Right wing nuts worldwide.

PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron may be ahead in the presidential race so far, but he warned his supporters that “nothing is done” and his runoff battle with far-right challenger Marine Le Pen will be a hard fight. And she’s ready for it.

The duel is starting Monday, after the two came out on top in Sunday’s first-round vote. The centrist Macron is heading to an economically depressed area of northern France where a majority of voters chose Le Pen, close to her electoral stronghold of Henin-Beaumont.

Meanwhile, Le Pen’s National Rally officials will meet Monday to plan strategy for the second round, scheduled on April 24. Le Pen summed up the standoff by saying voters are faced with “a fundamental choice between two opposing visions of the future.”

Macron already faced Le Pen in the presidential runoff five years ago. But all opinion polls show the leader of the National Rally is much closer this time to a potential win.

Macron said he wants to court those who voted for the “extremes” or opted to stay at home. That’s what he sought to do in the northern town of Denain Monday by campaigning on his rival’s home ground. Le Pen garnered over 41% of votes there as opposed to 14% for Marcon.

Macron met with area residents, many of whom criticized his proposed pension changes which include raising the minimum retirement age from 62 to 65.

Denain’s mayor, Anne-Lise Dufour-Tonini, told reporters she will vote for Macron ’with no hesitation” in the second round, but intends to push for him to adopt more “leftist proposals.”

On her third attempt to become France’s first woman president, Le Pen was rewarded Sunday for her years-long effort to rebrand herself as more pragmatic and less extreme. Macron has accused Le Pen of pushing a dangerous manifesto of racist, ruinous policies. Le Pen wants to roll back some rights for Muslims, banning them from wearing headscarves in public, and to drastically reduce immigration from outside Europe.

In his speech on Sunday evening, Macron said his project would protect all religions and the freedom “to believe, or not.”

The rise of food and energy prices is at the core of Le Pen’s campaign, but Macron’s team argue she wouldn’t have the financial means to meet her promises.

“Our focus is now on the project and the values,” Senator Francois Patriat, a member of Macron’s party, said. The strategy consists in being “proud” of what has been done over the past five years, showing “a bit of humility,” and “above all, some fighting spirit,” he said.

Macron will use the next days to “go in the field,” he said. Prior to Sunday’s first round, Macron was absent from most of the electoral campaign as he spent most of his time focusing on diplomatic efforts over the war in Ukraine.

Le Pen’s camp, meanwhile, is hoping to capitalize on anger at Macron over policies seen as favoring the rich.

“Now everything is possible,” Aurélien Lopez Liguori, a municipal councilor with Le Pen’s party in the southern city of Sete, told The AP. Compared with 2017, “now Macron has a record, a bad record.” He credited Le Pen’s proximity to the French during the campaign for closing the gap with Macron.

Le Pen party heavyweight Louis Aliot told news broadcaster France Info Monday that the party would strive to “speak directly to the French about their problems” and how Le Pen would lead the country if elected president.

Aliot accused Macron of stirring up millions of French to take to the streets during the yellow vest protests over perceived economic injustice and of having dismantled public hospitals despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There are plenty of issues on which he will need to explain himself,” Aliot said.

French Minister for European Affairs Clément Beaune told the AP “we should not think that it’s done.”

The battle will go “project against project,” he said.

Noting Macron’s “pro-European” project, Beaune recalled that five years ago “Le Pen was proposing — must not forget it — to leave the euro (area), to break Europe when Brexit and Frexit were trendy.”

Le Pen has dropped earlier threats to pull France out of the EU and abandon the euro if elected, but some of her proposals, including setting up a national border control, are contrary to EU rules.

Macron and Le Pen are to debate on national television next week.

With most votes from the 12-candidate first round counted by Monday morning, Macron had more than 27% and Le Pen had 23%. Hard-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon was third with close to 22%.

Macron improved on his first-round showing in 2017, despite his presidency being rocked by the yellow vest movement, the pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The election outcome will have wide international influence as Europe struggles to contain the havoc wreaked by that war. Macron has strongly backed European Union sanctions on Russia while Le Pen has worried about their impact on French living standards. Macron also is a firm supporter of NATO and of close collaboration among the EU 27 members.

The euro rose on Monday following the results to trade 0.27% higher at $1.09, indicating general investor relief that Macron came out on top in the first round.

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EU agrees on landmark law aimed at forcing Big Tech firms to tackle illegal content

The European Union agreed on new digital regulations Friday that will force tech giants like to police illegal content on their platforms more aggressively.

www.cnbc.com

• The European Parliament and EU member states reached a deal early Saturday on the Digital Services Act.
• The DSA is a landmark piece of legislation. It will require Big Tech firms to quickly rid their platforms of illegal content.
• Failure to comply with the rules may result in fines of up to 6% of companies’ global annual revenues.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazilians delivered a very tight victory to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in a bitter presidential election, giving the leftist former president another shot at power in a rejection of incumbent Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right politics.

Da Silva received 50.9% of the vote and Bolsonaro 49.1%, according to the country’s election authority. Yet the morning after the results came in — and congratulations had poured in from world leaders — Bolsonaro still had yet to publicly concede or react in any way, even as truckers blockaded some roads across the country in protest.

Bolsonaro’s campaign had made repeated — unproven — claims of possible electoral manipulation before the vote, raising fears that, if he lost, he would not accept defeat and try to challenge the results.

For da Silva, the high-stakes election was a stunning comeback. His imprisonment for corruption sidelined him from the 2018 election won by Bolsonaro, who has used the presidency to promote conservative social values while also delivering incendiary speeches and testing democratic institutions.

“Today the only winner is the Brazilian people,” da Silva said in a speech Sunday evening at a hotel in downtown Sao Paulo. “It’s the victory of a democratic movement that formed above political parties, personal interests and ideologies so that democracy came out victorious.”

Da Silva is promising to govern beyond his party. He says he wants to bring in centrists and even some leaning to the right, and to restore the kind of prosperity the country enjoyed when he last served as president from 2003-2010. Yet he faces headwinds in a politically polarized society.

Bolsonaro’s four years in office have been marked by proclaimed conservatism and defense of traditional Christian values. He claimed that his rival’s return to power would usher in communism, legalized drugs, abortion and the persecution of churches - things that didn’t happen during da Silva’s earlier eight years in office.

This was the country’s tightest election since its return to democracy in 1985, and the first time that a sitting president failed to win reelection. Just over 2 million votes separated the two candidates; the previous closest race, in 2014, was decided by a margin of roughly 3.5 million votes.

Some of Bolsonaro’s supporters outside his home in Rio on Sunday night screamed about electoral fraud. And overnight, truck drivers who backed Bolsonaro blocked several roads across the country, including a stretch of the Rio de Janeiro-Sao Paulo highway, local media reported. Videos posted on social media early Monday morning showed traffic at a complete halt. Similar reports popped up in several other states.

Da Silva’s win extended a wave of recent leftist triumphs across the region, including Chile, Colombia and Argentina.

The president-elect will inherit a nation straining against itself after he is inaugurated on Jan. 1, said Thomas Traumann, an independent political analyst who compared Sunday’s results to Biden’s 2020 victory.

“The huge challenge that Lula has will be to pacify the country,” he said. “People are not only polarized on political matters, but also have different values, identity and opinions. What’s more, they don’t care what the other side’s values, identities and opinions are.”

Among world leaders offering congratulations on Sunday night was U.S. President Joe Biden, who in a statement highlighted the country’s “free, fair, and credible elections.” The European Union also commended the electoral authority for its effectiveness and transparency throughout the campaign.

Bolsonaro had been leading throughout the first half of the count and, as soon as da Silva overtook him, cars in the streets of downtown Sao Paulo began honking their horns. People in the streets of Rio de Janeiro’s Ipanema neighborhood could be heard shouting, “It turned!”

Da Silva’s headquarters in downtown Sao Paulo hotel only erupted once the final result was announced, underscoring the tension that was a hallmark of this race.

“Four years waiting for this,” said Gabriela Souto, one of the few supporters allowed in due to heavy security.

Outside Bolsonaro’s home in Rio, ground-zero for his support base, a woman atop a truck delivered a prayer over a speaker, then sang excitedly, trying to generate some energy as the tally grew for da Silva. But supporters decked out in green and yellow barely responded. Many perked up when the national anthem played, singing along loudly with hands over their hearts.

For months, it appeared that da Silva was headed for easy victory as he kindled nostalgia for his presidency, when Brazil’s economy was booming.

Bolsonaro’s administration has been widely criticized for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the worst deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in 15 years. But he has built a devoted base by presenting himself as protection from leftist policies that he says infringe on personal liberties while producing economic turmoil and moral rot. He sought to shore up support in an election year with vast government spending.

“We did not face an opponent, a candidate. We faced the machine of the Brazilian state put at his service so we could not win the election,” da Silva told the crowd in Sao Paulo.

Da Silva built an extensive social welfare program during his tenure at president that helped lift tens of millions into the middle class. The man universally known as Lula left office with an approval rating above 80%, prompting then U.S. President Barack Obama to call him “the most popular politician on Earth.”

But he is also remembered for his administration’s involvement in vast corruption revealed by sprawling investigations.

Da Silva was jailed for 580 days for corruption and money laundering. His convictions were later annulled by Brazil’s top court, which ruled the presiding judge had been biased and colluded with prosecutors. That enabled da Silva to run for president for the sixth time.

Da Silva has pledged to boost spending on the poor, reestablish relationships with foreign governments and take bold action to eliminate illegal clear-cutting in the Amazon rainforest.

“We will once again monitor and do surveillance in the Amazon. We will fight every illegal activity,” da Silva said in his speech. “At the same time, we will promote sustainable development of communities in the Amazon.”

The president-elect has pledged to install a ministry for Brazil’s original peoples, which will be run by an Indigenous person.

But as da Silva tries to achieve these and other goals, he will be confronted by strong opposition from conservative lawmakers.

Unemployment this year has fallen to its lowest level since 2015 and, although overall inflation slowed during the campaign, food prices are increasing at a double-digit rate. Bolsonaro’s welfare payments helped many Brazilians get by, but da Silva has been presenting himself as the candidate more willing to sustain aid going forward and raise the minimum wage.

In April, he tapped center-right Geraldo Alckmin, a former rival, to be his running mate. It was another key part of an effort to create a broad, pro-democracy front to not just unseat Bolsonaro, but to make it easier to govern.

Building bridges among a diverse — and divided — country will be key to his success, said Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in Sao Paulo.

“If Lula manages to talk to voters who didn’t vote for him, which Bolsonaro never tried, and seeks negotiated solutions to the economic, social and political crisis we have,” Melo said, “then he could reconnect Brazil to a time in which people could disagree and still get some things done.”

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hanimmal said:

https://apnews.com/article/lula-elected-president-brazil-election-24a50c4820a8a1ae38210407a499ef3d?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=TopNews&utm_campaign=position_01View attachment 5220079

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DIY-HP-LED said:

Is Bolsonaro gonna have stop the steal rallies and storm the capitol? How is his party doing are they standing behind the great leader? If America can have an insurrection over a close election and Brazil does not, then they must be slacking off! Bolsonaro didn't drain the swamp, but he did cut down the Amazon rain forest and is a fascist, so where is his power grab along with the support of some wealthy elites? He is claiming the deep state did him in, sound familiar?

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hanimmal said:

We will see. I don't know much about the guy that won, hopefully it works out really well.

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TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli election officials were tallying the final votes from national elections on Thursday, with former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looking likely to reclaim the premiership with a comfortable majority backed by far-right allies.

A last-minute surprise is still possible, if a small dovish group is able to sneak past the electoral threshold needed to enter parliament and hold back the size of Netanyahu’s majority. But the likelihood was small, and members of Netanyahu’s expected coalition were already jockeying for portfolios in what will be Israel’s most right-wing government.

Israel held its fifth election in four years on Tuesday, a protracted political crisis that saw voters divided over Netanyahu’s fitness to serve while on trial for corruption. Some 90% of ballots were counted by Thursday morning and final results could come later in the day.

As it stands, Netanyahu and his ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox allies are expected to secure 65 seats in Israel’s 120-seat parliament, or Knesset. His opponents in the current coalition, led by caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid, were expected to win 50 seats.

Netanyahu’s expected win and his likely comfortable majority puts an end to Israel’s political instability, for now. But it leaves Israelis split over their leadership and over the values that define their state: Jewish or democratic.

Netanyahu’s top partner in the government is expected to be the far-right Religious Zionism party, whose main candidate, Itamar Ben-Gvir is a disciple of a racist rabbi, says he wants to end Palestinian autonomy in parts of the West Bank and until recently hung a photo in his home of Baruch Goldstein, an American-Israeli who killed 29 Palestinians in a West Bank shooting attack in 1993. Ben-Gvir, who promises to deport Arab legislators, says he wants to be named head of the ministry that is in charge of the police.

Religious Zionism has promised to enact changes to Israeli law that could make Netanyahu’s legal woes disappear and, along with other nationalist allies, they want to weaken the independence of the judiciary and concentrate more power in the hands of lawmakers.

The party’s leader, Bezalel Smotrich, a West Bank settler who has made anti-Arab remarks, has his sights set on the Defense Ministry, what would make him the overseer of the military and Israel’s West Bank military occupation.

As the votes were being counted, Israeli-Palestinian violence was flaring, with at least four Palestinians killed in separate incidents, and an Israeli police officer wounded lightly in a stabbing.

Ben-Gvir used the incidents to promise a tougher approach to Palestinian attackers once he enters government.

“The time has come to restore security to the streets,” he tweeted. “The time has come for a terrorist who goes out to carry out an attack to be taken out!”

The surging power of Israel’s right wing came at the expense of its left flank. The Labor party, once a mainstream fixture of Israeli politics and which supports Palestinian statehood, was teetering just above the electoral threshold. As vote counting neared an end, the anti-occupation Meretz appeared headed for political exile for the first time since it was founded in the 1990s.

After the results are formally announced, Israel’s ceremonial president taps one candidate, usually from the largest party, to form a government. They then have four weeks to do so. Netanyahu is likely to wrap up talks within that time, but Religious Zionism is expected to drive a hard bargain for its support.

The polarizing Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving leader, was ousted in 2021 after 12 consecutive years in power by an ideologically-diverse coalition that included for the first time in Israel’s history a small Arab party. The coalition collapsed in the spring over infighting.

Netanyahu is charged with fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in a series of scandals involving wealthy associates and media moguls. He denies wrongdoing, seeing the trial as a witch hunt against him orchestrated by a hostile media and a biased judicial system.

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BERLIN — German authorities on Wednesday arrested 25 people suspected of plotting to use armed force to storm parliament and violently overthrow the state, marking one of the country’s largest ever raids targeting right-wing extremists.

Those arrested included a 71-year-old German aristocrat and a former parliamentarian with the right-wing Alternative for Germany party, according to the public prosecutor and officials.

The majority are accused of being part of a “terrorist organization,” according to the prosecutor’s statement. The remaining three — including a Russian national — were detained on suspicion of being supporters.

In addition to the arrests, police searched the properties of a further 27 individuals who are being investigated on an “initial suspicion” of being a member or having supported the organization, the statement said. More than 3,000 police officers were involved in the raids, which took place in 11 of Germany’s 16 states.

The accused subscribe to a variety of conspiracy theories, including QAnon, but draw most heavily from the Reichsbürger movement, which denies the existence of the modern German state, officials said. But they warned it would be naive to dismiss them as cranks.

“Of course there are many busybodies who tell confused stories after drinking alcohol,” Justice Minister Marco Buschmann tweeted.
“Here, however, there were such strong suspicions that the group wanted to take violent action.”

That included plans to use arms to storm the Reichstag, Germany’s parliament building, he said.

Germany disbands elite military unit after reports of right-wing extremism

The details of the suspected plot triggered comparisons to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, as German politicians raised it as a reminder of what can happen when anti-constitutional plans are allowed to manifest.

“At the latest since January 6, 2021, we have known that anti-democratic speech can also be followed by actions directed against democracy and parliament,” said Greens party lawmaker Konstantin von Notz. “Today, the German security authorities have succeeded in putting a stop to such plans to seize power.”

The group was united in a belief that Germany is run by a members of a “deep state,” the prosecutor said, adding that it was prepared to use violence — including the murder of state representatives — to carry out its aim of replacing the existing order in Germany with its own form of government.

The group had planned out the structure of the state apparatus it planned to install once Germany’s government was overthrown, including departments of health, justice and foreign affairs.

Prosecutors said Prince Heinrich XIII, 71, a descendant of the House of Reuss, a royal dynasty from the German state of Thuringia, was head of its central “council.” Footage broadcast on German media showed the prince, dressed in a green tweed jacket, being led out of his Frankfurt apartment in handcuffs.

“Since November 2021, the members of the ‘Council’ have regularly met in secret to plan the intended takeover of power in Germany and the establishment of their own state structures,” the prosecutor’s statement said. Members believed that “liberation” would be assisted by the intervention of the “Alliance” — a secret society of military and governments, including those of Russia and the United States.

Heinrich XIII had reached out to Russian representatives inside Germany, the prosecutor’s office said — although it added that there were no indications of a positive response to his overtures.

Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, who was a representative in Germany’s parliament for Alternative for Germany, known by its German acronym AfD, until 2021 was slated to be justice minister, according to a security official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. At the time of her arrest she was an active judge at the Berlin Regional Court.

The council also had a military arm, which would have been involved in the armed takeover of the state and was in charge of procuring weapons, the statement said. This body included former members of Germany’s armed forces, and recruitment efforts were targeted toward members of the military and police.

Raids were carried out with caution as some suspects were known to be licensed weapons holders, the security official said.

“We are seeing a dangerous cocktail of people from the Reichsbürger movement, right-wing extremists, neo-Nazis and others who build on this group with their conspiracy theories,” he added. The group included doctors and lawyers “with the prince on top,” he said.

The Reichsbürger, or “Reich citizen,” movement subscribes to a state based on Germany’s pre-World War II borders. Modern laws and governments are considered illegitimate, and some believe that descendants of former German royal families should be reinstated in their positions.

It is a small extremist fringe that has grown in recent years, rising to more prominence during the pandemic, when its members took to the street alongside a mix of conspiracy theorists and other right-wing groups. The movement is made up of small groups active across borders and online, with German intelligence warning that some subgroups have rapidly grown in recent years.

In 2021, the movement was estimated to include about 21,000 people nationwide, according to a report by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, which estimated that about 10 percent of those were “violence-oriented.”

“The investigations provide a glimpse into the abyss of a terrorist threat from the Reichsbürger milieu,” said German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser. “The suspected terrorist organization uncovered today is — according to the state of the investigations — driven by violent overthrow fantasies and conspiracy ideologies.”

The barracks of a unit of Germany’s Special Forces Command, known as the KSK, was among the locations raided Wednesday, Der Spiegel magazine reported. The German Defense Ministry disbanded one unit of the elite counterterrorism force and announced a restructuring in 2020 because of the suspected extreme right-wing ties of its members.

According to Germany’s Die Zeit newspaper, one of the defendants posted on Telegram shortly before the raids that public prosecutors, judges and health authorities would “soon find themselves in the dock at Nuremberg 2.0,” in reference to the trials of Nazi war criminals held after World War II.

The suspects were set to appear in court on Wednesday and Thursday.

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hanimmal said:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/07/germany-coup-arrests-reichsbuerger-heinrich/
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rkymtnman said:

“Of course there are many busybodies who tell confused stories after drinking alcohol,” Justice Minister Marco Buschmann tweeted. Is he talking about Rudy Guiliani????

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BRUSSELS (AP) — Police launched 16 raids across Belgium’s capital Friday as part of a probe into corruption and money laundering involving the European Union parliament and an unidentified Gulf country, the federal prosecutor’s office said.

Four people were detained for questioning, and investigators recovered around 600,000 euros ($633,500) in cash and seized computer equipment and mobile telephones during the Brussels raids, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

The statement did not name the four but said one was a former member of the European Parliament.

The raids targeted in particular assistants working for EU lawmakers, the statement said. The EU assembly has 705 elected members from the bloc’s 27 member nations. Each lawmaker has a number of assistants.

Prosecutors said Belgium’s federal judicial police suspect the unidentified Gulf country of trying “to influence the economic and political decisions of the European Parliament.”

It said this was allegedly done “by paying large sums of money or offering large gifts to third parties with a significant political and/or strategic position within the European Parliament.”

The EU parliament’s press service declined to comment on the raids while an investigation was underway, but said the assembly was cooperating fully with Belgian police.

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hanimmal said:

https://apnews.com/article/politics-persian-gulf-tensions-europe-government-and-belgium-4fed629e3cf7380cd5c5006c5b669bba
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MEXICO CITY, Jan 5 (Reuters) - A host of top cabinet officials from the United States and Canada will take part in a North American Leaders' Summit in Mexico City next week, Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said on Thursday.

U.S. President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will visit Mexico City early next week for meetings that will encompass climate change, competitiveness, immigration, security and equity, Ebrard said. The summit will be the first in person encounter between the three leaders since late 2021.

Biden and Lopez Obrador would meet for private talks on Monday afternoon, after which high level meetings would take place between Mexican and U.S. officials, Ebrard told a news conference alongside the Mexican president.

Those would include Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Special Presidential Adviser for the Americas Chris Dodd and others, he added.

Mexico's ministers of the interior, finance, economy, environment and security, as well as the country's migration chief would be at the talks too, he added.

The leaders of the three countries would meet for dinner on Monday evening with their wives, Mexico's government said.

On Tuesday, a trilateral meeting between Biden, Trudeau and Lopez Obrador would take place, as well as a working lunch for the government delegations. Afterwards, Biden would depart for the United States, according to Ebrard.

On Wednesday, Lopez Obrador would hold bilateral talks with Trudeau, who would be joined by Canada's Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, Foreign Minister Melanie Joly and International Trade Minister Mary Ng, Ebrard said.

"More confirmations from Canada should come through today," he added.

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hanimmal said:

I wish the best to the people in Brazil. From experience I know this sucks, hopefully it sorts out as 'easily' as ours did.

Talk about good timing though on this summit. It is almost like this administration knows how to deal with complex multi-nation issues or something.

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/top-us-canada-officials-attend-mexico-summit-2023-01-05/
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