The U.S. is providing Ukraine with lethal weapons, in an effort to help the country with its fight against Russian-backed separatists in the eastern part of the country.   

The U.S. State Department said in a statement Friday that the decision to provide Ukraine with “enhanced defensive capabilities” is in keeping with the “effort to help Ukraine build its long-term defense capacity, to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

The statement added that the “U.S. assistance is entirely defensive in nature.”

An ABC-TV news report issued before the announcement said the “The total defense package of $47 million includes the sale of 210 anti-tank missiles and 35 launchers.”  The State Department did not confirm that those weapons would be among those supplied.

U.S. President Donald Trump has called for better relations with Moscow, but the arms deal with Kyiv is seen as a likely threat to efforts toward improving ties.

Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned Russia that the stand-off over Ukraine was the single most important obstacle to warmer ties between the two countries.

 
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More than 70 firefighters tackled a blaze at London Zoo on Saturday after a fire broke out at a cafe and shop at the attraction. No animals were reported injured.

The blaze broke out shortly after 0600 GMT, London Fire Brigade said. The fire was near an area where visitors can handle and feed animals but none were thought to have been involved.

“The fire at @zsllondonzoo is now under control but crews will remain on the scene throughout the morning damping down the fire which has affected a cafe and a shop,” the fire brigade said on Twitter.

Ten fire engines were sent to the zoo in Regent’s Park in central London. The fire brigade had earlier said that about three-quarters of the Adventure Cafe and a gift shop were alight. The cause of the fire was not yet known.

The attraction, the world’s oldest scientific zoo, which dates it origins back to 1826, houses 20,166 animals, according to its inventory for 2017.
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Spain’s prime minister has rejected demands for talks from Catalonia’s independence leaders, following regional elections in the semi-autonomous region Thursday which gave pro-secessionist parties a slim majority of two seats in the Catalan parliament.

The election was called after Madrid sacked the Catalan government, after it tried to declare independence following a disputed referendum in October.

​The former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont, who is in exile in Belgium, called for talks Friday with Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy in a location outside Spain.

“Catalonia wants to be an independent state. This is the wish of the Catalan people,” Puigdemont told reporters in Brussels.

Puigdemont would face arrest if he tried to return to Spain. Many independence leaders have been jailed on charges of sedition, rebellion and misuses of public funds. The investigation was widened Friday to include several more Catalan politicians.

Rajoy said the election result does not affect the criminal charges.

“I hope there is a government that abandons unilateral decision-making and does not place itself above the law,” he told reporters in Madrid. He added that his first point of contact would be with the leader of the pro-unity Ciudadanos’ or Citizens party, which won the most votes, though short of the number needed to form a government.

​Back where they started

After the political convulsions of the past three months, Catalonia and Spain are back to square one, said Xabier Barrena, a political columnist for the El Periodico newspaper.

“Catalonia is living in an infinite stalemate. There was a considerable increase in participation in the parliamentary elections this time, and despite this, the result is the same as in 2015. Both then, and now, the solution must be a legitimate referendum,” he said.

The most likely election outcome remains a coalition of the three pro-independence parties, but their options appear limited, Barrena said.

“Any unilateral declaration (of independence) would elicit a violent response from the state,” he said. “So, they will avoid that course.”

WATCH: Spanish PM Rebuffs Catalan Leaders’ Demand for Talks on Independence Following Election

​Economic uncertainty

Meanwhile fears are growing that the uncertainty is hitting Catalonia’s economy. Carlos Rivaduro, head of Catalonia’s Association of Small Business, says the global image of Barcelona and Catalonia is taking a hit.

“Who wants to do business in a place where politicians are promoting division, exclusion, lack of solidarity?” he said.

The political tensions are given extra spice as the Barcelona football team travels to play Real Madrid Saturday. For many, the sporting rivalry trumps politics.

The Christmas break offers a few days respite before the political battle kicks off once again.
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Italy organized a first airlift of refugees from Libyan detention centers to Rome after coming under international criticism for helping the Libyan coast guard block migrants from leaving by boat.

The Interior Ministry said the refugees were due to arrive later Friday at Rome’s Pratica di Mare military base. Interior Minister Marco Minniti and the head of the Italian bishops’ conference, Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, were to welcome them.

The U.N. refugee agency’s Libya representative, Roberto Mignone, tweeted that he was traveling with 162 “vulnerable” refugees. Italy said the women, children and elderly people were all entitled to international protection. It did not say what countries they came from.

Italy and the EU have come under criticism from human rights groups for helping the Libyan coast guard more effectively patrol its coasts to prevent smugglers from operating. The groups say the policy has condemned refugees to torture, abuse and other inhuman treatment at the hands of militias who control lawless Libya’s detention centers.

Italy has defended the policy, saying it has helped save lives and reduced by 33 percent the number of migrants who arrived in Italy this year.

As of Friday, Italy had taken in some 118,914 migrants, compared to the record 179,769 who arrived in 2016. The International Organization of Migration recorded more than 3,100 deaths among migrants making the Mediterranean crossing in 2017, but the actual number is likely higher since an unknown number of boats sink without rescue crews ever knowing.

The airlift organized by the Italian government follows the “humanitarian corridors” initiated by the Sant’Egidio Community and other Christian churches that have already brought about 1,000 people to Italy, most from refugee camps in Lebanon.

In addition to the Italian airlift, African nations have begun repatriating their citizens from Libya.

The United Nations has vowed to close the government-controlled detention centers in Libya to prevent the migrants from being trafficked and enslaved.
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Britain announced Friday it would return to “iconic” blue and gold passports after it formally leaves the European Union in 2019.

Since 1988, British passports have been issued with a burgundy sleeve along with other European Union countries.

Supporters of Brexit hailed the decision as a reclaiming of Britain’s independence from the EU, while opponents have mocked their attachment to something superficial and have voiced concern that Brexit will diminish the country’s standing in the world.

“The UK passport is an expression of our independence and sovereignty — symbolizing our citizenship of a proud, great nation,” Prime Minister Theresa May said on Twitter.

“That’s why we have announced that the iconic blue passport will return after we leave the European Union in 2019.”

But a number of lawmakers, including some from May’s own party, said Friday the changing of a passport color would not appease those who opposed Brexit, many of whom are more concerned about economic issues and relations with Europe.

The announcement comes a week after EU leaders agreed to allow Britain to move onto the next phase of Brexit negotiations. The second phase of Brexit will be focused on post-Brexit relations between London and the European Union and any potential future trade agreements.
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Kosovo’s president has urged political parties to intensify efforts to ratify a border demarcation deal with Montenegro which is set as a precondition by the European Union for a visa-free regime for the country’s citizens.

In his end-of-year speech to parliament Friday, Hashim Thaci urged all local actors to speed up efforts to find a solution “within the next weeks.”

“Without losing time we should ratify the border demarcation deal with Montenegro. Ratification of such a deal would give an end to the unfair isolation of the Republic of Kosovo’s citizens,” said Thaci.

The 2015 deal has been contested by the opposition, which says Kosovo is ceding territory — a claim denied by the previous government and international experts. The protesters disrupted parliamentary work, using tear gas canisters, blowing whistles and throwing water bottles.

The government has re-sent the border issue to parliament, which has yet to set the time of its debate.

The opposition was not in the hall to follow Thaci, who also urged lawmakers to approve an agreement signed by the government to establish an association of municipalities with an ethnic-Serb population.

“The EU and many other partner countries are disillusioned with our inability to comply with the pledges,” he said, adding that the country’s credibility and reputation were at stake as it aims for EU and NATO membership.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, which Belgrade has not recognized.
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Hackers tried to steal 55 million rubles ($940,000) from Russian state bank Globex using the SWIFT international payments messaging system, the bank said Thursday, the latest in a string of attempted cyberheists that use fraudulent wire-transfer requests.

Globex President Valery Ovsyannikov told Reuters that the attempted attack occurred last week, but that “customer funds have not been affected.”

The bank’s disclosure came after SWIFT, whose messaging system is used to transfer trillions of dollars each day, warned late last month that the threat of digital heists was on the rise as hackers use increasingly sophisticated tools and techniques to launch new attacks.

SWIFT said in late November that hackers continued to target the SWIFT bank messaging system, though security controls instituted after last year’s $81 million heist at Bangladesh’s central bank have helped thwart many of those attempts.

Sources familiar with last week’s attack on Globex said the bank had spotted the attack and been able to prevent the cybercriminals from stealing all the funds they had sought, according to a report in the Kommersant daily. The hackers withdrew only about $100,000, the report said.

Globex is a part of the state development bank VEB. VEB plans to transfer Globex to the state property management agency, sources familiar with the talks told Reuters this week.

SWIFT representatives declined to discuss the Globex case.

“We take cybersecurity very seriously, and we investigate all threats very seriously, taking all appropriate actions to mitigate any risks and protect our services,” the group said in a statement emailed to Reuters. “There is no evidence to suggest that there has been any unauthorized access to SWIFT’s network or messaging services.”

Brussels-based SWIFT has issued a string of warnings urging banks to bolster security in the wake of the February 2016 cyberheist at the Bangladesh bank, which targeted central bank computers used to move funds through the messaging system.

While SWIFT has declined to disclose the number of attacks or identify any victims, details of some cases have become public, including attacks on Taiwan’s Far Eastern International Bank and Nepal’s NIC Asia Bank.

Shane Shook, a cyberexpert who has helped investigate some hacks targeting the SWIFT messaging network, said that at least seven distinct groups have been launching such attacks for at least five years, though most go unreported.
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Two Turkish-American men have pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a brawl at the Turkish Embassy in Washington earlier this year,  according to court documents.

Sinan Narin, 45, of Virginia and Eyup Yildirim, 50,  of New Jersey “each pled guilty in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia to one count of assault with significant bodily injury. The pleas, which are contingent upon the Court’s approval, call for each defendant to be sentenced to agreed-upon terms of one year and one day of incarceration.”

Eighteen people, many of whom were members of the Turkish ambassador’s security detail, were indicted for allegedly attacking protesters outside the ambassador’s residence on May 16. All 18 were charged with conspiracy to commit a crime of violence, a felony punishable by a maximum of 15 years in prison. Several faced additional charges of assault with a deadly weapon.

The brawl took place outside the residence of Turkey’s ambassador to Washington shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the White House.

Video of the protest recorded by VOA’s Turkish service shows what appear to be security guards and some Erdogan supporters attacking a small group of demonstrators.  

Men in dark suits and others were recorded repeatedly kicking one woman as she was curled up on a sidewalk. Another wrenched a woman’s neck and threw her to the ground. A man with a bullhorn was repeatedly kicked in the face.

After police officers struggled to protect the protesters and ordered the attackers to retreat, several suspects dodged the officers and continued the attacks.

The Turkish Embassy claimed that Erdogan’s bodyguards were acting in “self-defense” during the incident, and that the protesters were affiliated with the Turkish left wing PKK or Kurdistan Workers’ Party.

The PKK has waged a three-decade long insurgency in southeast Turkey.

 
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The United States has approved the sale by U.S. manufacturers of lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert confirmed this week that Congress was notified of the matter on December 13.

The legal framework for U.S. manufacturers to sell arms to Ukraine has existed since the Obama administration, Nauert said. 

Nauert noted in remarks to reporters Wednesday that the government itself was not supplying weapons to Ukraine, but only allowing U.S. weapons manufacturers to do so.

The export license covers such weapons as semiautomatic and automatic firearms, the Reuters news agency reported. It includes combat shotguns, silencers, military scopes, flash suppressors and parts.

Administration officials said the equipment approved for sale was valued at $41.5 million. The Washington Post reported that there had been no approval for requests by Ukraine for heavier weapons, like Javelin anti-tank missiles. The newspaper also said Canada had approved similar sales to Ukraine this week. 

Critics of the move say selling lethal arms to Ukraine threatens to escalate tensions between the United States and Russia. 

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, on a trip to Kyiv in August, said the Trump administration was “actively reviewing” whether to provide lethal defensive weapons to the war-torn country.

“Defensive weapons are not provocative unless you’re an aggressor, and clearly, Ukraine is not an aggressor,” he said in response to a question about whether Russia might see such a move as a threat.

He also said Washington did not accept Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
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Catalonia holds a regional election Thursday that the Spanish government hopes will strip pro-independence parties of their control of the Catalan parliament and end their campaign to force a split with Spain.

But, though final polls showed separatist and unionist parties running neck-and-neck, an effective pro-independence majority remains a likely outcome that would jolt financial markets and cast a long shadow over national politics.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy called the Dec. 21 vote in October in the hopes of returning Catalonia to “normality” under a unionist government. He sacked its previous government for holding a banned referendum and declaring independence.

Economy

A new separatist majority would further dampen investors’ confidence in Catalonia, which by itself has an economy larger than that of Portugal and is the main driver of Spain’s economic growth. However, pro-independence leaders recently have backed away from demands for unilateral secession.

Voting stations in the affluent region of northeastern Spain will open Thursday at 0800 GMT and close at 1900 GMT. The election is expected to draw a record turnout.

The independence campaign pitched Spain into its worst political turmoil since the collapse of fascist rule and return of democracy in the 1970s. It has polarized public opinion, dented Spain’s economic rebound and prompted a business exodus from Catalonia to other parts of the country.

Thursday’s vote became a de facto referendum on how support for the independence movement has fared in recent months.

​No clear majority

None of the six parties in the Catalan parliament — ranging across the ideological spectrum from separatist Marxists to the Catalan wing of Rajoy’s conservative People’s Party (PP) — are expected on their own to come close to the 68-seat majority.

So, analysts expect the next Catalan government to result from weeks of haggling between parties over viable coalitions.

An analysis of polling data by the Madrid daily El Pais published on Tuesday found that the most likely scenario is separatists securing a majority with the backing or abstention of the Catalan offshoot of anti-austerity party Podemos.

Podemos backs the unity of Spain but says Catalans should be able to have a referendum authorized by Madrid to decide their future. At the same time, Podemos favors a left-wing alliance of Catalan parties that both back and reject independence.

In this, analysts say, Podemos is caught between two options it does not particularly like, but would prefer to back the separatists rather than a coalition involving Rajoy’s PP.

Separatist parties campaigned against the backdrop of Spanish courts investigating their leaders on allegations of rebellion for their roles in the Oct. 1 referendum, which was ruled unconstitutional.

Deposed Catalan President Carles Puigdemont has campaigned from self-imposed exile in Brussels and his former deputy and now rival candidate, Oriol Junqueras, has done so from behind bars at a prison outside Madrid.

In a written interview with Reuters published on Monday, Junqueras struck a conciliatory tone and opened the door to building bridges with the Spanish state.
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A jury did not reach a verdict in its first day of deliberations in the trial of a Turkish banker accused of helping Iran evade U.S. sanctions and launder billions of dollars in oil revenue.

Deliberations began early Wednesday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Manhattan after Judge Richard Berman read instructions on the law to jurors. The jury went home four hours later after requesting some pens and coffee.

The trial of Halkbank executive Mehmet Hakan Atilla has featured testimony about bribery and corruption at high levels in Turkey.

Turkish officials have lobbed counteraccusations that U.S. prosecutors are basing the case on evidence fabricated by enemies of the state.

Atilla’s fate rests with federal court jurors who seemed to listen attentively after a juror was dismissed for sleeping.
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Pope Francis is set to offer a “final commendation” Thursday at the Rome funeral of Cardinal Bernard Law, even as Law’s critics recalled him as the disgraced archbishop of Boston in the United States who covered up the actions of pedophile priests.

The Vatican said Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the dean of the College of Cardinals, will celebrate the funeral mass in St. Peter’s Basilica for Law, who died earlier this week in Rome at the age of 86 after a long illness. Pope Francis will then offer a blessing for Law, as he has done previously at other cardinals’ funerals.

Law oversaw the Catholic church’s archdiocese in Boston in the northeastern U.S. for 19 years before he was forced to resign in 2002 as allegations mounted that he had hidden widespread pedophilia by dozens of parish priests, often moving them from one church to another rather than removing them from the ministry. The archdiocese eventually paid $95 million as compensation to more than 500 victims. 

As he left the U.S. for Rome to become archpriest of the Papal Liberian Basilica of St. Mary Major, Law said, “To all those who have suffered from my shortcomings and mistakes I both apologize and from them beg forgiveness.”

The scandal of abusive priests spread, however, eventually reverberating through several archdioceses in the U.S. and in other countries.

As news of Law’s death became known, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said, “We highly doubt there is a single victim of abuse who will ever receive the same attention, pomp and circumstance by Pope Francis.  

“Every single Catholic should ask Pope Francis and the Vatican why,” the group said. “Why Law’s life was so celebrated when Boston’s clergy sex abuse survivors suffered so greatly? Why was Law promoted when Boston’s Catholic children were sexually abused, ignored, and pushed aside time and time again?”

Law’s successor in Boston, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, reacted to his death by apologizing to the victims of clergy sex abuse.

“I recognize that Cardinal Law’s passing brings forth a wide range of emotions on the part of many people. I am particularly cognizant of all who experienced the trauma of sexual abuse by clergy, whose lives were so seriously impacted by those crimes, and their families and loved ones,” O’Malley said. “To those men and women, I offer my sincere apologies for the harm they suffered, my continued prayers and my promise that the archdiocese will support them in their effort to achieve healing.”

One survivor of the clergy sex abuse, Alexa MacPherson, said at a news conference, “With his passing, I say I hope the gates of hell are open wide to welcome him because I feel no redemption for somebody like him is worthwhile.”

Another victim, Robert Costello, said, “I don’t really consider him a cardinal or a man of God.  There were plenty of priests who knew what was going on but they had their own secrets to hide.”

 
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