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Uber lost the latest round in the battle over its operating model Friday, when a British panel ruled that the company’s drivers are workers, not independent contractors.

The Employment Appeal Tribunal upheld a lower panel’s decision, agreeing that the two drivers in this case were “workers” under British law and therefore should receive the minimum wage and paid holidays. Uber said it would appeal.

Judge Jennifer Eady rejected Uber’s argument that the men were independent contractors, because the drivers had no opportunity to make their own agreements with passengers and the company required them to accept 80 percent of trip requests when they were on duty.

The tribunal, Eady wrote in her decision, found “the drivers were integrated into the Uber business of providing transportation services.”

The ride-hailing service said it has never required drivers in the U.K. to accept 80 percent of the trips offered to them and that drivers make well above the minimum wage. Employment lawyers expect the case to be heard by higher courts as early as next year.

“Almost all taxi and private hire drivers have been self-employed for decades, long before our app existed,” Tom Elvidge, Uber’s acting general manager for the U.K., said in a statement. “The main reason why drivers use Uber is because they value the freedom to choose if, when and where they drive, and so we intend to appeal.”

Alternative to taxis

San Francisco-based Uber has expanded rapidly around the world by offering an alternative to traditional taxis through a smartphone app that links people in need of rides with drivers of private cars. That has drawn protests from taxi drivers who say Uber and similar services are able to undercut them because they don’t face the same licensing and regulatory requirements.

Though the company argued that the case applies to only two drivers, Uber has tens of thousands of drivers in the U.K. who could argue they deserve the same status as the former drivers covered by Friday’s decision. The court says 40,000 drivers use the platform in the U.K., though the company said the number had grown since the submission to 50,000.

“Uber cannot go on flouting U.K. law with impunity and depriving people of their minimum wage rights,” said James Farrar, who with Yaseen Aslam brought the case against Uber. “We have done everything we can. Now it is time for the mayor of London, Transport for London [the government body responsible for the transport system in greater London] and the transport secretary to step up and use their leverage to defend worker rights rather than turn a blind eye to sweatshop conditions.”

The ruling also has implications for more than 100,000 independent contractors in Britain’s so-called gig economy, where people work job to job with little security and few employment rights. Such employment, often for companies that use mobile phone apps to provide everything from food delivery to health care, has surged as the Internet cuts the link between jobs and the traditional workplace.

The case is just one of many focused on the rights of British workers in both the new and old economies — from Deliveroo food delivery drivers to foster care workers and plumbers. So far, the trend in the biggest cases is clear: In eight of eight challenges in U.K. courts, workers have won.

Beyond the border

But the case is also likely to be watched beyond Britain as courts internationally grapple with issues spawned by the rise of the gig economy, said Sean Nesbitt an employment law expert at the law firm Taylor Wessing.

Uber, because of its size, is closely watched around world and across industries as a lead example of how new, disruptive business models can fit into society. Such new business models are fueling the debate about how to balance the wish to encourage economic growth and innovation while protecting individuals’ rights, Nesbitt said.

Courts are looking to each other to see how similar issues are being addressed. Nesbitt noted, for example, that Eady referred in her judgment to a case in North Carolina — which is unusual because the U.S. legal system is quite different.

“There will be an echo around the world,” Nesbitt said. “At the core of this is a debate about what it means to control people and anxiety about bargaining power.”

While the case is separate from London’s decision not to renew Uber’s license, observers are likely to watch Uber’s response to see if a company known for hard-hitting tactics is willing to change.

Following the licensing decision, Uber’s new CEO, Dara Khosorwshahi, acknowledged that Uber “got things wrong” in the past and said the company would change as it moved forward. Uber is also appealing that decision.

In the meantime, the ripple effects of the case will expand.

“We anticipate that tens of thousands drivers will now seek to make substantial back-dated claims,” said Paul Jennings of Bates Wells Braithwaite, who represented the drivers. “Our clients have fought tirelessly to gain the rights that they clearly should have been afforded from the outset.”
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Vice President Mike Pence has expressed “deep concern” to visiting Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim about the arrest of U.S. citizens and Turkish local staff at U.S. consulates in Turkey. But Pence and Yildirim also expressed hope that their meeting would help to usher in a new chapter in U.S.-Turkey relations and agreed on the need for constructive dialogue on bilateral challenges. VOA Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine has more from the State Department.
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The White House Friday attempted to put to rest speculation that U.S. President Donald Trump might hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific economic summit in Vietnam. Both presidents are attending the summit, and may have a brief chat, but will have no substantive talks, according to White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

“Regarding a Putin meeting, there was never a meeting confirmed, and there will not be one that takes place due to scheduling conflicts on both sides,” Sanders said in a statement issued to reporters. “There is no formal meeting or anything scheduled for them.

The statement did, however, hold open the possibility that the two leaders might have an informal conversation while they are both in Danang for the summit proceedings.

“They’re going to be in the same place. Are they going to bump into each other and say hello? Certainly possible and likely,” Huckabee Sanders wrote. “But in terms of a scheduled, formal meeting, there’s not one on the calendar and we don’t anticipate that there will be one.”

Mixed message

Russian news agency RIA Novosti Friday seemed to contradict the White House, holding out hope a substantive meeting might still take place. A one-line bulletin reported, “Kremlin Says Possible Meeting Between Putin and Trump at APEC Summit Still Being Worked On,”

The Russian side had earlier issued seemingly conflicting views about the possibility of a meeting. Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov told Russian news agencies that the two leaders would hold talks, but Reuters quoted Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as moderating that statement, saying only that the possibility of a meeting was being discussed.

While en route to Danang Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he had seen the Russian reports but said nothing had been agreed to. 

In a brief exchange, Tillerson said the United States wants progress on a number of issues, and there would be no point to hold a meeting if they didn’t think they would get the progress.

A day earlier, Tillerson had acknowledged that Moscow and Washington were working behind the scenes on a “number of difficult areas.” But he questioned whether this would be the right time for a follow-up to the first Trump-Putin meeting at the G-20 summit in Germany last July.

​Hamburg meeting

That meeting in Hamburg lasted more than two hours, more than twice as long as scheduled. Trump was reported to have pressed Putin at that meeting on the question of alleged Russian meddling in U.S. elections. Later in the day, the two men were reported to have spoken again informally during a dinner for G-20 leaders, with only a Russian interpreter present.

Since then, however, ties between Moscow and Washington have deteriorated. In August, Trump grudgingly approved new congressionally mandated sanctions against Russia. The Kremlin responded by ordering Washington to substantially cut its diplomatic staff in Russia.

Trump himself mentioned the possibility of a follow-up meeting last weekend, telling reporters aboard Air Force One that he expected to meet Putin in Vietnam to ask for help in reining in North Korea’s nuclear weapons development. He made a similar comment Thursday in Beijing after meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping.

Tillerson said officials from the two countries also are discussing conflicts in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, while Trump also said that Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election also remains on the table for discussion.

Several scholars of U.S.- Russia relations are leery of direct Putin-Trump talks at this delicate time in the relationship.

Kremlin critic Andrei Piontkovsky, a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, says Putin stands to gain much more from the meeting than Trump.

“It would be better if the United States and Russia have good relations, but the fact is, Putin is challenging the U.S. everywhere in the world, including on their own turf, and Trump doesn’t seem to consider that is hostile to western values, democracy and human rights,” Piontkovsky told VOA. “It’s very strange because Trump declines to notice these worrisome facts.”

Piontkovsky considers it foolish to ask for the Kremlin’s help in lessening the North Korean threat. 

“That ignores the fact that the tremendous progress of the North Korean nuclear program is enabled by Russian help,” Piontkovsky argued. “Putin is much more an enthusiastic supporter of Kim Jung Un than Xi Jinping. He demands that the U.S. reconcile itself with the idea of a new nuclear power.”

Charles Stevenson, associate director of the foreign policy program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, called a Trump-Putin meeting “risky” for U.S. interests.

“Presidential-level meetings can be helpful in smoothing over misunderstandings and allowing exchanges beyond the glare of publicity or even the knowledge of subordinates,” Stevenson said in a written reply to VOA. 

“But they can also be extremely risky if not coordinated in advance in order to achieve some agreed communiqué,” he added. “I have real doubts that President Trump is skilled and knowledgeable enough to reach any substantive agreements with President Putin.”
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In a half-forgotten field in France stands a worn monument to a regiment of U.S. soldiers who faced down racism at home and in their ranks to become World War I’s most decorated unit of African American soldiers.

In the run up to Veterans’ Day on Nov. 11, campaigners say the record of the 371st infantry regiment needs to be fully recognized. One man is trying to have one of the unit’s soldiers finally decorated with the Medal of Honor — the U.S. military’s highest award — a century after his death.

The 371st was largely made up of poor black laborers from segregated South Carolina.

They were drafted into the army by a military machine keen to keep them away from potential front line glory by putting them in support roles. But they soon found themselves in the heat of battle under the command of the French army, which was desperate for manpower in the dying days of the war.

“You had these African Americans in the early 1900s who were subject to Jim Crow, racism was rampant, the military was segregated,” said Gerald Torrence of the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC), a government agency that serves as guardian of U.S. military memorials and cemeteries overseas.

“These men were victimized in their daily life in the United States, yet they were not victims in their minds,” said Torrence, who is co-author of “Willing Patriots: Men of Color in the First World War.”

Until 2015, when President Barack Obama posthumously decorated a soldier from another regiment, the 371st contained the war’s only African American winner of the Medal of Honor. But now Jeff Gusky, a campaigner, explorer and photographer, has dug through the records and believes it deserves another.

Forgotten warrior

Private Burton Holmes was in his early 20s on Sept. 28, 1918 when he was badly injured during an assault on a ridge in Champagne, eastern France. In the face of heavy machine gun fire, he returned to headquarters to re-arm and fought on, rallying the troops before being killed.

He was recommended for the Medal of Honor but it was downgraded to a lesser award, a decision Gusky believes was down to institutional racism.

An African American comrade of Holmes, Freddie Stowers, was also recommended for the Medal of Honor during the war but his paperwork was misplaced for decades and he was only recognized in 1991, 73 years after his death.

Now veterans’ organizations say the case of Holmes needs to be reviewed too.

“I think the burden is on the present day U.S. Army to tell us why he wouldn’t deserve the Medal of Honor,” Gusky said.

In the tiny village of Ardeuil et Montfauxelles in eastern France (population 86), the residents have not forgotten the sacrifice of the soldiers.

Local man Frank Lesjean treks through a field after work to tend to their memorial, accessible only by a muddy track. He touches up the names of those who died with red paint and looks after the roses around the chipped granite.

“Restoring this monument helps their memory to endure,” he told Reuters. “Without it, they’d be even more forgotten.”
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European Union negotiators are readying themselves for the collapse of Prime Minister Theresa May’s government as it lurches from one crisis to another, say officials in Brussels.

And Britain’s Opposition Labor Party is eagerly standing by, with its deputy leader warning Thursday that the ruling Conservative government is so fragile “random events could bring it down.”

“Another Day, Another Crisis,” was the Daily Telegraph’s headline Thursday in the wake of May having to fire two key Cabinet ministers in a week — Michael Fallon as her defense secretary over sexual harassment claims, and the ambitious International Development Minister Priti Patel late Wednesday over 14 unauthorized meetings with Israeli ministers, business people and a high-profile lobbyist during a family vacation to Israel.

Weakened government

Britain’s beleaguered prime minister and her aides are dismissing suggestions her government is near collapse, saying her ministers are “getting on with the job.”

Weakened by her gamble last year to hold snap parliamentary elections, which led to the Conservatives losing their majority in the House of Commons, May has been able to hold on to her job because a split Conservative party has been fearful of what would follow her departure and which party faction would win a leadership competition, say analysts.

The ruling party is divided between those who want a clean and total break with the European Union and those who want Britain to maintain close ties with the economic bloc, the country’s biggest trading partner.

This week’s ministerial departures add pressure on May’s minority government following a string of controversies that she appears unable to contain — from a burgeoning sexual harassment scandal that is affecting all parties, but the incumbent Conservatives the worst, and could lead to the departure of her deputy, Damian Green — to rebelliousness among her ministers as they maneuver for political advantage and plot their own policies without paying much heed to Downing Street.

Along with all of that, several ministers have triggered alarm with gaffes that have real-life consequences. Demands have been mounting across the political spectrum for May to dismiss Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson after he misspoke, when he said a British-Iranian woman jailed in Iran had been training journalists when she was arrested.

Johnson’s critics say the ill-advised remarks risk Tehran lengthening the five-year sentence handed to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, purportedly on national security grounds. Her employer, Thomson Reuters, says the characterization that she was in Iran to teach people journalism is false. Johnson has since said he “could have chosen his words more carefully.”

“It’s hard to remember a time when a British government was so racked by crisis after crisis,” acknowledged political writer Sonia Sodha of Britain’s leftist The Guardian newspaper.

Few replacement candidates

Sodha believes May could survive until 2019, when Brexit talks are scheduled to have concluded, if for no other reason than no one else in the Conservative party wants to take up “the poisoned chalice” of navigating the country through its exit from the European Union.

And some Conservative lawmakers concede privately that the only reason they want May to continue is that a leadership upheaval could trigger an early election which Labor would likely win.

Other Westminster-watchers aren’t as confident that May — a virtual prisoner of warring party factions over Brexit — can survive much longer.

“Governments often survive sleaze scandals, recessions and even the most disastrous of wars. Few, if any, ever recover when they become laughing stocks, objects of pity and ridicule. That, tragically, is the direction in which Theresa May’s rudderless government is fast heading,” according to Conservative commentator Allister Heath.

More challenges ahead

Much will likely depend on whether the sexual harassment crisis rocking Westminster claims other officials. The government also risks defeat in the coming days on amendments to EU withdrawal legislation. Additionally, another key factor in May’s survival is likely to come when later this month, the government reports on the state of the public finances — they could be worse than expected and require further unpopular cuts.

Some analysts are likening May’s position to that of a Conservative predecessor, John Major, whose 1992-1997 government was in disarray almost from the start due to scandals, divisions over Europe and a recession. Major was enraged by the disloyalty of his Cabinet and in an outburst picked up by a television microphone he thought was switched off, labeled three of his ministers “bastards.” Despite its instability, Major’s government managed to soldier on for nearly five years.

EU leaders aren’t so sure May can repeat Major’s achievement.

For EU, many unknown

Officials say Brussels is preparing contingency plans for May leaving before the new year and Britain holding early elections months later. An unnamed European leader told the British newspaper The Times, “There is the great difficulty of the leadership in Great Britain, which is more and more fragile. Britain is very weak and the weakness of Theresa May makes negotiations very difficult.”

Talks between British and EU negotiators were resuming Thursday in the sixth round of talks over Brexit. May is hoping her negotiators can secure a breakthrough and persuade the EU to start moving on to talks about a future trade deal even before there is a final deal on the rights of EU citizens living in Britain, what will become of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and the “divorce bill.”

London has suggested that since an agreement is near on the divorce terms, trade talks should start immediately, but the Europeans have a different take.

Speaking Thursday, a top EU lawmaker, Sophie in ’t Veld, warned there has been little progress, saying, “A year-and-a-half has passed since the Brexit vote and we haven’t moved an inch and the situation is getting very, very worrying.” She accused the British government of not being clear about its negotiating position.

Fears are mounting that Britain will crash out of the EU without a trade deal with its neighbors. On Monday, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross warned that losing access to Europe’s financial markets after Brexit would damage Britain’s chances of negotiating a successful trade agreement with Washington. His warning came after the heads of U.S. banks told him they were preparing plans to move staff from London and relocate them to other European cities.

 
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Is a meeting in Vietnam between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on or off? On Thursday, it was not clear.

Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov told Russian news agencies that the two leaders would meet Friday on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit in Danang. But U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson cast doubt on that, saying it is not clear whether there is enough progress on important pending issues between the two countries to merit top-level face-to-face talks.

“When the two leaders meet, is there something sufficiently substantive?” Tillerson rhetorically asked in Beijing, as he accompanies Trump on his five-nation Asia trip. “No conclusion has been made on that. If we’re going to have a meeting, let’s make sure it’s a meaningful meeting.”

Tillerson said that behind the scenes the two countries are working on a “number of difficult areas” but that U.S. officials have not decided whether it’s the right time for Trump to meet with Putin.

Trump, as he flew to Asia last weekend, told reporters aboard Air Force One he expected to meet with Putin to ask for his help in reining in North Korea’s nuclear weapons development.

Tillerson said officials from the two countries are also discussing conflicts in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, while Trump also said that Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election also remains on the table for discussion. 

 
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U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Thursday NATO defense ministers are considering ways to bring Russia into compliance with a key arms control treaty.

The U.S. has maintained that Russia has deployed cruise missiles in violation of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, which prohibits the deployment of land-based U.S. and Russian short- and intermediate-range nuclear missiles.

“We have a firm belief now over several years that the Russians have violated the INF and our effort is to bring Russia back into compliance,” Mattis told reporters as he met with Thursday in Belgium with his NATO counterparts.

Mattis said NATO’s discussions about Russia were held with an eye toward sustaining other arms control pacts as well.

“This is absolutely necessary to sustain confident arms control agreements and we’re doing so in a substantial, transparent and verifiable fashion.”

Russia has repeatedly denied the claims and accused the United States of violating the treaty.  Moscow contends the U.S. Patriot missile systems deployed in Poland and Romania could be customized to launch missiles at Russia.

Mattis, who added that several other NATO nations also had evidence Russia was not in compliance, said he and the other NATO defense ministers would have discussions with Russia to try to resolve the issue.

The treaty was signed in 1987 by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, the then leader of the Soviet Union.
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Visiting Berlin in the midst of sensitive coalition talks, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire urged Germany to seize a historic window of opportunity to reform Europe, warning that the bloc could succumb to nationalism if they failed.

The visit comes six weeks after a German election forced Chancellor Angela Merkel into negotiations with parties, including the Free Democrats (FDP), that are sceptical of French President Emmanuel Macron’s ambitious vision for Europe.

By holding talks with leading members of those parties, including FDP leader Christian Lindner, Le Maire said he hoped to convince members of the next German government to leave the door open to a European deal with France as they hammer out a coalition blueprint for the next four years.

“We are of the view that there is a unique window of opportunity to improve the situation and make the eurozone stronger,” Le Maire said.

“I hope that they will take into account the necessity to

preserve a room of maneuver for negotiation,” he added.

“Because if everything is already decided in the German coalition agreement, what should we negotiate? This is one of the key reasons for my trip to Berlin.”

After nearly a decade of economic and financial crisis, and following Britain’s decision to leave the EU, Macron is pushing for a leap forward in European integration, including the creation of a budget for the eurozone and closer cooperation in defense and migration matters.

Merkel has welcomed many of his ideas, but members of her own conservative bloc and the FDP are sceptical, particularly on French plans for the eurozone, fearing Germany will be asked to pay for the policy failures of reform-wary southern states.

Europe faces choice

Speaking to reporters after meeting with Lindner, Le Maire said he believed that the differences could be overcome.

“None of the difficulties are insurmountable. I found a man who is conscious of his political responsibilities, conscious of his historic responsibilities,” he said.

Earlier in a speech to a Franco-German business forum, Le Maire likened the current situation in the eurozone to standing in the middle of a strong-flowing river where the currents were most dangerous.

He said Europe faced a choice: turn back to the shore from where they came, embracing nationalism and isolation, or say “now is the time” and press on to the opposite bank by pursuing closer integration of the eurozone.

“That status quo is not an option,” Le Maire said.

He spelled out four steps for a reform of the 19-nation single currency bloc. In the first, Europe would complete its banking union, capital markets union and harmonise its tax regimes, particularly in the area of corporate taxes.

Second, Europe would bolster its rescue fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), and third, it would introduce a budget for the eurozone to fund investments in areas such as transport, energy and artificial intelligence, and help the bloc cope with economic shocks.

In a last step, member states could appoint a finance minister for the eurozone, he said.

Switching between fluent German and French, Le Maire said Franco-German working groups should be created to discuss reform on a “weekly or even daily basis.” He said other countries should be brought into the process, naming Spain and Italy.

In his speech to the business forum, Le Maire urged the bloc to unite in pushing back against powers like China and the United States that he said were determined to shape the world according to their national interests.

German politicians have been sceptical of Macron’s “l’Europe qui protege” (Europe that protects) pledge, fearful of a return to old-fashioned French protectionism.

But Le Maire said Europe should no longer be “naive” in the face of economic challenges from abroad, accusing the Chinese of killing off the European solar panel industry and the Americans of using extra-territorial sanctions to shape global trade rules in their favor.

“Europe needs to stop being scared of its own shadow,” Le Maire said. “Divided we are nothing. Together we are everything.”

 
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Serbian and U.S. paratroopers will jump side-by-side during a joint exercise aimed at strengthening military ties with Serbia, the U.S. general in charge of NATO’s Allied Air Command said, a move that could trigger protests from Moscow.

In the exercise, which is taking place at the invitation of the Serbian government, paratroopers from both countries will jump side-by-side from 2 C-130J transport planes built by Lockheed Martin in a so-called insertion exercise.

About 100 U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army personnel will participate in the event, General Tod Wolters, who also oversees U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Africa, told Reuters.

“They will actually get their paratroop wings as a result of these activities. These are confidence-building activities – relationships that will last for a lifetime. And they will certainly enhance the technical expertise of the Serbs,” he said.

It was not immediately clear how many Serbian forces would participate.

Wolters said tensions in the Balkans remained a challenge for NATO and the U.S. military, but engagement was key.

“It will continue to be a challenge, but we’ve got the right command focus. We’ve got the right resources. We’ve got the right dialogue and time will tell what unfolds,” he said.

Any NATO-related activities in Serbia are a red flag for Russia, which worries about NATO expansion in the former communist east.

Moscow has also sought to bolster military ties with Belgrade with the donation of six MiG-29 fighter jets.

Serbia has been performing a delicate balancing act between Russia and the West, rejecting calls by U.S. officials to pick a side.

The largest of the states to emerge from the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Orthodox Christian and Slavic Serbia has natural affinity with Moscow, but it is keen to join the European Union.

Although the EU is Serbia’s single largest trade partner and investor, Russia controls its oil and gas supplies.

 
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Wary of a belligerent and unpredictable Russia, NATO is expanding its operations for the first time since the end of the Cold War and drawing up plans to improve the way the military alliance commands and deploys its forces.

NATO defense ministers Wednesday endorsed a proposal to create two new commands: one to protect sea lanes ferrying troops and equipment across the Atlantic from the United States, the other a logistics command to supervise troop movements in Europe.

“We need a command structure which can make sure that we have the right forces, in the right place, with the right equipment at the right time,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters at the meeting in Brussels.

He said the Atlantic headquarters would “ensure that sea lanes, our lines of communication between Europe and North America, remain free and secure. This is vital for our trans-Atlantic alliance.”

“Our military commands will now flesh out the details,” Stoltenberg said, and submit the results to the ministers when they next meet in February.

No Russian risk seen

Asked about the risk that Russia poses to the 29-nation alliance, particularly those lying on Russia’s borders, Stoltenberg said “we don’t see any imminent threat against any NATO ally.”

But, he said, “we have seen a much more assertive Russia. We have seen a Russia which has over many years invested heavily in their military capabilities, modernized their military capabilities.”

Russia has shown itself “willing to use military force against a neighbor, Ukraine, and of course NATO has to be able to respond to that,” he added.

At the end of the Cold War almost 30 years ago, around 22,000 personnel were working at 33 commands, but numbers have been slashed to fewer than 7,000 people and seven commands.

NATO allies have stationed around 4,000 troops in the Baltic States — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — and Poland to reassure them that the alliance stands ready to defend their borders against neighboring Russia. The move came in response to Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

Command locations

Stoltenberg has been coy about where the new regional command centers would be based — he says the plan will be fleshed out in February — but he has noted Germany’s central geographical location in Europe, suggesting that it could be in the running for one. Poland is another possibility.

Britain, Portugal, Spain or even the United States might be considered for the Atlantic command.

One key factor holding up troop movements in Europe is border controls between the various nations.

Russia has few border obstacles to contend with and can deploy its forces virtually at will. NATO commanders are appealing for red tape to be cut. Officers have said that transit and transport requests need to be submitted up to 30 days in advance in some cases.

Stoltenberg said the allies have also agreed to work more closely with the European Union to improve civilian infrastructure like bridges, roads, railways, airport runways and ports so they can handle heavy military equipment.

They also want to work more closely with private companies to ensure that NATO has the kinds of transport it requires — trucks, trains and planes — to deploy more easily.
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Russia clashed with Western nations Tuesday over a report blaming Syria for a deadly chemical weapons attack, with Moscow dismissing its findings as “mythical or invented” and the U.S. backing its finger-pointing at President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

The debate in the Security Council during a meeting on the report reflected the sharp differences between Russia, Syria’s most important ally, and Western countries that have backed Assad’s opponents.

It also raised serious questions about whether the mandate of the experts who issued the report will be renewed — and whether anyone in Syria will ever be held accountable for using chemical weapons, which are banned internationally.

Russia and the United States have circulated rival resolutions to extend the experts’ body, known as the Joint Investigative Mechanism, or JIM. Its mandate expires Nov. 14.

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley told the Security Council that a revised U.S. draft circulated Tuesday included some points from the Russian draft, including the importance of high standards and sound evidence.

But she said Russia continues “to push unacceptable language only meant to undermine the investigators and divide this council.”

Russia vetoed a U.S.-sponsored council resolution Oct. 24 that would have renewed the mandate of the experts from the United Nations and the international chemical weapons watchdog for a year. It said it wanted to wait to see the JIM report on the sarin nerve gas attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun and a mustard gas attack at Um Hosh in Aleppo in September 2016.

Two days later, the JIM reported its leaders were “confident” that Syria was responsible for an aerial attack on Khan Sheikhoun on April 4 using sarin that killed about 100 people and affected about 200 others who survived “acute exposure” to the nerve agent. The conclusion supported the initial findings by the United States, France and Britain.

The experts also said they were “confident” the Islamic State extremist group was responsible for the Um Hosh attack using mustard gas.

Assistant Secretary-General Edmond Mulet, who heads the JIM, told the council how experts reached their conclusions, including finding that the chemistry of the sarin used in Khan Sheikhoun was very likely to have been made from the same precursor, called DF, as the sarin in Syria’s original stockpile.

In September 2013, Syria accepted a Russian proposal to relinquish its chemical weapons stockpile and join the Chemical Weapons Convention. That averted a U.S. military strike in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta.

Mulet said the Security Council has “a unique responsibility” to deter all those using chemical weapons and “end the use of such weapons forever.”  

“I understand the political issues surrounding the situation in the Syrian Arab Republic,” he said. “However, this is not a political issue about the lives of innocent civilians. Impunity must not prevail.”

Russia’s criticisms

Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Vladimir Safronkov, was sharply critical of the JIM and the report, especially the experts’ failure to visit Khan Sheikhoun, which Mulet said was for security reasons.

Safronkov derided the JIM for not pinpointing specific responsibility, asking: Is “an entire state is responsible?” He also complained that “while some continue to try to find this mythical or invented chemical weapons in Damascus, the region is seeing an increasing threat of chemical terrorism” that isn’t being addressed.

Deputy British Ambassador Jonathan Allen said Russia has advanced multiple theories about the Khan Sheikhoun attack, and when one gets debunked Moscow goes with something else.

“It’s one of the great tragedies that Russia is a country with hugely respected and impressive scientists, but also a country of great fiction writers,” he told several reporters. “And unfortunately the scientists of Russia are being ignored and the fiction writers are being indulged.”

Allen called Russia’s draft resolution to renew the JIM mandate “a cynical ploy to discredit a professional, independent and impartial body.”

“Russia is trying to shoot the messenger to cover up for the crimes of the Syrian regime,” he said.

Syria’s U.N. ambassador, Bashar Ja’afari, the last speaker, told the council the JIM report “is not neutral, nor is it professional.”

Its “wrongful” accusation against Syria is based on “the fabrication of evidence and the manipulation of information,” he said.

Ja’afari said Syria abides by the Chemical Weapons Convention and “considers the use of chemical weapons an immoral act that must be condemned.”
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Lithuania expects NATO to reach an agreement next year to shield Baltic countries with air defenses, plugging a gap in its security against Russia, its defense minister said Tuesday.

Since Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and began providing weapons and troops to separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, NATO has sent more forces to the Baltics, eastern Poland and around the Black Sea.

Lithuania, which borders the Russian region of Kaliningrad, wants NATO to permanently deploy anti-aircraft weapons in the Baltics or Poland — a move seen by Moscow as an unjustified military buildup on its borders.

“We expect so,” Defense Minister Raimundas Karoblis told Reuters when asked if he saw an agreement shaping up for the NATO summit in 2018. “Air defense is one of the issues which we need to address. We also need to look at other domains, like NATO command structure reform, we need to move forward on all on these aspects,” he said, also calling for NATO to strengthen maritime defenses in the Baltics.

Karoblis spoke in Helsinki after meeting his counterparts from Northern Group countries, including the Nordic and Baltic states, Britain, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands. U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis also joined the meeting.

Karoblis said exercises should be considered by NATO after Russia’s Zapad war games unnerved the West in September.

Mattis told reporters after the meeting that the 12 nations stood together to reaffirm territorial integrity.

“It is clear that one nation thinks it holds some kind of a veto or strong influence over others, that is Russia. The country’s name came up repeatedly over the last 48 hours,” he said.
…

EU diplomats will start sketching out a Brexit transition offer on Wednesday that would probably let Britain stay in the single market for about two years after it leaves the bloc in March 2019, EU officials said.

But some officials and diplomats involved in preparing for the first “orientation debate” among envoys from the other 27 EU states warned London should not assume it can clinch an initial deal next month to open talks on post-Brexit relations. Some governments see benefits in making Britain wait for it.

An EU official familiar with Wednesday’s agenda said states would be asked their views on the “scope of the transition period, its length” and whether special regulations would be needed to enforce EU rules in Britain, which will no longer be a member but wants to maintain full access to EU markets.

Several officials who spoke to Reuters said that in the transition period Britain would have to abide by all EU laws, even if they are changed during that period, but would have no influence over them. “Anything else would be too complicated,” a second official said. Two others expressed the same view.

“The EU view on the transition period and the future will in a way be a moment of truth, exposing all the lies of those who campaigned for Brexit saying that Britain will be able to have the cake and eat it,” a third official said.

Wednesday’s discussions will also seek to gather views on the future trade relationship with London that is to follow a transition, which may finish in December 2020, at the end of the current seven-year EU budget period.

EU leaders told Prime Minister Theresa May last month they were not ready to negotiate post-Brexit arrangements until London offered more concessions on its “divorce’’ terms. But they held out the prospect of opening such talks at a summit in mid-December and ordered their officials to start preparing among the 27 for a move to this new phase of talks.

Brief encounter

British Brexit Minister David Davis is expected in Brussels on Friday for the first negotiations since that mid-October summit with May. But the anticipated brief encounter with EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier is not expected to produce a breakthrough on how much Britain will pay the EU on leaving.

Diplomats and officials said the continued slow pace of the divorce talks was increasing the possibility that EU leaders would again refuse next month to open trade talks. They said some may already be considering that as a useful tactic against Britain, which is anxious to prevent businesses relocating investment.

“Some believe that the worse it gets for the British, the better for us … that maybe we could delay it all until for instance March, increasing the uncertainty and triggering the contingency plans in the corporate sector,” the first EU official said.

“That would be ruthless and risky, but people have different views on what is risky.”

An EU diplomat involved in negotiations said he expected envoys also to discuss how to handle a possible failure next month to open the next phase of talks if May refuses to meet EU demands.

“What do we do if they (the British) don’t move?” he said.

Some continental negotiators believe British anxiety about businesses starting to shift investments in the new year if there is no transition deal could be to Brussels’ advantage.

Officials said Britain’s full membership in the single market, even during a transition, is not a given. “There is no up-front agreement on that. It is part of a bigger package. For instance it is not feasible to expect they would be in the single market … but not pay into the EU budget,” one said.

There will be one or two more meetings of EU envoys before they expect to agree what in detail they might offer Britain in terms of a transition period, officials said. The results of these discussions will not be presented to the British, however, until after leaders have agreed to open a new phase of talks.

 
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A former foreign policy adviser to President Donald Trump’s campaign has acknowledged in testimony to Congress that he had contact with a high-level Russian official while on a trip to Russia last year, according to a transcript released Monday.

Carter Page, an unpaid adviser who left the campaign before Trump was elected, told the House intelligence committee last week that he “briefly said hello to” Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich when he traveled to Russia for a speech. Under repeated questions about the contact – which he had at times denied in the past – Page said that he had spoken to Dvorkovich after his July 2016 speech at Moscow’s New Economic School.

“It was a very brief interaction. It was some nice pleasantries. I cannot recall the precise words I said, but it was sort of best wishes, and, you know, that’s about it,” Page said in response to several questions about the contact.

The testimony was part of the committee’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether it is linked to Trump’s campaign. Page’s trip raised questions just as the FBI began its counterintelligence investigation into the Russian meddling in the summer of 2016, and he has offered contradictory accounts about whom he met there – at one point telling The Associated Press that he hadn’t met with Dvorkovich. But his testimony on Thursday was under oath.

Page was interviewed in March for several hours as part of the FBI probe, before special counsel Robert Mueller was appointed to take it over. Page wouldn’t answer questions about his contact with Mueller. 

The House panel released the transcript as part of its agreement with Page, who was subpoenaed by the committee in early October. Page said repeatedly that he didn’t want to testify behind closed doors. 

Page told the panel he had informed some members of the Trump campaign about the trip, including then-Sen. Jeff Sessions. He said he mentioned in passing to Sessions, who is now attorney general, that he was preparing to visit Russia and Sessions “had no reaction whatsoever.”

The testimony could raise more questions about the extent of Sessions’ knowledge about interactions between Trump campaign aides and Russians. Sessions recused himself from overseeing an investigation into the Trump campaign in March after acknowledging two previously undisclosed conversations with former Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the campaign. Since then, Sessions has downplayed his own knowledge about communications between campaign aides and Russian officials and intermediaries.

Page has insisted – and continued to insist in the interview – that the trip was personal and not campaign related.

However, the committee produced an email during the interview in which Page wrote to campaign officials and asked them to let him know “if you have any reservations or thoughts on how you’d prefer me to focus these remarks,” apparently referring to the speech he was giving in Moscow.

He also suggested that Trump take his place at the speech – a suggestion that appeared to go nowhere.

In a statement prepared for the committee, Page insisted that he had no personal information that the Russian government or anyone affiliated with it played any role in the 2016 presidential campaign. He said he was not approached by anyone during the trip who led him to believe they were planning to interfere in the election.

Under questioning at the hearing, Page depicted himself as an unpaid member of a campaign foreign policy team that met infrequently and provided him with no direct access to Trump.

“I have never met him in my life,” Page said of Trump. “I’ve been in a lot of meetings with him, and I’ve learned a lot from him, but never actually met him face to face.”

Page said he had no direct relationship with the Russian government, though he conceded that he may have spoken with different Russian government officials over the years.

At another point in the interview, Page was asked about his relationship with George Papadopoulos, the former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser whose guilty pleas to lying to the FBI about his foreign contacts was unsealed last week.

Page said he had “very limited” interaction with Papadopoulos and suggested that the last time he had seen him was in June 2016 at a dinner he said was organized by Sessions, who at the time was a prominent Trump campaign aide and supporter.

Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the committee’s top Democrat, pressured Page on what he suggested were inconsistencies in his testimony and past statements.

He noted how Page told the committee that he had met only one Russian government official during his July 2016 trip to Russia, and yet had told campaign officials in email that he had received valuable insights from legislators and senior members of the Russian presidential administration.

“Are you being honest in your testimony?” Schiff asked. “Because it doesn’t seem possible for both to be true.”

Page said the insights he was referring to were based on materials he had read in the press, “similar to my listening to President Trump in the various speeches that I heard of his.”
…

NATO needs to establish a new regional base for protecting the North Atlantic against increased Russian naval strength, a senior alliance general said on Monday, as allies consider the next step in a military build-up reminiscent of the Cold War.

General Petr Pavel, head of NATO’s military committee, will help put the case to allied defense ministers this week for a new planning and strategy base to be located in a chosen NATO ally and focused on keeping Atlantic shipping lanes safe from enemy submarines. It would be the first such expansion in two decades after NATO sharply cut back its commands in 2011.

“If we look at the growing capabilities of countries like Russia and China, with a global reach, it is quite obvious that maritime lines of communication have to be protected,” Pavel, a Czech army general, told Reuters in an interview.

“We observe increased Russian naval activity in the Arctic in the northern Atlantic … We also assess that for any future crisis, the reinforcement of Europe and free lines of communication will be vital for European security,” Pavel said.

If approved, the new North Atlantic Command would survey a vast area and, in the event of any potential conflict with Russia, have the task of making sea lanes safe for U.S reinforcements to Europe.

Strong in symbolism, the decision is unlikely to revive a much larger Cold War-era Atlantic Command that was disbanded in 2002, but it would broaden NATO’s new deterrent against Russia.

Despite NATO’s cooperation with Moscow in the Balkans after a 1997 pact formalized friendly ties, the alliance sees the Kremlin’s incursions in Georgia and eastern Ukraine and its seizure of Crimea as unacceptable breaches of international law.

Pavel described Russia as a “potential threat,” while the West was alarmed by Moscow’s war games in September that massed tens of thousands of troops and may have tested electronic warfare tools on Latvia, NATO officials say.

Since Russia’s 2014 Crimea annexation, NATO has sought to reassure its Baltic allies by sending troops to the Baltics, Poland and the Black Sea, setting up a network of NATO outposts, holding more exercises and preparing a rapid response force, including air, maritime and special operations components.

The United States have also returned tanks and troops to Europe after a long drawdown at the end of the Cold War.

Russia condemns the moves as an aggressive strategy on its frontiers that threatens to destabilize eastern Europe.

Logistics, Costs

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis will join other allied defense ministers on Wednesday and Thursday to decide whether to approve the North Atlantic Command, as well as a logistics command to focus on moving troops more quickly across Europe.

With renewed purpose since Russia’s annexation of Crimea, NATO allies are broadly in favor of the two commands. Many are keen to lock in U.S. support given President Donald Trump’s early doubts about the alliance he now says he strongly backs.

Pavel cautioned that cost is likely to be an issue for NATO governments and said there were no shortcuts in deterrence.

“I believe we are now out of the realm of doing more with less. We simply have to understand that wherever we want to do more, there will be resource implications,” Pavel said.

The alliance is being asked by Trump to do more in Afghanistan, in fighting Islamist militants and to stop migrants from the Middle East and North Africa reaching Europe.

Many European NATO nations are still struggling to meet an alliance goal by 2024 to spend two percent of economic output on defense every year.

“We can call it modernization, we can call it adaptation. We simply have to adapt to a new reality,” Pavel said.
…

The restive Spanish region of Catalonia faces a potential $500 million financial hit in the fourth quarter as business-related travel dips following the attack in Barcelona and the uncertainty generated by the disputed independence referendum.

In an interview Monday with The Associated Press at the World Travel Market in London, Catalonia’s top tourism official Patrick Torrent said the region will likely see a 10-12 percent fall in tourist numbers during the fourth quarter, which would equate to around 450 million euros. The large bulk of that fall is related to a drop-off in business travel to events such as conventions.

Despite the anticipated fourth-quarter decline, the executive director at the Catalan Tourist Board, said Catalonia is set to see revenues this year outstrip those last year and that the expectation is that revenues will rise again next.

However, more insight will emerge at the turn of the year when the bulk of pre-reservations are made. His staff, he said, are “on alert” about the impact on the main booking season.

The worry among many economists is that deteriorating business environment in Catalonia, which has seen around 1,500 firms move their headquarters out of the region, could worsen further amid all the uncertainty. Credit ratings agency Moody’s has warned that the region’s financial recovery is being jeopardized

“Moody’s believes that the political instability will negatively affect the region’s economy, in particular foreign investor sentiment and the tourism sector, and add pressure to the region’s already weak finances,” it said last week.

The Catalan tourism industry, a key income generator in what is Spain’s richest region, has had a difficult few months. After the August attacks in Barcelona and a nearby town that saw 16 people killed, the region has been embroiled in a battle of wills with Spain over the disputed independence referendum in early October which prompted Madrid to impose direct rule and seek the arrest of members of the Catalan government, including its leader, Carles Puigdemont, who has fled to Brussels.

The impact of the attack in Barcelona on holiday travelers was short-lived, according to Torrent, and “less important” than other cities in Europe, such as Brussels or Paris.

“The perception of Barcelona and Catalonia as a safe destination has not suffered any impact,” he said, noting figures showing tourism numbers higher in September.

Torrent said he met up with Alvaro Nadal, the Spanish minister of energy, tourism and digital matters, on Monday for the first time since the triggering of Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution which imposed direct rule on Catalonia.

Torrent said the Spanish government has made no requirements upon him or his staff and that it is “business as usual” until an early Catalan regional election on Dec. 21.

“It’s not intervention. It’s more a kind of coordination,” he said. “It’s easy, it’s not complicated, with good relations without problems, at this moment.”

Before direct rule, Torrent would speak with Spanish tourism officials two or three times a month. Now, it’s that amount of times a week.

Torrent urged all participants in upcoming demonstrations in Catalonia before the election, including one this Saturday, to remain peaceful and law-abiding.

“It’s important to say that our streets are normal, our restaurants are working as usual, our destination is exactly the same situation,” Torrent said.
…

Media organizations across the world revealed a massive leak of millions of financial documents Sunday that outlined the elaborate steps taken by elite politicians and other wealthy individuals to shield their wealth from tax collectors.

The leak, which has been dubbed the Paradise Papers, contained more than 13 million files taken mostly from a single Bermuda-based legal services company, Appleby.

The files were initially leaked to the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, which then shared them with around 100 different media outlets affiliated with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

The disclosures date back as far as 70 years ago and show the murky, but mostly legal, ways in which some of the biggest names in politics and media protect their wealth through various offshore schemes.

So far, the documents have revealed how millions of dollars’ from the Queen’s private estate wound up in a Cayman Islands fund, numerous offshore dealings by high-ranking members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet and shown how Russian state financial institutions invested millions of dollars in Twitter and Facebook.

Also implicated in the Paradise Papers is Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s chief fundraiser, Stephen Bronfman, who helped move millions of dollars through a complex web of offshore accounts.

Appleby claims to have investigated all the allegations contained in the Paradise Papers and found “no evidence of wrongdoing, either on the part of ourselves or our clients.”

“We are a law firm which advises clients on legitimate and lawful ways to conduct their business. We do not tolerate illegal behavior,” the company added, in a statement to The Guardian.

The Paradise Papers leak marks the second largest data leak in history and closely resembles the Panama Papers leaked last year from the law firm Mossack Fonseca. Those leaks similarly showed the ways in which the wealthy use secretive offshore accounts to avoid paying taxes.

VOA’s Ray Choto is among the journalists involved with the Paradise Papers. He says it is much bigger than the Panama Papers in terms of files and that more journalists were involved.
…

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim heads to Washington Tuesday to meet with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, as relations between the NATO allies endure a rocky period.

“Prime Minister Yildirim’s visit is being paid in a very critical time with regard to Turkish American relations,” said a senior Turkish presidential adviser speaking on condition of anonymity. “It can be a great opportunity to catch a new momentum.”

“The very fact the [Turkish] prime minister is almost going impromptu to Washington suggests there are a series of serious crises between Turkey and the United States,” said international relations expert Soli Ozel of Istanbul’s Kadir Has University. “Obviously, this is coming to a crossroads and the key date is there, 27th of November when the Zarrab trial is supposed to start.”

Turkish-Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab and Mehmet Atilla, the deputy chief executive of the Turkish state bank Halkbank, are facing trial on Iranian sanctions violation charges in a New York court. A former senior Turkish minister, Zafer Caglayan, closely linked to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has also been indicted in the case.

Erdogan has criticized the probe as politically motivated. According to reports, he lobbied hard for Washington to drop the charges. The issue is expected to top Yildirim’s agenda in talks with Pence.

“There is a different perception, fundamental seminal difference in perceiving what the law is,” noted political analyst Semih Idiz.

He warned that Washington’s claims about the independence of the judiciary are unlikely to assuage Ankara’s concerns. “Erdogan says openly that he believes there is this massive conspiracy against him and America is part of it.”

Gulen extradition

Additionally, Yildirim is expected to raise Ankara’s ongoing attempts to secure the extradition of Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania. Turkish prosecutors accuse Gulen of masterminding last year’s attempted coup, a charge the cleric denies.

Erdogan says the lack of progress in the case is politically motivated. Washington counters it’s a matter for the courts. But Ankara views recent cooperation between the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Turkish prosecutors to track the movement of a suspect in the failed coup as significant. “The U.S. is making considerable progress in this regard,” said Erdogan’s adviser.

The dispute has fueled suspicions in Ankara of Washington’s complicity in the failed coup, a charge the United States strongly rejects. Last month, Turkish prosecutors detained a local employee at a U.S. diplomatic mission in Turkey as part of its Gulen investigation. The detention prompted Washington to impose stringent visa controls on Turkey. Ankara retaliated with similar measures.

Pence is expected to raise the issue of the arrest of U.S. citizen Andrew Brunson, who has been in a Turkish jail without charge for more than a year as part of the ongoing Gulen probe.

“During [Turkish] prime minister’s visit, we expect the visa crisis will be ended between the two allies,” said the Turkish presidential adviser.

Repairing the damage

“The big question is can Mr. Yildirim, on a trip that will last four days, be able to actually repair much of the damage inflicted on this relationship?” said Ozel. “I think it will be very difficult, unless there is some progress on at least one of the issues of contention.”

Potentially more difficult to resolve for Yildirim is the thorny issue of Washington’s arming of the Syrian Kurdish militia, the YPG, in the war against Islamic State. Ankara accuses the militia of being affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which the Turkish army has been fighting for decades. The United States and the European Union have designated the PKK as a terrorist organization.

Yildirim is likely to face difficult questions during his talks in Washington. Turkey’s NATO partners are voicing growing concern over Ankara’s warming relationship with Moscow, underlined by last month’s announcement it planned a multi-billion-dollar purchase of Russia’s S 400 missile system.

Analysts suggest both sides still have interests in containing the escalating tensions.

“This is way past a storm in a tea cup; this is a real storm, but there are still strategic interests that either side can’t throw away; if there weren’t strategic interests, then we would go for some kind of a break up,” predicted columnist Idiz.

Analysts also say Washington will be aware Turkey could play a key role in efforts to stem Iran’s growing power in the region.

For Ankara, there is the risk of increasing diplomatic isolation, given its strained ties with many of its allies. They suggest both sides will likely try to present a veneer of success to Yildirim’s Washington visit, even if there is no breakthrough.

Despite this, there were signs that diplomatic tensions between the two countries were beginning to ease.  On the eve of the Turkish official’s visit to Washington, the U.S. Embassy in Ankara announced U.S. consular services in Turkey would resume processing some visa applications. U.S. missions in Turkey suspended the processing of all non-immigrant visas a month ago, after Turkish authorities arrested a local employee of the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul in the wake of last year’s failed coup attempt. The employee was held on charges of spying and allegedly having links to Gulen.

In a statement, U.S. Embassy officials said the United States has received “high-level assurances” from the government of Turkey that no other staff of the U.S. missions in Turkey are under investigation or due for arrest.  The statement said the Turkish government has agreed to give advance notice if it intends to arrest or detain mission employees in the future.
…

Fiji’s prime minister called for a sense of urgency Monday, telling negotiators that “we must not fail our people” as he opened two weeks of talks on implementing the Paris accord to fight climate change, which is already affecting his Pacific island nation.

While diplomats and activists gathered in Bonn, the U.N. weather agency said that 2017 is set to become the hottest year on record aside from those impacted by the El Nino phenomenon.

The talks in Germany, the first major global climate conference since President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. will pull out of the 2015 Paris accord unless he can secure a better deal, also mark the first time that a small island nation is chairing such a conference.

Negotiators will focus on thrashing out some of the technical details of the 2015 Paris accord, which aims to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. While Trump has expressed skepticism, a recent U.S. government report concluded there is strong evidence that man-made climate change is taking place.

Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe ‘Frank’ Bainimarama, the Bonn conference’s chairman, offered greetings “from one of the most climate-vulnerable regions on earth” as the meeting opened, underlining “our collective plea for the world to maintain the course we set in Paris.”

“The need for urgency is obvious,” he said. “Our world is in distress from the extreme weather events caused by climate change.”

“We must not fail our people” and must make the Paris accord work, Bainimarama said, adding that means to “meet our commitments in full, not back away from them.”

He didn’t refer directly to the Trump administration’s position, but appeared to play off Trump’s “America first” slogan.

“The only way for every nation to put itself first is to lock arms with all other nations and move forward together,” the Fijian leader declared.

The meeting began with schoolchildren chanting “Save the World” processing into the conference hall and a traditional Fijian welcoming ceremony.

The U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization said this year is already on track to be one of the three hottest years of all time, after 2015 and 2016, which were both affected by a powerful El Nino – which can contribute to higher temperatures.

Last year set a record for the average global temperature.

WMO says key indicators of climate change – such as rising carbon-dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere, rising sea levels and the acidification of oceans – “continue unabated” this year.

It said the global mean temperature from January to September this year was about a half-degree Celsius warmer than the 1981-2010 average, which was estimated to be 14.31 degrees C (57.76 Fahrenheit).

The five-year average temperature from 2013 to 2017 is more than 1 degree Celsius higher than that during the pre-industrial period.

Participants at the Bonn conference include diplomats from 195 nations, as well as scientists, lobbyists and environmentalists. French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other leaders are expected to appear near the end of the summit to give the talks a final push.

German Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks called for “significant progress” in Bonn on implementing the Paris accord.

“The Paris agreement is irreversible,” she told delegates Monday. “We now have to do everything in our power to implement it and we do not have much time left.”
…

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross shares significant business interests through a shipping venture in Russia with President Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law and an oligarch subject to American sanctions, newly leaked documents showed Sunday.

Ross, a 79-year-old billionaire industrialist, has an investment in partnerships valued at between $2 million and $10 million in the shipper, Navigator Holdings, according to his government ethics disclosures.

The shipping company earns millions of dollars a year transporting natural gas for Sibur, a Russian energy company that is partly owned by Kirill Shamalov, the husband of Putin’s daughter, Katerina Tikhonova, and Gennady Timchenko, the oligarch who is Putin’s judo partner, according to the documents. Timchenko is subject to the U.S. sanctions because of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and its subsequent support for pro-Russian separatists fighting the Kyiv government’s forces in eastern Ukraine.

Ross sold off numerous holdings when he joined President Donald Trump’s Cabinet earlier this year to avoid conflicts of interest while he promotes U.S. commerce throughout the world. But he kept his Navigator stake, which has been held in a chain of partnerships in the Cayman Islands, an offshore tax haven where Ross has placed much of his estimated $2 billion in wealth.

‘Paradise Papers’

Ross did not disclose the Russian business link when he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as commerce secretary, but it surfaced in a trove of more than 7 million internal documents leaked from Appleby, a Bermuda-based offshore law firm that advises the wealthy elite on global financial transactions as they look to avoid billions of dollars in taxes.  Appleby, says it has investigated all the allegations, and found “there is no evidence of any wrongdoing, either on the part of ourselves or our clients.”

The cache of documents, called the Paradise Papers, was first leaked to a German newspaper, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, and then shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and other media, including The Guardian in Britain, The New York Times and NBC News in the U.S., all of which reported on the Ross investment on Sunday.

Ross, through a Commerce Department spokesman, said he removes himself as secretary from matters related to trans-oceanic shipping and consults with the agency’s ethics officials “to ensure the highest ethical standards.”

The disclosure of Ross’ financial interests in Russia comes as a special prosecutor, Robert Mueller, and three congressional panels are investigating Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, an effort the U.S. intelligence community has concluded was led by Putin in an effort to undermine U.S. democracy and help Trump win the White House.

Several Trump campaign associates have come under scrutiny, but until the disclosures about Ross’ holdings, there have been no reports of business links between top Trump officials and any member of Putin’s family and his inner circle.

The disclosures will likely put pressure on world leaders, including Trump and British Prime Minister Theresa May, who have both pledged to curb aggressive tax avoidance schemes.

“Congress has the power to crack down on offshore tax avoidance. There are copious loopholes in our federal tax code that essentially incentivize companies to cook the books and make U.S. profits appear to be earned offshore. The House tax bill introduced late last week does nothing to close these loopholes,” said Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
…

Hundreds of protesters were arrested in Moscow Sunday during a demonstration against Russian president Vladimir Putin coinciding with celebrations of Russia’s National Unity Day holiday.

According to OVD-Info, which monitors crackdowns on demonstrations, 360 people had been arrested in demonstrations across the country by 5pm on Sunday. Moscow police had put the figure in the capital at 260.

Tass news agency said that many protesters in Moscow had knives and brass knuckles.

Protesters at the unsanctioned demonstration are believed to be linked to nationalist politician and Kremlin critic Vyacheslav Maltsev and his Artillery Preparation movement — a group declared extremist and banned in Russia.

Self-exiled Maltsev said on YouTube that Russia is up for a “revolution” this weekend.

Putin declared November 4 “National Unity Day” in 2005 to mark Russia’s victory over Poland in 1612.

 
…

The indictment last week of former Donald Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, who admitted lying about contacts with Russia during the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign, is turning the spotlight on London as an important hub of suspected Kremlin meddling in Western politics, say analysts and Western officials.

Papadopoulos, who White House spokespeople say was a low-level and unimportant foreign policy adviser in last year’s campaign, was initially introduced to shadowy Russian contacts by a London-based globe-trotting Maltese academic, according to the indictment of Papadopoulos unsealed last week by special counsel Robert Mueller.

But the British capital is now featuring more prominently than just the venue of meetings between Papadopoulos and Russian officials.

Probes launched on both sides of the Atlantic into suspected Russian subversion of last year’s White House race and the 2016 Brexit referendum are increasingly highlighting the British capital as a hotbed of Russian intelligence activity that links individuals and groups of interest to investigators in Washington as well as in Britain.

Political pressure is mounting on the ruling Conservative government of Theresa May to launch a broad formal inquiry into whether Moscow sought to influence the Brexit vote.

The demands came as it emerged that three senior past and present Foreign Office ministers, including the current Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson may have been targeted by individuals identified by the FBI last week as central to the Mueller probe.

Mueller is investigating Russia’s meddling in the U.S. election and accusations of collusion between Trump campaign aides and the Kremlin. The Trump administration has denied there was any collusion. Papadopolous reached a deal last month with Mueller, agreeing to plead guilty to lying to FBI agents about his contacts with Russian intermediaries during the presidential race.

According to the indictment Papadopoulos was offered “thousands of emails” of “dirt” on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in his meetings. Those offers came months before Wikileaks, whose head Julian Assange is based in London, published emails hacked from Democratic Party servers in what U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed as part of an “active measures operation” by Moscow.

Britain’s Observer newspaper reported Sunday that Papadopoulos and the Maltese professor, who was not named in the Mueller indictment but was subsequently identified as Joseph Mifsud, had several meetings or encounters with British ministers. As recently as two weeks ago Mifsud reportedly attended a dinner at which Boris Johnson was present and was the guest speaker. Foreign Office officials have told the British press that Johnson did not “knowingly” speak with Mifsud.

Before the dinner, the Maltese academic, who has boasted to colleagues he has met Russian leader Vladimir Putin, told friends he planned to raise the current Brexit negotiations with Johnson, according to en email obtained by Byline, an independent news-site.

The disclosure about the meetings has prompted opposition party calls for the British government to launch a full-fledged inquiry into Russian intelligence activity. It is adding to growing unease about whether Moscow tried to influence Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the European Union.

Tom Watson, deputy leader of Britain’s Labour party, has dubbed the meetings “extraordinary” and argues it is vital to know if the Kremlin had sought to influence British politics. The disclosure of Mifsud’s attendance at a Conservative dinner featuring Johnson comes just days after the British Foreign Secretary dismissed worries about possible Russian interference in British politics, saying, “I haven’t seen a sausage.”

Earlier this year, Britain’s Electoral Commission announced it was investigating whether the Leave campaign run by Nigel Farage, a leading Brexiter and Trump supporter, received “impermissible” donations. The elections watchdog said, “this followed an assessment which concluded that there were reasonable grounds to suspect that potential offenses under the law may have occurred.”

Last week, the Electoral Commission launched a second narrower probe into the source of some of the donations and loans to Farage’s campaign amid allegations by Labour lawmaker and former minister Ben Bradshaw that the funds may have been “dark money” channeled to disguise its origin.

A leading Brexit campaign financier, Arron Banks, says Russia had no hand in funding Farage’s campaign. “They’re in a tizzy. They think it was funded by Russia,” Banks told The Times newspaper. “Of course it didn’t. It came from my bank account.”

The denial is not quieting a mounting chorus in Britain’s Parliament for a bigger investigation. Tom Brake, a Liberal Democrat lawmaker, is also urging a formal inquiry, citing “concerns emerging about possible Russian interference in the EU referendum.

British election officials say they are talking also with social media companies to establish whether Russian agencies may have used Facebook and Twitter to try to influence the Brexit vote in much the same way investigators allege they attempted to do in the U.S. election last year.

 
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The former leader of Spain’s Catalonia region said Saturday that he would cooperate with Belgian officials following Spanish authorities’ issuance of a European warrant for his arrest.

Carles Puigdemont said in a tweet: “We are prepared to fully cooperate with Belgian justice following the European arrest warrant issued by Spain.”

A Spanish judge issued the warrant for Puigdemont a day after she jailed nine members of the region’s separatist government pending possible charges over last week’s declaration of independence. One person was later granted bail.

Puigdemont, who was thought to be in Belgium, didn’t specify his current location, though he and several aides fled to Brussels last week after Spanish authorities removed them from office.

The National Court judge filed the request with the Belgian prosecutor to detain Puigdemont and his four aides, and issued separate European search and arrest warrants to alert Interpol in case they fled Belgium.

Belgian federal prosecutors said they had received the arrest warrant and could question Puigdemont in coming days.

Puigdemont’s Belgian attorney did not answer calls requesting comment, but had said that his client would fight extradition to Spain without seeking political asylum.

Puigdemont and the four others were being sought on charges that included rebellion, sedition and embezzlement as a result of a Spanish investigation into their roles in pushing for secession for Catalonia.
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Russia is not currently cooperating with the United States on discussions about North Korea, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reportedly told the Russian RIA news agency.

“There is no cooperation so far. Only periodic exchanges of views,” Peskov said, saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump are likely to meet during an Asian economic forum next week.

If the two leaders do meet, Peskov said there is a “great probability” they would discuss the situation in North Korea.

Trump and Putin will be in the Philippines to attend the East Asia Summit, in addition to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting.

Ahead of Trump’s visit, two supersonic aircraft conducted a bombing exercise over the Korean Peninsula as a show of force against North Korea. The B-1B bombers were escorted on the simulated drills Thursday by two South Korean fighter jets, according to an official with that country’s military.

North Korean state TV denounced the exercise as a “surprise nuclear strike drill” and said “gangster-like U.S. imperialists” were attempting to provoke a nuclear war.

The increased tensions on the Korean peninsula come as North Korea has, in recent months, tested nuclear bombs, missiles that could potentially reach the U.S. mainland and launched multiple missiles over Japan.

 
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A Spanish judge on Friday issued an international arrest warrant for Catalonia’s ousted president, a day after she jailed members of the region’s separatist government pending possible charges over last week’s declaration of independence.

The national court judge issued the warrant for Carles Puigdemont in response to a request from state prosecutors.

Puigdemont flew to Brussels earlier this week with a handful of his deposed ministers after Spanish authorities removed him and his cabinet from office for pushing ahead with the declaration, despite repeated warnings that it was illegal.

Puigdemont’s Belgian attorney said he would fight extradition without seeking political asylum.

The ousted president told Belgian state broadcaster RTBF he would turn himself in to Belgian authorities, “but not to Spanish justice.”

He said he would run for re-election and, if need be, run his campaign from Belgium, where he remained in hiding.

Puigdemont told RBTF Friday that he was “ready to be the candidate” in the election, scheduled for late December.

“We can run a campaign anywhere because we’re in a globalized world,” he said.

The beleaguered president was due to appear at Spain’s National Court on Thursday to answer questions in a rebellion case brought by Spanish prosecutors, but he did not show up.

The judge jailed nine former members of Catalonia’s separatist government on Wednesday, while they were being investigated on possible charges of rebellion, sedition and embezzlement connected to their push for achieving the region’s independence from Spain.

She later granted one of them bail at $58,300.

In an earlier address from Brussels broadcast by Catalan regional television TV3, Puigdemont called for the release of “the legitimate government of Catalonia” as hundreds of people gathered outside the Catalan parliament also calling for them to be freed.

“As the legitimate president of Catalonia, I demand the release of the members of my cabinet,” he said. “I demand respect for all political options, and I demand the end of the political repression.”

Puigdemont said the imprisonment of former Catalan Vice President Oriol Junqueras and eight members of his cabinet was an attack on democracy and not compatible with a “Europe in the 21st century.”

Meanwhile, data released Friday showed that unemployment rose sharply in Catalonia in October, more than anywhere else in Spain, as companies fled in the midst of the country’s worst political crisis in decades.
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Rescuers pulled 700 boat migrants to safety in the Mediterranean and found 23 bodies during one operation on Friday, an Italian coastguard spokesman said, the second loss of multiple lives recorded in the area so far this week.

After around three years of mass arrivals, the number of migrants reaching Italy has fallen sharply since July, when Rome struck a deal with Libya to block what had become a busy route for people smugglers.

A Spanish ship deployed in the European Union’s Operation Sophia naval mission recovered the dead, along with 64 survivors, from a sinking rubber boat, the mission said on its Facebook page.

“A tough day in the Central Mediterranean Sea,” the Facebook post said, adding the rescues had started in the early morning.

Six rescue operations were carried out in total on Friday, the spokesman said, making it one of the busiest days for rescues in recent months. Seven people were found dead and 900 saved on Wednesday.

The Italian Coast Guard ship Diciotti was heading for the southern port of Reggio Calabria with 764 rescued migrants on board, the ANSA news agency said in a report confirmed by the coast guard spokesman.

Diciotti was also carrying eight dead bodies, ANSA said. It was not clear if they had been among those recovered by the Spanish ship.

Those rescued were originally from Sub-Saharan Africa, Pakistan, Libya, Bangladesh, Algeria, Egypt, Nepal, Morocco, Sri Lanka, Yemen, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, ANSA said.

In the Aegean Sea on Friday, three people drowned, six were known to be missing and scores of others were rescued while trying to reach Greece.

 
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In the days of communist Albania’s near-total isolation, Saimir Maloku used his technical know-how to gain illicit glimpses of the outside world. Unluckily for him, as he and his father watched forbidden Italian television, the regime was watching him.

Maloku was jailed for nine years in 1976 after the secret police bugged his home. Four decades on, he can visit a unique Tirana museum and see for himself the kind of listening devices that betrayed him.

At the Museum of Surveillance, created in the former headquarters of the feared Sigurimi security service, Albanians can now inspect some of the spying paraphernalia used by dictator Enver Hoxha’s totalitarian state as well as the files kept on many of them.

“Until now nothing had been done to show how Albanians were spied upon and kept in check, so this is a good step to illustrate the history of spying we were the victims of,” Maloku, now 71, told Reuters.

Visiting the museum, Maloku told the story of how he had wanted to help his paralyzed father by broadening his television viewing beyond the drab daily four hours of Albanian state broadcasts.

‘Opened a window’

An electronic engineer, he built a device he called “the can” to convert UHF signals from Italy’s RAI television so they could be viewed on an Albanian set.

“The can opened a window into the West for the Albanians. I made them free of charge for my friends, but later learned some of them had denounced me,” Maloku said.

The Sigurimi planted a listening device in a wall to gather evidence against him.

The same model of device — once attached to a broomstick to spy on the Italian Embassy in Tirana — is on display in another museum depicting the work of the communist-era Interior Ministry.

In the age of the smartphone, both Maloku’s and the Sigurimi’s electronic gizmos now look quaintly crude. But they did their jobs, and Maloku went to prison for devising his, convicted of hostile “agitation and propaganda.” He remembers singing Rolling Stones and Beatles songs in his underground cell to preserve his sanity.

Before the collapse of Albanian communism in 1990, the building that now houses the Museum of Surveillance was known as the “House of Leaves” — a pun referring to both its ivy-clad walls and the “leaves” of secret police files kept on citizens.

During World War II it was used by the Gestapo of the occupying Nazi forces.
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Estonia plans to block access to the country’s vaunted online services for 760,000 people from midnight on Friday to fix a security flaw in some of the Baltic country’s identity smartcards that was identified earlier this year.

Estonia is seen as a leader in providing government services online and has championed the issue within the European Union in recent years, and the security issue leaves it with its much-touted digital IDs in an awkward position.

A nation-wide online identity system allows citizens access to most government and private company services via the web, including banking, school reports, health and pension records, medical prescriptions and voting in government elections.

But Estonia’s online ID service ran afoul of an encryption vulnerability identified by researchers earlier this year that exposes smartcards, security tokens and other secure hardware chips made by the German company Infineon.

Infineon said last month it had resolved the problem, but the fix still means cards and equipment need to be updated. Both the Estonian government and Infineon have said there are no signs the security flaw had been exploited.

The Estonian online services would be blocked for affected digital IDs until they renewed certificates incorporating the fix, the Estonian government said in a statement.

“The functioning of an e-state is based on trust and the state cannot afford identity theft happening to the owner of an Estonian ID card,” Prime Minister Juri Ratas said.

Thursday and Friday saw crowds pack into Estonia’s police and board guard service offices to get their ID cards certificates updated while the online update service was frequently overloaded, leaving many frustrated.

Britain’s ambassador to Estonia, Theresa Bubbear tweeted late on Thursday: “#eEstonia losing its shine? Spent hours over 2 days trying to update my ID card as per govt/MFA instructions. Still trying…”

 
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