Новини

U.S. lawmakers pushed for more aggressive steps to counteract the Russian “menace” on Tuesday, despite Trump administration officials insisting current sanctions were having an effect and vowing to impose more economic pain if Moscow does not change its behavior.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he would like better ties with Moscow, but although he met Russian President Vladimir Putin last month, relations between the two countries have been further strained.

Members of Congress, where both chambers are controlled by Trump’s fellow Republicans, have called for more action, including introducing new sanctions legislation “from hell,” to punish Russia for its annexation of Crimea, involvement in Syria’s civil war and cyberattacks seeking to influence U.S. elections.

They held three hearings related to Russia on Tuesday, in the Banking and Foreign Relations committees and a Judiciary counterterrorism subcommittee. Lawmakers chastised administration officials for doing too little to change Russian behavior.

Both Republicans and Democrats have criticized Trump, particularly after his Helsinki summit with Putin last month, for failing to stand up to Moscow and not fully enacting a sweeping sanctions law passed nearly unanimously a year ago.

“It’s not often that Congress acts together in such a strong manner,” said Republican Senator Mike Crapo, chairman of the Banking Committee, which oversees sanctions policy. “… But then, Russia is a menace on so many different levels, today, that Congress can be compelled to act with a single voice.”

Senator Bob Menendez noted that the administration has not designated any new oligarchs for sanctions since April and has eased some sanctions.

“We’re told to judge the administration by its actions and not the president’s words, but these actions seem to be more aligned with the president’s accommodating and disturbing rhetoric than a tougher approach to the Kremlin,” Menendez said at the banking hearing.

Menendez vowed that Congress will act, with or without the administration.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters later Tuesday there was strong interest in legislation to punish Moscow, although he said chances were “probably pretty slim” such a measure would come up for a vote before the Nov. 6 congressional elections.

New cyberattacks

Microsoft said late Monday that hackers linked to the Kremlin sought to launch cyberattacks on the Senate and conservative American think tanks, warning of broader attacks ahead of the November vote.

The Kremlin rejected the Microsoft allegations.

Moscow has repeatedly denied attempting to influence U.S. elections, including the 2016 presidential vote that brought Trump into office.

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia interfered in 2016, seeking to tilt the vote in Trump’s favor, and, backed by lawmakers, warned that more would come in upcoming elections.

“America is under cyberattack. We’re beginning to act, but not quick enough and not forcefully enough,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said at the Judiciary subcommittee hearing.

‘Economic pain’

Administration officials insisted existing sanctions were hitting Russia.

“Though Russia’s malign activities continue, we believe its adventurism undoubtedly has been checked by the knowledge that we can bring much more economic pain to bear using our powerful range of authorities — and that we will not hesitate to do so if its conduct does not demonstrably and significantly change,” senior Treasury official Sigal Mandelker told the banking panel.

The Treasury Department imposed new sanctions on two Russians, one Russian company and one Slovakian firm over actions it said helped another Russian company avoid penalties over cyber-related activities.

The United States also announced sanctions on Russian shipping over violations of U.N. restrictions on North Korea.

Assistant Secretary of State Wess Mitchell told Foreign Relations that concern about sanctions has cost Russia $8 to $10 billion in arms deals. Mitchell also said foreign direct investment in Russia has fallen by 80 percent since 2013, “which is a pretty stunning number.”

“I think this administration has been clear that we are prepared to take additional steps,” Mitchell said. “There is an escalatory ladder to sanctions. We are aware of what additional steps would be needed to make an even bigger point.”

In an interview with Reuters on Monday, Trump said he would only consider lifting sanctions against Russia if it were to do something positive for the United States, for instance in Syria or in Ukraine.
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Serbia might reintroduce compulsory military service, nine years after abolishing it, to help improve the combat readiness of its army in the Balkans, where tensions occasionally flare, President Aleksandar Vucic said Tuesday.

The armed forces of Serbia, which emerged as an independent state after the bloody collapse of former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, were fully professionalized in 2011, but remain poorly paid and equipped.

Serbia, which is a candidate for European Union membership, has retained voluntary service and reserve units.

Vucic said Belgrade was considering reintroducing compulsory military service of between three and six months after 2020.

“We are still thinking about that. … It depends on the finances,” he told reporters at the air force base of Batajnica, just outside Belgrade.

Young people who served would have an advantage when seeking jobs in the public sector, Vucic added, without elaborating.

Serbian politicians have repeatedly floated the idea of reintroducing conscription. But many military experts say it would be too costly and that such a short period of service would contribute little to the country’s defense capabilities.

Under its 2018 budget, Serbia allocated $703 million, or 1.39 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) for its 40,000-strong military, up from $693.8 million in 2017.

In recent years Serbia has sought to improve its defense capabilities through a donation of six MiG-29 fighters by Russia, with which it has strong historic and cultural ties, and through the purchase of 10 helicopters manufactured by Airbus.

Vucic and Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin have frequently spoken of procuring surplus tanks, attack helicopters and armored personnel carriers from Russia and more jet fighters from Belarus, but such deals have yet to materialize.

Serbia, which maintains military neutrality, joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace program in 2006 and in 2015 it signed the Individual Partnership Action Plan — the highest level of cooperation for countries not aspiring to join the alliance.

Although it strives for a balance between Moscow and the West, Serbia in 2017 took part in more than 100 joint activities with NATO or its member states, including 13 training drills, seven bilateral activities with the United States and only two with Russia.
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Britain’s foreign secretary is calling for traditional Western allies to join in a united front against Russia’s “aggressive and malign behavior,” expressing confidence that the United States under President Donald Trump will lead the way. 

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told an audience in Washington it is essential for the U.S., Britain and the European Union to stand firm against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s increasingly dangerous attacks on long-standing international norms. 

“Those who don’t share our values, need to know that there will always be a serious price to pay if red lines are crossed by the territorial incursions, the use of banned weapons, or increasingly cyberattacks,” Hunt said Tuesday prior to talks with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. 

“He [Putin] is testing us,” Hunt added. “He is just wanting to see just how robust and how united the West is.” 

Actions against Russia

Hunt said there are several reasons for optimism, praising the United States for its strong stance on Russia following the March poisoning of a former Russian agent and his daughter in the British town of Salisbury. 

The U.S. expelled 60 Russian diplomats and imposed sanctions, pointing to the use of a Soviet-era nerve toxin known as Novichok. 

U.S. and British officials have also accused Russia of seeking to interfere with their elections. 

At the same time, U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on assertions that Russia sought to meddle in the U.S. election, taking to social media to dismiss an investigation into Russia’s actions as a “rigged witch hunt.” 

And in an interview Monday with the Reuters news agency, Trump said he would consider lifting sanctions against Russia in exchange for cooperation in Syria or Ukraine. 

Hunt downplayed such concerns. 

“President Trump is the most active president on social media that there’s ever been,” the British foreign secretary said. “It’s a different style of politics, but I think it’s important to look at what he does as well as what he says.” 

“What you see is an approach to foreign policy that is different to his predecessors but is absolutely focused on upholding the international order,” Hunt said. “If you look at his actions he is also prepared to be very tough — tougher actually than a number of his predecessors to make sure people get the message about vital red lines.” 

As if to back up Hunt’s assertions, top administration officials told U.S. lawmakers Tuesday they are prepared to impose additional sanctions on Russia if its behavior does not change. 

Strategy against Russia

The administration’s strategy is to “continue raising the costs until Russian aggression ceases, while keeping the door open to dialogue,” Assistant Secretary of State Wess Mitchell told members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. 

Already, existing sanctions are believed to have cost Russia up to $10 billion in arms sales alone, while slashing foreign investment by 80 percent. 

“Though Russia’s malign activities continue, we believe its adventurism undoubtedly has been checked by the knowledge that we can bring much more economic pain to bear,” Acting Deputy Treasury Secretary Sigal Mandelker told the Senate Banking Committee. “We will not hesitate to do so if its conduct does not demonstrably and significantly change.” 

Separately Tuesday, the U.S. Treasury Department announced new sanctions against two Russian companies and a Russian individual for helping Moscow try to avoid existing sanctions due to Russia’s cyber activities.

It also slapped Russian shipping companies with new sanctions for violating United Nations restrictions transferring refined petroleum products to North Korea.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov responded Tuesday in a statement on the ministry’s website, saying the new U.S. sanctions were groundless, promising a response from Moscow.

Still, some lawmakers and other officials are concerned Russia’s behavior is not changing quickly enough. 

Microsoft said late Monday it had detected and disrupted efforts by the Kremlin-linked group known as Fancy Bear or APT28, to hack into or attack conservative U.S. think tanks as well as several U.S. senators. 

Moscow has rejected Microsoft’s allegations, saying there is no evidence to support them. 

Information from Reuters was used in this report.
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The outgoing United Nations’ human rights chief says the power held by the five permanent members of the Security Council could cause the U.N. to “collapse.”

Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein spoke to reporters Monday in Geneva as he prepares to step down from office at the end of the month.

He said the five Council members with veto power — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — are “running too much of the business” and have created a “logjam.”

“When they cooperate, things can move. When they don’t, everything becomes stuck and the organization in general becomes so marginal,” Zeid said, referring to vetoed resolutions on Syria and Israeli polices toward the Palestinians.

Zeid also alluded to rising nationalism across the globe, warning that humanity may be forgetting the lessons of World War II.

“My sense is the further away we get from those historical and dreadful experiences, the more we tend to play fast and loose with the institutions created to prevent repetition,” he said.

Zeid, a Jordanian, declined to seek another four-year term as the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet is replacing him. 
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Islamic militants launched a series of attacks Monday in Russia’s southern province of Chechnya, leaving five young militants dead and several police officers wounded, officials said.

The violence indicated the Islamist insurgency remains active in the mostly Muslim province despite authorities’ claims that it has been eradicated. It follows an attack on a Russian Orthodox church in May that left four attackers, two policemen and a churchgoer dead.

Chechnya’s regional leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, sought to downplay the attacks, saying they were quickly fended off by police. He insisted the young attackers were brainwashed by Islamic militants and don’t have any public support in Chechnya.

Dzhambulat Umarov, the information minister in the regional government, told the Tass news agency the attackers were between 11 and 16 years old. He said the Islamic State has increasingly focused on teenagers in its efforts to recruit supporters in the region.

The regional police said in a statement that two knife-wielding attackers broke into a police station in the southern town of Shali and stabbed two officers. Police shot and killed them.

In another clash in Shali, two attackers tried to blow up a truck loaded with gas canisters in a suicide attack, but the vehicle failed to explode, Kadyrov spokesman Alvi Karimov said on Kommersant FM radio. He said the two were shot dead by police.

Russian news agencies also reported an attack in the village of Mesker-Yurt, outside Shali, in which an attacker blew himself up near a police checkpoint. Police were unhurt and Kadyrov said the suicide bomber survived and was hospitalized.

And in yet another attack in the regional capital of Grozny, an attacker driving a car hit two traffic police officers, injuring them, officials said. Police later shot and killed the driver.

The Kremlin has relied on the strongman Kadyrov to stabilize Chechnya after two separatist wars in the 1990s, and has provided generous subsidies to help rebuild the region.

International human rights groups, however, have accused Kadyrov of rampant rights abuses, including arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial killings by his feared security forces.

Radical Islamic militants, some of whom have sworn allegiance to the Islamic State group, have conducted sporadic raids in Chechnya, defying Kadyrov’s assurances that the region is stable.
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The World Health Organization says the number of measles cases in Europe jumped sharply during the first six months of 2018 and at least 37 people have died.

The U.N. agency’s European office said Monday more than 41,000 measles cases were reported in the region during the first half of the year — more than in all 12-month periods so far this decade.

The previous highest annual total was 23,927 cases in 2017. A year earlier, only 5,273 cases were reported.

The agency said half — some 23,000 cases — this year occurred in Ukraine, where an insurgency backed by Russia has been fighting the government for four years in the east in a conflict that has killed over 10,000 people.

France, Georgia, Greece, Italy, Russia and Serbia also had more than 1,000 measles infections each so far this year.

Measles, among the world’s most contagious diseases, is a virus that’s spread in the air through coughing or sneezing. It can be prevented with a vaccine that’s been in use since the 1960s, but health officials say vaccination rates of at least 95 percent are needed to prevent epidemics.

Vaccine skepticism remains high in many parts of Europe after past immunization problems.

Measles typically begins with a high fever and also causes a rash on the face and neck. While most people who get it recover, measles is one of the leading causes of death among young children, according to the WHO.

Italy has introduced a new law requiring parents to vaccinate their children against measles and nine other childhood diseases. Romania also passed a similar bill, including hefty fines for parents who didn’t vaccinate their children.

The U.N. agency on Monday called for better surveillance of the disease and increased immunization rates to prevent measles from becoming endemic.
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Iran’s oil minister says France’s oil giant Total SA has pulled out of Iran after cancelling its $5 billion, 20-year agreement to develop the country’s massive South Pars offshore natural gas field over renewed U.S. sanctions.

The parliament’s website ICANA.ir quoted Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh as saying on Monday that since Total first announced its decision a while ago, Iran has been in the process of “looking for an alternative” to Total. He didn’t elaborate.

There was no immediate comment from TotaI.

Earlier this month, Iran said China’s state-owned petroleum corporation took a majority 80 percent share of the project. CNPC originally had some 30 percent of shares in the project.

The renewed U.S. sanctions took effect in August, after America’s pullout from the nuclear deal in May.

 
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Pope Francis said Monday every effort must be made to ensure the culture of the Catholic Church prevents future clerical sexual abuse of children and to make sure that if such abuses do take place, they cannot be covered up.

The pope’s comments came in a letter to the world’s Catholics in response to the latest revelations of abuses by clergy members.

Last week, a U.S. grand jury report said more than 300 predator priests had abused more than 1,000 children in six Pennsylvania dioceses over the span of 70 years.

“Even though it can be said that most of these cases belong to the past, nonetheless as time goes on we have come to know the pain of many of the victims,” Francis said in his letter.

He said with “shame and repentance” the Catholic Church acknowledges it did not act in a timely manner and realize the amount of damage the abusers have done to so many people.

Francis said “no effort to beg pardon and to seek to repair the harm done will ever be sufficient.”

The church has long faced cases of sexual abuse by the clergy in many countries. In the past month alone, the pope accepted the resignation of an Australian archbishop convicted in May for covering up child abuse, as well as the resignation of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who has also been accused of sexual abuse.

Francis noted in his letter ongoing efforts to address the problem and ensure the safety of children and vulnerable adults while holding responsible those who commit abuses.

“We have delayed in applying these actions and sanctions that are so necessary, yet I am confident that they will help to guarantee a greater culture of care in the present and future,” he wrote.

He said without the participation of all Catholics, the efforts to “uproot the culture of abuse” will fail.

“It is essential that we, as a Church, be able to acknowledge and condemn, with sorrow and shame, the atrocities perpetuated by consecrated persons, clerics, and all those entrusted with the mission of watching over and caring for the most vulnerable,” Pope Francis said.
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Shots were fired at a security booth outside the U.S. Embassy in Turkey’s capital early Monday, but U.S. officials said no one was hurt.

Private Ihlas news agency said four to five rounds were fired from a moving white car and targeted the booth outside Gate 6 at the embassy in Ankara. Police were searching for the car.

U.S. Embassy spokesman David Gainer thanked police for their “rapid response”‘ and said no injuries had been reported.

The U.S. mission is closed this week as Turkey celebrates the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

Ties between Ankara and Washington have been strained over the case of an imprisoned American pastor, leading the U.S. to impose sanctions, and increased tariffs sent the Turkish lira tumbling last week.

Evangelical pastor Andrew Craig Brunson — currently under house arrest after more than 1 1/2 years in prison — is facing up to 35 years in prison if convicted of espionage and terror-related charges.

U.S. President Donald Trump has called for his immediate release and threatened more sanctions. The continued detention of a Turkish-American NASA scientist and three local consular staff members adds to the tensions.

Last week, the U.S. president signed a defense spending bill that includes delaying the delivery of F-35 fighter jets pending a Pentagon report. U.S. senators have been working to block their delivery in response to Brunson’s arrest and Turkey’s pledge to buy Russian S-400 missile systems.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called for a boycott on U.S.-made electronic products, with some citizens heeding his call and filming themselves breaking their iPhones. Turkey has also increased imports tariffs on some products.

 
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