence has almost always played a role in Indian elections, whether between parties or gangs, or on a larger scale in the form of communal violence between religious or caste groups.

[Our reporters visited a village in West Bengal State where homes were burned over sectarian tensions.]

This election has been relatively peaceful compared with previous ones. But since voting began last month, one person has been killed and several candidates have been attacked, among other clashes between supporters of various parties, according to local news reports.

The prime minister spent the last night of the election meditating in a remote Himalayan cave.

At Kedarnath Temple in the northern state of Uttarakhand, Mr. Modi honored the Hindu god Shiva with a traditional offering of milk, honey, clarified butter and curd. The ceremony is believed to help to achieve goals and defeat enemies.

The shrine’s chief priest told Indian news channels that he had blessed Mr. Modi with at least three terms as prime minister and a Nobel Prize.

On Twitter, Mr. Modi shared photographs of the “majestic” mountains and of himself praying at the temple, which was built in the eighth century and sits almost 12,000 feet above sea level. The Uttarakhand B.J.P. also posted images of Mr. Modi, dressed in a saffron robe, meditating in a nearby cave. (He was reported to still have Wi-Fi as part of a portable prime minister’s office.)

Mr. Modi meditated for 17 hours, the Indian news media reported, emerging Sunday morning to visit another shrine, Badrinath, before returning to New Delhi in the afternoon.

Political opponents said Mr. Modi had violated election rules by speaking to the news media at Kedarnath after the end of the campaign period. At least one party, the All-India Trinamool Congress, complained to the Election Commission.

Jeffrey Gettleman and Ayesha Venkataraman contributed reporting.

Modi Promised Better Days and Bridges. India’s Voters Are Still Waiting.
Under Modi, a Hindu Nationalist Surge Has Further Divided India
In India Election, False Posts and Hate Speech Flummox Facebook

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/world/asia/india-election-results.html

2019-05-19 10:07:30Z
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Voting Is Ending in India. Here’s What’s to Expect. - The New York Times

After 39 days of polling involving as many as 900 million voters, balloting in India’s vast parliamentary election is coming to a close on Sunday, starting a countdown to the announcement of final results on Thursday.

After sweeping to an outright majority during the last elections in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., are widely expected to lose seats this time.

Deepening concerns about the economy, and about accusations that the B.J.P.’s Hindu-first conservative creed is putting Muslims and other minorities at risk, have led many Indians who voted for Mr. Modi’s party last time to say they might switch. The biggest beneficiary of such a shift would be the Congress party, led by Rahul Gandhi.

But Mr. Modi’s popularity remains vast, particularly among India’s Hindu majority, and many Indians credit him with programs that have helped the poor and cut through red tape and corruption.

No one is counting out the B.J.P. just yet. And some analysts believe it is still possible that the party will win another majority, or at least be within striking distance of a coalition that would put Mr. Modi back in the prime minister’s office.

[Read news and opinion coverage of India’s elections by The New York Times.]

Here’s a look at how the world’s biggest election unfolded and what to expect in the next few days.

Image
Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaking at a rally in Kolkata last month.CreditAtul Loke/Getty Images

Exit polls will start being released soon after the polls close Sunday evening, but the official results will not be released until Thursday. In the meantime, the surveys will drive big headlines in the Indian news media that either the B.J.P. or Congress — or both parties — will seize on as evidence of impending victory.

“In the majority of the cases, exit polls have depicted the true picture,’’ said Josukutty Cheriantharayil Abraham, an assistant professor of political science and director of the survey research center at the University of Kerala. “It may not be correct in terms of the number of seats or vote percentage, but it could definitely show the trends, who is likely to win and lose. In the past, that's been true for the majority of the cases, but there are cases it has gone wrong.”

It also bears remembering that this is a parliamentary election — it’s about parties, not a simple choice between Mr. Modi and Mr. Gandhi. Local issues and rivalries always loom large in Indian elections. And deal-making with smaller parties organized around region or identity may yet play a big role in determining who will become prime minister.

The vote itself has taken more than five weeks, conducted entirely on hundreds of thousands of computerized voting machines that were hauled from state to state across India’s vast territory.

But the official counting will take just part of the day on Thursday, because the totals are already noted in the voting machines themselves. The votes will be analyzed, and in some cases verified against printed ballot copies generated by each voting machine, starting at 8 a.m. on Thursday. The official results are expected to be announced around noon local time.

Image
Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi of the Congress party in the Kerala district of Wayanad last month.CreditAtul Loke/Getty Images

It’s very possible that the B.J.P. will not win 272 or more out of 543 parliamentary seats being voted on this year. If that happens, it will come down to deal-making to form a coalition.

“Every leader of a major regional front knows that he or she might be able to provide the seats that will put the party over the top,” said Milan Vaishnav, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. “Many are waiting by the phone should their number be called on May 23.”

Here are three of the most influential regional parties waiting for that call.

  • Bahujan Samaj: The party counts Dalits, or low-caste Indians, as its core constituency. Mayawati, the party’s leader, has not announced whom she would back in a coalition scenario, though many believe she is amenable to the B.J.P. if the party offers her a senior role in the government.

  • Telangana Rashtra Samiti: Based in Telangana, a state in southern India, the party has no regional political rivals and is likely to win around 17 seats. The party’s leader, K. Chandrashekhar Rao, has already announced that it would join an alliance under the right terms.

  • Biju Janata Dal: A powerful party in Odisha, a state in eastern India, the B.J.D. faces competition from the B.J.P. on its home turf. It has allied with the B.J.P. before, but may think twice if its political independence is threatened.

Image
Waiting to cast votes in Neemrana, in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan, this month.CreditManish Swarup/Associated Press

For the first time, female voters are expected to cast as many as half the total ballots — and perhaps more. Given that officials expect up to 900 million total votes nationwide, that’s a huge number. But more important, it means that Indian women’s votes will at last be proportional to their numbers — even if they are not yet fairly represented in the number of parliamentary seats they hold.

[Read about how female candidates have struggled in India’s long election season.]

Both in the number of female voters, and in total turnout across the country, the 2019 elections are expected to set records, further expanding India’s role as the world’s largest democracy. Watch here for updates on turnout numbers as they are announced.

Image
The aftermath of clashes between rival groups at a campaign rally held by Amit Shah, president of the governing Bharatiya Janata Party, in Kolkata on Tuesday.CreditAgence France-Presse — Getty Images

Violence has almost always played a role in Indian elections, whether between parties or gangs, or on a larger scale in the form of communal violence between religious or caste groups.

[Our reporters visited a village in West Bengal State where homes were burned over sectarian tensions.]

This election has been relatively peaceful compared with previous ones. But since voting began last month, one person has been killed and several candidates have been attacked, among other clashes between supporters of various parties, according to local news reports.

Jeffrey Gettleman and Ayesha Venkataraman contributed reporting.

Modi Promised Better Days and Bridges. India’s Voters Are Still Waiting.
Under Modi, a Hindu Nationalist Surge Has Further Divided India
In India Election, False Posts and Hate Speech Flummox Facebook

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/world/asia/india-election-results.html

2019-05-19 08:48:45Z
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India elections 2019: Final round of voting under way in 59 seats - Aljazeera.com

Indians are voting in the seventh and final phase of national elections, wrapping up a six-week-long campaign season with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seeking re-election for another five years.

Nearly a 100 million people are eligible to vote on Sunday in 59 constituencies across seven states - including the politically-critical Uttar Pradesh in the north and West Bengal in the east.

Sunday's voting also covers Modi's constituency of Varanasi, a temple town where he was elected in 2014. He spent Saturday night at Kedarnath, a temple of Hindu god Shiva nestled in the Himalayas in northern India.

190410185739389

Counting of votes is scheduled for May 23.

The election is seen as a referendum on Modi's five-year rule. He has adopted a nationalist pitch in trying to win votes from the country's Hindu majority by projecting a tough stance against Pakistan, India's Muslim-majority neighbour and archrival.

Modi has played up the threat of Pakistan, especially after the suicide bombing of a paramilitary convoy on February 14 that killed 40 Indian soldiers.

Reporting from Varanasi, Al Jazeera's Sohail Rahman said while the BJP positioned national security as its main poll agenda, the opposition attempted to corner Modi by focusing on issues of development.

"Discourse certainly changed after Pulwama attacks and national security became the issue. However, people and experts that I talked to said actual issues haven't come out, issues like health, education, sanitation and infrastructure, which the opposition used to target the government."

"The incumbent BJP government has been very reluctant to talk about what they have achieved in the last five years," he said.

The Congress and other opposition parties are challenging Modi over a high unemployment rate of 6.1 percent and farmers' distress aggravated by low crop prices.

Some of Modi's boldest policy steps, such as the demonetisation of high currency notes to curb black-market money and bring a large number of people into the tax net, proved to be economically damaging.

A haphazard implementation of "one nation, one tax" - the Goods and Services Tax - also hit small and medium businesses.

190416054316199

Voter turnout in the first six rounds was approximately 66 percent, the Election Commission said, up from 58 percent in the last national vote in 2014.

The election has taken place in a charged atmosphere as Modi's BJP sought a second term by pushing policies that some say have increased religious tensions and undermined multiculturalism.

The campaigning has been marred by accusations and insults, as well as the unprecedented use of social media.

Mamata Banerjee, Chief Minister of West Bengal state and chief of Trinamool Congress (TMC), at a roadshow ahead of the last phase of general election in Kolkata [Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters]

Voting has largely been peaceful but for sporadic violence in the eastern state of West Bengal, where the BJP is trying to wrest seats from the Trinamool Congress, a powerful regional party that is currently governing the state.

190503111153484

In a drastic and unprecedented action, the Election Commission cut off campaigning early in West Bengal on Thursday after days of clashes in the final stretch of the election.

Pre-election poll surveys by the media indicate that no party is likely to win anything close to a majority in parliament with 543 seats. The BJP, which won a majority of 282 seats in 2014, may need some regional parties as allies to stay in power.

A Congress-led government will require a major electoral upset.

 

SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies

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https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/05/india-election-2019-final-voting-190519031830636.html

2019-05-19 08:00:00Z
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Sabtu, 18 Mei 2019

India elections 2019: Final round of voting under way in 59 seats - Aljazeera.com

Indians are voting in the seventh and final phase of national elections, wrapping up a six-week-long campaign season with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seeking re-election for another five years.

Nearly a 100 million people are eligible to vote on Sunday in 59 constituencies across seven states - including the politically-critical Uttar Pradesh in the north and West Bengal in the east.

Sunday's voting also covers Modi's constituency of Varanasi, a temple town where he was elected in 2014. He spent Saturday night at Kedarnath, a temple of Hindu god Shiva nestled in the Himalayas in northern India.

190410185739389

Counting of votes is scheduled for May 23.

The election is seen as a referendum on Modi's five-year rule. He has adopted a nationalist pitch in trying to win votes from the country's Hindu majority by projecting a tough stance against Pakistan, India's Muslim-majority neighbour and archrival.

Modi has played up the threat of Pakistan, especially after the suicide bombing of a paramilitary convoy on February 14 that killed 40 Indian soldiers.

Reporting from Varanasi, Al Jazeera's Sohail Rahman said while the BJP stressed on national security as its main poll agenda, the opposition attempted to corner him by focusing on issues of development.

"Discourse certainly changed after Pulwama attacks and national security became the issue. However, people and experts that I talked to said actual issues haven't come out, issues like health, education, sanitation and infrastructure, which the opposition used to target the government."

"The incumbent BJP government has been very reluctant to talk about what they have achieved in the last five years," he said.

The Congress and other opposition parties are challenging Modi over a high unemployment rate of 6.1 percent and farmers' distress aggravated by low crop prices.

Some of Modi's boldest policy steps, such as the demonetisation of high currency notes to curb black-market money and bring a large number of people into tax net, proved to be economically damaging.

A haphazard implementation of "one nation, one tax" - The Goods and Services Tax - also hit small and medium businesses.

190416054316199

Voter turnout in the first six rounds was approximately 66 percent, the Election Commission said, up from 58 percent in the last national vote in 2014.

The election has taken place in a charged atmosphere as Modi's BJP sought a second term by pushing policies that some say have increased religious tensions and undermined multiculturalism.

The campaigning has been marred by accusations and insults, as well as the unprecedented use of social media.

Mamata Banerjee, Chief Minister of West Bengal state and chief of Trinamool Congress (TMC), at a road show ahead of the last phase of general election in Kolkata [Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters]

Voting has largely been peaceful but for sporadic violence in the eastern state of West Bengal , where the BJP is trying to wrest seats from Trinamool Congress, a powerful regional party that is currently governing the state.

190503111153484

In a drastic and unprecedented action, the Election Commission cut off campaigning early in West Bengal on Thursday after days of clashes in the final stretch of the election.

Pre-election poll surveys by the media indicate that no party is likely to win anything close to a majority in parliament with 543 seats. The BJP, which won a majority of 282 seats in 2014, may need some regional parties as allies to stay in power.

A Congress-led government will require a major electoral upset.

 

SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies

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https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/05/india-election-2019-final-voting-190519031830636.html

2019-05-19 06:31:00Z
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Austrian Leader Calls for Snap Election After Far-Right Vice Chancellor Resigns - The New York Times

BERLIN — Austria’s chancellor called for snap elections after the country’s far-right vice chancellor resigned on Saturday over a secretly filmed video from 2017 that showed him promising government contracts to a woman claiming to be the niece of a Russian oligarch.

The episode renewed questions about whether Russia had a direct line into a government at the heart of the European Union.

“After yesterday’s video, enough is enough,” Chancellor Sebastian Kurz told a room packed with reporters on Saturday night in the capital Vienna. He said he had asked Austria’s president to hold a snap election “as soon as possible.”

The video was the worst in a series of missteps that threatened the stability of Austria’s governing coalition. It also raised concerns about whether Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache’s far-right Freedom Party had been actively working to undermine liberal democracy and media freedom in the country while helping conservative Chancellor Sebastian Kurz govern as the junior party in his coalition.

For weeks, opposition parties had called on Mr. Kurz to end his controversial coalition with the Freedom Party, with its well-documented links to far-right extremists and to Russia that have increasingly worried allies at home and abroad.

The scandal comes at an important political moment in the European Union. Across the Continent, far-right, populist leaders are campaigning hard before next week’s elections for the European Parliament and seem poised to increase their share in the chamber.

Many of Europe’s populists share the intentions of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to widen political divisions and weaken Western institutions.

Not long ago, these far-right parties were on the fringes of European politics. But like Austria’s Freedom Party, several are now part of coalition governments. Some populist leaders, particularly in the Scandinavian countries and Poland, are wary of Russia. But others are outspoken in their desire for closer ties to the Kremlin.

The Freedom Party has longstanding ties with Russia and a formal cooperation agreement with Mr. Putin’s United Russia party.

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Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, right, with Mr. Strache in Vienna last year. For months, opposition parties have called on Mr. Kurz to end his controversial coalition with the Freedom Party.CreditChristian Bruna/EPA, via Shutterstock

Without the Freedom Party, Mr. Kurz’s conservative party does not have a majority in Parliament.

The video of Mr. Strache’s meeting was filmed in a villa on the Spanish island of Ibiza three months before the 2017 Austrian elections in which Mr. Kurz led his conservative Austrian People’s Party to victory. It exposed in a raw fashion Mr. Strache’s apparent eagerness to help Russia with unethical promises for government contracts in exchange for donations to his party.

Apparently filmed without Mr. Strache’s knowledge, the footage was obtained and published on Friday by the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel and the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, two respected news outlets. The New York Times could not independently verify the contents of the entire video.

The motive and the timing of the recording’s release remained unknown. Der Spiegel has would not say how it had obtained the video, but confirmed that it knew the identity of its source.

But what is clear from excerpts from the video is the Freedom Party’s willingness to foster close links to Russia, even if in this case the meeting may have been a setup.

“The road to illiberal democracy — for some apparently a synonym for kleptocracy — was long planned,” Pamela Rendi-Wagner, the head of the opposition Social Democrats, said after the video was released. “The video shows everything, says everything and provides deep insight.”

The footage shows Mr. Strache and a Russian-speaking Freedom Party official smoking and drinking while talking to a woman who claims to be the niece of a Russian oligarch. When she offers to support the Freedom Party and invest 250 million euros, around $280 million, in Austria, Mr. Strache offers her road-building contracts in the country in return.

After resigning as vice chancellor and leader of the Freedom Party on Saturday, Mr. Strache played down his comments as “typical alcohol-fueled macho behavior” as he tried to impress the “attractive hostess.”

“I behaved boastfully like a teenager,” he said at a news conference in Vienna on Saturday.

Austria may be back at the center of a battle of ideas between liberal Western democrats and populist forces allied with Mr. Putin, who as a K.G.B. spy based in Communist Germany would go to Austria to ski.

“Vienna plays a key role for Putin and for the far right,” said Peter Pilz, an independent Austrian lawmaker. “Far-right parties all over Europe have become a sort of fifth column for Russia. In Austria, that fifth column has been in government.”

Mr. Strache first met Mr. Putin in May 2007. In 2014, at least two Freedom Party members took part as election observers during the Russian referendum after the annexation of Crimea.

Then in 2016, seven months before the meeting in Ibiza, Mr. Strache traveled to Moscow to sign a formal cooperation agreement between the Freedom Party and Mr. Putin’s United Russia party.

Image
A demonstration outside the Federal Chancellery after Mr. Strache’s resignation.CreditGetty Images/Getty Images

Last August, Austria’s foreign minister, Karin Kneissl, who is backed by the Freedom Party, invited Mr. Putin to her wedding. And foreign intelligence services have stopped sharing sensitive information with Austria for fear that it may leak to Moscow.

But Chancellor Kurz had said that the links between the Freedom Party and Russia were overstated.

“Regarding the close contacts between Russia and the Freedom Party, I can only smile,” he said in an interview with The New York Times last month. “Every Western foreign minister has more contact with senior Russian officials in one year than the Freedom Party in its entire history.”

Mr. Kurz won in 2017 by giving a youthful repackaging to much of the agenda of the Freedom Party, which he then invited into a coalition government.

At one point, according to the footage, Mr. Strache compared journalists to prostitutes. He also said he would like Austria’s news media landscape to resemble that of neighboring Hungary, where Prime Minister Viktor Orban turned the country’s public media into a pro-government propaganda machine while allies have gradually bought up swathes of the private media sector.

“We want to build a media landscape like Orban did,” Mr. Strache says in the video, floating the idea of partly privatizing Austria’s public broadcaster and encouraging a suggestion by his Russian counterpart to take over Austria’s most influential tabloid.

“If she takes over the Krone newspaper three weeks before election and brings us to spot number one, then we can talk about anything,” Mr. Strache says.

Mr. Strache’s dismissive comments about journalists and casual planning to undermine Austria’s media freedom are seen as ominous. Last year, an internal memo circulated by the press chief of the Interior Ministry, which is controlled by the Freedom Party, instructed officials to shut out critical news media and reward those that provided favorable coverage with access.

Since then, the party has proposed replacing the broadcast fee that Austrians pay the public broadcaster directly with a tax-funded model that would give the government more control over the outlet.

In recent weeks, a senior Freedom Party official has also demanded the removal of a television news anchor on Austria’s public broadcaster who had challenged him about a campaign poster that many said was reminiscent of Nazi propaganda.

In addition to openly nurturing its ties to Russia, the Interior Ministry has also raided its own intelligence agency, notably the department investigating far-right extremism.

And last month, a Freedom Party official wrote a poem calling immigrants rats.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/18/world/europe/austria-strache-resigns-video.html

2019-05-18 18:00:00Z
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FM Javad Zarif: We don't want war, and no one can confront Iran - Al Jazeera English

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says he does not believe a war will break out in the region as Tehran does not want a conflict and no country has the "illusion it could confront Iran", state news agency IRNA reports.

Concerns about a possible conflict have flared since the White House ordered warships and bombers to the Middle East to counter an alleged, unexplained threat from Iran.

Earlier this week the US also pulled some diplomatic staff from its embassy in Baghdad following weekend attacks on four oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

"There will be no war because neither we want a war, nor has anyone the idea or illusion that it can confront Iran in the region," Zarif told IRNA before ending his visit to Beijing.

US deployment 

Meanwhile, Saudi media reported that the kingdom and a number of Gulf states have agreed to a request by the US to redeploy its military forces in Gulf waters and territories.

According to the reports, the approval came on the basis of bilateral agreements between Washington and Gulf countries.

The motive for redeployment, according to the Saudi reports, was to deter Iran from any attempt to escalate the situation militarily, not to engage in a war with it.

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This all takes root in US President Donald Trump's decision last year to withdraw the US from the 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and world powers and impose wide-reaching sanctions.

The move came even as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has verified that Tehran has upheld its obligations under the deal. 

Last week, Time magazine quoted Pentagon officials as saying there was no military plan to confront Iran.

On the Iranian side, the Guardian newspaper reported in an exclusive report on Thursday that Tehran had ordered its militias in the Middle East to prepare for a proxy war.

The deputy commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Saleh Jokar, said on Friday that his country's missiles could easily reach US warships anchored in the Gulf and the rest of the region in case of war.

On the other hand, a senior Iranian legislator, Hashmatullah Falahat Pishe, called for an Iranian-American dialogue in Iraq or Qatar, to de-escalate tensions with Washington.

Amid rising tensions, Bahrain ordered on Saturday all of its citizens to immediately leave Iraq and Iran.

Bahrain's foreign ministry made the announcement via its state-run news agency, citing the "unstable situation in the region and and the grave developments and threats that threaten security and stability".

Secret reports

Inside the US, congressional sources on Saturday said officials from Trump's administration would make secret statements about the situation with Iran this week, after politicians from the Democratic and Republican parties asked for more information.

Members of Congress have complained for weeks that Trump's administration has not given them enough information about the current tension with Iran, and some Republicans say they have not been briefed on the issue.

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Relations between Washington and Tehran have been strained in recent days after Trump issued a resolution to try to stop Iran's oil exports completely, and bolstered the US military presence in the Gulf in response to what officials in its administration said were "imminent" Iranian threats to Washington's interests in the region, without explaining the nature of the alleged threat.

Adding to the rhetoric, US diplomats warned commercial airliners flying over the wider Gulf of the risk of being "misidentified" amid the heightened tensions.

The warning relayed by US diplomatic posts from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) underlined the risks the current tensions pose to a region crucial to global air travel.

SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies

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https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/05/fm-javad-zarif-don-war-confront-iran-190518105344169.html

2019-05-18 17:30:00Z
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