Month: February 2019

A senior Russian diplomat says Venezuela hasn’t asked Russia for military assistance amid the South American country’s political crisis.

Alexander Shchetinin, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Latin America department, said Monday that Moscow hasn’t received any such request from Caracas, according to Russian news reports.

Asked to compare the situation in Venezuela to Syria, where Russia has waged a military campaign to shore up President Bashar Assad’s government, Shchetinin said “there is a big difference” between Syria and Venezuela but wouldn’t elaborate.

At the same time, the Russian diplomat strongly warned the U.S. against making calls on the Venezuelan military to drop support for President Nicolas Maduro, saying it represented an “unthinkable meddling into foreign affairs of a sovereign nation.”

 
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Ukrainian prosecutors said Monday they had charged a high-ranking regional official with organizing a deadly acid attack on a prominent anti-corruption activist that prompted widespread outrage.

Kateryna Gandzyuk, who worked as an adviser to the mayor of the southern city of Kherson, was an outspoken critic of corruption in law enforcement agencies.

She was attacked in July and had about a liter of acid poured on her by several attackers. The 33-year-old died in November after months of treatment, including more than 10 operations.

Her murder has prompted widespread outrage, with civil society activists accusing the authorities of failing to complete the investigation or find out who ordered the attack.

On Monday, less than two months before Ukrainians go to the polls to elect a president, General Prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko pointed the finger at the head of the local council in the southern region of Kherson.

Vladyslav Manger is accused of “organizing the murder of Kateryna Gandzyuk,” Lutsenko said on Facebook.

According to the charge sheet released by Lutsenko, Manger was guided by “personal animosity” towards Gandzyuk because she opposed “illegal logging” in the region.

Lutsenko’s spokeswoman Larysa Sargan said Manger was accused of “intentionally and unlawfully causing the death of another person… with special cruelty and by prior agreement with a group of individuals”.

Speaking to AFP, Sargan said that Manger was not yet arrested.

“Searches are under way in Kherson,” she said.

Expelled from the party

If found guilty, the 48-year-old faces up to life in prison.

Manger was a member of the Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) political party of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, a key rival of President Petro Poroshenko in the March 31 presidential election.

He was expelled from the party last week.

Gandzyuk’s death has sparked condemnation of the government and drew renewed attention to dozens of assaults on other anti-corruption campaigners in Ukraine over recent months.

In August, police detained five people in connection with the case, three of whom were placed under house arrest.

In November, a former aide to a ruling party lawmaker was arrested on suspicion of being involved in the attack.

Both the European Union and the United States have called the attacks on activists unacceptable and urged authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Fellow activists accused police and prosecutors of reluctance to investigate the case, insisting the detention of those possibly involved in the attack was made only after a wave of protests across the country.

Lutsenko in November submitted a letter of resignation to Poroshenko over the affair but the Ukrainian leader refused to fire him.

More than 50 attacks on anti-graft activists, environmental and human rights campaigners including five murders were recorded last year.
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Norway’s foreign intelligence unit on Monday expressed renewed concerns that its GPS signals in the country’s Far North were being jammed, as Oslo again blamed Russia for the “unacceptable” acts.

In its annual national risk assessment report, the intelligence service said that in repeated incidents since 2017, GPS signals have been blocked from Russian territory in Norwegian regions near the border with Russia.

The jamming events have often coincided with military exercises on Norwegian soil, such as the NATO Trident Juncture manoeuvres last autumn and the mid-January deployment of British attack helicopters in Norway for training in Arctic conditions.

“This is not only a new challenge for Norwegian and Allied training operations,” the head of the intelligence unit, Morten Haga Lunde, said as he presented the report.

“Jamming is also a threat to, among others, civilian air traffic and police and health operations in peacetime.”

Norway has on several occasions raised the issue with Russian authorities, and is cooperating with other Nordic countries to gather as much information as possible, Defence Minister Frank Bakke-Jensen said.

“It’s important… to say clearly that this is unacceptable,” he told television channel TV2 Nyhetskanalen.

In November, neighbouring Finland summoned Russia’s ambassador to Helsinki to answer to accusations that Moscow had disrupted geopositioning signals on its territory during the Trident Juncture exercises.

Moscow has rejected the allegations as baseless.

 
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The head of the International Monetary Fund warned Sunday that the British exit from the European Union means it “will never be as good as it is now” for the country’s economy.

Christine Lagarde spoke at the World Government Summit in Dubai, which also saw Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri make an own investment pitch for his small country, now struggling through a major economic crisis as one of the world’s most-indebted nations.

The clubby annual event brings world leaders together at a luxury hotel in Dubai for motivational talks littered with business buzzwords. But this year’s summit comes amid a worldwide turn toward populism and away from globalization.

Lagarde didn’t hesitate to criticize Britain’s upcoming departure from the EU, known as “Brexit.” Britain is due to leave the European Union on March 29. U.K. businesses fear a possible “no-deal” Brexit with the EU will cause economic chaos by imposing tariffs, customs and other barriers between Britain and mainland Europe.

“I’m certain of one thing, is that it’s not going to be as good as if they had not been Brexit, that is for sure,” Lagarde said. “Whether it ends well, whether there is a smooth exit given by customs unions as predicated by some, or whether it’s as a result of a brutal . exit on March 29 without extension of notice, it’s not going to be as good as it is now.”

She urged all parties to “get ready for it” as it will upend how trade is now conducted with Britain.

For his part, Hariri sought to attract investment from Gulf Arab states, which long have been a major benefactor of Lebanon. His nation now faces soaring public debt of $84 billion, or 150 percent of the gross domestic product, making it one of the most-indebted nations in the world. Lebanese unemployment is believed to be around 36 percent.

Political paralysis has exacerbated the crisis. Lebanon formed a government last week after nine months of deadlock.

“We took the decision to bring together all the political powers because is this is the only way to save Lebanon,” Hariri said. “Today in Lebanon, we don’t have the time or the luxury of politics because our economy could completely collapse unless we surgically remove (politics) quickly, seriously and collectively.”

Gulf nations like Saudi Arabia are increasingly suspicious of Lebanon’ government because of the influence of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite political party and militant group. Hezbollah has three ministers in the new government.

A moderator gave Hariri a $100 bill and said he could keep it if he pitched him on investing in the country. After his pitch, Hariri returned the bill and said that he wished he had $115 to offer back.

Making a surprise visit to the summit was U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who took the stage to announce a robotics competition would be held in the United Arab Emirates later this year. Perry, a former governor of Texas who twice ran for president unsuccessfully, has tended to avoid the spotlight in President Donald Trump’s administration.
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Thousands of Spaniards joined a right-wing rally in Madrid on Sunday to demand that Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez step down.

Many in the crowd gathered in the capital’s Plaza de Colon, waving Spanish flags. They chanted slogans in favor of the nation’s security forces and for Sanchez to resign.

The conservative opposition Popular Party and the center-right Citizens party organized the rally, which was also backed by the upstart far-right Vox and other marginal far-right parties. They claim that Sanchez must resign for holding talks with separatists in the northeastern region of Catalonia.

“The time of Sanchez’s government is over,” said Popular Party president Pablo Casado, who asked voters to punish Sanchez’s Socialists in upcoming European, local and regional elections in May.

The political tensions come as a highly sensitive trial at Spain’s Supreme Court starts Tuesday for 12 Catalan separatists who face charges, including rebellion, for their roles in a failed secession attempt in 2017.

Sanchez inherited the Catalan crisis from former Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, the then-leader of the Popular Party. Rajoy proved incapable of stopping support for secession from swelling in Catalonia to roughly half of the region’s voters.

Sanchez came to power in June promising to thaw tensions between central authorities in Madrid and the Catalan leaders in Barcelona. He has met twice with Catalan chief Quim Torra and members of both governments had several more encounters.

Sanchez had said he would be willing to help Catalan lawmakers agree to a new Charter Law, which determines the amount of self-rule the region enjoys. But Sanchez’s government broke off negotiations on Friday, when Vice President Carmen Calvo said the separatists wouldn’t budge from their demand for an independence referendum.

Sanchez is trying to cobble together support to pass a national budget and will need votes from the Catalan separatists to pass it.

Even though Sanchez has said he wants to see out the legislative term through 2020, a failure to win a budget vote will crank up the pressure on him to call for an early election.

 
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With Brexit just 47 days away, the British government asked lawmakers on Sunday to give Prime Minister Theresa May more time to rework her divorce deal with the European Union.

Communities Secretary James Brokenshire said Parliament would get to pass judgment on May’s Brexit plan “no later than Feb. 27.”

The promise is a bid to avert a showdown on Thursday, when Parliament is set to debate and vote on next moves in the Brexit process. Some lawmakers want to try to seize control and steer the country toward a softer exit from the bloc.

Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29, but Parliament has rejected May’s divorce bill, leaving the prime minister to seek changes from the EU. The U.K.’s bid for last-minute changes has exasperated EU leaders, who insist the legally binding withdrawal agreement can’t be changed.

The impasse risks a chaotic “no deal” departure for Britain, which could be painful for businesses and ordinary people on both sides of the Channel.

British businesses fear a no-deal Brexit will cause gridlock at ports by ripping up the trade rulebook and imposing tariffs, customs checks and other barriers between the U.K. and the EU, its biggest trading partner.

Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl told the BBC that a “disorderly exit” was now the most likely option.

Opponents of the government accuse May of deliberately wasting time so that Parliament will face a last-minute choice between her deal and no deal.

Carolyn Fairbairn of business group the Confederation of British Industry said failure to secure a deal in good time was “negligence on behalf of our political institutions and leaders.”

    
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Bulgaria will investigate reports that a new suspect in the Skripal nerve agent attack in Britain may also have been involved in a 2015 poisoning in Bulgaria, a ruling party lawmaker said Saturday. 

A parliamentary committee will on Thursday seek information from the intelligence services following a new investigation into the attempted poisoning of local businessman Emiliyan Gebrev, said Tsvetan Tsvetanov, the parliamentary leader of the ruling GERB party. 

“I am certain that the necessary coordination has already been set up between the Bulgarian, British and European authorities on the case and they are working actively on it,” he added. 

The statement was the first official reaction in Bulgaria to a report issued last week by the investigative website Bellingcat. 

That report identified a hitherto unknown third suspect in last year’s attack in Salisbury, England, on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter. 

Russian role alleged

Skripal and his adult daughter were discovered unconscious on a Salisbury park bench after they had been poisoned by the highly toxic nerve agent Novichok in an attack the British government said was “almost certainly” approved by the Russian state. 

Although they both recovered, a British woman died last June after her partner picked up a discarded perfume bottle that investigators believe was used to carry the Novichok. 

British-based group Bellingcat has already used open-source techniques to identify two Russian military intelligence officers, Anatoly Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin, accused by Britain of carrying out the attack. 

Despite Russian denials that they were involved, both men are now the subject of EU sanctions. 

Bellingcat’s latest report identifies a third man — named by his alias “Sergey Fedotov” — as being involved in the British attack, having arrived in Britain two days before the Skripals were poisoned. 

They concluded that the same man may also have been involved in the attempted poisoning in April 2015 of Gebrev, a veteran of the Bulgarian arms industry. 

Presence in Sofia

“Fedotov” is said to have flown into Sofia from Moscow just days before Gebrev collapsed at a reception there on April 28, 2015, and fell into a coma with symptoms of severe poisoning. 

His son and one of his company executives were treated with similar symptoms, although all three recovered. 

On Friday, the Bulgarian weekly newspaper Capital cited Interior Ministry sources as confirming Fedotov’s itinerary in Bulgaria. 

The Salisbury attack, the first offensive use of chemical weapons in Europe since World War II, caused an international outcry and prompted a mass expulsion of Russian diplomats by Western nations — but not by Bulgaria. 
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Turkey on Saturday condemned China’s treatment of its Muslim ethnic Uighur people as “a great embarrassment for humanity,” adding to rights groups’ recent criticism of mass detentions of the Turkic-speaking minority. 

“The systematic assimilation policy of Chinese authorities toward Uighur Turks is a great embarrassment for humanity,” Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said in a statement. 

The northwest Xinjiang region of China, where most Uighurs live, has been under heavy police surveillance in recent years, after violent inter-ethnic tensions. 

Nearly 1 million Uighurs and other Turkic language-speaking minorities in China have reportedly been held in re-education camps, according to a U.N. panel of experts. 

Beijing says the “vocational education centers” help people steer clear of terrorism and allow them to be reintegrated into society.  

But critics say China is seeking to assimilate Xinjiang’s minority population and suppress religious and cultural practices that conflict with communist ideology and the dominant Han culture. 

“It is no longer a secret that more than 1 million Uighur Turks — who are exposed to arbitrary arrests — are subjected to torture and political brainwashing in concentration centers and prisons,” Aksoy said in the Turkish Foreign Ministry statement.  

“Uighurs who are not detained in the camps are also under great pressure,” he added.  

Turkey called on the international community and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “to take effective steps to end the human tragedy in the Xinjiang region.” 

Most mainly Muslim countries have not been vocal on the issue, not criticizing the government in China, which is an important trading partner. 
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Prince Philip has decided to stop driving at age 97, less than a month after he was involved in a collision that left two women injured, Buckingham Palace said Saturday. 

The palace said in a statement that “after careful consideration,” Queen Elizabeth II’s husband “has taken the decision to voluntarily surrender his driving license.” 

Philip was behind the wheel of a Land Rover near the royal family’s Sandringham estate in eastern England when he smashed into another car on Jan. 17. Philip had to be helped out of his overturned vehicle but wasn’t injured. Two women in the other car were injured, though not seriously, and a 9-month-old baby boy was unhurt. 

Philip was photographed driving again two days later, without a seat belt. Police said they offered him “suitable words of advice” after that. 

The prince was not charged in the crash. Police said he and the other driver were both given breath tests for alcohol and passed. 

In a letter of apology to one of the injured women, Philip said he was dazzled by the sun when he pulled onto a main road near the royal retreat, 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of London. 

He told Emma Fairweather, who suffered a broken wrist in the crash, that “I can only imagine that I failed to see the car coming, and I am very contrite about the consequences.” The letter was published by a newspaper. 

There is no upper age limit for licensing drivers in Britain, although drivers over 70 are required to renew their licenses every three years and tell authorities about any medical conditions that might raise safety issues.
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After holding up its admission for years, Greece became the first nation Friday to ratify Macedonia’s membership of NATO after the two states resolved a decades-old name dispute last month.

NATO members signed the accord with Macedonia this week, days after the Greek parliament endorsed an agreement between Athens and Skopje that changes Macedonia’s name to North Macedonia.

Staring down strong domestic opposition from Greeks worried the Balkan neighbor was appropriating Greek heritage, the government of leftist Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras pushed the name change through parliament on Jan. 25.

Under NATO alliance rules, Macedonian membership now has to be approved by each member state, giving Greek lawmakers the opportunity for another round of verbal jousting over the controversy.

“I feel we did our patriotic duty. We did what is right,” Tsipras told parliament during a heated debate Friday.

The dispute had frustrated Macedonian attempts to join the EU and NATO: Greece is a member of both and has veto power over other countries joining.

It also exposed old rivalries with Russia, in a region where Moscow competes for influence with NATO and the EU. Moscow had taken a dim view of the name accord, and of Macedonian membership in NATO. It says the alliance is undermining security in the region by taking in Balkan members.

The accord over the name angered many Greeks who believed the ex-Yugoslav state was hijacking their history with a name linked to the Greek heritage of Alexander the Great, King of Macedon. Greece has a northern province called Macedonia.

One lawmaker described the pact as “worth spitting at,” another that Greece was “humiliated.”

Kyriakos Mitsotakis, leader of the opposition New Democracy party, said the agreement over the name change lacked legitimacy. This referred to the resignation of a junior partner from the governing coalition in January over the accord, which left the governing Syriza party short of an absolute majority in parliament.

“This is the final act of a nationally damaging deed,” he said.

Syriza has 145 seats in parliament but has support from a number of independents, allowing it to muster a majority in voting. The protocol was approved by 153 MPs.

The NATO ratification process typically takes about a year, and the United States has said it expects North Macedonia to formally join the alliance in 2020.
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For 10 days, the London Zoo kept its newly arrived male Sumatran tiger, Asim, in a separate enclosure from Melati, the female tiger who was supposed to become his mate. 

Zoologists gave them time to get used to each other’s presence and smells, and waited for what they felt would be the right time to let them get together. On Friday, they put the two tigers into the same enclosure — and Asim killed Melati as shocked handlers tried in vain to intervene. 

It was a tragic end to hopes that the two would eventually breed as part of a Europe-wide tiger conservation program for the endangered Sumatran subspecies. 

“Everyone here at ZSL London Zoo is devastated by the loss of Melati and we are heartbroken by this turn of events,” the zoo said in a statement. 

It said the focus now is “caring for Asim as we get through this difficult event.” 

The zoo said its experts had been carefully monitoring the tigers’ reactions to each other since Asim arrived 10 days ago and had seen “positive signs” that indicated the two should be put together. 

“Their introduction began as predicted, but quickly escalated into a more aggressive interaction,” the zoo said. 

Contingency plans called for handlers to use loud noises, flares and alarms to try to distract the tigers, but that didn’t work. They did manage to put Asim, 7, back in a separate paddock, but by that time Melati, 10, was already dead. 

Asim’s arrival at the zoo last week had been trumpeted in a press release showing him on the prowl and describing him as a “strapping Sumatran tiger.” 

The organization Tigers in Crisis says there are estimated to be only 500 to 600 Sumatran tigers in the wild.
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