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Emmanuel Macron’s former security aide, who was sacked this summer after his violent conduct fueled a political scandal, acknowledged on Sunday he was still traveling on a diplomatic passport, in an affair that has rattled the French presidency.

After he was fired when a video emerged of his beating a May Day protester, Alexandre Benalla returned to the spotlight in France this week, under scrutiny over his recent consultancy work and unauthorized use of diplomatic passports.

The original Benalla scandal became a major headache for Macron just over a year into his tenure, after the president, whose popularity ratings have since slipped, was criticized for acting too slowly in dealing with a member of his inner circle.

Benalla said in an interview with France’s Journal du Dimanche (JDD) on Sunday that he would return the diplomatic passports in the coming days, and rejected that he was somehow trying to profit from his status as a former insider by using them or in his work as a consultant.

“Maybe I was wrong to use these passports,” Benalla said, in a telephone conversation from overseas according to the JDD. “But I want to make it clear that I only did it for my own ease, to facilitate my passage through airports.”

The French presidency has sought to distance itself from the former bodyguard, and the government said it had formally requested the passports be returned on at least two occasions.

Paris prosecutors on Saturday opened a preliminary inquiry into Benalla’s usage of the passports.

Benalla maintained in the JDD, however, that he had initially returned the two ID documents in August, and that they were returned to him along with other personal items by a member of the president’s staff in October.

Scrutiny over Benalla comes at a sensitive time for Macron, who is grappling with a wave of “yellow vest” street protests by disgruntled voters calling for more measures to help lift household incomes.
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A French technology company has created a tiny tracking device to combat poaching. The tracker is smaller, lighter and cheaper than previous methods, such as radio collars. The creators say the technology can also allow those in remote villages to share information on the internet regardless of language or literacy barriers. Arash Arabasadi reports.
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The European Union is not trying to keep Britain in and wants to start discussing future ties the moment the U.K. parliament approves Brexit, partly to focus on its own unity ahead of May elections, the head of the bloc’s executive said Saturday.

“It is being insinuated that our aim is to keep the United Kingdom in the EU by all possible means. That is not our intention. All we want is clarity about our future relations. And we respect the result of the referendum.” Jean-Claude 

Juncker, the head of the European Commission, told German newspaper Welt am Sonntag in an interview. 

Juncker said the EU was ready to start negotiating a new deal with Britain right after the British Parliament approves the divorce deal. A vote is now due in the week starting Jan. 14. 

He also said Britain should get its act together. 

“And then tell us what it is you want,” he said. 

“I am working on the assumption that it will leave, because that is what the people of the United Kingdom have decided,” he added, refusing to be drawn into whether Britain would hold a second Brexit vote. “That is for the British to decide.” 

Watching Trump

On other challenges facing Europe, Juncker said he was watching U.S. President Donald Trump closely on trade. 

“I trust him for as long as he keeps his word. And if he no longer keeps it, then I will no longer feel bound by my word, either,” Juncker said of tensions between the EU and Washington around car tariffs. 

He said he felt EU citizens were increasingly growing apart, another problem to tackle ahead of Europe-wide parliamentary elections in May. 

“We have to ensure that these rifts do not become too deep,” Juncker said. “We must not imply that the populists are right. … They are just loud and do not have any specific proposals to offer on solving the challenges of our time.” 

He said Europe had to stand united “in combating the trolls and hacker groups from China or Russia” that could seek to sway the European vote. 

He expressed doubt about EU state Romania, which takes over the bloc’s rotating presidency Jan. 1 but struggles with corruption and bitter divisions. 

“The government in Bucharest has not yet fully understood what it means to take chair over the EU member states. … Romania’s internal situation is such that the country cannot act as a compact unit in Europe,” Juncker said. 
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In his New Year’s message, U.N. Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres urges international cooperation to resolve the many dangers and divisions facing humanity.

As Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres carries the burdens of the world upon his shoulders.  At the same time, he is expected to be the world’s cheer-leader-in-chief, reassuring nations that solutions to the world’s many problems are available.

He does not disappoint in either category.  On the one hand, he wishes the world a happy, peaceful and prosperous New Year.  On the other hand, he issues a stark warning about the many crises and risks threatening global stability and security.  

Chief among these is climate change, which he says is moving faster than it can be controlled.  But Guterres does not throw up his hands in despair.   Rather, he notes work is moving ahead, albeit slowly, to confront this danger.

“The United Nations was able to bring countries together in Katowice to approve the Work Program for the implementation of the Paris Agreement on climate change,” Guterres said. “Now we need to increase ambition to beat this existential threat.  It is time to seize our last best chance.  It is time to stop uncontrolled and spiraling climate change.”  

Guterres warns geo-political divisions are deepening, making conflicts more difficult to resolve.  He says inequality is growing with only a handful of people owning most of the world’s wealth.  He notes intolerance is on the rise.

Despite this grim picture, he sees reasons for hope.  The U.N. chief finds chances for peace in Yemen and South Sudan are better than ever.   He says a recently signed agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea is easing tensions between the two countries.

He says these and other hopeful developments show when international cooperation works, the world wins.

 
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During the past four years, Russia’s $1.7 trillion economy has been plagued by under-investment, broadening state ownership of enterprise and Western sanctions over Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. Kremlin economic ministers have even warned of unexpectedly high inflation, but you wouldn’t know that talking to people passing through one of Moscow’s shopping districts as Russians prepare for their legendary Christmas and New Year’s holiday celebrations.

“I don’t plan to economize,” said Andrey, a Muscovite who suggested he personally has no financial constraints. “This is a planned holiday for which the budget has already been allocated without any real economy.”

Others, however, offered more conservative assessments. Some say they are worried about spending this year.

“I’m certainly concerned,” said Tatiana, who lives on a fixed income. “I see that the situation among the ordinary people is not getting better.” Tatiana, like an estimated 40 million Russians who live on a pension, says she feels vulnerable.

“My financial position depends, naturally, solely on the policy pursued by the state,” she said, saying she feels like no one is watching out for her interests. “I wish someone would think more about the pensioners.”

Like many Russians in the post-Soviet era, her greatest sense of security comes from her family.

“Thank God I have a son who takes care of me,” she said. “That’s why the situation affects me less than other people.”

Those concerns are not unfounded, analysts say.

Parallel economies

“Despite the fact that we have economic growth, we have had for years slumping real incomes,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center who describes the Russian economy as “contradictory.”

“Here’s one more Russian paradox: high salaries, growing salaries and decreasing real incomes. This is all because of the quite big shadow sector, the black economy, without any official taxation.”

WATCH: Russia’s Prosperity Depends on Whom You Ask

A combination of international sanctions and prevailing state economic policies are likely to result in reduced holiday spending compared to the prior four years, Kolesnikov said.

There are efforts to change Russia’s tax laws, and draft legislation is pending in the Duma to tax black market gains. But Kolesnikov and others say a new law could backfire because the notion of additional tax inspections will not go over well with most Russians.

“This isn’t good time for such an intervention from the government side,” he said, referring in part to an impending value-added tax hike slated for January, and the Central Bank’s decision this month to raise interest rates, which analysts warn might only exacerbate inflation and hurt ordinary Russians.

“It will be quite harmful for normal businesses, primarily middle- to small-sized businesses,” Kolesnikov said.

In Moscow, which accounts for 20 percent of total income nationwide, consumers may well weather an economic downturn better than their counterparts in other parts of the nation where much of Vladimir Putin’s support base is.

​Sanctions hurt ordinary Russians

Asked about the degree to which Western sanctions are having a direct impact on normal Russian consumers nationwide, Kolesnikov offered a pointed assessment.

“Right now it’s quite harmful when you’re sanctioning oligarchs, which are controlling big sectors of the Russian economy,” he said.

In an economy “monopolized by oligarchs,” he said, the targeted sanctions have an impact distinct from those levied against nations where small- and mid-sized businesses are the primary economic drivers.

“Russians are perceiving the situation not as an attack on oligarchs, but on their own working places,” he said. “At the end of the day, Russians are paying the price. Oligarchs will just get help from government, as they’re quite close to it.”
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In the past four years, Russia’s $1.7 trillion economy has been in the world’s top 20. But in 2018, it has been plagued with problems stemming from under-investment, broadening state ownership of enterprise and Western sanctions over the 2014 annexation of Crimea. Now, rising value added tax and interest rates are triggering inflation warnings. VOA’s Pete Cobus reports from Moscow on how those warnings affect Muscovites preparing for their lavish Christmas and New Year’s holiday celebrations.
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British divers who rescued young soccer players trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand are among those being recognized in Britain’s New Year’s Honors List, along with 1960s model Twiggy and Monty Python star Michael Palin.

Twiggy, a model who shot to stardom during the Beatles era, will become a Dame — the female equivalent of a knight — while Palin, whose second career has seen him become an acclaimed travel documentary maker, receives a knighthood.

Jim Carter, who played the acerbic Mr. Carson in “Downton Abbey,” was also recognized, as was filmmaker Christopher Nolan, director of “Inception” and “Dunkirk,” and best-selling author Philip Pullman, creator of the Dark Materials trilogy.

The list released Friday also named 43 people who responded quickly to the extremist attacks in Manchester and London in 2017.

The honors process starts with nominations from the public, which are winnowed down by committees and sent to the prime minister before the various honors are bestowed by Queen Elizabeth II or senior royals next year.

The 92-year-old monarch has increasingly called on her children and grandchildren to hand out the coveted awards.

Divers

Divers Joshua Bratchley, Lance Corporal Connor Roe and Vernon Unsworth will be made Members of the Order of the British Empire for their roles in the risky Thai cave rescue last summer.

Four other British cave divers will receive civilian gallantry awards for their roles in the thrilling rescue of 12 boys and their coach, who were trapped in the cave for more than two weeks.

Richard Stanton and John Volanthen, the first to reach the stranded children and their coach, have been awarded the George Medal, while Christopher Jewell and Jason Mallinson received the Queen’s Gallantry Medal.

Twiggy​

Twiggy, whose modeling career lasted for decades, burst on the London Mod scene as one of the original “It” girls. She earned worldwide fame by 17 and went on to a career in theater and films.

“It’s wonderful, but it makes me giggle,” said Twiggy, 69, whose real name is Lesley Lawson. “The hardest thing has been keeping it a secret.”

Michael Palin

Palin’s knighthood recognizes his contribution to travel, culture and geography. He said the news had not sunk in yet but noted “I have been a knight before, in Python films. I have been several knights, including Sir Galahad.”

“I don’t think it will (sink in) until I see the envelopes addressing me as Sir Michael Palin,” said the 75-year-old. 

 
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Italy’s foreign minister, Enzo Moavero Milanesi, will be visiting Washington from Jan. 3-4, meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the State Department and with national security adviser John Bolton at the White House

Italy’s foreign minister, Enzo Moavero Milanesi, will be visiting Washington in early January, meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the State Department and with national security adviser John Bolton at the White House. 

Italy’s Foreign Ministry said Friday that topics for the Jan. 3-4 meetings include global security, the migrant situation in the Mediterranean Sea, efforts to stabilize Libya, peace efforts in the Middle East, economic and social growth in Africa and trans-Atlantic political, economic and commercial ties. 

The ministry said “Italy intends to further intensity its relations with the United States,” which have been enhanced by nearly two centuries of an Italian-American community “that enlivens American life with its cultural, entrepreneurial and political dynamism.”
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In China, 2018 has been a year that rights defenders worldwide say was extremely repressive, particularly when it comes to religious persecution.

China’s communist party leadership has strongly defended its actions amid growing calls that its actions may constitute crimes against humanity.

Those actions include the internment of hundreds of thousands – perhaps more than a million – Muslims in Xinjiang, the demolition and shuttering of Christian churches nationwide and the systemic crackdown on dissidents.

“2018 has been a year of human rights disasters in China, where all walks of people have paid a dear price over rights abuses. In the past year, China has systemically enforced the most audacious ever persecution policies,” said Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the exile Germany-headquartered World Uighur Congress.

After months of denying their existence, China admitted that the camps do exist and launched a global propaganda campaign defending its interment of ethnic Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in the western region of Xinjiang.

Beijing has yet to confirm how many have been detained and calls the “vocational centers” a necessary part of their fight against terrorism and religious extremism. The reality, rights advocates argue, is that Muslim minorities are being detained and made to work overtime and without pay in factories for so-called job training.

China is also reportedly planning Xinjiang-style “re-education” camps in Ningxia  home to the Hui minority Muslims. Such moves highlight the communist party’s drastic efforts to wipe out ethnic Muslims and extend control over religious groups, Raxit said.

Bob Fu, the founder of China Aid, agrees. His group, based in the U.S. state of Texas, is committed to promoting religious freedom in China.

“This is a 21st century concentration camp, like Nazi Germany in 1930s and 1940s, so, the international community should unequivocally condemn and urge the Chinese regime to immediately stop this crime,” he said.

Call for sanctions

Rights advocates have called on governments worldwide to impose sanctions on Chinese officials involved in human rights abuses.

U.S. senators including Marco Rubio have denounced Xinjiang’s internment camps and other alleged abuses as possible crimes against humanity.  In November, Rubio and a group of bipartisan lawmakers introduced legislation to address the situation and urged American policymakers to be clear-eyed about the global implications of China’s domestic repression.

The bipartisan bills urge President Donald Trump’s administration to use measures including economic sanctions to defend Uighurs and other Muslim minorities. If that happens, China has said it will retaliate in proportion.

Intensified persecution

It is not just Muslims who have found themselves caught in the communist party’s crosshairs. China Aid’s Fu said China has also escalated its crackdown on Christian communities.

Authorities have torn down houses of worship and in some places, there is a push to ensure that anyone under the age of 18 cannot attend church or be under the influence of religion. China is officially atheist, but says it allows religious freedom.

In early December, Chinese police arrested Pastor Wang Yi, along with more than 100 members of his Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu, Sichuan.

The arrests may have been triggered by his manifesto, titled “Meditation on the Religious War,” in which he condemns the communist party and urges Christians to perform acts of civil disobedience.

“It’s just really the tip of the iceberg of overall religious persecution in China since the president, Xi Jinping, took power,” Fu told CNN recently about the case.

Political dissidents

If convicted, Wang could face a jail term of up to 15 years and he has vowed not to plead guilty or confess unless physically tortured, said Jonathan Liu, a priest with the San Francisco-based Chinese Christian Fellowship of Righteousness.

Liu said the pastor’s detention serves the dual purpose of suppressing Christians and silencing political dissidents in China as Wang is a follower of Calvinism  a branch of Protestantism that emphasizes social justice.

“Deeply affected by Calvinism, he cares for those who are socially disadvantaged or rights defenders. So, his church has formed many fellowships to provide care for those people,” Liu said, “In the eyes of the Chinese government, his church has become a hub for [political] dissidents.”

No prospects for improvement

During the United Nations’ periodic review of its rights record, China defended itself, arguing that criticism was “politically motivated” with UN members deliberately disregarding China’s “remarkable achievements.”

For critics, the outlook for 2019 isn’t promising.

“I can see no prospect that there would be any improvement in the coming year. And in fact, the last year, the most horrible thing is to see that the government is openly and fragrantly acting against the law, in total contempt of the [judicial] system they’ve set up,” Albert Ho, chairman of China Human Rights Concern Group in Hong Kong.

The fact that rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang is still being held incommunicado proves that China has little respect for its own laws, Ho said.

Among more than 300 rights lawyers and activists ensnared in China’s 2015 crackdown, lawyer Wang is the last awaiting trial.

After almost three and a half years of arbitrary detention, Wang was finally put on trial in a closed-door hearing in Tianjin on December 26. He reportedly fired his state-appointed lawyer “in the first minute” of his trial,signs of his refusal to cooperate with the authorities.

His wife, Li Wenze, and supporters, as well as western diplomats and journalists, were all barred from attending the hearing, which the court said involved “state secrets,” but rights activists denounced as a blatant violation of China’s own judicial principles.

The court said on its website that a verdict will be announced on a later date. Rights activists argued that Wang would be a blatant case of political persecution shall he be convicted with a maximum 15-year sentence.

Li and three other wives of lawyer victims who have been carrying out a long and loud campaign to secure Wang’s release as well as others, recently shaved their hair to protest his detention for more than three years.

“They (the authorities) keep on shamelessly breaking the law. So today we are using this act of shaving our heads in protest, to show they are persistently and shamelessly breaking the law,” Li said.
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Violence and insecurity have forced more than 28 million children from their homes in 2018, UNICEF said in a news release Thursday.

The U.N. children’s fund said it had responded to more than 300 emergencies to help children caught in many of the 40 armed conflicts raging around the world. 

UNICEF said children had been tortured, raped, used as human shields or suicide bombers, recruited as child soldiers and subjected to a myriad of other atrocities by armed groups. 

While fighting has killed and maimed tens of thousands of children, UNICEF said many more had died from the indirect consequences of conflict, rather than the war itself. For instance, it noted, a child dies of preventable diseases every 10 minutes in Yemen, site of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. 

Caryl Stern, president and chief executive officer of UNICEF USA, told VOA that food insecurity had caused the rate of severe acute malnutrition to rise, with one in four children around the world being malnourished.

“For example, the Central African Republic, there has been such a dramatic resurgence in the fighting there … so two out of three kids are in need of humanitarian assistance in CAR right now,” Stern said. “And 43,000 children below age 5, they are projected to face an extremely elevated risk of death due to severe acute malnutrition.”

UNICEF said escalating fighting and attacks on schools and teachers in Cameroon and in the border regions of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger had deprived millions of children of an education. Similarly, it said, conflict in the Lake Chad Basin is putting the education of 3.5 million children at risk.

Sexual violence

Stern said sexual violence against women and girls was being used as a weapon of war in many conflicts.

“In northeast Nigeria, where you have armed groups, including the Boko Haram, they continue to target girls,” Stern said. “This is including rape. They are forced to become wives of fighters. They are used as human bombs. I mean, what is really going on there is just horrific.”

Stern said children had been abused in all countries and regions of conflict — in Afghanistan, in Myanmar, in Iraq, in Syria, eastern Ukraine and Central America. She said children were being victimized by political leaders who use them as pawns to push a political agenda.

“The border of our own country, the various different things that are happening around the world — Bangladesh and Myanmar. We have to separate the issue of politics from the issues that surround children,” she said.

Stern said children are not migrants. They are not refugees. They are not Somalia’s children or Yemen’s children or Syria’s children or Rohingya children. She said they are children first and foremost, and that there’s nothing political about saving the life of a child.
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The United States will step up research in hypersonic offense and defense weapons, in response to a Russian test of a nuclear-capable hypersonic glider. 

“While the United States has been the world leader in hypersonic system research for many decades, we did not choose to weaponize it,” Defense Department spokeswoman Lt. Col. Michelle Baldanza told VOA. “Those who have decided to weaponize hypersonics are creating a war-fighting asymmetry that we must address.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who oversaw the test Wednesday, said the weapon is impossible to intercept and will ensure Russia’s security for decades to come.

He called it an “excellent New Year’s gift to the nation.”

The weapon, dubbed Avangard, detaches itself from a rocket after being launched and glides back to earth at speeds faster than the speed of sound. 

“The Avangard is invulnerable to intercept by any existing and prospective missile defense means of the potential adversary,” Putin said after the test. 

He said the weapon will become part of Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces next year.

The Pentagon has been aware of Russian weapons advances for some time. In March, Putin bragged about having an array of new strategic nuclear weapons that can hit a target anywhere in the world. At the time, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Putin had only “confirmed what the United States government has known all along.” 

Baldanza said the U.S. will now increase focus on hypersonic weapons. “We are pursuing options for weapons delivered from land, sea and air to hold at risk high value, heavily defended and time critical targets at relevant ranges so that we can ensure our ability to dominate the battlefield by 2028.”

The test comes at a time of heightened tensions between Moscow and Washington over the allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, conflict in Ukraine, and the war in Syria.

National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
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A French septuagenarian, armed with a block of foie gras and a couple of bottles of wine, has set sail across the Atlantic in a barrel.

Jean-Jacques Savin, 71, set off from El Hierro in Spain’s Canary Islands and hopes to end his 4,500-kilometer journey to the Caribbean in about three months, relying only on ocean currents and trade winds.

“The weather is great. I’ve got a swell of one meter and I’m moving at 2 to 3 kilometers an hour. … I’ve got favorable winds forecast until Sunday,” Savin told AFP shortly after he set off. 

He described his journey as a “crossing during which man isn’t captain of his ship, but a passenger of the ocean.”

Savin spent several months building his bright orange, barrel-shaped capsule of resin-coated plywood that is strong enough to withstand the constant battering of waves and possible orca attacks.

The barrel, measuring 3 meters long and 2.10 meters across, is equipped with a kitchen area, and a mattress with straps to keep him from being tossed around by rough seas.

He is also carrying a bottle of Sauternes white wine and a block of foie gras for New Year’s Eve, and a bottle of Saint-Émilion red wine for his birthday in January, according to AFP.

Portholes on either side of the barrel and another looking into the water will provide the entertainment. It also has a solar panel that generates energy for communications and GPS positioning.

As he drifts along, Savin will drop markers in the ocean to help oceanographers study ocean currents. Savin will be studied by doctors for effects of solitude in close confinement.

He will also post daily updates including GPS coordinates, tracking the journey on a Facebook page. 

Savin’s adventure, which will cost a little more than $65,000, was funded by French barrel makers and crowdfunding.

Savin hopes to end his journey on a French island, such as Martinique or Guadeloupe. “That would be easier for the paperwork and for bringing the barrel back,” he told AFP.
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The commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has suggested that Britain’s departure from the European Union will be costly and could have a damaging effect on public safety.

Cressida Dick told the BBC on Thursday that the adjustment to leaving the EU would be more challenging if there’s no deal in place between Britain and the bloc.

She says U.K. police will have to work out access to vital databases and will need new procedures so people can still be quickly arrested and extradited despite Brexit. Dick says that would be “very difficult to do in short-term” if Britain has no transition deal.

The commissioner hopes Britain will have systems like the ones in place now to facilitate fighting crime.

Prime Minister Theresa May has agreed upon a Brexit deal with EU leaders but many British lawmakers don’t like it.

 
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British officials say nine migrants have been detained on a beach in southeastern England after crossing the English Channel in a small inflatable boat.

The Home Office said Thursday the group comprises five men, one woman, two boys and a girl.

They were intercepted in the English coastal county of Kent by the local lifeboat station.

Manager Matt Crittenden says the inflatable had a very small 10-horsepower engine.

A further rescue operation was also underway after up to eight people were believed to have been spotted on an inflatable vessel near another English coast.

This latest attempt to enter England comes after at least 43 migrants, tried to cross the English Channel on Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

There has been a surge in small boat crossings recently.

 
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Russia has successfully conducted its final test of a hypersonic glider capable of carrying nuclear warheads, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

Putin, who oversaw the test Wednesday, said the weapon is impossible to intercept and will ensure Russia’s security for decades to come.

He called it an “excellent New Year’s gift to the nation.”

The weapon, dubbed Avangard, detaches itself from a rocket after being launched and glides back to Earth at speeds faster than the speed of sound.

On Wednesday, the Avangard was launched from the Dombarovskiy missile base in the southern Ural Mountains. Putin said it hit its designated target at a shooting range 6,000 kilometers away.

“The Avangard is invulnerable to intercept by any existing and prospective missile defense means of the potential adversary,” Putin said after the test.

He said the weapon will become part of Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces next year.

The Pentagon is also working on hypersonic weapons, but U.S. officials have warned they lag behind Russia.

The test comes at a time of heightened tensions between Moscow and Washington over allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, conflict in Ukraine and the war in Syria.
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Four international media organizations have called on the Albanian government to drop two draft laws on state regulation and compulsory registration of online media to fight fake news.

In a letter sent Wednesday to Prime Minister Edi Rama and Justice Minister Etilda Gjonaj, the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, the European Federation of Journalists, Reporters Without Borders and PEN International asked them to withdraw the legislation, involve journalists and seek for international assistance to draw up new laws.

They said that in democratic countries “online media are self-regulated.”

In October, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe also expressed concern about a new registration system for media websites in Albania.

Albania expects to launch full membership negotiations with European Union next year.

 
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A strong earthquake caused by Mount Etna’s ongoing eruption led to panic in eastern Sicily early Wednesday. No one was killed, but at least 30 people suffered minor injuries.

Italian authorities used helicopters early Wednesday to assess the damage, after the 4.8 magnitude earthquake struck. The island is home to Mount Etna, the volcano which has recently triggered hundreds of tremors, some stronger than others.

Homes were damaged, with cracks appearing on building walls and others collapsing entirely. One family whose home collapsed in the town of Fleri said it was a miracle they survived.

The local population in these areas is used to the constant eruptions of Etna, the most active volcano in Europe. However, one 80-year-old resident said never in his life had he felt a quake like the one that hit in the middle of the night.

Others described leaving their homes through the windows and said the lamps swayed and everything shook. They said they were frightened and prayed that such a powerful quake would not occur again.

The epicenter was located north of the eastern Sicilian city of Catania and officials said it was shallow, at a depth of just one kilometer from the surface. At least six towns were affected, and a section of the highway had to be closed for inspection.

In Pennisi, near Acireale, the bell tower of a church collapsed as did the statue of Saint Emidio, traditionally believed to protect against earthquakes. Officials were also assessing damage to cultural heritage sites.

Eugenio Privitera, the director of the national institute for geophysics and volcanology in Catania, said the seismic events are unsettling and caused by a fault that is dangerous when it moves.

Italian Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio said he would visit those affected by the quake on Thursday.
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In the Estonian capital of Tallinn, three-day-old Oskar Lunde sleeps soundly in his hospital cot, snuggled into a lime green blanket decorated with red butterflies. Across the room, his father turns on a laptop.

“Now we will register our child,” Andrejs Lunde says with gravity as he inserts his ID card into the card reader. His wife, Olga, looks on proudly.

And just like that, Oskar is Estonia’s newest citizen. No paper. No fuss.

This Baltic nation of 1.3 million people is engaged in an ambitious project to make government administration completely digital to reduce bureaucracy, increase transparency and boost economic growth. As more countries shift their services online, Estonia’s experiment offers a glimpse of how interacting with the state might be for future generations.

Need a prescription? It’s online. Need someone at City Hall? No lines there – or even at the Department of Motor Vehicles! On the school front, parents can see whether their children’s homework was done on time.

Estonia has created one platform that supports electronic authentication and digital signatures to enable paperless communications across both the private and public sectors.

There are still a few things that you can’t do electronically in Estonia: marry, divorce or transfer property – and that’s only because the government has decided it was important to turn up in person for some big life events.

This spring, government aims to go even further. If Oskar had been born a few months later, he would have been registered automatically, with his parents receiving an email welcoming him into the nation.

Marten Kaevats, Estonia’s national digital adviser, says the goal is a government that supports its citizens while staying out of the way.

“In an ideal world, in the case of an invisible government, when a new child is born neither of the parents would ever have to apply for anything: to get maternity leave, to get child support from the municipality, to get a kindergarten place, to put the name to the child,” he said. “All of those different services would be delivered automatically.”

Siva Vaidhyanathan, director of the Center for Media and Citizenship at the University of Virginia, says other countries have a lot to learn. Estonia took time to build security and privacy into its model, in contrast with failed efforts by private companies to provide secure online voting systems in the United States, for example.

“It made sure that state accountability is part of the process,” he said.

Estonians largely seem to have embraced the system despite global concerns about data hacks.

At a demonstration showcasing the digital system, project manager Indrek Onnik stood beside a huge screen illustrating his profile. He showed off his high school grades from a decade ago and his diving license records. If he had a dog, its vaccination record would appear there, too.

Citizens can monitor their data and see if any government or private institution accesses it.

“To generate trust, you really have to have transparency,” he said. “And that’s why people have access to their own data. And that’s why they can actually see if the government has used their own data.”

The platform is underpinned by software called X-Road, a decentralized data exchange system that links databases. Outgoing data is digitally signed and encrypted, and all incoming data is authenticated and logged.

The government, fearing attempts to compromise its borders by neighboring Russia, also has a backup plan to restore digital services in the event of invasion or severe cyberattacks: data “embassies” in countries like Luxembourg. Like a regular embassy, the servers are considered Estonian territory and would give the government a chance to boot up elsewhere if needed.

Making life simpler for citizens has economic benefits in a country otherwise known for unforgiving winters and old growth forests.

The project, which began in 1997, laid the groundwork for Estonia’s booming tech sector. Skype, the video-calling service Microsoft bought for $8.5 billion in 2011, is Estonia’s most famous high-tech export, but the impact is broader. Information and communications accounted for 5.9 percent of the economy last year.

The government hopes to increase that figure with an “e-residency” program that lets entrepreneurs around the world register their businesses in Estonia and gain a foothold in the European Union. More than 51,000 people from 167 countries have applied at a cost of 100 euros ($114) each.

The advances in digitization are the result of long-term thinking.

When Estonia declared independence in 1991, the economy was so backward in this former Soviet republic it had to be rebuilt from scratch. The leadership looked for an industry where the country could compete. They decided on information technology and the internet, a field that was as new as Estonia, said former President Toomas Hendrik Ilves.

When the cash-strapped country needed to replace a 1930s phone system, Finland offered a late 1970s analog system free of charge. But Ilves argued that the government should decline the offer and invest in digital technology.

“The only way we could do really well was to go digital,” Ilves said, speaking from Stanford University, where he is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. “We stood a chance of competing there.”

Ilves, who grew up in the United States and was introduced to computers in junior high, proposed getting kids started early. The government started building computer labs in schools. Banks supported the move, as it reduced the need for branches in rural villages. More than 99 percent of Estonia’s banking transactions now take place online.

Whether Estonia’s system can be used in larger countries is an open question, said Zvika Krieger, head of technology policy and partnerships at the World Economic Forum.

What works in a small, progressive country won’t necessarily work in sprawling democracies like the U.S. or India.

“When you add in more people, more diverse stakeholders, more layers of government at the city, state, and local level, you are adding in exponentially more complexity,” Krieger said. “Estonia is a good first test case. And now the question is whether other countries will find Estonia’s success compelling enough to take the risk to try it at a larger scale.”

Estonia sees its approach as a prototype for modern democracy – a counterpoint to authoritarian countries intent on using digitization to control their citizens. Ilves, who travels around the world talking about the project, tells other countries that increased efficiency builds trust – and improves governance.

“Estonians hate their politicians just as much as everyone else,” he said. “But at least since the administration of the state works extremely well and efficiently, people trust the system.”

Andrejs Lunde is among the believers.

He says digital government makes life so much easier that it’s worth any potential security risk, pointing out that personal information can be stolen from paper-based systems as well.

“If someone really wants my information, they will get it anyway,” said Lunde. “If they can get Hillary’s emails, they can get mine.”
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French authorities said eight migrants were picked up from a stalled boat Tuesday while trying to cross the English Channel to Britain, where the government office that oversees immigration reported that almost 30 more were rescued in the waters between southern England and northern France. 

The French regional maritime authority, or prefecture, said in a statement that the small rubber boat with a failed engine was spotted Tuesday off the coast of Calais. A police helicopter monitoring the area directed a tugboat to the stranded migrants, the prefecture said.  

The maritime authority didn’t provide the passengers’ nationalities.  

Calais, a port city on one end of a Channel tunnel that connects France and English by train, long has been a magnet for migrants fleeing conflict or poverty in Africa and the Mideast. French officials two years ago closed a makeshift camp that swelled to a population of 10,000 at one point as people waited to try to hop trucks taking rail ferries to England.  

5 incidents on Christmas

The Channel has seen a recent spike in migrants attempting the trip from France to England in small boats. Britain’s Home Office said border agents responded to five separate boating incidents in English waters starting early Christmas Day involving passengers who said they were from Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. 

The Home Office put the number of England-bound migrants the French tugboat took on at nine, not eight. The French maritime authority could not be reached to resolve the discrepancy.  

The office told Britain’s Press Association that all received medical evaluations and were sent on for immigration interviews. Social welfare agencies would assume care of the two children among the passengers, the news agency reported.
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Less than a day before arriving in Moscow to salvage frayed ties with his Russian counterpart, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he no longer considers Russia a “brotherly nation.”

According to a television broadcast by Belsat, a Belarus-focused satellite channel headquartered in Warsaw, Poland, Lukashenko told a Monday Cabinet session that he no longer considered Minsk’s longtime regional ally a fraternal state “because I was informed that Russia is not receptive to it.”

News of Lukashenko’s comments, which were prompted by Russia’s refusal to provide financial compensation for changes to recently implemented export fees, filtered into the Kremlin midday Tuesday, just hours before he was set to head into a closed door meeting with President Vladimir Putin to discuss a range of topics aimed at improving bilateral cooperation.

Less than an hour before the high-level talks kicked off – their 12th face-to-face meeting this year – Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov countered Lukashenko’s comments by declaring a “loss of trust lately” with Moscow’s closest historical ally.

“We don’t trust the work of your customs,” Siluanov was quoted as telling an informal press gaggle in the Kremlin.

Bilateral ties faltered after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, which Lukashenko called “a bad precedent,” likely because the small former Soviet republic, which does not being to the European Union or NATO, is economically dependent on Moscow for trade, natural gas and other natural resources.

Diplomatic relations have been further strained by accusations of what Belarus calls artificially inflated taxes on oil and gas, while Russia has repeatedly expressed concerns about customs violations.

Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan have a duty-free arrangement under which Moscow sends crude and oil products to Minsk with no export fee. Belarus then re-exports some of those goods, pocketing the associated charges.

Russia has used cheap energy exports and loans to Belarus as a way of keeping its former Soviet neighbor in Moscow’s geopolitical orbit, but the arrangement has become harder to sustain as Russia’s budget tightens, partially as a result of Western sanctions.

Russia also has accused Belarus of skimming payments on Russian duties by exporting gasoline and other oil products under the guise of aftermarket oil-based products, such as solvents and commercial chemicals.

Russia unexpectedly refused a request from Belarus for $310 million in compensation from a 2018 change in Russian oil taxes, Belarus’s deputy prime minister, Igor Lyashenko, told Reuters last week.

The Russian government in June approved changes in oil taxes that will see oil export duties being gradually cut over the next six years; but, as a result, Belarus believes it could lose $10.8 billion by 2024.

Finance Minister Siluanov said Russia never promised any compensation to Belarus over the tax changes.

“We consider such changes, including the tax maneuver in the oil and gas sector, as an internal matter of the Russian Federation,” he said.

According to The Moscow Times, the ongoing tensions didn’t stop the men from shaking hands before Tuesday’s meeting, where Lukashenko called on Putin to “not to drag old disputes into the new year.” 

“Overall, I believe our relations have been developing quite well,” Putin said upon opening the meeting, according to an official Kremlin press statement.

“Of course there are some problems, which is natural given the scope of our interaction,” Putin added, saying that both sides had come well prepared to address the most pressing issue – energy relations. “I suggest we listen to both sides even if we fail to reach any agreement,” he said.

Some information in this story is from Reuters.
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Russia on Tuesday expanded its economic sanctions on Ukraine, adding more than 250 people and businesses to a blacklist first announced at the start of November.

According to a decree by Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev, 245 individuals and seven companies, mostly in the energy and defense sectors, were sanctioned by Moscow.

Relations between Moscow and Kiev have deteriorated since a pro-Western government came to power after the 2014 revolt against a pro-Russian leader, Moscow’s annexation of the Crimea and the outbreak of war in eastern Ukraine.

A total of 567 individuals and 75 Ukranian companies now face Russian economic sanctions, which put a freeze on any assets they have in Russia.

On his Twitter account, Medvedev said the sanctions were “to defend the interests of the Russian government, businesses and people.”

Tensions between the two neighbors have worsened since November when Russia’s coastguard captured three Ukrainian naval vessels and their crews off the Crimean coast.

Among those sanctioned on Tuesday were Ukrainian defense, energy, insurance and logistics companies as well as Odessa’s mayor and other high-ranking Ukraine officials.

Since the outbreak of the Ukraine war, Kiev has taken a series of measures against Russian interests, including blocking Russian internet services and social media.

The conflict pitting pro-Russian separatists against Ukrainian government forces is estimated to have claimed more than 10,000 lives — one third of them civilian — since it broke out four years ago.
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A Turkish official said Monday that U.S. President Donald Trump has accepted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s invitation to visit the country.

Presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told reporters after a Cabinet meeting that Trump wants to make the trip in 2019 but a date hasn’t been set.

The White House confirmed the invitation for Trump to visit next year, adding: “While nothing definite is being planned, the president is open to a potential meeting in the future.”

Kalin said Erdogan extended the invitation during a weekend phone call between the presidents on the withdrawal of American troops from Syria.

Trump tweeted Sunday that he had a “long and productive” call with Erdogan in which they discussed “the slow & highly coordinated” pullout of U.S. military personnel.

 
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Pope Francis urged Christians on Monday to forgo the greed, gluttony and materialism of Christmas and to focus instead on its message of simplicity, charity and love.

Francis celebrated a Christmas Eve Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, opening a busy week for the pope that includes a Christmas Day message and blessing, a Dec. 26 prayer, New Year’s Eve vespers and a Jan. 1 Mass.

During his homily Monday, Francis lamented that many people find their life’s meaning in possessions when the biblical story of Christ’s birth emphasizes that God appeared to people who were poor when it came to earthly possessions, but faithful.

“Standing before the manger, we understand that the food of life is not material riches but love, not gluttony but charity, not ostentation but simplicity,” Francis said, dressed in simple white vestments.

“An insatiable greed marks all human history, even today, when paradoxically a few dine luxuriantly while all too many go without the daily bread needed to survive,” he said.

Francis has focused on the world’s poor and downtrodden, its refugees and marginalized, during his five-year papacy. The Catholic Church’s first pope from Latin American instructed the Vatican to better care for the homeless around Rome, opening a barber shop, shower and medical clinic for them in the embracing colonnade of St. Peter’s Square.

To extend his outreach this Christmas, Francis sent his trusted secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, to Iraq to celebrate with the country’s long-suffering Christians.

Catholics are among the religious minorities targeted for Islamic State-inspired violence that has driven tens of thousands from their homes.

Parolin met Monday in Baghdad with Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi. He is scheduled in the coming days to travel to northern Iraq to meet with Kurdish leaders in Irbil and to celebrate Mass in Qaraqosh in the Nineveh plains, near Mosul, according to the Vatican.

The Vatican has for years expressed concern about the exodus of Christians from communities that have existed since the time of Jesus, and urged them to return when security conditions permit.

Francis is likely to refer to the plight of Christians in Iraq and Syria during his Christmas Day “Urbi et Orbi” (To the city and the world) speech. He is scheduled to deliver it Tuesday from the loggia of St. Peter’s and again at Mass on New Year’s Day, which the church marks as its world day for peace.

 
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Russian envoy: Bad relations with US unlikely to improvRussia’s U.N. ambassador says relations between Moscow and Washington are “practically non-existent,” which he says is bad not only for both countries but for the world — and he sees little prospect for improvement anytime soon.

Vassily Nebenzia said in a recent wide-ranging interview with a small group of journalists that the Trump administration should offer some incentives to North Korea to move forward toward denuclearization, saying the situation “is stalemated at the moment.”

Russia and China have backed an easing of sanctions to spur momentum, but the U.S. insists that North Korea must first make major steps toward eliminating its nuclear program. 

“I’m concerned that it doesn’t roll back” to the 2017 era of increasing nuclear and missile tests and escalating rhetoric, Nebenzia said. “I think that the U.S. hopefully is starting to understand that the situation may go (back).” 

As for Iran, Nebenzia said he worries about U.S. strategy if its sanctions don’t bring about the changes in behavior the Trump administration wants. He sees “a danger if they go to the limits.”

“I’m worried if anybody wants to go to war with Iran, and that is the enigma and the question — what is the strategy about Iran?” Nebenzia asked.

Discussion on global issues

He said the U.S. and Russia need to talk about global issues including strategic stability, terrorism, narcotics and regional conflicts, and he thinks President Donald Trump “understands pretty well that it’s better to cooperate.”

But he said because Russia has become a major issue in U.S. domestic policies — accused of hacking and interfering in the 2016 U.S. elections which is being investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller — “and given the vulnerabilities that drift around this administration, I don’t see too bright prospects for improving (relations) any time soon.” 

Looking more broadly at the U.S. position in the world under President Donald Trump, whose overarching policy is “America First,” Nebenzia said he doesn’t see the United States retreating.

It’s that the balance of power in the world is changing, he said, “and we definitely witness the rise in a multipolar world” where other centers of power not only Russia and China but India, Brazil and Africa “all want to be a part of the world governance and they want their voice to be heard and their interests taken into account.” 

Trump’s decision praised

Nebenzia echoed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s view that Trump’s decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria was a good move, though he expressed some skepticism about whether the announcement will become a reality.

He said in the interview at Russia’s U.N. Mission late Friday that a pullout “will be helpful and conducive to the eventual Syrian settlement” of the seven-year conflict.

If and when the U.S. leaves Syria, Nebenzia said, America’s Kurdish allies in the northeast should reintegrate into Syrian society, and “their rights and interests should be taken into account in the final settlement.”

Concerns with Turkey

Alluding to fears that Turkish forces could cross the border and go after the U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters, Nebenzia added, ”I think that’s the best antidote for them against any possible bad developments that might take place.”

Nebenzia said former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice voiced his answer to the question of why Russia is in Syria: “The only reason Russia is present in Syria is to prevent another Libya, and that is true.”

He said “Syria was a hotbed of the terrorist caliphate” established by Islamic State extremists, and “our aim was not to let them flourish there” and to restore Syria’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Nebenzia said the greatest threat in today’s world is not Russia, China, North Korea and Iran as the U.S. national security strategy claims but terrorism — and what’s needed most is “a true coalition to fight international terrorism.”

On Afghanistan

Responding to questions about Trump’s decision to cut the U.S. force in Afghanistan in half, Nebenzia said: “Afghanistan is one country that demonstrated to the whole world that it’s impossible to defeat.”

“That was demonstrated by the British.That was demonstrated by the Soviets and now it’s the turn of the Americans,” he said.

Nebenzia said it “looks like there’s no military solution, and the understanding of that is gaining momentum.”

The government and the Taliban will have to talk to each other, he said, stressing that “the Taliban is part of Afghan society — you can’t write them off.”
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U.S. President Donald Trump says Turkey will eliminate the rest of the Islamic State militants in Syria after the U.S. military withdraws its forces.

In a tweet late Sunday, Trump said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “has strongly informed me that he will eradicate whatever is left of ISIS in Syria…and he is a man who can do it plus, Turkey is right ‘next door.'”

“Our troops are coming home!” Trump added.

Earlier Sunday, Trump said the two leaders discussed his withdrawal plan during a “long and productive call.”

Trump gave few details about his conversation. But he tweeted he and Erdogan discussed Islamic State, trade, and what he called “the slow and highly coordinated pullout of U.S. troops from the area.”

Erdogan’s office said in a statement he and Trump agreed to “ensure coordination between their countries’ military, diplomatic, and other officials to avoid a power vacuum which could result following any abuse of the withdrawal and transition phase in Syria.”

Erdogan said late last week that Turkey is postponing an operation against Kurdish forces in Syria in the wake of Trump’s decision.

Trump has declared Islamic State defeated and says it is time for other members of the anti-Islamic State coalition to step in and clean up the last remaining pockets. 

But his decision to leave Syria is unpopular among many in Washington, including within his own administration.

Trump’s Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and special envoy to the global coalition fighting Islamic State Brett McGurk have both resigned, at least in part, because of Syria.

But acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said on ABC’s This Week broadcast Trump will not change his mind 

“I think the president has told people from the very beginning that he doesn’t want us to stay in Syria forever…you’re seeing the end result now of two years of work.”

Mulvaney was asked about the Mattis and McGurk resignations and said it is “not unusual” for Cabinet members to resign “over these types of disagreements.”

Republican Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said Sunday he is “devastated” by the decision and calls the United States “unreliable.”

French President Emmanuel Macron said that he “deeply regrets” Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria.

Meanwhile, witnesses say Turkish forces have started massing on the border of the northern Syrian town of Manbij controlled by U.S. forces and their Kurdish allies.

Turkish military officials have not given an exact reason why their troops have headed to Manbij.

But Turkey has angrily accused the United States and the Kurds of failing to carry out their deal to pull out of Manbij.

Turkey accuses the U.S.-backed YPG Kurdish militia, of being a terrorist group and tied to the Kurdistan Workers Party — which has been fighting a long insurgency for more Kurdish autonomy in Turkey.
…

British and French officials are scrambling to determine how they can maintain military pressure on the Islamic State terror group once the United States has pulled out its ground forces from northeast Syria.

Both countries have said they plan to continue airstrikes and ground operations in Syria, but the timing and scope of the U.S. withdrawal, say officials still reeling from President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces, remains unclear and is complicating war-planning in London and Paris.

The British and French governments are trying also to gain a clearer understanding, say officials, of Turkish military intentions in northeast Syria, and when or if the Turks, as they have threatened, launch an offensive east of the Euphrates River to attack the Western-allied Kurdish Peoples’ Protection Units, or YPG.

The YPG is the main formation in the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, the West’s only ground partner in the fight against IS. Turkey has been restrained from moving into Syria’s Kurdish-controlled northeast in the past by the presence of U.S. troops. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he would delay an offensive possibly for several months, although the Kurds say his concession shouldn’t be taken at face value.

President Erdogan has threatened to smash the Western-allied Kurdish forces in northern Syria, arguing they are indistinguishable from militant Kurdish separatists in Turkey, who have waged a three-decade-long insurgency. Kurdish leaders hope Washington will continue to press the Turks to hold off. “It’s their duty to prevent any attack and to put an end to Turkish threats,” says Aldar Khalil, a senior Kurdish official.

In the meantime, they are renewing talks with Damascus, using the northeastern oil fields, which they control, as leverage to strike a semi-autonomy deal with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

A critical question for London and Paris, say defense officials in both capitals, is whether the YPG will be able to keep control of the 800 IS prisoners it holds, many from European countries.

Kurdish officials warned Friday French President Emmanuel Macron’s representative to Syria, François Senemand, that if Turkey does attack, it would create a chaotic situation in which they might not be able to spare the guards to make sure IS detainees are secure — let alone continue with an offensive against remaining IS formations along the border with Iraq.

The IS prisoners include two Britons accused of being members of the so-called “Beatles” murder cell, responsible for the torture and beheading of Western journalists and aid workers, including American reporters James Foley and Steve Sotloff.

The Kurds have long pleaded with European governments to repatriate foreign fighters to be prosecuted in their home countries, but to no avail, despite the Kurdish pleas being echoed by Washington and the families of journalists and aid workers murdered by IS.

Now there’s rising alarm in Western capitals that the U.S. withdrawal may trigger a chain of events that will lead to IS prisoners either escaping or being released by the Kurds, with the risk they could find their way back to the West, posing a major security headache for European governments. The Kurds say the only way to ensure their detention is for France and Britain to play a bigger military role in northern Syria. Some observers view the Kurds’ warning about IS detainees as an ultimatum.

“Under the threat of the Turkish state, and with the possibility of Daesh [Islamic State] reviving once again, I fear the situation will get out of control and we will no longer be able to contain them,” Ilham Ahmed, a Kurdish official told reporters Friday in Paris.

France has 200 special forces soldiers operating in Syria’s Kurdish northeast as well as artillery units, part of an anti-IS international coalition trying to root out remaining pockets of militant fighters.

French Defense Minister Florence Parly told a French radio station she disagrees with President Trump’s assessment that IS has all but been annihilated.

“It’s an extremely grave decision and we think, the job must be finished,” she said speaking three days after Trump tweeted his order for U.S. ground troops to depart Syria, declaring IS defeated. U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis resigned in protest midweek after he and other U.S. military and national security staff failed to persuade the U.S. leader to reverse his decision.

On Saturday, it emerged Brett McGurk, the special presidential envoy for the global coalition to counter IS, has also resigned in protest.

When Trump made his pull-out decision, McGurk was in Iraq briefing coalition partners about how the U.S. remained committed to keeping troops in Syria, both to finish off IS and counter Iran. His departure has added to fears that without the U.S. playing a leading role the 77-nation anti-IS coalition will fall apart.

Britain’s defense minister has also pledged to maintain British airstrikes on IS targets in Syria, saying that although the anti-IS coalition has rolled up the militant’ territorial caliphate, IS “as an ideology and as an organization has become more dispersed. He warns of a possible IS resurgence. “We recognize we’ve got to continue to keep a foot on the throat of Daesh,” said Gavin Williamson, using an Arab acronym for IS.

As well as mounting airstrikes, British commandos have been deployed in northern Syria. They are currently engaged with American special forces alongside the SDF in the mid-Euphrates valley, where an offensive has been underway since early September against 2,000 to 8,000 IS fighters, most of whom fled from Raqqa and Mosul when those cities fell.

Despite progress, including capturing the town of Hajin, the offensive there have been episodic reversals with IS mounting mobile counter-attacks under the cover of winter sandstorms and fog, say British and American officials. U.S. airstrikes have been crucial in the battle.

In October, the Kurds halted the offensive after Turkey bombarded Kurdish positions near Kobani, a town on the Turkish-Syrian border, where some of the Kurds’ IS prisoners are being detained.

Asked if British forces could continue to operate without considerable American military support, Williamson responded: “We’re going to continue to look at all our options.” Officials acknowledge Anglo-French options would be much reduced, if they’re unable to call on U.S. air support, something that the Pentagon has so far not clarified.

Some independent analysts have warned also that declaring victory over IS is premature. In a report issued last month by the International Center for Counter-Terrorism, a think tank based in The Hague, three analysts, Liesbeth van der Heide, Charlie Winter and Shiraz Maher, warned the militant group has the capacity to regroup.

“Its shift towards clandestine tactics has left it a more slippery foe,” they argued. “The organization has now changed trajectory, its overt insurgency devolving back into covert asymmetric warfare. Now, its focus is on hit-and-run operations geared towards undermining stability and discrediting the state. These are being deployed through a careful strategy of destabilization: IS sleeper cell networks are systematically working to subvert security in liberated territories,” they added in their report entitled, “The Cost of Crying Victory.”

Since Trump’s decision, other analysts have echoed their warning. “A U.S. pullout in Syria is a win for ISIS, Iran, Russia, & Assad,” tweeted Mike Pregent, an analyst at the Hudson Institute, a U.S.-based think tank, and former U.S. army intelligence officer. Pregent, who’s been highly critical of both Mattis and McGurk, arguing they have overseen a flawed strategy in Iraq and Syria, added: “We’ll see an ISIS resurgence & a further entrenched & aggressive Iran in Syria — all before Nov 2020.”

But President Trump, who has long favored a U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East, has received praise from some quarters. “Staying in Syria offers grave risk for the United States with no justifying security payoff,” says Kurt Couchman of Defense Priorities, a libertarian-leaning think tank. “Now that the Islamic State is reduced to remnants, and local forces are committed to containing them, it is in America’s interest to bring our troops home for the holidays.”
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As Ukraine enters its fifth winter of conflict, the United Nations says civilians continue to be victimized by widespread human rights violations and abuse perpetrated by both the government and Russian-backed rebels in Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. The report issued by the U.N. Human Rights Office covers the three-month period between mid-August and mid-November.

Ukraine’s civil conflict, which began April 2014 appears to be at a stalemate. However, this has not stopped the warring parties from subjecting the civilian population to gross violations of human rights on both sides of the contact line. This refers to the 500-kilometer line of separation between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatist rebels.

The U.N. has documented hundreds of abuses of the right to life, deprivation of liberty, enforced disappearance, torture and ill-treatment, sexual violence, and unlawful or arbitrary detention.

The report describes the hardships endured by the population due to Ukraine’s worsening economic situation. U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, Kate Gilmore, said large segments of the population suffer from the socio-economic barriers created by the armed conflict. She said the elderly, children, disabled people and those displaced by the conflict are particularly vulnerable.

“Disproportionate restrictions on the freedom of movement along and across the contact line continue to disrupt people’s access to social entitlements, such as pensions and social benefits. This in turn unduly impedes their access to basic services, those that are essential for daily dignity, including, for example water, sanitation, heating and health care,” she said.

The U.N. report harshly criticizes Russia for continuously violating its international obligations as the occupying power in Crimea.

It documents dozens of human rights violations including stifling dissent, instilling fear and denying individuals their freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly. It notes Crimean Tatars are disproportionately affected by these measures.
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A Syrian war monitor and Turkish media say Turkey is massing troops near a town in northern Syria held by a U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led force.

Turkey said it would delay a promised offensive in Syria following U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to dislodge the Kurdish fighters, who Turkey views as an extension of the insurgency within its borders. The U.S. had partnered with the Syrian Kurdish militia to drive out the Islamic State group.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the reinforcements were sent to the front line with Manbij, where U.S. troops have been based. The Turkish IHA news agency reported Sunday that a convoy of Turkish troops had been sent into Syria overnight.

 
…