Новини

France and Germany are condemning the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside his country’s consulate in Istanbul. 

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian called Saturday for an “exhaustive and diligent investigation to establish exactly who was responsible” for Khashoggi’s death. Le Drian also said “those guilty of the murder” must be held accountable for their actions.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her foreign minister, Heiko Maas, said in a joint statement Saturday that they condemned the death “in the strongest possible terms.” They went on to say “we expect transparency from Saudi Arabia” regarding the details of Khashoggi’s death and called the available information on the incident “insufficient.”

Explanation required

“Nothing has been explained so far,” Merkel said, “and we need to explain it.”

European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said Saturday that the circumstances around Khashoggi’s death were deeply troubling, and she called for a thorough, credible and transparent investigation.

The statements came in response to Saudi Arabia’s announcement that Khashoggi, who has been missing since entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, died inside the compound after “discussions” between him and people he had met inside the consulate turned into a fistfight.

Saturday’s comments were the first admission by the Saudi government that Khashoggi had died. 

President Donald Trump, who was at a campaign-style rally in Nevada on Saturday, told reporters he was not satisfied with the Saudis’ explanation of what happened to Khashoggi. He added that it was possible Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had been unaware of the death.

Rights group Amnesty International called on Saudi Arabia to “immediately produce” Khashoggi’s body so an autopsy could be performed.

Amnesty’s director of campaigns for the Middle East, Samah Hadid, said the Saudi version of events could not be trusted. She said a U.N. investigation would be necessary to avoid a “Saudi whitewash” of the circumstances surrounding Khashoggi’s death. 

Hadid said such a cover-up might have been done to preserve Saudi Arabia’s international business ties.

Earlier Saturday, a statement from the Saudi public prosecutor carried by Saudi state TV said 18 Saudi nationals had been arrested so far in connection with Khashoggi’s death. The statement also said royal court adviser Saud al-Qahtani and deputy intelligence chief Ahmed Assiri had been fired from their positions.

No cover-up, Turkey pledges

A senior official in Turkey’s ruling party said Saturday that Ankara would never allow a cover-up of the death. 

Numan Kurtulmus, deputy head of the Justice and Development Party, said Turkey would share “conclusive evidence and findings” after an investigation was complete. “It’s not possible for the Saudi administration to wiggle itself out of this crime, if it’s confirmed,” Kurtulmus said.

Turkish officials had said they believed Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post, was killed in the Saudi Consulate after he entered the building to collect paperwork for his scheduled wedding. Saudi Arabia had previously denied the allegations and said Khashoggi left the building shortly afterward.

Late Friday, the White House released a statement acknowledging “the announcement from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that its investigation into the fate of Jamal Khashoggi is progressing and that it has taken action against the suspects it has identified thus far.”

When asked about the Saudi announcement, Trump, who was holding a campaign-style rally in Arizona, told reporters, “It’s a big first step.” However, he said, “We do have some questions” for the Saudis, and added, “We’ll be working with Congress.”

He said he wanted to talk to the Saudi crown prince before the next steps were taken.

When asked whether the Saudis could produce a credible report about the killing of Khashoggi, Trump said, “We’re involved. Turkey is involved. … This has been a horrible event. It has not gone unnoticed.”

Before the Saudi announcement, Trump told reporters Friday that he might consider sanctions against Saudi Arabia over the disappearance of Khashoggi. 

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo discussed Khashoggi’s disappearance during an interview Friday with VOA contributor Greta Van Susteren.

Trump had warned there would be “very severe” consequences if it was learned that Saudi Arabia was behind the disappearance of the journalist, but Pompeo said, “I’m not going to get into what those responses might be. We’ll certainly consider a wide range of potential responses, but I think the important thing to do is that the facts come out.”

Pompeo, who traveled to Riyadh earlier this week to speak to King Salman and the crown prince, told VOA, “I made very clear to them that the United States takes this matter very seriously. That we don’t approve of extrajudicial killings. That we don’t approve of that kind of activity. That it’s not something consistent with American values, and that it is their responsibility as this incident happened in the consulate.

“It’s their responsibility to get to the bottom of this, to put the facts out clearly, accurately, completely, transparently, in a way that the whole world can see,” Pompeo said. “And once we’ve identified the fact set, then they have the responsibility and the first instance to hold accountable those inside the country that may have been involved in any wrongdoing.”
…

Thousands of protesters gathered in central London on Saturday to call for a new referendum on Britain’s departure from the European Union.

Organizers want the public to have a final say on the government’s Brexit deal with the EU, arguing that new facts have come to light about the costs and complexity of Britain’s exit from the bloc since Britons voted to leave in 2016.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan from the opposition Labor Party was among those set to address the People’s Vote March, which will culminate at a rally in Parliament Square.

Organizers have brought in some 150 buses to ferry thousands of activists from across the country to the British capital.

Those in favor of pulling Britain out of the EU won by 52 percent in the 2016 EU membership referendum. Prime Minister Theresa May of the Conservative Party has ruled out another public vote on the subject.

Britain is scheduled to leave the EU on March 29, but negotiations have been plagued by disagreements, particularly over the issue of the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. It will be the U.K.’s only land border with the EU after Brexit, for Ireland is part of the EU, and Northern Ireland is part of the U.K.

There are growing fears of a “no-deal” British exit, which could create chaos at the borders and in both the EU and the British economies.

May, speaking at an inconclusive EU summit in Brussels this week, said she would consider having a longer post-Brexit transition period — one that could keep Britain aligned to EU rules and obligations for more than two years after its March departure. Pro-Brexit politicians in Britain, however, saw it as an attempt to bind the country to the bloc indefinitely.

“This week’s fresh chaos and confusion over Brexit negotiations has exposed how even the best deal now available will be a bad one for Britain,” said Andrew Adonis, a Labor member of the House of Lords. “Voters will neither forgive nor forget if [lawmakers] allow this miserable Brexit to proceed without people being given the final say.”

 
…

Macedonia’s parliament has approved a proposal to change the country’s name, a move that could pave the way for it to join NATO and the European Union.

Eighty members of parliament in the 120-seat body voted in favor of the measure Friday to rename the country North Macedonia, just surpassing the two-thirds supermajority needed to enact constitutional changes.

Parliament was forced to address the issue after a September referendum on the matter failed to achieve the turnout threshold of 50 percent.

According to election officials, only about a third of eligible voters cast ballots in the September referendum. However, they said more than 90 percent of those voting cast ballots in favor of changing the country’s name to North Macedonia. Conservatives in Macedonia strongly oppose the name change and boycotted the referendum.

Macedonians are being asked to change the name of their country to end a decades-old dispute with neighboring Greece and pave the way for the country’s admission into NATO and the EU.

Athens has argued that the name “Macedonia” belongs exclusively to its northern province of Macedonia and that using the name implies Skopje’s intentions to claim the Greek province.

The two countries agreed on the name change in June.

Greece has for years pressured Skopje into renouncing the country’s name, forcing it to use the more formal moniker Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in the United Nations. Greece has consistently blocked its smaller neighbor from gaining membership in NATO and the EU as long it retained its name.

The process for Macedonia’s parliament to fully change the country’s name is lengthy and will require several more rounds of voting.
…

U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton will meet Saturday in Moscow with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, amid reports that Washington will tell Russia it plans to quit a landmark nuclear weapons treaty.

The visit comes ahead of what is expected to be a second summit between presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump this year.

Bolton, who will also meet Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, announced the visit to Moscow in a tweet, saying he would “continue discussions that began in Helsinki,” referring to a summit held in July.

The New York Times said the Trump administration plans to inform Russian leaders in the coming days that it is preparing to leave the three-decade-old Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, known as the INF.

The newspaper said the U.S. accuses Russia of violating the deal, signed in 1987 by president Ronald Reagan, by deploying tactical nuclear weapons to intimidate former Soviet satellite states that are now close to the West.

US-Russia ties are under deep strain over accusations that Moscow meddled in the 2016 presidential election, as well as tension over Russian support for the Syrian government in the country’s civil war, and the conflict in Ukraine.

However, Washington is looking for support from Moscow in finding resolutions to the Syria war and putting pressure on both Iran and North Korea.

No new summit between Trump and Putin has been announced, but one is expected in the near future.

The two leaders will be in Paris on Nov. 11 to attend commemorations marking the end of World War I.

A senior Trump administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said another potential date would be when the presidents both attend the Group of 20 meeting Nov. 30-Dec. 1.

“There are a couple possibilities, including the G-20 in Buenos Aires or the Armistice Day parade in Paris. At the G20 is probably more likely,” the official said. “President Trump’s invitation to Putin to visit Washington, D.C., still stands.” 
…

U.S. intelligence, law enforcement and security agencies are warning that Russia is persistently targeting the country’s upcoming midterm elections. They laid out the latest evidence in new charges against a Russian national connected to the oligarch known as “Putin’s cook.”

The U.S. on Friday unsealed the criminal complaint against Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova, 44, of St. Petersburg, making her the first Russian charged in connection with interference in the 2018 election.

According to the criminal complaint, Khusyaynova was the chief accountant for a Russian effort dubbed “Project Lakhta,” a self-described “information warfare” operation run by the Internet Research Agency — the same social media troll farm indicted earlier this year by U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller as part of his Russia investigation.

Charging documents say Khusyaynova oversaw spending for social media advertisements and promotions and proxy servers as she helped to create thousands of social media accounts on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, some of which generated tens of thousands of followers.

The criminal complaint says Khusyanova was working with a multimillion-dollar budget — money, according to U.S. officials, that came from Russian businessman Yevgeniy Prigozhin, known as “Putin’s cook” because of his catering company’s work for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Prigozhin is thought to have extensive ties to Russia’s political and military establishments.

Involved in 2018 elections

But unlike previous criminal complaints, U.S. officials said Khusyaynova’s activity extended well beyond the 2016 U.S. presidential election, as she funded efforts to create new social media accounts targeting both issues and candidates, Republican and Democratic, involved the 2018 election, now just a little more than two weeks away.

Like with previous efforts under “Project Lakhta,” all of the accounts were designed to make it appear as though they belonged to actual American political activists, using virtual private networks (VPNs) and other methods to hide their origin. 

U.S. officials also said those running them were told to intensify divisions and distrust between members of all political parties “through supporting radical groups” and to “aggravate the conflict between minorities and the rest of the population.”

Messaging focused on a variety of topics, including immigration, gun control, the Confederate flag and the debate over American football players kneeling for the U.S. national anthem.

Officials said specific incidents, including mass shootings, the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., and decisions coming from the Trump White House were also used as fodder.

“The strategic goal of this alleged conspiracy, which continues to this day, is to sow discord in the U.S. political system and to undermine faith in our democratic institutions,” U.S. Attorney Zachary Terwilliger said in a statement.

Asked about the new charges during a visit to Arizona, President Donald Trump called them irrelevant to his efforts.

“It had nothing to do with my campaign,” he told reporters. “If they are hackers, a lot of them probably like [2016 Democratic presidential nominee] Hillary Clinton better than me.”

Warning and reassurance

Friday’s indictment came as U.S. intelligence and security officials sought to both warn and reassure U.S. voters about the upcoming midterm elections.

“We’re not seeing anything anywhere remotely close to ’16,” Chris Krebs, undersecretary for the Department of Homeland Security’s National Protection and Programs Directorate, told reporters Friday following a tabletop election security exercise.

“2016 had a long lead-up of spear-phishing campaigns, compromise of networks,” he said. “We’re not seeing them right now.”

Krebs and other officials have also said there had been no increase in attempts to infiltrate U.S. voting systems, and that no system involved in tallying votes had been compromised.

Many of those systems have been upgraded or hardened, U.S. officials said, noting that more than 90 percent of the country’s election infrastructure was now being monitored by sensors that can detect malicious activity.

But at the same time, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence warned Friday of persistent efforts by U.S. adversaries to sway voters.

“We are concerned about ongoing campaigns by Russia, China and other foreign actors, including Iran, to undermine confidence in democratic institutions and influence public sentiment,” ODNI said in a joint statement with the Justice Department, the FBI and DHS.

“These activities also may seek to influence voter perceptions and decision-making in the 2018 and 2020 U.S. elections,” the statement said.

U.S. officials say both China and Iran have been increasingly active in their efforts to use influence operations, with current and former officials describing Beijing’s efforts as more sophisticated and more intent on generating a favorable view of China over the long term.

But neither yet compares in scope to the Russian efforts, just some of which were unveiled in the criminal complaint. 

Russian-financed

Financial documents obtained as part of the investigation indicate that as of January 2016, Khusyaynova and “Project Lakhta” were working with a budget of $35 million, spending about $10 million in the first half of 2018 alone.

Khusyaynova’s 2018 expenditures included $60,000 for Facebook advertisements, another $6,000 for ads on Instagram, and $18,000 for “bloggers” and for developing accounts on Twitter.

Russian businessman Prigozhin was the source of the money, according to U.S. officials.

Prigozhin controls Concord Management and Consulting LLC, one of three entities under indictment as part of the Mueller investigation.

A Washington-based lawyer representing Concord did not respond to a request for comment.

Masood Farivar contributed to this report
…

A women-to-women investment fund is coming to Britain next month to boost financing for female-owned businesses, its founder said Thursday, as efforts grow to close the gender investing gap.

SheEO has lent more than $2 million to 32 female social entrepreneurs in the United States, Canada and New Zealand to grow their businesses since 2015 in an attempt to address a global gender investment gap.

“Most of the people writing checks and investing are men,” founder Vicki Saunders told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “SheEO wants to fund female innovators with great ideas to create stronger communities and a better world.”

Support for female entrepreneurs

It is the latest venture to support female entrepreneurs around the world, who often face more obstacles than men, including a lack of access to finance, business networks, international markets and role models.

Three out of 10 U.S. businesses are owned by women but they only receive $1 in investment for every $23 that goes to male-led businesses, the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee found in 2014.

A Goldman Sachs-World Bank Group partnership to provide capital to women entrepreneurs in emerging markets reached $1 billion in investments in May.

How it works

SheEO brings together 500 women each year who contribute $1,100 each, which they pool and lend, interest-free, to five women-led businesses of their choice.

The loans are paid back over five years and then loaned out again, creating a perpetual fund that SheEO hopes will grow to $1 billion, with 1 million investors supporting 10,000 women-led ventures.

More than 300 women in Britain wrote to SheEO asking it to launch there, Saunders said ahead of a visit to London where she hopes that 500 female investors will come on board.

Workplace gender equality is in the spotlight in Britain, where just 6 percent of the biggest publicly listed companies are headed by women and pay disparities were revealed at major institutions last year.

Twenty One Toys founder Ilana Ben-Ari, one of the first to get SheEO funding in 2015, said it changed her business, enabling her to push ahead with production and hire staff to help with a stressful workload. Her revenue has now doubled.

“It was easy to get my foot in the door and have a meeting but it was near impossible to have a serious conversation about my business,” she said, describing her efforts to get financing from venture capitalists. “Halfway through that meeting you find out — this isn’t a meeting, this is a date.”
…

The United States suspended imports of pork from Poland Thursday because of an outbreak of the highly contagious hog disease African swine fever in that country.

African swine fever has spread rapidly in Eastern Europe and China, the world’s largest pork producer, where new cases are appearing and the disease is traveling far distances.

The United States is free of the disease and eager to keep it that way because infections in U.S. herds would likely kill hogs and limit pork exports.

Humans are not susceptible to African swine fever, according to the USDA.

The agency said it was reviewing Poland’s export protocols after finding one facility there shipped pork to the United States without following requirements designed to prevent the spread of serious livestock diseases. A second Polish facility is also being reviewed, according to a USDA notice.

The USDA is also working with Customs and Border Protection staff to enhance screening of passenger bags coming from Poland, the notice said. The checks aim to ensure restricted products are not brought into the country.
…

Computer giant IBM Corp., financial services company Western Union

Co. and European police launched a project Thursday to share financial data that  they said may one day be able to predict human trafficking before it occurs.

The shared data hub will collect information on money moving around the world and compare it with known ways that traffickers move their illicit gains, highlighting red flags signaling potential trafficking, organizers said.

“We will build and aggregate that material, using IBM tools, into an understanding of hot spots and routes and trends,” said Neil Giles, a director at global anti-slavery group Stop the Traffik, which is participating in the project.

Data collection, digital tools and modern technology are the latest weapons in the fight against human trafficking, estimated to be a $150 billion-a-year global business, according to the International Labor Organization.

The U.N. has set a goal of 2030 for ending forced labor and modern slavery worldwide, with more than 40 million people estimated to be enslaved around the world.

Certain patterns and suspicious activity might trigger a block of a transaction or an investigation into possible forced labor or sex slavery, organizers said.

The project will utilize IBM’s internet cloud services as well as artificial intelligence and machine learning to compare data and to spot specific trafficking terms, said Sophia Tu, director of IBM Corporate Citizenship.

With a large volume of high-quality data, the hub one day may predict trafficking before it happens, she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“You can’t do it today because we’re in the process of building out that amount of data and those capabilities, but it’s in the road map for what we want to do,” she said.

While law enforcement is teaming up with banks and data specialists to chase trafficking, experts have cautioned that it can be a cat-and-mouse game in which traffickers quickly move on to new tactics to elude capture.

Also, less than 1 percent of the estimated $1.5 trillion-plus laundered by criminals worldwide each year through the financial system is frozen or confiscated, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

Along with IBM and Western Union, participants include Europol, Europe’s law enforcement agency; telecommunications giant Liberty Global; and British banks Barclays and Lloyds, organizers said.
…

Several major Russian companies are exploring ways to do deals abroad without using dollars, spurred on by a U.S. threat to broaden sanctions that have impeded access of some Russian firms to the international banking system.

The Kremlin has been pushing companies to conduct more deals using other currencies to reduce reliance on the dollar.

Russian Alrosa, the world’s biggest producer of rough diamonds in carat terms, said it had completed a pilot deal with a Chinese client using yuan in the summer and another non-dollar transaction with an Indian client.

Other companies working on similar transactions include energy firm Surgutneftegaz, agricultural company Rusagro and miner Norilsk Nickel.

Russia’s central bank said this week the amount of non-dollar dealings was growing, with the share of rouble settlements in the Russia-China and Russia-India goods trade now between 10 and 20 percent.

The share was higher in the service industry, it added.

But there are limits to how much business can be shifted.

Major companies still rely heavily on dollar deals and most of Russia’s foreign earnings come from oil sales priced in dollars.

In addition, foreign banks with major U.S. activities may still be wary of business with any entity under U.S. sanctions even if transactions are not in dollars, bankers say.

The United States and its allies imposed sanctions on Russia in 2014 over Moscow’s annexation of Crimea. Washington said in August more measures could follow, after accusing Moscow of using a nerve agent against a former Russian agent and his daughter in Britain.

The new steps, which could be announced in November, may target dollar dealings, U.S. lawmakers have said.

Speed helps

One challenge facing companies dealing in the rouble is the Russian currency’s volatility. Between April 6 and 11, after Washington imposed sanctions on Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska and some of his companies, the rouble lost almost 13 percent of its value against the dollar.

Alrosa said it avoided the fluctuation risk by completing the Chinese deal in a day. U.S. dollar deals tend to take longer due to associated compliance checks required.

“An increase in the speed of operations is an advantage in such an operation,” the company said in an emailed statement.

Alrosa did not give a value for its China and India deals but said the Chinese buyer had bought a lot at its auction of diamonds of 10.8 carats or larger in Hong Kong. Alrosa data indicates that its lots are on average worth about $100,000.

Alrosa said the banker for its Chinese deal was Shanghai office of VTB, Russia’s second-largest bank. An industry source, asking not to be named, said Russia’s biggest bank lender Sberbank worked on the Indian deal.

VTB and Sberbank declined to comment.

The Chinese client settled its purchase in yuan, which VTB converted into roubles and transferred to Alrosa.

“We carried out the transaction itself in one day, in several hours,” Alrosa said, adding that on this occasion the currency move was in the client’s favor.

No currency hedging was required because of the speed of the deal, the company said, but the client had to open an account in VTB’s branch in Shanghai to complete the transaction.

Alrosa said it was also considering settlement for future deals in Hong Kong dollars, adding that other Chinese clients had shown interest in non-dollar transactions.

Non-dollar limits

But there are limits on how much of Alrosa’s business can switch to other currencies. China accounts for just 4 percent of its sales, while India accounts for 17 percent.

Among initiatives by other Russian firms, Surgutneftegaz has been pushing buyers to agree to pay for oil in euros instead of dollars, Reuters reported in September.

Russian farming conglomerate Rusagro told Reuters that some of its trading operations were in yuan and said this would increase with the expansion of business with China.

Russian nickel and palladium producer Norilsk Nickel said it was discussing the option of rouble payments with foreign customers which have rouble revenue, although it said it had not secured deals under those terms.
…

Hundreds of taxis on Thursday drove at a snail’s pace across the Polish capital Warsaw in protest at the ride-sharing app Uber and other unlicenced competitors.

Other cab drivers gathered in front of the justice ministry to call for legislation to regulate the industry.

Traditional cab operators argue that the Uber app and others like it represent unfair competition because their drivers can dodge the rules and restrictions that regulate professionals.

“There are 12,500 legal taxis in Warsaw and around 8,000 to 9,000 unregistered working for Uber, Taxify and a couple dozen other similar app-based operators,” said Jaroslaw Iglikowski, head of the Warsaw Taxi Drivers union.

“The app-based operators are taking around 30-35 percent of our overall business and up to 70 percent of night-time fares, especially on weekends,” he told AFP.

The protesting cab drivers claim in a petition they gave the justice minister that the country is losing more than 700 million zloty (160 million euros, $190 million) annually in unpaid taxes because of Uber and others like it.

The taxis dispersed in the early afternoon before rush hour, as the drivers had promised they would not cause traffic problems for city residents.

Uber has become one of Silicon Valley’s biggest venture-funded startups and has expanded its ride-sharing services to dozens of countries.

It does not employ drivers or own vehicles, but instead relies on private contractors using their own cars, allowing them to run their own business.

The app claims it is a service provider, connecting passengers with these freelance drivers directly and cheaply.

But critics and competitors around the globe say this allows it to flout costly regulations such as stringent licensing requirements for taxi drivers, who undergo hundreds of hours of training.

 
…

President Vladimir Putin hailed new missiles in Russia’s military arsenals but emphasized Thursday that the country would only use its nuclear weapons in response to an incoming missile attack.

Putin emphasized during an international policy forum in Sochi that Russia’s military doctrine doesn’t envisage a preventative nuclear strike. He said Moscow only would tap its nuclear arsenal if early warning systems spotted missiles heading toward Russia, in which case “the aggressor should know that retaliation is inevitable.”

“Only when we become convinced that there is an incoming attack on the territory of Russia, and that happens within seconds, only after that we would launch a retaliatory strike,” he said during a panel discussion at the forum.

“It would naturally mean a global catastrophe, but I want to emphasize that we can’t be those who initiate it because we don’t foresee a preventative strike,” Putin said.

“We would be victims of an aggression and would get to heaven as martyrs,” while those who initiated the aggression would “just die and not even have time to repent,” he added.

The Russian leader also warned that new hypersonic missiles his country developed give it a military edge.

“We have run ahead of the competition. No one has precision hypersonic weapons,” he said. “Others are planning to start testing them within the next 1 to 2 years, and we already have them on duty.”

Another new weapon, the Avangard, is set to enter service in the next few months, he said. Earlier this year, Putin said the Avangard has an intercontinental range and can fly in the atmosphere at a speed 20 times the speed of sound, making it capable of piercing any missile defense system.

His blunt talk Thursday comes as Russia-West relations remain frosty over the Ukrainian crisis, the war in Syria and the allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential vote.

Putin said he still hopes U.S. President Donald Trump will be able to improve the ties between their countries. He thinks Trump wants “some sort of stabilization and improvement of U.S.-Russian ties” and said Moscow is ready for that “at any moment.”

Putin said his meeting with Trump in Helsinki in July was positive and they had a “normal, professional dialogue” even though their exchange brought strong criticism from Trump.

At the same time, the Russian president sharply criticized Washington’s reliance on sanctions against Russia and others, saying the instrument of punishment “undermines trust in the dollar as a universal payment instrument and the main reserve currency.”

“It’s a typical mistake made by an empire,” Putin said. “An empire always thinks that it’s so powerful that it can afford some mistakes and extra costs.”

Building on his defiance and boasts, Putin said Russia had nothing to fear given its defense capability and “people ready to defend our sovereignty and independence.”

“Not in every country are people so eager to sacrifice their lives for the Motherland,” he said.

 
…

Germany has extradited the suspect in the killing of Bulgarian television journalist Viktoria Marinova to Bulgaria, an Interior Ministry official said Wednesday.

Bulgarian Severin Krasimirov is to be charged in person with the rape and murder of 30-year-old Marinova, whose body was found in a park in her Danube hometown of Ruse on Oct 6. Police said she was beaten and raped and died of suffocation.

Prosecutors have said evidence did not indicate Marinova’s death was related to her work and pointed to a random sexual crime although they are still investigating all possibilities.

Krasimirov was arrested in Germany last week where he admitted partial guilt to a German court.

“German authorities have handed over … the 21-year-old citizen of Ruse,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

A German prosecutor confirmed Krasimirov has been extradited via a flight from Frankfurt.
…

Leaders from the European Union and Britain shrugged off a weekend negotiating debacle and previous deadlines Wednesday, giving themselves several more weeks to clinch a friendly divorce deal ahead of their separation. 

After the EU insisted for months that the Wednesday summit was a key meeting to get a deal, its Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said “we need much time, much more time and we continue to work in the next weeks” with his British counterpart.  

British Prime Minister Theresa May also spoke about “working intensively over the next days and weeks” to achieve agreement that avoids a no-deal departure from the bloc on March 29 that could create chaos at the borders and in the economy. A deal must be sealed soon so parliaments have time to give their verdict on it. 

Underscoring the newfound sense of non-urgency, Prime Minister Sebastian Kurz of Austria, which holds the rotating EU presidency, even spoke of the “coming weeks and months” to get a deal and sought to impose a soothing calm. 

“There’s no need to dramatize matters. It’s always the case with negotiations, that in the end there are challenges,” he said. 

May was preparing to address other EU leaders one day after European Council President Donald Tusk implored her to present new ideas for resolving the tricky problem of how to keep the land border between the Republic of Ireland and the U.K.’s Northern Ireland friction-free once Britain no longer is an EU member. 

Tusk advised May that “creative” thinking from Britain was required to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland, the issue that has brought divorce negotiations to a standstill. EU leaders dismissed May’s most recent proposal as unworkable. 

But when the prime minister was asked in the House of Commons earlier Wednesday whether her government’s blueprint for an amicable divorce was dead, May replied: “The answer is no.” 

The summit in Brussels had long been seen as the “moment of truth” in the two-year Brexit process. But after urgent talks on the Irish border ended Sunday without producing a breakthrough, Wednesday’s gathering looked more like a therapeutic bonding session than an occasion to celebrate. 

The timeline for a deal has slipped into November, or even December, when another EU summit is scheduled.

“Today there will be no breakthrough,” said Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite. She said 2 1/2 years after Britain’s Brexit referendum, the country had still not explained clearly how it wants to leave the EU.

“Today, we do not know what they want,” she said. “They do not know themselves what they really want. That is the problem.”

At present the two sides are proposing that Britain remains inside the EU single market and is still bound by its rules from the time it leaves the bloc in March until December 2020, to give time for new trade relations to be set up.

Many suspect that will not be enough time, which has led the EU to demand a “backstop” to ensure there are no customs posts or other controls along the currently invisible border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. 

And there is talk that a transition period for the U.K. to adapt to its new status as a third country could be extended by a year. 

Britain says it has not asked for an extension, but May has not yet come up with proposals for unblocking the Irish border logjam. She is hemmed in by pro-Brexit members of her Conservative Party, who oppose any more compromises with the bloc, and by her parliamentary allies in Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, who insist a solution can’t include customs checks between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K. 

 
…