Новини

The European Commission has added Saudi Arabia to an EU draft list of countries that pose a threat to the bloc because of lax controls against terrorism financing and money laundering, two sources told Reuters on Friday.

The move comes amid heightened international pressure on Saudi Arabia after the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate on October 2.

The EU’s list currently consists of 16 countries, including Iran, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen and North Korea, and is mostly based on criteria used by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global body composed by wealthy nations meant to combat money laundering and terrorism financing.

But the list has been updated this week, using new criteria developed by the EU Commission since 2017. Saudi Arabia is one of the countries added to the updated list which is still confidential, one EU source and one Saudi source told Reuters.

Saudi authorities did not immediately respond to request for comment.

The move is a setback for Riyadh at a time when it is striving to bolster its international reputation in order to encourage foreign investors to participate in a huge transformation plan and improve financial ties for its banks.

Khashoggi, a columnist for the Washington Post and a critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed and dismembered by Saudi agents at its Istanbul consulate on Oct 2, provoking widespread revulsion and damaging the kingdom’s image.

Apart from reputational damages, the inclusion in the list complicates financial relations with the EU. The bloc’s banks will have to carry out additional checks on payments involving entities from listed jurisdictions.

The provisional decision needs to be endorsed by the 28 EU states before being formally adopted next week. Company ownership

A second EU official said other countries are likely to be added to the final list but declined to elaborate as the information is still confidential and subject to changes.

An EU commission spokesman said he had no comment on the content of the list as it had not been finalized yet.

Countries are blacklisted if they “have strategic deficiencies in their anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism regimes that pose significant threats to the financial system of the Union,” the existing EU list says.

Under the new EU methodology, jurisdictions could also be blacklisted if they do not provide sufficient information on ownership of companies or if their rules on reporting suspicious transactions or monitoring financial customers are considered too lax.

Saudi Arabia missed out on gaining full FATF membership in September after it was determined to fall short in combating money laundering and terror financing.

The government has taken steps to beef up its efforts to tackle graft and abuse of power, but FATF said in September Riyadh was not effectively investigating and prosecuting individuals involved in larger scale money laundering activity or confiscating the proceeds of crime at home or abroad.

The EU has reviewed 47 jurisdictions, including the United States, Russia and Switzerland, before updating its list. EU countries were not screened.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is telling his embattled Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolas Maduro, to “stand tall” in the face of national and international calls to step down amid a political crisis.

Maduro’s opponents accuse him of undermining democracy. He has presided over skyrocketing inflation, a collapsing economy and widespread shortages of basic goods.

Erdogan said Thursday he was shocked at U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the interim president.

In response to the announcement, Maduro said Wednesday he was ending diplomatic relations with the United States and ordered U.S. diplomats to leave within 72 hours. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Maduro no longer has the authority to do so.

Erdogan maintained that Maduro will prevail “If he continues to stand strong in the path he believes in.”

“Maduro, brother, stand tall. Turkey stands with you,” Erdogan told Maduro by telephone, Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin tweeted Thursday.

“I thank Russia, China, Turkey, and other governments and people of the world for their strong support of the legitimately established government of Venezuela,” Maduro said in a Twitter post. “Venezuela is not alone!” he added.

Despite the religiously conservative Erdogan and the left-wing Maduro coming from opposite ends of the political spectrum, the two leaders have built a strong relationship.

Maduro is a regular visitor to Turkey. He attended the Turkish president’s inauguration, while Erdogan visited Venezuela last year. Maduro provoked widespread condemnation after images of him dining at a famous Istanbul steak house went viral. Many Venezuelans are struggling to find enough to eat due to widespread food shortages.

“The support of Erdogan is vital for Maduro,” said Esra Akgemci of Turkey’s Selcuk University.

“It is clear that Maduro sees Turkey as a strategic alliance and wants to build deeper relations,” she added. “The support of Erdogan is more discursive. Erdogan himself had also suffered from a coup attempt [in 2016] and could not find the support he was seeking from the EU and USA, so supporting Maduro against a probable coup would strengthen his position both in internal and international politics.”

During the visit to Caracas, Erdogan pledged that Turkish companies would invest over $4.5 billion in Venezuela. Turkey has an agreement to process tons of Venezuelan gold; a move interpreted as a possible way to circumvent future U.S. sanctions. Turkish Airlines continues daily flights to Caracas, while many other international carriers have stopped service.

Turkish media are also strongly backing Maduro, accusing Washington of seeking to bring down a democratically elected president. “U.S.-backed coup attempt, this time in Venezuela,” read one headline.

“Massive U.S. pressure on any country could devastate its economy, finances, and politics easily. President Maduro’s principled resistance against these international pressures is exemplary,” wrote columnist Hakki Ocal in the pro-government Sabah newspaper.

Murat Yetkin, a well-known liberal journalist tweeted, “U.S.’s post-modern coup attempt in Venezuela cannot be accepted. The suffering of the people who live in the country with the richest oil reserves under the Maduro administration doesn’t change that. The decision cannot be taken by the U.S. or Trump. Next, there might be an occupation, by the U.S. or its collaborators.”

Drawing parallels

Turkish media have drawn parallels between Turkey and Venezuela, after Trump, in a tweet this month, threatened to “devastate” the Turkish economy if Ankara attacked U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish rebels.

In Turkey;’s deeply politically polarized society there is a rare consensus in support of Maduro.

“Most of the people here who can’t find Venezuela let alone Caracas on the map, are all fully behind Maduro,” said former senior Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen, “because they think the U.S. again is behind a coup or military intervention, as they did previously in Libya as they did in Egypt, as they did in Iraq. From the most hard core Islamist to the most hard core leftist today in Turkey, there is anti-Americanism. It is deep. It is fervent.”

The social media hashtag #WeAreMaduro, became one of the leading trending topics in Turkey, with many Turks posting images and comments in support for Maduro. The picture of Maduro holding an ancient Turkic flag is widely circulated.

Turkey and Latin America share similar histories of coups throughout the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. Many in Turkey accuse the U.S. of being involved in the military takeovers. Turkish ministers openly accused the U.S. of being involved in the 2016 coup attempt, a charge Washington has denied.

Erdogan’s support for Maduro is expected to continue. Analysts point out standing up to what is deemed as “American imperialism” plays well in Turkey, and critical local elections are due to March; however, former diplomat Selcen suggests such support will remain mostly empty words.

“It’s mainly rhetoric,” said Selcen.”There are some rumors that if things go south for Maduro, he can perhaps find refuge in Turkey. But I believe it’s just about pleasing the crowd. When it comes to Venezuela, Turkey does not have the capacity to extend support to Venezuela. It’s out of area.”
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Italy pressured the Netherlands on Friday to accept 47 migrants who have spent seven days at sea aboard a humanitarian rescue ship that has been allowed to enter Italian territorial waters due to bad weather conditions.

The German aid group Sea-Watch said Friday on Twitter that it has received no response to multiple requests for the Dutch-flagged Sea Watch-3 vessel carrying people rescued off Libya on Saturday to access a port. The boat was permitted to enter Italian waters Friday due to deteriorating weather conditions, and the Italian coast guard said it was about one to two miles off Syracuse, Sicily, flanked by coast guard and financial police boats.

Italy and Malta, the closest EU nations, have both refused to allow entry to rescue vessels operated by humanitarian groups in what they say is a bid to discourage smuggler boats from departing Libya by diminishing the prospect of rescue.

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini told reporters in Rome that he sent a letter to the government in the Netherlands officially requesting that they organize landings for the migrants “aboard this vessel that waves a Dutch flag.”

There was no immediate comment from the Dutch government.

EU Commission President Jean Claude Juncker’s spokesman said that the commission is in touch with member states, and is watching the events closely.

“Our position is clear: The safety of the people on board must be our first concern and priority. What is urgently needed in the Mediterranean are predictable arrangements to ensure disembarkations of rescued persons can take place safely,” said spokesman Margaritis Schinas.

A similar impasse was resolved last month when Malta allowed 49 migrants to disembark two NGO-operated vessels, including Sea-Watch 3, after the EU brokered a deal to distribute the migrants among eight EU nations.
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A Muslim party said it would launch a legal bid to change the name of Bosnia’s Serb region, enraging all Serbian parties in the volatile country and 

prompting calls for calm from the European Union. 

The largest Bosnian Muslim party, SDA, said Wednesday that the name Republika Srpska (Serb Republic) discriminated against 

Bosniaks and Croats there, and that it would challenge it in the 

constitutional court.

Under the 1995 Dayton peace accords that ended Bosnia’s 1992-95 war, the country is split into two highly autonomous regions, the Serb-dominated Serb Republic and the federation dominated by Muslim Bosniaks and Croats, linked via a weak central government.

SDA leader Bakir Izetbegovic said the legal challenge was a response to “intensified attacks on Bosnia and its integrity” by Bosnian Serb nationalist leader Milorad Dodik. 

Dodik, who heads the Serb SNSD party, said the initiative was anti-constitutional and that Serbs will halt their work in the central government.

“If the appeal is accepted, we will call a special session of the Republika Srpska National Assembly at which we will 

decide about the future status of the RS [Serb Republic],” Dodik said after meeting other Serb politicians. He currently chairs Bosnia’s inter-ethnic three-man presidency as its Serb member.

‘Polarizing’ actions

The EU delegation in Bosnia issued a statement saying: “We call on all political parties to refrain from political maneuvers aimed at distracting attention from the real issues facing Bosnia.

“Polarizing statements and actions … will not facilitate the formation of new authorities at a crucial moment for the country’s EU path,” the delegation added. 

Bosnia is hoping to become an EU candidate this year. 

Bosnia’s international peace overseer, Valentin Inzko, said the name challenge “in the midst of discussions on government formation is irresponsible and counterproductive, and further undermines the trust between constituent peoples and their political representatives.”

Following parliamentary and presidential elections in October, a dispute between Serb, Croat and Bosniak presidency members over Bosnia’s integration into NATO has delayed the formation of the central government.

The Bosniak and Croat pro-NATO presidency members refuse to approve Dodik’s candidate for the job of prime minister unless 

he pledges support for NATO integration. But pro-Russian Dodik is strongly against it.
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The search for a two-year-old Spanish boy who fell into a narrow well Jan. 13 entered its riskiest phase Thursday as miners went down a new 60-meter (197-foot) parallel shaft to start digging across to the well.

There have been no signs of life since the boy, Julen, fell into the borehole as his family walked through a private estate in Totalan in southern Spain. Rescuers found the well was blocked with earth, raising fears soil had collapsed onto the child.

“Members of the Mines Rescue Brigade sent from Asturias [region] have just accessed the vertical well to start excavation … in the search for Julen,” said regional government representative Alfonso Celis at the site.

Miners working in rotating shifts will dig a 4-meter passage with picks and pneumatic hammers from the bottom of the shaft toward the borehole, which is 100 meters (300 feet) deep and just 25 cm wide.

Children and families have been holding candlelight vigils across Spain in support of the missing boy and of the massive rescue operation, even as hopes of finding him alive have faded with each passing day.

Engineers and miners have worked for 10 days in a row but have run into various technical problems while drilling a shaft parallel to the well.

“No miner is left in a mine, and Julen is now considered a miner,” Juan Lopez Escobar, one of the engineers in charge of the rescue operation, was quoted as saying by EFE news agency. “Whatever may have happened, a miner is always pulled out.”

He told reporters earlier that digging the horizontal passage would be the most dangerous part of the effort.

El Pais reported that Julen’s parents suffered another tragedy in 2017 when their three-year-old son died suddenly after suffering a cardiac arrest while walking along a beach.
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Ford Motor Co said on Thursday it faces a bill of up to $1 billion if Britain leaves the European Union without a deal, comprising World Trade Organization tariffs and the impact of a weaker pound.

The impact of Brexit on Ford, based on internal calculations, would be in the range of $500 million to $1 billion depending on a variety of factors, Ford said in a statement.

Sky News earlier on Thursday reported the hit could be $800 million.

Car makers and other manufacturers, including Airbus earlier on Thursday, have warned about the toll a no-deal Brexit could impose, including higher tariffs, disruption to supply chains and threats to jobs.

Countdown to Brexit

Britain is due to leave the European Union in 64 days, and with Prime Minister Theresa May failing to win support for her negotiated deal, companies are increasingly worried about the possibility of a chaotic Brexit.

Ford Chief Financial Officer Bob Shanks on Wednesday declined to say what the financial impact of a no-deal exit could be, but said Ford was already planning for it.

“We clearly have already started to work on the eventuality of there being a hard Brexit,” he told reporters at the No. 2 U.S. automaker’s headquarters outside Detroit. “We’re certainly hoping that does not happen, but we can’t wait.”

“We’re actually incurring costs, doing things now to prepare for that, so there will be an impact. It’s a material impact,” he added.

Last week, Shanks said a no-deal exit was unlikely, but if it occurred it would be “catastrophic.”

Ford estimated last March that a hard Brexit, which would see WTO tariffs of 10 percent on imports and exports and lower levels on components, would cost it up to $1 billion per year.

Top-selling auto brand

Ford, the top-selling automotive brand in Britain, operates two engine plants in Britain, its third-largest market, and the destination for roughly one in three cars made at its German Cologne plant.

On Jan. 10, Ford, which employs 53,000 people in Europe, said it would cut thousands of jobs and look at plant closures in Europe as part of its plan to return to profit in the region.

The automaker employs about 13,000 people in Britain.
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U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has inched up slightly in the eyes of women’s groups who said on Wednesday he has delivered on some promises to make the global organization a feminist institution but faces a major backlash and resistance.

The Feminist U.N. Campaign, a coalition of women’s rights groups, advocates and U.N. staff, gave him a grade of B-, up from the C+ it gave him a year ago.

The coalition launched its report card after the secretary-general said he would be a feminist leader when he took office two years ago.

Global movement

In that time, the #MeToo campaign against sexual harassment and assault has become a global movement.

Guterres has promoted women’s rights and equality publicly, sought gender parity in leadership and rolled out efforts against sexual harassment and gender-based violence, the report said.

But an internal backlash and bureaucracy threaten his progress. His efforts to make structural changes have met “considerable resistance” from staff and member states that resist women’s rights, it said.

Lyric Thompson, an author of the report and a director at the Washington-based International Center for Research on Women, said she thinks Guterres has “a genuine intent and interest in being a champion” of women’s rights.

“The question is can he do everything in his power to be a feminist leader who enables that transformation and who makes it the new normal?” she said to the Thomson Reuters Foundation. The U.N. is “years away” from being a feminist institution, and attitudes of immunity and privilege operate to scuttle equality efforts, she said.

Just last week, a U.N. survey showed one third of its staff and contractors experienced sexual harassment in the past two years.

More than 30,000 people answered the survey, complaining of offensive jokes, remarks and sexual stories and of being touched in ways that made them uncomfortable.

The U.N. has tried to increase transparency and strengthen how it deals with such accusations over the past few years after a string of sexual exploitation and abuse accusations against U.N. peacekeepers in Africa.

The head of the U.N. agency for HIV and AIDS is stepping down in June, six months before his term ends, after an independent panel said his “defective leadership” tolerated “a culture of harassment, including sexual harassment, bullying, and abuse of power.”

‘Considerable progress’

The secretary-general’s office said it was pleased that the women’s groups saw improvement in Guterres’ handling of gender issues and agreed that more needs to be dome.

“At the same time, we believe the secretary-general has achieved considerable progress within the complex U.N. system at achieving real reforms to make the U.N. a better workplace for women and men alike,” his office said.

Guterres, the former prime minister of Portugal, was sworn in December 2016 after a campaign in which many countries urged selection of a woman. The U.N. has not been headed by a woman since its creation in 1945.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Wednesday in his latest effort to build support for a Turkish-controlled military security zone in Syria.

“The U.S. has already expressed a positive stance. Neither do we have problems [concerning the safe zone] with Russia,” said Erdogan at a joint press conference in Moscow.

Erdogan is proposing a 250-kilometer-long and 32-kilometer-deep zone in northeast Syria to protect the Turkish border from the Syrian YPG Kurdish militia. Ankara accuses the YPG of links to Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey.

​However, the Turkish president envisages the zone not only providing security, but also an opportunity to ease Turkey’s refugee burden and growing economic difficulties.

At the Moscow press conference, Erdogan said the safe zone will allow Syrian refugees in Turkey to return.

The Turkish president said around 300,000 Syrians out of the 4 million that have sought refuge in Turkey have returned to two other regions in Syria captured from the YPG by Turkish forces in the past year.

“There is a huge amount of discontent in Turkey about Syrians,” said political analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners. “The average, poor AKP [Erdogan’s party] voter, they see Syrian refugees as a competitor for limited public resources. It’s a huge problem for Erdogan.”

Ankara claims the cost of hosting Syrian refugees is over $30 billion.

The deteriorating economic situation exacerbates the Turkish public’s discontent over the refugees. Many economists predict Turkey will go into recession this year. Recent opinion polls indicate Erdogan’s AKP party’s commanding lead over its rivals is rapidly eroding, just ahead of critical local elections in March.

Housing projects

With a possible eye to kick-starting the economy, Erdogan earlier this month unveiled plans for major housing projects for returning Syrians in the proposed buffer zone in Syria.

“My plan would be to build two-story houses with gardens of 500-square meters so the inhabitants could begin a new life,” Erdogan said, adding that a buffer zone “would also block migration completely.”

Former senior Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen believes Ankara is looking to the EU to fund the construction project.

“For reconstruction of Syria, it will not be the U.S. because the U.S. say they will not take part in the construction as long as Assad stays,” Selcen said.

“The EU seems to be quite willing to play that role because they fear a new influx of refugees emanating from Syria. And Erdogan saw that clearly when dealing with the EU,” he added.

Turkey’s construction industry has been among the hardest hit by the country’s economic slowdown.

“More or less, the private construction industry is coming to a complete standstill,” Yesilada said. “It accounts for 10 percent of the GDP. In terms of employment, it’s hugely important, as it’s a labor-intensive industry. The entire construction industry is one of the pillars of economic growth.”

A senior economist for an international bank, speaking anonymously, claims Turkey’s construction sector could be in doldrums for a decade, due to the sector’s heavy debts and excessive unsold inventories.

Economic boost

International relations professor Huseyin Bagci of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University said projects in Syria may well be able to boost Turkey’s beleaguered construction industry.

“There is no doubt Syria has to be rebuilt, and the Turkish contribution is going to be immense,” Bagci said. “We have been doing this in the good old times of 2008, 9, and 10. Turkey was building [in Syria] hotels, streets, train stations, many things. Why not start again? Reconciliation with Syria in economic terms would be perfect for Turkey.”

Bagci said, however, that any major reconstruction projects would require Ankara’s reopen diplomatic relations with Damascus. Erdogan steadfastly refuses to normalize ties until Syrian President Bashar al-Assad relinquishes power.

Analysts suggest Europe would also likely balk at providing significant financial support for projects in Turkey’s proposed safe zone without the Syrian intervention receiving international validation from the United Nations.

Syrian projects may not be enough to boost Turkey’s construction sector very much.

“It’s feasible TOKI [Turkish State constructor] can build satellite cities in Syria,” Yesilada said, “but turkey is a country where 600,000 new units are sold annually. In Syria, you are going to get a tenth of that a year. So, it’s going to help, but it’s not a lifesaver.”

Selcen also questions the number of Syrians who are ready to return.

“There are not significant numbers of Syrians returning,” he said. “The Syrians that are 3 million or so in Turkey. They are here to stay for the foreseeable future. And if you were in their shoes, would you want to leave a place like Istanbul for a destroyed country like Syria?”
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A new study by a defense analysis company indicates there was a 33 percent drop in global terror attacks in 2018, and terrorism fatalities fell to a 10-year low.

Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Center released its annual Global Attack Index on Wednesday, saying one of the central reasons for the decrease in incidents and fatalities was the decrease in violence in Syria, where the government has gained control of territory previously occupied by Islamic State militants.

Attacks by IS in 2018 declined by nearly 75 percent compared to 2017. 

The study said in addition to Syria, IS was also affected by losses in Iraq, which “noticeably reduced” the militants’ capability to operate, forcing them to switch to “lower intensity insurgent operations.”

With violence down in Syria, Afghanistan became the deadliest country worldwide in 2018 in terms of nonmilitant fatalities. Jane’s said attacks rose by almost one-third last year, while fatalities rose 80 percent.

Ukraine also saw a marked rise in violence. In the east, home to a Russia-backed separatist insurgency, attacks have been rising 18.4 percent over the past year. The report attributed that rise “almost entirely” to two pro-Russia separatist groups operating in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region where the separatist movement is strongest.

The report said it recorded 15,321 attacks in 2018, which resulted in a total of 13,483 nonmilitant fatalities.

Jane’s has been issuing its reports since 2009. It said the 2018 study showed the lowest fatality numbers since it began issuing the report 10 years ago.
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The Russian military on Wednesday rolled out a new missile and released its specifications, seeking to dispel the U.S. claim that the weapon violates a key nuclear arms pact.

The military insisted that the 9M729 land-based cruise missile conforms to the limits of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, firmly rejecting the U.S. claim that it has broken the pact by testing and deploying it.

The U.S. has announced its intention to abandon the INF, charging that the new Russian missile violates provisions of the pact that ban production, testing and deployment of land-based cruise and ballistic missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers (310 to 3,410 miles). Washington said it will suspend its treaty obligations if Russian fails to come into compliance by destroying all of its 9M729 missiles by Feb. 2.

Lt. Gen. Mikhail Matveevsky, the chief of the military’s missile and artillery forces, said at a meeting with foreign military attaches that the new missile, which is part of the Iskander-M missile system, has a maximum range of 480 kilometers (298 miles).

He said that the 9M729 missile differs from the previous 9M728 model by having a more powerful warhead and guidance system that enhances its precision.

The general then took the military attaches on a tour of the missile along with its mobile launcher displayed at the military’s exhibition center near Moscow.

Matveevsky insisted that the new missile’s booster, cruising engine and fuel tank remain unchanged. He rejected the U.S. claim that the missile’s increased length reflected a bigger fuel tank allowing a greater range, saying the size of the tank and the amount of fuel are identical to the older model.

The general noted that the new missile actually has a range 10 kilometers (6 miles) less than the older type due to heavier warhead and control systems.

Matveevsky particularly emphasized that the new missile can’t be modified in field conditions.

He explained that the upgraded mobile launcher for the new type of missile is bigger because it carries four of them rather than the previous two.

Matveevsky noted that the presentation underlined Russia’s “increased transparency and our adherence to the INF Treaty.”

The Kremlin has staunchly denied the U.S. claim of Russian violations of the pact.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov noted Wednesday that the U.S. hasn’t put forward any data to prove its claim that Russia has tested the missile at a range exceeding the treaty’s limit. He said the U.S. ignored Moscow’s offer to inspect the missile made during talks in Geneva earlier this month — a refusal he alleged reflected the lack of U.S. interest in meaningful negotiations.

He said the U.S. has made it clear during diplomatic contacts that President Donald Trump’s decision to abandon the pact is final and not subject to talks.

“We were given a clear message that this decision isn’t an invitation to dialogue and is final,” Ryabkov said.

U.S. Undersecretary of State Andrea Thompson, who led the American side in the talks, has said that Moscow’s offer is inadequate.

“To see the missile does not confirm the distance that missile can travel, and at the end of the day that’s the violation of the treaty,” she told reporters last week.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has insisted that it makes no sense for Russia to violate the pact by deploying the new land-based missile because it has similar missiles on ships and aircraft that are allowed by the INF Treaty.

The prospective collapse of the INF Treaty has raised concern in Europe, where many feared it would set the stage for a repeat of a Cold War showdown in the 1980s, when the U.S. and the Soviet Union both deployed intermediate-range missiles on the continent.

Such missiles were seen as particularly destabilizing as they only take a few minutes to reach their targets, leaving no time for decision-makers and raising the likelihood of a global nuclear conflict over a false launch warning.

Putin has warned that if the U.S. deploys such weapons in Europe after abandoning the treaty, Russia will respond by targeting nations that would host them.

 
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A senior British Cabinet minister says businesses need to prepare for the possibility the U.K. will leave the European Union in March without an exit deal, as a growing number of British firms say they are stockpiling goods or shifting operations overseas.

Last week British lawmakers threw out Prime Minister Theresa May’s EU divorce deal, and attempts to find a replacement are gridlocked. International Trade Secretary Liam Fox said Wednesday that “no deal is a possibility.”

Many business groups say a “no-deal” Brexit will cause economic chaos by imposing tariffs, customs checks and other barriers between the U.K. and the EU, its biggest trading partner.

Carolyn Fairbairn of the Confederation of British Industry says politicians must rule out a no-deal Brexit “to halt irreversible damage and restore business confidence.”

 
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A diplomatic spat between Italy and France over migration to Europe is a likely forerunner of coming political battles in the run-up to European Parliament elections, according to analysts.

Paris summoned the Italian ambassador this week after Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio accused France of “impoverishing African countries.”

“If today we still have people leaving Africa, it is due to several European countries, first of all France, that didn’t finish colonizing Africa,” Di Maio told reporters Sunday.

“The European Union should sanction all those countries, like France, that are impoverishing African countries and obliging those people to leave. The place for African people is Africa and not at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea,” he added. “If we want to stem the departures (of migrants), let’s start addressing this issue, let’s start coping with it also within the United Nations, not only at the European Union level. Italy has to make itself heard.” 

Di Maio said France was manipulating the economies of 14 African countries that use the CFA franc, a currency underwritten by the French Treasury and pegged to the Euro.

​Analyst Luigi Scazzieri of the Center For European Reform says while there is opposition to the CFA franc in some African countries, Di Maio’s accusations are misleading.

“Now there’s two reasons for that. One of them being that at the moment the latest data suggests they (migrants) are not from countries using the CFA franc. And the second point is that in any case, if countries remain poor, migration is actually lower,” Scazzieri told VOA.

The latest EU figures show that many African migrants to Europe come from former Italian colonies, such as Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea.

The Franco-Italian dispute follows the drowning of hundreds of migrants off Libya in recent days. The deaths have renewed the focus on Italy’s decision to end search-and-rescue operations in the Mediterranean – and on the European Union’s failure to agree a system to share quotas of refugees, analyst Scazzieri said.

“Italy (is) wanting France to take migrants who arrive on its shores, or at least part of them. And also disagreements over how to handle Libya, with Italy and France backing different sides in the Libyan civil war,” he said.

WATCH: European migrant crisis

French President Emmanuel Macron has not responded directly to the Italian accusations. He has sought to renew EU political momentum with a new Franco-German treaty, signed Tuesday in the border town of Aachen.

“The eurosceptics, nationalists, benefit from the fear in Europe’s people, and they say: ‘The answer on your fears is nationalism,’ and we don’t believe this,” Macron said in a speech to mark the signing of the treaty.

The dispute is a taste of what’s to come as populist forces like Italy’s 5-Star Movement and the League join battle with pro-Europeans.

“This contraposition has been created whereby Italy is the populists and Macron is the Europeanists. And it suits both sides in a sense to have each other as the bogeyman. Of course this is especially important in light of the upcoming European Parliament elections,” Scazzieri said.

The battle lines are being drawn for what is set to be a bitter election campaign – with migration at the heart of the debate over Europe’s future.
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