Corruption is undermining all efforts to rebuild Ukraine in line with European Union norms, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said on Thursday, as President Petro Poroshenko vowed to pursue ever-closer integration with the bloc.

Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk were in Kyiv for a 24-hour summit with Poroshenko following the final ratification of a new trade pact that has angered Russia.

“What we are asking … is to increase the fight against corruption, because corruption is undermining all the efforts this great nation is undertaking,” Juncker said at a joint briefing. “We remain very concerned.”

The criticism suggests the EU delegation may have taken a tougher-than-expected line in talks forecast to be largely upbeat after the confirmation on Tuesday of an association agreement for closer political and trade ties.

Seven conditions still in works

Separately, European Commission Vice president Valdis Dombrovskis said Kyiv had a shrinking window to meet 21 conditions to unlock 600 million euros ($684 million) of further financial assistance from the EU, of which seven are outstanding.

These conditions include making sure that a landmark reform forcing officials to declare their assets online is properly implemented, and Kyiv lifting a ban on wood exports.

“What we are emphasizing currently is that we have quite limited time,” Dombrovskis told reporters. “So all the conditions need to be implemented already in October … because the macrofinancial assistance program ends on Jan. 4 next year.”

Reforms lead to investments

The pro-Western government in Kyiv has sought to boost EU relations since the ousting of a Moscow-backed president in 2014, implementing reforms in exchange for billions of dollars in aid and a new visa-free travel deal with the European Union.

But Ukraine’s allies have repeatedly expressed concern that vested interests and corrupt practices remain entrenched, partly due to weak rule of law.

The European Union and the International Monetary Fund, Ukraine’s main financial backer, have called for the creation of a specialized anti-corruption court, but Juncker said a new solution had been agreed at the summit.

“Today we agreed that if Ukraine establishes … a special chamber devoted to this issue, that will be enough,” he said.

EU membership remains far off

Mykhailo Zhernakov, a judicial expert at the non-governmental coalition Reanimation Package of Reforms, said the agreement would be a disappointment to those campaigning for greater accountability.

“There’s no way that a chamber in any court will be as independent as a separate court,” he told Reuters. “It’s not going to help.”

While full EU membership for Ukraine remains far off, Poroshenko stressed that Kyiv hopes to integrate further by joining the customs union and becoming a member of the bloc’s Schengen open-border zone.

“As early as today, it’s important to start developing a roadmap to the realization of our dreams,” he said.

 
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The number of people living in poverty in Italy climbed to its highest level for more than a decade in 2016 despite a modest economic recovery, data showed on Thursday, in a report that could hurt the ruling Democratic Party (PD).

Those living in “absolute poverty” rose to 4.74 million last year, or 7.9 percent of the population, up from 7.6 percent in 2015 and the highest since current records began in 2005, national statistics bureau ISTAT reported.

ISTAT defines absolute poverty as the condition of those who are unable to buy goods and services “essential to avoid grave forms of social exclusion.”

Italy emerged from a long recession in 2014, but the report shows that the slow growth posted since then has done little to help the poorest sectors of society.

Gross domestic product is forecast to rise by around 1.1 percent this year, up from 0.9 percent in 2016, but leaving Italy in its customary position among the eurozone’s most sluggish economies.

The country faces elections next spring, and opposition parties were quick to blame the PD and its leader, Matteo Renzi, for the record poverty levels.

“When a government is unable to provide for people’s basic needs, we can undoubtedly say it has failed,” said Giovanni Barozzino, a senator for the Italian Left party, which split from the PD in 2015, complaining Renzi had dragged it to the right.

In the underdeveloped south of Italy, 9.8 percent of people were living in absolute poverty, compared with 7.3 in central regions including the capital Rome, and 6.7 percent in the wealthier north, including the business capital Milan.

ISTAT said Italians living in “relative poverty,” or those whose disposable income is less than around half the national average, also edged up in 2016 to 8.5 million people, or 14.0 percent of the population.

That compared with 13.7 percent in 2015 and was the highest since current records began in 1997.
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NATO forces in Europe scrambled fighter jets to intercept approaching Russian aircraft close to 800 times last year – almost double the figure from 2014. That’s according to a new report, which calls for a new agreement and improved communication between NATO and Russia to avert potentially dangerous incidents. Henry Ridgwell has more from London.
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A new exhibition in southern Poland shows the brutality of the Nazi German death camp of Auschwitz through the artistic work of its inmates. Some of the artworks are being shown publicly for the first time.

The “Face to Face: Art in Auschwitz” exhibition opened last week at the Kamienica Szolayskich (Szolayski Tenement House) of the National Museum in Krakow to mark 70 years of the Auschwitz Museum. The museum’s task is to preserve the site in the southern town of Oswiecim and to educate visitors about it. More than 2 million people visited the museum last year.

The curator of the Krakow exhibit, Agnieszka Sieradzka, said Wednesday it includes clandestine as well as commissioned drawings and paintings by Jews, Poles and other citizens held at Auschwitz during World War II.

“These works help us see Auschwitz as the inmates saw it and experienced it,” Sieradzka told The Associated Press. “We stand face to face with the inmates.”       

The Nazis sometimes ordered talented inmates to make paintings for various purposes. One such painting is a portrait of a Roma woman that pseudo-scientist Josef Mengele experimented on. Mengele ordered portraits like this from inmate painter Dina Gottliebova, a Jewish woman from Czechoslovakia.

The task helped Gottliebova survive. After the war, she traveled to the U.S. and started a family. She died in 2009 in California under the name Dina Babbitt.

Among the clandestine art is the so-called Auschwitz Sketchbook by an unknown author. It has 22 drawings of scenes of beatings, starvation and death. It was found in 1947, hidden in a bottle in the foundation of a barrack at Birkenau, a part of the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex. It is the first time it is being shown to the general public. It is housed at the museum and only shown on request. 

Also being displayed is the original “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Sets You Free) gate top that was stolen and retrieved in 2009 and is now kept under guard at the museum. 

From 1940 to 1945, some 1.1 million people, mostly European Jews but also Poles, Roma and Russians, were killed in the gas chambers or died from starvation, excessive forced labor and disease at Auschwitz, which Nazi Germany operated in occupied Poland.
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U.S. President Donald Trump, who in the past has disparaged Paris as an unsafe city because of terrorism, has arrived in the French capital. He will mark the French national holiday, Bastille Day, on Friday after holding counterterrorism talks with President Emmanuel Macron and marking the 100th anniversary of U.S. troops entering World War I.

Air Force One, the presidential jet, lifted off on schedule (at 7:49 p.m. EDT) Wednesday evening from Joint Base Andrews, outside the nation’s capital. First lady Melania Trump is accompanying the president on the trip to France. They arrives just before 9 a.m. local time.

Before departing the U.S., the president gave several interviews at the White House, including an extended conversation with Pat Robertson of the Christian Broadcasting Network, a prominent figure in conservative political and religious circles.

In contrast to reports from U.S. intelligence agencies that Russian President Vladimir Putin intervened in last year’s U.S. elections to increase Republican Trump’s chances of victory, the president said he believes Putin had hoped Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton would win the race.

According to excerpts of the interview released Wednesday evening by CBN, the president said the Kremlin would have preferred to see Clinton win the White House, because Russian officials thought she would “decimate” the U.S. military once in power.

Watch: Trump Heads for Difficult Encounter in France

Paris ‘out of control’

A year ago Trump described Paris as “so, so, so out of control, so dangerous,” because of terrorists operating there. More recently he suggested that Islamic State attacks in Paris had diminished its standing as a world-class destination.

As he pulled the U.S. out of the 2015 international Paris accord to control greenhouse gas emissions, Trump said he was elected to represent “Pittsburgh, not Paris.” Nevertheless, he subsequently accepted President Macron’s invitation to attend the country’s annual mid-July celebrations.

During his two-day visit, Trump will meet with Macron, whose political fortunes have soared this year. The U.S. president also will lunch with military officials, tour the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte and join in Bastille Day celebrations Friday.

The two leaders are scheduled to meet Thursday before speaking to reporters.

“We will talk about all the issues which are of interest to us both, including those about which we have disagreements when we have them, but also a lot of the issues on which we are working together — the terrorism threat, the crises in Syria and Libya, and a lot of issues which are of interest to us both,” Macron said.

Syria, G-20 follow-up

A senior U.S. official told reporters the White House expects the civil war in Syria and U.S.-French cooperation both there and on other counterterror issues to take up most of the discussion, while there could also be some follow-up to last week’s G-20 summit in Germany.

France is part of the U.S.-led coalition that has been carrying out airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq since late 2014. A large majority of those strikes this year have taken place in Syria, where the militants have their de facto capital in the city of Raqqa.

Trump and Macron are both in their first year in office and have shown policy differences when it comes to international efforts to combat climate change. But they also share certain goals, such as reducing the number of workers in their respective governments.

The senior Trump administration official described the relationship between the presidents as “very positive.”

Bastille Day

On Friday, Trump and his wife, Melania, will attend the annual Bastille Day parade, which will include both French and U.S. military personnel.

“The fact that we participated in such a major way in World War I, side by side with the French, is a clear parallel to what we’re doing today,” the senior administration official said. “We still live in a dangerous world. We still live in a world that has many, many threats.”

A French government spokesman, Christophe Castaner, said, “Sometimes Trump makes decisions we don’t like, such as on climate, but we can deal with it in two ways: we can say, ‘We are not going to talk to you,’ or we can offer you our hand to bring you back into the circle. Macron is symbolically offering Trump his hand.”
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A satirical cover for a political news magazine was all it took to see its editor eventually sentenced to more than two decades in prison.

Cevheri Guven, editor in chief of Turkey’s Nokta magazine, fled while out on bail late last year, smuggling his family out of a country he says is rapidly descending toward all-out dictatorship. He took refuge in Greece, where he applied for political asylum.

Guven is far from alone in feeling the full force of the Turkish government’s wrath against press critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, particularly after last year’s failed coup attempt. About 160 journalists are currently in jail, mostly on terrorism-related charges, while more than 150 media outlets, from broadcasters to newspapers and magazines, have been shut down, leaving thousands unemployed.

Pressure on Turkey’s media is nothing new. Ranked 155th out of 180 countries in the 2017 World Press Freedom Index, Turkey fared only marginally worse than it had the previous year, when it was ranked at 151. Some journalists in prison today have been there for years.

“Turkey is the world leader in jailing journalists and has decimated the independent print media and cracked down heavily on news websites and social media,” said Emma Sinclair-Webb, Turkey director for Human Rights Watch. Most of the journalists now imprisoned “have not yet been convicted of any crime but face trumped-up terrorism charges,” she said.

Rights groups have criticized Turkey for decades for imprisoning journalists. The country has seen at least three coups, in 1960, 1971 and 1980, each leading to regimes that restricted the media in various ways. Guven’s own troubles started with a September 2015 magazine cover, long before last year’s July 15 coup attempt.

But, he says, the coup aftermath, with its state of emergency granting authorities sweeping powers, has plunged the country to new lows.

“There have been [bad times] in Turkey, in the junta years,” Guven said, speaking through a translator from his temporary home in Greece. “But now is the worst time for journalists.”

Some of his colleagues have been released from detention by court order, only to be re-arrested outside the prison gates. Others are held in isolation, and are threatened with life sentences.

“This shows that there is no chance for journalists to be free in Turkey,” he said. Guven himself has been sentenced to 22.5 years in prison for a variety of terrorist-related crimes, including making propaganda for both the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party and Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, two groups that are hostile to each other. Erdogan blames Gulen, a former ally living in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania, for the coup.

The situation in Turkey, Guven said, “is obviously” going toward a dictatorship.

Erdogan bristles at accusations he is muzzling the press, insisting authorities are simply rooting out criminals.

“When we take a look at the names, we see that they include everyone from murderers to robbers, from child abusers to swindlers. All that’s missing in the list are journalists,” he said in March, referring to lists of imprisoned journalists he says are constantly presented to him by foreign officials.

Asked at the end of last week’s G20 meeting in Hamburg, Germany, about the media situation, Erdogan again insisted that those arrested had been detained for criminal activity.

“Journalists commit crimes too and when they do the judiciary makes the necessary assessment,” he said. “I want you to know that those you know as being members of the press are mostly people who aided and abetted terror.”

Critical reporting has been all but silenced by the detentions and sackings, which have included the editor and top staff at Turkey’s most respected opposition newspaper, Cumhuriyet.

“The crackdown on the media is not only about censoring critical reporting,” said HRW’s Sinclair-Webb, “but about preventing scrutiny of government policies and of the deeply repressive measures taken under the ongoing state of emergency.”

For Guven, serious problems began with Nokta’s satirical cover in September 2015 depicting a smiling Erdogan taking a selfie in front of a Turkish soldier’s flag-draped coffin. It was strong criticism of the president’s reported comments that soldiers killed fighting Kurdish militants would be happy for their martyrdom.

The result: distribution of the magazine was banned and police raided its offices, accusing its leadership of insulting the president. In May, Guven’s colleague Murat Capan was caught trying to flee to Greece and has been locked up in Turkey, also on a 22.5- year sentence. Greek media said Capan had made it across the Greek border but was pushed back into Turkey, where authorities detained him. The Greek government denies pushing back asylum seekers.

Activists say the media crackdown has fostered a climate of fear in which self-censorship has increased among the remaining journalists.

“The fact that there are journalists in jail is not the only proof of the lack of press freedoms in Turkey. The censorship and self-censorship imposed on media organs also remove press freedoms,” Gokhan Durmus, head of the Turkish Journalists’ Syndicate, said in a speech on May 3, World Press Freedom Day. “In our country, which is governed under a state of emergency, journalism is being destroyed. They are trying to create a media with one voice, a Turkey with one voice.”

The purge has affected almost every sector of Turkey’s professional classes, from the judiciary and military to academia, hospitals, kindergartens, businesses and diplomats. Human rights activists, including members of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have been among the latest wave of detentions.

Anyone deemed to be linked to Gulen’s network of schools, charities and businesses has fallen under suspicion. About 150,000 people have been detained, one-third of them formally arrested; more than 100,000 have been fired, sometimes for links as tenuous as using a particular bank.

 
…

Italy’s plan to reduce the risk of a jihadi-inspired attack is pinned in small part on Mimoun El Hachmi, an imam who bikes to the prison here every week and exhorts Muslim inmates not to stray from life’s “right path” or hate people who aren’t Muslim.

Seven inmates — three Moroccans, three Tunisians and a Somali — left their cells at Terni Penitentiary on an early summer day to listen as the Moroccan-born imam led prayers and delivered a sermon. Sunlight from a high barred window streamed through Mimoun’s gauzy, off-white robe.

“If I am praying, I am not cooking up ideas to harm others on the outside,” a 35-year-old Tunisian inmate said, sitting cross-legged in the small, beige-tiled room that was converted into the prison’s Mosque of Peace.

None of the inmates would give their names, and prison rules precluded asking why they were serving time.

So far spared the attacks that have stunned France, Belgium, Britain and Germany, Italy has relied mostly on arresting and deporting suspected extremists to try to keep the country safe. But the Italian government has come to embrace prevention, too, especially in the prisons it doesn’t want to become training grounds for potential extremists.

Preaching pluralism

Inviting in imams who have been vetted to make sure they espouse “moderate views” is a tactic now being employed in Italian prisons to counter radicalization among inmates. In February, the government signed a recruiting agreement with the Union of Islamic Communities and Organizations in Italy, which professes to foster Islamic “pluralism.”

When preaching to inmates, “we stress that we are Italians of Muslim faith, Europeans of Muslim faith … We are 100 percent citizens with rights and duties,” UCOII president Izzeddin Elzir said.

Italy’s second generation of Muslim immigrants is just coming of age now. For the most part, the nation lacks neighborhoods with heavy concentrations of Muslim residents. But Muslims make up a disproportionate share of the population in Italy’s prisons.

More than a third of all inmates in Italian penitentiaries are foreigners, and 42 percent of those come from the majority Muslim countries of Morocco, Albania and Tunisia, according to a 2017 report by inmate advocacy group Antigone.

The advocacy group counted 411 chaplains, but only 47 imams working in Italy’s 200 prisons. Prison system officials worry that if imams don’t make regular visits, inmates might be more vulnerable to the influence of those who are already radicalized.

“It’s not so much those (inmates) who preach, but those who submit to this proselytizing” who are considered at risk, Terni Penitentiary Superintendent Natascia Bastianelli said.

Justice Ministry Undersecretary Gennaro Migliore stressed in an interview that of about 11,000 Italian prison inmates from predominantly Muslim countries, “those who could be potentially radicalized, or already radicalized don’t exceed 400” inmates.

So far, 13 UCOII imams have started preaching in eight prisons after being screened by interior ministry officials. Government officials and the organization plan to evaluate the strategy’s effectiveness as a de-radicalization tool this fall.

Wakeup call

If Italy needed a wakeup call, it came with the morning news two days before Christmas.

Before dawn, officers in Milan confronted and killed a young Tunisian suspected of driving the truck that plowed through shoppers at a Berlin Christmas market that week, killing 12. Anis Amri is believed to have become radicalized during the 3 years he spent in Italian prisons for his role in a riot at a migrant center.

In a separate case, authorities accused a Tunisian inmate with alleged links to extremist groups of recruiting fellow Muslims at an Italian prison, and attacking inmates who resented his extremist propaganda.

Terni police commander Fabio Gallo said learning that Amri had spent time in Italian prisons spurred him and other prison officials to sharpen their skills at recognizing an inmate who is becoming radicalized.

About 20 percent of the penitentiary’s personnel have taken courses to make them aware of possible signs, such as preaching to other inmates or exulting at television news coverage about extremist attacks in Europe, Gallo said.

But he stressed that it’s often difficult to realize which words or gestures might be worrisome signals, especially for staff who don’t understand Arabic. And inmates are catching on to what tips prison personnel off, Gallo said.

“Nobody has a long beard” anymore, the commander said.

Vetting imams may not prove to be a straightforward process either.

“Where do you set the bar? Is it OK if someone is saying Western society is decadent, but at the same time condemns ISIS?” asked Lorenzo Vidino, an Islamism expert, using an alternative abbreviation for IS.

Former anti-terrorism magistrate Stefano Dambruoso, who is now a lawmaker in Italy, endorses careful screening of who will be preaching to men and women behind bars. He thinks it’s essential “they have been trained in schools, in environments respectful of the founding principles of our Constitution.”

Yet Dambruoso also expresses concern about the imams invited into prisons “turning into some kind of secret eye, or a spy for the institutions.” 

On the day when Mimoun was at Terni Penitentiary, 46 of the 109 foreigners in the medium-security section were from northern Africa. The imam delivered his sermon in Arabic, sprinkled with Italian and French phrases.

He said he teaches his followers to “respect Italians, respect neighbors, your colleagues, your cellmates.”

One of the inmates who came to pray in the mosque said that “if you respect religion, our religion, you won’t commit” extremist attacks.

After the seven were accompanied back to their cells, Mimoun told of how an inmate once confided in him that he “hated Italians.” 

“I showed him in the Quran where it says you cannot hate others of different religions,” the imam said.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump departs Wednesday on a trip to France focused on counterterrorism talks with French President Emmanuel and marking the 100th anniversary of U.S. troops entering World War I.

The two leaders are set to hold their meeting Thursday in Paris before speaking to reporters.

“We will talk about all the issues which are of interest to us both, including those about which we have disagreements when we have them, but also a lot of the issues on which we are working together — the terrorism threat, the crises in Syria and Libya, and a lot of issues which are of interest to us both,” Macron said.

A senior U.S. official told reporters the White House expects the situation in Syria and U.S.-French cooperation both there and on other counterterror issues to take up most of the discussion, while there could also be some follow-up to last week’s G-20 summit in Germany.

France is part of the U.S.-led coalition that has been carrying out airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq since late 2014.  A large majority of those strikes this year have taken place in Syria, where the militants have their de facto capital in the city of Raqqa.

Trump and Macron are both in their first year in office and have shown policy differences when it comes to international efforts to combat climate change. But they also share certain goals, such as reducing the number of employees in their respective governments.

The senior administration official described the relationship between the presidents as “very positive.”

On Friday, Trump and his wife, Melania, will attend the annual Bastille Day parade, which will include both French and U.S. military members.

“The fact that we participated in such a major way in World War I, side by side with the French, is a clear parallel to what we’re doing today,” the senior administration official said.  “We still live in a dangerous world.  We still live in a world that has many, many threats.”
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Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi assured a delegation of Italian lawmakers on Tuesday that his government was committed to bringing to justice those responsible for the murder of an Italian student in Cairo last year.

Giulio Regeni was found murdered in Cairo in February 2016 after the head of a Cairo street vendors’ union reported him to police a few weeks before his death.

The 28-year-old, who was conducting postgraduate research into Egyptian trade unions, was last seen by friends on Jan. 25, 2016. His body, showing signs of extensive torture, was found in a roadside ditch outside Cairo on Feb. 3.

Egyptian officials have denied any involvement in Regeni’s death. Security and intelligence sources told Reuters in April that he had been arrested in Cairo on Jan. 25, and taken into custody.

“President Sisi stressed the need to continue close cooperation between investigators in the two countries,” his office said in a statement.

“The president reiterated Egypt’s full commitment to working on disclosing the circumstances surrounding the incident so as to determine the perpetrators and bring them to justice.”

Egypt’s top prosecutor gave the green light in January to experts from Italy and a German company that specializes in salvaging closed-circuit TV footage to examine cameras in Cairo as part of the investigation into Regeni’s death.

Italy has complained that the investigation is taking too long, and withdrawn its ambassador to Cairo.

Egypt has said its police carried out checks on Regeni’s activities following concerns raised by the union chief, but found nothing of interest.

Human rights groups have said torture marks indicated Regeni died at the hands of the security forces, an allegation Cairo denies.
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Russia is “outraged” that the United States has not yet resolved issues following the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats in December.

Moscow is considering retaliatory measures, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday, without disclosing further details.

“We are thinking about specific steps, and I don’t believe that this should be discussed publicly,” Lavrov told journalists in a televised briefing.

His deputy, Sergei Ryabkov, told Sputnik news — a Russian government-controlled news agency — that “different options are being considered, but a tough reaction has been prepared,” in an interview Tuesday.

In December, then President Barack Obama imposed sanctions on two intelligence agencies, expelled 35 Russian diplomats, and closed two Russian compounds inside the United States. Russia immediately denounced the sanctions as unlawful and threatened to retaliate.

Russian president Vladimir Putin decided then against direct retaliation and did not expel American diplomats — a decision that was hailed by President Donald Trump as “a great move.”

But Moscow is keen to regain its properties in the United States, one in Maryland, about 90 km outside of Washington, D.C., the other in New York state. The subject was on the agenda of Putin’s first face-to-face meeting with Trump in Hamburg, according to the Kremlin.
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Tens of thousands of people converged on Srebrenica Tuesday for a funeral for dozens of newly identified victims of the 1995 massacre in the Bosnian town.

Remains of 71 Muslim Bosniak victims, including seven juvenile boys and a woman, were buried at the memorial cemetery on the 22nd anniversary of the crime. They were laid to rest next to over 6,000 other Srebrenica victims found previously in mass graves. The youngest victim buried this year was 15, the oldest was 72.

Adela Efendic came to Srebrenica to bury the remains of her father, Senaid.

“I was 20-day-old baby when he was killed. I have no words to explain how it feels to bury the father you have never met,” Efendic said. “You imagine what kind of a person he might have been, but that is all you have.”

More than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys perished in 10 days of slaughter after Srebrenica was overrun by Bosnian Serb forces on July 11, 1995.  It is the only episode of Bosnia’s fratricidal 1992-95 war to be defined as genocide by two U.N. courts.

Serbs hastily disposed of the victims’ bodies in several large pits, then dug them up again and scattered the remains over the nearly 100 smaller mass graves and hidden burial sites around the town.

Every year forensic experts identify newly found remains through DNA analysis before reburial.

Most coffins are lowered into their graves by strangers, because all male members of the victims’ families had often been killed.

“I was looking for him for 20 years … they found him in a garbage dump last December,” Emina Salkic said through tears, hugging the coffin of her brother Munib. He was 16 when he was killed.

Srebrenica was besieged by Serb forces for years before it fell. It was declared a U.N. “safe haven” for civilians in 1993, but a Security Council mission that visited shortly afterward described the town as “an open jail” where a “slow-motion process of genocide” was in effect.  

When Serb forces led by Gen. Ratko Mladic broke through two years later, Srebrenica’s terrified Muslim Bosniak population rushed to the U.N. compound hoping that Dutch U.N. peacekeepers would protect them. But the outgunned peacekeepers watched helplessly as Mladic’s troops separated out men and boys for execution and sent the women and girls to Bosnian government-held territory.

An appeals court in The Hague ruled this month that the Dutch government was partially liable in the deaths of more than 300 people who were turned away from the compound.

Mladic is now on trial before a U.N. war crimes tribunal, but many Bosnian Serbs, including political leaders, continue to deny that the slaughter constituted genocide.

“We are again calling on Serbs and their political and intellectual elites to find courage to face the truth and stop denying genocide,” Bakir Izetbegovic, Bosniak member of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency, said in his address to the mourners.

Lars-Gunnar Wigemark, the head of the EU delegation to Bosnia, said that remembering what happened in Srebrenica was “the common duty of us as Europeans,” especially as we live “in a world where facts and truth are being manipulated.”
…

As expected, both sides are blaming the other for the collapse of the latest Cyprus peace talks which diplomats saw as the best chance yet to reunify the divided island.

Greek Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades said Monday that Turkey’s insistence on keeping Turkish forces deployed in the northern part of the island caused the talks to break down. He said Cyprus must be truly independent and sovereign, free from “dependence on third countries.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says it was the “negative attitude” of the Greek Cypriots, saying the Turkish north brought a “constructive approach” to the talks. He also warned companies planning to search for oil and gas in the Mediterranean off Cyprus that they risk “losing a friend like Turkey” if they go ahead with their plans.

Oil and gas exploration off Cyprus is one of the major issues holding up a peace deal. Turkey insists that any energy finds belong to both sides of the island.

The internationally-recognized Greek Cypriot south says it has sovereignty over the waters and the right to exploit it.

Cyprus has been split between a Greek Cypriot south and Turkish Cypriot north since 1974. Turkish troops invaded in response to a coup in Nicosia aimed at unifying the island with Greece.

Only Turkey recognizes a separate leadership in the north while the Greek side enjoys the benefits of European Union membership and global recognition.

Turkish Cypriots insist the Turkish forces stay on the island for what they say would be their protection. The Greek side wants them gone, believing the soldiers to be unnecessary and a provocation.

 
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The United States deployed a battery of Patriot long-range anti-aircraft missiles in Lithuania to be used in NATO war games Tuesday — the first time the advanced defense system has been brought to the Baltics where Russia has air superiority.

The Patriot battery was brought to the Siauliai military airbase Monday, ahead of the Tobruk Legacy exercise, and will be withdrawn when the exercise ends July 22, a Lithuanian defense ministry spokeswoman told Reuters.

The NATO war games take place ahead of the large-scale Zapad 2017 exercise by Russia and Belarus, which NATO officials believe could bring more than 100,000 troops to the borders of Poland and the three Baltic NATO allies — the biggest such Russian maneuvers since 2013.

Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia possess only short-range anti-aircraft missiles — leaving the skies largely unprotected in the event of hostilities — and have expressed concern about their air defense weakness following Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

As a deterrent to Russia in the flashpoint region, the United States has deployed detachments of troops since the Crimea annexation, which have been augmented by four NATO battle groups of more than 1,000 soldiers.

Referring to the NATO exercise starting Tuesday, Lithuania’s Defense Minister Raimondas Karoblis said: “The deployment of Patriots is important because it demonstrates that such moves are no longer a taboo in the region.”

“It proves that the missiles can be brought to wherever they are needed, which is very important,” he told Reuters.

“Air defense, including ground-based defenses, is one of the holes in our defenses, and we will not solve it without help from our allies,” he said.

The Patriot batteries were used in 200 combat engagements against manned and unmanned aircraft, cruise missiles and tactical ballistic missiles, according to its maker U.S. firm Raytheon.

NATO ally Poland said last week that the United States had agreed to sell it Patriot missile defense systems. In March, it said it expected to sign a deal worth up to $7.6 billion with Raytheon to buy eight Patriot systems by the end of the year.
…

A British court on Monday gave the parents of 11-month-old Charlie Gard a chance to present fresh evidence that their terminally ill son should receive experimental treatment.

The decision came after an emotionally charged hearing in the wrenching case, during which Gard’s mother wept in frustration and his father yelled at a lawyer.

Judge Nicholas Francis gave the couple until Wednesday afternoon to present the evidence and set a new hearing for Thursday in a case that has drawn international attention.

But the judge insisted there had to be “new and powerful” evidence to reverse earlier rulings that barred Charlie from traveling abroad for treatment and authorized London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital to take him off life support.

“There is not a person alive who would not want to save Charlie,” Francis said. “If there is new evidence I will hear it.”

Charlie suffers from mitochondrial depletion syndrome, a rare genetic disease that has left him brain damaged and unable to breathe unaided. His parents want to bring him abroad for experimental therapy, which they say offers their son a chance of improvement.

But British and European courts have sided with the hospital’s decision that the 11-month-old’s life support should end, saying therapy would not help and would cause more suffering.

The re-opening of the case at London’s High Court may allow Charlie to receive the experimental treatment at his current hospital or abroad.

Great Ormond Street Hospital applied for another court hearing because of “new evidence relating to potential treatment for his condition.”

The evidence came from researchers at the Vatican’s children’s hospital and another facility outside of Britain.

The application came after both Pope Francis and President Donald Trump fueled international attention to the case, with hospitals in Rome and the U.S. offering to provide Charlie the experimental therapy.

The case pits the rights of parents to decide what’s best for their children against the authorities with responsibility for ensuring that people who can’t speak for themselves receive the most appropriate care.

Under British law, it is normal for courts to intervene when parents and doctors disagree on the treatment of a child – such as cases where a parent’s religious beliefs prohibit blood transfusions. The rights of the child take primacy, rather than the rights of parents to make the call.

Charlie’s parents, Chris Gard and Connie Yates, have received wide public support, while right-to-life groups have intervened in their cause. Americans United for Life chief executive Catherine Glenn Foster was in London on Monday to support the couple.

“Today is a victory for poor Charlie and Chris and Connie over Great Ormond Street Hospital,” Glenn said after the judge ruled. “There is a tremendous amount of hope here.”

A petition supporting Charlie’s right to treatment has garnered around 350,000 signatures and more than 1.3 million pounds ($1.7 million) have been raised online for his case.

Charlie’s parents were overcome with emotion during Monday’s hearing. At one point, the baby’s father, Chris Gard, yelled at a barrister representing the hospital: “When are you going to start telling the truth?”

The baby’s mother, Connie Yates, added: “It’s really difficult.”

“He is our son. Please listen to us,” she said.

Francis – who also ruled on an earlier chapter in the case – said everyone involved in the case wanted the best for Charlie. He rejected an attempt by the child’s parents to have another judge hear the new evidence.

“I did my job,” he said. “I will continue to do my job.”

Before Monday’s hearing, Connie Yates told Sky News that she wanted judges to listen to experts on her son’s condition who say the treatment might help.

The mother said seven specialists from around the world have expressed support for continued treatment and told her it has an “up to 10 percent chance of working.”

“I hope they can see there is more of a chance than previously thought and hope they trust us as parents and trust the other doctors,” she said.
…

Dozens of firefighters poured water onto a big fire early Monday at Camden Lock Market, which is a popular tourist destination in north London.

The London Fire Brigade said 10 firetrucks and 70 firefighters had been sent to the site shortly after midnight Sunday when a blaze erupted near Camden Stables. It said three floors and the roof of a building within the complex were on fire.

Ambulance crews also rushed to the scene, but authorities said no injuries had been reported.

The market is very popular with tourists and Londoners, who are drawn to the area by the shopping and nightlife on offer.

“The fire was moving very fast,” said witness Joan Ribes. “People were watching, but we were scared the building could explode at any time since there are restaurants with kitchens nearby.”

A different part of the market complex was ravaged by a fire in 2008, and vendors were not able to operate for several months.

Monday’s fire came less than four weeks after a fast-spreading blaze engulfed the Grenfell Tower apartment block in west London, killing at least 80 people.
…

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson praised the Turkish people for resisting last year’s attempted coup against the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, without mentioning the government’s crackdown on suspected plotters. Tillerson visited Ukraine and Turkey after attending G-20 summit in Germany. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.
…

The eldest son of U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday that he met with a Kremlin-linked lawyer shortly after his father clinched the Republican nomination, hoping to get information helpful to the campaign.

Donald Trump Jr. confirmed in a statement that he met with a Russian lawyer who had ties to the Kremlin, and that he agreed to the meeting in June 2016 after being told she had information that could damage Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

During the meeting with the Russian attorney, Natalia Veselnitskaya, “no details or supporting information was provided or even offered,” Trump Jr. said. “It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information.”  

Trump’s son said his father was unaware of the meeting.

The White House sought to downplay the contact between Donald Trump Jr. and the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, following a report by The New York Times Saturday that first disclosed the meeting. Also present on that occasion in Trump Tower, the president’s headquarters in New York City, were Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and future senior White House adviser, and Paul Manafort, then the chairman of the Trump political campaign.

When the president’s son was first asked about his talks with Veselnitskaya, The Times said, he did not mention anything about political information that reputedly could damage Hillary Clinton. On Sunday, however, he revised his statement to confirm it was expected that the Russian attorney would provide damaging information.

“While President Trump has been dogged by revelations of undisclosed meetings between his associates and the Russians, the episode at Trump Tower is the first such confirmed private meeting involving his inner circle during the campaign,” The New York Times said, “as well as the first one known to have included his eldest son.”

The newspaper said its information came from “three advisers to the White House briefed on the meeting and two others with knowledge of it.

Veselnitskaya is known for her attempts to undercut the sanctions against Russian human-rights abusers, U.S. media reports said. Her clients reportedly include state-owned businesses and the son of a senior government official whose company was under investigation in the United States at the time of the meeting.

A special prosecutor, appointed by the Department for Justice, and several congressional committees are currently conducting separate investigations into whether there was any collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin over alleged Russian hacking attempting to influence the result of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Trump has repeatedly denied having links to Russia, while Moscow says it was not behind any hacks.
…

During his first official visit to Kyiv Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that the U.S. has told Russia it must take the first steps to de-escalate violence in Eastern Ukraine.

Tillerson spoke alongside Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko after the two met to discuss ways to help end the conflict in eastern Ukraine and support its ongoing reform efforts.  

“As long as the parties commit themselves to these goals I’m confident we can make progress,” Tillerson said, referring to the Minsk agreements – a cease-fire deal that Moscow and Kyiv agreed to in 2015.

Ukraine negotiations

Tillerson has named former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker to serve as Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations.

Volker, who was traveling with Tillerson to Ukraine, will also engage regularly with all parties handling the Ukraine negotiations under the so-called Normandy Format — Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine.

In an interview with VOA’s Ukraine service recently, Volker laid out his vision on Ukraine: “We need to have Ukraine, which is a sustainable, resilient, prosperous, strong democracy, so that it would be attractive to the regions in the East, and [be the place]where disinformation and propaganda attacks don’t really have much traction.”

Although Tillerson is seeking to rebuild trust with the Russians, Washington dismissed speculation that it will cut a deal with Moscow over Kyiv.

“There certainly is no intent or desire to work exclusively with Russia,” a senior State Department official said earlier this week. “This is a multiparty issue, resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine. “

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the U.S. would not be backing away from concerns of Russia’s support of rebels in eastern Ukraine.

“We believe that the so-called rebels are Russian-backed, Russian-financed, and are responsible for the deaths of Ukrainians,” Nauert said Thursday in a briefing. “We continue to call upon the Russians and the Ukrainians to come together.”

Make clear support for sovereignty

Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst told VOA on Friday that Tillerson should make it clear of “U.S. strong support for Ukraine sovereignty and territorial integrity, U.S. recognition that Russia is conducting a war in Ukraine, and U.S. willingness to provide necessary support.”

Herbst said he expects Poroshenko to bring up the massive Russian cyberattack against Ukraine during Sunday’s meeting with Tillerson, and the U.S. “has a great deal to learn” for what Ukraine has done to counteract these Russia attacks.

“I suspect we will see more cooperation in the future,” Herbst added.

Tillerson had told U.S. lawmakers that the United States should not be “handcuffed” to the 2015 Minsk agreement in case the parties decide to reach their goals through a different deal.  

Senior officials later clarified that Washington would “not exclude looking at other options” as the U.S. is still fully supportive of the Minsk agreements.

“The Minsk agreements are the existing framework,” a senior State Department official said. “There is no better option out there.”

The so-called Minsk II agreement is a package of measures to alleviate the ongoing conflicts, including a cease-fire, between Moscow-backed rebels and government forces in eastern Ukraine. It was agreed to by Ukraine, Russia and separatists in February of 2015.

 
…

The third running of the bulls in this year’s San Fermin festival in the northern Spanish city of Pamplona produced no gorings and only a few minor injuries on Sunday, officials said.

The initial medical report included just two requests for medical treatment from knocks received during the clean and quick bull run, Red Cross spokesman Jose Aldaba said. 

Neither of the two patients had serious injuries, hospital spokesman Tomas Belzunegui said.

“It was a tranquil bull run,” Belzunegui said.

Over the first two days of the festival, five people — four Americans and a Spaniard — were gored during the daily bull runs. None were life-threatening injuries.

The bulls from the Puerto de San Lorenzo ranch, which debuted at the festival, completed the 930-yard (850-meter) cobbled-street course Sunday in 2 minutes, 22 seconds. That is well under the average of three minutes for the run.

A brown bull named Huracan broke away early and sped ahead through the parting crowds of runners, several of whom barely dodged its swinging horns.

Huracan came close to catching a runner when it hooked a horn in the pant leg of a young man entering the bullring, lifting him along the wall before dragging him for a few meters (yards). The man apparently escaped unscathed.

The nine-day San Fermin fiesta attracts tens of thousands of partygoers from Spain and abroad. It was popularized by Nobel Literature laureate Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises.
…

Former Polish President Lech Walesa, a democracy hero, has been hospitalized with heart problems in his Baltic coast home city of Gdansk, his son said Saturday.

Jaroslaw Walesa told The Associated Press via text message that his father was feeling “unfortunately weak.” It was not immediately known when he could be discharged from the heart diseases ward of the Gdansk University Clinic.

Lech Walesa, 73, on Thursday attended a speech by President Donald Trump in Warsaw. He was booed by many in a crowd that supported the current government, which criticizes Walesa’s role in Poland’s politics.

Walesa strongly criticizes the government, saying its policies threaten democracy and hurt Poland’s ties with the European Union’s leading nations.

He had been expected to lead a demonstration Monday against monthly observances that the ruling populist party holds in memory of President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others killed in a 2010 plane crash in Russia. The head of the ruling party is Kaczynski’s twin brother, Jaroslaw, who is Poland’s most powerful politician.

Walesa says the monthly observances are used to rally support for the ruling party.

The protest planned for downtown Warsaw will proceed even if Walesa cannot attend, said another pro-democracy activist, Wladyslaw Frasyniuk.

Walesa in 1980 led a massive strike against Poland’s communist authorities, giving rise to the Solidarity freedom movement. Solidarity peacefully ousted the communists from power in 1989, ushering in democracy.

But Kaczynski claims that the transition included a secret deal that allowed the communists to retain some influence and wealth.
…

The G-20 summit of the world’s richest economies wrapped up Saturday against a backdrop of angry protests, and a pledge by leaders to fight protectionism in the face of U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First” policy and Brexit. The U.S. leader took center stage at the two-day gathering, and his meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin was the major headline. VOA Europe correspondent Luis Ramirez reports from Hamburg.
…

Firefighters and police in Italy Saturday pulled the eighth and final body from the rubble of a five-story apartment building that partially collapsed in a seaside town south of Naples. 

The digging through the debris for victims ended more than 24 hours after the residential building collapsed in the early morning. About 80 firefighters worked alongside police and other crews through the night. 

The dead were identified as an elderly resident and two families, one with children of elementary and high school age, and one with a grown son living at home. 

The cause of the collapse remained under investigation, but authorities said it may be linked to renovation work on the building, located along the Naples-Salerno railway line in the town of Torre Annunziata. Debris fell onto the rails, and the scenic line that connects Naples with the nearby Pompeii archaeological site and the scenic Amalfi coast remained closed. 

Witnesses said there was no explosion before the collapse but that a train had just passed by. The Italian railway said vibrations from the train have no impact on adjacent buildings because they are absorbed by ballast. 

Prosecutors were investigating possible charges.

Carabinieri were the first to respond to the collapse at 6:30 a.m. as many residents still slept, digging by hand to find survivors. The work continued for hours by hand until heavier equipment arrived, while sniffer dogs checked for signs of life. 

“We intervened immediately,” Carabinieri Marshall Francesco Murciano told Sky TG24. “We found ourselves before a chilling scene. We started to dig with our bare hands, without any tools.”
…

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has named former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker to serve as Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations.

The announcement came ahead of Tillerson’s first official visit to Kyiv Sunday, where he will meet with President Petro Poroshenko to discuss ways to help end the conflict in eastern Ukraine and support the country’s ongoing reform efforts.

“The United States remains fully committed to the objectives of the Minsk agreement,” Tillerson said in a statement Friday, referring to the cease-fire deal that Moscow and Kyiv agreed to in 2015.

Watch: Tillerson Heads to Ukraine Following Trump-Putin Meeting

​Ukraine negotiations

Volker, who will accompany Tillerson to Ukraine, will also engage regularly with all parties handling the Ukraine negotiations under the so-called Normandy Format — Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine.

In an interview with VOA’s Ukrainian Service recently, Volker laid out his vision on Ukraine.

“We need to have Ukraine, which is a sustainable, resilient, prosperous, strong democracy, so that it would be attractive to the regions in the East, and [be the place] where disinformation and propaganda attacks don’t really have much traction.”

Although Tillerson is seeking to rebuild trust with the Russians, Washington dismissed speculation that it will cut a deal with Moscow over Kyiv.

“There certainly is no intent or desire to work exclusively with Russia,” a senior State Department official said earlier this week. “This is a multiparty issue, resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine.”

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the U.S. would not be backing away from concerns of Russia’s support of rebels in eastern Ukraine.

“We believe that the so-called rebels are Russian-backed, Russian-financed, and are responsible for the deaths of Ukrainians,” Nauert said Thursday in a briefing. “We continue to call upon the Russians and the Ukrainians to come together.”

Make clear support for sovereignty

Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst told VOA Friday that Tillerson should make it clear of “U.S. strong support for Ukraine sovereignty and territorial integrity, U.S. recognition that Russia is conducting a war in Ukraine, and U.S. willingness to provide necessary support.”

Herbst said he expects Poroshenko to bring up the massive Russian cyberattack against Ukraine during Sunday’s meeting with Tillerson, and the U.S. “has a great deal to learn” from what Ukraine has done to counteract these Russia attacks.

“I suspect we will see more cooperation in the future,” Herbst added.

Tillerson had told U.S. lawmakers that the United States should not be “handcuffed” to the 2015 Minsk agreement in case the parties decide to reach their goals through a different deal. 

Senior officials later clarified that Washington would “not exclude looking at other options” as the U.S. is still fully supportive of the Minsk agreements.

“The Minsk agreements are the existing framework,” a senior State Department official said. “There is no better option out there.”

Ukraine agenda

In Ukraine, Tillerson will also meet with young reformers from government and civil society, as Washington is encouraging Kyiv to continue implementing “reforms that will strengthen Ukraine’s economic, political and military resilience.”

The government of Ukraine said Washington and Kyiv would soon sign a number of agreements boosting defense cooperation, according to Poroshenko after he met with U.S. President Donald Trump last month. Ukraine’s foreign minister said the deal would involve defensive weapons only.

“We’ve neither ruled out providing such weapons to Ukraine nor have we taken a decision to do so,” a senior State Department official said when asked about a possible defensive weapons deal earlier this week.

The so-called Minsk II agreement is a package of measures to alleviate the ongoing conflicts, including a cease-fire, between Moscow-backed rebels and government forces in eastern Ukraine. It was agreed to by Ukraine, Russia and separatists in February 2015.

VOA’s Ukrainian Service contributed to this report.
…

Anti-globalization protesters clashed violently Friday with police in Hamburg, Germany, where leaders from the world’s 20 largest economies gathered, causing injuries to nearly 200 police officers and dozens of activists.

Police said they had brought more than 900 additional officers from across the country to help control the situation, bringing the total number of police in the city to more than 20,000.

Officers patrolled dozens of protest marches, and while most demonstrators were peaceful, others set cars on fire, threw bottles at police and tried to enter the convention center where leaders were meeting.

Some protesters threw gasoline bombs, lit fires in the streets and looted businesses.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the protests were “unacceptable.”

“I have every understanding for peaceful demonstrations, but violent demonstrations put human lives in danger,” she said.

Protesters detained

More than 70 protesters were detained. Police used water cannons to push back protesters, including outside a closed metro station where protesters bent iron gates to force their way inside.

Violent protesters often tried to enter closed-off areas surrounding the summit venues.

A group of 22 swimmers from Greenpeace tried to reach a concert hall on the Elbe River where world leaders gathered in the evening to listen to Beethoven. They were intercepted by marine divers.  

Greenpeace boats also blasted music outside the concert hall in an attempt to disrupt the concert and their dinner meetings.

First lady trapped in hotel

Anti-globalization protesters trapped U.S. first lady Melania Trump in her hotel, keeping her from joining the spouses of the other world leaders on a tour of Hamburg harbor.

Officials said most of the injured police were not badly hurt, but some were taken to hospitals, including an officer who was injured when a firework went off in front of him. Fire officials said at least 60 protesters were taken to hospitals, including 11 who fell off a 4-meter wall after fleeing from police.

Police said the majority of the estimated 100,000 demonstrators were peaceful, while around 1,000 militant protesters caused much of the damage.

The protests were expected to continue through Saturday when the summit ends.
…

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says President Trump put the issue of alleged Russian meddling in U.S. elections at the very top of his agenda when the two leaders held their first face-to-face talks on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Germany Friday. The meeting appears to have gone better than expected, with Tillerson describing a “clear positive chemistry” between the two leaders. VOA Europe correspondent Luis Ramirez reports from Hamburg.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump “pressed” Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Moscow’s meddling in last year’s U.S. presidential election at their first face-to-face meeting Friday, according to U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Tillerson said Putin denied Russian involvement in the election, although the two leaders had a “very robust and lengthy exchange on the subject.”

“The president pressed President Putin on more than one occasion regarding Russian involvement,” Tillerson told reporters after the two leaders’ meeting that overshadowed the gathering in Hamburg, Germany, of the leaders of the world’s 20 largest economies.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who also attended the meeting, later said that Trump accepted Putin’s statements that Russia had not interfered in the election.

Tillerson said the two leaders agreed to continue the discussion, with the intent of securing a commitment from Russia not to meddle in U.S. affairs in the future. He said there was no sign that the two countries would ever agree on the issue, so both leaders were focused on moving forward.

There are several ongoing investigations into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia and interfered in last November’s U.S. presidential election.

At a joint news conference Thursday in Warsaw with Polish President Andrzej Duda, Trump addressed Russia’s involvement. “I think it was Russia, but I think it was probably other people and/or countries,” Trump said. “Nobody really knows for sure.”

Trump’s stance on the issue has been somewhat at odds with the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia meddled in the election and with testimony his own nominees presented before Congress.

The meeting also produced an agreement designed to de-escalate fighting in Syria. The two leaders agreed to a cease-fire in southwestern Syria, a deal that increases U.S. involvement in the effort to resolve the Syrian civil war.

Israel and Jordan, which share a border with southern Syria, also have agreed to the cease-fire, which is set to take effect Sunday.

Although both the U.S. and Russia oppose the Islamic State militant group in Syria, the two countries have thrown their support behind opposing sides in the war. The U.S. supports rebel forces who are opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has the support of Moscow.

The agreement could give the U.S. more influence over who fills a leadership void that is developing as Islamic State is forced out of its most important Syrian strongholds.

The U.S. and Russia have been negotiating the cease-fire for some time, and it came to fruition at the formal bilateral meeting that was highly anticipated by the international community.

The meeting was fraught with symbolism as Trump, still new to the world of global diplomacy, sat down with Putin, a former KGB agent, who came to power in what amounted to a Kremlin coup 17 years ago.

The meeting was closely scrutinized for signs of how the two leaders interacted. Relations between Putin and former President Barack Obama were strained, and Trump repeatedly has said he would like to improve ties with Russia.
…

More than 120 countries are expected to adopt the first treaty to ban nuclear weapons Friday despite a boycott by all nuclear-armed nations, including the United States, which has pointed to North Korea’s escalating nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Elayne Whyte Gomez, president of the U.N. conference that has been negotiating the legally binding treaty, told reporters Thursday that “we are on the verge of adopting the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons.”

“This will be a historic moment and it will be the first multilateral nuclear disarmament treaty to be concluded in more than 20 years,” she said. “The world has been waiting for this legal norm for 70 years,” since the use of the first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 at the end of World War II.

Whyte Gomez, Costa Rica’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, said she hoped the treaty would be adopted by consensus, but she said the rules of procedure for the conference also allowed for a vote.

December resolution

In December, U.N. member states overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling for negotiations on a treaty that would outlaw nuclear weapons, despite strong opposition from nuclear-armed nations and their allies who refused to participate in the talks.

Whyte Gomez said 129 countries signed up to take part in drafting the treaty, which represents two-thirds of the U.N.’s 193 member states. But all nuclear states and NATO members have boycotted the negotiations except for the Netherlands, which has U.S. nuclear weapons on its territory and was urged by its parliament to send a delegation to the negotiations.

Following Wednesday’s final review of the text after nearly three weeks of intense negotiations, Whyte Gomez said she was “convinced that we have achieved a general agreement on a robust and comprehensive prohibition on nuclear weapons.”

“I am really confident that the final draft has captured the aspirations of the overwhelming majority of those participating in the conference, including civil society,” she said.

Final language

The final draft treaty requires all countries that ratify “never under any circumstances to develop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.” It also bans any transfer or use of nuclear weapons or nuclear explosive devices — and the threat to use such weapons.

Retired British Royal Navy Cmdr. Rob Green, who flew nuclear strike aircraft and is now co-director of the Peace Foundation’s Disarmament and Security Center, said at a news conference Wednesday that “the heart of this treaty” was the prohibition on threatening to use nuclear weapons.

Richard Moyes, managing director of Article 36, a British-based organization that works to prevent harm from nuclear and other weapons, said it isn’t plausible to think the world can maintain security based on mutually threatening to incinerate hundreds of thousands of people with nuclear weapons “when we know there have been near-misses, errors of judgment — there’s been accidents — and there’s a degree of instability in the political leadership in the world.”

But not one of the nine countries believed to possess nuclear weapons — the United States, Russia, Britain, China, France, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel — is supporting the treaty.

The United States and other nuclear powers instead want to strengthen and reaffirm the nearly half-century-old Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, considered the cornerstone of global nonproliferation efforts.

That pact sought to prevent the spread of atomic arms beyond the five original weapons powers — the U.S., Russia, Britain, France and China. It requires non-nuclear signatory nations to not pursue atomic weapons in exchange for a commitment by the five powers to move toward nuclear disarmament and to guarantee non-nuclear states access to peaceful nuclear technology for producing energy.

North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile tests, including its July 3 launch, have become a timely argument for proponents and opponents of the treaty to ban atomic weapons.

Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, said 15,000 nuclear weapons around the world have not managed to deter Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions and a new approach is needed starting with prohibition as the first step to eliminate nuclear arms.
…

High-level talks aimed at reunifying Cyprus have failed to reach an agreement, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday, again dashing hopes that the island’s 43-year ethnic split could be healed.

Guterres made the announcement after marathon, U.N.-sponsored talks concluded at a Swiss resort in the early hours of Friday. 

“Unfortunately … an agreement was not possible and the conference was closed without the possibility to bring a solution to this dramatically long-lasting problem,” Guterres told reporters.

“I want to express my deep gratitude and appreciation to the leaders of the two communities and to wish the best to all Cypriots north and south.”

Door not entirely shut

But Guterres didn’t entirely shut the door on any renewed, U.N.-assisted attempt to get the island’s Greek Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and the leader of the breakaway Turkish Cypriots Mustafa Akinci back to the negotiating table again.

“The conference is closed,” Guterres said. “That doesn’t mean that other initiatives cannot be developed to address the Cyprus problem.”

Echoing Guterres, Cyprus government spokesman Nicos Christodoulides said the failed result wasn’t “the end of the road” for peace efforts.

“The existing, unacceptable situation can’t be Cyprus’ future and the president will redouble his efforts,” Christodoulides said.

Why the talks collapsed

Also participating in the talks were Cyprus’ three ‘guarantors’ — Greece, Turkey and former colonial ruler Britain.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the talks collapsed because Greece and Greek Cypriots insisted Ankara pull all of its troops from the island and for military intervention rights to be abolished.

“For Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot side it is not acceptable for troops to be withdrawn,” he told reporters.

Security arrangements for an envisioned federal Cyprus were the linchpin to a reunification deal.

The issue revolves around the more than 35,000 troops that Turkey has kept in the island’s breakaway Turkish Cypriot north since 1974, when it invaded following a coup mounted by supporters of uniting Cyprus with Greece.

Greek Cypriots in the island’s internationally recognized south perceive the Turkish soldiers as a threat and want them to leave. The island’s minority Turkish Cypriots want them to stay as their protectors.

Other key disagreements were on how much territory would make up the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot federal zones.

Greek Cypriots sought for the town of Morphou to be returned to Greek Cypriot administrative control so a large number of displaced people could swiftly reclaim lost homes and property. Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots offered only part of the town.

Another key difference was Turkey’s insistence that a peace accord grant Turkish nationals the right to relocate and transfer money, services and goods to a reunified Cyprus. Greek Cypriots were reluctant to cede unregulated access to Turkish nationals over concerns that the small island of 1.1 million people would be overwhelmed economically and demographically. 
…

The international community is watching in anticipation as Donald Trump, five months into his presidency, holds his first meeting with the man seen as his rival for the title of “most powerful leader” on the planet, Russian President Vladimir Putin. Their formal bilateral discussion late Friday is overshadowing the two-day gathering in Hamburg, Germany, of heads of state of the world’s 20 strongest economies.

The meeting is fraught with symbolism as Trump, still new to the world of international diplomacy, sits down with Putin, who came to power in what amounted to a Kremlin palace coup 17 years ago, and has a reputation for keeping negotiating partners off balance.

Students of Washington-Moscow relations point to striking parallels between the scheduled Hamburg talks and another great-power meeting 56 years earlier.

Berlin Wall followed JFK’s summit

“In June 1961, five months after John F. Kennedy was inaugurated, [Soviet leader] Nikita Khrushchev proposed a summit in Vienna,” said William Courtney, adjunct senior fellow at the Rand Corporation, who served as the first U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan following the breakup of the Soviet Union.

“JFK’s advisers advised against it because it wasn’t well prepared, but Kennedy decided to go ahead anyway. He admitted later that Khrushchev ‘beat the hell’ out of him. Two months later the Berlin Wall began to rise,” Courtney told VOA. “Now did JFK’s weak performance in the summit have anything to do with the timing of building the Berlin Wall? We’ll never know.”

On the eve of the Hamburg meeting, Trump signaled his intent to speak to Putin about Russia’s behavior in Eastern Europe and other world hotspots.

“We urge Russia to cease its destabilizing activities in Ukraine and elsewhere and its support for hostile regimes, including Syria and Iran,” Trump said Thursday in the Polish capital, which he visited before flying to Hamburg.

At a joint news conference in Warsaw with Polish President Andrzej Duda, Trump was less forthcoming about another sensitive issue: whether Russia interfered in last November’s presidential election.

“I think it was Russia, but I think it was probably other people and/or countries,” Trump said. “Nobody really knows for sure.”

Trump aides have said he might bring up the election-meddling issue, but is not likely to dwell on it.

“That’s a difficult conversation to have in your first face-to-face, and Russia knows this,” said Lauren Goodrich, senior Eurasia analyst at the Stratfor geopolitical intelligence group in Texas.

‘Master strategist’ Putin vs. ‘unpredictable’ Trump

While Trump is the relative neophyte going into Friday’s meeting, Goodrich said Putin is wary of his American counterpart, who often is unpredictable in an international setting.

“Putin is a master strategist. He outplays the majority of his opponents the majority of the time. He’s well rehearsed and practiced for every single scenario,” Goodrich said. “The problem is, I’ve never seen him come up against a counterpart as unpredictable as Trump, so I think that may throw Putin off his game a little bit.”

For Putin, simply being seen on the world stage alongside a U.S. president will be considered a success, Goodrich added. After being frozen out during the final years of the Obama presidency, Putin knows that a picture of him and Trump sitting together in friendship will send an important message to countries on Russia’s border — both friends and foes.

“It’s enough that Russia can shape its messaging with its border lands that, ‘Look, at least the United States and Russia are talking again, so we’re going to be able to figure out the world. The United States is not talking to you about the world; they’re talking to us about the world,'” Goodrich said. “That’s really important to Russia among its border lands, to show that it’s on the same par as the United States on kind of shaping the world, instead of the U.S. working within those border lands outside Russian influence.”

‘Tremendous pressure’ on Putin

The Stratfor analyst said comparing the Hamburg meeting to the Kennedy-Khrushchev summit may be excessive, for one critical reason: Putin is desperate for a win on the world stage to ease massive headaches at home.

“Putin is under tremendous pressure. He has so many domestic problems that he has to find some way of relieving the pressure outside Russia, because at home it’s becoming very dangerous for him and his system,” Goodrich said.

Historian Dan Mahaffee points to another big difference between the 1961 Vienna summit and the Putin-Trump conversation, for which a relatively brief time has been allotted.

More than half a century ago, “it was a different Cold War environment,” said Mahaffee, who is policy director at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress. “It was a time of a divided Berlin, the threat of nuclear war between superpowers, and trying to lower the temperature to avoid imminent conflict.”

Mahaffee mused that Kennedy had less difficulty going into his meeting with Khrushchev than Trump has had in the midst of exaggerated media speculation ahead of his face-to-face meeting with Putin. In contrast to intense attention in Washington devoted to the investigation of Russia’s attempts to influence last November’s U.S. election, the historian said with a chuckle that for Kennedy, “it was [Chicago Mayor] Richard J. Daley, not Khrushchev, who helped him win the 1960 election.”
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France is confiscating weapons from roughly 100 people on a watchlist of potential Islamist militants, the interior minister said on Thursday, two weeks after state prosecutors said an assailant inspired by Islamic State had been a gun-club member.

Minister Gerard Collomb was speaking ahead of a parliamentary vote to extend emergency search-and-arrest powers given to police after Islamist gunmen and suicide bombers killed 130 people in Paris in November 2015.

“We traced about a hundred … We’re sizing up the situation and taking the weapons away,” he told TV channel CNews, adding that police had foiled seven attacks in France this year alone.

The issue of weapons came to light last month when public prosecutors confirmed that a 31-year-old man, who died after ramming his car into a police convoy in Paris, had joined a gun

sports club to train as a jihadist fighter.

He had built up a large weapons arsenal and renewed his gun permit, despite being on an intelligence services list of people who appear to have been radicalized and could commit attacks.

Prosecutors said the man had sworn allegiance to the Islamic State militant group, whose bases in Syria and Iraq are being bombed by jets from a coalition of countries including France.

They say he appears to have been killed by the thick orange fumes that billowed out of his vehicle after he hit the police van on the Champs Elysees avenue.

The government of President Emmanuel Macron is proposing legislation to replace the system of emergency rule in November, including changes making it easier for officials vetting gun permit requests to cross-check against watchlists of would-be militants.

More than 230 people have been killed in France by Islamist assailants in the past two and a half years.

In the most recent operation, police arrested a man in northern France this week and four more were arrested in Brussels in a Belgian-led counter-terrorism swoop.
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