U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, meeting with his NATO allies’ counterparts, said Friday in Brussels that they must increase their countries’ defense budgets.

The top U.S.  diplomat told the foreign ministers the alliance must have “all of the resources, financial and otherwise, that are necessary for NATO to fulfill its mission” in places like Iraq and Syria.

Earlier Friday, Tillerson said he also wanted to discuss “Russia’s aggression in Ukraine” with the NATO allies.

Upon arrival in Brussels, the top U.S. diplomat said he sees three important areas to discuss: NATO’s resources for its mission, the organization’s fight against terrorism, including Islamic State, and NATO’s posture in Europe, “most particularly Eastern Europe in response to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere.”

The comments concerning Moscow are some of the strongest the Trump administration has made since coming to power in January.

Tillerson’s visit to Brussels comes one day after meeting with top Turkish officials in Ankara.

Ankara talks

He hailed Turkey as a trusted ally after meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other leaders Thursday.

Tillerson underlined the importance of Turkey in the battle against Islamic State.

But the two NATO allies remain at loggerheads over Washington’s support for the Syrian Kurdish group the PYD and its militia, the YPG, in fighting Islamic State militants. Ankara accuses the PYD of being a terrorist organization affiliated with the PKK, which is fighting the Turkish State.

In a joint news conference, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu stressed Turkey’s opposition to support of the PYD, but did not directly criticize the Trump administration.

Tillerson acknowledged no breakthrough on the dispute, saying more discussions are needed. “We are exploring a number of options and alternatives,” but reiterated Washington’s support of Ankara in fighting the PKK.

With Washington stepping up its military support of the YPG before the operation to liberate Raqqa, the self-declared capital of Islamic State, Ankara increasingly appears resigned to the fact that its call for its military forces to replace the Syrian Kurdish groups has been rejected. But a presidential source ruled out any retaliatory measures against the United States, stressing it did not want the issue to undermine future cooperation.

 
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The European Union softened its public stance on Britain’s exit from the bloc Friday, with Council President Donald Tusk signaling some flexibility on allowing talks on a new relationship before the divorce proceedings are complete.

Draft guidelines obtained by the Associated Press say that the EU and Britain must first “settle the disentanglement” of Britain from the bloc but added that “an overall understanding on the framework for the future relationship could be identified during the second phase of the negotiations under Article 50.” 

The guidelines also say it is a priority to settle questions about British and other European citizens living in each other’s countries, and call for “flexible and imaginative solutions” for the issue of the U.K.’s land border with Ireland.

Talks will be difficult 

EU leaders warned after a meeting Friday that the two years of talks triggered this week to negotiate Britain’s exit will be difficult, but insisted they don’t want all-out economic or diplomatic conflict. Tusk is presenting the EU’s draft negotiating guidelines to leaders of the remaining 27 member states Friday.

Tusk said the EU will not punish Britain in the talks, saying that Brexit itself is “punitive enough.” The head of the rotating EU presidency, Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, insisted the negotiations “will not be a war.”

Tusk said there would not be parallel discussions about Britain’s exit and its future relationship with the EU, but said that the negotiations could move onto a second phase if there is “sufficient progress” in the exit talks.

He didn’t define what kind of progress that would have to be, but said that the 27 remaining EU members would have to agree before moving on.

Threat ruled out

Tusk ruled out the suggestion that there was an inherent threat in British Prime Minister Theresa May’s departure letter Wednesday, which some felt hinted that Britain was threatening to end security cooperation with continental Europe unless it gets a good Brexit deal.

British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson also insisted Friday that Britain’s commitment to European defense and security is “unconditional” and “not some bargaining chip in any negotiations’’ over Brexit.

Johnson, speaking in Brussels upon arrival for a NATO meeting, said he has had good feedback from partners since Wednesday’s British formal announcement of its departure from the EU, despite worries on both sides of the Channel about Brexit. 
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European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has criticized those, including U.S. President Donald Trump, who praise Britain’s secession from the European Union (EU), and champion similar movements in other member nations. Leaders of the European People’s Party met on Malta Thursday, a day after Britain triggered Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty, officially starting the process known as Brexit. Zlatica Hoke has more.
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A top police official says a recent hacking attack on the German Parliament may have led to a “significant drain of data” which may be used to try influence the outcome of the country’s general election in September.

Holger Muench, the head of Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office, didn’t tell reporters Thursday who might have been behind the most recent hacking attack. The offices of at least 10 members of Parliament were attacked last month, the German news agency dpa reported.

In the summer of 2015, the Bundestag suffered another hacker attack, which meant several networks and servers had to be taken offline for days.

German authorities have repeatedly expressed fears that foreign countries could try to influence the outcome of the elections by releasing hacked information during the campaign.
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Prince William, his wife Kate and his brother Prince Harry are spearheading a campaign to encourage people to talk openly about mental health issues.

The young royals released 10 films Thursday as part of their Heads Together campaign to change the national conversation on mental health.

The videos feature celebrities and members of the public talking about the breakthrough conversation that helped them come to terms with their mental health problems.

The former England cricket captain Andrew Flintoff and former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s spin doctor Alastair Campbell are among those seen speaking about their experiences of anxiety or depression.

The films can be viewed on the Heads Together website and YouTube page.

 
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Britain’s chief negotiator in the country’s divorce from the European Union on Thursday rejected suggestions the U.K. has threatened to end security cooperation unless it gets a good trade deal, as the U.K. announced plans for the huge task of replacing thousands of EU laws and regulations with domestic law.

Brexit Secretary David Davis said Prime Minister Theresa May’s letter triggering talks on Britain’s departure made clear Britain wants to continue to work with the EU on a range of issues, including security, for both sides.

“We want a deal, and she was making the point that it’s bad for both of us if we don’t have a deal,” Davis told the BBC. “Now that, I think, is a perfectly reasonable point to make and not in any sense a threat.”

May’s six-page letter triggering two years of divorce negotiations makes 11 references to security, and said that without a good deal, “our cooperation in the fight against crime and terrorism would be weakened.”

The tabloid Sun was in no doubt about what May meant: “Your money or your lives,” was its front-page headline Thursday, along with the words “PM’s Brexit threat to EU.”

Britain is a European security powerhouse — one of only two nuclear powers in the bloc and with some of the world’s most capable intelligence services.

May said Wednesday that Britain will probably have to leave the EU police agency, Europol, after Brexit but wants to “maintain the degree of cooperation on these matters that we have currently.”

Home Secretary Amber Rudd, whose responsibilities include intelligence and security, also denied there was a threat, but told Sky News: “If we left Europol, then we would take our information … with us. The fact is, the European partners want to keep our information.”

Senior European leaders responded positively to the warm overall tone of May’s letter — but they could not miss the steely undertone.

“I find the letter of Mrs. May very constructive generally, but there is also one threat in it,” said European Parliament Brexit coordinator Guy Verhoftstadt, saying May seemed to be demanding a good trade deal in exchange for continued security cooperation.

“It doesn’t work like that,” he told Sky News. “You cannot abuse the security of citizens to have then a good deal on something else.”

A day after triggering its EU exit process, the British government began outlining Thursday how it intends to convert thousands of EU rules into British law when it leaves the bloc in 2019.

The government published plans for a Great Repeal Bill that will transform more than 12,000 EU laws in force in Britain into U.K. statute so that “the same rules will apply after exit day” as before.

The bill is designed to prevent Britain plunging into a legislative black hole once it extricates itself from the EU.

Davis told lawmakers it would ensure that British laws are made not in Brussels but “in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast.”

But opposition lawmakers are unhappy at plans to give government ministers power to change some laws without votes in Parliament.

They fear the Conservative government will use it as a chance to water down workers’ rights and environmental protections introduced in Britain during four decades of EU membership.

Labour Party Brexit spokesman Keir Starmer said the proposed bill “gives sweeping powers to the executive” and lacks “rigorous safeguards” on their abuse.

The government insists executive powers will be time-limited and will only be used to make “mechanical changes” so laws can be applied smoothly. It says it is trying to balance “the need for scrutiny and the need for speed.”

The government says Parliament will be able to scrutinize all “substantive policy changes,” including new customs and immigration laws, and that environmental, workplace and human rights standards will stay in force.

 
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Turkish banker Mehmet Hakan Atilla, a prominent ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, came to New York this week to school investors on his state bank’s plans to sell new dollar bonds.

Instead, he was placed under arrest by U.S. authorities and accused of conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran by teaming with wealthy Turkish gold trader Reza Zarrab to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars of illegal transactions through U.S. banks to Iran’s government.

“United States sanctions are not mere requests or suggestions; they are the law,” Acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim said in a statement in New York, where Atilla was arraigned Tuesday.

He was arrested at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport on Monday.

Gold, currency allegedly sent to Iran

Atilla “protected and hid Zarrab’s ability to provide access to international financial networks,” U.S. authorities said in documents filed in the U.S. court. The documents allege that gold and currency were sent to Iran, while documents were forged to disguise the transactions as food shipments so as to comply with humanitarian exceptions to the sanctions law.

Atilla’s arrest and the case of Zarrab — arrested last year in Florida — drew a sharp rebuke from the Turkish government, which said it planned to raise the matter with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson when he visits Ankara this week, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told Turkish media.

Relations between the U.S. and Turkey are frayed over the Syrian civil war and Turkish demands for the extradition of Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom the Turkish leadership blames for July’s failed coup in Turkey.

Diplomatic dispute?

In terms of the impact of the recent development on the U.S. Turkish relationship, some analysts suggest it could potentially be an issue as the two sides view the case through different lenses.

“For the U.S., it is a case of sanctions law violation,” said Ihan Tani, a journalist who follows U.S.-Turkish relations. “But some people close to the Turkish president seem to be involved with Reza Zarrab.”

Tani added that because of the involvement of close aides of the Turkish president, the issue could escalate into a diplomatic dispute.

But Tani said Atilla knew that U.S authorities viewed him as a potential suspect.

“He knew that he was part of the U.S. investigation here. So why did he come to this country? It is hard to understand. If he took a risk, now he is paying for it,” Tani said.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan declined to comment on his motives to travel to the U.S.

Lender’s shares drop

The arrest could have major financial implications for Turkish state lender Halkbank. Bank shares posted their biggest one-day fall on Wednesday.

Halkbank, Turkey’s fifth-largest bank in terms of assets, vowed to investigate.

“Our bank and relevant state bodies are conducting the necessary work on the subject, and information will be shared with the public when it is obtained,” Halkbank said in a statement.
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Russian high school student Roman Shingarkin had some explaining to do when he got home after becoming one of the faces of anti-Kremlin protests at the weekend. His father is a former member of parliament who supports President Vladimir Putin.

At the height of a protest in Moscow on Sunday against what organizers said was official corruption, 17-year-old Shingarkin and another young man climbed onto the top of a lamp-post in the city’s Pushkin Square.

Hundreds of protesters in the square cheered and whistled as a police officer, dressed in riot gear, shinned up the lamp-post and remonstrated with the two to come down. They refused, and the police officer retreated, to jubilation from the protesters down below.

As images of the protests, the biggest in Russia for several years, ricocheted around social media, Shingarkin’s sit-in on top of the lamp-post was adopted by Kremlin opponents as a David-and-Goliath style symbol of defiance.

Shingarkin was eventually detained when, after the protest in Pushkin Square had dispersed, police persuaded him to climb down. He was taken to a police station but as a minor, he could not be charged. From the police station, he had to ring his father to ask to be picked up.

His father, Maxim Shingarkin, was from 2011 until 2016 a lawmaker in the State Duma, or lower house of parliament. He was a member of the LDPR party, a nationalist group that on nearly all major issues backs Putin.

Putin last year gave the party’s leader, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a medal for services to Russia. With Putin standing next to him, Zhirinovsky proclaimed: “God protect the tsar.”

Shingarkin had not told his father he would be going to the protest, but the former lawmaker quickly guessed what had happened.

“When I rang my dad from the police station, he immediately understood why I was there,” Shingarkin, wearing the same blue and black coat he had on during the protest, said in an interview with Reuters TV.

“I went there [to the rally] out of interest to see how strong the opposition is, how many people would take to the streets, and at the same time to get a response from authorities to a clear fact of corruption.”

He decided to climb up the lamp-post because he “could see nothing from the ground.”

Contacted by telephone on Wednesday, Shingarkin senior said he was sympathetic with his son’s motives for attending the protest.

“He has a social position, against corruption, I support it completely,” Maxim Shingarkin said.

But he emphasised that his son’s actions did not mean that he or the family were opponents of Putin.

The Russian leader, Shingarkin senior said, is popular among voters and there is no one to replace him, but he is let down by the officials around him.

Roman Shingarkin said for now he would not attend any more protests unless they were approved by the authorities.

He said he might venture to a non-approved demonstration once he turns 18, because if he gets into trouble then, the police will charge him and not involve his parents.
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The United States is examining its next steps in the campaign to defeat Islamic State militants and stabilize the refugee crisis with regional allies, as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson embarks on trips to Turkey and NATO headquarters this week. The top U.S. diplomat will press NATO allies to demonstrate a clear path to increase defense spending, in his first meeting with counterparts from this security bloc.

U.S.-led forces are increasing their campaign to retake the Syrian city of Raqqa from Islamic State militants. Stabilizing areas where militants have fled and allowing refugees to return home is high on the agenda for the U.S. and its anti-Islamic State coalition partners.

In Turkey, Tillerson will try to build on progress from last week’s meeting of coalition partners in Washington.

“While a more defined course of action in Syria is still coming together, I can say the United States will increase our pressure on ISIS and al-Qaida, and will work to establish interim zones of stability through cease-fires to allow refugees to go home,” he said, using a common acronym for Islamic State, which is also known as ISIL and Daesh.

But it could be a tall order, according to Middle East expert Daniel Serwer.

“The Turks would like to have safe zones; they have been proposing them for years,” he said. “But they are, in fact, extraordinarily difficult to create, and to defend, and to maintain.”

NATO

Days before Tillerson’s first meeting with NATO foreign ministers, Tillerson met with his counterparts from the Baltic states. They expressed confidence in Washington’s support for NATO.

“We’re passing what we consider very important messages of the need to develop transatlantic security and economic links, so it was, overall, a very good introductory meeting,” Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics told VOA’s Ukrainian Service.

After Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea, NATO agreed to send troops to Lithuania and to Estonia, Latvia and Poland, in a move to deter potential Russian aggression.

“I wouldn’t say the military presence is insignificant,” Estonian Foreign Minister Sven Misker told VOA’s Russian Service. “These are very well-trained, well-equipped forces. But when you look at the numbers, the presence is slightly modest compared to what Russia has in place on the other side of the border. So it shouldn’t be viewed as escalatory in any way … but I think it’s sufficient to make Russia change its calculus. It makes clear to Russia that they should not launch a provocation and think that they can do it with impunity.”

Tillerson is going to the NATO talks before he goes to Moscow, a move that ends the controversy over his earlier decision to skip the event.

“[NATO allies] want the commitment by Tillerson to maintain sanctions [on Russia for its actions] on Ukraine; they want a commitment from Tillerson that his president isn’t going to sell out the alliance to the Russians,” Serwer said.

Tillerson will make it clear that it is no longer sustainable for the United States to maintain a disproportionate share of NATO’s defense spending. He also will consult with allies about their shared commitment to improve security in Ukraine and the need for NATO to push Russia to end aggression against its neighbors.

NATO member states have until 2024 to meet a shared pledge to contribute 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense.

Estonia is the only Baltic nation to spend 2 percent of the GDP for defense purposes. Lithuania and Latvia have pledged to reach that level by 2018.

This report was produced in collaboration with VOA’s Russian and Ukrainian services.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised to sign off on a delivery of fighter jets, battle tanks and armored vehicles to Serbia, the Balkan country’s defense minister said Tuesday, in what could worsen tensions with neighboring states and trigger an arms race in the war-weary region.

Defense Minister Zoran Djordjevic said that Putin agreed to approve the delivery during a visit by Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic to Moscow on Monday. He said six MiG-29 fighter jets, 30 T-72 tanks and 30 BRDM-2 armored vehicles will be delivered soon.

“The president of the Russian Federation said he will sign that decree, and when it’s signed, we will act accordingly,” Djordjevic said. “We are waiting for the process to be finalized in Russia and see how (the equipment) will be delivered to Serbia.”

The jets would have to fly over NATO-member countries before reaching Serbia. Or, they would have to be taken apart and flown in transport planes, if the neighboring countries approve.

Djordjevic said that the jets, tanks and fighting vehicles — donated from Russian arms reserves for free — will be “fully modernized and refurbished” in Serbia by Russian technicians for an undisclosed sum. It is estimated that the overhaul of the MiGs alone would cost Serbia some 200 million euros ($216 million.)

Djordjevic said earlier that Serbia is also interested in buying a Russian air defense system as well as opening a repair center for Russian MIL helicopters which, analysts believe, would be tantamount to opening a Russian military base on its territory.

Serbia formally has been on the path to join the European Union, but under political and propaganda pressure from Moscow has steadily slid toward the Kremlin and its goal of keeping the countries in the Balkan region out of NATO and other Western integrations.

EU officials have voiced their alarm over increasing Russian influence in the western Balkans, which has seen a bloody civil war in the 1990s.

Meanwhile, Serbia’s archrival and NATO-member Croatia is shopping for a new fighter to replace the nation’s aging MiG-21s.

The two leading contenders for the planned contract reportedly include American Lockheed Martin’s F-16 and Swedish Saab JAS-39 Gripen.
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Scotland’s Parliament voted Tuesday to seek a new referendum on independence from Britain, clearing the way for the country’s first minister, its top lawmaker, to ask the British government to approve such a vote.

The legislature in Edinburgh voted 69-59 to seek Britain’s parliamentary endorsement, which is required, for a referendum that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon wants to hold within two years — before Britain has completed its departure from the 28-nation European Union.

British voters narrowly approved a departure from the EU last year, and London will begin the formal process leading to Britain’s exit from the union on Wednesday.

Despite the overall vote last year in favor of leaving the EU — based on ballots cast in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — nearly two-thirds of Scottish voters elected to remain in the bloc. Since then, Sturgeon has insisted that independence is the only way for Scotland to maintain its formal EU relationship.

Scottish voters chose not to declare independence from London in a referendum three years ago, but that was months before discussions began about Britain’s possible departure from the Brussels-based EU.  

‘Democratically indefensible’

Sturgeon has argued that last year’s Brexit vote necessitates a new independence referendum. On Tuesday, she said “it would be democratically indefensible and utterly unsustainable” for London to block a new Scottish vote.

Sturgeon first predicted a push for a new independence referendum last year, hours after British voters elected to leave the EU. She said it would be “unacceptable” for Scotland to be forced to leave the EU along with the rest of Britain, in light of Scots’ strong support for remaining in the bloc.

For her part, British Prime Minister Theresa May has said she will not support a new Scottish vote until Britain has formally departed the EU — a process of negotiations that experts say could take take several years.

“Now is not the time,” May said of a new Scottish referendum, adding that Britons “should be working together, not pulling apart,” as the Brexit unfolds.
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Britain has launched a new pound coin that authorities say will be difficult to counterfeit.
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Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney has criticized Russia’s alleged interference in the U.S. presidential election, calling it a hostile act.

Cheney said Russian President Vladimir Putin had made a serious attempt to interfere in the 2016 election and other democratic processes in America.

In a speech at a speaker’s conference in New Delhi, Cheney said, “In some quarters, that would be considered an act of war.”

Cheney’s accusation comes at a time when both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives intelligence committees are investigating possible Russian interference in the election that brought President Donald Trump to power.

 
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Violent clashes in Paris between baton-wielding police and protesters outraged at the police killing of a Chinese man in his home injured three police officers and led to the arrest of 35 protesters, authorities said Tuesday.

The tensions have prompted China’s Foreign Ministry to express its concern to French authorities over the killing of the man, who it says was shot by a plainclothes officer.

Demonstrators from the Asian community gathered Monday night outside the multicultural 19th district’s police station in Paris’ northeast, said Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre, of the Paris Prosecutor’s Office.

They were angry at rumors the man was shot in his home in front of his children while cutting up fish and had not hurt anyone. Police say an officer fired in self-defense during a raid because the victim wounded an officer with a “bladed weapon.”

With chants of “murderers” and candles that spelled “opposition to violence” lining the road Monday night, scores of demonstrators broke down barricades, threw projectiles and set fire to cars during the brutal clashes with police that lasted several hours.

Authorities said 26 demonstrators were held for participating in a group planning violence, six for throwing projectiles, and three others for violence against police that saw a police car damaged by arson.

China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency said that, according to witnesses, one man of Chinese origin was injured in the clashes.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that China had summoned a representative of the French embassy in Beijing Tuesday and urged French officials to “get to the bottom of the incident as soon as possible.”

Hua said Chinese authorities “hope that Chinese nationals in France can express their wishes and demands in a reasonable way.”

France is home to Europe’s largest population of ethnic Chinese, a community that routinely accuses police of not doing enough to protect them against racism.

“Chinese are victims of racist attitudes in France — especially from other ethnic groups like Arabs. They are targets for crime because they often carry cash and many don’t have residence permits, so can be threatened easily. They’re angry with police for not protecting them enough,” said Pierre Picquart, Chinese expert at the University of Paris VIII.

“Chinese people do not like to protest or express themselves publicly, so when we see them like this it means they are very, very angry. They’ve had enough of discrimination,” he added.

He estimated that there are 2 million people living in France of Chinese origin.

Last September, 15,000 people rallied in the French capital to urge an end to violence against the Asian community after the beating to death of Chinese tailor Chaolin Zhangh called new attention to ethnic tensions in Paris suburbs. The victim’s lawyer said the August 2016 attack was ethnically motivated, and the area’s Chinese immigrant community says it is routinely targeted by armed robbers and violence.

The recent killing and clashes also come just days after thousands marched in Paris in a show of anger over the alleged rape in February of a young black man by police. The alleged incident in the Paris suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois turned the 22-year-old, identified only as Theo, into a symbol for minorities standing up to police violence.
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Violent clashes in Paris between police and protesters angry at the police killing of a Chinese man in his home have left three police officers injured and 35 protesters arrested, authorities said Tuesday.

Demonstrators, who were from the Asian community, had gathered in the multicultural 19th district on the French capital’s northeastern edge, police official Agnes Thibault Lecuivre said.

They were paying homage to a Chinese man killed Sunday by a police officer, outraged by reports that he was shot in his home in front of his children while he was cutting up fish. Police say the officer fired in self-defense during a raid because the victim, whom Chinese media say is Chinese, wounded an officer with a bladed weapon.

With candles spelling “violence” lining the road Monday evening, scores of protesters broke down barricades, threw projectiles and set fire to a car during the clashes with police that lasted several hours.

The latest violence comes just days after several thousand people marched in Paris against police violence, in a show of anger sparked by the alleged rape in February of a young black man with a police baton, and other police abuse. Anarchists faced off with riot police at the end of that march, and tear gas was fired. But clashes remained limited in scope and violence.

The alleged police rape of Theo in the Paris suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois turned the 22-year-old into a symbol for minorities standing up to police violence. His last name hasn’t been publicly released.
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Islamic State propagandists are seeking to capitalize on last week’s terror attack in London, which left five people dead and 40 injured, by flooding YouTube with hundreds of violent recruitment videos.

The online propaganda offensive comes as Britain demands social media companies scrub their sites of jihadist postings.

Amber Rudd, the country’s interior minister, has vowed to “call time” on internet firms allowing terrorists “a place to hide” and has summoned some of the leading social media companies, including Facebook and Twitter, for what is being dubbed by British officials as “showdown talks” later this week.

Rudd says she is determined to stop extremists “using social media as their platform” for recruitment and for operational needs.

Britain’s security services are in a standoff with WhatsApp, which has refused to allow them access to the encrypted message the London attacker sent three minutes before he used an SUV to mow down pedestrians on Westminster Bridge and stabbed to death a policeman outside the House of Commons.

British security services are powerless to read that final message, which might cast light on whether the attack was a “lone wolf” or one aided and directed by others. Police investigators believe the terrorist acted alone and have seen no evidence that he was associated with IS or al-Qaida.

WhatsApp, which has a billion users worldwide, employs “end to end encryption” for messages, which the company says prevents even its own technicians from reading people’s messages.

Officials want voluntary action

Rudd and other government ministers have launched a media onslaught, saying they are considering legislation to require online companies to take down extremist material. They argue this wouldn’t be necessary if the companies recognized their community responsibilities.

Rudd told the BBC that Facebook, Google and other companies should understand they are not just technology businesses, but also publishing platforms. “We have to have a situation where we can have our security services get into the terrorists’ communications,” she argued. “There should be no place for terrorists to hide.”

British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson joined in the condemnation of social media and online companies. “I think it’s disgusting,” he told The Sunday Times. “They need to stop just making money out of prurient violent material.”

At a security conference last week in the United States, Johnson called for action.

“We are going to have to engage not just militarily, but also to stop the stuff on the internet that is corrupting and polluting so many people,” he said. “This is something that the internet companies and social media companies need to think about. They need to do more to take that stuff off their media — the incitements, the information about how to become a terrorist, the radicalizing sermons and messages. That needs to come down.”

Recruiting criminals

The furor over extremist use of the internet was fueled Monday by front-page articles in the Times and Daily Mail newspapers highlighting the IS propaganda videos posted on YouTube since last Wednesday’s slaughter in the British capital. The high-definition videos, some of which contained references to the London attack, include gory scenes of beheadings and “caliphate violence” carried out by child adherents of the terror group.

U.S. and European officials have long complained online companies are, in effect, aiding and abetting terrorism. A year ago in January, much of the U.S. national security leadership of the Obama administration sat down with Silicon Valley chiefs to discuss jihadist use of the internet to recruit and radicalize people and plot attacks.

Also last year, British spy chief, Robert Hannigan, singled out messaging apps as especially worrisome for the security services, saying they had become “the command-and-control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals — precisely because they are highly encrypted.”

Some cooperation

After initial resistance to complaints from Western governments, Facebook, Google and Twitter have in recent months been more cooperative with authorities and have removed large amounts of extremist material. Twitter said in the second half of 2016 it suspended 376,890 accounts for violations related to promotion of terrorism.

But some services have resisted providing governments with encryption keys, or so-called back doors.

Apple has developed encryption keys that message users can use that are not possessed by the company. Apple’s chief executive, Timothy Cook, argued last year, “If you put a key under the mat for the cops, a burglar can find it, too.”

Silicon Valley chiefs say they fear violations of privacy and their priority is their customers, not national security, an argument that has resonated since former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed the extent of electronic surveillance by U.S. intelligence agencies.

Last year, WhatsApp was blocked several times in Brazil for failing to hand over information relating to criminal investigations. 

Messages sent on a rival service by Telegram are also encrypted, but after bad publicity and immense pressure from Western governments, the company does provide a backdoor for security and law-enforcement agencies.

Not that access to encrypted communications always helps.

Sunday, it emerged that German police knew the Christmas market attacker in Berlin who drove a truck into a crowd of shoppers was planning a suicide attack. Police had intercepted his Telegram messages nine months before the attack.

A police recommendation that he be deported was declined by state government prosecutors because they feared the courts would reject the request.
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A Belarusian human rights group says more than 1,000 people have been arrested for weekend protests in the former Soviet Republic and that about 150 of them have been sentenced to jail terms of up to 25 days.

Opponents of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko held unsanctioned demonstrations Saturday in Minsk, the capital, and other Belarusian cities, at which arrests were widespread. Other arrests took place in Minsk on Sunday when demonstrators demanded to know the detainees’ whereabouts.

Authorities have made no comment on the arrests.

Vladimir Lobkovich of the Vesna human rights group on Monday called the sentencings a “judicial conveyor.”

The weekend demonstrations were part of an unusually persistent wave of anti-government protests in the former Soviet republic.

 
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The United States, Russia, China and more than a score of other countries are sitting out new talks at the United Nations toward a treaty that would ban nuclear weapons.

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley and colleagues from Britain, France and about 20 other nations gathered Monday outside the General Assembly to show opposition to the talks starting inside. Haley says the U.S. wants a nuclear-weapons-free world but has to be “realistic” about how to get there while protecting its people.

She says the U.S. has already reduced its nuclear weapons by 85 percent under the decades-old Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

More than 100 countries backed a General Assembly resolution that set up the talks. Backers of the proposed treaty say prohibiting nuclear weapons would be a powerful step toward eliminating them.

 
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The leader of Bulgaria’s Socialist party has conceded defeat after exit polls showed her party placing second in the parliamentary election held Sunday.

Socialist leader Kornelia Ninova congratulated former Prime Minister Boiko Borisov’s GERB party as the election’s winner.

An Alpha Research exit poll said GERB won 32.2 percent of the vote, with the Socialist Party coming in second with 28 percent. A separate exit poll by Gallup International Balkan had GERB with 32.8 percent and the Socialists with 28.4 percent.

Official results are expected Monday.  

The election had been seen as a test of Bulgaria’s loyalties to the European Union and to Russia, with which it has historic political and cultural links. Bulgaria is set to take over the bloc’s presidency in 2018.

GERB and the Socialists both campaigned to revive economic ties with Russia to benefit voters in the European Union’s poorest nation. But the Socialists vowed to go further, even if it meant upsetting the country’s European Union partners.

GERB did not win enough votes to govern alone, and will likely form a coalition government with the United Patriots, an alliance of three nationalist parties that the exit polls showed placing third.

The Socialists ruled out any option of serving in a coalition government. But Ninova said her party would look at options for forming a government should the center-right GERB party find it cannot do so on its own.

Borisov, 57, resigned as prime minister after his party lost the presidential election last year.  Parliament was dissolved in January, and the president appointed a caretaker government that will stay until a new government is formed.

 
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right party won a state election by large margin, exit polls said Sunday, in an early setback to center-left hopes of unseating her in the September national vote.

Early results from the voting in Saarland state had Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) leading with 40 percent while the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) had around 30 percent.

The SPD was facing its first electoral test since nominating Martin Shultz to face off against Merkel in September.

The party has seen a recent surge in popularity.

Merkel is expected to run for fourth term as chancellor.
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The U.S. State Department has “strongly condemned” the detention of hundreds of protesters throughout Russia including the country’s opposition leader on Sunday.

Tens of thousands of Russians demonstrated in cities across the country in support of a call by Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny for accountability among Russia’s elite.  Nearly 500 people were detained around Moscow’s Pushkin square, including Navalny, for protesting without permission.

“Detaining peaceful protesters, human rights observers, and journalists is an affront to core democratic values,” acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement.

He said the United States was “troubled” by the arrest of Navalny, who has announced plans to run for president in the 2018 election.

Navalny, a Kremlin critic, was detained as he arrived to join the Moscow rally. Reports from the scene say police put him in a truck that was surrounded by hundreds of protesters who tried to open its doors and halt the arrest.

The protests appeared to be the largest coordinated outpouring of dissatisfaction since the massive 2011-2012 demonstrations following a fraud-tainted parliamentary election.

“This is an  important event!  We came here to express our position as citizens,” said one protester who just gave her first name-Alina.  “We came to remain citizens of our country.”

“By my presence here, I stand against the corruption of the incumbent power,” said another protester who only gave his first name-Maxim.  “The authorities do not feel like talking to their people, they communicate only through force-applying methods.”  

Navalny called the demonstrations after publishing a detailed report earlier this month accusing Prime Minister  Dmitry Medvedev of amassing a collection of mansions, yachts and vineyards through a shadowy network of non-profit organizations.

The report has been viewed over 11 million times on YouTube.  Medvedev has not reacted to it so far.

Navalny said on his official website that 99 Russian cities planned to protest, but that in 72 of them local authorities did not give permission.

There was scant coverage of the demonstrations on Russia’s official media.  A short report on Tass said a police officer was injured during an “unauthorized” rally in Moscow.

Navalny, who has announced his intention to run for president in next year’s election, has been rallying supporters in major Russian cities in recent weeks.
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A state election Sunday in western Germany offers Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives a tough test against their resurgent center-left rivals six months before Merkel seeks a fourth term in a national vote.

The election for the state legislature in Saarland, a region of just less than 1 million people on the French border that Merkel’s Christian Democrats have led since 1999, is the first of three regional votes before Germany’s September 24 national vote.

Test for Merkel, Schulz

It’s being watched closely as the first electoral test since the center-left Social Democrats nominated Martin Schulz as Merkel’s challenger in January.

Schulz, a former president of the European Parliament but a newcomer to national politics, has boosted his party’s long-moribund poll ratings and injected it with new self-confidence. He’s offering a classic though often vague center-left pitch of tackling economic inequality at home.

That boost means that a fourth Merkel term no longer looks inevitable — and it also has tightened the race in Saarland.

Conservative governor Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer until recently looked certain to win a new five-year term. But Social Democrat rival Anke Rehlinger now hopes to finish first, and polls suggest she could win a majority for an alliance with the opposition Left Party.

The two women currently govern together in a “grand coalition” of the biggest parties, an alliance similar to Merkel’s at the national level.

Governor’s race important

Kramp-Karrenbauer is one of only five conservative governors in Germany’s 16 states. Losing her would be a worrying signal for the national campaign and for two bigger state elections in May — in Schleswig-Holstein and Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, both led by the Social Democrats.

Merkel has barely mentioned Schulz so far, but warned at a rally in Saarland on Thursday against a left-wing coalition there.

“We don’t want the clocks to go back on Sunday; we want the clocks to be put forward,” she said.
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Francois Fillon’s aides used an umbrella to shield him from eggs thrown by protesters in southwest France on Saturday as the beleaguered conservative fell further behind centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-rightist Marine Le Pen in opinion polls.

The contrast between former front-runner Fillon, embroiled in a financial scandal, and new poll favorite Macron was striking as both candidates campaigned 29 days before the first round of France’s unpredictable presidential election.

Addressing a rally in the French island of La Reunion, in the Indian ocean, Macron departed from typical campaign speeches by inviting members of the audience — including a 6-year old who asked him “How do you get to be president?” — on stage to ask questions on a wide range of issues.

“It’s historic, we need to decide whether we want to be afraid of the century that has just started … or want to bring fresh ambition to France,” the 39-year-old former investment banker said to chants of “Macron President!”

Macron, a former economy minister to Socialist President Francois Hollande, set up his own centrist party last year.

Macron leads in polls

He has shot to first place in opinion polls since Fillon was put under investigation over suspicions he misused public funds by paying his wife hundreds of thousands of euros as a parliamentary assistant for work she may not have done. Fillon denies any wrongdoing.

Fillon slipped to 17 percent in a BVA poll published Saturday, which saw Macron getting 26 percent of the first-round vote, up 1 percentage point from a week ago with Le Pen at 25 percent, down one point.

The number of undecided voters for the first round remains high, with 40 percent of voters still undecided.

The poll showed Macron winning a second round vote with 62 percent of the vote versus 38 percent for Le Pen, who is to hold a rally in the northern France city of Lille on Sunday.

The poll was carried out partly before a TV interview Thursday night in which Fillon, 63, accused Hollande of leading a smear campaign against him.

Voters throw eggs, bang pans 

Met by some 30 protesters throwing eggs and banging pots and pans to shouts of “Fillon in prison” in the southwest France town of Cambo-les-Bains, Fillon told reporters: “Those protests are an insult to democracy … the more they protest, the more French voters will support me.”

Meanwhile, a faction of the centrist UDI party, which is allied with Fillon’s The Republicans, was kicked out of the party Saturday for rallying behind Macron.

The BVA poll also showed far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon gaining ground in the first round, up 2 points from a week earlier to 14 percent, now 2.5 points ahead of the ruling Socialist Party’s candidate Benoit Hamon.
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Tens of thousands of pro-EU demonstrators rallied in London, despite heightened concerns about the terrorism threat, to mark the European Union’s 60th anniversary — just days before Britain’s exit from the EU is expected to formally begin.

Organizers said about 80,000 people joined the march calling for Britain to stay in the EU on March 25.

The demonstration came four days before British Prime Minister Theresa May said she would formally start Britain’s exit negotiations by invoking Article 50 of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty.

Hundreds of blue EU flags were carried by protesters in the procession as it stretched through central London.

Banners carried by the demonstrators had slogans like “I am European,” and “I’m 15 — I want my future back!”

The protesters fell silent as they moved through Parliament Square, where a British-born terrorist earlier this week drove a car through crowds of people before crashing into a fence and stabbing a police officer to death.

One banner raised in front of Britain’s Parliament said, “Terrorism won’t divide us — Brexit will.”

About 10,000 EU supporters also marched in Rome on March 25 while about 4,000 gathered in Berlin.

Some material for this report came from AFP, BBC and AP.
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Riot police in the Belarusian capital have raided the office of a human-rights group hours ahead of an attempt by opposition activists to mount a large protest march.

Authorities banned the demonstration planned for Saturday afternoon and dozens of police detention trucks were deployed in the center of Minsk.

The authoritarian former Soviet republic has seen an unusually persistent wave of protests over the past two months against President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled since 1994. After tolerating the initial protests, authorities cracked down. Lukashenko this week alleged that a “fifth column” of foreign-supported agitators was trying to bring him down.

About midday Saturday, police raided the office of the Vesna human rights group. About 30 people were detained, said Oleg Gulak of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, another rights organization.
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Leaders of the European Union met in Rome Saturday to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the bloc’s founding treaty and demonstrate that the EU can survive the impending departure of major power Britain.

Under heavy security as the Italian capital braced for anti-EU protests later in the day and the risk of attacks such as that by an Islamic State follower in London last week, the 27 national leaders gathered in the Campidoglio palace where the six founding states signed the Treaty of Rome, March 25, 1957.

Britain absent

Conspicuous by her absence was British Prime Minister Theresa May, who will write to EU summit chairman Donald Tusk on Wednesday formally to announce that its second-biggest economy will leave the Union in negotiations over the coming two years.

Britain shunned the new European community at its creation, but finally joined in 1973. Its people voted to quit last June.

Without the so-called Brexit, it might have been a modestly hopeful summit in the palazzo where old foes France and Germany, with Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, signed the original treaty.

All the bloc’s economies are growing after a slump that has blighted the past decade and recent border chaos has largely abated as refugees are, for now, being held in check.

But Brexit has undermined the self-confidence of a union that has helped bring peace and growing prosperity to the continent, and has encouraged eurosceptic nationalists challenging governments from Stockholm to Sicily.

Frictions amplified

It has also amplified the petty frictions among the more than two dozen national governments and obliged leaders’ aides to water down a grand birthday declaration of unity.

After days of carping from Poland and Greece, seeking to show home voters they were getting Brussels to give assurances about equal treatment and social welfare, the Rome Declaration the 27 will sign just before noon (1100 GMT) offers ringing phrases about peace and unity.

“We have united for the better,” the text concludes. “Europe is our common future.”

But it may disappoint those who think more ambition and coordination is the answer to malaise.

At the Vatican Friday, Pope Francis told them that their union had achieved much in 60 years but that Europe faced a “vacuum of values.” He condemned anti-immigrant populism and extremism that he said posed a mortal threat to the bloc. 
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The man who killed four people outside Britain’s Parliament was in Saudi Arabia three times and taught English there, the Middle Eastern country’s embassy said. 

A Saudi Embassy statement released late Friday said that Khalid Masood taught English in Saudi Arabia from November 2005 to November 2006 and again from April 2008 to April 2009. 

The embassy said that he had a work visa. It said he returned for six days in March 2015 on a trip booked through an approved travel agent.

The Saudi Embassy said that he wasn’t tracked by the country’s security services and didn’t have a criminal record there.

Before taking the name Masood, he was known as Adrian Elms. He was known for having a violent temper in England and had been convicted at least twice for violent crimes.

Masood, who at 52 is considerably older than most extremists who carry out bloodshed in the West, had an arrest record dating to 1983. The violence came later, first in 2000 when he slashed a man across the face in a pub parking lot in a racially charged argument after drinking four pints, according to a newspaper account.

Masood’s last conviction was in 2003, also involving a knife attack. It’s not clear when he took the name Masood, suggesting a conversion to Islam. 

Hundreds of British police have been working to determine his motives and possible accomplices. Two people remain in custody for questioning. They are two men, aged 27 and 58, who were arrested in the central English city of Birmingham, where Masood was living. Authorities haven’t charged or identified the two men. Others who were arrested in connection with the investigation have been released.

Details about how he became radicalized aren’t clear. His time in Saudi Arabia may provide clues. He was also jailed in Britain and may have become exposed to radical views while an inmate.
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As police race to identify what motivated a 52-year-old British-born father to carry out Wednesday’s attack at the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, a debate is simmering over issues of identity, religion and immigration — hot topics in the wake of the vote to leave the European Union.

With police and press helicopters still buzzing overhead, thousands of Londoners gathered Thursday night in Trafalgar Square to grieve for the victims but also to express determination that life in the city will carry on as normal.

Musharaf Ahmed was one of hundreds of Muslims attending the vigil.

“These attacks — they don’t have any space in Islam,” he said. “Islam teaches the opposite. Islam teaches peace. The meaning of Islam is peace.”

The attacker, Khalid Masood, was a Muslim convert, born and raised just outside London under the name Adrian Russell Elms.

Masood, a father of three, had previous convictions for violence but no history of terrorism.

The Islamic State group claimed online that its propaganda inspired the attack. The head of the London Metropolitan Police Counterterrorism unit Mark Rowley said Friday major questions remain unanswered.

“What led him to radicalize?” he asked. “Was it through influences in our community, influences from overseas or through online propaganda?”

Those questions echo the same deep concerns in the wake of the London bombings in July 2005 also carried out by British citizens. Who is to blame? The state, or the community? Professor Lee Marsden of the University of East Anglia has studied motivating factors behind past terror incidents.

“I think it’s very easy to try to apportion blame,” Marsden said. “But the reality is with lone-wolf attacks, or when people are below the radar, these type of events can occur.”

The Westminster attack came at a volatile moment. Populist, anti-immigrant groups are energized by Britain’s exit from the European Union. Within hours of the attack, leaders of the far right UK Independence Party blamed immigration, even though the attacker was born in the UK.

“Groups which are in mainstream political life, particularly on the right wing of political parties, will use this event to try to pursue an anti-immigrant agenda,” Marsden said.

“As we saw in Brexit,” he added, “a lot of the debate around immigration was not specifically around Eastern European immigration which is clearly the main result of the European Union, but actually an opportunity to attack ethnic minorities within the country.”

Hayyan Bhaba, an adviser to the government on extremism, said it is vital to break down the divisions in British society. Engaging in conversation “between a lot of the frustrated communities” and having a positive dialogue can lead to “common ground,” he added.

Analysts say those divisions extend beyond Britain and across Europe as the continent struggles with issues of immigration and integration.

Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo drew a link Thursday between the London attack and European Union migrant policy, claiming the assault vindicated Warsaw’s refusal to take in refugees.
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WATCH: Latvia-Russia Ties Shaped by Soviet History, Marred by Politics
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Russian President Vladimir Putin wished French far-right leader Marine Le Pen “good luck” for next month’s presidential election, a close aide to the National Front candidate said after the two met in the Kremlin on Friday.

“He wished her good luck for the presidential election,” Ludovic de Danne, who took part in the meeting, told Reuters from Moscow.

“We felt they understood each other, they were on the same wave length,” he said in a phone interview.

The meeting lasted about an hour and a half, and focused mostly on international affairs including the fight against terrorism and very little on the French election, de Danne said.

De Danne, who advises Le Pen on international affairs for her presidential bid, added that the pair did not discuss the financing of Le Pen’s campaign.

Last week, Le Pen’s party mocked centrist candidate and favorite Emmanuel Macron for traveling to Berlin to meet German Chancellor Angela by Merkel. “Mr. Macron is in a competition with Mr. Fillon to be Mrs. Merkel’s top vassal,” said Florian Philippot, Le Pen’s deputy, at the time.

Asked how the Putin-Le Pen meeting was different from the Macron-Merkel one, de Danne said: “Macron-Merkel it’s the declining establishment, Le Pen and Putin represent the freedom of the people, cooperation in a multi-polar world.”
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