Turkish prosecutors have issued arrest warrants for 70 people, including 58 serving soldiers, in an investigation targeting supporters of the U.S.-based cleric accused of orchestrating an attempted coup in July 2016, state media said Thursday.

The operation was focused on the central Turkish province of Konya, with police carrying out simultaneous raids at addresses across 27 provinces, state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

Twelve of the 70 suspects had previously been expelled from the Turkish armed forces, Anadolu said.

Police operations to detain suspects accused of links to the Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen have been a near daily occurrence since the failed putsch of July 15, 2016, in which Gulen has denied any involvement.

Since then more than 50,000 people, including thousands of security personnel and civil servants, have been jailed pending trial and some 150,000 suspended or dismissed from their jobs.

Rights groups say the crackdown has been exploited to muzzle dissent. The government says the measures have been necessary because of the security threats Turkey has faced since the failed coup, in which 250 people were killed.
…

A Turkish banker has been convicted in a U.S. court for participating in a billion-dollar plot to evade U.S. sanctions against Iran.

A court in New York City has convicted Mehmet Hakan Atilla on four counts of conspiracy, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, plus one count of bank fraud. The 47-year-old Turkish national was acquitted on a charge of money laundering.

The case has strained relations between Turkey and the United States.

Atilla is a deputy general manager at Turkey’s state-run Halkbank. U.S. prosecutors charged him with helping to facilitate a deal in which Iran traded oil and gas for gold, moving some of the transactions through U.S. banks without their knowledge.

Atilla was heard on telephone recordings setting up fake food and agriculture deals with Iran to disguise deals that were really sales of oil. Atilla’s lawyer said his client was merely “a hapless pawn” in those deals, blaming Atilla’s boss, Reza Zarrab, instead.

Zarrab, a Turkish-Iranian trader who has admitted arranging the deals, told the court he paid about $50 million in bribes in 2012 to the Turkish finance minister to push the deals through. Zarrab testified that he believed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was aware of the scheme.

Erdogan said the case is an American conspiracy to blackmail Turkey, a strategic partner with the U.S. in Middle East affairs.

Iran and the United States have had chilly relations since the Iran hostage crisis from 1979-1981, in which 52 Americans were held by student activists in Iran for 444 days until a release was negotiated. The United States now bans most financial dealings with Iran, which is a major oil-producing nations.
…

A storm disrupted air traffic at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport on Wednesday, with many flights canceled or delayed.

Airlines canceled 176 out of a total of more than 1,200 incoming and outgoing flights on Wednesday morning, a spokesman for the Dutch national airport said.

That number was expected to rise, as the storm would grow stronger during the day, with wind gusts reaching speeds of up to 120 kph (75 mph).

Flights that were not canceled faced an average delay of about an hour, the airport said.

Schiphol is Europe’s third busiest airport in number of total passengers per year, after London Heathrow and Paris Charles de Gaulle.
…

A Russian military MI-24 helicopter crashed in Syria on Dec. 31 due to a technical fault, killing both pilots, Russian news agencies cited the Ministry of Defence as saying on Wednesday.

The helicopter crashed en route to the Hama air base, RIA news said, citing the ministry.
…

France’s national electricity provider says a violent windstorm has left some 200,000 households without electricity across the country, including 30,000 in the Paris region.

The windstorm, Eleanor, battered northern France Wednesday with winds reaching over 140 kilometers per hour. Photos of destroyed cars, collapsed scaffolding and uprooted trees have appeared across social media.

Some 2,000 agents have been deployed to reconnect the energy supplies in the 49 French departments that have been placed on high alert.

Winds of up to 117 km/h also battered Paris’ biggest airport Charles de Gaulle. Paris’ airport authority said that flights have been disrupted with slight delays stemming from precautions being taken to safely get travelers into aircraft.
…

President Rumen Radev on Tuesday vetoed anti-graft legislation passed by Bulgaria’s parliament, saying the bill failed to offer the means to effectively investigate corruption networks.

Radev acted only a day after Bulgaria, the European Union’s poorest country, assumed the six-month, rotating presidency of the bloc for the first time since it joined the EU in 2007.

Bulgaria has made scant progress towards stamping out graft and organised crime, and the European Commission, the EU’s executive, has repeatedly rebuked the Black Sea country for failing to prosecute and sentence allegedly corrupt officials.

According to Transparency International, Bulgaria is the EU’s most corrupt country.

The legislation, approved by parliament on Dec. 20, entailed the creation of a special anti-graft unit meant to investigate persons occupying high public office as well as assets and conflicts of interest.

But analysts said the unit’s objectivity could be limited by the fact its management would be appointed by parliament under the legislation, and it therefore might not be truly independent and could by used by those in power to persecute opponents.

“I believe that the adopted law not only does not create an adequate legal basis for tackling corruption but will even make it difficult to fight it,” Radev, who was elected in November 2016, said in a statement.

“No doubt, the president has strong arguments (to veto the law),” political analyst Petar Cholakov said.

Some analysts, however, expect parliament to overturn Radev’s veto.

Kornelia Ninova, leader of the main opposition Socialist Party, endorsed Radev’s veto saying it gave “a golden chance” for the government and its majority in parliament to produce effective anti-corruption legislation.

“If we do not tackle corruption, we cannot solve any of the other problems — poverty, health, education, demography,” Ninova said. Officials from the ruling center-right coalition had no immediate comment on Radev’s move.

The new law also focuses on improving control and accountability of law-enforcement agencies, and the government in Sofia is hoping Bulgaria will be able to change opinions and remove its tarnished image during its EU presidency.

Corruption has deterred foreign investment since communism collapsed in Bulgaria in 1989, and the EU has kept Sofia as well as neighboring Romania — for the same rule-of-law failings — outside its Schengen zone of passport-free travel.

 
…

The U.N. Security Council has welcomed six new non-permanent members — Equatorial Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kuwait, the Netherlands, Peru, and Poland.

The six new countries, voted on by the 193-member General assembly for two-year terms, will have a strong voice in matters dealing with international peace and security during their time on the U.N.’s most powerful body.

“Peace and security are difficult to achieve,” Kazakh envoy Kairat Umarov, who took the rotating presidency in January, told council members at a special ceremony.  “You are going to have a real chance to make a difference.”

Flags of the six new member countries were installed outside the council chambers Tuesday in a ceremony arranged by Umarov.

​

The U.N. Security council has 15 members — five of which (China, France, Russia, Britain, and the United States) hold permanent membership and veto power.  Egypt, Japan, Senegal, Ukraine, and Uruguay finished their terms last year, while the Netherlands takes over for Italy to finish a term the two countries shared.
…

Moldova’s Constitutional Court has temporarily stripped the country’s pro-Moscow president of his duties for his refusal to endorse new ministers in a political standoff.

President Igor Dodon rejected the court’s Tuesday ruling, which said his powers should be given to the Parliament speaker or prime minister. He accused the court of being “a political tool, not a constitutional body.”

Dodon is at odds with the ruling coalition, which favors closer relations with the European Union and the U.S.

In October, the court suspended his powers after he refused to appoint another minister. This time, Dodon said the ministerial candidates were incompetent, claiming some were involved in a 2014 scandal in which $1 billion was siphoned from Moldova’s banking system.

The ruling coalition asked the court to suspend Dodon’s powers so ministers could be appointed.
…

Airlines recorded zero accident deaths in commercial passenger jets last year, according to a Dutch consulting firm and an aviation safety group that tracks crashes, making 2017 the safest year on record for commercial air travel.

Dutch aviation consulting firm To70 and the Aviation Safety Network both reported Monday there were no commercial passenger jet fatalities in 2017. “2017 was the safest year for aviation ever,” said Adrian Young of To70.

To70 estimated that the fatal accident rate for large commercial passenger flights is 0.06 per million flights, or one fatal accident for every 16 million flights.

The Aviation Safety Network also reported there were no commercial passenger jet deaths in 2017, but 10 fatal airliner accidents resulting in 44 fatalities onboard and 35 persons on the ground, including cargo planes and commercial passenger turbo prop aircraft.

That figure includes 12 people killed on Dec. 31 when a Nature Air Cessna 208B Grand Caravan aircraft crashed minutes after takeoff into a mountainous area off the beach town of Punta Islita, Costa Rica.

In comparison, there were 16 accidents and 303 deaths in 2016 among airliners.

The deadliest incident last year occurred in January when a Turkish cargo jet smashed into a village in Kyrgyzstan as it tried to land at a nearby airport in dense fog, killing 35 on the ground and all four onboard.

The Aviation Safety Network said 2017 was “the safest year ever, both by the number of fatal accidents as well as in terms of fatalities.”

Over the last two decades aviation deaths around the world have been steadily falling. As recently as 2005, there were 1,015 deaths aboard commercial passenger flights worldwide, the Aviation Safety Network said.

The United States last recorded a fatal airline passenger jet crash in February 2009, when Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed short of the runway in Clarence Center, New York, killing 49 onboard and one person on the ground.

In 2016, 412 people were killed in the United States in aviation accidents — nearly all in general aviation accidents and none on commercial passenger airlines.

The last fatal passenger jet airliner accident worldwide took place in November 2016 near Medellin, Colombia and the last commercial passenger aircraft crash to kill more than 100 people occurred in October 2015 in Egypt.
…

Britain may impose new taxes on tech giants like Google and Facebook unless they do more to combat online extremism by taking down material aimed at radicalizing people or helping them to prepare attacks, the

country’s security minister said.

Ben Wallace accused tech firms of being happy to sell people’s data but not to give it to the government which was being forced to spend vast sums on de-radicalization programs, surveillance and other counter-terrorism measures.

“If they continue to be less than co-operative, we should look at things like tax as a way of incentivizing them or compen­sating for their inaction,” Wallace told the Sunday Times newspaper in an interview.

His quotes did not give further details on tax plans. The newspaper said that any demand would take the form of a windfall tax similar to that imposed on privatized utilities by former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government in 1997.

Wallace accused the tech giants of putting private profit before public safety.

“We should stop pretending that because they sit on beanbags in T-shirts they are not ruthless profiteers,” he said. “They will ruthlessly sell our details to loans and soft-porn companies but not give it to our democratically elected

government.”

Facebook executive Simon Milner rejected the criticisms.

“Mr. Wallace is wrong to say that we put profit before safety, especially in the fight against terrorism,” he said in an emailed statement. “We’ve invested millions of pounds in people and technology to identify and remove terrorist content.”

YouTube, which is owned by Google, said it was doing more every day to tackle violent extremism.

“Over the course of 2017 we have made significant progress through investing in machine learning technology, recruiting more reviewers, building partnerships with experts and collaboration with other companies,” a YouTube spokeswoman said.

Deadly attacks

Britain suffered a series of attacks by Islamic extremists between March and June this year that killed a total of 36 people, excluding the attackers.

Two involved vehicles ramming people on bridges in London, followed by attackers stabbing people. The deadliest, a bombing at a concert in the northern city of Manchester, killed 22 people.

Following the second bridge attack, Prime Minister Theresa May proposed beefing up regulations on cyberspace, and weeks later interior minister Amber Rudd traveled to California to ask Silicon Valley to step up efforts against extremism.

“We are more vulnerable than at any point in the last 100 years,” said Wallace, citing extremist material on social media and encrypted messaging services like WhatsApp as tools that made life too easy for attackers.

“Because content is not being taken down as quickly as they could do, we’re having to de-radicalize people who have been radicalized. That’s costing millions. They can’t get away with that and we should look at all the options, including tax.”

Facebook said it removed 83 percent of uploaded copies of terrorist content within one hour of its being found on the social media network.

It also highlighted plans to double the number of people working in its safety and security teams to 20,000 by the end of 2018.

YouTube said that progress in machine learning meant that 83 percent of violent extremist content was removed without the need for users to flag it.

 
…

Two people have died from fireworks injuries during New Year celebrations in Germany, but the country avoided a repeat of the mass groping in Cologne in 2016 amid heightened security and efforts to protect women from sexual harassment.

In the Brandenburg region outside Berlin, police said Monday that a 35-year-old man died after igniting fireworks, and a 19-year-old suffered fatal head injuries after he set off a homemade device.

Multiple fireworks injuries also were reported across the country.

Police in Cologne said there were seven cases of sexual harassment, while Berlin police reported 13 and seven arrests as several hundred thousand people celebrated at the city’s Brandenburg Gate.

Police sought to prevent a repeat of New Year 2016 in Cologne, when hundreds of women were groped and robbed, mostly by groups of migrants. There were also concerns about possible terror attacks in the wake of the attack on Dec. 19, 2016 in which an asylum seeker drove a truck into a Berlin Christmas market and killed 12 people.

Police barred large bags from barricaded-off pedestrian party areas in Berlin and Frankfurt.

Other fireworks incidents included serious eye injuries to a 14-year-old girl after fireworks were thrown at a group of people in the town of Triptis in the Thuringia region in the east, the dpa news agency reported.

Hand surgeons at Berlin’s trauma hospital worked continuously in three operating rooms through the night treating 21 people, including five with amputation injuries, dpa reported.

Six officers in Berlin suffered temporary hearing loss when a firework was thrown at them during the arrest of a suspect. The 22-year-old man was believed to have thrown a firecracker that blew a hole in a police car’s rear windshield.

Police said they also arrested a 16-year-old girl after she repeatedly threw fireworks at police and confiscated 44 illegal pyrotechnic devices they found in her possession.

Police in Leipzig turned water cannon on a group of up to 50 disorderly people who threw firecrackers at them.
…

New Zealand, Australia, and surrounding Pacific Islands were among the first places to ring in 2018 with fireworks displays, parties, and other festivities. Nearly 1.5 million people gathered to watch a rainbow fireworks display above Sydney’s iconic Harbour Bridge and opera house.
…

Catalonia’s fugitive former president has called for Spanish authorities to open negotiations regarding the restitution of what he calls his “legitimate government.”

Carles Puigdemont said via social media channels from Brussels on Saturday that Spain should “recognize the election results of Dec. 21 and start negotiating politically with the legitimate government of Catalonia.”

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy deposed Puigdemont and his Cabinet after Catalonia’s regional parliament voted in favor of a declaration of independence from the rest of the country in October.

But pro-secession parties, including one led by Puigdemont, won the most seats in elections last week.

Puigdemont fled to Belgium to avoid a judicial investigation into suspicions of rebellion by him and his government. He did not say Saturday if he plans to return to Spain, where an arrest warrants awaits him.

Rajoy said Friday that he plans to convene Catalonia’s newly elected parliament Jan. 17.

In-house rules of Catalonia’s parliament require that a candidate to form a government be present.
…

A group of Polish mountaineers set off for northern Pakistan on Sunday to attempt to be the first to scale K2, the world’s second highest peak, in wintertime.

K2, in the Karakorum mountains along the border between China and Pakistan, is notorious for high winds, steep and icy slopes — and high fatality rates for climbers. In winter months, scant snowfall means the summit approach can turn into bare ice.

More than 70 people have died climbing the peak, many of them at the Bottleneck, where a wrong step can send a climber hurtling off the South Face, where bodies are unlikely to be recovered.

Team member Adam Bielecki, 34, told Reuters that the chance to make history is a “strong motivation” for the Polish group.

Polish climbers have written a “beautiful chapter” of exploring peaks of more than 8,000 meters (26,247 feet), and scaling K2 in winter would “the last chapter of this book.”

The Polish team includes 13 mountaineers led by Krzysztof Wielicki, 67, who in 2003 headed a winter expedition of K2 that was unable to clear the 8,000 meter threshold.

K2, slightly shorter than Mount Everest, is 8,611 meters (28,251 feet) high.

Wielicki told Reuters that his team would begin their ascent on Jan. 8 or 9 and, if successful, expect to return to base camp by mid-March.

Pakistan is a hot destination for climbers. It rivals Nepal for the number of peaks higher 7,000 meters (22,966 feet) and it has five of the world’s 14 summits higher than 8,000 meters.

Bielecki said the group expects to be away from home for around three months.

“If you ask me what’s the hardest part of the expedition or what I fear the most, it’s actually the separation from my family,” he said.
…

The Turkish Foreign Ministry on Saturday slammed a decision in Greece to grant asylum to a Turkish helicopter co-pilot, who fled the country after last year’s failed coup, as “politically motivated” and warned of a negative impact on bilateral relations.

The co-pilot — who flew seven other Turkish military officers to Greece — was granted asylum after Greek authorities ruled that his human rights would be at risk, despite repeated requests for his extradition by Ankara.

The decision “again reveals that Greece is a country that protects and embraces plotters,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding that the ruling was “politically motivated.”

“Greece has not shown the support and cooperation we expect from an ally in the fight against terrorism,” the statement added.

The ruling is an embarrassment to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who asked for the officers to be extradited during a meeting with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in December, as part of the first official visit to Athens by a Turkish president in 65 years.

Late Saturday evening, Tsipras tried to contain any fallout from the asylum ruling by calling for the decision to be annulled.

“The Greek government filed on Saturday a request for annulment of the asylum decision taken the day before by the asylum authority,” the office of the Greek prime minister said.

Co-pilot’s denial

The co-pilot, who landed in the Greek city of Alexandroupoli hours after the putsch was defeated on July 15, 2016, had denied being part of the coup attempt.

Despite Turkey’s assertions, the asylum judges said there was no evidence to suggest the co-pilot had participated in a plot to unseat Erdogan.

According a judicial source, the ruling took into account reports from human rights groups and the Council of Europe that warned Turkey has regularly committed human rights abuses against coup suspects.

A ruling on the seven other military officers is expected to be made in the coming weeks.

In January, the Greek Supreme Court blocked the extradition of the officers, saying that they would not have a fair trial in Turkey.

More than 140,000 people, including judges, lawyers, journalists and academics, have been sacked or suspended in Turkey since the failed coup, while 55,000 people have been arrested over suspected links to U.S.-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Turkey claims Gulen ordered the attempted coup, something he denies.
…

Hundreds of thousands of law enforcement, military and security officials will be deployed in cities around the world to keep New Year’s Eve revelers safe as they gather to welcome 2018.

In the United States, New York City officials announced they would use two-step screening, snipers, street closures and specially trained dogs to secure Times Square, where an estimated 2 million people will gather to watch the annual ball drop at midnight.

In Las Vegas, 300 National Guard troops will join more than 1,500 police officers to keep safe the city’s famed Strip, home to a number of casinos, resorts and hotels. The security precautions to protect the expected crowd of more than 300,000 will include snipers positioned on rooftops and double the number of emergency response teams from previous years.

In South America, Rio de Janeiro police plan a security force of 12,000, nearly 20 percent more officers than last year, for New Year’s events. Military police say they are suspending vacations for security personnel to ensure there are enough police officers on duty.

​Patrols in London

In London, a record number of armed officers and canine units will patrol celebrations and the city’s Underground subway system, although Metropolitan Police said they had received no specific threat. Steel and concrete barricades will ring main events that will be attended by an estimated 500,000 people, police said.

In Germany, all major cities, including Berlin, Munich, Hamburg and Cologne, announced there would be enhanced police presence at all celebrations. They declined to reveal details.

In Africa, after at least nine people were killed Friday outside a church in suburban Cairo by a gunman on a motorcycle, Egyptian authorities have beefed up security for New Year’s Eve and Orthodox Christmas.

In an attempt to prevent further terrorist attacks, the Interior Ministry has raised the security alert to the maximum level throughout the country. The ministry has ordered heightened security near vital institutions such as churches and embassies.

More security patrols will be deployed to streets, squares and other areas where celebrations will be held.

In Istanbul, police have arrested 120 people with suspected links to Islamic State militants ahead of the New Year’s celebrations. The city also plans to more than double the number of police officers on the streets to prevent a repeat of last year, when a man armed with an assault rifle killed 39 Turks and foreigners at a nightclub. Police have also canceled some public celebrations in key districts of Turkey’s largest city.

​Preparations in India

In India, more than 30,000 security personnel will guard the popular gathering sites across Mumbai. In the southern tech hub of Bengaluru, officials plan to deploy more than 15,000 officers, as well as use drones, security cameras and canine units. A 500-member, all-female police squad will also be deployed to ensure there is no repeat of last year, when several women were harassed and molested in the streets by male revelers.

In Australia, one of the first places to ring in the new year, security officials are guarding against any kind of terror attack on New Year’s Eve. Officials said police officers would be out in force on the ground, in the air and on the sea as part of the largest security operation in the country.

More than 1 million people are expected to gather in the center of Sydney and at least half that number in Melbourne to watch fireworks displays. Police said Melbourne’s city center would be on lockdown and remain closed until 6 a.m. New Year’s Day to protect the crowd.

Police in Melbourne last month arrested a man for allegedly planning to shoot revelers on New Year’s Eve.
…

At least 81 reporters were killed doing their jobs this year, while violence and harassment against media staff has skyrocketed, the world’s biggest journalists’ organization says.

In its annual “Kill Report,” seen by The Associated Press, the International Federation of Journalists said the reporters lost their lives in targeted killings, car bomb attacks and crossfire incidents around the world.

More than 250 journalists were in prison in 2017.

The number of deaths as of December 29 was the lowest in a decade, down from 93 in 2016. The largest number were killed in Mexico, but many also died in conflict zones in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

The IFJ suspected but could not officially confirm that at least one other journalist was killed Thursday in an attack by an Islamic State suicide bomber on a Shiite cultural center in Kabul, in which at least 41 people died.

IFJ President Philippe Leruth said that while the drop in deaths “represents a downward trend, the levels of violence in journalism remain unacceptably high.”

He said the IFJ finds it “most disturbing that this decrease cannot be linked to any measure by governments to tackle the impunity for these crimes.”

Eight women journalists were killed, two in European democracies – Kim Wall in Denmark, who died on the submarine of an inventor she was writing about, and Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia who was blown up by a bomb placed in her car.

Beyond the deaths, the IFJ warned that “unprecedented numbers of journalists were jailed, forced to flee, that self-censorship was widespread and that impunity for the killings, harassment, attacks and threats against independent journalism was running at epidemic levels.”

Turkey, where official pressure on the media has been ramped up since a failed coup attempt in July 2016, is becoming notorious for putting reporters behind bars. Some 160 journalists are jailed in Turkey –  two-thirds of the global total – the report said.

The organization also expressed concern about India, the world’s largest democracy, where it said that attacks on journalists are being motivated by violent populism.

Countries with the highest numbers of media killings:

Mexico: 13

Afghanistan: 11

Iraq: 11

Syria: 10

India: 6

Philippines: 4

Pakistan: 4

Nigeria: 3

Somalia: 3

Honduras: 3

 
…

The U.S. is urging Kosovo leaders to leave unchanged a war crimes court established to hear serious cases arising from the country’s war for independence.

“The United States is deeply concerned by recent attempts of Kosovo lawmakers to abrogate the law on the Specialist Chambers,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement Friday. “We call on political leaders in the Republic of Kosovo to maintain their commitment to the work of the Chambers and to leave the authorities and jurisdiction of the court unchanged.”

The U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on December 21 that “the pursuit of justice in the Balkans is not over,” and the U.S. “remains committed to supporting justice for the victims,” the statement said.

The Kosovo political leaders enacted the law and constitutional amendment in 2015 to establish the Specialist Chambers, a court that would hear cases of alleged crimes against humanity, war crimes, and other serious crimes committed during the 1998-2000 conflict in the former Yugoslavia.

Last week, however, lawmakers from the governing coalition, who hold a majority, pressed for a vote to abolish the court, but they failed twice because of opposition from other parties.

The U.S. and other Western countries swiftly condemned the move, warning that if successful, it would hamper efforts for Euro-Atlantic integration.

The U.S. has been a key ally and financial backer of Kosovo since it broke away from Serbia and declared independence in 2008.
…

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for a bomb attack earlier this week in a Russian supermarket in St. Petersburg. 

The militants said the explosion was carried out by an Islamic State-linked group, according to a statement made Friday by its Amaq news agency. 

The group did not provide any evidence for its claim. 

At least 13 people were injured when a homemade bomb detonated in a branch of the Perekrestok supermarket chain on Wednesday. 

Health officials said none of the victims suffered life-threatening injuries.

Russian investigators initially said they were treating the case as an act of attempted murder.

However, on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the explosion was an act of terrorism. He made the assertion at the Kremlin during an awards ceremony for Russian servicemen who had served in Syria.
…

Russia has reported an outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N2 bird flu on a farm in the central region of Kostromskaya Oblast that led to the deaths of more than 660,000 birds, the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) said Friday.

The virus killed more than 44,000 birds in an outbreak first detected on December 17, the OIE said, citing a report from the Russian Ministry of Agriculture.

The rest of the 663,500 birds on the farm were slaughtered, it said in the report. It did not specify the type of birds that were infected.

It is the first outbreak of the H5N2 strain in Russia this year, but the country has been facing regular outbreaks of H5N8 since early December last year, with the last one reported to the OIE detected late November.

Bird flu has led to the deaths or culling of more than 2.6 million birds on farms between December last year and November this year, a report posted on the OIE website showed.

Neither the H5N2 or H5N8 strains has been found in humans.

The virulence of highly pathogenic bird flu viruses has prompted countries to bar poultry imports from infected countries in earlier outbreaks.
…

Members of a Russian environmental group say masked men attacked their leader in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar late Thursday.

Andrei Rudomakha, head of Environmental Watch of the North Caucasus, was hospitalized with multiple injuries including a fractured skull and broken nose.

Rudomakha and several other activists were returning from a trip to Russia’s Black Sea region, where they had documented the illegal construction of a luxury mansion.

Local authorities said they are investigating the incident.

For more than 20 years, Environmental Watch has exposed illegal landfills, the destruction of landscapes and the contamination of waterways in Russia’s south –  the Krasnodar, Stavropol, Rostov, Adygea, Karachayevo-Cherkesia, and Kabardino-Balkaria.

Some of the group’s investigations have exposed land grabs by Russian local officials.
…

Facebook says it blocked the social-media accounts of Ramzan Kadyrov because the Kremlin-backed Chechen leader had become subject to financial and travel sanctions imposed by the U.S. government.

The company said in a statement Thursday it had the “legal obligation” to disable Kadyrov’s accounts on Facebook and Instagram, which it also owns, after the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on December 20 hit the Chechen leader with sanctions.

“We became aware and have now confirmed that the accounts appear to be maintained by or on behalf of parties who appear on the U.S. Specially Designated Nationals List and, thus, subject to U.S. trade sanctions,” the statement said.

“For this reason, Facebook has a legal obligation to disable these accounts,” it added.

It was not immediately clear if the social-media network was in the process of disabling accounts of others on the sanction lists.

Facebook declined requests from RFE/RL for further information.

The Treasury’s announcement of the sanctions against Kadyrov are part of ongoing U.S. efforts to punish alleged human rights abusers in connection with the Magnitsky Act. In the announcement, the Treasury Department accused the former rebel fighter who later joined forces with Moscow of “gross violations of internationally recognized human rights,” torture, and “extrajudicial killings.”

Kadyrov, who has denied the allegations, is one of the most prominent Russian officials to be added to the sanctions list under the Magnitsky Act. 

The law enraged Russian officials, who retaliated in 2013 with a sweeping ban on U.S. citizens adopting Russian children.

Reaction by Kadyrov

Kadyrov reacted with anger to Facebook’s move, accusing the U.S.-headquartered social-media network of bowing to pressure from Washington by blocking his pages, a move he said he discovered on December 23.

He said he received no response from Instagram after sending a request for service support because his Russian-language accounts stopped working. His English-language Instagram account was unaffected at first, but later it was also unavailable. 

Russia’s telecommunications supervisory authority, Roskomnadzor, demanded an explanation from Facebook and Instagram for the disabling of Kadyrov’s accounts.

“On December 26, Roskomnadzor sent a request to Facebook management, asking to clarify reasons for blocking Ramzan Kadyrov’s Facebook and Instagram accounts,” Roskomnadzor’s press service said in a statement. 

Kadyrov had more than 3 million followers on his Russian-language Instagram account and more than 750,000 on Facebook.

One of his last Instagram postings before the page went down was a video recording in which he responded to the fresh U.S. sanctions by saying he had no current reason to travel to the United States.

“I can be proud that I’m out of favor with the special services of the USA,” he wrote. “In fact, the USA cannot forgive me for dedicating my whole life to the fight against foreign terrorists among which there are bastards of America’s special services.”

Alleged abuses

Human rights groups say Kadyrov has used threats and abuses to maintain control over Chechnya, the site of two post-Soviet separatist wars and years of insurgent violence stemming from the conflicts since Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed him to head the region in 2007.

The U.S. sanctions law is named after Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who was arrested after blowing the whistle on what he said was the theft of $230 million from Russian state coffers through tax fraud.

He died in jail in December 2009, reportedly after physical abuse and denial of medical care. A Council of Europe investigation concluded the conditions leading up to his death amounted to torture.

Facebook and other social-media networks have come under pressure from U.S. lawmakers over what they have called a failure to prevent alleged abuses of their networks by Russian operatives during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.

U.S. lawmakers in November released a batch of Facebook ads they said were purchased by the company in a surreptitious effort to stir up emotions on sensitive social issues like gun control, race relations, immigration and religion.

Facebook responded saying it is creating a portal enabling users to learn whether they liked or followed pages or accounts linked to a shadowy Russian company that U.S. officials accuse of trying to influence the election with the socially divisive posts.
…

The Justice Department on Thursday unsealed details of its case against two Romanians who allegedly hacked computers tied to Washington, D.C., police surveillance cameras.

Police in Bucharest arrested Mihai Alexandru Isvanca and Eveline Cismaru on December 15. U.S. attorneys have charged them with conspiracy to commit computer and wire fraud.

They allegedly hacked into more than 120 computers tied to Washington police surveillance cameras last January. It was part of an alleged scheme to infect personal computers with ransomware.

Ransomware restricts users from accessing their own computers and demands a payment to the ramsomware operator to unlock it.

The Justice Department said the investigation was of the highest priority because the alleged hacking of the surveillance camera computers came just weeks before the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump.

However, it says there is no evidence anyone’s personal security was threatened or harmed.

If tried in the U.S. and convicted, the Romanian defendants could face up to 20 years in prison.
…

Egypt’s pro-government media on Thursday vilified neighboring Sudan over its expanding ties with Turkey and Qatar, saying the three are conspiring against Egypt.

While the government has publicly remained silent, Egyptian media seized on a visit to Sudan earlier this week by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a meeting in Khartoum between the chiefs of staff of Sudan, Turkey and Qatar, and renewed efforts by Khartoum to revive a longtime border dispute with Egypt.

Most views expressed in Egypt’s media reflect the thinking of the government or at least one of its key institutions. The criticism of Sudan and its longtime ruler Omar Bashir included personal insults and questioning the country’s statehood.

Tensions between Egypt and Sudan, which are bound by the Nile River and historic ties, often play out in the media, with the two governments keeping their distance.

The latest row could deepen a rift between Egypt and Sudan over a massive dam being built by Ethiopia that Cairo views as a threat to its share of the Nile, which provides nearly all of Egypt’s water. Negotiations over the dam are at an impasse, with Sudan appearing to tilt toward Ethiopia in the dispute.

The spat could also add to regional tensions. Egypt joined Saudi Arabia in its blockade of Qatar earlier this year, and has long been at odds with both Turkey and Qatar over their support for the Muslim Brotherhood, a regional Islamist movement that is now outlawed in Egypt.

“Sudanese President Omar Bashir is playing with fire in exchange for dollars,” wrote columnist Emad Adeeb in the Cairo daily Al-Watan, alluding to what he said was Bashir’s attempt to gain from regional rivalries.

“Sudan is violating the rules of history and geography and is conspiring against Egypt under the shadow of Turkish madness, Iranian conspiracy, an Ethiopian scheme to starve Egypt of water and Qatar’s financing of efforts to undermine Egypt,” wrote Adeeb, whose column was headlined: “Omar Bashir’s political suicide.”

Of particular concern to Egypt, according to commentaries and news reports, is Sudan’s burgeoning military ties with Turkey, including a joint naval facility on the Red Sea to repair civilian and military vessels that was announced by Bashir and the Turkish leader this week in Khartoum.

Sudan, which is in the grips of an economic crisis, complained this month to the United Nations that a maritime demarcation agreement reached in 2016 by Egypt and Saudi Arabia infringed on what it claimed to be Sudanese waters off an Egyptian-held border region it claims as its own. Egypt denies the Sudanese claim.

Egyptian media, meanwhile, insist that Bashir has ceded to Turkey sovereignty over Suakin, a small but strategic island off Sudan’s Red Sea coast. Erdogan has denied his country is constructing a naval base there, saying Turkey only plans to restore Ottoman-era ruins in the area.

Emad Hussein, editor of Cairo’s Al-Shorouk daily, wrote Thursday that Erdogan’s visit to Sudan, the first by a Turkish head of state, “cannot be viewed … except as harassment of Egypt and an attempt to annoy it by any means possible.”
…

The United States announced Thursday that full visa services for Turkish citizens wishing to travel to the U.S. will resume and said it received assurances Ankara would inform Washington before moving to detain or arrest any embassy employees.

Turkey welcomed the decision on visas, but said that it had not provided the U.S. any such assurances.

The U.S. suspended all non-immigrant visa services in Turkey earlier this year, in response to the arrest of Metin Topuz, a consulate employee in Istanbul, on terrorism charges. Turkey shut down visa services in the U.S. in retaliation.

In a statement released Thursday, the State Department said that since October, Turkey had adhered to promises that no local employees of the embassy were being investigated, that no employees would be detained for “performing their official duties”, and that the government of Turkey would consult with the U.S. before detaining or arresting local staff in the future.

“Based on adherence to these assurances, the Department of State is confident that the security posture has improved sufficiently to allow for the full resumption of visa services in Turkey,” the statement read.

Turkey’s ambassador to the U.S. Serdar Kilic said his country plans to do the same for U.S. citizens seeking visas to Turkey.  The Turkish statement, however, denied that Ankara gave any assurances to the U.S. regarding potential detentions and arrests of embassy employees.

“In terms of assurances mentioned in U.S. statement, we would like to reiterate that there is rule of law in Turkey and our government did not give any assurances related to ongoing cases, and no local mission employee is under legal investigation regarding to their official duties,” his statement read. “Even though we have drawn attention to the matter, we do not approve United States informing Turkish and American public falsely by alleging that Turkey have given them assurances”

The two nations resumed limited visa services in early November, around the time of a visit to Washington by Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, but the U.S. Embassy in Ankara announced last week that the earliest appointments for applications are in January 2019, more than a year from now.

Nike Ching contributed to this report from the State Department, and VOA Turkish.

 
…

Moscow is having a “Journey to Christmas” festival from December 22 to January 14 with decorations, including over 1,000 New Year’s trees, and holiday festivities throughout the Russian capital.  VOA Moscow attended the opening of the festival in central Moscow and spoke to locals about their holiday hopes and wishes for 2018.
…

Russia is planning to begin shipments of S-400 surface-to-air missile systems to Turkey in March 2020, a senior official says of a deal that has raised eyebrows because Turkey is a NATO member.

Sergei Chemezov, head of the Russian state conglomerate Rostec, told the newspaper Kommersant in an interview published on Wednesday that the $2.5 billion deal will consist of four batteries of S-400 missiles.

“They are paying 45 percent of the total contract amount as an advance. Fifty-five percent is Russian credit,” Chemezov told Kommersant.

Turkey’s move to acquire the S-400s has been regarded in some Western capitals as a snub to the NATO alliance amid tensions with Russia over its role in the wars in Syria and eastern Ukraine.

The S-400 deal, first announced by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in September, has also caused concern because the Russian-made weapons cannot be integrated into the alliance’s defenses.

Turkish Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli said Wednesday that the deal for the missiles had been finalized.

Russia and Turkey support opposing sides in the Syrian war, but Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin patched up their relationship after it was badly damaged when Turkish jets shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border in November 2015.

The missiles have a maximum range of 400 kilometers and are capable of reaching targets at a maximum altitude of 30 kilometers.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said Moscow also expected to sign a deal with India soon on the delivery of S-400s.

Russian officials have also said that Russia and U.S. ally Saudi Arabia are close to signing a deal on supplying the S-400 systems to Riyadh.

This article contains some material from Kommersant, Reuters, dpa, TASS and Yenisafak.
…

A bus carrying Chinese tourists has skidded off the road in Iceland, killing one and injuring 12 others.

Iceland police said the crash occurred after the bus rear-ended a car near the Eldhraun lava field, about 250 kilometers east of Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital. The driver and a passenger in the car were not hurt.

Many of the injured were transported to a Reykjavik hospital by helicopters and a relief station was set up for the other passengers in nearby Kirkjubaejarklaustur village.

The owner of the tour company, Fjalar Ulfarsson, said the group was on the fourth day of a weeklong visit to Iceland when the accident happened.

“The road there is narrow and had some icing, from what I gather,” Ulfarsson told The Associated Press.

Iceland is a popular tourist destination that attracted a record number of 1.8 million visitors in 2016.
…

Airbus is drawing up contingency plans to phase out production of the world’s largest jetliner, the A380 superjumbo, if it fails to win a key order from Dubai’s Emirates, three people familiar with the matter said.

The moment of truth for the slow-selling airliner looms after just 10 years in service and leaves one of Europe’s most visible international symbols hanging by a thread, despite a major airline investment in new cabins unveiled this month.

“If there is no Emirates deal, Airbus will start the process of ending A380 production,” a person briefed on the plans said.

A supplier added such a move was logical due to weak demand. Airbus and Emirates declined to comment. Airbus also declined to say how many people work on the project.

Gradual shutdown?

Any shutdown is expected to be gradual, allowing Airbus to produce orders it has in hand, mainly from Emirates. It has enough orders to last until early next decade at current production rates, according to a Reuters analysis.

The A380 was developed at a cost of 11 billion euros to carry some 500 people and challenge the reign of the Boeing 747. But demand for these four-engined goliaths has fallen as airlines choose smaller twin-engined models, which are easier to fill and cheaper to maintain.

Emirates, however, has been a strong believer in the A380 and is easily the largest customer with total orders of 142 aircraft, of which it has taken just over 100.

Talks between Airbus and Emirates over a new order for 36 superjumbos worth $16 billion broke down at the Dubai Airshow last month. Negotiations are said to have resumed, but there are no visible signs that a deal is imminent.

British Airways interested

Although airlines such as British Airways have expressed interest in the A380, Airbus is reluctant to keep factories open without the certainty that a bulk Emirates order would provide.

Emirates, for its part, wants a guarantee that Airbus will keep production going for a decade to protect its investment.

A decision to cancel would mark a rupture between Airbus and one of its largest customers and tie Emirates’ future growth to recent Boeing orders.

European sources say that reflects growing American influence in the Gulf under President Donald Trump, but U.S. and UAE industry sources deny politics are involved. There are also potential hurdles to a deal over engine choices and after-sales support.

Safety net

Yet if talks succeed, European sources say there is a glimmer of hope for the double-deck jet, which Airbus says will become more popular with airlines due to congestion.

Singapore Airlines, which first introduced the A380 to passengers in 2007, showcased an $850 million cabin re-design this month and expressed confidence in the model’s future.

Airbus hopes to use an Emirates order to stabilize output and establish a safety net from which to attract A380 sales to other carriers, but has ruled out trying to do this the other way round, industry sources said.

As of the end of November, Airbus had won orders for 317 A380s and delivered 221, leaving 96 unfilled orders. But based on airlines’ intentions or finances, 47 of those are unlikely to be delivered, according to industry sources, which halves the number of jets in play.

30 orders needed

Airbus needs to sell at least another 30 to keep lines open for 10 years and possibly more to justify the price concessions likely to be demanded by any new buyers.

To bridge the gap, Airbus plans to cut output to six a year beyond 2019, from 12 in 2018 and 8 in 2019, even if it means producing at a loss, Reuters recently reported.

Chief Operating Officer Fabrice Bregier confirmed this month Airbus was looking at cutting output to 6-7 a year.

If Airbus does decide to wind down production, some believe Emirates will ask Airbus to deliver the remaining 41 it has on order and then keep most A380s in service as long as possible. Even so, some A380s are likely to be heading for scrap.
…

After lurching from one crisis to the next over the past 10 years, the European Union has survived a series of seemingly existential threats – and its leaders claim the bloc is ascendant.

Economic growth in the Eurozone is forecast to be higher than in the United States and Britain, while the migrant influx appears to be easing. But analysts warn that the underlying problems haven’t been solved – and the EU can’t afford to get complacent.

From the 2008 euro debt crisis that nearly bankrupted several European states, to the chaotic arrival of millions of migrants fleeing war and poverty, plus the 2016 Britain’s vote the leave the EU, the European Union has survived a decade of crises.

But in 2017, its leaders claimed Europe is back in business. In his September State of the Union speech, the EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker captured the mood.

“The wind is back in Europe’s sails. We have now a window of opportunity but it will not stay open forever,” Juncker said.

As Emmanuel Macron stepped out to give a victory speech in front of Paris’ Louvre gallery in May, he was seen by many as Europe’s savior. Macron won the presidency on an explicitly pro-European ticket, defeating the anti-EU National Front under Marine Le Pen.

Supporters credit Macron with halting the seemingly unstoppable right-wing, populist surge in Europe. But analyst Leopold Traugott of policy group Open Europe says those forces cannot be written off.

“Yes, Macron was elected a pro-European candidate, but in the end mostly because for many voters, he was the lesser evil compared to Marine Le Pen in the second round.”

President Macron even voiced hope in a September speech on Europe’s future that Britain might be lured back into a reformed EU.

Macron said that “In a union refocused on its unwavering values and an efficient market, in a few years, if it wants, the United Kingdom could find its place.”

But Europe should not get complacent, argued analyst Traugott.

“On the one hand the migration crisis is continuing, people are still coming in, and there is no system in place yet that can solve the issue in a sustainable manner, because member states are simply unwilling to agree to it. And on the Eurozone, it currently doesn’t have the necessary stable framework that is needed to keep the union working,” Traugott said. 

Europe will enter 2018 in a far more confident mood than a year ago – with the Eurozone growing, migrant numbers falling and pro-EU leaders in charge.

But from Germany’s struggles to form a new government, to the threat of a so-called hard Brexit, and Catalonia’s bid for independence from Spain – there is no shortage of potential challenges ahead.
…