Month: March 2018

British Prime Minister Theresa May has praised the “very strong response” by the United States, which ordered the expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats after Moscow was blamed for a nerve agent attack against a former Russian spy in Britain.

A Downing street statement says May spoke to President Donald Trump by phone, telling him that Britain welcomes the U.S. response to the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the British town of Salisbury earlier this month.

The White House said “both leaders agreed on the importance of dismantling Russia’s spy networks in the United Kingdom and the United States to curtail Russian clandestine activities and prevent future chemical weapons attacks on either country’s soil.”

More than 20 other nations have joined the U.S. in ordering the expulsions of Russian diplomats. May said she welcomes “the breadth of international action in response to Russia’s reckless and brazen behavior.”

Russia has denied any involvement in the attack.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow would respond to the U.S.-led moves within a week. He described the expulsion of his countries’ diplomats from Western countries as “boorish anti-Russian behavior” and said colossal blackmail “is now, unfortunately, the main tool of Washington on the international arena.”

Russia’s Ambassador to Australia Grigory Logvinov added Wednesday that if Western countries continue actions against Russia, then the world would be “deeply in a Cold War situation.”

VOA’s Jeff Seldin and Steve Herman contributed to this report.
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Israel and Iran, with two of the most powerful militaries in the Middle East, appear on a collision course that some experts fear could ignite a regional war that might ultimately drag in the United States and Russia.

The tensions are centered in Israel’s northern neighbor Syria, where both Russia and Iran have been emboldened by their success in shoring up the government of President Bashar al-Assad. The war has occasionally spilled across Israel’s borders, causing alarm in the Jewish state.

“If a Hezbollah missile or mortar shell hits a kindergarten or a school bus — a terror attack that causes major damage in terms of Israeli lives — this would be a tactical incident that entails a strategic price,” predicts Lior Weintraub, a former Israeli diplomat and now a lecturer at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya.

“That would be translated into a significant Israeli retaliation and from there you might see a slippery slope.”

Christopher Kozak, a senior analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, also worries about an incident spinning out of control.

“That’s why I am greatly concerned in the next several months we are going to get, if not a total regional conflagration, then at least a more direct Israel-Iran confrontation on a new third front,” he told VOA.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Lebanese Hezbollah have stationed resources along the eastern Golan Heights and deployed key commanders to the area.

“Jerusalem’s liberation is near,” hardline Iranian cleric Ebrahim Raisi said in January during a tour of the Israel-Lebanon border, where he was flanked by Hezbollah commanders and Iranian officers.

Weintraub says Israel understands there is “only one reason” for Iran to entrench itself Syria, and that is “to build a launching pad for an attack against Israel.”

Some analysts worry that the situation will only get worse if the United States renounces the nuclear non-proliferation deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), between Iran and the international community.

“Beyond allowing Iran to re-initiate a nuclear weapons program, our trashing of the deal would send a signal to Israel that Washington would countenance something as bold as an Israeli military strike on Iran,” Ned Price, a National Security Council spokesman in the Obama administration tells VOA.

“That could well be the spark that sets the region ablaze, with Hezbollah then potentially doing the bidding of Tehran in locales near and far,” says Price, who spent a decade at the Central Intelligence Agency as a senior analyst and then spokesman.

Acknowledging that tension and that “fears have been developing around the worst-case scenario”, Pierre Pahlavi, assistant professor of defense studies at the Royal Military College of Canada, says war is not inevitable.

In February, the Middle East appeared on the edge of a wider war after an Iranian drone was shot down in Israeli airspace and an Israeli fighter jet was hit by anti-aircraft fire from Syria when attacking an Iranian base. Israel retaliated by hitting a dozen more targets in Syria, including four additional purported Iranian military facilities.

Even before those incidents, the International Crisis Group had warned that “a broader war could be only a miscalculation away.”

Pahlavi asserts that “neither Israel nor Iran wants to start a clash that would spiral up.”

In Israel, Weintraub concurs but warns “if the sword would be on Israel’s neck, then Israel will act. And if Israel will act, there’ll be a price for it. But when you fight for your survival, you do what you have to do, and you take what you have to take.”

Last week, Israel openly acknowledged for the first time that it bombed a suspected nuclear reactor in Syria in 2007 and suggested the air strike should be a reminder to Tehran it will never be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.

“The Iranians are absolutely aware that they have no capacity to confront the Israeli forces conventionally,” says Pahlavi, whose great uncle was the last shah of Iran. “I do believe — but maybe it’s wishful thinking, the Iranians will do whatever they have to in order to keep things under control.”

Russia has an effective coalition with Iran in the Middle East while it is also interested in managing its relationship with Israel. That has allowed Moscow generally to turn a blind eye to Israeli actions against Iran inside Syria.

If Russia has to choose between Jerusalem and Tehran, most analysts see Moscow more closely aligning with Iran.

“Do they go all the way to shooting down an Israeli jet? I don’t know if they’d go that far,” says Kozak.

Israelis express confidence they would not need American forces to help fight Iran, but they also do not expect the Trump administration to try to restrain them.

Weintraub notes that it is “very visible to all of the Middle East that the United States stands behind Israel. It means a lot, in terms of national security, for the lives of Israelis. … But I’m not talking about moving one [additional] American soldier onto the soil of the Middle East.”

The United States military intends to keep forces in Syria, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in January, not only for mopping up Islamic State and al-Qaida fighters, but also as a signal to the forces controlled by Damascus and Tehran.

However, analysts say, Washington has effectively outsourced to Moscow the job of enforcing several so-called de-escalation zones in Syria, giving it the upper hand at a time of rising tension between the two countries.

Should any of its forces be hit by U.S. strikes, such as those conducted to punish Syria for chemical attacks, Russia’s military has issued an unprecedented blunt threat.

“If lives of the Russian officers are threatened, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation will retaliate against missile and launch systems,” said Army General Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff of the Russian armed forces, earlier in March.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone last week. Trump told reporters they discussed the Syrian civil war — which is the world’s deadliest conflict in recent decades — and that the two leaders are looking to meet soon.

Arranging such a summit may prove difficult as the climate of U.S.-Russian relations plunges to its lowest temperature since the Cold War.

Moscow on Monday vowed retaliation after the United States — joined by numerous allies — expelled dozens of its diplomats it considers spies, in response to a nerve gas attack in Britain that is blamed by the West on Russia.

 
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Europe’s bailout fund on Tuesday approved a 6.7 billion-euro ($8.32 billion) loan installment to Greece as part of its third international rescue program, with payment of the first 5.7 billion euros expected this week.

The European Stability Mechanism said the approval came after the Greek government completed a series of required reforms. The funds will be used to service public debt and clear domestic arrears.

“Today’s decision … acknowledges the hard work by the Greek government and Greek people in completing an extensive set of reforms,” said ESM head Klaus Regling. The reforms were in tax policy, privatizations and the resolution of nonperforming loans, among others.

The ESM said the initial 5.7 billion euros were to be disbursed Wednesday. The remaining 1 billion euros, to be used for clearing arrears, may be disbursed after May 1 if the country “makes progress in reducing its stock of arrears.”

Greece has depended on billions of euros from international rescue loans since 2010, and its third bailout is due to end this summer. In exchange for the money, successive governments have had to implement often painful economic and structural reforms, including tax increases and severe cuts to pensions and public spending.

Regling said he was “confident that Greece is on track to successfully exit the ESM program in August 2018, provided that the remaining reforms are implemented by the Greek government.”

Greece’s financial crisis has wiped out a quarter of the economy and led to persistently high unemployment, which continues to hover above 20 percent. The frequently unpopular reforms have also led to street protests.
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Elias, the new language teacher at a Finnish primary school, has endless patience for repetition, never makes a pupil feel embarrassed for asking a question, and can even do the “Gangnam Style” dance.

Elias is also a robot.

The language-teaching machine comprises a humanoid robot and mobile application, one of four robots in a pilot program at primary schools in the southern city of Tampere.

The robot is able to understand and speak 23 languages and is equipped with software that allows it to understand students’ requirements and helps it to encourage learning. In this trial, however, it communicates in English, Finnish and German only.

The robot recognizes the pupil’s skill levels and adjusts its questions accordingly. It also gives feedback to teachers about a student’s possible problems.

Some of the human teachers who have worked with the technology see it as a new way to engage children in learning.

“I think in the new curriculum, the main idea is to get the kids involved and get them motivated and make them active. I see Elias as one of the tools to get different kinds of practice and different kinds of activities into the classroom,” language teacher Riika Kolunsarka told Reuters.

“In that sense, I think robots and coding the robots and working with them is definitely something that is according to the new curriculum and something that we teachers need to be open-minded about.”

Elias the language robot, which stands around a foot tall, is based on SoftBank’s NAO humanoid interactive companion robot, with software developed by Utelias, a developer of educational software for social robots.

The mathematics robot — dubbed OVObot —is a small, blue machine around 25 cm (10 inches) high and resembles an owl. It was developed by Finnish AI Robots.

The purpose of the pilot project is to see if these robots can improve the quality of teaching, with one of the Elias robots and three of the OVObots deployed in schools. The OVObots will be tested for one year, while the school has bought the Elias robot, so its use can continue longer.

Using robots in classrooms is not new — teaching robots have been used in the Middle East, Asia and the United States in recent years — but modern technologies such as cloud services and 3-D printing are allowing smaller startup companies to enter the sector.

“Well, it is fun, interesting and exciting and I’m a bit shocked,” pupil Abisha Jinia told Reuters, giving her verdict on Elias the language robot.

Despite their skills in language and mathematics however, the robots’ inability to maintain discipline amongst a class of primary school children means that, for the time being at least, the human teachers’ jobs are safe.
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Tensions between Kosovo and Serbia heightened a day after a senior Serb politician was arrested and expelled in northern Kosovo, with Russia wading into the dispute and the European Union trying to avert further friction Tuesday.

Kosovo Serbs set up a roadblock in the divided town of Mitrovica to monitor access into Serb-dominated territory, and Serb politicians walked away from Kosovo’s government and threatened to form their own local administrations throughout Kosovo where minority Serbs live.

European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini made an urgent trip to Belgrade for talks with Serbia’s president in a bid to prevent a full-blown crisis from erupting. President Aleksandar Vucic’s office said in a statement that he and Mogherini agreed to find “new ways” to solve problems between Serbia and Kosovo peacefully.

Mogherini didn’t immediately comment, but the statement quoted her as saying “what happened yesterday must not be repeated.”

“The European Union expects peace to be preserved with wisdom and restraint,” Mogherini said according to the statement.

Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a strongly-worded statement, accusing the EU and the U.S. of wanting “to crudely suppress” attempts by Kosovo Serbs to “safeguard their legitimate interests.”

“It is nakedly clear that the Kosovars [Kosovo Albanians] follow the advice of their U.S. and European patrons, who trample international law and act on the basis of arbitrariness,” said the statement carried by Tass news agency.

While Russia supports Serbia’s claims over its former province, the U.S. and most Western states have recognized Kosovo’s independence a decade ago. Russia has been trying to expand its influence in the Balkans mainly through its traditional Slavic ally Serbia.

Djuric detained

The developments came a day after Marko Djuric, the head of the Serbian government office for Kosovo, was briefly detained in the divided town of Mitrovica because he entered the country without Kosovo’s official approval. Kosovo police used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse Serb protesters in Mitrovica on Monday.

Djuric said he was beaten while in detention and that his arrest was aimed at humiliating Serbs in Kosovo and as a rehearsal for a possible attempt by Kosovo police to take over northern Kosovo.

“By dragging me on the ground like a dog, pulling me by my tie, they wanted to humiliate me, thinking they can humiliate the Serbian people,” Djuric told a news conference Tuesday.

But Kosovo President Hashim Thaci denounced the incident as a provocation by Serbia.

“Monday’s events are contrary to the commitment of dialogue and building sustainable peace in Kosovo,” he said in a statement Tuesday.

‘A forced move’

Politicians representing Kosovo’s Serb minority met with Serbia’s president in Belgrade, saying they would no longer support Kosovo’s government. This could trigger a government crisis if the Serb ministers aren’t quickly replaced by Kosovo Albanians.

Goran Rakic, who heads the Serbian List in Kosovo’s parliament, said that Serbs would on their own form an association of Serb-dominated municipalities in Kosovo, which was envisaged in a European Union-mediated deal in 2013 but was never carried out by Kosovo authorities.

“This is not a one-sided move. This is a forced move,” Rakic said. “We waited for five years for them to give us what is ours. We will form only what they signed up to, what was guaranteed five years ago.”

The move could further fuel friction between Serbia and Kosovo, which declared independence against Belgrade’s wishes in 2008. In 1999, NATO intervened to stop a bloody Serb crackdown against Kosovo Albanian separatists.

On Tuesday, Kosovo Serbs blocked the main road leading from northern Kosovo to the capital, Pristina, by parking a bulldozer and a flatbed truck across it.

Djuric, whose hands were bandaged, appeared at the news conference with Kosovo Serb officials after talks with Vucic.

He said that Kosovo police officers “took selfies with me and pulled me down to my knees, with a gun pushed against my body.”

He accused unidentified Western countries of directly or indirectly supporting Kosovo’s actions.

Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj said in Pristina on Tuesday that “yesterday’s actions weren’t directed against Serb citizens in Kosovo, but against those who broke the law.”

“It is not good to make limitless testing of anyone’s decision,” Haradinaj said. “It would be good to return to the negotiating table and discuss the issues together.”
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Spain has been plunged back into political turmoil after violent protests over the weekend in the wake of the arrest of former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont. 

The 55-year-old former leader was detained on the German-Danish border Sunday under a European arrest warrant issued by Spain, as he attempted to drive back to his adopted home in Belgium. He appeared before a court in the German town of Neumuenster on Monday for a preliminary hearing ahead of a decision on his extradition. 

Puigdemont declared independence after the semi-autonomous region of Catalonia voted overwhelmingly for independence in a referendum last year, though turnout was below 50 percent. 

Madrid called the vote illegal, and the Spanish government sacked the Catalan administration and imposed direct rule. Puigdemont fled to Brussels, where he has been living since being charged with rebellion.

Puigdemont’s detention triggered violent demonstrations in several Catalan cities over the weekend. At least 50 people were injured, including several police officers.

“I think it’s time for a real revolution. We need to bring this country to a complete halt,” said one pro-independence supporter who did not want to be named.

Pro-independence lawmakers and parliament workers staged a strike Monday in protest.

Paul Bekaert, Puigdemont’s lawyer in Brussels, criticized Madrid’s actions.

“The elected people are put in jail — that is [a] dictatorship. And they abuse the European warrant for political purpose. And it’s a scandal that Europe doesn’t react against the situation,” Bekaert said Monday.

German judges will have to decide whether to extradite Puigdemont — a potentially complex process, said German legal analyst Nikolaos Gazeas.

“The responsible court will have to examine whether the events that occurred in Spain, in Catalonia, the things that Mr. Puigdemont is being accused of, are punishable in Germany and would be considered criminal under German law.”

Thirteen former Catalan independence leaders have been charged with rebellion by Madrid. Five — including Puigdemont — fled overseas in the wake of the government crackdown in October and are subject to international arrest warrants. But criminal law differs across Europe, where the principle of mutual recognition is key, said Gazeas.

“If the German court rules that rebellion is not an extraditionable offense, then that would mean — if the German government agrees to this — that Puigdemont could not be charged with rebellion in Spain. But only with the offenses he was extradited for. And that would probably be the offense of embezzlement — an offense with a much lower range of sentencing, and which is not in the prime focus of Spain.”

Germany has 60 days to make a decision, but that can be extended by another 30 days, if necessary. Analysts say a decision is likely to take several days, or even weeks. 

Despite the protests in Catalonia, analysts say it’s uncertain whether his arrest will spark a revived bid to break away from Spain, as the independence movement itself is divided.
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The Trump administration’s decision to shutter the Russian consulate in Seattle displeased many Russian immigrants Monday, some of whom rushed to its offices in hopes of securing passports, visas and other important documents.

One woman, who identified herself as a dual U.S.-Russian citizen from Boise, Idaho, said she spent $1,000 traveling to Seattle to renew a passport so that she could visit her brother in Russia – only to be turned away. Another, Luda Rieve, of San Diego, told The Seattle Times she too was turned away after taking the day off work and flying from California to renew her passport.

Many procedures handled by the consulate require in-person appearances, and because the administration also ordered the San Francisco consulate closed last September, the only facilities remaining are in New York, Houston and Washington, D.C.

“My sister is at the consulate right now trying to get a travel passport,” David Mordekhov said, a Seattle lawyer and Moscow native who moved to the U.S. 20 years ago. “Any travel paperwork that has to do with trips to Russia, visa applications, powers of attorney and any other documents are going to be much harder to procure.”

The closure of the Seattle consulate, effective April 2, came as the United States and more than a dozen European nations kicked out Russian diplomats as punishment for Moscow’s alleged poisoning of an ex-spy in Britain. The Seattle consulate was responsible for handling requests from people in Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

The administration cited the consulate’s proximity to a submarine base, Naval Base Kitsap, as well as Boeing’s operations, but University of Washington international relations professor Don Hellmann suggested that rationale “might be a little simplistic.”

“The real thrust of intelligence these days is digital,” he said. “It’s intellectual property. We live in a hacked world. Microsoft is probably as much a target as the naval base or Boeing.”

The Seattle area is home to about 33,000 Russians, a number of whom work in the engineering or tech industries. Among them is Sergey Bobkov, an analyst for the travel website Expedia, who said Russians and Russian-Americans would to have to travel farther and go through more hoops to visit friends and family there.

“It’s been frustrating to no end, to say the least,” Bobkov said, a 34-year-old native of St. Petersburg, Russia, who holds dual citizenship. “I’m trying to get a visa for my wife to go to Russia with me in August. We will have to either fly to New York City or Washington, D.C. and handle those things in person, or we’ll have to pay someone under the table to do express services.”

He added, “It’s hard on all of us who have nothing to do with politics.”

Not everyone who showed up Monday came away empty-handed. Alex Bendetov said he was able to obtain a passport for his baby after starting the process some time ago.

“My wife acted quickly. She said, ‘We gotta go and try to pick up the passport,”’ he said. “We have grandparents living back home and it’s important to go back and visit with them.”

Last summer, the Trump administration ordered the San Francisco consulate closed in a diplomatic tit-for-tat, after Congress passed sanctions against Russia for election interference and the Kremlin retaliated by ordering the U.S. to cut its diplomatic staff there. A day later, black smoke poured from a chimney as consular officials burned undisclosed items in a fireplace, prompting a response from firefighters.

There were no immediate reports of smoke Monday at the consulate’s offices on the 25th floor of a downtown Seattle skyscraper or at the consular residence, a stately red-brick building surrounded by a wrought-iron fence, cedar trees and rhododendrons.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday voiced hope that a difficult period in relations between Turkey and the European Union is now in the past.

Erdogan spoke after talks with European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker, European Council President Donald Tusk and Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov in the Bulgarian Black Sea resort of Varna.

“I hope that we have left a tough period in the relations between Turkey and Europe behind us,” Erdogan said and voiced hope that “a first step was taken here toward restoring trust with Europe.”

He also said that EU membership was a “strategic goal.”

Tusk said that the summit’s purpose was to “continue the dialogue in really difficult circumstances.”

“Our meeting today demonstrated that while our relationship is going through difficult times, in areas where we do cooperate, we cooperate well,” he said.

Tusk acknowledged that no concrete compromise or solution had been achieved at the summit, but expressed hope that such would be possible in the future.

“Only progress on these issues will allow us to improve the EU-Turkey relations, including the accession process,” he added.

“We reconfirm our readiness to keep up the dialogue and conversation and work together to overcome current difficulties with a view to unleashing the potential of our partnership,” Tusk said.

On migration and support for refugees, Tusk said that the EU and Turkey remain very close partners.

“I would like to express our appreciation for the impressive work Turkey has been doing, and to sincerely thank Turkey and the Turkish people for hosting more than 3 million Syrian refugees these past years,” he said.

“The EU has lent substantial support to improve the livelihood of these refugees, and this evening we reaffirmed the European Union’s unwavering commitment to continue this support,” Tusk said.

He also said that while the EU understands Turkey’s need to deal effectively with its security, it is concerned that some of the methods used, undermine fundamental freedoms and the rule of law in Turkey.

“It would be a mistake for a Europe that claims to be a global power to keep Turkey outside of expansion policies,” Erdogan said.

Borissov said that “I think that before the end of our EU presidency (the end of June) another EU-Turkey summit will be held.”

In response to European criticism of its cross-border operation to drive out Syrian Kurdish militia from the northwestern Syrian border enclave of Afrin, Erdogan said Turkey expected European backing. He added that Turkey intended to continue with its operations as long as necessary.

“Our operations against terrorism do not just contribute to our and the Syrians’ security, but to Europe’s security as well,” Erdogan said. “On sensitive issues such as the struggle against terrorism, we don’t expect unnecessary criticism but strong support.”

On Cyprus, Erdogan reiterated the Turkish Cypriot community’s rights to Cyprus’ resources and said the EU had “nothing to contribute” to the dispute as long as it does not maintain a “fair” approach.

The summit was held amid an array of issues that have strained ties, including a dispute between Turkey and EU member Cyprus over energy exploration in the Mediterranean.

Turkish warships have prevented a drillship from carrying out exploratory drilling on behalf of Italian company Eni southeast of Cyprus, in a move that the EU criticized.

Turkey objects to “unilateral” gas searches by ethnically divided Cyprus’ Greek Cypriot-run government without the direct involvement of breakaway Turkish Cypriots. The Cyprus government says a gas search is its sovereign right and will benefit all citizens.

Erdogan pressed his European leaders to grant Turkish citizens visa liberalization to allow them to travel to certain European countries without visa restrictions.

“We told the EU side, that it needs to complete its work on this issue… This should not be turned into a political issue, it should not become an issue that shakes the trust of our people,” he said.
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Britain and Russia have been waging a fast and furious information war since former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were found poisoned March 4 in the provincial English town of Salisbury. 

Not a day has gone by without at least one fierce exchange between British and Russian officials — and both governments have turned to social media, from Twitter to Facebook, to make accusations and counter-claims in their efforts to convince a global audience of guilt or innocence. 

And the barbs flying have been getting more personal. The British narrative has been more consistent, demanding an explanation from Moscow for why a Soviet-developed nerve agent, Novichok, was used to poison the Skripals and arguing the only plausible one is that the attempted assassination was sanctioned by the Russian government, a view endorsed by European Union leaders last week and by the U.S. government. 

Russian officials have offered more than 20 different explanations about who might have been behind the nerve-agent poisoning of the Skripals or why Russia is innocent of the charge of being behind the assassination attempt. Western officials charge this changing of stories is designed to muddy the waters and sow doubt.

Russian explanations have ranged from claims the British might have done it themselves to accusations that the whole incident was made up. Kremlin officials have insinuated also that Sweden, Slovakia or the Czech Republic may be to blame, earning sharp rebukes from the governments of all three European countries. The Russian finger has pointed at Uzbekistan and Ukraine, too.

“The authorities of UK are not interested in finding the truth about the Skripal case, they have other motives,” lamented the Russian Mission to the United Nations on Twitter last week. “They are using propaganda war tools to influence an uninformed and impressionable public. There are no facts, only allegations about the ‘Russian trace,’” the mission added. 

On Saturday, the Russian emphasis returned once again to implying that Britain itself was behind the assassination bid, with officials noting that Porton Down, the British military research facility, is only about 10 miles from where the Skripals were discovered. The shifting Russian narratives give Moscow some advantages in the information war, say analysts.

“Russia feels free to say whatever it wants, it doesn’t feel need to tell truth, be consistent, or stick to any norms or rules,” says a communications strategist, who has worked for the British government. “These are handicaps in a battle like this,” he adds. Britain doesn’t have the same centralized, aggressive messaging machinery the Kremlin has, he notes.

Social media battle

Moscow has also launched an extensive social media-based disinformation campaign to buttress it claims of innocence as well as to press its accusations that London is in the grip of Russophobia, say Western analysts. 

“Twitter has become a battleground,” says Ben Nimmo, an analyst with the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council, a New York-based think tank. Supporters and defenders of the Russian government have clashed over who was to blame, and which side to believe; politicians and diplomats have joined in on both sides with much of the invective ‘organic” and driven by angry users and officials, he says.

But Russia’s so-called troll factories have also been at work using fake and automated social media accounts able to spread rapidly memes and messages.

Atlantic Council researchers have been plotting the activity of accounts that have been used in other Kremlin disinformation campaigns — notably during the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea and the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine. One tactic they have spotted is the large-scale amplification by Russia’s troll accounts of doubts or criticism posted by genuine British critics of the British government or conspiracy theorists in a bid to show that Britons did not believe Russian leader Vladimir Putin was behind the poisoning.

British officials estimate at least 2,800 robotic troll accounts have posted messages or re-tweets about the attempted assassination of the Skripals reaching at least 7.5 million people in Britain. Facebook also has witnessed a large volume of postings of English-language content produced by Russian state-owned media. 

Russia’s Twitter campaign “shows the power which anonymous trolls with demonstrably falsified profiles continue to wield online,” says Nimmo.

British officials have sought to expose the methodology behind what they say is Russia’s online disinformation campaign, posting on social media sites last week a video mocking the shifting narratives their Russian rivals have offered for what happened to the Skripals.

Not that Britain’s information approach is receiving unblemished praise. On Saturday, a former British envoy to Moscow, Tony Brenton, said while he supported the actions taken by the British government over the Skripal poisoning, he worried the language use, especially by Britain foreign secretary Boris Johnson, who has compared Putin to Adolf Hitler, was “unnecessarily virulent.” 

He told a British newspaper: “Obviously we have to react robustly and firmly to deal with the Skripal outrage, but at some point we are going to have to get back to doing business with Russia. We should certainly be taking action that minimizes the recurrence of [a similar] attack, but we should not be burning our bridges so much that we cannot re-establish lines of communication.”

There is also criticism of Johnson in the Russian capital from British expatriots who say his comparisons of Russia now with Nazi Germany of the 1930s and 1940s is deeply offensive, noting that the Great Patriotic War, as Russians describe the Second World War, is something people from across the spectrum here celebrate.
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Turkey has declared complete control of the northern Syrian area of Afrin after a two-month-long offensive to oust a Kurdish militia. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Sunday that the next target is the nearby town of Tal Rifaat. Erdogan has vowed to remove Kurds from power in all areas of Syria and Iraq where they took control after defeating Islamic State militants. As VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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With the fire alarms silent and staff reportedly nowhere to be seen, a fire at a shopping mall packed with children and their parents on the first weekend of the school recess killed 64 people in eastern Russia.

The fire at the Winter Cherry mall in Kemerovo, a city in Siberia, about 3,000 kilometers (1,900 miles) east of Moscow, was extinguished by Monday morning after burning through the night. Firefighters were still recovering bodies as parts of the buildings were still smoldering. Some of the dead were found inside a cinema.

Sixty-four deaths were confirmed after the firefighters finished combing through the four floors of the mall, Emergency Situations Minister Vladimir Puchkov told a televised briefing. Six of the bodies have not yet been recovered. Puchkov would not immediately say how many of the victims were children. 

Ten people have been hospitalized. Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova, who visited the Keremovo hospital where the victims were receiving treatment, said on Russian state television that the patient in the gravest condition is an 11-year-old boy who jumped out of a window from the fourth floor. The boy’s parents and younger brother died in the fire, Skvortsova said.

The Investigative Committee said it has detained four people for questioning, including one of the mall’s tenants, but would not immediately give the cause of the fire, which started on the top floor on Sunday evening. The investigators have launched a probe into possible negligence and violations of the fire safety rules.

Witness testimony indicated that the fire alarm did not go off and that staff did not arrange for the evacuation at the shopping mall, which was was converted from a former confectionery factory in 2013.

Winter Cherry was one of Kemerovo’s most popular entertainment centers for children, with its own indoor skating rink, petting zoo and trampolines. Kemerovo residents said the mall was packed with children and their parents.

The Ekho Mosvky radio station on Monday quoted witnesses who said the fire alarm did not go off and that the mall’s staff did not organize the evacuation.

Anna Zarechneva who was on the top floor where the fire started, watching a movie with her husband and son, said they only found out about the fire when a man ran into the theater shouting.

“We didn’t hear the fire alarm, they even didn’t turn on the light during the show,” she said. “That movie could have been the last for us, I’ve only just realized that.”

Zarechneva said her husband stayed upstairs trying to help arrange the evacuation because the mall’s security and staff were nowhere to be seen.
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Catalonia’s ousted president Carles Puigdemont was arrested in Germany Sunday while crossing the border from Denmark, German police said.

Puigdemont’s lawyer, Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas, confirmed the arrest on Twitter, adding that Puigdemont was traveling to Belgium, where he initially fled after an arrest warrant was issued against him for his role in an independence referendum in October.

A news report (on AFP) says Puigdemont will appear before a judge in Germany on Monday as part of a process of determining if he is to be returned to Spain. Puidgmont’s detention sparked some demonstrations in Spain, according to the Associated Press.

Puigdemont “was heading to Belgium to present himself, as always, at the disposal of Belgian courts,” Alonso-Cuevillas wrote.

The arrest follows a Spanish Supreme Court decision Friday to charge 13 Catalan separatist leaders with rebellion and other crimes for their attempt to declare independence from Spain last year.

German police arrested Puigdemont in conjunction with an international arrest warrant issued by Spain. The ousted Catalan leader could face up to 25 years in Spanish prison.

Last week, the latest regional presidential candidate, Jordi Turull, was placed in custody over his role in the attempted breakaway from Spain, marking the third time Catalonia’s parliament has been unable to nominate a new president.

One of Puigdemont’s associates, former Catalonia education chief, Clara Ponsati may also face arrest after fleeing from Spain to Scotland.  News reports say her attorney has been working out arrangements for Ponsati to surrender to police.  After leaving Spain, she resumed teaching at a university in Scotland.

Catalonia has been in political limbo since December, when Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy called a special election in an effort to derail an independence movement in the region. The plan backfired when parties favoring a split with Spain won the election.

Madrid invoked special powers to take over the regional government after the Catalan administration declared independence in October.

 
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Survivors and families of victims of Friday’s terror attack in France attended a special mass to honor the four killed and three wounded, including an officer who swapped himself with a hostage in a supermarket in the southwestern town of Trebes.

The Bishop of Carcassonne and Narbonne Alain Planet celebrated mass, during which he praised the “extraordinary devotion” of Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Beltrame.

“I am here to share in people’s mourning, but also to warm myself to their profound solidarity. This event was also an opportunity to see an extraordinary act, extraordinary devotion by [Lieutenant] Colonel Arnaud Beltrame,” he said. “The whole of France has been touched by this, we were too, especially the Christian community, as he was one of ours. And at the start of this holy week, when we look at Christ take our place to save us from death, well his act takes on a whole new meaning and I’m sure he was aware of that when he did what he did.”

Planet said Friday’s events offered an opportunity to reflect on the suffering felt by countless people around the world.

After French President Emmanuel Macron said evidence suggested the gunman’s actions were considered terrorism, the Islamic State militant group’s propaganda arm claimed responsibility.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said counterterrorism authorities have assumed control of the investigation.

French authorities say two people have been arrested in connection with the shootings, including a woman who is reported to have been close to the assailant.

Islamic State extremist attacks have killed more than 200 people since 2015.

Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump denounced Friday’s attack in France in a message on Twitter Saturday.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of the horrible attack in France yesterday, and we grieve the nation’s loss,” the president wrote, adding “We also condemn the violent actions of the attacker and anyone who would provide him support. We are with you @EmmanuelMacron!”

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