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UN: Syrian Refugee Numbers Pass 5 Million Mark in Region

Data from the United Nations refugees agency released late last month showed that the number of people fleeing Syria’s civil war to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt has passed the 5 million mark.

According to the latest data collected by UNHCR and the government of Turkey, a total of 5,018,168 people have now taken refugee in Syria’s neighbours and in other countries in the regions. Millions more have fled to other parts of the country, including tends of thousands in March, mainly women and children, who were trying to get away from a rebel offensive northwest of the city of Hama.

Since 2011, in the wake of anti-government protests, which spiralled into a full-blown conflict between rebels, Islamist militants, government troops and foreign backers Syrians have poured across these countries borders. While an initial rush of refugees in 2013 and 2014 steadied for the following two years, the numbers have again risen this year after the military victory by the government and its Russian allies in the northern city of Aleppo. Syrians have also fled to Europe in large numbers, making 884,461 asylum claims between April 2011 and October 2016, with almost two-thirds of those claims being in Germany or Sweden. Hundreds of thousands more live in Gulf countries that are no party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, such as Saudi Arabi, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, so they are not recorded as refugees. A UN-led humanitarian appeal to help Syrian refugees and support host communities has received only 6 percent of the money that it requires this year – US $298 million out of US $4.6 billion.

France Arrests Two for Planning “Violent” Attack Ahead of Presidential Election

France’s interior minister disclosed yesterday that two Frenchmen were arrested in Marseille on Tuesday, adding that they were planning an “imminent and violent attack” ahead of the first round of the presidential election on Sunday 23 April.

Speaking at a news conference, Interior Minister Matthias Fekl disclosed that “these two radicalized men…intended to commit in the very short-term – by that I mean in the coming days – an attack on French soil,” adding that a “definite terrorist act” had been foiled. The two men – who have been named as 23-year-old Clement Baur and 30-year-old Mahiedine Merabet – were seized in the southern port city a few moments apart from each other on Tuesday morning. Local mayor Lisette Narducci has disclosed that explosives had ben found after a search of an apartment near Marseille’s largest train station. Sources close to the investigation have also divulged that at least two assault weapons had been found. Neither the interior minister nor police have given nay precise details of what attacks the pair had been planning and whether they were intending to target one o more of the election candidates. Far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen, one of the foremost candidates, is scheduled to hold the last big rally of her campaign in Marseille this week, according to he programme.

Campaign officials have reported that France’s internal intelligence agency, which had been looking for the two suspects for more than a week, had warned main candidate in the election that there was a threat to their security. Comments made by officials indicate that candidates Francois Fillon, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, who are the three leading contenders, wer amongst those warned of a security risk.

France is due to go to the polls on 23 April, with a second round to take place on 7 May, in what is one of the most unpredictable elections in its modern history. Security has been a key campaigning issue after attacks by militant Islamists have killed more than 230 people in the past two years.

Abu Sayyaf Militant Linked to Foreign Killings Dead

The Philippine military chief reported on 12 April that Philippine troops battling militants on a central resort island have killed an Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) commander who was involved in the beheadings of two Canadians and a German.

Military chief of staff Gen. Eduardo Ano disclosed that troops recovered and identified the remains of Moammar Askali at the scene of the battle in the coastal village of Bohol Island, adding that five other ASG gunmen, three soldiers and a policeman were also killed in Tuesday’s clashes. Gen. Ano disclosed that ASG militants had identified Askali from a photo that troops took of the young militant leader after his death, which effectively confirmed that the gunmen had quietly cruised into Bohol on three motorboats Monday night then clashed with troops belonging to the Islamic extremist group.

Askali, who had used the nom de guerre Abu Rami, had in recently years partly served as a spokesman for the group, with analysts saying that his death is a major blow to the militant group. Askali was an emerging hard-line leader of ASG and had pledged allegiance to the so-called Islamic State (IS) group. According to a police profile, he had received bomb-making training from Malaysian Zulkifli bin Hi, or Marwan, a top Southeast Asia militant leader who was killed in 2015.

In recent years, ASG militants have crossed the sea border with Malaysia to kidnap scores of foreign tourists and crewmembers off vessels transiting the region – in a move that has reflected their growing capability and need for money.

French Presidential Election: Latest Poll Shows Melenchon Surging

A new released on 11 April has indicated that far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon is closing the gap with the frontrunners in France’s presidential election race, building on his recent surge as sniping between the top contenders gathered pace.

With just 12 days to go until the first round of voting, to be held on 23 April, polls are tightening and possibility for May’s second, deciding round, which for weeks have been tipped between far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron, appear to be opening up.

Mr Melenchon’s support has increased by seven percentage points to 19 percent in a monthly Ifop-Fiducial poll for Paris Match and Sud Radio, effectively putting him in third place ahead of conservative candidate Francois Fillon. He is also targeting Mr Macron’s voters, however this time those to the left or centre-left. The poll shows that Mr Melenchon and Mr Fillon, on 19 percent and 18.5 percent, respectively, still lag behind Ms Le Pen, on 24 percent, and Mr Macron, on 23 percent, however it appears that the two frontrunners are losing steam. Mr Macron is widely expected to win against Ms Le Pen if both progress to the second round of voting gone 7 May. The latest poll also showed that some 32 percent of voters could abstain in the first round.

Mr Melenchon’s rise in the polls is the latest episode in an election campaign that has been full of surprises. It has also affected financial markets and prompted a warning by the head of businesses lobby group Medef Piere Gattaz. Spearing on Europe 1 radio on Tuesday, Gattaz warned against a possible Melenchon-Le Pen second round, calling both Mr Melenchon’s and Ms Le Pen’s programmes “an absolute catastrophe” for France. While Mr Melenchon is on the polar opposite of the political spectrum from Ms Le Pen, in particular on immigration, they both distrust the European Union (EU), and want to renegotiate France’s role in it and hold a referendum on EU membership.

Meanwhile in recent weeks, the presidential campaign has become increasingly bitter. In recent days, Mr Fillon has stepped up his attacks against Mr Macron, with whom he is in competition for centre-right voters, calling him a liar. Mr Macron responded on Sud Radio, “Mr Fillon is a man of little worth.” Mr Fillon has been under fire since January over allegations that his wife was paid hundreds of thousands of euros for minimal work as a parliamentary assistant for several years. The couple are currently under formal investigation by magistrates.

Serbia’s Presidential Elections: Who is Serbia’s New Strongman?

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has won 54.9 per cent of the vote at the presidential election held on the 2^nd of April, securing a five-year term as Serbia’s president. Addressing the press conference at the headquarters of the ruling Progressive Party, Aleksandar Vucic said he was proud of the support he received and that election results showed which direction Serbia wants to go.

The turnout for this election was 52.4 per cent, and According to the Centre for Transparency, Research and Accountability, CRTA, no major irregularities have been reported. CRTA noted irregularities in JUST 3 per cent of polling stations, including that electoral commissions sometimes did not check the personal documents of voters, failed to check whether a voter had already cast their ballot, and failed to mark voters’ fingers with special ink to ensure they did not vote again.

After his victory, the Serbia’s new president appears to be stronger than ever. Until he moves to his new office by the end of this month, Vucic will be both the prime minister and the president-elect, at the same time.

Nothing appears to get in the way of his victory – neither the fact that Serbia has now hit the lowest score on Freedom House’s Democracy Index since 2003, nor the thousands of protesters who took to the streets of Belgrade the day after the vote to claim that the elections were rigged. Nonetheless, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and German chancellor Angela Merkel were among the first to hail Vucic’s success, but best wishes also came from Russian president Vladimir Putin, Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the EU’s bad boy, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

But who is Aleksander Vucic? The diversity of his foreign admirers reflects the multitude of faces he has been presenting at home and to the outside world.

To his Serbian critics, Vucic is no more than an autocrat who stomped out free media and subverted state institutions to his whims – something that Erdogan and Orban can surely appreciate.

In Brussels and Berlin, they see him as a pro-Western reformist, determined to bring Serbia into the EU. Also, the EU, more than ever, needs Vucic’s continued cooperation to keep the Balkan route closed.

And in Moscow, he’s welcomed as a staunch ally, who refuses to join Western sanctions against Russia, and keeps Serbia out of Nato.

In his youth, the new President was on the extreme right, but now, at age 47, he has abandoned ideology and become all things to all people.

Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party and his cabinet include reformists, nationalists, well-educated liberals, and low-educated supporters. Yet, he still somehow manages to keep them all in line.

His political agenda is equally eclectic, and his challengers – both from left and right – quickly discovered that he has co-opted many of their policies. Thus they lost the battle before the campaign had even started.

Despite Serbia has found itself in the middle of the Russia-West dynamic, Western leaders have opted for supporting the new President as he appears to be a stabilising figure. When they look at the Western Balkans, they see a deep crisis in Macedonia, paralysis in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Albania, and rampant crime and corruption in Kosovo.

Even Croatia, the only country in the region that managed to join the EU in this decade, is not exactly a paragon of stability.

The recent collapse of the retail giant Agrokor, which contributes more than 10 percent to Croatia’s GDP, is threatening to bankrupt the country.

Surrounded by neighbors like these, Serbia looks like an island of stability and, with Vucic in charge, the West at least knows what to expect.

Vucic has also proven highly cooperative on two issues that are highly important to Brussels: Kosovo and the refugee crisis.

On Kosovo, he has been engaged in the EU-sponsored normalisation talks between Belgrade and Pristina, which have been going on for several years, and produced some (albeit modest) results.

From Brussels’ perspective, as long as the two sides are talking, the possibility of renewed conflict between Serbia and its former southern province remains low.

When it comes to refugees, Serbia is in the middle of the Balkan route, which is now mostly closed. The EU wants to keep it that way, and would need Vucic’s continued cooperation on this issue as well.