Tag: World News

Remains of Marine veteran killed in Ukraine flown home to US

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The remains of a U.S. Marine veteran who was missing in Ukraine for more than a year have returned to the United States and are headed to his hometown in eastern North Carolina

Marine First Sgt. Timothy La Sage, left, salutes as the remains of retired Marine Capt. Grady Kurpasi are transferred from a Turkish airlines plane at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, Friday, May 19, 2023, in New York. The remains of a U.S. Marine veteran who had been missing in Ukraine for more than a year will be returned to his family in eastern North Carolina later Friday, according to the group bringing the remains back to the U.S. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

The Associated Press

NEW YORK — The remains of a U.S. Marine veteran who was missing in Ukraine for more than a year returned to the United States on Friday and were headed to his hometown in eastern North Carolina.

A Turkish Airlines plane flying from Istanbul with the remains of retired Marine Capt. Grady Kurpasi landed at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport in the early evening. They were loaded onto a private jet bound for Wilmington, North Carolina.

Kurpasi, a 50-year-old Iraq War veteran, volunteered in February 2022 to help evacuate Ukrainian residents and later fought in the Ukrainian Foreign Legion, according to the Weatherman Foundation, the group that located his remains and repatriated them.

He was last seen in April 2022 after investigating the source of some gunfire with fellow volunteers in southern Ukraine and was declared dead last month by the U.S. State Department.

“There is an unspoken bond between those who serve in uniform,” said Weatherman Foundation President Meghan Mobbs, who led the effort to retrieve Kurpasi’s remains. “If you give your life in combat, your fellow Americans will bear any burden to bring you home.”

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May 19, 2023
Japan’s Toyota discloses improper crash tests at Daihatsu subsidiary

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TOKYO — Toyota has found improper crash tests for a model and suspended shipments, in the latest in a series of embarrassing woes plaguing Japan’s top automaker.

The latest problem, disclosed late Friday, affects 56,111 Toyota Raize hybrid vehicles produced by Daihatsu Motor Co., a manufacturer specializing in small models that is wholly owned by Toyota.

It also affects 22,329 vehicles sold as the Daihatsu Rocky, according to the automakers. The vehicles were all sold in Japan.

In the faulty crash tests, results for a pole used to measure impact on the left side were used for the right, when both sides had to be tested, Daihatsu said.

Just a week ago, Toyota Motor Corp. acknowledged there had been a data breach at its online Connected service, run by a group company. The breach spanned a decade, meaning that drivers’ information on more than 2 million vehicles had been at risk for leaks. No breaches were reported.

Last month, a separate crash test problem for Daihatsu models sold abroad was disclosed, affecting 88,123 vehicles. A further review found wrongdoing in the Japan market as well, according to the automakers.

The earlier problem affected the Toyota Yaris ATIV sold in Thailand, Mexico and some Gulf countries, Perodua Axia sold in Malaysia and Toyota Agya in Ecuador.

Daihatsu apologized at that time and set up a third-party team to investigate. It did not issue a recall, noting the vehicles were safe to drive, but it expressed deep remorse it had violated inspection standards.

The Toyota models were supplied by Daihatsu under the OEM system, common in the industry, in which products manufactured by another company get sold with another nameplate.

Toyota, which sells about 10 million vehicles every year, boasts a record for pristine quality, centered around a production system that empowers the individual worker.

The latest problems don’t involve recalls. But Toyota went through a period of announcing recall after recall over several years more than a decade ago, covering a wide range of defects, including faulty floor mats, sticky gas pedals and glitches in braking software, affecting millions of vehicles.

The recall fiasco in 2009 and 2010 had Toyota paying $48.8 million in fines in the U.S. for its slow response. Toyota officials have repeatedly promised to be quicker and more transparent.

Management has renewed its “commitment to manufacturing with integrity,” the company based in Toyota city, central Japan, said in its latest statement.

“All our group companies, including Toyota, have begun a thorough review to work toward a complete reaffirmation of our governance system. We will work with Daihatsu to tackle this issue,” it said.

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Yuri Kageyama is on Twitter https://twitter.com/yurikageyama

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May 19, 2023
Japan’s Toyota discloses improper crash tests at Daihatsu subsidiary

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TOKYO — Toyota has found improper crash tests for a model and suspended shipments, in the latest in a series of embarrassing woes plaguing Japan’s top automaker.

The latest problem, disclosed late Friday, affects 56,111 Toyota Raize hybrid vehicles produced by Daihatsu Motor Co., a manufacturer specializing in small models that is wholly owned by Toyota.

It also affects 22,329 vehicles sold as the Daihatsu Rocky, according to the automakers. The vehicles were all sold in Japan.

In the faulty crash tests, results for a pole used to measure impact on the left side were used for the right, when both sides had to be tested, Daihatsu said.

Just a week ago, Toyota Motor Corp. acknowledged there had been a data breach at its online Connected service, run by a group company. The breach spanned a decade, meaning that drivers’ information on more than 2 million vehicles had been at risk for leaks. No breaches were reported.

Last month, a separate crash test problem for Daihatsu models sold abroad was disclosed, affecting 88,123 vehicles. A further review found wrongdoing in the Japan market as well, according to the automakers.

The earlier problem affected the Toyota Yaris ATIV sold in Thailand, Mexico and some Gulf countries, Perodua Axia sold in Malaysia and Toyota Agya in Ecuador.

Daihatsu apologized at that time and set up a third-party team to investigate. It did not issue a recall, noting the vehicles were safe to drive, but it expressed deep remorse it had violated inspection standards.

The Toyota models were supplied by Daihatsu under the OEM system, common in the industry, in which products manufactured by another company get sold with another nameplate.

Toyota, which sells about 10 million vehicles every year, boasts a record for pristine quality, centered around a production system that empowers the individual worker.

The latest problems don’t involve recalls. But Toyota went through a period of announcing recall after recall over several years more than a decade ago, covering a wide range of defects, including faulty floor mats, sticky gas pedals and glitches in braking software, affecting millions of vehicles.

The recall fiasco in 2009 and 2010 had Toyota paying $48.8 million in fines in the U.S. for its slow response. Toyota officials have repeatedly promised to be quicker and more transparent.

Management has renewed its “commitment to manufacturing with integrity,” the company based in Toyota city, central Japan, said in its latest statement.

“All our group companies, including Toyota, have begun a thorough review to work toward a complete reaffirmation of our governance system. We will work with Daihatsu to tackle this issue,” it said.

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Yuri Kageyama is on Twitter https://twitter.com/yurikageyama

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May 19, 2023
United States returns ‘Earth Monster’ Olmec sculpture to Mexico

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Mexico says a huge 2,500-year-old Olmec stone sculpture has been returned by the United States

MEXICO CITY — Mexico announced Friday that a huge 2,500-year-old Olmec stone sculpture has been returned from the United States.

The almost six-foot-tall (two-meter) “Monster of the Earth” sculpture appears to represent the gaping maw of a monster that is big enough to swallow people, and may represent a symbolic entrance to the underworld.

Experts say the sculpture is important because of the insights it provides on the cosmological vision of the Olmecs, considered a founding culture of Meso-America.

Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said the sculpture was handed over at the Mexican consulate in Denver, Colorado, on Friday.

Experts believe the sculpture was taken clandestinely in the 1960s from Chalcatzingo, a lesser-known ruin site south of Mexico City.

“It was like an open wound, not having this artifact,” Ebrard said.

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May 19, 2023
Diplomatic tour by Ukraine’s Zelenskyy highlights Putin’s stark isolation

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TALLINN, Estonia — While the world awaits Ukraine’s spring battlefield offensive, its leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has launched a diplomatic one. In the span of a week, he’s dashed to Italy, the Vatican, Germany, France and Britain to shore up support for defending his country.

On Friday, he was in Saudi Arabia to meet with Arab leaders, some of whom are allies with Moscow.

President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, was in the southern Russian city of Pyatigorsk, chairing a meeting with local officials, sitting at a large table at a distance from the other attendees.

The Russian president has faced unprecedented international isolation, with an International Criminal Court arrest warrant hanging over his head and clouding the prospects of traveling to many destinations, including those viewed as Moscow’s allies.

With his invasion of Ukraine, “Putin took a gamble and lost really, really big time,” said Theresa Fallon, director of the Brussels-based Centre for Russia Europe Asia Studies. “He is an international pariah, really.”

It was only 10 years ago when Putin stood proudly among his peers at the time -– Barack Obama, Angela Merkel and Shinzo Abe – at a Group of Eight summit in Northern Ireland. Russia has since been kicked out of the group, which consists of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain and the United States, for illegally annexing Crimea in 2014.

Now it appears to be Ukraine’s turn in the spotlight.

There were conflicting messages from Kyiv whether Zelenskyy would attend the G7 in Japan on Sunday. The secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council said on national television the president would be there, but the council later walked back those remarks, saying Zelenskyy would join via video link. The president’s office would not confirm either way for security reasons.

But whether in person or via video, it would be of great symbolic and geopolitical significance.

“It conveys the fact that the G7 continues to strongly support Ukraine,” said Nigel Gould-Davies, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “It’s a visible marker of the continued commitment of the most highly industrialized and highly developed countries in the world.”

It also comes at a time when the optics are just not in the Kremlin’s favor.

There’s uncertainty over whether Putin can travel to South Africa in August for a summit of the BRICS nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Moscow has long showcased the alliance as an alternative to the West’s global dominance, but this year it is already proving awkward for the Kremlin. South Africa, the host of the summit, is a signatory to the ICC and is obligated to comply with the arrest warrant on war crimes charges.

South Africa has not announced that Putin will definitely come to the summit but has been planning for his possible arrival. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed an inter-ministerial committee, led by Deputy President Paul Mashatile, to consider South Africa’s options with regard to its ICC commitment over Putin’s possible trip.

While it is highly unlikely the Russian president would be arrested there if he decides to go, the public debate about whether he can is in itself “an unwelcome development whose impact should not be underestimated,” according to Gould-Davies.

Then there are Moscow’s complicated relations with its own neighbors. Ten days ago, Putin projected the image of solidarity, with leaders of Armenia, Belarus and Central Asian states standing beside him at a Victory Day military parade on Red Square.

This week, however, the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan flocked to China and met with leader Xi Jinping at a summit that highlighted the erosion of Russia’s influence in the region as Beijing seeks to make economic inroads into Central Asia.

Xi is using the opportunity “of a weakened Russia, a distracted Russia, almost a pariah-state Russia to increase (China’s) influence in the region,” Fallon said.

Putin’s effort this month to shore up more friends in the South Caucasus by scrapping visa requirements for Georgian nationals and lifting a four-year ban on direct flights to the country also didn’t appear to go as smoothly as the Kremlin may have hoped.

The first flight that landed Friday in Georgia was met with protests, and the country’s pro-Western president has decried the move as a provocation.

Zelenskyy’s ongoing world tour can be seen as a success on many levels.

Invitations from other world leaders is a sign they think Ukraine is “going to come out of the war in good shape,” said Phillips P. O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

Otherwise, “it simply wouldn’t be happening,” he said. “No one would want to be around a leader they think is going to be defeated and a country that’s going to collapse.”

By contrast, the ICC warrant might make it harder for leaders even to visit Putin in Moscow because “it’s not a good look to visit an indicted war criminal,” Gould-Davies said.

European leaders promised him an arsenal of missiles, tanks and drones, and even though no commitment has been made on fighter jets – something Kyiv has wanted for months – a conversation about finding ways to do it has begun.

His appearance Friday at the Arab League summit in Jeddah, a Saudi Arabian port on the Red Sea, highlighted Kyiv’s effort to spread its plight for support far and wide, including in some countries whose sympathies are with Russia.

In addition to Zelenskyy, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman also welcomed Syrian President Bashar Assad at the summit after a 12-year suspension – something analysts say aligns with Moscow’s interests.

Anna Borshchevskaya, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute who focuses on Russia’s policy in the Middle East, called it “another testament to the fact that Russia is not isolated globally for its invasion of Ukraine, that the Middle East is one part of the world where Russia is able to find avenues to avoid global isolation – both ideological isolation but also economic isolation.”

She added that Zelenskyy and his government deserve credit for “in recognizing that they need to reach out more to improve their diplomatic efforts in this part of the world and other parts of the world where the Russian narrative resonates.”

Kyiv could expect that “this is the beginning of a larger shift in perception that could eventually translate into potential support,” Borshchevskaya said.

Similarly, the Ukrainian president’s participation in the G7 summit is “a message to the rest of the world, to Russia and beyond, and the so-called Global South,” Gould-Davies believes.

There is a concern in the West over the extent to which some major developing economies – Brazil, South Africa and, to a degree, India – “are not criticizing, not condemning Russia and indeed in various ways are helping to mitigate the impact of sanctions on Russia,” he said.

“Collectively, economically, they matter. So there is, I think, this felt need for a renewed diplomatic campaign to bring some of these most important states into the kind of the Western way of looking at these things,” Gould-Davies said.

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Associated Press writers Danica Kirka in London and Gerald Imray in Cape Town, South Africa, contributed.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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May 19, 2023
Turkey’s electoral board confirms 1st round election results; Erdogan meets 3rd party candidate

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Turkey’s Supreme Election Board has announced the official results of Sunday’s election, with Recep Tayyip Erdogan receiving 49.24% and his main challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu receiving 45.07%

In this photo released by Turkish Presidency, Turkish President and People’s Alliance’s presidential candidate Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, shakes hands with Sinan Ogan, former presidential candidate from ATA alliance, in Istanbul, Turkey, Friday, May 19, 2023. (Turkish Presidency via AP)

The Associated Press

ISTANBUL — Turkey’s Supreme Election Board on Friday confirmed the results of the first round of Turkey‘s presidential election in which neither incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan nor his main challenger, opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, receiving the majority support needed for an outright victory.

The electoral board announced that Erdogan secured 49.24% of the vote, with Kilicdaroglu getting 45.07% and a third candidate, nationalist politician Sinan Ogan, receiving 5.28%, necessitating a runoff election on May 28 between the top two contenders.

Ogan, a former academic who was backed by an anti-migrant party, might hold the key to victory in the runoff now that he’s out of the race.

Speaking to Turkish media earlier this week, Ogan listed the conditions to earn his support. Among them are taking a tough stance against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, as well as creating a timeline for sending back millions of refugees, including nearly 3.7 million Syrians.

The PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency in southeast Turkey, is considered a terror organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

On Thursday, Kilicdaroglu shifted from his more inclusive, soft-toned rhetoric to appeal to nationalist voters, vowing to send back millions of refugees and rejecting any possibility of negotiating for peace with Kurdish militants.

Meanwhile, speaking to CNN International in an interview broadcast on Friday, Erdogan said he would not bend to Ogan’s demands: “I’m not a person who likes to negotiate in such a manner. It will be the people who are the kingmakers.”

Yet on Friday a surprise meeting between Erdogan and Ogan took place at the former’s Istanbul office. No statement was made following the nearly one-hour meeting.

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May 19, 2023
Auschwitz museum begins emotional work of conserving 8,000 shoes of murdered children

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OSWIECIM, Poland — In a modern conservation laboratory on the grounds of the former Auschwitz camp, a man wearing blue rubber gloves uses a scalpel to scrape away rust from the eyelets of small brown shoes worn by children before they were murdered in gas chambers.

Colleagues at the other end of a long work table rub away dust and grime, using soft cloths and careful circular motions on the leather of the fragile objects. The shoes are then scanned and photographed in a neighboring room and catalogued in a database.

The work is part of a two-year effort launched last month to preserve 8,000 children’s shoes at the former concentration and extermination camp where German forces murdered 1.1 million people during World War II. Most of the victims were Jews killed in dictator Adolf Hitler’s attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe.

The site was located during the war in a part of Poland occupied by German forces and annexed to the German Reich. Today it is a memorial and museum managed by the Polish state, to whom the solemn responsibility has fallen to preserve the evidence of the site, where Poles were also among the victims. The Germans destroyed evidence of their atrocities at Treblinka and other camps, but they failed to do so entirely at the enormous site of Auschwitz as they fled the approaching Soviet forces in chaos toward the war’s end.

Eight decades later, some evidence is fading away under the pressures of time and mass tourism. Hair sheared from victims to make cloth is considered a sacred human remain which cannot be photographed and is not subjected to conservation efforts. It is turning to dust.

But more than 100,000 shoes of victims remain, some 80,000 of them in huge heaps on display in a room where visitors file by daily. Many are warped, their original colors fading, shoe laces disintegrated, yet they endure as testaments of lives brutally cut short.

The tiny shoes and slippers are especially heartrending.

“Children’s shoes are the most moving object for me because there is no greater tragedy than the tragedy of children,” said Mirosław Maciaszczyk, a conservation specialist from the museum’s conservation laboratories.

“A shoe is an object closely related to a person, to a child. It is a trace, sometimes it’s the only trace left of the child.”

Maciaszczyk said that he and the other conservation workers never lose sight of the human tragedy behind the shoes, even as they focus on the technical aspects of their conservation work. Sometimes they are overcome by emotion and need breaks. Volunteers working with adult shoes in the past have asked for new assignments.

Elżbieta Cajzer, head of the Collections, said conservation work always turns up some individual details of those killed at the camp — suitcases, in particular, can offer up clues because they bear names and addresses. She expects that the work on children’s shoes will also reveal some new personal details.

They also open a window into a bygone era when shoes were a valuable good passed from child to child. Some have traces of mended soles and other repairs.

The museum is able to conserve about 100 shoes a week, and has processed 400 since the project began last month. The aim is not to restore them to their original state but to render them as close to how they were found at war’s end as possible. Most of the shoes are single objects. One pair still bound by shoelaces is a rarity.

Last year, workers conserving adult shoes found an Italian 100 lire banknote in a lady’s high-heeled shoe that was also imprinted with the name Ranzini, which was a shoe manufacturer in Trieste. The owner was likely Italian, but nothing else is known about her.

They also found the name of Věra Vohryzková on a child’s shoe. By coincidence, a museum worker had noticed that family name on a suitcase and the museum was able to piece together details about the family. Vera was born Jan. 11, 1939, into a Jewish Czech family and was sent to Auschwitz in a transport from the Theresienstadt ghetto in 1943 with her mother and brother. Her father, Max Vohryzek, was sent in a separate transport. They all perished.

Cajzer described the shoes as powerful testimony also because the huge heaps of shoes that remain give some idea of the enormous scale of the crimes, even though what is left is only a fraction of what was.

Before the SS men sent people into the gas chambers, they ordered them to undress and told them they were going into showers to be disinfected.

“We are able to imagine how many people came here, hoping that they would be able to put those shoes back on after a shower. They thought they would take their shoes back and keep using them. But they never returned to their owners,” Cajzer said.

In most cases, the shoes and other possessions were collected and the material used to help the Third Reich in its war effort. The 110,000 shoes in the museum’s collection — while massive — most likely came from only the last transports to the camp, Cajzer said.

The project’s cost of 450,000 euros ($492,000) is funded by the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, to which Germany has been a key donor, as well as the International March of the Living, a Holocaust education program.

Both Cajzer and Maciaszczyk said that it is impossible to save the shoes forever, but the goal is to preserve them for more years to come.

“Our conservation today slows down these processes (of decay), but for how long, it’s hard to say,” Maciaszczyk said.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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May 19, 2023
Stock market today: Wall Street points higher on hopes for US debt ceiling breakthrough

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Wall Street pointed toward gains before the bell Friday, potentially setting up markets for their best week since March as optimism about a U.S. debt ceiling deal grew heading into the weekend.

Futures for the Dow Jones industrials and S&P 500 each rose 0.2% in premarket trading.

Hopes are high that the United States Congress would reach a deal to avoid defaulting on the nation’s debt.

President Joe Biden, in Hiroshima for the Group of Seven summit of major industrialized nations, has said he’s confident about reaching a deal with Republicans to allow the U.S. government to increase its credit limit and borrow more.

The U.S. government is scheduled to run out of cash to pay its bills as soon as June 1 unless a deal is made, and economists say a U.S. federal default could have catastrophic consequences across financial markets and the economy.

Stocks have remained remarkably resilient since early April despite a long list of worries. A major reason for that is hope the Federal Reserve would take it easier on its hikes to rates, which have slowed inflation at the expense of risking a recession and knocking down prices across financial markets.

The widespread bet was that the Fed would take a pause at its next meeting in June. But Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan cooled some of those hopes in a prepared speech for the Texas Bankers Association.

In off-hours trading early Friday, Foot Locker slid more than 25% after the shoe and athletic gear retailer cut its full-year forecast after missing first-quarter sales and profit targets.

Deere & Co. jumped more than 3% after the farm equipment company beat Wall Street forecasts and raised its full-year outlook.

In Europe at midday, France’s CAC 40 added 0.8%, Germany’s DAX jumped 0.7% and Britain’s FTSE 100 was up 0.4%.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 0.8% to finish at 30,808.35. That was the highest close for the index in about 33 years. Data on Japan’s consumer price index for April showed a rise of 3.4% from the previous year, indicating inflationary pressures were subsiding as prices eased in the rest of the world.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.6% to 7,279.50. South Korea’s Kospi added 0.9% to 2,537.79.

Chinese shares fell on renewed worries set off by signs that an extended lockdown over the coronavirus pandemic hurt sales. Also weighing on Chinese shares were inflationary pressures and geopolitical risks, analysts said.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 1.4% to 19,450.57, while the Shanghai Composite lost 0.4% to 3,283.54.

“While the broader risk environment has been singlehandedly uplifted by progress around the U.S. debt ceiling negotiations, Chinese equities continue to struggle for gains,” said Yeap Jun Rong, market analyst at IG.

In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude rose $1.10 to $72.96 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, added $1.15 to $77.01 a barrel.

In currency trading, the U.S. dollar declined to 138.37 Japanese yen from 138.66 yen. The euro cost $1.0811, up from $1.0777.

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Kageyama reported from Tokyo; Ott reported from Silver Spring, Maryland.

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May 19, 2023
Sean Penn, backing WGA strike, calls Producers Guild the ‘Bankers Guild’ at Cannes Film Festival

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Sean Penn has strongly backed the current Hollywood screenwriters strike while speaking at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday, saying the dispute over Artificial Intelligence is “a human obscenity.”

ByJAKE COYLE AP Film Writer

Sean Penn, left, and director Jean-Stephane Sauvaire pose for photographers at the photo call for the film ‘Black Flies’ at the 76th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Friday, May 19, 2023. (Photo by Scott Garfitt/Invision/AP)

The Associated Press

CANNES, France — Sean Penn strongly backed the current Hollywood screenwriters strike while speaking at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday, saying the dispute over Artificial Intelligence is “a human obscenity.”

Penn addressed the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike in a press conference for his new film, “Black Flies,” director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s harrowing, gritty drama about New York paramedics. Asked about the strike, Penn said “the industry has been upending the writers and actors and directors for a very long time.”

“There’s a lot of new concepts being tossed about including the use of A.I. It strikes me as a human obscenity for there to be pushback on that from the producers,” said Penn, a veteran writer-director in addition to being an actor.

Film and TV screenwriters earlier this month began striking after talks with producers broke off. The WGA is seeking better pay, new contracts for the streaming era and safeguards against the use of AI-scripted work-arounds.

“The first thing we should do in these conversations is change the Producers Guild and title them how they behave, which is the Bankers Guild,” added Penn. “It’s difficult for so many writers and so many people industry-wide to not be able to work at this time. I guess it’s going to soul-search itself and see what side toughs it out.”

Penn’s comments come as the potential for a wider work stoppage in Hollywood may be growing. The Directors Guild is also negotiating a new contract with producers. The board of SAG-AFTRA, the actors union, this week voted to ask members for strike authorization as it prepares to enter negotiations for a new contract.

In Cannes, the strike been a regular topic for American stars. On Thursday, Ethan Hawke wore a shirt that read “Pencils Down.” On the festival’s opening day Tuesday, juror Paul Dano said he planned to join his wife, Zoe Kazan, on the picket lines soon.

“My wife is currently picketing with my 6-month-old, strapped to her chest,” said Dano. “I will be there on the picket line when I get back home.”

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May 19, 2023
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he has begun visit to Saudi Arabia, where Arab leaders are holding a summit

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he has begun visit to Saudi Arabia, where Arab leaders are holding a summit

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he has begun visit to Saudi Arabia, where Arab leaders are holding a summit.

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May 19, 2023
Australian police use Taser on 95-year-old with dementia who held steak knife

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CANBERRA, Australia — Police shocked a 95-year-old woman with a stun gun as she approached them with a walking frame and a steak knife in an Australian nursing home, sending her to the hospital.

The extraordinary police takedown of dementia Clare Nowland, who has dementia, in the New South Wales state town of Cooma on Wednesday has prompted a high-level police internal investigation. Nowland was in critical condition Friday.

It has also sparked debate about New South Wales state police use of stun guns, widely known as Tasers after a major manufacturer. They are a less lethal option than firearms, but have occasionally proved more dangerous than other policing options.

Two police officers went to Yallambee Lodge, a nursing home that specializes in residents with higher care needs including dementia, after staff reported that Nowland had taken a serrated steak knife from the kitchen.

Police Assistant Commissioner Peter Cotter declined to say whether he thought a police officer with 12 years experience had used excessive force by firing a stun gun at an elderly woman who stands 1.57 meters (5 foot, 2 inches) tall and weighs 43 kilograms (95 pounds).

Cotter said that police engaged in “negotiations” with the elderly woman for several minutes, and used the stun gun when she approached the doorway where the police were standing.

“At the time she was tasered, she was approaching police. But it is fair to say at a slow pace. She had a walking frame. But she had a knife. I can’t take it any further as to what was going through anyone’s mind,” Cotter told reporters.

Nicole Lee, president of advocacy group People with Disability Australia, said she was shocked by the violence.

“She’s either one hell of an agile, fit, fast and intimidating 95-year-old woman, or there’s a very poor lack of judgement on those police officers and there really needs to be some accountability on their side,” Lee said.

Police said Nowland received her critical injuries from striking her head on the floor, rather than directly from the Taser’s debilitating electric shock.

Cotter described video from the two police officers’ body cameras of Nowland being shot as “confronting footage.” But he said the video was part of an internal police investigation and it would “not be in the public interest to be releasing that.”

Cotter said the police officer who fired the stun gun was currently “not in the workplace,” but it is unclear whether the officer has been suspended.

Nowland, a great-grandmother, made headlines in 2008 when she went skydiving to celebrate her 80th birthday.

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May 19, 2023
AP Week in Pictures: Europe and Africa

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Manchester City’s Erling Haaland, right, and his teammates celebrate their third goal during the Champions League semifinal second leg soccer match between Manchester City and Real Madrid at Etihad stadium in Manchester, England, Wednesday, May 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Jon Super)

The Associated Press

May 12-18, 2023

From elections in Turkey and the Champions League seminfinals, to floods in Italy and protests in Senegal, this gallery highlights some of the most compelling images made or published in the past week by The Associated Press from Europe and Africa.

The selection was curated by AP photographer Thanassis Stavrakis in Athens, Greece.

Follow AP visual journalism:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apnews

AP Images on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AP_Images

AP Images blog: http://apimagesblog.com

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May 19, 2023
Zelenskyy to join G7 at Hiroshima summit as leaders prepare to unveil new Russia sanctions

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HIROSHIMA, Japan — Leaders of the world’s most powerful democracies huddled Friday to discuss new ways to punish Russia for its 15-month invasion of Ukraine, days before President Volodymyr Zelenskyy joins the Group of Seven summit in person on Sunday.

Zelenskyy will be making his furthest trip from of his war-torn country as leaders are set to unveil new sanctions on Russia for its invasion. Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, confirmed on national television that Zelenskyy would attend the summit.

“We were sure that our president would be where Ukraine needed him, in any part of the world, to solve the issue of stability of our country,” Danilov said Friday. “There will be very important matters decided there, so physical presence is a crucial thing to defend our interests”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats against Ukraine, along with North Korea’s months-long barrage of missile tests and China’s rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal, have resonated with Japan’s push to make nuclear disarmament a major part of the summit. World leaders Friday visited a peace park dedicated to the tens of thousands who died in the world’s first wartime atomic bomb detonation.

Japanese leader Fumio Kishida said he invited Zelenskyy to the G7 Summit during his visit to Kyiv in March.

Zelenskyy is also set to appear virtually at a Friday meeting of G7 leaders, where they are to be updated on battlefield conditions and agree to toughen their efforts to constrain Moscow’s war effort.

After group photos near the city’s iconic bombed-out dome, a wreath-laying and a symbolic tree planting, a new round of sanctions were to be unveiled against Moscow, with a focus on redoubling efforts to enforce existing sanctions meant to stifle Russia’s war effort and hold accountable those behind it, a U.S. official said. Russia is now the most-sanctioned country in the world, but there are questions about the effectiveness of the financial penalties.

The U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to preview the announcement, said the U.S. component of the actions would blacklist about 70 Russian and third-country entities involved in Russia’s defense production, and sanction more than 300 individuals, entities, aircraft and vessels.

The official added that the other G7 nations would undertake similar steps to further isolate Russia and to undermine its ability to wage war in Ukraine. Details were to emerge over the course of the weekend summit.

The European Union was focused on closing the door on loopholes and plans to restrict trade in Russian diamonds, Charles Michel, president of the European Council, told reporters early Friday.

He said the G7 would also try to convey to leaders of countries that are non-member guests at the summit why it’s so important to enforce sanctions.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who represents Hiroshima in parliament, wants nuclear disarmament to be a major focus of discussions, and he formally started the summit at Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park. The visit by world leaders to a park dedicated to preserving reminders of Aug. 6, 1945, when a U.S. B-29 dropped an atomic bomb over Hiroshima, provided a striking backdrop to the start the summit. An estimated 140,000 people were killed in the attack, and a fast-dwindling number of now-elderly survivors have ensured that Hiroshima has become synonymous with anti-nuclear peace efforts.

“Honestly, I have big doubts if Mr. Kishida, who is pursuing a military buildup and seeking to revise the pacifist constitution, can really discuss nuclear disarmament,” Sueichi Kido, a 83-year-old “hibakusha” or survivor of the Nagasaki explosion, told The Associated Press. “But because they are meeting in Hiroshima I do have a sliver of hope that they will have positive talks and make a tiny step toward nuclear disarmament.”

On Thursday night, Kishida opened the global diplomacy by sitting down with President Joe Biden after Biden’s arrival at a nearby military base. Kishida also held talks with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak before the three-day gathering of leaders opens.

The Japan-U.S. alliance is the “very foundation of peace and security in the Indo-Pacific region,” Kishida told Biden in opening remarks. Japan, facing threats from authoritarian China, Russia and North Korea, has been expanding its military but also relies on 50,000 U.S. troops stationed in Japan and U.S. military might.

“We very much welcome that the cooperation has evolved in leaps and bounds,” Kishida said.

Biden, who greeted U.S. and Japanese troops at nearby Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni before meeting with Kishida, said: “When our countries stand together, we stand stronger, and I believe the whole world is safer when we do.”

As G7 attendees made their way to Hiroshima, Moscow unleashed yet another aerial attack on the Ukrainian capital. Loud explosions thundered through Kyiv during the early hours, marking the ninth time this month that Russian air raids have targeted the city after weeks of relative quiet.

“The crisis in Ukraine: I’m sure that’s what the conversation is going to start with,” said Matthew P. Goodman, senior vice president for economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, said there will be “discussions about the battlefield” in Ukraine and on the “state of play on sanctions and the steps that the G7 will collectively commit to on enforcement in particular.”

The United States has frozen Russian Central Bank funds, restricted banks’ access to SWIFT — the dominant system for global financial transactions — and sanctioned thousands of Russian firms, government officials, oligarchs and their families.

The Group of Seven nations collectively imposed a $60 per-barrel price cap on Russian oil and diesel last year, which the U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday defended in a new progress report, stating that the cap has been successful in suppressing Russian oil revenues. Treasury cites Russian Ministry of Finance data showing that the Kremlin’s oil revenues from January to March this year were more than 40% lower than last year.

The economic impact of sanctions depends largely on the extent to which a targeted country is able to circumvent them, according to a recent Congressional Research Service repor t. So for the past month, U.S. Treasury officials have traveled across Europe and Central Asia to press countries that still do business with the Kremlin to cut their financial ties.

“The challenge is to make sure the sanctions are painful against Russia, not against ourselves,” said Michel. “It’s very clear that each package is more difficult than the previous one and requires more political effort to make a decision.”

G7 leaders and invited guests from several other counties are also expected to discuss how to deal with China’s growing assertiveness and military buildup as concerns rise that it could could try to seize Taiwan by force, sparking a wider conflict. China claims the self-governing island as its own and its ships and warplanes regularly patrol near it.

Security was tight in Hiroshima, with thousands of police deployed throughout the city. A small group of protesters was considerably outnumbered by police as they gathered Wednesday evening beside the ruins of the Atomic Peace Dome memorial, holding signs including one which read “No G7 Imperialist Summit!”

In a bit of dueling diplomacy, Chinese President Xi Jinping is hosting the leaders of the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan for a two-day summit in the Chinese city of Xi’an.

The leaders are due to discuss efforts to strengthen the global economy and address rising prices that are squeezing families and government budgets around the world, particularly in developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The debate over raising the debt limit in the U.S., the world’s largest economy, has threatened to overshadow the G7 talks. Biden plans to hurry back to Washington after the summit for debt negotiations, scrapping planned meetings in Papua New Guinea and Australia.

The British prime minister arrived in Japan earlier Thursday and paid a visit to the JS Izumo, a ship that can carry helicopters and fighter jets able to take off and land vertically.

During their meeting Thursday, Sunak and Kishida announced a series of agreements on issues including defense; trade and investment; technology, and climate change, Sunak’s office said.

The G7 includes Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada and Italy, as well as the European Union.

A host of other countries have been invited to the summit in hopes of strengthening ties to non-G7 countries while shoring up support for efforts like isolating Russia.

Leaders from Australia, Brazil, India, Indonesia and South Korea are among the guests. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to join by video link.

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Associated Press writers Josh Boak, Adam Schreck and Mari Yamaguchi in Hiroshima, Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv, and Fatima Hussein in Washington contributed to this report.

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May 19, 2023
China’s Xi meets Central Asian leaders, calls for trade, energy development

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Chinese leader Xi Jinping has promised to build more railway and other trade links with Central Asia and proposed jointly developing oil and gas sources at a meeting with the region’s leaders that highlighted Beijing’s growing influence

In this photo released by China’s Xinhua News Agency, Chinese President Xi Jinping, center, and his wife Peng Liyuan, forth right, pose for a photo with Central Asian leaders at the Ziyun Tower in Xi’an in northwester China’s Shaanxi Province, Thursday, May 18, 2023. Chinese leader Xi Jinping promised to build more railway and other trade links with Central Asia and proposed jointly developing oil and gas sources at a meeting Friday with the region’s leaders that highlighted Beijing’s growing influence. (Ding Haitao/Xinhua via AP)

The Associated Press

BEIJING — Chinese leader Xi Jinping promised to build more railway and other trade links with Central Asia and proposed jointly developing oil and gas sources at a meeting Friday with the region’s leaders that highlighted Beijing’s growing influence.

The two-day China-Central Asia Summit in the western city of Xi’an came as President Joe Biden and other leaders of the Group of Seven major economies met in Japan. It reflected Beijing’s efforts to develop trade and security networks centered on China, which resents U.S. domination of global affairs.

China is making economic inroads into Central Asia, including with its Belt and Road Initiative to build railways and other trade-related infrastructure. That has eroded Russian influence over former Soviet republics that look to the world’s second-largest economy as an important market and source of investment.

“We need to expand economic and trade ties,” Xi said in a speech to leaders from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

In a swipe at Western leaders, Xi called for the region to “resolutely oppose external interference” and “attempts to instigate ‘color revolutions,’” a reference to movements that overthrew leaders in countries such as Ukraine and Georgia.

China accuses the West of abetting agitation against the ruling Communist Party in the western region of Xinjiang, home to predominantly Muslim ethnic minority groups that have ties to Central Asia.

The Chinese leader promised to increase cross-border trade by developing highways and rail lines and encouraging China’s trading companies to set up warehouses in Central Asia. He promised to simplify import procedures.

Xi proposed establishment of a China-Central Asia partnership to develop oil and gas sources. He said Beijing wants to speed up construction of an additional pipeline to supply Central Asian gas to China’s energy-hungry economy and to promote nuclear power.

Xi promised Chinese help for Central Asian governments to strengthen security and defense and to fight terrorism. He promised to “jointly promote peace” in Afghanistan.

Beijing earlier announced plans for a regional anti-terrorism center to train Central Asian security forces.

Xi’s government sees political Islam as a threat and is accused of detaining some 1 million people in Xinjiang in what Beijing says is a campaign to stop extremism.

“We should remain zero-tolerant to the three forces of terrorism, separatism and extremism,” Xi said.

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May 18, 2023
7.7 magnitude earthquake in far Pacific creates small tsunami off Vanuatu

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A 7.7 magnitude earthquake Friday in the far Pacific created small tsunami waves in Vanuatu

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — A 7.7 magnitude earthquake Friday in the far Pacific created small tsunami waves in Vanuatu.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said waves less than .5 meters (1.5 feet) were measured off Lenakel, a port town in the island nation. Smaller waves were measured elsewhere off Vanuatu and off New Caledonia.

New Zealand’s National Emergency Management Agency said it was still assessing the potential for a tsunami.

The PTWC also said small waves were possible for Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Guam and other Pacific islands.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was near the Loyalty Islands, southwest of Fiji, north of New Zealand and east of Australia where the Coral Sea meets the Pacific. It was 37 kilometers (23 miles) deep.

The area is part of the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of seismic faults around the Pacific Ocean where most of the world’s earthquakes occur.

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May 18, 2023
88-year-old Australian doctor freed 7 years after kidnapping by Islamic extremists in West Africa

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An 88-year-old Australian doctor held captive by Islamic extremists in West Africa for more than seven years has been freed

ByROD McGUIRK Associated Press

FILE – Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong listens beside Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo during a joint press conference at a hotel in Makati City, Philippines on Thursday May 18, 2023. An 88-year-old Australian doctor held captive in West Africa for more than seven years has been released, the Australian government said on Friday, May 19.(Lisa Marie David/Pool Photo via AP, File)

The Associated Press

CANBERRA, Australia — An 88-year-old Australian doctor held captive by Islamic extremists in West Africa for more than seven years has been freed and has returned to Australia.

Kenneth Elliott was safe and well and was reunited with his wife and their children on Thursday night, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said.

“I’m very pleased to advise that Dr. Ken Elliott, who’s been held hostage in Western Africa for some seven years, has been reunited in Australia with his family,” Wong told reporters in Sydney.

Elliott and his wife were kidnapped in Burkina Faso, where they had run a medical clinic for four decades. Jocelyn Elliott was released three weeks later.

“We wish to express our thanks to God and all who have continued to pray for us,” Elliott’s family said in a statement released by Wong’s department.

“We express our relief that Dr. Elliott is free and thank the Australian government and all who have been involved over time to secure his release,” the family statement said.

Neither the family nor Wong detailed the circumstances of Elliott’s release. The doctor is from the west coast city of Perth, but Wong did not say where the family was in Australia.

“At 88 years of age, and after many years away from home, Dr. Elliott now needs time and privacy to rest and rebuild strength,” the family added.

The militant group behind the kidnapping, Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, rose to prominence in large part through kidnap-for-ransom operations targeting foreign aid workers and tourists.

On the day the Australian couple were kidnapped — Jan. 15, 2016 — 30 people were killed in an extremist attack in Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou. Al-Qaida’s North Africa wing claimed responsibility for that attack and other high-profile strikes in West Africa months earlier, including killing 20 people in an attack on a hotel in Mali’s capital Bamako.

The Elliotts were kidnapped near the northern Burkina Faso town of Djibo, near the border with Mali and Niger.

Jocelyn Elliott was freed in neighboring Niger. Niger’s then-President Mahamadou Issoufou had worked with Burkina Faso intelligence services to secure her release, his office said at the time.

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May 18, 2023
Australia says 88-year-old Australian has been released 7 years after kidnapping in West Africa

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Australia says 88-year-old Australian has been released 7 years after kidnapping in West Africa

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May 18, 2023
UN warns that urgent funding needed to avert catastrophic hunger in northeast Nigeria

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The United Nations office in Nigeria says at least $396 million is urgently needed to prevent widespread hunger and malnutrition caused by the security crisis in northeastern Nigeria from turning into a “full-blown catastrophe.”

ByCHINEDU ASADU Associated Press

ABUJA, Nigeria — At least $396 million is urgently needed to prevent widespread hunger and malnutrition in northeastern Nigeria from turning into a “full-blown catastrophe,” the United Nations office in the West African nation said Thursday.

“We are ringing the alarm bell that there are people close to or dying (of hunger) right now in the northeast,” Matthias Schmale, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Nigeria, said in the capital, Abuja, while releasing the lean season food and nutrition crisis plan.

Security forces in northeastern Nigeria have been battling Islamic extremist rebels who launched an insurgency in 2009 to fight against Western education and to establish Islamic Shariah law in the region. At least 35,000 people have been killed and more than 2 million displaced as a result of the violence, according to data from U.N. agencies in Nigeria.

A breakaway faction of the Boko Haram extremist group, known as the Islamic State West Africa Province, has risen to prominence, dominating the fringes of the Lake Chad region where its fighters often target security force convoys and outposts.

The U.N. has said over 80% of those in need in the hard-hit region are women and children, making them more vulnerable to other forms of crimes and violence. It warned that limited funding could increase the risk of famine.

Aid groups have reported an unprecedented number of malnourished children in the conflict zone as hunger bites harder for many families, including those in hard-to-reach areas. The French medical charity Doctors Without Borders said last month that the number of weekly admissions of children is two to three times higher than previous highs over the past five years.

Schmale, the humanitarian coordinator, described speaking with children who go for days without eating enough and with mothers fighting for the lives of their malnourished infants.

“More than half a million people may face emergency levels of food insecurity with extremely high rates of acute malnutrition and cases of mortality if there is no rapid and significant scale-up of humanitarian assistance,” he said.

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May 18, 2023
Top Lebanese official in IMF talks calls for central bank head to resign amid corruption allegations

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BEIRUT — The Lebanese official heading talks with the International Monetary Fund to bail out Lebanon’s tanking economy called Thursday for the country’s embattled central bank chief to resign, amid allegations of corruption and an international arrest warrant issued against him.

Once seen as the guardian of Lebanon’s financial stability, Central Bank Gov. Riad Salameh is now widely blamed for an economic meltdown that began in 2019. The Lebanese pound has since plummeted in value and wiped out much of the savings of ordinary Lebanese, plunging an estimated three-quarters of the population into poverty.

Lebanon’s caretaker deputy prime minister, Saade Chami, told The Associated Press in an interview that the allegations against the central bank chief put the government’s credibility at risk and “could threaten the country’s financial relations with the rest of the world,” including with the IMF and other global financial institutions.

Chami is the highest-ranking Lebanese official to call for Salameh’s resignation to date.

Salameh, 72, has held his post for almost 30 years. A European-led investigation into his personal wealth stashed abroad has raised questions about his tenure at the central bank and wider issues of corruption in Lebanon’s financial and political system.

A spokesperson for Salameh, who has denied allegations of corruption and mismanagement, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Salameh said in an interview with Saudi-owned TV station Al-Hadath Thursday that he would resign only if he was convicted of a crime but dismissed the accusations against him as “not a judicial case, but a political case.”

Chami said that although Salameh is innocent until proven guilty, “it is not possible nor acceptable for anyone who is accused of multiple alleged financial crimes in several countries to continue to exercise his powers” as central bank head. The charges against Salameh “are reputational risks” and “will necessarily be a distraction” for a central bank office that is “entrusted with the stability of the financial system,” he said.

Salameh’s term comes to an end in July, and he has said he would not seek to extend it.

Since Salameh’s remaining time in office is relatively short, rather than recusing himself during any ongoing investigations, “it would be better for him to resign, and if not, the government needs to take a decision,” the deputy prime minister added.

A French investigative judge Tuesday issued an international arrest warrant for Salameh after he didn’t show up for questioning in France on corruption charges.

A European judicial team from France, Germany and Luxembourg has been conducting a corruption investigation into an array of financial crimes they allege were committed by Salameh, his associates and others. The allegations include illicit enrichment and laundering of $330 million.

Salameh has repeatedly denied all allegations against him and insisted that his wealth comes from his previous job as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch, inherited properties, and investments. In a statement earlier this week, he accused the French investigation and judicial process of “double standards” and of leaking confidential information to the media. He vowed to appeal the arrest warrant.

Amid Lebanon’s dual economic and political crisis, appointment of a new central bank chief won’t be easy. The country has lacked a head of state since former President Michel Aoun left office in October, as political factions have been unable to agree on a replacement, and the caretaker Cabinet has limited powers.

Chami said that ideally a new governor would be appointed immediately should Salameh resign or be removed. But if no consensus could be immediately reached on a candidate, the central bank’s first vice-governor would automatically take over as a temporary replacement, he added.

In the meantime, progress on reforms required to clinch a deal with the IMF has largely stalled, after Lebanon reached a preliminary agreement with the international lender-of-last-resort more than a year ago.

At the same time, the financial crisis that began in 2019 has deepened. Ordinary citizens have seen their savings slip away as the market value of the currency plummeted from 1,500 pounds to the dollar pre-crisis to around 95,000 to the dollar today.

Lack of trust in the banking system has driven the growth of a chaotic cash-based economy. Fluctuating and multiple exchange rates have allowed some wealthy and politically connected players to make large profits from arbitrage – estimated by the World Bank in a report released this week as at least $2.5 billion.

Further delays in making reforms and clinching an IMF deal will exacerbate the crisis, leading to “more unemployment, more migration” and dwindling financial reserves, Chami said. But he said he has not given up hope for a solution, or for an IMF deal.

“It is a very dangerous situation, but also it is not extremely difficult to solve if there is a political will,” he said.

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May 18, 2023
Turkish candidate Kilicdaroglu hardens stance before runoff against Erdogan

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ANKARA, Turkey — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s main challenger in Turkey’s presidential race shifted gear and adopted a more nationalist and hard-line stance on Thursday, vowing to send back millions of refugees if he is elected and rejecting any possibility of negotiating for peace with Kurdish militants.

Voters in Turkey will head back to the polls on May 28 for a runoff election after neither Erdogan nor his rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, won more than 50% of the votes in Sunday’s first round.

The election will decide whether the country remains under the increasingly authoritarian president for a third decade, or can embark on a more democratic course that the opposition has promised to deliver.

Erdogan had faced electoral headwinds because of the cost-of-living crisis and criticism over the government’s response to a devastating earthquake in February. But with his alliance retaining its hold on the parliament, Erdogan is now in a good position to win in the second round.

Kilicdaroglu, the soft-mannered joint candidate of a six-party opposition alliance, had led a highly positive and uniting campaign, mostly on promises to reverse crackdowns on free speech and other forms of democratic backsliding. He had also campaigned on a pledge to repair an economy battered by high inflation and currency devaluation.

Many of the rallies of his pro-secular main opposition party, Republican People’s Party, or CHP, had ended with Kilicdaroglu making a heart shape with his hands.

This week, however, the 74-year-old politician hardened his rhetoric in an apparent effort to appeal to nationalist voters, including those who voted for a third candidate, nationalist politician Sinan Ogan.

Ogan, who received 5.2% of the votes and is backed by an anti-migrant party, has said he would consider sending migrants back by force if necessary.

“Erdogan! You did not protect the borders or the honor of the country. You brought in more than 10 million refugees,” Kilicdaroglu said in an address at his party’s headquarters. “You have turned your own citizens into refugees. I declare that as soon as I come to power, I will send all refugees back home. Period.”

Amid rising anti-migrant sentiment in the country, Kilicdaroglu had previously said he intended to repatriate refugees within two years by creating favorable conditions for their return. Turkey is ranked as the country hosting the largest number of refugees, including at least 3.7 million Syrians.

The CHP leader also hit back at Erdogan, who had portrayed Kilicdaroglu as colluding with “terrorists” after he received the backing of the country’s pro-Kurdish party. With Erdogan controlling mainstream media in the country, analysts say that narrative seems to have resonated with nationalist voters who shied away from backing Kilicdaroglu, fearing he wouldn’t be tough enough against terrorism.

“Unfortunately, an election process that should have been a democracy festival … was overshadowed by Erdogan’s campaigns of lies and slander,” Kilicdaroglu said.

“Weren’t you the one who was sitting at the table with terrorist organizations, making secret bargains with terrorist organizations behind closed doors? I declare to all of my citizens that I have never sat down with terrorist organizations, and I will never do. Period,” he said.

He was referring to peace efforts between Erdogan’s government and the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which collapsed in 2015. The PKK, which has waged an insurgency in southeast Turkey since 1984, is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

Preliminary results showed that Erdogan won 49.5% of the vote on Sunday, while Kilicdaroglu grabbed 44.9%. Ogan hasn’t yet endorsed Erdogan or Kilicdaroglu for the runoff, though it wasn’t clear what proportion of his supporters would vote for his preferred candidate in the second round.

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May 18, 2023