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Spain is pushing for the European Union to adopt restrictive measures against members of the Venezuelan government as a way of encouraging a return to constitutional order in the crisis-hit country, the Spanish foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

The head of Venezuela’s opposition-led congress, Julio Borges, visited Spain on Tuesday to meet Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy as part of a European tour seeking support against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Maduro’s government has been criticized by the United Nations, Washington and other governments for failing to allow the entry of foreign aid to ease an economic crisis, while it overrides congress and jails hundreds of opponents.

“Against the progressive worsening of the situation in Venezuela, the Spanish government is pushing … for the adoption of restrictive, individual and selective measures, which don’t hurt the Venezuelan population,” the ministry said in a statement.

The Spanish government was working with its partners in the EU on these measures and was in constant contact with other Latin American countries, the ministry said.

A foreign ministry spokesman did not say what the measures would be.

After the meeting with Borges, the ministry underlined Spain’s support for a peaceful, democratic solution and called for the release of all political prisoners.

Spain’s foreign minister, Alfonso Dastis, also met representatives of human rights activist Lilian Tintori, the wife of Venezuela’s best-known detained political leader, who was barred from flying out of the country to join Borges on the tour.

Venezuela’s foreign minister, Jorge Arreaza, criticised the opposition leaders’ meeting with Rajoy, saying they were unpatriotic in backing sanctions that he said would hurt the Venezuelan economy.

“@marianorajoy assaults Venezuelan dignity, representing the worst colonial past, defeated and expelled by our Liberators,” Arreaza tweeted on Tuesday.

The Venezuelan opposition won control of congress in 2015.

But Maduro’s loyalist Supreme Court has tossed out every major law it has passed as the oil-rich country slips deeper into a recession exacerbated by triple-digit inflation and acute shortages of food and medicines.

Maduro has said he faces an “armed insurrection” designed to end socialism in Latin America and let a U.S.-backed business elite get its hands on the OPEC nation’s crude reserves.

 
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A Spanish audit office has demanded the former leader of Catalonia and other politicians from the region pay 5 million euros ($5.96 million) for holding a consultative independence ballot in 2014, El Pais newspaper said on Tuesday.

The report, which cited judicial sources, came a day before Catalonia is expected to approve plans to hold an Oct. 1 referendum on a split from Spain.

The 2014 vote was non-binding, a symbolic ballot by pro-independence campaigners that was declared illegal by Spain’s Constitutional Court.

Catalonia, along with Britain’s Scotland and Belgium’s Flanders, has one of the most active independence movements in the European Union.

El Pais said the former head of the Catalan government, Artur Mas and other regional leaders, were being told by the audit body in charge of overseeing the financing of political parties and the public sector to pay out of their own pocket for organizing the consultation vote.

The money was due by Sept. 25, it said.

The audit office was not immediately available for comment.

The current head of the Catalan government, Carles Puigdemont, said the move was the Spanish state “spreading fear.”

Catalan lawmakers are due to vote on Wednesday on laws approving the referendum and the legal framework to set up an independent state.

The laws are expected to be approved because pro-independence parties have a majority in the regional parliament.

The populous, north-eastern region, with its capital Barcelona, has a strong national identity with its own language and traditions, although polls show support for self-rule waning as Spain’s economy improves.

($1 = 0.8391 euros)
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Two French journalists are on trial accused by Azerbaijan’s government of defamation for calling the country a “dictatorship.”

Media freedom activists see the unusual trial as a dangerous precedent by a foreign government to intimidate journalists and export censorship beyond its own borders.

Azerbaijan sued journalists Elise Lucet and Laurent Richard for defamation over a 2015 investigative report for France-2 television. They are on trial Tuesday in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.

Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders is testifying for the defense, as are an Azerbaijani journalist and human rights activists living in exile.

Oil-rich Azerbaijan’s government has long faced criticism for alleged human rights abuses and suppression of dissent. Its president Ilham Aliyev succeeded his father as long-time leader and secured sweeping new powers in a recent referendum.

 
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Poland’s prime minister says she and three other Baltic Sea state officials have discussed an urgent need for greater security for their countries, including cybersecurity.  

Beata Szydlo on Tuesday hosted talks with her counterparts from Lithuania and Latvia and with Estonia’s ambassador.

All four nations border Russia and are concerned for their security amid Russia’s increased military and cyberspace activity. Thousands of Russian troops are to participate in major war games that open in Belarus next week.

Latvian Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis said that “aggressive propaganda, fake news” and cyberattacks are coming from Russia, aimed at “changing our citizens’ views.”

Szydlo said there is a need for closer cooperation on cybersecurity among the European Union’s 28 members, within NATO and among the countries in the region.
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China and Russia, North Korea’s two biggest political allies, say calls to further tighten sanctions against Pyongyang in the wake of its latest nuclear test would do little ease tensions on the peninsula.

Speaking Tuesday at the sidelines of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) summit of emerging national economies in the Chinese city of Xiamen, Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned North Korea over its latest missile test, but warned that ramping up “military hysteria” will only lead to a “global catastrophe.” He also criticized the U.S. call for more sanctions against Pyongyang as “useless and ineffective,” and added that it was “ridiculous” for Washington to impose sanctions on Moscow for trading with North Korea, then turn around and ask for help imposing sanctions on the isolated regime.

Russia and China, who routinely disapprove imposing sanctions on Pyongyang, have recently urged the United States and South Korea to end all joint military exercises, in exchange for North Korea ending its nuclear and missile testing program. Bruce Bennett, a defense analyst with the Rand Corporation research group, told VOA the two nations are reluctant to impose new U.N. sanctions because “they just don’t know how unstable North Korea is.”

Push for stronger sanctions

President Donald Trump and his counterpart in Seoul on Monday agreed to lift payload restrictions on South Korean missiles and push for even stronger United Nations sanctions against North Korea.

The South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, also has asked the United Nations to consider blocking oil shipments to the North, government officials in Seoul told reporters.

White House officials did not mention oil sanctions against Pyongyang, but they said Trump and Moon broadly agreed on all major points in their 40-minute telephone conference Monday, a day after North Korea triggered a global storm of protest by detonating a nuclear warhead underground that it said was a hydrogen bomb.

“Both leaders underscored the grave threat that North Korea’s latest provocation poses to the entire world,” A White House statement said.

Admonishment at UN

The United States will circulate a draft of a new resolution about North Korea at the United Nations this week, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley told an emergency meeting of Security Council on Monday. American diplomats said they hope the resolution can be brought to a vote within one week.

In addition to his extensive talks with Trump, Moon also conferred by phone Monday with Kremlin leader Putin. Officials in Moscow said the Russian president advised that the only way to resolve the crisis on the Korean Peninsula is through diplomacy and negotiations.

Mattis warns Pyongyang

The United States, in specific warnings by President Trump and Defense Secretary James Mattis, has warned North Korea to expect a massive, overwhelming military response if it directly threatens the United States, its allies in Asia or the U.S. territory.

South Korean naval forces conducted a second consecutive day of live-fire exercises in its southern seas Tuesday.

President Moon took office in Seoul hoping to establish better relations with Pyongyang, but the Kim Jong Un regime’s repeated provocations – multiple missile tests and, most recently, its most powerful nuclear test ever – appear to have dashed those hopes.

Trump criticized Moon on Sunday for what he called “talk of appeasement” for North Korea, but officials in both capitals took pains Monday to demonstrate they were united in their approach to North Korea.

Trump has vowed to stop all U.S. trade with any country doing business with North Korea, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is said to be working on details of such a plan, which would primarily target Pyongyang’s neighbor and main trading partner, China. More than 90 percent of North Korea’s export earnings come from China.

Since U.S. trade with China is more than $600 billion per year, dwarfing trade between Pyongyang and Beijing, analysts are skeptical of the viability of the embargo Trump has proposed. They also doubt that Beijing would agree to a move that could cause the collapse of Kim Jong Un’s regime.

 
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In an apparent bid to raise his profile as Russia’s most influential Muslim, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov brought tens of thousands of people to the streets of the capital Grozny on Monday to protest what he called the “genocide of Muslims” in Myanmar.

Violence over the past few days in Myanmar’s Rakhine state has killed nearly 400 people and prompted thousands of ethnic Rohingya refugees to flee into neighboring Bangladesh. The Russian government has not been clear in its stance on the Myanmar violence, giving Kadyrov an opportunity to criticize it for inaction.

State television footage showed tens of thousands rallying in Grozny’s main square to support the Rohingya. Chechnya is predominantly Muslim.

In his address to the rally that was interrupted with shouts of “Allahu akbar” (“God is great!” in Arabic), Kadyrov compared the violence against Rohingya to the Holocaust.

Kadyrov, who has ruled the republic for more than a decade, keeps a tight grip on Chechen society, and any public displays there are carefully orchestrated.

Local police authorities reported that 1.1 million people attended the rally. The entire population of Chechnya is 1.4 million, according to official statistics.

In a video released earlier, Kadyrov issued a vague threat to “go against” the Russian government if it does not act to stop the violence.

“If Russia were to support the devils who are perpetrating the crimes, I will go against Russia,” he said.

On Monday, police arrested 20 people for disturbing public order outside the Myanmar embassy in Moscow, Russian news agencies reported. On Sunday, some 800 people held an unauthorized protest outside the embassy.

Russia has developed military ties with Myanmar in recent years. Russia’s defense minister hosted Myanmar’s commander in chief in June, and Russia has been selling arms to the South Asian nation including some of its most advanced fighter jets and artillery systems.

Kadyrov fought with Chechen separatists in a war with Russian forces in the 1990s, but switched sides in the second war that began in 1999.

In recent years, Kadyrov has cultivated ties with several leaders in the Muslim world and has recently used Russia’s involvement in Syria to position himself as Russia’s most influential Muslim. Kadyrov’s opaque charitable foundation has been sending humanitarian aid to Syrian children and offering funds to restore Aleppo’s oldest mosque and other landmarks.

 
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Russian media say Egypt has finalized a deal to build a nuclear power plant with funding from Moscow after nearly two years of negotiations.

The reports Monday came after Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in China, where they were attending a summit.

The nuclear plant will be built in Dabaa, about 130 kilometers (80 miles) northwest of Cairo on the Mediterranean coast.

Egypt’s presidency says el-Sissi has invited Putin to Egypt to mark the start of construction.

In 2015, Egypt signed an agreement with Russia to build a four-reactor power plant. It will receive a $25 billion Russian loan to cover 85 percent of the plant, with a capacity of 4,800 MW.
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France’s foreign minister is visiting Libya to encourage the implementation of a reconciliation agreement reached by the main Libyan rivals in Paris in July.

Jean-Yves Le Drian met on Monday with Fayez Serraj, the prime minister-designate of the U.N.-backed government, in the capital, Tripoli. He is also visiting Misrata and Benghazi, where he will meet with factions opposed to Serraj.

In July, Serraj and Gen. Khalifa Hifter, the commander of Libya’s self-styled national army, committed to working toward presidential and parliamentary elections and finding a roadmap to secure the lawless country against terrorism and trafficking.

Libya was plunged into chaos after the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

 
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German bomb experts successfully defused a massive World War II bomb in the financial capital of Frankfurt on Sunday after nearly 65,000 people were evacuated to safety.

The 1.4 ton British bomb was found at a construction site last week.

Police on Sunday cordoned off a 1.5 kilometer radius around the bomb, leading to the largest evacuation in Germany since the end of World War II.

Helicopters with heat seeking devices scoured the area before the bomb experts began their work.

Among the evacuees were more than 100 patients from two hospitals, including people in intensive-care.

Experts had warned that if the bomb exploded, it would be powerful enough to flatten a whole street.

More than 2,000 tons of live bombs and munitions are discovered each year in Germany, more than 70 years after the end of the war. British and American warplanes pummeled the country with 1.5 million tons of bombs that killed 600,000 people.

German officials estimate that 15 percent of the bombs failed to explode.

 
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Moscow is demanding Washington rethink its order to close three Russian diplomatic facilities, calling the closing a “hostile act.”

“We consider what has happened as an openly hostile act and a gross violation of international law by Washington,” the Foreign Ministry in Moscow said in a statement Sunday.

“We call on the American authorities to come to their senses and immediately return the Russian diplomatic properties or all blame for the continuing degradation in our relations lies on the U.S.”

The U.S. State Department said Saturday it had seized control of three diplomatic posts vacated by Russia at the request of the U.S. government.

In an email Saturday, a State Department official said the posts were inspected in walk-throughs with Russian officials, and not forcibly searched as implied in a statement by Russia’s Foreign Ministry.

The Kremlin has accused Washington of bullying tactics and claimed that FBI officials threatened to break down the door to one of the facilities.

The compound in Washington was one of three that were shuttered as the United States and Russia have engaged in a diplomatic tit-for-tat over the past several months. The other two diplomatic buildings ordered closed are in San Francisco and New York.

 
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Police in Italy say they’ve arrested a Congolese refugee as the fourth suspect in gang rapes at a beach resort.

Rimini police chief Maurizio Improta says the man was caught Sunday morning on a train about to leave a nearby town. On Saturday, the other three suspects, all minors, including two Moroccan teenage brothers, were detained in the rape of a Polish tourist, the savage beating of her companion and the rape of a Peruvian woman shortly after the first attack.

Improta said the brothers turned themselves in after surveillance camera video showing the suspects was made public. The third suspect, from Nigeria, was detained Saturday night near Rimini.

Sky TG24 TV said the Congolese man arrived in Italy as a rescued migrant in 2015.
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The Kalashnikov corporation’s recent unveiling of a fully armored anti-riot vehicle already has Russia’s political opposition organizers up in arms.

Slated to go into service for Russia’s newly formed National Guard less than a year before Russian presidential elections, the gargantuan armored tactical vehicle — replete with water cannons, ballistic projectile loopholes and a 24-foot reinforced retractable shield capable of protecting up to 38 officers — is technically not classified as a weapon.

Although the monstrously large “Shchit,” or “Shield,” is designed to disperse unauthorized rallies, Alexey Krivoruchko, Kalashnikov Concern’s chief executive, told journalists the vehicle was not designed under Kremlin contract.

“This new special equipment was developed in the spirit of innovation,” Krivoruchko said. “Besides the Shield, we’re also working to introduce new design solutions for wheeled armored vehicles in the domestic market and for export deliveries.”

According to the state-run RIA Novosti news outlet, Kalashnikov Concern, known for creating the iconic AK-47 assault rifle, routinely secures Russian defense industry contracts in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Andrei Pivovarov, coordinator of the St. Petersburg branch of the opposition Open Russia democratic alliance, told VOA’s Russian service that the Shield represents an unprecedented step toward an increasingly hard-line approach to cracking down on political rallies in Russia.

‘Monsters’

“I’ve never seen images of such monsters in any other countries,” Pivovarov said, adding that the vehicle puts Russian security personnel in the global vanguard of militarized civilian police forces. “Even in countries where there is quite serious unrest — Venezuela, for example — police have individual shields. But this? This is a work of military art.”

National Guard deployment of the Shield, he added, indicates the Kremlin anticipates robust street protests ahead of the presidential elections set for early 2018.

“Why else would the Internal Affairs Ministry buy something like this?” said Pivovarov, who has repeatedly been detained at anti-Kremlin protests. “It’s not about investing in education, not health care. It’s about preserving the current political system.”

Russian officials have not issued a statement about the vehicle.

“Everything about this shows that the common people have a desire to take to the streets and express their displeasure,” Pivovarov added. “And clearly the authorities are preparing for this.”

Maxim Reznik of Russia’s Party of Growth, which has representatives in several local legislatures, largely echoed that sentiment.

“The use of this armor will only pour more oil on the fire of conflict,” Reznik told VOA. “Contact between society and the state is degrading so much that it’s leading to an explosion.”

An increasingly militaristic response to Russian street protests, he added, will only further alienate politically conscious youth.

“People will now be a bit more afraid to go to a protest rally, sure, but they will hate power even more,” he said. “In general, the brave isn’t the one who isn’t afraid, but the one who overcomes his fear. In that regard, no amount [of] powerful cars will help.”

Gennady Gudkov, a former State Duma deputy, told VOA that deployment of the Shield suggested the government of President Vladimir Putin was “preparing for war with their own people.”

“We see this in the stiffness of actions of the riot police, who grab protesters for coming out with white ribbons, and of course the government won’t follow any norms of humanity and law,” he said.

“Look, it’s armored to protect flanks of riot police … and squeeze people from the rally,” he added, claiming the vehicle is also capable of firing tear gas “or live ammunition.”

Ports for weapons use

Although Russian police have not said they intend to equip the vehicle with munitions, the machine has ports in the shield for firing projectiles.

“It is clear that there will be injuries, fractures and so on, and everything will go unpunished and painless for those who will be inside these cars,” Gudkov said.

Equipping guardsmen with such a formidable piece of equipment, he said, is a significant symbolic gesture by Putin.

“He wants to show that he is not as soft as Mikhail Gorbachev. No, he’s cool, he’s macho and will not let anyone down,” Gudkov said. “The very fact of the publication of photographs of armored vehicles indicates that the Kremlin people are ready to fight the people of Russia with rather ruthless methods of punishment.

” … You can safely predict that a protest [confronted by this vehicle] will be radicalized in the most rapid manner. And the huge experience of street fighting accumulated by our people, beginning with the revolution of 1905, and including the partisan struggle of the Second World War, should not be written off from accounts,” he said.

“It won’t frighten people who are ready for decisive steps,” Gudkov added.

According to the Russia’s TASS news agency, Kalashnikov’s sales in 2016 reached RUB18.3 billion ($319 million), a 123 percent increase over 2015.

Kalashnikov’s website claims it has already generated $57 million from government contracts in the first of half of 2017.

This report originated in VOA’s Russian service.
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Speaking in Washington on Friday night after four days of testy and inconclusive talks in Brussels with EU negotiators, the British minister overseeing Brexit negotiations, David Davis, offered the admission that Britain is weighing whether to join the European Free Trade Association (EFTA).

Such an arrangement could at least be temporary while Britain tries to negotiate a better deal for itself with the EU, the country’s largest trading partner.  

Joining the EFTA would allow Britain to secure access to the EU’s Single Market and customs union, and avoid crippling tariffs and trade restrictions when it exits the EU in March 2019.

His open admission surprised some in the audience at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where in a speech, he also appeared to take aim at U.S. President Donald Trump and warned against the West turning its back on globalization and free trade. Without mentioning Trump directly, he said, “It feels to me it is necessary to make the case once more for free trade and capitalism.”

‘Hard Brexiters’ may bulk

It is Davis’ disclosure that Prime Minister Theresa May is considering the possibility of Britain applying for membership of the EFTA, however, that’s likely to prove explosive when it comes to so-called “hard Brexiters” in the Conservative Party and populist nationalists, such as Nigel Farage, who want a clean break from the EU.

“It is something we’ve thought about,” Davis said in reply to a question from Iceland’s ambassador to the U.S., Geir Haarde, about whether Britain could opt for the so-called ‘Norway option.’ But the British minister cautioned “it’s not at the top of the list.”

One drawback with the EFTA for the May government is that it would not offer the same kind of unrestricted access for the country’s lucrative banking and financial services sector as Britain currently enjoys with its EU membership. Also, EFTA membership would prevent Britain from imposing immigration controls on Europeans wanting to live and work in the country — something May and hard Brexiters want to do.

The current members of the EFTA are Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. The group has free trade deals with various non-EU countries, including Canada and Mexico.

Joining the EFTA would allow Britain to apply for automatic membership of the European Economic Area, giving it full access to the EU’s Single Market, as currently enjoyed by Norway and two other EFTA members. Some analysts describe the EFTA as “backdoor EU membership.”

Brussels talks stalled

Davis’ admission came after a torrid week of acrimonious Brexit negotiations, which saw the British minister and his EU counterpart Michel Barnier snipe at each other publicly at the end of what is the third round of formal exit discussions between London and Brussels. Officials from both sides concede the two sides are as far apart on key issues as they were before the third round started.

Europeans accuse the British of being unclear about what they want, while the British argue the EU negotiators’ insistence on agreeing on the terms of departure before negotiating a free trade deal is unhelpful. Remaining stumbling blocks include a reported $89 billion “divorce bill” Brussels is demanding to cover budget payments, and project and structural loans that Britain committed to before last year’s Brexit referendum.

On Thursday the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Barnier, said progress was hampered by a “lack of trust” between the two sides. And at a joint press conference with Davis, he evoked the Brexiters’ oft-repeated slogan of “Brexit means Brexit” to ask his adversary whether Britain wasn’t missing the bloc after all.

The British say the EU divorce sums don’t add up, and on Friday in Washington, Davis called the Brexit negotiations “probably the most complicated negotiation in history and our enemy is time… it is getting a bit tense.”

The EU won’t even begin talks on a deal until there has been “sufficient progress” on the divorce terms.

‘More ripples ahead’

With time running out before Britain’s exit, there’s a growing movement within the Conservative Party — and with the support even of some prominent figures who campaigned in last year’s referendum for Britain to exit the EU — for an EFTA option.

The leaders of Iceland and Ireland have been urging Britain for weeks to apply for EFTA membership, and behind the scenes so have major British business leaders, who fear a hard Brexit would see Britain fall off an economic cliff.

This week’s bruising talks triggered in their wake another spasm in the war of words between Europeans and hard Brexiters. Liam Fox, Britain’s minister for international development, accused the EU of trying to extort London, saying “Britain can’t be blackmailed into paying a price.”

And John Redwood, a senior Conservative, and onetime challenger for the party leadership, tweeted: “Mr. Barnier wants the UK to set out its calculation of the exit bill. That’s easy. The bill is zero. Nothing. Zilch.”

The British tabloids and European newspapers have been trading sharp barbs all week, as well. Switzerland’s Der Bund newspaper accused Britain on its front page of being the “Laughing Stock of Europe,” and it described Brexit as “comical.”

Britain’s Sun newspaper headlined: “Michel Barnier and his EU team truly do excel in being the most inflexible and arrogant bunch of people going.”

In Washington Friday, Davis distanced himself from the blackmail comments of his cabinet colleague Fox, but he said, “We are in a difficult, tough, complicated negotiation; it will be turbulent and what we are having is the first ripple, and there will be many more ripples along the way.”
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The U.S. State Department said Saturday that it had seized control of three diplomatic posts vacated by Russia at the request of the U.S. government.

In an email Saturday, a State Department official said the posts were inspected in walk-throughs with Russian officials, and not forcibly searched as implied in a statement by Russia’s Foreign Ministry.

The Kremlin has accused Washington of bullying tactics and claimed that FBI officials threatened to break down the door to one of the facilities.

The emailed statement from the U.S. official said the inspections were meant only to “secure and protect the facilities and to confirm that the Russian government had vacated the premises.”

The statement was sent to reporters on condition of anonymity.

Earlier Saturday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said it had summoned Anthony Godfrey, a deputy chief at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, over the planned “illegal inspection” of a Russian diplomatic building in Washington.

The Russians called the planned inspection an “unprecedented aggressive action” and said U.S. authorities might use it as an opportunity for “planting compromised items” in the Russian compound.

The compound in Washington was one of three that were shuttered as the U.S. and Russia have engaged in a diplomatic tit-for-tat over the past several months. The other two diplomatic buildings ordered closed are in San Francisco and New York.

A spokeswoman for the ministry, Maria Zakharova, said the searches would “create a direct threat to the security of Russian citizens.”

Zakharova said in a statement Friday, “American special services intend on September 2 to carry out a search of the consulate in San Francisco, including of the apartments of employees who live in the building and have [diplomatic] immunity.”

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported that firefighters were called to the site of the consulate, but were not allowed to enter, after black smoke was seen billowing from a chimney. Firefighters determined that the fire was confined to a fireplace somewhere in the building.

A spokeswoman for the San Francisco Fire Department, Mindy Talmadge, told reporters she did not know what people inside the building would be burning on a day when the outdoor temperature was around 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit).

According to a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, the smoke came as part of efforts to “preserve the building” at a time when officials were gearing up to leave.

The move to close the buildings came in response to a demand from Moscow that Washington reduce its diplomatic staff in Russia.

“In the spirit of parity invoked by the Russians, we are requiring the Russian government to close its Consulate General in San Francisco, a chancery annex in Washington, D.C., and a consular annex in New York City,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement Thursday, adding that the deadline for the closures was September 2.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend this month’s  United Nations General Assembly in New York, Russian news wire quoted his spokesman as saying on Saturday.

U.S. President Donald Trump, a frequent critic of the United Nations, will seek to gather global support for reforming the world body when he hosts an event at U.N. headquarters in New York on September 18, a day before he formally addresses the 193-member organization.

It was not immediately clear if Putin had planned to attend the event initially.
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The digital arms race between the United States and Russia appears to be accelerating, fueled in part by new comments by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Putin, speaking to a group of Russian students Friday, called artificial intelligence “not only Russia’s future” but “the future of the whole of mankind.”

“The one who becomes the leader in this sphere will be the ruler of the world,” he said. “There are colossal opportunities and threats that are difficult to predict now.”

Digital domain

Top U.S. intelligence officials have been warning of a “perpetual contest” between the United States and Russia, with much of it playing out in the digital domain.

The Defense Intelligence Agency in particular has sought to maximize its ability to make use of artificial intelligence, or AI, reaching out to private industry and academia to help maintain the U.S. advantage.

Russia and China are seen as key competitors in the digital space and have been working on how to apply technologies, such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing, to their war-fighting doctrines.

“They’ve got their heads wrapped around the idea that 21st century warfare is as much cognitive as it is kinetic,” outgoing DIA Director Lt.  Gen. Vincent Stewart told a small group of reporters from VOA and other organizations last month.

Top officials, both in government and in the private sector, have long been willing to discuss the impact of artificial intelligence and other technological advances.

But some analysts see Putin’s willingness to address the issue publicly as telling.

“[It’s] rare that you have a head of state discussing these issues,” said Frank Cilluffo, director of the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University. “He is sending a message.”

And Cilluffo hopes the U.S. is paying attention.

“A big space race is on, and it’s a race we can’t afford to lose,” he said.

US maintains advantage

Many experts say the U.S. still maintains an advantage over Russia in artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Still, as Russia, China and other countries seek additional breakthroughs in how to apply such technology, the stakes are high.

“It completely changes the game of warfare,” said David Kennedy, who served with the U.S. National Security Agency and with the Marine Corps’ electronic warfare unit.

“It’s no longer going to be about who has the most bombs or who has the better bombs,” he said. “It’s going to be who can apply these principles to respond faster to fight a war and win a war.”

And Kennedy, now chief executive officer at TrustedSec, an information technology security consulting firm, sees Russia gaining.

“They explore all options, and they have a substantial budget for it,” he said, noting that Moscow may have an advantage in how to apply the technology since it is willing to sidestep privacy and ethical concerns that the U.S. and even China have tried to address.

China, too, is making significant gains. But unlike Russia, China has focused more on quantum computing, launching a quantum satellite into space last year.

Quantum computing uses a quirk of physics that allows subatomic particles to simultaneously exist in two different states. As a result, a computer is then able to skip through much of the elaborate mathematical computations necessary to solve complex problems.

It is seen as a potentially game-changing tool for intelligence agencies, enabling them to hack encrypted messages from their adversaries while their own communications would be “hackproof,” if the technology can be perfected.

“The Chinese have one of the most powerful quantum encryption capabilities in the world,” DIA’s Stewart cautioned last month. “Whoever wins this space wins the game.”
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Russia’s foreign ministry has accused the FBI of planning a search of its San Francisco consulate on Saturday, after ordering its closure Thursday.

A spokeswoman for the ministry, Maria Zakharova, said the search, which the United States has not confirmed, would “create a direct threat to the security of Russian citizens.”

Zakharova said in a statement Friday, “American special services intend on September 2 to carry out a search of the consulate in San Francisco including of the apartments of employees who live in the building and have [diplomatic] immunity.”

Black smoke

Meanwhile, the Associated Press has reported that firefighters were called to the site of the consulate, but not allowed to enter, after black smoke was seen billowing from a chimney. Firefighters determined that the fire was confined to a fireplace somewhere in the building.

A spokeswoman for San Francisco Fire Department, Mindy Talmadge, told reporters she did not know what people inside the building would be burning on a day when the outdoor temperature was around 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit).

On Thursday, the United States ordered Russia to close its consulate in San Francisco and two other annexes by this weekend.

The move was in response to a demand from Moscow that Washington reduce its diplomatic staff in Russia.

“In the spirit of parity invoked by the Russians, we are requiring the Russian government to close its Consulate General in San Francisco, a chancery annex in Washington, D.C., and a consular annex in New York City,” State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said in a statement Thursday, adding that the deadline for the closures is September 2.
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China on Sunday hosts the annual summit of leaders from the BRICS countries — the emerging markets of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. They represent 40 percent of the global population, and observers say the talks are aimed at showcasing the nations’ combined economic might as a counter to Western domination of world affairs.

As host, China hopes to make the meeting in the southeastern city of Xiamen a landmark event. However, it is hamstrung by sharp differences among member countries on several issues, as well as lurking suspicions that China is using the Beijing-headquartered group as a platform to advance its political and business interests.

“There is no doubt that Beijing senses an opportunity to burnish its credentials as the ‘sole champion’ of globalization and multilateralism at a time when the United States, under the Trump administration, seems to be turning inward and away from multilateralism,” Mohan Malik, a professor at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies at Honolulu, told VOA in an emailed response. “Lacking friends and allies, Beijing is keen to set up as many multilateral forums and financial institutions as possible to bring small- and medium-sized developing countries into its orbit.”

Some in China believe that the BRICS platform offers an opportunity to push for these causes and perhaps enhance Chinese President Xi Jinping’s image as a world leader. The question, however, is whether Russia and India, which have an array of differences with Beijing, are interested in it.

Internal squabbles

Analysts note that Moscow has serious reservations about China’s Belt and Road Initiative, an infrastructure development project making progress in central Asia, where Russia has plans to implement a similar program, called the Eurasian Economic Union. Separately, China and India have had their disagreements.

This past week, the two Asian giants carefully backed down from one of their biggest disagreements in the Himalayan region in years, agreeing to de-escalate a 10-week-old standoff on their disputed border. India did not confirm that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would attend the Xiamen summit until after the agreement was signed.

Recent years have seen China taking the lead in establishing or expanding homegrown international organizations where Western countries have little or no role. Beijing has also ensured that these organizations are headquartered in China.

In addition to BRICS, there is China’s National Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

BRICS Plus

More recently, China has been pushing a new proposal of BRICS Plus, which aims to bring non-BRICS countries into the organization.

China argues that doing so would strengthen the organization and make it a more potent force.

“BRICS is not an exclusive club. The impact of BRICS cooperation reaches far beyond the five countries,” said Foreign Minister Wang Yi at a recent press conference in Beijing. “I believe the BRICS Plus model will fully release the vitality of BRICS cooperation.”

Not everyone sees the proposal the same way, and it has met with stiff resistance and suspicion.

“China wants to be the leader of the organization, and the other four may not agree and that is why China is pushing to recruit more members,” said Oliver Rui, a professor of finance and accounting at the China Europe International Business School.

Some say China’s push to expand the organization is aimed at strengthening its position in BRICS, instead of making it stronger.

“Wang Yi’s idea of inviting other developing countries to join the partnership under the BRICS Plus concept would potentially unravel BRICS and transform it into just another SCO-like bloc, led and dominated by China [and Russia], that is likely to be anti-West in orientation and bolster Chinese leadership and serve Chinese interests,” Malik said.

For now, Beijing has been forced to abandon its effort to formalize the idea at the Xiamen summit, which begins Sunday and wraps up Tuesday.

Still, Foreign Minister Wang said China would stick to BRICS’ existing practice, which allows the host nation to invite other countries to the summit as a one-time opportunity. He also said that more would be done to help explain BRICS Plus and the rationale behind the idea.

BRICS without mortar

With a divide over expansion and a lack of clarity over the role the organization should play — whether it should have an economic or political agenda or both — some feel BRICS has yet to find that bonding element to hold the five countries together.

“I think the BRICS is kind of falling apart, due to many different kinds of reasons,” Rui said. “First, these five countries, naturally, they should not be a part of one organization.”

The group is not a trade bloc capable of influencing trade flows and decisions in the World Trade Organization. And the organization’s partners often complain of a huge trade balance in favor of Beijing because Chinese business tends to sell a lot more than it buys from these countries.

Beijing, however, is optimistic.

At the press conference, the Chinese foreign minister defended BRICS, saying that it reflects the aspirations of emerging markets and works for strengthening their economic situation. “It also plays an increasingly important role in promoting international peace and development,” he said.

VOA’s Joyce Huang contributed to this report.
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Russia vowed Friday to respond to a U.S. order to shut the Russian Consulate in San Francisco and offices in Washington and New York, but also indicated that Moscow was not inclined to raise the stakes in the diplomatic tit-for-tat between the two countries.

The Trump administration said the order issued Thursday was in retaliation for the Kremlin’s “unwarranted and detrimental” demand last month that the U.S. substantially reduce the size of its diplomatic staff in Russia.

“The United States is prepared to take further action as necessary and as warranted,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said. Still, Nauert said Washington hoped both countries could now move toward “improved relations” and “increased cooperation.”

The U.S. gave Russia 48 hours to comply with the order for the San Francisco consulate and the East Coast offices. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday that Moscow would reply with firmness, but needs time to study Washington’s directive and to decide on a response.

“We will have a tough response to the things that come totally out of the blue to hurt us and are driven solely by the desire to spoil our relations with the United States,” Lavrov said in a televised meeting with students at Russia’s top diplomacy school.

Other top Russian officials also urged caution.

President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, told Russian news agencies later Friday the Kremlin “regrets” the latest U.S. move and needs to “think carefully about how we could respond.”

Ushakov also left room for Russia to refrain from retaliation.

“On the other hand, one does not want to go into a frenzy because someone has to be reasonable and stop,” he said.

The closures on both U.S. coasts marked perhaps the most drastic diplomatic measure by the United States against Russia since 1986, near the end of the Cold War, when the nuclear-armed powers expelled dozens of each other’s diplomats.

American officials argued that Russia had no cause for retribution now, noting that Moscow’s ordering of U.S. diplomatic cuts last month was premised on bringing the two countries’ diplomatic presences into “parity.”

Both countries now maintain three consulates in each other’s territory and ostensibly similar numbers of diplomats. Exact numbers are difficult to independently verify.

Several hours after the U.S. announcement, new Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov arrived in Washington to start his posting.

At the airport, Antonov cited a maxim of former Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin as he urged caution and professionalism.

“We don’t need hysterical impulses,” Russian news agencies quoted Antonov as saying.

In assessing Washington’s directive, Russian officials and lawmakers said Friday that U.S. President Donald Trump might be getting tough on Russia against his will.

The new package of sanctions against Russia that Congress adopted last month not only hits Russia, but is designed to “tie Trump’s hands, not let him use his constitutional powers to the full to make foreign policy,” Lavrov said.

Nationalist party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who publicly cheered Trump’s election, called the flurry of U.S. sanctions against Russia “an illness that will go away.”

“It’s an illness because (they) are not leaving President Trump alone to run the country and keep coming up with tricks to draw a wedge between America and Russia,” Zhirinovsky said in a video statement that did specify who might be creating such obstacles for Trump.

By Saturday, the Russians must close their consulate in San Francisco and an official residence there. Though Russia can keep its New York consulate and Washington embassy, trade missions housed in satellite offices in both of those cities must shut down, a senior Trump administration official said. The official briefed reporters on a conference call on condition of anonymity.

American counterintelligence officials have long kept a watchful eye on Russia’s outpost in San Francisco, concerned that people posted to the consulate as diplomats were engaged in espionage. The U.S. late last year kicked out several Russians posted there, calling it a response to election interference.

The forced closures are the latest in an intensifying exchange of diplomatic broadsides.

In December, President Barack Obama kicked out dozens of Russian officials, closed two Russian recreational compounds. Russian President Vladimir Putin withheld from retaliating. The next month, Trump took office after campaigning on promises to improve U.S.-Russia ties.

But earlier this month, Trump begrudgingly signed into law stepped-up sanctions on Russia that Congress pushed to prevent him from easing up on Moscow. The Kremlin retaliated by telling the U.S. to cut its embassy and consulate staff down to 455 personnel, from a level hundreds higher.

The U.S. never confirmed how many diplomatic staff it had in the country at the time. As of Thursday, the U.S. has complied with the order to reduce staff to 455, officials said.

The reductions are having consequences for Russia. The U.S. last month temporarily suspended non-immigrant visa processing for Russians seeking to visit the United States and resumed it on Friday at a “much-reduced rate.”

The U.S. will process visas only at the embassy in Moscow, meaning Russians can no longer apply at U.S. consulates in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Vladivostok.

Even before the cuts at the U.S. mission were announced, typical waiting time for visa applicants in Russia to be interviewed was longer than a month.

Nadezhda Sianule planned to attend her daughter’s wedding in the United States in mid-September and got an appointment in July to be interviewed on Thursday. Now these plans are in disarray.

“I came yesterday and they said that I’m not on the list. They said that the old lists have been canceled,” Sianule said outside the U.S. Embassy Friday morning.

Despite the exchange of penalties, there have been narrow signs of U.S.-Russian cooperation that have transcended the worsening ties. In July, Trump and Putin signed off on a deal with Jordan for a cease-fire in southwest Syria. The U.S. says the truce has largely held.
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A group in Italy is training migrants — mostly from sub-Saharan Africa — as beekeepers, then pairing them with honey producers who need employees. Aid groups say new efforts by European leaders to stem the flow of migrants from Africa ignores the fact that Europe needs these workers. According to Oxfam, Italy alone will need 1.6 million migrants over the next 10 years.

Back in his native Senegal, the only interaction Abdul Adan ever had with bees was when one stung his mouth while he was eating fresh honey. That day, his mouth was so swollen that he didn’t leave his home in Senegal’s Casamance region. Years later as a migrant worker in Alessandria, Italy, Adan is so comfortable with the insects that he does not even use gloves as he handles their hives and inspects their progress.

“I’m looking to see if the queen is here or not,” he said, as he uses his bare hands to look for the yellow dot that indicates the queen he placed in the hive a week before. “If there was the queen, she would have started laying eggs, but I don’t see any eggs.”

Adan is part of a project called Bee My Job, in which the Italian Cambalache Association trains migrants and refugees as beekeepers and finds work for them in Italy’s agribusiness industry. The association’s president, Mara Alacqua, says they have hosted and trained 107 people — mostly from Sub-Saharan Africa — since launching in 2014.

“Our beds are always full,” she said. “Every time a person leaves the project, and so we have a spare place, that place is covered straight away just within two days’ time.”

The migrants also take language classes as part of the program. Today, Adan is fluent in Italian and, despite his initial fears, he has become one of the most successful trainees.

“The first day that Mara asked me to do the work, I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “I said I have never done bee work, I was really scared that the bees would sting me and people would laugh and look at me, but afterward I figured and said I will learn, and maybe one day I can do it in my country.”

Nearly 95,000 migrants and refugees have arrived in Italy this year, though in the past two months, numbers have dropped by more than 50 percent compared to last year. Experts attribute the decrease to a more aggressive approach by the Libyan coast guard to turn boats back — and Libya’s increased support from the European Union. While in Libya, Adan says he was held hostage and tortured, and then forced into slave labor before escaping on a boat to Italy.

“To do work with bees, it’s not a work that is hard,” Adan said. “I already passed through stages that are harder than working with bees. If I tell you the Libyans who took us for work, you know how much we had to eat? One piece of bread a day. And we worked hard.”

A need for migrants

Amid ongoing efforts to stem the flow, Oxfam says European leaders are ignoring the need for migrants. According to the UK-based aid group, Italy alone will need an estimated 1.6 million workers over the next decade to sustain its welfare and pension plans.

Francesco Panella, a beekeeper for more than 40 years and president of Bee Life EU, agrees that migrant workers are good for Italy.

“In reality, we have a problem in our country,” he said. “On one side, there is a huge problem with unemployment; but the other issue, it’s not at all easy to find workers for agriculture. So, in reality, Italian agriculture is based on the work of foreigners. The world changes. It’s a world of movement, movement of people.”

In a room filled with crates used to harvest honey, Panella is quick to philosophize about migration, human compassion and more. He adds that both his children are immigrants. One works in the U.S. and the other in the U.K., and his grandfather contemplated migrating to Argentina after World War II in search of opportunities. He said he keeps all these things in mind when employing migrant workers, such as Isamel Soumarhoro, from Guinea.

Soumarhoro has worked in Panella’s beekeeping operations since 2015.

“What makes me happy is the moment when I take out the honey to take back to the house, because it’s a work that is a little difficult. You see, in 2015 when I arrived, there was more honey and the employees were happy,” Soumarhoro said.

According to Panella, one of the main threats to the program is the negative impact climate change and pesticides are having on honey production. Italy’s honey production this year is down 70 percent from normal harvests, he said. Most of the migrants hope the work continues, though they struggle being so far from home.

“I feel very lonely, very very,” Adan said. “Sometimes when I think of my family, it makes me want to go back home, but that’s the story of immigration. I am looking for some means. Maybe one day I go back to my country, or one day I can bring my family. No one knows what the future holds.”

For the migrants, they hope the honey business can make tomorrow at least a bit sweeter.
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The U.N. Committee on the rights of disabled people said on Thursday it had more concerns about Britain – due to funding cuts, restricted rights and an uncertain post-Brexit future — than any other country in its 10-year history.

The committee, which reviews states’ compliance with the 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, published a 17-page report with recommendations about how Britain could do better.

“The UK is at the moment going backwards in accordance to the information that we have received,” committee member Stig Langvad told a news conference in Geneva.

Britain said it was disappointed by the report. It said it did not reflect the evidence it had provided to the committee, nor did it recognize progress that had been made.

The U.N. committee’s chairwoman Theresia Degener has described the situation in Britain as a “human catastrophe.”

“The austerity measures that they have taken – they are affecting half a million people, each disabled person is losing between 2,000 and 3,000 pounds per year, people are pushed into work situations without being recognized as vulnerable, and the evidence that we had in front of us was just overwhelming,” she said.

The most acute concern was the limitations on independent living.

“Persons with disabilities are in our view not able to choose where to live, with whom to live, and how to live,” Langvad said.

Britain was also not fulfilling its commitment to allow inclusive education, and there was a high incidence of bullying at schools. A growing number of disabled people were living in poverty.

Budgets for local authorities had not only been slashed, but they were no longer ear-marked for disabled people, another committee member, Damjan Tatic, said.

Langvad said people with disabilities should be involved in preparations for Britain’s Brexit talks with the European Union, to avoid losing protections that historically came from the EU.

“Persons with disabilities are afraid of the future since they do not know what is happening and since they do not feel that they are involved in the discussions on how to secure the rights of people with disabilities afterwards,” he said.

Britain’s government said it was a recognized world leader in disability rights, and almost 600,000 disabled people had moved into work in the last four years.

“We spend over 50 billion pounds a year to support disabled people and those with health conditions — more than ever before, and the second highest in the G7,” a government spokesperson said.

Debbie Abrahams, the opposition Labour party’s spokeswoman for Work and Pensions, said the “damning” report was a vindication of Labour’s criticism of the government’s policies.

“This confirms what Labour has been saying all along, that the lack of progress on all convention articles, including cruel changes to social security and the punitive sanctions regime, are causing real misery for sick and disabled people.”

A Labour government would incorporate the convention fully into British law, she said in a statement.

Reporting by Tom Miles, editing by Pritha Sarkar and Richard Balmforth
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Frankfurt’s city center, an area including police headquarters, two hospitals, transport systems and Germany’s central bank storing $70 billion in gold reserves, will be evacuated on Sunday to allow the defusing of a 1.8-metric ton World War II bomb.

A spokesman for the German Bundesbank said, however, that “the usual security arrangements” would remain in place while experts worked to disarm the bomb, which was dropped by the British air force and was uncovered during excavation of a building site.

The Bundesbank headquarters, less than 600 meters (650 yards) from the location of the bomb, stores 1,710 metric tons of gold underground, around half the country’s reserves.

“We have never defused a bomb of this size,” bomb disposal expert Rene Bennert told Reuters, adding that it had been damaged on impact when it was dropped between 1943 and 1945. Airspace for 1.5 kilometers (nearly a mile) around the bomb site will also be closed.

Frankfurt city officials said more than 60,000 residents would be evacuated for at least 12 hours. The evacuation area will also include 20 retirement homes, the city’s opera house and the diplomatic quarter.

Bomb disposal experts will use a wrench to try to unscrew the fuses attached to the bomb. If that fails, a water jet will be used to cut the fuses away, Bennert told Reuters.

The most dangerous part of the exercise will be applying the wrench, Bennert said.

Roads and transport systems, including the underground, will be closed during the work and for at least two hours after the bomb is defused, to allow patients to be transported back to hospitals without traffic.

It is not unusual for unexploded bombs from World War II air raids to be found in German cities, but rarely are they so large and in such a sensitive position.
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U.S. officials have ordered Russia to close three diplomatic buildings in the United States, part of the ongoing quarrel between the two countries over U.S. sanctions.

The action follows Russia’s demand earlier this month that the U.S. reduce the number of personnel at its diplomatic missions in the country.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, to tell him that the United States has fully implemented the decision by the Russian government to reduce the size of the U.S. mission in the country.  

In a statement, State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert called the Russian decision “unwarranted and detrimental to the overall relationship between our countries.”  

Nauert continued, “In the spirit of parity invoked by the Russians, we are requiring the Russian government to close its Consulate General in San Francisco, a chancery annex in Washington, D.C. and consular annex in New York City.”

She said the closures would need to be completed by September 2.

Nauert stressed that the U.S. “has chosen to allow the Russian government to maintain some of its annexes in an effort to arrest the downward spiral in our relationship.” A senior administration official stressed that Tillerson and Lavrov both still want to improve U.S.-Russian relations, and described their phone call as professional.

Russia Today reported that Lavrov responded to the closures by “expressing regret” over the escalation of tensions.  He said that Moscow would study the new measures carefully and inform Washington of its reaction.

The diplomatic retaliations stem from U.S. sanctions of Russia over its annexation of Crimea, as well as Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Last month, the U.S. Congress overwhelmingly passed a bill preventing President Donald Trump from easing sanctions on Russia without congressional approval. After Trump signed the bill, Russian authorities denounced it as “trade war.”

A senior U.S. administration official told reporters the Russian Consulate General in San Francisco is the oldest Russian consulate in the United States.  She said the two annexes ordered closed in Washington and New York were primarily trade missions.  She said no Russian diplomats are being expelled – the diplomats in those three building may be reassigned  to other Russian consulates in the U.S.

The senior official said the U.S. has complied with the Russian order to reduce its presence in Russia down to 455 staff members.  The official stressed that with this new U.S. order to close three buildings, the Russian would still have more consulates and annexes in the United States than the U.S. has in Russia.

The U.S. president’s response to the tensions has also sparked controversy.  When Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the U.S. diplomats were being expelled, Trump responded by saying,  “I want to thank him because we’re trying to cut down the payroll.”

White House officials later told reporters the president was being sarcastic.
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Turkey’s foreign ministry says the country protests “in the harshest way” a U.S. court decision to indict 19 people, including 15 Turkish security officials.

The statement published late Wednesday follows Tuesday’s grand jury decision in Washington to charge the defendants with attacking peaceful demonstrators during a visit by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on May 16.

Turkey has repeatedly told U.S. officials that security outside the ambassador’s home was negligent and didn’t ensure the safety of Erdogan’s entourage amid sympathizers of an outlawed Kurdish militant group, according to the statement.

The ministry called the indictment “biased” and “regretful,” claiming it also accused people who had never been to the U.S.

It announced Turkey would follow legal paths to fight the decision.
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Moscow and Washington should re-establish direct contacts between their military and foreign policy chiefs, Russia’s new ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, said Wednesday.

“The time has come to resume joint meetings of Russia’s and the United States’ foreign and defense ministers in a ‘two plus two’ format,” Antonov said in an interview published on the Kommersant business daily’s website.

Military contacts between Moscow and Washington were frozen in 2014 due to the Ukraine crisis.

Antonov also called for meetings between the heads of Russia’s Federal Security Service and Foreign Intelligence Service and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency.

A “working cooperation” between Russia’s Security Council and the U.S. National Security Council could also help fight terrorism and cyberthreats and help strategic stability, he said.

Antonov, a former deputy foreign minister, is subject to European sanctions over his role in the conflict in Ukraine.
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Three weeks before Germany’s election and with at least one poll suggesting nearly half of all voters don’t know what they will do, the government has unveiled an updated online tool to help them decide.

Around two dozen young people from around Germany helped launch the “Wahl-O-Mat” (roughly Vote-O-Meter) on Wednesday – a website that matches people with a party after they answer a series of policy questions.

One of the first to try was Hubertus Heil, general secretary of the Social Democrats (SPD), junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition.

“I got 100 percent,” he beamed after completing the 10-minute process.

Participants choose whether they agree, disagree or are neutral about 38 issues identified in recent months by 26 young people chosen from 500 volunteers. The issues center on key topics such as increased video surveillance, raising taxes on diesel cars, and setting limits on migration.

Merkel is widely expected to win a record-tying fourth term, with her CDU/CSU conservatives maintaining a two-digit lead over the SPD despite continuing concerns over her 2015 decision to allow in over a million migrants.

But it remains unclear which parties will be involved in the next coalition government.

A poll by the Allensbach Institute last week showed that 46 percent of voters had not made up their minds on how to vote – the highest rate since in two decades so close to an election, which is being held on September 24.

The voter tool is available online at www.wahl-o-mat.de or via apps on mobile phones. A pared-down analogue version will also tour Germany over the next three weeks for those not online.

The tool has been around before, and less official versions have been available in other countries. But Thomas Krueger, head of the Federal Agency for Civic Education, which created it, expects many millions of hits.

It was used over 13.2 million times in the last national election in 2013 and even more people are expected to participate this time, he said.

“We’ve seen that about six percent of those who were not planning to participate in the election changed their minds after using the tool,” he said.

Markus Blume, general secretary of the CSU, the Bavarian sister party of Merkel’s CDU, said voter participation had been higher in recent state elections and he hoped the trend would continue for the national election.

“Germany is experiencing a re-politicization because people realize we are living in uncertain times, that a great deal is at stake in this parliamentary election, and that it’s not irrelevant who’s elected.”

Richard Hilmer, director of the Berlin think tank Policy Matters, said the tool was critical, especially for younger voters who had not been involved in politics before.

“Interest is definitely higher in this election, but so is uncertainty. It remains to see how that will affect participation. It could well be that if people remain uncertain that they simply stay home.”
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday threw her weight behind the European Commission in its row with Warsaw over freedom of Poland’s court system.

The previously reticent Merkel, speaking in Berlin, said she took the issue “very seriously” and would talk about it with Commission President Jean-Claude Junker on Wednesday.

In July, the commission, the European Union’s executive, gave Warsaw a month to address its concerns about reforms it saw as interfering with an independent judiciary.

Warsaw’s reply signaled that the ruling nationalist and euroskeptic Law and Justice (PiS) party had no intention of backing down and even doubted the commission’s right to intervene.

While two of the new Polish laws questioned by the commission have been sent back for reworking by an unexpected presidential veto, a third one, giving the justice minister powers to fire judges, has become law.

The commission said it undermined the independence of the courts and therefore EU rules.

“This is a serious issue because the requirements for cooperation within the European Union are the principles of the rule of law. I take what the commission says on this very seriously,” Merkel said at a news conference.

“We cannot simply hold our tongues and not say anything for the sake of peace and quiet,” she said.

‘Political emotions’

Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro said Merkel’s remarks showed the criticism was political, rather than factual.

“I’m convinced that Polish government will be executing its targets despite political emotions that appear in politicians’ statements,” Ziobro told reporters in Warsaw.

“Every country which is independent within the EU has its own laws and should settle its problems within democratic mechanisms,” he said in remarks broadcast on state TV.

In its reply to the commission on Monday, the Polish foreign ministry said the legislative process of overhauling its judiciary was in line with European standards.

It called the commission’s concerns groundless and noted that judiciary was the province of national governments, not the commission.

“We have received the reply from the Polish government. Regarding the point that we have no competence in this sphere, this is something that we would actually quite powerfully refute,” a commission spokeswoman said.

“The rule of law framework sets out how the commission should react should clear indications of a threat to the rule of law emerge in a member state. The commission believes that there is such a threat to the rule of law in Poland,” she said.

The commission said in July that it would launch legal action against Poland over the judicial reforms. It also said that if the government started firing Supreme Court judges, the commission would move to suspend Poland’s voting rights in the EU — an unprecedented punishment that would, however, require the unlikely unanimous support of all other EU governments.

Merkel’s remarks on Tuesday followed openly critical statements from French President Emmanuel Macron, who said last Friday that Poland was isolating itself within the EU and Polish citizens “deserved better” than a government at odds with the bloc’s democratic values and economic reform plans.

Logging

In another unprecedented sign of defiance against the EU, the Polish government ignored an order by the EU’s highest court to cease logging in the Bialowieza forest.

The court will convene September 11 to decide how to react to Warsaw’s failure to honor the injunction, the first in EU history.

As the EU’s spats with the PiS government get increasingly tense, the bloc’s member states are due to discuss again this autumn whether the situation in their largest ex-communist peer merits launching an unprecedented Article 7 punitive procedure.

The maximum punishment under the procedure, however unlikely, would be stripping Poland of its voting rights in the EU over not respecting democratic principles on which the bloc is built.
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The Archbishop of Paris is on a 100 million-euro ($120 million) fundraising drive to save the crumbling gargoyles and gothic arches of the storied Notre-Dame cathedral.

Every year, 12 million to 14 million people visit the 12th-century Parisian landmark on an island in the Seine river. Groundbreaking for the structure occurred in 1163 and construction was completed in 1345. Pollution and exposure to elements over time have resulted in losses of large chunks of stone.

“If we don’t do these restoration works, we’ll risk seeing parts of the exterior structure begin to fall. This is a very serious risk,” said Michel Picaud, president of the Friends of Notre-Dame charity set up by the archbishop.

Church officials, who have created what they are calling a “stone cemetery” from fallen masonry, say the cathedral remains safe to visit.

Entry to the cathedral is free, and the French state, which owns the building, devotes 2 million euros a year to repairs.

But that is not enough to embark on major restoration works, the last of which were carried out during the 1800s, officials at the cathedral and charity said.

Hugo’s book

Notre-Dame has long drawn tourists from around the world.

It is most famous in popular culture as the locale for 19th-century author Victor Hugo’s “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame” and films of the same name, including the 1939 classic with Charles Laughton and the 1996 Disney musical animation.

The latter in particular raised the cathedral’s profile for modern-day tourists from China to the United States.

“It’s the movie for me. I just think of the Hunchback of Notre-Dame, and the book as well. After reading that book, I actually really wanted to come see it,” said U.S tourist Claire Huber as she visited the cathedral.

Church authorities hope the cathedral’s worldwide fame will attract donors, particularly from the United States.

“Gargoyles are what people want to see when they come to Paris. If there are no more gargoyles, what will they see?” Notre-Dame communications chief Andre Finot said.
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