Новини

Latvian Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis assured the country and Europe “there is no sign of danger,” after anti-corruption police arrested the head of the Latvian central bank Saturday.

“For now, neither I, nor any other official, has any reason to interfere with the work of the Corruption Prevention Bureau,” Kucinskis said.

Neither Kucinskis nor the police gave any reason why central bank governor Ilmars Rimsevics was arrested. But a police spokeswoman said there will be an announcement “as soon as possible.”

The Latvian government plans an emergency meeting Monday.

Along with heading the Baltic nation’s central bank, Rimsevics is also one of 19 governors on the European Central Bank.

The U.S. Treasury Department has proposed sanctions against a major Latvian bank for alleged money laundering linked to North Korea’s weapons program.
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Vandals spray painted swastikas on the Polish embassy in Tel Aviv after Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki talked about what he called “Jewish perpetrators” of the Holocaust.

Israeli leaders immediately condemned his comment. The prime minister was responding to a reporter’s question about Poland’s new law punishing anyone who calls the Nazi genocide a “Polish crime.”

“Saying that our people collaborate with the Nazis is a new low,” Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said at a conference Sunday. “We stand together, hand in hand, in this fight. We have to stand strong for the memory of our brothers and sisters murdered in the Shoah (Hebrew for the Holocaust). But today, more than ever, we must work to educate the world, even some of the leaders, about that dark time.”

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he spoke with his Polish counterpart by telephone Sunday, telling him “a comparison between the activities of Poles and the activities of Jews during the Holocaust is unfounded.”

Ronald Lauder, head of the World Jewish Congress, called Morawiecki’s comment some of the “very worst form of anti-Semitism and Holocaust obfuscation.”

A reporter at the Munich Security Conference Saturday asked Morawiecki if under the new law, he could be jailed for telling the story of how neighbors betrayed his mother’s family in Poland to the Nazis.

“Of course it’s not going to be seen as criminal to say that there were Polish perpetrators, as there were Jewish perpetrators, as there were Russian perpetrators, as there were Ukrainian, not only German perpetrators,”  Morawiecki replied.

He did not elaborate on who he regards as “Jewish perpetrators.” But he tweeted Sunday, “Dialogue about this most difficult history is necessary as a warning. We will conduct such dialogue with Israel.”

“The Holocaust, the genocide of Jews committed by Nazi Germans, was an extremely terrifying crime,” he further wrote. “There were also individuals who by collaborating with Nazi Germans, showed the darkest side of human nature.”

A Morawiecki spokesman said the prime minister was in no way trying to deny the Holocaust.

About 6 million Poles, half of them Jews, were murdered during World War II by Hitler and the Nazis.
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Britain was hit by its biggest earthquake in a decade Saturday, the British Geological Survey (BGS) said, with tremors felt across parts of Wales and southwest England but no notable damage reported.

The BGS said the quake was of magnitude 4.4, with an epicenter 20 km (12.5 miles) north of the Welsh city of Swansea, adding that it was the biggest quake in the Britain since 2008.

Earthquakes are not common in Britain and are rarely powerful. The 2008 quake in Market Rasen, northeast England, was magnitude 5.2, or 16 times more powerful than Saturday’s quake.

However, Saturday’s earthquake in Wales was felt as far away as Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight, more than 200 km (125 miles) away.

Videos on social media showed people gathered outside Swansea University, which was holding an open day, after an apparent evacuation.

“Thank you to everyone who attended our visit day. We hoped that you had a surprisingly ‘earth moving’ experience!” Swansea University said on Twitter.
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Spain has assumed a pivotal role in pressuring Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to change his regime’s “barbaric” course, according to Spanish diplomats who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity.

Venezuela’s crisis reached major dimensions last week as hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans made an exodus to neighboring countries, escaping the hyperinflation, food shortages and rampant violence prevailing over what used to be South America’s wealthiest oil producer.

Spain has openly pushed for sanctions by the European Union that target Maduro and his top officials in a move that led to the expulsion of the Spanish ambassador and insults against Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. Maduro called him a U.S. lackey.

Venezuelan state media reported that the measures restricting travel and business in Europe by seven top Venezuelan officials were hatched in discussions Rajoy held with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington last September.

The U.S. has placed sanctions on more than 20 individuals in Venezuela, including politicians and government contractors, since repression of opponents to the Maduro government intensified last July.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson brought up the possibility of placing an embargo on Venezuelan oil sales during a recent swing through Latin America. He even hinted the U.S. might welcome a military coup.

Coup denials

Rajoy’s predecessor, Jose Maria Aznar, backed a coup against Maduro’s mentor, Hugo Chavez, when he was in power. But Spanish officials deny that anything similar is taking place now.

“Spain’s support for sanctions did not result from any consultation with Washington,” a Spanish foreign ministry official told VOA. “It’s strictly between Spain and the EU. Our main concern is the Venezuelan people and standing up for democratic principles.”

Spain will lobby for expanding the sanctions at an EU foreign ministers meeting Monday in Brussels where Venezuela is on the agenda, according to a Spanish diplomatic expert on Venezuela.

The source also said Spain has worked to isolate Venezuela among some Latin American governments, which excluded Maduro from a regional summit last week in Lima, Peru.

When EU sanctions were adopted in January, Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis said they were an “incentive to help negotiations” between Maduro and the opposition party, which were mediated by former socialist Spanish Prime Minister Rodriguez Zapatero.

Zapatero’s eagerness to seal an agreement has been criticized by opponents of Maduro, who say he tried to pressure them into participating in presidential elections scheduled for next April that are seen as loaded in Maduro’s favor.

“Zapatero went from being an impartial arbiter to acting as a lawyer for the regime,” said Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma, who escaped from his Venezuelan house arrest to Spain last December. He was personally received by Rajoy.

​Deep ties

Spain’s ties with Venezuela run deep. Spaniards compose one of the country’s largest expatriate communities, numbering about 300,000. The Spanish oil company Repsol has invested more than $2 billion in Venezuela, and it continues operating oil and gas fields there.

But the leverage could go both ways. Venezuela appears to have some political influence with Spain’s mainstream socialist party PSOE, whose spokesmen criticized the news media for giving “too much” coverage to opposition protests at the time that Zapatero assumed his mediation role.

Venezuela also has contributed money to the far left group Podemos, which has been Spain’s third-largest political force and blocked a congressional resolution condemning Maduro’s power grab.

Podemos was joined in opposing the motion by the Catalan Leftist Republic party (ERC), one of the main pro-independence groups in Catalonia that may head the next regional government.

In an apparent tit for tat, Maduro has demanded the release of jailed ERC leader Oriol Junqueras and attacked Spain for trying to block an Oct. 1 referendum on Catalan independence.

Cyberoffensive

Venezuelan state channels joined a Russian cyberoffensive promoting Catalan separatism through social media.

According to Spanish Defense Minister Maria Dolores de Cospedal, 32 percent of robot social media accounts used to amplify the separatist movement were based in Venezuela and connected with Maduro’s ruling PSUV.

The head of the radical separatist Catalan Unity Party (CUP), Ana Gabriel, who is to appear in court next week to answer charges of rebellion, has been in Venezuela campaigning for Maduro.

The Spanish government is investigating funds linked to members of the Venezuelan government that were deposited in Andorra, an independent archdiocese bordering northern Spain.

But experts don’t expect relations between Madrid and Caracas to be radically altered by the growing tensions.

“We know that Maduro is taking Venezuela toward being another Cuba and is very close to achieving it,” a Spanish diplomatic analyst said. “But we will keep talking to Maduro the same way that we keep talking to Putin.”

Ledezma said he asked Rajoy to use his influence with Venezuela to open a corridor for humanitarian aid proposed by Venezuela’s neighbors.
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Moscow has dismissed U.S. charges against several Russian citizens and companies for meddling in the 2016 presidential election as “blather.” Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov questioned the evidence. The charges have formed a tense backdrop to the conference, which has focused on growing threats to global security, as Henry Ridgwell reports from Munich.
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A California man has pleaded guilty to inadvertently selling bank accounts to Russians who were indicted Friday by a federal grand jury for interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Richard Pinedo pleaded guilty to using stolen identities to set up bank accounts that were then used by the Russians, according to a February 12 court filing.  

The special counsel investigating Russian meddling on Friday announced charges against 13 Russian citizens and three Russian entities for interfering in the election.  

The indictment alleges that the Internet Research Agency, a St. Petersburg-based social media company with Kremlin ties, 12 of its employees, and its financial backer orchestrated an effort to influence the 2016 election campaign in favor of President Donald Trump. 

Prosecutors charged Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a businessman with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, with funding the operation through companies he controls, Concord Management and Consulting LLC, Concord Catering and a number of subsidiaries.  

Prigozhin and his businesses allegedly provided “significant funds” for the Internet Research Agency’s operations to disrupt the U.S. election, according to the indictment. 

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said that the Russian conspirators sought to “promote social discord in the United State and undermine public confidence in democracy.”

“We must not allow them to succeed,” Rosenstein said at a news conference in Washington. 

The conspiracy was part of a larger operation code-named Project Lakhta, Rosenstein said. 

“Project Lakhta included multiple components – some involving domestic audiences within the Russian Federation and others targeting foreign audiences in multiple countries,” Rosenstein said. 

Mueller, who has made no public statements about the Russia investigation since his appointment last May, did not speak at the news conference. 

Charges against Russian nationals

The indictment charges all the defendants with conspiracy to defraud the United States. Three defendants are charged with conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud, and five individuals with aggravated identity theft.

None of the defendants charged in the indictment are in custody, according to a spokesman for the Special Counsel’s office. 

The U.S. and Russia don’t have an extradition treaty and it’s unlikely that any of the defendants will stand trial in the U.S.

The 37-page charging document alleges that the Russian conspirators sought to coordinate their effort with Trump campaign associates, but it does not accuse anyone on the Trump campaign of colluding with the Russians.

Trump took to Twitter after the indictment was announced to again deny his campaign worked with the Russians.

“Russia started their anti-U.S. campaign in 2014, long before I announced that I would run for president,” Trump tweeted. “The results of the election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong – no collusion!”

The indictment marks the first time Mueller’s office has brought charges against Russians and Russian entities for meddling in the 2016 election.  

Mueller’s sprawling investigation has led to the indictments of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and associate Rick Gates.Former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and former campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos have pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about their contacts with Russian officials.

Details of indictment

The indictment says the Russian campaign to “interfere in the U.S. political system” started as early as 2014 and accelerated as the 2016 election campaign got underway. 

During the 2016 campaign, the Russian operatives posted “derogatory information” about a number of presidential candidates.  But by early to mid-2016, the operation included “supporting” Trump’s presidential campaign and “disparaging” Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Taking on fake American identities, the Russian operatives communicated with “unwitting” Trump campaign associates and with other political activists “to seek to coordinate political activities,” the indictment says.

The indictment describes how Russian operatives used subterfuge, stolen identities and other methods to stage political rallies, buy ads on social media platforms, and pay gullible Americans to “promote or disparage candidates.”

To avoid detection by U.S. law enforcement agencies, the Russian operatives used computer networks based in the United States, according to the indictment.

“These groups and pages, which addressed the divisive U.S. political and social issues, falsely claimed to be controlled by U.S. activists when, in fact, they were controlled by defendants,” the indictment reads.

A number of the operatives are alleged to have traveled to the United States under “false pretenses to collect intelligence to inform the influence operations.”
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Top Russian and American officials exchanged barbs Saturday in Germany over the U.S. indictment of 13 Russians accused of an elaborate plot to disrupt the 2016 presidential election.

H.R. McMaster, U.S. President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, said at the Munich Security Conference that the federal indictments showed the U.S. was becoming “more and more adept at tracing the origins of this espionage and subversion.”

“As you can see with the FBI indictment, the evidence is now really incontrovertible and available in the public domain,” McMaster told a Russian delegate to the conference.

Just minutes before, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had dismissed the indictments as “just blabber,” according to remarks through an interpreter.

“I have no response,” Lavrov said when asked for comment on the allegations. “You can publish anything, and we see those indictments multiplying, the statements multiplying.”

The two men addressed the conference of top world leaders, defense officials and diplomats, giving more general back-to-back opening remarks. But both were immediately hit with blunt questions about the U.S. indictment and the broader issue of cyberattacks.

In Russia, news of the indictments was met with more scorn.

“There are no official claims, there are no proofs for this. That’s why they are just children’s statements,” Andrei Kutskikh, the presidential envoy for international information security, told Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

McMaster also scoffed at the suggestion that the U.S. would work with Russia on cyber security issues.

“I’m surprised there are any Russian cyber experts available based on how active most of them have been undermining our democracies in the West,” he said to laughter. “So I would just say that we would love to have a cyber dialogue when Russia is sincere.”

The federal indictment brought Friday by special counsel Robert Mueller represents the most detailed allegations to date of illegal Russian meddling during the campaign that sent Trump to the White House.

Lavrov argued that U.S. officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, have said no country influenced the U.S. election results.

“Until we see the facts, everything else is just blabber — I’m sorry for this expression,” Lavrov said.

The indictment charged 13 Russians with running a huge but hidden social media trolling campaign aimed in part at helping Republican Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton.

It outlined the first criminal charges against Russians believed to have secretly worked to influence the U.S. election’s outcome.

According to the indictment, the Russian organization was funded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a wealthy St. Petersburg businessman with ties to the Russian government and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Lavrov denounced “this irrational myth about this global Russian threat, traces of which are found everywhere — from Brexit to the Catalan referendum.”

In Russia, one of the 13 people indicted said that the U.S. justice system is unfair.

Mikhail Burchik was quoted Saturday by the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda as saying that “I am very surprised that, in the opinion of the Washington court, several Russian people interfered in the elections in the United States. I do not know how the Americans came to this decision.”

Burchik was identified in the indictment as executive director of an organization that allegedly sowed propaganda on social media to try to interfere with the 2016 election.

He was quoted as saying that “they have one-sided justice, and it turns out that you can hang the blame on anyone.”
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British Prime Minister Theresa May made her case on Saturday for a new security treaty with the EU from next year, winning support from EU and U.S. officials who agreed the issue was too important to risk getting subsumed in broader Brexit negotiations.

In a speech to Western leaders and officials in Munich, May promised that London would continue to lead military missions and share intelligence if Brussels agreed to a pact “effective from 2019”, the year Britain is due to leave the bloc.

May’s government is using a series of speeches to set out its vision for Britain outside the European Union. But the loudest applause during her appearance came when the event’s organizer, German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger, said: “Things would be so much easier if you stayed.”

But May was adamant: “We are leaving the EU and there is no question of a second referendum or going back, and I think that’s important,” she told the Munich Security Conference.

“The partnership that we need to create is one that offers UK and EU way to combine our efforts to greatest effect where this is in our shared interest,” May said of her security plan.

Britain is one of the top three users of data from European Union police agency Europol. But as it leaves the EU, there is a risk that it will be shut out of this cooperation, becoming more vulnerable to Islamist militants, officials say.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the EU’s chief executive, welcomed a “security alliance” with Britain, adding that the issue should be separated from the rest of the Brexit debate.

Britain, along with France, is Europe’s biggest military power and leads two European Union military missions while sending troops to Estonia under a NATO flag.

With a host of issues still unresolved and infighting over Brexit dividing May’s government just over a year before Britain is due to leave, security is one of London’s biggest bargaining chips as it seeks a new deal with Brussels.

Britain’s interior minister last year told the EU it could “take our information with us” if it left the bloc without a deal on security.

May emphasized she was committed to European security, warned against competition between Britain and the rest of Europe and said that both sides should do “whatever is most practical and pragmatic in ensuring our collective security.”

Juncker said security should not be conflated with “other questions relating to Brexit,” also quashing any British hopes that a security treaty might be a way into a free-trade deal.

“I wouldn’t like to put security policy considerations with trade policy considerations in one hat. I understand why some would like to do that, but we don’t want to,” he said.

 VEILED THREAT? NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also welcomed close security cooperation between Britain and the EU after Brexit, while Stoltenberg’s predecessor at the alliance, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, told Reuters May’s was a strong speech.

“I think that is what we should aim for, but any treaty is very time-consuming. The timeline is unrealistic,” Fogh Rasmussen said.

A senior U.S. official said: “We know the goal, but I don’t know if this is the right vehicle.”

But May’s call to set aside “rigid institutional structures” to enable a quick agreement on security was less well received.

“What she meant was not specified and sounded like a veiled threat,” said EU lawmaker Marietje Schaake, a Dutch centrist.

One senior EU official in Munich said that May would need to submit a formal negotiating paper to detail her ideas and then allow EU and British negotiators to move forward.

But the EU official said May’s proposal was essentially not new and could only come after Britain and the EU had agreed a divorce settlement. “The European Union also wants a new security arrangement with Britain, but it can’t be done before we agree on other issues,” the official said.

While the status of the Irish border and citizens rights were broadly settled in December, EU negotiators say they are now waiting for Britain to say what kind of future trade relationship it wants.

Agreement on that front would allow EU leaders to endorse the plan at a Brussels summit on March 22-23 and move on to a special transition arrangement ending in December 2020.
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Turkey is undergoing a new nationalist wave led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a study by the Center for American Progress (CAP) concludes.

The report and the findings of polls and focus groups conducted in Turkey late last year conclude that Erdogan is trying to craft a new nationalism.

“He is doing this with his political rhetoric, but he is also drawing on a genuine upswelling of nationalism from the Turkish populists” Max Hoffman, one of the report’s authors, told VOA.

Hoffman said this new nationalism includes “real hostility towards the West, particularly the U.S., but also Germany and Europe. Correlated to that, there is widespread hostility towards Syrian refugees and to some extent, other immigrants to Turkey.”

Ali Cınar, president of the Turkish Heritage Organization, said the main reason for the anti-U.S. attitude in Turkey is the anger against Washington for not extraditing U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen and for supporting the Syrian Kurdish militia group YPG in the war against Islamic State.

“Everybody in Turkey, both government and opposition, are sensitive about these two issues and they are in consensus. So it’s wrong to see this as AK Party’s [the ruling party in Turkey] cause and this is the biggest mistake some other countries are making,” Cinar said.

“I don’t think the main reason for the increase in nationalist rhetoric in Turkey is clearly reflected in the report,” he added. “Also, it’s not clear to me how realistically the report has reached to a conclusion that there were sharp divides about the overall direction of the country.”

Since the 1920s, the Turkish republic has set its course toward more secular nationalism. But the report says the new nationalism brought by Erdogan is “assertively Muslim, fiercely independent; distrusting of outsiders; and skeptical of other nations and global elites, which it perceives to hold Turkey back.”

Although a considerable number of Turks believe Islam has a central role in their national identity, there’s also wide support for Turkey to remain secular.

“There is a component within the ruling party AKP, of about 35 percent, who put Islamic messages at the core,” said Hoffman, adding that the rest of the party “OK with this religious rhetoric, but they also believe that Turkey is a secular state.”

“They feel Erdogan is fulfilling Ataturk’s legacy by being more independent and stronger vis-a-vis the West, and by charting [the country’s] own course and being a strong leader just looking after Turkey’s interests,” he said. “And you could call them the ‘Turkey Firsters'” — a reference to U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan.

With nationalism rising, anti-Westernism is also finding deeper roots in Turkey. The CAP poll found only 10 percent of Turks have a favorable view of the United States, and 83 percent have a negative view. The total favorability rate for Europe is 21 percent.

Hoffman said “neither the West nor even Erdogan really want a clear break, but what this public opinion and this anger does is it narrows the options that leaders on both sides have.”`

He said U.S.-Turkish relations are close to the breaking point, but “whether or not that break really happens is primarily in Erdogan’s hands.”

Syria

Elaborating further, the author said if Turkey’s military operation against the YPG in Syria’s northwest Afrin region is expanded into Manbij, where U.S. forces are deployed, then Washington may be forced to make “difficult choices.”

Describing the Afrin operation as “the common action by the Turkish people against terror and the PKK that has killed 40,000 people in Turkey”, Cinar said it was wrong to read the nationalism in Turkey as “extreme”, since nationalism is on the rise in Europe as well and the fact that President Trump also used nationalist rhetoric in his election campaign.

Hoffman also played down the possibility of another right-wing challenger taking Erdogan’s place because Erdogan himself garnered most of the support of the right-wing electorate.

“So all of the issues that a right-wing challenger might use to sort of run to the right of Erdogan and appeal to nationalist voters Erdogan himself has now done to head off that challenge,” he said.

According to the Center for American Progress report, if Turks were to vote this Sunday, 49 percent of them would choose the governing AKP while the closest contender would only get half of that percentage.
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The special counsel investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election announced charges against the first group of Russians it says were behind the effort, unsealing an indictment against 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities.

The indictment, handed down by a federal grand jury on Friday, alleges that Internet Research Agency, a St. Petersburg, Russia-based company with ties to the Kremlin, and its 12 employees engaged “in operations to interfere with elections and political processes” from 2014 through the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.

The firm was long believed to have played a critical role in Russia’s election meddling effort, employing fake social media accounts, paid online users and other tools to try to sway the election in favor of President Donald Trump.

Also named in the indictment were Internet Research Agency’s alleged financial backer, Russian businessman Yevgeniy Prigozhin, and two companies he controls — Concord Management and Consulting and Concord Catering. The indictment says Prigozhin and his businesses provided “significant funds” for Internet Research Agency’s operations to influence the 2016 American elections.

None of those charged in today’s indictment are in custody, a spokesman for special counsel Robert Mueller’s office said.

The charges

The indictment charges all the defendants with conspiracy to defraud the United States, three defendants with conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud, and five individuals with aggravated identity theft.

Significantly, prosecutors say that Internet Research Agency, described as an outfit “engaged in political and electoral interference operations,” and its employees sought to coordinate their effort with Trump campaign associates.

After the indictments were announced, Trump took to Twitter to again deny his campaign worked with the Russians.

Early during the 2016 campaign, the court document says Internet Research Agency and its employees posted “derogatory information” about a number of presidential candidates. By early to mid-2016, the indictment alleges the operation included “supporting” Trump’s presidential campaign and “disparaging” Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Taking on fake American identities, the Russian operatives communicated with “unwitting” Trump campaign associates and with other political activists “to seek to coordinate political activities,” the indictment said.

The indictment marks the first group of Russians charged in connection with Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

Mueller’s sprawling investigation into Russian election interference has led to the indictments of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and associate Rick Gates.

Former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and former campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos have pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about their contacts with Russian officials during the campaign and the transition.

Details of indictment

The indictment details how the operatives used subterfuge, stolen identities and other methods to stage political rallies, bought ads on social media platforms, and paid gullible Americans to “promote or disparage candidates.”

To avoid detection by U.S. law enforcement agencies, the Russian operatives used computer networks based in the United States, according to the indictment.

“These groups and pages, which addressed the divisive U.S. political and social issues, falsely claimed to be controlled by U.S activists when, in fact, they were controlled by defendants,” the indictment reads.

A number of the operatives are alleged to have traveled to the United States under “false pretenses to collect intelligence to inform the influence operations.”

The indictment alleges that the firm began its “operations to interfere with U.S. political system” as early as 2014.

Also Friday, Mueller reached an agreement with Richard Pinedo, who pleaded guilty of aiding and abetting interstate and foreign identity fraud. Pinedo, of California, admitted to selling stolen bank and credit card numbers to the Russians, although he told investigators he “had absolutely no knowledge” about who was purchasing the information or what they planned to do with it.

WATCH: Entire briefing by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein
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Belgian media say a Brussels court has ordered Facebook to stop collecting data about citizens in the country or face fines for every day it fails to comply.

The daily De Standaard reported Friday that the court upheld a Belgian privacy commission finding that Facebook is collecting data without users’ consent.

It said the court concluded that Facebook does not adequately inform users that it is collecting information, what kind of details it keeps and for how long, or what it does with the data.

It has ruled that Facebook must stop tracking and registering internet usage by Belgians online and destroy any data it has obtained illegally or face fines of 250,000 euros ($311,500) every day it delays.
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Since the International Criminal Court began collecting material three months ago for a possible war crimes case involving Afghanistan, it has gotten a staggering 1.17 million statements from Afghans who say they were victims.

The statements include accounts of alleged atrocities not only by groups like the Taliban and the Islamic State, but also involving Afghan Security Forces and government-affiliated warlords, the U.S.-led coalition, and foreign and domestic spy agencies, said Abdul Wadood Pedram of the Human Rights and Eradication of Violence Organization.

Based in part on the many statements, ICC judges in The Hague would then have to decide whether to seek a war crimes investigation. It’s uncertain when that decision will be made.

​Millions of possible victims

The statements were collected between Nov. 20, 2017, and Jan. 31, 2018, by organizations based in Europe and Afghanistan and sent to the ICC, Pedram said. Because one statement might include multiple victims and one organization might represent thousands of victim statements, the number of Afghans seeking justice from the ICC could be several million.

“It is shocking there are so many,” Pedram said, noting that in some instances, whole villages were represented. “It shows how the justice system in Afghanistan is not bringing justice for the victims and their families.”

The ICC did not give details about the victims or those providing the information.

“I have the names of the organizations, but because of the security issues, we don’t want to name them because they will be targeted,” said Pedram, whose group is based in Kabul.

Many of the representations include statements involving multiple victims, which could be the result of suicide bombings, targeted killings or airstrikes, he said.

​Fear for safety

Among those alleging war crimes is a man who asked The Associated Press to be identified only by his first name, Shoaib, because he fears for his safety.

Shoaib said his father, Naimatullah, was on a bus in Dawalat Yar district in Afghanistan’s central Ghor Province in 2014 when a band of gunmen stopped it and two other buses, forced the passengers off and told them to hand over their identity cards. The 14 Shiites among them were separated from the rest and killed, one by one, he said.

The slayings outraged the country. A Taliban commander was soon arrested and brought before the media, but no news about a trial or punishment was ever reported, said Shoaib, who is in his 20s.

Displaying a photo of the man he believes killed his father, Shoaib said he doesn’t go to the authorities for information about the incident because the commander had connections with the police and the local government administration.

Shoaib is still afraid.

“Please don’t say where I live, or show my face,” he implored a reporter. “What if they find me? There is no protection in Afghanistan,” he said.

“Everybody knows that they have connection in the government,” he added. “I think in Afghanistan, if you have money, then you can give it to anyone, anywhere, to do anything.”

Several powerful warlords, many of whom came to power after the collapse of the Taliban in 2001 following the U.S.-led intervention, are among those alleged to have carried out war crimes, said Pedram, who also is cautious about releasing any names.

After receiving death threats last year, Pedram fled Kabul briefly and now keeps a lower profile, no longer speaking to local media.

“The warlords are all here. You have to be very careful,” he said. “In the morning, I kiss my little son goodbye, I kiss my wife goodbye because I don’t know what will happen to me and when, or if I will see them again.”

​World’s criminal court

Established in 2002, the ICC is the world’s first permanent court set up to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The ICC can only investigate any crimes in Afghanistan after May 2003, when the country ratified the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the court.

Former President Bill Clinton signed the treaty, but President George W. Bush renounced the signature, citing fears that Americans would be unfairly prosecuted for political reasons.

In November, when ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda sought judicial authorization to begin the investigation, she said the court had been looking into possible war crimes in Afghanistan since 2006.

Bensouda said in November that “there is a reasonable basis to believe” that crimes against humanity and war crimes were committed by the Taliban as well as the Haqqani network. She also said there was evidence that the Afghan National Security Forces, Afghan National Police and its spy agency, known as the NDS, committed war crimes.

Bensouda also said evidence existed of war crimes committed “by members of the United States armed forces on the territory of Afghanistan, and by members of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in secret detention facilities in Afghanistan,” as well as in countries that had signed on to the Rome Statute. The secret detention facilities were operated mostly between 2003 and 2004, she said.

Breaking through impunity

It was the first time that Bensouda has targeted Americans for alleged war crimes. Bensouda said an investigation under the auspices of the international tribunal could break through what she called “near total impunity” in Afghanistan.

The prosecutor’s formal application to the court set up a possible showdown with Washington. While the U.S. is not a member state of the ICC, its citizens can be charged with crimes committed in countries that are members.

At the time of Bensouda’s announcement, a Pentagon spokesman said the U.S. Defense Department does not accept that such an investigation of U.S. personnel is warranted. The U.S. State Department has said it opposes the court’s involvement in Afghanistan.

​Justice for a loved one

Another Afghan who went to the ICC is Hussain Razaee, whose fiancee, Najiba, was among 30 people killed in July when a Taliban suicide attacker rammed a car bomb into a bus carrying employees from the Ministry of Mines.

For months, Razaee said he contemplated suicide. He had spent two years convincing Najiba’s parents to allow them to marry, and they had finally agreed. Unlike most Afghan couples, theirs was not to be an arranged marriage.

“I lost the person I loved,” he said.

Razaee said he went to the ICC because he wants those responsible to be punished, even if a peace deal with the Taliban is reached.

“I am pursuing this because I want the ICC to record these cases so that if there is a peace agreement, the Taliban leaders will be required to identify the people behind the killings,” Razaee said.

“I don’t trust the international community to bring any of these warlords or Taliban to justice, but if an international legal body rules according to the law, then the government could be forced to enforce it,” he said.
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The White House on Thursday blamed Russia for the devastating “NotPetya” cyber attack last year, joining the British government in condemning

Moscow for unleashing a virus that crippled parts of Ukraine’s infrastructure and damaged computers in countries across the globe.

The attack in June of 2017 “spread worldwide, causing billions of dollars in damage across Europe, Asia and the Americas,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement.

“It was part of the Kremlin’s ongoing effort to destabilize Ukraine and demonstrates ever more clearly Russia’s involvement in the ongoing conflict,” Sanders added. “This was also a reckless and indiscriminate cyber attack that will be met with international consequences.”

The U.S. government is “reviewing a range of options,” a senior White House official said when asked about the consequences for Russia’s actions.

Earlier on Thursday, Russia denied an accusation by the British government that it was behind the attack, saying it was part of a “Russophobic” campaign that it said was being waged by some Western countries.

The so-called NotPetya attack in June started in Ukraine where it crippled government and business computers before spreading around Europe and the world, halting operations atports, factories and offices.

Britain’s foreign ministry said in a statement released earlier in the day that the attack originated from the Russian military.

“The decision to publicly attribute this incident underlines the fact that the UK and its allies will not tolerate malicious cyber activity,” the ministry said in a statement.

“The attack masqueraded as a criminal enterprise but its purpose was principally to disrupt,” it said.

“Primary targets were Ukrainian financial, energy and government sectors. Its indiscriminate design caused it to spread further, affecting other European and Russian business.”
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