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Russia Charges Owners of ‘Whale Prison’

Russian officials have brought charges against four companies in the Far East that have been keeping about 100 whales in small, crowded pools that environmentalists have dubbed a “whale prison.”

The companies, which appear to be affiliated, have previously been fined for illegal capture and have a history of selling the animals to amusement parks abroad. 

Putin ordered investigation

The Border Guards Department said Thursday that it suspects that the four companies captured the whales illegally. It also confirmed the environmentalists’ claims that the belugas and orcas are kept in cramped conditions in a marine containment facility near Vladivostok and that they need to be released. The border guards did not specify, however, when it will happen. 

The border guards appear to be taking a cue from President Vladimir Putin who last week ordered authorities to investigate the case and release the animals.

Whales are worth a fortune on the black market, and the activists believe that they were captured for sale to amusements parks in China. Russian law only allows for the capture of whales for scientific purposes.

Activists raised the alarm late last year when the whales were captured off the Pacific Coast. 

About 100 whales

Ninety belugas and 12 orcas were originally reported to have been kept in a marine containment facility in Srednyaya Bay, near Vladivostok, but local prosecutors said Thursday that three belugas appear to have escaped. Environmentalists also reported the disappearance of one orca earlier in February.

The whales are kept at one location off the Pacific Coast but are owned by four separate companies. Company records and court filings, however, indicate that they are connected. In an interview with Russian state TV last year, a representative for the facility rejected reports of poor treatment of the animals.

One of the companies unsuccessfully sued the Federal Fishery Agency in 2017 over its refusal to issue it a quota for capturing unidentified marine mammals. The 2017 ruling shows that the company had a standing contract with a company in China’s northeast and that the company was unable to prove that the whales would be kept in good conditions and used for educational purposes. The city of Weihai in the Shandong province hosts an ocean amusement park.
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Venezuela Minister: Maduro,Trump Should Meet to ‘Find Common Ground’

Venezuela’s foreign minister said on Wednesday the United States was trying to overthrow the government of Nicolas Maduro and suggested talks with U.S. President Donald Trump — an idea the Trump administration immediately rejected.

Jorge Arreaza, addressing the U.N. Human Rights Council, suggested that Maduro and Trump meet to “try to find common ground and explain their differences.” He also said his country had lost $30 billion in assets “confiscated” since November 2017 under sanctions.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence ruled out prospects of talks. “The only thing to discuss with Maduro at this point is the time and date for his departure,” Pence said on Twitter.

“For democracy to return and for Venezuela to rebuild — Maduro must go,” Pence said.

Dozens of diplomats, mainly from Latin American countries, walked out as Arreaza began to speak, while some European ambassadors boycotted the speech.

The United States and dozens of other nations have recognised opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate president, but Maduro still controls the military, state institutions and oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA , which provides 90 percent of the country’s export revenue.

Maduro also “stands ready for dialogue” with the Venezuelan opposition, Arreaza said.

“There is an attempt by external powers to overthrow an elected government, this goes against all rules of international law,” Arreaza said.

‘Ilegal pillage’

The United States targeted Venezuela’s government with new sanctions on Monday and called on allies to freeze the assets of state-owned PDVSA after deadly violence blocked humanitarian aid from reaching the country over the weekend.

The “blockade” against Caracas amounts to “theft of the assets and gold” of Venezuela, Arreaza said.

Some $30 billion in state assets had been confiscated since November 2017, he said, adding: “This is the illegal pillage of the resources of our state oil company in the United States.”

U.S. refiner Citgo Petroleum Corp is cutting ties with its parent PDVSA to comply with U.S. sanctions imposed on the OPEC country, two people close to the decision told Reuters on Tuesday.

The Bank of England has blocked $1.5 billion and Belgium $1.4 billion, Arreaza said. The Bank of England has previously declined to comment on questions about Venezuela’s gold, citing client privacy considerations.

“The humanitarian crisis is being used as a pretext for foreign intervention in my country,” Arreaza said.

In weekend clashes at the Colombian border, Venezuelan security forces acted with “proportionality and caution,” as humanitarian aid was burned, he said.

Earlier, an aide to President Ivan Duque of neighboring Colombia called for action to end Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis and bring about a political transition leading to free elections.
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UK’s Labor Party to Back Proposal for Public Brexit Vote 

Britain’s opposition Labor Party will put forward or support an amendment in favor of a public vote to prevent a damaging Brexit, the party’s Brexit spokesman said on Wednesday. 

British lawmakers voted 323-240 against a Labor proposal for a permanent customs union with the EU.

“Disappointed the government has rejected Labor’s alternative Brexit deal,” Labor Member of Parliament Keir Starmer said. “That’s why Labor will put forward or support an amendment in favor of a public vote to prevent a damaging Tory Brexit.”
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Macron, Merkel Discuss Brexit, Other EU Issues

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron emphasized Wednesday that the European Union’s remaining members are unwilling to renegotiate a Brexit agreement the British government accepted but lawmakers have refused to approve.

Merkel was in Paris to discuss Brexit, relations with the United States and other European issues with the French president. With the U.K. leaving the EU, the two have positioned France and Germany as the logical drivers of the bloc’s future.

“The Franco-German relationship is the necessary condition to make Europe move forward,” Macron said during a joint news conference with Merkel.

Britain’s departure is set to take effect on March 29. The absence of an approved agreement on the withdrawal and future relations has created deep concerns of possible economic, transportation and trade chaos from a “no-deal” Brexit.

British Prime Minister Theresa May said Tuesday that Parliament will get a chance to vote on whether to ask the EU for a postponement of Brexit day. All member countries would have to approve a delay.

Joined by Merkel, Macron said Britain would need a good reason for pushing back its scheduled exit.

Any delay request would need to be justified by “a clear perspective on the goal,” he said. “We don’t need time, we need decisions.”

“If Britain needs a bit more time, we will not refuse that, but we are aiming for an orderly solution — an orderly withdrawal by the British from the European Union,” Merkel said.

The two leaders reiterated the withdrawal agreement the EU won’t renegotiate the divorce deal it reached with the British government in November.

Macron and Merkel said they wanted to strengthen defense cooperation between their countries, including developing a Franco-German arms industry and a common stance on weapons exports.

In January, they signed a pact to renew a pledge of peace and friendship Germany and France too decades ago to bury the bitterness from World War II. The new pact deals with increased cooperation in the areas of foreign and defense policy, fighting crime and terrorism, international development and research.
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Turkish President Holds Talks With Jared Kushner

Turkish officials say President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is meeting with Jared Kushner for talks that are expected to center on his planned Mideast peace initiative.

Erdogan’s office confirmed Wednesday that the meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump’s adviser and son-in-law is underway. Economy Minister Berat Albayrak, who is Erdogan’s son-in-law, was also present.

Details of Kushner’s plan will be unveiled after the April 9 Israeli election.

He said however, that it will address all “final status” issues, including borders, and require compromises by all sides. He made no mention of establishing a Palestinian state and said the plan would focus heavily on offering economic “opportunities” to the Palestinians.

Kushner’s comments about his initiative have received a cool reception from Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
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Israeli PM Vows to Bar Iran From Securing Presence in Syria

Israel’s prime minister vowed to prevent Iran from securing a lasting presence in Syria as he visited Moscow on Wednesday for talks focusing on regional security.

For Benjamin Netanyahu, it’s the first trip to Moscow since September’s downing of a Russian warplane by Syrian forces that were responding to an Israeli airstrike. The incident left 15 Russian crew dead and threatened to derail close security ties between Russia and Israel.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the start of Wednesday’s talks that “it’s very important to discuss the situation in the region and security issues.”

He added that the high-level consultations are essential in view of the evolving situation.

Netanyahu began the talks by reaffirming Israel’s strong determination to block attempts by Iran to establish a foothold in Syria.

“The greatest threat to stability and security in the region comes from Iran and its satellites,” he said. “We are determined to continue with our aggressive action against the efforts of Iran, which calls for our destruction, and against its attempts to entrench militarily in Syria.”

Moscow has played a delicate diplomatic game of maintaining friendly ties with both Israel and Iran. Last summer, Moscow struck a deal with Tehran to keep its fighters away from the Golan Heights to accommodate Israeli concerns about the Iranian presence in Syria.

Netanyahu noted that he and Putin had 11 meetings since September 2015 and hailed “the direct, open and true way in which we maintain the relationship between Russia and Israel.”

“The direct connection between us has been an essential element that has prevented risks and conflicts between our militaries, and that has contributed to regional security and stability,” the Israeli leader said.

Netanyahu congratulated Putin on the military holiday Russia marked last weekend and invited him to visit Israel to attend the opening of a monument to the Nazi siege of Leningrad during World War II.

“We will never forget the role of Russia and the Red Army in the victory over the Nazis,” he said.

Putin, a native of the city, accepted the offer.

Netanyahu praised “excellent bilateral relations,” noting “more than one million Russian speakers who have made a great contribution to Israel, have turned into a part of us, and have made Russian culture a part of Israeli culture.”
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Mobile World Congress Overshadowed by Huawei 5G Spying Standoff

Robots, cars, drones and virtual-reality gaming sets connected by cutting-edge 5G networks are among the thousands of futuristic gadgets on display at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

While there is much excitement over how 5G will transform our everyday lives, the conference is overshadowed by the standoff between the United States and Beijing over the Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, which the U.S. says could be used by the Chinese government for espionage.

Some U.S. cities and parts of Asia are already operating 5G mobile networks. They offer speeds of over a gigabyte per second and low latency — in other words, practically instant connections with no delay.

Experts say that opens up whole new fields of connectivity, from new generations of virtual reality gaming and communication, to remote robotic surgery.

The technology promises to transform not only the mobile phone in your pocket — but also the world around us, says Paul Triolo of the Eurasia Group, who spoke to VOA from the conference.

“The really key aspects of 5G, like some of the low latency communications and massive sensor, massive machine-to-machine communications, that’s more about industry and industrial uses. And that gets into thing like critical infrastructure so you’re going to have a lot more non-personal or industrial data flying around and that really has people concerned. For example, military forces in countries like the U.S. will also leverage large parts of the commercial network,” said Triolo.Chinese firm Huawei is a big presence at the Mobile World Congress and a big player in 5G network technology.

Washington has banned the company from 5G rollout in the United States, citing Chinese legislation requiring companies to cooperate with the state — raising fears Huawei 5G networks overseas could be used as a ‘Trojan horse’ to spy on rivals.

Attending the Mobile World Congress Tuesday, the U.S. State Department’s Deputy Secretary for Cyber Policy Robert L. Strayer urged allies to do the same.

“We will continue to engage with these governments and the regulators in these countries to educate them about what we know and keep sharing the best practices for how we can all successfully move to next generation of technology. I´ll just say there are plenty of options in the West,” Strayer told reporters.

Huawei’s management has said the company would never use ‘back doors’ for espionage — and the Chinese government has dismissed the accusations.

Australia, New Zealand and Japan have followed Washington’s lead and restricted Huawei’s involvement in 5G. Europe remains undecided — but the industry needs clarity, said analyst Paul Triolo.

“The European community in particular and also the U.S. have to clarify what these policies mean, what a ban would mean or what some kind of a partial ban would mean, if there’s really a middle ground that can be found here.”

Vodafone’s CEO Nick Read told the Barcelona conference that banning Huawei could set Europe’s 5G rollout back another two years.

The eye-catching gadgets show the potential that 5G networks are about to unleash. But the question of who controls those networks, and the data they carry, looms large over this futuristic world.
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US Judge Delays Admitted Russian Agent Butina’s Sentencing

A federal judge on Tuesday agreed to delay sentencing for Maria Butina, who has admitted to working to infiltrate a gun rights group and make inroads with U.S. conservative activists and Republicans as an agent for Russia, after a prosecutor said her cooperation was continuing.

Butina, 30, has been in custody since her arrest in July.

She pleaded guilty in December to one count of conspiring to act as a foreign agent of Russia. Butina’s attorney Robert Driscoll told U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in court on Tuesday his client is ready to be sentenced.

“From our perspective, we’re ready to go,” Driscoll said.

But the lead prosecutor in the case said the prosecution stills need Butina’s cooperation in its ongoing probe.

The judge said she is sensitive to the defense’s concerns, but agreed to postpone sentencing and hold another status conference next month.

“Ms. Butina has been detained for a substantial portion of what she would likely face,” Chutkan said. But, the judge added that “her cooperation continues to be needed by the government.”

The next status hearing is now scheduled for March 28.
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Ukraine Leader’s Associate Quits in Corruption Probe Ahead of Vote

A close associate of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko stepped aside from a senior government role on Tuesday pending a corruption investigation involving his son a month before the incumbent faces a tough battle for re-election.

A confectionary magnate who came to power following the 2014 Maidan protests, Poroshenko trails in the election race, according to latest polls, and critics accuse him of not doing enough to tackle entrenched corruption.

In a program on Monday, investigative journalist network Bihus.Info accused the son of Oleh Gladkovsky, deputy secretary of the Ukrainian Security and Defense Council, of involvement in smuggling military equipment from Russia and selling it to the local armed forces at inflated prices.

Both the son, Ihor Gladkovsky, and father deny that. But Poroshenko’s main challengers in the March 31 presidential election race seized on the report, and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko accused him of treason for harboring corruption in government ranks.

Corruption involving the armed forces is a particularly sensitive subject in Ukraine, which is fighting a war in the east against Kremlin-backed separatists that has cost around 13,000 lives since 2014.

Poroshenko’s spokesman said the president supported Gladkovsky’s departure and demanded an urgent probe.

Anti-corruption bureau NABU said it would investigate. Gladkovsky’s son said he would take legal action against the journalists, while the elder Gladkovsky said he had asked Poroshenko to suspend him temporarily from his duties.

“I categorically reject all the accusations that were made in the so-called investigation,” he said in a statement on the security council’s website.

Ukraine’s top state arms conglomerate Ukroboronprom, which was also named in the investigation, issued a statement calling the report “manipulative.”

Comic actor Volodymyr Zelenskiy is the frontrunner in next month’s vote, according to the latest poll on Monday by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology.

It gave the 41-year-old Zelenskiy, a political novice, the support of 15.4 percent of voters while Poroshenko had 10.5 percent and opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko 8 percent.

If no candidate wins 50 percent of the vote, as polls predict, the top two face a run-off on April 21.
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After Putin’s Warning, Russian TV Lists Nuclear Targets in US

Russian state television has listed U.S. military facilities that Moscow would target in the event of a nuclear strike, and said that a hypersonic missile Russia is developing would be able to hit them in less than five minutes.

The targets included the Pentagon and the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland.

The report, unusual even by the sometimes bellicose standards of Russian state TV, was broadcast on Sunday evening, days after President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was militarily ready for a “Cuban Missile”-style crisis if the United States wanted one.

With tensions rising over Russian fears that the United States might deploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe as a Cold War-era arms-control treaty unravels, Putin has said Russia would be forced to respond by placing hypersonic nuclear missiles on submarines near U.S. waters.

The United States says it has no immediate plans to deploy such missiles in Europe and has dismissed Putin’s warnings as disingenuous propaganda. It does not currently have ground-based intermediate-range nuclear missiles that it could place in Europe.

However, its decision to quit the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty over an alleged Russian violation, something Moscow denies, has freed it to start developing and deploying such missiles.

Putin has said Russia does not want a new arms race, but has also dialed up his military rhetoric.

The Pentagon said that Putin’s threats only helped unite NATO.

“Every time Putin issues these bombastic threats and touts his new doomsday devices, he should know he only deepens NATO’s resolve to work together to ensure our collective security,” Eric Pahon, a Pentagon spokesman, said.

Some analysts have seen his approach as a tactic to try to re-engage the United States in talks about the strategic balance between the two powers, something Moscow has long pushed for, with mixed results.

In the Sunday evening broadcast, Dmitry Kiselyov, presenter of Russia’s main weekly TV news show ‘Vesti Nedeli,’ showed a map of the United States and identified several targets he said Moscow would want to hit in the event of a nuclear war.

The targets, which Kiselyov described as U.S. presidential or military command centers, also included Fort Ritchie, a military training center in Maryland closed in 1998, McClellan, a U.S. Air Force base in California closed in 2001, and Jim Creek, a naval communications base in Washington state.

Kiselyov, who is close to the Kremlin, said the “Tsirkon” (‘Zircon’) hypersonic missile that Russia is developing could hit the targets in less than five minutes if launched from Russian submarines.

Hypersonic flight is generally taken to mean traveling through the atmosphere at more than five times the speed of sound.

“For now, we’re not threatening anyone, but if such a deployment takes place, our response will be instant,” he said.

Kiselyov is one of the main conduits of state television’s strongly anti-American tone, once saying Moscow could turn the United States into radioactive ash.

Asked to comment on Kiselyov’s report, the Kremlin said on Monday it did not interfere in state TV’s editorial policy.
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Green Climate Fund Names France’s Glemarec as New Chief

The $8 billion Green Climate Fund, set up to help developing nations tackle global warming, named Yannick Glemarec of France as its new executive director Monday after his predecessor quit.

Former leader Howard Bamsey of Australia stepped down in July after what the fund described as a “difficult” board meeting marred by disputes between rich and poor nations about how to select projects in developing nations.

“Yannick Glemarec brings 30 years of experience in climate change, development, finance and their inter-relationships,” the fund said in a statement. He has previously had senior jobs at U.N. Women and the U.N. Development Program.

The fund, set up in South Korea in 2014, is trying to help developing nations to cut their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt their economies to extremes such as floods, droughts, downpours and rising sea levels.

It has been plagued by internal disputes and U.S. President Donald Trump denounced it as a waste of taxpayer dollars. He halted U.S. contributions as part of his decision to leave the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

Trump’s decision cut the fund to $8 billion from $10 billion originally pledged. The United States under President Barack Obama promised a total of $3 billion but had provided just $1 billion by the time Trump took office.

The fund has a portfolio of 93 projects in developing nations worth about $4.6 billion. It had been led by interim chief Javier Manzanares of Spain since Bamsey quit.
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France’s Macron Welcomes US Reversal on Keeping Troops in Syria

French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday welcomed the United States’ decision to leave American troops in Syria, a reversal by U.S. President Donald Trump that came after an outcry from coalition allies such as France.

“On the U.S. decision, I can only but welcome this choice,” Macron told a news conference with his Iraqi counterpart Barham Salih. “The U.S. decision is a good thing. We will continue to operate in the region within the coalition.”

In December, Trump ordered the withdrawal of all 2,000 troops in Syria after he said they had defeated Islamic State militants, an abrupt decision that sparked consternation among allies and was a factor in his defense secretary’s resignation.

Macron had personally sought to convince Trump to maintain troops in Syria, French diplomats said at the time, warning him about the risks of pulling out too early.

The United States will leave about 400 U.S. troops split between two different regions of Syria, a senior administration official said last Friday.

 
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