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With just days to go until the U.S. midterm elections, there are growing fears that Russia’s efforts to undermine U.S. democracy extend far beyond the polls on Nov. 6 or the presidential election in 2020.

Defense and security officials worry that as part of Moscow’s plan to sow division and discord, it is trying to conquer the U.S. military — not with bullets or missiles but with tweets and memes.

The tactic is an outgrowth of Russia’s overarching strategy to find seams within U.S. society where distrust or anger exist and widen those divisions with targeted messaging.

In the case of the U.S. military, according to current and former U.S. and Western officials, the Kremlin’s aim is likely to establish what is known as reflexive control. By seeding U.S. troops with the right type of disinformation, they say, Russia can predispose them to make choices or decisions that are favorable for Moscow.

The exact extent to which U.S. military personnel have been targeted or swayed is unclear.

VOA spoke with multiple defense and security officials, all of whom declined to comment on the nature or scope of Russia’s military-oriented influence operations. Still, almost all of the officials admitted Russia’s targeting of U.S. military personnel with influence operations, and the way it is being done, is a concern.

“We know it goes on,” said Ed Wilson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy. “That’s why we’ve amped up and increased the attention that we’re paying.

“We’re taking a renewed look at how we train and educate the broader force,” he said, noting that efforts go beyond just the military to the Defense Department’s partner agencies.

The former commanding general for Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, Army Lt. Gen. Paul Funk, described the need to educate and shield troops from disinformation campaigns as a matter of “force protection.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a physical force or an information force,” Funk said. “Are you concerned about it? Of course. Do you have to have campaigns where you inform your soldiers of those kinds of things that happen? Sure.”

Reflexive control

Officials and experts say Russia’s use of influence operations to target the U.S. armed forces should come as no surprise. Russian President Vladimir Putin has tested the approach, using social media especially, in places like Ukraine, and since then it has become an ever more critical part of Russia’s overarching strategy.

“There’s nothing new with Russia or the Soviet Union wanting to have that degree of influence,” Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in September. “This is really kind of something that is in Putin’s DNA as a former KGB agent.”

U.S. officials have been aware of the effort for some time. At least as far back as March 2017, a Defense Information School presentation to Army public affairs officers identified disinformation on social media as a high-risk problem, capable of eroding “trust and confidence” in the ranks as well as in the Army as a whole.

But much of the military’s focus in dealing with social media, at least from what has been shared publicly, has concentrated on scams targeting military personnel, or on inappropriate or even unlawful behavior.

Some top U.S. officials have tried to downplay the dangers of Russia’s influence operation, saying in some ways the threat posed to U.S. troops is no different from the threat to anyone else.

“Like all Americans, we have to be alert to the people who would try to manipulate an election in the information age, when there’s so many feeds coming in to everybody,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said when asked about the threat in August.

“Certainly, we pay attention to that,” Mattis said. “But it’s part of the larger domain of protecting America.”

Already working?

Experts worry that simply treating the Russian influence operations targeting the military as an American problem and not a military problem has left the U.S. military vulnerable to Russia’s social media onslaught.

“U.S. military personnel and veterans — it is the uncovered stone in the Russian influence effort that no one is really taking enough of an interest in,” said Clint Watts, a former FBI special agent and now a senior fellow at George Washington University’s Center for Cyber and Homeland Security.

And Watts, who has testified before Congress on Russian influence operations, thinks the Russians have already made considerable headway.

“At the enlisted ranks in the U.S. military, Russia won over a huge base of support in this country that still continues on today,” he said.

Some of the early Russian success could be traced back to the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, when their push to sway the election in favor of then-candidate Donald Trump, amplifying messages like “America First” and his tough talk on terrorism, may have resonated with rank-and-file members of the military.

A May 2016 unscientific survey by the Military Times found “Donald Trump emerged as active-duty service members’ preference to become the next U.S. president, topping Hillary Clinton by more than a 2-to-1 margin.”

More recent polling by Military Times and the Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) at Syracuse University suggests opinions may be changing. More than 70 percent of troops surveyed said Russia was a significant threat, an increase of 18 percent from the previous year.

Yet experts and former officials say there is evidence to suggest Russian influence operations targeting U.S. military personnel and their families have continued unabated.

“Whether that’s Facebook, Twitter and others, we’re seeing where it [Russia] is focusing on identifying affinity groups,” said Heather Conley, a former deputy assistant secretary of state during the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush.

Now a senior vice president for Europe, Eurasia and the Arctic at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, Conley says the military is just one of several such groups in Russia’s sights, such as law enforcement and religious organizations.

“These unwittingly are being used to promote disinformation and malign influence,” she said. “It starts identifying the key voices within these broader groups.”

Phony military ties

At least in part, Russia has been trying to reach out to those voices on platforms like Twitter, using fake accounts purporting to be those of Americans with ties to the military.

In Twitter’s latest release of accounts linked to Russia’s Internet Research Agency (on Oct. 17), at least 39 had user descriptions promoting links to the military.

Some gained little to no traction, like one that described the user as “Fighting to Make America Great Again strong #military supporter. Combat #Vet ????#OORAH Ret. #Frogman ???? #Sheepdog #Patriot ???? Follow me,” which did not attract a single follower.

Others did better, getting hundreds of followers. One Russian account, describing the user as a “Proud AMERICAN, wife, mother, conservative, served my country in USMC,” had more than 2,000 followers.

“We certainly are still seeing a lot of the accounts that we’re looking at that continue to have what seemed to be clear military connections,” Bret Schafer, a social media analyst for the German Marshall Fund of the United States’ Alliance for Securing Democracy, told VOA.

Schafer, along with his colleagues, have been studying Russia’s outreach on social media to U.S. military personnel and their families. He said the use of terms like “veteran” or “Navy mom” is not unusual.

“You’ll see a lot of banners on Twitter, the account pictures that will be kind of non-identifiable in terms of a specific person, but a member of the military or just some sort of graphic that connotes that person is part of the military or a family member,” he said.

Still, Schafer said it is difficult to determine just how much Russia has managed to penetrate the U.S. military community, whether on Twitter or other social media platforms, like Facebook.

“My guess is a lot of this probably would be happening more in closed Facebook groups in which there are many with the military, and frankly, nobody has any idea what’s really happening for those groups, because of course Facebook doesn’t share those with researchers,” he said.

Isolated community

And there are worries that the U.S. military may be especially vulnerable as officials admit the defense community’s connection to the rest of the country is as weak as it has been in a long time.

“My concern is the broader isolation from the community we serve, and that’s a discussion [in Congress] as well,” Army Secretary Mark Esper said during a breakfast forum in August. “On the Army staff alone, you look at any number of the senior leaders, I think they all have at least one son or daughter, if not more, who are army officers or who are serving.”

“We’ve become more segmented,” said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee. “I’m very concerned about that.”

Reed, like Esper, downplayed concerns that the problem is one the Russians could exploit.

“I can’t think of an institution that’s more committed to America, one America and one that’s governed by the Constitution, than the military,” he said recently.

US allies already targeted by Moscow

But U.S. allies say there is reason to worry as they have seen Russia use disinformation to repeatedly target their forces.

“We have seen attempts to erode trust within the alliance,” NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu told VOA by email.

NATO’s Strategic Communications Center of Excellence in Latvia, working with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, has seen several large-scale disinformation campaigns and also smaller-scale attacks targeting NATO’s enhanced forward presence in the Baltics.

“Our personnel get guidance and instruction regarding misinformation and information security as part of their pre-deployment training and their arrival process in order to increase their resilience,” according to Maj. Mark Peebles with NATO’s Task Force Latvia Headquarters.

“They are aware that it’s out there and are advised to maintain a critical eye to what they see on social media,” he said.

The British, too, have seen indications that Russia and others may be trying to cause dissent in the ranks.

“Quite a few senior commanders, increasingly, I see now, having had evidence of false Facebook websites coming up routinely in their names,” said Lt. Gen. Nick Pope, British army deputy chief of the general staff, describing efforts to take the fake pages down as “whack a rat.”

“The fact is that our potential adversaries, hostile agencies, are using cybercrime, if you call it that, as a mechanism now to try to unhinge reliable, evidence-based platforms,” he said.
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Britain and Ireland will seek to hold regular summits between leaders and ministers after Brexit to maintain ties strained by Britain’s decision to leave the EU, senior ministers from both governments said on Friday.

Relations between the two have improved markedly since Ireland gained independence from Britain following a bloody struggle almost a century ago.

But ties have been tested over the last two years with Ireland a key player on the opposite side of the Brexit negotiating table to Britain. Arguments over how to manage the the border between EU-member state Ireland and British-ruled Northern Ireland have threatened the talks.

“What we’ve agreed is that we should aim for a model which is based upon a pattern of top level summits involving heads of government and senior ministers, probably alternating between the United Kingdom and Ireland year-by-year, and backed up by close bilateral work between ministers,” Britain’s Cabinet Office Minister David Lidington told a news conference.

“There is that shared commitment that we are not going to let political turbulence, which is a reality at the moment, deflect us from recognising that we have so much in common and so much both to gain from continued close work together.”

Lidington, Prime Minister Theresa May’s de facto deputy, was speaking after a meeting of a British-Irish cooperative body that was convened for the first time in a decade earlier this year as a result of a political deadlock in Northern Ireland.

Britain and Ireland are co-guarantors of the 1998 peace deal that ended 30 years of sectarian violence in the province and introduced devolved government. However the power-sharing executive has not met for almost two years following a breakdown between Irish nationalist and pro-British unionist politicians.

Lidington said officials would come up with proposals by early next year to replace the current regular meetings at EU meetings that helped improve the “indispensable relationship.”

Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney also sought to play down a number of recent newspaper stories that highlighted a deterioration in relations between the neighbouring countries.

“Some of what you read about the stresses and strains that are sometimes reported between the British and Irish government, on a personal that is certainly not the case,” Coveney said.
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President Vladimir Putin congratulated Russia’s GRU military intelligence on its centenary Friday, hailing the agency that has been accused by the West of election meddling, nerve agent poisonings and hacking attacks against chemical weapons probes and anti-doping sports bodies.

“I’m confident of your professionalism, courage and determination,” the Russian leader said in a speech to GRU officers in Moscow.

Putin said he highly appreciates the intelligence information and the analytics produced by the GRU and also praised the agency for its actions in Syria, saying it strongly contributed to the success of Russia’s campaign there.

The United States and its allies have accused the GRU of involvement in the March nerve agent attack on a Russian ex-spy in Britain, hacking the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign and disrupting anti-doping efforts in world sports. Russian authorities have rejected the accusations, calling them part of a Western smear campaign.

Putin made no reference to Western accusations against the GRU, but noted rising global tensions.

“The conflict potential in the world is growing,” Putin said in Friday’s speech. “There are provocations and blatant lies, as well as attempts to upset strategic parity.”

The GRU has recently faced a series of exposures that revealed its inner workings.

In September, British intelligence released surveillance images of GRU agents accused of the March nerve agent attack on former GRU officer and British double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the English city of Salisbury. The investigative group Bellingcat and the Russian site The Insider quickly exposed the agents’ real names. 

Dutch authorities also have recently identified four alleged GRU agents who tried to hack the world’s chemical weapons watchdog from a hotel parking lot.

While the GRU counts its history from 1918, when it was created in the wake of the Bolshevik revolution, Putin also mentioned its predecessors in imperial Russia. He noted that some imperial army officers helped the Bolsheviks organize military intelligence after the 1917 revolution. 

“They realized that there is no worse shame than to betray the Motherland, betray comrades, and at the time of turmoil and revolutionary upheavals helped preserve the continuity of the service’s traditions,” he said.

Putin added “military intelligence officers showed the same loyalty to their duty in the early 1990s following the breakup of the Soviet Union, helping preserve the GRU potential.”
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A Turkish presidential adviser and friend of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi says his body was cut up and dissolved in acid for easier disposal, the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported Friday.

“According to the latest information we have, the reason they dismembered his body is to dissolve it easier” before it was disposed of, Yasin Aktay told the newspaper.

Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who who had written critically of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last month to get a document he needed to marry his Turkish fiancee.

After initially denying Khashoggi had been murdered, the Saudi government claimed he died in an unplanned “rogue operation.” Saudi public prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb offered a different explanation last week when he said the killing was premeditated.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says it may be a “handful more weeks” before the U.S. has enough evidence to impose sanctions on those responsible for Khashoggi’s murder.

Pompeo told St. Louis radio station KMOX Thursday the U.S. administration is “continuing to understand the fact pattern” and added it is “reviewing putting sanctions on the individuals” who have so far been identified as being “engaged in that murder.”

Pompeo emphasized that U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed accountability for all involved in the “heinous crime.”

In his first public reaction Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the murder “horrendous” and said responsive action must be taken.

“At the same time, I say that it’s very important  …for the region and [for] the world that Saudi Arabia remain stable,” Netanyahu told reporters in the Bulgarian city of Varna. “I think that a way must be found to achieve both goals, because I think the larger problem is Iran.” Iran has denied accusations it is building a nuclear bomb, saying weapons of mass destruction are prohibited under Islam.

Khashoggi’s fiancee wrote in an op-ed piece published Friday in The Washington Post the Trump administration’s response to Khashoggi’s death has been “devoid of moral foundation.”

“Of all nations, the United States should be leading the way in bringing the perpetrators to justice,” Hatice Cengiz wrote.

Instead, Cengiz said, “Some in Washington are hoping this matter will be forgotten with simple delaying tactics. But we will continue to push the Trump administration to help find justice for Jamal. There will be no coverup.”

The New York Times, quoting two people familiar with the matter, reported Friday that White House officials knew from an October 9 phone call with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that he considered Khashoggi a dangerous Islamist, and therefore knew the Saudi prince had a potential motive for the killing. But because of its deep investment in Prince Mohammed as the main linchpin of the administration’s Middle East agenda, the Trump administration concluded it could not feasibly limit his power.

Instead, the White House “has joined governments around the region in weighing what effect the stigma of the Khashoggi killing may have on the crown prince’s ability to rule, and what benefit can be extracted from his potential weakness,” the Times said, quoting people familiar with the administration’s deliberations.

More than 100 members of PEN America, a New York-based non-profit group of journalists and artists devoted to human rights and free expression, have called on the U.N. to launch an independent probe into the killing.

“The violent murder of a prominent journalist and commentator on foreign soil is a grave violation of human rights and a disturbing escalation of the crackdown on dissent in Saudi Arabia, whose government in recent years has jailed numerous writers, journalists, human rights advocates, and lawyers in a sweeping assault on free expression and association,” the group said Friday in an open letter.

Turkish officials said earlier this week chief Istanbul prosecutor Irfan Fidan failed to get answers about the location of Khashoggi’s body and who ordered his killing during three days of a joint Turkish-Saudi investigation in Istanbul.

The U.S. is urging Saudi Arabia to locate Khashoggi’s body and return it to his family as soon as possible.

Khashoggi’s friends and family say they want even just a piece of his body so they can carry out his wish to be buried in the city of Medina, Islam’s second holiest site.

Turkey is trying to have 18 suspects detained in Saudi Arabia extradited so they can be tried in a Turkish court. Among the suspects are 15 members of an alleged “hit squad” that Turkey claims was sent to Istanbul to kill Khashoggi.

Some of the people suspected of being involved in the killing have close ties to the prince, whose condemnation of Khashoggi’s killing has failed to alleviate suspicions he was involved.

 
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The Italian government has decided it needs to offer incentives to combat the country’s declining birthrate and proposed a new plan it is calling “Land-for-Children.” The agriculture minister says providing free farmland for families who have a third child could create new business ventures for Italian families.

Italy now has the lowest birthrate in Europe, and the populist government of Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is taking measures because it wants to reverse the trend.

In its draft budget it announced a plan to award land to married couples who have a third child. The idea is not only to combat Italy’s dwindling population but also to ease the state’s burden in maintaining unused farmland.

Italy’s agricultural minister, Gian Carlo Centinaio, says families in rural areas still have children and the government wants to support them. For the next three years, from 2019 to 2021, a family that has a third child can take advantage of the government incentive.

In comments Friday on national television, Centinaio explained the plan, saying Italy is the European country with the largest number of young people in agriculture, and at the same time is where the least number of children are born. During these months, he added, the government has launched the sale of 7,700 hectares of unused land and at the same time given the go-ahead for a contribution of $79 million for young people who launch activities in the agricultural sector.

For years, migrants arriving in Italy were believed to be the solution to a low birthrate in Italy, re-populating abandoned villages and taking on jobs Italians no longer wanted to do. But the present government is not interested in a multi-cultural Italy and wants to limit that phenomenon.

It wants to find ways to support Italian families who have more children, return to farming their land, and limit the number of migrants being allowed into the country. In fact, the incentive is available only to migrants who have resided in Italy for at least 10 years.

Reaction to the government’s plan has been widespread. Some Italian farmers say there is no future in agriculture and ask why should they farm land and build a future on land that does not belong to them. The government has said those who take advantage of the initiative would be able to hold on to the land for 20 years.

The opposition also reacted negatively, describing the plan as “medieval” and declaring that the idea is outrageous and a clear example of the cultural and social mindset of the current government.

 
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The leaders of Russia and Cuba have vowed to expand what they called their “strategic” ties and urged the United States to lift its blockade of Cuba.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Cuban counterpart Miguel Diaz-Canel pledged Friday to develop political, economic and military cooperation between their nations.

Diaz-Canel, who replaced Raul Castro in April in a historic changing of the guard in Cuba, hailed the “brotherly” ties between Russia and Cuba.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union poured billions of dollars in supplies and subsidies to Cuba, its staunchest Latin American ally. But ties withered after the 1991 Soviet collapse as Russia, hit by an economic meltdown, withdrew its economic aid to Cuba.

Putin, who visited Cuba in 2000 and 2014, has sought to revive ties with the old Caribbean ally.

 
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U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry will visit Ukraine, Poland and other eastern European countries next week as the Trump administration seeks to offer them alternatives to buying coal and gas from Russia.

Perry will also visit Hungary and the Czech Republic on the trip. He will meet with government officials on topics from nuclear energy to cyber security and coal and liquefied natural gas exports, the Department of Energy said in a release on Thursday.

The Trump administration is seeking foreign markets for coal as domestic consumption has dropped to the lowest level since 1983 due to closures of coal-fired power plants that are suffering from abundant, cheap supplies of natural gas.

In July, 2017 Centrenergo PJSC, one of the largest power companies in Ukraine, agreed to buy 700,000 tons of U.S. coal.

Last month, Poland’s top natural gas company, PGNiG, finalized the terms of a deal to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) from U.S. company Venture Global LNG, as part of a move to cut reliance on Russia.

Poland has relied on Russia’s Gazprom for more than half of its gas under a long-term deal that expires in 2022.

The United States is touting its LNG as more reliable than pipelined gas from Russia, but LNG is more expensive because of the costs of shipping and super-cooling the fuel to the point where it becomes a liquid.

 
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The United States is urging Saudi Arabia to locate the body of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi and return it to his family as soon as possible.

Khashoggi was killed when he walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last month, according to a Turkish prosecutor. His body has not been found, although Turkish police last month searched a forest on Istanbul’s outskirts and near Yalova, a city near the Sea of Marmara, for Khashoggi’s remains.

Khashoggi’s friends and family say they want just a piece of his body so they can carry out his wish to be buried in the city of Medina, Islam’s second holiest site.

“We are calling the entire world to put the necessary pressure, international pressure, on the Saudi government to find his remains, to be able to bury him, even before finding those who are responsible, before this issue is covered up,” Faith Oke, executive director of the Turkey-Arab Media Association, said Thursday.

Turkish officials said chief prosecutor Irfan Fidan failed to get answers about the location of Khashoggi’s body and who ordered his killing during three days of a joint Turkish-Saudi investigation in Istanbul.

The Saudis have given a shifting account of what happened to Khashoggi on Oct. 2. After initially denying Khashoggi had been killed, the Saudi government claimed he died in an unplanned “rogue operation.” Saudi public prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb offered a different explanation last week when he said the killing was premeditated.

After talks with Mojeb earlier this week, Fidan also said the killing was premeditated, with Khashoggi being suffocated immediately after entering the consulate and his body dismembered.

Turkey is trying to extradite 18 suspects detained in Saudi Arabia so they can be tried in a Turkish court. Among the suspects are 15 members of an alleged “hit squad” that Turkey claims was sent to Istanbul to kill The Washington Post columnist who had written critically of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Some of the people suspected of being involved in the killing have close ties to the prince, whose condemnation has failed to alleviate suspicions he was involved.

Khashoggi entered the consulate last month to get a document he needed to marry his Turkish fiancee. 
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Armenia’s president on Thursday dissolved parliament and called an early election, a political maneuver intended to unseat the current parliament majority.

President Armen Sarkisian’s move is in sync with acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s efforts to unseat his foes in parliament. Sarkisian set the early election for Dec. 9.

Pashinian took office in May after spearheading weeks of protests that forced the resignation of his predecessor, but his political opponents retained a majority in parliament. Last month, Pashinian announced his resignation, saying that an early vote is needed “to return the power to the people.”

Armenian law says a snap election must be held if lawmakers twice fail to pick a new head of government within 14 days of a prime minister’s resignation. On Thursday, the parliament failed to choose a new prime minister for a second time, allowing the president to dissolve the parliament and call a new vote.

Pashinian, a former journalist, tapped into public anger over the widespread poverty, high unemployment and rampant corruption that flourished under the old government in this landlocked former Soviet republic that borders Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Iran.

He has stayed in charge as acting prime minister, saying he would serve as a “guarantor of the people’s victory,” and members of his Cabinet also have continued to perform their duties.
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Scientists are putting a robotic Mars rover to the test in Spain’s rocky Tabernas Desert. The European Space Agency and Russia’s Roscosmos space agency plan to land a rover on the Red Planet in 2021, to search for microscopic signs of life. Faith Lapidus reports.
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Of all the countries that fought in the Great War, none was perhaps more affected than Russia. Dissatisfaction at home over Russian losses in World War I led to Tsar Nikolai II’s abdication of the Romanov throne and, several months later, the Bolshevik Revolution, sealed with the execution of the royal family by the new Soviet authorities in the Ural mountain city of Yekaterinburg. But as Charles Maynes reports, Russian attempts to bring closure to the Romanov story remain elusive even today.
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British Prime Minister Theresa May has struck a deal with the European Union that would give UK financial services companies continued access to European markets after Brexit, the Times reported on Thursday.

British and European negotiators have reached tentative agreement on all aspects of a future partnership on services, as well as the exchange of data, the British newspaper reported, citing government sources. 

The British pound jumped as much as 0.5 percent against the dollar following the report.

The services deal would give UK companies access to European markets as long as British financial regulation remained broadly aligned with the EU’s, the Times reported.

May’s principal Europe adviser, Oliver Robbins, is continuing the negotiations in Brussels, according to the report.

With five months to secure a deal before Britain is due to leave the EU, business leaders are demanding certainty over the kind of trade terms the divorce will deliver.

UK’s Financial Conduct Authority wants Britain to stay closely aligned with the EU, but without Britain having to copy all the bloc’s rules, acting director of strategy at the FCA, Richard Monks, has said.

Britain on Wednesday said there was no set date for Brexit talks to finish, backtracking from a letter by Brexit minister Dominic Raab that suggested a deal on the terms of its departure from the European Union could be finalized by Nov. 21.
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Austria said Wednesday it will join the United States and Hungary in not signing a global agreement meant to minimize the factors that push migrants to leave their home country, while boosting safety, access to services and inclusion for those who are compelled to go.

Nations are due to gather in early December in Morocco to adopt the non-binding Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, which was negotiated through a U.N.-led process during the past two years.

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said his government fears the agreement would pose a threat to its national sovereignty and that it would blur the lines between legal and illegal migration.

Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache said there is not and should not be a human right to migration.

Hungary also cited concerns about the agreement going against national interests when it announced in July it would not be part of the pact.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told reporters that contrary to his government’s policies, the agreement would promote migration as “good and inevitable,” and “it could inspire millions” of migrants.

The United States was the first to step away from the negotiations, deciding in December of last year that the proposed agreement was “inconsistent with U.S. immigration and refugee policies.”

Then-U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the United States supports international cooperation on migration issues, “but it is the primary responsibility of sovereign states to help ensure that migration is safe, orderly, and legal.”

The Global Compact features 23 objectives, including boosting access to basic services, strengthening anti-smuggling and anti-trafficking efforts, eliminating discrimination, safeguarding conditions that ensure decent work, and facilitating safe and dignified return for those who are sent back home.

The United Nations estimates there are about 258 million migrants in the world — or just over three percent of the world’s population. The world body considers a migrant to be anyone who changes their country, regardless of the reason. It expects the number of migrants to increase due to factors such as population growth, trade, rising inequality and climate change.
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The U.N.’s political chief cautioned Tuesday that planned local elections in two separatist areas of eastern Ukraine next month could contradict international agreements. 

“The U.N. urges all parties to avoid any unilateral steps that could deepen the divide or depart from the spirit and letter of the Minsk agreements,” Rosemary DiCarlo told a Security Council meeting on the issue. 

In 2015, France, Germany, Russia, Ukraine and pro-Russia separatists signed the Minsk agreement in the Belarus capital. It seeks to halt the fighting through a cease-fire and the withdrawal of foreign troops and heavy weapons, and open the way to a permanent, legal and political solution to the conflict in Ukraine, which began in 2014. 

De facto authorities in the separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk have announced that they plan to hold elections on Nov. 11. 

“As we understand, two separate ballots in both Donetsk and Luhansk are reportedly being planned: one for the “head of Republic” and one for the “People’s Councils,” DiCarlo said. She said the posts will reportedly be for five-year terms. 

She noted that election-related matters are covered in the Minsk agreements. 

“I therefore caution that any such measures taken outside Ukraine’s constitutional and legal framework would be incompatible with the Minsk agreements,” she said. 

Western council members echoed her concerns and condemned the planned ballot.

“These sham elections staged by Russia run directly counter to efforts to implement the Minsk peace agreements,” said U.S. deputy U.N. Ambassador Jonathan Cohen. “The elections also obstruct and undermine efforts to end the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine.”

“We do see these so-called elections as illegitimate,” said British Ambassador Karen Pierce. “They are the latest example in the Russian campaign to destabilize Ukraine. They are a clear breach of the Minsk agreements, and they are illegal under Ukrainian law.”

Even China, a close ally of Moscow, expressed concerns. 

“China respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states, including Ukraine, and opposes the interference in Ukraine’s internal affairs by any external forces,” Beijing’s deputy envoy told the council. 

Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia dismissed the criticism. 

“Today, we are witnesses of the latest round of hypocrisy — the total and inexcusable sabotage by Kyiv of the Minsk agreements, over the long term, factually from Day One, has been completely ignored,” Nebenzia said. “Instead of recognizing this fact, in the discussion in the Security Council we are discussing the forthcoming elections in November, which are a necessary measure in conditions of sabotage by Kyiv of its political commitments.”

He said European and American sanctions imposed on Moscow because of the Ukrainian situation is an invitation to Kyiv to continue undermining its Minsk obligations because Russia will be the one to pay for it. 

Ukraine’s ambassador, Volodymyr Yelchenko, said holding these “so-called early elections’ would amount to putting armed gangs’ leaders in seats in illegitimate representative bodies.” He said the move is a “provocation” and a “further escalation” of the situation by Russia. 

While he acknowledged to reporters later that there is little Kyiv authorities can do to stop the voting from going forward, he said the results would be null and void and not be recognized by Ukraine or the international community. 

After a brief calm over the summer months, the U.N. said during the past six weeks, cease-fire violations have spiked, and casualty levels have risen. It also reports increased tensions in the Sea of Azov, warning there is a “need to avoid any risk of escalation, provocation or miscalculation.” 

The Kyiv government has been clashing with Russian-backed separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine since 2014. The United Nations says more than 3,000 civilians have been killed, and up to 9,000 injured since the start of the conflict.
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged on Tuesday a new development fund to tackle unemployment in Africa, a problem spurring the mass migration that has shaped her long premiership as it nears its end.

Merkel hosted a summit of African leaders a day after her announcement that she would retire from politics by 2021, which sent shockwaves across Europe and started a race to succeed her.

She needs the Compact with Africa summit to show that progress has been made in addressing the aftermath of one of the defining moments of her 13 years in power: her 2015 decision to open Germany’s doors to more than a million asylum seekers.

The Berlin summit, attended by 12 presidents and prime ministers including Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, Ethiopia’s Abiy Ahmed and Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, is designed to showcase the continent as a stable destination for German investment.

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde is also there, along with a host of international development officials.

The aim is to create good jobs for Africans, easing the poverty which, along with political instability and violence, has encouraged large numbers to head for Europe. But with Africa’s population growing at almost three percent a year, the task is enormous.

“We Europeans have a great interest in African states having a bright economic outlook,” Merkel said in her opening speech, announcing the fund to help small and medium-sized enterprises from both Europe and Africa to invest on the continent.

The 119,000 Africans who arrived in Europe in 2018, according to the International Organization for Migration, are the tip of the iceberg. International Labor Organization figures show that 16 million migrants were on the move within Africa in 2014.

While European Union countries invested $22 billion in Africa in 2017, breakneck economic growth will be needed to help bring down the migrant numbers.

Berlin hopes Germany’s manufacturing-based economy, which drove Eastern Europe’s rapid economic growth after the 1989 collapse of Communism, could turn things round.

Merkel needs results fast if she is to ensure the leadership of her Christian Democrats passes to a centrist ally, such as its general secretary, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer.

A marshall plan for Africa?

Other candidates for the party leadership, including Health Minister Jens Spahn or her old rival, the strongly pro-business Friedrich Merz, are well to her right politically and could be expected to want to challenge much of her legacy.

Merkel has said she will remain chancellor but that her current, fourth term up to 2021 will be her last. A whopping 71 percent of Germans welcomed Merkel’s decision, a poll released Tuesday by broadcasters RTL and n-tv showed.

Germany has introduced tax incentives for its companies to set up plants in Africa, reflecting her view that state aid must give way to private investment if jobs are to be created in their millions.

This would be part of a “Marshall Plan for Africa” – named after the U.S.-funded plan that helped to rebuild European states including Germany after World War II – that she sees as central to her legacy.

Merkel presented her decision to open Germany’s borders in 2015 as an unavoidable necessity driven by the vast scale of the human tide, that year mostly fleeing the civil war in Syria.

An agreement with Turkey sharply curtailed the arrival of refugees into the EU through Greece. But hundreds of thousands of mainly African migrants continued to travel across the Mediterranean, a flow that finally began to abate in the past year with improved efforts to halt smuggling from Libya.

The crisis has upturned European politics, bringing the far right to power in Italy and Austria, and in Germany revitalizing the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, whose demand that the country shut its borders to migrants helped to fuel its surge into parliament in last year’s election.

A successful outcome to the summit may help to strengthen Merkel’s case for remaining chancellor even after stepping down from the party leadership, and could quieten her coalition partners in Bavaria’s conservative CSU and the Social Democrats (SPD).

All three parties have suffered punishing setbacks in regional elections this month, building internal party pressure for them to switch leaders or break up the coalition.
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The death toll from flooding and gale-force winds battering Italy rose to 11, authorities said Tuesday as storms raged across Europe.

Roads were reported blocked and thousands were left without power in southern and central Europe, where fierce winds and rain felled trees.

Venice flooded to a level seen few times before in the lagoon city’s history, with tourists and residents holding bags above their heads as water sloshed above their knees.

Debris from pulverized yachts filled the harbor of Rapallo near Genoa after a dam broke under the pressure of flood waters.

Heavy snow trapped many in their cars and hotels in the mountainous intersecting border regions of Italy, Switzerland, and France. 
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Recent allegations that an oligarch with close personal ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin is behind several attacks and at least one killing has compelled some journalists and free speech advocates to take a stand against intimidation tactics in Russia.

An October 22 Novaya Gazeta article by reporter Denis Korotkov, who just days prior to publication received a funeral wreath bearing an anonymous threat at his private residence and a severed goat’s head in a basket outside his newsroom, says billionaire businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin has directed clandestine hits on multiple continents.

Prigozhin, who is known as “Putin’s Chef” for catering presidential events and sometimes personally waiting on important guests, has been indicted by American investigators for allegedly trying to interfere with the 2016 U.S. election.

In the investigative report about Prigozhin, headlined “The Chef Likes It Spicy,” Valery Alemchenko, a former convict who worked for Prigozhin, details physical attacks on Prigozhin’s opponents, as well as the killing of an opposition blogger in northwest Russia, all at the mogul’s behest.

Alemchenko also says several Prigozhin employees traveled to Syria last year to test an unknown poison on Syrians who refused to fight for President Bashar al-Assad’s government, an allegation Novaya Gazeta corroborated with two other sources.

Alemchenko disappeared shortly after meeting with the reporter and is now on a Russian police list of missing persons.

Danger of inaction

For Novaya Gazeta contributor Boris Vishnevsky, the latest threats and disappearances have taught him one thing: the greatest threat to his own colleagues and sources is their own inaction.

“I believe that the information published by Novaya Gazeta cannot remain only within the circle of its readers,” Vishnevsky told VOA’s Russian Service, explaining why he has called upon Russia’s prosecutor general and federal legislators to conduct an investigation of the latest allegations surrounding Prigozhin, and the threats against those who reported them.

“These are very serious suspicions of involvement in crimes, including the murders of people who, to put it mildly, are connected to Mr. Prigozhin and his structures,” said Vishnevsky, who is also a deputy in the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly. “This evidence should be checked, and I think there is enough – names are named, quotes are quoted. And to leave it unheeded seems to me quite impossible.”

Vishnevsky’s appeal coincided with a statement by the Union of Journalists of the St. Petersburg and Leningrad region, who expressed concerns about the threats directed at Korotkov.

Asked whether Russian investigators would actively probe any of Putin’s closest associates, Vishnevsky said that’s beside the point.

“I’m not inclined to have big illusions about its results, especially about the conclusions that will be made,” he said. “Nevertheless, I want to see official explanations from the prosecutor general’s office and the investigative committee on the reports of crimes contained in Denis Korotkov’s article.

“I understand that everything will be done to, in simple terms, cover up for Mr. Prigozhin,” he added. “But if a verification is not demanded, then you cannot expect anything at all.”

Because Article 144 of the Russian Criminal Code says crimes reported in the media require the consideration of federal prosecutors and investigators, Vishnevsky said he expects that some sort of investigation will be carried out.

‘Second wave’ of investigative reporting

Roman Zakharov of the Glasnost Defense Foundation, a non-governmental organization that advocates press freedom, said the threats against Korotkov are extremely serious, and that they come amid a “second wave” of hard-hitting investigative journalism occurring in Russia.

“The first surge of this genre was during the years of democratic development of Russia, but then it seemed to us to be something taken for granted,” Zakharov told VOA. “And now there is a second wave of investigations, and they are being conducted by many young journalists who write about economic crimes, about corruption, about the Mafia’s links with politicians.”

With a surge in investigative reporting, he said, comes a surge in threats to reporters and editors behind the stories.

“Of course editors try to protect [their reporters], but, as we see from practice, the powers of the editors themselves are limited,” he said, referring to the assassinations of Russian reporters stretching over decades. “But all joking aside, it’s impossible to oppose the Mafia, much less the state steamroller.”

As widely reported in Western media, some of Prigozhin’s privately owned enterprises, such as the Concord catering company, were used to bankroll disinformation campaigns designed to interfere with U.S. elections. Earlier this month, U.S. officials brought charges against Prigozhin employee Elena Khusyaynova for helping oversee the finances of the St. Petersburg-based “Internet Research Agency,” the so-called troll farm that aimed to influence American voters through social media postings.

Activities of Prigozhin’s private security-contracting firm, Wagner – a mercenary outfit that has conducted operations in Ukraine, Syria, the Central African Republic and Sudan – are well documented.

‘Don’t touch journalists’

Another member of Prigozhin’s security detail, Oleg Simonov, who is suspected of attacking the husband of an opposition activist and injecting him with poison, died last year under murky circumstances.

“Behind it all – written messages, funeral wreaths and a severed sheep’s head – as we know from past investigations, these are people who will stop at nothing and shrink from nothing,” Zakharov said, emphasizing that they “aren’t even averse to murdering their own associates.”

“There is the need to gather the entire journalistic community and citizens and say ‘No, Mr. Prigozhin! Don’t touch journalists, don’t threaten them,'” Zakharov said. “If you do not agree with the publications, sue them in court. Act by legal means, even if the Kremlin and the authorities are on your side.

“We hope that due to these public disclosures, there will be none of the excesses that have occurred with some other journalists,” Zakharov added, referring to “assault and battery … and also murders.”

Russia is currently ranked 148 out of 180 countries profiled in the 2018 World Press Freedom Index by international media watchdog Reporters Without Borders.

This story originated in VOA’s Russian Service. Some information for this report was provided by AP.

 
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Russia’s only aircraft carrier was damaged while undergoing repairs in the north of the country after the floating dock holding it sank in the early hours of Tuesday and a crane crashed onto its deck, tearing a gash up to 5 meters wide.

The Admiral Kuznetsov has seen action in Russia’s military campaign in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad with its planes carrying out airstrikes against rebel forces.

It was being overhauled on one of the world’s biggest floating docks in the icy waters of the Kola Bay near Murmansk close to where Russia’s Northern Fleet is based and was due to go back into service in 2021.

Maria Kovtun, Murmansk’s governor, said in a statement that a rescue operation had been launched and 71 people evacuated after the floating dock holding the ship had begun to sink.

The warship had been successfully extracted from the dock before it completely sank, she said.

Investigators, who said they had opened a criminal investigation into the incident that would look at whether safety rules had been violated, said one person was missing and four others were being treated for hypothermia after being plucked out of the water.

Alexei Rakhmanov, head of Russia’s United Shipbuilding Corporation, told the TASS news agency that the ship’s hull and deck had been damaged, although what he called the vessel’s vitally important parts had not been harmed.

“There is a jagged hole 4-5 meters wide,” Rakhmanov was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

“It’s obvious that when a 70-ton crane falls onto the deck, it’s possible that there could be such damage. We consider the damage to be insignificant.”

Yevgeny Gladyshev, a spokesman for the shipbuilding factory which operated the floating dock, told the RIA news agency that unspecified equipment had been damaged but that much of the deck had been spared because it had been removed during the refit.

The floating dock had been hit by a power outage which had caused its ballast tanks to fill up rapidly, prompting it to sink, the factory said.

The Admiral Kuznetsov gained notoriety in Britain when then Secretary of Defense Michael Fallon dubbed it the “ship of shame” in 2017 when it passed through waters close to the English coast on its way back from the Mediterranean belching black smoke.

 
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The leader of Sweden’s Social Democrats, Stefan Lofven, on Monday abandoned efforts to form a government, extending a political deadlock that has gripped the country since an inconclusive national election seven weeks ago.

The failed attempt brought the prospect of a snap election closer, though the speaker of parliament said he would try to avoid that at all costs.

The Sept. 9 vote gave the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats hold the balance of power, but neither Lofven’s center-left bloc nor the center-right group of parties has been willing to give them a say in policy due to their white supremacist roots.

“In light of the responses I have had so far … the possibility does not exist for me to build a government that can be accepted by parliament,” Lofven told reporters.

The center-right Alliance bloc’s leader, Ulf Kristersson, has already tried and failed to form a government.

Speaker Andreas Norlen, who on Monday held talks with all the party leaders, said he would not, at least for now, ask anyone else to try to form a government.

Instead, he would on Tuesday take on a more active role in trying to mediate a way to forming a viable coalition. He would propose a prime minister to parliament at least once during the autumn, in order if possible to avoid another election.

“A snap election would be a big defeat for the Swedish political system,” he told reporters.

A caretaker administration under Lofven has run Sweden since last month’s ballot.

The delay in forming a permanent government could further undermine faith in mainstream parties. Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Akesson said a new vote could boost support for his party.

Both Lofven and Kristersson said they still hope to be prime minister, but neither offered a way to end the stalemate.

“I do not see any indication that anyone has changed their minds about anything at all,” Kristersson told reporters after meeting speaker Norlen.
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Belarusians gathered in Minsk on Monday to commemorate more than 100 people, including 22 writers and poets, who were executed by the NKVD secret service on Oct. 29, 1937, during Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s Great Purge.

The 100 victims, many of them from the Belarusian intelligentsia, were among between 600,000 and 1.5 million people in then-Soviet Belarus who were swept up in Stalin’s mass repression of dissent that came to a head in 1937.

At one memorial event Monday, about 20 people lit candles next to the Minsk headquarters of the KGB security service, the present-day successor to the NKVD.

In a separate memorial event, several dozen gathered at an execution site used by the NKVD in a wooded area on the Belrusian capital’s outskirts that is now marked by dozens of wooden crosses.

Belarusians read poems as they stood near the crosses decorated with burning candles.

Similar memorial events were being held in other parts of the former Soviet Union to mark an unofficial day of remembrance for victims of Stalinist repression.
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Russia has sent a high-level official delegation to Venezuela, including a deputy finance minister, to help advise the cash-strapped country on economic reform at a time of crisis, a spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Finance said Monday.

Almost 2 million Venezuelans have fled the country since 2015, driven out by food and medicine shortages and violent crime with inflation running at 200,000 percent and the OPEC nation’s oil production hitting a 28-year low in 2017.

Russian oil major Rosneft said in August Venezuela owed it $3.6 billion, while Moscow and Caracas last year signed a debt restructuring deal that allowed Venezuela to pay Russia back a total of $3.15 billion over a decade.

Andrei Lavrov, a spokesman for the Ministry of Finance, said Monday that Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak was due to take part in a meeting with Venezuelan government officials in Caracas on Tuesday.

Russian officials from the central bank and the Ministry of Economy would also attend, he said, saying Venezuela had invited the Russian experts to take part in a meeting tasked with drafting economic reform measures at a time of crisis.

“Venezuela’s government asked [Russia] to send relevant employees from Russian government ministries to share their experience of economic reform,” Lavrov said.
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Pope Francis has strongly condemned the attack on a synagogue in Pittsburgh after celebrating the closing mass of the Synod of Bishops on Youth in Saint Peter’s Basilica.

After reciting the Angelus prayer in Saint Peter’s Square on Sunday, Pope Francis led prayers for Pittsburgh, the day after what he describedas the “terrible” massacre inside a synagogue during Sabbath services in which 11 people were killed and six others injured. 

The pope expressed what he called his closeness to the city of Pittsburgh, and in particular to the Jewish community stricken yesterday by a terrible attack on the synagogue.  

He said everyone is in reality wounded by this inhumane act of violence and asked God to help put out the hotbeds of hate that flare up in society and to help strengthen a sense of humanity, respect for life, moral and civil values.”

Earlier, several thousand people, including hundreds of priests, nuns, and young people took part in the final ceremony of a month-long synod titled “Young People, Faith and Discernment of Vocation”.

In his homily, Pope Francis asked young people to forgive adults if they have not listened to youth or opened their hearts.

The pope also said young people could not wash their hands of the problems of their neighbors, but should “dirty” them if they really want to imitate Jesus.

Pope Francis attended every session of the synod, which were held on a daily basis during October.

A 60-page final document was issued at the end of the synod late Saturday and will be used by Pope Francis in writing his Apostolic Exhortation.  

Women played an active role in this synod and although they did not vote the final text called on women to have greater recognition and say in the Church’s decision-making processes.  But the document stopped short of making a common apology for decades of clerical sexual abuse and cover-ups.   

 
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The owner of the Leicester City soccer club of Britain’s Premier League was among five people who died after his helicopter crashed and burst into flames outside a stadium moments after taking off Saturday. 

Along with Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, a 60-year-old billionaire entrepreneur, two members of Vichai’s staff, Nursara Suknamai and Kaveporn Punpare, and pilot Eric Swaffer and passenger Izabela Roza Lechowicz, also died when the aircraft went down in the parking lot near King Power Stadium after a night soccer match.

“The world has lost a great man,” Leicester said in a statement. “A man of kindness, of generosity and a man whose life was defined by the love he devoted to his family and those he so successfully led.” 

Vichai who owns Thai duty-free retail giant King Power, bankrolled Leicester’s improbable league title triumph in 2016. 

He bought Leicester for $50 million in 2010 when it was in the second-tier Championship and led it to its revival that peaked with the title win.

Vichai handsomely rewarded Leicester’s players for winning the Premier League with new bumper contracts. In addition he bought each player a BMW i8 worth around $135,000, including for goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel.

Vichai, who started his business career with one shop and grew Thailand’s massive King Power duty-free chain, was known for arriving and leaving the stadium in his helicopter.

Located in central England, Leicester is about 143 kilometers north of London.
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Pope Francis is grieving with Pittsburgh’s Jewish community following the massacre at a synagogue there, denouncing the “inhuman act of violence” and praying for an end to the “flames of hatred” that fueled it.

Francis led prayers for Pittsburgh on Sunday in St. Peter’s Square, a day after a gunman who had expressed hatred of Jews opened fire in the synagogue during Sabbath services, killing 11 people.

Francis prayed for the dead, the injured and their families. He says “all of us are wounded by this inhuman act of violence.” He prayed for God “to help us to extinguish the flames of hatred that develop in our societies.”

Francis has frequently spoken out against religiously inspired violence and has denounced the easy availability of guns, calling arms manufacturers the “merchants of death.”
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There is no risk of contagion from Italy’s budget crisis in the European Union but the euro zone is not prepared enough to face a new economic crisis, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told daily Le Parisien on Sunday.

The European Commission rejected Italy’s draft 2019 budget earlier this week for breaking EU rules on public spending, and asked Rome to submit a new one within three weeks or face disciplinary action.

“We do not see any contagion in Europe. The European Commission has reached out to Italy, I hope Italy will seize this hand,” he said in an interview.

“But is the eurozone sufficiently armed to face a new economic or financial crisis? My answer is no. It is urgent to do what we have proposed to our partners in order to have a solid banking union and a euro zone investment budget.”

Eurozone officials have said that Rome’s unprecedented standoff with Brussels seems certain to delay the reform process and probably dilute it for good.

Le Maire also said French banks with branches in Italy had issued corporate and household loans totaling 280 billion euros ($319 billion).

“This sum is manageable but substantial,” he said.

 
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Recep Tayyip Erdogan has held plenty of grand opening ceremonies in his 15 years at Turkey’s helm. On Monday he will unveil one of his prized jewels — Istanbul New Airport —

a megaproject that has been dogged by concerns about labor rights, environmental issues and Turkey’s weakening economy.

Erdogan is opening what he claims will eventually become the world’s largest air transport hub on the 95th anniversary of Turkey’s establishment as a republic. It’s a symbolic launch, as only limited flights will begin days later and a full move won’t take place until the end of the year.

Tens of thousands of workers have been scrambling to finish the airport to meet Erdogan’s Oct. 29 deadline. Protests in September over poor working conditions and dozens of construction deaths have highlighted the human cost of the project.

Istanbul New Airport, on shores of the Black Sea, will serve 90 million passengers annually in its first phase. At its completion in ten years, it will occupy nearly 19,000 acres and serve up to 200 million travelers a year with six runways. That’s almost double the traffic at world’s biggest airport currently, Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson.

“This airport is going to be the most important hub between Asia and Europe,” Kadri Samsunlu, head of the 5-company consortium Istanbul Grand Airport, told reporters Thursday.

The airport’s interiors nod to Turkish and Islamic designs and its tulip-shaped air traffic control tower won the 2016 International Architecture Award. It also uses mobile applications and artificial intelligence for customers, is energy efficient and boasts a high-tech security system.

All aviation operations will move there at the end of December when Istanbul’s main international airport, named after Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, is closed down. Ataturk Airport now handles 64 million people a year. On the Asian side of the city, Sabiha Gokcen Airport handled 31 million passengers last year. It will remain open.

Erdogan is expected to announce the official name of the new airport, part of his plan to transform Turkey into a global player.

Turkish Airlines will launch its first flights out of the new airport to three local destinations: Ankara, Antalya and Izmir. It will also fly to Baku and Ercan in northern Cyprus.

Nihat Demir, head of a construction workers’ union, said the rush to meet Erdogan’s deadline has been a major cause of the accidents and deaths at the site that employs 36,000 people.

“The airport has become a cemetery,” he told The Associated Press, describing the pressure to finish as relentless and blaming long working hours for leading to “carelessness, accidents and deaths.”

The Dev-Yapi-Is union has identified 37 worker deaths at the site and claimed more than 100 dead remain unidentified.

Turkey’s Ministry of Labor has denied media reports about hundreds of airport construction deaths, saying in February that 27 workers had died at the site due to “health problems and traffic accidents.” It has not commented since then.

Airport workers in September began a strike against poor working conditions, including unpaid salaries, bedbugs, unsafe food and inadequate transport to the site. Security forces rounded up hundreds of workers and formally arrested nearly 30, among them union leaders. The company said it was working to improve conditions.

Megaprojects in northern Istanbul like the airport, the third bridge connecting Istanbul’s Asian and European shores and Erdogan’s yet-to-start plans for a man-made canal parallel to the Bosporus strait are also impacting the environment. The environmental group Northern Forests Defense said the new airport has destroyed forests, wetlands and coastal sand dunes and threatens biodiversity.

These projects are spurring additional construction of transportation networks, housing and business centers in already overpopulated Istanbul, where more than 15 million people live. Samsunlu, the airport executive, said an “airport city” for innovation and technology would also be built.

The five Turkish companies that won the $29 billion tender in 2013 under the “build-operate-transfer” model have been financing the project through capital and bank loans. IGA will operate the airport for 25 years.

Financial observers say lending has fueled much of Turkey’s growth and its construction boom, leaving the private sector with a huge $200 billion debt. With inflation and unemployment in Turkey at double digits and a national currency that has lost as much as 40 percent of its value against the dollar this year, economists say Turkey is clearly facing an economic downturn.

Despite those dark financial clouds, the airport consortium hopes the world’s growing aviation industry will generate both jobs and billions of dollars in returns.

“Istanbul New Airport will remain ambitious for growth and we will carry on mastering the challenge to be the biggest and the best. That’s our motto,” Samsunlu said.

 
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Spain’s maritime rescue service says a baby has died despite efforts by rescuers to save it after a small boat carrying migrants sunk in the Mediterranean Sea. The death came as over 500 others were rescued.

The service says Sunday that the bottom of the rubber boat gave out, tossing 56 migrants into the water when its rescue craft reached it Saturday east of the Strait of Gibraltar. Rescue workers were able to save 55 men, women and children, but could not reanimate the baby.

In all, Spanish rescue workers saved 520 people trying to cross from North Africa to Spain on Saturday. In addition, one boat with 70 migrants arrived at the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean.

Over 1,960 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe this year.

 
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Thousands of Rome residents gathered in the main square in front of city hall on Saturday to call for a new dignity for their city and to protest against what they say has been the failure of city authorities to deal with the rubbish, potholes and fallen trees. The rally was organized by a group called “Rome Says Enough.”

It was a peaceful protest with a clear message: Enough to the current state of affairs in one of the great capitals of the world. Hundreds of city residents of all ages gathered in front of the Renaissance city hall to voice their unhappiness with the public transport system, the lack of efforts in cleaning the filth off streets and buildings, and the dreadful state of the many roads and parks in the city.

The event was launched on social media by six young local women, with different jobs, who created the “Rome Says Enough” civic group. They are appealing for a capital city that must return to being livable and have a vision for the future.

Addressing the large crowd gathered on Saturday, one of the organizers said, “From this square which for us Romans, and for the whole world that watches us in shock, is the symbol of the eternal city, we have come to say ‘enough’ but also to shout ‘let’s start over.’”

Residents who turned out for the sit-in pointed the finger at the current city administration run by 5-Star-Movement Mayor Virginia Raggi. She was elected in 2016 promising a fresh start. Instead, she currently is under investigation for abuse of office and false testimony. They called for her to resign because they say Rome has never before been in such a poor state.

Miriam Klein has lived in Rome all her life. She arrived early in the morning for the protest wearing a white T-shirt sporting the “Rome Says Enough” slogan.

She explained that she lives in quite a central area of the city, Gregorio Settimo, near the Vatican, and her building looks onto a large parking area for tourist buses. It is surrounded, she added, by huge quantities of garbage and there is no proper collection. She said, “I am ashamed for the tourists that come off those buses.”

Organizers added that the ancient Roman Empire’s capital, with its iconic Colosseum and Trevi Fountain, has suffered too many years of neglect and corruption, and it is now urgent that something be done to remedy the situation. They say no other European capital is in such a poor state and tourists visit once but have no desire to come back.

 
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