The European Commission said Friday enough progress had been made in Brexit negotiations with Britain and that a second phase of negotiations should begin, ending an impasse over the status of the Irish border.

The Commission announced its verdict in an early morning statement after intense talks, which resulted in British Prime Minister Theresa May taking an early morning flight to Brussels to announce the deal alongside Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

The Commission’s recommendation that sufficient progress has been made will now go to the European Union summit of leaders taking place next week. May said she expected a formal agreement to be approved at the summit.

“Prime Minister May has assured me that it has the backing of the UK government. On that basis, I believe we have now made the breakthrough we need. Today’s result is of course a compromise,” Juncker told a hastily arranged news conference.

The commission said it was ready to begin work immediately on Phase Two talks, which cover trade and long-term relations with the bloc.

Moving to talks about trade and a Brexit transition is crucial for the future of May’s premiership, and to keep trade flowing between the world’s biggest trading bloc and its sixth-largest national economy after Britain leaves on March 30, 2019.

Border with Ireland

May says an agreement between Britain and the European Union ensures there will be no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland after Brexit. 

She says Northern Ireland has “a set of unique circumstances” because it has the U.K.’s only land border with an EU country. 

The border issue has been threatening to derail the divorce talks. 

Earlier this week, a Northern Ireland party that propped up May’s government scuttled a deal between the U.K and the bloc, prompting frantic diplomacy. 

Business interests

London Mayor Sadiq Khan says he is disappointed by parts of the deal, but that May did what was necessary to get to the next stage of Brexit talks.

Khan says the government must accelerate progress to avoid further delays. He says it is critical that business leaders gain clarity on any interim plans to prevent companies from putting contingency plans in place to leave.

Germany’s main business lobby group agrees that the negotiations must pick up speed.

Joachim Lang, a top official with the Federation of German Industries, or BDI, said Friday that German businesses were “relieved about the breakthrough.” 

He warned that “the most difficult part of the negotiations lies ahead of us” and businesses need clarity “as quickly as possible” about future relations between the European Union and Britain. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
…

The White House on Thursday denied that the president’s announcement on moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem meant his administration was pulling out of the Middle East peace process.

“In fact, in the president’s remarks, he said that we are as committed to the peace process as ever, and we want to continue to push forward in those conversations and those discussions,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters. “And hopefully the ultimate goal, I think, of all those parties is to reach a peace deal. And that’s something that the United States is very much committed to.”

WATCH: Protests Against US Recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s Capital Continue

​No other country has immediately followed President Donald Trump’s lead in planning to relocate its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, something the White House is acknowledging.

“I’m not aware of any countries that we anticipate that happening at any point soon,” Sanders said. “I’m not saying that they aren’t, but I’m not aware of them.” 

A day after the president’s declaration that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, the Russian ambassador in Israel, Alexander Shein, said Moscow could move its embassy to West Jerusalem “after the Palestinians and the Israelis agree on all issues of the final status of the Palestinian territories.”

​Russian statement

The Russian Foreign Ministry, in a statement viewed as a surprise by Israelis, said it considered “East Jerusalem as the capital of the future Palestinian state. At the same time, we must state that in this context we view West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.”

In response to Trump’s announcement, Palestinian factions announced that Friday would be a “Day of Rage,” while the Islamist group Hamas called for an uprising against Israel.

The Israeli military said one of its aircraft and a tank had targeted two militant posts in the Gaza Strip after three rockets were launched at Israel.

The Al-Tawheed Brigades — which has ignored the call of Hamas, the dominant force in Gaza, to desist from firing rockets — claimed responsibility for the launches.

Stone-throwing Palestinian protesters have clashed with Israeli troops, who responded by firing tear gas, rubber bullets and live bullets, on Gaza and the West Bank in response to Trump’s announcement. 

Trump said Wednesday that he was directing the State Department to begin drawing up architectural plans for a U.S. embassy in the holy city. But the actual relocation of the embassy would take years, according to White House officials.

Both Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis expressed concern about the timing of Trump’s announcement, according to U.S. officials. 

Asked by VOA whether the president’s declaration had been delayed at the request of the two Cabinet members in order to put in place adequate security at U.S. embassies, Sanders said the decision was made only after “a thoughtful and responsible process” and that “components of the decision went through the full interagency process.”

Palestinian officials said Trump’s decision had disqualified the U.S. as an honest broker in the peace process.

Many U.S. allies also disagreed with the move. The U.N. Security Council and the Arab League plan to meet soon to discuss the action.

​’Recognizing the reality’

Tillerson defended the decision on a visit to Vienna.

“All of Israel’s government offices are largely in Jerusalem already, so the U.S. is just recognizing the reality of that,” the secretary of state said. He noted, however, that Trump “also said the U.S. would support a two-state solution if that is the desire of the two parties, and he also said this does not in any way finalize the status of Jerusalem.”

The Russian foreign minister, with whom Tillerson met Thursday in Vienna, warned that if Washington prematurely moved its embassy to Jerusalem, it could endanger the two-state solution.

“We have asked them to explain the meaning of the decisions on eventually moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem,” Sergei Lavrov told reporters. “We have asked to explain what consequences of this move the Americans see for the efforts taken under the U.N. aegis and by the Quartet of international mediators.”

The Quartet, established in 2002, consists of entities involved in mediating the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The members are the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia.

Robert Berger in Jerusalem and Ken Bredemeier contributed to this report.
…

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is challenging suggestions of illegal conduct in an undercover sting operation targeting allegedly corrupt government officials in Kyiv, which the FBI conducted in concert with the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU).

The United States and European Union have provided logistical support and training for NABU investigators tasked with ferreting out government graft in the Eastern European country. The support is part of the financial and diplomatic backing of the leadership that took power in Kyiv after the 2014 Maidan protests, which ousted the Kremlin-backed President Viktor Yanukovych.

But Ukraine’s top prosecutor says NABU investigators overstepped the law in a recent probe of suspected corruption in Ukraine’s migration service.

‘Absolutely illegal’

General Prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko told parliament he wanted to address issues around “the relationship between various law enforcement agencies that causes public outrage and rather harsh statements by our strategic international partners — the U.S. and the EU.”

“A joint [FBI-NABU] operation … is an absolutely illegal action without the relevant legal procedures,” Lutsenko said in a recent television interview, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.

In an interview with VOA, NABU Director Artem Sytnyk defended actions of his undercover agents, as well as the agency’s cooperation with FBI.

“This is about the survival of the corrupt elite,” he said. “It further proves that it is impossible to investigate corruption at the highest level and not run into resistance.”

In a statement to VOA, FBI spokeswoman Samantha T. Shero said the law enforcement agency entered into a June 2016 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with NABU to provide investigative assistance, training and capacity building for NABU and Ukraine’s Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO).

“The FBI abides by host nation laws and never operates outside the MOU,” she said, explaining that FBI personnel are temporarily assigned on a rotational basis at the NABU in support of this relationship.

“These special agents and analysts are not operational, and any statements to the contrary are not true,” she said. “Rooting out corruption is a priority for the FBI and we routinely work with our foreign law enforcement partners across the globe to investigate corruption and provide assistance when requested. We value our relationship with the NABU and SAPO, and have found their staff to be professional and trustworthy. NABU and SAPO are young organizations that face enormous challenges in the work that they are doing in Ukraine.”

The FBI, Shero added, will continue to provide NABU and SAPO with support and assistance in their “important work for the Ukrainian people.”

Committee chair dismissed

On Thursday, an opposition legislator who chairs the Ukrainian parliamentary anti-corruption committee was dismissed by fellow lawmakers, in what critics of President Petro Poroshenko’s ruling party are calling an open assault on NABU, the country’s only independent corruption watchdog.

The office of Ukraine’s general prosecutor’s and Poroshenko’s government have come under increasing pressure in recent weeks amid perceived backsliding on reform commitments, which has delayed billions of dollars in loans from the International Monetary Fund and tested the patience of Western countries, even as Kyiv pushes for closer EU integration and possible membership.

Ukraine’s general prosecutor on Wednesday denied that his office was impeding the NABU’s work as he sought to deflect charges by Kyiv’s Western backers that Ukraine was coming up short on promises to fight graft.

This story originated in VOA’s Ukrainian service. Some information came from Reuters.
…

The trial of Kurdish opposition party leader Selahattin Demirtas has started in Ankara. Demirtas is charged with terrorism and has been held for more than a year in pretrial detention. The case is drawing growing international criticism.

Supporters of the jailed Kurdish leader gathered outside Ankara’s Sincan prison, where the Kurdish leader’s trial began Thursday.  

In a 500 page indictment, Demirtas is accused of leading a terrorist organization, spreading terrorist propaganda, and inciting hate and crime.

Controversy surrounds the case over the decision to hold the trial in a prison and to allocate a court room that allows only 20 people to watch.  

Hasip Kaplan a former parliamentary deputy of Demirtas’s HDP party, speaking outside the prison, voiced anger over the handling of the hearing.

“I have one thing to say to those who had unlawfully lifted the immunity of our political leader and who now cannot even bring him to a court near the parliament, but instead try him, within barbed fences after 399 day’s of detention,” Kaplan said.

Tried in absentia

The Kurdish leader is being tried in absentia after the court denied his right to attend, insisting he use a video link from the prison in which he is being held — an option he refused. 

The trial has become a focal point of criticism over the government’s crackdown after last year’s failed coup and the introduction of emergency rule. Demirtas is widely seen as one of the most charismatic and effective political opponents to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

In the past year, more than 11,000 HDP officials have been detained, including dozens of elected mayors and nine parliamentary deputies. Party co-leader Figen Yuksekdag appeared in court Wednesday on similar terrorism charges. 

Rights groups criticize move

Human rights groups nationally and internationally claim there is little evidence to justify the case against Demirtas.  

Senior researcher Emma Sinclair Webb of the U.S. based Human Rights Watch says the case is alarming .

“In general, we do not see any evidence of criminal activity. It is all about his speeches, and for this he faces multi charges,” she said. “The sentence altogether when you stack up all the charges comes to around 142 years.”

Ankara also has faced heavy criticism over the Kurdish leader being held for more than a year in pre-trial detention.

But the Turkish government strongly defends the prosecution and judiciary, claiming the HDP, Turkey’s second largest opposition party, is a terrorist organization linked to Kurdish insurgent group the PKK.

Demirtas denies all charges against him. The trial has adjourned until February and the judges ruled Demirtas will remain in prison.

 
…

The Kremlin says President Vladimir Putin will visit Egypt next week to discuss expanding political, economic, energy and trade ties.

During Monday’s trip the Russian leader will hold talks with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi on issues related to stability and security in the Middle East and North Africa.

Putin’s visit follows the Russian government’s announcement last week that Moscow and Cairo have drafted an agreement for Russian warplanes to use Egyptian military bases.

The deal comes as part of Moscow’s efforts to further expand its military foothold in the region following its military campaign in Syria.

Under Sissi, Egypt has expanded military ties with Russia and signed a slew of deals to buy Russian weapons.
…

At the summit of one of Iceland’s most dangerous volcanoes, a 72-foot (22-meter) depression in the snow is the only visible sign of an alarming development.

The Oraefajokull volcano, dormant since its last eruption in 1727-1728, has seen a recent increase in seismic activity and geothermal water leakage that has worried scientists. With the snow hole on Iceland’s highest peak deepening 18 inches (45 centimeters) each day, authorities have raised the volcano’s alert safety code to yellow.

Experts at Iceland’s Meteorological Office have detected 160 earthquakes in the region in the past week alone as they step up their monitoring of the volcano. The earthquakes are mostly small but their sheer number is exceptionally high.

“Oraefajokull is one of the most dangerous volcanos in Iceland. It’s a volcano for which we need to be very careful,” said Sara Barsotti, Coordinator for Volcanic Hazards at the Icelandic Meteorological Office.

What worries scientists the most is the devastating potential impact of an eruption at Oraefajokull.

Located in southeast Iceland about 320 kilometers (200 miles) from the capital, Reykjavik, the volcano lies under the Vatnajokull glacier, the largest glacier in Europe. Its 1362 eruption was the most explosive since the island was populated, even more explosive that the eruption of Italy’s Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. that destroyed the city of Pompei.

Adding to the danger is the lack of historical data that could help scientists predict the volcano’s behavior.

“It’s not one of the best-known volcanos,” Barsotti said. “One of the most dangerous things is to have volcanos for which we know that there is potential for big eruptions but with not that much historical data.”

Iceland is home to 32 active volcanic sites, and its history is punctuated with eruptions, some of them catastrophic. The 1783 eruption of Laki spewed a toxic cloud over Europe, killing tens of thousands of people and sparking famine when crops failed. Some historians cite it as a contributing factor to the French Revolution.

The Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupted in April 2010, prompting aviation authorities to close much of Europe’s airspace for five days out of fear that its volcanic ash could damage jet engines. Millions of travelers were stranded by the move.

To remedy the lack of data for Oraefajokull, scientists are rushing to install new equipment on and around the volcano. Those include ultra-sensitive GPS sensors that can detect even the slightest tremors, webcams for real-time imagery of the volcano and sensors in the rivers that drain the volcano’s glaciers to measure the chemical composition of the water.

Associated Press journalists last week visited scientists working near the mouth of the Kvia River, where the stench of sulfur was strong and the water was murky, clear signs that geothermal water was draining from the caldera.

“The most plausible explanation is that new magma is on the move deep below the surface,” said Magnus Gudmundsson, professor of geophysics at the Institute of Earth Sciences in Reykjavik.

But what happens next is anyone’s guess. In the most benign scenario, the phenomenon could simply cease. More concerning would be the development of a subglacial lake that could lead to massive flooding. At the far end of the spectrum of consequences would be a full eruption.

With such high-risk developments at stake, authorities are taking precautions. Police inspector Adolf Arnason now is patrolling the road around the volcano, which will be used for any evacuation, and residents have received evacuation briefings.

“Some farmers have only 20 minutes (to leave),” he said, pulling up to a small farm on the flank of the mountain.

If an evacuation is ordered, everyone in the area will receive a text message and the radio will broadcast updates. Police are confident that Oraefi’s 200 residents will know how to react, but their biggest concern is contacting tourists.

Iceland has seen a huge boom in tourism since the 2010 eruption — a record 2.4 million people are expected to visit this year and about 2,000 tourists travel through Oraefi every day. While some stay in hotels that could alert their guests, others spend the night in camper vans spread across the remote area.

“The locals know what to do. They know every plan and how to react. But the tourists, they don’t,” said Police Chief superintendent Sveinn Runarsson. “That’s our worst nightmare.”
…

Opinion polls show Vladimir Putin is already a shoo-in to win a fourth presidential term. But a ban on Russia taking part in the Winter Olympics is likely to make support for him even stronger, by uniting voters around his message: The world is against us.

Putin announced on Wednesday that he would run for re-election in March’s presidential vote, setting the stage for him to extend his dominance of Russia’s political landscape into a third decade.

With ties between the Kremlin and the West at their lowest point for years, the International Olympic Committee’s decision to bar Russia from the 2018 Pyeongchang Games over doping is seen in Moscow as a humiliating and politically tinged act.

Putin, echoing his familiar refrain that his country is facing a treacherous Western campaign to hold it back, said he had “no doubt” that the IOC’s decision was “absolutely orchestrated and politically-motivated.”

“Russia will continue moving forwards, and nobody will ever be able to stop this forward movement,” Putin said.

Konstantin Kosachyov, head of the upper house of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, had been among the first to cast the move as part of a Western plot against Russia, which sees sport as a barometer of geopolitical influence.

“They are targeting our national honor … our reputation … and our interests. They (the West) bought out the traitors … and orchestrated media hysteria,” Kosachyov wrote on social media.

The IOC ruling is also seen by many in Russia as a personal affront to Putin, who was re-elected president in 2012 after spending four years as prime minister because the constitution barred him from a third consecutive term as head of state.

The sport-loving leader cast his hosting of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, at which the IOC says there was “unprecedented systematic manipulation” of the anti-doping system, as a symbol of Russia’s success under his rule.

But Putin has often extracted political benefit from crises, and turned international setbacks into domestic triumphs, by accusing the West of gunning for Russia and using this to inspire Russians to unite.

“Outside pressure on Russia, understood as politically motivated and orchestrated from the U.S., leads to more national cohesion,” Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, said on Wednesday.

“Various sanctions are being turned into instruments of nation-building.”

Putin’s popularity, supported by state television, is already high. Opinion polls regularly give him an approval rating of around 80 percent.

But casting the IOC ban as a Western plot to hurt Russia, something he did when Russian athletes were banned from last year’s Summer Olympics in Rio over doping, could help him mobilize the electorate.

Public anger over the IOC move could help Putin overcome signs of voter apathy and ensure a high turnout which, in the tightly controlled limits of the Russian political system, is seen as conferring legitimacy.

There were early signs that fury over the IOC’s decision was duly stirring patriotic fervor.

“Russia is a superpower,” Alexander Kudrashov, a member of the Russian Military Historical Society, told Reuters on Moscow’s Red Square after the IOC ruling.

Without Russia, he said, the Olympics would not be valid. He linked the decision to a Western anti-Russian campaign which many Russians believe took hold after Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.

“Choosing between the people in Crimea, who wept when the Russian flag was run up and who were doomed to genocide, and sportspeople taking first place on the podium, I choose the people who couldn’t defend themselves,” Kudrashov said.

‘We soak it up and survive’

Blaming the West is an approach the Kremlin has often used before when faced with international allegations of wrongdoing — over Crimea’s annexation, the shooting down of a Malaysian passenger plane over Ukraine in July 2014 and charges of meddling in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian separatists rebelled against rule from Kiev after Crimea was annexed.

The tactic taps into Russians’ patriotism and makes Putin almost bullet-proof when it comes to scandal. The 65-year-old former KGB agent is regarded by many voters as a tsar-like father-of-the-nation figure who has brought their country back from the brink of collapse.

When at the start of the year it seemed there was a window to repair relations with the West after the election of U.S. President Donald Trump, who said he wanted better ties, the narrative of Russia versus the world was muted.

But when it became clear that U.S. allegations of Russian meddling in Trump’s election precluded any rapprochement, Putin doubled down on the narrative. In October, he launched a stinging critique of U.S. policy, listing what he called the biggest betrayals in U.S.-Russia relations.

Sources close to the Russian government say the IOC ban, along with continued Western sanctions over Ukraine and the prospect of new sanctions, will help the authorities rally voters around the banner of national unity which Putin embodies.

“Outside pressure just makes us stronger,” said one such source who declined to be named because he is not authorised to speak to the media.

Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry, set the tone on social media in comments that found ready support from many Russians.

“What haven’t we been forced to suffer from our ‘partners’ in the course of our history,” she wrote. “But they just can’t bring us down. Not via a world war, the collapse of the Soviet Union or sanctions … We soak it up and survive.”
…

Ukraine’s general prosecutor denied on Wednesday that his office was impeding the work of a new anti-corruption body as he sought to deflect charges by Kyiv’s Western backers that Ukraine was backsliding on promises to fight graft.

The United States, the European Union and Canada have thrown financial and diplomatic support behind the leadership that took power in Kyiv after the 2014 Maidan protests ousted the Kremlin-backed President Viktor Yanukovich.

But perceived backsliding on reform commitments has delayed billions of dollars in loans from the International Monetary Fund and tested the patience of Western countries even as Kyiv pushes for closer EU integration and possible membership.

The United States and EU have homed in on concerns that vested interests are trying to undermine the independence of the anti-corruption bureau known as NABU, which was set up after the Maidan protests and has been at loggerheads with other law enforcement bodies.

One recent episode had the General Prosecutor’s office unmasking an alleged sting operation being carried out by NABU against suspected corruption in the migration service. It said NABU had overstepped the law.

General Prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko told parliament he wanted to address issues around “the relationship between various law enforcement agencies that causes public outrage and rather harsh statements by our strategic international partners — the U.S. and the EU.”

He denied his office was at war with NABU, saying NABU officers must face the legal consequences if they commit offenses.

“Our normal cooperation does not mean that the General Prosecutor’s office can ignore signs that laws have been broken,” Lutsenko said.

Earlier Wednesday, NABU tweeted thanks to international backers for their support, posting statements released this week by the U.S. Department of State and the EU.

Questionable actions

The U.S. State Department said on Monday that recent events in Ukraine, including the disruption of a high-level corruption investigation and the arrest of NABU officials, raised concerns about its commitment to fighting corruption.

“These actions … undermine public trust and risk eroding international support for Ukraine,” a spokeswoman said.

The EU on Tuesday night urged that the work of anti-corruption institutions “must not be undermined but reinforced.”

Britain’s Ambassador to Kyiv, Judith Gough, on Wednesday cited a survey showing corruption within state bodies was the top issue for Ukrainian voters.

“Surely tackling corruption is a vote winner, rather than undermining institutions active in the fight against corruption?” she tweeted.
…

Supporters of the far right in Finland and anti-facists staged rival marches in the capital Wednesday as the country celebrated 100 years of independence.

Police in riot gear reinforced by security personnel from around the country made 10 arrests because of scattered fights and misbehavior. About 2,000 people joined the anti-facist march while demonstrations by two far-right groups also gathered up to 2,000 people, the police said.

Anti-immigrant sentiment has been on the rise in the Nordic European Union member country of 5.5 million. About 32,500 migrants and refugees arrived during Europe’s migrant crisis in 2015. The number came down to 5,600 last year.

“No Nazis in Helsinki!” shouted anti-fascist demonstrators.

Far-right marchers promoted the slogan “Toward freedom,” and many carried torches. Last week, a court banned a neo-Nazi group called Nordic Resistance Movement, but it took part in a march as the decision has yet to be implemented.

Finland was part of the Russian empire and won independence during the 1917 Russian Revolution, then nearly lost it fighting the Soviet Union in World War II.
…

Two men were charged Tuesday in London with terror offenses over an alleged plot to kill British Prime Minister Theresa May, according to British government officials.

Both will appear before a court Wednesday in the British capital in connection with what officials say was a conspiracy to launch a suicide-knife attack on Downing Street, the official home of the prime minister.

News of the foiled assassination plot broke shortly after the head of Britain’s domestic intelligence service MI5, Andrew Parker, had briefed the cabinet on the terrorist threat and informed ministers that his service had thwarted nine terrorist attacks this year.

He informed ministers of the plot during the briefing, although the information was held back from the media for several hours.

Both of the conspirators were arrested last week in raids by counterterrorism officers in London and Birmingham, according to police officials. One of the men, named as Naa’imur Zakariyah Rahman, 20, is accused of preparing acts of terrorism.

He was allegedly carrying two improvised explosive devices, which were inert, when he was arrested November 28 in London. His suspected co-conspirator was named as 21-year-old Mohammed Aqib Imran. He was seized 90 minutes later in a raid on a house in Birmingham in the English Midlands.

Imran also is accused of previously trying to secure a fake passport in a bid to reach Libya to join the Islamic State affiliate in the North African country.

According to officials, both men were plotting a bomb assault on the security gates protecting the entrance of Downing Street. Rahman then allegedly planned to storm Number Ten, wearing a suicide vest and using pepper spray and a knife, in an effort to kill Theresa May.

A Downing Street spokesman said earlier that Parker had told cabinet ministers that while Islamic State had suffered serious defeats in Iraq and Syria, “this did not mean the threat is over, rather it has spread into new areas, including trying to encourage attacks in the U.K. and elsewhere via propaganda on social media.”

Missed opportunities

The disclosures about the Downing Street plot came hours after an official report was released on last year’s Manchester bombing and other terror attacks on the British capital. According to the report undertaken by David Anderson, British security forces had missed opportunities to thwart the Manchester attack. The report confirmed that the ringleader of the London Bridge knifing spree had been under investigation by MI5.

The Anderson report revealed that the Manchester suicide bomber, British-Libyan Salman Abedi, had been flagged for closer scrutiny by the security services and that his bombing of the audience at an Ariana Grande concert in which 22 people died could have been averted “had the cards fallen differently.”

He said MI5 investigators had misinterpreted intelligence on Abedi. His case was due to be considered at a meeting scheduled for nine days after his May 2016 attack at the Manchester Arena.

But Anderson, a former terrorism law reviewer asked by the government to review the recent spate of terror attacks, concluded there is “no cause for despair.” Most terror plots continued to be foiled before they are launched, he said.

Downing Street security

Downing Street is heavily protected by fortified gates and armed police officers. Analysts say the chances of the men gaining entrance to the prime minister’s residence would have been remote.

Stringent protective measures were first put in place in the 1970s, and were tightened during the 1980s when Irish republicans launched attacks on the British mainland.

In 1991, the IRA managed to breach security, launching a homemade mortar bomb attack on Number 10. The mortars fell in the garden, but the explosions prompted officials and ministers to dive for cover.

The nearest the IRA got to killing a British prime minister was in 1984 when they targeted the hotel Margaret Thatcher and top officials were staying in for that year’s annual Conservative party conference in Brighton on Britain’s south coast. Thatcher was uninjured, but several ministers were seriously wounded in the bombing.
…

A war on food waste in France, where supermarkets are banned from throwing away unsold food and restaurants must provide doggy bags when asked, has helped it secure the top spot in a ranking of countries by their food sustainability.

Japan, Germany, Spain and Sweden rounded out the top five in an index published the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), which graded 34 nations based on food waste, environment-friendly agriculture and quality nutrition.

It is “unethical and immoral” to waste resources when hundreds of millions go hungry across the world, Vytenis Andriukaitis, EU Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, said at the launch of the Food Sustainability Index 2017 on Tuesday.

“We are all responsible, every person and every country,” he said in the Italian city of Milan, according to a statement.

One third of all food produced worldwide, 1.3 billion tons per year, is wasted, according to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

Food releases planet-warming gases as it decomposes in landfills. The food the world wastes accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than any country except for China and the United States.

“What is really important is the vision and importance of [food sustainability] in these governments’ agendas and policies,” Irene Mia, global editorial director at the EIU, told Reuters. “It’s something that is moving up in governments’ agendas across the world.”

Global hunger levels rose last year for the first time in more than a decade, with 815 million people, more than one in 10 on the planet, going hungry.

France was the first country to introduce specific food waste legislation and loses only 1.8 percent of its total food production each year. It plans to cut this in half by 2025.

“France has taken some important and welcome steps forward including forcing supermarkets to stop throwing away perfectly edible food,” said Meadhbh Bolger, a campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe. “This needs to be matched at the European level with a EU-wide binding food waste reduction target.”

High-income countries performed better in the index, but the United States lagged in 21st place, dragged down by poor management of soil and fertilizer in agriculture, and excess consumption of meat, sugar and saturated fats, the study said.

The United Arab Emirates, despite having the highest income per head of the 34 countries, was ranked last, reflecting high food waste of almost 1,000 kilos per person per year, rising obesity and an agriculture sector dependent on depleting water resources, it said.
…

Turkey’s president says the New York trial of a Turkish banker is a U.S. conspiracy being staged to “blackmail” and “blemish” his country.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke Tuesday in Ankara, Turkey. His comments came as the trial of Halkbank executive Mehmet Hakan Atilla continued in its second week.

Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab described criminal activities he was forced to divulge after he pleaded guilty to seven charges in October and became a government cooperator. His testimony likely will win him leniency at sentencing.

The defense says Atilla is “not corrupt.”

Erdogan says the trial is a ploy to distract Turkey while Washington hatches plans to strengthen Syrian Kurdish groups Turkey considers to be terrorists.

U.S. prosecutors say claims the trial resulted from political maneuvering are “ridiculous.”
…

Ukrainian security forces stormed Mikheil Saakashvili’s Kyiv apartment and arrested the former Odesa governor, now an adamant opponent of President Petro Poroshenko, accusing him of criminal ties with ousted ex-leader Viktor Yanukovych.

Police used tear gas or pepper spray on protesters and Saakashvili appeared on the roof of the building during the drama, shaking his fist and accusing Poroshenko of being a traitor and a thief before being dragged away by security forces.

As the events unfolded in the street, Prosecutor-General Yuriy Lutsenko alleged at a briefing that an “organized crime” group led by Yanukovych, who is in exile in Russia, have financed protests organized by Saakashvili.

Saakashvili’s detainment prompted clashes between law enforcement officers in riot gear and supporters of the former Georgian president, who urged “all Ukrainians to take to the streets and drive out the thieves.”

“Do not let lawlessness happen. Do not let chaos happen. Do not let Poroshenko and his gang continue the robbery,” he said. “Ukraine is under a real threat. These people have completely usurped power.”

Shouting and shoving matches ensued, and after police hauled Saakashvili into a blue van, supporters attempted to lie in the street to keep him from being taken away.

Hours later, more than 1,000 supporters were on the scene, along with dozens of police, and cars were wedged close together in an effort to keep the van from moving away. The street was blocked with a makeshift barricade.

The commotion began shortly after 7 a.m. and was first made public by Saakashvili associate David Sakvarelidze.

“They’re breaking down the door at Mikheil Saakashvili’s home!” he wrote on Facebook, giving the address and apartment number.

The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) said that Saakashvili’s residence was being searched as part of a criminal inquiry conducted by the Prosecutor General’s Office.

“Investigative procedures are indeed taking place. SBU officers are providing investigative support to a criminal inquiry of the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General’s Office,” SBU spokeswoman Olena Hitlyanska told RFE/RL’s Ukrainian service.

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Hitlyanska did not specify the nature of the criminal inquiry, but the SBU later said Saakashvili was accused of “complicity with members of criminal organizations and concealing their activity by providing premises and by other means.”

At a news briefing, Lutsenko alleged that Saakashvili has held protests financed by allies of Yanukovych, who was pushed from power by pro-European protests in February 2014 and fled to Russia.

The prosecutor-general said the alleged Yanukovych allies included Serhiy Kurchenko, a businessman who also fled to Russia, and claimed that Saakashvili had received $500,000 in a bank transfer from Russia.

As the search unfolded, live videos shared on social media showed a chaotic and sometimes violent scene outside Saakashvili’s building, steps away from Kyiv’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or Independence Square — the focal point of the Euromaidan protests.

A shoving match between law enforcement agents and supporters of Saakashvili ensued as the latter tried to push their way into the apartment.

Saakashvili appeared on the roof, and officers quickly seized him and moved him away from the ledge before bringing him out of the building.

Video on Facebook showed dozens of riot police around the apartment building preventing people from entering.

Live at the Saakashvili showdown in Kyiv. Turning violent. Police using tear gas on provocative protesters. https://t.co/tg0eNGaZCU

— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) December 5, 2017

The search of Saakashvili’s home was conducted two days after his Movement of New Forces party organized a rally in Kyiv calling for Poroshenko’s impeachment and for legislation that would allow it to take place. Poroshenko has accused the protest organizers of seeking to destabilize Ukraine, which is struggling with economic troubles and a deadly conflict with Russia-backed separatists in two eastern provinces.

Saakashvili was swept to power in Georgia’s peaceful Rose Revolution in 2003 and served as president of Georgia from 2004-13. He conducted major reforms and fought corruption in the former Soviet republic but was accused of abusing his power and is wanted in his home country on suspicion of trying to organize a coup there after leaving office, an allegation he denies.

In the wake of the Euromaidan protests that brought a pro-Western government to power in Ukraine, Poroshenko appointed Saakashvili — an acquaintance from university days — as governor of the Odesa region in 2015. Saakashvili surrendered his Georgian citizenship to take the post.

But Saakashvili resigned in November 2016, saying his reform efforts had been blocked by Poroshenko’s allies, and went into the opposition. Saakashvili was then stripped of Ukrainian citizenship by Poroshenko while he was in the United States in June 2017, a move he is challenging in court.

Weeks later, Saakashvili forced his way back into Ukraine and was found guilty of violating the state border. He paid a fine and has since been touring the country, speaking out against Poroshenko and trying to garner support for his fledgling political party, Movement of New Forces.

Saakashvili has indicated he wants to be Ukraine’s next prime minister, a post that he could theoretically hold as it is a position appointed by the president upon ratification by parliament. With his citizenship status in flux, under current law he is forbidden from officially running for president.

While well-known across Ukraine, Saakashvili and his party enjoy little public support, with nearly all polls showing putting them at around 1-2 percent.

Saakashvili recently claimed that Poroshenko was planning to force him to flee to another country to avoid extradition to Georgia.

During the rally on December 3, Saakashvili alleged in comments to Georgia’s Rustavi-2 television that Poroshenko and former Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili have “agreed that a sentence on trumped-up charges will be quickly issued next week.”

Poroshenko’s office has not commented on the allegations or Saakashvili’s detention on December 5.
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