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."