The Wall Street Journal - 11.03.2020

A18| Wednesday, March 11, 2020 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.**

WORLD WATCH

ISRAEL

Netanyahu Request

To Delay Trial Blocked

An Israeli court rejected Prime

Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s

request to delay the start of his

corruption trial, clearing the way

for proceedings to begin as

planned next week.

Mr. Netanyahu’s lawyers had

appealed for a delay, saying they

needed more time to review evi-

dence. State prosecutors re-

sponded that they oppose any

delays and the court accepted

their position.

In overruling the request the

presiding judge wrote that the

first session on March 17 was a

procedural reading of the charges

and the defendant’s response

wasn’t needed, therefore there

was no justification for a delay.

Mr. Netanyahu has been

charged with fraud, breach of

trust and accepting bribes in

connection with scandals that in-

clude accepting expensive gifts

from wealthy friends and offer-

ing to exchange favors with me-

dia moguls. The long-ruling Israeli

leader denies any wrongdoing

and says he is the victim of a

media-orchestrated witch hunt.

His legal troubles stood at the

center of last week’s national

election, Israel’s third in less than

a year. Like elections this past

April and September, this one

ended inconclusively.

—Associated Press

EUROPEAN UNION

Turkey Says EU

Is Stringing It Along

The European Union should

stop “stringing Turkey along”

over helping out with the mil-

lions of migrants on its terri-

tory, the country’s foreign minis-

ter said, a day after the two

sides agreed to review a four-

year-old deal aimed at stem-

ming refugee flows to Europe.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mev-

lut Cavusoglu said the EU must

take “sincere” steps to help Tur-

key manage the flow of mi-

grants, including finding ways to

ensure Syrian refugees can re-

turn home. The minister spoke a

day after President Recep Tayyip

Erdogan held a meeting with top

EU officials in Brussels, with

both sides agreeing to review

their 2016 deal on migrants.

Mr. Erdogan has demanded

Europe shoulder more of the bur-

den of caring for Syrian refugees

in Turkey—thought to exceed 3.

million. Turkey is accusing the EU

of not meeting its obligations un-

der the 2016 agreement, including

failing to pay money promised to

Turkey to stem the flow.

—Associated Press

SOUTH AFRICA

President Cleared of

Misleading Parliament

A court cleared President

Cyril Ramaphosa of allegations

that he misled Parliament about

the funding of his campaign to

become leader of the ruling Afri-

can National Congress party.

Mr. Ramaphosa had been ac-

cused by the country’s public

watchdog of misleading lawmak-

ers about a $34,000 contribu-

tion from the CEO of a local

company, Africa Global Opera-

tions, formerly known as Bosasa.

—Associated Press

Nicolás Maduro

Thousands of demonstrators

assembled in an antigovern-

ment neighborhood of Caracas

to try to take back the National

Assembly, the only opposition-

dominated body whose cham-

ber was seized months ago by

a faction of the opposition that

claimed leadership of the legis-

lature with the support of the

ruling socialist party. Smaller

protests took place in several

cities across the country.

But riot police backed by ar-

mored vehicles blocked their

progress downtown, where Ma-

duro supporters rallied to sup-

port the government.

“They try to intimidate us

with weapons of war,” Mr.

Guaidó said. “We’ll keep going

until we reach our goal.”

Clashes broke out as pro-

testers flung rocks and sticks

at police, who responded with

tear gas. Mr. Guaidó led a

smaller group that met in a

safer part of town for an im-

promptu, outdoor session of

the National Assembly.

—Associated Press

Security forces fired tear gas

on Tuesday to repel an antigov-

ernment march led by Venezue-

lan opposition leader Juan

Guaidó, who is struggling to re-

ignite street protests to capital-

ize on mounting international

pressure on socialist President

ARIANA CUBILLOS/ASSOCIATED PRESS

ROTHENBERG, Germany—

Germany has set some of the

most ambitious goals of any na-

tion for shifting from fossil fuels

to greener energy. Now the cen-

terpiece of that push—onshore

wind power—is slumping,

prompting the loss of tens of

thousands of jobs and the bank-

ruptcies of wind-power develop-

ers and turbine manufacturers.

Wind power, often seen as a

clean, abundant energy source,

has faced growing bureau-

cratic hurdles and acrimony in

communities out to block the

erection of new turbines.

One vocal group of 300 was

out on a crisp January eve-

ning, piercing the usual quiet

of Rothenberg with drums,

whistles and a recording of a

wind turbine’s whir blasting

through a megaphone. With a

march the size of a third of

the village’s population, locals

hoped to kill a wind-park proj-

ect they feared would destroy

birds and tourism in this cor-

ner of the Odenwald moun-

tains northeast of Heidelberg.

“I don’t see a positive con-

tribution for our planet in put-

ting up wind turbines in the

middle of a forest that’s low on

wind,” said Angelika Beisel,

who runs a small hotel in town

and helped organize the march.

The federal and regional

to shore up the effort to move

to wind.

The industry began to

struggle in 2017 after Germany

stopped granting a fixed sub-

sidy for wind projects on land.

Instead, it began auctioning off

subsidized projects, with the

winning bid coming from the

producer offering the lowest

price per kilowatt of energy.

This change, some analysts

say, has rendered investments

in wind turbines riskier, espe-

cially for small cooperative

projects started by individuals.

The German crisis, aggra-

vated by a continuing global

price war on wind turbines,

has led to casualties. Last

year, Hamburg-based wind-

turbine maker Senvion became

insolvent. Germany’s largest

turbine maker, Enercon, is cut-

ting 3,000 jobs.

Even though surveys show

Germans overwhelmingly back

the energy transition, wind’s

problems are now com-

pounded by more than 900 lo-

cal protest movements across

the country, according to Ver-

nunftkraft, or “power of rea-

son,” a nationwide protest

governments are set to meet

on Thursday to discuss con-

crete steps to revive wind

power’s expansion in Germany.

Berlin’s Energiewende —or en-

ergy-transformation pro-

gram—has led to a total of

29,456 onshore wind turbines

in the country. But the effort

notched a net gain of just 243

turbines in 2019—55% fewer

than were erected in 2018 and

80% fewer than in 2017, ac-

cording to data from the wind-

power industry.

That poses a problem for

the government of Angela

Merkel, which is counting on

wind power to meet the en-

ergy goals it set out in a plan

that many experts view as a

blueprint for other countries.

Those goals aim for 65% of

Germany’s power consumption

to come from nonnuclear re-

newables in 2030, up from

roughly 42% in 2019. Germany

has also vowed to stop burn-

ing coal by 2038.

“If we continue at the cur-

rent rate, we will face a massive

renewables gap,” said Patrick

Graichen, director of Agora En-

ergiewende, a think tank sup-

porting the energy transition.

The slowdown has cost

roughly 40,000 jobs in the

past three years, the premiers

of Germany’s wind-rich north-

ern states said last year in a

warning to Ms. Merkel to act

group.

They argue wind turbines

endanger birds and precious

forests, adversely affect

health, and devalue property—

all while doing little to lower

emissions.

Vera Krug has been fighting

wind turbines in the Odenwald

forest for four years. She

spends hours documenting

their effect on protected bird

species such as black storks

and red kites, for use in court

cases under way against 15

wind turbines on three hills

near her house.

Activists there have spent

roughly €250,000 ($282,000)

for lawyers, legal fees and ex-

pert evaluations.

“We’re being portrayed as

villains or climate-change de-

niers but we’re not the ones

destroying something here,”

Ms. Krug said.

Risks to birds and bats from

wind turbines are hotly de-

bated. The government says

more birds die by colliding

with glass facades every year

than perish in the turbines’ ro-

tor blades.

The government says scien-

tific research hasn’t identified

any health damages caused by

wind turbines amid disagree-

ment about the threshold above

which the noise they make can

be perceived and be potentially

harmful.

BYRUTHBENDER

Wind Power Generates German Blowback

Windpowerhasfacedgrowingbureaucratichurdlesand

acrimonyinGermancommunitiesouttoblocktheerection

ofnewturbines.

Energy sources in German

gross power production, 2019

Gross added wind turbines

Sources: AG Energiebilanzen 2019 (energy sources); Bundesverband WindEnergie (wind turbines)

2,

0

500

1,

1,

2,

2000 ’05 ’10 ’

100%

0

25

50

75

Onshorewind

Biomass

Solar

Offshorewind

Hydropower

Otherrenewables

Nonrenewables

“Their focus is internal,”

one official said.

Critics warned that it might

be too early to conclude that

Iran and its proxies won’t re-

spond further.

Gen. Soleimani’s successor,

Esmail Ghaani, may have

needed some time to fully as-

sume command and develop

his own plans.

Militant forces allied with

Iran, like Hezbollah, could con-

duct strikes, independent of

Tehran’s plans.

“Everything we know about

Iran and its past actions is

that they tend to retaliate in a

major way,” said Andrew

Miller, deputy director for pol-

icy at the Project on Middle

East Democracy, a nonpartisan

Washington think tank. “It

takes time to reconstitute, and

The U.S. military has begun

to draw small numbers of

troops out of the Middle East

after concluding that the threat

of reprisal attacks from Iran or

its proxies has subsided, mili-

tary officials said.

About 1,000 combat troops

who had deployed to Kuwait

days after the Jan. 3 strike that

killed a top Iranian com-

mander, Maj. Gen. Qassem So-

leimani, have left the region

over the past two weeks, the

officials said. An additional

2,000 members of the same

brigade are expected to leave

the region in the weeks ahead,

the officials said.

They are the first depar-

tures of ground forces since

the increase in hostilities in

January, signaling a tenuous

confidence by U.S. officials that

BYNANCYA.YOUSSEF

ANDGORDONLUBOLD

WORLD NEWS

the immediate tension in the

region has begun to decline.

With these withdrawals, the

majority of U.S. troops added

to the region in the weeks after

the Soleimani strike—which in-

cluded combat troops, jet-

fighter squadrons, missile-de-

fense systems, a U.S. aircraft

carrier and other warships—

will have left the region.

The Kuwait deployment in-

volved combat troops from the

82nd Airborne Division at Fort

Bragg, N.C.

They were sent to provide

additional security for U.S.

bases and embassies in the re-

gion in case the death of Gen.

Soleimani, considered by the

U.S. officials to be the architect

of deadly Iranian shadow wars

throughout the Middle East,

led to widespread retaliatory

attacks by Iran and the proxy

forces he supported.

The U.S. holds Iran responsi-

ble for a number of attacks

that began last year, including

attacks on commercial vessels,

the downing of a U.S. drone,

and a drone and missile attack

against an oil facility in Saudi

Arabia.

Iran has denied responsibil-

ity for the attacks. It acknowl-

edged launching a series of

ballistic missile strikes on two

U.S.-occupied bases in Iraq on

Jan. 8, resulting in concussions

or traumatic brain injuries af-

fecting more than 100 U.S. ser-

vice members.

In the two months since the

killing of Gen. Soleimani and

the retaliatory Iranian strikes,

the outbreak of violence many

U.S. officials feared hasn’t ma-

terialized.

Officials said they are now

more confident that the win-

dow for potential violence con-

nected to his death has passed,

they said.

Moreover, Iran is facing a

more immediate threat—bat-

tling one of the deadliest out-

breaks of the new coronavirus

outside China. As of Monday,

at least 194 Iranians, including

two members of Parliament,

had died and nearly 7,000 had

been reported as contracting

the virus.

The coronavirus has affected

Iran’s ability to respond to the

January strike, some Pentagon

officials have concluded.

I think the Iranians are calcu-

lating and waiting for the

Americans to let their guard

down.”

There are approximately

90,000 U.S. forces operating in

the area overseen by U.S. Cen-

tral Command, which includes

the Middle East and Afghani-

stan, defense officials said, up

from the 80,000 that were in

the region in the weeks before

Gen. Soleimani’s death.

The Wall Street Journal re-

ported in December, citing U.S.

officials, that the U.S. military

was considering deploying up

to 14,000 additional troops to

the region in response to rising

threats from Iran.

The Pentagon denied at the

time that such plans existed,

although some of the eventual

increase of about 10,000 per-

sonnel were drawn from those

plans, Pentagon officials said.

U.S. troops have also begun

to leave Afghanistan, which

will reduce the approximately

13,000 troops there to about

8,600, officials have said, in

keeping with a U.S.-Taliban

agreement signed in recent

weeks.

U.S. Troops Begin Leaving Middle East

Drawdown comes as

officials say Iran hasn’t

posed as large a threat

as was once feared

Venezuelan Forces Block Opposition Leader’s March on Assembly

The Afghan government

agreed to release 1,500 Taliban

prisoners as a goodwill gesture

before starting talks with the

insurgent group, putting the

commitment in the form of a

decree, a spokesman said.

The U.S. signed a deal with

the Taliban last month to with-

draw all troops within 14

months on the condition the

group commit to breaking ties

with terrorists and starting

talks with the Afghan govern-

ment and other parties.

The deal also stipulates the

Afghan government, which

isn’t a signatory, must release

up to 5,000 prisoners as part

of a swap for talks to begin.

The government has balked at

releasing that many prisoners

as a precondition for talks.

The decree, signed by Pres-

ident Ashraf Ghani, allows for

the release of 100 prisoners a

day for 15 days. After that, any

further releases will be contin-

gent on launching intra-Afghan

peace talks.

The Taliban didn’t immedi-

ately comment.

—Ehsanullah Amiri

Afghans Agree to

Prisoner Release