Coins and bracelets from the 1st century that were looted from western Romania years ago and smuggled out of the country were put on display Thursday after a joint investigation with Austria brought them back home.

The treasure trove of gold and silver artifacts, stolen between 2000 and 2001, was presented at Romania’s National History Museum. The items were found in Austria in 2015 and returned following a cross-border investigation.

The artifacts — 473 coins and 18 bracelets — were taken from archaeological sites in the Orastie Mountains that had been inhabited by Dacians, who fought against the Romans in the early 2nd century.

General Prosecutor Augustin Lazar said 21 people have been convicted in the thefts.

Museum curator Ernest Oberlander-Tarnoveanu said it was “one of the finest recoveries of Dacian treasure in last 200 years” and called their return “a moment of joy, hope and … pride.”

He said the artifacts may have been an offering that a Dacian family made to the gods, which now was valued at “tens of millions of euros [dollars].”

Lazar urged Romanians to be vigilant in guarding their national heritage, and praised a local shepherd who called police after he saw someone entering an archaeological site with a metal detector.

He said intermediaries had taken the artifacts to auction houses and antique shops claiming “they are from my late grandparent’s collection.”
…

After 16 years of steady decline, malaria cases are on the rise again globally, and experts warn that unless efforts to tackle the disease are stepped up, the gains could be lost. Henry Ridgwell reports from a malaria summit Wednesday in London, where delegates called for a boost in funding for global anti-malarial programs.
…

Macedonia is “back on track” toward European Union membership, the EU foreign policy chief says, urging Macedonia to keep carrying out recommended EU reforms.

The EU’s Federica Mogherini congratulated Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev during a visit to Skopje Wednesday.

“You’ve gone a long way and, yes, the good news is … that you’re back,” Mogherini said. “I think this is a major achievement you have to be proud of. You can celebrate.”

But the EU official urged Zaev to deepen and maintain the recommended economic reforms needed to meet EU standards.

She also said she believes it is “definitely possible” for Macedonia and Greece to resolve the long-standing name dispute before the next scheduled EU summit in June.

Greece has been holding up EU and NATO membership for Macedonia because of their feud over the name Macedonia — used by both the former Yugoslav republic and the ancient region of northern Greece. 

Many Greeks say allowing the neighboring country to use the name Macedonia insults Greek history and implies a claim on Greek territory.

Macedonians say changing their country’s name or even modifying it in a deal with Greece would be like committing treason.

Greek and Macedonian leaders have opened talks on a settlement after years of unsuccessful efforts by the United Nations.

Among the proposals is calling the country New, Upper, or North Macedonia.

Macedonia has already changed the name of the main airport from Alexander the Great Airport — for the ancient Greek hero — to Skopje International Airport.
…

The head of the global chemical watchdog agency on Wednesday rejected Russian claims that traces of a second nerve agent were discovered in the English city where former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned.

Britain blames Russia for the attack, which it says was carried out by smearing a Soviet-developed nerve agent known as Novichok on a door handle at Sergei Skripal’s house in Salisbury. Moscow denies involvement.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Saturday that Moscow received confidential information from the laboratory in Spiez, Switzerland, that analyzed samples from the site of the March 4 poisoning in Salisbury.

He said the analysis – done at the request of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons – indicated that samples contained BZ nerve agent and its precursor. He said BZ was part of the chemical arsenals of the U.S., Britain and other NATO countries, while the Soviet Union and Russia never developed the agent.

OPCW Director-General Ahmet Uzumcu told a meeting Wednesday of the organization’s Executive Council that a BZ precursor known as 3Q “was contained in the control sample prepared by the OPCW Lab in accordance with the existing quality control procedures.”

He added “it has nothing to do with the samples collected by the OPCW team in Salisbury.”

Britain’s representative to the OPCW, Ambassador Peter Wilson, slammed the Russian foreign minister’s comments as a breach of the treaty outlawing chemical weapons.

“The thing for me that was particularly alarming about Lavrov’s statement is, first of all, the OPCW goes to enormous lengths to make sure that the identity of laboratories is confidential and, second of all, either the Russians are hacking the laboratories or they are making stuff up,” he said. “Either way, that is a violation of the confidentiality of the Chemical Weapons Convention.”

In a summary of its report last week, the OPCW didn’t name Novichok as the nerve agent used but it confirmed “the findings of the United Kingdom relating to the identity of the toxic chemical that was used in Salisbury.”

Wilson told reporters that the OPCW “confirmed that they found what we found, and that is a Novichok.”

Russia’s representative to the OPCW, Ambassador Alexander Shulgin, repeated Moscow’s denials and accused Britain of a string of lies.

“For now, I will only say one thing: the claim that the Technical Secretariat confirmed that this chemical points to its Russian origin is an outright lie,” he said in a statement posted on his embassy’s website. “The report itself does not say a single word about the name ‘Novichok;’ the CWC simply does not contain such a concept.”

Shulgin at a later news conference accused Britain of trying to turn the executive council meeting into “a kangaroo court” and suggested that Britain could have arranged the attack on the Skripals to counter domestic tensions over Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union.

“Perhaps the government of Theresa May, weakened by the troubles associated with Brexit, needs society to rally around this government,” he said.

Shulgin also said Russia wouldn’t accept the results of any report on the matter unless it gets full access to investigation details, consular access to the Skripals, and participation in the probe by Russian experts.

The envoy also spent several minutes of digression on Britain’s alleged “very impressive experience” of using poison abroad, including involvement in the 1916 poisoning of Rasputin, a self-styled mystic who held great influence with Czar Nicholas II’s wife.

The Skripals were hospitalized for weeks in critical condition. Yulia Skripal was discharged last week from Salisbury District Hospital, where her father continues to be treated.

Wilson told the meeting that London continues to believe evidence points to Russian involvement in the attempted assassination.

“We believe that only Russia had the technical means, operational experience and motive to target the Skripals,” Wilson said.

Wilson warned the Chemical Weapons Convention was being undermined by a growing use of nerve agents and other poisons, mentioning the 2017 assassination in Malaysia of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s estranged half-brother, in addition to the Salisbury attack and the use of poison gas in Syria and Iraq.

“It is being continually violated,” Wilson told reporters.

He said the convention would be strengthened if all nations fully declared any stockpiles they still have. Member states are supposed to declare all their chemical weapons stocks upon joining the OPCW and destroy them.

The OPCW and Russia last year celebrated the destruction of the country’s final declared stocks.

 “Russia clearly has chemical weapons they are not declaring and they need to do that,” Wilson said.

The antagonism between Britain and Russia played out again in the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday afternoon after U.N. disarmament chief Izumi Nakamitsu briefed members on the OPCW findings.

Britain’s U.N. ambassador, Karen Pierce, said Russian responsibility for the attack was the only “plausible explanation.” She dismissed several Russian allegations that others were responsible, including one accusing Britain for drugging Yulia Skripal. She said the claim was “more than fanciful – this is outlandish.”

Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said the council heard “the same lies” and “mendacious, baseless and slanderous” allegations that the U.K. has been putting forward since the attack. He said the OPCW report only confirmed that the substance could be produced in a well-equipped lab, stressing that such labs exist in the U.K., U.S. and a host of other countries.

Nebenzia said Russia agreed with Britain on one point: “There will be no impunity and the perpetrators will be held responsible.”
…

The German government says Chancellor Angela Merkel will travel to Washington on April 27 to meet President Donald Trump.

Government spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer said Wednesday the leaders will discuss “bilateral questions and of course foreign and security policy challenges.”

The White House previously said that a visit by Merkel was planned in the coming weeks. French President Emmanuel Macron is expected in Washington April 24.

The European leaders are trying to preserve the accord between global powers and Iran on Tehran’s nuclear program. Trump has vowed to withdraw from the 2015 agreement by May 12 unless negotiators can agree to fix what he sees as its serious flaws.

They also want to ensure that the European Union remains exempt from U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

 
…

International chemical weapons inspectors do not appear to have visited the site of a suspected attack in Syria after days of delays by Syrian and Russian authorities.

Syrian state media reported Tuesday that inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons had entered the town of Douma, but Syria’s U.N. ambassador, Bashar Ja’afari, later said that only a U.N. advance security team had entered.

The U.S. State Department has accused the Syrian government and its ally Russia of trying to cover up the alleged April 7 attack. Spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Tuesday the U.S. did not believe the inspectors had entered Douma, and that the evidence is at risk of decaying as delays drag on.

There was no comment from the OPCW or the U.N. Wednesday.
…

Spain’s detention of nine Catalan independence leaders continues to stoke tensions ahead of their trials for rebellion. If predictions are borne out, the trials could be another flashpoint in the continuing constitutional crisis between Madrid and Catalonia.

The nine defendants were taken into custody for organizing an October independence referendum that the Spanish government deemed illegal. Madrid had hoped that it had taken the momentum out of the situation by seizing control of Catalonia, dismissing the pro-independence government and holding regional elections in December.

The pro-independence leaders’ detention, however, has sparked strong emotions in Catalonia, even among segments of the population that had not supported independence. On Sunday, hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Barcelona to demand that the accused be released. If tried and convicted, the nine face sentences of up to 30 years in prison. Currently, no trial date has been set.

WATCH: Spain’s Detention of Independence Leaders Drives Deep Emotions in Catalonia

Public protests, personal struggle

“It is a sad day for us because some people are in prison, but it is also an important day because we have all the people backing us. Nobody can stop this,” said 40-year-old protester Gener Artells, who was among an estimated half-a-million Catalans who filled the streets of the regional capital.

For independence supporters, it is a fight for identity and political freedom. But for Meritxell Bonet, the battle is also deeply personal. Her partner, Jordi Cuixart, the head of the Omnium Cultural Institute and one of the major figures behind the independence bid, is among those charged with rebellion. They have a son who just turned a year old.

Cuixart is being held at the Soto del Real prison outside Madrid, more than 500 kilometers from their home in Catalonia. Every week, Bonet and her young son make the three-hour train journey to the Spanish capital. She estimates they have traveled a total of 30,000 kilometers since Cuixart was jailed in October. The separation is taking an emotional toll.

“My brain is full of things that I should tell him, but for me it’s a very important moment because it’s the only moment when I can construct my family. And we are going to talk a lot about our lives and about our baby.”

Bonet adds that she cannot comprehend a future for her and her son without Cuixart.

“I should be prepared for doing this for a long (time), and at the same time I wish that today is the last time. And I’m always like this, you know, thinking that maybe today is the last time or maybe I should be strong and passionate. We’ll see. I don’t have the answer,” Bonet told VOA outside the prison, where Cuixart and another separatist leader, Jordi Sanchez, are being held.

​Charges from October referendum

The charges against Cuixart and his colleagues stem from police raids that preceded Catalonia’s October 1 referendum. Prosecutors say the attempted secession from Spain amounts to rebellion against the state.

The human rights group Amnesty International disputes that charge.

“The crime of rebellion must be violent, there must be violence, and in this case, there is no sign of physical violence,” said Amnesty’s president in Spain, Esteban Beltran.

Cuixart and his co-defendants have repeatedly appealed for bail, but Spanish courts have refused, arguing that there is risk of “repeat offending.” Meanwhile, their families and supporters continue to wait for the trials.
…

Cambridge Analytica’s ex-CEO, Alexander Nix, has refused to testify before the U.K. Parliament’s media committee, citing British authorities’ investigation into his former company’s alleged misuse of data from millions of Facebook accounts in political campaigns.

Committee Chairman Damian Collins announced Nix’s decision a day before his scheduled appearance but flatly rejected the notion that he should be let off the hook, saying Nix hasn’t been charged with a crime and there are no active legal proceedings against him.

“There is therefore no legal reason why Mr. Nix cannot appear,” Collins said in a statement. “The committee is minded to issue a formal summons for him to appear on a named day in the very near future.”

Nix gave evidence to the committee in February, but was recalled after former Cambridge Analytica staffer Christopher Wylie sparked a global debate over electronic privacy when he alleged the company used data from millions of Facebook accounts to help U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign. Wylie worked on Cambridge Analytica’s “information operations” in 2014 and 2015.

Wylie has also said the official campaign backing Britain’s exit from the European Union had access to the Facebook data.

Cambridge Analytica has previously said that none of the Facebook data it acquired from an academic researcher was used in the Trump campaign. The company also says it did no paid or unpaid work on the Brexit campaign. The company did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The Information Commissioner’s Office said Tuesday that it had written to Nix to “invite him” to be interviewed by investigators. The office is investigating Facebook and 30 other organizations over their use of data and analytics.

“Our investigation is looking at whether criminal and civil offences have been committed under the Data Protection Act,” the office said in a statement.

Nix’s refusal to appear comes as the seriousness of the British inquiry becomes more evident.

Facebook has said it directed Cambridge Analytica to delete all of the data harvested from user accounts as soon as it learned of the problem.

But former Cambridge Analytica business development director Brittany Kaiser testified Tuesday that the U.S. tech giant didn’t really try to verify Cambridge Analytica’s assurances that it had done so.

“I find it incredibly irresponsible that a company with as much money as Facebook … had no due diligence mechanisms in place for protecting the data of U.K. citizens, U.S. citizens or their users in general,” she said.

Kaiser suggested that the number of individuals whose Facebook data was misused could be far higher than the 87 million acknowledged by the Silicon Valley giant.

In an atmosphere where data abuse was rife, Kaiser told lawmakers she believed the leadership of the Leave.EU campaign had combined data from members of the U.K. Independence Party and customers from two insurance companies, Eldon Insurance and GoSkippy Insurance. The data was then sent the University of Mississippi for analysis.

“If the personal data of U.K. citizens who just wanted to buy car insurance was used by GoSkippy and Eldon Insurance for political purposes, as may have been the case, people clearly did not opt in for their data to be used in this way by Leave.EU,” she said in written testimony to the committee.

Leave.EU’s communications director, Andy Wigmore, called Kaiser’s statements a “litany of lies.”

It is how the data was used that alarms some members of the committee and has captured the attention of the public.

An expert on propaganda told the committee Monday that Cambridge Analytica used techniques developed by the Nazis to help Trump’s presidential campaign, turning Muslims and immigrants into an “artificial enemy” to win support from fearful voters.

University of Essex lecturer Emma Briant, who has for a decade studied the SCL Group – a conglomerate of companies, including Cambridge Analytica – interviewed company founder Nigel Oakes when she was doing research for a book. Oakes compared Trump’s tactics to those of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in singling out Jews for reprisals.

“Hitler attacked the Jews, because … the people didn’t like the Jews,” he said on tapes of the interview conducted with Briant. “He could just use them to . leverage an artificial enemy. Well that’s exactly what Trump did. He leveraged a Muslim.”
…

Vitaly Bespalov, a 23-year-old journalism school graduate, had no idea what to expect when he arrived at a nondescript four-story business center in St. Petersburg to interview for a job.

Everything about the building at Savushkina 55 seemed odd. Security was heavy and the windows were tinted. Guards dressed in camouflage demanded his passport and his home address before letting him into the building. And, as he negotiated his entry, Bespalov noticed a woman enter the lobby in a rage.

“She was yelling something about how she refused to be part of this,” says Bespalov. “Everything about the place was strange.”

The year was 2014 and, as Bespalov was to learn, the building was the home of the Internet Research Agency – the company that would later be indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller on charges of conspiring to tamper in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.

At that time, however, the agency was more concerned with the aftermath of another election – this time at home.

In December 2011, tens of thousands of Russians took to the streets and social media, alleging the Kremlin had carried out mass fraud in the country’s parliamentary elections. As Russians shared evidence of ballot stuffing and called others to join the protests, state media stayed silent. The difference in realities was glaring.

“The Kremlin decided they needed to make the online world and state television tell the same story,” says Bespalov, who described his experiences working at the notorious troll factory to VOA.

The aspiring journalist had moved from his native Siberia earlier to St. Petersburg on the promise of a job with a local news website. But the job fell through.  

As a newcomer to St. Petersburg, Bespalov sent out resume after resume, looking for anything that involved editing or reporting.

The rejections piled up until one day the phone rang. He was invited for an interview. Even better: The job paid double the going rate for writing gigs.

“I had no idea who it was,” Bespalov says. “They just called and told me to show up tomorrow at this address – Savushkina 55. And I didn’t understand what the job was or what the company was, but I said, ‘Sure, why not?’”

Having negotiated his way through the heavy security, he was shown into an interview with a woman named Anna. He took a writing test and showed his writing samples – sympathetic takes on Russia’s opposition movement, LGBT rights, and the feminist art collective Pussy Riot.

“From those articles alone, my political views were obvious. I still don’t understand why they took me,” he says. “But Anna came back with a smile and said, ‘Well, we don’t cover the kind of stories you do, but you know how to write.’”

He got the job.

Inside the troll factory

On his first day, Bespalov was assigned to cover the war in eastern Ukraine. Sort of. He was told to rewrite articles from other websites for a handful of fake Ukrainian news sites. His task: to change the text in order to give articles the appearance of originality and a distinctly pro-Russian slant.

“We’d switch the word ‘annexation’ of Crimea for ‘reunification,’ or call the government in Kyiv ‘a fascist junta’ while writing favorably about the separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine,” he says.

If there had been mere doubts before, Bespalov now knew for sure: He was in the epicenter of a propaganda machine.

With the realization came a dilemma, he says. “I could either leave right away, so as not to ruin my reputation as a journalist,” he says. “Or, I thought, I can stay and find out more and publish a big story about it somewhere.”

Bespalov went undercover. A mole among trolls.

He paints a gloomy picture of troll life inside Savushkina 55. Teams worked eight- to 12-hour shifts around the clock, seven days a week. Department heads monitored their work. Surveillance cameras were everywhere. Conversation among employees was discouraged.

In quick chats during cigarette breaks, Bespalov came to the conclusion that most trolls cared or thought little about what they were doing.  

“I know people who’ve been there for three years and never thought once what it was all about. They were there for the money,” he says.

Bespalov sketches out a highly structured operation, noting a fake news division on one floor, and bloggers and social media commentators on another. Also within the structure – a graphics department – which seemingly built an endless number of picture memes called “demotivators” for everyone to use.

Bespalov concludes the point of all this was to complete what he calls a “circle of lies” – a feedback loop where troll postings reinforced Kremlin news on state media, pushing one central idea which he characterizes as “Make Russia Great Again.”

In contrast to 2011, the internet and state media had now merged into one.

“The work was directed at the Russian audience,” Bespalov says. “Even the fake Ukrainian sites weren’t there to change minds in Ukraine. The point was to remove Russians’ doubts about the war in Ukraine and about ourselves because we have a weak economy, because we have few political freedoms. And because Russia can’t launch a company like Apple or develop an innovative space program. But what we can do is create the appearance of a great country. Not make the country better, but create the impression we have.”

Exit strategy

In the end, Bespalov spent three-and-a-half months at the Internet Research Agency. He says that once he felt he’d learned all he could, he quit. And he did publish his investigation – anonymously, out of fear for his safety. In fact, Bespalov was threatened, he says, after others at the IRA began suspecting he was the source of the article.

But eventually, the threats faded – in part, he suspects, because it turns out he wasn’t the only journalist working undercover at the IRA. Other local media outlets had come out with investigations.

“By this point, everybody knew about it,” he says.

And the troll factory would have remained old news if not for its role in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.  

Bespalov says he has little light to shed on that operation, other than that the agency had started advertising for English-speaking positions around the time he left.

“We see that all the journalists who have written from inside the troll factory worked there back in 2014 or 2015,” he says. “That tells me that the system has gotten more cautious. Accidental types like me no longer can get work there.”  

Nonetheless, Bespalov’s willingness to talk about his experiences have made him a go-to source for Western media covering the election scandal – and a punching bag for Russian state media.

A recent NBC News report featuring Bespalov prompted Russia’s state media to run a piece disparaging his claims. The program also pilfered his social media accounts – mocking his alternative lifestyle, tattoos and liberal political views.  

Bespalov says his actions have been misrepresented on both sides of the Atlantic.

“In the U.S., they label me as ‘Vitaly Bespalov, former troll,’ not a journalist,” he says. “And from the Russian side, I’m a liar and traitor. A lot of my friends tell me, ‘Enough already. No more interviews. Have you lost your mind? Do you want to get killed? You’ve told your story and talking to more people about it won’t change anything.’”

Indeed, there were indications that the trolls recently geared up for another election – this time Russia’s 2018 presidential campaign.

An account on Telegram by a user named “Kremlebot,” who claims to work in the Internet Research Agency’s Russian division, wrote that employees were tasked with boosting voter turnout – a widely acknowledged goal of Kremlin spin doctors eager to lend a veneer of legitimacy to Vladimir Putin’s reelection bid. Requirements included sending selfies from polling stations to agency managers as well as playing up the competitiveness of the race.

Could “Kremlebot” be housed in Savushkina 55? Unlikely. Today, a giant “For Rent” sign hangs in the windows of Bespalov’s old office.

The Internet Research Agency had already moved on — and the trolls along with it.

 
…

Some of Europe’s biggest venture capital firms are buying into sales of new virtual coins or asking their investors to give them the freedom to do so, in a sign of mainstream investor backing for the booming but controversial crowd-funding tool.

Germany’s HV Holtzbrinck Ventures, which has more than 1 billion euros ($1.23 billion) under management, is talking to its investors about changing the terms of its next fund so it can buy tokens directly, Jan Miczaika, a partner at the firm, told Reuters.

Lakestar, the Zurich-based firm run by Klaus Hommels, has made at least four investments in crypto and blockchain-related businesses since early 2017, among them ShapeShift, an exchange, and Blockchain, a wallet provider, and it is preparing to invest in a combination of coin and equity stakes in more.

Smaller and newer funds like BlueYard Capital and Fabric Ventures are focusing specifically on investments around blockchain — a distributed ledger technology that can remove the need for centralizing institutions — often by buying virtual coins.

Venture capitalists usually take equity stakes in start-ups, gaining a say in how the company is run and legal and governance certainties over their investments. Buying into initial coin offerings (ICOs), as the sale of digital tokens is known, can be far more risky. They offer little more than a promise the tokens will be worth more in future.

But with hundreds of start-ups — ICOs last year raised $6.3 billion — seeking to raise capital for new projects, investors say that to gain access to cutting-edge technology they need the flexibility to compete.

“It’s the internet in the early 1990s, you have to experiment,” said Nicolas Brand, a partner at Lakestar. “I have to find the best way of backing the best entrepreneurs and we need to be agile in how we invest.”

Regulators have raised serious questions about the transparency of ICOs and the risks of scams, although authorities in countries from Switzerland to France have disclosed plans to attract new launches.

Supporters say blockchain will disrupt industries from finance to logistics and that ICOs are a novel way of crowd-funding.

Tokens are the route to make money. They embody the idea that consumers will need to own and use them to buy services, from playing computer games to online shopping. When demand for those products spreads, the token prices will rise, creating value for earlier owners like venture capitalists.

“The [blockchain] technology is very exciting. Ninety-five percent of the tokens will go to zero. On the other hand, the other 5 percent are very interesting and could go on to revolutioniZe the market,” said Miczaika at HV Holtzbrinck.

Equity to ICO

Unlike some big U.S. funds, most big European venture capitalists are avoiding the world’s biggest ICO, by messaging app Telegram, people familiar with the funds say, citing concerns about the amount — a reported $1.7 billion — it has raised.

Broader worries about the quality of teams looking to cash in on ICOs are common, and some funds say that far from being a threat to the venture capital model, most ICOs are a fad.

Those that survive will find themselves wanting the support and hand-holding that conventional venture investment offers.

“We need to get our heads around ICOs, but I don’t see it as a threat. I don’t think I’ve missed a company which I wish I’d invested in but couldn’t because it did an ICO,” said Suranga Chandratillake, partner at London-based Balderton Capital.

To date, venture activity has focused on crypto companies like HV Holtzbrinck’s investment in ICO platform Upvest or Point Nine Capital’s stake in peer-to-peer bitcoin lender Bitbond, which tapped into the crypto-trading craze and followed on from a series of investments by well-known U.S. venture funds.

Investors said the next round of activity would target projects offering the building blocks for blockchain’s development, such as software development networks. They will benefit if the largely unproven technology matures.

Buying into the coins is necessary for aligning themselves to such projects, they argue.

“We came to the conclusion that if we really want to do decentralized tokens we have to be a part of it,” said Ciaran O’Leary, who co-founded Berlin-based BlueYard and invested in the 2017 ICO by data storage network Filecoin, which was worth an estimated $200 million.

Risks

ICOs also present major governance and legal concerns, including how to store coins safely after several large hacks.

To keep their investments safe, venture firms are looking at storing coins offline or in wallets where no transaction can take place without the agreement of multiple individuals.

Max Mersch, a partner at Fabric Ventures, said his firm had also introduced multi-year lock-ups prohibiting quick dumping of coins, to encourage longer-term investment horizons and so partners had time to shape governance.

Risks aside, venture capitalists say the potential impact of tokens is too hard to ignore.

“A token is a very powerful innovation and in the best token projects, the fund-raising is actually a byproduct,” said Lakestar’s Brand said. “The token is about activating network effects on steroids,” he said, predicting they would have the power to take on “rival monoliths like Facebook”.
…

FIFA charged World Cup host Russia with fan racism on Tuesday, less than two months before the tournament begins.

Monkey chants were aimed at black French players, including Paul Pogba, during France’s 3-1 friendly win over Russia in St. Petersburg last month.

“Disciplinary proceedings have been opened against the Russian Football Union for this incident,” FIFA said.

The RFU said it is cooperating with the FIFA investigation.

“A request has been made to the Interior Ministry to identify several persons who were involved in these incidents,” RFU anti-discrimination officer Alexei Smertin was quoted as saying Monday by the Tass news agency. “If these people’s guilt is proven, then there’s a high likelihood they won’t be allowed to attend World Cup and Russian league games.”

Russia was previously charged with racist behavior by its fans at the last two European Championships. On both occasions, the RFU paid a fine.

It’s the third racism case this season at St. Petersburg Stadium, which will host a World Cup semifinal match. Zenit St. Petersburg has twice faced UEFA charges for racism by its fans in Europa League games.

Zenit fans flew a banner praising convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic when playing a Macedonian club in November and are accused of using a racially charged term to mock an injured black player in a game against Leipzig. The second case is due to be heard by UEFA on May 31, two weeks before the World Cup begins.

 
…

The European Union’s top court has ruled that Poland violated environmental laws with its massive logging of trees in one of Europe’s last pristine forests.

The ruling Tuesday by the European Court of Justice said that, in increasing logging in the Bialowieza Forest, Poland failed to fulfil its obligations to protect natural sites of special importance.

Poland had argued that felling the trees was necessary to fight the spread of bark beetle infestation.

Environmentalists say the large-scale felling of trees in Bialowieza was destroying rare animal habitats and plants, in violation of regulations. They held protests and brought the case before the court last year.

Poland has since replaced its environment minister and stopped the logging. Warsaw has said it will respect the EU court’s ruling. 

 
…

French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to outline his vision for the future of Europe as he addresses the European Parliament.

In his speech to European lawmakers Tuesday in Strasbourg, France, Macron will launch a drive to seek European citizens’ opinions on the European Union’s future.

Macron said in a television interview Sunday: “It’s now that Europe’s fate is being decided.”

Macron wants the EU to “move forward with those who want to move forward, and those who will not follow will have to accept to stay on the margins of Europe.” 

He is also expected to push for deep reforms of the 19-nation eurozone. 

France and Germany aim to agree on proposals for EU reforms by June. Macron will meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Thursday. 
…

U.S. President Donald Trump and Pentagon officials are dismissing Russian claims that Syrian air defense systems took out most of the cruise missiles aimed at three of the country’s critical chemical weapons sites.

Russian news outlets Monday quoted the Russian Defense Ministry as saying Syria’s Pantsir-S1 was nearly 100-percent effective in repelling the U.S.-led airstrikes early Saturday.

Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said the Pantsir system launched 112 surface-to-air missiles, shooting down 71 of 103 U.S., British and French cruise missiles.

The Pantsir, sometimes called the SA-22 Greyhound, is a mobile, ground-based system that can engage multiple targets simultaneously.  According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Missile Threat Program, it’s surface-to-air missiles have a range of about 20 kilometers.

Despite the claims, Trump and U.S. military officials are standing by their original assessment that all 105 cruise missiles launched by the United States, Britain and France hit their intended targets within just two minutes of each other.

“They didn’t shoot one down,” Trump said during an appearance Monday in Florida, mocking Russia’s ever-growing claims of success in thwarting the attack. “The equipment didn’t work too well, their equipment.”

“We are confident that all of our missiles reached their targets,” Joint Staff Director, Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie told reporters at the Pentagon Saturday.

“None of our aircraft or missiles involved in this operation were successfully engaged by Syrian air defenses, and we have no indication that Russian air-defense systems were employed,” he said.

U.S. defense officials also say there are no indications Russia’s most advanced air defense system, the S-400, ever engaged any of the incoming cruise missiles, and may not even have been activated.

Of the more than 40 surface-to-air missiles Syria launched in response to the strikes, U.S. officials say the vast majority were fired after U.S., British and French cruise missiles had already hit their targets.

“We assess that the defensive efforts of Syria were largely ineffective, and clearly increased risk to their people based on this indiscriminate response,” McKenzie said, adding, if anything, the Syrian response endangered its own population.

“When you shoot iron [missiles] into the air without guidance, it’s going to come down somewhere,” he said.

Other U.S. officials shared the successful view of the strikes.

“It is clear from those photographs that we’ve seen so far that we’ve been successful,” said a senior administration official. “We’ve seen the facilities and any equipment that was at those facilities has been eliminated.”

The U.S. said all three of the targets – the Barzah Research Center in Damascus and storage and equipment facilities near Homs – were involved in the production and deployment of both chlorine and sarin gas.  It said there were no indications any of the chemical agents had been released into the air as a result of the strikes.

Trump said Friday the strikes could be part of a sustained effort if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad continued to use chemical weapons.

On Monday, White House officials held open the possibility more such strikes could be on the way.

“We’re going to continue to keep a number of options on the table if Syria, Russia and Iran don’t show to be better actors in this process,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters traveling with the president en-route to Florida.

 
…

Russia began implementing a ban on popular instant messaging service Telegram in accordance with a court ruling after the app’s administrators refused to provide encrypted messages to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).

Russia’s state telecommunications regulator Roskomnadzor said Monday that it had sent a notice to telecommunications operators in the country instructing them to block the service.

“Roskomnadzor has received the ruling by the Tagansky District Court on restricting access in Russia to the web resources of the online information dissemination organizer, Telegram Messenger Limited Liability Partnership. In light of this, information on these online resources was sent to the operators on Monday, April 16, with regards to restricting access,” the watchdog said, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.

Roskomnadzor had previously asked a Russian court to block the service for failing to comply with Russian regulations. Moscow’s Tagansky District Court upheld the motion on April 13. Telegram, which was founded by a Russian entrepreneur, has repeatedly refused requests to give the FSB access to its users’ encrypted messages.

The service, ranked the world’s ninth most popular messaging app with over 900 million users worldwide, argued that the request for encrypted messages was unconstitutional.

 
…

In Europe, French President Emmanuel Macron led the charge for the Western military strike on Syria, but as far as the British are concerned, he did so by shoving them out the way.

Following Saturday’s U.S.-led coordinated airstrikes on Syria, British officials have taken to criticizing the young French leader, grumbling to the British media, in anonymous briefings, that the young Macron is too pushy and trying to upstage Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May in a bid to present himself to U.S. President Donald Trump as America’s most important European partner.

And even more shocking, as far as the British are concerned, the French aren’t even disguising their ambition to replace Britain’s so-called “special relationship” with the U.S. with an even stronger one of their own.

British military officials complained to the Sunday Times that Macron is trying flex his muscles, accusing him of making sure France’s contribution to the strikes on Syria exceeded Britain’s with the French firing off 12 missiles compared to Britain’s eight.

One official told the newspaper, “France is very much trying to be America’s go-to guy in Europe and therefore jump ahead very, very quickly.” A Downing Street official told The Times, “There’s an element of feeling that Macron is looking to make a bit of a name for himself and to show his credentials to Trump. For us, it was not a numbers game.”

Meanwhile, French officials acknowledge Macron is eager to position himself as Trump’s more important partner in Europe. They brag that Trump talked twice with the French leader in the early stages of the planning for the Syria retaliation before even speaking with May.

The competitiveness between Paris and London just days before Macron is due to arrive in Washington for a visit, which the French stress will include a state dinner at the White House, may strike some as an exercise in pettiness.

Nonetheless, officials on both sides of the English Channel are in earnest in their efforts to market their national leader as the one Washington should value the most, and heed.

Transatlantic ties have taken on greater importance for Britain as it struggles to shape a future after Brexit, Britain’s departure from the European Union. A trade deal with the United States could help offset the costs of leaving the EU, Britain’s biggest trading partner, and May’s aides have made no secret of their belief that a stronger alliance with America will be critical in securing a quick deal and to making a success of Brexit.

French officials say forging a relationship with Trump similar to the one that Tony Blair, as prime minister, nurtured with President George W. Bush, which is the goal, will give Macron the opportunity to mediate between the U.S. and Europe and strengthen France’s hand internationally.

With German Chancellor Angela Merkel weakened and absorbed in domestic politics and Theresa May ensnared in Brexit negotiations, Macron has the chance to be the main European influence on Trump, something Macron said Sunday he had already been able to do.

In a television interview, Macron said he was the one who had convinced Trump to limit the American-led strikes on Syria to President Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons facilities and not to target airfields or intelligence buildings. Limiting the airstrikes wasn’t Trump’s initial plan, according to the French leader. “We also persuaded him that we needed to limit the strikes to chemical weapons [sites], after things got a little carried away over tweets,” he said, a reference to a series of Trump postings last week on Twitter.

While it is unusual for a French leader to market himself as shaping U.S. military policy in the Middle East, Macron and Trump have developed a friendly relationship during the past year and Macron doesn’t share the prickly anti-Americanism of some of his predecessors in the Élysée Palace, say analysts. The two leaders have talked several times with Macron seizing the chance to become, the French say, Trump’s “Tony Blair.”

It didn’t look like the two would get along. Last May, when they met for the first time, they engaged in a tight-gripped hand-wrestling bout with neither leader seemingly wanting to be the first to let go in what was dubbed the “never-ending handshake.”

In July, however, France put on a dazzling Bastille Day display for President Trump during the U.S. leader’s trip to Paris. “It was a great honor to represent the United States at the magnificent #BastilleDay parade. Congratulations President @EmmanuelMacron!”, Trump tweeted afterward.

A Trump statement, released by the White House after the trip, said, “Melania and I were proud to stand with the President of France and Madame Macron and to celebrate with the French people” the 228th anniversary of the French Revolution. “France is America’s first and oldest ally,” Trump said, adding, “America and France will never be defeated or divided.”
…

French President Emmanuel Macron says he convinced President Donald Trump not to pull U.S. troops out of Syria and limit the airstrikes.

Macron spoke to France’s BFM television Sunday, marking one year in office, and two days after France joined the U.S. and Britain in airstrikes targeting Syria’s chemical weapons sites.

“Ten days ago, President Trump was saying ‘The United States should withdraw from Syria,’ We convinced him it was necessary to stay for the long term,” Macron said.

Macron also said he told Trump that it was necessary to limit the airstrikes in Syria, suggesting Trump wanted to go further.

“We also persuaded him that we needed to limit the strikes to chemical weapons sites after things got a little carried away over tweets,” Macron told interviewers.

The White House has so far not responded to Macron’s interview. But Trump has yet to say exactly what the United States’ future plans in Syria are, other than warning of another harsh response if the country’s government again uses chemical weapons against civilians.

Macron said there is proof the Syrian regime used poison gas in Douma and that missile strikes were necessary to give the international community credibility. He also said Russia is complicit.

“They have not used chlorine themselves but they have methodically built the international community’s inability to act through diplomatic channels to stop the use of chemical weapons.”

Macron told BFM that France has not declared war on President Bashar al-Assad, but that it was necessary to show the Syrian leader that using poison gas on civilians will not go unpunished.

 
…

Preliminary projections show six-time prime minister and onetime president Milo Djukanovic as the winner of Montenegro’s presidential election.

The Center for Election Monitoring (CeMI) projected Djukanovic winning over 53 percent of the vote, which would give him an outright victory in Sunday’s election.

Based on the projection, Montenegro’s ruling party declared its leader the winner.

“Milo Djukanovic is the new president of Montenegro,” said Milos Nikolic of the Democratic Party of Socialists.

Businessman Mladen Bojanic was projected for second place with 34.2 percent.

The vote, the first since Montenegro joined NATO in December, was seen as a test for Djukanovic, who favors European integration over closer ties to traditional ally Moscow.

Djukanovic, the country’s dominant politician, and his Democratic Party of Socialists have ruled Montenegro for nearly 30 years.

He led Montenegro to independence from much-larger Serbia in 2006 and was behind the NATO bid. He hopes next to steer the country into the European Union.

Bojanic has accused the ruling party of corruption and links to organized crime following a spike in crime-related violence.

None of the other five candidates, including lawmaker Draginja Vuksanovic, the first woman to run for Montenegro’s presidency, reached double digits in polling.

 
…

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has promised to diversify his nation’s economy and address the needs of its increasingly young population. Mike O’Sullivan reports on the heir-apparent to the Saudi throne’s multination charm offensive in Europe and the United States, which recently wrapped up in Spain.
…

It’s been a rough couple of years for Brazil’s leftist Workers’ Party. First President Dilma Rousseff was impeached and removed from office. Then a spreading scandal over corruption that had toppled other senior officials seized even the party’s founder, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who was imprisoned this month despite leading polls ahead of October elections.

Now Rousseff is heading abroad to make her case to audiences in Spain and California that her party’s troubles are signs that authoritarian forces are gaining a dangerous hold on Latin American’s largest nation – and in hopes that greater international prestige may even bring the party more followers back home.

“At a moment when Brazil is as polarized as it is, it can be hard to convince local audiences,” said Matthew Taylor, an associate professor at the School of International Service at American University in Washington. “Going abroad and speaking in kind of prominent locations sends a message that your message is being heard and understood, and to a certain degree legitimated.”

Before he was jailed on April 7, da Silva held rallies in towns big and small across Brazil to denounce his conviction as politically motivated and make the case for returning himself and the Workers’ Party to power. Such tours are where da Silva, universally known as Lula in Brazil, thrives: He is an informal, captivating speaker who weaves vivid metaphors and tells stinging jokes to make his case and discredit his rivals.

These tours rallied the party faithful, but have also drew protests – his caravan was even shot at – and exposed the depth of divisions in Brazil, which seems increasingly divided into two camps: the only-Lulas and the never-Lulas. 

Rousseff’s own reputation at home appears to have recovered somewhat since her impeachment, which even some on the right now concede was a mistake, said Mauricio Santoro, a professor of international relations at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. That’s largely because of frustration with her even more unpopular successor, President Michel Temer.

This past week, she was in Madrid and Barcelona ahead of visits to the University of California, Berkeley, on Monday, to Stanford University on Tuesday and San Diego State University on Wednesday.

“Democracy in Brazil is at risk,” she told an audience in Madrid. “We need international solidarity. We need to get this out to the world.”

Olimpio Cruz, a Rousseff aide, said speaking abroad was especially important because he said the left can’t get a fair shake in the mainstream domestic news media. “The Brazilian media bans the truth and is attached by the umbilical cord to the 2016 coup,” as the left refers to her impeachment. The Workers’ Party says charges that Rousseff illegally manipulated the budget were an invented pretext to kick the left out of power.

Rousseff has made earlier image-promotion trips, and other Brazilian politicians are now starting to do the same, seeking out allies abroad to raise their stature back home.

It’s a relatively new practice for a country with a history of looking inward. But the economic crash that followed a tremendous boom has many seeking validation abroad. 

Still, Santoro said such trips also betray a weakness. 

“Why go outside of your county for a domestic dispute?” he asked. “In general, the people who do this are on the weaker side.” 
…

Estonia’s largest political party has chosen a new leader, its third one in four years, as it seeks to restore popularity and mend its tarnished image among voters ahead of a parliamentary election next year. 

Delegates for the center-right Reform Party voted Saturday to elect Kaja Kallas. The 40-year-old lawyer and lawmaker at the European Parliament will be the first female leader of a major political party in the Baltic country.

Previous Chairman Hanno Pevkur said in December that he would step down after less than a year in the post.

Kallas is the daughter of former Prime Minister Siim Kallas, who was one of the founders of the Reform Party in the 1990s.

The Reform Party was the top vote-getter in the 2015 election and part of every Estonian government between 1999 and 2016. It held the prime minister’s post between 2005 and 2016 but it saw its popularity wane because of several political scandals. It went into the opposition following a government crisis in late 2016.

Estonia will hold its next election in March 2019. 
…

Thousands of Hungarians protested Saturday in Budapest against what organizers said was an unfair election system that gave Prime Minister Viktor

Orban another landslide victory at the polls after a “hate campaign” against immigrants.

Orban won a third straight term in the April 8 elections after his anti-immigration campaign message secured a strong majority for his ruling Fidesz party in parliament, granting him two-thirds of seats based on preliminary results.

In a Facebook post before the rally, organizers called for a recount, a free media, a new election law, and more efficient co-operation among opposition parties instead of the bickering seen in the run-up to the vote.

Fidesz received 49 percent of national party list votes and its candidates won 91 of 106 single-member constituencies, most of them in rural areas, while leftist opposition candidates carried two-thirds of the voting districts in Budapest.

There was a similar split between ages, with support for Orban’s Fidesz at 37 percent among voters below 30, rising gradually to 46 percent among those older than 50, according to a survey by think tank Median published earlier this week.

In their Facebook post, the rally’s organizers said: “Fidesz’s election system and the government’s hate campaign have pushed the majority into a one-third [parliamentary] minority.”

Protesters gathering outside the Opera House, a 19th-century Neo-Renaissance palace on a majestic downtown avenue, were waving Hungary’s tricolor flag and the European Union flag, accompanied by whistles and horns blaring.

The demonstrators marched toward parliament, chanting: “We are the majority.”

In contrast to Orban’s closing rally in his native Szekesfehervar last week, where the overwhelming majority of supporters were middle-aged and elderly people, the Budapest protest attracted many people from younger generations.

“We are disappointed and I think lots of us are disappointed with the election results, which, I think, were not clean,” said Palma, 26, who declined to give her surname.

Palma, who came to the protest with a friend, said she believed the Hungarian election system had given an unfair advantage to Orban’s Fidesz party. However, she was also displeased with opposition parties.

“They are pathetic,” she said. “It is terrible that they are so weak, unable to reach a compromise, and they kill each other instead of joining forces for us.”

The nationalist Jobbik party and the Socialists, which have the biggest opposition groups in parliament, have said they would join the protest, which was to march to Parliament near the Danube River.

Criticism

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said the election did not offer opposition parties a level playing field amid a host of problems marring a vote that nonetheless generally respected fundamental rights.

Orban, who has transformed himself from a liberal anti-communist hero into a nationalist icon admired by the far-right across Europe, brushed aside the criticism, telling the OSCE,  “Thanks for the contribution.”

A major opposition newspaper has closed since the election, marking another milestone in the gradual decline of media pluralism in Hungary.

The prime minister projected himself as a savior of Hungary’s Christian culture against Muslim migration into Europe, an image that resonated with millions of voters, especially in rural areas.

But the opposition’s poor showing was at least partly of its own making as rival candidates split the anti-government vote in five districts in Budapest, where preliminary results showed a slim Fidesz victory.

“Zero, zero, zero,” Dia Szenasi, 29, said about the opposition, adding that all leftist parties should have joined forces to have a better chance of ousting Orban.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump spoke by phone to the leaders of Britain and France about the joint air strikes the three nations launched on Syria Saturday morning. 

The White House said Trump spoke with British Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron in separate phone calls. The three world leaders each affirmed that that the air strikes were “successful and necessary” to deter Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from further use of chemical weapons on the Syrian people.

Earlier, U.S. President Trump commended Britain and France for the joint air strikes with a tweet that said, “A perfectly executed strike last night. Thank you to France and the United Kingdom for their wisdom and the power of their fine Military. Could not have had a better result. Mission Accomplished!”

The U.S. Department of Defense said the strikes targeted three sites believed to be linked to the production of chemical and biological weapons. The attacks were retaliation for suspected chemical attacks near Damascus last weekend that killed more than 40 people.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said at an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council Saturday that Trump informed her “the United States is locked and loaded” if Syria uses chemical weapons again.

International reaction to the air strikes ranged from support to intense criticism. 

Syria’s Foreign Ministry said it “condemns in the strongest terms the brutal American-British-French aggression against Syria, which constitutes a flagrant violation of international law.”

Hundreds of Syrians gathered around the capital, Damascus, on Saturday, honking car horns, flashing victory signs and waving Syrian flags in defiance of the joint military strikes. Some shouted, “We are your men, Bashar,” references to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Russian President Vladimir Putin described the attacks as an “act of aggression against a sovereign government” and accused the U.S. of exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in war-torn Syria. 

Russia’s foreign ministry said the air strikes were a failure, maintaining the majority of the rockets fired were intercepted by the Syrian government’s air defense systems. 

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the attacks constitute a criminal act and that U.S., France and Britain will not benefit from them.

“This morning’s attack on Syria is a crime,” Khamenei said on Twitter. “I firmly declare that the Presidents of U.S. and France and British PM committed a major crime. They will gain no benefit; just as they did not while in Iraq, Syria & Afghanistan, over the past years, committing the same criminal acts.”

China’s foreign ministry called Saturday for an independent investigation into the suspected chemical attacks and said a political solution is the only way to resolve the issue. Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China has consistently opposed the use of force in international relations and that any military action that circumvented the U.N. Security Council violated the basic norms of international law. 

But Britain’s Prime Minister May said there was “no practicable alternative to the use of force” against Syria.

“I judge this action to be in Britain’s national interest,” May said. “We cannot allow the use of chemical weapons to be normalized within Syria, on the streets of the U.K., or anywhere else in the world. We would have preferred an alternative path but, on this occasion, there is none.”

In France, reaction has been mixed. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Saturday the joint military action was justified, limited, proportionate and successful. 

But far left and far right lawmakers sharply criticized France’s decision to join the United States in the strikes. 

Conservative National Front leader Marine Le Pen, who lost the 2017 presidential race to Macron, warned via Twitter France risked its status as an “independent power” and said the strikes could lead to “unforeseen and potentially dramatic consequences.” 

Far left politician Jean-Luc Melenchon also denounced France’s participation on Twitter, calling the strikes an “irresponsible escalation” that did not have European or French parliament support.

Germany, Canada, Australia and Japan expressed support for the air strikes. European Council President Donald Tusk said the bloc “will stand with our allies on the side of justice.”

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lauded the attacks by the U.S., Britain and France on Twitter as proof “their commitment to combat chemical weapons is not limited to declarations alone.”

Netanyahu wrote the air strikes should remind Assad that “his irresponsible efforts to acquire and use weapons of mass destruction, his blatant disregard for international law and his willingness to allow Iran and its affiliates to establish military bases in Syria endanger Syria.”

In Turkey, the air strikes were also well received. 

“We welcome this operation which has eased humanity’s conscience in the face of the attack in Douma, largely suspected to have been carried out by the regime,” Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said. The ministry added that Syria “has a proven track record of crimes against humanity and war crimes.”

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said those who use chemical weapons “must be held accountable.” 

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned all sides must comply with international law and not dismiss Moscow’s warning that air strikes on its ally could lead to war. 

“I urge all member states to show restraint in these dangerous circumstances and to avoid any acts that could escalate the situation and worsen the suffering of the Syrian people,” Guterres said in a statement.
…

Moments after President Donald Trump concluded his seven-minute broadcast Friday announcing the start of precision airstrikes on Syrian government facilities associated with the development of chemical weapons, loud explosions shook Damascus.

Among the sites struck in a coordinated operation by U.S., French and British forces shortly before dawn prayers was a scientific research center on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, a chemical weapons storage facility near Homs and a nearby command post, the Pentagon said.

There were also reports by political activists that the Syrian Army’s 4th Armored Division, an elite formation commanded by President Bashar al-Assad’s brother, Maher al-Assad, as well as the Republican Guard, were also hit in the strikes. But it remains unclear if they were struck by French and British manned aircraft and cruise missiles rather than by the U.S. military.

From the point of view of those on the receiving end of the one-night operation, the military retaliation by the Western powers may have seemed anything but restrained.

​Restrained strike

The strike, intended to show Western resolve in the face of what Trump called persistent violations of international law by Assad, was larger than last year’s, when the United States fired 58 cruise missiles at Syria in retaliation for a purported chemical weapons attack by government forces on a rebel-held town in the north of the country.

This time about twice the number of cruise missiles were launched by the United States in response to last Saturday’s alleged chemical attack by Assad on the town of Douma just outside of Damascus, in which at least 40 people died and hundreds were sickened.

But the coordinated strike, which included missiles fired from fixed-wing aircraft as well as from warships, has left some analysts puzzled, questioning the limited nature of the punitive raid.

“To many people’s surprise this was somewhat limited. We were expecting at least more airfields, ground force and naval bases to come under attack,” said Arash Aramesh, a national security and foreign policy analyst.

WATCH: U.S. Defense Secretary Mattis Briefs Reporters in Syria Strikes

Speaking in Washington as the operation was close to concluding, U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis appeared somewhat at pains to explain what the objective had been, saying it focused on degrading the Syrian government’s chemical weapons program only.

“We confined it to the chemical weapons-type targets. We were not out to expand this, we were very precise and proportionate, but at the same time it was a heavy strike,” he said.

In London, Britain’s Theresa May also emphasized that the retaliation was focused on Assad’s chemical weapons and ensuring a stop to the “erosion of the international norm that prevents the use of these weapons.” In a television broadcast, May said: “This is not about intervening in the civil war. This is not about regime change.”

She added: “It is about a limited and targeted strike that does not further escalate tensions in the region and that does everything possible to prevent civilian casualties.”

WATCH: President Trump Announces Strikes Against Syria

Too limited to deter?

Some critics question whether the scale of the reprisal may have been too limited to act as a deterrent. Asked whether he could guarantee Assad wouldn’t use deadly poisons again, Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon, “nothing is certain in these kind of matters.”

U.S. officials later highlighted Trump’s statement that the three Western allies were willing “to sustain this response until the Syrian regime stops its use of prohibited chemical agents.”

For Steven Bucci, a former senior Pentagon official and a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based think tank, the U.S. president was “sending a message that this isn’t just firing and forgetting and everyone drives home. Clearly, he’s prepared to continue this for some length of time.”

Bucci believes the retaliation has the potential to force Assad to forgo the use of chemical weapons.

“It appears from very initial reports that we’re hitting some very specific targets and facilities that seem to be connected to the production, development, and usage of chemical weapons,” he said. “What may change Assad’s behavior is removing the tools with which he’s been using these horrible things. That’s kind of what you have to do — you can’t just stomp your feet and wag your finger. You have to force him to stop.”

PHOTOS: US, France and Britain Hit Syrian Chemical Facilities

Republican Senator John McCain also highlighted the promise of sustainability. He said: “the United States and our allies have the will and capability to continue imposing those costs, and that Iran and Russia will ultimately be unsuccessful in protecting Assad from our punitive response.”

There were concerns before the punitive strike of a Russian military response. Earlier this week Russian officials warned their forces in Syria would shoot down Western missiles and may even target the planes and ships launching them. On Thursday, a senior Russian official started to walk back that threat, saying the Kremlin would protect Russian personnel on the ground.

That message appeared to have been heard in Washington. 

Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, General Joseph Dunford, who took part in the briefing about the raids alongside Mattis, said the targets had been chosen to “mitigate the risk of Russian forces being involved.” Dunford said “normal deconfliction channel was used to deconflict airspace” with Moscow, but that the United States did not share with Russia what sites would be targeted.

Neither Washington nor Moscow want to see an escalation of the overall long-running conflict in Syria, say analysts. Trump has already indicated he would like to withdraw the estimated 2,000 U.S. ground troops in northern Syria, where they’ve been assisting Syrian Kurds to defeat Islamic State militants. 

“We’ll be coming out of Syria very soon. Let the other people take of it now,” the U.S. leader said earlier this month.

On a cost-benefit analysis the Kremlin has more to lose from any escalation — or a prolonging of the 7-year-old, multisided Syria conflict now that their longtime ally Assad, thanks to Russian and Iranian military assistance, has swung the battlefield decidedly in his favor and has all but won the civil war. Any major escalation risks reversing the military dynamic, say analysts.

William Gallo contributed to this article.
…

Western warplanes and naval vessels fired a barrage of missiles at three Syrian chemical weapons sites, the opening salvo in what could be a sustained campaign against the government of President Bashar al-Assad and his supporters.

U.S. military officials said the bombardment, a coordinated effort involving both Britain and France, began at 9 p.m. EDT Friday and rained down more than 100 cruise missiles on Syrian facilities in the capital, Damascus, and the city of Homs.

“Right now, this is a one-time shot,” U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told Pentagon reporters late Friday, cautioning more strikes could be in the works.

“That will depend on Mr. Assad, should he decide to use more chemical weapons in the future,” Mattis said.

WATCH: U.S. Defense Secretary Mattis Briefs Reporters in Syria Strikes

The decision to strike, made after consultations between Washington, London and Paris, came after military and intelligence officials concluded the Assad government was indeed responsible for a chemical weapons attack on the town of Douma last Saturday that killed more than 40 people, including women and children, and sickened hundreds more.

​Use of chemical weapons

U.S., British and French officials have expressed a high degree of confidence the attack on Douma by pro-Assad forces used chlorine gas, and that it also likely used another chemical agent, possibly sarin.

Syrian officials have continually denied their forces used chemical weapons. And Russia, which has backed President Assad since before the start of the conflict in Syria, alleged early Friday that the attack was staged by Britain, a charge rejected by both Britain and the United States.

Still, following the strikes, Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Antonov warned the United States, Britain and France would face consequences.

“Our warnings have been left unheard,” Antonov said in a statement posted on Twitter.

“A predesigned scenario is being implemented,” he said. “Insulting the president of Russia is unacceptable and inadmissible.”

WATCH: President Trump Announces Strikes Against Syria

Addressing the American public after ordering the strikes, President Donald Trump said he was compelled to act after witnessing what he described as “the crimes of a monster” in Douma.

“The purpose of our actions tonight is to establish a strong deterrent against the production, spread and use of chemical weapons … a vital national security interest,” Trump said.

“We are prepared to sustain this response until the Syrian regime stops its use of prohibited chemical agents,” he added.

​Russian support for Assad

Despite such confidence, other U.S. officials remained wary, warning before the strikes that while Syria’s use of chemical weapons cannot be tolerated, much more is at stake given the backing the Syrian government gets from Moscow.

“This is a chess game and the Russians are ratcheting up the pressure,” a U.S. official told VOA on the condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation.

“They’re playing dirty,” the official added. “We need to think two or three steps ahead.”

Complicating any U.S. response is the presence of Russian and Iranian forces on the ground in Syria, one official saying it has “grown and matured” since the United States carried out airstrikes again the Syrian government last April after a sarin gas attack on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun.

​Trump: Russia responsible

In his remarks, Trump said he holds Russia directly responsible for the attack on Douma, saying Moscow failed to live up to its 2013 promise to guarantee Syria eliminated its arsenal of chemical weapons.

“No nation can succeed in the long run by promoting rogue states, brutal tyrants and murderous dictators,” the U.S. president said. “Russia must decide if it will continue down this dark path or if it will join with civilized nations.”

British Prime Minister Theresa May also blamed Russia for thwarting diplomatic efforts to put an end to the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

“There is no practicable alternative to the use of force to degrade and deter the use of chemical weapons,” May said in a statement. “We cannot allow the erosion of the international norm that prevents the use of these weapons.”

Long-term impact of strikes?

While military officials are still assessing the effectiveness of the strikes, there are growing questions about the long-term impact.

“Strategy hasn’t been this administration’s strong suit — Assad and Putin aren’t going to flinch fast and will easily endure military strikes,” Brett Bruen, a former director of global engagement at the White House, told VOA.

“This only works if they can keep up strong diplomatic pressure on Syria, Russia,” he said. “Otherwise, they will worsen our position and the situation on the ground.”

Brian Katulis at the Center for American Progress, is more hopeful.

“This is a very focused strike for one purpose to make sure that countries around the world will not use weapons of mass destruction on a regular basis,” he said. “I think that’s what the president is trying to do and I think he did the right thing.”

U.S. defense officials said Friday they did not consult their Russian counterparts about the strikes, or notify them in advance, though they did use existing lines of communication to de-conflict the airspace to prevent any accidental incidents between U.S. and Russian planes.

​Targeted strikes

Defense officials said the U.S.-led strikes did encounter some initial resistance from Syrian air defense systems, but that it appears Russian defense systems did not engage.

The first target, they said, was a research center involved in the development and production of chemical and biological weapons.

The two other targets, to the west of Homs, Syria, included storage facilities for sarin gas, other chemical weapon precursors and equipment, as well as a key command post.

“We selected these specific targets both based on the significance to the [Syrian] chemical weapons program as well as the location and the layout,” said U.S. Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “We did not select those that had a high risk of collateral damage and specifically a high risk of civilian casualties.”

Steve Herman at the White House; Katherine Gypson and Aru Pande in Washington.

 
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The United States, Britain and France, launched military airstrikes in Syria that targeted a scientific research center, a chemical weapons storage facility and another storage facility that also included an important command post.

U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis said the “decisive” efforts were intended to send a “clear message” to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for its suspected chemical attack against civilians last week and to deter him from doing it again.

Mattis said at a briefing at the Pentagon late Friday that the targets were selected to inflict “long-term degradation” and “maximum damage” to Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons.

WATCH: U.S. Defense Secretary Mattis Briefs Reporters in Syria Strikes

The defense secretary said he is confident that chlorine was used in the chemical attack in the city of Douma last week that killed at least 40 people and sickened hundreds. He said he was also “not ruling out” the possibility that sarin was also used.

Mattis said the poison gas Assad said he had gotten rid of “still exists.”

The Syrian government has repeatedly denied any use of banned weapons.

General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said more details about the strikes will be available Saturday morning.

Associated Press reporters saw smoke rising from east Damascus and a huge fire could be seen from a distance to the east. Syrian television said the attacks targeted a scientific research center in Barzeh, near Damascus, and an army depot near Homs.

Syrian media reported that air defenses had hit 13 incoming rockets south of Damascus.

WATCH: President Trump Announces Strikes Against Syria

US to sustain pressure

Earlier Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump said the United States was prepared to sustain pressure on Assad until he ended what the president called a criminal pattern of killing his own people with internationally banned chemical weapons.

Trump singled out Syria’s biggest international supporters, Russia and Iran, for failing to stop the Syrian regime’s use of banned chemical weapons.

“Assad’s recent attack and today’s response is a direct result of Russia’s failure to respond,” Trump said.

Congressional support

Congressional leaders are supporting the president’s decision to launch airstrikes in retaliation for an apparent chemical attack against civilians — although there are some reservations.

House Speaker Paul Ryan is praising Trump’s “decisive action in coordination with our allies,” adding, “We are united in our resolve.”

Senate Armed Service Committee Chairman John McCain is applauding the airstrikes but said “they alone will not achieve U.S. objectives in the Middle East.”

Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer is calling the airstrikes appropriate, but said “the administration has to be careful about not getting us into a greater and more involved war in Syria.”

And House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said, “One night of airstrikes is not a substitute for a clear, comprehensive Syria strategy.”

​Not about regime change

British Prime Minister Theresa May said in her country Saturday, according to Reuters, that the attack was “not about intervening in a civil war. It is not about regime change. It is about a limited and targeted strike that does not further escalate tensions in the region and that does everything possible to prevent civilian casualties.”

“We have to remember this is not an attack to institute regime change,” said Brian Katulis of the Center for American Progress. “Bombs from the sky is very different than boots on the ground. … This is a very focused strike for one purpose: to make sure that countries around the world will not use weapons of mass destruction on a regular basis. I think that’s what the president is trying to do and I think he did the right thing.”

Steven P. Bucci, a retired Army Special Forces officer and former top Pentagon official who is a visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, said the strikes may put a dent in Assad’s ability to use chemical weapons against Syrians.

“What may change Assad’s behavior is removing the tools which he’s been using,” Bucci said. “That’s kind of what you have to do. You can’t just stomp your feet and wag your finger. You have to force him to stop.”

Lawrence Corb with the Center for American Progress told VOA that the participation of Britain and France in the strikes may cause Russia to have some “second thoughts” because “the last thing the Russians want is to provide an excuse for the United States and its NATO allies to get involved (in Syria) because (Russia’s) objective is to keep Assad in power.”

Katulis said he does not expect Russia to react to the strikes “as long as Russian soldiers are not harmed in any way” and the attacks are not “close to Russian assets.” He said he thought the U.S. and its allies stopped the strikes “just to make sure” that the U.S. “deconflicted with the Russians, that we communicate our intent very clearly and we didn’t start World War III by accident.”
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The United States and its European allies on Thursday discussed ways to effectively stop Syria’s government from using chemical weapons to kill rebels and civilians opposed to President Bashar al-Assad. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.
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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has threatened to arrest an International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor if she conducts activities in his country, arguing it was no longer an ICC member so the court had no right to do any investigating.

Striking out at what he said was an international effort to paint him as a “ruthless and heartless violator of human rights,” Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the ICC’s Rome Statute a month ago and promised to continue his crackdown on drugs, in which thousands have been killed.

ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda in February announced the start of a preliminary examination into a complaint by a Philippine lawyer, which accuses Duterte and top officials of crimes against humanity, and of killing criminals as a policy.

Duterte has cited numerous reasons why he believes the ICC has no jurisdiction over him, and on Friday suggested that any doubts about that should have been dispelled by his withdrawal.

“What is your authority now? If we are not members of the treaty, why are you … in this country?” he told reporters, in comments aimed at Bensouda. “You cannot exercise any proceedings here without basis. That is illegal and I will arrest you.”

It is not clear whether Bensouda or the ICC has carried out any activities in the Philippines related to the complaint against Duterte. The office of the prosecutor in The Hague and the Philippine foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Drug war toll

Police have since July 2016 killed more than 4,000 people they say are drug dealers who resisted arrest. Activists say many of those were executions, which police deny.

Duterte has told security forces not to cooperate with any foreign investigators and last month said he would convince other ICC members to withdraw.

Duterte had earlier vowed to face the ICC and critics say pulling out is futile, because the ICC has jurisdiction to investigate alleged crimes committed in the period from when the Philippines joined in 2011 to when its withdrawal takes effect in March 2019.

Legal technicality

Under the Rome Statute, the ICC can step in and exercise jurisdiction if states are unable or unwilling to investigate suspected crimes.

But the mercurial former mayor and his legal aides argue that technically, the Philippines never joined the ICC, because it was not announced in the country’s official gazette.

“If there is no publication, it is as if there is no law at all,” Duterte said Friday.
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Ukraine this week dismissed as unacceptable a natural gas transit proposal by Russian energy giant Gazprom. Kyiv’s move will further complicate efforts by Western European governments to persuade their Central European counterparts to withdraw objections to Nord Stream 2, a Kremlin-favored pipeline being built under the Baltic Sea to deliver gas from Russia to Germany without transiting Ukraine and Poland.

The politics of Nord Stream 2 have become increasingly tangled amid heightened tensions between Europe and Russia. Suspicions are growing that the Kremlin wants to develop the new pipeline to reduce the importance of the one running through Ukraine — more for political reasons than commercial ones.

On Monday, Ukrainian leader Petro Poroshenko dubbed Russia “an extremely unreliable partner” in energy provision. In an interview with a German newspaper, he also said Nord Stream 2 would provide the Kremlin with the opportunity to switch off at will the gas to Ukraine without disrupting supplies to Western Europe. Most of the natural gas Western Europe buys from Russia currently flows through Ukraine.

Nord Stream 2 would replace an older pipeline under the Baltic Sea, and double by next year the amount of Russian gas delivered to Germany, the European Union’s most powerful economy.

German authorities have dismissed in the past Ukrainian and Polish objections to Nord Stream 2, and last month they issued the final permits needed for pipeline construction on German territory and in its territorial waters. Finland also has issued construction permits. 

​Merkel’s stance

But after weeks of lobbying by Kyiv, and with growing pressure from within Germany’s newly formed governing coalition, Chancellor Angela Merkel has started to harden her language about the proposed pipeline. It will cost billions of dollars to build and is planned to run 1,200 kilometers from Vyborg in Russia to Lubmin in Germany.

Russia currently supplies more than one-third of the natural gas Europe uses, though with demand increasing that could reach closer to 50 percent next decade.

In the past, Merkel hasn’t acknowledged a geopolitical dimension when it comes to debating the benefits and drawbacks of Nord Stream 2. She brushed away Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s objections at a Berlin press conference in February. He warned of the dangers of Europe becoming too dependent on Russian energy and said Russia must “not be allowed to have a monopoly and force its prices on the European Union” or use the gas to blackmail EU governments.

But after a meeting Tuesday with Poroshenko, Merkel acknowledged for the first time allies’ concerns over the “political” and “strategic” aspects of the proposed pipeline, saying Nord Stream 2 could proceed only if Ukraine’s role as a transit country for Russian gas also was protected.

She said the earnings Ukraine receives for gas transit rights are of strategic importance. “That is why I have made it very clear that the Nord Stream 2 project is not possible without clarity regarding the transit role of Ukraine,” she said.

Ukraine and Poland aren’t the only European countries objecting to Nord Stream 2. Baltic nations and Slovakia, as well as Sweden and Denmark, have expressed doubts about the project, both out of solidarity with Ukraine, which would lose about $3 billion a year in revenue once the new pipeline was complete, and over fears about Europe’s growing dependence on natural gas supplies from Russia.

That dependency, they fear, could make Europe vulnerable to geopolitical blackmail by Russia. It is a view shared by the U.S., which has urged Germany to be cautious about signing up to Nord Stream 2 and has promised to offer more U.S. gas to Europe.

​Pipeline critics

NATO’s former head, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has described Nord Stream 2 as a “geopolitical mistake” for the EU, saying it would make a mockery of EU sanctions on Russia for its annexation of Crimea.

Last week, the Trump administration included Alexei Miller, the CEO of Gazprom, which is 50 percent owned by the Russian state, on an expanded economic sanctions list.

On Tuesday, Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics said that the Baltic states, Nordic countries and Visegrad countries had formed a bloc on Nord Stream 2 inside the EU. “We have always been united in our position regarding Nord Stream 2, and we believe that this is not an economic and business but a political project,” he said.

Authorities in Sweden and Denmark are still mulling whether to agree to construction permits. Last year, Denmark’s parliament passed legislation that would allow the Danish government to ban the pipeline from going through the country’s territorial waters.

Gazprom said in March that it would terminate its gas contracts with Ukraine after a European court ordered the Russian giant to pay more than $2.5 billion to Ukrainian energy firm Naftogaz, concluding a long legal battle about prices and obligations.

Gazprom transit

But in a statement this week seemingly aimed at assuaging European doubts about the project, Miller, the Gazprom CEO, said his company had never envisaged stopping all transit through Ukraine and would maintain volumes of 10 billion to 15 billion cubic meters per year.

Ukrainian Energy Minister Igor Nasalyk said Wednesday that those amounts were too small to make Russian gas transit economically viable. “Our country will not accept such volumes,” he said.

Ukrainian energy officials say Russia needs to pump at least 40 billion cubic meters of gas per year to make the transit route through Ukraine “economically profitable” for Kyiv. Last year, 93.5 billion cubic meters of Russian gas transited Ukraine to the rest of Europe — about half of the EU bloc’s total purchases from Gazprom.

Merkel’s shift in language about Nord Stream 2 followed a series of highly critical remarks about Russia from Heiko Maas, Germany’s new foreign minister. Ukraine argues the whole project is political, and Poroshenko said this week that his country’s transit pipeline could be modernized more cheaply than the cost of building Nord Stream 2.

Russian officials counter that it is European foes who are trying to turn natural gas into a political weapon by throwing up objections to the new pipeline project. They also contend that Europe will face gas shortages and price spikes next decade if the Russian energy giant isn’t allowed to boost capacity. 
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Amnesty International reports the number of executions around the world continued to fall last year, with a 4 percent drop in executions and a significant decline in the number of new death sentences.

In an annual report on executions and the death penalty released on Thursday, the human rights organization said there were at least 993 executions in 23 countries last year, down 4 percent from 1,032 in 2016 and down 39 percent from 1,634 in 2015.

The vast majority of global executions recorded last year took place in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan, according to the report.

China

China remained the world’s top executioner, the rights group said. Though the precise number of executions in China remains unknown, Amnesty said “thousands of executions [are] believed to have been carried out” in the country last year.

Four countries — Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan — accounted for 84 percent of the reported executions. Iran had at least 507 executions, Saudi Arabia at least 146, Iraq at least 125 and Pakistan at least 60, Amnesty said.

Five other countries — Botswana, Indonesia, Nigeria, Sudan and Taiwan reported no executions.

Amnesty International said the drop in executions was driven by growing aversion to the death penalty around the world, in particular in sub-Saharan Africa where 20 countries have abolished the practice and others are taking steps to repeal it.

“Developments across sub-Saharan Africa in 2017 exemplified the positive trend recorded globally, with Amnesty International’s research pointing to a further decrease in the global use of the death penalty in 2017,” said the report.

USA

In the United States, the only Western country with the death penalty, there were 23 executions and 42 death sentences. Though slightly higher than 2016, both figures are in line with historically low trends seen in recent years, Amnesty said.

In Europe and Central Asia, Belarus was the only country to execute people, with at least two executions and at least four death sentences, Amnesty said.

The global trend toward abolishing the death penalty continued.

Executions eliminated

Guinea and Mongolia expunged the death penalty for all crimes. Guinea became the 20th sub-Saharan country to abolish the punishment for all crimes. Kenya ended mandatory death penalty for murder while Burkina Faso and Chad took steps to repeal the practice.

“The progress in sub-Saharan Africa reinforced its position as a beacon of hope for abolition,” Amnesty International’s Secretary-General Salil Shetty said in a statement. “The leadership of countries in this region gives fresh hope that the abolition of the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment is within reach.”

At the end of 2017, 106 countries had abolished the death penalty in law for all crimes and 142 countries had abolished the death penalty in law or practice, according to Amnesty.
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