U.S. tech companies would be forced to disclose if they allowed American adversaries, like Russia and China, to examine the inner workings of software sold to the U.S. military under proposed legislation, Senate staff told Reuters on Thursday.

The bill, approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, comes after a year-long Reuters investigation found software makers allowed a Russian defense agency to hunt for vulnerabilities in software that was already deeply embedded in some of the most sensitive parts of the U.S. government, including the Pentagon, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and intelligence agencies.

Security experts say allowing Russian authorities to conduct the reviews of internal software instructions — known as source code — could help Russia find vulnerabilities and more easily attack key systems that protect the United States. 

The new source code disclosure rules were included in Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act, the Pentagon’s spending bill, according to staffers of Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen.

​Details of bill, which passed the committee 25-2, are not yet public. And the legislation still needs to be voted on by the full Senate and reconciled with a House version of the legislation before it can be signed into law by President Donald Trump.

If passed into law, the legislation would require companies that do business with the U.S. military to disclose any source code review of the software done by adversaries, staffers for Shaheen told Reuters. If the Pentagon deems a source code review a risk, military officials and the software company would need to agree on how to contain the threat. It could, for example, involve limiting the software’s use to non-classified settings.

The details of the foreign source code reviews, and any steps the company agreed to take to reduce the risks, would be stored in a database accessible to military officials, Shaheen’s staffers said. For most products, the military notification will only apply to countries determined to be cybersecurity threats, such as Russia and China.

Shaheen has been a key voice on cybersecurity in Congress. The New Hampshire senator last year led successful efforts in Congress to ban all government use of software provided by Moscow-based antivirus firm Kaspersky Lab, amid allegations the company is linked to Russian intelligence. Kaspersky denies such links.

In order to sell in the Russian market, tech companies including Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co, SAP and McAfee have allowed a Russian defense agency to scour software source code for vulnerabilities, Reuters found. In many cases, Reuters found that the software companies had not previously informed U.S. agencies that Russian authorities had been allowed to conduct the source code reviews. In most cases, the U.S. military does not require comparable source code reviews before it buys software, procurement experts have told Reuters. 

The companies have said the source code reviews were conducted by the Russians in company-controlled facilities, where the reviewer could not copy or alter the software. McAfee announced last year that it no longer allows government source code reviews. Hewlett Packard Enterprise has said none of its current software offerings have gone through the process.
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French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday said he would travel to Russia for the soccer World Cup if France reach the semifinals, turning a deaf ear to calls from human rights groups to boycott the tournament.

Human rights groups calling for the boycott over Russia’s involvement in Syria’s civil war met with Macron’s advisers earlier this week, saying it would send a strong symbolic message if the 40-year-old leader did not attend the World Cup.

“If the French team passes beyond the quarterfinals I will come and support,” Macron said during a joint news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Macron has banked on nurturing relationships with awkward leaders such as Putin, appearing engaged on the world stage but remaining non-committal and trying to mediate among opposing sides without unsettling anyone.

France have been drawn to face Australia, Denmark and Peru in Group C at the World Cup, which runs from June 14 to July 15. The top two in the group will progress to the round of 16. 
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Authorities in Spain say police are raiding several public and private offices across Catalonia in an operation against the alleged misappropriation of public development aid money.

Investigating magistrate Joaquin Aguirre in Barcelona ordered Thursday’s raid as part of a probe into at least 2 million euros (US$2.3 million) in development grants from the local government that were allegedly misused in an unspecified manner.

It said the investigation, which is also looking into possible abuse of power and fraud charges, has been going on for more than a year and remains sealed.

Private news agency Europa Press reported that 22 people had been arrested. Spanish police confirmed the raids but said the number of people arrested couldn’t be confirmed until the operation is closed.

 
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The Kremlin says it doubts that Yulia Skripal has issued a statement of her own free will after her recovery from poisoning that Britain blames on Russia.

Skripal, who was poisoned along with her ex-spy father in a nerve agent attack, said Wednesday her recovery has been “slow and painful” and that she doesn’t need assistance offered by the Russian Embassy.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Thursday the Kremlin doesn’t know whether Skripal made her statement under pressure or independently, where she is or if her rights have been respected by British authorities.

Russia has vehemently denied any involvement in the March 4 poisoning and blamed Britain for staging it. Peskov described the Skripals’ poisoning as an “unprecedented international provocation.”

　
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An abortion debate that has inflamed passions in Ireland for decades will come down to a single question on Friday: yes or no?

The referendum on whether to repeal the country’s strict anti-abortion law is being seen by anti-abortion activists as a last-ditch stand against what they view as a European norm of abortion-on-demand, while for pro-abortion rights advocates, it is a fundamental moment for declaring an Irish woman’s right to choose. couple

If the “yes” side prevails and the constitutional ban on abortions is repealed, the government plans to introduce legislation that would allow abortion within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and later in specific cases when the woman is at grave risk or the fetus is likely to die in the womb or shortly after birth. Parliament would then debate this plan.

Opinion surveys suggest a continuing change of attitudes in Ireland, a traditionally Roman Catholic country that surprised many by voting in favor of same-sex marriage in 2015. Both sides generally agree that the frenzied campaign ahead of Friday’s vote has not produced the dramatic shift in public opinion that anti-abortion campaigners were hoping for.

Still, David Quinn of the socially conservative Iona Institute says the “no” forces opposed to abortion rights still have “a fighting chance,” and recalled other recent political upsets.

“Remember: Brexit wasn’t supposed to pass, and Donald Trump wasn’t supposed to get elected,” he said.

Activists from both sides have put up thousands of emotional signs pleading their case and there were small demonstrations in Dublin on Wednesday as the vote neared.

Friday’s poll will be the fourth time in as many decades that Irish voters have been asked to decide on the issue of abortion.

But this time the debate has been roiled by two factors that voters have not faced before: The extraordinary power of social media and the increased availability through telemedicine websites of new drugs that allow women to make profound decisions over whether to end a pregnancy in the privacy of their homes.

Facebook and Google have both taken steps to restrict or remove ads relating to the referendum in a move designed to address global concerns about social media’s role in influencing political campaigns, from the U.S. presidential race to Brexit.

At the heart of this vote is whether or not to reverse a far-reaching 1983 referendum that inserted an amendment into Ireland’s constitution that committed authorities to equally defend the right to life of a mother and that of a fetus from the moment of conception.

The issue has been revisited repeatedly after heartrending “hard cases” that, abortion rights activists say, exposed vulnerable women to miserable choices — and even, at times, death.

Abortion is legal in Ireland only in rare cases when the woman’s life is in danger, and several thousand Irish women travel each year to terminate pregnancies in neighboring Britain. That number has fallen dramatically in recent years as women turned to online websites to illegally import drugs that end pregnancies.

The Irish Times said in its editorial Thursday that the constitutional abortion ban must be repealed because it has left doctors confused as to what is legal, and led women to travel abroad “in secrecy and shame” for abortions.

It cited as the type of  “grotesque spectacle” the ban has caused the case of a 14-year-old who became pregnant and suicidal after being raped. She had to go to the Supreme Court after the government blocked her from traveling to get an abortion.

Pro-abortion rights activists have sought to focus public attention on the difficult cases, including the fate of Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old Indian dentist who had sought and been denied an abortion before she died after a miscarriage in a Galway hospital on Ireland’s west coast in 2012. The man who led the Irish health service’s inquiry into her death has called for the constitutional ban on abortion to be repealed.

In an effort to neutralize the “hard cases” argument, some prominent anti-abortion campaigners have lately shifted their stance, even suggesting that new laws could be enacted to permit abortions in certain limited cases.

But that compromise was dismissed by Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, a medical doctor who favors repealing the constitutional ban. He said it is the country’s “hard laws that create hard cases.”

Friday’s referendum has placed the abortion debate on center stage, with many on Dublin’s crowded city streets wearing buttons or T-shirts that align them with the “yes” or “no” side.

Jessie Carton was walking down O’Connell Street last week in a “Repeal the Eighth”‘ T-shirt, a reference to the amendment behind the constitutional ban. The 17-year-old is too young to vote — but she would vote “yes” if she could.

“My auntie was forced to maintain her pregnancy, even though they told her the baby would die,” Carton said, adding that she would vote to repeal “so other women don’t have to go through what she did.”

An elderly Dublin man, John Byrne, wore a “no” button on his lapel.

“I believe in life. I believe God is the giver of life,” the 78-year-old said, adding that he credits God with helping him overcome alcohol addiction.

“I drank, and I remember sleeping in the bushes in Merrion Square. God bailed me out. … It’s high time I did something for him,” he said. “We’ve gone too liberal in Ireland altogether, and we would be better off if we respected our Christian values.”

The “no” forces are fearful that the urban vote in cosmopolitan Dublin could overwhelm their bid to keep the constitutional ban in force.

Quinn, the “no” backer from Iona Institute, says that if turnout is high in Dublin, the “yes” side is likely to triumph. A high rural turnout would keep the ban in place, he predicted.

Even if “yes” prevails, there will not be an immediate change in abortion rules. It will be up to parliament to enact a new law — a debate widely expected to be fractious.

　
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French President Emmanuel Macron heads to St. Petersburg Thursday for talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, whose support is key on matters ranging from salvaging the Iran nuclear deal to securing steady European gas supplies.

Business also is high on the agenda of Macron’s two-day visit, which coincides with a key economic forum in St. Petersburg.

Some observers say Macron’s trip comes within a broader context of thawing European relations with Russia, as seen in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to Sochi last week, and deepening differences with Washington.

But as he pursues a policy of engagement with Putin — like he did with U.S. President Donald Trump — France’s 40-year-old leader has said repeatedly he is not naive.

“I do believe we should never be weak with President Putin,” he told Fox News in an April interview. “When you are weak, he uses it.”

Still, a number of analysts doubt Macron will make much headway during his Russia visit. Some say the growing divide between the European Union and Washington will weaken his hand with the Russian leader during discussions that also are expected to include Ukraine and Syria.

Even boosting trade ties with Russia first demands “overcoming political obstacles, and they are numerous,” wrote economic journalist Jean-Marc Sylvestre in Atlantico.

“I think the Russians will do whatever they can to use Macron’s visit to their advantage, to their propaganda ends, and try to break the Atlantic alliance,” said political history professor Anton Koslov of the American Graduate School in Paris, referring to broader EU-US ties.

Tense Russia-EU landscape

Macron’s trip comes a year after hosting Putin at Versailles palace, shortly after his election, which was marred by claims of Russian interference. Since then, EU relations with Moscow, already tense over Ukraine and Crimea’s annexation, have sunk even lower.

In March, France joined the U.S. and nearly two dozen EU countries in expelling Russian diplomats in response to a nerve attack in Britain on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter. Even so, Macron kept his Russia visit on his agenda. Both Skripals have since left the hospital and are at an undisclosed location.

On Syria, the EU and Russia remain far apart. While Russia supports the Syrian regime, Macron joined Washington and Britain last month in striking Syrian military targets. The action followed a suspected chemical weapons attack, which Paris said it had “proof” took place.

The EU and Russia also remain key rivals closer to home, notably in the Balkans, where the Europeans worry about growing Russian influence. Yet the EU is divided over ramping up membership talks with six Balkan nations, promising only closer ties for now during an EU-Balkans summit last week in Bulgaria.

And while Russia is a close ally of Iran, France and other EU members separate their backing for the nuclear deal from their many differences with Tehran.

Washington’s pullout of the Iran agreement, however, is scrambling the diplomatic landscape. The Europeans will need Russian and Chinese support as they race to save the agreement.

Still, Koslov, of the American Graduate School, is skeptical Macron will make headway with Putin. “I don’t think he’ll be able to secure anything on Iran,” he said.

Business ties

In an interview earlier this month with France’s Journal du Dimanche newspaper, Macron described establishing a ‘strategic dialogue” with Putin and strengthening “Russian ties to Europe and not leaving Russia to fold in on itself.” The spread of Russian media propaganda in France, which Macron denounced last year, has lessened, he said.

Those ties also appear to include business deals. Bilateral trade has picked up since the EU first imposed sanctions in 2014, and the French business leaders accompanying Macron to St. Petersburg include the heads of energy company Total, food giant Danone, and Societe Generale bank.

Today, France is Europe’s second largest investor in Russia after Germany, and bilateral trade reached a reported $15.5 billion in 2017— up from $13.3 billion the year before.

Paris is not alone in its business overtures. Earlier this week, the EU’s energy chief Maros Sefcovic said he had reached out to Ukraine and Russia to resume stalled gas talks that also would help secure European access to Russian gas beyond 2019.

And after her own talks with Putin in Russia last week, Germany’s Merkel said despite their differences, the two sides need to “come closer to discuss the facts.”

“Merkel wanted to let Washington know that Germany does not wholly depend on the U.S. for international issues,” Josef Janning, Berlin office head for the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), told Britain’s Independent newspaper.

Still, a recent ECFR study finds EU nations still consider Russian actions destabilizing — or potentially so — both at home and abroad, and the bloc is broadly united in pushing back, including by maintaining sanctions.

“By trying to exploit Europe’s domestic divides and weaknesses,” wrote author Kadri Liik, “Russia has created urgent incentives to address them.”
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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov plans to visit North Korea, Russian news agencies quoted a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman as saying on Wednesday.

Dates for the trip have yet to be agreed, she said. Earlier, the RBC news portal wrote that Lavrov would travel to North Korea on May 31.

That would mean him visiting before a proposed summit in Singapore between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

On Tuesday, Trump cast doubt on plans for that meeting, which has been scheduled for June 12.

Russia is considered an ally of North Korea, but has supported United Nations sanctions against it over Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

Lavrov accepted an invitation to visit North Korea last month.

 
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A Moscow court sentenced Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s spokeswoman to 25 days in jail on Wednesday for her role in organizing nationwide protests against President Vladimir Putin earlier this month.

Around 1,600 anti-Kremlin activists were detained on May 5 during protests held ahead of Putin’s inauguration for a fourth term as president.

Police detained Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s spokeswoman, on Tuesday, accusing her of organizing an unauthorized rally.

“Twenty five days is nonsense when you know you’re right and you have the support of so many people,” Yarmysh wrote on social media after being sentenced on Wednesday.

Navalny, who was detained at the protest, is currently serving a 30 day sentence for organizing the rally. On Wednesday, he appealed against the ruling, but a court in Moscow upheld the sentence.
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The United States on Tuesday gave American customers of Russia’s biggest van manufacturer GAZ more time to comply with sanctions, further backing away from its initially uncompromising stance on GAZ’s owner, Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska.

The United States slapped sanctions on Deripaska and his companies — including GAZ — and some other Russian tycoons in April, in response to Moscow’s alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections and what Washington called other “malign activities.”

Sources familiar with the matter told Reuters previously that sanctions on GAZ could affect its contracts with German carmakers Volkswagen and Daimler, as well as with U.S. firm Cummins Inc.

The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday gave Americans until Oct. 23 instead of June 5 to wind down operations and contracts with GAZ and said it would consider lifting the sanctions if Deripaska ceded control of the company.

GAZ declined to comment. The company competes with firms including a joint venture between Ford Motor Co and its Russian partner Sollers.

The same extension was previously given and the same mechanism for potential lifting of sanctions was described by the United States for Deripaska’s main asset, the world’s second-biggest aluminum producer Rusal.

The move was preceded by a lobbying campaign from Europe as the sanctions against Rusal caused a turmoil in the aluminum market.

Deripaska has already said he agreed in principal to reduce his influence in another company which controls Rusal.
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Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg apologized to EU lawmakers on Tuesday, saying the company had not done enough to prevent misuse of the social network and that regulation is “important and inevitable.”

Meeting the leaders of the European Parliament, Zuckerberg stressed the importance of Europeans to Facebook and said he was sorry for not doing enough to prevent abuse of the platform.

“We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility. That was a mistake and I am sorry for it,” Zuckerberg said in his opening remarks.

In response to questions about whether Facebook ought to be broken up, Zuckerberg said the question was not whether there should be regulation but what kind of regulation there should be.

“Some sort of regulation is important and inevitable,” he said.

He declined to answer when leading lawmakers asked him again as the session concluded whether there was any cross use of data between Facebook and subsidiaries like WhatsApp or on whether he would give an undertaking to let users block targeting adverts.

Facebook has been embroiled in a data scandal after it emerged that the personal data of 87 million users were improperly accessed by a political consultancy.
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Japan, Russia and Turkey have warned the United States about potential retaliation for its tariffs on steel and aluminium, the World Trade Organization said on Tuesday, bringing the total U.S. tariff bill to around $3.5 billion annually.

The three countries detailed their compensation claims in notifications to the world trade body, following similar moves by the European Union, India and China. Each showed how much the disputed U.S. tariffs would add to the cost of steel and aluminium exports to the United States, based on 2017 trade.

Russia said the U.S. tariffs, which President Donald Trump imposed in March, would add duties of $538 million to its annual steel and aluminium exports. Japan put the sum at $440 million. Turkey added a further $267 million.

China, the 28-nation EU and India have put their claims at $612 million, $1.6 billion and $165 million respectively.

They all reject the U.S. view that the import tariffs – 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminium — are justified by U.S. national security concerns and are therefore exempt from the WTO rules.

They say the U.S. tariffs have all the hallmarks of “safeguards”, a trade restriction that can be legitimately used to protect a struggling industry from an unforeseen surge in imports.

A country using safeguards must compensate other WTO members who stand to lose out from the restriction on their trade, normally by rebalancing their trading relationship with a net increase in imports of other goods.

But the United States denies its tariffs are safeguards and has offered no compensation, prompting the retaliatory action.

The compensation would normally take years, but because the U.S. steel and aluminium sectors were not facing an absolute increase in imports, the WTO rules permitted retaliation in just 30 days’ time, they said.

Japan said it was free to impose at least $264 million of its retaliation after 30 days, suggesting that the rest might be delayed, since some of the U.S. products covered by the tariffs were subject to an absolute increase in imports from Japan.

Neither Russia nor Japan specified how they might retaliate against U.S. exports, but Turkey listed 22 U.S. goods that it was planning to target, ranging from nuts, rice and tobacco to cars and steel products.
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A gay Chilean man who survived abuse by a Catholic priest said Pope Francis told him that his sexual orientation “doesn’t matter” to him and that “God made you like this.”

Juan Carlos Cruz said he spoke to the pope about his homosexuality during their recent meetings at the Vatican. The pope invited Cruz and other victims of a Chilean predator priest to discuss their cases last month.

“Juan Carlos, that you are gay doesn’t matter,” Cruz said Pope Francis told him, according to the Spanish newspaper El Pais. “God made you like this and loves you like this, and it doesn’t matter to me. The pope loves you like this. You have to be happy with who you are.”

The Vatican has refused to confirm or deny the remarks, citing its policy not to comment on the pope’s private conversations.

Cruz, who was abused as a child by the Rev. Fernando Karadima, Chile’s most notorious pedophile priest, told the paper that his sexual orientation came up during the discussion because he has been targeted for being gay after speaking out about his abuse.

Whether the pope’s comments will bring about change within the Catholic Church is debatable. Pope Francis has sought to make the church more welcoming to gays, most famously with his 2013 comment, “Who am I to judge?”

He also has spoken of his own ministry to gay and transgender people, insisting they are children of God, loved by God and deserving of accompaniment by the church.

While the Catechism of the Catholic Church states that people with “homosexual tendencies” “must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity,” it also calls a “deep-seated” homosexual inclination and its acts “intrinsically disordered” and “contrary to the natural law.”
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday accused countries with nuclear weapons of “threatening the world,” and criticized the United States’ withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

“Those who have more than 15,000 nuclear warheads are currently threatening the world,” he said, referring to the approximate total number of warheads worldwide, most of which are held by the United States and Russia.

Apparently referring to such states as Iran, he added: “Why are countries with nuclear warheads posing a threat to them?”

“If we are to be fair, to show a just approach, then the countries with nuclear weapons, which portray nuclear power stations as threats, have no credibility in the international community,” he said at an iftar dinner for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Erdogan said the Middle East had to be cleansed of all nuclear weapons, in an apparent reference to Israel, believed to be the only nation in the region to possess them.

U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States 10 days ago from the deal between Tehran and six major powers which limited Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. Trump ordered that sanctions be reimposed.

Earlier on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demanded Iran take additional steps such as pulling out of the Syrian civil war. Iran dismissed Washington’s ultimatum and a senior Iranian official said it showed the United States was seeking “regime change” in Iran.

The U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal comes as relations between NATO member Turkey and Washington have soured over a host of issues, ranging from U.S. policy in Syria to Trump’s decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. France, Germany and Britain have said they will try to save the nuclear deal with Tehran.

“As Turkey, we do not accept re-igniting issues, including the Iran nuclear deal, that have been put to bed. We find the other signatories stating their loyalty to the agreement in the face of the U.S. administration’s decision very positive,” Erdogan said.
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Survivors of a devastating high-rise fire in London wept Monday as relatives paid tribute to some of the 72 victims at the opening of an inquiry into Britain’s deadliest blaze in decades.

The Grenfell Tower inquiry is beginning with two weeks of tributes to those who died when a fire that began in a faulty fridge raced through the 24-story apartment block in June 2017. The statements from friends and family members are meant to keep the victims at the center of the inquiry, which will try to determine how the disaster happened and prevent a similar tragedy happening in the future.

“When we die, we live on in the memories of those who knew and loved us,” said retired judge Martin Moore-Bick, who is leading the inquiry. “It is fitting therefore that the opening hearings … should be dedicated to the memory of those who died.”

The victims included baby Logan Gomes, who was stillborn after his family escaped from the 21st floor of the building.

“He might not be here physically, but he will always be here in our hearts, and will be forever,” said his father Marcio Gomes, his voice breaking. “I know he’s here, with God, right next to me, giving me strength and courage to take this forward.”

The inquiry heard a message left by Mohamed Amied Neda from inside his apartment.

“Goodbye, we are leaving this world now, goodbye,” said the 57-year-old, who came to Britain from Afghanistan and ran a chauffeur company. He was found dead after falling from the building. His wife and son were left comatose but survived.

Mohammadou Saye remembered his 24-year-old daughter Khadija Saye, a promising visual artist whose work was shown at last year’s Venice Biennale.

“Her burning passion was photography, encouraged by her mother, Mary Mendy, who also lost her life in the same fire,” he said in a statement read by a lawyer.

“Khadija said to me one day: `Daddy, I’m in love with images.”

Moore-Bick’s inquiry will look at causes of the blaze, the response of local authorities and the country’s high-rise building regulations. But some survivors are critical because it won’t investigate wider issues around social housing that many residents had wanted to include.

Many residents accuse officials in Kensington and Chelsea, one of London’s richest boroughs, of ignoring their safety concerns because the publicly owned tower was home to a largely immigrant and working-class population.

Police say they are considering individual or corporate manslaughter charges in the blaze, but no one has yet been charged.
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A European Parliament meeting on Tuesday with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be broadcast live, parliamentary officials and the company said on Monday after controversy over plans for a closed-door hearing.

Parliament President Antonio Tajani, who was criticized by legislators and some senior EU officials over arrangements for the discussion on public privacy concerns, tweeted that it was “great news” that Zuckerberg had agreed to a live web stream.

A Facebook spokeswoman said: “We’re looking forward to the meeting and happy for it to be live streamed.”

Zuckerberg, who founded the U.S. social media giant, will be in Europe to defend the company after scandal over its sale of personal data to a British political consultancy which worked on U.S. President Donald Trump’s election campaign, among others.

He will meet Tajani and leaders of parties in the European Parliament in Brussels from 6:15 p.m. (1615 GMT) on Tuesday.

He is also due to meet French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday.
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Catalonia’s newly-elected president is showing no sign of backing down from the region’s political standoff with Spanish authorities, insisting he wants jailed former lawmakers to join his pro-independence Catalan government.

Quim Torra says Jordi Turull and Josep Rull, prominent secessionists who are in pre-trial detention, are keen to become government ministers and have asked a judge to release them. Torra visited them at their jails near Madrid on Monday.

But Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy says he won’t grant Catalonia independence and won’t allow anyone under criminal investigation to take office there.

Torra also wants Antoni Comin and Luis Puig, separatists who fled to Belgium, in his Cabinet.

Torra’s four picks were members of a Catalonia government dismissed by Rajoy following October’s illegal declaration of independence by regional lawmakers.

 
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Many wondered why Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich wasn’t in the stands to see his Chelsea soccer club win England’s FA Cup this weekend, and an associate confirmed Monday that his British visa hasn’t been renewed.

An associate of Abramovich, who spoke only on condition that he not be identified further because he was not authorized to comment publicly, told The Associated Press that Abramovich’s visa renewal application is taking longer than usual, saying it is unclear why.

Britain recently pledged to review long-term visas of rich Russians in the aftermath of the poisoning of a Russian former spy and his daughter.

Abramovich’s visa troubles were first reported Sunday by the Russian media outlet The Bell. It quoted two unnamed sources as saying his British visa expired last month.

 
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Facebook and European Union officials were locked in high-stakes negotiations Sunday over whether founder Mark Zuckerberg will appear Tuesday before EU lawmakers to discuss the site’s impact on the privacy rights of hundreds of millions of Europeans, as well as Facebook’s impact on elections on both sides of the Atlantic and the spreading of fake news.

Being debated is whether the meeting would be held after EU Parliament President Antonio Tajanibe agreed to have it live-streamed on the internet and not held behind closed-doors, as previously agreed.

The leaders of all eight political blocs in the parliament have insisted the format be changed.

Lawmakers say it would be deeply damaging for Zuckerberg, if he pulls out simply because they want him to hold what they say is the equivalent of a “Facebook Live.”

Claude Moraes, chairman of the EU parliament’s Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs panel, warned Zuckerberg will have to go into greater detail than he did in his testimony before U.S. Senate and Congressional panels last month on the “issues of algorithmic targeting, and political manipulation” and on Facebook’s relationship with Cambridge Analytica.

Facebook shared with the British firm the data of millions of Americans and Europeans, which was subsequently used for election campaigning purposes. Facebook did not return calls from VOA asking about whether Zuckerberg’s meeting with EU lawmakers would still go ahead.

“EU governments are absolutely aware that every election now is tainted. We want to get to the heart of this,” said Moraes. EU lawmakers say Zuckerberg’s appearance is all the more important as he has declined to appear before national European parliaments, including Britain’s House of Commons.

Terrorist connections

Zuckerberg is likely also to be pressed on why Facebook is still being used by extremists to connect with each other and to recruit. Much of the focus in recent weeks on Facebook has been about general issues over its management of users’ data, but analysts are warning the social-media site is enabling a deadly form of social networking and isn’t doing enough to disrupt it.

“Facebook’s data management practices have potentially served the networking purposes of terrorists,” said the Counter Extremism Project, nonprofit research group, in a statement.

“CEP’s findings regularly debunk Facebook’s claims of content moderation. This week, a video made by the pro-ISIS al-Taqwa media group was found that includes news footage from attacks in the West and calls for further violence, encouraging the viewer to attack civilians and ‘kill them by any means or method,” according to CEP

CEP researchers say Facebook’s “suggested friends” feature helps extremists connect to each other and is “enabling a deadly form of social networking.” “Worldwide, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, there has been a spike of militant activity on social media channels … Encrypted messaging apps like Facebook-owned WhatsApp are well known mechanisms used by terrorists to communicate, plot and plan attacks, a practice that is tragically continuing,” CEP says.

New rules

Aside from the EU parliament, Zuckerberg has agreed to be interviewed onstage Thursday at a major tech conference in Paris, and is scheduled to have lunch with French president Emmanuel Macron during the week.

His visit comes as the British government is threatening social-media companies with a tax to pay for efforts to counter online crime. According to Britain’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper, British ministers have instructed officials to carry out research into a new “social media levy” on internet companies.

Culture Minister Matt Hancock indicated Sunday the British government is beginning to move away from allowing the internet companies to regulate themselves and is ready to impose requirements on them, which if approved by parliament will make Britain the “safest place in the world” to be online.

A new code of practice aimed at confronting social-media bullying and to clear the internet of intimidating or humiliating online content could be included in the legislation, say officials. Other measures being considered include rules that have to be followed by traditional broadcasters that prevent certain ads being targeted at children. Hancock said work with social-media companies to protect users had made progress, but the performance of the industry overall has been mixed, he added.

Hancock said, “Digital technology is overwhelmingly a force for good across the world and we must always champion innovation and change for the better.”

 
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Meghan Markle picked a sleek sculpted dress by the British designer of couture house Givenchy for her wedding to Prince Harry on Saturday, worn with a five-meter long veil and a sparkling diamond tiara lent by Queen Elizabeth.

The pure white long-sleeved gown with a boat neck had been eagerly anticipated by royal fans around the world, with speculation over which designer would be chosen starting soon after the couple announced their engagement in November.

As the bride stepped out of her classic Rolls-Royce, Kensington Palace announced that Clare Waight Keller, who became the first female artistic director at famed French house Givenchy last year, had secured the coveted role of making the dress.

Focus on neckline

The 47-year-old, previously at Pringle of Scotland and Chloe, met Markle earlier this year and the two worked together on the design, which “epitomizes a timeless minimal elegance,” Kensington Palace said.

“The focus of the dress is the graphic open bateau neckline that gracefully frames the shoulders and emphasizes the slender sculpted waist,” the palace said in a statement.

“The lines of the dress extend towards the back where the train flows in soft round folds cushioned by an underskirt in triple silk organza. The slim three-quarter sleeves add a note of refined modernity.”

The double bonded gown made of cady silk with a sweeping train was simple in style, which won praise from fashionistas.

Reaction

Edward Enninful, the editor of British Vogue, called the dress “beautiful” while bridal designer Raishma said the gown was “an example of couture design at its most classic and timeless.”

On social media, fans mainly showered the bride, who wore her hair up, with compliments, some even posting an image of Cinderella. Outside the wedding venue in Windsor, well-wishers were divided over its simplicity.

“It was simple and elegant,” 23-year-old Emily Devaney from New Zealand said. “It’s probably hard to dress for a royal wedding — you probably don’t have much you can go with but I thought she looked beautiful.”

Nursing student Linda O’Dwyer said it was “very modern and classy” and she preferred it to the lace-embroidered gown Kate Middleton wore at her 2011 wedding to Prince William.

“It was like (Megan) didn’t want it to be too over the top with lots of embroidery. It really suited her style,” she said.

However spectator Jennifer Hill, 69, described it as “very plain.” “I’m not surprised but slightly disappointed,” she said. “I thought it might be a little more flamboyant but it was very simplistic. I prefer her hair down.”

​Commonwealth tribute

The well-kept secret over who would design the dress had kept royal fans and fashionistas guessing for months. Among those cited as contenders were labels Ralph & Russo and Burberry as well as designer Stella McCartney.

Waight Keller, whose name has now been catapulted into the global spotlight, described the chance to work on the historic occasion as “an honor.”

“We wanted to create a timeless piece that would emphasize the iconic codes of Givenchy throughout its history, as well as convey modernity through sleek lines and sharp cuts,” she was quoted by British Vogue as saying on the magazine’s website.

Meghan’s long veil, made of silk tulle, was decorated with a trim of hand-embroidered flowers in silk threads and organza, the palace said, and paid tribute to the 53 countries of the Commonwealth.

“Ms. Waight Keller designed a veil representing the distinctive flora of each Commonwealth country united in one spectacular floral composition,” the palace said.

Prince Harry last month was appointed a Commonwealth youth ambassador.

Queen Elizabeth lent the 36-year-old bride a historic tiara for the occasion. Made in 1932 for Queen Mary, the sparkling diamond and platinum bandeau has a center brooch dating from 1893.

Meghan, now to be called the Duchess of Sussex, also wore Cartier earrings and bracelet, and silk duchess satin shoes.
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Diplomats from Europe, China and Russia are discussing a new accord to offer Iran financial aid to curb its ballistic missile development and meddling in the region, in the hope of salvaging its 2015 nuclear deal, a German newspaper reported Sunday.

The officials will meet in Vienna in the coming week under the leadership of senior European Union diplomat Helga Schmid to discuss next steps after the May 8 decision by U.S. President Donald Trump to pull out of a 2015 nuclear accord with Iran, the Welt am Sonntag newspaper said, citing senior EU sources.

No US participation

Germany, France, Britain, Russia and China would participate in the meeting, but the United States would not, it said. It was not immediately clear if Iran, which has resisted calls to curb its ballistic missile program in the past, would take part.

Under the 2015 deal, Iran agreed to curb its nuclear program in return for the lifting of most Western sanctions. One of the main complaints of the Trump administration was that the accord did not cover Iran’s missile program or its support for armed groups in the Middle East, which the West considers terrorists.

Concluding a new agreement that would maintain the nuclear provisions and curb ballistic missile development efforts and Tehran’s activities in the region could help convince Trump to lift sanctions against Iran, the paper said.

“We have to get away from the name ‘Vienna nuclear agreement’ and add in a few additional elements. Only that will convince President Trump to agree and lift sanctions again,” the paper quoted a senior EU diplomat as saying.

No immediate comment was available from the German foreign ministry.

Reassurances to Iran

The EU’s energy chief sought to reassure Iran on Saturday that the 28-member bloc remained committed to salvaging the nuclear deal and strengthening trade with Tehran.

Officials from the EU, Germany and other countries that remain committed to the deal have said it would disastrous if EU efforts fail to preserve it.

Iran has struggled to achieve financial benefits from the deal, partly because remaining unilateral U.S. sanctions over its missile program deterred major Western investors from doing business with Tehran.

The officials are looking for a new approach given an understanding that it would be difficult for European firms to work around new U.S. sanctions, the newspaper reported.

It said the new deal could include billions of dollars of financial aid for Iran, in line with an EU deal that provided billions in aid to Turkey for taking in millions of migrants and closing its borders, which helped end a 2015 migrant crisis.

Iran and European powers have made a good start in talks over how to salvage the 2015 deal but much depends on what happens in the next few weeks, Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif said last week.
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He is a former refugee, a Muslim, and now the first Somali-British mayor, the youngest ever Lord Mayor for Sheffield city in the United Kingdom.

The 28-year-old Magid Magid has also become the first Green Party mayor. He was sworn in Friday.

“This really was a victory for the Somalis and other Muslim communities in Sheffield,” Kaltum Osman, a young Somali woman who also won a seat at Sheffield’s City Council, told VOA Somali. “This was a victory for the young men and women of Sheffield. It was a clear message for every person that’s been told they have limits on their dreams.”

Magid was born in Burao, a town in the northern breakaway region of Somaliland.

Osman said Magid came to Sheffield when he was five years old, after spending six months in a refugee camp in Ethiopia with his mother and five siblings.

“He came here at a young age, grew up and as young man he was very ambitious and thought that there was nothing that could prevent him from being what he wanted to be,” Osman said.

Speaking during his inaugural ceremony, Magid said he remembered little about his early childhood in Somalia and that he had never returned to his country of birth.

“I remember just being happy, playing around as you do as a kid, but in reality it was a completely different story,” he said.

But Magid said he remembered well the difficulties his family experienced as refugees, especially when they arrived in Sheffield’s Burngreave area, where his family set up home.

“Life was difficult when my family arrived. We were struggling with learning the language and adapting to a new way of life. My mother worked as a cleaner to take care of me and siblings,” he said.

Magid studied aquatic zoology at the University of Hull, developed an interest in politics while at university, and in 2016 was elected as Green councilor for Broomhill and Sharrow Vale ward in Sheffield.
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From the windswept Falkland Islands, battered by the South Atlantic and home to colonies of penguins, to the heat of Kenya, India and Australia, people around the world celebrated Britain’s glittering royal wedding Saturday.

The scenes of pageantry and romance in Windsor, where Prince Harry married his American bride Meghan Markle, were beamed to locations across continents where people dressed up, raised their glasses and enjoyed the fun of a uniquely British event.

“We are very fond of our royal family and it’s lovely to celebrate an event like this,” said Falkland Islander Leona Roberts, a member of the local assembly and one of the organizers of a wedding party in the tiny capital, Port Stanley.

Children dressed up as princes and princesses for the party, where they received special gifts.

Argentina disputes Britain’s sovereignty over the Falklands, which lie 300 miles (500 km) from the Argentine coast, and the two countries fought a war in 1982 over the islands. Many islanders are fiercely patriotic about Britain.

“As a Falkland Islander, I definitely feel a bond with the royal family as a symbol of Britishness. I am a staunch royalist,” said Arlette Betts, at her home on the waterfront in Port Stanley, home to most of the archipelago’s 4,000 inhabitants.

On the other side of the world, in India, a group of Mumbai’s famed dabbawalas, or lunch delivery men, chose a traditional sari dress and kurta jacket as wedding gifts for Harry and his bride, while at the Gurukul School of Art children painted posters of the royal couple and Queen Elizabeth.

In Australia, where the British monarch remains the head of state, some pubs held wedding parties, while a cinema chain screened the wedding live across its network. Viewers dressed in finery, with prizes for the most creative outfits.

At the Royal Hotel in Sydney, guests celebrated with a fancy banquet and burst into a spontaneous chorus of “Stand by Me” when a gospel choir sang the Ben E. King hit during the ceremony in Windsor.

“I just think the monarchy as such brings everyone together,” said retiree Bernie Dennis, one of those attending the banquet. “It’s like a family wedding.”

In Melbourne, fashion designer Nadia Foti attended an “English high tea” where guests wore plastic crowns and enjoyed traditional British treats such as scones and the popular summer drink Pimm’s.

“It’s exciting for the fashion and the spectacular,” said Foti. “It’s a joyous occasion and I’ve made a plum cake to celebrate in classic English style.”

There were lavish celebrations at the Windsor Golf and Country Club on the outskirts of Nairobi, where guests had shelled out 1 million shillings ($10,000) to view the wedding on a giant screen, enjoy a seven-course banquet and fly to Mount Kenya by helicopter for breakfast the following morning.

Trainee lawyer Odette Ndaruzi, who is preparing for her own wedding later in the year, said she wanted to pick up some tips.

“I’m excited to see how the maidens in England are dressed, the jewelry and colors they are wearing,” she said.

The event drew criticism from some Kenyan media, however, due to the hefty price tag in a country where millions live in slums.

But perhaps the greatest interest in the royal wedding, outside of Britain, was in the bride’s home country, the United States.

In New York, revelers headed to Harry’s Bar to watch the ceremony on TV, surrounded by U.S. and British flags. Many posed for photos alongside cardboard cutouts of the bride and groom.

In Los Angeles, a lively crowd at the English-style Cat and Fiddle pub in Hollywood enjoyed pints of beer, royal-themed cocktails and British staples like sausage rolls and scones.

Popular tipples included the “Bloody Harry,” billed as a modern take on the Bloody Mary, but with added ginger as a cheeky nod to the prince’s red hair.
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Guests of Prince Harry and his new wife, Meghan, were set to tuck into dishes including Scottish langoustines, grilled asparagus and rhubarb crumble tartlets at a lunchtime reception for the newlyweds.

Some of the 600 or so guests arrived hours before the beginning of the ceremony at noon, and were likely to be eager to sample the sumptuous foods on offer.

Canapes being served include poached free-range chicken in a lightly spiced yogurt with roasted apricot, croquettes of confit Windsor lamb and garden-pea panna cotta with quail eggs and lemon verbena.

There were also bowl foods such as pea and mint risotto with pea shoots, truffle oil and parmesan crisps, and 10-hour slow roasted Windsor pork belly, all washed down with champagne, wines and a range of soft drinks.

The wedding cake included elderflower syrup, made at the Queen’s residence in Sandringham from the estate’s own trees, with an Amalfi lemon curd filling and elderflower buttercream.
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Conservationists around the world are making great strides in rescuing animal species from the brink of extinction. Despite the recent death of the last male white rhinoceros, there is hope that science can bring the species back. In Europe, scientists are raising bison almost a century after they vanished from the wild, and California’s population of sea otters has rebounded from only 50 specimens in the 1930s. VOA’s George Putic has more.
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Turkey is furious over the relocation of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and Israel’s use of live ammunition against Palestinian protesters in Gaza, and it has recalled its ambassadors from the United States and Israel. Tensions between Ankara and Washington were already simmering over the fate of an American pastor imprisoned in Turkey and the sentencing of a Turkish banker in the United States. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine has more from the State Department.
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With the round-the-clock British media coverage of the royal family in the days leading up to the big day for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, it would be hard not to conclude that this year’s wedding of weddings is a source of delight for every Briton.

But not everyone in Britain remains as excited as the thousands already crowding into Windsor to claim a spot that will allow them to grab a glimpse of the wedding couple and the pomp and circumstance. Social media was littered with all kinds of memes deriding the wedding ceremony.

​

Oscar-winning British actress Emma Thompson chimed in, telling a TV interviewer: “There’s not a single thought about it in my head to share with you.”

And some viewers are expressing frustration with the incessant focus on the wedding — on the preparations, who’s coming and not, what the couple will wear and what they will eat. The BBC Breakfast show incurred the wrath of some for its all-consuming focus on the royal wedding and its constant and breathless updates.

On Twitter some viewers grumbled: “Non-stop coverage of the #RoyalWedding on @BBCBreakfast this morning. Thankfully, there’s no other news happening at all,” one wrote. Another remarked: “REPORT SOME ACTUAL BL***Y NEWS #bbcbreakfast #RoyalWedding.”

The activist anti-monarchy group Republic, which wants the monarchy abolished and replaced with an elected head of state, demanded on its website Friday that the BBC and other British channels stop celebrating the royal wedding and report in a balanced way.

“The monarchy is a contentious issue. It provides us with a head of state and lies at the heart of our constitution. This issue must be treated by broadcasters as politics, not entertainment,” said Graham Smith of Republic. “The BBC has willfully ignored a string of stories that might put a different complexion on the wedding story. They continue to celebrate and promote the monarchy, not simply report on it.”

Republic said BBC News had largely ignored stories about the removal of homeless people from streets in Windsor and “widespread criticism” of how much money the British taxpayer will have to pay for the wedding. It pointed to a poll conducted by YouGov this week that suggested nearly a third of the British public would like to see the monarchy abolished.

The poll showed the Scottish as the least likely to like the queen or care about the future of the monarchy, with key findings showing that north of the border with England fewer than half of Scots approve of the queen and most believe that Britain’s lawmakers should swear allegiance to the country and not the monarch. Three-quarters of Scots told the pollsters they were not interested in Saturday’s wedding. 

Royal critics have highlighted the bad news for the monarchy in the poll. But overall the royal family and the institution of the nonarchy remains popular, with 68 percent of the British public believing the institution is good for the country.

The poll coincided with an important landmark for the queen, who is now the longest-serving monarch in British history, overtaking Queen Victoria’s reign of 63 years, seven months and two days.

Despite the mounting criticism during the week of the public costs of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s big day, the royal family tried to disarm possible criticism early by announcing that they would meet the costs of the wedding itself. But because they also receive money from taxpayers, it was unclear how much of their private money would defray the costs.

And British taxpayers will still have to foot a huge bill to cover the security and municipal costs. Thames Valley police will be providing most of the security in Windsor. The last royal wedding in 2011 between Prince William and Kate Middleton cost nearly $8.7 million, according to Britain’s Press Association.

Some commentators said the costs should be lower this time because the wedding is being held outside London, reducing logistical challenges. British minsters declined to comment on spending related to the royal wedding, saying no information would be released before the event.

But Britain’s Independent newspaper reported Friday that the cost of the big event would be much higher than previously thought. Wedding planning service Bridebook said the wedding itself would most likely cost $43 million. And some security analysts estimated the security bill at $40 million — a big jump from the 2011 royal wedding because of heightened threat levels in Britain following a string of terror attacks over the past 18 months.

British ministers say any public money used for the wedding is money well spent, arguing the event will encourage more tourists — especially Americans — to visit Britain. But no evidence was supplied by the government to show that that was the case in 2011.

“These royal weddings epitomize the British monarchy’s fondness for reverse Robin Hood economics, whereby wealth is redistributed from ordinary people, via their taxes, to a fabulously rich family that on such occasions appears not very modern, at all; in fact, it all feels rather feudal,” said Patrick Basham, the founding director of the Democracy Institute, a Washington- and London-based libertarian think tank.

He told VOA: “A royal family savvier about the optics would have refused, for example, taxpayers footing the vast security bill. Instead, wedding sponsorship would have been procured from the British fashion, music and tourism industries, which would serve to get taxpayers off the hook — a huge PR win — and provide significant global branding opportunities for leading domestic companies and entrepreneurs.”
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Doctors say former Russian spy Sergei Skripal has been discharged from a hospital, more than two months after he was poisoned with a nerve agent.

Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious in the English city of Salisbury on March 4, and spent weeks in critical condition.

Yulia recovered more quickly than her father and was discharged last month.

Salisbury District Hospital said Friday that both patients had now been released. They have been taken to an undisclosed location for their safety.

Britain says the pair was poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent and that Russia was behind the attack. Moscow denies it, and the attack has soured relations between Russia and the West. 
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French authorities have thwarted a possible attack using ricin or explosives and arrested two brothers, the interior minister said Friday.

Gerard Collomb told BFM television that authorities were tracking extremist activity on social networks and identified two young men “preparing to commit an attack with explosives or ricin.”

He said the young men were of Egyptian origin but didn’t indicate their nationality or provide other details about where or when they were arrested. He said the men notably had tutorials on how to make poison using ricin.

Collomb said the brothers had been communicating on encrypted messaging app Telegram.

The anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office and Collomb’s office didn’t immediately provide further details. His announcement comes as President Emmanuel Macron’s government is under criticism for not preventing attacks like the one on Saturday, when an Islamic extremist stabbed five people in central Paris, killing one of them, and as France is still on edge after a string of other deadly attacks in recent years.

The assailant in Saturday’s attack, a 20-year-old Frenchman of Chechen origin, had been on a watch list for radicals, like several others who have attacked France in recent years.

The assailant was killed by police, and a close friend of his was arrested and given preliminary terrorism charges Thursday night.
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Fewer than 1 in 5 Wikipedia biographies are of women, and a tiny minority are human rights defenders, a situation Amnesty International hopes to remedy this weekend with a push to shine a light on those whom history has overlooked.

Amnesty is teaming up with Wikimedia, the nonprofit branch of the online encyclopedia, which every year brings together hundreds of volunteer editors and activists to create new articles on a specified topic.

Over the next two days, the volunteers will aim to add or improve the biographies of thousands of women rights defenders all over the world, which Amnesty hopes will help protect them as well as providing the recognition they deserve.

“The more women human rights defenders are fairly represented the better the protection,” the head of Amnesty International’s global human rights defenders program Guadalupe Marengo told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“Human rights defenders have been attacked and intimidated. The space in which they work in is in some places shrinking,” she said. 

“If you then talk about women human rights defenders or those who defend LGBTI rights, the most marginalized ones, then the attacks are even worse … that’s why we thought it was crucial to do this,” she added.

Among those whose lives will be documented are Czech activist Elena Gorolova, who launched her campaign to end discrimination against Roma women after she was forcibly sterilized following the birth of her second son.

Another is Bridget Tolley, who co-founded a campaign group led by relatives of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls in Canada.

“I have faced the impacts of colonialism, racism, economic exploitation, systemic abuse and hatred of women all my life,” Tolley said.

“To have my work highlighted in a positive way means that our struggles and our resilience as indigenous women can no longer be ignored. We will not be silenced.”
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President Vladimir Putin says Russia will maintain a high tempo of modernizing its military arsenals this year.

Speaking Thursday at a meeting with the top military brass in the southern Russian city of Sochi, Putin said the Russian air forces would receive 160 new aircraft this year and the army is to get 500 new armored vehicles and artillery systems.

He added the navy would commission 10 warships.

Putin warned military industry leaders that they bear personal responsibility for meeting the new weapons procurement targets. Thursday’s meeting was the latest in a series of conferences on military issues Putin chaired this week at his Black Sea retreat.

The Kremlin has conducted a sweeping military modernization program amid tensions with the West over the fighting in Ukraine, Syria and other disputes.
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