European nations create workaround to US Iran sanctions

January 31, 2019

BERLIN (AP) — Three European countries that have been working to preserve a deal limiting Iran's nuclear capability have established a new system so their companies can continue trading with the Mideast nation without incurring U.S. sanctions, diplomats said Thursday.

The barter-type system set up by France, Germany and Britain is designed to allow businesses to skirt direct financial transactions with Iran and thereby evade possible U.S. sanctions, setting up a potential collision with President Donald Trump's hard-line policies on Tehran.

Once the process is up and running, a financial institution, known as an "Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges" or INSTEX, would run a payment channel, brokering Iranian imports in and European exports out, while insulating the companies involved.

In a joint statement, the foreign ministers of Germany, Britain and France sought to allay Washington's possible fears. "INSTEX will function under the highest international standards with regards to anti-money laundering, combating the financing of terrorism and EU and U.N. sanctions compliance," their statement said.

The three nations have been working on the plan for months. It follows Trump's decision last year to unilaterally withdraw from the international accord aimed at preventing Tehran from developing nuclear weapons in exchange for economic incentives. His administration also introduced new sanctions on Iran.

The other parties to the 2015 agreement — France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China — have been scrambling to keep the deal alive. In recent months, Iranian officials threatened to resume enriching uranium to higher purities than allowed under the deal, putting pressure on the Europeans to find a way around the sanctions.

"This is a clear, practical demonstration that we remain firmly committed to the historic 2015 nuclear deal struck with Iran... for as long as Iran keeps implementing it fully," British Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt said..

The ministers emphasized that their payment channel is "aimed at facilitating legitimate trade between European economic operators and Iran." "We're making clear that we didn't just talk about keeping the nuclear deal with Iran alive, but now we're creating a possibility to conduct business transactions," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told reporters Thursday after a meeting with European counterparts in Bucharest, Romania.

"This is a precondition for us to meet the obligations we entered into in order to demand from Iran that it doesn't begin military uranium enrichment," Maas said. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif welcomed the establishment of INSTEX, saying in a tweet it was a "long overdue 1st step" to save the nuclear deal.

"We remain ready for constructive engagement with Europe and on equal footing & with mutual respect," Zarif wrote. The European Union's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, who helped negotiate the 2015 accord with Tehran, said the new system would be "essential for the continued full implementation of the nuclear deal with Iran."

The U.S. State Department said it was "closely following" reports on the European mechanism, which originally was known as a "special purpose vehicle," for details about exactly what would be involved.

"As the president has made clear, entities that continue to engage in sanctionable activity involving Iran risk severe consequences that could include losing access to the U.S. financial system and the ability to do business with the United States or U.S. companies," the State Department said in a statement.

INSTEX is to be headquartered in Paris and overseen by a German banker. The three foreign ministers said a parallel structure would have to be set up in Iran and other work needs to be done to "address all the technical and legal aspects required to make this vehicle operational."

At the outset, the European institution will concentrate on products that are not currently subject to U.S. sanctions, such as medicine, medical supplies, and agricultural goods. Many of Europe's biggest companies shut off all commerce with Iran when the U.S. stepped up sanctions, exercising an abundance of caution. The governments of Germany, France and Britain hope the workaround will lure back some trade of non-sanctioned goods, though it's not clear if companies would try to do business through the new state-run system and risk possible U.S. retribution down the road.

Stefan Mair, a board member of the influential Federation of German Industries, welcomed the establishment of the financial institution, but expressed skepticism about how effective it might be. "Central questions remain open," he said. "The clearinghouse is dependent on Iran's sanctioned oil and gas business. This continues to pose a significant risk to building long-term business relations."

Though established by Britain, Germany and France, other European Union nations were expected to join as well. Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said the EU wanted to continue to support the nuclear deal.

"The most important thing is to show our American colleagues that we are moving in the same direction on a whole series of issues, such as ballistic missiles or Iran's regional influence, but that we do have a difference of opinion on the nuclear agreement," Reynders said. "I hope we can also find a solution."

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Iran's state television he expected the mechanism to be ready to start brokering business in one or two months. "The next issue is how European companies are willing to join SPV with this mechanism," he said.

Iran's ambassador to the United Kingdom, Hamid Baeidinejad, said on Twitter he also thinks the start of the program was imminent.

Frank Jordans in Berlin, Jon Gambrell in Dubai and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

Fears grow: 1/3 of UK firms consider move abroad over Brexit

February 01, 2019

LONDON (AP) — Nearly a third of U.K. firms may shift their operations abroad because of Britain's looming departure from the European Union, a survey of 1,200 company directors suggested Friday, as the political stalemate over a Brexit deal heightened jitters among businesses.

The survey by the Institute of Directors, an employers' group, found that 16 percent of businesses already had relocation plans while a further 13 percent were "actively considering" a move. The group said while headlines have focused on big companies, less notice has been given to smaller U.K. businesses and their plans to relocate.

Institute interim director Edwin Morgan said smaller firms typically have tighter resources and for them "to be thinking about such a costly course of action makes clear the precarious position they are in."

Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29, but a Brexit divorce agreement struck between British Prime Minister Theresa May's government and the bloc late last year as been rejected by Britain's Parliament.

U.K. lawmakers voted this week to send May back to Brussels to seek changes to the divorce agreement. But the EU is adamant that the deal cannot be renegotiated, leaving Britain lurching toward a cliff-edge "no-deal" departure from the bloc that many businesses fear will cause economic chaos.

A survey of companies released Friday showed that manufacturing firms stockpiled goods at a record rate in January to prepare for potential Brexit disruption to trade. The survey of about 600 U.K. manufacturers by the market research company Markit and the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply found that inventories of finished goods rose sharply, while optimism in the sector was at a 30-month low and jobs were starting to be cut.

Senior government ministers have suggested that Britain may have to seek a delay to Brexit to make time to find a solution. International Trade Secretary Liam Fox said Friday the government was "still aiming to get to the 29th March — that's the date we promised the British people." But he suggested there could be "a short delay" if Britain and the EU "had reached an agreement and needed the legislation to implement it."

A delay would need the approval of the 27 remaining EU states. Ireland's Europe Minister, Helen McEntee, said the bloc would likely agree, as long as Britain had a good reason. "There is no point in looking for an extension if we end up back to the same place in three months' time," she said. "We need to have a clear direction from the U.K. government as to what it is we want to achieve."

The sticking point to a deal for many British lawmakers is a border measure known as the "backstop," a safeguard mechanism that would keep the U.K. in a customs union with the EU to remove the need for checks along the border between the U.K.'s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland after Brexit.

The border area was a flashpoint during decades of conflict in Northern Ireland that cost 3,700 lives. The free flow of people and goods across the near-invisible border today underpins both the local economy and Northern Ireland's peace process.

Many pro-Brexit British lawmakers fear the backstop will trap Britain in regulatory lockstep with the EU, and say they won't vote for May's deal unless it is removed. May has been sounding EU leaders out on potential changes, but Britain's stance has caused exasperation among EU politicians, who point out that May signed up to the deal that she is now seeking to change.

"This was a deal that was negotiated with the U.K., by the U.K.," McEntee said. "They weren't bystanders in a separate room. There were discussions, negotiations. There were compromises on both sides."

Diplomats have also warned that British attempts to reopen the agreement could trigger moves by EU nations to get concessions from the U.K. on issues including fishing rights and, particularly, Gibraltar.

Throughout divorce talks, Spain has stressed that it wants a say on the future of the disputed British territory at the tip of the Iberian peninsula. Tensions over the territory flared again Friday, as Britain expressed irritation at an EU document describing the rocky outcrop as a British colony.

The phrase occurs in a document outlining the bloc's intention to continue allowing British citizens visa-free travel for short stays even if the U.K. leaves the bloc without a deal. A footnote refers to Gibraltar, which was ceded to Britain in 1713 but is still claimed by Spain, as "a colony of the British Crown" and says there is "controversy" over its sovereignty.

Spanish government spokeswoman Isabel Celaa noted Friday that Spain still claims sovereignty over Gibraltar. But May's Downing St. office said it was "completely unacceptable" to describe Gibraltar as a colony, calling it "a full part of the U.K. family."

Associated Press Writers Barry Hatton in Lisbon and Carlo Piovano in London contributed to this story.

Foreign Secretary: Brexit may have to be delayed

January 31, 2019

LONDON (AP) — A key member of Prime Minister Theresa May's government acknowledged Thursday that Britain's exit from the European Union may have to be delayed if negotiations on a divorce deal drag on.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told the BBC that while it is difficult to know whether negotiations will stretch to the final hours, a delay may be necessary to pass legislation to implement Brexit. His comments gained attention because of fears the country is simply not ready to leave — even though May's Downing Street office insisted nothing had changed.

"I think it is true that if we ended up approving a deal in the days before 29 March then we might need some extra time to pass critical legislation, but if we are able to make progress sooner then that might not be necessary," Hunt said.

The comments come as the influential think tank, the Institute for Government, warned the government was not ready should a no-deal Brexit come to pass. The think tank predicted that in a majority of broad policy areas, including health and borders, the government would be unable to avoid "major negative impacts."

"It is not just the government that needs to be ready - business and citizens need to know how the changes will affect them and what they need to do," it said in a report. Britain's carmakers issued a stark assessment Thursday about Brexit's impact on the industry, warning that two-thirds of the country's global trade is at risk if the U.K. leaves the European Union without an agreement on the future.

Investment in the industry fell 46 percent last year and new car production dropped 9.1 percent to 1.52 million vehicles in 2018, in part because of concerns over Brexit, the Society of Motor Manufacturing said. Chief executive Mike Hawes has described the threat of a no-deal as "catastrophic."

"With fewer than 60 days before we leave the EU and the risk of crashing out without a deal looking increasingly real, UK Automotive is on red alert," Hawes said. "Brexit uncertainty has already done enormous damage to output, investment and jobs."

Hawes said the figures showing a drop in investment, stark though they are, pale in comparison to what is ahead should the U.K. leave the EU on March 29 without a deal, severing frictionless trade links overnight with the EU and other global markets. Britain's Parliament has refused to rule out a no-deal Brexit, voting this week instead to give Prime Minister Theresa May more time to try to iron out a compromise with the EU.

"Brexit is the clear and present danger and, with thousands of jobs on the line, we urge all parties to do whatever it takes to save us from 'no deal'," Hawes said. If no deal is in place, existing trade agreements with the EU will evaporate overnight. Without such agreements, economic chaos is likely to follow, with fears about trade in food, medicine and other essential supplies.

In another sign of the ticking clock, House of Commons leader Andrea Leadsom said a scheduled February recess for lawmakers may be scrapped. May must report back to the House of Commons by Feb. 13, either with a reworked version of the deal or with a statement on what she plans to do next. She intends to return to Brussels in hopes of reopening negotiations on the most controversial aspect of the withdrawal deal, which covers the border between the U.K.'s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland.

This section of the deal, known as the backstop, would keep the U.K. in a customs union with the EU in order to remove the need for checks along the border. Supporters of a sharp exit with the EU fear it will trap Britain in regulatory lockstep with the trading bloc, and want the backstop replaced with unspecified "alternative arrangements."

EU leaders have so far been unwilling to reconsider the withdrawal agreement. In a telephone call on Wednesday evening, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar told May that it was necessary to have a backstop that was "legally robust and workable in practice."

The border is crucial to the divorce deal because it will be the only land frontier between the U.K. and the EU after Brexit. Border checkpoints have disappeared since Ireland and Britain both became members of the EU single market in the 1990s, and since the 1998 Good Friday peace accord, which largely ended decades of violence in Northern Ireland.

European Council President Donald Tusk also spoke with May and later tweeted: "The EU position is clear and consistent. The Withdrawal Agreement is not open for renegotiation."

UK leader seeks Brexit deal changes, but EU stands firm

January 29, 2019

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Theresa May on Tuesday won a few weeks to salvage a Brexit deal but headed toward a clash with the European Union by promising to overhaul the divorce agreement she spent a year and a half negotiating with the bloc.

Trying to break the U.K.'s Brexit deadlock, May got Parliament's backing for a bid to rework an Irish border guarantee in the withdrawal deal — a provision May and the EU both approved, and which the bloc insists cannot be changed.

"It is now clear that there is a route that can secure a substantial and sustainable majority in this House for leaving the EU with a deal," she said, promising to "obtain legally binding changes to the withdrawal agreement" from the EU.

The EU immediately ruled that out, insisting in a statement that the current deal with the U.K. remained the "best and only way" to achieve an orderly Brexit. French President Emmanuel Macron said the agreement "is the best accord possible. It is not re-negotiable." Guy Verhofstadt, the top Brexit official at the European Parliament, said there was "no majority to reopen or dilute" the deal.

It was the latest disorienting chapter in a Brexit process that has grown increasingly surreal since Parliament rejected May's divorce deal two weeks ago, leaving Britain lurching toward a cliff-edge no-deal" departure from the bloc on March 29.

A series of Commons votes Tuesday on next steps submitted by both pro-Brexit and pro-EU legislators ended up sending starkly mixed signals, as lawmakers backed a call to renegotiate the deal, and also approved a rival motion ruling out a no-deal exit.

May had urged lawmakers to "send an emphatic message" to the EU, but their response is likely to leave the bloc even more confused about British aims. May believes her agreement can still win Parliament's backing if it is changed to alleviate concerns about the Irish border measure, known as the backstop. The backstop would keep the U.K. in a customs union with the EU in order to remove the need for checks along the border between the U.K.'s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland after Britain leaves the bloc.

The border is crucial to the divorce deal because it will be the only land frontier between the U.K. and the EU after Brexit, and because the free flow of people and goods underpins both the local economy and Northern Ireland's peace process.

Opposition to the backstop by pro-Brexit lawmakers — who fear it will trap Britain in regulatory lockstep with the EU — helped sink May's deal on Jan. 15, when Parliament rejected it in a 432 to 202 vote.

On Tuesday, Parliament backed, by 317 votes to 301 votes, a call for the border measure to be replaced by unspecified "alternative arrangements." Leading Brexiteers praised the result. Former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Parliament had sent a "clear, unambiguous" message that the backstop had to be removed.

"I hope that our friends in Brussels will listen and that they will make that change," he said. But Green Party legislator Caroline Lucas, who wants a new referendum on Britain's EU membership accused May of chasing "heated-up fantasies that have already been rejected by the EU."

May acknowledged that the EU had "limited appetite" for changing the Brexit deal. But she vowed to go to Brussels and seek "significant and legally binding change" to the backstop. May's office said that might include an end date to ensure it is temporary or an exit clause for Britain. Both those ideas have been repeatedly rejected by the EU.

"There can be no change to the backstop," said Ireland's European Affairs Minister, Helen McEntee. "It was negotiated over 18 months with the U.K. and by the U.K." Lawmakers voted on seven Brexit proposals Tuesday, including the border change supported by May and several measures that sought to rule out a "no-deal" Brexit.

Much of the business world says a no-deal Brexit would cause economic chaos by eliminating existing EU trade agreements and imposing tariffs, customs checks and other barriers between the U.K. and the EU, its main export market.

Most members of Parliament oppose leaving without a deal, but they rejected several proposals that tried to wrest control of the Brexit process from the government and give it to Parliament so lawmakers could stop Britain crashing out of the EU without a deal. Some opposition Labour Party members sided with the government, worried about being seen as obstructing Brexit.

Lawmakers approved, by a narrow 318 votes to 310 votes, a motion ruling out a "no-deal" Brexit but not saying how that should be achieved. The vote is not legally binding, but has political force as an expression of the will of Parliament.

Tuesday's ambiguous votes won't mark the end of Britain's turmoil over Brexit: There could be a rerun in two weeks. May said if she has not struck a new Brexit deal by Feb. 13, Parliament would get to vote, again, on what should happen next.

Robert Hazell, professor of government and the constitution at University College London, said the EU was "pretty resolute in not being willing to reopen the negotiations unless the British government can come back with something more specific."

"Tonight's votes only kick the can down the road for another two weeks," he said.

Associated Press writers Danica Kirka and Gregory Katz in London, Angela Charlton in Paris and Raf Casert in Brussels contributed.

Some 70,000 Brussels protesters demand action on climate

January 27, 2019

BRUSSELS (AP) — At least 70,000 people braved cold and rain in Brussels on Sunday to demand the Belgian government and the European Union increase their efforts to fight climate change, the Belgian capital's fourth climate rally in two months to attract at least 10,000 participants.

The event was described as Belgium's biggest climate march ever, with police estimating slightly bigger crowds than a similar demonstration last month. Trains from across the nation were so clogged that thousands of people didn't make the march in time.

Some 35,000 students in Belgium skipped classes Thursday to take their demands for urgent action to prevent global warming to the streets. "Young people have set a good example," protester Henny Claassen said amid raised banners urging better renewable energy use and improved air quality. "This is for our children, for our grandchildren, and to send a message to politicians."

Even though the direct impact on Belgian politics was likely to be small since the country currently is led by a caretaker government, the demonstrations have pushed the issue of climate change up the agenda as parties prepare for national and European Union elections in May.

The march ended at the headquarters of the European Union. The 28-nation bloc has been at the vanguard of global efforts to counter climate change but still came in for the protesters' criticism. "Society as a whole could do a lot more because they're saying 'Yes, we're doing a lot,' but they're doing not that much. They could do a lot more," demonstrator Pieter Van Der Donckt said.

Citizen activism on climate change Sunday was not limited to Belgium. Thousands of people made human chains or held other climate events around France. In Paris, there was a debate inspired by a recent petition for legal action to force the government to set more ambitious goals for reducing carbon emissions that create global warming.

President Emmanuel Macron sees himself as a climate crusader, but suffered a serious setback when fuel tax increases meant to help wean France off fossil fuels backfired dramatically, unleashing the yellow vest protests now in their third month.

Associated Press writers Daniela Berretta in Brussels and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.

Swedish temperature dips to -39.5C; coldest night in UK

January 31, 2019

STOCKHOLM (AP) — The Swedish weather service says temperatures of minus 39.5 degrees Celsius (minus 39.1 degrees Fahrenheit) have been recorded in northern Sweden, the coldest recorded this month. The Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute says it was measured Thursday in the Swedish town of Nikkaluokta in Lapland, which covers the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland.

The service added, however, that on average January has been "warmer than normal." Sweden's news agency TT reported that the coldest temperature ever recorded in Sweden was minus 52.6 Celsius in 1966 in Lapland.

In Britain, officials recorded the coldest night this winter so far, with temperatures dipping to minus 11 C in Scotland. The cold snap prompted some trains to be cancelled, and Manchester and Liverpool airports were brought to a standstill on Wednesday.

Trump suspends arms treaty, citing Chinese, Russian threats

February 02, 2019

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is pulling the plug on a decades-old nuclear arms treaty with Russia, lifting what it sees as unreasonable constraints on competing with a resurgent Russia and a more assertive China. The move announced Friday sets the stage for delicate talks with U.S. allies over potential new American missile deployments.

In explaining his decision, which he had foreshadowed months ago, President Donald Trump accused Moscow of violating the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty with "impunity" by deploying banned missiles. Moscow denies it is in violation and has accused Washington of resisting its efforts to resolve the dispute.

Democrats in Congress and some arms control advocates criticized Trump's decision as opening the door to an arms race. "The U.S. threat to terminate the treaty will not bring Russia back into compliance and could unleash a dangerous and costly new missile competition between the United States and Russia in Europe and beyond," the private Arms Control Association said. It argued that Washington had not exhausted options for drawing Russia back into compliance.

Trump said in a statement that the U.S. will "move forward" with developing its own military response options to Russia's banned deployment of cruise missiles that could target western Europe. "We cannot be the only country in the world unilaterally bound by this treaty, or any other," Trump said. Other officials said the treaty could still be saved if Russia reverses course and returns to compliance, but that window of opportunity will close in six months when the American withdrawal is due to take effect.

The Trump decision reflects his administration's view that the arms treaty was an unacceptable obstacle to more forcefully confronting not only Russia but also China. China's military has grown mightily since the treaty was signed, and the pact has prevented the U.S. from deploying weapons to counter some of those being developed in Beijing.

Leaving the INF pact, however, risks aggravating relations with European allies, who share the administration's view that Russia is violating the treaty but who have not endorsed a U.S. withdrawal. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking to reporters after Trump's statement, said Russia will be formally notified on Saturday that the U.S. is withdrawing from the treaty, effective in six months. In the meantime, starting Saturday, the U.S. will suspend its obligations under the treaty.

Pompeo said that if, in the coming six months, Russia accepts U.S. demands that it verifiably destroy the cruise missiles that Washington claims are a violation, then the treaty can be saved. If it does not, "the treaty terminates," he said.

Administration officials have dismissed concerns that the treaty's demise could trigger a race to develop and deploy more intermediate-range missiles. U.S. officials have emphasized their fear that China, which is not party to the treaty, is gaining a significant military advantage in Asia by deploying large numbers of missiles with ranges beyond the treaty's limit. Whether the U.S. will now respond by deploying INF noncompliant missiles in Asia is unclear. In any case, it seems unlikely Beijing would agree to any negotiated limits on its weaponry.

Russia accused the U.S. of unilaterally seeking to neuter the treaty. "I 'congratulate' the whole world; the United States has taken another step toward its destruction today," said Konstantin Kosachev, head of the foreign affairs committee in Russia's upper house of parliament.

INF was the first arms control measure to ban an entire class of weapons: ground-launched cruise missiles with a range between 500 kilometers (310 miles) and 5,500 kilometers (3,400 miles). At the time, in the late stages of the Cold War, the U.S. and its allies were mainly concerned by the perceived threat of Russian medium-range nuclear missiles that were targeted at Europe. The U.S. deployed similar missiles in response, in the 1980s, leading to negotiations that produced the INF treaty.

Rep. Adam Smith, a Washington state Democrat and new chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, blasted Trump for raising the risk of nuclear war. "The administration's ideological aversion to arms control as a tool for advancing national security is endangering our safety, as well as that of our allies and partners," Smith said. "The risk of miscalculation or misunderstanding is already higher than at any point since the end of the Cold War, and this decision only makes it worse."

U.S. officials say they have little reason to think Moscow will change its stance in the next six months. "We have raised Russia's noncompliance with Russian officials — including at the highest levels of government — more than 30 times," Pompeo said. "We have provided Russia an ample window of time to mend its way. Tomorrow that time runs out."

Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary-general, said in an interview Friday with The Associated Press that Russia can still save the treaty by returning to compliance before the U.S. withdrawal takes effect.

"But at the same time, we have started to assess the consequences, look into options," Stoltenberg said. "We need to make sure that we respond as an alliance, all 29 allies, because all allies are involved and all allies are affected."

Trump said his administration will move forward with developing military response options. But senior Trump administration officials said they don't expect any immediate testing or deployment of weapons that are banned under the treaty. The current Pentagon budget includes $48 million for research on potential military responses to the alleged Russian violations, but U.S. officials said the options do not include a nuclear missile.

The officials, speaking after Trump's announcement, said the U.S. is not in position to flight test, let alone deploy, INF noncompliant missiles as a counter to Russia any time soon. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House.

One official said allies will be consulted before any decisions are made on responding to any Russian missiles. Leaving the treaty would allow the Trump administration to counter the Chinese, but it's unclear how it would do that. U.S. security concerns are complicated by what U.S. intelligence officials earlier this week called efforts by China and Russia to expand their global influence, particularly in Asia and the Middle East.

"China and Russia are more aligned than at any point since the mid-1950s, and the relationship is likely to strengthen in the coming years as some of their interests and threat perceptions converge," Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said in testimony Tuesday to Congress.

Associated Press writer Lynn Berry contributed to this report.

US poised to announce withdrawal from nuclear arms treaty

February 01, 2019

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is poised to announce Friday that it is withdrawing from a treaty that has been a centerpiece of superpower arms control since the Cold War and whose demise some analysts worry could fuel a new arms race.

An American withdrawal, which has been expected for months, would follow years of unresolved dispute over Russian compliance with the pact, known as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces, or INF, treaty. It was the first arms control measure to ban an entire class of weapons: ground-launched cruise missiles with a range between 500 kilometers (310 miles) and 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles). Russia denies that it has been in violation.

U.S. officials also have expressed worry that China, which is not party to the 1987 treaty, is gaining a significant military advantage in Asia by deploying large numbers of missiles with ranges beyond the treaty's limit. Leaving the INF treaty would allow the Trump administration to counter the Chinese, but it's unclear how it would do that.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in early December that Washington would give Moscow 60 days to return to compliance before it gave formal notice of withdrawal, with actual withdrawal taking place six months later. The 60-day deadline expires on Saturday, and the administration is expected to say as early as Friday that efforts to work out a compliance deal have failed and that it would suspend its compliance with the treaty's terms.

The State Department said Pompeo would make a public statement on Friday morning, but it did not mention the topic. In a tweet Thursday, the chief spokeswoman for NATO, Oana Lungescu, said there are no signs of getting a compliance deal with Russia.

"So we must prepare for a world without the Treaty," she wrote. Technically, a U.S. withdrawal would take effect six months after this week's notification, leaving a small window for saving the treaty. However, in talks this week in Beijing, the U.S. and Russia reported no breakthrough in their dispute, leaving little reason to think either side would change its stance on whether a Russian cruise missile violates the pact.

A Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, was quoted by the Russian state news agency Tass as saying after the Beijing talks Thursday, "Unfortunately, there is no progress. The position of the American side is very tough and like an ultimatum." He said he expects Washington now to suspend its obligations under the treaty, although he added that Moscow remains ready to "search for solutions" that could keep the treaty in force.

U.S. withdrawal raises the prospect of further deterioration in U.S.-Russian relations, which already are arguably at the lowest point in decades, and debate among U.S. allies in Europe over whether Russia's alleged violations warrant a countermeasure such as deployment of an equivalent American missile in Europe. The U.S. has no nuclear-capable missiles based in Europe; the last of that type and range were withdrawn in line with the INF treaty.

The prospect of U.S. withdrawal from the INF pact has stirred concern globally. The mayor of Des Moines, Iowa, Frank Cownie, is among dozens of local officials and lawmakers in the U.S., Canada, Europe and elsewhere who signed a letter this week to President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin expressing worry at the "unraveling" of the INF treaty and other arms constraints.

"Withdrawing from treaties takes a step in the wrong direction," Cownie said in a telephone interview. "It's wasn't just Des Moines, Iowa. It's people from all around this country that are concerned about the future of our cities, of our country, of this planet."

The American ambassador to NATO, Kay Bailey Hutchison, set the rhetorical stage for Washington's withdrawal announcement by asserting Thursday that Russia has been in violation for years, including in Ukraine. She said in a tweet and a video message about the INF treaty that Russia is to blame for its demise.

"Russia consistently refuses to acknowledge its violation and continues to push disinformation and false narratives regarding its illegal missile," she said. "When only one party respects an arms control treaty while the other side flaunts it, it leaves one side vulnerable, no one is safer, and (it) discredits the very idea of arms control."

Nuclear weapons experts at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said in a statement this week that while Russia's violation of the INF treaty is a serious problem, U.S. withdrawal under current circumstances would be counterproductive.

"Leaving the INF treaty will unleash a new missile competition between the United States and Russia," they said. Kingston Reif, director for disarmament at the Arms Control Association, said Thursday the Trump administration has failed to exhaust diplomatic options to save the treaty. What's more, "it has no strategy to prevent Russia from building and fielding even more intermediate-range missiles in the absence of the agreement."

Reif said the period between now and August, when the U.S. withdrawal would take effect, offers a last chance to save the treaty, but he sees little prospect of that happening. He argues that Trump's national security adviser, John Bolton, is "unlikely to miss the opportunity to kill an agreement he has long despised."

Associated Press writer Lynn Berry contributed to this report.

Bukele wins El Salvador presidency vowing to end corruption

February 04, 2019

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — A youthful former mayor of the capital easily won El Salvador's presidency, getting more votes than his three rivals combined to usher out the two parties that dominated politics for a quarter century in the crime-plagued Central America nation.

The Supreme Electoral Court declared Nayib Bukele the winner late Sunday, saying he had nearly 54 percent of the votes, with about 90 percent of ballots counted. Carlos Callejas of the Nationalist Republican Alliance ended in a distant second at less than 32 percent, while even farther back were former Foreign Minister Hugo Martinez of the currently governing Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front and a minor party candidate.

By surpassing the 50 percent threshold, Bukele won outright and avoided the need for a March runoff against the No. 2 finisher. Bukele claimed victory even before the formal announcement of his win, inviting a jubilant crowd in the capital of San Salvador to celebrate in the streets.

"This is a victory for the Salvadoran public, really," Bukele said to cheers. All four candidates promised to end corruption, stamp out gang violence and create more jobs, with crushing crime at the top of the agenda, but Bukele's campaign resonated more with his countrymen and polls had pointed to him as the strong front-runner going into the election. Roughly 67,000 Salvadorans belong to gangs that terrorize their communities with extortion, murder and other forms of violence.

The candidates proposed creating economic opportunities and restoring social values to dissuade Salvadorans from engaging in criminal behavior. El Salvador is small both in size and population, with just 6.5 million people. Close to a third of its households live in poverty, while the World Bank says per capita income is $3,560. Salvadorans searching for a better life have joined recent caravans of migrants trekking across Mexico hoping to reach the U.S.

Bukele, 37, made his political debut in 2012 as a small-town mayor with the FMLN and won election in the capital three years later, automatically making him a potential presidential contender. But his frequent criticism of the leftist party's leadership got him expelled, and he ran for the presidency as the unlikely standard-bearer for the small, conservative Grand Alliance for National Unity, whose initials — GANA — mean "win" in Spanish.

The FMLN and the conservative Nationalist Republican Alliance, known as ARENA, had dominated El Salvador's politics since a 1992 peace deal ended a vicious civil war. But both parties have been stained by corruption scandals and neither has been able to stem gang violence.

"I came to vote because I want the country to change, because we are tired of so much corruption," said one voter, Estela Henriquez, at a polling place in the capital. More than 4,500 election observers, including representatives of the Organization of American States and the European Union, were on hand. There were no reports of major problems in voting.

Salvadoran front-runner seeks to end decades of 2-party rule

February 03, 2019

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — Salvadorans will choose Sunday from among a handful of presidential candidates all promising to end corruption, stamp out gang violence and create more jobs with the front-runner hoping to end three decades of two-party rule in the country.

The Central American Institute of Fiscal Studies, a think tank based in Guatemala, found great similarities in the four candidates' proposals. Top of the agenda is public safety: roughly 67,000 Salvadorans belong to gangs that terrorize their communities via extortion, murder and other forms of violence. The candidates have touched on ways to generate economic opportunities and restore social values to dissuade Salvadorans from engaging in criminal behavior.

Leading in the polls is Nayib Bukele, the former mayor of the capital, San Salvador. Bukele has campaigned on promises to create a commission to tackle impunity and corruption. He also proposes taxing property and idle agricultural land, levying higher taxes on luxury goods and combating tax evasion.

An election of Bukele, 37, would put an end to decades of two-party rule in El Salvador. Bukele made his political debut in 2012 with the ruling FMLN party, which arose from a leftist guerrilla movement after peace accords ended El Salvador's civil war. Today he is the standard bearer of the Grand Alliance for National Unity — its initials, GANA, mean "win" in Spanish — and he's challenging the political dominance that has reigned since the 1992 peace accords.

A recent poll gave Bukele support from about 40 percent of Salvadorans, compared with 23 percent for businessman Carlos Callejas of the conservative Arena coalition. He was even further ahead of the FMLN's Hugo Martinez, a former foreign minister.

More than 4,500 election observers, including representatives of the Organization of American States and the European Union, will be on hand when Salvadorans go to the polls. If none of the contenders clinch more than 50 percent of the vote, the top two vote-getting will compete in a second round runoff in March.

The country is small both in size and population, with just 6.5 million inhabitants. Close to a third of households live in poverty, while the World Bank says per capita income is $3,560. Salvadorans searching for a better life have joined recent caravans of migrants trekking through Mexico toward the U.S.

Cuban evangelicals push back against gay marriage

February 01, 2019

HAVANA (AP) — A Cuban government push to legalize gay marriage has set off an unprecedented reaction from the island's rapidly growing evangelical churches, whose members are expected to widely reject a state-proposed constitutional reform in a nationwide referendum this month.

The reform is almost certain to pass by a broad margin of Cuba's 7 million voters - language opening the door to gay marriage is only one element of the reform - but the evangelical vote could shave hundreds of thousands of votes from its victory.

With many pastors promoting "no" votes from the pulpit, the swelling evangelical rejection of the constitution is a novel development for a state that prides itself on projecting an image of ideological unanimity. Cuban government-endorsed candidates and proposals typically receive 'yes' votes well above 90 percent.

UN rights envoy comes to Turkey to study Khashoggi killing

January 28, 2019

ISTANBUL (AP) — A U.N. human rights expert has arrived in Turkey for a weeklong visit over the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Special Rapporteur Agnes Callamard and her team of experts on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary killings met with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in Ankara on Monday.

Turkey's official Anadolu news agency said they are also expected to meet Turkey's justice minister and the Istanbul prosecutor heading the investigation. Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who wrote critically about the Saudi crown prince, was killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. His remains have still not been found.

Turkish officials have called for an international investigation and complained of a lack of cooperation by Riyadh. Saudi Arabia has indicted 11 people in the killing and is seeking the death penalty against five of them.

Israel's Gantz slams Netanyahu, unveils hawkish foreign policy

January 30, 2019

The head of the Israel Resilience (Hosen L’Yisrael) Party, Benny Gantz, has ruled out joining a coalition with incumbent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if the latter is indicted for corruption.

Delivering his first campaign speech yesterday, Gantz argued that “a prime minister cannot preside over Israel when an indictment has been filed against him,” adding: “Netanyahu is no king, his government sows division and incitement.”

Gantz did not hold back on attacking Netanyahu, though stopped short of mentioning the prime minister by name. “The government we [the Israel Resilience Party] will form will be a national government and not a monarchy. This will be a government without masters and servants, no obscene gifts and no court clowns,” he said, in a thinly-veiled reference to the ongoing corruption cases against Netanyahu in which he stands accused of bribery and receiving lavish gifts from businessmen.

Gantz continued: “Our government will not see ferocious attacks against the chief of staff, the commissioner and the attorney general. There will be no incitement against the judicial, cultural and media institutions.”

Netanyahu has made attacking Israel’s media, judiciary and police a central part of his election campaign in recent weeks, using the blanket term “the left” to lambast anyone who calls for a verdict on his indictment to be released before the general election on 9 April. Netanyahu has been engaged in fervent talks with Israel’s Attorney General, Avichai Mandelblit, to try postpone the verdict, though Mandelblit has not wavered in his commitment to publish his recommendation.

In contrast, Gantz yesterday sought to portray himself as the candidate of “hope”, a breath of fresh air not involved in the political infighting that has thus far characterized election season. Gantz explained:

[quote] “The struggle between left and right rips us apart. Quarrels between religious and secular split us. The tension between Jews and non-Jews threatens us. The mutual guarantee of a shared society is crumbling. Politics is ugly, and the public arena has become poisoned.”

However, onlookers should not make the mistake of thinking that Gantz is a dovish candidate; on foreign policy, Gantz’ message to regional foes was clear. Addressing Iran, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Hamas in turn, Gantz warned each country or movement’s leader that he would take a hawkish position against them were he to be elected prime minister.

“[Iranian] President Rouhani – I will thwart your plots […] to harm Israel”; “[Secretary General of Hezbollah] Hassan Nasrallah – we will not tolerate a threat to Israeli sovereignty”; “[head of Hamas in Gaza] Yahya Sinwar – I suggest you not test me again,” he said in yesterday’s speech.

Since Gantz announced the formation of his party and joined the election race in December, he has maintained a calculated silence about many of his opinions and campaign pledges. Though many thought he could run on a center-left platform – buoyed by his promise to “fix” the Nation-State Law – his campaign video released earlier this month raised eyebrows for boasting that, during his time as the Israeli Army’s Chief of Staff, he had bombed the already-besieged Gaza Strip “back to the stone age”.

Earlier this week Gantz revealed that he has agreed to run on a joint ticket with another former Chief of Staff and Defense Minister, Moshe Ya’alon. Speaking for the first time since the alliance was revealed, Ya’alon yesterday said that he wouldn’t support a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Ya’alon has a long history of positions such as this, opposing Israel’s “disengagement” from the Gaza Strip in 2005 and opposed US-led peace talks.

Source: Middle East Monitor.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190130-israels-gantz-slams-netanyahu-unveils-hawkish-foreign-policy/.

Israel leader scorned for wooing Holocaust-distorting allies

January 30, 2019

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's warm welcome to Lithuania's prime minister marks his latest embrace of an eastern European leader who has offered strong political support while promoting a distorted image of the Holocaust.

Lithuania is among a slew of former communist nations swept up in a wave of World War II-era revisionism that seeks to diminish their culpability in the Holocaust while making heroes out of anti-Soviet nationalists involved in the mass killing of Jews. In Israel, established in the wake of the Nazi genocide of 6 million Jews, many say Netanyahu is cynically betraying the victims' memory.

Lithuania, for instance, has been a leading force behind creating a joint memorial day for all victims of totalitarianism, blurring the distinction between the crimes of the Nazis and the communists who fought them.

It also has pushed for legislation to prohibit the sale of books that "distort Lithuanian history" by citing the rampant, documented collaboration of the local population with Nazis. Most recently it has resisted calls to remove the various plaques commemorating anti-Soviet fighter Jonas Noreika, despite recent revelations by his own granddaughter, Silvia Foti, that he was a fierce anti-Semite who had a role in the murder of thousands of Jews.

Nearly all of Lithuania's 200,000 Jews were killed in the Holocaust. When Netanyahu, who has Lithuanian roots, visited Vilnius last year, he praised Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis for taking "great steps to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust" and for fighting modern-day anti-Semitism.

"It's unforgivable. Netanyahu is giving them a green light," said Efraim Zuroff, the chief Nazi-hunter of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. "It's like praising the Ku Klux Klan for improving racial relations in the South."

"We have to say the truth. We owe it to the victims," he added. In a meeting with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on Tuesday, Skvernelis said "Lithuania has been learning the lessons of the past" and was "improving the life of the Jewish community and restoring historical sites."

At Tuesday's meeting, Netanyahu treaded cautiously. He referred to the "tragedies of the past" but steered clear of any criticism of modern Lithuania, praising the "spirit of friendship" and "a bridge from the past to a future."

Skvernelis' visit comes a week after Netanyahu similarly rolled out the red carpet for President Petro Porochenko of Ukraine, whose parliament just designated the birthday of Ukrainian wartime collaborator Stepan Bandera a national holiday. A regional legislature declared 2019 "the year of Stepan Bandera."

Bandera's forces fought alongside the Nazis and were implicated in the murder of thousands of Jews. As Porochenko was visiting Israel, another memorial was being erected in Kiev for Symon Petliura, whose troops are linked to pogroms that killed as many as 50,000 Jews after World War I.

Netanyahu's outreach in eastern Europe is part of his larger strategy of forging alliances to counter the criticism Israel faces in the United Nations and other international forums over its treatment of the Palestinians.

Critics consider it a deal with the devil. They say Netanyahu — who often invokes the Holocaust when inveighing against archrival Iran — turns a blind eye when it comes to like-minded allies. "It's a specific maneuver that legitimizes anti-Semitism and borders on Holocaust denial," said Tamar Zandberg, leader of the dovish Meretz party.

The prime minister's office did not respond to a request for comment. Under communist rule, the Holocaust was not seriously dealt with and, upon independence, the newfound eastern and central European nations sought to canonize nationalist icons who resisted the Soviets, while largely ignoring their crimes alongside the Nazis. Domestic academics who have challenged the false narrative have been shamed, and external criticism has often been met with new anti-Semitic outbursts.

For countries like Lithuania and Ukraine, the warm embrace of the Israeli leader provides a strong defense against accusation of anti-Semitism while also strengthening ties with a close U.S. ally. Netanyahu has also formed a close alliance with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has lavished praise on Miklos Horthy, Hungary's World War II-era ruler, who introduced anti-Semitic laws and collaborated with the Nazis. Orban has also employed anti-Semitic tropes against the Jewish Hungarian-American billionaire philanthropist George Soros and backed a state-funded museum that experts say plays down the role of Hungarian collaborators.

Netanyahu also struck a deal with Polish leaders over their country's controversial Holocaust speech law, which would have criminalized blaming the Polish nation for crimes committed against Jews during World War II.

Israeli Holocaust historians slammed the agreement, which seemed to accept a Polish narrative that they were only victims of the Nazis. Scholars say anti-Semitism was deeply rooted in pre-war Poland and Poles might have either killed or helped Germans kill up to 200,000 Jews.

Still, Netanyahu has invited Orban and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki — who last year equated Polish perpetrators in the Holocaust to supposed "Jewish perpetrators" — to Israel in February for a summit with the leaders of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Yair Lapid, leader of the centrist Yesh Atid party and the son of a Holocaust survivor, called on Netanyahu to cancel the meeting, saying one prime minister has "published anti-Semitic content" and another "passed a law desecrating the memory of Holocaust victims."

In an annual report Sunday, Israel's Ministry of Diaspora Affairs said 2018 saw a record number of worldwide anti-Semitic attacks, with most carried out by neo-Nazis in Europe and white supremacists. But at his Cabinet meeting later in the day, Netanyahu singled out "Islamic anti-Semitism and the anti-Semitism of the extreme left, which includes anti-Zionism."

Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, which hosts all visiting foreign dignitaries, has been thrust into the controversy. While it says it will never disqualify anyone wishing to visit, Yad Vashem insists it will "forcefully" address any denial or distortion. Yad Vashem said the Lithuanian leader received a comprehensive explanation of the Holocaust, including details about "the murder of Jews of Lithuania by the Nazis and their Lithuanian collaborators."

Duterte sees bombed church, tells army to crush Abu Sayyaf

January 29, 2019

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — President Rodrigo Duterte and his top security officials on Monday visited a Catholic cathedral in the southern Philippines where suspected Islamic militants set off bombs that killed 20 people and wounded more than 100.

The first blast sent people, some of them wounded, fleeing out the church's main door. Army troops and police were rushing inside when the second bomb exploded a minute later. The explosions scattered wooden pews inside the main hall, blasted out window glass panels and hurled human remains and debris across a town square fronting the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, witnesses said.

The attack occurred in the Sulu provincial capital on Jolo island, where Abu Sayyaf militants have carried out years of bombings, kidnappings and beheadings and have aligned themselves with the Islamic State group, which claimed responsibility for the attack.

Duterte walked slowly into the bombed cathedral, where the wooden pews were still in disarray. At one point he looked at the ceiling, where many panels were ripped off by the blasts. Duterte ordered the armed forces to crush the Abu Sayyaf. The group has an estimated 300 to 400 members, mostly in Sulu where it is holding several foreign and Filipino kidnap victims.

Duterte later met with families of the victims at a military camp in Jolo where coffins were laid side by side. Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, who was with the president, blamed the attack on Abu Sayyaf commander Hatib Sawadjaan, who he said has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group.

"This is an act of terrorism," Lorenzana said. "This is not a religious war." Sawadjaan is based in the jungles of Patikul town, near Jolo, and has been blamed for ransom kidnappings and beheadings of hostages, including two Canadian men, in recent years.

Police put forces around the country on heightened alert to prevent similar attacks. The bombings came nearly a week after minority Muslims in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation endorsed a new autonomous region in the southern Philippines in hopes of ending nearly five decades of a separatist rebellion that has left 150,000 people dead. Although most Muslim areas approved the autonomy deal, voters in Sulu province rejected it. The province is home to a rival rebel faction that is opposed to the deal as well as smaller militant cells that are not part of any peace process.

A statement by the Islamic State group posted on social media claimed the attack was carried out by two suicide bombers who wore explosive belts, one detonating at the gate and the other in the parking lot.

Police said at least 20 people died and 111 were wounded. The fatalities were 15 civilians and five troops. Among the wounded, about 90 are civilians. The United Nations and others denounced the attack. The U.N. Security Council late Monday condemned "the heinous and cowardly" attack and "underlined the need to hold perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors" of the attacks accountable.

Western governments have welcomed the autonomy pact in part to ease concerns that Filipino militants could ally themselves with foreigners and turn the southern region into a breeding ground for extremists.

Aside from Abu Sayyaf, other militant groups in Sulu include a small band of young jihadis aligned with the Islamic State group. Government forces have pressed on sporadic offensives to crush the militants, and Duterte has extended martial law in the entire southern third of the country to allow troops to finish off radical Muslim groups and other insurgents, but bombings and other attacks have continued.

Duterte to see site of fatal bombings, Abu Sayyaf suspected

January 28, 2019

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — President Rodrigo Duterte and his top security officials planned on Monday to visit a Catholic cathedral in the southern Philippines where suspected Islamic militants set off bombs that killed at least 20 people and wounded more than 100.

The first blast sent people, some of them wounded, fleeing out the church's main door. Army troops and police were rushing inside when the second bomb exploded a minute later. The explosions scattered wooden pews inside the main hall, blasted out window glass panels and hurled human remains and debris across a town square fronting the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, witnesses said.

The attack occurred in the Sulu provincial capital on Jolo island, where Abu Sayyaf militants have carried out years of bombings, kidnappings and beheadings and have aligned themselves with the Islamic State group, which claimed responsibility for the attack.

Duterte was to meet with some of the survivors and hold a security meeting with military and police officials on Monday. Police have put forces around the country on heightened alert to prevent similar attacks.

"We will pursue to the ends of the earth the ruthless perpetrators behind this dastardly crime until every killer is brought to justice and put behind bars. The law will give them no mercy," the president's office said earlier.

The bombings came nearly a week after minority Muslims in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation endorsed a new autonomous region in the southern Philippines in hopes of ending nearly five decades of a separatist rebellion that has left 150,000 people dead. Although most Muslim areas approved the autonomy deal, voters in Sulu province, where Jolo is located, rejected it. The province is home to a rival rebel faction that's opposed to the deal as well as smaller militant cells that are not part of any peace process.

A top Philippine government official told The Associated Press that an Abu Sayyaf commander, Hatib Sawadjaan, is one of the main suspects. At least four of Sawadjaan's men were filmed by security cameras near the bombed area, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the investigation.

Sawadjaan is based in the jungles of Patikul town, near Jolo, and has been blamed for kidnappings for ransom and beheadings of hostages, including two Canadian men, in recent years. Sawadjaan's faction has aired ransom-demanding videos that used Islamic State-styled black flags as backdrops.

A statement by the Islamic State group posted on social media claimed the attack was carried out by two suicide bombers who wore explosive belts, one detonating at the gate and the other in the parking lot.

Police said at least 20 people died and 111 were wounded. The fatalities were 15 civilians and five troops. Among the wounded, about 90 are civilians. The United Nations and others denounced the attack. In a statement attributed to a spokesman, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice and reiterated the U.N.'s support for the Philippines' efforts to fight terrorism and to carry forward a peace process in the Muslim region.

Western governments welcomed the autonomy pact in part to ease concerns that Filipino militants could ally themselves with foreigners and turn the southern region into a breeding ground for extremists.

Aside from Abu Sayyaf, other militant groups in Sulu include a small band of young jihadis aligned with the Islamic State group. Government forces have pressed on sporadic offensives to crush the militants, and Duterte has extended martial law in the entire southern third of the country to allow troops to finish off radical Muslim groups and other insurgents, but bombings and other attacks have continued.

20 dead as bombs target Sunday Mass in Philippine cathedral

January 27, 2019

JOLO, Philippines (AP) — Two bombs minutes apart tore through a Roman Catholic cathedral on a southern Philippine island where Muslim militants are active, killing at least 20 people and wounding 81 others during a Sunday Mass, officials said.

Witnesses said the first blast inside the Jolo cathedral in the provincial capital sent churchgoers, some of them wounded, to stampede out of the main door. Army troops and police posted outside were rushing in when the second bomb went off about one minute later near the main entrance, causing more deaths and injuries. The military was checking a report that the second explosive device may have been attached to a parked motorcycle.

The initial explosion scattered the wooden pews inside the main hall and blasted window glass panels, and the second bomb hurled human remains and debris across a town square fronting the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, witnesses said. Cellphone signal was cut off in the first hours after the attack. The witnesses who spoke to The Associated Press refused to give their names or were busy at the scene of the blasts.

Police said at least 20 people died and 81 were wounded, correcting an earlier toll due to double counting. The fatalities included 15 civilians and five troops. Among the wounded were 14 troops, two police and 65 civilians.

Troops in armored carriers sealed off the main road leading to the church while vehicles transported the dead and wounded to the town hospital. Some casualties were evacuated by air to nearby Zamboanga city.

"I have directed our troops to heighten their alert level, secure all places of worships and public places at once, and initiate pro-active security measures to thwart hostile plans," said Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana in a statement.

"We will pursue to the ends of the earth the ruthless perpetrators behind this dastardly crime until every killer is brought to justice and put behind bars. The law will give them no mercy," the office of President Rodrigo Duterte said in Manila.

It said that "the enemies of the state boldly challenged the government's capability to secure the safety of citizens in that region. The (Armed Forces of the Philippines) will rise to the challenge and crush these godless criminals."

Jolo island has long been troubled by the presence of Abu Sayyaf militants, who are blacklisted by the United States and the Philippines as a terrorist organization because of years of bombings, kidnappings and beheadings. A Catholic bishop, Benjamin de Jesus, was gunned down by suspected militants outside the cathedral in 1997.

No one has immediately claimed responsibility for the latest attack. It came nearly a week after minority Muslims in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation endorsed a new autonomous region in the southern Philippines in hopes of ending nearly five decades of a separatist rebellion that has left 150,000 people dead. Although most of the Muslim areas approved the autonomy deal, voters in Sulu province, where Jolo is located, rejected it. The province is home to a rival rebel faction that's opposed to the deal as well as smaller militant cells that not part of any peace process.

Western governments have welcomed the autonomy pact. They worry that small numbers of Islamic State-linked militants from the Middle East and Southeast Asia could forge an alliance with Filipino insurgents and turn the south into a breeding ground for extremists.

"This bomb attack was done in a place of peace and worship, and it comes at a time when we are preparing for another stage of the peace process in Mindanao," said Gov. Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. "Human lives are irreplaceable," he added, calling on Jolo residents to cooperate with authorities to find the perpetrators of this "atrocity."

Security officials were looking "at different threat groups and they still can't say if this has something to do with the just concluded plebiscite," Oscar Albayalde, the national police chief, told ABS-CBN TV network. Hermogenes Esperon, the national security adviser, said that the new autonomous region, called Bangsamoro, "signifies the end of war for secession. It stands for peace in Mindanao."

Aside from the small but brutal Abu Sayyaf group, other militant groups in Sulu include a small band of young jihadis aligned with the Islamic State group, which has also carried out assaults, including ransom kidnappings and beheadings.

Abu Sayyaf militants are still holding at least five hostages — a Dutch national, two Malaysians, an Indonesian and a Filipino — in their jungle bases mostly near Sulu's Patikul town, not far from Jolo.

Government forces have pressed on sporadic offensives to crush the militants, including those in Jolo, a poverty-wracked island of more than 700,000 people. A few thousand Catholics live mostly in the capital of Jolo.

There have been speculations that the bombings may be a diversionary move by Muslim militants after troops recently carried out an offensive that killed a number of IS-linked extremists in an encampment in the hinterlands of Lanao del Sur province, also in the south. The area is near Marawi, a Muslim city that was besieged for five months by hundreds of IS-aligned militants, including foreign fighters, in 2017. Troops quelled the insurrection, which left more 1,100 mostly militants dead and the heartland of the mosque-studded city in ruins.

Duterte declared martial law in the entire southern third of the country to deal with the Marawi siege, his worst security crisis. His martial law declaration has been extended to allow troops to finish off radical Muslim groups and other insurgents but bombings and other attacks have continued.

Associated Press writer Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report.

Russia and Putin mark 75 years since WWII siege of Leningrad

January 27, 2019

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — The Russian city of St. Petersburg marked the 75th anniversary of the end of the devastating World War II siege by Nazi forces with a large military parade Sunday in the city's sprawling Palace Square.

Russian President Vladimir Putin later laid flowers at a monument in Piskarevskoye Cemetery, where hundreds of thousands of siege victims are buried. The siege of the city, then called Leningrad, lasted nearly 2½ years until the Soviet Army drove the Nazis away on Jan. 27, 1944.

Estimates of the death toll vary, but historians agree that more than 1 million Leningrad residents died from hunger or air and artillery bombardments during the siege. On Sunday, more than 2,500 soldiers and 80 units of military equipment paraded as snow fell and temperatures hovered around minus-18 degrees Celsius (0 Fahrenheit). The vehicles included a T-34 tank; such tanks played a key role in defeating the Nazis and became a widely revered symbol of the nation's wartime valor and suffering.

During the siege, most Leningrad residents had to survive on rations of just 125 grams (less than 0.3 pounds) of bread a day and whatever other food they could buy or exchange at local markets after selling their belongings.

Among those who succumbed to the deprivations of the siege was Putin's 1-year-old brother. Putin himself was born after the siege, in 1952. The Russian president did not attend the parade, which some civic groups had objected to as inappropriate, saying the day should commemorate the victims rather than flaunt military strength.

The Kremlin also announced Sunday that Putin had signed an order allocating 150 million rubles ($2.3 million) for creating new exhibits at the state museum of the siege. "Today we mourn those who died defending Leningrad, who at the cost of their lives broke through the blockade. We recall those who worked in the besieged city, who, risking themselves, delivered bread and medicine along the Road of Life," Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev wrote on social media.

Medvedev was referring to the ice road across Lake Ladoga that was the only conduit for supplies and evacuations during much of the siege. Tamara Chernykh, 81, told The Associated Press that she still can't forget the tiny pieces of bread that her granny used to put under her pillow as a night treat for a starving four-year-old girl in besieged Leningrad during the deadly winter of 1941-1942.

In the daytime, Chernykh said she and her baby cousin mostly stayed put under several blankets in the darkness. There was no heating during the first and the coldest winter of the siege, when temperatures outside sometimes plunged to -40 degrees Celsius (-40 degrees Fahrenheit).

Chernykh's grandmother, who gave the bread out of her own scant food ration, said the crumbs would bring good dreams. She died from starvation before the siege ended. Germany has allocated 12 million euros ($13.5 million) to modernize a Russian hospital for veterans of the war and to create a center in St. Petersburg where Germans and Russians can meet, the German and Russian foreign ministers said Sunday.

"We are sure that this voluntary action will improve the life quality of the victims of the siege who are still alive and also serve the historical reconciliation of the peoples of both countries," ministers Heiko Maas and Sergey Lavrov said in the statement.

Leningrad siege survivors recall their ordeal after 75 years

January 26, 2019

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — Tamara Chernykh, 81, still can't forget those tiny pieces of bread that her granny used to put under her pillow as a night treat for a starving four-year-old girl in besieged Leningrad during the deadly winter of 1941-1942.

Chernykh's grandmother, who gave the bread out of her own scanty food ration, said they would bring good dreams. What her granny didn't tell her was that while sharing her bread with the little girl she was dying from starvation herself.

The Nazi siege of Leningrad lasted nearly 2 ½ years until the Soviet Army drove the Nazi troops away on Jan. 27, 1944. Estimates of the death toll vary, but historians agree that more than one million Leningrad residents died of hunger and air and artillery bombardment in one of the most horrifying episodes of World War II.

On Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin, a native of the city, will lead events marking the 75th anniversary of the end of the blockade of the city that has regained its old name, St. Petersburg. When the advancing Nazi troops closed the circle around Leningrad on September 8, 1941, Chernykh's family consisted of six members living together: herself, her mother, her 12-year-old brother Valentin, her mother's sister and her four-month-old baby daughter, and the granny.

As the city faced daily air raids and artillery barrage, the family moved to a basement downstairs, where all six slept together on a full-size bed, with the baby in the middle to keep her warm. Like most Leningrad residents, they had to survive on a daily ration of just 125 grams (less than 0.3 pounds) of bread and whatever other food they could buy or exchange at local markets after selling their belongings.

In the daytime, Chernykh and her baby cousin mostly stayed put under several blankets in the darkness. There was no heating during the first and the coldest winter of the siege, when temperatures outside sometimes plunged to -40 degrees C (-40 degrees F).

To distract the children from hunger, cold and bombardments, Chernykh's mother kept reading them stories and poems. Everyone's favorite fairy tale at the time was the one about the magic tablecloth that brought any food desired.

"We imagined how that tablecloth would give us meat, fish, soup, porridge," Chernykh told The Associated Press at her apartment. "As for me, I always had a special dream about a sugar roll with cream."

Chernykh's granny was the first to die. "One morning I woke up to not find her in our bed," she said. "My mom said that granny went to see a doctor, but somehow I understood the truth and cried bitterly."

Chernykh's brother, who helped extinguish fire bombs dropped by Nazi planes, got infected with brain fever and died in a hospital. Miraculously, Chernykh's baby cousin, Galina, survived even though her mother lost her breast milk during the siege.

"They say she survived thanks to the chocolate that Galina's father, who fought the Nazis outside Leningrad, brought now and then from his army food ration," Chernykh said. After the siege, Chernykh graduated from a medical school, worked for the Red Cross, became an honorable donor and wrote poetry about the siege. She has two children and five grandchildren, and at her age is still full of energy, doing up to 10 kilometers (6 miles) Nordic walking daily.

As the city prepares to mark the 75th anniversary of complete liberation from the Nazi siege, Chernykh joined other survivors to remember its hardest moments. They maintained a moment of silence to remember the victims, toasted to the victory over Nazis, sang war songs and danced.

Natalya Malacheva, 68, says her family still keeps a pledge taken by her grandmother during the siege. Malacheva's grandmother and a relative promised on Jan. 1, 1942 that if they survive, they'd take care of the grave of Malacheva's uncle, then a 21-year-old medical student who died from hunger and pneumonia.

"To this day our family takes care of the grave," Malacheva said. "I bring my grandchildren there on important memory dates." Chernykh and her remaining family were evacuated from the city in September 1942, travelling by a barge along the Ladoga Lake that was constantly barraged by Nazi warplanes.

She remembers the joy of a warm porridge with butter that was served before the ride — but still shudders at the memory of another barge with hundreds of people on board that followed theirs being hit by a Nazi plane.

"A sailor on our barge had to cut the towing cable to save our barge from sinking along," she said. "Nobody from the sunken barge survived. It was dreadful to see only a suitcase that popped up on the waves."

NATO to sign Macedonia accession protocol next week

February 02, 2019

SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) — Macedonia will sign an accession protocol with NATO on Wednesday under its new name North Macedonia after parliaments in the tiny Balkan country and its southern neighbor Greece ratified a historic name change deal.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced Saturday on Twitter that "on February 6 we will write history: NATO Allies will sign the accession protocol with the future Republic of North Macedonia together with (Macedonian) foreign minister Nikola Dimitrov." The ceremony will take place at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

Greece had blocked Macedonia from joining NATO for three decades because of the name dispute, saying that Macedonia's name implied territorial claims toward Greece's northern province. Macedonia expects Greece to be the first NATO member to ratify the accession protocol. It will then start calling itself by its new name.

The Greek parliament is expected to ratify the accession protocol by Thursday at the earliest or Feb. 11 at the latest. All 29 NATO members must ratify in order for Macedonia to join the alliance as its 30th member. This is expected to happen by the end of 2019 or the beginning of 2020.

Demetris Nellas contributed from Athens, Greece.

Khomeini launched a revolution from a sleepy French village

February 01, 2019

NEAUPHLE-LE-CHATEAU, France (AP) — From a sleepy village outside Paris, the man who would become the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran sat cross-legged beneath an apple tree, delivering messages daily to hundreds of followers clamoring to glimpse the glowering cleric in the black turban.

For several months in late 1978 and early 1979, the humble site became a megaphone for the pronouncements of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini that were sent back home to Iranians seeking to overturn 2,500 years of monarchical rule.

Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi had expelled Khomeini from Iran in 1964, and he spent most of his time in Najaf, Iraq, a pilgrimage city for Iranians and other Shiite Muslims. But Iraq, reportedly under pressure from the shah, forced the cleric to flee to France in 1978.

Khomeini's entourage in Neauphle-Le-Chateau had only the simplest of tools in those pre-internet days. With telephones and cassette tape recorders, they turned the exiled cleric's cottage and garden into a media hub.

"The fate of the Iranian revolution depended on what came out of Mr. Khomeini's mouth," said Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, who was among the ayatollah's closest aides and later became the first president of the new Iran.

Bani-Sadr was a student in Paris with family ties to Khomeini when he was contacted by the cleric's son seeking help in arranging a French exile. Khomeini arrived at Paris' Orly airport on Oct. 6, 1978, spent a few days in the southern suburb of Cachan, where Bani-Sadr then lived, before relocating to Neauphle-le-Chateau, 25 miles west of Paris.

Today, a large plaque honoring Khomeini's four months in the village stands at the entrance to the unkempt garden that along with the cottage served as his operational headquarters before his triumphal return to Iran on Feb. 1, 1979 .

The house where his team worked has been razed. But the apple tree, spindly and leafless, still stands, adorned with a plastic Iranian flag and surrounded by a red-and-white chain. This week, workers were setting up a tent for an Iranian Embassy ceremony on Sunday to commemorate the brief but critical period in Khomeini's life.

Bani-Sadr, in an interview with The Associated Press, said it was far from certain for Khomeini that a revolution was at hand. "For me, it was absolutely sure, but not for Khomeini and not for lots of others inside Iran," Ban-Sadr said.

He added that Khomeini's son, Ahmed, who was in France with his father and other family members, asked him almost daily, "Are you sure the shah will go and the regime will be toppled?" Khomeini's inner circle included Bani-Sadr, Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, Ibramhim Yazdi and three mullahs. Each was in charge of a task, including dealing with the media whose coverage boosted Khomeini's profile.

Bani-Sadr said he and a group of friends fashioned or vetted the messages Khomeini delivered — based on what they were told Iranians wanted to hear. Tape recordings of his statements were sold in Europe and delivered to Iran. Other messages went out by telephone, read to supporters in various Iranian towns, where they were disseminated.

The activity in Neauphle-le-Chateau put the French government in a bind. Khomeini had entered France like all Iranians at the time, on a passport allowing for a three-month stay. But his activism was increasingly distressing to France, which like other Western countries, was a firm ally of the Iranian monarchy.

Then-President Valery Giscard d'Estaing sent a diplomat to Neauphle-le-Chateau and later an emissary to Tehran to meet with the shah. The French offered to expel Khomeini, but the shah said no, apparently not wanting the cleric to end up anywhere near Iran. The French emissary concluded that the shah's days on the throne were numbered anyway, according to diplomats and press reports.

Jean-Claude Cousseran, the first secretary at the French Embassy in Tehran at the time, denied that France was opportunistically playing both sides or was in the dark about the weight Khomeini carried within Iran.

"There was no ignorance. Everyone knew who Khomeini was, starting with the Americans, starting with the shah," he said. But diplomats kept asking "what will happen next week. ... It's not easy to predict a revolution."

Added Francois Nicoullaud, ambassador to Iran from 2000 to 2005: "From the start, there was no Machiavellian plan." Cousseran pointed out Khomeini had full telephone access to Iran. "That means Iran never forbade calls between Khomeini and his friends," a tactic that would have shut down a lot of the cleric's media operation.

Scores of grateful Iranians brought flowers to the French Embassy, but with what Cousseran viewed as a subtle message that "you will protect him." The Tehran street where the embassy sits was renamed Neauphle-le-Chateau.

The shah, who was secretly ill with cancer, flew out of Iran on Jan. 16, 1979, on an aircraft that he himself piloted. That paved the way for Khomeini's return weeks later. There are conflicting reports as to whether Khomeini's entourage chartered the Air France Boeing 747 that brought him home, or whether, as a French diplomat at the time said in a documentary, that France decided "to take a risk" and arrange for the plane.

Either way, supporters and journalists scrambled to get on the flight, paying the airfare for a coveted seat. "We always said it was the journalists who paid the return voyage of the ayatollah," said Associated Press photographer Michel Lipchitz, who was on the flight.

During the flight, Khomeini was out of sight, keeping to the upper deck lounge of the jumbo jet and praying, Lipchitz said. Khomeini arrived to a hero's welcome in Tehran on Feb. 1. "It was a moment worth 1,000 years of life," Bani-Sadr said. "Extraordinary. Extraordinary."

The plaque in the garden of Neauphle-le-Chateau, inscribed in French and Farsi, says the village name "is forever registered in the history of French-Iranian relations." But the Iran's Islamist government quickly toughened, and France soon was vilified as "the little Satan" when it began taking in members of the Iranian opposition, said Nicoullaud, the former ambassador. Among those exiles were members of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, a politically active opposition group that is active to this day and still despised by Iran.

Bani-Sadr, who had become president in Iran, fell from favor. He said he protested to Khomeini the many executions that were carried out, and fled to Paris in July 1981 in an air force plane piloted by a dissident with the then-head of Mujahedeen, Massoud Rajavi.

Now, Bani-Sadr feels betrayed by Khomeini, saying that the cleric "changed in Iran. He restored a dictatorship." Of the inner circle in Neauphle-le-Chateau, Bani-Sadr is the only survivor. Ghotbzadeh was executed and Yazdi died in exile in Turkey.

Still, Bani-Sadr is hopeful. "A revolution is the beginning, not the end," he said.