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A prominent nuclear weapons expert says White House threats to pull out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty are diplomatically shortsighted, potentially dangerous and politically risky for President Donald Trump ahead of midterm elections.

Calling the landmark 1987 missile treaty a key part of European and international security for over 30 years, Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, said while there have been concerns about Russia’s compliance with the agreement, U.S. withdrawal would shift blame for the collapse of the treaty from Moscow, “where it belongs,” to Washington.

His comments came shortly after U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other top Kremlin officials in Moscow.

“The other reason why this is problematic is that the United States and Russia have not exhausted the diplomatic options to resolve this conflict,” Kimball said, pointing out that Bolton’s Moscow visit is only the third U.S.-Russia meeting under the current administration.

“One of the available options that should be tried is mutual transparency visits by Russian experts to U.S. missile interceptor sites in Romania, and U.S. technical expert inspections of the 9M729 missiles that the U.S. is concerned about in Russia,” Kimball said.

U.S. officials, including Trump, accuse Russia of ground-launching an 9M729 cruise missile in violation of the treaty in 2014, a charge long denied by Russia, which says U.S. missile defense systems in Europe violate the agreement.

“Both sides are going to have to try harder to work out a diplomatic solution,” Kimball added. “I think if the two sides have the necessary political will, it’s possible, and the INF treaties can be preserved.”

Bolton, who said he was in Moscow as part of Trump’s commitment to improve security cooperation with Russia, had earlier hinted the arms control pact with Russia is outdated. 

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and the late U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed the INF accord in 1987, which bans the United States and Russia from building, testing and stockpiling ground-launched nuclear missiles with a range from 500 to 5,000 kilometers (310-3,100 miles).

“Because intermediate-range missiles have a very short flight time to their targets, they’re especially destabilizing,” Kimball told VOA’s Russian Service. “Because there’s very little warning time, it can lead to instability in a crisis, which is why Reagan and Gorbachev eliminated them in the 1980s.”

Addressing reporters in Moscow, Bolton said he believes Cold War-era bilateral treaties are no longer relevant because now other countries are also building missiles. 

At recent political campaign rally in Nevada, Trump said the United States would have to start developing new weapons if Russia and China, which is not part of the INF treaty, do. He then proposed having China join the treaty, an idea that Kimball calls highly unlikely.

The U.S. and Russia, said Kimball, “would love to have China in this INF agreement.”

“Why? Because about two-thirds of China’s nuclear arsenal is deployed on short, medium, or intermediate-range missiles,” Kimball said. “That’s because of geography, because of the way China deploys its relatively small nuclear arsenal. So, that would be a win for the U.S. and Russia, and a loss for China.”

Asked if he expects the administration to withdraw formally, Kimball was skeptical.

“The past few weeks, the United States government has been discussing what to do with respect to the treaty. I think that Bolton, if he’s smart, he would have gone to Moscow to say, ‘Look, we’re not going to let this problem linger for too much longer. We may withdraw from this treaty if you, Russia, don’t take the following steps,'” Kimball said. “But I think Donald Trump — with his penchant for tough rhetoric — may have jumped the gun a little bit when he said on Saturday that we will terminate the INF treaty.”

In Russia, state media such as RIA Novosti cited anonymous sources offering similar interpretations of Trump’s rhetoric, which they dismissed as midterm election rally grandstanding, where politicians can score political points for appearing tough on Russia.

Although European leaders have supported U.S. efforts to bring Russia into compliance with the treaty and called on the Russian government for greater technical transparency with its arsenal, they have largely resisted U.S. withdrawal.

“The INF contributed to the end of the Cold War and constitutes a pillar of European security architecture since it entered into force 30 years ago,” said a spokesperson for the EU foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, in a prepared statement issued Monday.

“Thanks to the INF treaty, almost 3,000 missiles with nuclear and conventional warheads have been removed and verifiably destroyed,” the statement said. “The world doesn’t need a new arms race that would benefit no one and on the contrary would bring even more instability.”

French President Emmanuel Macron raised the issue with Trump by phone the morning after the Nevada rally to “underline the importance of this treaty, especially with regards to European security,” according to a statement by the French ministry that called “on all the parties to avoid any hasty unilateral decisions, which would be regrettable.”

Matthew Kroenig, deputy director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, hailed Trump’s proposed withdrawal as “the right move.”

“Russia has been cheating on this treaty for years, and there was no hope of getting Moscow to return to compliance,” he said in an Atlantic Council blog post. “It doesn’t make sense for the United States to be unilaterally constrained by limits that don’t affect any other country.”

A Putin spokesman said a U.S. pullout from the INF treaty would make the world a more dangerous place, and that Russia would have to take security countermeasures to “restore balance.”

Addressing reporters in Moscow, Bolton said he discussed Russian meddling in U.S. elections with Putin, calling it counterproductive for Russia. He also said Trump looked forward to meeting Putin in Paris on Nov. 11.

This story originated in VOA’s Russian Service. 
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The Trump administration appears determined to pull out of a key 1987 arms control agreement with Russia, in the wake of talks Tuesday between national security adviser John Bolton and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

U.S. President Donald Trump has accused Russia of violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty by deploying missiles in Europe.

Bolton called Russian violations “long and deep.”

“The threat is is not America’s INF withdrawal from the treaty. The threat is Russian missiles already deployed,” Bolton said. “The American position is that Russia is in violation. Russia’s position is that they are not in violation. So, one has to ask how to ask the Russians to come back into compliance with something that don’t think they are violating.”

Bolton told reporters after the talks that formal notice of a withdrawal would be filed “in due course.”

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and the late U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed the INF Treaty in 1987. It bans the United States and Russia from building, testing and stockpiling ground-launched nuclear missiles with a range 500 to 5,000 kilometers.

U.S. officials going back to the Obama administration have accused Russia of deliberately deploying a land-based cruise missile to pose a threat to NATO.

Trump said the United States would have to start developing new weapons if Russia and China — which is not part of the INF Treaty — did.

Bilateral treaties outdated?

Bolton hinted the INF deal with Russia might have run its course and that bilateral Cold War treaties might not apply to the current global security environment when other nations, including China, Iran and North Korea, have also developed missiles.

Russia denies violating the INF pact and says it is U.S. missile defense systems in Europe and other unprovoked steps that are in violation.

“On the coat of arms of the United States, there’s an eagle holding 13 arrows in one talon and an olive branch in the other,” Putin reminded Bolton. “My question is whether your eagle has gobbled up all the olives, leaving only the arrows.”

Bolton replied by saying he did not bring any more olives.

In more serious remarks, a Kremlin spokesman said a U.S. pullout from the INF Treaty would make the world a more dangerous place, and Russia would have to take security countermeasures to “restore balance.”

But both sides said Tuesday there was a need for dialogue and work on areas of mutual concern.

Bolton also said Tuesday that plans were being made for Trump and Putin to meet in Paris next month. Both leaders will be in France to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I.

Previous summit

The last meeting between Trump and Putin in Helsinki in July turned out to be a bit of a domestic disaster for Trump. At a post-summit joint news conference, he appeared to accept Putin’s denials of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, contrary to the findings of U.S. intelligence agencies.

Bolton said he also talked about Russian interference in the U.S. elections. He said such efforts do not affect the outcome of the vote and only create distrust between the U.S. and Russia. 

Bolton also laid three separate bouquets of flowers during his visit to Moscow — the traditional wreath at the World War II Memorial by the Kremlin wall; flowers to remember the victims of last week’s massacre of college students at the Black Sea port of Kerch; and flowers at the site near the Kremlin where Russian opposition leader and Putin critic Boris Nemtsov was gunned down in 2015. 
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At least 20 people were injured when an escalator in the Rome metropolitan system collapsed Tuesday night. 

A video shown on Sky TG24 showed the escalator accelerating suddenly, and the people riding down on it collapsing onto one another. The dramatic footage showed people on the parallel escalator trying to pull others to safety.

The cause was not immediately known. The metropolitan station at Piazza Repubblica near the main Termine train station was closed by investigators. 

“The scene that we found was people piled up at the bottom of the escalator,” said Rome provincial fire chief Giampietro Boscaino. “People one on the top of the other looking for help. They had various injuries caused by the escalator that was twisted — therefore, serious injuries.”

The prefect’s office put the number of injured at 20, mostly Russians in town for a Champion’s League soccer game between CSKA Moscow and Roma. Firefighters said seven were in serious condition. 

The news agency ANSA quoted Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi as saying that witnesses reported people were jumping and dancing on the escalator before the accident. ANSA also quoted city transport agency officials as saying maintenance is carried out on metro system escalators every month.

Separately, one CSKA fan was slashed with a knife during clashes between opposing fans outside the Stadio Olimpico, the ANSA news agency reported.

About 1,500 CSKA fans were attending the match.
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U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton has hinted that a key arms control pact with Russia may have run its course.

Bolton meets in Moscow Tuesday with President Vladimir Putin to explain why President Donald Trump wants to pull the U.S. out of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

Trump has accused Russia of violating the agreement.

“We don’t think that withdrawal from the treaty is what causes the problem. We think it’s what Russia has been doing in violation of the treaty that’s the problem,” Bolton told Russia’s Kommersant newspaper. “You can’t bring someone in compliance who does not think they are in breach.”

Bolton said he believes Cold War-era bilateral treaties are no longer relevant because of today’s global security environment, where other countries are also building missiles. 

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and the late U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed the INF accord in 1987. It bans the United States and Russia from building, testing, and stockpiling ground-launched nuclear missiles with a range from 500 to 5,000 kilometers.

​Trump said the U.S. would have to start developing new weapons if Russia and China — which is not part of the INF treaty — do. 

Russia denies violating the agreement and says it is U.S. missile defense systems in Europe that are in violation.

A Putin spokesman says a U.S. pullout from the INF treaty would make the world a more dangerous place. He said Russia would have to take security countermeasures to “restore balance.” 

Russian National Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev said after his talks Monday with Bolton that Russia is willing to talk with the U.S. about the mutual complaints against one another in a bid to salvage the INF pact. 

A Russian statement also said Monday Bolton and Patrushev discussed a possible five-year extension of another arms control agreement, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. That deal took effect in 2011 and is set to expire in 2021.

Defense advocates in Washington say the INF treaty keeps the U.S. from developing a new generation of weapons in a world that faces new global security challenges.
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U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton says he told Russian officials that its meddling in the 2016 election did not affect the outcome but instead created distrust.

“The important thing is that the desire for interfering in our affairs itself arouses distrust in Russian people, in Russia. And I think it should not be tolerated. It should not be acceptable,” Bolton said Monday on Ekho Moskvy radio.

Bolton is in Moscow for talks with Russian leaders on President Donald Trump’s intention to pull the United States out of a 1987 arms control agreement.

Before joining the White House, Bolton called Russian efforts to meddle in the 2016 election an “act of war.”

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating Russian election interference and allegations of collusion with the Trump campaign — allegations both Trump and Russia deny.

The U.S. has charged a number of Russian citizens and agents with election meddling.

Last week, the Justice Department charged a Russian woman with “information warfare” for managing the finances of an internet company looking to interfere in next month’s midterm elections.

The company is owned by a business executive with alleged ties to President Vladimir Putin.

The woman, Elena Khusyaynova, said Monday she is “shocked” by the charges against her. She calls herself a “simple Russian woman” who does not speak English.
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A Russian woman accused by the U.S. of helping oversee a social media effort to influence the 2018 U.S. midterm elections mocked the accusations Monday, saying that they made her feel proud.

Justice Department prosecutors alleged Friday that Elena Khusyaynova helped manage the finances of the same social media troll farm that was indicted earlier this year by special counsel Robert Mueller. The troll farm, the Internet Research Agency, is one of a web of companies allegedly controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman with reported ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Khusyaynova responded Monday in a video on the internet news site Federal News Agency, reportedly also linked to Prigozhin. She said she was bewildered by the allegations that she could have influenced the U.S. elections even though she is just a simple bookkeeper who doesn’t speak English.

Justice Department prosecutors claimed that Khusyaynova, of St. Petersburg, ran the finances for a hidden but powerful Russian social media effort aimed at spreading distrust for American political candidates and causing divisions on hot-button social issues like immigration and gun control. It marked the first federal case alleging foreign interference in the 2018 midterm elections.

“I was surprised and shocked, but then my heart filled with pride,” Khusyaynova said. “It turns out that a simple Russian woman could help citizens of a superpower elect their president. Dear people of the world! Let’s all help the American people elect such politicians who would behave in a humane way and lead our planet to peace and goodness. Let’s all wish America to become a great and peaceful country again!”
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The outgoing deputy head of the monitoring mission to Ukraine of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe says newly compiled statistics prove that lack of political will is the only thing allowing near-daily outbreaks of violence to continue claiming lives in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine.

Alexander Hug, whose 10-year OSCE appointment expires this month, also said the very people empowered to halt the conflict — those who signed the Minsk agreement — could make it happen within a matter of hours.

“Fourteen times now, both sides have agreed to recommit to the cease-fire, and every time this happens, daily cease-fire violations plummet from four digits to fewer than 10, and that’s within a single day,” Hug told VOA’s Ukrainian service. “So, the military-technical part of this conflict can end within hours. Overnight. And this isn’t speculation. We have evidenced it with our statistics based on observations made in the aftermath of recommitments.”

Although OSCE reports typically reveal which side has instigated a given episode of violence, Hug said the data also show that assigning blame is futile.

“In black and white, our reports show where and by whom these violations take place,” he said. “When we see heavy weapons in areas where they shouldn’t be — and we’ve seen thousands this year alone, 45 percent in [Ukrainian]-government-controlled areas and 55 percent in [Russian-backed-separatist-controlled] areas — it’s clear beyond any doubt who is responsible for the tanks, the mortars, these multiple rocket launch systems, because we see it and describe it in our reports, and yet the hardware doesn’t move.”

The data also show that pointing the finger in the aftermath of violence is counterproductive, and that amplifying the voices of people most vulnerable to conflict — civilians in proximity to the front lines — has been the most effective way to reduce violence and facilitate a constructive dialogue.

“We have been outlining in sometimes gruesome detail the misery and suffering of civilians along the contact line, and I’m convinced — as are many of my colleagues, if I can speak on their behalf — that only dialogue” between people along the front lines and signatories to the Minsk agreement itself “will bring about a solution to this conflict,” said Hug.

“It’s for the sake of civilians that this conflict must end, specifically because it is civilians that do not believe in this conflict,” he said. “We talk to them, and they tell us it’s not their conflict; they don’t understand why it continues, and all they want is for it to end.”

​Phantom divisions

Upward of 40,000 Ukrainians are estimated to cross the front lines each day, Hug said, indicating that most civilians aren’t heavily invested in the idea of a territorially divided country, which is how the conflict is often framed by international media outlets.

“People on the ground don’t believe in the contact line,” he said. “It is a line that is a harsh reality every day when they have to cross it, but in their minds it doesn’t exist. There are no firm lines of division.

“And with only very few exceptions have I ever seen any hatred developing on either side of the contact line,” he said, adding that that observation includes neighboring communities that have been shelled and shot at daily for years. “When you think of this fact, it’s quite amazing.”

Onus on Kremlin

David Kramer, former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state, said even if Hug’s data supporting an immediate cease-fire were sound, it wouldn’t be sustainable unless the Kremlin saw that it had nothing more to gain from remaining in Ukraine.

“To be clear, the responsibility for stopping the conflict lies in Moscow,” he said. “It lies with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, who to this day refuses to recognize that there are Russian forces in eastern Ukraine.”

Kramer, who is currently senior director for human rights and democracy at the McCain Institute for International Leadership, a Washington think tank, also said increased sanctions would be vital to progress.

“Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukraine didn’t invade Russia,” he said. “So, I do think we need to see a stronger effort from the West to apply more pressure on the Kremlin and its cronies because, absent that pressure, we’re not going to see Putin move.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll see any movement until after both the presidential and parliamentary elections [in Ukraine],” he added.

Waiting game

Earlier on Thursday, Kurt Volker, the U.S. special envoy for Ukraine, told an Atlantic Council gathering the same thing.

“I think that Russia has essentially decided to wait out the Ukrainian election, see what happens,” he said. “Maybe there’ll be new opportunities that arise to get a more favorable position for Russia. So I think they intend to just play it out.”

Volker’s remarks came shortly after Putin told the Valdai Club in Sochi that he hoped a government more friendly to Russia would emerge from the Ukrainian presidential election, set for March 31.

“We need to wait until the internal political cycles are finished, and I really expect that we will be able to build at least some kind of relations and reach some kind of agreement with a new leadership of the country. We’re ready for that, we want that,” Putin told the gathering of Russian and Western foreign policy experts.

Putin charged that the current government in Kyiv led by President Petro Poroshenko has made its mark by “selling Russophobia and anti-Russian sentiments” to the West.

Volker said Russia appeared more determined than ever to continue backing separatists fighting the government in eastern Ukraine despite extensive efforts by the United States and Western Europe to pressure Russia over its aggression in Ukraine.

Coordinated sanctions critical

The best strategy for the West, Volker said, is to maintain pressure on Moscow through the economic sanctions, which were first imposed on Russia in 2014 over its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.

“We will see whether President [Donald] Trump agrees with what Ambassador Volker has to say, but I agree that we need to put more pressure on Russia,” said Alexander Vershbow, a former NATO deputy secretary-general and distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

“The only way to bring about a solution in conformity with the Minsk agreement is if there more pressure on Russia, because clearly they’re comfortable with the status quo,” he added. “That being said, sanctions can be an overused weapon, so I think what’s more important is to maintain solidarity with the Europeans and find a way to increase sanctions in a coordinated way together. Then the Russians will pay more attention.”

Bogdan Tsioupine of VOA’s Ukrainian service reported from London. Danila Galperovich of VOA’s Russian service contributed reporting from Washington. Some information for this report came from RFE.
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British Prime Minister Theresa May was seeking to scotch a growing rebellion against her Brexit plans Monday, urging lawmakers to back her and saying a divorce deal with the European Union is 95 percent complete.

May’s office said she planned to tell the House of Commons that “the vast majority” of issues are settled, including the status of Gibraltar, Britain’s territory at the tip of the Iberian Peninsula.

The prime minister also appealed to voters directly with an article in The Sun tabloid, saying “the very last stages of the talks are going to be the hardest of all” but insisting “the finish line is in sight.”

But May faces dissent from her political opponents — and, more worryingly, her own Conservative Party — over her blueprint for separation and future relations with the bloc.

Grumbling has grown since she suggested last week that Britain could remain bound by EU rules for two years or more during a transition period after it leaves on March 29.

London and Brussels say the main obstacle to an amicable divorce is finding a way to avoid customs posts and other barriers on the border between the U.K.’s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland.

Both sides agree there must be no hard border that could disrupt businesses and residents on both sides and undermine Northern Ireland’s hard-won peace process. But each has rejected the other side’s solution.

An inconclusive EU summit last week ended without a breakthrough on the border impasse. Britain and the EU say they remain hopeful of striking a deal this fall, so that relevant parliaments can approve it before Brexit day.

But May’s room for maneuver is limited by pressure from pro-Brexit Conservatives and her government’s Northern Irish ally, the Democratic Unionist Party, who oppose any more compromises with the EU.

She’s also opposed by pro-EU lawmakers who want to keep close ties with the bloc after Brexit.

Amid talk of a leadership challenge, criticism of May has grown increasingly intemperate. Weekend newspaper headlines saying the prime minister is entering “the killing zone” and faces a metaphorical knifing drew sharp rebukes.

Conservative legislator Sarah Woollaston tweeted to condemn the “disturbing & violent language” used by some of her colleagues.

Conservative lawmaker Grant Shapps said the coming week would be dangerous for May, as pro-Brexit Tories pondered whether to try to oust her.

“It’s fairly high on the scale” of risk, Shapps told the BBC. “But she operates at the upper end of that scale almost every day of her life and remarkably, walks out at the other end.”

With the Brexit clock ticking, fears are growing that Britain could crash out of the bloc without an agreement, an outcome that could create chaos at the borders and in both the EU and British economies.

The Confederation of British Industry says a majority of U.K. firms are poised to implement their Brexit contingency plans by Christmas, steps that could include cutting jobs, adjusting supply chains outside the U.K., stockpiling goods and relocating production and services overseas.

 
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Turkey’s coast guard says two people died Monday after a boat carrying migrants sank just 50 meters off Turkey’s western coast near Bodrum.

Seventeen people were rescued from the boat, according to the coast guard. 

Three people were able to swim ashore, but two of them died later at a hospital, a coast guard statement said. 

The coast guard said it is continuing search and rescue efforts for possible survivors. 

There were no immediate details about the nationalities of the migrants. 

Turkey is one of the transit countries used by migrants fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East and Africa in their quest to seek a better life in Europe.
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Russia says President Vladimir Putin will ask for an explanation this week from U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton when he visits Moscow about President Donald Trump’s intention to pull the United States out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty because of alleged Russian violations of the pact.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Sunday Trump’s action “would be a very dangerous step,” accusing the U.S. of trying to assume “total supremacy” in the world.

The agreement was negotiated in the late 1980s, signed by then U.S. President Ronald Reagan and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. It required the elimination of short-range and intermediate-range nuclear and conventional missiles by the United States and Russia.

In announcing the withdrawal, Trump said Saturday, “Russia has violated the agreement. They have been violating it for many years. And we’re not going to let them violate a nuclear agreement and go out and do weapons and we are not allowed to.”

Trump said the United States will develop the weapons unless Russia and China agree to stop manufacturing their own similar weaponry, although China is not part of the pact.

“If Russia’s doing it and if China’s doing it, and we are adhering to the agreement, that is unacceptable,” Trump said.

Russia has denied violating the treaty.

Britain said it stood “absolutely resolute” with the United States in the dispute, although another American ally, Germany, called Trump’s move “regrettable.”

Gorbachev, now 87, attacked Trump’s action, telling the Interfax news agency, “Is it really so hard to understand that dropping these agreements… shows a lack of wisdom? Getting rid of the treaty is a mistake.”

He said the two countries “absolutely must not tear up old agreements on disarmament. All the agreements aimed at nuclear disarmament and limitation of nuclear arms must be preserved to save life on Earth.”

U.S. officials have previously alleged that Russia violated the treaty by deliberately deploying a land-based cruise missile in order to pose a threat to NATO. Russia has claimed that U.S. missile defenses violate the pact.

Beatrice Fihn, the executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize-winning campaign coalition, said that “by declaring he will leave the INF Treaty, President Trump has shown himself to be a demolition man who has no ability to build real security. Instead, by blowing up nuclear treaties, he is taking the U.S. down a trillion dollar road to a new nuclear arms race.”

Dmitry Oreshkin, an independent Russian political analyst told the Associated Press, “We are slowly slipping back to the situation of Cold War, as it was at the end of the Soviet Union, with quite similar consequences, but now it could be worse because Putin belongs to a generation that had no war under its belt. These people aren’t as much fearful of a war as people of [former Soviet leader Leonid] Brezhnev’s epoch. They think if they threaten the West properly, it gets scared.”

 
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Catholic bishops are entering their final week of debate over hot-button issues facing young Catholics, including how the church should welcome gays and respond to the clerical sex abuse scandal that has discredited many in the church hierarchy.

The monthlong synod of bishops ends next Saturday with the adoption by the 260-plus cardinals, bishops and priests of a final document and approval of a separate, shorter letter to the world’s Catholic youth.

Some of the youth delegates to the meeting have insisted that the final document express an inclusive message to make LGBT Catholics feel welcome in a church that has often shunned them.

The Vatican took a step in that direction by making a reference to “LGBT” for the first time in its preparatory document heading into the meeting.

But some bishops have balked at the notion, including Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput, who insisted in his speech that “there is no such thing as an ‘LGBTQ Catholic’ or a ‘transgender Catholic’ or a ‘heterosexual Catholic,’ as if our sexual appetites defined who we are.”

But other bishops have expressed a willingness to use the language, though it remains to be seen if the final document or the letter will. Each paragraph will be voted on one by one and must obtain a two-thirds majority.

“The youth are talking about it freely and in the language they use, and they are encouraging us ‘Call us, address us this because this is who we are,”’ Papua New Guinea Cardinal John Ribat told a press conference Saturday.

One of those young people, Yadira Vieyra, who works with migrant families in Chicago, said gays often feel attacked and shunned by the church.

“We know that’s not true, any Catholic knows that’s not true,” she said. But she added bishops need to communicate that “the church is here for them.”

Catholic church teaching holds that gays should be loved and respected but that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.”

The Oct. 3-28 synod has unfolded against the backdrop of the clergy sex abuse scandal exploding anew in the U.S., Germany, Poland and other nations. Some conservatives have charged that a gay subculture in the priesthood is to blame, even though studies have shown that gays are not more likely than heterosexuals to abuse.

Many of the young delegates have insisted that the final document address the abuse scandal straight on, and Melbourne Archbishop Peter Comensoli hinted that it would.

“One of the key things that will be important going forward is not just that there might be a word of apology, of recognition and of aiming for better practices, but that there is action associated with that,” he said.

Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich said young people are also demanding accountability and transparency from the church’s leadership, which has been excoriated for having covered-up the abuses of predator priests for decades.

He repeated his call, first made in an interview last week with National Catholic Reporter, for bishops to cede their own authority and allow an external process involving lay experts to investigate them when an accusation against them has been made.

“Lay people want us to succeed. People want us to get this right,” Cupich said. “Yes, there’s a lot of anger out there. But beneath that anger there’s a sadness. There’s a sadness that the church is better than this, and that we should get this right.”
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The vast majority of British firms are poised to implement their Brexit contingency plans by Christmas if there isn’t greater clarity over the country’s exit from the European Union, a leading business lobby group warned Sunday.

The Confederation of British Industry said these could include cutting jobs, adjusting supply chains outside the U.K., stockpiling goods, and relocating production and services overseas.

Fear of no deal

The warning comes amid growing fears that Britain may crash out of the EU in March without a deal on the future relationship. That could see tariffs placed on British exports, border checks reinstalled, and restrictions imposed travelers and workers — a potentially toxic combination for businesses.

“The situation is now urgent,” said Carolyn Fairbairn, the CBI’s director general. “The speed of negotiations is being outpaced by the reality firms are facing on the ground.”

Discussions between the two sides have hit an impasse largely over how to maintain an open border between EU member Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom.

Christmas deadline

A summit of EU leaders last week failed to yield a breakthrough and another gathering in November was canceled. December is now the next scheduled summit, leaving the Brexit process tight ahead of Britain’s official departure date. Even if a deal is forged, there are doubts over British Prime Minister Theresa May’s ability to secure the necessary majority in Parliament given bitter divisions on the topic.

“Unless a Withdrawal Agreement is locked down by December, firms will press the button on their contingency plans,” Fairbairn said. “Jobs will be lost and supply chains moved.”

Fairbairn’s warning was based on a survey of 236 member firms tilted toward small- and medium-sized companies with up to 500 employees, undertaken from Sept. 19 to Oct. 8. The survey found that 82 percent of firms will have started to implement contingency plans by December if the Brexit process isn’t any clearer.

Negative impact

The CBI also said that 80 percent of firms say Brexit has already had a negative impact on their investment decisions, more than double the 36 percent recorded a year ago. The survey found that 66 percent of businesses said Brexit has had an impact on the attractiveness of the U.K. as a place to invest, while 24 percent said there had been no impact.

Some big companies are becoming increasingly vexed by the impasse in the Brexit talks. Last week, ahead of the summit in Brussels, pharmaceuticals giant AstraZeneca and carmaker Ford issued statements raising doubts about their investments in Britain.

“Uncertainty is draining investment from the U.K.,” said Fairbairn. 
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France and Germany are condemning the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside his country’s consulate in Istanbul. 

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian called Saturday for an “exhaustive and diligent investigation to establish exactly who was responsible” for Khashoggi’s death. Le Drian also said “those guilty of the murder” must be held accountable for their actions.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her foreign minister, Heiko Maas, said in a joint statement Saturday that they condemned the death “in the strongest possible terms.” They went on to say “we expect transparency from Saudi Arabia” regarding the details of Khashoggi’s death and called the available information on the incident “insufficient.”

Explanation required

“Nothing has been explained so far,” Merkel said, “and we need to explain it.”

European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said Saturday that the circumstances around Khashoggi’s death were deeply troubling, and she called for a thorough, credible and transparent investigation.

The statements came in response to Saudi Arabia’s announcement that Khashoggi, who has been missing since entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, died inside the compound after “discussions” between him and people he had met inside the consulate turned into a fistfight.

Saturday’s comments were the first admission by the Saudi government that Khashoggi had died. 

President Donald Trump, who was at a campaign-style rally in Nevada on Saturday, told reporters he was not satisfied with the Saudis’ explanation of what happened to Khashoggi. He added that it was possible Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had been unaware of the death.

Rights group Amnesty International called on Saudi Arabia to “immediately produce” Khashoggi’s body so an autopsy could be performed.

Amnesty’s director of campaigns for the Middle East, Samah Hadid, said the Saudi version of events could not be trusted. She said a U.N. investigation would be necessary to avoid a “Saudi whitewash” of the circumstances surrounding Khashoggi’s death. 

Hadid said such a cover-up might have been done to preserve Saudi Arabia’s international business ties.

Earlier Saturday, a statement from the Saudi public prosecutor carried by Saudi state TV said 18 Saudi nationals had been arrested so far in connection with Khashoggi’s death. The statement also said royal court adviser Saud al-Qahtani and deputy intelligence chief Ahmed Assiri had been fired from their positions.

No cover-up, Turkey pledges

A senior official in Turkey’s ruling party said Saturday that Ankara would never allow a cover-up of the death. 

Numan Kurtulmus, deputy head of the Justice and Development Party, said Turkey would share “conclusive evidence and findings” after an investigation was complete. “It’s not possible for the Saudi administration to wiggle itself out of this crime, if it’s confirmed,” Kurtulmus said.

Turkish officials had said they believed Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post, was killed in the Saudi Consulate after he entered the building to collect paperwork for his scheduled wedding. Saudi Arabia had previously denied the allegations and said Khashoggi left the building shortly afterward.

Late Friday, the White House released a statement acknowledging “the announcement from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that its investigation into the fate of Jamal Khashoggi is progressing and that it has taken action against the suspects it has identified thus far.”

When asked about the Saudi announcement, Trump, who was holding a campaign-style rally in Arizona, told reporters, “It’s a big first step.” However, he said, “We do have some questions” for the Saudis, and added, “We’ll be working with Congress.”

He said he wanted to talk to the Saudi crown prince before the next steps were taken.

When asked whether the Saudis could produce a credible report about the killing of Khashoggi, Trump said, “We’re involved. Turkey is involved. … This has been a horrible event. It has not gone unnoticed.”

Before the Saudi announcement, Trump told reporters Friday that he might consider sanctions against Saudi Arabia over the disappearance of Khashoggi. 

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo discussed Khashoggi’s disappearance during an interview Friday with VOA contributor Greta Van Susteren.

Trump had warned there would be “very severe” consequences if it was learned that Saudi Arabia was behind the disappearance of the journalist, but Pompeo said, “I’m not going to get into what those responses might be. We’ll certainly consider a wide range of potential responses, but I think the important thing to do is that the facts come out.”

Pompeo, who traveled to Riyadh earlier this week to speak to King Salman and the crown prince, told VOA, “I made very clear to them that the United States takes this matter very seriously. That we don’t approve of extrajudicial killings. That we don’t approve of that kind of activity. That it’s not something consistent with American values, and that it is their responsibility as this incident happened in the consulate.

“It’s their responsibility to get to the bottom of this, to put the facts out clearly, accurately, completely, transparently, in a way that the whole world can see,” Pompeo said. “And once we’ve identified the fact set, then they have the responsibility and the first instance to hold accountable those inside the country that may have been involved in any wrongdoing.”
…

Thousands of protesters gathered in central London on Saturday to call for a new referendum on Britain’s departure from the European Union.

Organizers want the public to have a final say on the government’s Brexit deal with the EU, arguing that new facts have come to light about the costs and complexity of Britain’s exit from the bloc since Britons voted to leave in 2016.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan from the opposition Labor Party was among those set to address the People’s Vote March, which will culminate at a rally in Parliament Square.

Organizers have brought in some 150 buses to ferry thousands of activists from across the country to the British capital.

Those in favor of pulling Britain out of the EU won by 52 percent in the 2016 EU membership referendum. Prime Minister Theresa May of the Conservative Party has ruled out another public vote on the subject.

Britain is scheduled to leave the EU on March 29, but negotiations have been plagued by disagreements, particularly over the issue of the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. It will be the U.K.’s only land border with the EU after Brexit, for Ireland is part of the EU, and Northern Ireland is part of the U.K.

There are growing fears of a “no-deal” British exit, which could create chaos at the borders and in both the EU and the British economies.

May, speaking at an inconclusive EU summit in Brussels this week, said she would consider having a longer post-Brexit transition period — one that could keep Britain aligned to EU rules and obligations for more than two years after its March departure. Pro-Brexit politicians in Britain, however, saw it as an attempt to bind the country to the bloc indefinitely.

“This week’s fresh chaos and confusion over Brexit negotiations has exposed how even the best deal now available will be a bad one for Britain,” said Andrew Adonis, a Labor member of the House of Lords. “Voters will neither forgive nor forget if [lawmakers] allow this miserable Brexit to proceed without people being given the final say.”

 
…

Macedonia’s parliament has approved a proposal to change the country’s name, a move that could pave the way for it to join NATO and the European Union.

Eighty members of parliament in the 120-seat body voted in favor of the measure Friday to rename the country North Macedonia, just surpassing the two-thirds supermajority needed to enact constitutional changes.

Parliament was forced to address the issue after a September referendum on the matter failed to achieve the turnout threshold of 50 percent.

According to election officials, only about a third of eligible voters cast ballots in the September referendum. However, they said more than 90 percent of those voting cast ballots in favor of changing the country’s name to North Macedonia. Conservatives in Macedonia strongly oppose the name change and boycotted the referendum.

Macedonians are being asked to change the name of their country to end a decades-old dispute with neighboring Greece and pave the way for the country’s admission into NATO and the EU.

Athens has argued that the name “Macedonia” belongs exclusively to its northern province of Macedonia and that using the name implies Skopje’s intentions to claim the Greek province.

The two countries agreed on the name change in June.

Greece has for years pressured Skopje into renouncing the country’s name, forcing it to use the more formal moniker Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in the United Nations. Greece has consistently blocked its smaller neighbor from gaining membership in NATO and the EU as long it retained its name.

The process for Macedonia’s parliament to fully change the country’s name is lengthy and will require several more rounds of voting.
…

U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton will meet Saturday in Moscow with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, amid reports that Washington will tell Russia it plans to quit a landmark nuclear weapons treaty.

The visit comes ahead of what is expected to be a second summit between presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump this year.

Bolton, who will also meet Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, announced the visit to Moscow in a tweet, saying he would “continue discussions that began in Helsinki,” referring to a summit held in July.

The New York Times said the Trump administration plans to inform Russian leaders in the coming days that it is preparing to leave the three-decade-old Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, known as the INF.

The newspaper said the U.S. accuses Russia of violating the deal, signed in 1987 by president Ronald Reagan, by deploying tactical nuclear weapons to intimidate former Soviet satellite states that are now close to the West.

US-Russia ties are under deep strain over accusations that Moscow meddled in the 2016 presidential election, as well as tension over Russian support for the Syrian government in the country’s civil war, and the conflict in Ukraine.

However, Washington is looking for support from Moscow in finding resolutions to the Syria war and putting pressure on both Iran and North Korea.

No new summit between Trump and Putin has been announced, but one is expected in the near future.

The two leaders will be in Paris on Nov. 11 to attend commemorations marking the end of World War I.

A senior Trump administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said another potential date would be when the presidents both attend the Group of 20 meeting Nov. 30-Dec. 1.

“There are a couple possibilities, including the G-20 in Buenos Aires or the Armistice Day parade in Paris. At the G20 is probably more likely,” the official said. “President Trump’s invitation to Putin to visit Washington, D.C., still stands.” 
…

U.S. intelligence, law enforcement and security agencies are warning that Russia is persistently targeting the country’s upcoming midterm elections. They laid out the latest evidence in new charges against a Russian national connected to the oligarch known as “Putin’s cook.”

The U.S. on Friday unsealed the criminal complaint against Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova, 44, of St. Petersburg, making her the first Russian charged in connection with interference in the 2018 election.

According to the criminal complaint, Khusyaynova was the chief accountant for a Russian effort dubbed “Project Lakhta,” a self-described “information warfare” operation run by the Internet Research Agency — the same social media troll farm indicted earlier this year by U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller as part of his Russia investigation.

Charging documents say Khusyaynova oversaw spending for social media advertisements and promotions and proxy servers as she helped to create thousands of social media accounts on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, some of which generated tens of thousands of followers.

The criminal complaint says Khusyanova was working with a multimillion-dollar budget — money, according to U.S. officials, that came from Russian businessman Yevgeniy Prigozhin, known as “Putin’s cook” because of his catering company’s work for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Prigozhin is thought to have extensive ties to Russia’s political and military establishments.

Involved in 2018 elections

But unlike previous criminal complaints, U.S. officials said Khusyaynova’s activity extended well beyond the 2016 U.S. presidential election, as she funded efforts to create new social media accounts targeting both issues and candidates, Republican and Democratic, involved the 2018 election, now just a little more than two weeks away.

Like with previous efforts under “Project Lakhta,” all of the accounts were designed to make it appear as though they belonged to actual American political activists, using virtual private networks (VPNs) and other methods to hide their origin. 

U.S. officials also said those running them were told to intensify divisions and distrust between members of all political parties “through supporting radical groups” and to “aggravate the conflict between minorities and the rest of the population.”

Messaging focused on a variety of topics, including immigration, gun control, the Confederate flag and the debate over American football players kneeling for the U.S. national anthem.

Officials said specific incidents, including mass shootings, the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., and decisions coming from the Trump White House were also used as fodder.

“The strategic goal of this alleged conspiracy, which continues to this day, is to sow discord in the U.S. political system and to undermine faith in our democratic institutions,” U.S. Attorney Zachary Terwilliger said in a statement.

Asked about the new charges during a visit to Arizona, President Donald Trump called them irrelevant to his efforts.

“It had nothing to do with my campaign,” he told reporters. “If they are hackers, a lot of them probably like [2016 Democratic presidential nominee] Hillary Clinton better than me.”

Warning and reassurance

Friday’s indictment came as U.S. intelligence and security officials sought to both warn and reassure U.S. voters about the upcoming midterm elections.

“We’re not seeing anything anywhere remotely close to ’16,” Chris Krebs, undersecretary for the Department of Homeland Security’s National Protection and Programs Directorate, told reporters Friday following a tabletop election security exercise.

“2016 had a long lead-up of spear-phishing campaigns, compromise of networks,” he said. “We’re not seeing them right now.”

Krebs and other officials have also said there had been no increase in attempts to infiltrate U.S. voting systems, and that no system involved in tallying votes had been compromised.

Many of those systems have been upgraded or hardened, U.S. officials said, noting that more than 90 percent of the country’s election infrastructure was now being monitored by sensors that can detect malicious activity.

But at the same time, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence warned Friday of persistent efforts by U.S. adversaries to sway voters.

“We are concerned about ongoing campaigns by Russia, China and other foreign actors, including Iran, to undermine confidence in democratic institutions and influence public sentiment,” ODNI said in a joint statement with the Justice Department, the FBI and DHS.

“These activities also may seek to influence voter perceptions and decision-making in the 2018 and 2020 U.S. elections,” the statement said.

U.S. officials say both China and Iran have been increasingly active in their efforts to use influence operations, with current and former officials describing Beijing’s efforts as more sophisticated and more intent on generating a favorable view of China over the long term.

But neither yet compares in scope to the Russian efforts, just some of which were unveiled in the criminal complaint. 

Russian-financed

Financial documents obtained as part of the investigation indicate that as of January 2016, Khusyaynova and “Project Lakhta” were working with a budget of $35 million, spending about $10 million in the first half of 2018 alone.

Khusyaynova’s 2018 expenditures included $60,000 for Facebook advertisements, another $6,000 for ads on Instagram, and $18,000 for “bloggers” and for developing accounts on Twitter.

Russian businessman Prigozhin was the source of the money, according to U.S. officials.

Prigozhin controls Concord Management and Consulting LLC, one of three entities under indictment as part of the Mueller investigation.

A Washington-based lawyer representing Concord did not respond to a request for comment.

Masood Farivar contributed to this report
…

A women-to-women investment fund is coming to Britain next month to boost financing for female-owned businesses, its founder said Thursday, as efforts grow to close the gender investing gap.

SheEO has lent more than $2 million to 32 female social entrepreneurs in the United States, Canada and New Zealand to grow their businesses since 2015 in an attempt to address a global gender investment gap.

“Most of the people writing checks and investing are men,” founder Vicki Saunders told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “SheEO wants to fund female innovators with great ideas to create stronger communities and a better world.”

Support for female entrepreneurs

It is the latest venture to support female entrepreneurs around the world, who often face more obstacles than men, including a lack of access to finance, business networks, international markets and role models.

Three out of 10 U.S. businesses are owned by women but they only receive $1 in investment for every $23 that goes to male-led businesses, the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee found in 2014.

A Goldman Sachs-World Bank Group partnership to provide capital to women entrepreneurs in emerging markets reached $1 billion in investments in May.

How it works

SheEO brings together 500 women each year who contribute $1,100 each, which they pool and lend, interest-free, to five women-led businesses of their choice.

The loans are paid back over five years and then loaned out again, creating a perpetual fund that SheEO hopes will grow to $1 billion, with 1 million investors supporting 10,000 women-led ventures.

More than 300 women in Britain wrote to SheEO asking it to launch there, Saunders said ahead of a visit to London where she hopes that 500 female investors will come on board.

Workplace gender equality is in the spotlight in Britain, where just 6 percent of the biggest publicly listed companies are headed by women and pay disparities were revealed at major institutions last year.

Twenty One Toys founder Ilana Ben-Ari, one of the first to get SheEO funding in 2015, said it changed her business, enabling her to push ahead with production and hire staff to help with a stressful workload. Her revenue has now doubled.

“It was easy to get my foot in the door and have a meeting but it was near impossible to have a serious conversation about my business,” she said, describing her efforts to get financing from venture capitalists. “Halfway through that meeting you find out — this isn’t a meeting, this is a date.”
…

The United States suspended imports of pork from Poland Thursday because of an outbreak of the highly contagious hog disease African swine fever in that country.

African swine fever has spread rapidly in Eastern Europe and China, the world’s largest pork producer, where new cases are appearing and the disease is traveling far distances.

The United States is free of the disease and eager to keep it that way because infections in U.S. herds would likely kill hogs and limit pork exports.

Humans are not susceptible to African swine fever, according to the USDA.

The agency said it was reviewing Poland’s export protocols after finding one facility there shipped pork to the United States without following requirements designed to prevent the spread of serious livestock diseases. A second Polish facility is also being reviewed, according to a USDA notice.

The USDA is also working with Customs and Border Protection staff to enhance screening of passenger bags coming from Poland, the notice said. The checks aim to ensure restricted products are not brought into the country.
…

Computer giant IBM Corp., financial services company Western Union

Co. and European police launched a project Thursday to share financial data that  they said may one day be able to predict human trafficking before it occurs.

The shared data hub will collect information on money moving around the world and compare it with known ways that traffickers move their illicit gains, highlighting red flags signaling potential trafficking, organizers said.

“We will build and aggregate that material, using IBM tools, into an understanding of hot spots and routes and trends,” said Neil Giles, a director at global anti-slavery group Stop the Traffik, which is participating in the project.

Data collection, digital tools and modern technology are the latest weapons in the fight against human trafficking, estimated to be a $150 billion-a-year global business, according to the International Labor Organization.

The U.N. has set a goal of 2030 for ending forced labor and modern slavery worldwide, with more than 40 million people estimated to be enslaved around the world.

Certain patterns and suspicious activity might trigger a block of a transaction or an investigation into possible forced labor or sex slavery, organizers said.

The project will utilize IBM’s internet cloud services as well as artificial intelligence and machine learning to compare data and to spot specific trafficking terms, said Sophia Tu, director of IBM Corporate Citizenship.

With a large volume of high-quality data, the hub one day may predict trafficking before it happens, she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“You can’t do it today because we’re in the process of building out that amount of data and those capabilities, but it’s in the road map for what we want to do,” she said.

While law enforcement is teaming up with banks and data specialists to chase trafficking, experts have cautioned that it can be a cat-and-mouse game in which traffickers quickly move on to new tactics to elude capture.

Also, less than 1 percent of the estimated $1.5 trillion-plus laundered by criminals worldwide each year through the financial system is frozen or confiscated, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

Along with IBM and Western Union, participants include Europol, Europe’s law enforcement agency; telecommunications giant Liberty Global; and British banks Barclays and Lloyds, organizers said.
…

Several major Russian companies are exploring ways to do deals abroad without using dollars, spurred on by a U.S. threat to broaden sanctions that have impeded access of some Russian firms to the international banking system.

The Kremlin has been pushing companies to conduct more deals using other currencies to reduce reliance on the dollar.

Russian Alrosa, the world’s biggest producer of rough diamonds in carat terms, said it had completed a pilot deal with a Chinese client using yuan in the summer and another non-dollar transaction with an Indian client.

Other companies working on similar transactions include energy firm Surgutneftegaz, agricultural company Rusagro and miner Norilsk Nickel.

Russia’s central bank said this week the amount of non-dollar dealings was growing, with the share of rouble settlements in the Russia-China and Russia-India goods trade now between 10 and 20 percent.

The share was higher in the service industry, it added.

But there are limits to how much business can be shifted.

Major companies still rely heavily on dollar deals and most of Russia’s foreign earnings come from oil sales priced in dollars.

In addition, foreign banks with major U.S. activities may still be wary of business with any entity under U.S. sanctions even if transactions are not in dollars, bankers say.

The United States and its allies imposed sanctions on Russia in 2014 over Moscow’s annexation of Crimea. Washington said in August more measures could follow, after accusing Moscow of using a nerve agent against a former Russian agent and his daughter in Britain.

The new steps, which could be announced in November, may target dollar dealings, U.S. lawmakers have said.

Speed helps

One challenge facing companies dealing in the rouble is the Russian currency’s volatility. Between April 6 and 11, after Washington imposed sanctions on Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska and some of his companies, the rouble lost almost 13 percent of its value against the dollar.

Alrosa said it avoided the fluctuation risk by completing the Chinese deal in a day. U.S. dollar deals tend to take longer due to associated compliance checks required.

“An increase in the speed of operations is an advantage in such an operation,” the company said in an emailed statement.

Alrosa did not give a value for its China and India deals but said the Chinese buyer had bought a lot at its auction of diamonds of 10.8 carats or larger in Hong Kong. Alrosa data indicates that its lots are on average worth about $100,000.

Alrosa said the banker for its Chinese deal was Shanghai office of VTB, Russia’s second-largest bank. An industry source, asking not to be named, said Russia’s biggest bank lender Sberbank worked on the Indian deal.

VTB and Sberbank declined to comment.

The Chinese client settled its purchase in yuan, which VTB converted into roubles and transferred to Alrosa.

“We carried out the transaction itself in one day, in several hours,” Alrosa said, adding that on this occasion the currency move was in the client’s favor.

No currency hedging was required because of the speed of the deal, the company said, but the client had to open an account in VTB’s branch in Shanghai to complete the transaction.

Alrosa said it was also considering settlement for future deals in Hong Kong dollars, adding that other Chinese clients had shown interest in non-dollar transactions.

Non-dollar limits

But there are limits on how much of Alrosa’s business can switch to other currencies. China accounts for just 4 percent of its sales, while India accounts for 17 percent.

Among initiatives by other Russian firms, Surgutneftegaz has been pushing buyers to agree to pay for oil in euros instead of dollars, Reuters reported in September.

Russian farming conglomerate Rusagro told Reuters that some of its trading operations were in yuan and said this would increase with the expansion of business with China.

Russian nickel and palladium producer Norilsk Nickel said it was discussing the option of rouble payments with foreign customers which have rouble revenue, although it said it had not secured deals under those terms.
…

Hundreds of taxis on Thursday drove at a snail’s pace across the Polish capital Warsaw in protest at the ride-sharing app Uber and other unlicenced competitors.

Other cab drivers gathered in front of the justice ministry to call for legislation to regulate the industry.

Traditional cab operators argue that the Uber app and others like it represent unfair competition because their drivers can dodge the rules and restrictions that regulate professionals.

“There are 12,500 legal taxis in Warsaw and around 8,000 to 9,000 unregistered working for Uber, Taxify and a couple dozen other similar app-based operators,” said Jaroslaw Iglikowski, head of the Warsaw Taxi Drivers union.

“The app-based operators are taking around 30-35 percent of our overall business and up to 70 percent of night-time fares, especially on weekends,” he told AFP.

The protesting cab drivers claim in a petition they gave the justice minister that the country is losing more than 700 million zloty (160 million euros, $190 million) annually in unpaid taxes because of Uber and others like it.

The taxis dispersed in the early afternoon before rush hour, as the drivers had promised they would not cause traffic problems for city residents.

Uber has become one of Silicon Valley’s biggest venture-funded startups and has expanded its ride-sharing services to dozens of countries.

It does not employ drivers or own vehicles, but instead relies on private contractors using their own cars, allowing them to run their own business.

The app claims it is a service provider, connecting passengers with these freelance drivers directly and cheaply.

But critics and competitors around the globe say this allows it to flout costly regulations such as stringent licensing requirements for taxi drivers, who undergo hundreds of hours of training.

 
…

President Vladimir Putin hailed new missiles in Russia’s military arsenals but emphasized Thursday that the country would only use its nuclear weapons in response to an incoming missile attack.

Putin emphasized during an international policy forum in Sochi that Russia’s military doctrine doesn’t envisage a preventative nuclear strike. He said Moscow only would tap its nuclear arsenal if early warning systems spotted missiles heading toward Russia, in which case “the aggressor should know that retaliation is inevitable.”

“Only when we become convinced that there is an incoming attack on the territory of Russia, and that happens within seconds, only after that we would launch a retaliatory strike,” he said during a panel discussion at the forum.

“It would naturally mean a global catastrophe, but I want to emphasize that we can’t be those who initiate it because we don’t foresee a preventative strike,” Putin said.

“We would be victims of an aggression and would get to heaven as martyrs,” while those who initiated the aggression would “just die and not even have time to repent,” he added.

The Russian leader also warned that new hypersonic missiles his country developed give it a military edge.

“We have run ahead of the competition. No one has precision hypersonic weapons,” he said. “Others are planning to start testing them within the next 1 to 2 years, and we already have them on duty.”

Another new weapon, the Avangard, is set to enter service in the next few months, he said. Earlier this year, Putin said the Avangard has an intercontinental range and can fly in the atmosphere at a speed 20 times the speed of sound, making it capable of piercing any missile defense system.

His blunt talk Thursday comes as Russia-West relations remain frosty over the Ukrainian crisis, the war in Syria and the allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential vote.

Putin said he still hopes U.S. President Donald Trump will be able to improve the ties between their countries. He thinks Trump wants “some sort of stabilization and improvement of U.S.-Russian ties” and said Moscow is ready for that “at any moment.”

Putin said his meeting with Trump in Helsinki in July was positive and they had a “normal, professional dialogue” even though their exchange brought strong criticism from Trump.

At the same time, the Russian president sharply criticized Washington’s reliance on sanctions against Russia and others, saying the instrument of punishment “undermines trust in the dollar as a universal payment instrument and the main reserve currency.”

“It’s a typical mistake made by an empire,” Putin said. “An empire always thinks that it’s so powerful that it can afford some mistakes and extra costs.”

Building on his defiance and boasts, Putin said Russia had nothing to fear given its defense capability and “people ready to defend our sovereignty and independence.”

“Not in every country are people so eager to sacrifice their lives for the Motherland,” he said.

 
…

Germany has extradited the suspect in the killing of Bulgarian television journalist Viktoria Marinova to Bulgaria, an Interior Ministry official said Wednesday.

Bulgarian Severin Krasimirov is to be charged in person with the rape and murder of 30-year-old Marinova, whose body was found in a park in her Danube hometown of Ruse on Oct 6. Police said she was beaten and raped and died of suffocation.

Prosecutors have said evidence did not indicate Marinova’s death was related to her work and pointed to a random sexual crime although they are still investigating all possibilities.

Krasimirov was arrested in Germany last week where he admitted partial guilt to a German court.

“German authorities have handed over … the 21-year-old citizen of Ruse,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

A German prosecutor confirmed Krasimirov has been extradited via a flight from Frankfurt.
…

Leaders from the European Union and Britain shrugged off a weekend negotiating debacle and previous deadlines Wednesday, giving themselves several more weeks to clinch a friendly divorce deal ahead of their separation. 

After the EU insisted for months that the Wednesday summit was a key meeting to get a deal, its Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said “we need much time, much more time and we continue to work in the next weeks” with his British counterpart.  

British Prime Minister Theresa May also spoke about “working intensively over the next days and weeks” to achieve agreement that avoids a no-deal departure from the bloc on March 29 that could create chaos at the borders and in the economy. A deal must be sealed soon so parliaments have time to give their verdict on it. 

Underscoring the newfound sense of non-urgency, Prime Minister Sebastian Kurz of Austria, which holds the rotating EU presidency, even spoke of the “coming weeks and months” to get a deal and sought to impose a soothing calm. 

“There’s no need to dramatize matters. It’s always the case with negotiations, that in the end there are challenges,” he said. 

May was preparing to address other EU leaders one day after European Council President Donald Tusk implored her to present new ideas for resolving the tricky problem of how to keep the land border between the Republic of Ireland and the U.K.’s Northern Ireland friction-free once Britain no longer is an EU member. 

Tusk advised May that “creative” thinking from Britain was required to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland, the issue that has brought divorce negotiations to a standstill. EU leaders dismissed May’s most recent proposal as unworkable. 

But when the prime minister was asked in the House of Commons earlier Wednesday whether her government’s blueprint for an amicable divorce was dead, May replied: “The answer is no.” 

The summit in Brussels had long been seen as the “moment of truth” in the two-year Brexit process. But after urgent talks on the Irish border ended Sunday without producing a breakthrough, Wednesday’s gathering looked more like a therapeutic bonding session than an occasion to celebrate. 

The timeline for a deal has slipped into November, or even December, when another EU summit is scheduled.

“Today there will be no breakthrough,” said Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite. She said 2 1/2 years after Britain’s Brexit referendum, the country had still not explained clearly how it wants to leave the EU.

“Today, we do not know what they want,” she said. “They do not know themselves what they really want. That is the problem.”

At present the two sides are proposing that Britain remains inside the EU single market and is still bound by its rules from the time it leaves the bloc in March until December 2020, to give time for new trade relations to be set up.

Many suspect that will not be enough time, which has led the EU to demand a “backstop” to ensure there are no customs posts or other controls along the currently invisible border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. 

And there is talk that a transition period for the U.K. to adapt to its new status as a third country could be extended by a year. 

Britain says it has not asked for an extension, but May has not yet come up with proposals for unblocking the Irish border logjam. She is hemmed in by pro-Brexit members of her Conservative Party, who oppose any more compromises with the bloc, and by her parliamentary allies in Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, who insist a solution can’t include customs checks between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K. 

 
…

Newly released Ecuadorian government documents have laid bare an unorthodox attempt to extricate WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from his embassy hideaway in London by naming him as a political counselor to the country’s embassy in Moscow.

But the 47-year-old Australian’s new career in international affairs was nipped in the bud when British authorities vetoed his diplomatic status, effectively blocking him from taking up the post in Russia.

The files were made public late Tuesday by Ecuadorian opposition lawmaker Paola Vintimilla, who opposes her government’s decision to grant Assange nationality. They largely corroborate a recent Guardian newspaper report that Ecuador attempted the elaborate maneuver to get Assange to Moscow just before Christmas last year.

Russian diplomats called the Guardian story “fake news,” but the government files show Assange briefly was made “political counselor” to the Ecuadorian Embassy in Moscow and eligible for a monthly salary pegged at $2,000.

Ecuador also applied for a diplomatic ID card, the documents show, but the plan appears to have fallen apart with the British veto.

A letter dated Dec. 21, 2017, from Britain’s Foreign Office said U.K. officials “do not consider Mr. Julian Assange to be an acceptable member of the mission.”

An eight-page memo to Vintimilla summing up the episode noted that Assange’s position as counselor was scrapped a few days later.

WikiLeaks did not return messages. The British Foreign Office and the Russian Embassy in London declined to comment.

Assange’s relationship with Russian authorities has been the subject of intense scrutiny following the 2016 U.S. election, when Russian spies are alleged to have handed WikiLeaks leaked emails from presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign in a bid to help elect her rival, Donald Trump.

Assange has denied receiving the files from the Russian government or backing the Trump campaign, despite a growing body of evidence suggesting he received material directly from Russia’s military intelligence agency and coordinated media strategy with Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr.

Last month, the AP published internal WikiLeaks files showing Assange tried to move to Russia as early as 2010.
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The White House has announced plans to negotiate separate trade deals with Britain, the European Union and Japan.

“We are committed to concluding these negotiations with timely and substantive results for American workers, farmers, ranchers and businesses,” U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said Tuesday.

He added that the White House wanted to “address both tariff and non-tariff barriers and to achieve fairer and more balanced trade.”

As required by law, Lighthizer sent three separate letters to Congress announcing the intention to open trade talks.

He wrote that the negotiations with Britain would begin “as soon as it’s ready” after Britain’s expected exit from the European Union on March 29.

Lighthizer called the economic partnership between the U.S. and EU the “largest and most complex”in the world, noting the U.S. has a $151 billion trade deficit with the EU

Writing about Japan, Lighthizer said it is “an important but still often underperforming market for U.S. exporters of goods,” noting that Washington also has a large trade deficit with Tokyo.

The top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, Oregon’s Ron Wyden, cautioned the administration against making what he called “quick, partial deals.” 

“The administration must take the time to tackle trade barriers comprehensively, including using this opportunity to set a high bar in areas like labor rights, environmental protection and digital trade,” he said.

President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on European steel and aluminum exports earlier this year and has threatened more tariffs on cars as a reaction to what he said were unfair deals that put the U.S. at a disadvantage.
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Russian cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin says the force he felt during a Soyuz emergency landing last week was like having a concrete block on his chest.

Ovchinin and U.S. astronaut Nick Hague spoke separately Tuesday about their frightening experience when an unknown mishap caused their Russian Soyuz to abort its mission 60 kilometers (37 miles) above Kazakhstan.

The spacecraft was on its way to the International Space Station when the emergency lights flashed in the cabin just minutes into the flight.

“There was no time to be nervous because we had to work,” Ovchinin told Russian television. “We had to go through the steps that the crew has to take and prepare for emergency landing … so that the crew is still functioning after landing.”

Ovchinin recalled being violently shaken from side by side as the crew cabin separated from the rocket, followed by a force seven times stronger then gravity as the cabin plunged through the atmosphere, followed by the shock of the parachutes yanking open.

Back home in Houston, Hague told the Associated Press, “We knew that if we wanted to be successful, we needed to stay calm and we needed to execute the procedures in front of us smoothly and efficiently as we could.”

Hague said he and Ovchinin were hanging upside down when the cabin landed back on Earth. They shook hands and cracked jokes.

Neither man was hurt, and an investigation is under way to find out why the rocket failed.

Hague said he is disappointed to be back home instead of walking in space, but he’s happy to be reunited with his wife and their two young sons, and is ready to fly again as soon as NASA gives him the word.

“What can you do? Sometimes you don’t get a vote,” Hague told the Associated Press. “You just try to celebrate the little gifts that you get, like walking the boys to school this morning.”

This was the first aborted Soyuz launch in more than 30 years.

The Russian spacecraft has been the only way to send replacement crews to the International Space Station since NASA retired the space shuttle fleet in 2011.

Two private U.S. companies — Boeing and SpaceX — are working on a new generation of shuttles.
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