Новини

Prince Harry and his new wife, the former actress Meghan Markle, joined the pageantry of the annual Trooping the Color ceremony Saturday in London to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s official birthday.

The duke and duchess, who married three weeks ago, made the short trip from Buckingham Palace to Horse Guards Parade in a horse-drawn carriage as royal fans lining the Mall cheered and waved. After the event, the couple joined other members of the royal family on the palace’s front balcony to watch the Royal Air Force fly by.

The 92-year-old queen, who recently had a successful cataract operation, watched the ceremony from a dais and inspected the lines of guardsmen in bearskin hats and scarlet tunics who offered her tributes. Her husband, Prince Philip, has retired from royal duties and did not attend.

The ceremony originated from traditional preparations for battle. Flags, or colors, were “trooped” so soldiers in the ranks would be able to recognize them.

The Queen’s actual birthday is April 21.
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Pope Francis has told the world’s oil executives that a transition to less-polluting energy sources “is a challenge of epochal proportions.”

On the last day of a two-day conference Saturday, the Roman Catholic leader urged the executives to provide electricity to the one billion people who are without it, but said that process must be done in a way that avoids “creating environmental imbalances resulting in deterioration and pollution gravely harmful to our human family, both now and in the future.”

Reuters reports the unprecedented conference was held behind closed doors at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

The news agency says the oil executives, investors and Vatican experts who attended the summit, believe, like the pope does, that science supports the notion that climate change is caused by human activity and that global warming must be curbed.

Pope Francis told the conference, “Our desire to ensure energy for all must not lead to the undesired effect of a spiral of extreme climate changes due to a catastrophic rise in global temperatures, harsher environments and increased levels of poverty.”

 
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Plastic and chemical pollution has been detected in most samples of snow and seawater taken by researchers in Antarctica, said the nongovernmental environmental group Greenpeace.

Greenpeace scientists gathered water and snow samples from the southernmost continent during a voyage from January to March of this year. Laboratory analysis revealed humanity’s footprint on this most remote corner of the globe.

“It was about one microplastic piece at least per liter. When you think of extrapolating that out to the scale of the Antarctic Ocean, it’s really, really significant. And previously we thought that the Antarctic Ocean might sort of be protected by the currents around it, as a sort of barrier to the plastic pollution that’s a scourge in so much of the world’s oceans. But now evidence is increasingly showing that that may not be the case,” Greenpeace’s Louisa Casson said.

Chemicals

In addition to very small pieces of plastic, the research revealed the presence of chemicals known as per- and polyfluorinated alkylated substances, which are widely used in industrial processes and linked to reproductive and developmental problems for wildlife.

“This just strengthens the rationale for why we need to be taking action on land to stop that flow of plastic into the ocean, but also creating huge ocean sanctuaries at sea to allow wildlife to recover from these pressures,” Casson said.

​Tons of plastics

The United Nations estimates 8 million tons of plastic are dumped into the ocean every year. Its effects were illustrated several days ago in southern Thailand, where a stranded pilot whale died having ingested 80 pieces of plastic rubbish weighing 8 kilograms.

The tide may be slowly turning as global concern grows. India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, recently pledged to ban all single-use plastic by 2022. In the shadow of megacity Mumbai, Bollywood movie stars have been joining litter pickup sessions at Versova beach, among them actress Abigail Pande.

“I am having fun [cleaning this place]. But it is also very sad because once I came here, I got to know that the amount of waste is so high that if you dig the ground 4 feet, you will still find plastic inside. And it will take years to properly clean the beach,” Pande told reporters Sunday.

Plastic has now been found in every corner of the world’s oceans, from the depths of the Pacific Mariana Trench to Antarctica.

In October, world governments will decide on a European Union proposal to create an Antarctic Ocean sanctuary. At 1.8 million square kilometers, it would be the largest protected area on Earth.
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Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Germany, Indonesia and South Africa have been elected to two-year terms on the U.N. Security Council.

The five will join the 15-nation body responsible for maintaining international peace and security on Jan. 1, 2019.

The vote Friday in the U.N. General Assembly generated little suspense, as all but one regional group ran a clean slate. The only contested seat was in the Asian-Pacific group, where Indonesia overwhelming beat Maldives 144-46.

Member states cast secret ballots and candidates must win a two-thirds majority of votes to succeed, even if they are running uncontested. Candidate countries capped off their campaigns with parties in the lead-up to the election.

Reaction

Lindiwe Sisulu, International Relations Minister of South Africa, welcomed her country’s opportunity to sit on the council for a third time. South Africa has served two previous terms in 2007-’08 and 2011-’12.

She said her government would advocate for closer cooperation between the council and the African Union, and address its efforts toward conflict prevention and resolution, peacekeeping and peacebuilding.

“We believe that peace cannot be achieved without the participation of women — in peace negotiations, peacekeeping operations, and post-conflict peace-building and governance,” Sisulu told reporters. “During our tenure, we will ensure that a gender perspective is mainstreamed into all Security Council resolutions,” she added.

Indonesian foreign minister Retno Marsudi welcomed her country’s victory over “good friend” the Maldives. She said her government’s priorities would include combating terrorism and radicalism through developing a comprehensive global approach that addresses the root causes of the problem.

Germany has served on the council five times before and would like to see the Security Council’s membership expanded to include a permanent seat for it.

“This is an especially important opportunity for Germany, which has sometimes punched below its weight at the U.N.,” Richard Gowan, a fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and a U.N. analyst, told VOA. “In the past, Britain and France have been the decisive European players at the U.N., but Brexit means that Germany will need to step up and speak for Europe more forcefully at the UN,” he added.

Abandoned candidacy

Israel had originally sought a seat on the council, but withdrew its candidacy on May 4, saying it was “postponing” it after consulting with its partners and friends. It was seeking one of two available seats in the “Western Europe and Others Group” and was competing against Belgium and Germany.

Israel has never held a seat on the council and analyst Gowan says it “was always a long shot” which was upended by the current crisis in the Gaza Strip.

“I think that the Israelis will be pretty comfortable that the U.S. has their back in the Security Council,” Gowan added. U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley has been a vocal defender of Israel against what she says is the U.N.’s anti-Israel bias. She has wielded the U.S. veto twice in the past six months in Israel’s favor in the council.

Council dynamics

Countries joining the council are doing so at a difficult moment.

“Tensions between Russia and the West are starting to paralyze the organization,” Gowan said. “The temporary members are often powerless when the permanent five are divided.” But he notes that some recent elected members, including Sweden and Australia, have won respect for breaking impasses with compromises on issues such as humanitarian aid in Syria.

The five new council members will replace Bolivia, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, Netherlands and Sweden, whose terms end Dec. 31, 2018. They will join the other nonpermanent members — Cote d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Kuwait, Peru and Poland — as well as the permanent five — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.
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The United Nations is asking the international community to help millions of refugees and displaced people in Africa’s Lake Chad Basin. The Boko Haram insurgency is mainly responsible for a crisis that has left huge numbers vulnerable to hunger, malnutrition and violence.

The Lake Chad Basin is into the ninth year of a humanitarian crisis that does not appear to be easing.

The United Nations has appealed for $1.5 billion to provide life-saving aid for some 7.8 million people in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger. Though half of the year has gone by, only one third of this urgently-needed money has been received.

The region’s four U.N. humanitarian coordinators came to Geneva this week to brief member states about the emergency facing people in the area and to plead for them not to be neglected and forgotten.

Humanitarian coordinator for Niger, Bintou Djibo, described the suffering of civilians who lack protection and run many risks in this insecure, lawless region.

“Millions of innocent women, children and men are at risk of human rights violations including kidnappings, killings, rape and sexual exploitation and abuse,” he said. “Across the region, people continue to be displaced from their homes either due to conflict, food insecurity or the effect of climate change.”

The United Nations reports 2.4 million people remain displaced because of the nine-year-old Boko Haram insurgency. It said five million people are seriously short of food and require assistance.

Djibo said malnutrition is widespread and life-threatening.

“Children are always the most vulnerable in any humanitarian crisis,” he said. “Nearly half a million children under five years are suffering from severe acute malnutrition.Without treatment, they risk death.”

Protection needs are particularly acute within Nigeria, where Boko Haram militants continue to wreak havoc with the population.

The humanitarian coordinator for Nigeria, Edward Kallon, told VOA Boko Haram is still very active, though it has changed its tactics, concentrating on suicide bombings instead of large-scale attacks.

“Boko Haram is still a potent force,” he said. “There is a lot of rhetoric that the war has been won, but the practical experience we have in the field is that it is becoming very much asymmetrical warfare and they are all scattered in small splinter groups, which makes them more potent and very risky for international staff.”

The U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Cameroon, Allegra Balocchi, said all countries in the Lake Chad Basin are affected in different degrees by this group.

“All our countries have had several hundreds if not thousands of surrender-ees — Boko Haram coming out and wanting to be given another option.I think the countries have taken advantage of this in different ways,” she said.  “I speak for Cameroon and I think we are a bit late in trying to pull together a demobilization and a stabilization strategy. So, that remains a priority.”

U.N. officials agree Boko Haram will not be defeated militarily. They say the root causes must be tackled, especially the poverty and lack of development in the four countries that have pushed many into joining the militant group.
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French President Emmanuel Macron is seeking to take the lead of the European brigade against U.S. President Donald Trump at the summit of the Group of Seven wealthy countries in Canada.

Macron called a meeting Friday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister Theresa May, new Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte and top EU officials just before the G-7 opening.

He told reporters the United States’ attitude must lead other nations to “reforge the European front.”

European leaders criticize the U.S. decision to impose protectionist tariffs on steel and aluminum and to exit the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate agreement.

Tweeting in English, Macron stressed: “No leader is eternal. We inherit commitments which are beyond us. We take them on. That is the life of nations.”

Macron launched the offensive on Thursday at a joint news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Adopting an unusually sharp tone about one of France’s closest allies, Macron rejected the idea of an American “hegemony”.

“The other countries of the G-6 are a larger market than the American market,” Macron said. “Maybe it doesn’t bother the American president to be isolated, but it doesn’t bother us to be six if need be.”

European Council President Donald Tusk, who will attend the meeting of EU leaders, said in the New York Times this week “Europe must now do everything in its power to protect the trans-Atlantic bond, in spite of today’s mood. But at the same time we must be prepared for scenarios in which we will have to act on our own.”

Macron’s initiative comes six weeks after Macron and Trump exhibited their friendship at a state visit in Washington – with exaggerated handshakes and a pair of kisses.

The two leaders talked on the phone last week after Trump announced U.S. tariffs on European goods. Macron declined to disclose details of the discussion after an unnamed source told CNN television it went badly.

He instead repeated the famous line attributed to 19th-century German statesman Otto von Bismarck about laws and sausages: ” ‘It’s best not to see them being made.’ ”

And he promised a `”frank and direct discussion'” with Trump in Canada.

 
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NATO defense ministers on Thursday unveiled plans for expanded military reinforcements by having the ability to deploy 30 troop battalions, 30 squadrons of aircraft and 30 warships within 30 days to any conflict on the European mainland.

Details of the U.S.-drafted plan remain unclear, though ministers said they aim to have it logistically operational no later than 2020.

The ministers also announced plans to strengthen its new command structure by more than 1,200 personnel spread across a new Atlantic command center based in Norfolk, Virginia, and a mainland Europe conflict logistics headquarters in Ulm, Germany. 

Briefly putting aside what NATO’s chief said were “serious differences” within the 29-member alliance, ministers agreed to a plan to protect the North Atlantic against increased Russian naval strength, move troops more quickly across Europe and have more combat-ready battalions, ships and planes.

Notably absent from Thursday’s ministerial debates: a recent White House decision to target Europe on trade, which may further raise tensions in the trans-Atlantic alliance.

The European Union, along with Canada and Mexico, have expressed irritation over new U.S. tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum, which the administration of President Donald Trump has levied on national security grounds.

“There are differences related to issues like trade, the Iran nuclear deal and climate change,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters.

“We have disagreements between NATO allies but we stand together in NATO when it comes to the core task of NATO … to protect each other.”

July summit agenda

Another challenge facing the alliance are efforts to expand membership in Eastern Europe, where Russia has long opposed NATO’s presence.

Increasing from 12 to 29 member nations through seven rounds of enlargement since 1949, NATO recently updated its website to include four countries that have declared their intent to join the alliance ahead of the July 11 summit. Those nations include Ukraine, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Georgia, and Macedonia

In a May visit to the White House, Secretary Stoltenberg said expansion will help strengthen the alliance. 

“We live in a more unpredictable world, we need a strong NATO, and we need to invest more in our security,” he said in an interview with VOA.

Former Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, the U.S. permanent representative to NATO, said the United States is working to help applicant nations meet the requirements for membership.

“We are there to give them the standards, to help them get there, and that’s what the open door policy is,” she said.

Former NATO deputy secretary general Alexander Vershbow, however, said countering malign Russian influence in the Balkans will remain a vital part of securing membership, citing recent evidence of Russian meddling in Macedonia’s domestic politics.

“Russians are perhaps more persistent and little bit more unscrupulous in their methods, but they have been long trying to discourage Western Balkan countries from joining NATO,” he told VOA. “Macedonia, I think, is the prime target right now, because the possibility of breakthrough between Macedonia and Greece on the name issue opens the way to possible negotiations on membership even this year.”

Greece opposes Macedonia’s name, saying it amounts to a territorial claim on a synonymous northern Greek region. Western involvement in the name dispute could ease Macedonia’s entry into NATO, but only if the country can meet the alliance’s strict requirements.

Matthew Nimetz, UN moderator on the Greek-Macedonian name dispute, told VOA that recent talks on the issue were productive.

“These were very workmanlike talks,” he said of recent meetings in New York. “The issues are well defined. The issues have been narrowed. We still don’t have a final resolution of the issues, but both sides are determined to do enough to try to reach an agreement and are working very hard to do that.”

Another key requirement for membership: a pledge to spend at least 2 percent of a country’s gross domestic product on defense.

Only five member nations — the Greece, Britain, Estonia, Poland, and the United States — currently meet that requirement.

Upon arriving in office, Trump repeatedly criticized NATO member countries for not contributing their fair share to the alliance. In a 2017 speech to NATO members, he failed to reiterate the U.S. commitment to NATO’s Article 5 pledge of mutual defense, rattling NATO allies.

The White House on Wednesday said President Donald Trump will travel to Brussels to attend a NATO summit scheduled for July 11-12, followed by a July 13 visit to Britain.

This story originated in VOA’s Macedonian Service. 
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Russian President Vladimir Putin held his annual televised call-in show with Russians on Thursday in a semi-choreographed event that highlighted the Russian president’s efforts to raise living standards at home while defending Russian interests abroad. 

Amid Putin’s 18-year rule, the so-called “Direct Line” has emerged as a key symbol of Russia’s top-down system of government, in which Putin often sits as the sole arbiter of problems befalling citizens of the world’s largest country.

State media claimed that Russians submitted over 2.5 million questions to the Russian leader on topics ranging from health care to gas prices, pension payments, mortgage rates and much, much more. 

Despite a grueling live answering session before cameras, the limits of that format were also on display: Putin fielded under a hundred questions in just under 4.5 hours. 

Good (economics) vibrations

As anticipated, domestic issues dominated the session. 

Indeed, Putiin claimed improving Russians’ lives was his priority after a landslide re-election last March that was marred by accusations of vote tampering but secured Putin’s rule through 2024. 

Addressing the economy early on, Putin argued that Russia’s finances were “on the right path” and re-emphasized campaign calls that — despite western sanctions — Russia was poised for “breakthroughs” in its development. 

“Overall, we are heading in the right direction,” said Putin. “We have started on the trajectory toward robust economic growth in Russia. Yes, this growth is modest, small, but it is also not falling backward.”

The Russian leader again touched on a campaign pledge to halve Russia’s poverty rate in his next, and — in theory — final six-year term. 

Asked by the event’s moderator whether the current government — whose leadership has gone largely unchanged from his previous term  — was capable of reaching that goal, Putin assured the “government team was optimal.” 

Foreign policy classics 

The event also contained Putin’s well-worn barbs against the West — with the United States, in particular, a long favorite target.  

Putin said that U.S. allies in Europe — currently engaged in a tariff showdown with the Trump administration — were slowly warming to the message he’d been delivering for years: U.S. foreign and economic policy was aimed at extending American power at the expense of the rest of the world. 

“It appears our partners thought that this would never affect them, this counterproductive politics of restrictions and sanctions,” said Putin. “But now we are seeing that this is happening.”

Putin also accused the U.S. of fueling a Cold War-style arms race by abandoning key nuclear arms treaties, while expressing hope that the threat of mutual annihilation would continue to play a deterrent role. 

“The understanding that a third world war could be the end of civilization should restrain us,” said the Russian leader.

In a related exchange, Putin assured that a new generation of Russian super weapons — unveiled by Putin in a high-profile speech before Russia’s Federal Council last March — were largely now operational and ready to defend Russia, despite doubts from outside experts.

 Hot wars

Russia’s very real conflicts also figured prominently.  

In Ukraine, where Russia has been engaged in a simmering proxy war since 2014, Putin suggested the government in Kyiv would pay a heavy price if rumors of a planned summer offensive against Russian-backed rebels in the country’s east proved true.  

“If this happens, I think it would have very serious consequences for the Ukrainian government in general,” said Putin. 

When asked about Russia’s ongoing military campaign in Syria, Putin argued Russia’s military had gained valuable experience from participating in the Syrian conflict but seemed to walk back earlier repeated calls for a large-scale withdrawal of Russian forces. 

“Our soldiers are there in order to secure Russia’s interests in this critically important part of the world, which is so near to us. And they will stay there, for as long as it is in Russia’s interest for them to do so.”

Same old same old

Given this was the 16th Direct Line over the course of Putin’s rule, the event had an air of predictability that even the Russian president seemed to acknowledge. On several occasions, Putin noted several topics had been raised in past call-in programs.  

When asked whether he had chosen a possible successor, the Russian leader again demurred, noting it was a “traditional question.”

Yet the event was not without at least some surprises. For the first time, a live studio audience was jettisoned in favor of video and phone appeals fielded by young pro-Kremlin “volunteers.” 

Key governors and ministers were also a new part of the show, remaining on a direct video feed to address problems in real time — and occasionally faced admonishment from the president — when policies clashed with realities on the ground.

Informed theater

Debate has long simmered over just how choreographed the Direct Line truly is.  Obvious propaganda-style cutaways to highlight the government’s achievements mix with genuine complaints to create an atmosphere of what some called “informed theater.” 

Adding to that blur were screens in the background that posed apparently unfiltered — and occasionally uncomfortable — questions to the Russian leader.

“Why is there money for tanks, bombs, planes and machine guns, but no money for the people?” went one text message that appeared briefly on screen.

If Putin saw the prompt, it went unacknowledged.  

Regardless, the Russian leader looked far more comfortable than he was during a recent interview with Austria’s national ORF channel in which Putin repeatedly grew testy over the journalist’s line of inquiry and repeated follow-up questions. 

Direct Line offered none of that, and Putin seemed to enjoy the comfortable questions from Russian state media hosts.   

“Vladimir Putin, you received a record level of support during the last elections. Do you feel lonely at the top of political Olympus? Lonely without any competitors or competition?”  

“No, I’m not lonely,” he replied, adding, “I have my team.”  

With that, the Russian leader stared at the screen. 
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A 500-year-old copy of a letter in which Christopher Columbus describes his voyage to the Americas has been returned to Spain after U.S. authorities tracked down the document, which had been stolen and replaced with a forgery years ago.

The letter, copied centuries ago from the one Columbus wrote to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain after his first Atlantic crossing, was given to Spain’s Ambassador Pedro Morenes in Washington, law enforcement authorities said on Thursday.

The repatriation of the letter follows seven years of sleuthing by U.S. law enforcement agencies after the discovery that it had been replaced by a forgery at the National Library of Catalonia in Barcelona.

“We are truly honored to return this historically important document back to Spain — its rightful owner,” U.S. Attorney for Delaware David Weiss said in a statement.

Columbus, born in Genoa in modern-day Italy, had written the letter in Spanish after his return to Europe in 1493. Ferdinand and Isabella, who sponsored his voyage, sent the document to Rome to be translated into Latin and manually copied, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jamie McCall said.

“A number of these copies were made and then delivered to various kings and queens in Europe to spread the news of Columbus’s discoveries,” McCall said by telephone.

A Latin copy of the letter, in which Columbus describes the mountains, fertile fields, gold and indigenous people he encountered in the Caribbean, is the one that was illegally swapped for a forgery at the Barcelona library, McCall said.

Authorities said they discovered the theft after a tip in 2011 to an assistant U.S. attorney in Delaware who had become experienced in the subject.

Because the library had digitized its collection before the theft, U.S. investigators said they and Spanish authorities were able to determine in 2012 that the letter it had was a forgery.

The real letter, they said, had been sold in November 2005 by two Italian book dealers for 600,000 euros.

After learning in March 2013 that it had been sold again in 2011 for 900,000 euros, authorities said they made contact with the person who had the letter. They said that person was unaware that it had been stolen.

They said they later concluded “beyond all doubt” that it was the letter taken from the Barcelona library and got it back.

The case is still under investigation, McCall said.
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Leaders of the world’s top industrialized democracies will meet in Quebec, Canada, this weekend at a time of growing tensions over trade and other issues While the G-7 Summit is likely to be overshadowed by another historic meeting next week in Singapore, analysts say the G-7 summit is likely to be no less consequential to the future of the global economy or the continued international leadership of the United States. Mil Arcega has more.
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Vladimir Putin, on a living standards drive at the start of a new presidential term, is expected to try to fix Russians’ everyday problems on live TV later Thursday, handing out real-time orders to regional governors and government ministers.

Putin, who won a landslide re-election victory in March, has taken part in the annual phone-in since 2001, using it to cast himself as a decisive troubleshooter on the home front and as a staunch defender of Russia’s interests on the world stage.

Political theater

Critics say the event, which is being held days before Russia hosts the soccer World Cup, is a stage-managed piece of theater designed to let Russians let off steam and fleetingly feel like they can influence a bureaucratic top-down system.

Putin and his aides say it is an indispensable tool to gauge public sentiment and learn what people’s real problems are.

The 65-year-old politician used the event last year to pledge to eradicate spiraling poverty, fielding almost 70 questions in just less than four hours in an event that Kremlin watchers often liken to a tsar listening to his petitioners.

This year, the Interfax news agency reported Putin would forgo his usual studio audience, field text and video questions on a series of TV monitors, and hand out real time orders to regional governors and government ministers who have been told to be at their desks when the event starts at 0900 GMT.

1.4 million questions

Members of the public have submitted more than 1.4 million questions, Russian news agencies reported, many of them visible on a special website set up for the event.

Questions posted ahead of the event included asking Putin whether he planned to meet U.S. President Donald Trump this year, whether relations with the West would improve anytime soon, how he planned to reduce poverty, and why petrol prices were rising so fast.

Putin, who is at the start of a new six-year term in office, always fields a smattering of foreign policy questions, which he typically uses to lash out at the West with whom Moscow’s relations are at a post Cold War low.

This year, he is expected to focus more heavily on domestic issues because he has said the main priority of his fourth term is raising living standards by sharply increasing social and infrastructure spending.
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Ukrainian journalists have been left puzzled and feeling uneasy since the Ukrainian security service (SBU) staged the assassination of Russian reporter Arkady Babchenko, a U.S. media watchdog says.

Ukrainian authorities have said the elaborate operation was designed to foil a Russian plot to assassinate Babchenko and other members of the Ukrainian media. 

The Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday that Ukrainian media staffers were upset by SBU’s revelation that it had discovered a “hit list” of 47 journalists, bloggers and activists who may allegedly be targeted by assassins. But veteran journalists told CPJ that while they were perturbed by the news of the list, they were used to being under threat.

Many questioned why the SBU would go through all the trouble to protect Babchenko when it has yet to solve the daylight car bombing that killed Russian journalist Pavel Sheremet in 2016.

“I feel the same as I felt before the Babchenko case,” TV reporter Nastya Stanko told CPJ. “I didn’t feel safe then, and I don’t feel safe now.”

Stanko said the Babchenko case had, in fact, made things worse for journalists.

“When some journalists spoke their mind and said journalists shouldn’t work with security services, Babchenko himself said that he wished for these ‘betrayers’ to have a killer knocking on their door,” she said. “I think we are now at a greater risk of that than before.”
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