Month: December 2018

U.S. President Donald Trump has sent a letter to Kosovo counterpart Hashim Thaci urging him to do everything to reach a longstanding deal with Serbia two decades after their war ended, according to Thaci’s official website.

Serbia and its former province of Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008, committed in 2013 to a European Union-sponsored dialogue meant to resolve all unsolved issues but little progress has been made.

“Failure to capitalize on this unique opportunity would be a tragic setback, as another chance for a comprehensive peace is unlikely to occur again soon,” says the text of the letter posted Tuesday on Thaci’s website.

“The United States has invested heavily in the success of Kosovo as an independent, sovereign state,” it said.

In Washington, the White House had no comment. There was no immediate comment from the U.S. Embassy in Kosovo’s capital Pristina.

Serbian-Kosovar tensions rose anew last week when Kosovo’s parliament voted to approve the creation of a 5,000-strong standing army — only a week after Serbia’s premier suggested such a move could provoke military intervention by Belgrade.

In June this year, Thaci said he would seek a solution with Serbia by “correcting borders,” but politicians and analysts in Kosovo said that means land swaps.

But his plan rang alarm bells among Balkan neighbors and some Western governments who saw it as a move to take three Serbian municipalities inhabited mainly by ethnic Albanians, who make up more than 90 percent of Kosovo’s population.

If there would be a land swap, then Serbia would get part of northern Kosovo populated mainly by minority Serbs who refuse to recognize the authority of the Pristina government.

Britain and Germany have said they do not favor border changes, but the United States said if these were agreed by Serbia and Kosovo, it would respect such a deal.

The United Nations Security Council publicly discussed the issues between the two countries and recent tensions on Monday at a meeting attended by the presidents of Serbia and Kosovo.

The letter posted by Thaci’s website said Trump would welcome hosting the Kosovo and Serbian presidents at the White House as part of such an “historic accord.”

Kosovo is recognized by more than 110 countries, including the United States, but not by Serbia, Russia or China.

Washington remains the biggest supporter of Kosovo both politically and financially.

It was under U.S. command that NATO bombed Serbian forces in 1999 to halt killings and expulsions of Kosovo Albanians during a counter-insurgency operation.
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Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel offered to resign on Tuesday after socialists and greens tabled a motion of no confidence in his minority government.

Michel relaunched his government a week ago as a minority administration after the Flemish N-VA, the biggest party in his coalition, quit in protest at his support of the U.N. migration pact.

Some European politicians say the accord could increase immigration as the bloc has turned increasingly restrictive on accepting refugees and migrants alike.

Michel’s slimmed down three-party coalition consisted of his French-speaking liberal MR and two Flemish parties.

With parliamentary elections due in May, Michel could be asked by King Philippe to stay on in a caretaker capacity but with limited power. The king may also speak to other political leaders in a bid to resolve the issue.
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The size and scope of Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election was far more extensive and thorough than previously understood, according to two newly released reports.

The reports that emerged this week support conclusions by the U.S. intelligence community — and published in an unclassified January 2017 report — that the goal of all of Russia’s meddling in the months leading up to the 2016 elections was to get their preferred candidate elected president of the United States.

“What is clear is that all of the messaging clearly sought to benefit the Republican Party and specifically Donald Trump,” according to the report by Oxford University’s Computational Propaganda Project and network analysis firm Graphika.

Russia on Tuesday rejected the allegations in the two reports. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the accusations baseless.

The findings, as first reported by The Washington Post, said Russians working for a group called the Internet Research Agency (IRA) began experimenting with social media to influence local elections in 2009 and expanded its operations to U.S. elections in 2013 using Twitter.

​It gradually added other popular social media sites to its campaign, including YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, using race and social issues such as gun rights, immigration and police brutality, to sow division and discontent.

“Conservative and right-wing voters were actively encouraged to get behind Trump’s campaign,” according to the report by Oxford and Graphika. “Other voters were encouraged to boycott the election, abstain from voting for Clinton, or to spread cynicism about participating in the election in general.”

Russia’s IRA activity also sought out African-American voters in particular with advertising on Facebook and Instagram and with video content on YouTube.

“Most of the interest-based targeting focused on African-American communities and interests,” the second report by the cybersecurity firm New Knowledge showed. 

“Messaging to African-Americans sought to divert their political energy away from established political institutions by preying on anger with structural inequalities faced by African-Americans, including police violence, poverty and disproportionate levels of incarceration,” the Oxford University-Graphika report added. “These campaigns pushed a message that the best way to advance the cause of the African-American community was to boycott the election and focus on other issues instead.”

Other groups such as liberals, women, Muslims, Latinos and veterans were also targeted with similar messages either appealing to their politics or trying to discourage them from voting.

This newly released data demonstrates how aggressively Russia sought to divide Americans by race, religion and ideology, and how the IRA actively worked to erode trust in our democratic institutions,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, a Republican, said in a statement Monday. “Most troublingly, it shows that these activities have not stopped.”

“This should stand as a wake-up call,” added Senate Intelligence Committee vice chair, Democrat Mark Warner, who has been critical of social media companies and the way they have handled Russia’s online influence campaigns.

“It is time to get serious in addressing this challenge,” Warner said. “That is going to require some much-needed and long-overdue guardrails when it comes to social media.”

The Oxford-Graphika report said it is clear the response by social media companies has been lacking. 

“We clearly observe a belated and uncoordinated response from the platforms that provided the data,” the report said. “In some cases, activity on one platform was detected and suspended months before similar action was taken against related activity on another platform.”

In a statement Monday, Facebook said it continues to “fully cooperate with officials investigating the IRA’s activity on Facebook and Instagram around the 2016 election.”

“We’ve made progress in helping prevent interference on our platforms during elections, strengthened our policies against voter suppression ahead of the 2018 midterms, and funded independent research on the impact of social media on democracy,” the statement said, adding the company believes Congress and intelligence officials “are best placed to use the information we and others provide.”

“Our singular focus is to improve the health of the public conversation on our platform,” Twitter said in a statement of its own. “We’ve made significant strides since 2016 to counter manipulation of our service, including our release of additional data in October related to previously disclosed activities to enable further independent academic research and investigation.”

Google reactions

The reports, though, indicate the measures that have been taken may not be enough, as Russia and others continue to make use of social media platforms.

The Oxford-Graphika report said Russia’s use of social media did not peak until after the election, with the IRA buying the most ad volume on Facebook in April 2017, shortly after the U.S. airstrikes against chemical weapon sites in Syria.

And U.S. intelligence and military officials have told VOA that Russia continued to target segments of U.S. society, including ongoing efforts to influence U.S. military personnel and their families in the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections. 

The United States has already leveled criminal charges against IRA for interfering in the 2016 campaign.

Current and former intelligence officials also warn that it would be a mistake to focus only on Russia’s use of social media, pointing to last week’s guilty plea by Russian spy Maria Butina, who admitted to using the National Rifle Association to get close to key conservative politicians.

“It illustrates … the astute understanding the Russians have of our political ecosystem,” James Clapper, former director of National Intelligence, told VOA.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election and whether the president has tried to obstruct justice by trying to undermine the probe.

Trump denies there was any collusion and calls the Mueller probe a “witch hunt.”
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Ukraine has elected the head of a newly unified Orthodox Church, following a split from the Russian Orthodox Church, announced Saturday. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has hailed the move as an important safeguard against future Russian aggression. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church has condemned Ukraine’s church split from the Russian Orthodox church in October and calls it uncanonical. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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A few thousand demonstrators gathered in freezing temperatures outside Hungary’s state broadcaster Monday night in a fifth day of protests against the right-wing government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban. 

Lawmakers from all opposition parties took to a temporary podium to declare they would continue protests until they are allowed to read out their demands on state television. 

The protests were sparked by a new labor law that in essence enables the return of a six-day work week, if an employee agrees, with overtime payments potentially unpaid for up to three years.

Demands expand

But the demands of protesters have expanded to include cleaning up state corruption, creating an independent judiciary and ensuring neutral state media. 

“We will continue with protests all the while our demands are not read out over state media. We are not going anywhere,” Timea Szabo, a Parliament member for the small, centrist Dialogue party, told the crowd. 

“The law has not been trampled on in such a way here for 30 years,” she said, apparently referring to the roughing up of some legislators by security guards at the MTVA building early Monday. 

Protesters chant slogans

Demonstrators repeatedly chanted slogans like “We won’t leave” and “They are lying day and night!”

Legislators charged that police took orders from private security guards in forcing them out of the MTVA building, rather than protect their right to enter a public building.

Agnes Vadai of the Democratic Coalition, a center-left party, told The Associated Press that she had been manhandled by security guards, 

 “This is nonsense,” she said of the lack of help from police officers. “It’s their obligation to protect all Hungarian citizens, regardless of their position.”

 defendsThe group of 10 lawmakers had entered the building insisting on the right to read their five demands live on air, including the revocation of the labor law.

Government defends law

The government has defended the law, saying it will ease the shortage of workers, most especially in the booming auto and manufacturing sectors, and enable employees to earn more money as they wish.  

Orban’s allies have denounced the protests as the work of liberal groups financed by Hungarian-American financier George Soros. The Open Society Foundations, an organization founded by Soros, again denied that Monday. 

“The Hungarian people are protesting against their government because they have legitimate grievances. Nobody believes Viktor Orban’s false assertion that George Soros is behind these protests,” the group said in a statement. 

 
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The Czech Republic’s cybersecurity watchdog is warning against the use of products by Chinese electronics giant Huawei and another Chinese telecommunications company, ZTE.

The National Cyber and Information Security Agency said Monday their software and hardware pose “a security threat.”

Huawei is the biggest global supplier of network gear for phone and internet companies.

It has become the target of U.S. security concerns because of its ties to the Chinese government. The U.S. has pressured other countries to limit use of its technology, warning they could be opening themselves up to surveillance and theft of information.

A Czech spy agency recently warned against the activities of Chinese spies on Czech territory.
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Three years after she was acquitted over her role in Turkey’s Gezi Park protests, Mucella Yapici was called in last month by police to face more questions about the unrest that had posed a direct challenge to the authority of President Tayyip Erdogan.

Yapici is one of dozens who were involved in demonstrations that brought millions onto Turkey’s streets in 2013 to protest against the government and who are now caught up in a renewed investigation, raising concerns among Turkey’s Western allies.

Opposition figures say the renewed crackdown is designed to polarize public opinion and rally support for Erdogan’s AK Party ahead of local elections in March, when it could face tight races in some of Turkey’s largest cities.

“It is a political maneuver,” Yapici said of her questioning two weeks ago. “We were tried in Turkish courts and acquitted. And the state did not appeal,” she told Reuters, adding that authorities had produced no new evidence.

The moves by prosecutors and police have been accompanied by renewed and sharp criticism of the Gezi protesters by Erdogan.

Such attacks have been a hallmark of his election triumphs since he first won power 16 years ago. But they also risk alienating allies such as the European Union and United States at a time when Turkey is trying to resolve diplomatic disputes that helped fuel a currency crisis this year.

Yapici, a 67-year-old architect whose activist group Taksim Solidarity was at the heart of the Gezi protests, was one of 26 defendants acquitted in April 2015 of charges carrying jail terms of up to 13 years.

She said the investigations were an attempt to rewrite social memory of the protests.

“They are trying to blacken the clear celebration of democracy that was Gezi in the minds of children, youths and society,” Yapici said.

She has not been charged again, but last month more than a dozen people were detained as part of an investigation into the Gezi protests and prosecutors have issued warrants for a prominent journalist and an actor, both living abroad.

“Five years later the prosecutor has suddenly remembered the Gezi resistance and started a new witch hunt,” the Berlin-based journalist, Can Dundar, said after details of his arrest warrant emerged on Dec. 5.

A senior Turkish official said the Gezi incidents were solely a matter for the courts.

“Of course the government does not make any requests in this respect,” he told Reuters. “Ultimately courts and prosecutors take various steps in cases based on the evidence which they obtain.”

“It is not a matter of the incidents specially being put onto the agenda five years later,” he added. “Ultimately the judiciary will take up these dossiers and reach the necessary verdicts.”

‘Pay the price’

According to government estimates, 3.6 million people took part in the Gezi protests, which began with a small demonstration against the redevelopment of a park near Istanbul’s Taksim Square. It evolved into a demonstration of wide-ranging discontent with the government.

Over the summer of 2013 the chant “everywhere is Taksim, everywhere is resistance” resounded in daily protests across Turkey, with many banging pots and pans at their windows every evening. Nine people, eight young protesters and a police officer, were killed in the unrest, and 5,000 injured.

Three years later, following a failed coup against Erdogan, authorities launched a sweeping roundup in which 77,000 people have so far been jailed pending trial. A two-year state of emergency was lifted in July, but arrests linked to the coup attempt have continued alongside the revived Gezi investigations.

Prosecutors have prepared an indictment targeting 120 people over their participation in a Gezi-related protest in Ankara and an investigation into 600 others is continuing, state media says. Pro-government journalists say the probe will widen.

Erdogan blames the protests on billionaire philanthropist George Soros and Osman Kavala, a well-known Turkish civil society leader. Kavala has been in jail for a year awaiting trial on charges of seeking to overthrow the government.

“They are still in solidarity, the operatives of the project to make our country surrender,” Erdogan said last month in a speech denouncing the two men. Kavala was directed by “the famous Hungarian Jew, Soros … who assigns people to divide nations”, he said.

Two weeks ago the Soros-funded Open Society Foundation announced it was closing down in Turkey because it could no longer work there.

Responding to last month’s arrest of 13 academics and civil society representatives linked to Kavala, EU commissioner Johannes Hahn said Brussels was troubled by the arrest of journalists, human rights defenders and civil society activists.

“Criminal and judicial proceedings must be based on the presumption of innocence,” he said after talks in Ankara with Turkey’s foreign minister.

‘Hatred and revenge’

The leader of the main opposition CHP party, which is challenging Erdogan’s AK Party for control of Istanbul and Ankara in the March elections, has said there are no grounds for the latest protest-related arrests.

“If you throw innocent people in jail and then go and see where you can create evidence, there is no justice there. There is a feeling of hatred and revenge,” Kemal Kilicdaroglu said.

Kilicdaroglu’s party say the Gezi arrests are an attempt to divert attention from a slowing economy, high inflation and rising unemployment – significant weak points in Erdogan’s election plans after years of stellar economic growth.

By focusing on perceived security threats, Erdogan could rally support. A survey for the Center for American Progress this year found that around half the public approved of the government’s response to the failed coup in 2016, including 80 percent of AK Party voters.

The challenge, however, will be significant.

Although he strengthened his presidential powers after elections in June, support for Erdogan’s AK Party fell to 43 percent, meaning he needed an alliance with nationalists for a parliamentary majority.

A survey by pollster Metropoll last month showed his personal approval had fallen below 40 percent, having been around 50 percent ahead of the June elections.

Aykut Erdogdu, a CHP lawmaker for Istanbul, said trust in Erdogan was declining due to economic hardship.

As things stand “they know they will lose the local elections. Hence it is necessary to polarize the people,” Erdogdu wrote on Twitter. “They are setting up their election stall using Gezi.”
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A bomb blast early Monday damaged a building in Athens housing the headquarters of Greece’s private radio and television network Skai, but there were no casualties, police said.

Anti-terrorist police opened an investigation into the attack that focused on Greek extremist groups.

Attacks targeting broadcasting groups, public companies or embassies have been frequent in Greece in recent years, and have been blamed on anarchist or far-left groups.

The coalition government led by leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras condemned the blast as “an attack on democracy” while his administration decried an act of “terrorism.”

In a statement, Tsipras slammed what he termed “an attack on democracy by cowardly and dark forces,” vowing that “they will not realize their goal of terrorizing and disorientating.”

He further offered his “sincere support to journalists and all those who work at the station” targeted.

The homemade device went off at around 2:30am (0030 GMT), 45 minutes after an anonymous telephone warning to another TV network.

Police cordoned off the neighborhood in the Athens suburb of Neo Phaliro and evacuated the building, which contains the offices of Skai, a group owned by the Alafouzos shipping family, as well as those of Kathimerini, a center-right daily critical of the government.

Police said the bomb was placed in a narrow street near a fence around the building and smashed windows on the facade.

Skai said in a statement the blast caused “major damage.”

“The terrorist attack will not discourage us,” it said, accusing the government of failing to do enough to protect the media despite “recurrent threats against the station.”

Government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos rejected the accusation.

The minister for civil protection, Olga Gerovassili, visited the site with police.

“Democracy is not threatened,” she said, while warning against those who “leave the way open to terrorism or fascism.”

There were no claims of responsibility by late afternoon but some analysts said the bombing bore the hallmarks of an attack by the far left Popular Fighters Group (OLA).

It has previously claimed to be behind at least five other similar blasts, none causing fatalities, since its formation in 2013.

The group last claimed a bombing outside the Athens Court of Appeal in December 2017, which caused extensive material damage.

Last month, police defused a bomb outside the Athens home of a controversial prosecutor following two anonymous telephoned warnings to the media.

 
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A fifth person died Sunday from gunshot wounds in last week’s Christmas market terror attack in Strasbourg.

The French prosecutor’s office said the victim was a Polish national.

His brother identified him in a Facebook message as Barto Pedro Orent-Niedzielski, a 36-year-old native of Katowice.

Four others died and 11 were wounded when a gunman identified as Cherif Chekatt opened fire last Tuesday in the world-famous Christmas market in central Strasbourg.

Witnesses tipped off police Friday that a suspect matching Chekatt’s description was spotted in the Strasbourg neighborhood where he grew up.

When police confronted him, he turned and opened fire. Officers shot back, killing Chekatt.

He had an extensive criminal record and was on a terror watch list.

Chekatt’s father told investigators his son was a follower of Islamic State and the terror group claimed him as one of its “soldiers.”

But French Interior Minister Christophe said he doubts Chekatt belonged to the terror group, calling its claim opportunistic.
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The decision to transform Kosovo’s security force into an army is ”irreversible,” the country’s president said Sunday while offering assurance that a new national military does not threaten ethnic Serbs living in the former Serbian province.

President Hashim Thaci gave a briefing on the army plan before he left for New York, where the United Nations Security Council is expected in coming days to discuss the small Balkan nation’s decision.

Kosovo’s parliament overwhelmingly approved the army’s formation Friday. Neighboring Serbia has warned that an army in a place it considers Serbian territory could result in an armed intervention.

“Whatever happens at the Security Council, despite the concerns of a certain individual or a country, the formation of the Kosovo army is an irreversible act,” Thaci said.

Serbia does not recognize Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence. Its government insists the army would violate a U.N. resolution that ended Serbia’s crackdown on Kosovar separatists in 1998-1999.

Serbia’s Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic reiterated Sunday that Belgrade will insist at the U.N. Security Council session the army was formed in violation of the resolution.

“It is important that the position of Serbia will be heard,” Dacic said.

Serbia’s government has warned it might use its own military to respond, with Prime Minister Ana Brnabic saying that’s “one of the options on the table.” An armed intervention by Serbia could bring a confrontation with the NATO-led peacekeepers stationed in Kosovo since 1999.

The U.N. Security Council held closed consultations late Friday on the format of a meeting on the dispute. Russia, Serbia’s close ally, wants the council to meet publicly, and European nations have sought a closed session.  

NATO’s chief has called Kosovo’s action “ill-timed.” The United States has expressed support for “Kosovo’s sovereign right” as an independent nation that unilaterally broke away from Serbia.

Thaci said the army would be professional and multi-ethnic, with five percent of the troops coming from the ethnic Serb minority. He advised Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic to take a cue from Serbs in Kosovo “who feel calm and who take part in the army.”
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Several thousand protesters have marched peacefully through Budapest for a fourth day to oppose laws introduced by the Hungarian government that critics say will restrict workers’ rights.

The protesters chanted anti-government slogans and braved sub-zero temperatures while gathered Sunday in front of parliament, where speakers denounced changes to the labor code that lawmakers approved Wednesday.

The demonstrations have attracted participants from across Hungary’s spectrum. They include members of Jobbik, which started out as a radical right movement and has worked to reframe itself as a “peoples”‘ party.
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The man described as the father of the 29-year-old suspect in this week’s deadly Christmas market attack in Strasbourg says his son subscribed to the beliefs of the Islamic State group.

The interview with Abdelkrim Chekatt by the state-run France 2 television channel was shown Saturday night, two days after the son was killed in a confrontation with three police officers in his childhood neighborhood in Strasbourg following a massive manhunt. Four people died in the Tuesday night attack. A dozen others were wounded.

The Christmas market in the eastern city of Strasbourg, seat of the European Parliament, is the largest in France. It reopened Friday after being closed during the search for the suspect.

Mother expresses shock, sorrow

Chekatt said he had seen his son, Cherif Chekatt, three days before the attack but couldn’t contact him while he was on the run. 

He acknowledged that his son backed the IS group.

“He’d say, for example, that Daesh, fights for the just cause and all that,” the red-bearded father said, using the common term in France and elsewhere for the Islamic State group.

The interview, initially outdoors with the father, continued briefly inside with Cheriff Chekatt’s mother, Rouadja Rouag, who expressed shock and sorrow for the deaths. France 2 said the couple had been divorced for a long time.

Tried to dissuade son

Abdelkrim Chekatt, a French-Algerian, said he’d tried in the past to dissuade his son from backing the Islamic State, saying, “You don’t see the atrocities they commit.” The son would reply that “it’s not them,” the father said.

Shortly after Chekatt’s death, the Islamic State group’s Amaq news agency claimed he was a “soldier” of the group. French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner rejected the claim as “totally opportunistic.”

The father and mother and two siblings of the suspected killer were among seven people held for questioning. French media reported that the family members were released. The three others, still in custody, are unrelated but close to Chekatt.

The young Chekatt had been on a French intelligence watch list for radicalism and was convicted 27 times for criminal offenses, the first time at age 13, mainly in France but also in Germany and Switzerland. Investigators are trying to determine whether he had accomplices or logistical support.

Father went to police

The father said he went to police of his own accord and on a suspicion the night of the son’s rampage with a handgun and a knife.

He said he told police that “if ever you locate Cherif, tell me. I’ll go to him and try to reason with him to give up.”

He also said that if his son had told him about a project to kill “I would have denounced him, and he wouldn’t have killed or been killed.”
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