From mutton soup to caviar to veal tongue, Russian gastronomy is now being enjoyed by football fans from around the world who are in Russia for the World Cup. We get more from VOA’s Mariama Diallo.
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NATO leaders said Wednesday they have agreed to contribute more money to their defense budget.

“We are committed to improving the balance of sharing the costs and responsibilities of alliance membership,” the military alliance said.

The announcement was made just hours after U.S. President Donald Trump renewed criticism of NATO for not contributing more to defend the nearly 70-year-old, 29-nation alliance.

The allied nations also urged world leaders to maintain “decisive pressure” on North Korea, including the full implementation of United Nations sanctions, to get Pyongyang to scrap its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.The alliance also reiterated it support for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed at the June 12 summit with Trump in Singapore to move toward denuclearization, but has yet provide details of how and when his pledge would be achieved.

NATO members also expressed concern about an increase in Iran’s missile tests and said they were committed to “permanently ensuring that Iran’s nuclear program remains peaceful.”

The member nations also voiced concern over Russia’s recent actions, including the poisoning of a former British spy in Britain, saying they had reduced stability and security.

NATO, which is meeting in Brussels, also agreed to invite Macedonia to begin talks to join the alliance.

Alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg said Macedonia would be eligible to join provided the new name for the country that Macedonia and Greece agreed to is unanimously approved by existing members later this year.

Macedonia and Greece reached an agreement last month to rename Macedonia the Republic of North Macedonia, following a dispute over the name since 1991 that has damaged relations. 

Greece has insisted on the name change because its northern province, which was the cradle of Alexander the Great’s empire, has the same name.
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Sharp divisions over who should pay for Europe’s defense have overshadowed the opening of the NATO summit in Brussels, after U.S. President Donald Trump accused European allies of taking advantage of American taxpayers.

The U.S. spends about 3.5 percent of GDP on defense, far higher than other member states. It is predicted that eight of the 29 members, including the United States, will meet the NATO target of two percent of GDP this year. The U.S. provides 70 percent of NATO’s budget.

But Trump suggested Wednesday that NATO allies commit to spending 4 percent of their GDP on defense by 2024. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed that Trump raised the idea at a closed-door meeting with fellow NATO leaders.

“President Trump wants to see our allies share more of the burden and at a very minimum meet their already stated obligations,”said Sanders.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg opened proceedings in Brussels with a clear message: This year’s summit would focus on who’s paying the bill, or in NATO terms, burden-sharing.

“Fair burden-sharing underpins everything that we do. Just a few years ago we were cutting our defense budgets. Now we are adding billions,” Stoltenberg said.

Credit for those added billions is being claimed fully by the U.S. president.

“Because of me they’ve raised about $40 billion over the last year. So I think the secretary-general likes Trump. He may be the only one, but that’s okay with me,” he told reporters as the summit began.

Alliances and friendships are being sorely tested at the meeting of world leaders. Trump accused Berlin of being under the control of Moscow, citing a new pipeline project that will supply Russian gas directly to Germany.

After a seemingly tense bilateral meeting with her U.S. counterpart, German Chancellor Angela Merkel underlined her country’s commitment to NATO.

“It’s very important that we have these exchanges together because we are partners, we are good partners and we wish to continue to cooperate in the future,” she told reporters.

Singling out Germany isn’t necessarily fair, said defense analyst Sophia Besch of the Center for European Reform.

“Germany’s contributions to NATO go well beyond what it spends on its own defense. Germany is contributing troops as a lead nation in Lithuania and NATO’s forward presence to the east,” she said.

The feud over defense spending looks set to overshadow other business at the two-day summit. Britain announced it would double its number of troops in Afghanistan, while Canada offered to lead a NATO training mission in Iraq.

“Now we have to rebuild that democracy and strengthen it. NATO is going to take a significant role in that, and Canada is going to commit 250 troops, a number of helicopters, and we are actually offering to command that mission for the first year,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced at the summit.

A joint summit declaration issued Wednesday underlined NATO’s support for Ukraine and its aspirations for membership of the alliance, pending domestic reforms. Ukraine is attending the Brussels summit and further discussions are due to take place Thursday.

The declaration also formally extended an invitation to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to join, as soon as it reaches an acceptable solution to its naming dispute with Greece.

Georgia’s future membership also will be discussed Thursday as the summit continues.
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Facebook will be facing its first fine in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the social media platform allowed the data mining firm to access the private information of millions of users without their consent or knowledge.

A British government investigative office, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), fined Facebook 500,000 pounds, or $663,000 – the maximum amount that can be levied for the violation of British data privacy laws. In a report, the ICO found Facebook had broken the law in failing to protect the data of the estimated 87 million users affected by the security breach.

The ICO’s investigation concluded that Facebook “contravened the law by failing to safeguard people’s information,” the report read. It also found that the company failed to be transparent about how people’s data was harvested by others on its platform.

Cambridge Analytica, a London firm that shuttered its doors in May following a report by The New York Times and The Observer chronicling its dealings, offered “tools that could identify the personalities of American voters and influence their behavior,” according to a March Times report.

“New technologies that use data analytics to micro-target people give campaign groups the ability to connect with individual voters,” Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham said in a statement. “But this cannot be at the expense of transparency, fairness and compliance with the law.”

The firm, which U.S. President Donald Trump employed during his successful 2016 election campaign, was heavily funded by American businessman Robert Mercer, who is also a major donor to the U.S. Republican Party. Former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon was also employed by the firm and has said he coined the company’s name.

Christopher Wylie, a whistleblower within the firm, told the Times in March that the firm aimed to create psychological profiles of  American voters and use those profiles to target them via advertising.

“[Cambridge Analytica’s leaders] want to fight a culture war in America,” Wylie told the Times. “Cambridge Analytica was supposed to be the arsenal of weapons to fight that culture war.”

While this is the first financial penalty Facebook will be facing in the scandal, the fine will not make a dent in the company’s profits. The social media giant generated $11.97 billion in revenue in the first quarter, and generates the revenue needed to pay the fine about every 10 minutes.

Denham said the company will have an opportunity to respond to the fine before a final decision is made. Facebook has said it will respond to the ICO report soon.

“As we have said before, we should have done more to investigate claims about Cambridge Analytica and taken action in 2015,” said Erin Egan, Facebook’s chief privacy officer, in a statement. “We have been working closely with the Information Commissioner’s Office in their investigation of Cambridge Analytica, just as we have with authorities in the U.S. and other countries.”

The statement from the ICO also announced that the office would seek to criminally prosecute SCL Elections Ltd., Cambridge Analytica’s parent company, for failing to comply with a legal request from a U.S. professor to disclose what data the company had on him. SCL Elections also shut down in May.

“Your data is yours and you have a right to control its use,” wrote David Carroll, the professor.

The ICO said it would also be asking 11 political parties to conduct audits of their data protection processes, and compel SCL Elections to comply with Carroll’s request.

Further investigations by agencies such as the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI, and Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC, are under way. In April, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared before a U.S. Senate committee to testify on the company’s actions in the scandal.

“We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake,” Zuckerberg told U.S. lawmakers in prepared remarks in April. He also said, “It was my mistake, and I’m sorry.”
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Greece has reportedly expelled two Russian diplomats over allegations that Moscow has interfered in its negotiations with neighboring Macedonia.

Greek news outlets reported the expulsions Wednesday, adding that two other Russian envoys were banned from entering Greece.

Greek government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos would not comment on the reports during a television interview, but said Athens would take appropriate “measures” against those who violated international law.

Authorities in Russia say two Greek diplomats will be expelled from Moscow in response.

Greece and Macedonia reached an agreement last month to end a decades-old dispute over the name of Macedonia, which is also the name of Greece’s northern province. The disagreement has become so fierce that Athens has blocked the former Yugoslav republic from joining NATO.

The deal calls for Macedonia to formally change its name to the Republic of North Macedonia, which still must be approved by a referendum.
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The last surviving member of a German neo-Nazi gang connected to the murders of 10 immigrants has been sentenced to life in prison.

Beate Zschaepe was sentenced Wednesday in a Munich court for the killings of nine Turkish and one Greek national, as well as a German policewoman, in a crime spree that lasted between 2000 and 2007. 

The sentencing was the climax to a trial that began in 2013. 

The 43-year-old Zschaepe co-founded the National Socialist Underground with two men, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Boehnhardt. She was arrested in 2011 after Mundlos and Boehnhardt killed themselves.
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A meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization began on a confrontational note on Wednesday with U.S. President Trump singling out Germany for criticism, accusing the largest and wealthiest Europeanmember of the defense alliance of being a “captive” of Russia.

During a breakfast meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, Trump pointedly criticized Germany for allowing Russian energy company Gazprom to construct the Nord Stream 2 pipeline through its waters.

“Germany goes out and pays billions and billions of dollars a year to Russia,” asserted Trump.

“How can you be together when a country is getting its energy from the country you want protection against?” the president added, questioning NATO’s collective defense principle.

Germany, according to the U.S. leader, “got rid of their coal plants, got rid of their nuclear, they’re getting so much of the oil and gas from Russia. I think it’s something NATO has to look at.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel – during her arrival later — noted she knew all too well from her childhood in the East what it is like to live under Soviet control. But energy deals with Russia, she explained, do not make 21st century Berlin beholden to Moscow.

“I am very happy that today we are united in freedom as the Federal Republic of Germany. Because of that we can say that we can make our independent policies and make independent decisions,” she said.

Proponents of the $10 billion offshore natural gas pipeline running from Russia assert it enhances Europe’s energy security and diversification and helps the continent reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Trump on Wednesday kept up his demands for NATO members to contribute more money to the defense alliance that has been the linchpin of the West’s post-World War Two military cooperation. 

“The United States is paying far too much and other countries are not paying enough,” complained Trump. “This has been going on for decades,it’s disproportionate and not fair to the taxpayers of the United States.”

Trump also took credit for beginning a reversal of declining defense spending among NATO members.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg finds himself in the uncomfortable position of trying to bridge differences between the United States and the other 28 members of the alliance.

“My main task is to try to keep us together and I do that by trying to find common ground,” explained Stoltenberg. 

The NATO secretary-general acknowledges there are substantial differences between the allies. “The gas pipeline from Russia to Germany is one issue where allies disagree,” said Stoltenberg in a reply to Mr. Trump’s comments. “But the strength of NATO is despite these differences we have always been able to unite around our core task, to protect and defend each other, because we understand we are stronger together than apart.”

Stoltenberg said that while the burden of defense spending remains unfair, that is changing.

“Europe and North America are doing more together, we’re not weakening,” according to Stoltenberg. He also noted that since Trump became president, U.S. funding for the defense of Europe “has increased by 40 percent.”

European leaders, since Trump’s election nearly 18 months ago, have fretted and fumed about the president’s bashing but have hesitated to lash back publicly. That changed on Tuesday just as the U.S. president was leaving for the trip across the Atlantic Ocean.

“Dear America, appreciate your allies. After all, you don’t have that many,” remarked European Commission President Donald Tusk, adding that Trump’s “criticizing Europe almost daily” is no way to treat a good ally.

During the NATO summit on Wednesday and Thursday, Trump is also holding an unspecified number of one-on-one meetings with other European leaders, according to White House officials. 

Observers say those leaders are certain to be anxious after the U.S. president berated his fellow leaders on trade at the recent Group of Seven summit in Canada. They note there is particular unease over Trump’s not hesitating to link security cooperation and trade differences at those encounters, something previous U.S. administrations had been careful to keep separate.

Weighing in on Britain

Following the discussions in Belgium, Trump heads to Britain, where he is to be hosted by British Prime Minister Theresa May, who suddenly finds herself embroiled in domestic political upheaval stemming from intra-party disagreement over terms for the country’s exit from the EU, known as Brexit.

Trump on Tuesday commented on Britain’s current political storm. Asked if May should resign, the president responded, “that’s certainly up to the people.” 

May’s foreign minister, Boris Johnson, resigned on Monday over differences with the prime minister on her terms for Brexit.

Trump referred to Johnson as a friend who has been “very, very supportive and very nice to me,” adding, “Maybe I’ll speak to him when I get over there.”

Trump called it an “interesting time for both NATO and Britain, but said “we will work it out and all countries will be happy.”

Following visits to England and Scotland, where the president owns two golf resorts, Trump will go to Helsinki for a highly anticipated summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

“Frankly, Putin may be the easiest of them all,” relative to the anticipated contentious encounters with America’s traditional European allies, Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday. 

Asked if Putin is a friend or foe, Trump replied, “I really can’t say right now. As far as I’m concerned, he’s a competitor.”

The president added that “getting along with Russia, getting along with China, is a good thing.”

Trump has faced substantial criticism from opposition Democrats and more muted concern among lawmakers of his own Republican party for hesitating to criticize Putin and Russian actions since his election.

A special counsel, under the U.S. Department of Justice, is investigating allegations of Russian interference in America’s 2016 presidential election and the extent of contacts between members of Trump’s campaign and Moscow. 

The president has consistently denied any wrongdoing by his campaign, characterizing the investigation as a “witch hunt” and predicting it will conclude there was no collusion. 
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Hospital officials say they’ve seen an improvement in a man poisoned in a nerve agent attack in southwestern England.

Salisbury Hospital says Tuesday that Charlie Rowley has experienced a “small but significant improvement” and is now conscious. The 45-year old is in critical but stable condition.

The hospital says in a statement that “while this is welcome news, clearly we are not out of the woods yet. Charlie is still very unwell.”

Rowley’s partner, 44-year-old Dawn Sturgess, died after being exposed to Novichok, a military-grade nerve agent produced in the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Police have said the working theory is that their exposure was linked to the earlier Novichok attack in March on ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the city of Salisbury.

 
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Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Swiss counterpart Alain Berset have signed an agreement aimed at helping Kenya recover illegally acquired assets that were stashed in Swiss banks.

Kenyatta and Berset signed the agreement Monday during the Swiss president’s two-day visit to Kenya.

The agreement, known as the Framework for the Return of Assets from Corruption and Crime in Kenya, or FRACCK, creates a mechanism for Kenya to recover money swindled from state coffers by corrupt individuals and hidden in Switzerland.

The agreement is the latest move in Kenyatta’s campaign against corruption, which he launched in his second term as president.

In June, the Kenyan leader announced that all public servants would undergo a compulsory “lifestyle audit” to account for the sources of their income and assets. He said Monday that corruption will not be tolerated.

“Corruption directly threatens Kenya’s future, as it denies our children the education they deserve, it denies Kenyans the public good that their hard work has earned them, and it also degrades the quality of our government as well as erodes investor confidence,” said Kenyatta.

In most African countries, where state looting of public coffers is rife, money stolen by powerful elites end up stashed in foreign offshore accounts. According to the U.N. Economic Commission on Africa, capital flight and illicit financial flows cost the continent up to $150 billion per year.

Other African governments with newfound democracies are attempting to recover money stored in foreign accounts. In June this year, the Swiss government repatriated to Nigeria more than $1 billion stashed by former head of state Sani Abacha.

Beret said his country is willing to return assets to Kenya as well.

“We have a history and a policy of freezing and returning stolen assets and we need partners like Kenya in all those two duties. It is also through a partnership that an agreement can be reached on how to return this assets in a way that benefits the people of the country concerned,” he said.

Some of the assets targeted by the new framework include money stolen through the Anglo Leasing scandal, a government procurement facilitated corruption scandal in Kenya that was revealed in 2004. Switzerland has blocked financial assets linked to the scandal.

According to Monday’s agreement, the two countries will name a steering committee to implement the deal.
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Macedonia is formally expected this week to be invited by NATO to join the alliance – though it will become a member only if it adopts a new name that has been agreed in principle with NATO- member Greece but has yet to be endorsed by Macedonia’s people.

The invitation to the small Balkan state to become the 30th member of the U.S.-led alliance will be issued at a NATO summit despite opposition from Russia, which sees its influence in the region diminishing, and over protests from a small pro-Russian party at home.

“For us the sun rises in the West,” said Artan Grubi, a lawmaker of the Albanian DUI party which is part of the ruling coalition.

“(The invitation to join NAT0) is our dream coming true. We have been in the waiting hall for too long,” he told Reuters.

He was referring to 2008 when Greece blocked an invitation to Skopje to join because of the long-running dispute over Macedonia’s name. Greece says the name Macedonia implies a territorial claim over its northern province with the same name.

The then government led by a nationalist VMRO-DPMNE moved to build up closer ties with Russia, allowing an inflow of Russian capital, concretely represented today by a football club, a lead and zinc mine and a chromium plant all owned by Russians.

After a period of political crisis, the new government of Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, elected in 2017, pushed for an agreement with Greece to solve the name dispute and the two sides have now agreed on the name of Republic of North Macedonia to open the door to NATO membership.

The government has said it will hold a referendum on whether to accept Macedonia’s new name so as not to face another Greek veto on membership – clearly expecting the prospect of NATO membership to be a powerful incentive for a Yes vote.

NATO diplomats said they had negotiated a wording for the invitation to be issued at the Brussels summit which will prudently avoid naming the country and will instead refer to “the government in Skopje”.

Opposition at home

Janko Bacev who heads United Macedonia party with links to Russia’s dominant United Russia says NATO membership will bring nothing good to Macedonia.

“Russia is our true ally, and it has never asked us to change the name,” Bacev, whose party failed to enter the parliament in a 2016 election, said.

VMRO-DPMNE party, the single biggest party in the parliament has mixed feelings.

“We support NATO membership, but we are against changing the name (of the country),” Aleksandar Nikolovski of VMRO-DPMNE said.

The move to bring Macedonia into NATO will leave only Serbia and the Serb-run part of Bosnia open to Russian influence in the Balkans.

Albania, Croatia, Montenegro and Slovenia are NATO members while NATO forces are still in a peacekeeping mission in Kosovo.

In a sign of continuing Russian interest in the region, Serbian authorities have announced President Vladimir Putin will visit in autumn.

Russia’s ambassador to Skopje has criticized Macedonia’s ambitions to join NATO and warned the former Yugoslav republic that it could become “a legitimate target” if relations between NATO and Russia deteriorate further.

Macedonia will bring to NATO a 8,500-strong military which relies on a mixture of Russian, German, Greek and U.S. tanks and armored vehicles. Its aviation has no combat jets.

“With NATO membership, Macedonia becomes a part of the most powerful Alliance. That enhances both our security and economic prosperity,” Defense Minister Radmila Sekerinska told Reuters in an email.

She said she expected to “move forward with the accession treaty at the end of the year.”

Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov said in London this week that he had “high hopes” that talks on accession should be able to start soon.

Slavco Pesov, a 66-year-old pensioner sat on a bench near the banks of the Vardar River in Skopje.

“We have to go with the flow. Our neighbors are there (in NATO),” he said. “I am really hoping membership will bring a better economic situation. At the moment it is so bad that many young people are leaving.”

 
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Britain is to almost double the funding it provides to countries in the Western Balkans to 80 million pounds ($106.06 million) and ramp up its number of security staff in the region to try and tackle organized crime gangs.

With Britain set to leave the European Union next year, the U.K. government said the moves, which also include improving the Western Balkans countries’ cyber capability and extending the presence of the pan-Balkans Strategic Reserve Force, showed it remain committed to the region’s stability.

“History shows that a stable and secure Western Balkans region means a more stable and secure Europe,” U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May said in a statement ahead of summit of Western Balkans and some European leaders in London on Tuesday.

The Western Balkans consists of Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, all of which want to join the EU.

The combination of U.K. measures pledged over the next two years will see its funding rise from 41 million pounds in 2018/19 to 80 million pounds in 2020/21 and be drawn from its “Conflict, Security and Stability Fund.”

By doubling the number of U.K. staff working in the Western Balkans on security issues affecting the U.K., it hopes to reduce drug-fueled crime in Britain and strengthen the region’s own response to serious and organized crime and violent extremism.

Organized Crime Groups from Western Balkans countries like Albania have a significant nationwide presence in the U.K. One crime network was recently estimated to have imported an average of more than 8,000 kg of cocaine a year into the U.K., with an estimated street value of 800 million pounds.

Other measures outlined include launching the Balkans Organized Crime Observatory jointly with the Austrian and Norwegian governments.

There will also be 1 million pounds spent on training and advising on cyber security across the region, including direct support to “Computer Emergency Response Teams” in Serbia and Montenegro and information sharing among senior cyber officials.

A joint declaration was made on the principles of information-exchange that will help law enforcement agencies in the region share information more easily in the fight against serious and organized crime and terrorism.

Countries will also commit to concrete actions to tackle corruption, while the pan-Balkans Strategic Reserve Force (SRF) will be extended until the end of next year. The SRF is held at readiness in the U.K. to move into the Western Balkans if the security situation deteriorates.

An additional 1 million pounds was earmarked to help the region address difficult legacy issues, including supporting the organizations working to find and identify the 12,000 victims still missing from the conflicts of the 1990s.

($1 = 0.7543 pounds)
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The possibility of more Western sanctions against Moscow is the key risk for the Russian economy, as much as 21 percent of which has already felt the impact of existing sanctions, Russia’s Analytical Credit Ratings Agency said in a report Tuesday.

Western sanctions are expected to weigh on Russia’s oil-dependent economy in the longer run, having dented incomes of Russian households, the Kremlin-backed ACRA said.

The West first imposed economic and financial sanctions against Moscow in 2014 for its annexation of Crimea and its role in the Ukrainian conflict.

Russia has responded with counter-sanctions, banning imports of a wide range of food from countries that had targeted Moscow.

Later, sanctions against Russia were expanded, putting extra pressure on Russia’s economy and the ruble.

“The risk of widening of anti-Russian sanctions remains one of the key risks that the Russian economy could face this year,” ACRA said.

New sanctions listed by ACRA might target more companies, Russian state debt or even disconnect Russia from the international SWIFT payment system.

For now, Russia’s international reserves, which stood at nearly $456 billion as of late June, “fully cover external debt, which is vulnerable to wider sanctions,” ACRA said.

“Sanctions should not be named the key factor that limits economic growth in Russia in the mid-term … The impact of sanctions on growth rate could turn out to be more pronounced in the long term for both companies and the economy in general,” ACRA said.

Western sanctions have hit Russian companies that account for 95 percent of the country’s oil and gas industry revenues.

Restrictions imposed on Russian oil and gas companies in 2014 will affect their oil output in 2020s, ACRA said.

Sanctions have also hit Russia’s major state-owned banks, which account for 54 percent of banking assets. But the sanctions’ impact on the financial health of companies and banks has been less pronounced than that of the country’s economic policies, ACRA said.

Moscow’s response to the sanctions, which limited imports, has inflated prices for a number of goods.

“Counter-sanctions have resulted in price growth and a decline in households’ incomes by 2-3 percentage points in 2014-2018,” ACRA said.
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In spite of a ban, illegal ivory trading is still flourishing in the European Union, as traders use a loophole allowing for the exchange of very old pieces, an Oxford University study sponsored by a campaign group found.

European law allows ivory obtained prior to 1947 to be traded freely. Ivory obtained after 1947 but before 1990 can be sold with a government certificate, while selling ivory obtained after the global ivory trade was banned is illegal.

Campaign organization Avaaz purchased more than 100 pieces of ivory from 10 different EU countries to undergo carbon testing at Oxford University. Scientists concluded 75 percent of the ivory was from after 1947 and 20 percent was ivory that had been obtained since 1989.

Many traders use the provision which allows the free trade of old ivory to illegally trade newer ivory, fueling the market and incentivizing the killing of elephants, Avaaz said.

While the European Union banned the export of raw ivory in 2017, domestic trading, which is banned in the United States, China and Hong Kong, is still allowed in the EU.

Last month, the European Parliament called for a complete ban on domestic ivory trading.

“Illegally poached ivory often gets into the legal market, making the elephants a lucrative target for poachers,” Parliament said in a statement.

The European Commission said that addressing poaching and ivory trafficking was a cornerstone of an EU action plan against wildlife trafficking and that the Commission was now discussing the next steps.
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has described his latest talks with North Korean officials as productive. He met with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts in Tokyo on Sunday before proceeding to Vietnam. Pyongyang was the first stop on Pompeo’s first around-the-world trip as America’s top diplomat. After Asia, he travels to the United Arab Emirates before heading to Belgium, where he will accompany U.S. President Donald Trump at the NATO summit in Brussels. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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Germany plans to use public money to support companies that invest in Africa, part of a new “Marshall Plan” with which it hopes to tackle the roots of the refugee crisis that has convulsed European politics since 2015.

The aim was to reintroduce a scheme from the 1980s that made it easier for companies to write off losses on investments in Africa in order to moderate initial investment risks, Development Minister Gerd Mueller told Handelsblatt newspaper.

“I am also going to push for provisions made for African investments to get more favorable tax treatment,” he said Sunday of the plan being developed by his department, along with the finance and economy ministries.

Few details so far

The “Marshall Plan for Africa,” named after the U.S. aid package that kick-started Western Europe’s recovery after World War II, is the centerpiece of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s scheme to reduce refugee flows by better sharing the costs of humanitarian issues between Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Few details have been made public concerning the program, which Merkel has argued is essential if Europe is to win African countries’ support for any policies aimed at stemming migration.

Since 2015, when Merkel, faced with unprecedented migrant flows, opened Germany’s borders to more than a million refugees from civil war and poverty, the migration question has dominated European politics, fueling the rise of far-right parties.

Under pressure from her own allies, Merkel conceded tighter border controls last week, but has continued to insist that Europe can only deal with refugee flows multilaterally, in cooperation with its African and Middle Eastern neighbors.

Deals with North Africa

The EU is currently trying to sign deals with North African countries mirroring one signed with Turkey in 2016, under which Ankara was paid to take back many refugees who failed to win asylum in Europe.
…

Britain’s Brexit minister David Davis has resigned two days after the cabinet approved a plan to retain strong alignment with the European Union even after leaving the bloc, British media reported on Sunday.

The resignation will be a blow to Prime Minister Theresa May, who is trying to win over Brexit hardliners in her own Conservative Party ahead of a fresh round of negotiations with Brussels this month.

A long-time euroskeptic, Davis was appointed two years ago to head up the newly-created Department for Exiting the European Union after Britain voted to leave the European Union in a historic referendum.

He became the face of Brexit, leading the British delegation in talks with Brussels, although his role was overshadowed in recent months as May and her aides took an increasingly key role in the negotiations.

The 69-year-old had reportedly threatened to quit several times over a perceived lack of firmness in Britain’s negotiating stance but had remained strictly loyal to the prime minister in public.

The resignation comes just hours before May was due in parliament to explain her plan for Britain to adopt EU rules on goods after Brexit, amid anger from MPs in her own party who want a cleaner break.

Conservative MP Peter Bone said Davis had “done the right thing,” adding: “The PM’s proposals for a Brexit in name only are not acceptable.”

Labor Party chairman Ian Lavery said: “This is absolute chaos and Theresa May has no authority left.”

May’s plan would create a free trade area with the EU for goods, to protect supply chains in areas such as manufacturing, while maintaining flexibility for Britain’s dominant service sector.

It is unclear whether Brussels will accept this, after repeatedly warning Britain it cannot “cherry-pick” bits of its single market.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, a leading Brexit supporter, was widely reported to have described the plan as a “turd” before agreeing to support it.

Special forces training

Davis, a sharp operator and a gut-instinct politician, was a “Leave” campaigner in the referendum on Britain’s EU membership.

He was well acquainted with the Brussels beat: he was Europe minister between 1994 and 1997 as the European issue tore apart then Conservative prime minister John Major’s government.

Born to a single mother and brought up on a public housing estate in London, Davis went on to study molecular and computer sciences at Warwick University in central England.

From there, he took a higher degree in business at the London Business School, attending the advanced management program at elite U.S. university Harvard while pursuing a career on the board of sugar giant Tate and Lyle.

Davis also served as a reservist in the Special Air Service, the British army’s elite special force unit.

Noted for his love of climbing and flying, his ascent in politics began in 1987 when he was elected to parliament, representing a seat in northern England.

He became a government whip ensuring party discipline and later, as Major’s Europe minister, delighted in the nickname “Monsieur Non”.

Davis then chaired the powerful public accounts committee in the lower House of Commons from 1997 to 2001.

He ran for the Conservative leadership in 2001 and came fourth, but was made party chairman.

Davis was the front-runner in the 2005 Conservative Party leadership contest, but lost out to David Cameron, shedding momentum after a party conference speech fell flat.

He stayed on as the party’s home affairs spokesman, but dramatically resigned his seat to force a by-election in protest at the Labor government’s erosion of civil liberties.

He won the seat back but the move cost him his place in Cameron’s top team.

 
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Corruption and the conflict with Russian-backed rebels in Ukraine’s east will top the agenda when a summit between that country and the European Union takes place Monday in Brussels.

In May, the EU agreed to a $1.2 billion financial assistance package for Ukraine. The International Monetary Fund and EU are demanding deeper reforms to governance and the judiciary in return for the money; however, reforms to the court system have stalled, says Andrew Wilson, professor of Ukrainian studies at University College London.

“You have what’s called the National Anti-Corruption Bureau. It’s totally separate from the corrupt police. It can do its job well. It’s independent. But it can’t actually put bad guys in jail without reform to the courts. They do their work, the courts just let the bad guys go.”

“Ukraine is being asked to set up a separate anti-corruption court. It’s kind of set up a fake version that nobody believes would be independent. So that’s the key stumbling block,” Wilson told VOA in an interview.

WATCH: EU Demands Deep Reforms Ahead of Summit, Some Ukrainians Question Benefits

​Focus on elections

That stumbling block to a closer relationship between Ukraine and the EU may be difficult to overcome in coming months, says Anastasia Voronkova of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

“With the main preoccupation of the Ukrainian government right now being the forthcoming 2019 elections, it’s very unclear how all the challenges will be met,” she said.

Nearly a year ago, the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement was signed after repeated delays. For many Ukrainians, it offered the hope of economic opportunity and the rule of law, after decades of slow growth and corruption.

“The early signs are that exports to the EU are beginning to expand, but not enough really to float the economy off the rocks. So, there are some signs of disillusion because Ukraine hasn’t got more,” Wilson said.

​Crimea on agenda

The EU will use the summit to reaffirm its backing for Ukraine’s territorial integrity after the grouping extended sanctions against Russia last week.

“External pressure can help, in particular perhaps to prevent a strong escalation of the conflict. But it won’t on its own be sufficient to really do anything meaningful to resolve the conflict,” Voronkova said.

The White House this week said there is no change in U.S. policy on Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. The United States has provided Kyiv with $350 million in lethal and non-lethal military aid this year, including so-called “Javelin” anti-tank missiles.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are scheduled to meet in Helsinki July 16, with Ukraine likely a key subject of the talks.
…

Corruption and the conflict with Russian-backed rebels in Ukraine’s east will top the agenda at a European Union summit with Ukraine on Monday in Brussels. As Henry Ridgwell reports, the EU is pressuring Kyiv to make deeper reforms, but it is also facing disillusionment among some Ukrainians over the perceived benefits of closer ties with Europe.
…

Turkey’s government Sunday issued an emergency decree dismissing thousands of public servants for alleged links to terror groups.

The decree, published in the Official Gazette, sacked 18,632 civil servants, including nearly 9,000 police officers, some 6,000 members of the military and hundreds of teachers and academics. Their passports will be canceled.

Turkey has been under a state of emergency for nearly two years, declared after a failed coup attempt in July 2016. The government blames a U.S.-based cleric for orchestrating the coup and has sacked or arrested people suspected of links to him. The cleric, Fethullah Gulen, denies the allegations. But the purge has broadened to include other “terror groups,” with more than 130,000 people dismissed.

The decree is expected to be the last of a series of emergency laws as Turkey’s ruling system will fully transform into an executive presidency Monday, following last month’s elections. The Cabinet and administrative structure will be completely revamped, coming under the authority of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Sunday’s decree also reinstated 148 people previously sacked through emergency decrees, while annulling the ranks of some 1,500 retired military and police officers, depriving them of their pensions and passports.

Twelve nongovernmental organizations, three newspapers and one television station were also shuttered through the 461-page ruling.

More than 75,000 people have been arrested for alleged links to Gulen.

The current state of emergency ends on July 18, unless extended for another term by the president and approved by parliament. Erdogan has hinted it may be lifted.
…

French air accident investigators say that a rapidly spreading fire probably caused the crash of an EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo in 2016, casting doubt on Egyptian authorities’ claims that traces of explosives were found.

French investigation agency BEA said in a statement late Friday that “the most likely hypothesis is that a fire broke out in the cockpit and “spread rapidly, resulting in loss of control.”

Authorities at Cairo airport declined to comment, saying only that state prosecutors were investigating the case. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to brief journalists on the matter.

Egyptian authorities are carrying out a criminal investigation amid suspicions that explosives were involved.

The BEA has also investigated the crash alongside Egyptian and American experts. In its statement, the French agency cited its “difference of opinion” with the Egyptian conclusions based on evidence collected so far, including the BEA’s advanced repair work on flight recorders found in the Mediterranean depths.

The BEA urged Egyptian prosecutors to investigate the possibility it was an accidental fire, to prevent such accidents in the future. BEA officials met this May with the Egyptian attorney general to urge further work on the debris and recorded data, but were told that since Egyptian authorities believe a “malicious act” brought down the plane, the investigation is “within the sole jurisdiction of the judicial authorities.”

All 66 people aboard were killed when EgyptAir Flight 804, an Airbus A320 en route from Paris to Cairo, plunged into the Mediterranean. The pilots made no distress call and no militant group claimed to have brought the aircraft down.

The tragedy came about seven months after a Russian airliner crashed in the Sinai Peninsula shortly after taking off from an Egyptian Red Sea resort, killing all 224 people on board. The incidents have dealt Egypt’s tourism industry, a major pillar for foreign currency which had already been weakened by years of political unrest since a 2011 uprising, a severe blow.
…

The U.N. refugee agency says it has had a permanent presence in Libya this year, providing humanitarian assistance and medical aid to refugees and migrants in detention centers. The UNHCR works with Libyan authorities to obtain the release of vulnerable refugees and their evacuation from Libya.

The U.N. is expected to open a new transit center in Tripoli this month, which will have a capacity for 1,000 people. From this gathering and departure facility, candidates for asylum will be evacuated to a U.N. center in Niamey in Niger to complete their applications, which will allow them to be transferred to resettlement nations.

Speaking Friday in Rome, the UNHCR representative in Libya, Roberto Mignone, said more than 1,500 migrants and refugees already have made the trip to Niger this year, and 200 have been accepted for asylum in countries like France, Switzerland, Sweden and Germany.

Mignone said European countries have offered to take 4,000 refugees, but the process of re-settling must be accelerated. It is a mechanism that works, he added, but European nations need to accept refugees at a quicker pace. 

Mignone said the UNHCR has the capability at present to evacuate more than 1,000 people a month from Libya to Niger, but then these other refugees must leave the center in Niger or a bottleneck is created.

Mignone added that if more offers from European countries are forthcoming, other centers could be opened in the region. He said talks are underway with Chad, Burkina Faso and Sudan.

Italy’s new populist government recently intensified a crackdown on humanitarian rescue boats operating off Libya, refusing to give them docking permission in Italian ports and forcing them to sail hundreds of miles to Spain.

U.N. officials say the impact of the crackdown and the Libyan coast guard’s ineffectiveness at carrying out the rescue of migrants has caused the number of deaths at sea to soar, along with an increase in the number of people being held in Libyan detention centers.

More than 10,000 migrants have been intercepted by the Libyan coast guard this year and taken to 17 active detention centers in the country. Mignone said “overcrowding in Libyan centers is a serious problem and abuses on migrants cannot be ruled out.”

Despite fewer crossings, more than 1,000 people have drowned this year alone. Carlotta Sami, the UNHCR’s spokesperson in Rome, called June’s mortality rate in the central Mediterranean “dramatic and exceptional.”

Sami said that in 2017, on average, only one in every 38 migrants attempting the crossing died. Today that number is one in every seven.

The United Nations has urged Italy to end its campaign against humanitarian rescue boats in the Mediterranean, but Italy’s Interior minister, Matteo Salvini, shows no sign of wanting to back down, and he has said his aim is that”not one more person arrives by boat” on Italian shores.

 
…

The Head of the UN Migration Agency, William Lacy Swing, is appealing to Libyan authorities to stop detaining migrants intercepted or rescued at sea by the Coast Guard after trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.

The International Organization for Migration praises Libya’s dramatically stepped up anti-smuggler operations.  With European Union support, it notes the number of migrants rescued in Libya’s territorial waters and brought back to shore has greatly increased.

IOM Spokesman, Leonard Doyle, says in the past month alone, the Libyan coast guard has intercepted nearly 4,000 migrants.

“Despite occasional, from what we understand, rogue issues, there generally seems to be a desire by the coast guard personnel to save lives, to get their country back on a regular footing and to avoid having indiscriminate, irregular migration where the only people profiting are the smugglers,” said Doyle.

IOM Chief Swing recently returned from a two-day visit to Libya where he appealed to the authorities to end the cruel policy of locking up migrants who already have suffered so much trying to reach European shores.  Doyle says there are some signs the authorities are willing to consider this.

“They will probably do that by trying to speed up repatriation.  So we support them in voluntary repatriation, voluntary return, humanitarian return from Libya,” said Doyle. “It sometimes takes a while because they do not have papers, they do not have documents.  The only embassies in the country really full-time are African embassies and even they are at very low capacity.”   

Doyle says once the documentation and bureaucratic process is completed, it will be relatively simple to repatriate the migrants.  He says IOM has a charter flight leaving for an African destination practically every day, taking people who voluntarily want to return home.
…

British Prime Minister Theresa May secured a cabinet agreement on Friday for her plans to leave the European Union, overcoming rifts among her ministers to win support for “a business-friendly” proposal aimed at spurring stalled Brexit talks.

After an hours-long meeting at her Chequers country residence, May seemed to have persuaded the most vocal Brexit campaigners in the cabinet to back her plan to press for “a free trade area for goods” with the EU and maintain close trade tie.

The agreed proposal — which also says Britain’s large services sector will not have the current levels of access to EU markets — will not come soon enough for Brussels, which has been pressing May to come up with a detailed vision for future ties. But the hard-won compromise may yet fall flat with EU negotiators.

By also committing to ending free movement of people, the supremacy of the European court and “vast” payments to the bloc, May could be accused of “cherry-picking” the best bits of the EU by Brussels officials, who are determined to send a strong signal to other countries not to follow Britain out of the door.

The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier welcomed the agreement but added on Twitter: “We will assess proposals to see if they are workable and realistic.”

For now, May, who has been written off by critics regularly since losing her Conservative Party’s parliamentary majority in an ill-judged election last year, will be buoyed by the hard-won agreement.

“Today in detailed discussions the cabinet has agreed our collective position for the future of our negotiations with the EU,” May said in a statement. “Now we must all move at pace to negotiate our proposal with the EU to deliver the prosperous and secure future all our people deserve.”

In a document outlining the government’s position, ministers said they had agreed that an earlier proposal made to the EU “needed to evolve in order to provide a precise, responsible and credible basis for progressing negotiations.”

Instead, they had agreed to negotiate for a “free trade area for goods,” one that would see Britain having a “common rulebook for all goods” in a combined customs territory. This would allow Britain to set its own import tariffs and seal new free trade deals.

They also agreed that parliament would have the power to decide whether to follow EU rules and regulations in the future, and the government would step up preparations for the eventuality of a ‘no deal’ exit.

But for both sides of the Brexit debate — the hardline eurosceptics and the staunch EU supporters — the agreed negotiating position was not enough.

John Longworth, a chairman of campaign group Leave Means Leave, accused May of personally deceiving Brexit campaigners.

“May’s Brexit means BRINO — ‘Brexit In Name Only’ — a fake Brexit.”

Pro-EU Labour lawmaker Chuka Ummuna described it as “yet another behind-closed-doors stitch up that would leave us all worse off.”

The Times newspaper said, without citing sources, that May was taking a hard line and had promised senior allies that she would sack foreign minister Boris Johnson, a Brexit supporter, if he tried “to undermine the peace deal.”

Trade deals 

With nine months before Britain leaves and just over three before the EU says it wants a deal, May has been under intense pressure from the bloc and from many businesses to show her negotiating position.

As she held the crisis talks with her ministers, the chief executive of European planemaker Airbus, Tom Enders, accused the government of having “no clue or at least consensus on how to execute Brexit without severe harm.”

May was cautious on whether she will win the support of the EU, saying only that she had “been talking to European leaders over the last week or so.”

“This is a proposal that I believe will be good for the UK and good for the EU and I look forward to it being received positively,” she told reporters.

But she has at least cleared yet another domestic hurdle. She seems to have reassured pro-Brexit ministers that under the new negotiating position Britain will still be able to seek trade deals with the rest of the world, easing fears that mirroring EU rules for goods would rule that out.

They may also have been reassured by May reiterating her belief that any agreement with the EU should end the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, although British courts would still have to “pay due regard” to its rulings.

And the agreed negotiating position also hands a big role for parliament to decide whether Britain should continue to follow EU rules and regulations, recognizing that any rejection of them “would have consequences.”

“This is a further step, an important further step, in our negotiations with the European Union,” she said. “But of course we still have work to do with the EU in ensuring that we get to that end point in October. But this is good.”
…

So is this what a trade war looks like?

The Trump administration and China’s leadership have imposed tens of billions of dollars in tariffs on each other’s goods. President Donald Trump has proposed slapping duties on, all told, up to $550 billion if China keeps retaliating and doesn’t cave in to U.S. demands to scale back its aggressive industrial policies.

Until the past couple of years, tariffs had been losing favor as a tool of national trade policy. They were largely a relic of 19th and early 20th centuries that most experts viewed as mutually harmful to all nations involved. But Trump has restored tariffs to a prominent place in his self-described America First approach.

Trump enraged such U.S. allies as Canada, Mexico and the European Union this spring by slapping tariffs on their steel and aluminum shipments to the United States. The tariffs have been in place on most other countries since March.

The president has also asked the U.S. Commerce Department to look into imposing tariffs on imported cars, trucks and auto parts, arguing that they pose a threat to U.S. national security.

Here is a look at what tariffs are, how they work, how they’ve been used in the past and what to expect now: 

Are we in a trade war?

Economists have no set definition of a trade war. But with the world’s two largest economies now slapping potentially punishing tariffs on each other, it looks as if a trade war has arrived. The value of goods that Trump has threatened to hit with tariffs exceeds the $506 billion in goods that China exported to the United States last year. 

It’s not uncommon for countries, even close allies, to fight over trade in specific products. The United States and Canada, for example, have squabbled for decades over softwood lumber. 

But the U.S. and China are fighting over much broader issues, like China’s requirements that American companies share advanced technology to access China’s market, and the overall U.S. trade deficit with China. So far, neither side has shown any sign of bending.

​So what are tariffs?

Tariffs are a tax on imports. They’re typically charged as a percentage of the transaction price that a buyer pays a foreign seller. Say an American retailer buys 100 garden umbrellas from China for $5 apiece, or $500. The U.S. tariff rate for the umbrellas is 6.5 percent. The retailer would have to pay a $32.50 tariff on the shipment, raising the total price from $500 to $532.50.

In the United States, tariffs — also called duties or levies — are collected by Customs and Border Protection agents at 328 ports of entry across the country. Proceeds go to the Treasury. The tariff rates are published by the U.S. International Trade Commission in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, which lists U.S. tariffs on everything from dried plantains (1.4 percent) to parachutes (3 percent).

Sometimes, the U.S. will impose additional duties on foreign imports that it determines are being sold at unfairly low prices or are being supported by foreign government subsidies. 

Do other countries have higher tariffs than the United States?

Most key U.S. trading partners do not have significantly higher average tariffs. According to an analysis by Greg Daco at Oxford Economics, U.S. tariffs on imported goods, adjusted for trade volumes, average 2.4 percent, above Japan’s 2 percent and just below the 3 percent for the European Union and 3.1 percent for Canada.

The comparable figures for Mexico and China are higher. Both have higher duties that top 4 percent.

Trump has complained about the 270 percent duty that Canada imposes on dairy products. But the United States has its own ultra-high tariffs — 168 percent on peanuts and 350 percent on tobacco.

​What are tariffs supposed to accomplish?

Two things: Raise government revenue and protect domestic industries from foreign competition. Before the establishment of the federal income tax in 1913, tariffs were a big money-raiser for the U.S. government. From 1790 to 1860, for example, they produced 90 percent of federal revenue, according to Clashing Over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy by Douglas Irwin, an economist at Dartmouth College. By contrast, last year tariffs accounted for only about 1 percent of federal revenue.

In the fiscal year that ended last September 30, the U.S. government collected $34.6 billion in customs duties and fees. The White House Office of Management and Budget expects tariffs to fetch $40.4 billion this year.

Tariffs also are meant to increase the price of imports or to punish foreign countries for committing unfair trade practices, like subsidizing their exporters and dumping their products at unfairly low prices. Tariffs discourage imports by making them more expensive. They also reduce competitive pressure on domestic competitors and can allow them to raise prices.

Tariffs fell out of favor as global trade expanded after World War II.

The formation of the World Trade Organization and the advent of trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement among the U.S., Mexico and Canada reduced or eliminated tariffs. 

​Why are tariffs making a comeback?

After years of trade agreements that bound the countries of the world more closely and erased restrictions on trade, a populist backlash has grown against globalization. This was evident in Trump’s 2016 election and the British vote that year to leave the European Union — both surprise setbacks for the free-trade establishment.

Critics note that big corporations in rich countries exploited looser rules to move factories to China and other low-wage countries, then shipped goods back to their wealthy home countries while paying low tariffs or none at all. Since China joined the WTO in 2001, the United States has shed 3.1 million factory jobs, though many economists attribute much of that loss not just to trade but to robots and other technologies that replace human workers.

Trump campaigned on a pledge to rewrite trade agreements and crack down on China, Mexico and other countries. He blames what he calls their abusive trade policies for America’s persistent trade deficits — $566 billion last year. Most economists, by contrast, say the deficit simply reflects the reality that the United States spends more than it saves. By imposing tariffs, he is beginning to turn his hard-line campaign rhetoric into action.

Are tariffs wise?

Most economists — Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro is a notable exception — say no. The tariffs drive up the cost of imports. And by reducing competitive pressure, they give U.S. producers leeway to raise their prices, too. That’s good for those producers, but bad for almost everyone else.

Rising costs especially hurt consumers and companies that rely on imported components. Some U.S. companies that buy steel are complaining that Trump’s tariffs put them at a competitive disadvantage. Their foreign rivals can buy steel more cheaply and offer their products at lower prices.

More broadly, economists say trade restrictions make the economy less efficient. Facing less competition from abroad, domestic companies lose the incentive to increase efficiency or to focus on what they do best. 
…

Russia is denying any role in the poisoning of a British couple who British authorities insist are the latest victims of Novichok — allegedly a Russian-made military-grade nerve agent first implicated in an assassination attempt on a former Russian spy and his daughter on British soil last March.

The initial attack left former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, hospitalized in serious condition for several weeks before their ultimate recovery. The incident set off an international crisis that Kremlin officials seemed less than eager to repeat in the face of renewed allegations. 

“Of course we’re concerned that these substances have been used repeatedly in Europe,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. “However, on the other hand, we have no information about which substances were used or how they were used.”

British nationals Dawn Sturgess, 44, and Charlie Rowley, 45, both fell ill in Amesbury — less than 16 kilometers (10 miles) from Salisbury — showing symptoms British medical personnel have described as consistent with those in the Skripals’ poisoning.

Russia has angrily denied any involvement in the incidents, arguing Moscow never possessed Novichok and had nothing to gain politically from an attack on a former double agent seemingly in retirement.

Yet, in the wake of the Amesbury incident, Russian officials have concentrated their frustration on British authorities’ continued refusal to allow Russian investigators to participate in a joint investigation.

“It is regrettable that U.K. officials try to link a second poisoning with Russia without having produced any credible results of the investigation of the first one,” the Russian Embassy in Britain said in a statement. “Instead of genuine cooperation, London is doing everything possible to muddy the waters, to confuse and frighten its own citizens.”

“There is a need for thorough and professional work, and the efforts of British security services will not be enough,” added Vladimir Shamanov, chairman of the defense committee in Russia’s lower house of parliament, the Duma.

“Russia should be involved, among others,” he added.

The revival of the Novichok issue presents an additional challenge to East-West relations just days ahead of a July 16 summit in Helsinki between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin that both sides say is much needed to thaw existing tensions.

British Prime Minister Theresa May is all but certain to raise the subject when Trump visits London for talks prior to the Helsinki summit.

In the wake of the March attack against the Skripals, the U.S. joined with Britain in marshaling the largest mass expulsion of Russian diplomats by Western allies since the days of the Cold War. 

At the time, British authorities argued, and U.S. officials concurred, that it was “highly likely” Moscow was either behind the attack or had lost control of its chemical weapons stores. 

Renewed focus on the poisonings serves as an unwelcome distraction from Russia’s continued hosting of World Cup 2018, which visiting soccer fans have overwhelmingly lauded as a success. 

The event has helped burnish Russia’s international image following years in which the Kremlin argues it has been unfairly demonized over everything from its policies in Ukraine and Syria to cyber-meddling in elections and what Washington has described as general “malign activities.”

Speaking at a meeting with leaders of the world governing body FIFA in Moscow on Friday, Putin praised the tournament and world soccer fans for helping to destroy “so many stereotypes about Russia.”

“People have seen that Russia is a hospitable country, a friendly one for those who come here,” said Putin.

Yet Sergei Zheleznyak, deputy speaker of the Duma, argued it was Russia’s very success as World Cup host that explained the sudden return of the Novichok scandal to world headlines.

“A huge number of British fans, despite the warnings from their government, came to support their team. Their impressions are just destroying everything British propaganda built over the past few years,” said Zhelezhnyak. “To break up this flow of really positive emotions that the British fans are sharing, they had to put something like this in the mass media.”

While British officials and the royal family have boycotted the games in protest against the Skripal poisonings, the controversy over Novichok wasn’t the only source of tension between London and Moscow.

Depending on the outcome of their World Cup matches Saturday, Russia and England could square off in the semifinals. 
…

By the time the World Cup is over, 64 matches will have taken place in 12 venues in 11 cities. For many people in Nizhny Novgorod, one of the soccer venues, the monthlong event has been the biggest party in town for decades. VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports.
…

The mayor of London has approved a protester’s request to fly a blimp depicting Donald Trump as an angry, orange diaper-wearing baby during the U.S. president’s visit to the British capital next week. 

The 6-meter tall inflatable will fly over Parliament between 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. local time on July 13 during a scheduled protest. 

“The Mayor supports the right to peaceful protest and understands that this can take many different forms,” Mayor Sadiq Khan’s office said Thursday. 

Leo Murray, the activist behind the blimp dubbed Trump Baby said the mayor’s office originally did not approve of the blimp but “following a huge groundswell of public support for our plan, it looks like City Hall has rediscovered its sense of humor.”

Murray used an online crowdfunding site to raise more than $20,000 asking donors to “make our six-meter high orange, inflatable baby with a malevolent face and tiny hands fly over central London during Trump’s U.K. visit.”

During the three-day visit, Trump will meet with the Queen Elizabeth and Prime Minister Theresa May. 
…

The parties in Germany’s ruling coalition on Thursday reached agreement on a package of measures to deal with asylum-seekers who have already registered in other European Union states, and vowed to push ahead with an

immigration law before year’s end.

The two-page agreement, reached after a short meeting at the historic Reichstag building, ends a dispute that had threatened to bring down Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “grand coalition” just months after it took power, and left the four-term leader politically weakened.

But the debate has left lingering resentments in what was already a fragile coalition brokered by Merkel after she failed to forge an alliance with two smaller parties.

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, leader of the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), had triggered the crisis when he threatened to defy Merkel and turn back at the German border the small number of asylum-seekers — a maximum of five people a day — who turn up after registering in other EU states.

Speedier returns

The parties agreed to speed up the process of returning migrants who have applied for asylum in other EU states to those countries, as mandated by current EU law, but only if agreements were in place with the country where they first registered.

Full implementation would require signing deals with Italy and other countries that have been unwilling to take back migrants.

Social Democrats hailed the agreement as a win for their party, and criticized conservatives for what Finance Minister Olaf Scholz called the “summer theater” of the last weeks.

While the agreement averts the collapse of Merkel’s government and keeps her conservative bloc from splintering apart, the episode highlighted the fragility of the German government and raised the prospect of further disputes.

Seehofer told reporters he was “extremely satisfied” with the deal despite having to back off his call for border zone transit centers.

The agreement calls for asylum-seekers registered in other countries to be processed within 48 hours in police facilities, not separate transit centers, if they cannot be transported to the Munich airport to be returned to the country where they first applied for asylum.

​No transit centers

Andrea Nahles, leader of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), stressed the agreement would not involve creation of any transit centers or unilateral action by Germany. The SPD had warned such centers could be seen as internment camps.

Nahles told broadcaster ZDF the deal would not require any legal changes, and said it was up to Seehofer’s ministry, which oversees the border police, to accelerate the asylum process.

“I want to be very clear that we did not agree to some kind of a compromise. Instead we drafted a new proposal that includes reasonable solutions, and the CDU/CSU has performed a piece of theater in the last three weeks that was unworthy of this country, our country,” Nahles said.

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, general secretary of Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), said the deal laid the groundwork for a more unified approach on migration.

“With this, the entire coalition has committed to the goal to order, control and limit migration,” she said. “This agreement makes it possible that our migration policy is effective, that it remains humane and that it will succeed.”

As the agreement was reached, a new poll conducted for broadcaster ARD showed broad public frustration over the issue.

Nearly three-quarters of those surveyed said Seehofer had weakened German conservatives through his brinkmanship, and 78 percent said they were unhappy with the coalition’s work.

Fifty-six percent of Germans felt too much focus was being put on migration, to the detriment of other issues.

Far fewer arrivals

Annual migrant arrivals have dropped sharply after peaking in 2015 at over 1 million people, many of them fleeing Syria’s war and therefore entitled to asylum.

In 2017, 15,414 people applied for asylum at German borders, with 1,740 of those applications made at the German-Austrian border, or around 4.7 per day, according to data from Seehofer’s ministry provided to Left party lawmakers.

Some in the SPD have accused Seehofer of sparking the coalition crisis to corral right-wing voters ahead of the Bavarian state election in October, after hemorrhaging a million voters to the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany in the national election last September.

Seehofer and Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz met in Vienna on Thursday and said they would discuss with Italy how to shut the migration route into Europe across the Mediterranean.
…

Moscow’s most famous landmarks — Red Square, the Kremlin, and the domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral — are swarmed with World Cup fans doing a bit of sightseeing in between matches. Just upriver, more adventurous tourists will find an anonymous-looking apartment block whose history sheds light on the Soviet Union’s darkest days.

The House of the Embankment embodies the history of revolution and dictatorship in miniature. It lies just upstream from the Kremlin and was completed in 1931 to house the Soviet Union’s governing elite.

“These people living here were the so-called ‘old Bolsheviks’ [revolutionaries]. And they were people close to each other — in their spirit and ideology — as well as their fate,” said Olga Trifonova, who runs the House of the Embankment museum, inside one of the block’s roughly 500 apartments.

The museum displays some of the luxurious fittings and furniture the first residents enjoyed. The block offered in-house theaters and cafeterias, libraries and sports halls.

Soon, however, the ostentatious lifestyles of the residents began to look at odds with the ideals of the revolution.

In the mid-1930s, Soviet leader Josef Stalin began the “Great Purge” to rid the country of those deemed enemies of the working class. A million people were imprisoned and 700,000 executed. The residents of the House of the Embankment — once the elite of the revolution — were among the first in line. Arrests and disappearances created a crushing paranoia.

“The residents of the house stopped paying visits to each other. One stopped having confidence in other people,” Trifonova said.

During the 1930s, 800 of the residents were arrested. Close to half of them were executed.

Olga Trifonova’s late husband, Yuri, grew up in the House of the Embankment. His father was arrested during the purges in June 1937 and never seen again. His mother was sent to a Gulag prison in Kazakhstan. In 1976, Yuri Trifonov wrote a best-selling book about his memories, which gave the apartment block its name. He died in 1981.

“This is a story about the nature of fear. How fear mutilates a human for his entire life,” Trifonova said.

Memories of that fear appear to be fading. An opinion poll last year crowned Stalin as Russia’s most outstanding historical figure.

But the grim history of the House of the Embankment is not forgotten, according to Dmitry Taganov of real estate firm INCOM, which is selling some of the apartments on the block.

“Many buyers are scared off by the gloomy background of this House. Many people undoubtedly know about that, even the ones belonging to the younger generation.”

A younger generation that is forming its own historical image of Stalin and the legacy of Communism.
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Moscow’s famous landmarks – Red Square and the Kremlin, the domes of St Basil’s Cathedral – are swarmed with World Cup fans doing a bit of sightseeing in between matches. But just upriver, more adventurous tourists will find an anonymous-looking apartment block whose history sheds light on the Soviet Union’s darkest days. As Henry Ridgwell reports from Moscow, that history is once again the subject of fierce debate in modern Russia.
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