Month: June 2017

Britain was thrown into political uncertainty Friday after the Labour Party, the country’s main opposition, made an extraordinary electoral comeback, denying Prime Minister Theresa May and the ruling Conservatives a majority in the House of Commons, largely thanks to a surge in youth voters.

In what will rank as one of the most remarkable elections in modern British history, May’s gamble to expand her party’s parliamentary majority failed spectacularly, raising doubts that she will be able to persevere and lead a minority government with the support of Northern Ireland’s Unionists.

Calls mounted Friday from the Labour Party, the leaders of third parties and from some Conservatives for the prime minister to step down.

But May made clear she would struggle on and seek to govern after receiving Unionist assurances. Downing Street officials said May will head to Buckingham Place to ask the Queen for permission to form a government. Her plan is to govern with the support of Northern Ireland’s Unionists and she would have a one-seat majority.

May’s plan will be then to face a vote of confidence in the House of Commons next week.

Despite their anger at her decision to call a snap post-Brexit referendum election and her conduct of the party’s campaign, Conservative lawmakers appeared ready in the short-term to back her.

If May were to lose a Commons confidence vote next week, it would give Labour a chance to form a coalition government of its own, or seek to govern as a minority government, although it is unclear if Labour would be able to do so.

​Calls for May to step down

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who was all but written off at the start of the election campaign 50 days ago, called on the prime minister to resign, saying she should “go and make way for a government that is truly representative of this country.” He said Labour had denied her a “hard Brexit” mandate.

“We are ready to do everything we can to put our program into operation,” he added:

Former Conservative finance minister George Osborne, removed from the Cabinet by May and now editor of the Evening Standard newspaper, told ITV: “I doubt she will survive in the long term as Conservative party leader.”

And former Conservative minister Anna Soubry said May should take personal responsibility for a “dreadful” campaign.

Among conservatives there was clear fury at the result, a seismic political shock that could trigger a second election within months. Few commentators appeared to believe that a minority Conservative government is sustainable for more than a few months. “Does she really think she can blunder on?” said Lord Ashcroft, a former Liberal Democrat leader.

​Brexit not the only issue

Exit polls on Thursday night suggesting Britain was heading for a hung parliament prompted gasps at Conservative Party headquarters in London.

May focused her party’s election campaign on Brexit, saying she would be able to bring the strength necessary to get the best deal for Britain with the European Union.

At the start of the campaign it looked as if she might pull off a landslide victory, but opinion polls showed the race tightening, and May came under criticism for running an aloof campaign that took the voters for granted.

A turning point in the campaign appeared to come when the parties unveiled their election manifestos. The Conservatives had to backtrack on plans to make the elderly pay more for residential and social care.

May spent more than half of the election campaign in Labour-held seats, demonstrating how confident she was of making gains from a Labour Party led by the most left wing leader in its history, a man the press sees as a throwback to the militant 1970s.

With 10 days to go before Brexit negotiations, it remains unclear whether Britain will have a government in place to take on the formal talks — or whether the government that starts the talks will be the government that finalizes them.

European officials and lawmakers warned Friday a hung parliament could be a “disaster” that hugely increases the chance of Brexit talks failing. They said political uncertainty would likely delay talks, with Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, questioning whether he would have someone to really negotiate with about Brexit.

Guy Verhofstadt, the European parliament’s Brexit representative, described the result as “yet another own goal” for Britain.

Some analysts compared the political situation to 1923, when Conservative Stanley Baldwin failed to win a parliamentary majority, struggled on for a few months as prime minister and then lost a confidence vote in the House of Commons. The king then had to ask Labour to form a minority government.

The election result also throws into doubt whether Britain will now seek the hard Brexit that May and the right wing of her party have been advocating. There is now likely a majority across the parties in the new House of Commons for a softer Brexit, one that might see Britain remain in the single market.

“What it means is we will have pressure in the House of Commons for a soft Brexit,” said Jack Straw, a former Labour foreign minister. “The math and chemistry in the Commons will be pushing away from a hard Brexit,” he added.

Leading Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage complained about the election result in a tweet, saying May’s failure had put Brexit in jeopardy. Some commentators argued the election could be seen as a second referendum on Brexit, a vote about a ‘hard’ or ‘soft Brexit,’ certainly when it came to the youth vote.

Hundreds of thousands of people ages 18 to 34 registered to vote before last month’s closing date, including more than 450,000 on the final day. Voters ages 18 to 24 appear to have voted heavily in favor of Labour. 
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Prime Minister Theresa May faced calls to quit Friday after her election gamble to win a stronger mandate backfired as she lost her parliamentary majority, throwing British politics into turmoil and potentially disrupting Brexit negotiations.

May failed to get the 326 seats her Conservative party needs for an outright majority. She needs 18 more seats, with only 17 more seats left to declare.

The result looks set to trigger a period of political uncertainty and could throw Britain’s negotiations to leave the European Union, due to start June 19, into disarray. The pound lost more than 2 cents against the dollar within seconds of an exit poll projecting an uncertain result.

With only 17 of the 650 seats still to declare, the results largely bore out the exit poll, which predicted the Conservatives would get 314 of the 650 House of Commons seats, down from 330. The Labour Party was projected to win 266, up from 229. 

John Curtice, who oversees the exit poll for a consortium of broadcasters, said Friday that the Conservatives’ final tally might be a bit higher than 314, but it was extremely unlikely they would get a majority.

Minority government likely

As the results piled up, some form of minority or coalition government appeared increasingly likely. That raised the odds that an election called by May to provide “strong and stable government” would bring instability and the chance of yet another early election.

The results confounded those who said the opposition Labour Party’s left-wing leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was electorally toxic. Written off by many pollsters, Labour surged in the final weeks of the campaign. It drew strong support from young people, who appeared to have turned out to vote in bigger-than-expected numbers.

Calls for May to resign

By Friday morning, pressure was mounting on May, who called the snap election in the hope of increasing her majority and strengthening Britain’s hand in exit talks with the European Union. 

“This is a very bad moment for the Conservative Party, and we need to take stock,” Conservative lawmaker Anna Soubry said. “And our leader needs to take stock as well.”

As she was resoundingly re-elected to her Maidenhead seat in southern England, May looked tense and did not spell out what she planned to do.

“The country needs a period of stability and whatever the results are the Conservative Party will ensure we fulfill our duty in ensuring that stability so that we can all, as one country, go forward together,” she said.

Others predicted she would soon be gone.

Scottish party suffers as well

Corbyn said the result means “politics has changed” and voters have rejected Conservative austerity. Speaking after being re-elected to his London seat, Corbyn said May should “go … and make way for a government that is truly representative of all the people of this country.”

The result was bad news for the Scottish National Party, which by early Friday had lost about 20 of its 54 seats. Among the casualties was Alex Salmond, a former first minister of Scotland and one of the party’s highest-profile lawmakers.

The losses complicate the SNP’s plans to push for a new referendum on Scottish independence as Britain prepares to leave the EU.

May had hoped the election would focus on Brexit, but that never happened, as both the Conservatives and Labour said they would respect voters’ wishes and go through with the divorce.

May, who went into the election with a reputation for quiet competence, was criticized for a lackluster campaigning style and for a plan to force elderly people to pay more for their care, a proposal her opponents dubbed the “dementia tax.” As the polls suggested a tightening race, pollsters spoke less often of a landslide and raised the possibility that May’s majority would be eroded.

Then, attacks that killed 30 people in Manchester and London twice brought the campaign to a halt, sent a wave of anxiety through Britain and forced May to defend the government’s record on fighting terrorism. Corbyn accused the Conservatives of undermining Britain’s security by cutting the number of police on the streets.

Eight people were killed near London Bridge on Saturday when three men drove a van into pedestrians and then stabbed revelers in an area filled with bars and restaurants. Two weeks earlier, a suicide bomber killed 22 people as they were leaving an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester.

Reuters contributed to this report.
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Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday that the United States supported peace talks on Cyprus aimed at reunifying the divided island.

Pence hosted Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades at the White House on Thursday. The White House said Pence expressed hope that Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders “will agree to a settlement that would reunify Cyprus as a bizonal, bicommunal federation to the benefit of all Cypriots.”

Pence also thanked Cyprus for its support for the Middle East peace talks and the fight against Islamic State.

Anastasiades said that he invited Pence to visit the island and that “what satisfied me most is that the U.S. acknowledged the role Cyprus plays as a result of its excellent relations with all its neighboring nations.”

Cyprus has been split between a Greek Cypriot south and a Turkish Cypriot north since 1974, when Turkey invaded in response to a military coup aimed at unifying the island with Greece.

The south is recognized as the sole Cypriot government, while only Turkey recognizes a separate Turkish Cypriot north.

U.N.-sponsored reunification talks have been slow because of several sensitive issues, including Turkish demands that Turkish forces be allowed to stay on the island. The Greek Cypriots want them to leave.
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NATO member nations are united in their stance toward Russia in a way they have not been for many years, says General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg. In an interview with VOA’s Jela de Franceschi, Stoltenberg also said NATO is committed to stepping up its defense while at the same time continuing dialogue with Russia.
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Three men arrested in a series of raids Wednesday in east London are suspected of having been in the final stages of plotting a terror attack in the British capital similar to the murderous rampage carried out last Saturday at London Bridge, say officials.

The men, all in their 30s, are not connected to last week’s van-and-knife attack in the London Bridge and Borough districts of the capital that left eight dead and 48 injured, say police officers.

Video of recent attack

The news of the arrests came as new video footage emerged of the dramatic shooting of the London Bridge attackers by armed police last Saturday. It shows officers leaping out of a moving police car to shoot the men in a few seconds of frenetic activity, bringing an end to a killing spree that lasted eight minutes.

The footage, taken by a local resident, has been circulated on social media sites. 

Other footage has also emerged of the three London Bridge attackers, who have been identified as Khuram Shazad Butt, Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghba, meeting outside an all-Muslim gym the trio frequented in east London five days before the attack. 

In the video obtained by The Times newspaper, the three are seen hugging and laughing outside the Ummah Fitness Center near where Butt lived with his wife and two young children. 

The men appear to want to evade surveillance.

Redouane is seen placing his cellphone on a builder’s sack nearby before the men walk away. Presumably, they feared the phone was bugged. They are out of view of the CCTV camera for 10 minutes and when they return Redouane retrieves his phone. 

The footage of the meeting outside the gym will reinforce pressure on the British intelligence services to explain why the three were not under full-time surveillance. 

The Ummah Fitness Center was once run by a man accused of helping to train the Islamic extremists responsible for the coordinated July 7, 2005, underground train bombings in London, Britain’s first-ever Islamist suicide attack.

Fifty-two people were killed across the city in the 2005 coordinated strike that left more than 700 injured.

Missed chances

The British intelligence service, MI5, has been accused of missing a string of chances to identify Butt as a high-risk militant.

On Tuesday The New York Times reported that in 2015 FBI informant Jesse Morton, a one-time al-Qaida recruiter, warned his American handlers about the London Bridge terrorist. “Khuram Butt was on our radar rather a lot,” he told the newspaper.

Questions are also being asked about why the British security services didn’t act on information supplied by Italian police on Zaghba, an Italian-Moroccan, who had been stopped at Bologna airport last year on suspicion he was heading to join the Islamic State in Syria.

Italian authorities say they informed British intelligence agencies about him and uploaded his details to a European Union database that’s designed to trigger an alert to passport control officers.

Officer injured in attack

Meanwhile, the rookie transport policeman who was stabbed in an eye while tackling the London Bridge terrorists armed only with a baton issued a statement Wednesday saying he “did everything I could” to stop them.

He has not been named by the authorities. He was one of the first officers to confront the London Bridge assailants.

“I am truly moved and overwhelmed by all the support and comments that I’ve received, not only from people in this country, but across the world,” the officer said.

He has been hailed as a national hero, but he dismissed the description.

“Like every police officer who responded, I was simply doing my job,” he said. “I didn’t expect the level of love and well wishes I have received. I feel like I did what any other person would have done. I want to say sorry to the families that lost their loved ones.”
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There was a different kind of rush in Alipasa and Lalabey in Sur, Diyarbakir, Turkey as residents gathered for an iftar dinner put on by the Confederation of Public Workers’ Unions of Turkey (KESK). The neighborhoods face demolition because the government wants to rebuild the majority of the Sur district following battles between security forces and PKK’s youth branch last year. The concept of ‘Earth Surface Table’ outdoor iftar dinner was first happened after the Gezi Protests in 2013 in Istanbul.
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Prime Minister Theresa May called the general election that Britain is holding Thursday in the hope of winning strong backing for her government during upcoming negotiations in Brussels on the country’s exit from the European Union.

May called the snap election — an early vote, three years before Parliament’s term was due to expire — in early April. The prime minister originally expected a big win to boost her Conservative Party’s majority in Parliament, but that optimism faded as her campaign sputtered over the past few weeks.

Late developments, however, could upend the experts’ predictions once again.

Polls: Labour Party is gaining

Several recent opinion polls showed the opposition Labour Party was gaining on the Conservatives, or Tories as they are known in Britain. Not all of the polls agreed, though, and Conservative activists professed confidence.

The Times newspaper reported Wednesday night that a final poll by the YouGov group showed the Conservatives’ lead over Labour had widened to seven percentage points — up from four percent on Saturday, just hours before the London Bridge terrorist attack that killed eight people.

All 650 seats in the House of Commons, the lower house of Parliament, are up for election Thursday. A party needs to win 326 seats to form a majority government.

The deadly terror attacks in England — in London last Saturday, and in Manchester 12 days earlier — have overshadowed the late stages of political campaigning. Speaking at a rally Tuesday, the prime minister pledged to put security first:

“And if, if our human rights laws stop us from doing it, we’ll change those laws so we can do it,” she told supporters to enthusiastic applause.

Proper funding needed

May’s threat to tear up the Human Rights Act drew criticism from Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

“The way you deal with the threat to the democracy is not by reducing democracy, it’s by dealing with the threat,” he said during a campaign visit to Glasgow Wednesday. “That means properly funding our police and security services.”

Political analyst Professor Iain Begg of the London School of Economics says the prime minister is now fighting to save face:

“If she does no better than [former Conservative prime minister] David Cameron did in 2015, it would be deemed a considerable defeat for her. Jeremy Corbyn seems to be doing far better than most people expected.”

Needed: Young voters

Corbyn needs a big turnout by young voters, and his focus on improving public services and reducing fees for university students has won support. But he also has faced questions over national security and his past associations with groups including Hamas and the Irish Republican Army.

Third in the polls are the Liberal Democrats, whose central theme is opposition to Brexit — Britain’s departure from the European Union. On that question, analyst Iain Begg says, the country appears to have moved on.

“Economy, national health services and party leaders are the top issues,” Begg said. “Even in this Brexit context, Europe is not as high an issue as it might otherwise be, and therefore the Liberal Democrats have probably backed the wrong horse by trying to emphasize their campaign is about Brexit.”

May needs a big win

Support for the far-right UK Independence Party has collapsed. With Brexit decided, pollsters say many UKIP voters have switched to the Conservatives.

Theresa May says she needs a big win to give her a stronger hand in upcoming Brexit negotiations, but officials in Brussels say the size of her majority will have no bearing on the talks.

There will be no political honeymoon for the winner, says Kevin Schofield, editor of the website politicshome.com, the self-styled “home of digital public affairs” in Britain.

“You’re straight into the biggest discussions, the biggest negotiations that any British government has faced in a generation, probably since the Second World War, Schofield said. “So there is no respite, there is no letup.”

Independence for Scotland?

A big Conservative win would encourage those who support independence for Scotland. Breaking away from the United Kingdom and becoming an independent nation won considerable support earlier in this decade, but the Scots rejected independence in a referendum three years ago.

Now, however, following the Brexit decision by voters nationwide — in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — the Scottish National Party is demanding a second referendum on independence.

“In actual fact, the Scottish people, most of them don’t want a referendum so soon,” said website editor Schofield. “They think that they’ve made their decision in 2014.”

Terrorism, Brexit and the potential breakup of Britain are daunting challenges that lie ahead for the winner of Thursday’s election. Each political party is offering voters a very different road map to the future.
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Slovakia wants to be a part of the EU “integration machine,” its prime minister said on Wednesday, in comments that follow calls by Germany, France and Spain for deeper cooperation and contrast with the eurosceptic stance of some other east European states.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and France’s new President Emmanuel Macron agreed in May to outline a road map for deeper European Union integration while Spain suggested that members of the bloc should pool some aspects of their debt management and share a budget to fight crisis shocks.

“Slovakia meets conditions to be a part of the EU integration machine led by Germany and France,” said Robert Fico, Slovakia’s leftist third-time prime minister who oversaw his country’s adoption of the euro in 2009.

“Deeper cooperation and integration with stronger countries suit a small country like Slovakia, this is a historic chance to come closer to the average living standards of the EU,” he told reporters after a regular government meeting.

“Either we get in the integration express or we’ll be stuck in the depot on the second track,” he said, distancing himself from eurosceptic governments in neighbouring Hungary and Poland, and the Czech Republic, where integrationist Social Democrats are expected to lose an election in October.

Slovakia is the only one of these so-called Visegrad Four countries that uses the euro as its currency.

It has been one of the better budget performers in the eurozone, with public debt load expected to fall to 51.8 percent this year, less than the eurozone average at 89.2 percent in 2016.

Fico also called on opposition parties to get behind the consensus on Slovakia’s foreign policy direction.

Richard Sulik, leader of the eurosceptic, anti-immigrant Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party, Slovakia’s second largest after Fico’s center-left SMER, said on Tuesday Bratislava should not try to be part of the eurozone core as it would be forced to agree to tax harmonization and refugee quotas.

Slovakia under Fico’s government, along with the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary, refused to accept EU refugee quotas and challenged them in an EU court.
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About 25,000 military forces from the United States and 23 other countries will take part in a large-scale military exercise called Saber Guardian planned in Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania next month.

In addition, several U.S. B-1B heavy bombers have arrived in Britain in support of two separate multinational exercises planned in the Baltic region and other parts of Europe this month to improve coordination among partner countries.

The U.S. military plans were announced by Stuttgart-based U.S. European Command, which said this year’s Saber Guardian exercise — held annually in the Black Sea region since 2013 — was “larger in both scale and scope” than previous exercises.

The news could exacerbate tensions that are already running high between Moscow and Washington.

Russia scrambled a fighter jet on Tuesday to intercept a nuclear-capable U.S. B-52 strategic bomber it said was flying over the Baltic Sea near its border, in an incident that had echoes of the Cold War.

Washington said the long-range bomber was operating in international airspace.

European Command said the Saber Guardian exercise would include an array of live fire exercises, river crossings and a mass casualty exercise and was aimed at drilling “the ability to mass forces at any given time anywhere in Europe.”

“It is deterrence in action,” it said in a release.

The U.S. army said the larger exercise would be preceded by several smaller events — all aimed at shoring up the security and stability of the Black Sea region, where increased Russian submarine activity has sparked concerns.

The Saber Guardian exercise rotates through Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine, with a goal to increase the ability of European and U.S. military forces to operate together in the event of an armed conflict.

It will be the largest of 18 separate Black Sea exercises planned this year, European Command said.

The B-1B bombers were deployed from Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota to a U.K. air base in Fairford to support two separate exercises planned this month, Saber Strike and BALTOPS, according to European Command.

It said an undisclosed number of B-1B bombers would join three B-52H bombers that were already in Europe for training.

BALTOPS is a recurring multinational exercise that will involve 4,000 shipboard personnel, 50 ships and submarines, and more than 50 aircraft.

Saber Strike, now in its seventh year, is aimed at improving cooperation among allies and partners while promoting regional stability and security, European Command said.
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Nearly two weeks after President Donald Trump reportedly blindsided National Security advisers in Brussels by failing to stick to a White House speech reaffirming U.S. commitments to NATO’s Article 5, Vice President Mike Pence on Monday took the stage alongside Montenegro’s head of state to do exactly that.

Addressing an Atlantic Council awards ceremony at Washington’s Ritz Carlton hotel Monday evening — held just hours after Montenegro’s formal NATO accession ceremony at the State Department — Pence, fresh from private White House meetings with Montenegrin Prime Minister Dusko Markovic, vowed “unwavering commitment” to Article 5.

“Make no mistake … we will meet our obligations to our people to provide for the collective defense of all of our allies,” Pence was quoted as saying in Politico coverage of the event.  “An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us.”

Article 5 defined

NATO’s Article 5 defines an attack on any NATO member as an attack on all NATO members. The clause has only been triggered once, following the attacks on 9/11.

“As we look to the future, we cannot only look inward,” Pence said. “NATO’s open door must always remain so … NATO is as important today as it was at its founding nearly 70 years ago.”

Montenegro became NATO’s 29th member of NATO and been praised by the United States for joining the Western military alliance, despite Russian obstruction that included a failed attempt to overthrow the pro-Western government in October 2016.

Russia even warned of retaliation against Montenegro’s “hostile course” and condemned the small Balkan country’s “anti-Russian hysteria” during the State Department ceremony marking the accession.

“Allow me to rephrase on this historic day the words of [NASA astronaut] Neil Armstrong,” Markovic announced to the awards ceremony, vowing national readiness to assume membership responsibilities. “This is a small day for the United States and its allies, but a great day for Montenegro.”

‘NATO has never been more important’

Senator John McCain, (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called NATO’s first enlargement in eight years a significant step toward greater trans-Atlantic integration at a pivotal time.

“Given the increasingly complex challenges we face on both sides of the Atlantic, NATO has never been more important,” McCain said in a prepared statement issued on his website. “In the face of renewed Russian aggression, increasingly frequent terror attacks, and looming cybersecurity threats, the trans-Atlantic alliance must stand together. We welcome the assistance of Montenegro as the 29th NATO member state in combating these threats.”

In an interview with VOA’s Serbian Service, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that “NATO will stand together with Montenegro against any kind of pressure and outside interference.”

“We have seen many reports about more Russian interference in the Western Balkans; we saw the failed coup attempt in Montenegro last year,” he said. “For me, this just highlights the importance of building strong security and defense institutions and strengthening resilience.”

Regional stability

Montenegro’s NATO membership, he added, will guarantee the Balkan country’s independence and contribute to regional stability.

“Montenegro is important not least because of its location in the Western Balkans,” Stoltenberg said. “NATO has a history there; we helped to end two ethnic wars. We see many challenges in the Western Balkans and we would like to work with Montenegro to address those challenges.”

Stoltenberg said that Montenegro, together with other allies, can help other neighboring countries in the region, such as aspiring NATO members Bosnia and Macedonia.

NATO has only a partnership with Serbia, with whose new president, Aleksandar Vucic, Stoltenberg claims “regular contact.”

This report originated in VOA’s Serbian Service.
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Turkish authorities on Tuesday detained the local chair of Amnesty International for suspected links to the network of the Muslim cleric Ankara blames for last year’s failed coup, the rights group said.

Police detained Taner Kilic and 22 other lawyers in the Aegean coastal province of Izmir on suspicion of ties to the movement of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, it said, citing a detention order.

Since the July coup attempt, authorities have arrested 50,000 people and sacked or suspended 150,000, including soldiers, police, teachers and public servants, over alleged links with terrorist groups.

“Taner Kilic has a long and distinguished record of defending exactly the kind of freedoms that the Turkish authorities are now intent on trampling,” said Salil Shetty, Amnesty’s secretary general.

Turkish authorities were not immediately available for comment. Officials say the crackdown is necessary due to the gravity of the coup attempt, in which more than 240 people were killed.

Kilic was detained by police at his home in Izmir early on Tuesday before being taken to his office, Amnesty said. Both properties were searched and he remains in police custody.

His detention did not appear to be connected to his work with the rights group, nor did it appear to specifically target the organization, Amnesty said. It was unclear why he was suspected of having links to Gulen’s network, it said.

Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999, has denied involvement in the coup and condemned it.

Critics in Turkey and abroad say President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is using the coup as a pretext to muzzle dissent and purge opponents.

Turkey’s interior ministry said on Monday it would strip citizenship from 130 people suspected of militant links, including Gulen, unless they return to Turkey within three months.
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After the shock and anguish of a series of terror attacks in recent weeks, Britain will hold a general election Thursday, and security has moved to the top of the agenda.

In the wake of the most recent attack, Prime Minister Theresa May said “enough is enough” and warned that Britain needed to drastically change its approach to guarding against terrorism.

Meanwhile, the British capital is physically adapting to the apparent new threat.

Armed police are being deployed to soft targets like railway stations and tourist hubs. On the famous bridges across the River Thames, barriers have been erected to separate traffic lanes and sidewalks, offering some protection from vehicle attacks — the modus operandi of the two most recent terror incidents in the capital.

But beyond physical defenses, how can Britain protect itself? That question is at the forefront as the country prepares to go to the polls.

More police power

On the campaign trail Tuesday, May pledged to give security services the tools they need.

“I will look at giving more powers to the police and the security service, longer sentences for terrorist-related offenses, dealing with this issue of the Internet and ensuring there is no safe space online for terrorists,” she said.

The government is pressuring websites like YouTube to police content more rigorously. London Muslim community activist Hamdi Abdalla Mohamud welcomed the focus on online extremism.

“We should work together to tackle all these problems, and to make sure our youth are using proper websites and proper information and good information. Because as parents we don’t know what our children are doing, even if they are at home with us. And we would like the government to help us,” she told VOA.

Critics say the roots of extremism stem from ideologies within Islam itself  and must be confronted.

“We believe that there is a lack of debate on this particular matter. And a lot of especially left-wing groups try avoiding speaking about this issue publicly as a means of being politically correct,” said Julia Rushchenko, a lecturer at the University of West London and an associate fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, a policy analysis group in London.

From same district

All three London Bridge attackers came from the Barking and Dagenham district of east London. Muslim leaders there strongly reject any link with their faith.

Khaja Ashfaq Ali, trustee of the Dagenham Central Mosque, said, “We propagate peace and we preach peace. So what we expect from the people is peace and tolerance in the community. So we have a system in place that we follow the Prevent strategy. So we look at what is going on in our community, and we try to avoid as far as possible these kinds of issues.”

The government’s Prevent strategy works with communities to make it easier to report individuals voicing extremist views.

One of the London Bridge attackers, Khuram Shazad Butt, was twice reported to authorities over concerns about extremism. He was even featured in a documentary on jihadism and was a follower of jailed preacher Anjem Choudary, a convicted Islamic State recruiter.

The government wants an inquiry into security failings. Opposition leaders blame government cuts.

“What is obvious is that policing numbers, investment in that side of our security, has fallen every year Theresa May has had any responsibility for it,” Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron told supporters on the campaign trail.

The terror attacks had given Thursday’s election an added urgent dimension. The immediate focus is on preventing further bloodshed. Longer term, the challenges are profound.
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Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Tuesday one of its fighter jets intercepted an American strategic bomber that was flying near the border of Russian airspace.

The Defense Ministry said in a statement that it had to scramble the Su-27 to the area over the Baltic Sea on Tuesday morning after Russian radars spotted an aircraft flying along the border. The ministry said the Russian jet identified it as a U.S. B-52 strategic bomber and escorted it until it flew further away from the border.

The defense ministry did not specify where exactly the intercept happened.

Similar incidents have happened close to Russian airspace in the past. In September, a Russian fighter jet flew within 3 meters (10 feet) of a U.S. Navy surveillance aircraft, in what American officials called an unsafe intercept over the Black Sea. In another dramatic incident last year, Russian jets buzzed over the USS Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea, coming within 9 meters (30 feet) of the warship.

Capt. Joe Alonso, a spokesman for U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany, said he could not confirm the report but that the military was aware of it and looking into it.
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The brother of the suicide bomber who attacked the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester has been released without charges.

The attack on May 22 killed 22 people as well as the bomber Salman Abedi, a Briton of Libyan descent. Police are trying to uncover clues about a suspected network that supported him.

Ismail Abedi, the dead bomber’s brother, was arrested in the Manchester neighborhood of Chorlton a day after the attack.

Their father, Ramadan Abedi, was arrested in Tripoli on May 24, along with another brother Hashim, who Libyan security forces said was “aware of all the details” of the attack.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Ten men remain in custody, Manchester police said.
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Britain held a nationwide minute of silence Tuesday to honor the victims of Saturday’s terror attack in London, as police announced the name of the third attacker killed by officers and made a new arrest linked to the investigation.

Metropolitan Police said detectives believe 22-year-old Youssef Zaghba was the remaining attacker who had not yet been publicly identified.  They said he is believed to be an Italian national of Moroccan descent who lived in East London, and that he had not been a subject of interest for either police or the MI5 intelligence agency.

Authorities on Monday identified the other two attackers as 27-year-old British citizen Khuram Shazad Butt and 30-year-old Rachid Redouane, who also lived in East London.  Police said Butt was previously known to authorities, but had not been viewed as a serious threat.

“There was no intelligence to suggest that this attack was being planned, and the investigation had been prioritized accordingly,” police said in a statement.

Counterterrorism police arrested a 27-year-old man Tuesday in the Barking area, but did not say how he might be connected to the attack that killed seven people and wounded at least 50 others.

Police had previously arrested 12 people in the course of the investigation, but said Monday those 12 had all been released without any charges.

British Prime Minister Theresa May said police also are still working to determine the identities of all the victims, but that so far it is known they include people of several nationalities.

“This was an attack on London and the United Kingdom, but it was also an attack on the free world,” she said.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said at a vigil Monday that the city “will never be broken by terrorism.”

“Our unity and love for one another will always be stronger than the hate of the extremists,” Khan said.

Police have said Saturday’s attack involved three men who were inside a van that struck pedestrians on London Bridge, and then got out and stabbed numerous people at a nearby market area before being shot dead by police.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack through its Amaq news agency.

 
…

Seventy years ago today, then Secretary of State George Marshall unveiled his “European Recovery Program”, which became known as “The Marshall Plan,” during a speech at Harvard University.

​In 1947, Europe lay in ruins and on the brink of famine after years of fighting to stop German leader Adolf Hitler’s Nazi march across the continent.

Marshall proposed funneling $13 billion to rebuild the devastated continent, not only in an act of global altruism, but according to historians, to stop the spread of Soviet communism.

The plan promoted European economic integration and federalism, and created a mixture of public organization of the private economy similar to that in the domestic economy of the United States.  This reorganization of the European economy paid off politically and economically.

Containment

The roots of Marshall’s thinking was that communism is more likely to take hold in countries weakened by the war, and over time the price of reconstruction would amount to pennies if the Soviet government was blocked from spreading its sphere of influence.

Just a few months before, in March, President Harry Truman in essence unveiled that same idea to the U.S. Congress in what became known as the Truman Doctrine. 

​

Countries that participated in the plan included Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, West Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and Turkey.

The Soviet Union was suspicious of the plan and pressured its Eastern European allies to reject all U.S. assistance.  The pressure proved successful and none of the Soviet satellites participated in the Marshall Plan.  The Soviet-controlled press claimed the American program was “a plan for interference in the domestic affairs of other countries.”

The Marshall Plan successfully sparked economic recovery in the West, meeting its objective of “restoring the confidence of the European people in the economic future of their own countries and of Europe as a whole.” 

And although the United States and the Soviet Union fought on the same side during the war, post-war animosity grew and grew, kicking off the Cold War.
…

London police carry out more raids in connection with their investigation into Saturday’s attack that killed seven people and wounded more than 50 others.
…

Joseph Muscat was sworn in for a second term as Malta’s prime minister Monday, pledging to introduce gay marriage as law when Parliament convenes in the next few weeks.

Official results showed his Labour Party won 55 percent of the vote Saturday to the opposition National Force coalition’s 44 percent, the same margin as his first victory in 2013.

Muscat called the snap elections a year early to consolidate his government after the Panama Papers leak indicated his wife owned an offshore company. They deny wrongdoing.

The Panama Papers leak exposed identities of the rich and powerful around the world with offshore holdings in Panama, including also Muscat’s energy minister – who was re-elected in Saturday’s election – and chief of staff.

Socially conservative Malta introduced civil unions in 2014.

 
…

Russian President Vladimir Putin insists he has never met with U.S. President Donald Trump and wondered if the American media has “lost its senses.”

Putin was interviewed last week by NBC’s Megyn Kelly. Parts of their talk were broadcast Sunday night.

When asked if he had anything damaging on Trump, Putin called it “another load of nonsense.”

The president said hundreds of American business executives come to Moscow every year and that he rarely sees any of them, including Trump, who was a business magnate before entering politics.

Putin also denied any contacts with fired national security advisor Michael Flynn.

There is a widely-seen photograph of Flynn and Putin sitting at the same banquet table in Moscow in 2015 when the retired Army general was a Trump advisor.

Putin was at the dinner to give a speech. He told Kelly he barely spoke to Flynn and was only told later who Flynn was.

Trump fired Flynn for failing to disclose that he had met with Russian officials.

The Russian president again denied Kremlin interference in the U.S. election by hacking Democratic Party emails.

He said hackers can be anywhere and can skillfully shift the blame to Russia.

Putin said it makes no sense for Russia to interfere, because he says no matter who is president, the Russians know what to expect from a U.S. leader.
…

After a militant attack on a nightlife district of London this weekend, British Prime Minister Theresa May will resume campaigning on Monday just three days before a national election which polls show is much

tighter than previously predicted.

May said Britain must be tougher in stamping out Islamist extremism after three knife-wielding assailants rammed a hired van into pedestrians on London Bridge and stabbed others nearby, killing seven people and injuring 48.

After the third militant attack in Britain in less than three months, May said Thursday’s election would go ahead. But she said Britain had been far too tolerant of extremism.

“Violence can never be allowed to disrupt the democratic process,” May said outside her Downing Street office, where British flags flew at half-staff.

Islamic State on Sunday night claimed responsibility for the attack via the militant group’s agency Amaq.

“A detachment of Islamic State fighters executed yesterday’s London attack,” a statement posted on Amaq’s media page, monitored in Cairo, said.

London police arrested 12 people in the Barking district of east London in connection with the attack and raids were continuing there, the force said. Police have not released the names of the attackers.

It was not immediately clear how the attack would impact the election. The campaign was suspended for several days last month when a suicide bomber killed 22 people at a concert by Ariana Grande in Manchester.

Grande gave an emotional performance on Sunday at a benefit gig in the city for the victims of the attack, singing with a choir of local schoolchildren, including some who had been at her show.

Before the London Bridge attack, May’s gamble on a June 8 snap election had been thrust into doubt after polls showed her Conservative Party’s lead had collapsed in recent weeks.

Shadow of attacks

While British pollsters all predict May will win the most seats in Thursday’s election, they have given an array of different numbers for how big her win will be, ranging from a landslide victory to a much more slender win without a majority.

Some polls indicate the election could be close, possibly throwing Britain into political deadlock just days before formal Brexit talks with the European Union are due to begin on June 19.

In a sign of how much her campaign has soured just five days before voting begins, May’s personal rating turned negative for the first time in one of ComRes’s polls since she won the top job in the turmoil following the June 23 Brexit referendum.

May called the snap election in a bid to strengthen her hand in negotiations on Britain’s exit from the European Union, to win more time to deal with the impact of the divorce and to strengthen her grip on the Conservative Party.

If she fails to beat handsomely the 12-seat majority her predecessor David Cameron won in 2015, her electoral gamble will have failed and her authority will be undermined both inside the Conservative Party and at talks with 27 other EU leaders.

May said the series of attacks were not connected in terms of planning and execution, but were inspired by what she called a “single, evil ideology of Islamist extremism” that represented a perversion of Islam and of the truth.

Opposition Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn criticized May, who was interior minister from 2010 to 2016, for cutting police numbers during her tenure in charge of the Interior Ministry.

“The mass murderers who brought terror to our streets in London and Manchester want our election to be halted. They want democracy halted,” Corbyn said in Carlisle, northern England.

“They want their violence to overwhelm our right to vote in a fair and peaceful election and to go about our lives freely.” “That is why it would be completely wrong to postpone next Thursday’s vote, or to suspend our campaigning any longer.”

When May stunned political opponents and financial markets by calling the snap election, her poll ratings indicated she could be on course to win a landslide majority on a par with the 1983 majority of 144 won by Margaret Thatcher.

But since then, May’s lead has been eroded, meaning she might no longer score the thumping victory over socialist Corbyn she had hoped for ahead of Brexit negotiations.
…

Ariana Grande returned to the city to pay tribute with an energetic, all-star concert featuring Justin Bieber, Katy Perry and Liam Gallagher two weeks after a suicide bombing killed 22 of her fans and injured dozens of others in Manchester, England.

Grande was emotional and teary-eyed throughout the One Love Manchester concert Sunday, which the British Red Cross said raised more than 10 million pounds ($13 million) for the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund, created for those affected by the attack at Grande’s May 22 show.  

She closed the three-hour-plus event with a cover of “Over the Rainbow,” crying onstage at the song’s end as the audience cheered her on.

“Manchester, I love you with all of my heart,” Grande said before the performance, and just after singing “One Last Time” with Miley Cyrus, Pharrell and more of the show’s performers standing behind her in solidarity.

Gallagher, formerly of Oasis, earned loud cheers from the audience as he emerged in his home town in surprise form. He sang and offered encouraging words to the crowd, who held inspirational signs in their hands.

One of the most powerful moments was when the Parrs Wood High School Choir performed Grande’s “My Everything” with the singer. The 23-year-old pop star held the young lead performer’s hand, both with tears in their eyes, as the rest of the singers joined in.

Perry also left a mark with her resilient performance: She sang a stripped down version of her hit, “Part of Me.” Backed by two singers and a guitarist, she delivered the song wearing all white, singing, “Throw your sticks and your stones, throw your bombs and your blows, but you’re not gonna break my soul.”

“I encourage you to choose love even when it’s difficult. Let no one take that away from you,” she said.

Bieber shared similar words onstage, even coming close to crying when he spoke about God and those who died at Grande’s show.

“[God] loves you and he’s here for you. I wanna take this moment to honor the people that were lost, that were taken,” he said. “To the families, we love you so much. … Everybody say, ‘We honor you, and we love you.’”

Coldplay were also a crowd favorite, performing well-known songs like “Viva La Vida” and “Fix You.”

Grande performed throughout the show, singing her hits from “Side to Side” to “Break Free.” She even collaborated with others onstage: She sang Fergie’s verse on the Black Eyed Peas hit, “Where Is the Love” along with the group; she performed a duet with Cyrus; and she sang her debut song, “The Way,” with rapper Mac Miller.

Cyrus said she was “so honored to be at this incredible event” and performed “Happy” alongside Pharrell, who also sang “Get Lucky.”

“I don’t feel or smell or hear or see any fear in this building. All we feel here tonight is love, resilience, positivity,” Williams said.

Take That, who are from Manchester, followed with fun energy that the crowd danced to.

“Our thoughts are with everyone who has been affected by this,” singer Gary Barlow said. “We want everyone to stand strong.”

Robbie Williams also performed, changing some of his lyrics of “Strong” to honor the Manchester victims.

“Manchester we’re strong … we’re still singing our song,” he sang with the audience of 50,000.

The Manchester concert came the day after attackers targeted the heart of London, killing seven people. Authorities have said the attack started with a van plowing into pedestrians and then involved three men using large knives to attack people in bars and restaurants at a nearby market.

The One Love Manchester concert aired across the globe. Other performers included Little Mix, Niall Horan, Imogen Heap and Victoria Monet.
…

London police said early Sunday that six people and their three attackers died in the latest terror incident in Britain.

A large delivery van drove into pedestrians at high speed on London Bridge late Saturday evening, then drove to Borough Market where three men left the van and stabbed several people.

The police said the three attackers were shot dead by armed officers within eight minutes of the first call to emergency services. The police said that the canisters the attackers wore, making them look like suicide bombers, were fake.

The London Ambulance Service said via Twitter that it took 48 people to five hospitals across the city.

Authorities declared the incident a terrorist attack. The delivery van used was apparently rented from a do-it-yourself building chain store.

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, denounced the attack and said he and British Prime Minister Theresa May would take part in an emergency meeting of the government’s crisis group. Campaigning ahead of Thursday’s parliamentary election in Britain has been suspended in the wake of the attack.

“We don’t yet know the full details,” the mayor said, “but this was a deliberate and cowardly attack on innocent Londoners and visitors.

“I condemn it in the strong possible terms,” Khan added. “There is no justification whatsoever for such barbaric acts.”

Third attack since March

The Saturday night carnage on London Bridge and in the nearby Borough Market neighborhood was the third terrorist attack in Britain since March, following a similar assault on pedestrians on Westminster Bridge and a suicide-bomb explosion less than two weeks ago in Manchester that killed dozens of people and wounded more than 100.

London police at first suspected another stabbing attack in south London might have been linked to the Borough Market and London Bridge attacks. A later statement, however, confirmed there were two separate terrorist incidents, and the stabbing in the Vauxhall neighborhood was unrelated.

US offers help

The White House said late Saturday that President Donald Trump offered America’s “full support” in investigating the “brutal terror attacks” in London during a telephone call with British Prime Minister Theresa May.

The U.S. State Department said it “condemns the cowardly attacks targeting innocent civilians in London.” The statement continued, “We understand UK police are currently treating these as terrorist incidents. The United States stands ready to provide any assistance authorities in the United Kingdom may request.”

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it was in close contact with British authorities. 

“At this time,” an official statement said, “we have no information to indicate a specific, credible terror threat in the United States” as a result of the London attack.

In Washington, Trump sent a message of support and help to Britain, but he also tweeted that the attacks emphasized the correctness of his strict policies on immigration. Other users of social media, both in the U.S. and in Britain, criticized Trump.

Initial chaos

Few details of what occurred were confirmed officially in the chaotic first hours.

It was after 10 p.m. in London when the first alarms sounded about a wild driver steering his vehicle deliberately into pedestrians on London Bridge, and most of the accounts that followed for several hours came from multiple sources on the ground — witnesses, bystanders and journalists.

Most witnesses said they saw a white van heading toward Borough Market veer off the roadway at high speed, probably in excess of 80 kilometers per hour (50 mph), and drive into pedestrians; about five to eight people who had been walking across the bridge were hit and thrown to the pavement.

Several witnesses had said it appeared that the attackers had escaped after knocking over the pedestrians. Other witnesses said they saw at least two people who had been stabbed in a restaurant close to Borough Market.

London Bridge crosses the River Thames between central London and the South London neighborhood known as Borough Market, which lies several hundred meters from the bridge itself.

Saturday’s incident came less than two weeks after the terror attack in Manchester, England, killed 23 people following a concert by American singer Ariana Grande. The pop star was scheduled to return to Manchester Sunday to perform a benefit concert for victims of the suicide attack and their families.

VOA’s Luis Ramirez, Jamie Dettmer and Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.

IN PHOTOS: Van Hits Pedestrians on London Bridge

​
…

American hackers could have planted false evidence that Russia interfered in the U.S. presidential election, President Vladimir Putin was quoted as saying by NBC News Saturday.

U.S. intelligence officials have said Russia tried to interfere in the U.S. election by hacking the Democratic Party to sway the vote in favor of Donald Trump, a charge the Kremlin has repeatedly denied.

In an interview with NBC News’ Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly, a preview of which was released to media, Putin said hackers in the United States could have made it look like Russia was behind the hack for political reasons.

“Hackers can be anywhere. They can be in Russia, in Asia … even in America, Latin America,” Putin said. “They can even be hackers, by the way, in the United States, who very skillfully and professionally, shifted the blame, as we say, on to Russia.

“Can you imagine something like that? In the midst of a political battle. By some calculations it was convenient for them to release this information, so they released it, citing Russia. Could you imagine something like that? I can.”

Speaking at Russia’s flagship St Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday, Putin said the hacking accusations were no more than “harmful gossip” and any evidence cited by U.S. intelligence could easily have been faked. 
…

An unmarked van drove into pedestrians on London Bridge, striking a number of people. There also were reports of stabbings nearby.
…

Maltese voters went to the polls a year early Saturday in a snap election called by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat following an official investigation into allegations his wife owned a company related to the Panama Papers scandal.

Surveys showed Labour Party’s Muscat was likely to win a second, five-year term. But polls indicated one-fifth of voters were undecided, giving the National Force made up of the Nationalist Party and newly formed Democratic Party a slight chance.

The Panama Papers scandal, which detailed offshore companies and other financial data of the rich and powerful, exposed Malta’s energy minister and Muscat’s chief of staff as having acquired a company in Panama.

Muscat called new elections and ordered a magisterial inquiry midway through Malta’s first-ever stint at the presidency of the European Council after allegations surfaced in April that his wife also owned a company in Panama. The Muscats deny the allegations.

Setting up an offshore company is not illegal or evidence of illegal conduct, but shell companies can be used to avoid taxes or launder money.

After the publication of the Panama Papers last year, Muscat was criticized for retaining Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi and chief of staff Keith Schembri, whose names figured in the document dump. They acknowledged that they acquired the companies but deny wrongdoing.

Since then, two other magisterial inquiries have been opened after money laundering and kickback allegations were made against Schembri by opposition Nationalist leader Simon Busuttil. Schembri denies any wrongdoing.

None of the investigations had finished before Saturday’s vote.

During the campaign, Busuttil, Muscat’s prime challenger, charged that accusations of corruption had hurt Malta’s financial services industry and would continue to damage the island’s reputation.
…

For three years after Russia annexed Crimea, Washington officials quietly cautioned major U.S. firms about attending the annual St. Petersburg forum, where investors mingle with President Vladimir Putin and his lieutenants.

This year, the first forum since Donald Trump became U.S. president, such cautions were not issued, according to four people familiar with preparations for U.S. companies to attend.

Washington’s policy toward Russia is essentially unchanged under Trump, with the United States committed to maintaining sanctions on Moscow unless it complies with international demands about Ukraine.

Change in tone

But its approach this year to the St. Petersburg event — often described as Russia’s version of the Davos forum in Switzerland — reveals a change in tone, according to some people who follow U.S.-Russia trade relations.

Daniel Russell, the head of the U.S.-Russia business council, when asked if U.S. companies were feeling less pressure from the administration to stay away, said: “I think that’s right.

“Some of the companies, particularly in 2015, received calls from the U.S. government not to attend and I think that attitude has certainly changed,” he said.

The change in tone fits with promises Trump made during his election campaign to pursue friendlier ties with Russia.

Any sign of warming toward the Kremlin is highly sensitive for the White House, since Congress and the FBI are conducting inquiries into whether members of the Trump team had improper contacts with Russian officials before Trump’s inauguration.

Trump has denied doing anything wrong.

Asked about contacts with companies planning to attend the forum, a State Department spokesperson said: “We have an open dialogue with the business community, and ultimately companies are free to make their own decisions, in line with applicable laws and regulations.”

The forum in St Petersburg was in its second day Friday and there were signs of a more substantial U.S. presence than in previous years since the March 2014 annexation of Crimea.

US ambassador attends

U.S. ambassador to Russia John Tefft was at the forum, though he did not have a speaking slot. No U.S. ambassador attended in 2014, 2015 or 2016.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy in Moscow said his attendance was a routine part of his ambassadorial duties.

Major U.S. companies who sent senior executives, including oil major Exxon, Boeing, Chevron and JPMorgan, were represented at a similar level to last year, but several delegates at the forum said they estimated the U.S. presence to be numerically bigger than in previous years.

“We see a much larger number of people from the U.S., Canada,” said Kirill Dmitriev, chief executive of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, a state body that works with foreign investors.

“There is a better understanding (among foreign investors) that sanctions really did not work, the Russian economy continues to grow, Russia represents an attractive market and people should work with Russia,” he told Reuters.

Russian economy growing

Several U.S. delegates said that, politics aside, they were drawn to the forum by the fact the Russian economy had returned to growth after a slowdown.

The forum is a prestige project for Putin, a native of St. Petersburg. Foreign executives typically use their presence to signal to the Kremlin their enthusiasm for investing in Russia.

In 2014, when the Ukraine crisis first started, U.S. Cabinet officials including Secretary of State John Kerry made personal calls to chief executives of U.S. firms asking them not to attend, said a former U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The next year, senior U.S. officials below Cabinet level were charged with persuading American executives not to attend, and in 2016, U.S. officials brought up the issue in a low-level manner, the former official said.

The account of those conversations was confirmed by a second former official who served in the administration of former U.S. President Barack Obama.

The guidance in later years was not necessarily to stay away, but that executives who did attend should keep their presence low-key, said several other people familiar with the discussions.

Ian Colebourne, who is CEO for Deloitte in the Commonwealth of Independent States and sits on the U.S.-Russia business council, said he was aware of officials giving guidance to executives in previous years, but added: “I haven’t heard anything this year.”

Two other sources familiar with the preparations for U.S. companies to attend also said there had been no guidance before this year’s forum, in contrast to previous years.

Green light?

The lack of contact from the U.S. government this year is being interpreted among business executives as meaning: “You can go,” said one of the two sources.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce did not receive any guidance from the administration about whether or not to participate in the event, a source with the Chamber said.

Still, some companies that did attend exercised caution, keeping a low profile.

The head of U.S. oil giant Exxon Mobil, Darren Woods, did not join the table of panelists at the main oil session of the forum. It was chaired by the head of Kremlin oil major Rosneft, Igor Sechin, who is on the U.S. sanctions list.

Like his predecessor as Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, now Trump’s Secretary of State, Woods made only brief remarks from the floor in a discussion about the energy industry.

Among other U.S. companies at the forum, JPMorgan Chase & Co., sent Daniel Pinto, Chief Executive Officer of its corporate and investment business, while Boeing sent Bertrand-Marc Allen, president of its international arm.

U.S. oil major Chevron sent its vice president for business development, Jay Pryor. He was also at the forum last year. A company representative did not reply to questions about any guidance from the administration.

“Let’s say the seniority of some of the teams is more senior this year, certainly compared to some prior years and that’s a positive sign,” Deloitte’s Colebourne said of the U.S corporate presence.

Robert Dudley, chief executive of BP, a British company with substantial business in the United States, said his impression was that this year there were more representatives of U.S. companies at the forum than previously.

“That would suggest they are not feeling that kind of pressure,” to curb their presence, he said.
…

For the Italian government, it seemed like a recipe for success: create an official “Made in Italy” logo to defend the country’s finest food exports from an army of foreign impersonators.

On supermarket shelves worldwide, a star-shaped logo would mark out real Italian cheeses, hams, pasta and sparkling wines from those that only look or sound Italian, such as Parmesan made in New Zealand or Prosecco bottled in Brazil.

But Rome has discovered that even the simplest recipe can go wrong. Instead of unifying Italy’s food industry against a common enemy that is bagging billions of euros in sales, the government’s proposal for a Made in Italy certification quickly created bitter divisions.

A row has erupted over what it means to be truly Italian — should every single raw ingredient be made in Italy, for example — and now the project could be ditched altogether for lack of an industry consensus, according to two industry ministry sources who declined to be named as talks with food firms are ongoing.

“For now there is no final decision on whether to go ahead with the Made in Italy sign, we are studying it, we are doing technical checks,” said one of the sources, an industry ministry official who is working on the project.

“We will launch it only if it fully meets the requests of producers,” he said, adding that the food industry was split into several groups with conflicting views on the project.

The ministry announced the project at the end of last year, and began consultations with food producers in March, in response to industry complaints that foreign-made foods masquerading as Italian produce were costing the country billions of euros in lost export sales.

A logo guaranteeing Italian origin would enable exporters to grab some of the roughly 60 billion euros ($67 billion) in annual global sales generated by foreign imitations, according to Italy’s food producers’ lobby, Federalimentare.

Marketing experts agree. Brand Finance, a global consultancy that compiles an index of the world’s most valuable brands, estimates it could add up to 5 percent to the enterprise value of small- and medium-sized Italian food companies.

“Domestic companies would surely gain from such a logo given that Italy has a high reputation in the food sector and many of them are not well known outside the country,” said Massimo Pizzo, Italy managing director for Brand Finance.

However, Federalimentare’s members could not agree on a definition of Italian-made. Some took a hard line, insisting products be made entirely in Italy from ingredients sourced at home, while others argued for a less stringent approach.

‘If we open the door’

The consortium of producers of Parmigiano Reggiano, the king of Italian cheeses, insists on rigid standards for everyone.

“If we open the door to products with foreign ingredients, we are not talking of real Made in Italy … this is not the kind of help we are looking for,” said Riccardo Deserti, chairman of the consortium.

Under the consortium’s rules, recognized across the European Union, cheese can only be marketed as Parmigiano Reggiano, or by its English name Parmesan, if it is made according to a precise method within a restricted area around the town of Parma.

The consortium of Prosecco wine producers takes a similar stance, rejecting the idea of being put in the same authenticity category as products made with foreign raw materials.

On the other hand, some firms believe traditional Italian production methods should be enough to qualify for the logo.

Barilla, the world’s biggest pasta maker, wants to carry the Made in Italy logo though 16 of its 30 plants are abroad, including in the United States and Russia.

“We are Italian, we pay taxes in Italy and we run our foreign plants following the rules of the Italian quality,” Paolo Barilla, vice chairman of the family-owned business, told a food conference in March. A Barilla spokesman declined to make any further comment for this story.

One of Italy’s most identifiable food brands, the high-end food chain Eataly, draws a finer line on the issue.

It recently opened its first store in Moscow where an embargo on some European food imports forced it to make some cheeses from local ingredients. It sells mozzarella and burrata made in Russia, but not Parmigiano.

Olive and oak

Italian food producers can at least agree on one thing: Foreign rivals are competing unfairly by marketing distinctly Italian products, using words and symbols that suggest an Italian origin but listing the real provenance in fine print.

They point the finger at goods such as New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra’s Perfect Italiano range of Parmesan and Mozzarella cheeses or Garibaldi Prosecco made in Brazil by the Garibaldi Winery Cooperative.

“I totally agree with the idea of a Made in Italy sign,” Eataly founder Oscar Farinetti told Reuters at the inauguration of the store, but did not say whether he sided with the Italian-made purists or the likes of Barilla.

Contacted by Reuters, a Fonterra spokesperson said the group markets the two cheeses using their Italian names and featuring the Italian flag because they were launched by Natale Italiano, an Italian who migrated to Australia in the 1920s.

“While the brand is proud of its heritage, its packaging is evolving away from featuring the Italian flag,” Fonterra said.

The group did not disclose the turnover of the Perfect Italiano products.

Garibaldi Winery did not respond to emailed requests for comment.

The Rome government had proposed a Made in Italy logo employing the symbols of the Italian republic: a star framed by olive and oak branches.

The project, however, was constrained by EU rules.

The government planned to include products if their last “significant transformation” happened in Italy, the ministry official said — meaning, for example, sausages produced in Italy using imported meat would qualify for the label while ham made in a foreign plant of an Italian producer would not.

This would bring the logo into line with the European Customs Code governing country-of-origin labeling, but the plan satisfied neither side in the food fight; the purists balked at the idea of foreign ingredients being allowed, while other firms argued the rules were too stringent.

Hence the impasse that threatens the project.

“Even if we wanted to, we couldn’t use a different standard from the one used in Europe,” said the source.
…

Reacting to President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the landmark Paris climate agreement, leading scientific organizations say evidence clearly shows the world’s climate is changing and urgent measures must be taken to slow the warming of the planet.

The organizations say the scientific evidence is clear that human activity is behind the changing climate. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an independent scientific assessment body, warned that without additional efforts beyond those already in place, warming by the end of the century will lead to very high risk of severe, widespread and irreversible impacts.

IPCC spokesman Jonathan Lynn said the scientific body finds that limiting climate change would require substantial and sustained reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, which together with adaptation can limit climate change risks.

“In its analysis of decision-making to limit climate change and its effects, the IPCC noted that climate change is a problem of the commons, requiring collective action at the global scale,” he said. “Effective mitigation will not be achieved if individual players advance their own interests independently. … It is not clear at this stage how the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement will affect future emissions.”

Deon Terblanche, head of the Atmospheric Research and Environment department at the World Meteorological Organization, said global warming will continue for as long as the world emits greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere

“Even a reduction in the emissions will not lead to a reduction in the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere because there is a cumulative effect and CO2 remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years,” said Terblanche. “… The climate will continue to warm in any case.”

In a worst-case scenario, he warned the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement could result in an additional warming of the atmosphere of 0.3 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level.
…