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British Prime Minister Theresa May will urge U.S. President Donald Trump to avoid protesters in central London during his UK visit in July and instead meet her at her country residence, the Sun newspaper reported on Sunday.

The details of the plan will be given to the White House by Kim Darroch, British ambassador to the United States, the report said.

There are two proposals that will be made to the White House by Darroch upon May’s approval – one for a Downing Street visit or one based at Chequers, a 16th-century manor house 60 km (40 miles) northwest of London – the report said, citing a source, who added it would be made clear that May prefers the meeting take place at Chequers.

Trump will also be asked to have tea with Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle, a royal residence west of London and not at Buckingham Palace, according to the report.

Darroch will suggest to the White House that Trump does not visit Britain’s houses of parliament, the Sun reported.

May’s office was not immediately available for comment. Trump will travel to Britain in July for a working visit with May, after months of back-and-forth over when the U.S. president would visit what traditionally has been the United States’ closest ally.

Many Britons have vowed to stage protests if Trump visits, with several politicians having previously voiced their opposition to Trump being granted a state visit.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said earlier in the year Trump was not welcome in London because of what he called Trump’s “divisive agenda”.

Trump cancelled a trip to London to open a new embassy earlier in the year. May was the first international leader to visit Trump in Washington after his inauguration last year.

 
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High-ranking military officials from the U.S., France and Germany have taken part in Memorial Day ceremonies at an American cemetery in northern France to mark the centennial of the battle of Belleau Wood, a turning point in World War I and a key moment in Marine Corps history.

The ceremony at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in the village of Belleau on Sunday included speeches by military officials, including Gen. Robert Neller, commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, prayers, wreath laying, reading of poems and the national anthems of the three countries.

A crowd of more than 5,000 attended the event celebrating the fierce and deadly monthlong battle considered as the first major engagement of U.S. troops in the war, especially Marines whose bravery helped the Allied Forces win in Belleau.

 
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Four Russian servicemen have been killed by “militant fire” in Syria, Russia’s defense ministry said Sunday. 

Five other soldiers were wounded in the incident in Syria’s eastern Deir Ezzor province, according to the ministry, when “several mobile terrorist groups attacked a Syrian government artillery position at night.”   The ministry said the Russian casualties were “military advisors” to the Syrian troops

The statement did not say when the fighting occurred, although several reports suggested it may have taken place last Wednesday.

A monitor for the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told the French News Agency nine Russian soldiers died Wednesday alongside at least 26 Syrian troops near Mayadeen town in Deir Ezzor.

The statement said 43 militants were killed in the resulting clashes.

The Russian statement raised the official count of Russian soldiers killed in Syria to 92.

 
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British Prime Minister Theresa May faced demands from ministers and lawmakers in her Conservative party to reform Northern Ireland’s highly restrictive abortion rules after neighboring Ireland’s vote to liberalize its laws.

Voters in Ireland, a once deeply Catholic nation, backed the change by two-to-one, a far higher margin than any opinion poll in the run up to the vote had predicted.

Penny Mordaunt, Britain’s women and equalities minister, said that the victory to legalize abortion should now bring change north of the Irish border.

“A historic and great day for Ireland and a hopeful one for Northern Ireland,” Mordaunt said. “That hope must be met.”

Northern Ireland has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe with even rape and fatal foetal abnormality not considered legal grounds for a termination.

And unlike other parts of the United Kingdom, abortions are banned apart from when the life or mental health of the mother is in danger.

Since the collapse of a power sharing administration in Northern Ireland at the beginning of last year, British officials have been taking major decisions in the region.

But any moves to change the law could destabilize the British government by antagonizing the socially conservative Democratic Unionist Party, which May depends on for her parliamentary majority.

More than 130 members of Britain’s parliament, including lawmakers in the ruling Conservative party, are prepared to back an amendment to a new domestic violence bill to allow abortions in Northern Ireland, the Sunday Times newspaper reported.

Anne Milton, an education minister, on Sunday urged the prime minister to allow a free vote in parliament.

Sarah Wollaston, the chair of the health select committee and a lawmaker in May’s party, said she would support the proposed amendment and said Northern Ireland should at least be given a vote to decide.

A spokeswoman for May said changing the rules on abortion is a decision that should be taken by a devolved assembly and the government is working to revive the power-sharing agreement.

Northern Ireland’s elected assembly has the right to bring its abortion laws in line with the rest of Britain, but voted against doing so in February 2016 and the assembly has not sat since the devolved government collapsed in January 2017.
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Russian state gas giant Gazprom said Saturday it had signed a protocol with the Turkish government on a planned gas pipeline and agreed with Turkish firm Botas to end an arbitration dispute over the terms of gas supplies. 

The protocol concerned the land-based part of the transit leg of the TurkStream gas pipeline, which Gazprom said meant that work to implement it could now begin.

Turkey had delayed issuing a permit for the Russian company to start building the land-based parts of the pipeline, which, if completed, would allow Moscow to reduce its reliance on Ukraine as a transit route for its gas supplies to Europe.

A source said in February the permit problem might be related to talks between Gazprom and Botas about a possible discount for Russian gas.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said earlier Saturday that Turkey and Russia had reached a retroactive agreement for a 10.25 percent discount on the natural gas Ankara buys from Moscow.

Gazprom said in the Saturday statement, without elaborating, that the dispute with Botas would be settled out of court.

 
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Italy’s would-be coalition parties turned up the pressure on President Sergio Mattarella on Saturday to endorse their euroskeptic pick as economy minister, saying the only other option might be a new election.

Mattarella has held up formation of a government, which would end more than 80 days of political deadlock, over concern about the desire of the far-right League and anti-establishment 5-Star Movement to make economist Paolo Savona, 81, economy minister.

Savona has been a vocal critic of the euro and the European Union, but he has distinguished credentials, including in a former role as an industry minister.

Formally, Prime Minister-designate Giuseppe Conte presents his cabinet to the president, who must endorse it. Conte, a little-known law professor with no political experience, met the president on Friday without resolving the

deadlock.

“I hope no one has already decided ‘no,’ ” League leader Matteo Salvini shouted to supporters in northern Italy. “Either the government gets off the ground and starts working in the coming hours, or we might as well go back to elections.”

Later, 5-Star leader Luigi Di Maio said he expected there to be a decision on whether the president would back the government within 24 hours.

5-Star also defended Savona’s nomination. “It is a political choice. … Blocking a ministerial choice is beyond [the president’s] role,” Alessandro Di Battista, a top 5-Star politician, said.

Mattarella has not spoken publicly about Savona, but through his aides he has made it clear he does not want an anti-euro economy minister and that he would not accept the “diktat” of the parties.

Jittery markets

Savona’s criticism of the euro and German economic policy has further spooked markets already concerned about the future government’s willingness to rein in the massive debt, worth 1.3 times the country’s annual output.

The League and 5-Star have said Savona should not be judged on his opinions, but on his credentials. Savona has had high-level experience at the Bank of Italy, in government as industry minister in 1993-94, and with employers lobby Confindustria.

On his new Facebook page, Conte said he had received best wishes for his government in a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron.

European Commissioner for Economic Affairs Pierre Moscovici was not hostile when asked about Savona in an interview with France’s Europe1 radio, saying he would work with whomever Italy named.

“Italians decide their own government,” Moscovici said. “Italy is and should remain a country at the heart of the eurozone. … What worries me is the debt, which must be contained.”

The prospect of Italy’s government going on a spending spree on promised tax cuts and welfare benefits roiled markets last week.

On Friday, the closely watched gap between the Italian and German 10-year bond yields, seen as a measure of political risk for the eurozone, was at its widest in four years at 215 basis points.

The chance that the new government will weaken public finances and roll back a 2011 pension reform prompted Moody’s to say — after markets had closed Friday — that it might downgrade the country’s sovereign debt rating.

Moody’s has a Baa2 long-term rating with a negative outlook on Italy. A downgrade to Baa3 would take the country’s debt to just one notch above junk.

Despite the recent surge, Italian yields are well below the peaks they reached during the eurozone crisis of 2011-12, thanks mainly to the shield provided by the European Central Bank’s bond-buying program.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met in Moscow on Saturday for talks on such matters as resolving a dispute over four Pacific islands and eventually signing a peace treaty.

Abe has been pushing for a way forward in the dispute that centers on the four most southern of the Kuril Islands, which Japan calls the Northern Territories.

The Soviet Union took the islands in the closing days of World War II. The dispute has kept the two countries from signing a peace treaty formally ending World War II hostilities.

Japan is seeking to implement joint business projects on the Kuril Islands as a way to gain momentum to resolve the dispute.

“The Japanese and the Russians will be able to reap the fruits of the joint work on the islands,” Abe said. “If we cooperate, we can achieve great results that bring mutual benefit.” 

Putin said after the meeting that a Japanese business delegation would visit the islands this year.
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Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced Friday that his country will formally become NATO’s first Latin American “global partner,” beginning next week.

In a televised address from the presidential Narino Palace and on Twitter, Santos said: “We will formalize in Brussels next week — and this is very important — the entry of Colombia into NATO in the category of global partner. We will be the only country in Latin America with this privilege.”

Santos, the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who made peace with FARC rebels, said the move would improve Colombia’s image on the world stage.

Colombia and NATO reached a partnership deal in May 2017 following the conclusion of the peace accord with FARC, now a political party.

Areas of cooperation include cybersecurity, maritime security, terrorism and its links to organized crime, and building the capacities and capabilities of the Colombian armed forces, according to a statement posted on NATO’s website.

In addition to Colombia, NATO lists Afghanistan, Australia, Iraq, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mongolia, New Zealand and Pakistan as “partners across the globe” or simply “global partners.”

Each country “has developed an Individual Partnership Cooperation Program” with the 29-country U.S.-led alliance. Many of them are actively contributing to NATO missions.
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Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former Russian oil tycoon-turned-Kremlin foe who spent a decade in prison and now lives in exile, says fellow Kremlin critics should not boycott the upcoming 2018 FIFA World Cup, slated to kick off June 14 in Russia.

Russian aggression abroad, along with domestic human rights violations, has “obviously caused a serious split, both inside Russian society and in the West,” Khodorkovsky said.

“There are thoughts about boycotting it, and thoughts about just turning a blind eye to everything happening in Russia during the event. But I think that boycotting the championship would be a big mistake if you think about teams going to Russia, and people and fans visiting the country,” he said. “The championship is a way to show everyday Russians that Russia is not surrounded by enemies, and that the Kremlin has largely invented them.”

On the other hand, Khodorkovsky added, “I do believe Western leaders would be making a mistake if they were to visit the man who has created a fully authoritarian regime and has surrounded himself with a criminal clique.”

“This would be a mistake, because it would be seen as encouragement, and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin should not be encouraged,” he said. “Therefore, there should be a very clear stance: ‘Yes, we are visiting the Russian society, but we are not visiting the Kremlin criminal clique.’ ”

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch recently called on world leaders to boycott the tournament’s opening ceremony unless Putin takes steps to protect Syrian civilians.

Russia, which hosts the World Cup for the first time this year, is a key backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the country’s seven-year war, and the New York-based watchdog argued that Moscow’s responsibility in the suffering of Syrian civilians should not be overlooked.

The organization also said the monthlong World Cup tournament, which would be viewed by billions worldwide, will take place amid the worst domestic “human rights crisis in Russia since the Soviet era.”

Its statement followed a call in April by dozens of European parliamentarians who signed an open letter pleading with EU governments to boycott the tournament, calling the March 4 poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain “just the latest chapter in Putin’s mockery of our European values.”

On Thursday, a letter signed by families of the 40 Australians who were killed aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 as it flew over eastern Ukraine in July 2014 said recent revelations that a Russia-based military unit almost certainly fired on the commercial airliner cast a “dark shadow” over the tournament, and that Australians should boycott this year’s event out of respect for the dead.

This story originated in VOA’s Russian service.
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The people of Ireland appear set to liberalize some of the world’s most restrictive abortion laws by a landslide, an exit poll showed Friday, as voters demanded change in what two decades ago was one of Europe’s most socially conservative countries.

The Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI exit poll suggested that voters in the once deeply Catholic nation had backed a ballot proposal by a margin of 68 percent to 32 percent. A second exit poll was due to be published by 2230 GMT (11:30 p.m. in Dublin).

Turnout could be one of the highest for a referendum, national broadcaster RTE reported, potentially topping the 61 percent who backed gay marriage by a large margin in 2015, as voters queued outside polling stations throughout the day in the blistering sunshine.

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who was in favor of change and called the referendum a once-in-a-generation chance, said earlier Friday that he was “quietly confident” that the high turnout was a good sign.

Vote counting begins at 0800 GMT on Saturday (9 a.m. in Dublin), with the first indication of results expected at midmorning.

Voters were asked if they wished to scrap a 1983 amendment to the constitution that gives an unborn child and its mother equal rights to life. The consequent prohibition on abortion was partly lifted in 2013 for cases where the mother’s life is in danger.

Ireland legalized divorce by a razor-thin majority only in 1995, but became the first country to adopt gay marriage by popular vote in a 2015 referendum.

But no social issue has divided its 4.8 million people as sharply as abortion, which was pushed up the political agenda by the death in 2012 of a 31-year-old Indian immigrant from a septic miscarriage after she was refused a termination.

“I think this issue is important because it’s been 35 years since any person has had a choice to vote,” said Sophie O’Gara, 28, who was voting “Yes” near Dublin’s bustling Silicon Docks, home to some of the world’s biggest technology firms.

“So many women have traveled across to England to take care of their family and health care needs, and I think it’s a disgrace and it needs to change,” she said, referring to women who travel to Britain for abortions.

Fierce campaign

The fiercely contested vote has divided political parties, seen the once-mighty church take a back seat, and become a test case for how global internet giants deal with social media advertising in political campaigns.

Unlike in 1983, when religion was front and center and abortion was a taboo subject for most, the campaign was defined by women on both sides publicly describing their personal experiences of terminations.

“Yes” campaigners have argued that with over 3,000 women traveling to Britain each year for terminations — a right enshrined in a 1992 referendum — and others ordering pills illegally online, abortion is already a reality in Ireland.

Although not on the ballot paper, the “No” camp has seized on government plans to allow abortions with no restriction up to 12 weeks into a pregnancy if the ballot proposal is approved, calling it a human rights issue and a step too far for most voters.

“I think it’s important that we protect the unborn babies. People don’t care anymore about the dignity of human life. I’ve a family myself and I think it’s really important,” said John Devlin, a marketing worker in his 50s voting “No” near Dublin’s city center.

The Irish government’s push to liberalize the laws is in contrast to the United States, where abortion has long been legal, but President Donald Trump backs stripping federal funding from women’s health care clinics that offer abortions.

​Home to vote

Videos shared on social media showed scores of voters arriving home at Irish airports from abroad. Ireland does not allow expatriates to vote via mail or in embassies, but those away for less than 18 months remain on the electoral roll.

As with the gay marriage referendum, those using the #hometovote hashtag on Twitter appeared overwhelmingly to back change. Many posted photos of themselves wearing sweatshirts bearing the “Repeal” slogan.

“Women and girls should not be made into health care refugees when they are in a time of crisis,” said Niamh Kelly, 27, who paid 800 euros and traveled 20 hours to return home from Hanoi where she works as an English teacher. She called the vote a once-in-a-lifetime chance “to lift the culture of shame that surrounds this issue, so it was really important to me to be part of that.”
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Voters in Ireland are going to the polls Friday to decide whether to keep or repeal a constitutional amendment banning abortions in most cases.

The existing amendment has been in place since 1983 and originally banned all abortions before a change was made five years ago to allow abortions in cases where the mother’s life is in danger.

If voters decide in Friday’s referendum to further loosen the rules, Prime Minister Leo Varadkar’s government intends to put forth legislation by the end of the year allowing abortions with no restrictions up to 12 weeks into a pregnancy.

Recent opinion polls indicate most people surveyed favor lifting the abortion ban.

Currently thousands of women travel each year from Ireland to Britain in order to have abortions.

The counting of votes gets underway Saturday morning.
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Nations that remain in the Iran nuclear deal meet on Friday for the first time since U.S. President Donald Trump left the pact, but diplomats see limited scope to salvage it after Washington vowed to be tougher than ever on Tehran.

British, Chinese, French, German and Russian officials will try to flesh out with Iran’s deputy foreign minister a strategy to save the deal by keeping oil and investment flowing, while circumventing U.S. sanctions that risk hurting the economy.

The 2015 accord rests on lifting sanctions and allowing business with Iran in exchange for Tehran curbing its nuclear program. The deal’s proponents say it is crucial to forestalling a nuclear Iran and preventing wider war in the Middle East.

But U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday threatened the Islamic Republic with “the strongest sanctions in history” if it did not change its behavior in the Middle East.

“Pompeo was like taking a cold shower,” said a European diplomat. “We’ll try to cling to the deal hoping that there is a possibility of a transaction, but we’re under no illusions.”

At the heart of Friday’s talks, chaired by the European Union, Iranian officials will seek guarantees from the Europeans that they can protect trade. They will also want assurances that all parties will continue to buy Iranian oil.

Iran’s supreme leader set out a series of conditions on Wednesday for Iran to stay in the deal.

“This is a very important meeting that will show whether the other parties are serious about the deal or not,” an Iranian official told Reuters. “We will understand whether, as our leader, said, the European can give us reliable guarantees or not.”

Highlighting how difficult it will be, the U.S. Treasury announced Thursday more sanctions on several Iranian and Turkish companies and a number of aircraft in a move targeting four Iranian airlines.

Some Western companies have already quit Iran or said they may have to leave because of U.S. sanctions.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif said he expected the other signatories to present “a new package” that would be within the boundaries of the agreement, but did not include “any other issues.”

Trump denounced the accord, completed under his predecessor Barack Obama, because it did not cover Iran’s ballistic missile program, its role in Middle East conflicts or what happens after the deal begins to expire in 2025.

While European nations share those concerns, they have said that as long as Tehran meets its commitments, they would remain in the deal.

The U.N. atomic watchdog policing the pact said on Thursday Iran continued to comply with the terms of the deal, but could be faster and more proactive in allowing snap inspections.

“The European desire to remain in the agreement does not, however, detract from the concerns we have with regard to Iran,” France’s foreign ministry spokeswoman said on Thursday.

“That is why we proposed to establish a comprehensive negotiating framework with Iran. We want Iran to understand the value of a cooperative approach.”
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U.S. tech companies would be forced to disclose if they allowed American adversaries, like Russia and China, to examine the inner workings of software sold to the U.S. military under proposed legislation, Senate staff told Reuters on Thursday.

The bill, approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, comes after a year-long Reuters investigation found software makers allowed a Russian defense agency to hunt for vulnerabilities in software that was already deeply embedded in some of the most sensitive parts of the U.S. government, including the Pentagon, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and intelligence agencies.

Security experts say allowing Russian authorities to conduct the reviews of internal software instructions — known as source code — could help Russia find vulnerabilities and more easily attack key systems that protect the United States. 

The new source code disclosure rules were included in Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act, the Pentagon’s spending bill, according to staffers of Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen.

​Details of bill, which passed the committee 25-2, are not yet public. And the legislation still needs to be voted on by the full Senate and reconciled with a House version of the legislation before it can be signed into law by President Donald Trump.

If passed into law, the legislation would require companies that do business with the U.S. military to disclose any source code review of the software done by adversaries, staffers for Shaheen told Reuters. If the Pentagon deems a source code review a risk, military officials and the software company would need to agree on how to contain the threat. It could, for example, involve limiting the software’s use to non-classified settings.

The details of the foreign source code reviews, and any steps the company agreed to take to reduce the risks, would be stored in a database accessible to military officials, Shaheen’s staffers said. For most products, the military notification will only apply to countries determined to be cybersecurity threats, such as Russia and China.

Shaheen has been a key voice on cybersecurity in Congress. The New Hampshire senator last year led successful efforts in Congress to ban all government use of software provided by Moscow-based antivirus firm Kaspersky Lab, amid allegations the company is linked to Russian intelligence. Kaspersky denies such links.

In order to sell in the Russian market, tech companies including Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co, SAP and McAfee have allowed a Russian defense agency to scour software source code for vulnerabilities, Reuters found. In many cases, Reuters found that the software companies had not previously informed U.S. agencies that Russian authorities had been allowed to conduct the source code reviews. In most cases, the U.S. military does not require comparable source code reviews before it buys software, procurement experts have told Reuters. 

The companies have said the source code reviews were conducted by the Russians in company-controlled facilities, where the reviewer could not copy or alter the software. McAfee announced last year that it no longer allows government source code reviews. Hewlett Packard Enterprise has said none of its current software offerings have gone through the process.
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