Month: June 2018

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Tuesday he met with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to discuss energy issues and U.S. sanctions on Russia.

Russia is one of the world’s biggest crude oil and natural gas producers, and the United States has been urging global energy producers to boost output to stem an increase in prices.

“We met. We discussed energy issues, among other things. We touched upon questions related to sanctions,” Novak said in a press briefing in Washington. “We can’t sidestep these difficult questions, so of course we touched upon them during our contact.”

Novak said he had also met with U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry to discuss energy cooperation.

The meetings occurred while energy executives and ministers from around the globe converged on Washington for the triennial World Gas Conference, the industry’s biggest summit.

The U.S. Congress imposed economic sanctions in recent months against Russia that – among other things – seek to prevent companies from participating in Russian pipeline projects or oil and gas development efforts.

The sanctions were designed to punish Russia for its 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and for meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Moscow denies it interfered in the election.

Russia depends heavily on pipeline networks to get its energy production to European markets, and is also keen to develop energy reserves in its Arctic.

Novak has said in the past that the United States should not be permitted to impose such sanctions without a vote of the United Nations Security Council, of which Russia is a permanent member.

The United States has been urging increased supply from the world’s biggest producers, including OPEC members, to help stem an increase in oil prices that threatens economic growth.

It is also renewing sanctions against OPEC-producer Iran after abandoning a global deal meant to stem its nuclear ambitions, and urging consumers of its oil to stop their imports completely – another factor pushing up oil prices.

Perry told reporters on Monday, before meeting with Novak, that he was “amenable to having conversations, to creating a relationship” with Russia.

“He had invited me to, actually, to come visit some of the things that they are doing in the Arctic,” Perry said. “I think we’ve got our issues with Russia, but I’m one of those that believe you need to be having conversations with folks and finding places that we can work together.”
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U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton is expected in Moscow on Wednesday for talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and possibly Vladimir Putin, part of an effort to lay the ground for a summit between Putin and President Donald Trump.

Bolton, whom the Kremlin regards as an arch Russia hawk, is due to give a news conference after his meetings at 1630 GMT, where he might name the date and location of a summit, which the Kremlin has been trying to make happen for months.

Trump congratulated Putin by phone in March after the Russian leader’s landslide re-election victory and said the two would meet soon. However, the Russians have since complained about the difficulty of setting up such a meeting.

Relations between Washington and Moscow are languishing at a post-Cold War low. They are at odds over Syria, Ukraine, allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and accusations Moscow was behind the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain in March.

Expectations for the outcome of any Putin-Trump summit are therefore low, even though Trump said before he was elected that he wanted to improve battered U.S.-Russia ties and the two men occasionally make positive statements about each other.

The Kremlin said on Tuesday it wanted to talk about international security and stability, disarmament, regional problems and bilateral ties. It did not rule out a meeting between Bolton and Putin, but did not confirm one either.

Details unclear 

The summit is expected to take place around the second half of July after Trump attends a NATO summit in Brussels and visits Britain. It is unclear where it would be held, with Vienna and Helsinki cited as possible venues.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at the weekend he expected Bolton’s Moscow visit to lead to a summit “in the not too distant future.” He said Washington was “trying to find places where we had overlapping interests, but protecting American interest where we do not.”

Such a summit, if it happened, would be likely to cause irritation in parts of the West, where countries such as Britain want to isolate Putin. It would also go down badly among Trump’s foreign and domestic critics, who question his commitment to NATO and fret over his desire to rebuild ties with Russia even as Washington continues to tighten sanctions on Moscow.

The United States initially sanctioned Russia over its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea and its backing for a pro-Russian uprising in eastern Ukraine. Subsequent sanctions have punished Moscow for what Washington has called its malign behavior and meddling in U.S. politics, something Russia denies.

Some Trump critics say Russia has not significantly altered its behavior since 2014 and should therefore not be given the prestige that a summit would confer.
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A top U.S. State Department official warned Turkey on Tuesday that its purchase of Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets would be jeopardized if it does not drop a plan to buy S-400 missile defense systems from Russia.

If it buys the system, Turkey would also be subject to sanctions under a bill President Donald Trump signed into law last summer, Wess Mitchell, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, testified in the Senate.

That sweeping sanctions law, known as CAATSA, seeks to punish companies that do business with Russia’s defense industry.

“We’ve also been very clear that across the board, an acquisition of S-400 will inevitably affect the prospects for Turkish military-industrial cooperation with the United States, including F-35,” Mitchell told a Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing on U.S. relations with Europe.

Ties between Washington and Ankara have been strained in recent months over a host of issues, including U.S. policy in Syria and legal cases against American citizens detained in Turkey, notably a U.S. pastor named Andrew Brunson, who is being held on terrorism charges.

Mitchell estimated there are about two dozen detained Americans in Turkey, many of them dual nationals.

But Mitchell also praised Turkey, a member of NATO, as “a crucial ally and partner,” citing its support for the campaign against the Islamic State militant group.

“We work with them very closely in intelligence and in other areas, but this has the potential to spike the punch,” he said.

Separately, Trump congratulated Turkey’s Tayyip Erdogan by telephone on Tuesday on his victory in Sunday’s presidential election and the two leaders agreed to improve bilateral defense and security ties, Erdogan’s office said.

Various pieces of legislation have been making their way through Congress that would block the transfer of the jets to Turkey over its plan to purchase the Russian system.

Mitchell said the administration believes it has the legal authority to withhold the transfer of the military jets to Turkey, if need be, without Congress passing legislation.

Lockheed Martin held a ceremony last week to mark the “rollout” of the first F-35 jet for Turkey, but that aircraft was headed for Arizona, where F-35 training takes place.

Delivery of the jets into Turkey is not expected until next year.

 
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The global chemical weapons watchdog plans to vote Wednesday on whether it should have authority to apportion blame for attacks, an idea arising from frictions between Britain and its key Western allies on one side and Russia and Syria on the other.

The British delegation to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons introduced the proposal to empower the Nobel Prize-winning group to identify those responsible for chemical weapons attacks. The organization, based in The Hague, the Netherlands, currently does not have that ability.

“At present, the OPCW experts will say where and when an attack happened, but not who was responsible,” British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said at a special meeting on the U.K. proposal Tuesday. “If we are serious about upholding the ban on chemical weapons, that gap must be filled.”

Several nations agree that limits written into the organization’s agreements with the United Nations and the countries that decided to be bound by an international chemical weapons ban hamstring the watchdog’s work. The British delegation argues that the ability to identify perpetrators would “strengthen the organization entrusted with overseeing the ban on chemical weapons.”

Britain made its proposal in the wake of the chemical attacks on an ex-spy and his daughter in the English city of Salisbury, as well as in Syria’s civil war and by the Islamic State group in Iraq. Britain has accused Russia of using a nerve agent in the attempted assassination in March of former spy Sergei Skripal, which Moscow strongly denies.

Russia has said a change like the one Britain proposed would undermine the organization and threaten its future. Its representative said at Tuesday’s meeting that the U.N. Security Council was the only place to discuss such issues.

“So it would seem that the U.K. draft is an attempt to undermine the mandate and sovereignty” of the Security Council, Russian Deputy Industry and Trade Minister Georgy Kalamanov.

The Security Council established a joint U.N.-OPCW investigative team to determine responsibility for chemical attacks in Syria. But Russia vetoed a Western-backed resolution in November that would have renewed the joint team’s mandate.

Efforts to revive or replace the Syria team since then have failed. So, at the moment, Britain’s Johnson said, “no international body is working to attribute responsibility for chemical weapons attacks in Syria.”
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Uber avoided a ban in London on Tuesday after the taxi-hailing app’s new management made changes to ease strained relations with the city’s transport regulator, but its new license will include strict conditions.

Uber overhauled its policies and personnel in Britain after Transport for London (TfL) refused to renew its license in September for failings in its approach to reporting serious criminal offenses and background checks on drivers.

Judge Emma Arbuthnot said while Uber had not been fit and proper when that decision was made, an overhaul of its policies in the subsequent months had changed its position.

“[Uber] has provided evidence that it is now a fit and proper person. … I grant a license to ULL [Uber London Limited],” she said in her judgment.

The judge granted Uber a 15-month “probationary” license to operate.

With backers including Goldman Sachs and BlackRock and valued at more than $70 billion, Uber has faced protests, bans and restrictions around the world as it challenges traditional taxi operators, angering some unions.

Uber, which has about 45,000 drivers in London, introduced several new initiatives in response to the ruling, including 24/7 telephone support and the proactive reporting of serious incidents to police. It has also changed senior management in Britain, its biggest European market.

The ruling has been a test of Uber’s new management at board level, with chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi, who took charge the month before TfL’s decision, pledging to “make things right” in London.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan was clear that the court ruling was no carte blanche for Uber in London.

“No matter how big or powerful you are, you must play by the rules “especially when it comes to the safety of Londoners,” he said in a tweet. “Uber has been granted a 15-month license to operate in London but with a clear set of conditions that TfL will closely monitor and enforce.”

The license conditions include giving TFL notice of what Uber is doing in areas that may be a cause of concern, reporting safety related complaints and having an independent assurance audit report every six months.
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Some European lawmakers urged the EU on Monday to consider stripping Hungary of its voting rights to punish it for weakening democracy and the rule of law, a move which prompted a swift rebuke from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

The European Parliament’s Civil Liberties committee (LIBE) voted in favor of triggering a formal punitive procedure, citing concerns about the independence of the judiciary, freedom of expression, the rights of minorities, and treatment of migrants and refugees in Hungary.

The European Parliament as a whole is expected to endorse the proposal in September but it is unlikely to lead to any swift action against Hungary as that would require all other EU states to back the idea.

But the LIBE move highlighted a widening rift between the liberal EU founders and Hungary – part of a grouping of newer, eastern member states which are now run by nationalist eurosceptics and have resisted an EU push to host asylum seekers.

Orban dismissed the committee’s vote as an attempt to pressure Hungary to change its policies on migration, state news agency MTI reported.

“But, given that Hungarian voters have already made their decision about this issue, there is nothing to discuss,” he said, according to MTI.

Orban’s Fidesz party won by a landslide in elections last April, partly on a wave of support for his hardline migration policies, including a refusal to take in anyone from the new arrivals from the Middle East and North Africa.

During his eight years in power, Orban has increasingly put pressure on courts, media and non-government groups. Though the EU has often protested, it has largely failed to stop him in what his critics denounce as a growing authoritarian drive.

Orban’s other nationalist, eurosceptic ally Poland would most likely shield Budapest from any sanctions even if the Article 7 punitive procedure was launched against Hungary.

Orban has made clear he would block any such move against Warsaw, which has been at odds with the bloc for more than two years over its own judicial reforms that critics say weaken courts and the rule of law in the largest ex-communist EU state.

Twenty-eight EU ministers will discuss their concerns about Poland again on Tuesday at a session in Luxembourg.

EU leaders are preparing to discuss immigration policy in Brussels on Thursday and Friday, seeking to heal a deep division in a bloc already badly shaken by Brexit.
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Moldova’s Supreme Court on Monday upheld a decision to invalidate the election victory of a pro-transparency candidate for the post of mayor of the capital Chisinau, despite public protests demanding the ruling be overturned.

Hundreds and sometimes thousands of Moldovans have been protesting daily, since a court ruled on June 19 that Andrei Nastase’s electoral win was illegitimate, citing unspecified violations.

The scandal has brought more political turmoil for a country that plunged into crisis following a $1 billion banking fraud in 2015, enduring successive government collapses and frequent conflict between the president and the government.

According to Moldovan law, the Supreme Court’s ruling is final and the post will be filled by an acting mayor until the next election in 2019.

Around a thousand people gathered outside the court to protest against the decision and chanted: “Revolution!” Nastase, who has led a movement demanding greater transparency and accountability, says the court decisions were made at the behest of the head of Moldova’s ruling party, businessman Vlad Plahotniuc.

“Judges are bastards. They are scared of Plahotniuc, but not of you, the people of this country,” Nastase said after the latest ruling. “We will continue the protests until we win.”

The press office of Plahotniuc’s Democratic Party of Moldova (DPM) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Plahotniuc has previously said negative perceptions about him were down to lies spread by his opponents after he entered politics.

Nastase, a former prosecutor, won 52.5 percent of the votes in the June 3 election. His supporters’ daily protests included a gathering of several thousand in Chisinau on Sunday.

The canceling of Nastase’s win has drawn sharp rebukes from the United States and the European Union.
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NATO is on the verge of expanding its membership from 29 to 30 countries, perhaps more, when the alliance holds its annual summit next month. What does this mean for NATO and what are the implications for Russia? VOA’s Jane Bojadzievski has more.
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Latin American countries have sprung a World Cup surprise by filling Russia’s 11 host cities with tens of thousands of fans from Mexico and Colombia to Peru and Argentina.

And some of the Europeans who did show up said their friends back home told them they were crazy to go.

The contrasting cast of supporters at the biggest event in sport reflects Russia’s progressive creep away from Europe in the 18 years of President Vladimir Putin’s rule.

Moscow is now embracing new allies that happen to worship football and where damning — and often exaggerated — media stories about Russian hooligans and poisoning cases are rare.

This mix and the added ingredient of a more evenly spread-out global middle-class with the means to travel the world has the streets of Russia dancing to a decidedly Latin beat.

“We didn’t expect it to be this beautiful and the people are amazing,” Mauricio Miranda said as she waved a Colombian flag on the edge of Red Square in Moscow.

“We will definitely come back,” said the 30-year-old.

Belgian public relations consultant Jo De Munter does not necessarily disagree. It is his friends who do.

“I think Europeans are a bit afraid,” the 46-year-old said while staring in the direction of Lenin’s Mausoleum.

“In Belgium, everybody told me I was crazy to go to the football.”

By the numbers

World Cups come in all shapes and sizes and comparing ticket sales rarely tells the whole tale.

Europeans and Latin Americans are naturally more inclined to attend World Cups held in their regions because of the easier travel arrangements and familiarity.

South Africa in 2010 may provide a better example because it was a frontier football country with specific security and logistical risks.

Yet FIFA figures showed almost 50 percent more Britons bought tickets for the African continent’s first World Cup than this maiden one in eastern Europe.

Australians were in third place then but are just ninth in Russia.

Germany and England bought the fourth- and fifth-most number of tickets. France was ninth.

But France dropped out of the top 10 in Russia while Britain slipped down to last place. Germany remained fourth.

The United States has long led purchases among non-hosting countries because of its massive economy and large communities from football-mad Mexico and other Central American communities.

Taking the US out of the equation leaves Latin Americans accounting for two-thirds of the top 10 countries that have bought tickets for Russia.

Safety net

Fans banging Mexican drums and sporting the red-and-white bodypaint of the Peruvian flag encountered on a Moscow summer’s day were almost all big city office workers.

Colombia’s Miranda is an urban planner with a new job in Canada.

Alexandro Grado is a former financial consultant with Mexico’s Citibanamex who now owns a plastics recycling firm.

“Going to Russia is not expensive if you buy everything ahead of time,” Grado said.

Yet not all fans can afford to go bar hopping near the Kremlin and sociologists who study the sport say this is where Latin American football federations come in.

“There are national teams which have very strong organizational support behind them. Argentina in 2010 was one example,” said Ludovic Lestrelin of France’s Universite de Caen in Normandy.

Lestrelin said less well-off fans in Europe get far less travel and accommodation assistance from state agencies and are increasingly more likely to stay home and watch on TV.

This means Europeans attending World Cups tend to be richer than the average football fan. The traveling Latin Americans are more likely to come from all types of backgrounds.

“Those who travel to Russia and other places do not reflect the social makeup of French stadiums,” said Lestrelin.

“Those (in France) are more diverse, with a central core of lower and middle class workers.”

Zbigniew Iwanowski of the Institute of Latin American Studies in Moscow said Russia is further reaping the rewards of a “pink tide” that brought anti-US leaders power across the continent.

“The pendulum has swung back to the right but they still have (Russian state media) like Sputnik and RT,” Iwanowski said.

“Russia’s image is better in Latin America than it is in Europe and US.”

‘Not properly European’

Few would argue that Russia generates a lot of negative headlines in Europe in general and Britain in particular.

But the media’s role in shaping public opinion — and the reverse — is all but impossible to gauge.

What is clear is that at least some of the Europeans who ventured to Moscow and beyond did so with a degree of trepidation the voyagers from Latin America lacked.

De Munter said he often travels to watch Belgium play abroad. Rarely has he seen the national team’s support so small.

“We are expecting 4,000 Belgian people, which is not that much. Especially now because the Red Devils are doing very well.”

Gherardo Drardanelli flew in from Italy to take part in one of the fan tournaments organised alongside the World Cup.

“I think our concept of Russia — we feel that Russia is far away, that it’s not a properly European country,” the 28-year-old said. 
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Pro-Brexit politicians and business figures have urged British Prime Minister Theresa May to be ready to walk away from the European Union without a trade agreement, despite warnings from major manufacturers that a “no deal” Brexit would be an economic disaster.

In an open letter, 60 lawmakers, economists and business chiefs accused the EU of being “intransigent” in divorce talks and said Britain should threaten to withhold the $52 billion divorce bill it has already agreed to pay.

The letter released Sunday by Economists for Free Trade was signed by prominent supporters of a “hard Brexit,” including ex-U.K. Treasury chief Nigel Lawson, Conservative lawmakers John Redwood and Peter Bone, and Tim Martin, chairman of the Wetherspoons pub chain.

They urged U.K. authorities “to accelerate their preparations for ‘no deal’ and a move to a World Trade Deal under WTO rules.”

That would mean tariffs and other trade barriers between Britain and the EU, and many businesses say it would severely harm the U.K. economy. Airbus, Siemens and BMW have all warned recently that leaving the EU without a free-trade deal would hurt British businesses and cost jobs. Airbus alone employs nearly 14,000 workers in the U.K.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the warnings from businesses were “inappropriate” and undermined chances of getting a “clean Brexit.”

“The more that we undermine Theresa May, the more likely we are to end up with `a fudge,’ which would be an absolute disaster for everyone,” he told the BBC.

May’s Conservative government is divided between Brexit-backing ministers calling for a clean break so that Britain can strike new trade deals around the world, and those who want to stay closely aligned to the EU, Britain’s biggest trading partner.

Hunt urged people to unite behind the prime minister, saying she would mix “cautious pragmatism” with a determination to fulfil voters’ decision to leave the EU.

On Saturday, however, tens of thousands of anti-Brexit protesters marched in London to demand a new referendum on leaving the EU as Britain marked the second anniversary of its 2016 vote to quit the bloc.

“Brexit is not a done deal. Brexit is not inevitable. Brexit can be stopped,” Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable told the crowd.

 
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Leaders of 16 European Union countries met Sunday in Belgium, ahead of the upcoming European Council meeting on Thursday and Friday, to discuss how to best cope with huge waves of migrants landing on the continent’s shores. A key issue on the table was the so-called Dublin Regulation, which says that asylum-seekers must be processed in the EU nation where they first arrive. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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Turks began voting Sunday for a new president and parliament in elections that pose the biggest challenge to Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamist-rooted AK Party since they swept to power more than a decade and a half ago.

The elections will also usher in a powerful new executive presidency long sought by Erdogan and backed by a small majority of Turks in a 2017 referendum. Critics say it will further erode democracy in the NATO member state and entrench one-man rule.

More than 56 million people were registered to vote at 180,000 ballot boxes across Turkey. Voting began at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) and will end at 5 p.m. (1400 GMT).

Erdogan, the most popular but also divisive leader in modern Turkish history, moved the elections forward from November 2019, arguing the new powers would better enable him to tackle the nation’s mounting economic problems — the lira has lost 20 percent against the dollar this year — and deal with Kurdish rebels in southeast Turkey and in neighboring Iraq and Syria.

Opposition galvanizes

But he reckoned without Muharrem Ince, the presidential candidate of the secularist Republican People’s Party (CHP), whose feisty performance at campaign rallies has galvanized Turkey’s long-demoralized and divided opposition.

Addressing a rally in Istanbul on Saturday attended by hundreds of thousands of people, Ince promised to reverse what he and opposition parties see as a swing towards authoritarian rule under Erdogan in the country of 81 million people.

“If Erdogan wins, your phones will continue to be listened to. … Fear will continue to reign. … If Ince wins, the courts will be independent,” said Ince, adding he would lift Turkey’s state of emergency within 48 hours of being elected.

Coup attempt, then crackdown

Turkey has been under emergency rule, which restricts some personal freedoms and allows the government to bypass parliament with emergency decrees, for nearly two years following an attempted military coup in July 2016.

Erdogan blamed the coup on his former ally, U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, and has waged a sweeping crackdown on the preacher’s followers in Turkey. The United Nations say some 160,000 people have been detained and nearly as many more, including teachers, judges and soldiers, sacked.

The president’s critics, including the European Union, which Turkey still nominally aspires to join, say Erdogan has used the crackdown to stifle dissent. Few newspapers or other media openly criticize the government, and he has received far more election coverage than other presidential candidates.

Erdogan, who defends his tough measures as essential for national security, told his supporters at rallies Saturday that if re-elected he would press ahead with more of the big infrastructure projects that have helped turn Turkey into one of the world’s fastest-growing economies during his time in office.

“If he wins, I think the obstacles before us will disappear and we will have control,” said Nesrin Cuha, 37, a call center worker, who wore a headscarf. Religiously observant Muslims form the bedrock of Erdogan’s support.

“The opposition will not be a nuisance anymore with the new presidential system,” said another Erdogan supporter, retired sailor Engin Ozmen, 60.

Polls predict run-off

Polls show Erdogan falling short of a first-round victory in the presidential race but he would be expected to win a run-off on July 8, while his AK Party could lose its parliamentary majority, possibly heralding increased tensions between president and parliament.

Other presidential candidates include Selahattin Demirtas, leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party (HDP), who is now in jail on terrorism-related charges that he denies. If the HDP exceeds the 10 percent threshold of votes needed to enter parliament, it will be harder for the AKP to get a majority.
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Before it became one of the venues for the World Cup, the city of Volgograd in southwest Russia was famous for an overabundance of small, annoying flies called midges. While the small two-winged flies don’t bite, soccer fans are finding that they don’t leave you alone either. VOA’s Mariama Diallo takes a look at what Russian officials are doing to make the sporting life more comfortable for World Cup fans and players.
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More than 1,000 Macedonians protested on Saturday evening against the change of the name of the former Yugoslav Republic which was agreed with neighboring Greece to end a decades-long dispute.

Last week, the foreign ministers of Greece and Macedonia signed an accord to rename the tiny ex-Yugoslav republic the “Republic of North Macedonia.”

The agreement, which unlocked Macedonia’s path to possible European Union and NATO membership, triggered protests by nationalists.

The protest on Saturday evening organized by Macedonia’s biggest opposition party, VMRO-DPMNE, was peaceful. Protesters held banners reading “We don’t want to give up the name” and waved Macedonian flags as they demanded annulment of the agreement with Greece.

Macedonia, which declared its independence in 1991, avoided the wars that battered some other ex-Yugoslav republics. But Greece refused to accept the country’s name, saying it implied territorial claims on the Greek province of Macedonia and amounted to an appropriation of its ancient civilization. Greece blocked Macedonia’s efforts to join the European Union and NATO.

Macedonia has to amend its constitution to conform with the provisions of the deal. A referendum is also expected in Macedonia in the autumn.

Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov also opposes the accord. He refused to sign the agreement even though it was ratified by parliament on Wednesday.
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