політика, бізнес, народ

Britain will not sign a trade agreement with the United States that is not in the country’s best interests, Trade Minister Liam Fox said Saturday after European Union officials filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization over stiff U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

“If we can’t come to an agreement that we believe is in the interests of the United Kingdom, then we wouldn’t be signing any trade agreement,” Fox said Saturday in an interview with BBC radio.

Fox’s comments came one day after European Union officials submitted a formal complaint to the WTO, the first in a series of retaliatory actions, including possible tariffs, against the U.S. Fox said the tariffs are “illegal” and that British Prime Minister Theresa May would raise the issue at the Group of Seven meeting next week in Canada.

Trans-Atlantic and North American trade tensions escalated when the U.S. imposed on Friday a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum imports from the European Union, Canada and Mexico. The U.S. also negotiated quotas or volume limits on other countries, such as South Korea, Argentina, Australia and Brazil, instead of tariffs.

In a separate dispute, China is prepared to target billions of dollars in U.S. products, many of which come from America’s agricultural heartland, where Trump enjoys strong voter support.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross arrived in Beijing Saturday in an attempt to avert an all-out trade war between the world’s two largest economies. On China’s target list are U.S. soybean farmers, who export about 60-percent of their soybeans to China.

A dairy farmer who also grows soybeans in the midwestern state of Nebraska, Ben Steffen, is angry about the U.S. tariffs “because it hits me in my pocketbook from multiple angles.”

California farmer Jeff Colombini, who grows walnuts, cherries and apples, is concerned about the financial damage a trade war could bring.

“With these tariffs, its going to make the product[s] too expensive for the consumers in Mexico and in Canada and in the EU,” he said. “I have 200 employees, and they depend on the success of this operation for their jobs and to feed and clothe their families.”

The imposition of the tariffs is also not popular with some members of Congress, including those from Trump’s own party, whose states are dependent on exports.

“Imposing steel and aluminum tariffs on our most important trading partners is the wrong approach and represents an abuse of authority intended only for national security purposes,” said Bob Corker of Tennessee, who is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“You don’t treat allies the same way you treat opponents,” Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska said on Twitter. “Blanket protectionism is a big part of why we had a Great Depression. ‘Make America Great Again’ shouldn’t mean ‘Make America 1929 Again.’”

Tennessee has three major auto assembly plants. Nebraska is a significant exporter of cattle, corn, soybeans and hogs.

Mexico said, in response, it will penalize U.S. imports, including pork bellies, apples, grapes, cheeses and flat steel.

“There’s a reason why” the countries are carefully selecting which American products to target in response, said William Reinsch, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“Most of bourbon is made in Kentucky, which is the state of the Senate majority leader. Harley Davidsons are made in Wisconsin, which is the state of the speaker of the House,” Reinsch told VOA News. “Usually when other countries retaliate, and the Chinese have done something similar, is they’re good at maximizing political pain by picking out products that are made in places where people are politically important.”

“Tariffs on steel and aluminum imports are a tax hike on Americans and will have damaging consequences for consumers, manufacturers and workers,” said Republican Orrin Hatch, who chairs the Senate’s finance committee and is a longtime advocate of breaking down trade barriers.

Expected higher prices for U.S. consumers on some products is only one side of the equation, said Ross, who noted that steel and aluminum makers in the U.S. are adding employment and opening facilities as a result of the U.S. government action.

“You can create a few jobs, however, you’re going to lose more in the process,” as consuming industries will be placed at a disadvantage of paying more for raw materials compared to their foreign competitors, Simon Lester, trade policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, told VOA News.

 
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White House officials are making plans for a possible summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The report, citing a senior administration official, said U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman, has been in Washington to help schedule the meeting.

“This has been an ongoing project of Ambassador Huntsman, stretching back months, of getting a formal meeting between Putin and Trump,” the official said.

People familiar with the plans said the purpose of the summit would be to address long-standing differences between the two countries.

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election with the intent of helping Trump win. The findings have led to a special counsel investigation into whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia. Trump has denied any collusion.

The U.S. also has denounced Russia’s alliance with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has expressed opposition to Moscow’s military intervention in eastern Ukraine.

Tensions between Washington and Moscow escalated in March when the U.S. and dozens of other nations ordered Russian diplomats to leave their countries after a former Russian spy and his daughter were poisoned in the United Kingdom with a military-grade nerve agent. Russia has denied responsibility and has accused the U.S. of coordinating an extortion plan.

Regarding the potential summit, the official said a lot of planning still must be done, including setting a date and location.

If the summit does take place, it would be the third meeting between the two leaders. They met on the sidelines of the G-20 summit last July in Hamburg, Germany, and in November at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam.

Trump currently is focusing on a planned June 12 summit in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The senior administration official said if negotiations with North Korea continue, plans for the summit with Russia will be delayed.

Trump has said a number of times he would like to improve relations with Russia.
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The faked murder of a Russian journalist in Ukraine has set off soul searching among journalists and a debate in civil society over the propriety of the gambit in an era of propaganda and “fake news.”

On Tuesday, journalists were shocked by the apparent slaying of Russian dissident, war veteran and journalist Arkady Babchenko, who Ukrainian authorities said had been gunned down outside his apartment in Kyiv. The first reports came from personal friends of Babchenko on their social media pages. This was quickly followed by official announcements from the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs. Within hours of the killing, Ukrainian police even released a sketch of a possible suspect.

The next day, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) caused an even bigger shock wave by revealing that Babchenko was in fact very much alive. The SBU said the killing had been staged as part of a sting operation to catch a suspected Russian agent who was targeting Kremlin enemies in Ukraine. Journalists around the world expressed their astonishment when Babchenko appeared at the press conference along with Ukrainian officials. 

Perhaps the most dramatic reaction came from his own colleagues at the Crimean Tatar TV channel ATR:

“This may have been the appropriate way to go about saving someone’s life,” Michael Carpenter, a former U.S. adviser on Russia and Ukraine, told VOA News. “But it does have long-term consequences, the way it was carried out.”

Critics and supporters of the act expressed relief that Babchenko was alive, but many voiced concerns about the credibility of Ukrainian government institutions. Others suggested that this would be a gift to Russia, which could now point to the stunt anytime Russia is implicated in some scandal.

Writing for the British newspaper The Independent, Oliver Carroll called the situation a “get-out-of-jail-free card” for the Kremlin.

“Ukraine is now a storyteller; nothing that comes out of Ukraine is really how it seems; everything Ukraine says is to show Russia in a bad light,” Carroll wrote. “Russia has been accused by the U.S. of using disinformation campaigns to try and affect the 2016 presidential election and in such a climate there is no doubt Moscow will use the staged killing to undermine news out of Kyiv.”

Threats did occur

There is little doubt Babchenko faced death threats in response to his years of journalistic work. In 2017, a wave of new threats in response to one of his Facebook posts forced him to flee Russia. Officials at Wednesday’s news conference explained how they had detected a plot to assassinate not only Babchenko but other Russian dissidents living in Ukraine. In contrast to several other high-profile slayings or attempted slayings of Russian dissidents in other countries, this time a suspect was captured.

The intelligence agency that staged the fake hit, however, has its own checkered past in controlling the media inside Ukraine. In its annual report, Freedom on the Net 2017, Freedom House listed Ukraine as only “partly free.” The democracy and human rights NGO said the SBU campaign was aimed at a pro-Russian news agency — blocking websites, forcing removal of content and even staging raids of two Ukrainian news outlets.

In late 2017, the English language Kyiv Post published a story that accused the SBU of using the armed conflict against Russia as a pretext “to persecute government critics and enrich themselves.”

In this context, some suggest the SBU’s faked homicide could be a propaganda gift to Russia, which could now point to the stunt anytime Russia is implicated in scandals or its own version of fake news.

“They will cite this, they will exploit this, they will use this to throw all sorts of doubts and seed questions about the legitimacy of Western news sources,” said Carpenter, who served in the White House advising Vice President Joe Biden on Russia.

Defenders, however, pointed out that had Babchenko been killed, the Kremlin and Russian state media would spread disinformation about his death while continuing their denial of involvement in such cases as the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in 2014 or the more recent poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in London.

Among journalists, the debate rages on the ethics of one of their own participating in a fake news event. The OSCE Representative for Media Freedom condemned the “spread of false information” on Twitter. Russian journalist Andrei Soldatov also tweeted that Babchenko’s involvement in the scheme was “crossing a line” with him. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) published a statement condemning the stunt for raising many questions, which they listed. First among them was how “credible and imminent” the threat to Babchenko’s life was at the time.

‘Very difficult’ matter

Frank Sesno, the director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University, told Voice of America that the question of ethics in this case was “very difficult terrain.”

“If in fact there was legitimate information that an assassination was pending, that his family and his children were threatened as well, which apparently they were — that’s what he’s claiming, anyway — and if the security forces felt this was the only way to flush out the perpetrators or planners of this sort of thing, then reluctantly I would say this is something that probably needed to happen,” Sesno said.

Sesno pointed out that there are regimes that target and sometimes kill journalists, and “that needs to be exposed.” Yet he called for “full transparency and honesty” from those involved.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said the press freedom implications depend on the answers to its series of questions, involving the seriousness of the threat to Babchenko, identities of the alleged plot organizer and contract killer, and who in the Ukrainian government knew of the staged killing.

“What is known is that the Ukrainian government has damaged its own credibility,” Nina Ognianova of CPJ’s European office wrote on Wednesday. “Given the SBU is an intelligence agency, which engages in deception, obfuscation and propaganda, determining the truth will be very difficult.” 

As to whether Babchenko’s fake slaying was a “gift” to Russian propagandists, there seemed to be only mixed initial evidence supporting the concern. While Babchenko was still thought to be dead, the state media and Russian officials seemed to be launching a narrative. Sputnik News on May 29 advanced a narrative portraying Ukraine as inherently dangerous for journalists. Before news of Babchenko’s “resurrection” broke, The Republic reported that Russian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said the U.S. bore responsibility for Babchenko’s death.

Since the revelation, domestic Russian media fastened on the Skripal poisoning, but 30 hours later neither the Russian government nor state had demonstrated it was an international propaganda game changer.

In a way, the Babchenko story provides a good example of what is, and what is not, “fake news.” The fiction was not promoted knowingly by any journalist, other than Babchenko himself. The narrative was created and supported by Ukraine security and police officials. Even Russia’s Investigative Committee claimed it was opening a criminal case on the matter, citing the fact that Babchenko was a Russian citizen.

In a post-revelation interview, Babchenko explained how he was covered in pig’s blood after donning a T-shirt with bullet holes already in it. He was actually taken to the morgue before being “resurrected.” For all intents and purposes, Babchenko’s “killing” was “real news,” until it was publicly revealed as a hoax.

In the same interview, Babchenko gave his own opinion about disinformation surrounding the story:

“By the way, this is an example of birth of fake news: I don’t understand why there’s a version with me going to buy a loaf of bread [that] came up. I didn’t go to buy bread, I went to buy water.”

This story first appeared on Polygraph.info, a fact-checking website produced by Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Original reporting contributed by VOA’s Ukrainian service and Russia service and RFE/RL.
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Arkady Babchenko, a Russian journalist, worked with Ukrainian intelligence to stage his assassination. A day later, Kyiv security officials unveiled the ruse. While officials claim the scheme was necessary to save Babchenko’s life, ethics experts worry about the consequences. Bronwyn Benito narrates this report by Iryna Matviichuk of VOA’s Ukranian service.
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After three months of political deadlock following inconclusive March 4 elections, Italy has a new government. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, a political novice, and his ministers were sworn in Friday. The government is backed by the populist 5-Star Movement and the right-wing League.

Markets breathed easier Friday after months of political wrangling ended. European stocks closed higher after Italian parties reached an agreement that led to the formation and swearing in of a new government, thereby averting the prospect of an early general election.

Conte has been dubbed “Mr. Nobody.” The 53-year old law professor took the oath of office along with his 18 ministers, five of them women. In the gilded Quirinale Palace, President Sergio Mattarella presided over the ceremony.

The new government coalition consists of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and the right-wing League. The two parties have a solid majority in both houses of parliament. Conte’s government will now seek confidence votes there early next week in order to be fully empowered.

Italy’s future in the eurozone has dominated the political uncertainty of the last week, with the head of state vetoing the coalition’s original choice for economy minister, Euroskeptic economist Paolo Savona. On Friday, Savona was sworn in as the new European affairs minister.

Mattarella’s rejection of Savona as economy minister led to the breakdown of the coalition’s first attempt to form a government. A technocratic government seemed the only solution until the leaders of the 5-Star Movement and the League decided to present a new lineup to the president, which was acceptable.

Luigi Di Maio and Matteo Salvini, who respectively head the 5-Star Movement and the League, are both deputy prime ministers in the new government. In addition, Di Maio will run the Labor Ministry and Salvini the Interior Ministry, two of the most important portfolios in Italy today.

Salvini said his first order of business as the country’s new interior minister would be to revamp the nation’s immigration policies. He wants to reduce the number of migrants arriving, increase the number of expulsions and cut the funds Italy spends tending to migrants.
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Brexit Secretary David Davis is creating a Brexit plan that would give Northern Ireland joint UK and European Union status so it could trade freely with both, as well as a buffer zone to eliminate the need for border checkpoints with Ireland, The Sun newspaper reported on Thursday.

Davis is drawing a proposed 10-mile (16-km)-wide trade buffer zone along the border that would be in effect for local traders like dairy farmers after Britain leaves the bloc, the newspaper said. 

The Brexit minister’s plan is a revision of the “max fac” or “maximum facilitation” plan, the report said, citing a source.

British Prime Minister Theresa May previously pledged to take the UK out of the EU customs union by considering two options. One would be “max fac” in which the UK and EU would be entirely separate customs areas but would try to use technology to reduce friction and costs at the border.

The other option being considered is a “customs partnership”, according to which the UK would cooperate with the EU more closely and collect tariffs on its behalf with no requirement of declarations of goods crossing the border.

The European Union previously criticized May for not setting out how the UK would achieve a frictionless border with the EU without erecting a land border to control goods between the British province of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

Britain suggested earlier this month that it would be willing to extend the use of EU tariffs as a backstop if there were delays in ratification of a Brexit deal to avoid a return to a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, adding the government did not want to use that option. 
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The United States’ allies in the G-7 vowed Thursday to push back against Washington’s decision to impose tariffs on their steel and aluminum exports, saying as they gathered for a meeting that the move threatens global growth.

The escalating trade conflict between the United States and many key allies will dominate the three-day meeting in Canada of financial leaders from the Group of Seven industrialized nations that began Thursday, with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin the top target for their complaints and lobbying.

The United States said it was moving ahead to impose tariffs of 25 percent on steel imports and 10 percent on aluminum, starting at midnight (0400 GMT Friday), ending months of uncertainty about potential exemptions and sending a chill through financial markets.

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire demanded a “permanent and total exemption” from the tariffs and said that European Union countries would respond with their own measures.

The U.S. tariff decision “is unjustified and unjustifiable and will have dangerous consequences for global growth,” Le Maire said in comments to media on his way to the meeting of policymakers from the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Canada in the mountain resort of Whistler, British Columbia.

His German counterpart, Olaf Scholz, said EU member states would show their unity and sovereignty by acting in a determined way. “Our response should be clear, strong and smart,” Scholz told Reuters.

Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau said the tariffs would color the G-7 meeting.

“There will be some challenging discussions I’m sure,” Morneau told a news conference as top policymakers gathered. “We are not saying there won’t be frictions,” he added. “We’re not saying we won’t have strong words. We’re not saying we won’t be able to send messages.”

Mnuchin, who was not at the introductory discussion panels focused on development and sharing the benefits of global growth, is scheduled to meet individually with many of his global counterparts during the three-day meeting.

Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said the U.S. decision to target trade in goods, not services, was misplaced.

“This focus on goods trade, bilateral goods, is not the right focus in a hyperconnected world where most of the economic activity, most people work, most small businesses, most women work in the service sector,” Carney told a panel.

“If we were to liberalize services to the same degree as we have liberalized [trade in] goods, these balances would be cut in half for the United States and for the U.K.,” Carney added.

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said if trade was “massively disrupted,” the level of public trust in leaders would be severely damaged.

“First of all, those who will suffer most are the poorest, the less privileged people, those who actually rely on imported goods to have their living,” she said, adding that long-standing supply chains also would be disrupted.

The U.S. actions on trade policy, which also include potential tariffs and investment restrictions on China and a national security probe that could lead to tariffs on auto imports, are expected to also dominate the G-7 summit of world leaders in Quebec next week. 
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Nine people were hurt, including two children, when Croatian border police fired at a van full of illegal migrants that refused to stop.

Police said they discovered 29 people inside the van after it crossed the border from Bosnia.

The driver fled into the woods, and police were searching for him. 

The two wounded children were recovering in a hospital, and officials said their lives were not in danger.

“We are sorry about the children being injured in this incident,” Zadar town police chief Anton Drazina said. “Our priority is the fight against organized crime and protection of the state border and not against the migrants, but against the criminals who are unfortunately endangering the lives of the migrants by their smuggling activities.”

Police said most of the people in the van were from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Hundreds of thousands of migrants used the so-called Balkan route to cross into the European Union before the route was shut down. But a number of people still slip through.
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A Kremlin spokesman said Thursday that Russia is glad journalist Arkady Babchenko is alive, but that the faking of his death was “strange.”

The prominent Russian war correspondent and Kremlin critic had been reported to be shot dead in the stairwell of his Kyiv apartment on Tuesday. But Babchenko stunned reporters when he appeared alive and well Wednesday as Ukrainian security officials explained the death had been faked as part of a sting operation to save the reporter’s life.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday he did not know if the result of the case justified the actions taken, and that the situation does not change Russia’s view that Ukraine is a dangerous place for journalists.

Reporters Without Borders condemned Babchenko’s faked death, saying it was “distressing and regrettable” for Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) to play with the truth.

“Was such a scheme really necessary? There can be no grounds for faking a journalist’s death,” said the group’s secretary-general Christophe Deloire.

SBU chief Vasyl Hrytsak stood alongside Babchenko at Wednesday’s television briefing as he recounted events leading up to the foiled assassination attempt.

Operation fake death

The operation began with a tip from an anonymous source who said an unidentified Ukrainian national had been inquiring about buying weapons for a contract assassination in Kyiv, which triggered the SBU probe. Officials said he had been asked to find and hire someone to carry out the contract killing.

During the negotiations, Hrytsak said, the man claimed Russia’s Secret Service had offered him $40,000 to organize and carry out the hit. He said the suspect was a former separatist fighter who had fought in eastern Ukraine.

SBU investigators then recruited Babchenko into the sting operation designed to catch Russian agents in the act of conducting an extrajudicial killing on foreign soil.

Investigators said the intermediary who had been tasked with hiring the gunman was in custody, and officials said they had additional hard evidence linking Russia’s secret service to the assassination plot, though they did yet want to unveil that evidence.

Babchenko apologizes

Addressing reporters, Babchenko told his family he was sorry for faking his own death.

“I’d like to apologize for everything you’ve had to go through,” he said. “I’ve been at the funeral of many friends and colleagues, and I know this nauseous feeling. Sorry for imposing this upon you, but there was no other way.

“Special apologies to my wife for the hell she’s been through these two days,” he added. “Olya, excuse me, please, but there was no other option.”

Police reports that followed initial reports of the shooting say it was Babchenko’s wife who discovered him lying in a pool of blood at the entry of their Kyiv apartment.

It is not clear whether his wife was involved in the sting.

“As far as I know, this operation was prepared for two months. A result of that was this special operation,” Babchenko told the briefing. “They saved my life. I want to say thanks. Larger terrorist attacks were prevented.”

Tuesday’s news of the shooting shocked the Ukrainian capital, prompting Kyiv and Moscow officials to blame each for the reporter’s death.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman suggested Russia had orchestrated the killing, while Kremlin spokesman Peskov rejected that claim.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said after Babchenko’s reappearance Wednesday that Ukrainian officials had circulated a false story as “propaganda.”

Kyiv police and officials from Ukraine’s Interior Ministry had announced on Tuesday Babchenko had died in an ambulance on the way to a hospital after being shot in the back at his home in Kyiv, where he has lived in exile since August 2017.

News of the 41-year-old’s reported death had shocked colleagues and added to tension between Moscow and Kyiv, whose ties have been badly damaged by Russia’s seizure of Crimea and backing for separatist militants in a devastating war in eastern Ukraine.

This story originated in VOA’s Ukrainian Service, with some reporting by AP and RFE
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In today’s energy-hungry world, scientists are constantly revisiting every renewable resource looking for ways to increase efficiency. One researcher in the Netherlands believes even gravity can be harnessed to produce free electricity on a scale sufficient to power small appliances. VOA’s George Putic has more.
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President Donald Trump’s administration is planning to impose tariffs on European steel and aluminum imports after failing to win concessions from the European Union, a move that could provoke retaliatory tariffs and inflame trans-Atlantic trade tensions.

The tariffs are likely to go into effect on the EU with an announcement by Friday’s deadline, according to two people familiar with the discussions. The administration’s plans could change if the two sides are able to reach a last-minute agreement, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Trump announced in March the United States would slap a 25 percent tariff on imported steel and a 10 percent tariff on imported aluminum, citing national security interests. But he granted an exemption to the EU and other U.S. allies; that reprieve expires Friday.

​Europe bracing

Europe has been bracing for the U.S. to place the restrictions even as top European officials have held last-ditch talks in Paris with American trade officials to try to avert the tariffs.

“Realistically, I do not think we can hope” to avoid either U.S. tariffs or quotas on steel and aluminum, said Cecilia Malmstrom, the European Union’s trade commissioner. Even if the U.S. were to agree to waive the tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, Malmstrom said, “I expect them nonetheless to want to impose some sort of cap on EU exports.”

European officials said they expected the U.S. to announce its final decision Thursday. The people familiar with the talks said Trump could make an announcement as early as Thursday.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross attended meetings at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris on Wednesday, and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer joins discussions in Paris on Thursday.

The U.S. plan has raised the threat of retaliation from Europe and fears of a global trade war — a prospect that is weighing on investor confidence and could hinder the global economic upturn.

​

If the U.S. moves forward with its tariffs, the EU has threatened to impose retaliatory tariffs on U.S. orange juice, peanut butter and other goods in return. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire pledged that the European response would be “united and firm.”

Limits on cars

Besides the U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs, the Trump administration is also investigating possible limits on foreign cars in the name of national security.

“Unilateral responses and threats over trade war will solve nothing of the serious imbalances in the world trade. Nothing,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in an impassioned speech at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris.

In a clear reference to Trump, Macron added: “These solutions might bring symbolic satisfaction in the short term. … One can think about making voters happy by saying, ‘I have a victory, I’ll change the rules, you’ll see.’”

But Macron said those “who waged bilateral trade wars … saw an increase in prices and an increase in unemployment.”

Tariffs on steel imports to the U.S. can help local producers of the metal by making foreign products more expensive. But they can also increase costs more broadly for U.S. manufacturers who cannot source all their steel locally and need to import the raw material. That hurts the companies and can lead to more expensive consumer prices, economists say.

Ross criticized the EU for its tough negotiating position.

“There can be negotiations with or without tariffs in place. There are plenty of tariffs the EU has on us. It’s not that we can’t talk just because there’s tariffs,” he said. He noted that “China has not used that as an excuse not to negotiate.”

But German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier insisted the Europeans were being “constructive” and were ready to negotiate special trade arrangements, notably for liquefied natural gas and industrial goods, including cars.

WTO reforms

Macron also proposed to start negotiations between the U.S., the EU, China and Japan to reshape the World Trade Organization to better regulate trade. Discussions could then be expanded to include other countries to agree on changes by the end of the year.

Ross expressed concern that the Geneva-based World Trade Organization and other organizations are too rigid and slow to adapt to changes in global business.

“We would operate within (multilateral) frameworks if we were convinced that people would move quickly,” he said.

Ross and Lighthizer seemed like the odd men out at this week’s gathering at the OECD, an international economic agency that includes the U.S. as a prominent member.

The agency issued a report Wednesday saying “the threat of trade restrictions has begun to adversely affect confidence” and tariffs “would negatively influence investment and jobs.”
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U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said Wednesday a U.S.-European Union trade deal could still be reached even if the United States imposes tariffs on EU steel and aluminum imports.

EU and U.S. officials are holding last-minute negotiations two days before U.S. President Donald Trump decides to apply tariffs on Europe.

The threat of tariffs has increased prospects of retaliation and a global trade war that could hinder the global economy.

“There can be negotiations with or without tariffs in place,” Ross said at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris. “There are plenty of tariffs the EU has on us. It’s not that we can’t talk just because there’s tariffs.”

The Trump administration is also exploring possible limits on foreign auto imports, citing national security. 

The EU wants exemptions on steel and aluminum tariffs, which Trump hopes will benefit the U.S., or impose tariffs on U.S. peanut butter, orange juice and other products.

In a speech at the OECD, French President Emmanuel Macron said Europe should stand its ground in the face of unilateral actions and warned against trade wars.

“Unilateral responses and threats over trade wars will solve nothing of the serious imbalances in world trade. Nothing,” he proclaimed.

In an apparent reference to Trump’s proposed tariffs, Macron said, “These solutions might bring symbolic satisfaction in the short term. …. One can think about making voters happy by saying, ‘I have a victory. I’ll change the rules. You’ll see.’” 

Macron also called on the EU, the U.S., China and Japan to draft a World Trade Organization reform plan for the G-20 summit in Argentina later this year.

“The new rules must meet the current challenges of world trade: massive state subsidies creating distortions of global markets, intellectual property, social rights and climate protection,” he said. 

But Macron’s multilateral approach has produced limited results to date, as Trump has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Accord and the Iran nuclear deal, and is threatening to disrupt trade relations between China, the EU and other economic powers.

 
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Europe’s financial markets are in a swoon, Italy is in political turmoil, a fresh eurozone debt crisis is in the offing and the continent’s euroskeptic populists are predicting gleefully the fast-approaching demise of the European Union.

So, what’s new?

For the past few years, all of the above could have been written virtually any day of the week, much of it fueled by hyperbole. But the political drama unfolding in Italy is of a different order and shaping up to be a much greater existential threat to the European Union than Britain’s Brexit vote two years ago, analysts say.

That is unless Italy can gain firmer political ground, and quickly.

“Italy is, not for the first time, in political crisis,” said Nick Ottens, chief editor of the transatlantic opinion website Atlantic Sentinel. “But this time, what happens in Rome could have a big impact on financial markets, the euro, and the longer-term future of the European Union as a whole.”

Tuesday, the global financial markets saw massive sell-offs of European equities and bank stocks, and currency traders dumped the euro, sending it plummeting to its lowest level against the dollar in nearly a year. Bond markets also swooned as global investors headed for the safety of U.S. Treasury securities, reviving memories of the debt crisis that bankrupted Greece and threatened to fracture the eurozone.

The sell-off came as Italian politicians struggled to shape an orderly way toward fresh elections after Sergio Mattarella, Italy’s president, vetoed the selection of an anti-euro finance minister by the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) and anti-immigrant Lega. That collapsed the nascent coalition government and prompted the resignation of the prime minister nominee after just 90 hours — a stunning turnaround even by Italy’s chaotic political standards. 

Mattarella’s decision to turn to a former IMF economist, Carlo Cottarelli, to head a caretaker government remains beset by problems. The president’s plan appears to have involved delaying elections until next year.

But Cottarelli, a Europhile, isn’t expected to win a vote of confidence in the Italian parliament because of opposition from the two populist parties, who together command a parliamentary majority, forcing Mattarella to call a populist-demanded early election, possibly as soon as July.

‘On Verge of Panic’

The Italian political turmoil is sending shock waves across Europe amid alarm the country is on a political trajectory to exit the eurozone, despite polling data suggesting Italians would prefer to stick with the euro, although they remain resentful of Brussels and EU-dictated austerity policies.

“On Verge of Panic,” was how the normally sober Economist magazine headlined its coverage Wednesday of the political crisis in Rome and what it may entail for Europe.

Brinkmanship and miscalculation by both old guard politicians in Italy and upstart populists risks worsening the Italian domestic crisis and transforming it into a continent-shaking European one, analysts and investors warn.

On Tuesday, Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros said he feared the European Union could be heading toward another major financial crisis triggered by populist political parties intent on ripping the bloc apart. “The EU is in an existential crisis. Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong,” he said in a speech in London.

Italy is the third-largest country in the eurozone, the fifth-largest in the European Union, and as one of its founding members, conflict with Brussels will test the bloc far more than Brexit.

‘Italian democracy’s darkest night’

EU officials fear the Italian populists will grab an even bigger share of the popular vote in rerun parliamentary elections and only four months after Italians voted in a bad-tempered national poll, marred by violence, that resulted in a hung parliament.

“The political risk is becoming very complex,” said Mauro Vittorangeli of Allianz Global. “The political situation is totally unpredictable,” he added.

Lega leader Matteo Salvini intends to frame his party’s election campaign as a referendum on Italy’s EU relationship, arguing the populists’ plan for a coalition government failed because of interference from the “powers-that-be, the markets, Berlin and Paris” who want Italy to be “a slave, scared and precarious.”

A poll released last week suggested 61 percent of Italians believe their voice isn’t being heard in Brussels. Pollsters put the Lega’s support at 22 percent, five points up from its vote share in March’s election.

Likewise, M5S leader Luigi Di Maio, whose party won 32 percent of the March vote, is also blaming entrenched elites, foreign and domestic, for crashing the proposed populist coalition government. He has called on party supporters to attend to protest Mattarella’s actions, which he says amount to “Italian democracy’s darkest night.”

One thing that may hurt the populists and reduce their electoral support, argues economist Alberto Mingardi of the Istituto Bruno Leoni research group, is if voters start fearing “an impending financial disaster.” Or if Italians decide the populists are more to blame for the crisis than Italy’s president.
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UNICEF is warning that hundreds of thousands of severely malnourished children in Mali are at risk of dying, as the security situation in the country worsens.

The United Nations reports that attacks by extremists and criminals in northern and central Mali are rising at an alarming rate, with many civilians being deliberately targeted.

UNICEF spokesman Christophe Boulierac says more than a million children are going hungry because of severe food shortages.

“More than 850,000 children under the age of 5 are at risk of global acute malnutrition this year, including 274,000 children facing severe malnutrition and at imminent risk of death,” he said. “This represents a 34 percent increase and is largely due to the worsening food security situation in parts of the country.”

The U.N. reports 20 percent of the country is suffering from food insecurity and 1.2 million people lack water, sanitation and basic hygiene.

UNICEF says severe acute malnutrition rates are highest in the conflict affected areas in the north, exceeding the emergency level of 15 percent in Timbuktu. It cites Mali as one of the countries with the highest newborn and maternal mortality rates in the world.

Boulierac also says newborn deaths are rising because of malnutrition and lack of basic health services.

Northern Mail has been in turmoil since 2012, when Islamist militant groups temporarily seized control of the region.

​On a visit to Mali’s capital Bamako on Tuesday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres paid homage to the U.N. peacekeepers who have been killed while serving what is considered the world body’s most dangerous peacekeeping mission.Twenty-one peacekeepers were killed in attacks by extremists last year.

While in Mali, Guterres appealed for funds to support the G5 Sahel force, which is composed of troops from Mali, Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso and Mauritania.The force was created to contain the West African jihadists active in Mali and nearby countries.

UNICEF calls the crisis in Mali one of the most forgotten in the world. It notes nearly 80 percent of the agency’s $37 million humanitarian appeal for this year remains unfunded.
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Italy may hold repeat elections as early as July after the man asked to be prime minister failed to secure support from major political parties for even a stop-gap government, sources said on Tuesday, as markets tumbled on the growing political turmoil.

Italy has searched for a new government since inconclusive elections in March, with the president finally designating former International Monetary Fund official Carlo Cottarelli as interim prime minister until a new vote is held between September and early 2019.

But sources close to some of Italy’s main parties said there was now a chance that President Sergio Mattarella could dissolve parliament in the coming days and send Italians back to the polls as early as July 29.

That prospect emerged immediately after Cottarelli met the president on Tuesday afternoon and left without making any statement. Cottarelli had been expected to announce his stopgap government’s cabinet after those talks.

A source close to the president said Cottarelli had made no mention in the meeting of an intention to give up his mandate and that he was simply finalizing his cabinet lineup.

Major parties, though, sensed Cottarelli’s mission was all but dead and called for parliament to be dissolved immediately.

“It would be best to go to elections as quickly as possible, as early as July,” said Andrea Marcucci, senate leader for the centre-left Democratic Party.

Italy suffered its biggest market selloff in years amid investor fears the election would deliver an even stronger mandate for anti-establishment, eurosceptic politicians, casting doubt on Italy’s future in the euro zone.

Market rout

Yields on Italy’s two-year bonds, the most sensitive to political upsets, suffered their biggest one-day jump since 1992.

The euro also hit multi-month lows, as credit rating agency Moody’s signalled a possible downgrade for Italy if the next government failed to address its debt burden.

Central bank Governor Ignazio Visco said Italy “must never forget that we are only ever a few short steps away from the very serious risk of losing the irreplaceable asset of trust,” but there were “no justifications” for the market turmoil.

Saxo Bank currency strategist John Hardy said European Central Bank President Mario Draghi might soon be required to intervene to calm markets, as he did during the euro zone debt crisis in 2012 when he promised to do “whatever it takes.”

Euro zone money markets had been betting on the ECB raising interest rates from ultra-low levels mid-next year. But with economic growth slowing and worries about Italy, they are now pricing in just a 30 percent chance of a modest 10 basis point rise in June 2019.

‘Respect the voters’

President Mattarella had looked to Cottarelli as prime minister to calm political and market turmoil, which Italy’s two anti-establishment parties blame on the president himself after he vetoed their choice for economy minister in their would-be coalition government.

 Mattarella blocked Paolo Savona as unsuitable on the grounds he had argued Italy should be prepared to quit the euro.

The 5-Star Movement and the far-right League, the biggest winners from the March election, declined to nominate an alternative candidate and abandoned plans to form a government, switching back into election mode, with 5-Star Movement calling for Mattarella to be impeached.

Other euro zone countries are concerned about the currency bloc’s third-largest economy. French President Emmanuel Macron defended what he called Mattarella’s courage and German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke of the need to obey rules governing the euro.

But top EU officials were quick to play down a comment from Germany’s European commissioner, Guenther Oettinger, who said he hoped the market turmoil would be “a signal (to Italians) not to hand governing responsibilities to the populists.”

Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker released a statement saying: “Italy’s fate does not lie in the hands of the financial markets,” and Donald Tusk, the chairman of EU leaders’ summits, called on EU institutions to “respect the voters … We are there to serve them, not to lecture them.”

Even if Cottarelli were able to form an interim government acceptable to the splintered Italian parliament, investors believe he would fail to pass the 2019 budget, triggering a snap election in the autumn.

The election campaign is likely to centre on Italy’s relationship with the European Union and in particular the budget restraints imposed on members of the euro zone.

A poll by SWG showed support for the League had jumped to 27.5 percent, up about 10 points from the March 4 elections.

With support for 5-Star falling about three points to 29.5 percent, the two combined would have a majority in parliament if they decided to join forces again.
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A Canadian accused of helping Russian intelligence agents break into email accounts as part of a massive 2014 data breach at Yahoo was sentenced Tuesday to five years in prison and ordered to pay a $250,000 fine.

Karim Baratov, who pleaded guilty in November 2017 in San Francisco, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Baratov, a Canadian citizen born in Kazakhstan, was arrested in Canada in March 2017 at the request of U.S. prosecutors. He later waived his right to fight a request for his extradition to the United States.

Lawyers for Baratov in a court filing had urged a sentence of 45 months in prison, while prosecutors had sought 94 months.

“This case is about a young man, younger than most of the defendants in hacking cases throughout this country, who hacked emails, one at a time, for $100 a hack,” the defense lawyers wrote in a May 19 court filing.

Verizon Communications Inc., the largest U.S. wireless operator, acquired most of Yahoo’s assets in June 2017.

The U.S. Justice Department announced charges in March 2017 against Baratov and three others, including two officers in Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), for their roles in the 2014 hacking of 500 million Yahoo accounts. Baratov is the only one of the four who has been arrested. Yahoo in 2016 said cyberthieves might have stolen names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth and encrypted passwords.

Gmail targets

When FSB officers learned that a target had a non-Yahoo webmail account, including through information obtained from the Yahoo hack, they worked with Baratov, who was paid to break into at least 80 email accounts, prosecutors said, including numerous Alphabet Inc. Gmail accounts.

Federal prosecutors said in a court filing “the targeted victims were of interest to Russian intelligence” and included “prominent leaders in the commercial industries and senior government officials (and their counselors) of Russia and countries bordering Russia.”

Prosecutors said FSB officers Dmitry Dokuchaev and Igor Sushchin directed and paid hackers to obtain information and used Alexsey Belan, who is among the FBI’s most-wanted cybercriminals, to breach Yahoo.
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A British-based maritime services company has agreed to pay $20 million to resolve allegations it overbilled the U.S. Navy for goods and services provided to American warships at ports around the world, the U.S. Justice Department said Tuesday.

Privately held Inchcape Shipping Services Holdings Ltd and some of its subsidiaries provided U.S. Navy ships with waste removal, telephone access, ship-to-shore transportation, local security and other services at ports in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, the Justice Department said in a statement.

A lawsuit charged that between 2005 and 2014 Inchcape knowingly submitted invoices to the Navy overstating the goods and services actually provided, the Justice Department said in announcing the settlement.

“We trust contractors supporting our warfighters to act with the utmost integrity and expect them to comply with their obligations to bill the government as called for by their contracts,” the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Jessie Liu, said in the statement.

Inchcape did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Its previous chief executive resigned in 2015, and it has since hired new management not implicated in the overbilling, according to attorneys involved in the case.

The lawsuit was brought under whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act by three former senior employees of Inchcape, said Janet Goldstein, one of their attorneys. The former Inchcape employees included a retired Navy Reserve intelligence officer and a former FBI special agent.

The lawsuit said the whistleblowers resigned from Inchcape after discovering the alleged overbilling and bringing it to the attention of the company’s chief executive, only to be rebuffed in their effort to stop the practice. They contacted the FBI in 2009 and worked to provide evidence of the fraud, their attorneys said.

Under provisions of the False Claims Act that allow private citizens to share in funds recovered, the three whistleblowers will receive about $4.4 million, the Justice Department said.

The Navy suspended Inchcape from contracting with the U.S. government in 2013. The action affected contracts worth $243 million, a Navy official said at the time.

The action against Inchcape coincided with a Navy scandal over its dealings with another maritime services firm — Glenn Defense Marine Asia, run by Leonard Glenn Francis, a Malaysian businessman who pleaded guilty in 2015 to bribery and defrauding the Navy.

More than 30 other people have been convicted or are facing charges in that case. Six admirals have been disciplined or admonished by the Navy.
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The doctors who treated a Russian former spy and his daughter after they were poisoned with a nerve agent in Britain say they don’t know what the pair’s long term health outlook is — and initially feared the incident could have been much worse.

Sergei Skripal, a former colonel in Russia’s military intelligence who betrayed dozens of agents to Britain, and daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a public bench in the southern English city of Salisbury on March 4.

Staff at Salisbury hospital, where they were treated, told the BBC that some started to wonder whether they too would fall victim to the nerve agent.

Prognosis uncertain

Asked about the long term impact of the poisoning on the Skripals health, the hospital’s medical director, Christine Blanshard, said the prognosis was uncertain.

“The honest answer is we don’t know,” she said, according to extracts of an interview released by the BBC’s Newsnight program.

Britain has said that it is highly likely that Russia was responsible for the poisoning of the Skripals, and western governments, including the United States, have expelled more than 100 Russian diplomats. Russia has denied any involvement in the poisoning and retaliated in kind.

Yulia Skripal spoke to Reuters last week, saying her recovery had been “slow and extremely painful” and that she was lucky to have survived.

Hospital staff too said that they expected the Skripals would die as a result of the poisoning.

“All the evidence was there that they would not survive,” said Stephen Jukes, an intensive care consultant who treated the Skripals a week after they arrived at the hospital.

He added that the medical team initially suspected the Skripals were suffering an opioid overdose before the diagnosis quickly changed.

Police officer admitted with symptoms

The cathedral city of Salisbury was transformed by the incident, with major shopping areas cordoned off while decontamination of locations the Skripals visited took place.

A policeman was admitted to hospital with symptoms after attending to the Skripals, and hospital staff feared that the incident might have been far more serious than first thought.

“When the (policeman) was admitted with symptoms — there was a real concern as to how big could this get,” Lorna Wilkinson, director of nursing at the hospital, said, adding she feared it could have “become all-consuming and involve many casualties. “We really didn’t know at that point.”
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Talks to settle the long-running dispute between Greece and Macedonia over the name Macedonia are in their final stage, the two foreign ministers said Monday.

Greece’s Nikos Kotzias and Nikola Dimitrov of Macedonia both say their prime ministers will take over the talks after several legal and technical issues are worked out.

Dimitrov told reporters in Brussels Monday there could be a final agreement before an EU summit at the end of June.

Macedonia is the name of a former Yugoslav republic and a historic ancient area of northern Greece. 

Both countries have been feuding over the use of the name since the country Macedonia gained independence in 1991.

Many Greeks say allowing the neighboring country to use the name insults Greek history and implies a claim on Greek territory.

Some Macedonians say changing their country’s name or even modifying it in a deal with Greece would be like committing treason.

Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev has proposed changing his country’s name to “New Macedonia” or possibly “Upper Macedonia” in exchange for Greece dropping its blocking of Macedonian membership in NATO.
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The World Trade Organization is being slowly strangled to death, a retiring trade judge whose replacement has been blocked by the United States said in his farewell speech, delivering a thinly-veiled rebuke to the Donald Trump administration.

Ricardo Ramirez-Hernandez served two terms as a judge on the WTO’s Appellate Body, which acts as the final court for trade disputes between countries. Since his departure last year, the United States has been blocking the process to replace him and other judges, throwing the WTO into crisis.

“This institution does not deserve to die through asphyxiation,” Ramirez-Hernandez said. “You have an obligation to decide whether you want to kill it or keep it alive.”

In a speech introducing Ramirez-Hernandez, WTO Deputy Director-General Karl Brauner said there was “no movement in sight” to unblocking appointments.

“This is frightening,” he said, adding that it was an illusion to believe the WTO could manage without its appeals judges. It remained to be seen if the WTO was an achievement of civilization or only a temporary experiment, he added.

Founded in 1995

The Geneva-based World Trade Organization, founded in 1995, is the final arbiter for trade disputes between its 164 member economies and the main global forum for discussing trade.

Its appellate body normally has seven members, but because of the Trump administration’s veto on new hires, only four of the posts are now filled. One judge is due for reappointment in September and two are due to leave next year.

Three judges are needed to hear any case, which means the court will cease to function altogether next year unless Trump lifts his refusal to fill vacancies.

‘Unfair’ treatment

Trump and his trade advisers take a tough and unorthodox line on what they see as “unfair” treatment by the trade body.

Ramirez-Hernandez did not point fingers directly at any particular country for the crisis, saying all WTO members were responsible for dealing with problems.

“It seems to me that the crisis we now face could have been avoided if it had been addressed face-on, as it began to escalate,” he said.
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A real-life Spiderman spring into action in Paris and saved a young boy dangling from a fourth floor balcony.

Mamoudou Gassama, a 22-year-old migrant from Mali, said he saw that the child was in danger in the neighborhood where he went Saturday to watch a soccer (football) match on a restaurant television.   

He told CNN,  “I like children.  I would have hated to see him getting hurt in front of me. I ran and I looked for solutions to save him and thank God I scaled the front of the building to the balcony.”

Video footage of the rescue shows Gassama, using just his bare hands, climbing from balcony to balcony. A man on the fourth floor was leaning across another balcony and was struggling to hold on to the child.

Gassama reached the fourth floor balcony and rescued the boy with one hand.

By the time firefighters arrived on the scene, the four-year-old was safe.

“Luckily, there was someone who was physically fit and who had the courage to go and get the child,” a fire service spokesman told AFP,  the French news agency.

Gassama is being widely hailed as a hero.  French President Emmanuel Macron thanked the young migrant personally Monday at the Elysee Palace where Gassama told the president that “God helped me” with the rescue.  He said,”The more I climbed, the more I had the courage to climb up higher.”  

President Macron announced Gassama will be become a naturalized French citizen and offered a job with the fire department.

Paris Mayor Anne HiIdalgo said on Twitter she had phoned Gassama to thank him for his courageous act.

“He explained to me that he arrived from Mali a few months ago with the dream of making a  life for himself here.  I replied that his heroic act is an example for all citizens and that the City of Paris will obviously be keen to support him in his efforts to settle in France,” she posted on Twitter.

According to AFP, the child’s parents were not home at the time of the incident. The mother was out of town and the child’s father is scheduled to appear in court Monday after being held for questioning about why he had left his child unattended. 
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Supporters of the nationalist Alternative for Germany party marched through central Berlin to protest against Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government Sunday, and were kept away from a raft of counter-demonstrations by a heavy police presence.

Police said over 5,000 people turned out for the demonstration organized by the anti-migration Alternative for Germany, known by its German acronym AfD. A variety of counter-protests against the far right attracted well over 25,000 people in total, they said. 

The AfD event opened with German flags, placards such as “No Islam in Germany” and chants of “Merkel must go” outside Berlin’s central train station. The party’s supporters then marched to the landmark Brandenburg Gate. Opponents chanted “Nazis out” from the other side of the monument.

Some of the counter-protesters took to rafts on the Spree river, within sight of the train station. Groups organizing protests against AfD included artists and a coalition of Berlin music clubs hoping to “blow away” the party with loud techno beats.

About 2,000 police officers were in place to prevent trouble, including reinforcements from other parts of Germany. The march concluded without significant trouble.

AfD won 12.6 percent of the vote to enter Germany’s national parliament last year on anti-migrant and anti-establishment sentiment. It is now the largest of four opposition parties after the country’s two biggest parties finally agreed to continue a centrist “grand coalition” under Merkel earlier this year. 

Its march Sunday, an unusual move for a German political party, was headlined “Germany’s Future.” An AfD regional leader, Andreas Kalbitz, proclaimed that “this is a signal” and argued that it shows “AfD is the center of society.”

In parliament, AfD’s novice lawmakers have sometimes struggled to grasp basic procedures and stood out with blunt attacks on minorities, particularly Muslims, who made up the majority of the more than 1 million asylum-seekers to enter Germany in 2015 and 2016. Recent polls have put the party’s support around the same level as in last year’s election.

Prominent AfD lawmaker Beatrix von Storch told Sunday’s demonstrators that “the vital question for us is: freedom or Islamization?”

Among the protesters was Silke Langmacker, an accountant, who carried a sign reading “Taxpayers First.”

“We are here to stop the uncontrolled influx into the German welfare system,” she said. “The refugees must return to Syria and rebuild their country there.” 
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British Prime Minister Theresa May will urge U.S. President Donald Trump to avoid protesters in central London during his UK visit in July and instead meet her at her country residence, the Sun newspaper reported on Sunday.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

deadlock.

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

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

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

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

Jittery markets

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Despite the recent surge, Italian yields are well below the peaks they reached during the eurozone crisis of 2011-12, thanks mainly to the shield provided by the European Central Bank’s bond-buying program.
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