Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday he has shared recordings of the death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi with Britain, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

There was no immediate confirmation from the five countries that they had received the recordings.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said earlier this week his government has more information about the killing and that it likely will make the evidence public after investigations of his death have been completed.

Speaking during a trip to Japan, Cavusoglu told reporters that Turkey said Saudi Arabia and other countries interested in the information have been given the opportunity to see it.

Khashoggi was killed in Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul on October 2.  

Initially, Saudi Arabia said Khashoggi walked out of the consulate and that his whereabouts were unknown, then that he died in a fist fight and still later that he had died in a chokehold.  The kingdom’s public prosecutor has since called the killing premeditated, but has not said who planned or approved it.

Cavusoglu said Tuesday that after multiple conversations with Saudi King Salman, President Erdogan was convinced the king was not involved.

Cavusoglu said it is clear, though, that a 15-man team alleged to have traveled to Turkey to act as a hit squad would not have taken such action on their own, and that investigators need to find who would have given that order.

Turkey said last week that Khashoggi, a U.S.-based journalist who had written columns for The Washington Post that were critical of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was strangled as soon as he entered the consulate, his body dismembered and then destroyed, possibly dissolved in acid.

No trace of Khashoggi’s remains has turned up, even as the 59-year-old journalist’s sons appealed on the U.S. television news network CNN on Sunday for the Saudis to return his body so he can be buried in the major Islamic pilgrimage city of Medina with the rest of his family.

A Turkish official, speaking anonymously, confirmed a Monday report in Sabah, a newspaper close to Turkey’s government, that chemicals expert Ahmad Abdulaziz al-Janobi and toxicology expert Khaled Yahya al-Zahrani were part of a team sent from Saudi Arabia, supposedly to investigate Khashoggi’s October 2 killing.

The Sabah report said the two experts visited the consulate every day from their arrival on October 11 until October 17, with Saudi authorities allowing Turkish investigators to search the consulate on October 15.

 
…

Turkey’s military says 25 Turkish soldiers were wounded in an accident that occurred while firing heavy ammunition.

In a statement Friday, the Defense Ministry said another seven soldiers were unaccounted for following the accident, which occurred at the Sungu Tepe military base in the southeastern province of Hakkari. The province borders both Iraq and Iran.

The Hakkari governor’s office said the explosion was caused by the firing of “faulty” ordnance at the base.

It is not clear whether the accident happened during a combat mission or an exercise.

The Defense Ministry said the wounded soldiers were transferred to a hospital, but did not give details on the severity of the injuries. The ministry said that an investigation has been launched.

Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast has been the site of clashes between the Turkish army and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Turkey also regularly carries out airstrikes on PKK bases in northern Iraq.
…

Russia hosted a group of Afghan government-linked envoys along with their Taliban rivals Friday, as the Kremlin waded into efforts to end a 17-year conflict where Western efforts have repeatedly failed.

“Russia stands for preserving the one and undivided Afghanistan, in which all of the ethnic groups that inhabit this country would live side by side peacefully and happily,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, in a statement opening the talks in Moscow.

“I am counting on you holding a serious and constructive conversation that will justify the hopes of the Afghan people,” Lavrov added, calling for “a new page in the history of Afghanistan.”

Despite the lofty rhetoric, Russian officials were careful to keep expectations low in advance of the event. Talks were billed as negotiations aimed at merely securing future peace talks — with success defined as merely getting the two sides to sit together at all.

Two earlier high-profile Russian efforts to organize talks were canceled at the last minute after the Afghan government refused to participate.

While this time was no different — officials in Kabul again rejected direct participation — a face-saving workaround solution came by the inclusion of envoys from the government-appointed High Peace Council. The council does not represent the government but oversees peace efforts.

In realistic terms, however, the talks produced little but acrimony.

In a statement following the talks, High Peace Council representatives said they had asked Taliban representatives “to determine a place and time for the start of those talks in the near future.” Those negotiations, the representatives added, could proceed “without conditions.”

Yet Taliban officials demanded that foreign forces — specifically, the United States and NATO — leave Afghan territory before negotiations with the government in Kabul could begin.

“If the external dimension is resolved, then we can resolve the internal, including questions about the constitution, questions of human rights, women, problems with narcotics and all internal problems,” said an official in a statement following the talks.

The council, in turn, rejected the Taliban’s “preconditions” outright.

Eleven nations were present for the talks, including regional powers China, Pakistan and Iran. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow confirmed it had sent an observer to the meeting.

Washington has repeatedly voiced skepticism of the Russian initiative, which some say undercuts the U.S.’s peace efforts, led by special adviser Zalmay Khalilzad.

Meanwhile, the Russian effort was the latest sign of the Kremlin’s growing role as a powerbroker — a role Russian officials seemed to relish as the U.S.-led NATO military operation in Afghanistan, 17 years and counting, has struggled.

“It’s unacceptable to try to turn Afghanistan into a field of competition for outside players, as it makes for bad consequences,” said Foreign Minister Lavrov, in a thinly veiled reference to Afghanistan’s reputation, dating back centuries, as the “Graveyard of Empires.”

And yet, Lavrov’s criticism was a cautionary tale for Moscow as well.

In 1979, the then-Soviet Union launched an occupation of Afghanistan, becoming a decade-long conflict that ended with the humiliating withdrawal of Soviet troops.

Within two years, the USSR was no more.
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The Belgium-based SWIFT financial messaging service will be disconnecting some Iranian banks this weekend, said SWIFT chief executive Gottfried Leibbrandt at an event in Paris on Friday.

Earlier this week, SWIFT had already stated that it would be suspending some unspecified Iranian banks’ access to its messaging system in the interest of the stability and integrity of the global financial system.

In a brief statement issued earlier this week, SWIFT had made no mention of U.S. sanctions coming back into effect on some Iranian financial institutions on Monday, as part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s effort to force Iran to curtail its nuclear, missile and regional activities.

SWIFT’s statement on Nov. 5 said that suspending the Iranian banks access to the messaging system was a “regrettable” step but was “taken in the interest of the stability and integrity of the wider global financial system.”
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Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen spoke out Thursday against what he calls the “politics of scapegoating” on the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the infamous Nazi pogrom against Jews.

“We can see history as an example of where the politics of scapegoating, incitement, and exclusion can lead,” Van der Bellen said at the site where Vienna’s largest synagogue once stood. “Let us be vigilant that degradation, persecution, and the stripping away of rights may never again be repeated in our country or in Europe.”

Right-wing governments espousing anti-immigrant policies have taken power in several European nations, including Italy, Hungary and Poland.

Ultra-conservative lawmakers have also taken seats in many European parliaments, including Germany, where the Alternative for Germany party is the largest opposition party.

Kristallnacht is German for “Night of Broken Glass.”

Germans and Austrians are remembering the two-days of extreme violence against Jews that began 80 years ago.

The Nazi regime, which had annexed Austria, used the shooting of a German diplomat in Paris by a Jewish student as a pretext.

Brown-shirted Nazi thugs spent two nights smashing the windows of Jewish stores before looting and burning them. Synagogues were set on fire. Jews were beaten in the streets while police stood by doing nothing.

More than 20,000 Jews were shipped off to concentration camps while thousands of others were arrested. The Nazis forced Jews to compensate the government for the damage and cleanup.

At least 91 people were killed, but historians believe the death toll was much higher.

The historians also point to Kristallnacht as the beginning of the Holocaust and Hitler’s efforts to wipe out European Jewry.
…

A recent U.S. move against Kurdish militant leaders in Turkey could complicate prospects for peace between the Turkish government and the country’s Kurdish minority, activists and analysts said.

The U.S. on Tuesday offered cash rewards for information on three senior members of the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkey, the United States and the European Union consider a terrorist organization.

Washington offered rewards of up to $5 million for information “leading to the identification or location” of Murat Karayilan, up to $4 million for Cemil Bayik and up to $3 million for Duran Kalkan.

The three men have been influential figures in a three-decade insurgency against Turkish armed forces in Turkey’s Kurdish-majority southeast region.

Tuesday’s announcement was made by the U.S. Embassy in Ankara after a visit by U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Palmer.

The move could help ease strained ties between Washington and its NATO ally Ankara.

Relations between Turkey and the United States improved last month after Turkey released American pastor Andrew Brunson, who had been imprisoned for nearly two years. Both nations also lifted sanctions on government officials, imposed in August, over the pastor’s case.

But some political groups in Turkey said the recent U.S. move against PKK leaders would hurt chances for peace in Turkey.

“Offering cash rewards on the PKK leaders is a very clear support to the Turkish government military approach against the Kurds,” Giran Ozcan, the U.S. representative of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), a pro-Kurdish group in Turkey, told VOA.

​Peace process

In 2015, a two-year peace process between the Turkish government and the PKK collapsed. The two sides were holding talks intended to end the conflict that has killed thousands of people, mostly civilians in Turkey.

“The peace process was a brilliant opportunity to put an end to civilian deaths,” Ozcan said. “The U.S. was supportive of that process. So we call on the U.S. government to use its leverage to push the Turkish government to go back to the negotiating table with the PKK.”

But targeting these figures “makes life harder for the PKK in general because it is trying to legitimize itself [and] pushing hard to have itself delisted as a terror organization,” said Amberin Zaman, a Turkish columnist at the website Al-Monitor.

Zaman added that the recent development is going to seriously hurt the PKK.

“This is clearly a very big blow to them in that sense that they have been trying to present themselves as a legitimate political organization in the eyes of the world,” she said.

But Zaman said the government’s peace efforts would not be hurt by the U.S. move because Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had already taken a tougher approach toward the pro-Kurdish HDP.

“I think that the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made a very clear decision to freeze the peace process, stoke up an alliance with the nationalists, with [Devlet] Bahceli [chairman of the Nationalist Movement Party, known as MHP], and it’s showing no signs of shifting that course,” she added.

While some Kurdish activists downplayed the significance of the PKK leaders’ designation, others like Hosheng Ose, a Brussels-based Kurdish affairs analyst, believe the designation marks a significant development on the U.S. part.

“This is not a symbolic move to appease Turkey,” Ose said. “The U.S. means business when it puts money from its own budget to find these PKK leaders. This is a serious matter.”

Ose added that the U.S. objective in the long run is to disarm the PKK “in what could be seen as a new attempt to help solve the Kurdish question in Turkey.”

​Turkey’s guarded welcome

Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said the U.S. move was a positive but “very, very late” step, and called on Washington to adopt a similar policy toward the Syria-based People’s Protection Units (YPG).

“It is not possible for us to accept putting a bounty on PKK leaders on the one hand, and sending trucks of tools, weapons and ammunition to the YPG on the other,” Akar told the state-owned Anadolu news agency Wednesday.

Turkey has been angered by U.S. support for Syrian Kurdish forces in their fight against Islamic State (IS) militants.

The Turkish government views the YPG as an extension of the PKK and has carried out several attacks on their positions in Syria in recent weeks.

WATCH: Why Turkey Is Attacking YPG

“Our position on PKK is clear, but we do not classify YPG as a terror organization. We never did,” James Jeffery, the U.S. special envoy to Syria, told reporters during a teleconference Wednesday.

“We understand Turkey’s security concerns. We understand the concern over ties between PKK and YPG. That’s why we are acting very, very carefully. We inform Turkey about what we do and why we do it,” Jeffery added.

But Turkish officials insist that such measures will remain incomplete as long as the U.S. doesn’t sever ties with the Syrian YPG.

“Turkey’s main expectation from the U.S., which is our NATO ally and strategic partner, is to end all its engagements with YPG, the Syrian branch of the PKK terror group,” Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said.

“It is a futile effort from the U.S. to describe the YPG, which they used to describe as the Syrian branch of the PKK, as a legitimate group which has no links with terrorism and the PKK,” he said Wednesday after an official cabinet meeting in Ankara.

VOA’s Ezel Sahinkaya contributed to this report from Washington.
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The mayor of Moscow has decreed that a square near the headquarters of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service be named after Kim Philby, the Briton who was the most successful Soviet double agent of the Cold War period. 

Mayor Sergei Sobyanin signed the order Tuesday. The move came amid tensions between Russia and Britain over this year’s nerve agent poisoning of Russian former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury, England. 

Philby joined Britain’s MI6 foreign intelligence service in 1940, eventually heading its counterespionage division and serving as intelligence liaison with the United States. He resigned in 1951 under suspicion that he had tipped off two other double agents, who fled to Moscow. 

Philby defected to the Soviet Union in 1963, where he died in 1988. 
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Warsaw’s mayor has banned a far-right march planned for Sunday to mark the centenary of Polish independence, citing the risk of violence and expressions of hatred.

Organizers said they would defy the ban. They lodged a court appeal against the decision to shut down the annual Nov. 11 event commemorating the anniversary of Poland’s independence at the end of World War I.

Tens of thousands of participants had been expected to attend, including far-right activists from elsewhere in Europe, with organizers claiming the event could be the biggest such march in Europe in years.

Last year’s event caught the attention of the world’s media because some of the 60,000 participants carried banners bearing racist and xenophobic slogans such as “pure blood, clear mind” and “Europe will be white or uninhabited.”

“Warsaw has already suffered enough due to aggressive nationalism,” Mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, a centrist opposition politician, said. “Poland’s 100th anniversary of independence shouldn’t look like this, hence my decision to forbid it.”

The euroskeptic Law and Justice (PiS) party government said it would organize its own march instead, under the auspices of President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally.

Officials did not clarify whether far-right groups would be allowed to attend. Duda had earlier decided to stay away from the event.

“We don’t understand the decision of Mayor Gronkiewicz-Waltz. … Even if the courts confirm her decision, we will still meet. … The march will take place,” said Tomasz Dorosz, the leader of Poland’s National Radical Camp, one of the groups involved in organizing the march.

Earlier this week Gronkiewicz-Waltz said she would consider banning the march “if there was any element of hatred,” according to local Polish broadcaster TVN24.

PiS, a socially conservative group with a nationalist agenda, taps into the same frustrations with Western liberal values and anti-establishment sentiment that galvanize far-right voters throughout Europe.

It has also refused to take in Middle Eastern and North African migrants, despite European Union demands to do so, citing public safety worries.

However, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who heads the ruling party, condemned the racist messages during the 2017 march.

“Polish tradition — the one we invoke — has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. We are as far as possible from that, nothing to do with racism,” he said.

On Nov. 11 Poles commemorate the establishment of the second Polish republic in 1918 from territory seized in the 18th century by the Russian, Austrian and Prussian empires. 
…

Bullied herself online, Britain’s Princess Beatrice is determined to ensure other girls are equipped to deal with internet abuse and get the best from the digital world. 

Beatrice — who as the eldest daughter of Prince Andrew and his former wife, the Duchess of York, is eighth in line to the British throne — said her bullying, about her weight and her appearance, were very public and could not be ignored. 

But she said other girls faced this in private and needed to be encouraged to speak out and to know where to get support, which prompted her to get involved in campaigns against cyber bullying. 

A recent study by the U.S.-based Pew Research Center found about 60 percent of U.S. teens had been bullied or harassed online, with girls more likely to be the targets of online rumor-spreading or nonconsensual explicit messages. 

“You’d like to say don’t pay attention to it … but the best advice is to talk about it,” Beatrice, 30, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation during an interview on Wednesday at the Web Summit, Europe’s largest annual technology conference. 

“Being a young girl, but now being 30 and a woman working full time in technology, I feel very grateful for those experiences. But at that time it was very challenging.” 

Beatrice, who works at the U.S.-based software company Afiniti, co-founded the Big Change Charitable Trust with a group of friends, including two of Richard Branson’s children, in 2010 to support young people who also grew up in the public eye. 

Campaign

She also last year joined the anti-bullying campaign “Be Cool Be Nice” along with other celebrities such as Kendall Jenner and Cara Delevingne, which included a book. 

“There are lots of people who are ready to help and I want to make sure young people feel they have the places to go to talk about it,” said Beatrice, adding that teachers and parents also had a role to play. 

Beatrice said her bullying was so public that she could not hide from it, but her mother, Sarah Ferguson, was a great source of support. 

One of the most public attacks on the princess was at the 2011 wedding of her cousin Prince William when her fascinator sparked a barrage of media attention. A month later she auctioned the hat for charity for 81,000 pounds ($106,500). 

Her mother, who divorced Prince Andrew in 1996, had to get used to unrelenting ribbing by Britain’s royal-obsessed media. 

“She has been through a lot,” said Beatrice, whose younger sister, Eugenie, married at Windsor Castle last month. 

“When you see role models who are continually put in very challenging situations and can support you … [then] some of the tools that I have had from her I would like to share.” 

Beatrice said mobile technology should be a force for good for girls in developed and developing countries, presenting new opportunities in terms of education, careers and health. 

“Social media and the pressures that these young people now face is a new phenomenon … and if I can do more to give young people the tools [to cope], that is my mission,” she said. 

“I would say to young girls: You are not alone. Keep going.” 
…

A coalition of European militaries ready to react to crises near the continent’s borders was launched Wednesday with Finland becoming the 10th country to join, amid calls by French President Emmanuel Macron for a “real European army.”

The French-led initiative would not conflict with the almost 70-year-old, U.S.-dominated NATO alliance, proponents say, but reflects in part concerns about a more isolationist United States under President Donald Trump.

The European Intervention Initiative took official shape in Paris after months of negotiations with Germany, who France wants at the center of the force.

Macron proposed the idea more than a year ago but was met with skepticism by other European Union nations, the idea coinciding with the EU’s launch of a landmark defense pact meant to promote joint military investment.

Germany, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Estonia, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal have all given their green light for the French-led move. It will see members collaborate on planning, on the analysis of new military and humanitarian crises, and on eventual military responses to those crises.

“In an environment where threats and upheavals of a geopolitical or climatic nature are multiplying, the initiative must send the message that Europe is ready, that Europe is capable,” a French defense ministry official said.

The imminent departure from the EU of Britain, long opposed to EU military collaboration outside NATO, has revived talk of defense cooperation — as have concerns that Trump might prove less willing than his predecessors to come to Europe’s defense in the face of a newly assertive Russia.

The initiative does not “contradict or circumvent the EU’s historic defense efforts, nor those of NATO,” the defense official said. “On the contrary, it will only improve interoperability between the participating countries.”

On Tuesday, Macron called for a “real European army” to reduce dependence on the United States.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has long been a vocal supporter of the idea that the EU should have more common defense capability, separate from NATO.

Not everyone is convinced.

“Pragmatic advances and patient construction with those who are ready and willing for a political convergence in defense are infinitely preferable to totally illusory and even counterproductive slogans and incantations,” said Arnaud Danjean, a member of the foreign and defense committee at the European parliament.
…

World leaders have been reacting to the U.S. midterm election results, as America’s partners and rivals try to decipher what the Democratic Party’s new majority in the House of Representatives could mean for the future of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy agenda over the coming years.

Democrats say their victory in the House marks a new day in America. However, that doesn’t mean a new dawn for American foreign policy, says analyst Peter Trubowitz, professor of international relations and director of the U.S. Center at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

“The main play that Donald Trump now has is on the foreign policy side, where he has much more discretionary authority and room to maneuver than he does on the domestic side. So I would actually look for Trump to double down on trade with China, on Iran, and on the border with Mexico,” he said.

Trubowitz adds that Democrats in the House may offer support for Trump’s stance on China. Washington has imposed tariffs on more than $250 billion of Chinese imports, accusing Beijing of unfair trade practices. Chinese officials refused to comment on the election results Wednesday.

Europe also fears U.S. tariffs on its key exports, like cars. Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said Wednesday the election results are unlikely to ease tensions.

“On this side of the Atlantic we have to find an answer to the U.S. motto of ‘America first,’ which to me can only be ‘Europe united,'” Heiko Maas told reporters at a Berlin press conference.

Dmitry Peskov, a spokesperson for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said relations with the U.S. would not change as it would be hard to make the relationship any worse. “It could be assumed, with a high degree of certainty, let’s say, there are no bright prospects for the normalization of the U.S.-Russia relations on the horizon,” Peskov told the Associated Press news agency.

In the Middle East, U.S. policy is unlikely to change radically — though the Democrats could seek to pressure Trump over his regional alliances, according to analyst Kamel Wazne of the Center for American Strategic Studies in Beirut.

“When it comes to the selling of weapons to Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, we may hear some voices and there may be a call to end the war in Yemen,” said Wazne.

An Israeli official urged Trump not to allow electoral losses to derail peace plans for the region, which has seen the U.S. controversially move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which the Palestinians also claim as the capital of a future state. Nabil Shaath, an adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, was hopeful there would be a change of course.

“The Democrats in the United States are getting closer to a position that may lead eventually to a peace process,” Shaath said Wednesday.

There was global praise for the record number of women and minorities elected to the House. Frans Timmermans, the first vice president of the European Commission, wrote on Twitter that he was “inspired by voters in the U.S. who chose hope over fear, civility over rudeness, inclusion over racism.”

World leaders will now be wondering what comes next, says analyst Trubowitz.

“Whether to wait Donald Trump out. In other words, whether to play for time over the next two years. This will be the calculation being made in Tehran, in Beijing, and perhaps in some European capitals, as well.”

That assessment would appear tough to solve, with U.S. politics seen as increasingly volatile and polarized.
…

The Kremlin said Wednesday Russia and the United States have agreed not to hold a summit in Paris to avoid diverting attention from weekend commemorations marking the 100th anniversary of World War I’s end.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump expect to see each other briefly but won’t have a full-scale meeting during the centenary Armistice Day events, Kremlin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said.

Ushakov said France conveyed concern that a Putin-Trump summit would steal the limelight from the Paris observances. Officials from the U.S. and Russia decided to delay the meeting until the end of the month, when both leaders expect to attend a Group of 20 summit in Argentina.

Trump said Monday he “probably” would not be meeting with Putin in Paris, but will meet with him during the G-20.

When U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton visited Moscow last month, he and Russian officials also talked about the presidents visiting each other’s countries, according to Ushakov.

“A possible exchange of visits to Moscow and Washington was discussed, but there was no specific talk about the issue yet,” he added.

Bolton said last month that Putin was invited to visit Washington next year, but a date had not been set.
…

The U.N. refugee agency reports a growing number of refugees and migrants are dying on the Mediterranean Sea crossing to Europe because non-governmental organizations are being prevented from conducting search and rescue missions.

The U.N. refugee agency reports more than 2,000 refugees and migrants have lost their lives on the Mediterranean this year. It says the number of drownings has escalated sharply, mainly in the central Mediterranean.

In September, it notes one of every eight people making the dangerous journey toward Italy died.

UNHCR spokesman Charlie Yaxlie blames the increasing loss of life largely on the substantially reduced search and rescue operations.

“In light of this, UNHCR continues to be very concerned about the legal and logistical restrictions that have been placed on a number of NGOs wishing to conduct search and rescue operations, including the Aquarius,” he said. “These have had the cumulative effect of the central Mediterranean currently having no NGO vessels conducting search and rescue.”

Yaxlie says the Libyan Coast Guard has assumed primary responsibility for search and rescue missions within its territorial waters. He says these efforts have saved many lives. While welcoming that, he tells VOA the UNHCR is concerned people who are rescued are being taken back to Libya where conditions are not safe.

“I think it has been well documented that for those that are returned to Libya, they face the routine use of being held in detention. And, there have been reports of various human rights violations. So, we are advocating to states and particularly to resettlement countries to assist us with evacuating people out of those places.”

The UNHCR says any vessel that has the capability to assist search and rescue operations should be allowed to come to the aid of those in need. To do otherwise, it warns, will doom many people fleeing persecution, violence, and poverty to death.

 
…

Balkan nations that fought bitter wars as Yugoslavia broke apart during the 1990s have agreed to step up their cooperation in identifying thousands of people still missing as a result of the conflicts.

Representatives from Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Montenegro signed an agreement Tuesday laying out how they will work together.

Some 12,000 of the 40,000 people who went missing as the former Yugoslavia violently collapsed remain unaccounted for, including about 4,000 whose unidentified bodies still are stored in morgues across the region.

The nations agreed to improve the sharing of information and to allow representatives from more than one country to take part in exhumations.

The Hague-based International Commission on Missing Persons will assist in DNA testing, manage the exchange of data and maintain a regional database.
…

The United States on Tuesday offered rewards for information on three senior members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged an armed insurgency against the Turkish state for decades.

The move could help Washington repair strained ties with NATO ally Ankara.

However, Turkey said it would approach Washington’s move with caution and that Turkey expected the United States to fully cut off its ties with the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia.

Turkey has been infuriated by U.S. support for the YPG in the fight against Islamic State in Syria. Ankara considers the YPG an extension of the PKK.

On Tuesday, Washington authorized rewards of up to $5 million for information “leading to the identification or location” of Murat Karayilan, up to $4 million for Cemil Bayik and up to $3 million for Duran Kalkan.

The announcement was made by the U.S. Embassy in Ankara after a visit by U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Palmer.

The three PKK figures also appear on Turkey’s “most wanted terrorists” list, according to the Interior Ministry, which describes them as being among the leaders of the organization.

Presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told broadcaster Haberturk: “They [United States] say they hold the YPG separate from the PKK, but they can’t fool anyone with this.

“It is a very delayed move. If they follow through, we will see it positively, but if, in the big picture, this is to veil engagement with the YPG, it will come out in a few days.”

The PKK, designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, has fought the Turkish state since 1984.

Relations between Turkey and the United States have begun to thaw since the release from jail last month of American evangelical pastor Andrew Brunson.

Last week, the two countries mutually lifted sanctions on government officials, imposed in August over the Brunson case.

Washington announced this week that Turkey would receive a temporary waiver from re-imposed sanctions on Iran.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that talks with the United States regarding state-owned lender Halkbank, which had been facing a U.S. fine over allegations of evasion of sanctions on Iran, were on a positive track.

U.S. and Turkish troops last week began conducting joint patrols in Syria’s Manbij, which the two sides have agreed to clear of militants. Turkey had previously said the United States was delaying implementation of the plan.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Erdogan are to meet this weekend at a summit in Paris.
…

Russia is facing another round of U.S. sanctions over the poisoning of an ex-Russian spy and his daughter in Britain.

The Trump administration informed Congress on Tuesday that Russia failed to prove it is abiding by a global treaty outlawing biological and chemical weapons.

The U.S. imposed sanctions on Russia in August. A 1991 U.S. law automatically triggers another round of sanctions.

It is unclear what those new sanctions would be or when they would come into effect, angering the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Republican Ed Royce.

“It is unacceptable that the administration lacks a plan, or even a timeline, for action on the second round of mandatory sanctions,” Royce said Tuesday. “No one should be surprised that Vladimir Putin refuses to swear off future use of weapons-grade nerve agents.”

Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were seriously injured in March when they came in contact with a Soviet-era nerve agent, Novichok, in the British city of Salisbury.

Britain has accused two alleged Russian military intelligence agents of attempted murder.

A woman died and her boyfriend was injured when they apparently came in accidental contact with the poison in June.

Russia has denied any involvement in either case.
…

Britons would vote to stay in the European Union if there were another ballot as those in the biggest “leave”-voting areas change their minds, a survey for Channel 4 published on Monday showed.

Britain would back “remain” by 54 percent to 46 percent, the study by Survation for the broadcaster showed. It estimated that more than a hundred local authorities would now vote to stay.

“Leave” won the June 2016 vote by 51.9 percent to 48.1 percent. Prime Minister Theresa May has repeatedly ruled out another referendum on the issue.

Brexiteers argue May’s predecessor David Cameron said during the campaign that the decision would be final and there would be no re-runs. They say May should get on with delivering Brexit.

But those who back a “People’s Vote” on any final deal say May’s vision for Brexit was not on the ballot paper in 2016, so the public should be allowed another say when the terms of Brexit are known.

Survation interviewed 20,000 people online between Oct. 20 and Nov. 2. Up to now polls have shown no major change in public opinion. Most polls predicted “Remain” would win before the 2016 referendum.

Britain is due to leave the bloc on March 29, with London and Brussels yet to secure an agreement on the terms of the U.K.’s departure and avoid a disruptive “no deal” scenario.

Even if May overcomes infighting in her own Conservative Party to finalize an agreement, the Survation poll found that 33 percent of people would reject the deal compared to just 26 percent who would accept it.

Should May be unable to agree a deal by March 29, 36 percent said Britain should leave without a deal, 35 percent said it should stay in the EU and 19 percent said departure should be delayed until an agreement is reached.

However, if May did agree a deal, 43 percent would support a referendum to choose between accepting the deal or remaining in the EU, compared to 37 percent who would oppose the choice, the survey found.
…

The German military has received a hefty boost in a revised budget plan from 2020 after Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen refused to sign off the previous draft.

Finance Minister Olaf Scholz on Monday proposed adding 5.7 billion euros ($6.5 billion) to the planned military budget from 2020, to buy more ships, fighter jets and other weaponry over several years, on top of a more modest 323 million euro boost in 2019.

Germany is under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to boost its military spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product from the current 1.2 percent – an issue that has sparked great debate within the ruling coalition.

Experts say the military budget – now slated to reach around 43 billion euros in 2019 – would have to increase by 2 billion euros a year through 2021 and 3 billion euros a year after that even to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel’s promise to hit 1.5 percent of GDP by 2024.

It was not immediately clear how the extra funding, set out in a 290-page list of proposed budget revisions seen by Reuters, would affect the military budget’s share of GDP.

Von der Leyen, from Merkel’s conservative CDU party, wants to plug long-standing gaps in personnel and equipment.

But Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats, junior partners in the coalition, have been reluctant to accelerate military spending for fear of alienating more voters at a time when their polling numbers are collapsing.

The revisions, first reported in part by the Handelsblatt newspaper, will be debated in parliament this week, and could still be altered by the budget committee.

The document called for 5.6 billion euros to be spent on a new heavy-lift helicopter whose funding had been called into question, a sign that a formal competition will likely proceed next year between Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

The document also foresees additional spending on the new MKS180 multi-role warship, new Eurofighter Typhoon warplanes, and a missile defense program called TLVS that is to be built by European missile maker MBDA and Lockheed.

($1 = 0.8762 euros)
…

President Emmanuel Macron has ratcheted up warnings about the rising threat of far-right nationalism, saying in an interview with a regional French newspaper that complacency was what allowed for the rise of Hitler and Mussolini.

Speaking to Le Courrier Picard, a newspaper that covers northern France, where Macron has been visiting World War I memorials, the president was challenged over comparisons he has made between current events and the 1930s in Europe.

The newspaper asked if he wasn’t exaggerating by comparing right-wing nationalists today to Germany’s Nazis or Italy’s fascists, saying he was “distorting the historical record.”

“The times are different,” Macron acknowledged. “But who won the last European elections in France? The National Front, which everyone seems to have just gotten used to. Who came second in the last regional elections in northern France? The National Front. Who made it through to the second round of the presidential election? The National Front,” he said.

The National Front has since been renamed The National Rally by its leader Marine Le Pen, who lost resoundingly to Macron in the run-off of the May 2017 presidential election. Le Pen’s party now leads Macron’s En Marche in the polls ahead of the European Parliament election next May.

Macron warned that if someone suggests that far-right nationalists are less threatening nowadays than they were in the past, one runs the risk of becoming complacent towards them.

“I would suggest that you reread what was said at the time,” the 40-year-old president said.

“Well-educated, well-informed people said that we could get along with the nationalists. As I recall, nobody, not even the wealthiest and the best educated, blocked the rise of Hitler in one country and Mussolini in another.

“I want to draw everyone’s attention to this point. Is it the case that nationalist sentiments are rising? Yes. Are the people who are pushing for a return to conflict not those who are gaining ground in a number of European countries? Yes.”

Macron, who has introduced a raft of economic reforms since becoming president but saw his popularity fall to a new low of 21 percent last week, has cast the European Parliament election as a showdown between pro-European “progressives” like himself and EU-sceptic populists on the far-right.

Those forces are arguably strongest in France and Italy, where Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini’s League party has gained support as its leader goes head-to-head with Brussels.

Macron said the world was seeing a resurgence of authoritarianism, with the risk of arms proliferation.

“We must look these (nationalisms and extremes) in the face and tackle the root causes of the inequalities that exist,” said. “That’s what I’m trying to do.”
…

The president of the European Council is being questioned in Poland as a parliamentary investigation into a pyramid scheme is ongoing.

The financial scam was revealed in 2012 while Donald Tusk was Poland’s prime minister. 

Prosecutors say that about 20 thousand investors lost over $225 million in what turned out to be a pyramid scheme of the Amber Gold financial institution and allege that authorities did not take necessary measures against the scam despite warning signals.

Tusk’s son Michal had dealings with Amber Gold.

Critics say Poland’s ruling party is using the investigation in an effort to discredit Tusk, who belongs to Poland’s political opposition. 
…

After devastating floods in Venice, northern Italy is now hit by rain and storms. About 30 people have been killed in the past week across Italy, including a couple of German tourists. Authorities have issued alerts for northern regions, and also Tuscany and Lazio, which includes the capital Rome. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
…

Sweeping accusations that the Kremlin tried to sway the 2016 U.S. election haven’t chastened Russian trolls, hackers and spies — and might even have emboldened them.

U.S. officials and tech companies say Russians have continued online activity targeted at American voters during the campaign for Tuesday’s election, masquerading as U.S. institutions and creating faux-American social media posts to aggravate tensions around issues like migration and gun control.

Russia denies any interference. So far U.S. authorities haven’t announced any huge hacks or the kind of multipronged campaign suspected in the 2016 election, and it’s hard to judge whether the more recent Russian actions have any link to the Kremlin or will have any electoral impact.

But why do they appear to be at it again? Dozens of Russians suspected of meddling in 2016 have been hit with U.S. charges or sanctions, including well-placed magnates. Moscow’s ties with the West have deteriorated badly amid ever-more-shocking allegations of Russian interference abroad.

And some argue that Russian meddlers don’t need to mess with the U.S. midterms this year because they got what they wanted in 2016: Donald Trump in the White House and mass disillusionment with the democratic process.

The Kremlin likes Trump because he’s one of the rare Western leaders to embrace Russian President Vladimir Putin, but its hoped-for Russian-American rapprochement hasn’t really materialized. A Democratic House or Senate after Tuesday’s U.S. election would make that an even more distant prospect.

“Russians have a preference and they will do what they can to swing (the result) in their favor, especially if margins are tight,” said James Nixey, head of the Russia and Eurasia program at the London-based think tank Chatham House.

He cautions, however, that “Russia is not responsible for all of America’s problems. America has splits and fissures like all of us, and Russia puts in a lever and pries them open.”

Some Russians, meanwhile, wear the U.S. accusations as a badge of honor, a sign that their country is a fearsome world power again.

The first person charged with foreign interference in the 2018 midterms, Elena Khusyaynova, said “my heart filled with pride” at the news. Speaking last week on Russian TV after being accused in the United States of a covert social media campaign for both the 2016 and 2018 votes, she added, “It turns out that a simple Russian woman could help citizens of a superpower elect their president.”

Pavel Koshkin of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies called accusations of meddling “a gift to Russian propaganda and Russian politicians,” who can use U.S. anti-Russian sentiment “as a tool in stirring anti-Americanism and increasing their approval ratings.”

The 2016 U.S. election thrust Russian foreign interference into the spotlight, but it wasn’t an isolated project. It fit into a yearslong effort by Putin’s Kremlin to take revenge over what’s seen as the U.S.-led humiliation of post-Soviet Russia, through crippling loan programs and NATO’s post-Cold War expansion.

The Kremlin also resents what it considers U.S. interference in the politics of countries once under Moscow’s sphere of influence, from Ukraine to the Caucasus. To many Russians, what’s happening now in the U.S. is just payback.

The resulting U.S. sanctions have damaged the Russian economy, but if the goal was changing Russian foreign policy, “this goal certainly hasn’t been achieved,” said analyst Masha Lipman. “In fact, the opposite is true. The more pressure (on Russia), the lower the desire or willingness to concede.”

As special counsel Robert Mueller has investigated possible Russian collusion with Trump’s 2016 campaign, Moscow has increased efforts to make its mark elsewhere — in Syria, Libya, and in political debates across Europe.

So far in 2018, Russian agents have been accused of a nerve agent attack in Britain, trying to hack the world’s chemical weapons watchdog in the Netherlands, and seeking to derail a referendum in Macedonia to stop the country from joining NATO and the European Union.

Even after Mueller’s team in February indicted a dozen Russians linked to the Internet Research Agency, the so-called troll farm in St. Petersburg, its sponsors openly continued to target U.S. audiences.

One of its projects, a news site called USAReally, covers tight U.S. congressional races and is closely following the migrant caravan heading north from Latin America.

“Yes, we are a Russian site. We talk to Americans about America. But is that forbidden?” its chief editor Alexander Malkevich, an avowed Trump fan, said in an interview with The Associated Press. “Influence readers? Every media wants to do that. … and so what?”

He acknowledged that Russian-American relations are unlikely to improve quickly no matter the outcome Tuesday — and expressed interest in the 2020 U.S. presidential race.

Malkevich also assails what he calls the myth of American democracy. That’s one more way that alleged Russian manipulation of U.S. social media serves the Kremlin’s interests: By discrediting Western democracy, that strengthens Putin’s argument to his own voters that his authoritarian model of governance is best.

“The growing confrontation with the West and a focus on it on national television channels probably helped consolidate this effect of a fortress under siege,” one of Putin’s metaphors for modern Russia, Lipman said. “And pledging allegiance to the leader is a matter not only of loyalty but even of national security and national identity. ”

Many of the Russians accused of interference in the 2016 U.S. campaign have moved underground or moved on. Some shut down their social media presence. Some have changed jobs.

One of the indicted troll factory workers, Sergei Polozov, announced on the Russian social network VKontakte that he was “using his notoriety for a good cause” and had persuaded Russian censors to block four Ukrainian news sites. He vowed to continue fighting those who “try to drag Russia through the mud” and thanked “those who want to join me in the fight against informational enemies.”

The troll factory, meanwhile, has moved to bigger offices in St. Petersburg, just 2.5 kilometers (a mile and a half) across town.
…

Italy’s president has recalled World War I’s roots in “aggressive nationalism” and urged young people to remember the conflict’s lessons while striving for peaceful co-existence.

Italian head of state Sergio Mattarella attended several ceremonies in Italy on Sunday, part of a week of observances marking the 100th anniversary of the war’s end.

One was in Trieste, an Adriatic port not far from some of the final, deadliest battles between Italian soldiers and troops of the Austrian-Hungarian empire.

Mattarella said the war demonstrated the “incapacity of the European ruling class” to pursue “national aspirations and interests in a peaceful” way and surrender to “aggressive nationalism” and quests for power.

Mattarella said an “active” memory for the victims of wars can shore up freedom and peaceful co-existence as “irreversible” choices for Europeans.

 
…

Adventurer Ross Edgley became the first man to swim around the coast of mainland Britain as he completed a 1,780 mile-trip to make a triumphant return to dry land in Margate on Sunday.

The 33-year-old, from Grantham, Lincolnshire, had left the Kent town on June 1, swimming in a clockwise direction. He had not set foot on land once and slept in a support boat.

Edgley, who swam up to 12 hours a day, battled through strong tides, hundreds of jellyfish stings and had to cope with a disintegrating tongue caused by salt water during his Great British Swim.

He expended an estimated 500,000 calories during the journey, and ate more than 500 bananas to provide him with a constant source of energy.

In mid-August, he broke the world record for the longest stage sea swim of 73 days set by Benoit Lecomte, who swam across the Atlantic Ocean in 1998.

This was Edgley’s latest record-breaking feat. In April 2016, he completed the world’s longest rope climb, equivalent to the height of Mount Everest. That was two months after he completed a marathon while pulling a car.
…

Ukrainian anti-corruption campaigner Kateryna Gandzyuk, seriously injured in an acid attack in July, has died in hospital, sources said Sunday.

“Katya (Kateryna) is dead. Details will be available in a while,” posted a Facebook group that publishes updates about Gandzyuk’s health and news on the investigation into the attack.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko confirmed the news and expressed condolences to Gandzyuk’s relatives at a meeting with representatives of the Ukrainian community in Turkey’s Antalya, where he is on an official visit.

“I appeal to law enforcement officers to do everything possible so that the murderers of Kateryna Gandzyuk are found, put on trial and punished,” Poroshenko tweeted.

Gandzyuk, 33, who worked as an adviser to the mayor of Ukraine’s southern city Kherson, was leaving home early on the morning of July 31 when a man poured about a liter of acid over her and ran away.

Gandzyuk was immediately hospitalized in serious condition, with burns on 30 percent of her body, including her upper torso, arms, and face.

Gandzyuk was an outspoken critic of law enforcement agencies, especially the police.
…

Heavy rain and gales devastating parts of Italy have killed two more people, pushing the overall death toll to at least 17, and laid waste to vast swaths of forest. 

A German tourist died Friday when hit by lightning on the island of Sardinia, while another person struck by lightning several days ago died in a hospital, Italy’s Civil Protection Agency said Saturday. 

A spokeswoman said 17 deaths related to the severe weather had been reported to the agency so far. 

Many of the victims have been killed by falling trees. Coldiretti, the association of Italian agricultural companies, said in a statement that gales had destroyed about 14 million trees, many in the far north. 

Areas from the far northeast to Sicily in the southwest have been affected by the storms, with the worst damage in the northern regions of Trentino and Veneto — the region around Venice — where villages and roads have been cut off by landslides.

In the Alps near Belluno, 100 km (60 miles) north of Venice, pine trees and red spruces were snapped wholesale like matchsticks.

The surface of the Comelico Superiore dam, farther north near the Austrian border, was covered with the trunks of trees that had fallen into the Piave river.

“We’ll need at least a century to return to normality,” Coldiretti said. 

Many of the squares and walkways of Venice itself have been submerged in the highest floods the canal city has seen in a decade.

The governor of Veneto, Luca Zaia, said the region’s storm damage amounted to at least a billion euros ($1.1 billion).

Angelo Borrelli, head of the Civil Protection Department, said Veneto had seen winds of up to 180 kph (112 mph), and that the situation there was “apocalyptic.”

Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini was due to visit the region Sunday. 
…

Turkey’s president says Donald Trump has promised to review possible U.S. measures against a Turkish bank for evading sanctions on Iran. 

Speaking Saturday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave details about a phone conversation he had with Trump on Thursday as strained relations between the two countries ease following Turkey’s release of a jailed American pastor. 

Erdogan said he raised the issue of the state-owned Halkbank, which had an executive charged in New York for taking part in a scheme to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran. Turkey maintains Halkbank did not violate the sanctions. 

Erdogan said Trump “said he would immediately instruct his ministers about this.” It was not clear what Trump could do. 

They also discussed joint military patrols in Manbij in northern Syria. 

Erdogan said he would meet with Trump in France next weekend.
…

Brexit is undermining Northern Ireland’s hard-won peace by creating tensions between Catholic and Protestant communities, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said Saturday, even as hopes rose for a solution to the Irish border problem that has deadlocked negotiations. 

“Brexit has undermined the Good Friday Agreement” — the 1998 peace deal that ended three decades of violence in Northern Ireland — “and it is fraying relationships between Britain and Ireland,” Varadkar said. 

“Anything that pulls the two communities apart in Northern Ireland undermines the Good Friday Agreement, and anything that pulls Britain and Ireland apart undermines that relationship,” he told Ireland’s RTE radio. 

Negotiations between Britain and the European Union over Britain’s departure from the bloc have stalled over the issue of the border between EU member Ireland and the U.K.’s Northern Ireland. 

Both sides agree there must be no customs posts or other barriers that could disrupt businesses and residents or undermine Northern Ireland’s peace. But they haven’t agreed on how to guarantee that — and Britain is due to leave the bloc on March 29. 

The border impasse has heightened fears that the U.K. might crash out of the EU without a deal on divorce terms and future relations, leading to chaos at ports and economic turmoil. 

The EU has proposed keeping Northern Ireland inside a customs union with the bloc to remove the need for border checks on the island. 

But Britain’s Conservative government and its Northern Irish ally, the Democratic Unionist Party, won’t accept that because it would mean customs and regulatory checks between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K. 

Britain wants instead to keep the whole U.K. in an EU customs union, but only temporarily. 

Although there has been no outward sign of a Brexit breakthrough, Irish and British officials say they are increasingly optimistic that a solution can be found. 

After meeting Friday with Irish Deputy Prime Minister Simon Coveney in Dublin, British Prime Minister Theresa May’s deputy, David Lidington, said negotiators were “very close” to an agreement. 

Coveney agreed there had been “a lot of progress.” 

“I think it is possible to get a deal in November,” he said. 
…

With just days to go until the U.S. midterm elections, there are growing fears that Russia’s efforts to undermine U.S. democracy extend far beyond the polls on Nov. 6 or the presidential election in 2020.

Defense and security officials worry that as part of Moscow’s plan to sow division and discord, it is trying to conquer the U.S. military — not with bullets or missiles but with tweets and memes.

The tactic is an outgrowth of Russia’s overarching strategy to find seams within U.S. society where distrust or anger exist and widen those divisions with targeted messaging.

In the case of the U.S. military, according to current and former U.S. and Western officials, the Kremlin’s aim is likely to establish what is known as reflexive control. By seeding U.S. troops with the right type of disinformation, they say, Russia can predispose them to make choices or decisions that are favorable for Moscow.

The exact extent to which U.S. military personnel have been targeted or swayed is unclear.

VOA spoke with multiple defense and security officials, all of whom declined to comment on the nature or scope of Russia’s military-oriented influence operations. Still, almost all of the officials admitted Russia’s targeting of U.S. military personnel with influence operations, and the way it is being done, is a concern.

“We know it goes on,” said Ed Wilson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy. “That’s why we’ve amped up and increased the attention that we’re paying.

“We’re taking a renewed look at how we train and educate the broader force,” he said, noting that efforts go beyond just the military to the Defense Department’s partner agencies.

The former commanding general for Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, Army Lt. Gen. Paul Funk, described the need to educate and shield troops from disinformation campaigns as a matter of “force protection.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a physical force or an information force,” Funk said. “Are you concerned about it? Of course. Do you have to have campaigns where you inform your soldiers of those kinds of things that happen? Sure.”

Reflexive control

Officials and experts say Russia’s use of influence operations to target the U.S. armed forces should come as no surprise. Russian President Vladimir Putin has tested the approach, using social media especially, in places like Ukraine, and since then it has become an ever more critical part of Russia’s overarching strategy.

“There’s nothing new with Russia or the Soviet Union wanting to have that degree of influence,” Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in September. “This is really kind of something that is in Putin’s DNA as a former KGB agent.”

U.S. officials have been aware of the effort for some time. At least as far back as March 2017, a Defense Information School presentation to Army public affairs officers identified disinformation on social media as a high-risk problem, capable of eroding “trust and confidence” in the ranks as well as in the Army as a whole.

But much of the military’s focus in dealing with social media, at least from what has been shared publicly, has concentrated on scams targeting military personnel, or on inappropriate or even unlawful behavior.

Some top U.S. officials have tried to downplay the dangers of Russia’s influence operation, saying in some ways the threat posed to U.S. troops is no different from the threat to anyone else.

“Like all Americans, we have to be alert to the people who would try to manipulate an election in the information age, when there’s so many feeds coming in to everybody,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said when asked about the threat in August.

“Certainly, we pay attention to that,” Mattis said. “But it’s part of the larger domain of protecting America.”

Already working?

Experts worry that simply treating the Russian influence operations targeting the military as an American problem and not a military problem has left the U.S. military vulnerable to Russia’s social media onslaught.

“U.S. military personnel and veterans — it is the uncovered stone in the Russian influence effort that no one is really taking enough of an interest in,” said Clint Watts, a former FBI special agent and now a senior fellow at George Washington University’s Center for Cyber and Homeland Security.

And Watts, who has testified before Congress on Russian influence operations, thinks the Russians have already made considerable headway.

“At the enlisted ranks in the U.S. military, Russia won over a huge base of support in this country that still continues on today,” he said.

Some of the early Russian success could be traced back to the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, when their push to sway the election in favor of then-candidate Donald Trump, amplifying messages like “America First” and his tough talk on terrorism, may have resonated with rank-and-file members of the military.

A May 2016 unscientific survey by the Military Times found “Donald Trump emerged as active-duty service members’ preference to become the next U.S. president, topping Hillary Clinton by more than a 2-to-1 margin.”

More recent polling by Military Times and the Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) at Syracuse University suggests opinions may be changing. More than 70 percent of troops surveyed said Russia was a significant threat, an increase of 18 percent from the previous year.

Yet experts and former officials say there is evidence to suggest Russian influence operations targeting U.S. military personnel and their families have continued unabated.

“Whether that’s Facebook, Twitter and others, we’re seeing where it [Russia] is focusing on identifying affinity groups,” said Heather Conley, a former deputy assistant secretary of state during the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush.

Now a senior vice president for Europe, Eurasia and the Arctic at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, Conley says the military is just one of several such groups in Russia’s sights, such as law enforcement and religious organizations.

“These unwittingly are being used to promote disinformation and malign influence,” she said. “It starts identifying the key voices within these broader groups.”

Phony military ties

At least in part, Russia has been trying to reach out to those voices on platforms like Twitter, using fake accounts purporting to be those of Americans with ties to the military.

In Twitter’s latest release of accounts linked to Russia’s Internet Research Agency (on Oct. 17), at least 39 had user descriptions promoting links to the military.

Some gained little to no traction, like one that described the user as “Fighting to Make America Great Again strong #military supporter. Combat #Vet ????#OORAH Ret. #Frogman ???? #Sheepdog #Patriot ???? Follow me,” which did not attract a single follower.

Others did better, getting hundreds of followers. One Russian account, describing the user as a “Proud AMERICAN, wife, mother, conservative, served my country in USMC,” had more than 2,000 followers.

“We certainly are still seeing a lot of the accounts that we’re looking at that continue to have what seemed to be clear military connections,” Bret Schafer, a social media analyst for the German Marshall Fund of the United States’ Alliance for Securing Democracy, told VOA.

Schafer, along with his colleagues, have been studying Russia’s outreach on social media to U.S. military personnel and their families. He said the use of terms like “veteran” or “Navy mom” is not unusual.

“You’ll see a lot of banners on Twitter, the account pictures that will be kind of non-identifiable in terms of a specific person, but a member of the military or just some sort of graphic that connotes that person is part of the military or a family member,” he said.

Still, Schafer said it is difficult to determine just how much Russia has managed to penetrate the U.S. military community, whether on Twitter or other social media platforms, like Facebook.

“My guess is a lot of this probably would be happening more in closed Facebook groups in which there are many with the military, and frankly, nobody has any idea what’s really happening for those groups, because of course Facebook doesn’t share those with researchers,” he said.

Isolated community

And there are worries that the U.S. military may be especially vulnerable as officials admit the defense community’s connection to the rest of the country is as weak as it has been in a long time.

“My concern is the broader isolation from the community we serve, and that’s a discussion [in Congress] as well,” Army Secretary Mark Esper said during a breakfast forum in August. “On the Army staff alone, you look at any number of the senior leaders, I think they all have at least one son or daughter, if not more, who are army officers or who are serving.”

“We’ve become more segmented,” said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee. “I’m very concerned about that.”

Reed, like Esper, downplayed concerns that the problem is one the Russians could exploit.

“I can’t think of an institution that’s more committed to America, one America and one that’s governed by the Constitution, than the military,” he said recently.

US allies already targeted by Moscow

But U.S. allies say there is reason to worry as they have seen Russia use disinformation to repeatedly target their forces.

“We have seen attempts to erode trust within the alliance,” NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu told VOA by email.

NATO’s Strategic Communications Center of Excellence in Latvia, working with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, has seen several large-scale disinformation campaigns and also smaller-scale attacks targeting NATO’s enhanced forward presence in the Baltics.

“Our personnel get guidance and instruction regarding misinformation and information security as part of their pre-deployment training and their arrival process in order to increase their resilience,” according to Maj. Mark Peebles with NATO’s Task Force Latvia Headquarters.

“They are aware that it’s out there and are advised to maintain a critical eye to what they see on social media,” he said.

The British, too, have seen indications that Russia and others may be trying to cause dissent in the ranks.

“Quite a few senior commanders, increasingly, I see now, having had evidence of false Facebook websites coming up routinely in their names,” said Lt. Gen. Nick Pope, British army deputy chief of the general staff, describing efforts to take the fake pages down as “whack a rat.”

“The fact is that our potential adversaries, hostile agencies, are using cybercrime, if you call it that, as a mechanism now to try to unhinge reliable, evidence-based platforms,” he said.
…

Britain and Ireland will seek to hold regular summits between leaders and ministers after Brexit to maintain ties strained by Britain’s decision to leave the EU, senior ministers from both governments said on Friday.

Relations between the two have improved markedly since Ireland gained independence from Britain following a bloody struggle almost a century ago.

But ties have been tested over the last two years with Ireland a key player on the opposite side of the Brexit negotiating table to Britain. Arguments over how to manage the the border between EU-member state Ireland and British-ruled Northern Ireland have threatened the talks.

“What we’ve agreed is that we should aim for a model which is based upon a pattern of top level summits involving heads of government and senior ministers, probably alternating between the United Kingdom and Ireland year-by-year, and backed up by close bilateral work between ministers,” Britain’s Cabinet Office Minister David Lidington told a news conference.

“There is that shared commitment that we are not going to let political turbulence, which is a reality at the moment, deflect us from recognising that we have so much in common and so much both to gain from continued close work together.”

Lidington, Prime Minister Theresa May’s de facto deputy, was speaking after a meeting of a British-Irish cooperative body that was convened for the first time in a decade earlier this year as a result of a political deadlock in Northern Ireland.

Britain and Ireland are co-guarantors of the 1998 peace deal that ended 30 years of sectarian violence in the province and introduced devolved government. However the power-sharing executive has not met for almost two years following a breakdown between Irish nationalist and pro-British unionist politicians.

Lidington said officials would come up with proposals by early next year to replace the current regular meetings at EU meetings that helped improve the “indispensable relationship.”

Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney also sought to play down a number of recent newspaper stories that highlighted a deterioration in relations between the neighbouring countries.

“Some of what you read about the stresses and strains that are sometimes reported between the British and Irish government, on a personal that is certainly not the case,” Coveney said.
…