УКРОПИ

Remarks by Belarusian Leader Upstage Sensitive Kremlin Talks

Less than a day before arriving in Moscow to salvage frayed ties with his Russian counterpart, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he no longer considers Russia a “brotherly nation.”

According to a television broadcast by Belsat, a Belarus-focused satellite channel headquartered in Warsaw, Poland, Lukashenko told a Monday Cabinet session that he no longer considered Minsk’s longtime regional ally a fraternal state “because I was informed that Russia is not receptive to it.”

News of Lukashenko’s comments, which were prompted by Russia’s refusal to provide financial compensation for changes to recently implemented export fees, filtered into the Kremlin midday Tuesday, just hours before he was set to head into a closed door meeting with President Vladimir Putin to discuss a range of topics aimed at improving bilateral cooperation.

Less than an hour before the high-level talks kicked off – their 12th face-to-face meeting this year – Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov countered Lukashenko’s comments by declaring a “loss of trust lately” with Moscow’s closest historical ally.

“We don’t trust the work of your customs,” Siluanov was quoted as telling an informal press gaggle in the Kremlin.

Bilateral ties faltered after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, which Lukashenko called “a bad precedent,” likely because the small former Soviet republic, which does not being to the European Union or NATO, is economically dependent on Moscow for trade, natural gas and other natural resources.

Diplomatic relations have been further strained by accusations of what Belarus calls artificially inflated taxes on oil and gas, while Russia has repeatedly expressed concerns about customs violations.

Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan have a duty-free arrangement under which Moscow sends crude and oil products to Minsk with no export fee. Belarus then re-exports some of those goods, pocketing the associated charges.

Russia has used cheap energy exports and loans to Belarus as a way of keeping its former Soviet neighbor in Moscow’s geopolitical orbit, but the arrangement has become harder to sustain as Russia’s budget tightens, partially as a result of Western sanctions.

Russia also has accused Belarus of skimming payments on Russian duties by exporting gasoline and other oil products under the guise of aftermarket oil-based products, such as solvents and commercial chemicals.

Russia unexpectedly refused a request from Belarus for $310 million in compensation from a 2018 change in Russian oil taxes, Belarus’s deputy prime minister, Igor Lyashenko, told Reuters last week.

The Russian government in June approved changes in oil taxes that will see oil export duties being gradually cut over the next six years; but, as a result, Belarus believes it could lose $10.8 billion by 2024.

Finance Minister Siluanov said Russia never promised any compensation to Belarus over the tax changes.

“We consider such changes, including the tax maneuver in the oil and gas sector, as an internal matter of the Russian Federation,” he said.

According to The Moscow Times, the ongoing tensions didn’t stop the men from shaking hands before Tuesday’s meeting, where Lukashenko called on Putin to “not to drag old disputes into the new year.” 

“Overall, I believe our relations have been developing quite well,” Putin said upon opening the meeting, according to an official Kremlin press statement.

“Of course there are some problems, which is natural given the scope of our interaction,” Putin added, saying that both sides had come well prepared to address the most pressing issue – energy relations. “I suggest we listen to both sides even if we fail to reach any agreement,” he said.

Some information in this story is from Reuters.
…

Russia Expands Economic Sanctions on Ukraine

Russia on Tuesday expanded its economic sanctions on Ukraine, adding more than 250 people and businesses to a blacklist first announced at the start of November.

According to a decree by Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev, 245 individuals and seven companies, mostly in the energy and defense sectors, were sanctioned by Moscow.

Relations between Moscow and Kiev have deteriorated since a pro-Western government came to power after the 2014 revolt against a pro-Russian leader, Moscow’s annexation of the Crimea and the outbreak of war in eastern Ukraine.

A total of 567 individuals and 75 Ukranian companies now face Russian economic sanctions, which put a freeze on any assets they have in Russia.

On his Twitter account, Medvedev said the sanctions were “to defend the interests of the Russian government, businesses and people.”

Tensions between the two neighbors have worsened since November when Russia’s coastguard captured three Ukrainian naval vessels and their crews off the Crimean coast.

Among those sanctioned on Tuesday were Ukrainian defense, energy, insurance and logistics companies as well as Odessa’s mayor and other high-ranking Ukraine officials.

Since the outbreak of the Ukraine war, Kiev has taken a series of measures against Russian interests, including blocking Russian internet services and social media.

The conflict pitting pro-Russian separatists against Ukrainian government forces is estimated to have claimed more than 10,000 lives — one third of them civilian — since it broke out four years ago.
…

Turkey Invites Trump, White House Says Nothing Being Planned

A Turkish official said Monday that U.S. President Donald Trump has accepted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s invitation to visit the country.

Presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told reporters after a Cabinet meeting that Trump wants to make the trip in 2019 but a date hasn’t been set.

The White House confirmed the invitation for Trump to visit next year, adding: “While nothing definite is being planned, the president is open to a potential meeting in the future.”

Kalin said Erdogan extended the invitation during a weekend phone call between the presidents on the withdrawal of American troops from Syria.

Trump tweeted Sunday that he had a “long and productive” call with Erdogan in which they discussed “the slow & highly coordinated” pullout of U.S. military personnel.

 
…

Pope: Forgo Greed and Gluttony of Christmas for Simple Love

Pope Francis urged Christians on Monday to forgo the greed, gluttony and materialism of Christmas and to focus instead on its message of simplicity, charity and love.

Francis celebrated a Christmas Eve Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, opening a busy week for the pope that includes a Christmas Day message and blessing, a Dec. 26 prayer, New Year’s Eve vespers and a Jan. 1 Mass.

During his homily Monday, Francis lamented that many people find their life’s meaning in possessions when the biblical story of Christ’s birth emphasizes that God appeared to people who were poor when it came to earthly possessions, but faithful.

“Standing before the manger, we understand that the food of life is not material riches but love, not gluttony but charity, not ostentation but simplicity,” Francis said, dressed in simple white vestments.

“An insatiable greed marks all human history, even today, when paradoxically a few dine luxuriantly while all too many go without the daily bread needed to survive,” he said.

Francis has focused on the world’s poor and downtrodden, its refugees and marginalized, during his five-year papacy. The Catholic Church’s first pope from Latin American instructed the Vatican to better care for the homeless around Rome, opening a barber shop, shower and medical clinic for them in the embracing colonnade of St. Peter’s Square.

To extend his outreach this Christmas, Francis sent his trusted secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, to Iraq to celebrate with the country’s long-suffering Christians.

Catholics are among the religious minorities targeted for Islamic State-inspired violence that has driven tens of thousands from their homes.

Parolin met Monday in Baghdad with Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi. He is scheduled in the coming days to travel to northern Iraq to meet with Kurdish leaders in Irbil and to celebrate Mass in Qaraqosh in the Nineveh plains, near Mosul, according to the Vatican.

The Vatican has for years expressed concern about the exodus of Christians from communities that have existed since the time of Jesus, and urged them to return when security conditions permit.

Francis is likely to refer to the plight of Christians in Iraq and Syria during his Christmas Day “Urbi et Orbi” (To the city and the world) speech. He is scheduled to deliver it Tuesday from the loggia of St. Peter’s and again at Mass on New Year’s Day, which the church marks as its world day for peace.

 
…

Russian Envoy: Bad Relations With US Unlikely to Improve

Russian envoy: Bad relations with US unlikely to improvRussia’s U.N. ambassador says relations between Moscow and Washington are “practically non-existent,” which he says is bad not only for both countries but for the world — and he sees little prospect for improvement anytime soon.

Vassily Nebenzia said in a recent wide-ranging interview with a small group of journalists that the Trump administration should offer some incentives to North Korea to move forward toward denuclearization, saying the situation “is stalemated at the moment.”

Russia and China have backed an easing of sanctions to spur momentum, but the U.S. insists that North Korea must first make major steps toward eliminating its nuclear program. 

“I’m concerned that it doesn’t roll back” to the 2017 era of increasing nuclear and missile tests and escalating rhetoric, Nebenzia said. “I think that the U.S. hopefully is starting to understand that the situation may go (back).” 

As for Iran, Nebenzia said he worries about U.S. strategy if its sanctions don’t bring about the changes in behavior the Trump administration wants. He sees “a danger if they go to the limits.”

“I’m worried if anybody wants to go to war with Iran, and that is the enigma and the question — what is the strategy about Iran?” Nebenzia asked.

Discussion on global issues

He said the U.S. and Russia need to talk about global issues including strategic stability, terrorism, narcotics and regional conflicts, and he thinks President Donald Trump “understands pretty well that it’s better to cooperate.”

But he said because Russia has become a major issue in U.S. domestic policies — accused of hacking and interfering in the 2016 U.S. elections which is being investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller — “and given the vulnerabilities that drift around this administration, I don’t see too bright prospects for improving (relations) any time soon.” 

Looking more broadly at the U.S. position in the world under President Donald Trump, whose overarching policy is “America First,” Nebenzia said he doesn’t see the United States retreating.

It’s that the balance of power in the world is changing, he said, “and we definitely witness the rise in a multipolar world” where other centers of power not only Russia and China but India, Brazil and Africa “all want to be a part of the world governance and they want their voice to be heard and their interests taken into account.” 

Trump’s decision praised

Nebenzia echoed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s view that Trump’s decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria was a good move, though he expressed some skepticism about whether the announcement will become a reality.

He said in the interview at Russia’s U.N. Mission late Friday that a pullout “will be helpful and conducive to the eventual Syrian settlement” of the seven-year conflict.

If and when the U.S. leaves Syria, Nebenzia said, America’s Kurdish allies in the northeast should reintegrate into Syrian society, and “their rights and interests should be taken into account in the final settlement.”

Concerns with Turkey

Alluding to fears that Turkish forces could cross the border and go after the U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters, Nebenzia added, ”I think that’s the best antidote for them against any possible bad developments that might take place.”

Nebenzia said former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice voiced his answer to the question of why Russia is in Syria: “The only reason Russia is present in Syria is to prevent another Libya, and that is true.”

He said “Syria was a hotbed of the terrorist caliphate” established by Islamic State extremists, and “our aim was not to let them flourish there” and to restore Syria’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Nebenzia said the greatest threat in today’s world is not Russia, China, North Korea and Iran as the U.S. national security strategy claims but terrorism — and what’s needed most is “a true coalition to fight international terrorism.”

On Afghanistan

Responding to questions about Trump’s decision to cut the U.S. force in Afghanistan in half, Nebenzia said: “Afghanistan is one country that demonstrated to the whole world that it’s impossible to defeat.”

“That was demonstrated by the British.That was demonstrated by the Soviets and now it’s the turn of the Americans,” he said.

Nebenzia said it “looks like there’s no military solution, and the understanding of that is gaining momentum.”

The government and the Taliban will have to talk to each other, he said, stressing that “the Taliban is part of Afghan society — you can’t write them off.”
…

Trump, Erdogan Agree to Coordinate US Pullout From Syria

U.S. President Donald Trump says Turkey will eliminate the rest of the Islamic State militants in Syria after the U.S. military withdraws its forces.

In a tweet late Sunday, Trump said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “has strongly informed me that he will eradicate whatever is left of ISIS in Syria…and he is a man who can do it plus, Turkey is right ‘next door.'”

“Our troops are coming home!” Trump added.

Earlier Sunday, Trump said the two leaders discussed his withdrawal plan during a “long and productive call.”

Trump gave few details about his conversation. But he tweeted he and Erdogan discussed Islamic State, trade, and what he called “the slow and highly coordinated pullout of U.S. troops from the area.”

Erdogan’s office said in a statement he and Trump agreed to “ensure coordination between their countries’ military, diplomatic, and other officials to avoid a power vacuum which could result following any abuse of the withdrawal and transition phase in Syria.”

Erdogan said late last week that Turkey is postponing an operation against Kurdish forces in Syria in the wake of Trump’s decision.

Trump has declared Islamic State defeated and says it is time for other members of the anti-Islamic State coalition to step in and clean up the last remaining pockets. 

But his decision to leave Syria is unpopular among many in Washington, including within his own administration.

Trump’s Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and special envoy to the global coalition fighting Islamic State Brett McGurk have both resigned, at least in part, because of Syria.

But acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said on ABC’s This Week broadcast Trump will not change his mind 

“I think the president has told people from the very beginning that he doesn’t want us to stay in Syria forever…you’re seeing the end result now of two years of work.”

Mulvaney was asked about the Mattis and McGurk resignations and said it is “not unusual” for Cabinet members to resign “over these types of disagreements.”

Republican Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said Sunday he is “devastated” by the decision and calls the United States “unreliable.”

French President Emmanuel Macron said that he “deeply regrets” Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria.

Meanwhile, witnesses say Turkish forces have started massing on the border of the northern Syrian town of Manbij controlled by U.S. forces and their Kurdish allies.

Turkish military officials have not given an exact reason why their troops have headed to Manbij.

But Turkey has angrily accused the United States and the Kurds of failing to carry out their deal to pull out of Manbij.

Turkey accuses the U.S.-backed YPG Kurdish militia, of being a terrorist group and tied to the Kurdistan Workers Party — which has been fighting a long insurgency for more Kurdish autonomy in Turkey.
…

US Allies Reeling from ‘Trump Withdrawal’ Scramble in Syria

British and French officials are scrambling to determine how they can maintain military pressure on the Islamic State terror group once the United States has pulled out its ground forces from northeast Syria.

Both countries have said they plan to continue airstrikes and ground operations in Syria, but the timing and scope of the U.S. withdrawal, say officials still reeling from President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces, remains unclear and is complicating war-planning in London and Paris.

The British and French governments are trying also to gain a clearer understanding, say officials, of Turkish military intentions in northeast Syria, and when or if the Turks, as they have threatened, launch an offensive east of the Euphrates River to attack the Western-allied Kurdish Peoples’ Protection Units, or YPG.

The YPG is the main formation in the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, the West’s only ground partner in the fight against IS. Turkey has been restrained from moving into Syria’s Kurdish-controlled northeast in the past by the presence of U.S. troops. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he would delay an offensive possibly for several months, although the Kurds say his concession shouldn’t be taken at face value.

President Erdogan has threatened to smash the Western-allied Kurdish forces in northern Syria, arguing they are indistinguishable from militant Kurdish separatists in Turkey, who have waged a three-decade-long insurgency. Kurdish leaders hope Washington will continue to press the Turks to hold off. “It’s their duty to prevent any attack and to put an end to Turkish threats,” says Aldar Khalil, a senior Kurdish official.

In the meantime, they are renewing talks with Damascus, using the northeastern oil fields, which they control, as leverage to strike a semi-autonomy deal with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

A critical question for London and Paris, say defense officials in both capitals, is whether the YPG will be able to keep control of the 800 IS prisoners it holds, many from European countries.

Kurdish officials warned Friday French President Emmanuel Macron’s representative to Syria, François Senemand, that if Turkey does attack, it would create a chaotic situation in which they might not be able to spare the guards to make sure IS detainees are secure — let alone continue with an offensive against remaining IS formations along the border with Iraq.

The IS prisoners include two Britons accused of being members of the so-called “Beatles” murder cell, responsible for the torture and beheading of Western journalists and aid workers, including American reporters James Foley and Steve Sotloff.

The Kurds have long pleaded with European governments to repatriate foreign fighters to be prosecuted in their home countries, but to no avail, despite the Kurdish pleas being echoed by Washington and the families of journalists and aid workers murdered by IS.

Now there’s rising alarm in Western capitals that the U.S. withdrawal may trigger a chain of events that will lead to IS prisoners either escaping or being released by the Kurds, with the risk they could find their way back to the West, posing a major security headache for European governments. The Kurds say the only way to ensure their detention is for France and Britain to play a bigger military role in northern Syria. Some observers view the Kurds’ warning about IS detainees as an ultimatum.

“Under the threat of the Turkish state, and with the possibility of Daesh [Islamic State] reviving once again, I fear the situation will get out of control and we will no longer be able to contain them,” Ilham Ahmed, a Kurdish official told reporters Friday in Paris.

France has 200 special forces soldiers operating in Syria’s Kurdish northeast as well as artillery units, part of an anti-IS international coalition trying to root out remaining pockets of militant fighters.

French Defense Minister Florence Parly told a French radio station she disagrees with President Trump’s assessment that IS has all but been annihilated.

“It’s an extremely grave decision and we think, the job must be finished,” she said speaking three days after Trump tweeted his order for U.S. ground troops to depart Syria, declaring IS defeated. U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis resigned in protest midweek after he and other U.S. military and national security staff failed to persuade the U.S. leader to reverse his decision.

On Saturday, it emerged Brett McGurk, the special presidential envoy for the global coalition to counter IS, has also resigned in protest.

When Trump made his pull-out decision, McGurk was in Iraq briefing coalition partners about how the U.S. remained committed to keeping troops in Syria, both to finish off IS and counter Iran. His departure has added to fears that without the U.S. playing a leading role the 77-nation anti-IS coalition will fall apart.

Britain’s defense minister has also pledged to maintain British airstrikes on IS targets in Syria, saying that although the anti-IS coalition has rolled up the militant’ territorial caliphate, IS “as an ideology and as an organization has become more dispersed. He warns of a possible IS resurgence. “We recognize we’ve got to continue to keep a foot on the throat of Daesh,” said Gavin Williamson, using an Arab acronym for IS.

As well as mounting airstrikes, British commandos have been deployed in northern Syria. They are currently engaged with American special forces alongside the SDF in the mid-Euphrates valley, where an offensive has been underway since early September against 2,000 to 8,000 IS fighters, most of whom fled from Raqqa and Mosul when those cities fell.

Despite progress, including capturing the town of Hajin, the offensive there have been episodic reversals with IS mounting mobile counter-attacks under the cover of winter sandstorms and fog, say British and American officials. U.S. airstrikes have been crucial in the battle.

In October, the Kurds halted the offensive after Turkey bombarded Kurdish positions near Kobani, a town on the Turkish-Syrian border, where some of the Kurds’ IS prisoners are being detained.

Asked if British forces could continue to operate without considerable American military support, Williamson responded: “We’re going to continue to look at all our options.” Officials acknowledge Anglo-French options would be much reduced, if they’re unable to call on U.S. air support, something that the Pentagon has so far not clarified.

Some independent analysts have warned also that declaring victory over IS is premature. In a report issued last month by the International Center for Counter-Terrorism, a think tank based in The Hague, three analysts, Liesbeth van der Heide, Charlie Winter and Shiraz Maher, warned the militant group has the capacity to regroup.

“Its shift towards clandestine tactics has left it a more slippery foe,” they argued. “The organization has now changed trajectory, its overt insurgency devolving back into covert asymmetric warfare. Now, its focus is on hit-and-run operations geared towards undermining stability and discrediting the state. These are being deployed through a careful strategy of destabilization: IS sleeper cell networks are systematically working to subvert security in liberated territories,” they added in their report entitled, “The Cost of Crying Victory.”

Since Trump’s decision, other analysts have echoed their warning. “A U.S. pullout in Syria is a win for ISIS, Iran, Russia, & Assad,” tweeted Mike Pregent, an analyst at the Hudson Institute, a U.S.-based think tank, and former U.S. army intelligence officer. Pregent, who’s been highly critical of both Mattis and McGurk, arguing they have overseen a flawed strategy in Iraq and Syria, added: “We’ll see an ISIS resurgence & a further entrenched & aggressive Iran in Syria — all before Nov 2020.”

But President Trump, who has long favored a U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East, has received praise from some quarters. “Staying in Syria offers grave risk for the United States with no justifying security payoff,” says Kurt Couchman of Defense Priorities, a libertarian-leaning think tank. “Now that the Islamic State is reduced to remnants, and local forces are committed to containing them, it is in America’s interest to bring our troops home for the holidays.”
…

UN: Human Rights Violations Victimize Ukrainian Civilians

As Ukraine enters its fifth winter of conflict, the United Nations says civilians continue to be victimized by widespread human rights violations and abuse perpetrated by both the government and Russian-backed rebels in Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. The report issued by the U.N. Human Rights Office covers the three-month period between mid-August and mid-November.

Ukraine’s civil conflict, which began April 2014 appears to be at a stalemate. However, this has not stopped the warring parties from subjecting the civilian population to gross violations of human rights on both sides of the contact line. This refers to the 500-kilometer line of separation between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatist rebels.

The U.N. has documented hundreds of abuses of the right to life, deprivation of liberty, enforced disappearance, torture and ill-treatment, sexual violence, and unlawful or arbitrary detention.

The report describes the hardships endured by the population due to Ukraine’s worsening economic situation. U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, Kate Gilmore, said large segments of the population suffer from the socio-economic barriers created by the armed conflict. She said the elderly, children, disabled people and those displaced by the conflict are particularly vulnerable.

“Disproportionate restrictions on the freedom of movement along and across the contact line continue to disrupt people’s access to social entitlements, such as pensions and social benefits. This in turn unduly impedes their access to basic services, those that are essential for daily dignity, including, for example water, sanitation, heating and health care,” she said.

The U.N. report harshly criticizes Russia for continuously violating its international obligations as the occupying power in Crimea.

It documents dozens of human rights violations including stifling dissent, instilling fear and denying individuals their freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly. It notes Crimean Tatars are disproportionately affected by these measures.
…

Turkey Masses Troops near Kurdish-held Syrian Town

A Syrian war monitor and Turkish media say Turkey is massing troops near a town in northern Syria held by a U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led force.

Turkey said it would delay a promised offensive in Syria following U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to dislodge the Kurdish fighters, who Turkey views as an extension of the insurgency within its borders. The U.S. had partnered with the Syrian Kurdish militia to drive out the Islamic State group.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the reinforcements were sent to the front line with Manbij, where U.S. troops have been based. The Turkish IHA news agency reported Sunday that a convoy of Turkish troops had been sent into Syria overnight.

 
…

Malta, Italy Both Refuse to Allow Hundreds of Migrants to Disembark

 
More than 300 migrants were rescued Friday off the coast of Libya by the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms. But now they are facing Christmas at sea after Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said Italian ports are closed and they will not be allowed to disembark.

The rescue was carried out by the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms, which said it had saved the migrants aboard three vessels that were in distress from certain death at sea off the Libyan coastline. This included men, women, children and babies suffering from the cold winter temperature.

The NGO said Malta refused to accept the migrants and would not provide any needed food supplies. Open Arms founder Oscar Camps said among those rescued were pregnant women and a mother with her two-day old baby born on a Libyan beach. Camps asked that the case of the newborn who had spent 24 hours at sea be dealt with urgently by Malta.

A Maltese coastguard helicopter agreed early Saturday morning to airlift the mother and her baby. They were then taken to the Mater Dei hospital on the island, though the Maltese government said it would do no more than that.

Proactiva Open Arms asked Italy to allow them to disembark, but Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said Italian ports are closed. And on twitter Salvini added: “For the traffickers of human beings and those who help them, the fun is over.”

Camps angrily responded with his own tweet saying that one day Salvini’s rhetoric would be over and his descendants would be ashamed of his behavior in the decades to come. With just days to Christmas, the fate of these 300-plus migrants remains unclear.

The situation in this area of the Mediterranean has become increasingly complicated this year after a populist government came to power in Italy last March and stated clearly that it would behave quite differently than the preceding government in regards to immigration policies. The new government announced it was closing its ports to vessels carrying migrants and called on the EU to share the burden of the endless flow of migrants from Africa.

According to the International Organization for Migration, more than 1,300 migrants have drowned this year alone in their efforts to make the crossing from Africa to Malta or Italy. 
…

UN Tells Britain to Let Assange Leave Ecuador Embassy

U.N. rights experts called on British authorities Friday to allow WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to leave the Ecuador embassy in London without fear of arrest or extradition.

The U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention reiterated its finding published in February 2016 that Assange had been de facto unlawfully held without charge in the embassy, where he has now been holed up for more than six years.

He initially took asylum to avoid being extradited to Sweden, where authorities wanted to question him as part of a sexual assault investigation. That investigation was dropped.

Bail violation

Assange, whose website published thousands of classified U.S. government documents, denied the Sweden allegations, saying the charge was a ploy that would eventually take him to the United States where prosecutors are preparing to pursue a criminal case against him.

Britain says Assange will be arrested for skipping bail if he leaves the embassy, but that any sentence would not exceed six months, if convicted. It had no immediate comment on the experts’ call, but in June, foreign office minister Alan Duncan said Assange would be treated humanely and properly.

“The only ground remaining for Mr. Assange’s continued deprivation of liberty is a bail violation in the UK, which is, objectively, a minor offense that cannot post facto justify the more than six years confinement that he has been subjected to since he sought asylum in the Embassy of Ecuador,” the U.N. experts said in a statement.

“It is time that Mr. Assange, who has already paid a high price for peacefully exercising his rights to freedom of opinion, expression and information, and to promote the right to truth in the public interest, recovers his freedom,” they said.

​Ecuador rules

Lawyers for Assange and others have said his work with WikiLeaks was critical to a free press and was protected speech.

The experts voiced concern that his “deprivation of liberty” was undermining his health and could “endanger his life” given the disproportionate amount of anxiety that has entailed.

Ecuador in October imposed new rules requiring him to receive routine medical exams, following concern he was not getting the medical attention he needed. The rules also ordered him to pay medical and phone bills and clean up after his cat.

Assange has sued Ecuador, arguing the rules violate his rights. An Ecuadorean court on Friday upheld a prior ruling dismissing Assange’s suit.

“We have lost again,” said Carlos Povedo, Assange’s attorney in Ecuador, adding that the legal team would consider bringing a case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
…

Police Arrest Two in Gatwick Airport Drone Investigation

British police have made two arrests in connection with their investigation into the drone incursions that have hampered operations at Gatwick Airport for three days.

Sussex police said in a statement early Saturday that the arrests were made late Friday, but the statement did not reveal the names or ages of the detainees.

The statement said the investigation is “still ongoing and our activities at the airport continue to build resilience to detect and mitigate further incursions from drones, by deploying a range of tactics.”

The closing down of the runway at Britain’s second largest airport because of the sightings has disrupted flights and has affected hundreds of thousands of passengers.

Gatwick shut down late Wednesday after the first drone sightings and reopened on a limited basis Friday. By Friday afternoon, however, flights were suspended again, following reports of additional drone sightings. Later Friday, the airport’s runway reopened.

“We continue to urge the public, passengers and the wider community around Gatwick to be vigilant and support us by contacting us immediately if they believe they have any information that can help us in bringing those responsible to justice,” the Sussex police said.

Sussex Police Superintendent Justin Burtenshaw said the number of drone sightings at Gatwick has been “unprecedented.”

Gatwick, 45 kilometers (28 miles) south of London, is Britain’s second largest airport. Its shutdowns have affected flights at London’s main airport, Heathrow, as well as other hubs across Europe.

More than 43 million passengers a year travel through Gatwick.
…

Report Puts Russia, China and Iran in Line for Sanctions for Election Meddling

Voters who went to the polls last month in the United States’ midterm elections can rest assured that their votes were registered and counted properly.

However, a new report by the U.S. intelligence community concluded Americans were subjected to ongoing influence operations and disinformation campaigns by several countries, a finding that could trigger automatic sanctions.

“The activity we did see was consistent with what we shared in the weeks leading up to the election,” Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said in a statement late Friday.

“Russia, and other foreign countries, including China and Iran, conducted influence activities and messaging campaigns targeted at the United States to promote their strategic interests,” he added.

Early signs were there

In the months leading up to the November vote, intelligence and security officials, and analysts had expressed concerns that countries like Russia and even non-state actors might seek to physically compromise U.S. voting systems.

But the fears, based on evidence Russian hackers had accessed some U.S. state and local systems, such as voter databases, in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election did not play out according to the new assessment.

“At this time, the intelligence community does not have intelligence reporting that indicates any compromise of our nation’s election infrastructure that would have prevented voting, changed vote counts, or disrupted the ability to tally votes,” Coats said.

The report, required under an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in September, supports the initial assessment by Homeland Security officials the day of the election and in the weeks that followed.

“There were no indications at the time of any foreign compromises of election equipment that would disrupt the ability to cast or count a vote,” Christopher Krebs, director of the DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said a week after voters went to the polls.

Report could spur new sanctions

The new report now goes to the U.S. attorney general and to the Department of Homeland Security, which have 45 days to review the findings. Should they concur with the intelligence community’s assessment, Russia, China and Iran could be slapped with new sanctions.

Those measures could include blocking access to property and interests, restricting access to the U.S. financial system, prohibiting investment in companies found to be involved, and even prohibiting individuals from entering the United States.

Additionally, the president’s executive order authorizes the State Department and the Treasury Department to add additional sanctions, if deemed necessary.

But as in the aftermath of the 2016 election, when the CIA and FBI concluded with “high confidence” that Russia sought to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral process and help then-candidate Donald Trump win election, gauging the success of the 2018 meddling efforts is difficult.

“We did not make an assessment of the impact that these activities had on the outcome of the 2018 election,” Coats cautioned in his statement. “The U.S. intelligence community is charged with monitoring and assessing the intentions, capabilities and actions of foreign actors; it does not analyze U.S. political processes or U.S. public opinion.”

‘Witch hunt’

That impact will likely be debated in U.S. political circles, fueled in part by the president’s own attacks against the ongoing special counsel investigation into Russia’s activities and into possible collusion with Trump’s own campaign staff.

Trump has repeatedly dismissed the investigation as a “witch hunt.”

Still, some lawmakers see the new intelligence community assessment as reason to act.

“The Russians did not go away after the 2016 election,” Sen. Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement.

Warner, who previously criticized the president’s executive order for failing to lay out strong, clear consequences for election meddling, said it was no surprise China and Iran tried to manipulate American voters, and that the problem will only get worse.

“We’re going to see more and more adversaries trying to take advantage of the openness of our society to sow division and attempt to manipulate Americans,” he added. “Congress has to step up and enact some much-needed guardrails on social media, and companies need to work with us so that we can update our laws to better protect against attacks on our democracy.”

Executive order praised

Former officials have urged patience, praising the executive order as a good start and cautioning it will take time to see how well it works.

“I don’t know that it will be a complete solution,” said Sean Kanuck, a former intelligence officer for cyber issues, said when the order was first introduced. “I doubt it will completely change the incentive-cost-benefit analysis of the other side.”

Even after the executive order was unveiled, U.S. officials, as well as social media companies, continued to turn up evidence that Russia and others tried to meddle in the 2018 U.S. midterm election.

In October, the U.S. Justice Department unsealed an indictment against 44-year-old Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova, 44, of St. Petersburg, charging her with helping to finance disinformation campaigns on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, targeting both Republican and Democratic voters.

As with previous efforts, the accounts were designed to make it appear as though they belonged to American political activists and some managed to generate tens of thousands of followers.

Later that month, Facebook said it had removed 82 accounts, pages or groups from its site and from Instagram that originated in Iran and targeted liberal U.S. voters.

But U.S. officials and experts have also warned that the heavy focus on social media and influence campaigns, and the lack of evidence of tampering with U.S. voting systems and databases, should not be seen as a victory.

Saving ‘best tricks for 2020’

They say that just as the U.S. has hardened its systems against attacks and intrusions, cyber adversaries like Russia have been watching and learning, with their eyes perhaps on a much more significant target.

“The Russians were going to save their best tricks for 2020,” said William Carter, deputy director, Technology Policy Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies, predicted in the days before the U.S. midterm elections in November.

“They’re going to let us chase our tails in 2018 and look for them where they’re not,” he added.
…