A Turkish diplomatic delegation is visiting Washington Wednesday in a bid to to ease tensions between the two countires.

Reports of the visit helped to stem a sharp drop in the value of Turkish currency. Analysts warn rising U.S.-Turkish tensions are threatening to trigger a financial crisis in Turkey.

On Monday, the Turkish lira suffered its most significant drop in a decade. The sell-off triggered by reports that the Trump administration is considering ending Turkey’s duty-free access to the U.S. market.

The lira recovered some of its heavy losses on news of the diplomatic visit. But the currency began to slide again Tuesday as subsequent reporting contradicted initial reports that a preliminary agreement had been reached between Ankara and Washington.

The Turkish deputy foreign minister, Sedat Onal, is set to lead the delegation, according to a Foreign Ministry source. Earlier reports suggested a far more powerful delegation would be sent to Washington, including foreign, interior, defense, and finance ministers.

Andrew Brunson

At the top of the agenda is expected to be discussions about the ongoing detention of U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson. Brunson is currently under house arrest while standing trial on terrorism charges. The White House dismisses the charges as baseless, accusing Ankara of hostage taking.

U.S.-Turkish tensions escalated last week, with U.S. President Donald Trump targeting two Turkish ministers with sanctions over Brunson’s detention. Turkey hit back with reciprocal measures.

“He [Brunson] now has acquired symbolic importance more than the worth of the issue. And with him will be tied all the Americans detained, and the State Department employees in Adana, Istanbul and Ankara,” said international relations expert Soli Ozel of Istanbul’s Kadir Has University.

Three locally employed consular and embassy officials are being held on terrorism charges.

“Things have piled out over the course of several years, which all needs to be solved,” Ozel said. “For that to happen, things really have to calm down — the hysteria on both sides of public opinions.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan may have already prepared the ground for a compromise. He has carefully avoided personally attacking Trump.

“He opened a good room for maneuver by disassociating Trump from this wrongdoing, basically saying he was misled,” Ozel said. “If this thing is allowed to subside, good diplomats can actually find a way out.”

The U.S. Embassy in Turkey, too, sought to calm relations, tweeting Tuesday, the “U.S. continues to be a solid ally and friend of Turkey despite tensions. The two countries have an active economic relationship.”

The embassy also emphatically denied widespread Turkish media reports quoting an unnamed U.S. official predicting further heavy declines in the Turkish currency.

Analysts suggest both sides have considerable experience resolving differences.

“Turkey’s relations have always been troubled,” noted international relations professor Huseyin Bagci of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University. “Even in the 1970s the relationship was described as the troubled partnership. The question today is, are the problems solvable?”

Russia, Iran

There is a myriad of outstanding disputes between the two NATO allies. Relations are strained over Ankara’s deepening ties with Moscow, in particular, and the planned purchase of Russia’s S-400 missile system. Washington said the missiles threaten to compromise NATO systems.

Additionally, Ankara is refusing to enforce reintroduced U.S.-Iranian sanctions while differences over Syria remain and Turkish demands to extradite U.S.-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is blamed for the 2016 failed coup in Turkey.

International investors are expected to watch Thursday’s visit closely. Success would likely dial back fears that Washington could impose painful financial sanctions that would hit Turkey’s fragile economy hard, adding further pressure on the currency. Failure would probably trigger another sell-off.

Turkish banks and corporations owe hundreds of billions of dollars in loans, many of which are due within a year. With the lira already falling by around 30 percent since the start of the year, concerns are growing over the ability to repay the debt.

Investors are also alarmed over the economic policies pursued by Erdogan, in particular his aversion to raising interest rates to rein in rampant inflation.

Given the precarious state of Turkish financial and economic markets, Ankara presumably has little room to maneuver with Washington. However, success will likely offer at best, limited respite since international investors’ concerns center on Turkey’s financial imbalances and the failure of Erdogan to address them.

“The current level of real policy rate is insufficient to compensate for the heightened geopolitical risk premium after U.S. sanctions, which will keep the lira vulnerable to a further escalation of geopolitical tensions,” said Inan Demir, the London-based economist at Nomura Securities, in a note to clients.
…

An activist from Russian punk collective Pussy Riot has led a protest outside the headquarters of the state penitentiary agency to protest torture and slave labor in Russian prisons.

Pussy Riot member Maria Alekhina and activist Dmitry Tsorionov put banners and photos of inmates who were reportedly beaten by prison personnel on the Federal Penitentiary Service building in Moscow.

Tuesday’s protest comes amid public outrage stoked by a recently released video of an inmate being beaten by men in guards’ uniforms while lying handcuffed on a table. Several guards have been put in custody while the 2017 beating is being investigated.

Alekhina and Pussy Riot bandmate Nadezhda Tolokonnikova spent nearly two years in prison for an anti-Putin protest inside Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior in 2012.

 
…

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan will pay a state visit to Germany on Sept. 28-29, a spokeswoman for German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Tuesday, amid efforts by the allies to improves ties strained by a number of disputes.

The two fellow members of the NATO military alliance have differed over Turkey’s crackdown on suspected opponents of Erdogan after a failed coup in 2016 and over its detention of German citizens.

The spokeswoman did not say if Erdogan would also hold talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel. Merkel’s office declined to comment.

Germany’s mass-selling Bild newspaper reported last month that Erdogan would visit Germany around late September.

A state visit would include a reception by Steinmeier with military honors and a formal state banquet. The German and Turkish foreign ministers vowed earlier this year to do everything to improve relations.

Their resolve led to the release in February of a German-Turkish journalist who had been held in Turkey for a year for alleged security offenses. His release fulfilled a key demand by Germany, which still takes issue with what it calls Turkey’s deteriorating record on human rights.

Another German national was arrested in southeastern Turkey last month accused of spreading propaganda for Turkish militants, Turkish state media said.

The Turkish government has purged more than 150,000 civil servants and charged 77,000 people since the failed coup.

It has also launched cross-border operations into Syria against what it says are terrorist threats by the Kurdish YPG militia, which it deems a terrorist organization linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Rights groups and Turkey’s Western allies have criticized the crackdown, saying Erdogan has used the coup as a pretext to muzzle dissent. The government says the measures are necessary.
…

Greece’s prime minister vowed on Tuesday that experts will investigate all aspects of the country’s deadliest forest fire in decades and that the seaside resort areas devastated by the blaze will be rebuilt to higher standards.

Alexis Tsipras led a meeting about the fire on Tuesday with ministers and regional officials in Lavrion, a seaside town about 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the areas burned. At least 91 people died in the July 23 fire.

“My promise, from the first day of this tragedy, was that the how' and thewhy’ will be investigated in depth and in all its dimensions,” Tsipras said. “Nothing will be covered up in the name of any vested interests.”

The prime minister reiterated that illegal buildings and fencing erected in forests, on coastlines and in creeks will be demolished. Government officials have blamed unauthorized construction for contributing to the death toll.

Experts have pointed to the lack of town planning in the worst affected area of the seaside resort of Mati as a contributing factor, with narrow streets, numerous dead ends and no clear way to get to the sea.

“Uncontrolled building which threatens human lives can no longer be tolerated. Anything that destroys forests and coastlines, anything that is a danger to human life, will be torn down,” Tsipras said. “It is our duty toward our dead, but most of all it is our duty toward the future generations.”

Tsipras’ government has come under intense criticism for its handling of the blaze, particularly after it denied any mishandling of the response effort. The public order minister, Nikos Toskas, had argued that despite much soul-searching he had been unable to detect any major mistakes. But following intense criticism from opposition parties, Toskas resigned last Friday, and senior officials under his supervision followed suit over the weekend.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order Monday to introduce sanctions against Iran threatens to put Washington and Ankara on a collision course. 

Ankara insists Trump’s unilateral actions do not bind it. The looming dispute threatens to exacerbate existing tensions between the two NATO allies.

“We are going to aggressively enforce our sanctions, and that puts a very important test to those companies, to those banks and to those governments — who do they want to do business with?” said a senior official Monday. “We are very serious to enforce those sanctions, and that’s what the president has directed us to do.”

The first wave of Iranian sanctions goes into effect Tuesday and targets mainly financial transactions and commercial airline sales with Iran. In November, measures to stop the sale of Iranian energy are set to go into effect.

Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has ruled out complying with U.S. measures, insisting Turkey is bound only by international agreements. Ankara identifies Tehran as a key trading partner to help boost its flagging economy.

Iranian oil and gas are critical to energy-poor Turkey. In the first six months of this year, Turkey imported an average of 176,000 barrels a day of Iranian oil, accounting for 49 percent of Turkish imports.

“It’s pretty damn serious, obviously, with the Turkish economy facing difficult times. To give up on trade with Iran and not being able to buy gas and oil would really hurt the Turkish economy,” said international relations expert Soli Ozel of Istanbul’s Kadir Has University. “So, there is a big problem, and there is very little time to solve it, and at a time when both sides don’t trust one another.”

Strained relations

Turkish-U.S. relations are already profoundly strained over myriad differences. Last week, Washington took the unprecedented step of sanctioning two Turkish ministers over the ongoing detention of U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson. Brunson, facing terrorism charges, is under house arrest. Ankara retaliated in kind, sanctioning two unnamed U.S. officials.

With Turkey a significant importer of Iranian oil, analysts say it will be a priority of Washington to persuade Ankara to comply with its sanctions. Last month, senior U.S. officials — led by Marshall Billingslea, assistant secretary of the Treasury for terrorist financing — visited Ankara to meet with government ministers and business leaders to press the case for sanctions.

Billingslea described the talks as positive, but a source privy to the meeting described the meetings as difficult.

A Turkish business source claims Washington’s suggestion to use Saudi Arabian oil instead of Iran’s fails to take into account the costly and timely readjustment of Turkish refineries to accommodate the lower quality of Saudi oil.

Ankara also has strategic concerns about relying on Saudi Arabia.

“Turkey is being told to buy oil from Saudi Arabia, while it has a pipeline with neighboring Iran and can get crude at a lower price,” wrote Ilnur Cevik, a senior presidential adviser in Turkey’s Sabah newspaper. “Besides, who can guarantee that Turkey will be provided a steady flow of oil at reasonable prices when Saudi Arabia at times is displaying an antagonistic policy toward Ankara?”

Former U.S. President Barack Obama granted Ankara some exemptions when imposing sanctions against Iran. However, critics point out, Ankara severely undermined U.S. sanctions by using gold to circumvent restrictions on the use of dollars to trade with Iran.

Turkey at one time was one of the world’s biggest gold importers and exporters. Washington has now closed the door to using gold in trade with Tehran.

Halkbank case

Earlier this year, a New York court convicted a senior official of Turkish state-controlled Halkbank for a violation of U.S. Iranian sanctions. The U.S. Treasury is considering a hefty fine against the bank, which analysts warn could be several billion dollars.

Analysts see the Halkbank experience as a warning to Ankara and the Turkish financial system of the risks violating future U.S. sanctions.

“It will actually force Ankara to choose between Iran and the United States,” said former senior Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen, who served in Washington. “Not complying with Iran sanctions is not an option. There will be increased pressure from the U.S. bringing a vicious circle in bilateral relations.”

The deepening U.S.-Turkish tensions are taking a heavy toll on Turkey’s financial markets. The Turkish lira suffered heavy drops last week over Washington sanctioning two Turkish ministers. On Monday, the currency hit another record low on news of new U.S. economic tariffs against Turkey. 

U.S. Iranian sanctions are set to be the latest in an ever-growing list of disputes between Ankara and Washington. 

“You could actually find ways out of all this,” Ozel said. “But trust in these relations has been totally decimated. And to rebuild trust in relations is the main, hard task.”
…

A tanker truck carrying flammable material exploded, causing a huge fireball after hitting a stopped truck on a highway outside the northern Italian city of Bologna on Monday.

At least two people were killed and more than 60 injured, some with severe burns, during the midday accident.

A police video showed the tanker failing to slow down and plowing into the back of a truck that was stopped in traffic. Upon impact, the truck exploded in flames.

Another truck appeared to hit the tanker from behind. After an unspecified time lapse, during which the highway was cleared of most other vehicles, the truck erupted in a second explosion that spanned eight lanes of the highway and beyond.

The blast engulfed the area with flames and black smoke, and caused a bridge to partially collapse, the Italian fire service tweeted.

Firefighters have since extinguished the blaze, a spokesman said, adding that efforts were under way to determine the cause of the explosion and the exact number of victims.

A video published on Twitter by the fire service showed a huge column of black smoke billowing from the wreckage of the truck.

Authorities said the accident closed down a major interchange connecting highways linking northern Italy with the Adriatic coast, a popular destination as Italy heads into next week’s peak summer holiday travel period. 
…

The British government has launched a probe into claims officials are failing to scrutinize visa applications from foreign men whose British-born Muslim wives have been forced by their families to marry them overseas.

Campaigners say even when women, many of them teenagers, have objected to their spouses being issued visas to join them in Britain, officials all too often ignore their opposition.

An investigation by The Times newspaper outlining cases in which British officials appear to have compounded the victimization and abuse of women forced into marriages has prompted the country’s interior minister Sajid Javid to launch an inquiry, saying forced marriage is a “despicable, inhumane, uncivilized practice that has no place whatsoever in Britain.”

He added in a tweet, “We will be doing more to combat it and support victims.”

Figures released to The Times under Freedom of Information laws showed that last year, Britain’s Home Office received 175 inquiries from spouses or third parties trying to block visas being issued. Eighty-eight developed into full cases. They included direct appeals from women or objections from others who feared the marriages had been forced.

Visas were issued in 42 of the cases, while another 10 are pending a final decision.

Many unreported cases

But charities say those cases are the tip of the iceberg, and thousands of women, mainly from South Asian backgrounds, are being coerced into marriages that often become highly abusive, involving rape and domestic violence. The government’s Forced Marriage Unit, part of the Foreign Office, received reports of nearly 2,000 possible cases of women being forced into marriages overseas last year.

Laws were introduced in England and Wales in 2014 criminalizing forced marriage. But campaigners say some immigration officials are “turning a blind eye,” concerned they may be criticized for being culturally or religiously insensitive for mistaking an arranged marriage for a forced one.

Labor lawmaker Naz Shah from the Yorkshire town of Bradford said the laws need to be changed to help ease the plight of British Asian women trying to block abusive spouses from gaining visas and joining them in Britain. Bradford has the third largest British Asian population in the country.

She expressed frustration to a British broadcaster, saying, “There is nothing racist about highlighting the fact that a girl is being forced into a marriage or protecting that victim. Abuse is abuse, regardless of any cultures, and that needs to be understood loudly and clearly.”

Shah and the charities say among the legal changes needed is to do away with a requirement for officials to inform a foreign spouse, if his wife doesn’t endorse his visa application. That information can lead to further abuse by the families of women who try to block the issuance of a visa, including exposing them to honor-based violence.

Aneeta Prem, founder of Freedom, a charity opposing forced marriage, told Reuters, “It is a very typical case that girls are forced into marriage, and then when they come back to the U.K., they are forced to put in a spousal application for their abuser.” Campaigners say most of the forced marriages are taking place in Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and the United Arab Emirates.

Some progress made

Gerry Campbell, a former Scotland Yard detective and a director of the Sharan Project, a charity that helps vulnerable women, particularly of South Asian origin, said in a tweet the government has done some “excellent work on tackling forced marriage over the years. It must, however, be relentless as is the case with other forms of violence against Women and Girls.”

Last month, a court in Yorkshire sentenced a couple from Leeds to eight years in prison for forcing their teenage daughter to marry. In 2016, the 18 year old was told she had to marry an older cousin in Pakistan. When she refused, she was assaulted, and her father threatened to kill her.

She was helped to escape by armed police after British diplomats were tipped off about her plight. After her parents were sentenced, the girl said, “I know I will always have to remain cautious, but knowing those monsters are going to be in prison, I feel the uttermost freedom in my heart.”

The conviction is the second in Britain for forced marriage. In May, a woman was jailed in the British town of Birmingham for trying to force her 17-year-old daughter to marry a relative twice her age in Pakistan.

 
…

The heads of Greece’s emergency services have been removed from office in the wake of the deadly wildfires near Athens that . killed 91 people, government officials said Sunday.

The chiefs of the police and fire brigades have been replaced by their deputies.

The changes came a day after Greece’s public order minister, Nikos Toskas, also resigned.

The death toll from the July 23 fire rose to at least 91. Nearly 40 people remain hospitalized, including six in critical condition.

The Athens government has been criticized for its response to the deadly blazes.

Authorities blamed arsonists for starting the fire, as well as illegal construction, which blocked escape routes from the coastal resort town of Mati. 
…

President Donald Trump on Sunday acknowledged that the 2016 Trump Tower meeting between a Kremlin-connected lawyer and his son was to collect information about his political opponent, casting new light on a moment central to the special counsel’s Russia probe.

Trump, amid a series of searing tweets sent from his New Jersey golf club, tore into two of his favorite targets, the news media and Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation into possible links between the president’s campaign and Russia. Trump unleashed particularly fury at reports that he was anxious about the Trump Tower meeting attended by Donald Trump Jr. and other senior campaign officials.

“Fake News reporting, a complete fabrication, that I am concerned about the meeting my wonderful son, Donald, had in Trump Tower,” Trump wrote. “This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics – and it went nowhere. I did not know about it!”

But 13 months ago, Trump gave a far different explanation for the meeting. A July 2017 statement dictated by the president read: “We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago.”

But since then, the story about the meeting has changed several times, eventually forced by the discovery of emails between the president’s eldest son and an intermediary from the Russian government offering damaging information about Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton. Betraying no surprise or misgivings about the offer from a hostile foreign power, Trump Jr. replied: “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.”

Sunday’s tweet was Trump’s clearest statement yet on the purpose of the meeting, which has become a focal point of Mueller’s investigation even as the president and his lawyers try to downplay its significance and pummel the Mueller probe with attacks. On Sunday, Trump again suggested without evidence that Mueller was biased against him, declaring, “This is the most one sided Witch Hunt in the history of our country.”

And as Trump and his allies have tried to discredit the probe, a new talking point has emerged: that even if that meeting was held to collect damaging information, none was provided and “collusion” — Trump’s go-to description of what Mueller is investigating — never occurred.

“The question is what law, statute or rule or regulation has been violated, and nobody has pointed to one,” said Jay Sekulow, one of Trump’s attorneys, on ABC’s “This Week.”

But legal experts have pointed out several possible criminal charges, including conspiracy against the United States and aiding and abetting a conspiracy. And despite Trump’s public Twitter denial, the president has expressed worry that his son may face legal exposure even as he believes he did nothing wrong, according to three people close to the White House familiar with the president’s thinking but not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations.

Sekulow acknowledged that the public explanation for the meeting has changed but insisted that the White House has been very clear with the special counsel’s office. He said he was not aware of Trump Jr. facing any legal exposure.

“I don’t represent Don Jr.,” Sekulow said, “but I will tell you I have no knowledge at all of Don Jr. being told that he’s a target of any investigation, and I have no knowledge of him being interviewed by the special counsel.”

Trump’s days of private anger spilled out into public with the Twitter outburst, which comes at a perilous time for the president.

A decision about whether he sits for an interview with Mueller may also occur in the coming weeks, according to another one of his attorneys, Rudy Giuliani. Trump has seethed against what he feels are trumped-up charges against his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, whose trial began last week and provided a visible reminder of Mueller’s work.

And he raged against the media’s obsession with his links to Russia and the status of Michael Cohen, his former fixer, who is under federal investigation in New York. Cohen has indicated that he would tell prosecutors that Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting ahead of time.

Despite a show of force from his national security team this week as a warning against future Russian election meddling, Trump again deemed the matter a “hoax” this week. And at a trio of rallies, he escalated his already vitriolic rhetoric toward the media, savaging the press for unflattering coverage and, he feels, bias.

“The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know it’s TRUE,” Trump tweeted Sunday. “I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American People. They purposely cause great division & distrust. They can also cause War! They are very dangerous & sick!”

The fusillade of tweets came from Bedminster, Trump’s golf course, where he is ensconced in a property that bears his name at every turn and is less checked in by staffers. It was at the New Jersey golf club where a brooding Trump has unleashed other inflammatory attacks and where, in spring 2017, he made the final decision to fire FBI Director James Comey, the move that triggered the Russia probe.

Trump was joined for his Saturday rally in Ohio by former White House communications director Hope Hicks, who departed the administration earlier this year. Her unannounced presence raised some eyebrows as Hicks has been interviewed by Mueller and was part of the team of staffers that helped draft the original statement on the Trump Tower meeting.

Multiple White House officials have been interviewed while still working at the White House and have remained in contact with the president.
…

An old-time propeller plane crashed near-vertically at high speed into a Swiss mountain, killing all 20 people on board, police said Sunday.

The Junkers Ju-52 plane, operated by the Swiss company Ju-Air, went down Saturday on the Piz Segnas mountain above the Alpine resort of Flims, striking the mountain’s western flank about 2,540 meters (8,330 feet) above sea level. The mountainous area in southeastern Switzerland is popular with hikers and skiers and includes a glacier.

Police said Sunday they have now determined that all 20 people on board the plane, including its three crew members, died.

Eleven men and nine women between the ages of 42 and 84 were killed. Most of the victims were Swiss but they also included a couple and their son from Austria.

Photos released by Graubuenden canton (state) police showed the crumpled wreckage of the plane lying on the mountain, with only the upside-down tail more or less intact.

Police said they are not aware of any distress call from the aircraft before it crashed.

Daniel Knecht of the Swiss Transportation Safety Investigation Board said the plane appears to have hit the ground near-vertically and at high speed.

Speaking Sunday at a news conference in Flims, he said the vintage plane presumably didn’t have the crash-resistant cockpit voice and data recorders that more modern aircraft have.

Officials can essentially rule out a collision with another aircraft or hitting an obstacle such as a wire, and there’s no indication of foul play or that the aircraft lost parts or broke up before the crash, he added.

He said that officials expect the investigation of the cause to be “relatively complex.”

The plane was flying the passengers back from a two-day trip to Locarno in southern Switzerland to its base at Duebendorf, near Zurich. Authorities were informed of the crash at 5 p.m. Saturday, 50 minutes after the aircraft had taken off from Locarno’s Magadino airfield.

Nearly 5,000 Ju-52 planes, a product of Germany’s Junkers, were manufactured between 1932 and 1952.

Ju-Air’s Ju-52 planes are former Swiss military aircraft, built in 1939, that were retired by the air force in 1981.

Ju-Air started operating flights with the old-timers in 1983, and the plane that crashed – with the registration HB-HOT – had been in service with the company since 1985.

The aircraft have three engines, one on the nose and one on each wing.

The company, which operates two other Ju-52s, suspended flights until further notice after the crash.
…

Croatia is celebrating a victorious 1995 military offensive in which it retook lands held by rebel Serbs, but which Serbia’s president has compared to the policies of Nazi Germany during World War II.

The starkly conflicting views by the two main Balkan rivals of the August 1995 military blitz that resulted in an exodus of more than 200,000 minority Serbs from Croatia illustrates the persisting divisions in the region stemming from the 1990s’ war.

While Croatia on Sunday hailed the offensive as a flawless military victory that reunited the country’s territory and ended the war, neighboring Serbia mourned the hundreds of victims killed during the attack.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told a gathering late Saturday that “Hitler wanted a world without Jews; Croatia and its policy wanted a Croatia without Serbs.”

 
…

The bodies of three Russian journalists who were killed in Central African Republic have been brought back to Moscow, where they are to undergo a forensic examination.

Svetlana Petrenko, a spokeswoman for Russia’s Investigative Committee, said Sunday the bodies had been turned over to committee experts and would be examined “with the goal of establishing the cause of the Russians’ death.”

The journalists were ambushed and killed Monday outside the town of Sibut. They were investigating a Russian private security company that was operating in CAR as well as Russian ties to the local mining industry. The project was funded by exiled opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a longtime foe of President Vladimir Putin.

Officials in CAR say the journalists were kidnapped by men wearing turbans and speaking Arabic. Their bodies had gunshot wounds.

 
…

Lisbon has broken a 37-year-old record to notch its highest temperature ever as an unrelenting wave of heat bakes Portugal and neighboring Spain.

Portugal’s weather service said the capital reached 44 degrees Celsius (111.2 degrees Fahrenheit) Saturday, surpassing the city’s previous record of 43 C (109.4 F) set in 1981.

The day’s highest temperature of 46.8 C (116.2 F) was recorded at Alvega in the center of Portugal. The country’s highest temperature on record is 47.4 C (117.3 F) from 2003.

The hot, dusty conditions across the Iberian Peninsula are the result of a mass of hot air from Africa.

Sunday’s forecast calls for temperatures to dip slightly while remaining extremely high.
…

Israel’s navy Saturday seized a Swedish-flagged sailboat carrying activist passengers that was trying to breach the long-standing blockade of the Palestinian Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military said the vessel, named “Freedom for Gaza,” was “intercepted in accordance with international law.”

The 12 passengers, from Sweden, Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Spain, are in custody and will be flown home, an Israeli Immigration Authority spokeswoman said.

The organizer of the trip, the Swedish group Ship to Gaza, said the boat was carrying mainly medical supplies and maintained it was wrongly intercepted in international waters.  

“The demands of the Ship to Gaza are that the ship with its crew and cargo … be allowed to go in peace through international and Palestinian waters in accordance with international law,” it said in a statement. “This is a demand that the 11 years-long illegal and destructive blockade on Gaza will be lifted at last.”

Israel’s military said the boat violated the “legal naval blockade” and that “any humanitarian merchandise can be transferred to Gaza through the Port of Ashdod.”

The vessel Freedom for Gaza was the second vessel of the “Freedom Flotilla” to be seized as it tried to “break the blockade” on Gaza, organizers said.

Earlier this week the Israeli navy intercepted a Norwegian-flagged activist boat, one of four that left Scandinavia in mid-May.

Israel contends the the blockade is necessary to keep Palestinian militants from getting weapons or other materials that could be used for military purposes.

Israel and Palestinian militants have fought three wars since 2008 in Gaza, an economically disadvantaged 365 square kilometer territory where more than two million Palestinians reside.

United Nations officials have called for the lifting of the blockade, citing worsening humanitarian conditions in the Palestinian enclave.
…

Despite a sharp deterioration in relations over the detention of an American pastor, the United States and Turkey remain valued partners, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Saturday, in an apparent bid to ease tensions that have rocked ties between the NATO allies.

Pompeo told reporters on the sidelines of an Asian security forum in Singapore that the two countries would continue to work with each other in the framework of the alliance and on other matters.

“Turkey is a NATO partner with whom the United States has every intention of continuing to work cooperatively,” Pompeo said.

Earlier this week, the Trump administration took the rare, if not unprecedented, step of hitting two senior Turkish officials with sanctions over the case of Pastor Andrew Brunson, who remains in detention despite repeated demands from President Donald Trump for his release. Pompeo met on Friday with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu to discuss the matter behind closed doors and said those talks had been “constructive.”

“I made clear that it is well past time that Pastor Brunson be freed and be permitted to return to the United States,” he said, adding that several detained local State Department employees should also be released. “I am hopeful that in the coming days we will see that occur,” Pompeo said.

He acknowledged “lots of challenges” with Turkey, but said Washington and Ankara had been able to work closely and well together. They have been at odds over numerous matters, including military activity in northern Syria and Turkey’s plans to purchase an advanced air defense system from Russia.

Speaking to Turkish journalists after his meeting with Pompeo, Cavusoglu also described their discussion as “extremely constructive” and said the two would continue to work toward resolving disputes. But he said threats would not work. “We repeated to them that nothing can be achieved through threatening language and sanctions and we believe that this was well understood,” he said.

Brunson, 50, is being tried on espionage and terror-related charges, which he and the U.S. government vehemently deny. He was arrested in December 2016 following a failed coup on charges of “committing crimes on behalf of terror groups without being a member” and espionage. Although he was released to home detention, he faces a prison sentence of up to 35 years if he is convicted on both counts at the end of his ongoing trial. The evangelical pastor, who is originally from Black Mountain, North Carolina, has lived in Turkey for 23 years and led the Izmir Resurrection Church.

Last week, President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence threatened to impose sanctions on Turkey if Brunson was not immediately released. They said his recent transfer from prison to house arrest was not enough and on Wednesday, the Treasury Department hit Turkey’s Justice Minister, Abdulhamit Gul, and Interior Minister, Suleyman Soylu, with sanctions that block any assets they may have in U.S. jurisdictions and bar Americans from doing business with them..

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has rejected the U.S. demands, saying his government won’t back down and is willing to “go its own way” if the U.S. acted. The Turks have also vowed to retaliate for the sanctions “without delay.”

The Turkish leader has previously connected Brunson’s return to the U.S. to the extradition of Fethullah Gulen, an exiled Turkish cleric who lives in Pennsylvania. Ankara blames Gulen for the coup attempt, while the cleric denies involvement.

 
…

A Russian helicopter crashed shortly after takeoff in Siberia on Saturday, killing all 18 people aboard.

The Interstate Aviation Committee, which oversees civil aviation in much of the former Soviet Union, said the Mi-8 helicopter collided with the load being carried by another helicopter that had taken off from the same pad in Vankor, above the Arctic Circle about 2,600 kilometers (1600 miles) northeast of Moscow. The second helicopter was undamaged and landed safely, the committee said.

Helicopters frequently carry loads in slings that hang below the craft.

There were 15 passengers and three crew aboard the crashed helicopter, said a statement from the operator, UTair airlines.

Russian news reports said all the passengers were believed to have been working for a subsidiary of the state oil company Rosneft.

UTair, one of Russia’s largest airlines, operates an extensive fleet of helicopters serving Siberian oil fields as well as fixed-wing flights within Russia and to international destinations, mostly in former Soviet republics.

The helicopter that crashed was manufactured in 2010 and the pilot had nearly 6,000 hours of experience, including 2,300 as a captain, the UTair statement said.

Russian air safety has improved since the 1990s, when poor aircraft maintenance, pilot training and official oversight in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union resulted in a high crash incidence.

In February, a Saratov Airlines An-148 regional jet crashed about six minutes after takeoff from Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport, killing all 71 people aboard. Investigators said the crew had failed to turn on a heating unit, resulting in flawed airspeed readings. A UTair ATR 72 crashed in Siberia in 2012, killing 33 of the 43 people aboard, after failing to be de-iced before takeoff.

 
…

Greek Civil Protection Minister Nikos Toskas resigned on Friday in the wake of a wildfire last month that killed 88 people and led to widespread criticism of the government for its handling of the disaster.

Toskas had previously offered to quit after the July 23 blaze in the small seaside town of Mati east of Athens, but Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras refused to accept his resignation.

The minister reiterated his desire to step aside again on Friday during a meeting with Tsipras, in a move that the main political opposition said came too late to appease the public.

“This natural disaster, and the loss of so many people in Mati, overwhelms my desire to continue. This is something I had stated publicly from the first moment,” Toskas, a retired army general, said in a statement.

Pressure has been growing on the government, which is trailing the conservative opposition in opinion polls, at a time when it had hoped to extricate Greece from years of bailouts prompted by its debt crisis and reap the political benefits.

There have been recriminations over what went wrong and led to the deaths of dozens in Mati, where hundreds of people were trapped by towering walls of flames when they tried to flee.

Many jumped into the sea to survive but others died, either in their cars or when they were cornered on the edge of steep cliffs by the rapidly advancing inferno.

Last Friday Tsipras said he took political responsibility for the deadly wildfire amid accusations that his government had failed to protect lives and to apologize for the disaster.

Seeking to deflect public anger, he told his ministers he was conflicted over whether the authorities had done everything right in response to the disaster.

“Responsibilities have a name: Alexis Tsipras. He and his government do not have the courage to assume them 11 days after the tragedy,” the conservative New Democracy party said after the minister’s resignation.

Tsipras’s office quickly responded, accusing the conservative party of trying to score political gains from a national tragedy.

The death toll rose to 88 on Friday when a 35-year-old woman died from her injuries. Her six-month old baby, the youngest victim, had died in her arms from smoke inhalation as they tried to escape the flames.

Greek authorities say they suspect the fire was set deliberately. Arson is thought to be a frequent cause of forest fires in Greece, a crude method to clear the way for potential development.

Toskas’s duties have been assigned to Panos Skourletis, the country’s interior minister.
…

Preparations are being made to send thousands of Ebola vaccines next week to North Kivu, the site of the latest outbreak of this deadly disease.

The World Health Organization says it foresees huge difficulties ahead in efforts to combat the latest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

North Kivu province, the site of the new outbreak, has been riven with ethnic and political clashes for at least two decades.

WHO’s emergency response chief, Peter Salama, said the operation getting under way in North Kivu will be much more difficult and complex than past Ebola response efforts.

Salama was at the forefront of efforts to combat an Ebola outbreak this April in the DRC’s Equateur Province.

“On the scale of degree of difficulty, trying to extinguish an outbreak of a deadly high-threat pathogen in a war zone reaches the top of any of our scales,” he cautioned.

WHO reports four of six suspected cases of Ebola have been confirmed in and around Mangina, a town of about 60,000 people in North Kivu. Around 20 deaths have been reported. Salama, however, said the deaths have not yet been confirmed as Ebola cases.

He said laboratory tests indicate that this particular strain is Ebola Zaire, the same one as in Equateur Province. He added that more information will be forthcoming Tuesday when genetic sequencing results are known.

If confirmed, he said it will be possible to use the same vaccine that was used in Equateur. He told VOA that preparations are under way to deploy vaccines to the affected area next week.

The bad news, he cautioned, is that the Zaire strain carries the highest case fatality rate of any of the strains of Ebola — 50 percent or higher.

“The good news is that we do have, although it is still an investigational product, a safe and effective vaccine that we were able to deploy last time around,” he said. “But, remember last time around — and this is a critical point — we had really large-scale access despite all the logistical constraints to be able to do the contact tracing.”

Salama said security constraints will make moving around in North Kivu far more difficult. He said 3,000 doses of the vaccine that are in the capital, Kinshasa, can be deployed immediately and 300,000 additional doses can be mobilized at very short notice.

Ebola is a constant threat in the Democratic Republic of Congo as the virus thrives in heavily forested areas. The newest outbreak is the 10th since the first one was discovered in 1976.
…

U.S. firm Best Western Hotels & Resorts, the last Western hotel chain still in Crimea, has pulled out because of sanctions imposed after Russia

annexed the region from Ukraine, two hotel employees said.

“The Best Western Sevastopol Hotel,” a Soviet-era building on the quayside in the port of Sevastopol was one of the few visible signs of an international business presence left since the 2014 annexation. Other major brands, among them McDonald’s Corp and Radisson Hotels have already quit Crimea.

The hotel is still running but branding identifying it as a Best Western hotel has been removed from the building and is now identifying itself on booking sites under the name “Sevastopol Hotel and Spa.”

The ending of Best Western’s presence this year shows that, even four years after the sanctions were first imposed by the United States and the European Union, they are still forcing Western investors out of Crimea.

The sanctions bar U.S. companies from operating in Crimea and prohibit new investment in Crimea. They block business with a long list of Crimean individuals and entities and make it impossible for Western firms to move money through Crimean banks.

The general director of the hotel declined to comment. Best Western, which has its headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, declined to comment, and referred questions to the hotel’s owner or operator.

The majority owner of the hotel is a company called Sevastopol Investment Group Ltd, which is registered in the Seychelles, according to Russian tax service records. Reuters was unable to seek comment from the Seychelles firm because no contact details were listed for it.

Best Western does not own or operate hotels itself but has a franchising system under which hotel owners or operators can pay for the right to use the company’s brand, marketing and support services.

A member of the staff at the hotel told Reuters the franchise agreement with Best Western ended in October last year because of the sanctions.

“Now we’re just called the Sevastopol Hotel,” said the employee, who wished to remain anonymous. “We stopped paying for the franchise.”

A second employee also told Reuters that the agreement with Best Western ended because of the sanctions. It was not clear, from the employees’ accounts, whether the deal was ended by Best Western, or at the initiative of the hotel’s owners, and it was not clear which aspect of the sanctions led to the agreement ending.

Russia’s annexation of Crimea, still internationally recognized as part of Ukraine, prompted international condemnation and sanctions from the United States and European Union. Russia said it acted to protect Crimea’s Russian-speaking population, and that the majority of residents wanted the region to be part of Russia.

Since then, Crimea has seen an influx of Russian state investment. Pensions and public sector wages have gone up, and new infra-structure has been built. However, the private sector, which depends heavily on tourism, has suffered from the effects of the sanctions.
…

Russia is allowing thousands of fresh North Korean laborers into the country and granting new work permits in potential violation of U.N. sanctions, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

More than 10,000 new North Korean workers have registered in Russia since September, the paper said, citing records from the Russian Interior Ministry.

Russia’s action potentially violates U.N. sanctions to reduce cash flows to North Korea and put pressure on Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons, the Journal reported, citing U.S. officials.

Labor Ministry records obtained by the Journal showed that a minimum of 700 new work permits have been issued to North Koreans in Russia this year, the paper said.

U.N. officials are probing potential violations of the sanctions, which contain narrow exceptions, WSJ reported citing sources.

Russia’s foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours.

Russia ‘working against us’

“It’s absolutely clear that Russia needs to do more. Russia says it wants better relations with the United States, so Moscow should prove that by cooperating with us, not working against us, on this urgent threat to all nations,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson told Reuters.

“It is estimated that North Korean laborers in Russia send between $150-$300 million annually to Pyongyang. Now is the time for Russia to take action: Moscow should immediately and fully implement all the U.N. sanctions that it has signed on to,” the State Department spokesperson said.

The labor prohibition is a part of a broader array of sanctions that are aimed at eliminating an important revenue stream for Kim Jong Un’s regime. Most of the money North Koreans earn abroad ends up in government coffers as workers toil in gruelling conditions, the Journal reported.

Humanitarian need

U.N. Humanitarian Chief Mark Lowcock visited Pyongyang last month and posted a video online outlining his observations. 

“One of the things we’ve seen is very clear evidence of humanitarian need here,” he said in the video, posted to his official Twitter account and the U.N. website.
…

Kosovo’s president reiterated Thursday his idea of “a correction” of the border with Serbia, which is widely seen as essentially a territorial swap as part of a strategy to stabilize relations between both EU-aspirant nations.

“Kosovo’s border with Serbia needs to be redefined, or corrected,” President Hashim Thaci told VOA’s Albanian Service on Thursday, largely repeating comments he made online Wednesday.

Thaci was responding to an idea floated by some Serbian government officials that Kosovo, which has an ethnic Albanian majority but also a Serb minority, should be divided as a possible solution to settle a long-running dispute that is hindering both sides’ ambitions to join the European Union.

No divided Kosovo

Ostensibly dismissing the idea of a divided Kosovo along ethnic lines as unacceptable, Thaci instead proposed the concept of a “redefined” or “corrected” border with its Serbian neighbor to the north.

“It means that in the process of our future dialogue with Belgrade, we will work together with the international community to define the Kosovo-Serbia border,” he said. “I want to emphasize that Kosovo will not be divided; I want to forcefully stress it: Belgrade cannot bring to the table the division of Kosovo, a thing that they have asked for in the past.

“In the context of border correction, I met with the representatives of [Serbia’s] Presevo Valley, who want to have the right to join Kosovo,” he added. “I will officially present their request at the next round of talks with Belgrade.”

Thaci is to meet Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in Brussels after the summer break under an EU-sponsored dialogue that has made little progress in normalizing relations between Belgrade and Pristina since it was launched in 2013.

Experts and former diplomats have warned that rethinking borders in the Balkans would pose a risk to the stability in a region still struggling to come to terms with the wars of the 1990s, which tore apart Yugoslavia in Europe’s deadliest post-World War II conflict.

A partition described

Although Thaci told VOA his idea would not amount to a land swap, Daniel Serwer, director of conflict management at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), said what Thaci describes is nonetheless a partition, not a correction of borders.

“It’s a bad idea because it could be destabilizing for the Balkan region, [and it could] enhance political support for those inside Kosovo who oppose Kosovo statehood and want union with Albania,” Serwer, a former U.S. special envoy to the Balkans, told VOA.

“It could also hurt moderates in Serbia,” he added. “It would also have a bad impact more broadly than that, on Macedonia, on Bosnia and Herzegovina … and then you have Russian ambitions to control South Ossetia in Georgia and other territories, so it opens a Pandora(’s) box.”

It was earlier this week that some Serbian government officials informally broached the idea of a land swap based on geographic concentrations of ethnic Serb and Albanian minorities — Kosovo’s northern Mitrovica region for Serbia’s Presevo Valley — as a possible solution to the Kosovo issue.

“I did not talk about a land swap or division, I talked about correction of borders, and a solution can be reached if there is a will on both sides,” Thaci told VOA on Thursday. “Kosovo cannot join EU or NATO without an agreement with Serbia. Serbia, too, cannot join EU without the agreement with Kosovo.”

In 1999, NATO intervened to stop a bloody Serb crackdown on Albanian separatists in Kosovo. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008 and is recognized as a separate nation by more than 100 countries, but not by Serbia.

Tensions remain high after seven years of negotiations, even though the EU has made it clear to the governments in Pristina and Belgrade that they must normalize relations to advance toward membership in the bloc.

This story originated in VOA’s Albanian Service. Some information is from AP and Reuters.
…

Ankara is vowing to hit back against Washington’s sanctions on the Turkish justice and interior ministers in connection with the detention of American protestant pastor Andrew Brunson.

Turkey Vice President Fuat Oktay threatened retaliation in a tweet Thursday, “We will not hesitate for a split second to do what great nations must do under the leadership of our president.” 

However, in a written statement, Berat Albayrak, the powerful economics minister, indicated a less confrontational approach.

“Our priority is to ensure that this process is settled through diplomacy and constructive efforts that would be consistent with the relations between the two allied countries sharing a strong historical background,” Albayrak said.

Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul and Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu were hit by financial and diplomatic measures Wednesday, for what Washington called their role in the unjust detention of Brunson.

The American pastor is on trial on terrorism and espionage charges for links to followers of U.S.-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is blamed by Ankara for the 2016 failed coup and whom Turkey is seeking to extradite.

Last month, in a move widely seen as a gesture to Washington, Brunson was moved to house arrest after nearly two years in jail. But U.S. President Donald Trump is demanding Brunson’s return to America. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan insists Brunson’s detention is a matter for the courts.

Washington accuses Ankara of hostage-taking, claiming the pastor’s detention is part of efforts to extract concessions over several disputes between the countries.

WATCH: Crisis Over Detained Pastor Deepens

News of U.S. sanctions saw Turkish financial markets falling, with the lira hitting record lows amid fears Washington could target Turkey’s fragile economy.

The U.S. Treasury is considering a significant fine against the Turkish state-controlled Halkbank for violating U.S. sanctions against Iran. According to local and international reports, Ankara had pressed for a reduced penalty against Halkbank as part of a deal to release Brunson. Turkish officials have rejected the reports.

A fine is viewed as powerful leverage against Ankara. 

“Just float the news Halkbank is about to receive a major fine, the leak itself would cause such massive damage in Turkish markets,” political analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners said, “which would reverberate in inflation, corporate balance sheets, etc., etc. I think we would have to hoist the white flag.”

But Ankara’s robust stand against Washington is playing well domestically.

In a rare display of political unity, the main opposition parties, except for the pro-Kurdish HDP, joined Erdogan’s ruling AKP Party in issuing a joint statement condemning Washington’s sanctions as “unacceptable and incompatible neither with principles of friendship, alliance, NATO membership,” read the statement.

The leader of the main opposition CHP Party, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, demanded retaliation. 

“In line with the reciprocity, we are expecting similar actions to be taken against U.S. ministers,” said Kilicdaroglu.

“The anti-Americanism in the past decade has hit a record high among all the social classes, and from all the political parties from left to right,” former senior Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen said, “so there is no political bill to pay for the government to go against the United States.”

Despite such rhetoric and strong support for facing down Washington, analysts predict Ankara will likely have to step back. 

“Turkey has this unfortunate habit of political hostage taking. We’ve seen this before,” Yesilada said. “German national journalist Deniz Yucel comes to mind, who was jailed without charge for more than a year, to extract concessions from Germany. Germany did not relent. It put the word out, advising banks not to lend to Turkey. Within a few months, Yucel was in Frankfurt.”

But given the strong anti-American sentiment that reverberates among Erdogan’s electoral base, stepping back for the president is not predicted to be easy.

Diplomatic efforts are continuing between the NATO allies. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu reportedly spoke Wednesday with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The two men are expected to meet Friday on the sidelines of an ASEAN meeting in Singapore.

“For Brunson, I would prefer not to overplay my hand and send him back immediately,” Selcen said. “From then on, there will be new paths to explore to put relations back on track. But it won’t be easy. I think Erdogan is strong enough to package this and sell this to his supporters.”

Erdogan has refrained mainly from speaking on the controversy and avoided directly criticizing Trump since the announcement of sanctions. The few comments the Turkish president has made over Brunson’s detention have been mostly restrained. 

Analysts suggest Ankara is likely to be looking for a face-saving exit strategy before irreparable damage is done to both U.S.-Turkish relations and the economy.
…

Much of the Iberian Peninsula is experiencing the year’s first heatwave, with the mercury expected to soar before peaking at 47 degrees Celsius (116.6 Fahrenheit) in some areas of southern Portugal this weekend.

Authorities say temperatures are being driven higher Thursday by a hot air mass moving northward from Africa.

Forecasts are for a high of 44 degrees (111 Fahrenheit) in the Portuguese city of Evora, 130 kilometers east of Lisbon, and the Spanish province of Badajoz across the border.

Portuguese authorities have issued a nationwide health warning, while warnings have also been issued for 40 of Spain’s 50 provinces.

The Portuguese town of Beja is expected to record a peak of 47 degrees on Saturday.

Spain’s Meteorological Agency says thermometers are expected to begin dropping that day.
…

The Vatican said Thursday Pope Francis has asked the church to change its teachings to reflect his view that the death penalty should be inadmissible.

The new language in the Catechism of the Catholic Church says the death penalty was long considered an appropriate response to certain crimes in order to protect the public, but that now there is “an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes.”

The text says there are more effective detention systems that “do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.”

It further says the Catholic Church teaches the death penalty is an attack on a person’s dignity, and that the church “works with determination for its abolition worldwide.”
…

Imagine this – a fully autonomous 3D-printed mobile house that can survive any weather and is completely self-powered. This is not a technological dream – it’s the ambitious project of a Ukrainian company called PassivDom. It’s working on the prototype of a printed home in Reno, Nevada. VOA’s Iuliia Iarmolenko gives us a look inside the 3D-printed walls of the futuristic house.
…

Three Russian journalists were investigating Russian military contractors and mining industries in Central African Republic when they were killed there, their editor said Wednesday.

The reporters were ambushed and killed outside the town of Sibut late Monday, according to local and Russian officials. CAR officials said the three were kidnapped by about 10 men wearing turbans and speaking Arabic, but have yet to give further details.

Exiled Russian opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky said on Facebook Wednesday that the journalists were collaborating with his investigative media project on a story entitled “Russian Mercenaries.”

Andrei Konyakhin, the chief editor of Khodorkovsky’s Investigations Management Center, said the reporters were trying to shed light on a private Russian security company operating in CAR as well as on Russia’s interests in diamond, gold and uranium mining there.

He said the men — Kirill Radchenko, Alexander Rastorguyev and Orkhan Dzhemal — arrived in CAR on tourist visas to work undercover and were planning to stay there for two weeks.

Ruslan Leviev, who leads a group of investigative journalists in Russia called the Conflict Intelligence Team, said the security firm the dead journalists were investigating, known as Wagner, also has been active in Syria, eastern Ukraine and Sudan.

The company is linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, a St. Petersburg entrepreneur dubbed “Putin’s chef” for his close ties to the Kremlin.

Konyakhin said the journalists were traveling to northern CAR to speak with a United Nations representative and carrying several thousand dollars in cash and valuable equipment such as cameras when they were attacked.

The trio had been advised not to travel at night, but did so Monday, Konyakhin said. He also said the reporters were about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from their planned route when they were killed.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said CAR is a very dangerous place and the government has advised Russians not to travel there. But Konyakhin was skeptical the slayings were the result of a mere robbery. He said he thinks the attack could be linked to their investigation.

“This was done in a very demonstrative fashion,” he said, wondering why the attackers didn’t bother to cover their tracks and left the journalists’ driver alive. “If they could have just taken everything from them, why kill them?”

Khodorkovsky, a former oil tycoon and once Russia’s richest man, lives in London after spending 10 years in a Russian prison in a case widely seen as politically motivated. From exile, Khodorkovsky supports a number of civil society groups and media projects in Russia, where authorities continue to investigate him on a variety of charges.

Deeply impoverished Central African Republic has faced deadly interreligious and intercommunal fighting since 2013, with thousands of people killed and hundreds of thousands displaced. The nation saw a period of relative peace in late 2015 and 2016, but the violence intensified and spread in the past year.
…

European Union imports of U.S. soybeans were already rising substantially before a top EU official told President Donald Trump last week that the bloc would buy more.

EU Commission figures released Wednesday show that 37 percent of the bloc’s soybean imports last month were coming from the U.S., compared with 9 percent in July 2017.

Amid a looming trade war over tariffs, Trump and Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker agreed on July 25 to start talks intended to achieve “zero tariffs” and “zero subsidies” on non-automotive industrial goods.

The EU also agreed to buy more U.S. soybeans and build more terminals to import liquefied natural gas from the United States.

“The European Union can import more soybeans from the U.S. and this is happening as we speak,” Juncker said.

But a high level EU official said the increase in soybean purchases from the U.S. is due only to economics, as they are cheaper than imports from Brazil and Argentina. The official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said there was no political reason for the increase.

 
…

It is now legal to smoke marijuana in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, but there’s a caveat.

At 4:20 p.m. local time on Monday, July 30, the Georgian Constitutional Court legalized marijuana consumption while retaining laws against growing, storing and selling the drug.

In the historic ruling that subverted decades of harshly restrictive drug policies, Georgia’s increasingly liberal constitutional court declared smoking cannabis an act “guaranteed by the right of free self-development,” making it the first former Soviet republic to legalize recreational usage.

For years, the southern Caucasus nation of roughly 3.7 million was home to what many civil activists called a repressive regime of narco-politics, where even casual users faced up to 14 years in prison.

Longtime critics of Georgia’s hardline drug policies said that the laws were being exploited to justify heavy-handed policing tactics within the country’s thriving nightlife scene.

The court said punishing an individual for consuming cannabis would comply with the constitution only if consumption put a third party at risk. The decision was prompted by a lawsuit filed by activists of the libertarian Girchi party.

In a nation with proclaimed Euro-Atlantic aspirations but historically torn between Russia and the West, Girchi supporters called it a victory for liberal values.

“This wasn’t a fight for cannabis. This was a fight for freedom,” former lawmaker Zurab Japaridze said of the case, which was titled Zurab Japaridze and Vakhtang Megrelishvili VS. the Parliament of Georgia.

Japaridze is the 42-year-old Girchi party founder who once planted marijuana seeds in a televised New Year’s Eve event in 2016. Japaridze described the ruling as a “big victory” that was years in the making.

“It is a liberal understanding of the idea of freedom, when a person is free in his/her actions, given it does not pose a risk to others,” Japaridze told Voice of America’s Georgian service. “Nobody can send you to prison or fine you for smoking cannabis.”

Other advocates for liberalized drug policies, such as Akaki Zoidze, chair of Georgia’s parliamentary health care committee, said the ruling goes a step too far.

“Marijuana consumption should be allowed only for medical purposes,” he said at a press conference that followed the ruling. “Our aim was not to make marijuana accessible for everyone, but to reduce the number of drug addicts.”

Leaders of Georgia’s Orthodox Church roundly condemned the ruling as a “traitorous decision.”

“The four judges are making disastrous decisions ignoring the will of 4 million people,” said Archbishop Andria. “That court needs to be abolished.”

The Orthodox Church, which has favored far-right causes and marched against LGBTQ activists in the past, enjoys the highest favorability rating among public institutions, boasting a trustworthiness rating of 76 percent – roughly twice the approval rating of the president’s office and the police – according to a May 2018 poll commissioned by Transparency International Georgia.

That same survey, conducted by the Caucasus Research Resource Center, surveyed the attitudes on drug-related issues, finding that 72 percent of respondents said there should be no sentence for using light drugs. Fifty-six percent of respondents said they felt the same way about club drugs such as ecstasy, while 43 percent thought intravenous drug users should not be imprisoned for shooting up.

Forty-five percent of respondents agreed that law enforcement agencies employed the method of planting drugs for detaining targeted individuals.

A lengthy civic discourse

Georgia’s discussion on drug policy liberalization has spanned years, with a draft law including development of rehabilitation programs for drug abusers introduced in parliament just last year.

According to the analysis of drug-related criminal statistics conducted by the Tbilisi-based Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI), the “Practice and declared goals do not match.”

Although principal goals of the national strategy for battling drug abuse do not envisage punishing drug users, the report said statistical data indicates drug users were being harshly punished anyway.

“While tens of thousands of people were fined for drug use, according to the statistics provided by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in 2016 only 10 people were arrested for distributing drugs, and only 36 people – in 2017,” says the IDFI report. “Such a vast difference in numbers of people arrested for drug use and drug distribution raises questions regarding the priorities of the drug policy of the country.”

Japaridze, who has campaigned for the easing of drug laws, says the court decision is a turning point, not the final destination.

“From the libertarian standpoint, we think the same rule shall apply to other drugs, we believe it shall be up to an individual to decide what to consume,” he said. “Even if that action is harmful for his own health, the decision is a person’s and shall not belong to a policeman.”

Some say Japaridze’s efforts mask other political intentions, pointing out that he was among the first to announce his run for Georgia’s last directly-elected presidential office.

However, his advocacy for broader drug liberalization and anti-mandatory military service campaigns tend to elicit him more “cursing than popularity,” he said.

His constituency of predominantly 18-29-year-old citizens, who comprise about 20 percent of Georgia’s electorate, are typically inactive voters.

Given Georgia’s geographic location, where even recreational drug users are socially stigmatized, Japaridze says marijuana legalization can be a game-changer.

“We did an analysis comparing [the U.S. state of] Colorado and Georgia. Having calculated the economic impact of legalization, we anticipate it can create approximately a $4 billion economy, with 7-8 percent of annual growth,” Japaridze told VOA in 2017.

In May, thousands rallied for several days in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, to protest allegedly heavy-handed police raids in two popular nightclubs where eight suspected drug dealers were arrested.

(This story originated in VOA’s Georgian Service)

 
…

The U.S. Treasury Department said on Tuesday that it had extended the deadline for investors to divest holdings in sanctioned Russian companies EN+, GAZ Group and Rusal to Oct. 23 from Aug. 5.

The U.S. Treasury in April imposed sanctions against billionaire Oleg Deripaska and eight companies in which he is a large shareholder, including aluminum exporter Rusal, in response to what it termed “malign activities” by Russia.

Deripaska has held a controlling interest in En+, which in turn controls Rusal, the world’s largest aluminum producer outside of China. Automaker GAZ is also part of his business empire.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said last week that the United States was in productive talks with Rusal to remove it from Washington’s sanctions list.

The company has taken a number of steps, including revamping its board, in the hope of escaping the U.S. blacklist.
…

A change in who gets to use the Eiffel Tower’s elevators has stranded frustrated tourists in long queues at the Paris landmark during a heat wave in the French capital.

Management of the 324-meter (1,063-foot) tower decided this month to dedicate one elevator for those who book tickets in advance and leave only one for those who turn up on the day, rather than both as before.

Sightseers who arrive without tickets have had to join queues that snake all the way around the base of the monument.

Some said they had waited for up to three hours, annoyed that few people were lining up for the other elevator.

Temperatures in the city have hit 38 degrees Celsius (100 Fahrenheit), leaving sweltering adults and children desperate for bottled water in the queue.

“It’s too long!” said Burty Surette, 37, an electrician visiting from Mauritius. “I was expecting the wait to be long but not this long. There should be two elevators for people arriving without tickets. With the number of people that are coming to visit, one is not sufficient.”

Pat Murphy, a 66-year-old retired automotive worker from Ohio, disliked the idea of having to book three months in advance for a particular day.

“You don’t know if it’s going to rain,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the Eiffel Tower played down suggestions the new system had caused extra queues, saying there always are large numbers of visitors to the monument, particularly in summer.

Workers at the tower have threatened to strike over what they call the “monstrous” new system. Negotiations are under way between the tower’s management and the CGT union, with a decision expected Wednesday.

“I can understand the workers saying this is insane — people are getting mad … so I’d join them on strike,” Murphy said.

More than 40 million tourists visited Paris last year, the highest on record, with over 6 million going up the Eiffel Tower, the most popular site in the city.
…