Ukrainian cyber security firm ISSP said on Tuesday it may have detected a new computer virus distribution campaign, after security services said Ukraine could face cyber-attacks similar to those which knocked out global systems in June.

The June 27 attack, dubbed NotPetya, took down many Ukrainian government agencies and businesses, before spreading rapidly through corporate networks of multinationals with operations or suppliers in eastern Europe.

ISPP said that, as with NotPetya, the new malware seemed to originate in accounting software and could be intended to take down networks when Ukraine celebrates its Independence Day on Aug. 24.

“This could be an indicator of a massive cyber-attack preparation before National Holidays in Ukraine,” it said in a statement.

In a statement, the state cyber police said they also had detected new malicious software.

The incident is “in no way connected with global cyber-attacks like those that took place on June 27 of this year and is now fully under control,” it said.

The state cyber police and the Security and Defense Council have said Ukraine could be targeted with a NotPetya-style attack aimed at destabilizing the country as it marks its 1991 independence from the Soviet Union.

Last Friday, the central bank said it had warned state-owned and private lenders of the appearance of new malware, spread by opening email attachments of word documents.

Ukraine – regarded by some, despite Kremlin denials, as a guinea pig for Russian state-sponsored hacks – is fighting an uphill battle in turning pockets of protection into a national strategy to keep state institutions and systemic companies safe.
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The Trump administration imposed sanctions on Chinese and Russian individuals and companies Tuesday, accusing them of conducting business with North Korea in ways that helped Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and missile programs.

The U.S. Treasury Department said the 10 companies and six individuals helped North Korea generate revenue that could be used to pay for weapons programs.

According to the Treasury, those targeted do business with previously sanctioned companies and people who work with the North Korean energy sector, help place North Korean workers abroad, or help Pyongyang evade international financial restrictions.

The move follows angry exchanges between Washington and Pyongyang over North Korea’s test-firing of missiles capable of reaching targets in the region as well as parts of U.S. territory.
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U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is set to visit Ankara, Turkey in the coming days as part of a tour of the region. Mattis’ visit comes as bilateral relations between the two NATO allies are strained over Washington’s support of Syrian Kurds, whom Ankara considers terrorists.

“Turkish relations are as bad as they can get,” said former senior Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen, who served in Iraq and Washington. “But the fact Turkey’s position on the world map is extremely important, one can look on the map and see without Turkey it will be difficult for the U.S., if not impossible, getting rid of ISIL from Iraq and Syria,” said Selcen, using an acronym for Islamic State.

Analysts suggest Mattis’ first task is in seeking to prevent a further deterioration in relations; but, video this month of convoys of U.S. arms being delivered to the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia enraged Ankara.

The YPG is engaged in fighting as part of a coalition known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, which seeks to oust Islamic State militants, Raqqa, Syria, IS’ self-declared capital. Ankara accuses the YPG of being terrorists linked to the PKK, which is fighting the Turkish state.

“The PKK is a Marxist-Leninist organization supported by the United States. Look at this irony and they are trained in American camps,” said Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin. The U.S. considers the PKK a terrorist organization.

“The [Turkish] regime will never accept the explanations of Washington regarding the military support to the YPG,” said political scientist Cengiz Aktar; but, experts suggest that there is a realization in Ankara that Washington will not reverse its policy given its success, with around half of Raqqa already captured by the YPG.

What happens after Raqqa’s fall is predicted to be a key part of Mattis’ talks in Ankara.

“One of [Ankara’s] priorities will be to stop the arms going to the YPG ending up in the hands of the PKK,” said Unal Cevikoz, former Turkish ambassador and now head of the Ankara Policy Center. “The second issue with end game approaching in Raqqa, when IS is eradicated from Raqqa, Turkey will probably ask for the post-Raqqa administration be given to the Sunni Arabs rather than YPG.”

Ankara accuses the forces engaged in capturing Raqqa as predominantly Kurdish and unrepresentative of the local population.

“The Turkish regime wants to destroy the de facto federated government of the Syrian Kurdish in the north of Syria. This is a long-term strategy of Ankara,” said political scientist Aktar.

Turkish military forces are already massed around the Syrian enclave of Afrin, which is under YPG control. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly warned of an imminent operation against Afrin.

“The U.S. does not want Turkey to intervene because it fears it will interfere with the operation in Raqqa,” said former ambassador Cevikoz. “The issue will likely be discussed during Mattis’ visit, but I think there will be no agreement with both sides agreeing to disagree. But Turkey is trying to coordinate the possibility of an operation in and around Afrin and also Idlib, with Iranian and Russians, so it’s not just a U.S.-Turkish issue.”

Ankara is already coordinating with Tehran and Moscow as part of the Astana agreement process to resolve the Syrian civil war. Idlib is one of the last remaining regions under Syrian rebel control.

The future of Idlib is also a potentially contentious issue during Mattis’ visit.

“The American concerns are very serious that Idlib is hosting a lot of jihadists. What is much more important is there are some 10,000 al-Qaida members in Idlib, but I think Russia and Turkey will ask the Americans to leave Idlib to their control,” said Cevikoz.

Ankara’s growing cooperation with Moscow and Tehran at a time of strained relations with its Western allies has led to growing questions over where its loyalties ultimately lie; but, an independence referendum next month by Iraqi Kurds will offer Mattis some common ground with Washington and Ankara, both having voiced opposition to the vote.

 
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A suspect arrested in connection with last week’s deadly van attack in Barcelona told Spain’s high court Tuesday that the group had been planning a much larger attack using explosives, judicial sources said.

Mohamed Houli Chemlal, who was arrested after being hurt in a blast southwest of Barcelona a day before the van attack, was the first of four suspects to testify Tuesday, a day after police shot dead the man they say was the van’s driver.

Authorities say a 12-man terror cell was behind the attack, and that eight of the suspects have either been killed by police or died in an accidental explosion at their bomb-making facility on the day before the attack.

The massive manhunt for the last outstanding suspect, Younes Abouyaaqoub, ended Monday in a rural area known for its vineyards about 45 kilometers west of Barcelona.  Authorities say they shot the fugitive after he held up what appeared to be a bomb belt, which they later discovered was fake.

“We confirm that the man shot dead in #subirats is Younes Abouyaaqoub, author of the terrorist attack in #barcelona,” police tweeted on Monday.

​Van driver chase

Catalan Interior Minister Joaquim Forn told Catalunya radio that “everything indicates” Younes Abouyaaqoub was behind the wheel of the van during Thursday’s Barcelona attack that killed 15 people.

Police say a bomb disposal robot was dispatched to approach the man’s body after the shooting to check the apparent suicide belt.

They said officers were alerted to the fugitive by a caller who reported a suspicious person near the local train station and then by another witness who said she was sure she saw Abouyaaqoub in the small town of Subirats fleeing through the vineyards. Authorities later found the man hiding in the vineyards and asked for his identification, leading to the shoot-out.

Islamist connections

Many of the suspects had connections to the northeastern town of Ripoll, one of the places where police have focused their investigation.

Authorities say Abouyaaqoub, who was born in Morocco and has Spanish residency, also is suspected of carjacking a man and stabbing him to death as he made his getaway from the Barcelona attack.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Barcelona attack along with another vehicle attack on Friday in which a car crashed into people in the resort town of Cambrils, Spain, and the attackers then got out and tried to stab people.  One person was killed and several people were wounded.   Authorities believe both attacks were carried out by the same terrorist cell.

Authorities believe an imam named Abdelbaki Es Satty may have radicalized some of those who carried out the attack in Barcelona and the later attack in Cambrils.  The imam was among those killed in the explosion at the bomb-making facility.

Arrests may have prevented more attacks

Deakin University professor of global Islamic politics Greg Barton told VOA Spain’s previous arrests of terrorism suspects could explain why it has not dealt with the same number of attacks as other countries in Europe, such as France and Belgium in recent years.

“Spain is not immune from these problems, particularly Catalonia, where there are links with northern Morocco,” Barton said.  “But Spain up until now has been able to keep on top of the problem, whereas France and Belgium have been struggling.”

Barton also said there does not seem to be any particular link between the influx of migrants to Europe and these attacks.

“The individuals being recruited have largely grown up in the countries where they’re recruited and they launch attacks in neighborhoods familiar to them,” he said.
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An earthquake of magnitude 4.0 hit the tourist-packed Italian island of Ischia, off the coast of Naples, on Monday night, killing at least one person and injuring some 25 others as buildings collapsed, officials said.

Residents and tourists on the island ran out onto the streets from homes and hotels.

Television images showed that about six buildings in the town of Casamicciola as well as a church collapsed in the quake, which hit at 8:57 p.m. (1857 GMT).

Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology (INGV) put the magnitude at 4.0, but both the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the European quake agency, EMSC, estimated the magnitude at 4.3.

Local Civil Protection Department official Giovanni Vittozzi said one woman was killed when she was hit by falling masonry from a church, and officials were checking reports of another victim.

Helicopters and a ferry boat were bringing in more rescue workers from the mainland.

Roberto Allocca, a doctor from a local hospital, told Sky TG24 television that about 25 people had been treated for minor injuries. Most of the hospital had been evacuated and the injured were treated outside.

Some civil protection squads were already on the island because of brushfires.

The television reports said the buildings that collapsed appeared to have been inhabited and about 10 people were still unaccounted for.

The quake hit a few days before the first anniversary of a major quake that killed nearly 300 people in central Italy, most of them in the town of Amatrice.
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Russia’s armed forces chief staff, General Valery Gerasimov, is due to visit Turkey this week in the latest step in bilateral regional coordination efforts on Syria. Ahead of Gerasimov’s visit, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusolgu took a swipe at NATO ally the United States, saying Russia better understood Turkey’s concerns about the Syrian Kurdish rebel militia, the YPG.

Washington’s strong backing of the YPG in its fight against Islamic State in Syria continues to strain relations between the NATO partners. Ankara accuses the YPG of being linked to the PKK, which is fighting an insurgency in Turkey.

The Syrian civil war had brought Turkish-Russian relations to the breaking point with the two strongly backing opposing forces in the conflict. In November 2015, a Turkish jet downed a Russian bomber operating from a Syrian airbase, but, rapprochement efforts initiated by Ankara have seen relations improve markedly.

The looming defeat of the Syrian rebels and gains by the Syrian Kurdish forces are giving added impetus to a rethink in Ankara’s regional foreign policy.

“When it comes to Iraq and Syria and when it comes to the Kurdish issue, Ankara is more and more under pressure, as it feels it’s on the losing side,” observes former senior Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen, who served widely in the region. “Now Ankara is trying a second approach with Moscow and Tehran and to try to achieve at least some of its priorities, especially getting rid of the perceived Kurdish threat in Syria and Iraq.”

General Gerasimov’s planned Turkey visit will come just one week after his Iranian counterpart, General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, visited Ankara for three days of talks. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who hosted Bagheri, on Monday said common ground had been found with Iran in battling the PKK. “Joint action against terrorist groups that have become a threat is always on the agenda. This issue has been discussed between the two military chiefs, and I discussed more broadly how this should be carried out,” Erdogan said before visiting Jordan.

Ankara, Moscow and Tehran are already cooperating over Syria in what has been dubbed the Astana process. The Astana process has presided over the creation of de-escalation zones across Syria. Idlib, one of the last remaining areas under Syrian rebel control, is expected to be discussed during Gerasimov’s visit. Local Turkish media report that while the Iranian chief of staff was in Turkey, both sides “shook hands” on resolving Idlib.

Ankara is expected to press the Russian general for cooperation in a military operation, against the YPG, based in the Syrian enclave of Afrin, which borders Turkey. Russian forces are currently deployed in Afrin, a presence that is widely seen as preventing any Turkish operation.

Some analysts warn that Ankara could face disappointment. “As we know, Iran, Russia and Turkey cooperate in Syria, but their strategies as well as their ambitions are different,” cautions Zaur Gasimov, an Istanbul-based Russian-Turkish analyst for the Max Weber Foundation.

“The PYD [political wing of the YPG] and PKK have offices in Moscow; second, the PKK is not on the terror organizations’ list of Russia and when Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov was asked about this, he said each country has it own parameters when defining terrorist organizations,” points out former Turkish diplomat Selcen, who is now a regional analyst.

Selcen also warns Moscow’s goal of wiping out all foreign fighters in Idlib runs counter to Ankara’s policy, but, Ankara’s main agenda, in its courting of Moscow, could be an attempt to extract concessions from Washington. “Ankara is trying to play the Russian card against Washington,” observes political scientist Cengiz Aktar, “and Moscow is very happy to alienate Turkey from its Western allies, indirectly hitting not only the United States, but the NATO alliance in general.”  

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is due later this week in Turkey.

Adding to the discomfort of the United States and Turkey’s other Western partners is Ankara’s plan to purchase Russia’s S400 surface-to-air missile. The multi-billion-dollar sale is also expected to be on General Gerasimov’s agenda.
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Germany’s anti-immigrant AfD party pushed Monday to make the massive influx of migrants into the country an election issue as it battles with flagging support, despite waning concern among Germans over the matter.

More than 1 million migrants entered Germany in 2015-2016. Alternative for Germany leaders Alexander Gauland and Alice Weidel told reporters in Berlin they think the wave of newcomers has led to increased crime, an overwhelmed educational system and an “Islamization of society.”

“The big number of migrants cannot be integrated in the long run,” Weidel said, calling for tougher asylum laws. She also advocated shutting down the Mediterranean Sea route from Libya to Europe that many migrants use and accused the Germany navy of participating in human trafficking by assisting migrant boats in distress.

The AfD’s support has dropped ahead of the Sept. 24 election to 7 percent in the most recent polls, half of what the party had at the height of the immigration crisis.

Support for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc dropped during the influx and its aftermath, but has rebounded to about 39 percent. Merkel’s campaign speeches have focused more on the country’s growing economy and record low unemployment.

Like Merkel’s Christian Democrats, most other parties have not made migration a major issue of their election campaigns.

Germany, like several other European countries, has suffered a number of extremist attacks, some of which were committed by asylum-seekers who came to the country in the 2015 wave.

In an interview published Monday by Bild newspaper, Merkel was asked to comment on migrants in Germany who have committed crimes or violent attacks.

“Unfortunately, there are a few refugees, who have done such things,” Merkel answered, adding: “There are also many, many others who need protection.”

The chancellor said the government is doing all it can to prevent “such attacks, such murders, to prevent Islamist terror.” She also said Germany has learned from past attacks and “we’ve become quite a bit better.”
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The British Parliament’s Big Ben bell is due to sound the hour for the last time before it is silenced for repair work scheduled to last until 2021.

After 12 deep bongs at noon Monday, the bell will begin its longest period of silence since it first sounded in 1859.

The break will allow workers to carry out much-needed maintenance to the Victorian clock and clock tower, but will deprive Londoners and tourists of one of the city’s iconic sounds.

Some lawmakers have criticised the lengthy silence, calling Big Ben an important symbol of British democracy. They want the time scale for repairs tightened.

Big Ben is not due to resume regular timekeeping until 2021, though it will be heard on special occasions such as New Year’s Eve.
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Brexit minister David Davis called on the European Union on Sunday to relax its position that the two sides must first make progress on a divorce settlement before moving on to discussing future relations.

After a slow start to negotiations to unravel more than 40 years of union, Britain is pressing for talks to move beyond the divorce to offer companies some assurance of what to expect after Britain leaves the EU in March 2019.

This week, the government will issue five new papers to outline proposals for future ties, including how to resolve any future disputes without “the direct jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ)”, Davis said.

“I firmly believe the early round of the negotiations have already demonstrated that many questions around our withdrawal are inextricably linked to our future relationship,” Davis wrote in the Sunday Times newspaper.

“Both sides need to move swiftly on to discussing our future partnership, and we want that to happen after the European Council in October,” he wrote, saying the clock was ticking.

EU officials have said there must be “sufficient progress” in the first stage of talks on the rights of expatriates, Britain’s border with EU member Ireland and a financial settlement before they can consider a future relationship.

That has frustrated British officials, who say that until there has been discussion of future ties, including a new customs arrangement and some way of resolving any future

disputes, they cannot solve the Irish border issue or financial settlement, two of the more difficult issues in the talks.

“There are financial obligations on both sides that will not be made void by our exit from the EU,” Davis wrote. “We are working to determine what these are – and interrogating the basis for the EU’s position, line by line, as taxpayers would expect us to do.”

He said the Brexit ministry would “advance our thinking further” with the new papers next week.

On the role of the ECJ, Davis said Britain’s proposals would be based on “precedents” which do not involve the “direct jurisdiction” of the court, which is hated by many pro-Brexit ministers in the governing Conservative Party.

EU officials say the court should guarantee the rights of EU citizens living or working in Britain after Brexit.

“Ultimately, the key question here is how we fairly consider and solve disputes for both sides,” Davis wrote.

 
…

The Turkish judge sits in a busy cafe in a big German city. Thirteen months ago, he was a respected public servant in his homeland. Now he is heartbroken and angry over the nightmarish turn of events that brought him here.

The day after a 2016 coup attempt shook Turkey, he was blacklisted along with thousands of other judges and prosecutors. The judge smiles, sadly, as he recounts hiding at a friend’s home, hugging his crying son goodbye and paying smugglers to get him to safety.

“I’m very sad I had to leave my country,” he said, asking for his name and location to be withheld out of fear that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government might track him down. “But at least I’m safe and out of Erdogan’s reach. He cannot hurt me anymore.”

Germany has become the top destination for political refugees from Turkey since the failed July 15, 2016 coup. Some 5,742 Turkish citizens applied for asylum here last year, more than three times as many as the year before, according to the Interior Ministry. Another 3,000 Turks have requested protection in Germany this year.

The figures include people fleeing a long-simmering conflict in the Kurdish region of southeastern Turkey, but the vast majority belong to a new class of political refugees: diplomats, civil servants, military members, academics, artists, journalists and anti-Erdogan activists accused of supporting the coup.

With many of them university-educated and part of the former elite, “their escape has already turned into a brain-drain for Turkey,” said Caner Aver, a researcher at the Center for Turkish Studies and Integration Research in Essen.

Germany is a popular destination because it’s already home to about 3.5 million people with Turkish roots and has been more welcoming of the new diaspora than other Western nations, Aver said.

“Some of the highly qualified people also try getting to the U.S. and Canada because most speak English, not German. But it’s just much harder to get there,” Aver said. “Britain has always been popular, but less so now because of Brexit.”

Comparable figures for post-coup asylum requests from Turks were not available for other countries.

More than 50,000 people have been arrested in Turkey and 110,000 dismissed from their jobs for alleged links to political organizations the government has categorized as terror groups or to U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen. Ankara blames the Muslim cleric, a former Erdogan ally, for the coup attempt. Gulen denies the claim.

The true number of recent Turkish arrivals to Germany exceeds official asylum requests. Many fleeing academics, artists and journalists came on scholarships from German universities or political foundations. Some got in via relatives. Others entered with visas obtained before the failed coup.

The judge, a slim man in his 30s with glasses, arrived illegally by paying thousands of euros to cross from Turkey to Greece on a rubber dinghy and then continuing on to Germany.

Two other Turks in Germany — an artist who asked for anonymity, fearing repercussions for her family back home, and a journalist sentenced to prison in absentia — also spoke of ostracism and flight.

Ismail Eskin, the journalist, left Turkey just before he was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison on terrorism-related charges. The 29-year-old worked for the Ozgur Gundem newspaper and the Kurdish news agency Dicle Haber Ajansi until the government shut them down shortly after the failed coup.

Eskin tried to write for different online news sites but the Turkish government blocked them too. He reluctantly decided to leave when the situation became unbearably difficult for journalists — about 160 are now in jail.

“I kept changing places to avoid being arrested, and I hid that I was a journalist,” Eskin said, chain-smoking at a Kurdish immigrants’ center. He hasn’t applied for asylum but is studying German — an acknowledgment he might be here to stay.

The judge said he “never supported any kind of coup” and had no connection to the Gulen movement but took hurriedly packed a few belongings and went to a friend’s place after learning he was among more than 2,000 judges and prosecutors being investigated.

A few hours later, police searched his apartment and took his computer.

His wife and children had been out of town during the coup attempt. While he was in hiding, his wife was told she had 15 days to move out. Friends and relatives stopped talking to her. After several months, he chose to leave.

“Since there’s no independent justice in Turkey anymore, I would have been exposed to injustice, maybe be tortured, if I had surrendered,” he said.

He sold his car and paid 8,500 euros ($9,910) to a smuggler for a December boat trip to a Greek island. From there, he flew to Italy and on to Germany. He brought his wife, son and daughter to join him a few weeks later.

The number of Turkish citizens fleeing to Germany has complicated the already tense relations between Ankara and Berlin. Accusing Germany of harboring terrorists, Turkey has demanded the extradition of escaped Turkish military officers and diplomats.

At least 221 diplomats, 280 civil servants and their families have applied for asylum, Germany says. Along with refusing to comply with the extradition requests, Germany has lowered the bar for Turkish asylum-seekers — those given permission to remain increased from 8 percent of applicants last year to more than 23 percent in the first half of 2017.

Some Turkish emigres have started building new lives in exile.

The artist from Istanbul lost her university job in graphic design before the 2016 coup because she was one of more than 1,000 academics who triggered Erdogan’s ire by signing a “declaration for peace” in Turkey.

She went to Berlin on a university scholarship in September, not long after the attempted coup. In February, she discovered she’d been named a terror group supporter and her Turkish passport was invalidated.

“Now I’m forced into exile, but that’s better than to be inside the country,” the woman in her early 30s said.

The artist said she’s doing fine in Berlin. She enrolled at a university and has had her work exhibited at a small gallery. Yet with her family still in Turkey, some days the enormity of the change weighs on her.

“In the winter I was so homesick,” she said. “I really felt like a foreigner, in my veins and in my bones.”

 
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Spain’s hunt for the driver of a van that barreled through a Barcelona crowd last week focused on the northeastern towns of Ripoll and Manlleu Sunday. 

Police set up numerous roadblocks hoping to snare Younes Abouyaaquoub, a 22-year-old Moroccan man they suspect was behind Thursday’s attack, which killed 13 people and injured more than 100 others. 

A related attack hours later in the resort town of Cambrils killed another and injured six others when a car was driven into a crowd before police shot and killed the five suspects after they left the vehicle.

In addition to Abouyaaqoub, two other suspects are being sought, including an imam named Abdelbaki Es Satty. Authorities believe Es Satty may have radicalized some of those who carried out the attacks. 

Police already have four people in custody they believe are connected to the attacks.

Investigators are trying to determine if some of the suspects sought were killed Wednesday night in an explosion that leveled a home in Alcanar.  Human remains were found in the rubble left by the blast, which police believe may have been caused by mishandling butane canisters that were intended to be used in an attack.  DNA testing is underway to determine how many people died in the explosion.

The Associated Press reports that neighbors said the vehicles used in the Cambrils and Barcelona attacks were seen at the Alcanar home prior to the blast.

On Sunday Spain’s King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia, along with Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, attended a mass for the victims of the attacks at Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia Basilica.

During the service, the archbishop of Barcelona read a telegram of sent by Pope Francis, who called the attacks a “cruel terrorist act” and a “grave offense to God.”

The king and queen visited victims in hospitals on Saturday and placed a wreath and candles at the site of the Barcelona attack.
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A year ago, analysts were expressing confidence during a major conference in London that southern Europe would avoid the kind of large-scale Islamic terror attacks seen in northern European cities like Paris and Brussels.

At a conference at King’s College, London, to explore the jihadist threat to Europe, analysts drawn from across the continent highlighted the fact that neither Spain — nor Italy, for that matter, which has also been on the receiving end of vocal Islamic State threats — had seen many volunteers join IS to fight in Syria or Iraq.

They noted neither southern European country has large populations of second-generation Muslim migrants, the most common recruitment pool for IS and rival al-Qaida. And they expressed confidence in the Spanish intelligence services skills, emphasizing the counterterror expertise honed during years of combating violent Basque separatists.

The midweek attack in Barcelona, the worst act of jihadist terrorism in Spain since 2004, when bombers struck commuter trains in Madrid, killing 192 people, is being seen as a wake-up call for the intelligence services — not only of Spain but also of Italy, the one major European country that has so far not suffered a jihadist act of terror.

Recent terror attacks

Counterterror officials in Madrid and Rome say they are perturbed by the increasing number of recent terror attacks across Europe that feature links to North African jihadists. They say they worry about the sophistication of Thursday’s attack — even though the plotters failed to pull off a much larger planned onslaught.

Fourteen people were killed in the midweek terror attacks in Spain — 13 in Barcelona and one in the resort town of Cambrils, where a car was driven into a crowd of pedestrians before police shot and killed the five suspects after they left the vehicle.

So far, four men have been arrested as countrywide, anti-terror operations remain underway and police hunt for the driver of the van that rammed pedestrians on Barcelona’s historic avenue, Las Ramblas.

Olivier Guitta, managing director of GlobalStrat, a security and geopolitical risk consultancy, said the attack in Spain was different from recent truck attacks in Nice, France, and Berlin, arguing it was “a much more sophisticated plot involving many more people, which is extremely serious and extremely concerning.”

Investigations into the backgrounds of the assailants — all but one are of Moroccan descent — are focusing initially on whether any of those involved were fighters who had returned to Europe from Syria, say Spanish counterterror officials, who asked not to be identified by name.

But beyond that, they and their counterparts elsewhere in Europe see an emerging trend of North African links behind the recent spate of terror attacks.

Manchester bombing

The suicide bombing earlier this year at a Manchester concert was mounted by British-born Salman Abedi, whose parents are Libyan. He traveled frequently to Tripoli to visit relatives and may have had terrorist training there.

Two of the three London Bridge attackers in June were also from North Africa. Rachid Redouane claimed variously to be Libyan or Moroccan, and Youssef Zaghba was born in Morocco.

It was a Tunisian, whose asylum application had been declined, who drove a truck into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin in December, an act of terrorism that left 12 dead.

Spanish detectives are also following links with North African-origin jihadists in Belgium.

Last April, Spanish counterterror police mounted 12 house searches and arrested four suspects in connection with the jihadist attacks at the airport in Brussels and on a metro station, which left 32 dead in March 2016. Some of the suspects arrived in Belgium six days before those attacks and left shortly afterward.

El Pais newspaper reported that during their stay, they had several telephone conversations with people involved in the attacks. All of them were of Moroccan origin.

“The Belgian judge who is investigating the attack on the Brussels airport found links between those responsible for the attack and Moroccans residing in Catalonia,” according to a Spanish official.

Catalan police chief Josep Lluís Trapero said shortly after the arrests that the suspects who were detained all had criminal records, including links to drug and arms trafficking. A Spanish official told VOA several of the Barcelona suspects also have criminal histories.

On Saturday, Italian authorities announced they had deported three people — two Moroccans and a Syrian — suspected of extremist sympathies, raising to 202 the number of suspected jihadists expelled from Italy since January 2015. One of the deportees, a 38-year-old Moroccan, was radicalized while in jail for minor crimes, Italian officials said.

The other Moroccan, a 31-year-old man, expressed his support for IS openly. He had been receiving compulsory treatment for a mental disorder after being arrested for theft.
…

Recruiting for Jihad is a Norwegian expose on the practices extremist Jihadists follow to recruit young men to fight for ISIS. During filming, Adel Khan Farooq, one of the two filmmakers, had unprecedented access to a radicalized network of Islamists in Europe. He met them through Norwegian-born Ubaydullah Hussain, a notorious recruiter, currently serving a nine-year sentence in a Norwegian prison.

“In the beginning, he was very charming,” Farooq told VOA, describing Hussain. “He was easy to talk with, and I never felt like he was a threat directly against me or anybody else for that matter, but when the attacks against Charlie Hebdo in France occurred and he was praising ISIS and then praising the attacks on Copenhagen, I certainly felt like that I did not know him after all.”

Still, Farooq kept filming Hussain.

“I wanted to find out why he became that way, why did he become so extreme, because there are some pieces of him that he used to be a referee in soccer and he was a bright child and did OK in school,” he says. Farooq accompanied Hussain to underground meetings and workshops among radicalized Islamists in a number of places in Europe, trying to learn what was behind the radicalization of people like him.

Farooq learned that most of the radicals are born in Europe but are culturally and psychologically displaced and vulnerable to the idea of close-knit radicalized communities.

“At least in Norway, 99 percent of Muslims, the majority of Muslims, are integrated in society. They work as lawyers, doctors, teachers, police officers, and have a Muslim background. But there are some, the minority, that have these extreme views. It’s not only in Norway, it’s in Sweden, Denmark, UK, France, Belgium, you always find a small minority of people who don’t fit in even as Muslims, they don’t fit in, they are marginalized, might struggle or have some struggles at home, hard time finding work.”

These types of people, Farooq says, are radicalized by leading Islamists such as Anjem Choudary, a British citizen, who supports the existence of an Islamic state.

Before his six-year incarceration for supporting Islamic State, Choudary was holding workshops throughout Europe advocating jihad. During one of those underground meetings, Farooq captured chilling footage of him preaching to a group of men, women and children in a basement room. His lecture, advocating that Islamic values are superior to British values and the British constitution, was also being recorded and distributed to thousands over the internet.

In 2015, Islamic extremists waged a series of attacks in Paris, first against the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, and months later, at a concert hall and football stadium, killing 130 and injuring 368. Afterward, Farooq says Hussain told him on camera that he did not know the attackers in Paris, but he knew people who knew them.

“These extremist groups,” Farooq said, “are really small, but they are strong because they work together. They either visit each other, have so called sessions, where they have seminars of sort.”

Though their ideas don’t represent the majority of Muslims in Europe, Farooq said, they impact the Muslim communities by fueling hatred against them.

“This radicalization is not a Muslim thing,” he says. “You find radicalization in America, too. Right wing extremists, they are radicalized; criminals, they are radicalized.”

One of Farooq’s last filming sessions of Hussain showed the Islamist recruiting a young Norwegian to fight for ISIS in Syria. The 18-year-old recruit was apprehended at the airport just before he boarded a plane with a fake passport. Hussain was arrested, and Norwegian police forces confiscated footage from Farooq and his co-director, Ulrik Rolfsen as evidence. The filmmakers’ fight for freedom of the press became a story in itself. Farooq and Rolfsen took their case all the way to Norway’s Supreme Court. They won.

“The key issue is that for any democracy, it is very, very vital that journalists and media are separated from authorities,” Rolfsen stressed. “My power is to tell stories and expose things that happen in society to educate the public, and I think it’s important that we don’t step on each other’s toes.”

When asked whether such a documentary can fuel fear and mistrust against Muslims, Rolfsen said that audiences’ reactions overall were positive, but he admitted it is a tough subject to tackle.

“We have a lot of people hating Islam, we have a lot of people pro Islam, the whole refugee situation is in the middle of that. Publishing the film felt like walking through a fire with a big balloon filled with gasoline and you know it’s going to blow up in your face if you don’t hold it high enough and you don’t walk fast enough.”

Farooq, raised as a Muslim, feels the film was close to his heart because he wanted to expose how these cells operate on the fringes of society.

“That was very important to me and Ulrik. Because most Muslims are not like these guys,” he said. “They are normal people.”

 
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A stabbing attack carried out Friday by an 18-year-old Moroccan migrant in Finland is being investigated by Finnish authorities as “a likely terrorist act,” officials said.

Speaking Saturday with reporters, Pekka Hiltunen, a spokeswoman for the Finnish Security Intelligence Service, told reporters the agency was investigating the suspect’s ties to the Islamic State group, as IS “has previously encouraged this kind of behavior.”

Police have not released the name of the suspect in the stabbing attack. On Friday, the asylum-seeker stabbed nine people in the small city of Turku, leaving two of the victims dead. He apparently was targeting women, in particular.

“We think that the attacker especially targeted women, and the men were wounded after coming to the defense of the women,” Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation superintendent, Christa Granroth, told reporters.

Four other Moroccan men were also detained by police in connection with the stabbing, though it is unclear what their relationship is to the attacker.

The attacker was shot in the leg by police shortly after the attack took place, and he is now in the hospital under police watch.

Security was heightened at Helsinki airport and at train stations in response to the stabbings.

The Security Intelligence Service raised the terrorism threat level in June after becoming aware of terror-related plots in the usually peaceful country.

Turku is located about 140 kilometers west of the capital of Helsinki.

The stabbings occurred as Europe remains on high alert while it grapples with a spate of terrorist attacks, including two this week alone. At least 14 people were killed and 100 others injured Thursday in Spain after drivers mowed down pedestrians in two separate attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack in Barcelona.
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‘Recruiting for Jihad’ is a Norwegian expose on the practices extremist Jihadists follow to recruit young men to fight for ISIS.  During filming, Adel Khan Farook, one of the two filmmakers, had unprecedented access to a radicalized network of Islamists in Europe. Farrook and his partner Ulrick Rolfsen spoke to VOA’S Penelope Poulou on the growth of Islamist organizations in Europe.
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Ahmad Alkhald, a Syrian national from Aleppo who played a key role in the Islamic State (IS) terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels, has been identified as a specially designated global terrorist by the United States, the U.S. State Department said.

The designation Thursday — which also included an Iraqi national who has provided close protection to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the IS leader in Iraq and Syria — imposed “strict sanctions” on the individuals and prohibited any dealings with them.

Alkhald is an IS bomb maker and the terror group’s explosives chief who helped carry out the November 2015 attacks in Paris and the March 2016 attacks in Brussels, the State Department statement said.

The series of the deadly terrorist attacks on several public places killed 130 people in Paris and 32 in Brussels.

Alkhald reportedly traveled to Europe, where he made the explosive vests used in the Paris attacks.

Island a gateway to Europe

According to French media, he crossed into Europe via the Greek island of Leros in September 2015. The island has been a gateway for some other IS attackers who have reportedly sneaked in among Syrians seeking refuge in Europe in the aftermath of the country’s civil war.

Alkhald returned to Syria shortly before the Paris attacks and continued helping other IS plots in Europe, including the March 2016 attacks in Brussels.

“Alkhald is wanted internationally and a European warrant for his arrest has been issued,” the statement said.

Al-Baghdadi’s protector

Abu Yahya al-Iraqi, also known as Iyad Hamed Mahl al-Jumaily, was the second individual identified as a specially designated global terrorist in Thursday’s statement.

Al-Iraqi is a senior IS figure close to al-Baghdadi, the terror group’s leader. He is reportedly a key IS leader in Iraq and Syria and has played a major role in providing security for al-Baghdadi.

The designation “notifies the U.S. public and the international community that Alkhald and al-Iraqi have committed or pose a significant risk of committing acts of terrorism,” the State Department said.

The statement said the designation and action by the State Department would help expose and isolate the two men, and help law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and around the world in their efforts against them.

A response to 9/11 attacks

Specially designated global terrorist (SDGT) is a designation established by the U.S. government in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks. Individuals designated as SDGTs are believed to pose a threat to U.S. national security by committing acts of terrorism.

The State Department has placed 272 individuals from different terrorist entities on the designation list, including 20 IS leaders and operatives.

“These designations are part of a larger comprehensive plan to defeat [IS] that, in coordination with the 73-member global coalition, has made significant progress toward this goal,” the State Department said.
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Fitch Ratings has upgraded Greece’s credit rating from CCC to B-, a one-notch improvement that still leaves the bonds issued by the crisis-battered country well below investment grade.

The ratings agency said Friday that the outlook of the Greek economy was positive and that it expected talks with the country’s international creditors to be concluded “without creating instability.”

A Fitch statement added that other European countries using the euro currency were expected to grant Greece substantial debt relief next year. It said that would boost market confidence and help Greece finance itself directly by issuing bonds after its current bailout program ends in a year.

Fitch said Greece’s political situation had become more stable and that there was “limited” risk of a future government reversing bailout-linked austerity and reforms.
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U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis will travel to Jordan, Turkey and Ukraine next week for talks with the leaders of all three nations.

Pentagon officials said Friday that Mattis aims to reaffirm Washington’s commitments to each of the countries.

Mattis will begin his trip by meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah as well as top defense officials. Jordan has been a key partner in the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State terror group.

From Jordan, Mattis will head to Turkey for meetings with top officials, including President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

“Secretary Mattis will emphasize the steadfast commitment of the United States to Turkey as a NATO ally and strategic partner, seek to collaborate on efforts to advance regional stability, and look for ways to help Turkey address its legitimate security concerns — including the fight against the PKK,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

The PKK, also known as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, has been leading an insurgency against the Turkish government since 1984. It is listed as a terrorist group by the U.S. and many European nations.

In Kyiv, Mattis is expected to meet with Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak and President Petro Poroshenko.

His visit comes amid reports the Trump administration is considering providing lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine in its fight against Russian-backed separatists.

“During these engagements, the secretary will reassure our Ukrainian partners that the U.S. remains firmly committed to the goal of restoring Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the Pentagon statement said.

The visits to Jordan and Ukraine will be Mattis’ first as defense secretary.
…

The United States has condemned what it calls a “terror attack” in Barcelona Thursday and is offering assistance to Spain. At least 13 people have died and about 100 others were left injured after a van ploughed into pedestrians in Barcelona’s popular Las Ramblas area. Two people have been arrested in the case but the driver has fled. Terrorist group Islamic State has claimed the attack was performed by one of its “soldiers”, without offering any proof. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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Parts of Portugal, beset by its deadliest summer of wildfires in living memory, were declared in a state of public calamity on Thursday as the government put emergency services on alert for further outbreaks.

It has borne the brunt of a heatwave that has settled over much of southern Europe, and more than three times as much forest has burned down in the country this summer as in an average year.

Since a single blaze killed 64 people in June, the government has been under pressure to come up with a strategic plan to limit the damage.

It said on Thursday the state of calamity would trigger “preventative effects” in the central and northern interior and parts of the southern Algarve region, while the meteorological office forecast temperatures would top 40 degrees centigrade in some places by Sunday.

Prime Minister Antonio Costa would also meet with military, police and rescue service commanders “for the maximum mobilization and pre-positioning of personnel in the areas of greatest risk,” the government said in a statement.

Since June’s tragedy, emergency services have made far greater efforts to evacuate villages and shut roads early in affected areas.

Still, nearly 80 people have been hurt in wildfires in the past week alone, according to the civil protection service.

Last Saturday, when a record 268 fires blazed countrywide, the government requested water planes and firemen from other European countries.

On Thursday, over 130 people were evacuated from villages in the Santarem district around 170 km (110 miles) northeast of Lisbon, where over 1,000 firefighters were battling flames.

With just over 2 percent of the EU landmass, Portugal accounts for almost a third of burnt areas in the union this year.

More than 163,000 hectares of forest have been lost there, more than three times higher than the average of the last 10 years, according to EU data.
…

Following are some of the deadly attacks in Western Europe in recent years:

Aug. 17, 2017 — A van ploughs into crowds in the heart of Barcelona, killing at least 13 people, a regional official says, in what police say they are treating as a terrorist attack.

June 3, 2017 — Three attackers ram a van into pedestrians on London Bridge then stab revellers in nearby bars, killing eight people and injuring at least 48. Islamic State says its militants are responsible.

May 22, 2017 — A suicide bomber kills 22 children and adults and wounds 59 at a packed concert hall in the English city of Manchester, as crowds began leaving a concert by U.S. singer Ariana Grande.

April 7, 2017 — A truck drives into a crowd on a shopping street and crashes into a department store in central Stockholm, killing five people and wounding 15 in what police call a terrorist attack.

March 22, 2017 — An attacker stabs a policeman close to the British parliament in London after a car ploughs into pedestrians on nearby Westminster Bridge. Six people die, including the assailant and the policeman he stabbed, and at least 20 are injured in what police call a “marauding terrorist attack.”

Dec. 19, 2016 —  A truck ploughs into a crowded Christmas market in central Berlin, killing 12 people and injuring 48. German Chancellor Angela Merkel says authorities are assuming it was a terrorist attack.

July 26, 2016 — Two attackers kill a priest with a blade and seriously wound another hostage in a church in northern France before being shot dead by French police. French President Francois Hollande says the two hostage-takers had pledged allegiance to Islamic State.

July 24, 2016 — A Syrian man wounds 15 people when he blows himself up outside a music festival in Ansbach in southern Germany. Islamic State claims responsibility.

July 22, 2016 — An 18-year-old German-Iranian gunman apparently acting alone kills at least nine people in Munich. The teenager had no Islamist ties but was obsessed with mass killings. The attack was carried out on the fifth anniversary of twin attacks by Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik that killed 77 people.

July 18, 2016 — A 17-year-old Afghan refugee wielding an axe and a knife attacks passengers on a train in southern Germany, severely wounding four, before being shot dead by police. Islamic State claims responsibility.

July 14, 2016 — A gunman drives a heavy truck into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in the French city of Nice, killing 86 people and injuring scores more in an attack claimed by Islamic State. The attacker is identified as a Tunisian-born Frenchman.

June 14, 2016 — A Frenchman of Moroccan origin stabs a police commander to death outside his home in a Paris suburb and kills his partner, who also worked for the police. The attacker told police negotiators during a siege that he was answering an appeal by Islamic State.

March 22, 2016 — Three Islamic State suicide bombers, all Belgian nationals, blow themselves up at Brussels airport and in a metro train in the Belgian capital, killing 32 people. Police find links with attacks in Paris the previous November.

Nov. 13, 2015 — Paris is rocked by multiple, near simultaneous gun-and-bomb attacks on entertainment sites around the city, in which 130 people die and 368 are wounded. Islamic State claims responsibility. Two of the 10 known perpetrators were Belgian citizens and three others were French.

Jan. 7-9, 2015 — Two Islamist militants break into an editorial meeting of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo on Jan. 7 and rake it with bullets, killing 17. Another militant kills a policewoman the next day and takes hostages at a supermarket on Jan. 9, killing four before police shoot him dead.

May 24, 2014 — Four people are killed in a shooting at the Jewish Museum in central Brussels. The attacker was French national Mehdi Nemmouche, 29, who was subsequently arrested in Marseille, France. Extradited, he is awaiting trial in Belgium.

 
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Ukrainian officials and analysts were quick to deny allegations that the Soviet-era Yuzhmash arms factory was a likely source of engine technology used in North Korea’s missiles and to redirect suspicions to Russia.  

“It is a complex and bulky piece of equipment. It is simply not possible to supply it by bypassing export procedures,” said Mykola Sunhurovskyi, director of military programs at the Razumkov Center, a Kyiv think tank, to VOA’s Ukrainian Service. “What is possible, is for North Korea to obtain engines left behind after rocket dismantling in Russia. That could be possible. Meaning Russia could have kept the engines after it had taken apart the rockets, which had been slated for dismantling. Those could have been supplied.”

Michael Elleman, the author of a research report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, says Pyongyang probably got illicit help from inside Ukraine. But Elleman acknowledges that help also could have come from Russia.  

“There’s a lot of uncertainty as exactly how it could have been transferred. But, I think the likelihood is that the source is either in Russia or Ukraine,” Elleman told VOA’s Ukrainian Service.  

Elleman says he first became aware of the possibility of Ukrainian technology when he noticed similarities in photos of North Korea’s September 2016 ground test.

“Well, according to two sources that I’ve spoken with, the modifications that we’ve seen in North Korea – that modified engine has actually been seen in Ukraine. That doesn’t mean it was done by Yuzhnoye [Yuzhmash’s design bureau], it could have been done by others or simultaneously. This was a product that was made long ago and it’s just been leveraged by unsavory types who were able to extract it from either Ukraine or Russia.”

‘Completely untrue’

Yuzhmash, the Ukrainian factory, called the claims “completely untrue” and said it had not produced military-grade ballistic missiles since Ukraine’s 1991 independence from the Soviet Union.  

“There is such a high level of confidentiality at the factory and in general it is ensured by a multi-level system of security, which includes not only Yuzhmash services, but also municipal and state services,” Yuzhmash Deputy Director Oleh Lebedev told Reuters TV.

Elleman was first quoted in The New York Times, which cited its own intelligence sources, saying that Ukraine was a likely source. 

But Elleman says that even if Ukraine was a source, he sees no indication Ukrainian authorities would have been involved.

“I don’t believe the Ukrainian government was responsible in any way,” he said. “And I suspect if it did occur in Ukraine, they may not have known. It’s likely they would not have known.”

Other analysts argue that North Korea can build its own engines and would not need help. But all agree it would be a good idea for Ukraine to allow an investigation.  

“I believe in this situation, the MFA [Ministry of Foreign Affairs] of Ukraine needs to invite the international community, with the first invitation to be extended to the USA, to conduct an investigation here in Ukraine, as well as globally to study exactly how North Korea was able to develop its missile program, whether there is a Chinese connection or a Russian connection,” said the director of Ukraine’s National Institute for Strategic Studies and former head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, Volodymyr Horbulin.  

“These are the two countries which maintain close relations with the DPRK [North Korea]. The proposal from Ukraine for such an investigation should put an end to constant attacks on our country by those who suggest that it is constantly trading in something banned by international accords or agreements,” said Horbulin.  

Possible implications for U.S.-Ukraine cooperation

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Tuesday ordered an official inquiry into whether any missile engine technology could have been supplied to North Korea. Some experts in Ukraine worry that the allegations could affect any U.S. decision on whether to provide Ukraine with defensive weapons to fend off Russia-backed separatists.

“There’s ongoing discussion about the possibility to transfer lethal weapons to Ukraine,” noted the Ukrainian Center for Army’s Ihor Fedyk. “This story may have a negative impact on the process,” he told VOA’s Ukrainian Service.  

There are concerns that other areas of bilateral cooperation, such as space programs, could be affected.  

“America is our strategic partner, a very serious strategic partner, in space programs,” said the acting head of Ukraine’s State Space Agency, Yurii Radchenko. “It is not in our interests to harm relations with U.S. official agencies.”

U.S. State Department Spokeswoman Heather Nauert commented Tuesday, saying “We’re certainly aware of those reports that have come out. That’s an issue that we would take very seriously if that were to be the case.”  

“As a general matter, we don’t comment on intelligence reports. Ukraine, though, we have to say, has a very strong nonproliferation record. And that includes specifically with respect to the DPRK,” Nauert added.

The allegations surfaced as North Korea threatens to send missiles near the U.S. island territory of Guam.  

While Elleman’s allegations are investigated, the North Korean government appears to have stepped back from its threat to Guam, saying it will wait to see what further actions the United States takes.
…

The British government has vowed repeatedly to end the free movement of people from the European Union when the U.K. leaves the bloc in 2019. But on Wednesday it acknowledged that, in one area of the country, it won’t.

Britain said there must be no border posts or electronic checks between Northern Ireland and the Irish republic after Brexit, and it committed itself to maintaining the longstanding, border-free Common Travel Area covering the U.K. and Ireland.

“There should be no physical border infrastructure of any kind on either side of the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland,” Conservative British Prime Minister Theresa May said.

That means free movement across the border for British, Irish — and EU —  citizens. After Britain leaves the bloc, EU nationals will be able to move without checks from Ireland to Northern Ireland, and onto other parts of the U.K.

Free movement among member states is a key EU principle, and has seen hundreds of thousands of people move to Britain and get jobs there since the bloc expanded into eastern Europe more than a decade ago.

Many Britons who voted last year to leave the EU cited a desire to regain control of immigration as a key reason.

In a paper outlining proposals for the Northern Ireland-Ireland border after Brexit, the British government insisted it will be able to control who can settle in the U.K. through work permits and other measures.

It said “immigration controls are not, and never have been, solely about the ability to prevent and control entry at the U.K.’s physical border.” Control of access to the labor market and social welfare are also “an integral part” of the immigration system, the paper added.

Northern Ireland is an especially thorny issue in Brexit talks, because it has the U.K.’s only land border with the EU — and because an open border has helped build the economic prosperity that underpins the peace process in Northern Ireland.

Since the 1998 Good Friday peace accord, British military checkpoints along the Ireland-Northern Ireland border have been dismantled, rendering it all but invisible. Thousands of people cross the 300-mile (500-kilometer) border every day.

Britain said it was determined that “nothing agreed as part of the U.K.’s exit in any way undermines” the Northern Ireland peace agreement.

The government’s Department for Exiting the European Union acknowledged that “unprecedented” solutions would be needed to preserve the peace process and maintain the benefits of an open border after Britain leaves the EU, its single market in goods and services and its tariff-free customs union.

It suggested a future “customs partnership” between Britain and the EU could eliminate the need for checks on goods crossing the border.

For agricultural and food products, Britain said one option could be “regulatory equivalence,” where the U.K. and EU agree to maintain the same standards. But it’s unclear what that would mean for Britain’s ability to trade with countries that do not always meet EU standards, such as the United States.

The Northern Ireland proposals came in a series of papers covering aspects of Brexit negotiations, which are due to resume in Brussels at the end of this month.

Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney said the document “brings some clarity and is certainly helpful to move this process forward.” But, he said, “there are still significant questions that are unanswered.”

European Commission spokeswoman Annika Breidthardt said Britain’s position papers — which come after allegations from EU officials that the U.K. is underprepared for the EU divorce negotiations — are “a positive step.”

“The clock is ticking and this will allow us to make progress,” she said.

Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this story.
…

British Parliament officials said Wednesday they will review plans to silence Big Ben during four years of repairs after senior politicians criticized the lengthy muting of the beloved bell.

When the repairs were announced last year, officials said the massive bell in Parliament’s clock tower would be silenced for several months. But this week they said the ringing pause would last until 2021.

Prime Minister Theresa May said “it can’t be right for Big Ben to be silent for four years.”

The 13.5 British ton (15.1 U.S. ton, 13.7 metric ton) bell has sounded the time almost uninterrupted since 1859, but it’s due to fall silent on Monday so repairs can be carried out on the Victorian clock and the Elizabeth Tower.

Officials say the silencing is needed to ensure the safety of workers.

Adam Watrobski, principal architect at the Houses of Parliament, rejected claims that the great bell that survived German bombing raids was the victim of overcautious health and safety regulations.

“It is quite simply that we can’t have the bells working with those people adjacent to it. It simply isn’t practical to do that,” he said.

In a statement Wednesday headlined “update on Big Ben’s bongs,” Parliament officials said that in light of the concerns expressed by lawmakers, authorities “will consider the length of time” Big Ben is stifled.

But they rejected calls to allow the bell to strike at night once workers have gone home. “Starting and stopping Big Ben is a complex and lengthy process,” they said.

The sound of Big Ben’s bongs became associated with Britain around the world during wartime BBC news broadcasts. It’s still heard live each day on BBC radio through a microphone in the belfry.

The BBC says it will use a recording during the renovation works.
…

Ireland’s finance minister rejected the European Commission’s demand that it retroactively collect 13 billion euros in taxes from Apple, saying this was not Dublin’s job in an interview with Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine (FAZ) newspaper.

In the interview, extracts from which the FAZ published on Wednesday, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said the tax rules from which Apple benefited had been available to all and not tailored for the U.S. technology giant. They did not violate European or Irish law, he added.

“We are not the global tax collector for everybody else,” the paper quoted him as saying. The European Commission last year ruled that Apple paid so little tax on its Ireland-based operations that it amounted to state aid.
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Britain’s most advanced and biggest warship, the 65,000-ton aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, berthed for the first time at its home port of Portsmouth on Wednesday.

The 280-meter (920-foot) vessel entered the harbor on England’s southern coast at 0610 GMT, greeted by thousands of spectators.

HMS Queen Elizabeth is the largest warship ever built for the Royal Navy, according to the Ministry of Defense.

“Today we welcome our mighty new warship, HMS Queen Elizabeth, to her home for the very first time,” said Defense Secretary Michael Fallon. “She is Britain’s statement to the world: a demonstration of British military power and our commitment to a bigger global role.”

The ship is currently undergoing sea trials. It cannot yet deploy planes, but flying trials from its deck are due to begin in 2018.

It took eight years to build HMS Queen Elizabeth, with construction taking place in six cities and involving 10,000 people.

Along with its sister ship, HMS Prince of Wales, it is part of a defense program worth 6 billion pounds ($7.65 billion).

Commanding officer Captain Jerry Kyd told the BBC that the carrier “sends the right signals to our allies and indeed potentially to our enemies that we mean business.”
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British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Wednesday there was no equivalence between fascists and those who opposed them, a rare rebuke of U.S. President Donald Trump by one of his closest foreign allies.

Trump inflamed tensions after a deadly rally of white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, by insisting that counter-protesters were also to blame, drawing condemnation from some Republican leaders and praise from white far-right groups.

“There’s no equivalence, I see no equivalence between those who propound fascist views and those who oppose them and I think it is important for all those in positions of responsibility to condemn far-right views wherever we hear them,” May told reporters when asked to comment on Trump’s stance.

WATCH: May responds to Trump’s comments

On Monday, May’s spokesman had said that while Britain condemned racism, what the U.S. president said was “a matter for him”.

May has been widely criticized by domestic political opponents for her efforts to cultivate close ties with Trump, who she visited at the White House days after his inauguration and invited for a state visit to Britain.

Her openly critical comment on Wednesday was an unexpected shift from May, who is keen to cement what she and many other Britons see as a “special relationship” between London and Washington as Britain prepares to leave the European Union.

The invitation to Trump to make a state visit to Britain sparked immediate controversy in Britain when the U.S. head of state announced his widely-criticized ban on travel from Muslim-majority countries just hours after May left the White House.

Trump’s stance on the Charlottesville violence drew renewed calls for Trump’s state visit, which would be hosted by Queen Elizabeth and involve lavish pageantry, to be cancelled. May had rejected similar calls after previous Trump-related controversies.

“Donald Trump has shown he is unable to detach himself from the extreme-right and racial supremacists,” said Vince Cable, leader of the opposition Liberal Democrats. “It would be completely wrong to have this man visit the UK on a State Visit.”

No date has been announced for the visit.
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Firefighters battled wildfires raging northeast of Athens for a third day on Tuesday as Greece asked for help from its European partners to prevent them from spreading.

The fire started in Kalamos, a coastal holiday spot some 45 km (30 miles) northeast of the capital, and has spread to three more towns, damaging dozens of homes and burning thousands of hectares of pine forest. A state of emergency has been declared in the area.

“The blaze is advancing with great speed. Because of the scale and intensity of the wildfires, the country submitted a request for aerial means,” fire brigade spokeswoman Stavroula Maliri told a press briefing.

Cyprus offered a group of 60 firefighters, and a Greek air force plane was headed there to pick them up. But a request for two pairs of CL-415 firefighting aircraft was turned down by France as it had to deal with its own wildfires, she said.

Three firefighting planes and six water-throwing helicopters operated through the day, assisting 210 firefighters and about 100 military personnel battling the blaze on the ground near the town of Kapandriti.

Rugged terrain dotted with small communities made the fire-fighting difficult, with winds rekindling the blaze at many spots. Thick, billowing smoke rendered operations from the air difficult.

Across Greece, firefighters were battling more than 55 forest fires, an outbreak fed by dry winds and hot weather that fanned blazes in the Peloponnese and on the Ionian islands of Zakynthos and Kefalonia.

Arson?

On Zakynthos, an island popular with foreign tourists, a dozen fires burned for a fifth day. Authorities declared a state of emergency there on Monday. A government minister said there was no doubt the fires had been set deliberately.

“It’s arson according to an organized plan,” Justice Minister Stavros Kontonis, the member of parliament for Zakynthos, told state TV.

Late July and August often see outbreaks of forest and brush fires in Greece, where high temperatures help create tinder-box conditions.

In Kalamos, community president Dimitris Kormovitis told Reuters TV: “If we don’t manage to cut it off today, there will be terrible consequences. There has been devastation of a biblical scale in our area, which is one of the last lungs of the Attica region.”

Andreas Theodorou, a local councilor in Kalamos, said the blaze had damaged several dozen homes. “Help did not arrive fast enough, and if you don’t stop a forest fire so large as soon as it breaks out, it’s very hard to put it out,” he said.

In the Peloponnese region of Ilia, blazes that broke out in three areas Monday and looked tamed early Tuesday flared up again, fanned by winds. In 2007, the same area was the site of Greece’s worst fires, with more than 70 people killed.

“We asked for the evacuation of the village of Peristeri. The fire has gotten very close, it cannot be contained due to strong winds,” Ilia vice prefect George Georgiopoulos told SKAI TV.
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Italy’s interior minister said on Tuesday he saw light at the end of the tunnel for curbing migrant flows from Libya after a slowdown in arrivals across the Mediterranean in recent months.

But a United Nations investigator said that Italy’s recent effort to draw up a code regulating the operations of humanitarian ships rescuing migrants at sea would cause more deaths.

The subject of immigration is dominating Italy’s political agenda ahead of general elections due before May next year, with public opinion increasingly hostile to migrants. Almost 600,000 migrants have arrived in Italy over the past four years.

“We are still under the tunnel, it’s a long tunnel, but I start seeing the light at the end of it,” Interior Minister Marco Minniti told a news conference.

Small drop in migrant arrivals

After a surge in migrant arrivals from Libya at the start of the year, the numbers have slowed. Data from the Interior Ministry on Tuesday showed that 97,293 people had reached Italy so far in 2017, down 4.15 percent from the same period in 2016.

Minniti said that these trends would continue in August but did not comment further.

Italy has approached the migrant problem with a dual track strategy, strengthening Libya’s efforts to fight smuggling and at the same time putting pressure on non-governmental organisations (NGOs) involved in rescue operations.

“It was important to intervene on the other side of the Mediterranean and we have focused on Libya. It seemed difficult, but it now appears that something is moving,” he added.

Italy offers instruction, upgrades

In Libya, Italy has trained members of the coastguard and upgraded its fleet, in line with the EU’s investments to support search and rescue operations at sea as well as those along its borders.

Minniti said that attention would also be given to the conditions of migrants brought back from sea to Libya and that Italy would start distributing aid in the cities of Sabratha and Zowarah, two hubs for the smuggling of migrants.

At home, the Italian government has introduced a code of conduct for the operations NGOs, demanding that armed police travel on their boats to help root out people smugglers.

Five out of the of eight groups operating in the southern Mediterranean agreed to the terms so far. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has refused to sign so far.

‘Code of conduct’

Hours earlier, a member of the United Nations largest body of independent experts said Italy’s policy could restrict the NGOs’ life-saving work and result in more deaths.

“This code of conduct and the overall action plan suggest that Italy, the EU Commission and the EU Member states deem the risks and the reality of deaths at sea a price worth paying in order to deter migrants and refugees,” Agnes Callamard said in a statement.

Minniti said he would meet his counterparts from Libya, Chad, Niger and Mali on Aug. 28 and that he would soon meet in Rome the mayors of the main Libyan cities involved.

“A democratic country (like Italy) does not chase migrants flows, but governs them … ungoverned flows threaten a country’s democracy,” Minniti said. “Italy is not retreating but remains firmly committed to rescues at sea.”

 
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In a rare visit, the head of Iran’s armed forces is in Turkey. The two neighbors have found themselves increasing rivals in Iraq and Syria, but both sides are trying to find common ground.

The chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces, Major General Mohammad-Hossein Baqeri, arrived in Ankara, leading a high-ranking military and political delegation, for three days of talks. It is the first visit by Iran’s chief of staff since the 1979 Iranian revolution.

Regional rivalries

Former Turkish ambassador to Iraq Unal Cevikoz now heads the Ankara Policy Forum. He says conflicts in Iraq and Syria have exacerbated regional rivalries.

“Iran is becoming a very important actor in the region, particularly in Iraq and Syria,” he said. “It seems Iran has certain intentions. And when we look at the Turkish Iranian relations pertaining to the situation in Iraq and Syria, it is obvious Turkey and Iran are not on the same page.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has positioned himself as an advocate of Sunni Muslim rights in the region and has been in the forefront of criticizing Tehran’s policy in Iraq and Syria.

Erdogan has strongly criticized the treatment of Sunnis by Iraqi militia backed by Tehran. Ankara is one of the main supporters of Syrian rebels fighting the Damascus government supported by Iran.

The Iranian general’s visit comes as Tehran, Ankara and Moscow are cooperating in what is called the Astana process to resolve the Syrian civil war. The conflict is expected to be discussed during the visit.

Idlib enclave

Political columnist Semih Idiz of the Al Monitor website says talks will include the Syrian enclave of Idlib, one of the last areas the rebel forces control.

“Idlib is a potential hornets nest. There is infighting there between two radical Islamist groups,” said Idiz. “One is considered nominally more moderate and supported by Turkey and the other one more close to ISIS in sentiment. It is not clear how that is going to play out in Idlib and [Syrian President] Assad is going to take advantage of that.”

Idlib borders Turkey, and there are growing concerns in Ankara that if it is overrun by Syrian government forces Turkey could experience a major refugee influx, which could include many radical jihadists. Last week Ankara closed its border crossing into Idlib due to security concerns.

The aspirations of the region’s Kurds is also expected to be on the Iranian general’s agenda in Ankara, with both countries having large and restive Kurdish minorities. Next month’s independence referendum by Iraqi Kurds will provide common ground, with Tehran and Ankara strongly opposing the vote.

 
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