As Europe seeks to stop migrants and militants reaching its shores, EU’s Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini said Friday that international donors have raised more than $500 million for a multinational military force in West Africa’s Sahel region. VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports.
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European Union leaders staked out opening positions Friday for a battle over EU budgets that many conceded they are unlikely to resolve before Britain leaves next year, blowing a hole in Brussels’ finances.

At a summit to launch discussion on the size and shape of a seven-year budget package to run from 2021, ex-communist states urged wealthier neighbors to plug a nearly 10 percent annual revenue gap being left by Britain, while the Dutch led a group of small, rich countries refusing to chip in any more to the EU.

Germany and France, the biggest economies and the bloc’s driving duo as Britain prepares to leave in March 2019, renewed offers to increase their own contributions, though both set out conditions for that, including new priorities and less waste.

Underlining that a divide between east and west runs deeper than money, French President Emmanuel Macron criticized what he said were poor countries abusing EU funds designed to narrow the gap in living standards after the Cold War to shore up their own popularity while ignoring EU values on civil rights or to undercut Western economies by slashing tax and labor rules.

Noting the history of EU “cohesion” and other funding for poor regions as a tool of economic “convergence,” Macron told reporters: “I will reject a European budget which is used to finance divergence, on tax, on labor or on values.”

Poland and Hungary, heavyweights among the ex-communist states which joined the EU this century, are run by right-wing governments at daggers drawn with Brussels over their efforts to influence courts, media and other independent institutions.

The European Commission, the executive which will propose a detailed budget in May, has said it will aim to satisfy calls for “conditionality” that will link getting some EU funding to meeting treaty commitments on democratic standards such as properly functioning courts able to settle economic disputes.

But its president, Jean-Claude Juncker, warned on Friday against deepening “the rift between east and west” and some in the poorer nations see complaints about authoritarian tendencies as a convenient excuse to avoid paying in more to Brussels.

At around 140 billion euros ($170 billion) a year, the EU budget represents about 1 percent of economic output in the bloc or some 2 percent of public spending, but for all that it remains one of the bloodiest subjects of debate for members.

Focus on payments

The Commission has suggested that the next package should be increased by about 10 percent, but there was little sign Friday that the governments with cash are willing to pay that.

“When the UK leaves the EU, then that part of the budget should drop out,” said Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who leads a group of hawks including Sweden, Denmark and Austria.

“In any case, we do not want our contribution to rise and we want modernization,” he added, saying that meant reconsidering the EU’s major spending on agriculture and regional cohesion in order to do more in defense, research and controlling migration.

On the other side, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said his priorities were “sufficient financing of cohesion policy” a good deal for businesses from the EU’s agricultural subsidies.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said there had been broad agreement that new priorities such as in defense, migration and research should get new funding and she called for a “debureaucratization” of traditional EU spending programs.

Summit chair Donald Tusk praised the 27 leaders — Prime Minister Theresa May was not invited as Britain will have left before the new budget round starts — for approaching the issue “with open minds, rather than red lines.” But despite them all wanting to speed up the process, a deal this year was unlikely.

Quick deal unlikely

Although all agree it would be good to avoid a repeat of the 11th-hour wrangling ahead of the 2014-20 package, many sounded doubtful of a quick deal even early next year.

“It could go on for ages,” Rutte said. He added that it would be “nice” to finish by the May 2019 EU election: “But that’s very tight.”

Among the touchiest subjects will be accounting for the mass arrival of asylum-seekers in recent years. Aggrieved that some eastern states refuse to take in mainly Muslim migrants, some in the west have suggested penalizing them via the EU budget.

Merkel has proposed that regions which are taking in and trying to integrate refugees should have that rewarded in the allocation of EU funding — a less obviously penal approach but one which she had to defend on Friday against criticism in the east. It was not meant as a threat, the chancellor insisted.

In other business at a summit which reached no formal legal conclusions, leaders broadly agreed on some issues relating to next year’s elections to the European Parliament and to the accompanying appointment of a new Commission for five years.

They pushed back against efforts, notably from lawmakers, to limit their choice of nominee to succeed Juncker to a candidate who leads one of the pan-EU parties in the May 2019 vote. They approved Parliament’s plan to reallocate some British seats and to cut others altogether and also, barring Hungary, agreed to a Macron proposal to launch “consultations” with their citizens this year on what they want from the EU.
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When the first jet airplane lands Monday at Istanbul’s newest airport, it will mark a milestone in what analysts see as a Turkish drive to accomplish with contracting dollars what it has not been able to achieve with traditional diplomacy.

Long frustrated in its bid to join the European Union, analysts say President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has increasingly stressed trade and investment initiatives during his travels to European capitals, making his country second only to China in large-scale construction projects while muting the criticisms of Turkey’s human rights record that have blocked accession to the E.U.

Istanbul’s third airport, when it officially opens in late October, will be able to handle up to 200 million passengers a year, outstripping most other global transport hubs and establishing Turkey as a crucial gateway linking Europe and Asia.

European investment has been key to many of Turkey’s mega-projects, such as the airport and a multi-billion-dollar wind turbine farm announced this week, and Erdogan is aggressively looking for more.

“Our bilateral trade volume with Italy amounted to nearly $20 billion last year,” he declared ahead of a scheduled visit to meet the pope at the Vatican earlier this month. “However, our potential is much higher than that. We aim to increase our bilateral trade volume to $30 billion in 2020.”

Italian companies have benefited from a number of Turkey’s initiatives, winning several lucrative defense and construction contracts including for one of the world’s tallest and widest suspension spans, Istanbul’s Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, which was completed in 2016.

The deals have been a boon for European companies during a period of austerity across the continent. Analysts say this point has not been lost on Turkey and that it increasingly sees such partnerships as useful tools in its efforts to quiet criticism over human rights and its military incursion into neighboring Syria.

“Ankara is buying anybody and everybody with these infrastructure projects and everybody is happy with it,” said political scientist Cengiz Aktar.

“The Europeans get what they really want; they want to continue trade with Turkey,” he said. “And to get the juicy infrastructural projects — they are very happy with this. This is why they keep appeasing Turkey. And all these laments about what is happening to the rule of law in Turkey, this is just crocodile tears.”

Competition for those contracts in Europe is fierce, according to analysts.

“These mega projects, construction infrastructure, tunnels etc., are incredibly lucrative,” said political analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners.

“The loans taken out by the building consortium are given treasury guarantees,” he said. “The cost is lower than a typical market loan. There is a revenue guarantee in dollar terms, so whether the project is profitable, does not make a difference – the government makes up the difference. It’s like a treasure room, there is no way you can lose money on these.”

Arms deal with Britain

Separately, Britain and Turkey have struck up a deep trade relationship, largely based on weapons sales, with Britain’s BAE developing a military stealth jet for the Turkish armed forces. At the same time, London has voiced little criticism of Turkey over that country’s human rights record or military operations in Syria.

On Wednesday, the deputy chair of Turkey’s ruling AK Party, Mehdi Eker, spoke at a meeting in the British parliament and voiced appreciation for Britain’s stance on Turkey’s ongoing military offensive in Syria against a Kurdish militia.

“New realism”

Ankara has already coined the phrase “new realism” to define its diplomatic strategy with European countries. Analysts suggest Turkish foreign policy is increasingly sidelining its relations with the European Union and instead focusing on bilateral relations with individual European countries, shaped by pragmatism.

“Relations seem to be based on the idea, ‘let’s put our problems aside, not dwell on them, agree to disagree or whatever,'” said political columnist Semih Idiz of the Al Monitor website. “But there are practical issues that have to be addressed.”

“For all the bad vibes at the moment, there are construction and strategic arms deals being signed between Turkey and France and Italy,” he said. “And after, the post-Brexit situation will undoubtedly speed up Turkish-British relations, not only because Turkey needs good allies in Europe, but because Britain needs the alternative markets and alternative partners.”

Idiz went on to say there are “a lot of areas for Turkish diplomacy to move in” as he referred Britain’s pending exit from the European Union.

Critics are increasingly citing the adage, “He who pays the piper calls the tune,” in describing Europe’s relations with Turkey. They say as long as Ankara has the money to dish out lucrative and seemingly endless contracts to European companies, then its “new realism” foreign policy with Europe seems set to continue.
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A second Russian athlete has failed a doping test at the Pyeongchang Games, a day before the International Olympic Committee’s executive board is to decide whether to reinstate the country for Sunday’s closing ceremony.

Russian Bobsled Federation president Alexander Zubkov told The Associated Press on Friday that a drug-test sample that pilot Nadezhda Sergeeva gave on Sunday was positive.

The Russian delegation at the Pyeongchang Olympics said in a statement that the substance found was trimetazdine, a medication used for angina sufferers that is listed by the World Anti-Doping Agency as a banned substance affecting the metabolism.

“She confirms she took no such medication and the team confirms she was not issued any medication,” said Zubkov, a former bobsledder who himself was stripped of two Olympic gold medals for the Russian doping scheme at the 2014 Sochi Games. “Federation representatives at the Olympics” are starting to prepare a defense, he said.

Zubkov also said a sample she had given five days earlier was negative.

“I can tell you that on the 13th it was clean, but on the 18th it gave a positive result for the heart medication,” he said.

The IOC said later Friday it had been informed of the positive test by the Russian delegation.

Sergeeva’s crew finished 12th in the women’s bobsled competition on Wednesday, after she had given the sample that later came back positive.

The Russian team was barred from the Olympics in December for doping at the Sochi Games, but the IOC invited 168 athletes from the country to compete under the Olympic flag. The IOC set out the criteria for Russia to be reinstated, and the latest doping cases are a setback.

“This won’t win us any extra credit,” Russian delegation leader Stanislav Pozdnyakov said in comments reported by Russian media. “Unfortunately this case speaks to negligence by the athlete. She has let us down.”

A group of influential anti-doping organizations has called on the IOC not to reinstate Russia in time for the closing ceremony.

The Institute of National Anti-Doping Organizations says the IOC “can’t merely ‘wish away’ the most significant fraud in the history of sport,” adding that “by failing to impose a meaningful sanction on the ROC (Russian Olympic Committee), the IOC would be culpable in this effort to defraud clean athletes of the world.”

Earlier this month, Sergeeva told the AP that competitors from other countries had warmed to her after she passed IOC vetting for Pyeongchang, which included an examination of her drug-testing history.

“I don’t know why, but they’ve started talking to us more than ever before. I feel it. Maybe it’s a sign to them that we’re clean,” Sergeeva said. “There’s a lot of people coming up and saying, ‘We’re happy you’re here.’”

At the time, she was training in a T-shirt with the words “I Don’t Do Doping.” Sergeeva used to compete in track and field as a heptathlete before switching sports in 2010.

It is the fourth doping case of the games. Russian curler Alexander Krushelnitsky was stripped of his bronze medal Thursday after testing positive for the banned substance meldonium. Slovenian hockey player Ziga Jeglic and Japanese speedskater Kei Saito also left the games after testing positive.

Trimetazidine, the substance found in Sergeeva’s sample, has been detected in previous doping cases. Chinese swimmer Sun Yang, an Olympic gold medalist, was banned for three months in 2014 by his country’s sports authorities after testing positive for the substance.

Sun said he had been prescribed the drug for a medical condition and hadn’t known it was banned. The perceived leniency of that three-month ban led to Sun receiving criticism from swimmers from other countries at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, where he won another gold medal.

Russia’s bobsled program has been in the spotlight for drug use for several years.

Zubkov and four other bobsledders were disqualified from the 2014 Sochi Games for doping, though four other bobsledders have been reinstated. Another gold medalist, Dmitry Trunenkov, was banned last year for failing a doping test.

 
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The U.S. embassy in the Montenegrin capital of Podgorica has reopened a day after an ex-Yugoslav soldier hurled a hand grenade into the compound and then killed himself with another one.

The embassy said Friday on Twitter it’s “open for business as usual following yesterday’s incident.”

The blast around midnight Wednesday created a crater in the embassy’s yard but injured no one. Police are investigating possible motives and whether the attacker acted alone.

The suspect has been identified as Dalibor Jaukovic, who served in the Yugoslav military during the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia. He was reportedly opposed to Montenegro’s membership in NATO.

Montenegro and Serbia were part of Yugoslavia during the NATO bombing. Montenegro split from Serbia in 2006 and joined NATO last year.

 
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The European Central Bank has set a deadline of Friday for Latvia’s third-largest bank to plug a financing hole, the country’s finance minister said, as the Baltic state faced its worst financial difficulties in almost a decade.

Earlier, ABLV said it had asked for a 480 million euro ($591 million) emergency loan from the country’s central bank as part of efforts to reopen for business after being forced to halt all payments in the face of money laundering accusations.

The request for credit comes amid frantic efforts by ABLV’s management to keep the bank afloat after U.S. authorities singled it out for money laundering and moved to block it from doing financial deals in dollars.

ABLV has denied any such wrongdoing. “We want to give an opportunity … for the bank to ensure its short-term liquidity, so that it can continue operating,” the Baltic state’s finance minister, Dana Reizniece-Ozola, told a news website, Delfi.lv.

The ECB has imposed a moratorium stopping savers withdrawing their funds or making payments. It declined to comment about the deadline.

In an interview with Reuters, a senior ABLV executive appealed for the group to be spared closure.

“We believe that the bank has a future, on the basis of a substantially reduced business,” Vadims Reinfelds, deputy chief executive, said.

“What we are looking for here is a medium term or even longer term solution. If that is not possible, then resolution is the alternative,” he said, referring to a possible winding down. “The business can be restructured without resolution,” Reinfelds said, adding the bank was solvent.

He warned the bank was “systemic” — a reference to its significance for the financial system and an indication that its problems could spill over to affect others.

The finance minister, however, played down such concerns.

The crisis at ABLV comes alongside a separate police investigation into whether the head of Latvia’s central bank took a bribe of more than 100,000 euros.

Ilmars Rimsevics has dismissed the allegations and said he is the victim of a smear campaign, while the Ministry of Defense has suggested that disinformation may be to blame.

The ministry did not say who was behind this but drew parallels with campaigns before the U.S. elections in 2016. Russia has denied it was behind those campaigns and says it does not meddle in elections in the West.

The episode has cast a shadow over Latvia, which belongs to the euro zone and whose top officials hold influential posts both at the European Commission and European Central Bank.

Experts have said the events raise questions about the ECB, which is responsible for supervision of ABLV and other banks around the euro zone. The ECB has said it is not its responsibility to police money laundering.

Latvia was one of the hardest hit countries in the global financial crisis, falling into recession as the government sought an international bailout, nationalized Parex Bank and made spending cuts amid a wave of emigration.

($1 = 0.8141 euros)

Reporting by John O’Donnell and Gederts Gelzis.
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Turkey’s foreign ministry on Thursday condemned the Dutch parliament’s approval of a motion recognizing as genocide the massacre of as many as 1.5 million Armenians in 1915.

The ministry said in a written statement that the decision was not legally binding or valid, and noted that the Dutch government had said it would not become the official policy of the Netherlands.

 
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The world’s oldest known cave paintings were made by Neanderthals, not modern humans, suggesting our extinct cousins were far from being uncultured brutes.

A high-tech analysis of cave art at three Spanish sites, published on Thursday, dates the paintings to at least 64,800 years ago, or 20,000 years before modern humans arrived in Europe from Africa.

That makes the cave art much older than previously thought and provides the strongest evidence yet that Neanderthals had the cognitive capacity to understand symbolic representation, a central pillar of human culture.

“What we’ve got here is a smoking gun that really overturns the notion that Neanderthals were knuckle-dragging cavemen,” said Alistair Pike, professor of archaeological sciences at the University of Southampton, who co-led the study.

“Painting is something that has always been seen as a very human activity, so if Neanderthals are doing it they are being just like us,” he told Reuters.

While some archaeologists already viewed Neanderthals as more sophisticated than their commonplace caricature, the evidence until now has been inconclusive. With the data from the three Spanish cave sites described in the journal Science, Pike and colleagues believe they finally have rock-solid proof.

The early cave art at La Pasiega, Maltravieso and Ardales includes lines, dots, discs and hand stencils — and creating them would have involved specific skills, such as mixing pigments and selecting appropriate display locations.

The Neanderthals living in the same land that would one day give birth to Diego Velazquez and Pablo Picasso also needed the intellectual ability to think symbolically, like modern humans.

Scientists used a precise dating system based on the radioactive decay of uranium isotopes into thorium to assess the age of the paintings. This involved scraping a few milligrams of calcium carbonate deposit from the paintings for analysis.

A second related study published in Science Advances found that dyed and decorated marine shells from a different Spanish cave also dated back to pre-human times.

Taken together, the researchers said their work suggested that Neanderthals were “cognitively indistinguishable” from early modern humans.

Joao Zilhao of the University of Barcelona said the new findings meant the search for the origins of human cognition needed to go back to the common ancestor of both Neanderthals and modern humans more than 500,000 years ago.

Neanderthals died out about 40,000 years ago, soon after direct ancestors arrived in Europe. It is unclear what killed them off, although theories include an inability to adapt to climate change and increased competition from modern humans.

If they were still alive today, Pike believes they could well have gone on develop complex art and technology.

“If they had been given the time, the resources and the population, then they might have ended up in some version of the world we live in today.”
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Montenegro says an attacker threw a grenade at the U.S. Embassy in the capital of the Balkan state then killed himself with another explosive device.

The area was sealed off by police, and the embassy warned Americans to avoid the area because of “an active security situation.”

Montenegro’s government said the unknown assailant hurled the grenade into the embassy compound around midnight (1100 GMT) and then killed himself with another explosive device. No one else was hurt and there was no major damage.

Montenegro borders the Adriatic Sea in southeastern Europe and its capital is Podgorica. It joined NATO last year.

The U.S. established diplomatic ties with the tiny Balkan state in 2006 after it split from much larger Serbia.
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Two members of a French counterterrorism force in Mali were killed Wednesday when an improvised explosive device hit their armored vehicle in a border region with Niger, authorities said.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said a soldier and an officer were killed in the explosion. A statement by Defense Minister Florence Parly said those killed were part of a “vast operation” patrolling the border region with Niger. It did not specify the locality.

The minister identified the victims as Emilien Mougin and Timothee Dernoncourt, from an armored regiment based in Valence but members of Operation Barkhane, an anti-terrorism force operating in the Sahel region of west Africa.

Islamic extremists and traffickers frequently cross or hide out in border regions between Mali and Niger and between Mali and Burkina Faso. It was not known who planted the explosive device.

Operation Barkhane, the 4,000-strong counterterrorism force started in 2014, is meant to fight extremist groups in the west African Sahel region, which also includes Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mauritania. About 1,000 French soldiers are in Mali. The Barkhane troops are backed by fighter planes, drones and helicopters. Barkhane replaced the troops of a 2013 intervention in Mali to rout an al-Qaida affiliate in the north. Surviving fighters spread out across the region.

Macron praised the “courage” of the French soldiers and their determination to continue their mission, “which allows them to strike serious blows against the enemy.”
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Greece’s powerful Communist Party has vowed to step up protests against online auctions of homes with defaulted mortgages, putting more pressure on the government which has promised bailout creditors it will speed up the auction process.

More than 2,000 protesters from the party’s labor union took part in a rally in central Athens against the auctions which restarted Wednesday, following months of delays.

Until now, protests against the auctions at courthouses and the offices of notary publics have been led by smaller left-wing groups.

European Union institutions participating in Greece’s bailout are pressing Athens to ensure that auctions proceed.

This week, due to the postponed auctions, creditors delayed paying out a rescue loan installment to the government worth 5.7 billion euros ($7.1 billion).
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British aid agency Oxfam says it is investigating dozens of new allegations of sexual misconduct. It follows revelations last week that some Oxfam staff in Haiti paid sex workers in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake. As Henry Ridgwell reports from London, the scandal looks set to mark a watershed moment for the aid sector.
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Emmanuel Macron’s government will on Wednesday propose toughening France’s immigration and asylum laws amid strident criticism from human rights groups, in a move that will test the unity of his left-and-right majority.

The bill will double to 90 days the time for which illegal migrants can be detained and shorten deadlines to apply for asylum, and it will make the illegal crossing of borders an offense punishable by one year in jail and fines.

The government says it wants to be both firm and fair on immigration, and the bill will also make it easier for minors to get asylum and will aim to cut by half the time it takes for authorities to process any asylum request.

But while Macron’s parliamentary majority, a mix of lawmakers who have their roots both in right-wing and left-wing parties, has so far been very united, the government’s migration plans have triggered disquiet in its ranks.

Mathieu Orphelin, a lawmaker from Macron’s Republic on the Move party, on Tuesday said increasing the detention time from 45 days to 90 days was problematic, adding that he intended to table amendments to modify the bill.

Another lawmaker from Macron’s party, Sonia Krimi, has accused the government of “playing with people’s fears” with its migration reform. “All foreigners in France are not terrorists. All foreigners do not cheat with social welfare,” she told Interior Minister Gerard Collomb in parliament in December.

Macron is accustomed to glowing international tributes as a breath of fresh air since his election in May last year on promises of a break with government framed by left-vs.-right politics.

But the migration bill has concentrated criticism at home.

The prominent left-wing magazine l’Obs in January featured a black-and-white photo of his face, wrapped in barbed wire, on its cover, above the words: “Welcome to the country of human rights.”

This bill “represents a vertiginous drop of refugees’ and migrants’ rights in France,” said Jean-Claude Mas of the Cimade charity, which helps migrants and asylum seekers.

It might, however, prove popular with voters. A BVA opinion poll this month showed that 63 percent of French voters think there are too many immigrants in France.

The number of people filing asylum requests in France hit a record in 2017, topping 100,000. That is still well below the 186,000 arrivals of asylum seekers registered that same year in Germany.
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Polish Deputy Culture Minister Jaroslaw Sellin on Tuesday backed a call for building a “Polokaust” museum to commemorate Poles killed by the Nazis during World War II.

This month Poland sparked international criticism, including from Israel and the United States, when it approved a law that imposes jail terms for suggesting the country was complicit in the Holocaust.

Some three million Jews who lived in pre-war Poland were murdered by the Nazis during their occupation of the country.

They accounted for about half of all Jews killed in the Holocaust.

Poland’s nationalist ruling party says the new law is needed to ensure that Poles are also recognized as victims, not perpetrators, of Nazi aggression. It notes that the Nazis also viewed Slavs as racially inferior and that many Poles were killed or forced into slave labor during the German occupation.

“I think the story of how the fate of Poles during World War II looked like … deserves to be told and shown in this way [in a museum] …,” Sellin was quoted by state media as saying.

“It is enough to read official German documents from these times or Hitler’s book to know that after the Jews, whom he wanted to completely erase from Europe …, the next [target] was generally Slavic people, especially Poles.”

Sellin was responding to a suggestion made by Marek Kochan, a writer and academic, in Polish daily Rzeczpospolita for what he called a “Polokaust” museum. It was unclear from Sellin’s comments whether the museum would be built.

Disturbing revelations

Many Poles believe their nation behaved honorably for the most part during the Holocaust. But research published since 1989 has sparked a painful debate about responsibility and reconciliation.

A 2000-2004 inquiry by Poland’s state Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) found that on July 10, 1941, Nazi occupiers and local inhabitants colluded in a massacre of at least 340 Jews at Jedwabne. Some victims were burned alive after being locked inside a barn.

The revelation disturbed the Poles’ belief that, with a few exceptions, they conducted themselves honorably during a vicious war in which a fifth of the nation perished. Some Poles still refuse to acknowledge the IPN’s findings.

Anti-Semitism was common in Poland in the run-up to World War II. After the war, a pogrom in the town of Kielce and a bout of anti-Semitism in 1968 sponsored by the communist authorities forced many survivors who had stayed in Poland to flee.
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The chief executive officer of British charity Oxfam said Tuesday the organization was investigating 26 new cases of sexual misconduct.

Mark Goldring told a parliamentary committee in London the new cases were related to the charity’s international operation.

“There are 26 cases that have come forward,” Goldring said, adding, “We really want people to come forward.”

Goldring’s comments were made as legislators questioned him about the alleged use of prostitutes in Haiti in 2011 in the aftermath of the Caribbean nation’s devastating earthquake the previous year. An Oxfam report released Monday into the behavior of aid workers sent to Haiti revealed seven of them were accused of using prostitutes at an Oxfam-funded home and three of them physically threatened a witness in the investigation.

Four staff members were fired for gross misconduct and the director in Haiti, Roland Van Hauwermeiren, along with two others, were allowed to resign.

Goldring apologized to the lawmakers on behalf of Oxfam and said the charity would launch its own investigation into abuses in the foreign aid sector. Last week, the charity formally apologized to Haiti and announced a plan to combat sexual abuse, including a new vetting system for potential employees.

Allegations of sexual misconduct have rattled the aid sector, prompting Britain and the European Union to review funding for Oxfam, one of the world’s largest disaster relief charities. Haitian President Jovenel Moise has called for investigations of other charitable organizations as well.

 
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The Vatican’s top sexual abuse investigator said he had started taking testimony on Tuesday from victims in the Chilean capital, where he is looking into accusations that a bishop appointed by Pope Francis covered up crimes against minors.

Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta was sent to Chile after the pope was criticized during his visit last month for defending Bishop Juan Barros, who he appointed in 2015 despite accusations he had covered up sexual abuse of minors.

Several men have accused Barros of protecting his former mentor, Father Fernando Karadima, who was found guilty in a Vatican investigation in 2011 of abusing them and others when they were boys.

Scicluna, known for his role in the sex abuse investigation that led to the removal of late Mexican priest Marcial Maciel in 2005, arrived in Santiago on Monday. On Tuesday, he had his first interviews with victims in Providencia, the wealthy Santiago neighborhood that is home to Karadima’s former parish, and issued a short statement to reporters afterward.

“I have come to Chile, sent by Pope Francis, to gather useful information concerning Monsignor Juan Barros,” Scicluna said. “I want to express my gratitude to the people who have expressed their willingness to meet me in the next few days.”

Before his trip to Chile, Scicluna spent four hours hearing testimony in New York from a key witness in the case against Barros.

Juan Carlos Cruz, who was sexually abused by Karadima as a teenager, told reporters he gave “eye opening” testimony to Scicluna on Saturday. Cruz, who now lives in Philadelphia, has said Barros was present for the abuse.

Following his meeting with Scicluna, Cruz said he felt for the first time that someone was listening. He urged the Church to hear all victims with the same respect he received from Scicluna.

Barros, of the diocese of Osorno, has said he was unaware of any wrongdoing by Karadima.

During his visit to Chile last month, the pope testily told a Chilean reporter: “The day I see proof against Bishop Barros, then I will talk. There is not a single piece of evidence against him. It is all slander. Is that clear?”

The comments were widely criticized and Francis later issued a statement saying Scicluna would go to “listen to those who want to submit information in their possession.”

Scicluna was due to hear victim testimony until his scheduled departure from Chile on Friday.
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Pro-Syrian government troops enroute to Syria’s Afrin region, a Kurdish area where Turkish troops have mounted a month-long offensive, retreated Tuesday after Turkish artillery fired warning shots, according to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency.

The Syrian Kurdish militia and Syrian Observatory for Human Rights founder Rami Abdul Rahman confirmed the pro-Syrian troops began entering the Kurdish enclave earlier Tuesday before the warning strikes.

Syria’s state media televised a convoy of about 20 machine gun-armed vehicles entering Afrin from the village of Nubul.

There was no immediate word from Kurdish officials about the deployment, but on Monday state media reported pro-Syrian government forces would go to Afrin to “join the resistance against the Turkish aggression.”

The deployment came one day after Turkey warned the Syrian government not to enter the area, saying it would retaliate if the troops tried to protect Kurdish fighters.

Turkey launched its offense on Jan. 20 to rid the area of Kurdish forces. Turkey considers Kurdish fighters as terrorists because of their association with outlawed Kurdish rebels fighting inside Turkey.

 
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For the first time in Ukraine’s history, U.S. anthracite is helping to keep the lights on and the heating going this winter following a deal that has also helped to warm Kyiv’s relations with President Donald Trump.

The Ukrainian state-owned company that imported the coal told Reuters that the deal made commercial sense. But it was also politically expedient, according to a person involved in the talks on the agreement and power industry insiders.

On Trump’s side it provided much-needed orders for a coal-producing region of the United States which was a vital constituency in his 2016 presidential election victory.

On the Ukrainian side the deal helped to win favor with the White House, whose support Kyiv needs in its conflict with Russia, as well as opening up a new source of coal at a time when its traditional supplies are disrupted.

Trump’s campaign call to improve relations with the Kremlin alarmed the pro-Western leadership in Ukraine, which lost Crimea to Russia in 2014 and is still fighting pro-Moscow separatists.

However, things looked up when President Petro Poroshenko visited the White House on June 20 last year.

“The meeting with Trump was a key point, a milestone,” a Ukrainian government source told Reuters, requesting anonymity.

The Americans had set particular store by supplying coal to Ukraine. 

“I felt that for them it is important,” said the source, who was present at the talks that also included a session with Vice President Mike Pence.

Despite Trump’s incentives, U.S. utilities are shutting coal-fired plants and shifting to gas, wind and solar power.

Ailing U.S. mining companies are therefore boosting exports to Asia and seeking new buyers among eastern European countries trying to diversify from Russian supplies.

Trump, who championed U.S. coal producers on the campaign trail, pressed the message after meeting Poroshenko. 

“Ukraine already tells us they need millions and millions of metric tons right now,” he said in a speech nine days later. “We want to sell it to them, and to everyone else all over the globe who need it.”

The deal with Kyiv was sealed the following month, after which U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said: “As promised during the campaign, President Trump is unshackling American energy with each day on the job.”

The deal helped to “bolster a key strategic partner against regional pressures that seek to undermine U.S. interests,” Ross added, referring to past Russian attempts to restrict natural gas flows to its western neighbors.

A matter of necessity

Ukraine was once a major producer of anthracite, a coal used in power generation, but it has faced a shortage in recent winters as it lost control of almost all its mines in eastern areas to the separatists.

Along with South Africa, Ukrainian-owned mines in Russia have been the main source of anthracite imports but this is fraught with uncertainty. In the past Moscow has cut off gas supplies to the country over disputes with Kyiv, while the Ukrainian government considered forbidding anthracite imports from Russia in 2017 although no ban has yet been imposed.

Overall anthracite imports shot up to 3.05 million tons in the first 11 months of 2017 from just 0.05 million in all of 2013 — the year before the rebellion erupted.

Neighboring Poland, which Trump visited in July, is also turning increasingly to U.S. coal. Its imports from the United States jumped five-fold last year to 839,000 tons, data from the state-run ARP agency showed.

In July Ukrainian state-owned energy company Centrenergo announced the deal with U.S. company Xcoal for the supply of up to 700,000 tons of anthracite.

Centrenergo initially said it would pay $113 per ton for the first shipment, a price industry experts and traders told Reuters was expensive compared with alternatives.

However, chief executive Oleg Kozemko said the cost varied according to the quality of the coal delivered, so Centrenergo had paid around $100 per ton on average for the 410,000 tons supplied by the end of 2017.

Kozemko said in an interview that the U.S. deal was Centrenergo’s only viable option after three tenders it launched earlier last year had failed.

“The idea to sign a contract with Xcoal was a matter of necessity,” he said. “We had agreements but they didn’t work out, because the pricing that they discussed with us and that we signed an agreement on didn’t work out.”

Data on the state tenders registry and documents seen by Reuters show that two of the tenders failed due to a lack of bids, while the results of the third were cancelled.

If that contract had worked out, Centrenergo would have paid around $96 per ton, according to Reuters calculations based on the exchange rate at the time of the tender in April.

Energy expert Andriy Gerus told Reuters the Xcoal deal “probably helps Ukraine to build some good political connections with the USA and that is quite important right now.”

Mutual desire 

The anthracite for Centrenergo is mined in Pennsylvania, which backed Trump in 2016. This marked the first time a Republican presidential candidate had won the state since 1988, and followed Trump’s pledge to reverse the coal industry’s history of plant closures and lay-offs in recent years.

Centrenergo says it and Xcoal agreed the contract independently of their governments and without any political pressure. However, Kozemko said: “If talks between the heads of our countries helped in this, then we can only say thank you… It was a mutual desire.”

For the Ukrainian authorities, the diplomatic benefit is clear. When the first shipment of U.S. anthracite arrived in September, Poroshenko tweeted a photo of himself shaking hands with Trump in Washington. 

“As agreed with @realDonaldTrump, first American coal has reached Ukraine,” he wrote.

Poroshenko’s press service said the deal “is an exact example of when the friendly and warm atmosphere of one conversation helps strengthen the foundations of a strategic partnership in the interests of both sides for the future.”

The Washington meeting also discussed U.S.-Ukrainian military and technical cooperation. Soon after, the Trump administration said it was considering supplying defensive weapons to Ukraine to counter the Russian-backed separatists.

In late December the U.S. State Department announced that the provision of “enhanced defensive capabilities” had been approved.

Kozemko said the Xcoal deal was likely to be only the beginning of Centrenergo’s trade relations with the United States as it is currently holding talks on supplies of bituminous coal, a poorer quality variety.

“It’s good that we studied the U.S. market because we had never looked at it before. We see big prospects for bituminous coal,” he said, adding that other Ukrainian firms were thinking similarly. “We showed how to bring coal from America and they are following our lead.”
…

Latvia’s ABLV Bank sought emergency support Monday after U.S. officials accused it of helping breach North Korean sanctions while the country’s central bank chief faced bribery allegations, turning up the spotlight on its financial system.

The Baltic country, which is a member of the euro zone and shares a border with Russia, has come under increasing scrutiny recently as a conduit for illicit financial activities.

Last year, two Latvian banks were fined more than 2.8 million euros ($3.26 million) for allowing clients to violate sanctions imposed by the European Union and United Nations on North Korea. Three others received smaller fines.

ABLV said it had sought temporary liquidity support from the central bank after depositors withdrew 600 million euros, about 22 percent of total deposits, following a warning by the United States that it was seeking to impose sanctions on the bank.

Latvia’s third-biggest lender denied wrongdoing.

“We don’t participate in any illegal activities,” ABLV Bank Deputy CEO Vadims Reinfelds told a news conference. “There are no violations of sanctions.”

The bank said it would not look for a bailout from the government and that it had adequate liquidity and capital.

The European Central Bank had earlier stopped all payments by ABLV, citing the sharp deterioration in its financial position in recent days and saying a moratorium was needed to allow the bank and Latvian authorities to address the situation.

A source close to the matter said the moratorium would be short, giving ABLV just a few days to assess its situation.

Only solvent institutions may receive emergency liquidity support and should the ECB determine that ABLV cannot meet its financial, liquidity and capital obligations, it could start proceedings that may lead to the bank being wound down.

Latvia’s own central bank said it had agreed to provide 97.5 million euros worth of funding to ABLV but that the bank has yet to receive the money.

The U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) said on Feb. 13 that ABLV “had institutionalized money laundering as a pillar of the bank’s business practices.”

It linked some of the alleged activities to North Korea’s ballistic missiles program, saying bank executives and management had bribed Latvian officials to cover up their activities.

​Central bank governor

Separately, Latvia’s anti-corruption authority released central bank Governor Ilmars Rimsevics, an ECB policymaker, who was arrested Saturday on suspicion of having solicited a 100,000 euro bribe. Rimsevics denied the allegations.

The Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau said its investigation was not connected to the probe into ABLV.

“[Rimsevics’ arrest] … is about demanding a bribe of no less than 100,000 euros,” the bureau’s head, Jekabs Straume, told reporters at a news conference Monday.

Neither the police nor the anti-corruption authority gave details of the alleged request for a bribe.

A lawyer for Rimsevics, who was arrested after police searched his office and home, said he would hold a news conference at 11:00 a.m. (1000 GMT) Tuesday.

“I disagree with it categorically,” Rimsevics told Latvian news portal Delfi following his release, referring to the bribery allegations.

Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis had earlier called on the central bank chief to quit, saying: “I can’t imagine that a governor of the Bank of Latvia detained over such a serious accusation could work.”

Latvia joined the European Union in 2003 and adopted the euro currency at the start of 2014, a move that gave its central bank governor a seat on the ECB’s interest-rate-setting Governing Council.

The European Commission said Monday that Rimsevics’ detention was a matter for Latvian authorities.

Boom time

The economy of Latvia, which gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, has boomed in recent years. Its commercial banking sector is dominated by Nordic banks alongside a number of privately-owned local lenders.

In its document detailing the allegations against ABLV, the FinCEN said the reliance of some parts of the Latvian banking system on non-resident deposits for capital exposed it to increased illicit finance risk. It said such deposits amounted to roughly $13 billion.

“Non-resident banking in Latvia allows offshore companies, including shell companies, to hold accounts and transact through Latvian banks,” FinCEN said, adding that criminal groups and corrupt officials may use such schemes to hide true beneficiaries or create fraudulent business transactions.

“[Former Soviet Union] actors often transfer their capital via Latvia, frequently through complex and interconnected legal structures, to various banking locales in order to reduce scrutiny of transactions and lower the transactions’ risk rating.”
…

Ireland’s prime minister called for the urgent restoration of Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government Monday after talks to end a year-long political stalemate broke down yet again last week.

Both the British and Irish governments have said they want to get the talks back on track but neither have suggested when Irish nationalists Sinn Fein and the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) should return to the negotiating table.

The British province has been without a devolved executive for over a year since Sinn Fein withdrew from the compulsory coalition with their arch-rivals that has been central to a 1998 peace deal that ended three decades of violence there.

“The [Irish] government will continue to engage with the parties in Northern Ireland and the British government to support the urgent formation of a new executive,” Varadkar said in a statement after meeting with Sinn Fein and speaking to British Prime Minister Theresa May by phone.

Before meeting Varadkar, Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said there should be no delay in resuming talks that she and both governments believe were close to a successful outcome before the DUP pulled out over a disagreement on additional rights for Irish-language speakers.

DUP leader Arlene Foster reiterated her call for London to take further financial control of the region, saying her party remained committed to devolution “but not at any price.”

Britain has already had to take steps toward governing the region directly for the first time in a decade and many fear a return to full British direct rule would further destabilize a delicate balance between nationalists and unionists.

Britain has said it is absolutely committed to restoring the power-sharing administration and Varadkar repeated on Monday that his government did not want to see the introduction of direct rule across the border.
…

Latvian Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis assured the country and Europe “there is no sign of danger,” after anti-corruption police arrested the head of the Latvian central bank Saturday.

“For now, neither I, nor any other official, has any reason to interfere with the work of the Corruption Prevention Bureau,” Kucinskis said.

Neither Kucinskis nor the police gave any reason why central bank governor Ilmars Rimsevics was arrested. But a police spokeswoman said there will be an announcement “as soon as possible.”

The Latvian government plans an emergency meeting Monday.

Along with heading the Baltic nation’s central bank, Rimsevics is also one of 19 governors on the European Central Bank.

The U.S. Treasury Department has proposed sanctions against a major Latvian bank for alleged money laundering linked to North Korea’s weapons program.
…

Vandals spray painted swastikas on the Polish embassy in Tel Aviv after Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki talked about what he called “Jewish perpetrators” of the Holocaust.

Israeli leaders immediately condemned his comment. The prime minister was responding to a reporter’s question about Poland’s new law punishing anyone who calls the Nazi genocide a “Polish crime.”

“Saying that our people collaborate with the Nazis is a new low,” Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said at a conference Sunday. “We stand together, hand in hand, in this fight. We have to stand strong for the memory of our brothers and sisters murdered in the Shoah (Hebrew for the Holocaust). But today, more than ever, we must work to educate the world, even some of the leaders, about that dark time.”

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he spoke with his Polish counterpart by telephone Sunday, telling him “a comparison between the activities of Poles and the activities of Jews during the Holocaust is unfounded.”

Ronald Lauder, head of the World Jewish Congress, called Morawiecki’s comment some of the “very worst form of anti-Semitism and Holocaust obfuscation.”

A reporter at the Munich Security Conference Saturday asked Morawiecki if under the new law, he could be jailed for telling the story of how neighbors betrayed his mother’s family in Poland to the Nazis.

“Of course it’s not going to be seen as criminal to say that there were Polish perpetrators, as there were Jewish perpetrators, as there were Russian perpetrators, as there were Ukrainian, not only German perpetrators,”  Morawiecki replied.

He did not elaborate on who he regards as “Jewish perpetrators.” But he tweeted Sunday, “Dialogue about this most difficult history is necessary as a warning. We will conduct such dialogue with Israel.”

“The Holocaust, the genocide of Jews committed by Nazi Germans, was an extremely terrifying crime,” he further wrote. “There were also individuals who by collaborating with Nazi Germans, showed the darkest side of human nature.”

A Morawiecki spokesman said the prime minister was in no way trying to deny the Holocaust.

About 6 million Poles, half of them Jews, were murdered during World War II by Hitler and the Nazis.
…

Britain was hit by its biggest earthquake in a decade Saturday, the British Geological Survey (BGS) said, with tremors felt across parts of Wales and southwest England but no notable damage reported.

The BGS said the quake was of magnitude 4.4, with an epicenter 20 km (12.5 miles) north of the Welsh city of Swansea, adding that it was the biggest quake in the Britain since 2008.

Earthquakes are not common in Britain and are rarely powerful. The 2008 quake in Market Rasen, northeast England, was magnitude 5.2, or 16 times more powerful than Saturday’s quake.

However, Saturday’s earthquake in Wales was felt as far away as Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight, more than 200 km (125 miles) away.

Videos on social media showed people gathered outside Swansea University, which was holding an open day, after an apparent evacuation.

“Thank you to everyone who attended our visit day. We hoped that you had a surprisingly ‘earth moving’ experience!” Swansea University said on Twitter.
…

Spain has assumed a pivotal role in pressuring Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to change his regime’s “barbaric” course, according to Spanish diplomats who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity.

Venezuela’s crisis reached major dimensions last week as hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans made an exodus to neighboring countries, escaping the hyperinflation, food shortages and rampant violence prevailing over what used to be South America’s wealthiest oil producer.

Spain has openly pushed for sanctions by the European Union that target Maduro and his top officials in a move that led to the expulsion of the Spanish ambassador and insults against Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. Maduro called him a U.S. lackey.

Venezuelan state media reported that the measures restricting travel and business in Europe by seven top Venezuelan officials were hatched in discussions Rajoy held with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington last September.

The U.S. has placed sanctions on more than 20 individuals in Venezuela, including politicians and government contractors, since repression of opponents to the Maduro government intensified last July.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson brought up the possibility of placing an embargo on Venezuelan oil sales during a recent swing through Latin America. He even hinted the U.S. might welcome a military coup.

Coup denials

Rajoy’s predecessor, Jose Maria Aznar, backed a coup against Maduro’s mentor, Hugo Chavez, when he was in power. But Spanish officials deny that anything similar is taking place now.

“Spain’s support for sanctions did not result from any consultation with Washington,” a Spanish foreign ministry official told VOA. “It’s strictly between Spain and the EU. Our main concern is the Venezuelan people and standing up for democratic principles.”

Spain will lobby for expanding the sanctions at an EU foreign ministers meeting Monday in Brussels where Venezuela is on the agenda, according to a Spanish diplomatic expert on Venezuela.

The source also said Spain has worked to isolate Venezuela among some Latin American governments, which excluded Maduro from a regional summit last week in Lima, Peru.

When EU sanctions were adopted in January, Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis said they were an “incentive to help negotiations” between Maduro and the opposition party, which were mediated by former socialist Spanish Prime Minister Rodriguez Zapatero.

Zapatero’s eagerness to seal an agreement has been criticized by opponents of Maduro, who say he tried to pressure them into participating in presidential elections scheduled for next April that are seen as loaded in Maduro’s favor.

“Zapatero went from being an impartial arbiter to acting as a lawyer for the regime,” said Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma, who escaped from his Venezuelan house arrest to Spain last December. He was personally received by Rajoy.

​Deep ties

Spain’s ties with Venezuela run deep. Spaniards compose one of the country’s largest expatriate communities, numbering about 300,000. The Spanish oil company Repsol has invested more than $2 billion in Venezuela, and it continues operating oil and gas fields there.

But the leverage could go both ways. Venezuela appears to have some political influence with Spain’s mainstream socialist party PSOE, whose spokesmen criticized the news media for giving “too much” coverage to opposition protests at the time that Zapatero assumed his mediation role.

Venezuela also has contributed money to the far left group Podemos, which has been Spain’s third-largest political force and blocked a congressional resolution condemning Maduro’s power grab.

Podemos was joined in opposing the motion by the Catalan Leftist Republic party (ERC), one of the main pro-independence groups in Catalonia that may head the next regional government.

In an apparent tit for tat, Maduro has demanded the release of jailed ERC leader Oriol Junqueras and attacked Spain for trying to block an Oct. 1 referendum on Catalan independence.

Cyberoffensive

Venezuelan state channels joined a Russian cyberoffensive promoting Catalan separatism through social media.

According to Spanish Defense Minister Maria Dolores de Cospedal, 32 percent of robot social media accounts used to amplify the separatist movement were based in Venezuela and connected with Maduro’s ruling PSUV.

The head of the radical separatist Catalan Unity Party (CUP), Ana Gabriel, who is to appear in court next week to answer charges of rebellion, has been in Venezuela campaigning for Maduro.

The Spanish government is investigating funds linked to members of the Venezuelan government that were deposited in Andorra, an independent archdiocese bordering northern Spain.

But experts don’t expect relations between Madrid and Caracas to be radically altered by the growing tensions.

“We know that Maduro is taking Venezuela toward being another Cuba and is very close to achieving it,” a Spanish diplomatic analyst said. “But we will keep talking to Maduro the same way that we keep talking to Putin.”

Ledezma said he asked Rajoy to use his influence with Venezuela to open a corridor for humanitarian aid proposed by Venezuela’s neighbors.
…

Moscow has dismissed U.S. charges against several Russian citizens and companies for meddling in the 2016 presidential election as “blather.” Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov questioned the evidence. The charges have formed a tense backdrop to the conference, which has focused on growing threats to global security, as Henry Ridgwell reports from Munich.
…

A California man has pleaded guilty to inadvertently selling bank accounts to Russians who were indicted Friday by a federal grand jury for interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Richard Pinedo pleaded guilty to using stolen identities to set up bank accounts that were then used by the Russians, according to a February 12 court filing.  

The special counsel investigating Russian meddling on Friday announced charges against 13 Russian citizens and three Russian entities for interfering in the election.  

The indictment alleges that the Internet Research Agency, a St. Petersburg-based social media company with Kremlin ties, 12 of its employees, and its financial backer orchestrated an effort to influence the 2016 election campaign in favor of President Donald Trump. 

Prosecutors charged Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a businessman with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, with funding the operation through companies he controls, Concord Management and Consulting LLC, Concord Catering and a number of subsidiaries.  

Prigozhin and his businesses allegedly provided “significant funds” for the Internet Research Agency’s operations to disrupt the U.S. election, according to the indictment. 

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said that the Russian conspirators sought to “promote social discord in the United State and undermine public confidence in democracy.”

“We must not allow them to succeed,” Rosenstein said at a news conference in Washington. 

The conspiracy was part of a larger operation code-named Project Lakhta, Rosenstein said. 

“Project Lakhta included multiple components – some involving domestic audiences within the Russian Federation and others targeting foreign audiences in multiple countries,” Rosenstein said. 

Mueller, who has made no public statements about the Russia investigation since his appointment last May, did not speak at the news conference. 

Charges against Russian nationals

The indictment charges all the defendants with conspiracy to defraud the United States. Three defendants are charged with conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud, and five individuals with aggravated identity theft.

None of the defendants charged in the indictment are in custody, according to a spokesman for the Special Counsel’s office. 

The U.S. and Russia don’t have an extradition treaty and it’s unlikely that any of the defendants will stand trial in the U.S.

The 37-page charging document alleges that the Russian conspirators sought to coordinate their effort with Trump campaign associates, but it does not accuse anyone on the Trump campaign of colluding with the Russians.

Trump took to Twitter after the indictment was announced to again deny his campaign worked with the Russians.

“Russia started their anti-U.S. campaign in 2014, long before I announced that I would run for president,” Trump tweeted. “The results of the election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong – no collusion!”

The indictment marks the first time Mueller’s office has brought charges against Russians and Russian entities for meddling in the 2016 election.  

Mueller’s sprawling investigation has led to the indictments of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and associate Rick Gates.Former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and former campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos have pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about their contacts with Russian officials.

Details of indictment

The indictment says the Russian campaign to “interfere in the U.S. political system” started as early as 2014 and accelerated as the 2016 election campaign got underway. 

During the 2016 campaign, the Russian operatives posted “derogatory information” about a number of presidential candidates.  But by early to mid-2016, the operation included “supporting” Trump’s presidential campaign and “disparaging” Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Taking on fake American identities, the Russian operatives communicated with “unwitting” Trump campaign associates and with other political activists “to seek to coordinate political activities,” the indictment says.

The indictment describes how Russian operatives used subterfuge, stolen identities and other methods to stage political rallies, buy ads on social media platforms, and pay gullible Americans to “promote or disparage candidates.”

To avoid detection by U.S. law enforcement agencies, the Russian operatives used computer networks based in the United States, according to the indictment.

“These groups and pages, which addressed the divisive U.S. political and social issues, falsely claimed to be controlled by U.S. activists when, in fact, they were controlled by defendants,” the indictment reads.

A number of the operatives are alleged to have traveled to the United States under “false pretenses to collect intelligence to inform the influence operations.”
…

Top Russian and American officials exchanged barbs Saturday in Germany over the U.S. indictment of 13 Russians accused of an elaborate plot to disrupt the 2016 presidential election.

H.R. McMaster, U.S. President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, said at the Munich Security Conference that the federal indictments showed the U.S. was becoming “more and more adept at tracing the origins of this espionage and subversion.”

“As you can see with the FBI indictment, the evidence is now really incontrovertible and available in the public domain,” McMaster told a Russian delegate to the conference.

Just minutes before, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had dismissed the indictments as “just blabber,” according to remarks through an interpreter.

“I have no response,” Lavrov said when asked for comment on the allegations. “You can publish anything, and we see those indictments multiplying, the statements multiplying.”

The two men addressed the conference of top world leaders, defense officials and diplomats, giving more general back-to-back opening remarks. But both were immediately hit with blunt questions about the U.S. indictment and the broader issue of cyberattacks.

In Russia, news of the indictments was met with more scorn.

“There are no official claims, there are no proofs for this. That’s why they are just children’s statements,” Andrei Kutskikh, the presidential envoy for international information security, told Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

McMaster also scoffed at the suggestion that the U.S. would work with Russia on cyber security issues.

“I’m surprised there are any Russian cyber experts available based on how active most of them have been undermining our democracies in the West,” he said to laughter. “So I would just say that we would love to have a cyber dialogue when Russia is sincere.”

The federal indictment brought Friday by special counsel Robert Mueller represents the most detailed allegations to date of illegal Russian meddling during the campaign that sent Trump to the White House.

Lavrov argued that U.S. officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, have said no country influenced the U.S. election results.

“Until we see the facts, everything else is just blabber — I’m sorry for this expression,” Lavrov said.

The indictment charged 13 Russians with running a huge but hidden social media trolling campaign aimed in part at helping Republican Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton.

It outlined the first criminal charges against Russians believed to have secretly worked to influence the U.S. election’s outcome.

According to the indictment, the Russian organization was funded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a wealthy St. Petersburg businessman with ties to the Russian government and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Lavrov denounced “this irrational myth about this global Russian threat, traces of which are found everywhere — from Brexit to the Catalan referendum.”

In Russia, one of the 13 people indicted said that the U.S. justice system is unfair.

Mikhail Burchik was quoted Saturday by the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda as saying that “I am very surprised that, in the opinion of the Washington court, several Russian people interfered in the elections in the United States. I do not know how the Americans came to this decision.”

Burchik was identified in the indictment as executive director of an organization that allegedly sowed propaganda on social media to try to interfere with the 2016 election.

He was quoted as saying that “they have one-sided justice, and it turns out that you can hang the blame on anyone.”
…

British Prime Minister Theresa May made her case on Saturday for a new security treaty with the EU from next year, winning support from EU and U.S. officials who agreed the issue was too important to risk getting subsumed in broader Brexit negotiations.

In a speech to Western leaders and officials in Munich, May promised that London would continue to lead military missions and share intelligence if Brussels agreed to a pact “effective from 2019”, the year Britain is due to leave the bloc.

May’s government is using a series of speeches to set out its vision for Britain outside the European Union. But the loudest applause during her appearance came when the event’s organizer, German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger, said: “Things would be so much easier if you stayed.”

But May was adamant: “We are leaving the EU and there is no question of a second referendum or going back, and I think that’s important,” she told the Munich Security Conference.

“The partnership that we need to create is one that offers UK and EU way to combine our efforts to greatest effect where this is in our shared interest,” May said of her security plan.

Britain is one of the top three users of data from European Union police agency Europol. But as it leaves the EU, there is a risk that it will be shut out of this cooperation, becoming more vulnerable to Islamist militants, officials say.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the EU’s chief executive, welcomed a “security alliance” with Britain, adding that the issue should be separated from the rest of the Brexit debate.

Britain, along with France, is Europe’s biggest military power and leads two European Union military missions while sending troops to Estonia under a NATO flag.

With a host of issues still unresolved and infighting over Brexit dividing May’s government just over a year before Britain is due to leave, security is one of London’s biggest bargaining chips as it seeks a new deal with Brussels.

Britain’s interior minister last year told the EU it could “take our information with us” if it left the bloc without a deal on security.

May emphasized she was committed to European security, warned against competition between Britain and the rest of Europe and said that both sides should do “whatever is most practical and pragmatic in ensuring our collective security.”

Juncker said security should not be conflated with “other questions relating to Brexit,” also quashing any British hopes that a security treaty might be a way into a free-trade deal.

“I wouldn’t like to put security policy considerations with trade policy considerations in one hat. I understand why some would like to do that, but we don’t want to,” he said.

 VEILED THREAT? NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also welcomed close security cooperation between Britain and the EU after Brexit, while Stoltenberg’s predecessor at the alliance, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, told Reuters May’s was a strong speech.

“I think that is what we should aim for, but any treaty is very time-consuming. The timeline is unrealistic,” Fogh Rasmussen said.

A senior U.S. official said: “We know the goal, but I don’t know if this is the right vehicle.”

But May’s call to set aside “rigid institutional structures” to enable a quick agreement on security was less well received.

“What she meant was not specified and sounded like a veiled threat,” said EU lawmaker Marietje Schaake, a Dutch centrist.

One senior EU official in Munich said that May would need to submit a formal negotiating paper to detail her ideas and then allow EU and British negotiators to move forward.

But the EU official said May’s proposal was essentially not new and could only come after Britain and the EU had agreed a divorce settlement. “The European Union also wants a new security arrangement with Britain, but it can’t be done before we agree on other issues,” the official said.

While the status of the Irish border and citizens rights were broadly settled in December, EU negotiators say they are now waiting for Britain to say what kind of future trade relationship it wants.

Agreement on that front would allow EU leaders to endorse the plan at a Brussels summit on March 22-23 and move on to a special transition arrangement ending in December 2020.
…

Turkey is undergoing a new nationalist wave led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a study by the Center for American Progress (CAP) concludes.

The report and the findings of polls and focus groups conducted in Turkey late last year conclude that Erdogan is trying to craft a new nationalism.

“He is doing this with his political rhetoric, but he is also drawing on a genuine upswelling of nationalism from the Turkish populists” Max Hoffman, one of the report’s authors, told VOA.

Hoffman said this new nationalism includes “real hostility towards the West, particularly the U.S., but also Germany and Europe. Correlated to that, there is widespread hostility towards Syrian refugees and to some extent, other immigrants to Turkey.”

Ali Cınar, president of the Turkish Heritage Organization, said the main reason for the anti-U.S. attitude in Turkey is the anger against Washington for not extraditing U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen and for supporting the Syrian Kurdish militia group YPG in the war against Islamic State.

“Everybody in Turkey, both government and opposition, are sensitive about these two issues and they are in consensus. So it’s wrong to see this as AK Party’s [the ruling party in Turkey] cause and this is the biggest mistake some other countries are making,” Cinar said.

“I don’t think the main reason for the increase in nationalist rhetoric in Turkey is clearly reflected in the report,” he added. “Also, it’s not clear to me how realistically the report has reached to a conclusion that there were sharp divides about the overall direction of the country.”

Since the 1920s, the Turkish republic has set its course toward more secular nationalism. But the report says the new nationalism brought by Erdogan is “assertively Muslim, fiercely independent; distrusting of outsiders; and skeptical of other nations and global elites, which it perceives to hold Turkey back.”

Although a considerable number of Turks believe Islam has a central role in their national identity, there’s also wide support for Turkey to remain secular.

“There is a component within the ruling party AKP, of about 35 percent, who put Islamic messages at the core,” said Hoffman, adding that the rest of the party “OK with this religious rhetoric, but they also believe that Turkey is a secular state.”

“They feel Erdogan is fulfilling Ataturk’s legacy by being more independent and stronger vis-a-vis the West, and by charting [the country’s] own course and being a strong leader just looking after Turkey’s interests,” he said. “And you could call them the ‘Turkey Firsters'” — a reference to U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan.

With nationalism rising, anti-Westernism is also finding deeper roots in Turkey. The CAP poll found only 10 percent of Turks have a favorable view of the United States, and 83 percent have a negative view. The total favorability rate for Europe is 21 percent.

Hoffman said “neither the West nor even Erdogan really want a clear break, but what this public opinion and this anger does is it narrows the options that leaders on both sides have.”`

He said U.S.-Turkish relations are close to the breaking point, but “whether or not that break really happens is primarily in Erdogan’s hands.”

Syria

Elaborating further, the author said if Turkey’s military operation against the YPG in Syria’s northwest Afrin region is expanded into Manbij, where U.S. forces are deployed, then Washington may be forced to make “difficult choices.”

Describing the Afrin operation as “the common action by the Turkish people against terror and the PKK that has killed 40,000 people in Turkey”, Cinar said it was wrong to read the nationalism in Turkey as “extreme”, since nationalism is on the rise in Europe as well and the fact that President Trump also used nationalist rhetoric in his election campaign.

Hoffman also played down the possibility of another right-wing challenger taking Erdogan’s place because Erdogan himself garnered most of the support of the right-wing electorate.

“So all of the issues that a right-wing challenger might use to sort of run to the right of Erdogan and appeal to nationalist voters Erdogan himself has now done to head off that challenge,” he said.

According to the Center for American Progress report, if Turks were to vote this Sunday, 49 percent of them would choose the governing AKP while the closest contender would only get half of that percentage.
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The special counsel investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election announced charges against the first group of Russians it says were behind the effort, unsealing an indictment against 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities.

The indictment, handed down by a federal grand jury on Friday, alleges that Internet Research Agency, a St. Petersburg, Russia-based company with ties to the Kremlin, and its 12 employees engaged “in operations to interfere with elections and political processes” from 2014 through the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.

The firm was long believed to have played a critical role in Russia’s election meddling effort, employing fake social media accounts, paid online users and other tools to try to sway the election in favor of President Donald Trump.

Also named in the indictment were Internet Research Agency’s alleged financial backer, Russian businessman Yevgeniy Prigozhin, and two companies he controls — Concord Management and Consulting and Concord Catering. The indictment says Prigozhin and his businesses provided “significant funds” for Internet Research Agency’s operations to influence the 2016 American elections.

None of those charged in today’s indictment are in custody, a spokesman for special counsel Robert Mueller’s office said.

The charges

The indictment charges all the defendants with conspiracy to defraud the United States, three defendants with conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud, and five individuals with aggravated identity theft.

Significantly, prosecutors say that Internet Research Agency, described as an outfit “engaged in political and electoral interference operations,” and its employees sought to coordinate their effort with Trump campaign associates.

After the indictments were announced, Trump took to Twitter to again deny his campaign worked with the Russians.

Early during the 2016 campaign, the court document says Internet Research Agency and its employees posted “derogatory information” about a number of presidential candidates. By early to mid-2016, the indictment alleges the operation included “supporting” Trump’s presidential campaign and “disparaging” Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Taking on fake American identities, the Russian operatives communicated with “unwitting” Trump campaign associates and with other political activists “to seek to coordinate political activities,” the indictment said.

The indictment marks the first group of Russians charged in connection with Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

Mueller’s sprawling investigation into Russian election interference has led to the indictments of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and associate Rick Gates.

Former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and former campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos have pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about their contacts with Russian officials during the campaign and the transition.

Details of indictment

The indictment details how the operatives used subterfuge, stolen identities and other methods to stage political rallies, bought ads on social media platforms, and paid gullible Americans to “promote or disparage candidates.”

To avoid detection by U.S. law enforcement agencies, the Russian operatives used computer networks based in the United States, according to the indictment.

“These groups and pages, which addressed the divisive U.S. political and social issues, falsely claimed to be controlled by U.S activists when, in fact, they were controlled by defendants,” the indictment reads.

A number of the operatives are alleged to have traveled to the United States under “false pretenses to collect intelligence to inform the influence operations.”

The indictment alleges that the firm began its “operations to interfere with U.S. political system” as early as 2014.

Also Friday, Mueller reached an agreement with Richard Pinedo, who pleaded guilty of aiding and abetting interstate and foreign identity fraud. Pinedo, of California, admitted to selling stolen bank and credit card numbers to the Russians, although he told investigators he “had absolutely no knowledge” about who was purchasing the information or what they planned to do with it.

WATCH: Entire briefing by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein
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