ІНСАЙДЕР УКРАЇНА

Disguised Russian agents on Twitter rushed to deflect scandalous news about Donald Trump just before last year’s presidential election while straining to refocus criticism on the mainstream media and Hillary Clinton’s campaign, according to an Associated Press analysis of since-deleted accounts.

Tweets by Russia-backed accounts such as “America_1st_” and “BatonRougeVoice” on October 7, 2016, actively pivoted away from news of an audio recording in which Trump made crude comments about groping women, and instead touted damaging emails hacked from Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta.

Since early this year, the extent of Russian intrusion to help Trump and hurt Clinton in the election has been the subject of both congressional scrutiny and a criminal investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller. In particular, those investigations are looking into the possibility of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.

AP’s analysis illuminates the obvious strategy behind the Russian cyber meddling: swiftly react, distort and distract attention from any negative Trump news.

The AP examined 36,210 tweets from Aug. 31, 2015, to Nov. 10, 2016, posted by 382 of the Russian accounts that Twitter shared with congressional investigators last week. Twitter deactivated the accounts, deleting the tweets and making them inaccessible on the internet. But a limited selection of the accounts’ Twitter activity was retrieved by matching account handles against an archive obtained by AP.

“MSM [the mainstream media] is at it again with Billy Bush recording … What about telling Americans how Hillary defended a rapist and later laughed at his victim?” tweeted the America_1st_ account, which had 25,045 followers at its peak, according to metadata in the archive. The tweet went out the afternoon of Oct. 7, just hours after The Washington Post broke the story about Trump’s comments to Bush, then host of Access Hollywood, about kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women, saying, “when you’re a star, they let you do it.”

Within an hour of the Post’s story, WikiLeaks unleashed its own bombshell about hacked email from Podesta’s account, a release the Russian accounts had been foreshadowing for days.

“WikiLeaks’ [founder Julian] Assange signals release of documents before U.S. election,” tweeted both “SpecialAffair” and “ScreamyMonkey” within a second of each other on Oct. 4. “SpecialAffair,” an account describing itself as a “Political junkie in action,” had 11,255 followers at the time. “ScreamyMonkey,” self-described as a “First frontier.News aggregator,” had 13,224. Both accounts were created within three days of each other in late December 2014.

Twitter handed over the handles of 2,752 accounts it identified as coming from Russia’s Internet Research Agency to congressional investigators ahead of the social media giant’s Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 appearances on Capitol Hill. It said 9 percent of the tweets were election-related but didn’t make the tweets themselves public.

That makes the archive the AP obtained the most comprehensive historical picture so far of Russian activity on Twitter in the crucial run-up to the Nov. 8, 2016, vote. Twitter policy requires developers who archive its material to delete tweets from suspended accounts as soon as reasonably possible, unless doing so would violate the law or Twitter grants an exception. It’s possible the existence of the deleted tweets in the archive obtained by the AP runs afoul of those rules.

Earlier activity

The Russian accounts didn’t just spring into action at the last minute. They were similarly active at earlier points in the campaign.

When Trump reversed himself on a lie about Barack Obama’s birthplace on Sept. 17, declaring abruptly that Obama “was born in the United States, period,” several Russian accounts chimed in to echo Trump’s subsequent false claim that it was Clinton who had started the birther controversy.

Others continued to push birther narratives. The Russian account TEN_GOP, which many mistook for the official account of the Tennessee Republican Party, linked to a video that claimed that Obama “admits he was born in Kenya.” But the Russian accounts weren’t in lockstep. The handle “hyddrox” retweeted a post by the anti-Trump billionaire Mark Cuban that the “MSM [mainstream media] is being suckered into chasing birther stories.”

On Sept. 15, Clinton returned to the campaign trail following a bout with pneumonia that caused her to stumble at a 9/11 memorial service.

The Russian account “Pamela_Moore13” noted that her intro music was “I Feel Good” by James Brown — then observed that “James Brown died of pneumonia,” a line that was repeated at least 11 times by Russian accounts, including by “Jenn_Abrams,” which had 59,868 followers at the time.

According to several obituaries, Brown died of congestive heart failure related to pneumonia.

Racial discord also figured prominently in the tweets, just as it did with many of the ads Russian trolls had purchased on Facebook in the months leading up to and following the election. One Russian account, “Blacks4DTrump,” tweeted a Trump quote on Sept. 16 in which he declared “it is the Democratic party that is the party of slavery, the party of Jim Crow & the party of opposition.”

TEN_GOP, meanwhile, asked followers to “SPREAD the msg of black pastor explaining why African-Americans should vote Donald Trump!”
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The prosecutor at the International Criminal Court warned Wednesday that the situation in Libya “remains dire” and promised to seek new arrest warrants if serious crimes don’t stop.

Fatou Bensouda also demanded the arrest and transfer of suspects already subject to arrest warrants, including the son of former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, the former head of Libya’s Internal Security Agency and a Libyan military officer alleged to have been involved in the killing of 33 captives “in cold blood.”

Bensouda told the U.N. Security Council that the security situation in Libya “remains unstable with violent clashes occurring between various factions across Libya.” Widespread violations of human rights and international humanitarian law by different parties to the conflict also have been reported, she said.

Arrests, torture, killings

Bensouda pointed to reports emerging that the bodies of 36 men were found in the town of al-Abyar, 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of Benghazi.

“The bodies were reportedly handcuffed, showed signs of torture, and displayed bullet wounds to the head,” she said.

Bensouda also cited information that the Libyan National Army commanded by Gen. Khalifa Hifter has allegedly intensified restrictions on access to the city of Derna in recent months, blocking medicine and fuel from entering because of fighting with the Derna Mujahideen Shura Council.

She said hundreds of residents attempting to leave the city had been arrested, and she condemned airstrikes on a residential neighborhood that reportedly killed civilians, including 12 women and children.

Chaos in Libya

The overthrow of Gadhafi in 2011 spawned chaos in Libya. The power and security vacuum left the country a breeding ground for militias and militants including the Islamic State extremist group and al-Qaida affiliates. It has also made Libya a gateway for thousands of migrants from Africa and elsewhere seeking to cross the Mediterranean to Italy.

Since 2014, Libya has been split between rival governments and parliaments based in the western and eastern regions, each backed by different militias and tribes. A U.N.-brokered deal in December 2015 to create a unity government failed, though talks have been taking place to form an administration to lead the country ahead of elections.

Bensouda told the council she is gravely concerned at reports of unlawful killings, including the execution of detained people, kidnappings and forced disappearances, torture, prolonged detention without trial, rape “and other ill-treatment of migrants in official and unofficial detention centers.”

She expressed concern at crimes against migrants transiting through Libya and said “such crimes may fall within the jurisdiction of the court.”

“Let me be clear: If serious crimes … continue to be committed in Libya, I will not hesitate to bring new applications for warrants of arrest,” Bensouda said.

Arrest warrants

As for Libyans already the subject of arrest warrants, Bensouda said her office is trying to confirm the current whereabouts of Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, the late dictator’s son, who is charged in an ICC arrest warrant with murder and persecution for his alleged role in the violent suppression of anti-government protests in 2011.

He was released from custody in June after more than five years in detention as part of a pardon issued by the Libyan parliament based in the country’s eastern region.

The ICC prosecutor also urged that Hifter transfer to the court without delay Mahmoud al-Werfalli, a Libyan military officer suspected of being behind a string of killings earlier this year in the city of Benghazi, including the killing of the 33 captives. Bensouda noted that Hifter “has publicly expressed gratitude for the work of the court in relation to Mr. al-Werfalli’s case.”

She said her office is also trying to locate Al-Tuhamy Mohamed Khaled, who is wanted for four crimes against humanity and three war crimes, including torture, persecution, cruel treatment and outrages upon personal dignity. The charges involve prisoners held by Libyan security forces during protests against Gadhafi’s regime in 2011.
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The European Commission said Wednesday it wants to cut emissions of carbon dioxide from cars by 30 percent by 2030 and boost the use of electric vehicles by making them cheaper and easier to charge.

The proposal stops short of imposing fixed quotas for emission-free vehicles and is more modest than goals already set out by some EU members. Still, European automakers said the commission’s targets were too drastic, and Germany’s foreign minister warned against the proposal.

Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic insisted that the plan is the most “realistic” compromise between Europe’s ambitions to blaze trails on clean energy and the costs that the continent’s powerful car manufacturers will have to bear to overhaul workforces and production.

Current targets require automakers to achieve the average permitted emission for new models in the European Union of 95 grams of CO2 per kilometer for cars, or 147 grams for light commercial vehicles by 2021.

The new proposal foresees a further reduction of 15 percent by 2025 and 30 percent by 2030, compared to 2021 levels.

Car companies that fail to meet those targets face substantial fines of 95 euros ($110) per excess gram of carbon dioxide – per car. Automakers that manage to equip at least 30 percent of their new cars with electric or other low-emission engines by 2030 will be given credits toward their carbon tally.

The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, an industry body, criticized the 2025 target, saying “it does not leave enough time to make the necessary technical and design changes to vehicles, in particular to light commercial vehicles given their longer development and production cycles.”

The lobby group also said the targeted cut of 30 percent by 2030 was “overly challenging” and called for a 20 percent reduction instead, saying that was “achievable at a high, but acceptable, cost.”

“The current proposal is very aggressive when we consider the low and fragmented market penetration of alternatively-powered vehicles across Europe to date,” the group’s secretary general, Erik Jonnaert, said.

Germany’s foreign minister wrote to the commission last week to say the new rules shouldn’t “suffocate” the ability of automakers to innovate.

In a letter obtained by The Associated Press, Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said all European countries benefit from the jobs the auto industry creates and warned that the time frame for emissions cuts “mustn’t be too restrictive.”

The letter caused friction within the German government, which is currently hosting a two-week United Nations meeting on implementing the 2015 Paris climate accord.

“The contents of this letter weren’t coordinated within the Cabinet,” a spokeswoman for Germany’s environment ministry, Friederike Langenbruch, told reporters in Berlin.

Germany is predicted to fall short of its own climate goals, in large part due to continued high emissions from coal-fired electricity plants and vehicle traffic.

The European executive’s plan also includes 800 million euros in funding for the expansion and standardization of electric charging stations Europe-wide.

 
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Visiting Berlin in the midst of sensitive coalition talks, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire urged Germany to seize a historic window of opportunity to reform Europe, warning that the bloc could succumb to nationalism if they failed.

The visit comes six weeks after a German election forced Chancellor Angela Merkel into negotiations with parties, including the Free Democrats (FDP), that are sceptical of French President Emmanuel Macron’s ambitious vision for Europe.

By holding talks with leading members of those parties, including FDP leader Christian Lindner, Le Maire said he hoped to convince members of the next German government to leave the door open to a European deal with France as they hammer out a coalition blueprint for the next four years.

“We are of the view that there is a unique window of opportunity to improve the situation and make the eurozone stronger,” Le Maire said.

“I hope that they will take into account the necessity to

preserve a room of maneuver for negotiation,” he added.

“Because if everything is already decided in the German coalition agreement, what should we negotiate? This is one of the key reasons for my trip to Berlin.”

After nearly a decade of economic and financial crisis, and following Britain’s decision to leave the EU, Macron is pushing for a leap forward in European integration, including the creation of a budget for the eurozone and closer cooperation in defense and migration matters.

Merkel has welcomed many of his ideas, but members of her own conservative bloc and the FDP are sceptical, particularly on French plans for the eurozone, fearing Germany will be asked to pay for the policy failures of reform-wary southern states.

Europe faces choice

Speaking to reporters after meeting with Lindner, Le Maire said he believed that the differences could be overcome.

“None of the difficulties are insurmountable. I found a man who is conscious of his political responsibilities, conscious of his historic responsibilities,” he said.

Earlier in a speech to a Franco-German business forum, Le Maire likened the current situation in the eurozone to standing in the middle of a strong-flowing river where the currents were most dangerous.

He said Europe faced a choice: turn back to the shore from where they came, embracing nationalism and isolation, or say “now is the time” and press on to the opposite bank by pursuing closer integration of the eurozone.

“That status quo is not an option,” Le Maire said.

He spelled out four steps for a reform of the 19-nation single currency bloc. In the first, Europe would complete its banking union, capital markets union and harmonise its tax regimes, particularly in the area of corporate taxes.

Second, Europe would bolster its rescue fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), and third, it would introduce a budget for the eurozone to fund investments in areas such as transport, energy and artificial intelligence, and help the bloc cope with economic shocks.

In a last step, member states could appoint a finance minister for the eurozone, he said.

Switching between fluent German and French, Le Maire said Franco-German working groups should be created to discuss reform on a “weekly or even daily basis.” He said other countries should be brought into the process, naming Spain and Italy.

In his speech to the business forum, Le Maire urged the bloc to unite in pushing back against powers like China and the United States that he said were determined to shape the world according to their national interests.

German politicians have been sceptical of Macron’s “l’Europe qui protege” (Europe that protects) pledge, fearful of a return to old-fashioned French protectionism.

But Le Maire said Europe should no longer be “naive” in the face of economic challenges from abroad, accusing the Chinese of killing off the European solar panel industry and the Americans of using extra-territorial sanctions to shape global trade rules in their favor.

“Europe needs to stop being scared of its own shadow,” Le Maire said. “Divided we are nothing. Together we are everything.”

 
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Russia clashed with Western nations Tuesday over a report blaming Syria for a deadly chemical weapons attack, with Moscow dismissing its findings as “mythical or invented” and the U.S. backing its finger-pointing at President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

The debate in the Security Council during a meeting on the report reflected the sharp differences between Russia, Syria’s most important ally, and Western countries that have backed Assad’s opponents.

It also raised serious questions about whether the mandate of the experts who issued the report will be renewed — and whether anyone in Syria will ever be held accountable for using chemical weapons, which are banned internationally.

Russia and the United States have circulated rival resolutions to extend the experts’ body, known as the Joint Investigative Mechanism, or JIM. Its mandate expires Nov. 14.

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley told the Security Council that a revised U.S. draft circulated Tuesday included some points from the Russian draft, including the importance of high standards and sound evidence.

But she said Russia continues “to push unacceptable language only meant to undermine the investigators and divide this council.”

Russia vetoed a U.S.-sponsored council resolution Oct. 24 that would have renewed the mandate of the experts from the United Nations and the international chemical weapons watchdog for a year. It said it wanted to wait to see the JIM report on the sarin nerve gas attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun and a mustard gas attack at Um Hosh in Aleppo in September 2016.

Two days later, the JIM reported its leaders were “confident” that Syria was responsible for an aerial attack on Khan Sheikhoun on April 4 using sarin that killed about 100 people and affected about 200 others who survived “acute exposure” to the nerve agent. The conclusion supported the initial findings by the United States, France and Britain.

The experts also said they were “confident” the Islamic State extremist group was responsible for the Um Hosh attack using mustard gas.

Assistant Secretary-General Edmond Mulet, who heads the JIM, told the council how experts reached their conclusions, including finding that the chemistry of the sarin used in Khan Sheikhoun was very likely to have been made from the same precursor, called DF, as the sarin in Syria’s original stockpile.

In September 2013, Syria accepted a Russian proposal to relinquish its chemical weapons stockpile and join the Chemical Weapons Convention. That averted a U.S. military strike in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta.

Mulet said the Security Council has “a unique responsibility” to deter all those using chemical weapons and “end the use of such weapons forever.”  

“I understand the political issues surrounding the situation in the Syrian Arab Republic,” he said. “However, this is not a political issue about the lives of innocent civilians. Impunity must not prevail.”

Russia’s criticisms

Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Vladimir Safronkov, was sharply critical of the JIM and the report, especially the experts’ failure to visit Khan Sheikhoun, which Mulet said was for security reasons.

Safronkov derided the JIM for not pinpointing specific responsibility, asking: Is “an entire state is responsible?” He also complained that “while some continue to try to find this mythical or invented chemical weapons in Damascus, the region is seeing an increasing threat of chemical terrorism” that isn’t being addressed.

Deputy British Ambassador Jonathan Allen said Russia has advanced multiple theories about the Khan Sheikhoun attack, and when one gets debunked Moscow goes with something else.

“It’s one of the great tragedies that Russia is a country with hugely respected and impressive scientists, but also a country of great fiction writers,” he told several reporters. “And unfortunately the scientists of Russia are being ignored and the fiction writers are being indulged.”

Allen called Russia’s draft resolution to renew the JIM mandate “a cynical ploy to discredit a professional, independent and impartial body.”

“Russia is trying to shoot the messenger to cover up for the crimes of the Syrian regime,” he said.

Syria’s U.N. ambassador, Bashar Ja’afari, the last speaker, told the council the JIM report “is not neutral, nor is it professional.”

Its “wrongful” accusation against Syria is based on “the fabrication of evidence and the manipulation of information,” he said.

Ja’afari said Syria abides by the Chemical Weapons Convention and “considers the use of chemical weapons an immoral act that must be condemned.”
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Lithuania expects NATO to reach an agreement next year to shield Baltic countries with air defenses, plugging a gap in its security against Russia, its defense minister said Tuesday.

Since Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and began providing weapons and troops to separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, NATO has sent more forces to the Baltics, eastern Poland and around the Black Sea.

Lithuania, which borders the Russian region of Kaliningrad, wants NATO to permanently deploy anti-aircraft weapons in the Baltics or Poland — a move seen by Moscow as an unjustified military buildup on its borders.

“We expect so,” Defense Minister Raimundas Karoblis told Reuters when asked if he saw an agreement shaping up for the NATO summit in 2018. “Air defense is one of the issues which we need to address. We also need to look at other domains, like NATO command structure reform, we need to move forward on all on these aspects,” he said, also calling for NATO to strengthen maritime defenses in the Baltics.

Karoblis spoke in Helsinki after meeting his counterparts from Northern Group countries, including the Nordic and Baltic states, Britain, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands. U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis also joined the meeting.

Karoblis said exercises should be considered by NATO after Russia’s Zapad war games unnerved the West in September.

Mattis told reporters after the meeting that the 12 nations stood together to reaffirm territorial integrity.

“It is clear that one nation thinks it holds some kind of a veto or strong influence over others, that is Russia. The country’s name came up repeatedly over the last 48 hours,” he said.
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EU diplomats will start sketching out a Brexit transition offer on Wednesday that would probably let Britain stay in the single market for about two years after it leaves the bloc in March 2019, EU officials said.

But some officials and diplomats involved in preparing for the first “orientation debate” among envoys from the other 27 EU states warned London should not assume it can clinch an initial deal next month to open talks on post-Brexit relations. Some governments see benefits in making Britain wait for it.

An EU official familiar with Wednesday’s agenda said states would be asked their views on the “scope of the transition period, its length” and whether special regulations would be needed to enforce EU rules in Britain, which will no longer be a member but wants to maintain full access to EU markets.

Several officials who spoke to Reuters said that in the transition period Britain would have to abide by all EU laws, even if they are changed during that period, but would have no influence over them. “Anything else would be too complicated,” a second official said. Two others expressed the same view.

“The EU view on the transition period and the future will in a way be a moment of truth, exposing all the lies of those who campaigned for Brexit saying that Britain will be able to have the cake and eat it,” a third official said.

Wednesday’s discussions will also seek to gather views on the future trade relationship with London that is to follow a transition, which may finish in December 2020, at the end of the current seven-year EU budget period.

EU leaders told Prime Minister Theresa May last month they were not ready to negotiate post-Brexit arrangements until London offered more concessions on its “divorce’’ terms. But they held out the prospect of opening such talks at a summit in mid-December and ordered their officials to start preparing among the 27 for a move to this new phase of talks.

Brief encounter

British Brexit Minister David Davis is expected in Brussels on Friday for the first negotiations since that mid-October summit with May. But the anticipated brief encounter with EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier is not expected to produce a breakthrough on how much Britain will pay the EU on leaving.

Diplomats and officials said the continued slow pace of the divorce talks was increasing the possibility that EU leaders would again refuse next month to open trade talks. They said some may already be considering that as a useful tactic against Britain, which is anxious to prevent businesses relocating investment.

“Some believe that the worse it gets for the British, the better for us … that maybe we could delay it all until for instance March, increasing the uncertainty and triggering the contingency plans in the corporate sector,” the first EU official said.

“That would be ruthless and risky, but people have different views on what is risky.”

An EU diplomat involved in negotiations said he expected envoys also to discuss how to handle a possible failure next month to open the next phase of talks if May refuses to meet EU demands.

“What do we do if they (the British) don’t move?” he said.

Some continental negotiators believe British anxiety about businesses starting to shift investments in the new year if there is no transition deal could be to Brussels’ advantage.

Officials said Britain’s full membership in the single market, even during a transition, is not a given. “There is no up-front agreement on that. It is part of a bigger package. For instance it is not feasible to expect they would be in the single market … but not pay into the EU budget,” one said.

There will be one or two more meetings of EU envoys before they expect to agree what in detail they might offer Britain in terms of a transition period, officials said. The results of these discussions will not be presented to the British, however, until after leaders have agreed to open a new phase of talks.

 
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British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is facing calls to resign after saying recently that a British-Iranian woman currently jailed in Iran had been training journalists when she was arrested. Boris Johnson has since said he “could have chosen his words more carefully.”

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested at Tehran airport in April 2016 as she tried to return home to Britain after a vacation to visit her parents.

Iranian authorities have never revealed the exact charges against Zaghari-Ratcliffe, but earlier this year sentenced her to jail for five years, purportedly on grounds of national security.’

The website of the Iranian judiciary Monday published an article quoting Johnson, saying the foreign secretary’s statement “has shed new light on the realities about Nazanin.”

The Reuters news agency reports that after Johnson made the controversial remarks, Zaghari-Ratcliffe was brought back to court in Iran and accused by a judge of “spreading propaganda against the regime.”

Johnson’s remark that Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been in Iran “teaching people journalism” was made before a parliamentary committee last week.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s employer, the Thomson Reuters Foundation, says that is false, and fears Iran will use Johnson’s words to justify extending her sentence.

“We have not seen any progress in Nazanin’s situation, and the situation is that now they want to double her sentence. This is unimaginable that she would do 10 years without being a culprit of anything,” said Monique Villa, the CEO of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, where Zaghari-Ratcliffe worked as a project manager.

Johnson has since spoken to his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, on the telephone and said that the earlier remarks “could form no justifiable basis for further action in this case.” Johnson said he plans to travel to Tehran in the coming weeks to discuss the case.

The incident sparked a heated exchange in the British parliament Tuesday as Johnson faced opposition calls to step down.

“How about the foreign secretary himself show a bit of personal responsibility and admit that a job like this, where your words hold gravity and your actions have consequences, is simply not the job for him,” opposition Labor MP and Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry told lawmakers.

Johnson accused his rival of trying to create political capital out of the incident.

“She can choose to blame, to heap blame, on to the British Foreign Office that is trying to secure the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, and in so doing, she deflects blame, she deflects accountability from those who are truly responsible for holding that mother in jail, and that is the Iranian regime.”

The foreign secretary added the British government had “no doubt” Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was on vacation.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been separated from her two-year-old daughter, who is now being cared for by her grandparents. Zaghari-Ratcliffe is still only able to see her child for strictly limited periods. She has been held in solitary confinement and her health is reported to be deteriorating.

Despite the setbacks, her family and supporters say they still have hope that she will be released before Christmas.
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The United Nations is calling for an immediate halt to the Saudi Arabian coalition’s blockade of life-saving commercial goods into Yemen. The coalition closed all land, sea and air ports in Yemen following a ballistic missile launch by Yemen’s Houthi rebels near Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh, Saturday.

The United Nations reports humanitarian operations in Yemen are blocked because of the port closures. U.N. Organization for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Spokesman Jens Laerke said food, medicine and fuel are not allowed to enter Yemen, making life more difficult for millions of people in this war-torn country.

For example, he reported that fuel prices have jumped 60 percent overnight in some parts of the country. He said the price of cooking gas has doubled and long lines of cars are queuing at gas stations.

“We are very concerned about the likely rapid negative impact of the closure of Yemen entry points on the already dire humanitarian situation in the country where seven million people are fighting against famine-like conditions… and rely completely on humanitarian aid to survive,” he said.

If the supply pipeline comes to a halt, Laerke warned food insecurity will deepen and Yemen will be facing a greater humanitarian crisis.

“Between 80 and 90 percent of food imports are coming in through these ports prior to the crisis,” he added. “If these channels — these lifelines — are not kept open, it is catastrophic for people who already, in what we have already labelled the world’s worst humanitarian crisis at the moment.”

The Saudi Arabian coalition began an intensive campaign of air strikes against the Houthi rebels in support of the Yemeni government in March 2015. Since then, the United Nations reports more than 14,000 civilian casualties. These include nearly 5,300 people killed and almost 8,900 injured.

The United Nations adds the actual number of civilian deaths and injuries is likely to be far higher.
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Emboldened by the United States’ firm opposition to the Iraqi Kurdish  independence referendum in September, Turkey is pushing to persuade Washington to abandon its support for Syrian Kurdish militia, YPG, as it fights  the Islamic State militant group.

Washington’s robust opposition to its long time ally, the Iraqi Kurds, came as a welcome surprise in Ankara. Turkey fears the establishment of any Kurdish independent state would fuel the secessionist demands of the Kurdish minority in southeastern Turkey.

International relations expert Soli Ozel of Istanbul’s Kadir Has University, said the U.S. stance challenged widespread Turkish suspicions of Washington’s motives in the region.

“Everyone in Turkey who had a word to say about the matter of the Kurdish referendum was 200 percent certain that the Americans were behind it,” he said. “The referendum took place and the Americans sold [out] the Kurds. That opens a space for dialogue — that it is obvious the Americans did not want, at least at this juncture, an independent Kurdish State.”

Emboldened by this opposition, Turkey hopes to persuade Washington to abandon its support of the YPG. Ankara accuses the group of having its own secessionist aspirations and of being affiliated to Kurdish rebels fighting in Turkey.

Ozel said history is on Turkey’s side.

“Would the same thing happen to the Syrian Kurds? That is the million dollar question,” he said. “I always go back to that very unkind sentence uttered by Henry Kissinger when they dropped aid to Iraqi Kurds back in 1975. He said international relations is not charity work. Will the United States do the same to the Syrian Kurds? I suppose the Turks hope they would.”

During the 1970s, then-U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger presided over the policy in which the U.S. cut off military support to an Iraqi Kurdish insurgency against Baghdad, following a deal between Iran and Iraq. Analysts say that decision continues to cast a shadow in the minds of many Kurds and raise questions of how much they can depend on Washington as an ally.

But Haldun Solmazturk, head of the Ankara based research group 21st Century Turkey Institute, said the geopolitical situation in the Middle East today is far more favorable to Syrian Kurds.

“Iraq and Syria have become the main battleground for Americans and Russians,” he said. “So in a sense it’s like a chessboard, so Kurds are very valuable pieces on this board. So both sides would like to be in friendly conditions with them. So neither Americans nor Russians will abandon Kurds.”

The United States considers the Syrian Kurds its best fighting force on the ground against Islamic State militants, but has to balance that interest with maintaining good relations with Turkey, a NATO ally.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim is expected to again press for an end to U.S. support of Syrian Kurds during his visit to Washington this week. U.S. officials likely will be only too aware Moscow is waiting to exploit such a move.
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Nordic countries agreed on Monday to step up defense cooperation and exchange more air surveillance information because they are worried about Russia’s increasing military activity.

The countries have increased defense spending and cooperation with each other and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.

“The … situation is a common concern for the Nordic countries … We aim at strengthening our national defense and finding cooperation to better address security concerns,” Finnish Defense Minister Jussi Niinisto told a news conference.

It followed a meeting with his Swedish, Danish and Norwegian counterparts and a representative from Iceland.

He said the agreement to exchange more air surveillance data would contribute “positively to situational awareness” as well as flight safety. The Nordic countries have accused Russia of repeatedly violating their airspace in the past few years.

The countries also agreed to cooperate on procurement and said they planned to use a common Nordic combat uniform.

“We see an aggressive Russia that is building up its forces, renewing its materials, having new missiles in Kaliningrad … That is the new picture in our part of the world,” said Danish Defense Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen Kaliningrad lies between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea. Other ministers said Russia did not pose a current threat.

The Baltic sea region is a zone of heightened tensions between Moscow and the West. Russia has increased its military capability in its Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad and criticized NATO for stationing anti-missile shields in eastern Europe.

Norway, Denmark and Iceland are NATO members, while Sweden and Finland – which shares an 833-mile (1,340-km) border with Russia – have remained militarily non-aligned.

Finland said last week it was planning large-scale military drills with the Nordics, the United States and other allies as early as 2020.

The ministers will meet in Helsinki on Tuesday with a Northern Group that includes Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland and the Baltic states.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis will also join the meeting.
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A walking tour to learn about Budapest’s Muslim community and its mosques has become popular with Hungarians as a way of overcoming fears and reservations amid a strident anti-immigrant campaign by the government.

Budapest-based tour operator Setamuhely (Budapest Walkshop) runs 30 different walks, taking visitors around the city’s architectural and cultural sites and the Jewish and Muslim communities.

“I can say that this walk, ‘Muslims who live among us,’ is the most popular tour,” said Anna Lenard who runs the business.

When the Muslim tour was set up three years ago, very few people were interested.

“Most people have never met a Muslim in their life and this … together with what they hear every day in the media causes a lot of tension and stress in daily life. I think this is the main reason why people are coming now,” Lenard said.

Most of the people on the four-hour walk have a college degree, and two-thirds are women, she said.

Hungary’s Muslim community, estimated to number about 40,000, grew with the migration crisis of 2015, though most of them arrived earlier to study at Hungarian universities.

Though hundreds of thousands of migrants crossed into Hungary from the Balkans at the peak of the crisis, the majority went on to richer parts of western Europe.

Data from think tank Tarki shows the proportion of people deemed to be xenophobic and resentful of foreign immigrants shot up to 60 percent this year, rising 19 points from two years ago.

About 80 people go on the Muslim tour per month, the organizers said.

A typical group of around 30 people first goes to a small mosque hidden in an old apartment where Muslims come to pray at the time of the visit.

“I am very interested in everything multi-cultural and in cultures and religions that live among us,” said Nauszika, a psychologist who did not want to give her full name.

“It is the best way to lose your fears if you start to ask the one who you [are] afraid of,” added tour leader Marianna Karman, an Africa expert who converted to Islam herself.

“These people choose to come on these walks because they would like to talk about this problem. They want to fight against their fears.”

Other points on the tour can include Muslim food shops and Budapest’s largest mosque, located in a former office building.
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President Tayyip Erdogan announced on Monday plans to demolish a culture center in Istanbul named after the founder of modern secular Turkey, in a move critics see as another attempt by the Islamist-rooted ruling party to roll back secularism.

It marks Erdogan’s second attempt to tear down the Ataturk Culture Center (AKM), named after Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, after a previous plan to develop the site near Taksim Square in 2013 erupted into mass protests against Turkey’s ruling AK Party.

The project envisages building an opera house, theatre hall, a conference center and cinema on the site, near Gezi Park, the epicenter of the 2013 protests. Four years ago Erdogan had wanted to build a replica Ottoman baracks at the site.

“Today Turkey is starting something it should have done 10 years ago,” Erdogan said at a ceremony where he announced the project. He said the new building would be a “new and bigger” opera house, referring to it as “the New AKM Project.”

Erdogan, who served as mayor of Istanbul in the 1990s, has long argued for the need to replace the AKM, saying the building is not resistant to earthquakes. The AKM has been closed to the public for the past 10 years over disagreements regarding its renovation and infrastructure.

Opponents, however, see the planned demolition as further proof that Erdogan, a pious Muslim, and his AK Party want to reverse the secular order established by Ataturk in the 1920s and to reduce the use of the state founder’s name and image in public life.

Turkey’s chamber of architects said in a statement on Friday that demolishing the AKM was “a crime” and a violation of the constitution.

“The countless warnings and criminal complaints we have filed to public offices over the years have not been processed and the law has been disregarded, the AKM has been intentionally abandoned to demolition,” the chamber said.

“We are warning once again: For years, there have been willing crimes committed against history, culture, arts, society and the people in front of the eyes of the world,” it said, without elaborating.

The new project, whose cost has not been disclosed, will increase the capacity of the building from 1,300 people to 2,500 people, the presidency said in a statement.

Separately, Erdogan said the project would also pave the way to pedestrianizing Taksim Square, one of the busiest hubs in Istanbul.
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Hundreds of protesters were arrested in Moscow Sunday during a demonstration against Russian president Vladimir Putin coinciding with celebrations of Russia’s National Unity Day holiday.

According to OVD-Info, which monitors crackdowns on demonstrations, 360 people had been arrested in demonstrations across the country by 5pm on Sunday. Moscow police had put the figure in the capital at 260.

Tass news agency said that many protesters in Moscow had knives and brass knuckles.

Protesters at the unsanctioned demonstration are believed to be linked to nationalist politician and Kremlin critic Vyacheslav Maltsev and his Artillery Preparation movement — a group declared extremist and banned in Russia.

Self-exiled Maltsev said on YouTube that Russia is up for a “revolution” this weekend.

Putin declared November 4 “National Unity Day” in 2005 to mark Russia’s victory over Poland in 1612.

 
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The indictment last week of former Donald Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, who admitted lying about contacts with Russia during the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign, is turning the spotlight on London as an important hub of suspected Kremlin meddling in Western politics, say analysts and Western officials.

Papadopoulos, who White House spokespeople say was a low-level and unimportant foreign policy adviser in last year’s campaign, was initially introduced to shadowy Russian contacts by a London-based globe-trotting Maltese academic, according to the indictment of Papadopoulos unsealed last week by special counsel Robert Mueller.

But the British capital is now featuring more prominently than just the venue of meetings between Papadopoulos and Russian officials.

Probes launched on both sides of the Atlantic into suspected Russian subversion of last year’s White House race and the 2016 Brexit referendum are increasingly highlighting the British capital as a hotbed of Russian intelligence activity that links individuals and groups of interest to investigators in Washington as well as in Britain.

Political pressure is mounting on the ruling Conservative government of Theresa May to launch a broad formal inquiry into whether Moscow sought to influence the Brexit vote.

The demands came as it emerged that three senior past and present Foreign Office ministers, including the current Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson may have been targeted by individuals identified by the FBI last week as central to the Mueller probe.

Mueller is investigating Russia’s meddling in the U.S. election and accusations of collusion between Trump campaign aides and the Kremlin. The Trump administration has denied there was any collusion. Papadopolous reached a deal last month with Mueller, agreeing to plead guilty to lying to FBI agents about his contacts with Russian intermediaries during the presidential race.

According to the indictment Papadopoulos was offered “thousands of emails” of “dirt” on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in his meetings. Those offers came months before Wikileaks, whose head Julian Assange is based in London, published emails hacked from Democratic Party servers in what U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed as part of an “active measures operation” by Moscow.

Britain’s Observer newspaper reported Sunday that Papadopoulos and the Maltese professor, who was not named in the Mueller indictment but was subsequently identified as Joseph Mifsud, had several meetings or encounters with British ministers. As recently as two weeks ago Mifsud reportedly attended a dinner at which Boris Johnson was present and was the guest speaker. Foreign Office officials have told the British press that Johnson did not “knowingly” speak with Mifsud.

Before the dinner, the Maltese academic, who has boasted to colleagues he has met Russian leader Vladimir Putin, told friends he planned to raise the current Brexit negotiations with Johnson, according to en email obtained by Byline, an independent news-site.

The disclosure about the meetings has prompted opposition party calls for the British government to launch a full-fledged inquiry into Russian intelligence activity. It is adding to growing unease about whether Moscow tried to influence Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the European Union.

Tom Watson, deputy leader of Britain’s Labour party, has dubbed the meetings “extraordinary” and argues it is vital to know if the Kremlin had sought to influence British politics. The disclosure of Mifsud’s attendance at a Conservative dinner featuring Johnson comes just days after the British Foreign Secretary dismissed worries about possible Russian interference in British politics, saying, “I haven’t seen a sausage.”

Earlier this year, Britain’s Electoral Commission announced it was investigating whether the Leave campaign run by Nigel Farage, a leading Brexiter and Trump supporter, received “impermissible” donations. The elections watchdog said, “this followed an assessment which concluded that there were reasonable grounds to suspect that potential offenses under the law may have occurred.”

Last week, the Electoral Commission launched a second narrower probe into the source of some of the donations and loans to Farage’s campaign amid allegations by Labour lawmaker and former minister Ben Bradshaw that the funds may have been “dark money” channeled to disguise its origin.

A leading Brexit campaign financier, Arron Banks, says Russia had no hand in funding Farage’s campaign. “They’re in a tizzy. They think it was funded by Russia,” Banks told The Times newspaper. “Of course it didn’t. It came from my bank account.”

The denial is not quieting a mounting chorus in Britain’s Parliament for a bigger investigation. Tom Brake, a Liberal Democrat lawmaker, is also urging a formal inquiry, citing “concerns emerging about possible Russian interference in the EU referendum.

British election officials say they are talking also with social media companies to establish whether Russian agencies may have used Facebook and Twitter to try to influence the Brexit vote in much the same way investigators allege they attempted to do in the U.S. election last year.

 
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Catalonia’s ousted leader Carles Puigdemont and four former ministers turned themselves in Sunday in Brussels, following Spain’s issuance of a warrant for their arrests.

Puigdemont had said Saturday he intended to cooperate with officials in Brussels, where he fled last week, tweeting, “We are prepared to fully cooperate with Belgian justice following the European arrest warrant issued by Spain.”

A Spanish judge issued the warrant for Puigdemont a day after she jailed nine members of the region’s separatist government pending possible charges over last week’s declaration of independence. One person was later granted bail.

The National Court judge filed the request with the Belgian prosecutor to detain Puigdemont and his four aides, and issued separate European search and arrest warrants to alert Interpol in case they fled Belgium.

Belgian federal prosecutors said they had received the arrest warrant and could question Puigdemont in coming days.

Puigdemont and the four others were being sought on charges that included rebellion, sedition and embezzlement as a result of a Spanish investigation into their roles in pushing for secession for Catalonia.
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The former leader of Spain’s Catalonia region said Saturday that he would cooperate with Belgian officials following Spanish authorities’ issuance of a European warrant for his arrest.

Carles Puigdemont said in a tweet: “We are prepared to fully cooperate with Belgian justice following the European arrest warrant issued by Spain.”

A Spanish judge issued the warrant for Puigdemont a day after she jailed nine members of the region’s separatist government pending possible charges over last week’s declaration of independence. One person was later granted bail.

Puigdemont, who was thought to be in Belgium, didn’t specify his current location, though he and several aides fled to Brussels last week after Spanish authorities removed them from office.

The National Court judge filed the request with the Belgian prosecutor to detain Puigdemont and his four aides, and issued separate European search and arrest warrants to alert Interpol in case they fled Belgium.

Belgian federal prosecutors said they had received the arrest warrant and could question Puigdemont in coming days.

Puigdemont’s Belgian attorney did not answer calls requesting comment, but had said that his client would fight extradition to Spain without seeking political asylum.

Puigdemont and the four others were being sought on charges that included rebellion, sedition and embezzlement as a result of a Spanish investigation into their roles in pushing for secession for Catalonia.
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