Finland is a natural choice for the upcoming summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. The Nordic country, which shares a long border with Russia, has a history of neutrality between Moscow and Washington. Finland has also hosted several sensitive U.S.-Soviet summits, as VOA’s Bill Gallo reports from Helsinki.
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British detectives investigating the poisoning of two people with a military grade nerve agent said Friday that a small bottle found in the home of one of the victims tested positive for Novichok, a lethal substance produced in the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Dawn Sturgess, 44, and Charlie Rowley, 45, were sickened on June 30 in a southwestern England town not far from Salisbury, where British authorities say a Russian ex-spy and his daughter were poisoned with Novichok in March.
Sturgess died in a hospital on Sunday. Rowley was in critical condition for more than a week, but has regained consciousness.
The Metropolitan Police said the bottle was found during searches of Rowley’s house Wednesday and scientists confirmed the substance in the bottle was Novichok. Police have interviewed Rowley since he became conscious.
Police are still looking into where the bottle came from and how it got into Rowley’s house. They said further tests would be done to try to establish if the nerve agent was from the same batch that was used to poison Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia.
More than 100 police officers had been searching for the source of Rowley and Sturgess’ exposure in the town of Amesbury, where they lived, and Salisbury, where the Skripals were poisoned.
The Skripals survived and were released from the Salisbury hospital before Rowley and Sturgess were poisoned and taken there. British authorities took the father and daughter to a secret protected location.
British police said earlier they suspected the new victims had handled a container contaminated with Novichok and had no reason to think Rowley and Sturgess were targeted deliberately.
Assistant Police Commissioner Neil Basu, Britain’s top counterterrorism officer, told local residents this week that Novichok could remain active for 50 years if it kept in a sealed container. He said he could not guarantee there were no more traces of the lethal poison in the area.
Basu said Friday that cordons would remain in place in some locations to protect the public despite the apparent breakthrough in the case. He would not provide more information about the bottle found in Rowley’s home.
“This is clearly a significant and positive development. However, we cannot guarantee that there isn’t any more of the substance left,” Basu said. The continued blocking off of areas would “allow thorough searches to continue as a precautionary measure for public safety and to assist the investigation team.”
Britain’s Foreign Office said Friday that the U.K. has asked the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to collect samples for analysis at its labs. The organization has the power to assign blame for chemical weapons use.
The Novichok saga began in March when the Skripals mysteriously fell ill on a park bench in Salisbury. They were found to have been poisoned with Novichok.
Prime Minister Theresa May blamed the Russian government for the attack, which the Kremlin has vehemently denied. The case led the United States and other countries to expel a large number of Russian diplomats.
Public health officials said the risk of exposure to the public is low, but advised people not to pick up any strange items.
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As Finnish citizens await the arrival of U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin for their historic summit in Helsinki on Monday, they have reason to contemplate their own nation’s complex relationship with their powerful eastern neighbor.
Sandwiched between Sweden and Russia, Finland is often referred to as a nation “between East and West,” both for its geographic situation and the balancing act it performed during the Cold War, when it maintained a careful neutrality.
That stance was designed to “resolve the latent conflict between ideological ties and strategic realities,” wrote Max Jakobson, one-time Finnish ambassador to the United Nations, in his book Finland: Myth and Reality.
Finland, he says, is “a Western country ideologically and culturally, as well as part of the Western economic system.” But that leaning is overlaid with layers of complexity due to its location and history with Russia.
For roughly a century before it declared independence in 1917, Finland was an autonomous Grand Duchy in the Russian empire, subject to the differing approaches of various Russian monarchs. Emperor Alexander II (1818-81) ruled as a moderate who encouraged liberal institutions in Finland; today, he is remembered with a well-regarded statue in Helsinki’s Senate Square.
Later leaders, in contrast, tried to Russify Finland and insisted that its internal administration must not “conflict with the interests and honor of Russia.”
EU member, not NATO
A Finnish-Soviet Friendship Treaty dissolved with the collapse of the Soviet Union and Helsinki became a member of the European Union in 1995, an act that puts Finland squarely in the Western camp. But the majority of Finns still are uninterested in joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), at least in part for fear of antagonizing their neighbor to the east.
In an apparent nod to cordial relations, Russia’s Putin visited Helsinki for Finland’s centennial celebration last year; the event was marked by pictures of him and Finnish President Sauli Niinisto sightseeing aboard a steamboat en route to dinner and a ballet performance.
On the other hand, Finland has lodged, on average, more than one land mine per meter along the nations’ 1,300-kilometer border. In the words of Pekka Toveri, brigadier general and defense attache at the Finnish Embassy in Washington, if you come to Finland you had better be invited.
“Finland doesn’t have a defense force,” Toveri told an audience at The Institute of World Politics earlier this year. “Finland is a defense force.”
“We are the most capable defense force in Northern Europe,” supported by a conscription policy and a readily deployable 280,000-strong wartime army, he added. “We have a capable neighbor, sometimes not so aggressive, sometimes a little bit more aggressive, but it’s always there, and you have to be prepared for that.”
Winter War and beyond
The world witnessed Finland’s vigilance and will to independence in the Winter War that started with a Soviet invasion in November 1939. Directed by Finland’s legendary Marshall Carl Gustaf Mannerheim, world skiing champion Pekka Niemi and others of his countrymen led squads on skis that penetrated the Soviet front lines and inflicted severe casualties. In the end, Finland lost more territory than the Stalin-led Soviet government had initially demanded, but it taught its “capable neighbor” the cost of fighting the Finns.
In recent surveys, Toveri said, 78 percent of Finns still say the country should resist any attack, “even if the end result is uncertain.”
Analysts say Finland’s history with Russia may offer lessons for the United States heading into the Trump-Putin summit.
“Finland has always been very clear-eyed about Russia,” said Erik Brattberg, a native of Sweden who heads the Europe Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington-based global think tank. “At the same time, Finland has kept a ‘businesslike’ relationship toward Russia.”
Brattberg warned that continuing to view Finland as a neutral country could lead to a “false narrative.” Even though Helsinki has been chosen to host the summit, Finland “is firmly part of the West and a deep partner of U.S. and NATO” and a strong proponent of a rules-based order among states.
“That’s why Finland is supportive of maintaining sanctions against Russia over the issue of Crimea. They would not like to have Crimea be recognized as part of Russia, as that would undermine the type of rules-based order — things like national sovereignty, territorial integrity — that a small country with a long border facing Russia, like Finland, ultimately depends on,” he said.
Great powers, smaller states
Kirsti Kauppi, Finland’s ambassador to the United States since 2015, said in an interview it is not “sustainable” for the large countries to think they can set the rules of international relations.
“We think that we need broad-based cooperation, that small and medium-sized countries also have a lot to contribute and a lot at stake,” Kauppi said.
Kauppi called for closer cooperation not only between the United States and Finland, but also between Washington and the European Union and the Nordic region generally: “The world is broader than the transatlantic community, certainly, but the basic link between the U.S. and the EU is extremely important in terms of how the international community takes shape.”
Urho Kekkonen, Finland’s president from 1956 to 1982, once acknowledged that small states have little power to influence the course of international events. But, he said, “Great Powers possessing the means of destroying the world bear the responsibility for the maintenance of peace,” while “smaller states can and must constantly remind them of this responsibility.”
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Filipinos tapped out text messages on their cellphones to mobilize protests against President Joseph Estrada. The effort mushroomed within hours into a “people power” revolution that forced Estrada to step down.
That was 2001. Since then, technology has created increasingly powerful smartphones that can link to the internet, provide instant access to news and connect people through social media.
In response, authorities in some countries are waging a battle to control what their people see and hear, with the goal of limiting dissent and heading off more “people power” takeovers.
“At first, it was journalists who were being threatened, it was media being suspended,” said Arnaud Froger, head of the Africa desk at Reporters Without Borders. “But now the authorities are preventing information from being spread on the internet.”
“It’s a clear attempt to silence critical voices and critical information,” Froger told VOA’s English to Africa service.
From China to Africa to Russia to the Middle East, countries have used national security as justification for passing vague laws against “inciting against public order” or even just spreading gossip. They have persuaded sites like Facebook and Google to take down content that they consider offensive.
Many countries have created their own strong web presences, both to ensure their messages get out and to monitor for anything remotely resembling criticism.
In Pakistan, bloggers have been kidnapped, allegedly by security forces, and tortured, with the purpose of intimidating them and others against criticizing the government. Vietnam has established a 10,000-strong military cyberwarfare unit to counter “wrong” views on the internet and collect data on government critics.
Saudi Arabia has arrested dozens for spreading dissent. Activists abroad have had their Facebook accounts deactivated for reporting on alleged Saudi war crimes against Yemen.
China allows only local internet companies operating under strict rules. And in North Korea, internet access essentially doesn’t exist for the general populace.
Bypassing restrictions
The restrictions have sparked a cat-and-mouse game for those seeking to get around restrictions. VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) have provided one avenue by masking the user’s identity and location. In response, several countries have banned them.
Encrypted applications like Telegram have been banned in Iran and elsewhere. Several African countries, including Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania, have imposed taxes on internet and social media use — even remittances from overseas relatives — or ordered websites to purchase expensive operating licenses.
“We are actually very much concerned,” Froger said. “It’s as if countries in central, eastern and southern Africa were involved in a race to restrict access to the internet in general and social media in particular.
“Journalists and citizen journalists are actually very much affected by this as they very often use Facebook to post articles and use Whatsapp to communicate with their sources.”
More protests
But in a sign of how much people have become dependent on the internet and social media, anger has started to bloom into legal action and the very protests that their governments have been trying to prevent.
Ugandan officials say they’ll rethink the country’s social media tax after a massive protest this week that police dispersed by firing tear gas and warning shots.
“Sometimes things can work out,” Froger said. “Legal actions can be taken, and protests can be held in the streets. Cameroon is now the first state ever in Africa to be brought before its own constitutional court for an internet blackout. Sometimes just by denouncing, alerting, raising public awareness is sufficient to encourage the government to back down.”
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A U.S. federal judge Thursday refused to block the extradition of a former Lithuanian judge who fears for her life after uncovering what she said was a high-level child sex ring.
Neringa Venckiene, 47, fled to Chicago in 2013 and has been working as a florist. She turned herself in to federal agents in February.
At one point during Thursday’s hearing, Venckiene appeared to be on the verge of fainting and had to be helped to her chair. The judge recessed the proceedings for about 10 minutes.
Judge Virginia Kendall ruled that her authority to stop the extradition was limited because of the bilateral treaty the United States has with Lithuania. She said it was important to stick to the treaty in case the U.S. requests cooperation from the Vilnius government.
“The judge pretty much signed my mom’s death sentence,” Venckiene’s son Karolis said through tears Thursday. He said there is no way his mother will get a fair trial in Lithuania.
Venckiene told The Associated Press earlier this year that so-called shadowy figures upset over her allegations of a pedophilia ring and corruption could kill her if she were sent back. In Lithuania, some see her as a heroine for exposing a criminal network, but others see her as a manipulator who fabricated the pedophilia claims.
Venckiene is a former judge and member of parliament. She exposed high-level corruption and alleged child molestation in Lithuania.
Authorities there have charged her with reporting a false crime and failing to surrender her young niece to authorities, alleging the little girl was among those sexually abused. She is also charged with hitting policemen who tried to take the girl out of her arms.
Venckiene’s attorneys have appealed Kendall’s ruling and she will remain in Chicago for now. The attorneys said they will immediately appeal the ruling to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
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President Donald Trump said the U.S. would “probably not” strike a trade deal with Britain if Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan went ahead as planned.
“If they do a deal like that, we would be dealing with the European Union instead of dealing with the U.K., so it will probably kill the deal,” Trump told The Sun, a conservative British newspaper.
Trump said May had ignored his advice on how to negotiate Britain’s exit from the European Union. “I would have done it much differently,” Trump said of May’s Brexit plan. “I actually told Theresa May how to do it, but she didn’t listen to me.”
Trump said May’s so-called soft-Brexit approach went “the opposite way” to what he had recommended and that it was “very unfortunate.”
May’s proposal was finalized Friday. It was quickly followed by the resignation of two members of her Cabinet, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Brexit Secretary David Davis, who did not approve of her approach.
In the exclusive interview with The Sun, Trump also said that Johnson would make a “great prime minister,” adding, “I think he’s got what it takes.”
The Sun is owned by Rupert Murdoch, a close ally of the president’s, who also owns Fox News Network, Trump’s favorite U.S. TV channel.
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President Donald Trump closed out his chaotic two-day visit to NATO Thursday by declaring victory, claiming that member nations caved to his demands to significantly increase defense spending and reaffirming his commitment to the alliance.
But there were no immediate specifics on what Trump said he had achieved, and French President Emmanuel Macron quickly disputed Trump’s claim that NATO allies have agreed to boost defense spending beyond 2 percent of gross domestic product.
“The United States’ commitment to NATO remains very strong,” Trump told reporters at a surprise news conference following an emergency session of NATO members held to address his threats.
Trump had spent his time in Brussels berating members of the military alliance for failing to spend enough of their money on defense, accusing Europe of freeloading off the U.S. and raising doubts about whether he would come to members’ defense if they were attacked.
Trump said he made his anger clear to allies on Wednesday.
“Yesterday I let them know that I was extremely unhappy with what was happening,” Trump said, adding that, in response, European countries agreed to up their spending.
“They have substantially upped their commitment and now we’re very happy and have a very, very powerful, very, very strong NATO,” he said.
President Trump says the US commitment to NATO is very strong and that other nations are increasing their financial contributions. (July 12)
Trump did not specify which countries had committed to what, and it remained unclear whether any had changed their plans. He seemed to suggest a speeded-up timeline, saying nations would be “spending at a much faster clip,” which if it panned out would mark a significant milestone for the alliance.
“Some are at 2 percent, others have agreed definitely to go to 2 percent, and some are going back to get the approval, and which they will get to go to 2 percent,” he said.
U.S. leaders for decades have pushed NATO allies to spend more on defense in an effort to more equitably share the burden in the mutual-defense organization.
NATO countries in 2014 committed to move toward spending 2 percent of their gross domestic products on defense within 10 years. NATO has estimated that only 15 members, or just over half, will meet the benchmark by 2024 based on current trends.
Macron, in his own press conference, seemed to reject Trump’s claim that NATO powers had agreed to increases beyond previous targets. He said the allies had confirmed their intention to meet the goal of 2 percent by 2024 and no more.
The emergency session came amid reports that Trump had threatened to leave the pact if allies didn’t immediately up their spending, but officials said no explicit threat was made.
“President Trump never at any moment, either in public or in private, threatened to withdraw from NATO,” Macron said.
Trump has taken an aggressive tone during the NATO summit, questioning the value of an alliance that has defined decades of American foreign policy, torching an ally and proposing a massive increase in European defense spending.
Earlier Thursday, Trump called out U.S. allies on Twitter, saying, “Presidents have been trying unsuccessfully for years to get Germany and other rich NATO Nations to pay more toward their protection from Russia.”
He complained the United States “pays tens of Billions of Dollars too much to subsidize Europe” and demanded that member nations meet their pledge to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense, which “must ultimately go to 4%!”
Under fire for his warm embrace of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Trump on Wednesday also turned a harsh spotlight on Germany’s own ties to Russia, alleging that a natural gas pipeline venture with Moscow has left Angela Merkel’s government “totally controlled” and “captive” to Russia.
He continued the attack Thursday, complaining that “Germany just started paying Russia, the country they want protection from, Billions of Dollars for their Energy needs coming out of a new pipeline from Russia.”
“Not acceptable!” he railed before arriving late at NATO headquarters for morning meetings with the leaders of Azerbaijan, Romania, Ukraine and Georgia.
During the trip, Trump questioned the necessity of the alliance that formed a bulwark against Soviet aggression, tweeting after a day of contentious meetings: “What good is NATO if Germany is paying Russia billions of dollars for gas and energy?”
Merkel, who grew up in communist East Germany, shot back that she had “experienced myself a part of Germany controlled by the Soviet Union, and I’m very happy today that we are united in freedom as the Federal Republic of Germany and can thus say that we can determine our own policies and make our own decisions and that’s very good.”
Trump tweeted that NATO countries “Must pay 2% of GDP IMMEDIATELY, not by 2025” and then rattled them further by privately suggesting member nations should spend 4 percent of their gross domestic product on defense — a bigger share than even the United States currently pays, according to NATO statistics.
Still, Trump has been more conciliatory behind the scenes, including at a leaders’ dinner Wednesday.
“I have to tell you that the atmosphere last night at dinner was very open, was very constructive and it was very positive,” Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, the president of Croatia, told reporters.
Amid the tumult, British Prime Minister Theresa May, whose government is in turmoil over her plans for exiting the European Union, sounded a call for solidarity among allies.
“As we engage Russia we must do so from a position of unity and strength – holding out hope for a better future, but also clear and unwavering on where Russia needs to change its behavior for this to become a reality,” she said.
Trump heads next to the United Kingdom. Although Trump administration officials point to the longstanding alliance between the United States and the United Kingdom, Trump’s itinerary in England will largely keep him out of central London, where significant protests are expected.
Instead, a series of events — a black-tie dinner with business leaders, a meeting with May and an audience with Queen Elizabeth II — will happen outside the bustling city, where Mayor Sadiq Khan has been in a verbal battle with Trump.
Woody Johnson, the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom, dismissed the significance of the protests, telling Fox News that one of the reasons the two countries are so close “is because we have the freedoms that we’ve all fought for. And one of the freedoms we have is freedom of speech and the freedom to express your views. And I know that’s valued very highly over here and people can disagree strongly and still go out to dinner.”
He also said meeting the queen would be an experience Trump “will really cherish.”
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is pressing European nations to get tough on Iran by cutting off all funding the country may use to foment instability in the Middle East and beyond.
Pompeo was meeting on Thursday with European officials in Brussels following a summit of NATO leaders to make the case for clamping down on Iranian “terrorism and proxy wars.”
He called on America’s partners and allies to join a U.S.-led economic pressure campaign against Tehran that began in earnest after President Donald Trump withdrew from the landmark Iran nuclear deal in May.
Pompeo said in a tweet that “there’s no telling” when Iran could act “in one of our countries next” and posted a map that accused Iran of sponsoring 11 terrorist attacks in Europe since 1978.
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NATO leaders said Wednesday they have agreed to contribute more money to their defense budget.
“We are committed to improving the balance of sharing the costs and responsibilities of alliance membership,” the military alliance said.
The announcement was made just hours after U.S. President Donald Trump renewed criticism of NATO for not contributing more to defend the nearly 70-year-old, 29-nation alliance.
The allied nations also urged world leaders to maintain “decisive pressure” on North Korea, including the full implementation of United Nations sanctions, to get Pyongyang to scrap its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.The alliance also reiterated it support for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed at the June 12 summit with Trump in Singapore to move toward denuclearization, but has yet provide details of how and when his pledge would be achieved.
NATO members also expressed concern about an increase in Iran’s missile tests and said they were committed to “permanently ensuring that Iran’s nuclear program remains peaceful.”
The member nations also voiced concern over Russia’s recent actions, including the poisoning of a former British spy in Britain, saying they had reduced stability and security.
NATO, which is meeting in Brussels, also agreed to invite Macedonia to begin talks to join the alliance.
Alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg said Macedonia would be eligible to join provided the new name for the country that Macedonia and Greece agreed to is unanimously approved by existing members later this year.
Macedonia and Greece reached an agreement last month to rename Macedonia the Republic of North Macedonia, following a dispute over the name since 1991 that has damaged relations.
Greece has insisted on the name change because its northern province, which was the cradle of Alexander the Great’s empire, has the same name.
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Sharp divisions over who should pay for Europe’s defense have overshadowed the opening of the NATO summit in Brussels, after U.S. President Donald Trump accused European allies of taking advantage of American taxpayers.
The U.S. spends about 3.5 percent of GDP on defense, far higher than other member states. It is predicted that eight of the 29 members, including the United States, will meet the NATO target of two percent of GDP this year. The U.S. provides 70 percent of NATO’s budget.
But Trump suggested Wednesday that NATO allies commit to spending 4 percent of their GDP on defense by 2024. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed that Trump raised the idea at a closed-door meeting with fellow NATO leaders.
“President Trump wants to see our allies share more of the burden and at a very minimum meet their already stated obligations,”said Sanders.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg opened proceedings in Brussels with a clear message: This year’s summit would focus on who’s paying the bill, or in NATO terms, burden-sharing.
“Fair burden-sharing underpins everything that we do. Just a few years ago we were cutting our defense budgets. Now we are adding billions,” Stoltenberg said.
Credit for those added billions is being claimed fully by the U.S. president.
“Because of me they’ve raised about $40 billion over the last year. So I think the secretary-general likes Trump. He may be the only one, but that’s okay with me,” he told reporters as the summit began.
Alliances and friendships are being sorely tested at the meeting of world leaders. Trump accused Berlin of being under the control of Moscow, citing a new pipeline project that will supply Russian gas directly to Germany.
After a seemingly tense bilateral meeting with her U.S. counterpart, German Chancellor Angela Merkel underlined her country’s commitment to NATO.
“It’s very important that we have these exchanges together because we are partners, we are good partners and we wish to continue to cooperate in the future,” she told reporters.
Singling out Germany isn’t necessarily fair, said defense analyst Sophia Besch of the Center for European Reform.
“Germany’s contributions to NATO go well beyond what it spends on its own defense. Germany is contributing troops as a lead nation in Lithuania and NATO’s forward presence to the east,” she said.
The feud over defense spending looks set to overshadow other business at the two-day summit. Britain announced it would double its number of troops in Afghanistan, while Canada offered to lead a NATO training mission in Iraq.
“Now we have to rebuild that democracy and strengthen it. NATO is going to take a significant role in that, and Canada is going to commit 250 troops, a number of helicopters, and we are actually offering to command that mission for the first year,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced at the summit.
A joint summit declaration issued Wednesday underlined NATO’s support for Ukraine and its aspirations for membership of the alliance, pending domestic reforms. Ukraine is attending the Brussels summit and further discussions are due to take place Thursday.
The declaration also formally extended an invitation to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to join, as soon as it reaches an acceptable solution to its naming dispute with Greece.
Georgia’s future membership also will be discussed Thursday as the summit continues.
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Facebook will be facing its first fine in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the social media platform allowed the data mining firm to access the private information of millions of users without their consent or knowledge.
A British government investigative office, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), fined Facebook 500,000 pounds, or $663,000 – the maximum amount that can be levied for the violation of British data privacy laws. In a report, the ICO found Facebook had broken the law in failing to protect the data of the estimated 87 million users affected by the security breach.
The ICO’s investigation concluded that Facebook “contravened the law by failing to safeguard people’s information,” the report read. It also found that the company failed to be transparent about how people’s data was harvested by others on its platform.
Cambridge Analytica, a London firm that shuttered its doors in May following a report by The New York Times and The Observer chronicling its dealings, offered “tools that could identify the personalities of American voters and influence their behavior,” according to a March Times report.
“New technologies that use data analytics to micro-target people give campaign groups the ability to connect with individual voters,” Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham said in a statement. “But this cannot be at the expense of transparency, fairness and compliance with the law.”
The firm, which U.S. President Donald Trump employed during his successful 2016 election campaign, was heavily funded by American businessman Robert Mercer, who is also a major donor to the U.S. Republican Party. Former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon was also employed by the firm and has said he coined the company’s name.
Christopher Wylie, a whistleblower within the firm, told the Times in March that the firm aimed to create psychological profiles of American voters and use those profiles to target them via advertising.
“[Cambridge Analytica’s leaders] want to fight a culture war in America,” Wylie told the Times. “Cambridge Analytica was supposed to be the arsenal of weapons to fight that culture war.”
While this is the first financial penalty Facebook will be facing in the scandal, the fine will not make a dent in the company’s profits. The social media giant generated $11.97 billion in revenue in the first quarter, and generates the revenue needed to pay the fine about every 10 minutes.
Denham said the company will have an opportunity to respond to the fine before a final decision is made. Facebook has said it will respond to the ICO report soon.
“As we have said before, we should have done more to investigate claims about Cambridge Analytica and taken action in 2015,” said Erin Egan, Facebook’s chief privacy officer, in a statement. “We have been working closely with the Information Commissioner’s Office in their investigation of Cambridge Analytica, just as we have with authorities in the U.S. and other countries.”
The statement from the ICO also announced that the office would seek to criminally prosecute SCL Elections Ltd., Cambridge Analytica’s parent company, for failing to comply with a legal request from a U.S. professor to disclose what data the company had on him. SCL Elections also shut down in May.
“Your data is yours and you have a right to control its use,” wrote David Carroll, the professor.
The ICO said it would also be asking 11 political parties to conduct audits of their data protection processes, and compel SCL Elections to comply with Carroll’s request.
Further investigations by agencies such as the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI, and Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC, are under way. In April, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared before a U.S. Senate committee to testify on the company’s actions in the scandal.
“We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake,” Zuckerberg told U.S. lawmakers in prepared remarks in April. He also said, “It was my mistake, and I’m sorry.”
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Grabbing a bicycle from a docking station and riding the streets of Paris used to be one of the city’s many charms, but the once-loved Velib system has fallen into disarray and some new dockless bike-share programs are struggling to survive.
After it launched in 2007, Velib quickly became a hit, signing up more than 250,000 users who could take advantage of 20,000 bikes around the city. But advertising company JCDecaux’s concession to run Velib expired last year.
A French-Spanish consortium called Smovengo won the tender to run the service for the next 15 years, but it struggled to meet a January deadline to install new docking stations and has battled a raft of technology problems, leaving users frustrated.
At the same time, four dockless bike-share programs, all run by Asian operators, have popped across the city, offering users the ability to unlock a free-standing bike via an app for a fee.
While initially popular thanks to their novelty and Velib’s problems, some of those schemes are now running into trouble, with users unhappy with the quality of the bikes, many of which have been vandalized or thrown in the Seine.
Singapore’s oBike this week became the second of the programs to give up on Paris, which wants to be an urban leader in green mobility. Officials of oBike did not return calls, but a former official said key staff in France had left the company.
In February, Hong Kong startup Gobee.bike halted its operations because of theft and vandalism.
China-owned bike-share firms Ofo and Mobike remain active and have been steadily growing their numbers, thanks in part to Smovengo’s struggle to get fully up and running.
Laurent Kennel, general manager at Ofo France, said the firm now had about 2,500 of its bright yellow bikes on Paris roads and aimed to increase that to 3,000 to 4,000 by the end of summer.
“In Paris and elsewhere, there have been low-quality bikes that were not made to last,” he said. “Free-floating bike sharing hasn’t created the chaos that some had predicted a few months ago. It’s going quite well.”
Mobike also has several thousand of its red bikes on Paris streets and has been adding a larger version, more suited to European frames, also with three speeds, like Ofo and Velib.
Paris cyclists have welcomed the new programs, but are nostalgic for the old Velibs, which they say offered a better, smoother ride and were cheaper, thanks to state subsidies.
“Bike-share services are good for short distances. You can drop them wherever you want, which is convenient,” said Paris cyclist David Bober. “But their quality is not great and they are not very comfortable for long distances.”
He said he used to pay about 30 euros a year for his Velib subscription but that membership for two Asian dockless schemes costs him around 20 euros a month.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has recognized that the city needs to get a grip on the programs and make sure Velib works.
“We know there is this entire field, this entire space of mobility which exists and can be managed in a different way. But for us it clear that it must be regulated,” she said.
Still, more startups are using Paris as a test center. Last month, California-based Lime launched a fleet of dock-free electric scooters in the city, part of a wider rollout in several European cities.
Danish bike share operator Donkey Republic has also launched several hundred dockless bikes. Unlike Mobike and Ofo, the large Danish bikes cannot be parked anywhere but must be chained up at designated parking spots.
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The U.N. refugee agency says Europe needs to take a broader approach to the influx of refugees and not just expect a few countries to deal with the issue and its causes.
Last week, the European Union cobbled together an action plan that focuses on setting up processing centers in North Africa for asylum-seekers fleeing conflict and persecution and economic migrants seeking better lives.
The hope is to ease the brunt that front-line countries like Italy have to absorb. Facing growing political opposition, Italy has diverted several boatloads of refugee elsewhere.
William Spindler, a senior spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said Tuesday the U.N. is pushing for an approach aimed at sharing the responsibilities as widely as possible and easing the risks of the perilous crossing of the Mediterranean in rickety, overcrowded boats.
“We are very concerned about the situation of thousands of people losing their lives while trying to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa every year, and the death toll is increasing” even though the overall number of refugees has declined, Spindler told VOA’s English to Africa service.
“Last month, for instance, one in every seven people who tried to cross the Mediterranean died. This is outrageous. Something needs to be done,” he said.
UNHCR wants Europe to address several intertwined issues simultaneously: Implement a policy on picking up refugees at sea and allowing them to land, expand the planned processing centers to Europe, and address the root causes of the exoduses by promoting job creation and resolving conflicts in the originating countries.
“Saving human lives has to be the priority,” Spindler said. “Rescue at sea and disembarkation go hand in hand. [Otherwise,] You could have a situation where captains might hesitate before they rescue people in danger,” including sailors unrelated to the migrant crisis.
“That’s why we have put forward a number of proposals to the EU that will see clear, pre-identified disembarkation centers not just in North Africa but all across the Mediterranean.”
Processing centers
So far, no North African countries have signed on to host processing centers, partly due to concerns that they could attract even more migrants.
“That’s why it’s important to look into cooperation arrangements and not simply for Europe to shift its responsibilities, to close its borders and let somebody else deal with the problem,” Spindler said. “We have had that for too long. That is a short-term view that doesn’t really address the issues.
“The case of Italy is particularly urgent because they are the country that has been receiving in recent years the largest number of people, and we think that this is unfair. We need to have a system where this responsibility is shared,” he added.
The other critical issue is tackling the reasons why people leave their countries.
“Otherwise, you are simply looking into the effects and not really into the causes,” Spindler said.
‘Opportunities at home’
The EU announced Tuesday that it would allocate about $100 million to help protect refugees and borders in North Africa. But critics say the plan diverts economic development aid for Africa.
“The international community should support the development of countries of origin, looking to creating more work opportunities in countries such as those in sub-Saharan Africa, and also to invest in governance and respect for human rights in these countries,” Spindler said. “People need to believe that there are opportunities at home. We need to give back that sense of hope to people.”
An even thornier issue is defusing conflicts, some of which seem intractable after dragging on for years or even decades.
“There have never been so many conflicts around the world as there are today, in sub-Saharan Africa, but also in the Middle East, and this is the main trigger for the movement of populations who are looking for protection,” Spindler said. “And the capacity of the international community to prevent and solve conflicts seems to be very diminished.”
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The British government is planning to almost double the number of its troops in Afghanistan after a request from U.S. President Donald Trump for reinforcements to help tackle the fragile security situation there.
Prime Minister Theresa May announced the government will send an extra 440 troops, which would bring Britain’s total to about 1,100, to help Afghan troops fighting Taliban and Islamic State insurgents.
The extra troops will be taking part in a NATO-led training mission, called Resolute Support, to train and assist Afghan forces. They will be based in Kabul and will not be in a combat role. British troops ended combat operations in 2014.
The announcement comes the day before a NATO summit in Belgium that could turn contentious over Trump’s insistence that allies pay more for their defense.
Trump, who announced the United States would send thousands more troops to Afghanistan last year, has asked Britain and other NATO countries to send more reinforcements to the country.
“In committing additional troops to the Train Advise Assist operation in Afghanistan, we have underlined once again that when NATO calls the U.K. is among the first to answer,” May said. “NATO is as vital today as it ever has been and our commitment to it remains steadfast. The Alliance can rely on the U.K. to lead by example.”
The increase in British troops comes ahead of parliamentary elections in Afghanistan in October, which are seen as a crucial test for democracy in a country at war for four decades.
The extra British troops will initially come from the Welsh Guards, with around half arriving in August and the rest in February next year.
Hundreds of civilians have been killed and wounded in attacks in Kabul this year. At least 57 people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a voter registration booth in April and about 100 people were killed in January by a bomb in an ambulance.
Thousands more U.S. troops have been sent to Afghanistan to help train the army, and commanders have been given greater authority to carry out airstrikes against the militants in a major reversal of the previous policy of phased withdrawal of American forces. But almost 17 years since the United States tried to topple Afghanistan’s Taliban, who had harbored al-Qaida militants behind attacks on New York and Washington, the West remains entangled in an effort to stabilize the country.
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President Donald Trump’s four-nation European tour has allies fretting over the risk of damage he could do to the decades-old NATO alliance. They’re also worried about his potential embrace of Russia’s Vladimir Putin during a summit in Helsinki.
The trip that begins Tuesday in Brussels will also take Trump to London, where Prime Minister Theresa May’s government is in turmoil over her plans for exiting the European Union.
Trump has been pressing NATO countries to fulfill their goal of spending 2 percent of their gross domestic products on defense by 2024. During his presidential campaign, he suggested he might only come to the defense of NATO nations that fulfilled their obligation. He continues to criticize NATO countries for not paying their fair share.
NATO estimates that 15 members, or just over half, will meet the benchmark by 2024 based on current trends.
“The United States is spending far more on NATO than any other Country. This is not fair, nor is it acceptable,” Trump tweeted Monday, insisting that NATO benefits Europe “far more than it does the U.S.”
“On top of this the European Union has a Trade Surplus of $151 Million with the U.S., with big Trade Barriers on U.S. goods. NO!” he protested.
Trump, who has compared the Brexit vote to leave the EU to his own election, will be making his maiden presidential trip to Britain at a fraught time for May. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Brexit Secretary David Davis resigned within hours of each other in protest of her plan.
Trump’s visit is expected to attract large protests in London and elsewhere in Britain.
Trump’s weeklong trip to Europe will continue with a stop in Scotland before ending with a sit-down in Helsinki with Putin, whose country the U.S. intelligence community has concluded interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump win.
The meeting will be closely watched to see whether Trump will rebuke or embrace Putin, who has repeatedly denied the allegations of election meddling, in spite of evidence to the contrary.
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U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis will only play a supporting role to President Donald Trump at this week’s NATO summit — an event that by definition is focused on heads of state from the trans-Atlantic alliance.
But Mattis’ small part belies his high standing among NATO allies, which has only risen as they become increasingly bewildered by Trump’s policies on trade and Iran and anxious about his outreach to Russian President Vladimir Putin, European diplomats, officials and experts say.
In recent months, it has become clear that Mattis has a limited ability to influence Trump, who is increasingly confident in his own foreign policy instincts as he settles into his presidency.
But Mattis, by staying above the political fray and avoiding contradicting Trump, has been quietly helping bolster the NATO military alliance over the past 18 months in ways that are too granular to grab much attention in Washington.
“In the Trump administration, he is seen as the most articulate adult in the room,” said one senior European official, who has attended meetings in Europe with Mattis.
The July 11-12 summit is set to enshrine reforms that include creating two new military commands aimed at deterring Russia, one of which the U.S. military has agreed to host.
Mattis, a retired Marine Corps general and former NATO commander, also helped clinch agreement on a plan known as 30-30-30-30. It would require NATO to have 30 land battalions, 30 air fighter squadrons and 30 ships ready to deploy within 30 days of being put on alert.
“There is a real questioning in Europe about the commitment by the President of the United States to the post-war European order” including NATO, said Ivo Daalder, a U.S. ambassador to NATO under President Barack Obama. “But on the sub-structure, which is the day-to-day business of the alliance … Mattis has led an effort to double down.”
In another example, Mattis has helped oversee a 91 percent increase in Pentagon funding requests for the U.S. military’s European Deterrence Initiative, which was created to help reassure nervous European allies after Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula.
European allies are increasing their spending on defense, partly because of Trump’s public scolding. Mattis has reinforced that message publicly and privately, to the relief of many European security officials, who long thought their nations’ spending was insufficient.
“The summit should therefore be a moment (for Trump) to take a victory lap,” wrote Derek Collet, a former Pentagon official under Obama’s administration, who is now at the German Marshall Fund. “Instead, for the Europeans, the measure of success at the meeting has been reduced to getting through two days relatively unscathed by a presidential rant or tweetstorm.”
Russia concessions?
Regardless of what happens in Brussels, NATO states will still be anxious about the Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki, Finland, on July 16. NATO allies are wondering if Trump might make security concessions to Moscow to improve ties.
“There are great concerns in the alliance about what agreements Trump and Putin could reach,” Peter Beyer, transatlantic coordinator for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition, told a German newspaper chain.
Mattis, who has made clear his concerns about Moscow, has sought to keep political tensions between the United States and Europe from bleeding into U.S. defense relationships.
At the last NATO defense ministers meeting in June in Brussels, Mattis, speaking at a closed-door NATO dinner, steered clear of the steel tariffs that Trump had just imposed on NATO allies on national security grounds, one NATO official said.
Instead, Mattis’ remarks stuck strictly to military issues like the NATO training mission in Iraq, the official said.
Dismayed European allies have also been struggling to salvage the Iran nuclear deal and preserve their Iranian trade after Trump pulled the United States from the landmark accord and ordered sanctions reimposed on Tehran.
Mattis had once backed staying with the deal, although he softened his public stance on the issue in the weeks before Trump withdrew.
European officials say there is frustration that even though they have good relations with Mattis this has not meant they have been able to effectively communicate their concerns to Trump.
“We tried to develop a relationship with our direct counterparts in Washington to try to reach the president and that didn’t work,” one official said.
European officials and diplomats said Mattis has a personal charm that works well, even with Europeans skeptical of the United States.
But for Europeans, there is growing concern that Trump might pay less and less attention to his defense secretary.
In an administration that has seen a high degree of turnover, former NATO official Alexander Vershbow said some of his European contacts ask him from time to time about the possibility that Mattis might leave the job.
“That’s the nightmare scenario for the Europeans, that Mattis could depart,” said Vershbow, who was deputy secretary general of NATO until late 2016.
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Britain is to almost double the funding it provides to countries in the Western Balkans to 80 million pounds ($106.06 million) and ramp up its number of security staff in the region to try and tackle organized crime gangs.
With Britain set to leave the European Union next year, the U.K. government said the moves, which also include improving the Western Balkans countries’ cyber capability and extending the presence of the pan-Balkans Strategic Reserve Force, showed it remain committed to the region’s stability.
“History shows that a stable and secure Western Balkans region means a more stable and secure Europe,” U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May said in a statement ahead of summit of Western Balkans and some European leaders in London on Tuesday.
The Western Balkans consists of Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, all of which want to join the EU.
The combination of U.K. measures pledged over the next two years will see its funding rise from 41 million pounds in 2018/19 to 80 million pounds in 2020/21 and be drawn from its “Conflict, Security and Stability Fund.”
By doubling the number of U.K. staff working in the Western Balkans on security issues affecting the U.K., it hopes to reduce drug-fueled crime in Britain and strengthen the region’s own response to serious and organized crime and violent extremism.
Organized Crime Groups from Western Balkans countries like Albania have a significant nationwide presence in the U.K. One crime network was recently estimated to have imported an average of more than 8,000 kg of cocaine a year into the U.K., with an estimated street value of 800 million pounds.
Other measures outlined include launching the Balkans Organized Crime Observatory jointly with the Austrian and Norwegian governments.
There will also be 1 million pounds spent on training and advising on cyber security across the region, including direct support to “Computer Emergency Response Teams” in Serbia and Montenegro and information sharing among senior cyber officials.
A joint declaration was made on the principles of information-exchange that will help law enforcement agencies in the region share information more easily in the fight against serious and organized crime and terrorism.
Countries will also commit to concrete actions to tackle corruption, while the pan-Balkans Strategic Reserve Force (SRF) will be extended until the end of next year. The SRF is held at readiness in the U.K. to move into the Western Balkans if the security situation deteriorates.
An additional 1 million pounds was earmarked to help the region address difficult legacy issues, including supporting the organizations working to find and identify the 12,000 victims still missing from the conflicts of the 1990s.
($1 = 0.7543 pounds)
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Britain’s former Brexit minister says Prime Minister Theresa May’s approach to the nation’s exit from the European Union is “a dangerous strategy.”
David Davis stepped down from his post Sunday. In a resignation letter, Davis told May that her plan to create “a common rulebook” that would abide by the EU’s rules on free trade would leave Britain in — at best — “a weak negotiating position, and possibly an inescapable one.” He said the plan would make the idea of reestablishing British sovereignty from the EU “illusory rather than real.”
May’s Cabinet agreed to her plan on Friday after a contentious meeting at Chequers, the prime minister’s official country retreat. Davis and some Cabinet members have advocated for a clean break from the EU, while others support a so-called “soft Brexit” that would maintain economic ties with the bloc through its customs union and its single market.
In an interview Monday on BBC, Davis said that May had allowed her negotiators with the EU to give away “too much, too easily.” But he said his resignation does not mean he will mount a leadership challenge to May.
Hours after Davis’ interview, May announced that Dominic Raab, a former housing minister, would succeed Davis as Brexit minister.
read morePresident Klaus Iohannis has fired Romania’s chief anti-corruption prosecutor over misconduct and incompetence accusations by her own government ministry, but has urged the struggle against rampant graft in the country to continue.
In a Monday announcement, his office says that National Anti-Corruption Directorate Chief Prosecutor Laura Codruta Kovesi was dismissed to implement a ruling by Romania’s top court, which had ordered it over the accusations of incompetence.
In a February report, Justice Minister Tudorel Toader had accused Kovesi of being authoritarian, and claimed that prosecutors under her command had falsified evidence and acquitted an inordinate number of defendants. He also accused Kovesi of harming Romania’s image in interviews with foreign journalists.
Kovesi, who has been widely praised for prosecuting senior officials, refuted his accusations.
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has described his latest talks with North Korean officials as productive. He met with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts in Tokyo on Sunday before proceeding to Vietnam. Pyongyang was the first stop on Pompeo’s first around-the-world trip as America’s top diplomat. After Asia, he travels to the United Arab Emirates before heading to Belgium, where he will accompany U.S. President Donald Trump at the NATO summit in Brussels. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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One of Britain’s most vocal anti-EU cabinet ministers publicly endorsed Prime Minister Theresa May’s plan to keep Britain in a free trade zone for goods with the EU, a sign she has so far averted a revolt against a new proposal for a soft Brexit.
May unveiled the plan at a closed door government meeting on Friday, siding with those in her divided Cabinet who favor closer ties with Europe while ordering those who support a cleaner break to back her policy or quit.
Environment Secretary Michael Gove, one of the highest-profile Brexit campaigners in the Cabinet, took to TV to endorse the plan, as critics inside and outside the ruling Conservative Party started to attack the proposal.
“I am a realist,” Gove told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show. “One of the things about politics is that you mustn’t, you shouldn’t, make the perfect the enemy of the good. And one of the things about this compromise is that it unites the Cabinet.”
May managed to unite her cabinet to agree to the compromise on Friday after eight hours of talks at her country residence, which news reports say included robust criticism from Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.
The BBC quoted Johnson as telling his colleagues that the plan was a “big turd” that would need to be “polished” in order to be sold to the public, although he fell into line by the end of the day.
For May, it was a hard-won victory. The Sunday Times said seven of the 27 ministers present spoke out against the plan.
Her strategy pushes to keep Britain inside a free-trade area for goods with the EU, while also committing to ending the free movement of people and the supremacy of the European court. It could disappoint Brexit campaigners by effectively limiting
Britain’s ability to regulate some of its own industries, since rules for goods could not differ sharply with EU rules.
Ireland’s foreign minister said on Sunday the proposal was a significant move towards a much less disorderly Brexit, though tough negotiations still lie ahead.
“I think for the first time we’re seeing very direct language which points to a much softer Brexit than I think some people have been commenting on, and that has to be welcomed,” Simon Coveney told national broadcaster RTE.
“I don’t think they [the EU] will accept it in full but I hope it can be the basis for a serious negotiation now.”
“The EU has always said that once Britain softens its red lines… that they would also show some generosity and flexibility but I think there will be limitations to that flexibility.”
Delivering sovereignty
Gove said the proposal would still give Britain autonomy from EU institutions and structures, while also having a free-trade agreement that would work in the interest of business.
“[In] all of the important areas where an independent country chooses to exercise sovereignty, Britain will be able to do so,” Gove said, adding the plan respected the referendum result to leave the EU.
But there were signs of a backlash among some lawmakers from May’s Conservative Party on Sunday, including the party’s most visible anti-EU campaigner outside the Cabinet, Jacob Rees-Mogg.
He said the proposal could be worse than Britain leaving the bloc with no deal.
“That is not something that this country voted for, it is not what the prime minister promised,” he told BBC radio.
Opposition Labour Party Brexit spokesman Keir Starmer said May’s proposal had “fudge written all over it.”
He said customs arrangements at the heart of the proposal were “unworkable” and a “bureaucratic nightmare that was not going to work”.
Starmer said May’s proposal had not met Labour’s demands for a comprehensive customs union and a single-market deal with shared institutions and regulations.
Labour’s opposition, combined with complaints from some of the Conservatives’ strongly anti-EU faction, means May could face a tough task in getting lawmakers to back a final deal.
The compromise also is not certain to go down well in Brussels. The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, welcomed the agreement on Friday but added on Twitter: “We will assess proposals to see if they are workable and realistic.”
German manufacturers said on Sunday the plan did not go far enough to guarantee the free movement of goods. May still wants to be able to agree separate trade agreements with non-EU countries, while Britain would collect customs duties on behalf of the EU.
“It is not practicable in customs terms to guarantee free goods transit between the EU and Britain as well as own free trade agreements with third countries, as Britain wants,” said Thilo Brodtmann, head of Germany’s Mechanical Engineering Industry Association (VDMA).
“Britain’s idea of collecting customs on imports from third countries would be very bureaucratic and throw the gates wide open to customs fraud.”
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Corruption and the conflict with Russian-backed rebels in Ukraine’s east will top the agenda when a summit between that country and the European Union takes place Monday in Brussels.
In May, the EU agreed to a $1.2 billion financial assistance package for Ukraine. The International Monetary Fund and EU are demanding deeper reforms to governance and the judiciary in return for the money; however, reforms to the court system have stalled, says Andrew Wilson, professor of Ukrainian studies at University College London.
“You have what’s called the National Anti-Corruption Bureau. It’s totally separate from the corrupt police. It can do its job well. It’s independent. But it can’t actually put bad guys in jail without reform to the courts. They do their work, the courts just let the bad guys go.”
“Ukraine is being asked to set up a separate anti-corruption court. It’s kind of set up a fake version that nobody believes would be independent. So that’s the key stumbling block,” Wilson told VOA in an interview.
WATCH: EU Demands Deep Reforms Ahead of Summit, Some Ukrainians Question Benefits
Focus on elections
That stumbling block to a closer relationship between Ukraine and the EU may be difficult to overcome in coming months, says Anastasia Voronkova of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
“With the main preoccupation of the Ukrainian government right now being the forthcoming 2019 elections, it’s very unclear how all the challenges will be met,” she said.
Nearly a year ago, the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement was signed after repeated delays. For many Ukrainians, it offered the hope of economic opportunity and the rule of law, after decades of slow growth and corruption.
“The early signs are that exports to the EU are beginning to expand, but not enough really to float the economy off the rocks. So, there are some signs of disillusion because Ukraine hasn’t got more,” Wilson said.
Crimea on agenda
The EU will use the summit to reaffirm its backing for Ukraine’s territorial integrity after the grouping extended sanctions against Russia last week.
“External pressure can help, in particular perhaps to prevent a strong escalation of the conflict. But it won’t on its own be sufficient to really do anything meaningful to resolve the conflict,” Voronkova said.
The White House this week said there is no change in U.S. policy on Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. The United States has provided Kyiv with $350 million in lethal and non-lethal military aid this year, including so-called “Javelin” anti-tank missiles.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are scheduled to meet in Helsinki July 16, with Ukraine likely a key subject of the talks.
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Corruption and the conflict with Russian-backed rebels in Ukraine’s east will top the agenda at a European Union summit with Ukraine on Monday in Brussels. As Henry Ridgwell reports, the EU is pressuring Kyiv to make deeper reforms, but it is also facing disillusionment among some Ukrainians over the perceived benefits of closer ties with Europe.
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Authorities conducted extensive forensic tests Saturday, looking for the source of a nerve agent that sickened two people thought to have handled a contaminated item from the March attack on a Russian ex-spy and his daughter.
A police officer also underwent a precautionary test at a hospital to check for possible contamination related to the case, but Wiltshire police said late Saturday that he had been cleared.
The man and woman poisoned a week ago are in critical condition at Salisbury District Hospital, which is also where Sergei and Yulia Skripal spent months being treated after they were poisoned.
Authorities have said all four were sickened by Novichok, a nerve agent weapon developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Police think Dawn Sturgess, 44, and her partner, Charley Rowley, 45, had secondary exposure to the chemical weapon used in the attack on the Skripals.
Police have said they are looking for a vial that may contain Novichok. It is a slow and painstaking process, because there is no easy way to use modern technology to pinpoint the location of the rare nerve agent.
Officials have said the search could take weeks or months. It has brought more than 100 officers to Salisbury and the nearby town of Amesbury as suspect sites are condoned off to protect the public from possible contamination.
The police officer given the all clear underwent “appropriate specialist tests,” the Salisbury hospital said.
The hospital did not say whether the unidentified officer might have been exposed to Novichok. But a statement said the officer initially sought medical advice at another hospital “in connection with the ongoing incident in Amesbury,” which is where the latest victims developed symptoms of Novichok poisoning.
The Salisbury hospital added that it “has seen a number of members of the public who have come to the hospital with health concerns since this incident started and none have required any treatment.”
“We would like to reiterate the advice from Public Health England that the risk to the wider public remains low,” the hospital said.
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Fifty-three men slung their wives or partners over their shoulders and hurtled off on an hourlong race in the small Finnish town of Sonkajarvi on Saturday, as thousands of fans cheered from the stands.
The World Wife-Carrying Championship, now in its 23rd year, draws thousands of visitors to the town of 4,200 and has gained followers around the world.
There are official qualifying competitions in countries including the United States, United Kingdom, Sweden and Estonia. On Saturday, 53 couples from 13 countries joined the competition, organizers said.
The idea of wife-carrying as a sport was inspired by the 19th-century legend of Ronkainen the Robber, who tested aspiring members of his gang by forcing them to carry sacks of grain or live pigs over a similar course.
The championship is also said to stem from an even earlier practice of wife-stealing — leading many present-day contestants to compete with someone else’s wife.
On Saturday, Lithuanian parents of two, Vytautas Kirkliauskas and Neringa Kirkliauskiene, won the race, which involved running, wading through a slippery pool and getting through an obstacle course. The two defeated six-time world champion Taisto Miettinen, a Finn.
“It’s my wife,” Kirkliauskas shouted happily after the race. “She’s the best.”
The couple first competed in Sonkajarvi in 2005.
Finland, which straddles the Arctic Circle and goes through long, dark winters, is no stranger to strange sports. It has also given the world the world boot throwing, air guitar and mobile phone throwing competitions, to name a few.
“I think because we have only three months of light, we need to come up with nice stuff to do during the summertime, and we want to show everyone we have a great sense of humor,” said Sanna-Mari Nuutinen, a volunteer at Saturday’s event.
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Although Russia made it further at this year’s World Cup than almost anyone expected, it was Croatia that advanced to the semifinals with a 4-3 shootout victory Saturday following a 2-2 draw.
The overachieving hosts, the lowest-ranked team in the tournament at No. 70, were trying to make it to the World Cup semifinals for the first time since the Soviet Union finished fourth at the 1966 tournament in England.
“I left everything on the field and unfortunately we were unlucky,” Russia midfielder Roman Zobnin said. “We gave everything we could.”
The Croats hadn’t advanced this far at the World Cup since 1998, when the country made its first appearance.
Croatia will next play England in the semifinals on Wednesday in Moscow. The English team defeated Sweden 2-0.
With the crowd silenced following an extra-time goal from Croatia defender Domagoj Vida in the 101st minute, Russia defender Mario Fernandes scored to send the match to yet another penalty shootout.
Native Brazilian
Fernandes, who was born in Brazil but rejected a chance to play for that country’s national team, sent his penalty kick wide of the net in the shootout, giving Croatia the advantage.
Both goalkeepers made early saves in the shootout, with an injured Danijel Subasic stopping the opening shot from Fedor Smolov. Igor Akinfeev later blocked an attempt from Mateo Kovacic.
At 1-1, Fernandes missed his shot — only the second player to miss in any of the four shootouts at this year’s World Cup.
The teams then traded two scores each before Ivan Rakitic calmly scored the winning penalty.
Denis Cheryshev gave Russia the lead with a shot into the upper corner in the 31st minute. Croatia equalized with Andrej Kramaric’s header near halftime.
It was the second straight time both teams played in a shootout. Russia beat Spain 4-3 and Croatia defeated Denmark 3-2 in the round of 16.
Argentina in 1990 had been the last team to win consecutive World Cup shootouts. It defeated Yugoslavia in the quarterfinals and Italy in the semifinals that year, which also made Italy the last host nation to lose on penalties before Saturday.
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