Ukraine's anti-corruption agency faces strong resistance

December 11, 2017

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — An anti-corruption agency established in Ukraine two years ago was expected to be the driving force that would uproot the endemic graft that depleted the nation's resources and worried its Western allies.

But the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine instead has come under fire from allies of President Petro Poroshenko who are trying to curtail its operations and authority. NABU chief Artem Sytnik told The Associated Press in a weekend interview that fear is behind the recent attempts by political and business elites to weaken the agency that was supposed to be a visible symbol of reform in Ukraine.

"The old and new elites are quite scared" after realizing "there are no untouchables anymore," Sytnik said. Last month, the Security Service of Ukraine and the prosecutor general's office derailed a sting operation by undercover NABU agents to catch a State Migration Service official suspected of issuing passports and residence permits for bribes. The agencies accused NABU of illegal eavesdropping and released the names of its agents, blowing their covers.

Poroshenko's faction and its allies in parliament also have submitted a bill that would allow lawmakers to fire the anti-corruption agency's director with a simple majority vote. Under current law, NABU's chief can only be fired for a criminal conviction, a provision that was intended to ensure independence.

"Those attacks are directly linked to the fact that we investigate an increasing number of criminal cases involving people who are in control of the media, material or administrative resources, which they turn against us," Sytnik said.

Since its creation in 2015, NABU has investigated 461 cases involving business executives, government officials and judges accused of involvement in corrupt schemes. Sytnik thinks the current campaign against his agency results from a probe that targeted the son of Interior Minister Arsen Avakov for alleged involvement in a scheme to embezzle 14 million hryvnias (about $520,000) allocated for purchasing police rucksacks.

Avakov has insisted his son was innocent and alleged that NABU of falling under political influence. International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde expressed concern about the recent developments "that could roll back progress that has been made in setting up independent institutions to tackle high-level corruption, including the National Anti-Corruption Bureau."

"Fighting corruption is a key demand of the Ukrainian society, is crucial to achieving stronger and equitable growth, and is part of the government's commitment under the program with the IMF," Lagarde said in a statement last week.

She urged the Ukrainian government and parliament to safeguard NABU's independence and to move quickly to set up an independent anti-corruption court "to credibly adjudicate high-level corruption cases."

IMF made the establishment of a court where corruption cases could be prosecuted a condition for releasing further installments of a $17.5-billion aid package as Ukraine grapples with the separatist conflict in the east.

In what was seen as another attempt to block anti-corruption efforts, lawmakers from Poroshenko's faction and their allies voted Thursday to dismiss the chairman of the anti-corruption committee in parliament.

"The former and present corrupt elite have colluded," the ousted committee head, Yegor Sobolev, said. "Their plan is to break the independence of anti-corruption bodies, replace them with fake ones and stop the process of cleaning the government," he added.

Popular anger over corruption was a factor in months of protests that drove Ukraine's former Russia-leaning president from office in February 2014. Poroshenko's failure to oversee progress has caused growing impatience and triggered calls for his impeachment led by Mikheil Saakashvili, the former Georgia president turned Ukrainian opposition leader.

After leading several rallies in Kiev, Saakashvili was arrested Friday on allegations that he colluded with Ukrainian businessmen tied to Russia to topple the president. Saakashvili scoffed at the charges, alleging they resulted from longtime hostility between him and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"The detention of Saakashvili shows how far Poroshenko is ready to go to muzzle his opponents and those who expose corruption," Sobolev said. Thousands of Saakashvili's supporters marched across the Ukrainian capital Sunday, demanding his release and calling for Poroshenko to be impeached.

"Poroshenko is continuing the worst traditions of the old nomenklatura," said Vitaly Shabunin, the head of watchdog group the Center for Fighting Corruption. "The same old elites, the same people have taken different political slogans, but their way of thinking and their goals have remained the same."

Saakashvili refuses to give himself up in Ukraine

December 06, 2017

MOSCOW (AP) — Georgia's former president, who has become Ukraine's top opposition politician, said Wednesday that he wouldn't give himself up to authorities after the prosecutors issued an ultimatum. Authorities tried to arrest Mikheil Saakashvili at his home in the capital, Kiev, on Tuesday but he escaped with help from supporters. Saakashvili and his backers camped out outside parliament, demanding the resignation of the Ukrainian president. Prosecutors gave him 24 hours to turn himself in.

Saakashvili addressed the crowd outside parliament, called the Supreme Rada, on Wednesday, saying that prosecutors are welcome to see him there but he won't turn himself in. Police officers and prosecutors went to the tent camp early in the morning to look for Saakashvili but were met with resistance from protesters, the Kiev police said in a statement Wednesday. Two protesters and 11 police officers were injured in a scuffle, the police said.

There were about 100 protesters outside the Supreme Rada late Wednesday morning. The detention of Saakashvili, now an anti-corruption crusader in his adopted home and arguably the country's most popular opposition politician, has raised fears that Ukraine could be facing its most acute political crisis since the 2014 revolution.

Saakashvili has won broad popularity in Ukraine with his fiery campaign against official corruption, riding a wave of public frustration over President Petro Poroshenko's failure to uproot endemic graft. He has staged a series of rallies calling for the president's resignation, but they haven't produced any visible impact.

Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko claimed on television that his office has evidence that Saakashvili's representative received $500,000 from Ukrainian businessmen who have ties to Russia to finance the protests.

Protesters decry corruption in Ukraine, prevent arrest

December 05, 2017

MOSCOW (AP) — Hundreds of protesters clashed with police in Kiev and called for the ouster of Ukraine's president following a botched attempt Tuesday by authorities to arrest Mikheil Saakashvili, a former Georgian president-turned-Ukrainian opposition leader.

The turmoil is just the latest challenge for the Ukrainian government, which has been weakened by months of political infighting and accused of not halting official corruption. Tuesday's standoff began when officers of Ukraine's Security Service, the SBU, went to Saakashvili's home in Kiev to detain him. Trying to resist the arrest, he climbed onto the roof and threatened to jump off, but SBU agents took him down and put him into a van.

Several hundred protesters then surrounded the vehicle and blocked it from moving. They clashed with police, who unsuccessfully tried to disperse the demonstrators with tear gas. After a tense standoff that lasted for hours, Saakashvili was freed by his supporters and led them on a march to parliament to demand President Petro Poroshenko's resignation.

"I will die for Ukraine," Saakashvili shouted to the crowd. "I owe you my freedom and my life." With the yellow-and-blue Ukrainian flag around his neck, Saakashvili urged Ukrainians to rise against "Poroshenko and his gang."

"Don't be afraid, let them fear us!" he shouted. Saakashvili has won broad popularity in Ukraine with his fiery campaign against official corruption, riding a wave of public frustration over Poroshenko's failure to uproot endemic graft. He has staged a series of rallies calling for the president's resignation, but they haven't produced any visible impact.

Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko claimed on television that his office has evidence that Saakashvili's representative received $500,000 from Ukrainian businessmen who have ties to Russia to finance the protest.

Saakashvili rejected the accusation, noting the long-running hostility between him and Russian President Vladimir Putin. When he was president of Georgia, Saakashvili made a failed attempt to reclaim control over Georgia's separatist province of South Ossetia, triggering a five-day war with Russia in 2008. He has repeatedly mentioned Putin's reported threat to have him hanged.

Saakashvili won quick support from Tuesday other Ukrainian opposition leaders, including former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Speaking in parliament, Tymoshenko criticized the SBU's attempt to arrest Saakashvili as "political terror."

Oksana Syroyed of the Self Reliance Party also denounced the attempted arrest as an action by a "despotic machine." But while opposition leaders expressed support for Saakashvili, their activists stayed away from the street protest, reflecting a cautious stance toward a potential competitor.

"Opposition parties see him as a rival and aren't in a hurry to support the protest," said Volodymyr Fesenko, a Kiev-based political analyst. Fesenko also said while Saakashvili has enough support to stage rallies, he lacks the power to force a government change.

"They can make a lot of noise, but most Ukrainians are wary of the negative and unpredictable consequences of a new Maidan," Fesenko said, referring to the 2014 protests on Kiev's main square that drove out Ukraine's former Russia-leaning President Viktor Yanukovych.

Poroshenko named Saakashvili as governor of the Odessa region in 2015, but he stepped down the following year after falling out with the president. Earlier this year, Poroshenko stripped him of Ukrainian citizenship while he was out of the country, but Saakashvili came back in September, helped by supporters who broke through a police line at the Polish border.

The tensions in Kiev come as fighting continues between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. The conflict, which erupted after Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea, has left more than 10,000 people dead since then.

The Kremlin, meanwhile, was clearly relishing the turmoil in Kiev. "We are watching those developments with interest," Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "It's Ukraine's headache. It's something you wouldn't wish to even your enemy, but, of course, we don't consider the Ukrainian people our enemy."

Yuras Karmanau contributed to this report from Minsk, Belarus.

Poland: Time abroad, in finance seen as assets of PM nominee

December 07, 2017

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland Finance Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, a former banker, would bring to the office of prime minister economic and international experience seen as assets while the country faces criticism from other European Union members for policies that have aroused concerns of democratic backsliding.

Morawiecki, 49, is widely considered one of the Polish government's most competent Cabinet members and has the trust of ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski even though he is a relative newcomer who became Law and Justice member only after he joined the government.

As minister of finance and economic development, he has been given credit for overseeing an economy that has boomed in the two years since Law and Justice assumed power, with growth at over 4 percent and unemployment at a record low of under 7 percent.

The question remains if Morawiecki will take direction from the powerful Kaczynski as outgoing Prime Minister Beata Szydloto did or try to pursue an independent path. His background in many ways makes him an unusual choice for the populist Law and Justice.

Before joining the government, Morawiecki ran the bank BZ WBK, which is controlled by Spain's Santander Group. The ruling party on whose behalf he will be leading Poland's government seeks to limit foreign influence and global capitalism, and has increased state spending on welfare programs.

Morawiecki is the son of a prominent pro-democracy activist of the 1980s who is now a lawmaker, Kornel Morawiecki. His political activity began in an independent students' union and his father's anti-communist organization, Fighting Solidarity. For his activism, he says he was arrested and beaten by communist security forces.

He studied history in his hometown of Wroclaw in southwest of Poland, graduated from the Business and Administration Department of the Wroclaw University of Science and Technology and obtained an MBA degree from Wroclaw University of Economics. He later studied at Central Connecticut State University and also in Germany, Switzerland and at Northwestern University in the U.S. state of Illinois.

With his foreign studies and professional experience, Morawiecki, who speaks English and German, could be better prepared than Szydlo to represent the country abroad as Poland faces off against the EU over a proposed overhaul of the judiciary and other policies seen as anti-democratic.

He was on the government team that negotiated the financial terms of Poland's 2004 accession to the European Union and then went into the banking sector eventually serving as the chairman of the board of managers for the BZ WBK.

He was an adviser to former Prime Minister Donald Tusk, which apparently did not block his political rise even though Law and Justice considers Tusk a foe. Before taking on his government position in the fall of 2015 he served as honorary consul for Ireland.

Earlier this year, he became the first finance minister from Poland to be invited to a meeting of G-20 ministers in Germany.

Leaders of Turkey, Greece air grievances at tense conference

December 07, 2017

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — The leaders of Greece and Turkey publicly aired their grievances Thursday in a tense news conference as a two-day visit to Athens by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan got off to a rocky start.

The Greek government had expressed hopes that the visit — the first to Greece by a Turkish president in 65 years — would help improve the often-frosty relations between the two neighbors. The NATO allies are divided by a series of decades-old issues, including territorial disputes in the Aegean Sea, and have come to the brink of war three times since the early 1970s.

But from the outset, the discussions focused on disagreements. On the eve of his visit, Erdogan rattled his Greek hosts by telling Greece's Skai television that the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne should be "updated." The treaty delineated modern Turkey's borders and outlines the status of the Muslim minority in Greece and the Greek minority in Turkey, among other issues.

In a visibly testy first meeting with Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos, the two engaged in a thinly-veiled verbal spat over the treaty and Greece's Muslim minority, which Erdogan is to visit Friday.

"This happened in Lausanne, that happened in Lausanne. I get that, but let's now quickly do what is necessary," Erdogan told Pavlopoulos. "Many things have changed in 94 years. If we review these, I believe that all the sides will agree that so many things have to (change.)"

The spat continued during Erdogan's appearance at an unusually candid joint news conference with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. The two listed a series of grievances their countries have with each other, including religious and minority rights, the divided island of Cyprus and the case of ten Turkish servicemen who have applied for asylum in Greece following a Turkish government crackdown after a failed coup last year.

"It is very important to strengthen our channels of communication, and this can only happen on the basis of mutual respect," Tsipras said. The prime minister said the two also discussed tensions in the Aegean Sea, where Greece complains Turkish fighter jets frequently violate its airspace.

"The increasing violations of Greek airspace in the Aegean and particularly the simulated dogfights in the Aegean pose a threat to our relations, and particularly a threat to our pilots," Tsipras said.

For his part, Erdogan insisted once more that the Lausanne treaty needed to be reviewed, but stressed his country had no territorial claims on its smaller neighbor. On the topic of the Muslim minority in Greece — which the country recognizes only as a religious minority, while Turkey has long pressed for better rights — Tsipras said his government agreed that improvements must be made in their quality of life.

"But issues that concern reforms involving Greek citizens are not an issue of negotiation between countries," he said. Tsipras noted it was unclear exactly what Erdogan was seeking with his call to update the 1923 treaty.

"The truth is I am a little confused about what he is putting on the table," he said. Greeks have been aghast at Erdogan's previous comments over possibly revising the Lausanne treaty, fearing that could harbor territorial claims.

Erdogan and Tsipras also sparred over Cyprus, a Mediterranean island divided since a 1974 Turkish invasion into a Turkish-occupied north and an internationally recognized Greek Cypriot south. Another round of internationally-brokered peace talks to reunify the island failed earlier this year.

"Who left the table? Southern Cyprus did ... we want the issue to reach a fair and lasting solution but that is not southern Cyprus' concern," Erdogan said. Tsipras retorted: "My dear friend, Mr. President, we must not forget that this issue remains unresolved because 43 years ago there was an illegal invasion and occupation of the northern part of Cyprus."

Erdogan also raised the issue of Athens having no official mosque, to which Tsipras responded by saying Greece had restored several mosques around the country, including a centuries-old mosque in Athens.

The refugee crisis appeared to be the only issue the two sides did not disagree on, with both noting they had shared a significant burden of the migration flows into the European Union. More than a million people crossed from Turkey through Greece at the height of the crisis.

Later Thursday, several hundred leftist, anarchist and Kurdish protesters held a peaceful march through Athens against Erdogan's visit. On Friday, Erdogan will visit the northeastern town of Komotini to meet with members of Greece's Muslim minority.

Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, Derek Gatopoulos and Nicholas Paphitis in Athens contributed.

22 detained as Greeks mark 2008 police shooting of teenager

December 06, 2017

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Rioting youths hurled fire bombs, set up street barricades and damaged storefronts in Greece's two largest cities Wednesday, violence that broke out after marches marking the ninth anniversary of the fatal police shooting of a teenager and continued on-and-off for several hours.

The clashes in Athens and Thessaloniki coincided with a police security operation to prepare for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's two-visit to Greece, which starts Thursday. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

Authorities said at least 22 people were detained for questioning in the Greek capital, where a pair of rallies drew several thousand participants. Some youths proceeded to hurl stones, flares and Molotov cocktails at police officers and set a parked car ablaze, police said.

The unruly rowdy demonstrators also blocked streets with burning trash bins and material taken from construction sites. Similar scenes unfolded in Thessaloniki, Greece's second-largest city, where protesters threw rocks at police from the top of apartment buildings. locks.

About 2,000 police were deployed in Athens for the events marking the 2008 death of 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos. A police officer shot the boy while he was out with friends in Exarchia, a central Athens neighborhood popular with anarchists.

The policeman who fired the fatal shot said he didn't intend to shoot Grigoropoulos. He was convicted of deliberate manslaughter and is serving a life sentence. The teenager's death sparked riots across Greece that lasted for weeks. Athens was the hit the worst, with many stores, buildings, and vehicles in the capital smashed and burned.

Kantouris reported from Thessaloniki, Greece.

Snow disrupts road, air travel in England and northern Wales

December 10, 2017

LONDON (AP) — Snow is causing travel disruptions across central England and northern Wales, grounding flights, shutting down roads and causing traffic accidents. Birmingham and London Stansted Airports suspended flights as runways were cleared. The airports both advised passengers to contact their airlines to check their flight status.

"Please be advised that flight delays and cancellations are expected due to the adverse weather conditions," Stansted warned. The M1 motorway — the main highway between London and northeast England — was partially closed in Leicestershire.

Police in Wales warned against all but the most essential travel amid persistent snowfall that is forecast to last throughout the day. Strong winds slammed into Welch coast. The Met Office warned of wind and rain for London and southern England, with gusts of up to 70 mph (110 kph) predicted. Parts of the British capital were coated with snow Sunday morning.