From The Alpha and the Omega - Chapter Eight
by Jim A. Cornwell, Copyright © 1995, all rights reserved
"KING OF THE NORTH 2019 JULY-SEPTEMBER"

    This file is attached to http://www.mazzaroth.com/ChapterEight/BeastThatCameOutOfTheSea.htm from “Beast That Came Out Of The Sea” - Chapter Eight by Jim A. Cornwell, Copyright © 1995, all rights reserved.
Or return to King Of The North 2019 April-June or continue to King Of The North 2019 October-December

KING OF THE NORTH 2019 JULY-SEPTEMBER

WTO REGION 6 IN 1995 CENTRAL ASIA - RUSSIA, ARMENIA, GEORGIA, AZERBIJIAN, CUBA
  • Today Central Asia stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to China in the east and from Afghanistan in the south to Russia in the north.    The region consists of the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

WTO REGION 5 IN 1995 WESTERN ASIA/EASTERN EUROPE – BALKAN STATES, POLAND, ROMANIA, HUNGARY, BULGARIA, CZECHO-SLOVAKIA, YUGOSLAVIA, ALBANIA, ESTONIA, LATVIA, LITHUANIA.
  • Today Western Asia is 23 countries as a subregion: Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cyprus, Gaza Strip, Georgia, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syrian Arab Republic, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, West Bank and Yemen.
  • Today Eastern Europe is the eastern part of the European continent.    There is no consensus on the precise area it covers, partly because the term has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, cultural, and socioeconomic connotations.    It is projected to be *Cyprus, *Czech Republic, *Estonia, *Hungary, *Latvia, *Lithuania, *Malta, *Poland, *Slovakia, Slovenia, *Bulgaria, *Romania and *Croatia.
        The above countries with an * in front of them are part of the European Union in todays world.
    • The Balkan peninsula or the region includes: (Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Croatia, Italy, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia) with Greece and Turkey excluded.
    • Bosnia, Kosovo, Serbia, Albania, Montenegro and Moldova are part of the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) set up to help ex-communist states harmonise their economic and legal systems with EU demands.
    • On 2/6/2019 Macedonia the tiny ex-Yugoslav republic became the 30th member of a formal signing of the NATO accession protocol and expects Macedonia – now known officially as North Macedonia to formally join the alliance in 2020.    Three other ex-Yugoslav republics – Slovenia, Croatia and Montenegro – have already joined NATO, as have other countries in the Balkan region including Albania, Bulgaria and Romania.



2019 JULY-SEPTEMBER

7/1/2019 Sweden to boost Gotland air defense amid Russia tensions
FILE PHOTO: Supreme Commander of the Swedish Armed Forces Micael Byden attends the Aurora 17 military exercise
in Gothenburg, Sweden September 13, 2017. REUTERS/Johan Ahlander/File Photo
    STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Sweden’s military said on Monday it would deploy an updated ground-to-air missile defense system on the Baltic Sea island of Gotland in another sign of tension in the region with Russia.
    The new system, developed and built by defense firm Saab, replaces the mobile anti-aircraft guns the military on Gotland have previously been equipped with.
    “Gotland is an important area from a military-strategic perspective,” Micael Byden, supreme commander of the Swedish Armed Forces, said in a statement.
    “Its geographical location gives the island significant military advantages in terms of protection and control of sea traffic, the Baltic’s airspace and the ability to base military units and capabilities.”
    Although it is not a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member, Sweden has close ties to the alliance and has been beefing up its armed forces after decades of neglect amid increased anxiety over Russian sabre-rattling in the Baltic Sea region.
    Earlier this year, Sweden called in Russia’s ambassador after a Russian fighter buzzed a Swedish military plane in international air space over the Baltic, flying just 20 meters away.
    Sweden has in recent years complained over several incidents involving Russian military planes, including violations of Swedish airspace.
    Gotland lies around 330 kilometers from Kaliningrad, the headquarters of Russia’s Baltic Fleet.
(Reporting by Simon Johnson; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)

7/2/2019 Full results of Ukraine reforms to take years to be seen: finance minister by David Ljunggren
FILE PHOTO: Newly appointed Ukrainian Finance Minister Oksana Markarova attends a parliament session
in Kiev, Ukraine Nov. 22, 2018. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/File Photo
    TORONTO (Reuters) – It will take years for the full effects of reforms to be seen in Ukraine, where the government is trying to cast off Soviet-era institutions while clamping down on corruption, Finance Minister Oksana Markarova said on Tuesday.
    She made her remarks to a Toronto conference on reforms in Ukraine where other high-level participants stressed the need for major changes to the judiciary to give investors confidence.
    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy took power in April on promises to root out corruption amid widespread dismay over rising prices and sliding living standards. Ukraine is due to hold parliamentary elections on July 21.
    Markarova, finance minister in the outgoing government, said Kiev was moving to modernize a range of institutions.
.     “We are doing this very quickly but it will take years for the true results to be fully seen,” she said, adding later that “there will be mistakes, there will be a learning curve.”
    Investors, she said, complained about lack of respect for the rule of law, poor infrastructure and a lack of capital.
    “We have to enter right now into more structural, deeper reforms, (such as) land reform. Law enforcement and judicial reforms have to be completed in order for (Ukraine) to be a safe environment for business,” Markarova said.
    Elzbieta Bienkowska, European Commissioner for the internal market, noted the five richest Ukrainians account for 10% of Ukraine’s gross domestic product.
    Zelenskiy’s predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, unveiled a special court to try corruption cases in April in a bid to root out entrenched corruption and ring-fence court decisions from political pressure or bribery.
    David Lipton, first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said western investors were not yet sure Ukraine would remain stable despite the efforts of the government over the last four years.
    “There is a need to have judicial reform under way to bring under control the abuses of business and of power,” he said.
    Another challenge is the low-level war Ukraine is fighting against Russian-backed actors in the east.
    Kurt Volker, a U.S. special envoy to Ukraine, said lack of investor confidence had done “terrible things” to Ukraine’s economy.
    “If there’s a violation of a contract you need to know there’s a way to go to a court and get a fair decision,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the conference, adding he was optimistic that Ukraine could succeed.
    Zelenskiy is due to meet Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau later on Tuesday.
(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by James Dalgleish)

7/2/2019 Flood victims in Siberia complain authorities failed to warn them
A member of the Russian Emergencies Ministry takes part in a rescue operation in the area affected by heavy floods in Irkutsk Region,
Russia in this handout picture obtained by Reuters on July 2, 2019. Russian Emergencies Ministry/Handout via REUTERS
    IRKUTSK REGION, Russia (Reuters) – Russian residents of the Siberian region of Irkutsk devastated by a fatal flood have accused the authorities of failing to give them adequate warning that could have helped save lives and avert damage.
    The floods, which began on June 25 and have hit almost 100 settlements in southeastern Siberia, have killed 18 people, the region’s governor Sergei Levchenko said on Tuesday. The Emergencies Ministry said 13 people were missing.
    “If we’d been informed…there wouldn’t have been these victims, none of the catastrophic destruction that we see here,” one resident complained angrily on Monday to the region’s governor who personally met residents on the street.
    Footage released by the Emergencies Ministry on Monday showed debris and whole houses that had been swept up in the flood and then carried downstream before snagging under a bridge and piling up.
    The Emergency Ministry said more than 1,250 people had been treated in hospital.
    State television reported the flood was caused by freak downpours of rain that caused the river to swell and burst its banks.
    Russian army was called in to help with the rescue operation after President Vladimir Putin visited the area on Sunday following the G20 Summit in Japan.
(Reporting by Reuters TV; writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Peter Graff)

7/2/2019 Austria passes smoking ban, snuffing out fallen government’s flagship policy
FILE PHOTO: An employee shows no-smoking signs in the a printing shop in Vienna, Austria March 8, 2018. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger/File Photo
    VIENNA (Reuters) – Parliament on Tuesday passed a ban on smoking in Austria’s bars and restaurants, extinguishing a flagship policy of the recently collapsed right-wing government which had scrapped the measure after it was already on the statute books.
    Conservative Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s coalition with the far-right Freedom Party, launched in December 2017, imploded in May after FPO leader Heinz-Christian Strache was caught in a video sting apparently offering to fix state contracts at a meeting with a woman posing as a Russian oligarch’s niece.
    The coalition had thrown out an impending ban on smoking in bars and restaurants passed under the previous centrist government.    The decision infuriated health campaigners and extended the bemusement of many tourists who expect nights out in picturesque Austria to be largely smoke-free.
    “After many setbacks and 18 months of political ignorance it was finally possible to set a law in motion that will improve Austrians’ lives,” Social Democratic leader Pamela Rendi-Wagner said after the bill was passed with the support of Kurz’s conservatives.
    With Austria now run by a caretaker government of civil servants until a parliamentary election widely expected to be held on Sept. 29, there is no ruling coalition and the three main parties are forming ad hoc alliances to pass legislation before parliament goes into recess.
    The FPO, which rails against the nanny state and sees the freedom to smoke in bars and restaurants as appealing to its base, opposed the ban.    Kurz, who does not smoke, made clear while he was in government that reversing the smoking ban was an FPO demand that he acceded to as part of their coalition talks.
    Health campaigners also cheered parliament’s passage of the ban, which is due to come into force in November.
    “A good day for the health of Austrians,” the Don’t Smoke initiative, which launched a petition for a ban that was signed by roughly one in 10 Austrians last year, said on its Facebook page.
    Business, however, was less pleased.
    “This … change in the law hits thousands of Austrian hospitality businesses hard and makes an already precarious situation worse, above all in rural regions and for businesses open at night,” Austria’s national chamber of commerce said in a statement.
(Reporting by Francois Murphy; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

7/2/2019 Under pressure from Trump, OPEC embraces Putin by Olesya Astakhova, Dmitry Zhdannikov and Bozorgmehr Sharafedin
FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks to the media at the G20 summit in
Osaka, Japan, June 29, 2019. Alexander Zemlianichenko/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
    VIENNA (Reuters) – When Vladimir Putin announced at the weekend that OPEC would extend oil production cuts, broadcasting a deal before the group had even met to approve it, the move angered some member nations.
    They were dismayed at the leading role non-OPEC Russia, once seen as an enemy in oil markets, was playing in shaping the group’s policies.
    But reality soon set in, and the acceptance that Moscow could help OPEC in its goal of propping up oil prices at a time when it is facing intensifying heat on another front: from U.S. President Donald Trump.
    Trump is putting unprecedented pressure on OPEC and its de-facto leader Saudi Arabia, demanding they pump more crude to drive down fuel prices – a key domestic issue for him as he seeks re-election next year.
    Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh initially expressed outrage about Russian President Putin’s pre-announcement of the extended output cuts.
    “OPEC is going to die with these processes,” he declared on Monday morning, before OPEC oil ministers met to effectively rubber-stamp a done deal, bemoaning the Russia-Saudi dominance of the group’s affairs.
    But by Monday evening, he had thrown his support behind the deal: “The meeting was good for Iran and we achieved what we wanted.”
    OPEC and Russia have become unlikely bedfellows, forging an “OPEC+” alliance to reduce global crude supply to counter soaring output from the United States and a weakening world economy.
    It is a marriage of convenience as both want higher oil prices to shore up their finances, while the alliance could also strengthen OPEC’s position in the face of Trump’s demands.
    “I don’t think Russia is calling the shots,” said Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih when asked if Putin was now OPEC’s boss.    “I think Russia’s influence is welcome.”
    Iran’s veteran OPEC governor Hossein Kazempour Ardebili concurred, echoing his boss Zanganeh’s conciliatory tone.
    “Russia is a big player.    If it announced something in agreement with the rest of OPEC, this is most welcome,” he said.    “We are working together.”
    Iraq, which has overtaken Iran as OPEC’s second-largest producer after Saudi Arabia and has taken its market share in Europe and Asia, also said Moscow’s rising role was positive.
    Such a chorus of approval is a sharp reversal for relations between OPEC and Russia that have been characterized by antipathy and distrust for decades.
    Back in 2001, Russia agreed to cut production in tandem with OPEC but never delivered on its pledges and instead raised output.    That severely damaged relations, and other attempts at cooperation were unsuccessful – until the recent alliance.
    In his book “Out of the Desert,” former Saudi Oil Minister Ali al Naimi wrote that his 2014 meeting with Russian officials lasted just minutes.    Upon learning Russia would not cut output, he gathered his papers and said: “I think the meeting is over.”
CHANGING DYNAMICS
    Putin announced on Saturday that he had met Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on the sidelines of a G20 meeting in Osaka and they had agreed to extend the OPEC+ production cuts.
    Gary Ross, chief executive of Black Gold Investors, said that even if it was “indelicate” for Saudi Arabia to let Putin announce the deal, it showed the changing oil market dynamics.
    “Trump has one interest – low oil prices. Putin wants higher prices,” said Ross, a veteran OPEC watcher.    “Putin is vitally important for OPEC.    And it is still in Russia’s best interest to cooperate with OPEC as half its budget comes from energy revenues.”
    Russia needs prices of $45-50 a barrel to balance its budget and its finances are stretched by U.S. sanctions imposed following its annexation of Crimea.    Saudi Arabia needs an even higher price of $80.    Benchmark Brent crude is currently in the region of $65 a barrel.
    But just as the collaboration could lend Saudi Arabia some support against Trump, who has demanded Riyadh increase oil supply if it wants U.S. military support in its standoff with regional rival Iran, it also gives Putin more than extra revenues.
    Good relations with Riyadh, an American ally, bolsters Moscow’s clout in the Middle East, helps Putin’s campaign in Syria and might even help mend relations with Washington, according to two sources in Russia’s delegation to Vienna, where OPEC officials have been meeting.
    Highlighting those intersecting roles, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak also serves as head of several Russian government commissions on trade and cooperation including with Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey and Qatar.
    Iran’s change in tone, in particular, illustrates the conflicting political and economic pressures it faces.
    Tehran’s falling production, due to U.S. sanctions reimposed and extended by Trump, has reduced its role within OPEC while increasing those of Saudi Arabia and non-OPEC Russia.
    Iran’s exports plummeted to 0.3 million barrels per day in June from as much as 2.5 million bpd in April 2018.    Oil output in OPEC’s exempt nations: https://tmsnrt.rs/2Fx7Lcc
    But Iran is itself also looking to help from Russia, one of just a few countries that has offered to aid Tehran to counter the sanctions choking its oil trade and hammering its economy.
    Two Russian energy industry sources said some work was being done to boost the Iranian economy but talks were slow and difficult, without giving details of the nature of the plans.
(Additional reporting by Rania el Gamal, Alex Lawler and Ahmad Ghaddar; Writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Pravin Char)

7/4/2019 Putin, after three days, says fire-hit Russian submarine was nuclear-powered by Andrew Osborn and Andrey Kuzmin
Russia's President Vladimir Putin meets with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu to discuss a recent incident
with a Russian deep-sea submersible, which caught fire in the area of the Barents Sea, in Moscow, Russia
, July 4, 2019. Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin via REUTERS
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin disclosed on Thursday for the first time that a secret military submarine hit by a fatal fire three days ago was nuclear-powered, prompting Russia’s defense minister to assure him its reactor had been safely contained.
    Russian officials have faced accusations of trying to cover up the full details of the accident that killed 14 sailors as they were carrying out what the defense ministry called a survey of the sea floor near the Arctic.
    Moscow’s slow release of information about the incident has drawn comparisons with the opaque way the Soviet Union handled the 1986 bsp; Chernobyl nuclear power station disaster, and another deadly submarine accident — the 2000 sinking of the nuclear-powered Kursk, which claimed 118 lives.
    Russia, which says the details of the submarine involved in the latest accident are classified, said the fire took place on Monday, although it was only officially disclosed late on Tuesday.
    Until Thursday there was no official word either on whether the vessel had a nuclear reactor, despite intense interest from authorities in neighboring Norway.
    Putin, in a Kremlin meeting with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, disclosed the fact that the submarine had been nuclear-powered by asking Shoigu about the reactor’s condition after the deadly fire.
    “The Nuclear reactor on the vessel is completely isolated,” Shoigu told Putin, according to a Kremlin transcript.    “All the necessary measures were taken by the crew to protect the reactor which is in complete working order,” he added.
    The fire erupted in the submarine’s battery compartment, Shoigu added, and later spread.    Although the Kremlin publicized the Putin-Shoigu meeting on Thursday morning, it was not immediately clear when the two men had met.
    “There has not been any formal communication from Russia to us about this,” Per Strand, a director at the Norwegian Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, told Reuters when asked if it had been informed that the submarine was nuclear-powered.
    “We understand that they brought the situation under control quickly, under difficult conditions, and there was, as such, no nuclear incident that they were obligated to tell us about,” he added.
    “Still, we would have been happy to have been informed of such incidents.”
TOP-SECRET SUBMARINE
    Shoigu, a close Putin ally, told the Russian leader that the secretive submarine, which authorities said had been operating in the Barents Sea area, could and would be fully repaired.
    “In our case, this is not just possible but obligatory,” Shoigu said of the submarine’s repair.    “Right now, we are assessing how long it will take, how much work there is, and how we can carry it out.”
    A photograph of the deceased sailors circulated on social media on Wednesday.    Its authenticity could not be immediately confirmed by Reuters, but it appeared to have been hung on the wall of a Russian military facility.
    A tribute to the men accompanying the photograph called them heroes and said they had served on board a nuclear-powered deep-sea submersible known by the designation AS-31.
    Russian media have previously reported, without official confirmation, that the vessel is designed to carry out special operations at depths where regular submarines cannot operate.
    Made out of a series of inter-connected spheres, which are stronger than the conventional submarine construction and allow it to resist water pressure at great depths, Western military experts have suggested it is capable of probing and possibly even severing undersea communications cables.
    Shoigu told Putin that the families of the dead sailors would be fully provided for, while the Russian leader, the commander-in-chief of the country’s armed forces, ordered him to draw up proposals to posthumously grant those who were killed state awards.
    An official investigation into the accident, likely to be shrouded in secrecy, is already underway.
    The Kommersant daily, citing unnamed sources familiar with the situation, has reported that it looks like the deadly fire was started by a powerful electrical short circuit.
(Additional reporting by Tom Balmforth and Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber in Moscow and by Gwladys Fouche in Oslo; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Jon Boyle)

7/4/2019 Putin says ready to step up dialogue with U.S over disarmament: paper
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during the International Forum "Development of
Parliamentarism
" in Moscow, Russia July 3, 2019. Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin via REUTERS
    ROME (Reuters) – Russia is ready to step up dialogue with the United States over disarmament and strategic stability, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, adding that he discussed these issues with his American counterpart Donald Trump in Japan.
    “I think that reaching concrete measures in the field of disarmament would contribute to strengthen international stability.    Russia has the political willingness to do it.    Now it is up to the U.S.” to decide, Putin was reported as saying in a interview with Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera.
    Putin, who will meet Pope Francis and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte on Thursday, said he talked about these issues with president Trump on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Japan last month.
    “Recently, it seems that Washington has started to reflect about stepping up dialogue with Russia over a wide strategic agenda,” Putin added.
(Reporting by Giselda Vagnoni; editing by David Evans)

7/4/2019 Putin, visiting Italy, says wants Rome to help mend Moscow-EU ties by Giuseppe Fonte and Andrey Ostroukh
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte attend a
joint news conference in Rome, Italy July 4, 2019. REUTERS/Yara Nardi
    ROME/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he hoped Italy would battle to restore fully fledged relations between the European Union and Russia and help persuade the bloc’s new leadership that sanctions on Moscow were counter-productive.
    Putin, speaking at a news conference after holding talks with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte in Rome, said Russia had observed Italy’s efforts to improve battered ties between the EU and Moscow, but fully understood that its room for maneuver was limited by various factors.
    “We hope that Italy will consistently and clearly speak out about its position (on improving ties) and battle for what was said in public many times, namely for the complete return to normal relations between Russia and Europe as a whole,” he said.
    The 28-nation EU slapped economic sanctions on Russia in 2014 following its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula and its support for pro-Russian separatists battling Kiev’s forces in eastern Ukraine.
    The poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England last year further strained relations. Britain blamed Russia for the incident and persuaded its EU partners to expand sanctions further on Moscow.
    Russia denied any involvement in the Skripal affair.
PRO-RUSSIAN
    Both the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and the right-wing League which make up Italy’s ruling coalition have expressed more pro-Russian positions than most EU governments.
    Before taking office last year they strongly called for an end to EU sanctions and League leader Matteo Salvini has visited Moscow on several occasions and expressed his admiration for Putin.
    Italian media have repeatedly suggested the League, which is now Italy’s most popular party, has received financing from Moscow, something Salvini has always denied.
    Putin said on Thursday he saw no insurmountable obstacles to restoring normal ties between Russia and the EU and that he was ready to play his part if no artificial road blocks were thrown in Moscow’s path.
    Conte, who is a former academic close to 5-Star, said the sanctions on Russia were not an end in themselves, calling them a temporary measure, and adding that Italy was working to create the conditions for improved ties.
    Putin, who earlier on Thursday also met Pope Francis at the Vatican, said the onus was on Ukraine, not Russia, to resolve their dispute, a view Conte gently contested.
    “When President Putin, my friend Vladimir, says it doesn’t all depend on Russia, he is too modest.    The truth is Russia can play a major role in overcoming this dispute,” he said.
    “We need to create the conditions for mutual trust.”
    EU leaders on Tuesday nominated candidates for the bloc’s top jobs over the coming years, including Germany’s Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen to head the European Commission.
(Additional reporting by Gavin Jones in Rome and the Rome bureau; Writing by Andrew Osborn and Gavin Jones; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Gareth Jones)

7/5/2019 Poland scolds EU over delayed accession talks with Albania, North Macedonia
FILE PHOTO: Poland's President Andrzej Duda speaks during a joint news conference with his Bulgarian counterpart
Rumen Radev (not pictured) in Sofia, Bulgaria, November 27, 2018. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov/File Photo
    POZNAN, Poland (Reuters) – Polish President Andrzej Duda scolded the European Union on Friday for delaying accession talks with Albania and North Macedonia, days after the EU’s current eastern European members lost out in a carve-up of its top jobs.
    “The European Union shouldn’t treat countries this way when they are carrying out difficult reforms aimed at future integration,” Duda told a Western Balkans summit in Poznan.
    He said these countries had fulfilled many requirements to facilitate talks.
    EU governments failed in June to make good on a promise to open membership talks with North Macedonia and Albania, which face further delays to their hopes of joining the bloc due to resistance from northern Europe.
    The 28 EU states have agreed to take “a clear and substantive decision” on the two hopefuls no later than October.
    Friday’s summit in Poland brings together leaders from a handful of EU member countries including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and many Western Balkan countries seeking to eventually join the bloc.
    French President Emmanuel Macron said this week he opposes further EU enlargement at a time when the bloc is already struggling to find agreement among its existing members.
    Supporters of EU eastward expansion argue it will better buttress the region against the growing influence of Russia and China.
    EU members Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic came away empty-handed in the bloc’s reassignment of top jobs this week, after they spent their political capital in blocking Dutch Socialist Frans Timmermans from becoming president of the European Commission.
    As a vice president of the outgoing Commission, Timmermans has annoyed the nationalist governments in Poland and Hungary for spearheading EU criticism of their record on the rule of law and democratic freedoms.
(Reporting by Alan Charlish and Agnieszka Barteczko; Writing by Joanna Plucinska; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

7/8/2019 Ukraine’s president ready to meet Russia’s Putin in Minsk
FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy holds a news conference after meeting European Council
President Donald Tusk in Brussels, Belgium, June 5, 2019. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir/File Photo
    KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is ready to meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Minsk for talks that would also involve Germany, Britain, the United States and France, Zelenskiy said in a social media video on Monday.
    “And now I want to turn to Russian President Vladimir Putin.    Need to talk?    It is necessary.    Let’s discuss whom Crimea belongs to and who is not there in the Donbass,” Zelenskiy said.
    Relations between Ukraine and Russia plunged after Moscow’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and backing of fighters in eastern Ukraine in a conflict that has killed 13,000 people.
(Reporting by Natalia Zinets; writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Catherine Evans)

7/8/2019 Russia calls Georgian TV tirade against Putin a ploy to derail ties by Andrew Osborn and Tom Balmforth
FILE PHOTO: Russia's President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting with members of the Security Council
in Moscow, Russia July 5, 2019. Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin via REUTERS
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia on Monday condemned an obscenity-laden tirade against President Vladimir Putin by a Georgian television presenter, calling it an unacceptable political provocation by radical forces designed to spoil relations.
    Georgia’s Rustavi 2 TV station on Sunday broadcast a program called Post Scriptum during which the host, Giorgi Gabunia, speaking in Russian, used offensive language to graphically insult Putin and the Russian people.
    Gabunia called Russian people, many of whom like to holiday in the former Soviet republic, slaves and told them to get out of Georgia with whom Russia fought a short war in 2008.
    “We regard this (the verbal attack) as another overt provocation by radical Georgian forces designed to undermine Russian-Georgian relations,” Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
    “The current outrageous incident is a clear example of where rabid anti-Russian sentiment leads.”
    Relations between Georgia and Russia have come under serious strain in recent weeks after anti-Kremlin protests erupted in Tbilisi when Russian lawmaker Sergei Gavrilov, invited to Georgia by local pro-government parliamentarians, addressed the chamber from the speaker’s chair in Russian.
    Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili blamed Moscow for the unrest that followed, which saw dozens of protesters and journalists injured, suggesting a “fifth column” loyal to Moscow had stirred up the trouble.
    Many Georgians who took to the streets said they were angry about the continued presence of Russian troops on Georgian soil after the two countries fought a short war in 2008 which Moscow won.
    The Kremlin responded to the unrest by suspending passenger flights between the two countries, a move it said was necessary to protect Russian citizens from what it described as a dangerous outburst of anti-Russian sentiment.
    Russian authorities have also tightened controls on Georgian wine imports.
(Reporting by Andrew Osborn, Andrey Kuzmin; writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Christian Lowe)

7/8/2019 Albanian opposition resume protest to oust PM
Supporters of the opposition party attend an anti-government protest in front of Prime Minister
Edi Rama's office in Tirana, Albania, July 8, 2019. REUTERS/Florion Goga
    TIRANA (Reuters) – Albanian opposition supporters rallied on Monday in their tenth national protest since February to pressure Prime Minister Edi Rama to quit over what they say is election fraud.
    Several thousand people, some wearing shorts to cope with the summer heat, chanted for Rama to go and “Albania to become like the rest of Europe,” the 1990s cry of crowds that toppled Communism repeated now as Albania seeks to join the EU.
    “Albanians want true change now, final change, and we will pursue every avenue and use every tool to oust Rama from power.    If he does not leave, there will be no EU integration, rule of law or justice,” opposition Democratic Party leader Lulzim Basha told the crowd.
    The European Union member states will decide this autumn whether to start accession negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia after the European Commission recommended both deserved to step closer to the affluent bloc.
    Rama, who won a second term for his Socialists and himself as premier in 2017, has accused the Democrats of being sore losers and its leaders of trying to undermine a reform of the judiciary meant to end impunity for high-profile corruption.
    Not all of their protests have been peaceful but Monday’s was, as was their last one.
(Reporting by Benet Koleka; Editing by Sandra Maler)

7/8/2019 Euro zone welcomes Croatia’s bid to join euro at the earliest in 2023
FILE PHOTO: The European Union and Croatian flag is seen in Zagreb's downtown July 1, 2013. REUTERS/Antonio Bronic
    BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Croatia has submitted a formal bid to join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM-2), an early stage on the path to membership of the euro currency, the head of the Eurogroup of euro zone finance ministers said on Monday.
    The move could allow the Balkan country to join the euro currency zone, which currently comprises 19 states, at the earliest in 2023, an EU official said.
    Commitments offered by Croatia in a letter were welcomed by the bloc’s finance ministers at a meeting on Monday, the chair of the meeting Mario Centeno told a news conference.
    EU economics commissioner Pierre Moscovici said Zagreb’s move was a “vote of confidence in the euro.”
    Croatia has committed to preparing the ground for the European Central Bank to take over banking supervision in the country.    It has also committed to applying reforms on anti-money laundering rules and to making the public administration more effective and less costly, an EU statement said.
    The ECB and the European Commission will monitor the application of these commitments in a process that is expected to last one year.
    After that, Croatia will join the ERM-2, where it will stay for at least two years before it could start the practical preparations to join the euro zone, a process that takes roughly another year, making 2023 the earliest year for euro membership.
    Bulgaria started the same process last year and could join the euro zone at the earliest in 2022.
(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio, Editing by William Maclean)

7/9/2019 Russian parliament urges government to impose sanctions on Georgia
FILE PHOTO - Russian parliament speaker Vyacheslav Volodin attends the Victory Day parade, which marks the anniversary of
the victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two, in Red Square in central Moscow, Russia May 9, 2019. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Russian parliament on Tuesday unanimously backed a resolution urging the government to impose tough economic sanctions on Georgia over what it called the country’s unfriendly actions towards Moscow.
    Russia in recent weeks has complained about anti-Russian protests in Georgia and on Monday condemned an obscenity-laden tirade against President Vladimir Putin on a Georgian TV station, calling it an unacceptable provocation by radical political forces in the ex-Soviet republic.
    The Kremlin has already responded to events by suspending passenger flights between the two countries, a move that threatens to hurt Georgia’s tourist industry since over 1 million Russians visit each year.
    Russia’s lower house of parliament, the Duma, said on Tuesday it wanted Moscow to go further and recommended the government impose economic sanctions on Tbilisi.
    Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of the Duma, said parliamentarians wanted Moscow to ban the import of Georgian wine and mineral water and halt financial remittances by Georgian citizens working in Russia.
(Reporting by Maxim Rodionov and Tom Balmforth Editing by Andrew Osborn)

7/9/2019 Russia’s Putin says wind power harmful to birds and worms
Russia's President Vladimir Putin makes comments on the country's bilateral relations with Georgia as he attends the Global
Manufacturing and Industrialisation Summit (GMIS) in Yekaterinburg, Russia July 9, 2019. Sputnik/Alexei Druzhinin/Kremlin via REUTERS
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin questioned on Tuesday the use of wind power, saying wind turbines were harmful to birds and worms.
    Russia, a world-leading producer of fossil fuel, is lagging other countries in its development of renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind-powered energy.
    Wind power is rarely used in the country to generate electricity. Enel Russia pledged 90 million euros to build a power generation facility by 2024 with a capacity of 71 megawatts.
    “Wind-powered generation is good, but are birds being taken into account in this case?    How many birds are dying?”     Putin said at a televised conference on industry in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg.
    “They (wind turbines) shake, causing worms to come out of the soil.    This is not a joke,” he said.
    Putin added that people would not like to live on a planet dotted with “rows of wind-powered generators and covered by several layers of solar panels.”
(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

7/9/2019 European Court says Russia not facing up to domestic abuse problem by Tom Balmforth
FILE PHOTO: The building of the European Court of Human Rights is seen in Strasbourg, France March 26, 2019. REUTERS/Vincent Kessler/File Photo
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia failed to protect a woman from repeated acts of violence by her former partner, the European Court of Human Rights ruled on Tuesday, saying her case showed that Moscow was not facing up to its domestic abuse problem.
    Valeriya Volodina, who now uses a different name for security reasons, was assaulted, kidnapped and stalked by her former partner after she left him in 2015 and moved out of their shared home in the Russian city of Ulyanovsk, the court said.
    The police never opened a criminal investigation into violence and threats that she reported to them from January 2016 to March 2018, it said in its statement.
    In one such episode, she was forced to have an abortion after he punched her in the face and stomach when she was pregnant.    In other incidents, the partner, whom she met in 2014, cut her car’s brake hose and stole her identity papers, it said.
    After she moved to Moscow, Volodina discovered a GPS tracker planted in her bag and the former partner, identified only as S., subsequently started stalking her outside her home and attempted to drag her from a taxi.
    The court in Strasbourg said Russia’s police had interviewed the partner and carried out pre-investigation inquiries but not opened formal proceedings against him as it deemed that “no publicly prosecutable offence had been committed.”
    Russian legislation does not define or mention domestic violence as a separate offence or aggravating element in other offences and there is no mechanism for imposing restraining or protection orders, the court said.
    “Those failings clearly demonstrated that the authorities were reluctant to acknowledge the gravity of the problem of domestic violence in Russia and its discriminatory effect on women,” the court said in a statement.
    Each year, about 14,000 women die in Russia at the hands of husbands or other relatives, according to a 2010 United Nations report.
    Police finally opened a criminal investigation only in March 2018 when the partner circulated photographs of her on social networks without her consent, the court said.
    The court said Russia’s response had been “manifestly inadequate” and ruled unanimously there had been two violations of the European Convention on human rights, one on the prohibition of discrimination and the other on the prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment.
    Russia’s Justice Ministry said it had three months to decide whether to appeal against the ruling, but that it would study the findings of the court, Interfax news agency reported.
(Editing by Alison Williams)

7/9/2019 Poland praises likely new EU Commission head, eyes better ties with Brussels by Joanna Plucinska
FILE PHOTO: Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz speaks at a news conference at Lazienki Palace during U.S. Secretary
of State Mike Pompeo's visit in Warsaw, Poland February 12, 2019. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/File Photo
    KATOWICE, Poland (Reuters) – Poland’s foreign minister praised the “non-confrontational” style of the EU’s nominee to head the next European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and signalled that he looked forward to improved ties between Warsaw and Brussels on her watch.
    The executive Commission has long accused Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) of flouting EU standards on the rule of law and democracy.    But Poland’s biggest critic in Brussels, Dutch Socialist Frans Timmermans, lost to von der Leyen in the race for the top Commission job, causing huge relief in Warsaw.
    Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz said he believed his government would work well with von der Leyen, who is from the centre-right and currently defence minister in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition.
    “She (von der Leyen) is conciliatory, non-confrontational, accepting of many points of view. She has this sensitivity, something that in Poland is well-liked…,” Czaputowicz told Reuters in an interview authorised for release on Tuesday.
    Poland’s relations with Germany have been particularly strained in recent years, with PiS reviving calls for World War Two reparations.    Berlin says all financial claims linked to the brutal Nazi occupation of Poland have been settled.
    Czaputowicz said he was confident that Brussels would drop its legal procedure against Poland under Article 7 of the EU treaty due to a lack of support among other member states.
    The procedure could theoretically lead to Poland losing its voting rights in the European Council but its ally Hungary – also at loggerheads with Brussels over the rule of law – has made clear it would veto any such move against Warsaw.
RULE OF LAW
    “I believe this conflict (over the rule of law in Poland) has been won by us,” he said, though he also acknowledged that further hearings under the procedure are likely to take place.
    “I’ve spoken with ministers (from other member states).    They simply don’t agree with the Commission’s line… they see that Poland is following the rule of law,” Czaputowicz added.
    Following a ruling from the European Court of Justice, some of the changes to the Polish judiciary system have been rolled back, including a law that forced Supreme Court judges into early retirement.
    But despite Czaputowicz’s upbeat tone, critics say Poland still needs to do more to ensure judicial independence.    They also fear that PiS will embark on even deeper reforms of the judicial system if they win a new mandate in a parliamentary election due later this year.
    EU officials say Warsaw and Budapest are mistaken if they believe that a new Commission under von der Leyen – who must still be confirmed in the post by the European Parliament – will prove a softer touch when it comes to defending EU values.
    “She may not want to play the leading role (in the various legal actions) so as not to antagonise the Poles.    But in one possible scenario, she could even have Timmermans lead these cases again in the next Commission,” one EU official said.
    Czaputowicz said Poland hoped to win an important portfolio such as competition, energy or the economy in the next Commission, but EU diplomats say Warsaw has hurt its own chances with its protracted legal and political battles with Brussels.
    They also point to growing frustration among wealthy net payers to the EU budget such as Germany and France over the refusal of Poland and some other ex-communist member states to cooperate over issues from the rule of law to climate change.
    Poland may therefore face cuts in the generous funding it now receives as the EU seeks to divert more money to combating global warming and dealing with inflows of migrants to the bloc.
(Additional reporting by Gabriela Baczynska in BRUSSELS, Editing by Krisztina Than and Gareth Jones)

7/9/2019 Lithuania’s Skvernelis to stay on as PM, scrapping vow to quit by Andrius Sytas
FILE PHOTO - Lithuanian President candidate Saulius Skvernelis speaks during a
public discussion in Vilnius, Lithuania April 8, 2019. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins
    VILNIUS (Reuters) – Lithuanian Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis said on Tuesday he will remain in his post, going back on a pledge to resign after his defeat in his bid to win election as president in May.
    Skvernelis, a former chief of police who spearheaded the Farmers and Greens Union Party election campaign in 2016, ran for president in May but failed to advance beyond the first round in the vote.
    Skvernelis said during the campaign that he would quit as prime minister if he failed to win, and confirmed on election night that he would step down.
    “If there were other political forces (willing) to create a new coalition and a new government, it would have been easier for me, but today’s situation is that, with 1.5 years to go until the general election, no one wants to take the responsibility,” Skvernelis told reporters in Vilnius after meeting with newly elected President Gitanas Nauseda.
    “The decision (to resign) was purely emotional, maybe I shouldn’t have said it right then, on election night.”
    Lithuania is to hold its next general election in October next year.
    Skvernelis came third in the first round of the presidential election, leaving Ingrida Simonyte, a former finance minister, and Nauseda, an economist, to compete in the decisive run-off.
    Skvernelis said at the time that he wanted to be president, a semi-executive position, in order to support his parliamentary coalition ahead of the general election.
    His government faces a confidence vote in parliament next week, triggered by the inauguration of Nauseda on July 12.
(Reporting by Andrius Sytas; Editing by Johan Ahlander and Mark Heinrich)

7/9/2019 Putin opposes Russian parliament call for Georgia sanctions by Andrew Osborn and Tom Balmforth
FILE PHOTO: Members of Russia's lower house of parliament listen to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev during a session of
the State Duma in Moscow, Russia April 17, 2019. Sputnik/Alexander Astafyev/Pool/File Photo via REUTERS
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin rejected on Tuesday a parliamentary call to impose sanctions against Georgia, saying patching up strained relations was more important than reacting to provocations by “scumbags.”
    Putin was speaking shortly after the Russian parliament unanimously backed a resolution urging the government to draw up sanctions on Georgia for his approval, a move that would have sharply escalated the neighbors’ political dispute.
    Moscow has complained in recent weeks about anti-Kremlin protests in Georgia and on Monday condemned an obscenity-laden tirade against Putin on a Georgian TV station which it blamed on radical political forces.
    Putin made it clear he would not back sanctions, however, and wanted to repair not worsen ties with the ex-Soviet republic.
    “For the sake of restoring full ties, I would not do anything to complicate our relations,” Putin said during a visit to the city of Yekaterinburg.
    “As for various types of sanctions on Georgia, I would mainly not do it out of respect for the Georgian people.”
SCUMBAGS
    In an apparent reference to the profane verbal attack on him, the Russian leader added there was no point in reacting to what he called the outbursts of “some scumbags.”
    The lower house of parliament, the Duma, had earlier on Tuesday suggested banning imports of Georgian wine and mineral water and halting financial remittances back home by Georgians working in Russia, measures that could have badly hurt Georgia’s economy.
    Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili urged Russia not to impose sanctions, warning it would only further aggravate the situation and play into the hands of people Moscow regarded as extremists.
    Protests erupted two weeks ago in Tbilisi over a visit by a Russian lawmaker with many demonstrators saying they were angry about the continued presence of Russian troops on Georgian soil.
    The small nation, an ally of the United States, fought and lost a short war against Russia in 2008.
    The countries have not had diplomatic ties since, and Russia went on to recognize the independence of two breakaway Georgian regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, where Russian troops are now garrisoned.
    Citing risks to its citizens, the Kremlin has responded to recent events by suspending passenger flights, a move that threatens to hurt Georgia’s tourist industry since over 1 million Russians visit each year.
    The Georgian currency, the lari, slipped to a record low of 2.87 against the dollar on Tuesday, taking its year-to-date loss to 7.3%.
(Additional reporting by Maxim Rodionov, Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber and Andrey Ostroukh in Moscow and by Margarita Antidze in Tbilisi; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)

7/9/2019 Short-sighted policies stall Balkans’ integration into EU: Erdogan by Daria Sito-Sucic
FILE PHOTO: Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan holds a news conference on the final day of the
G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan June 29, 2019. REUTERS/Jorge Silva/File Photo
    MOUNT JAHORINA, Bosnia (Reuters) – Short-sighted anti-immigrant populism in some European Union member states has blocked the integration of Western Balkan countries into the EU, weakening the region’s stability, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday.
    He was speaking at a 12-nation Balkans summit where leaders voiced deep disappointment with the EU’s lack of follow-through on promises to open membership talks with North Macedonia and Albania, opposed by northern EU countries.
    In June, EU governments unexpectedly put off a decision to start the talks with the two and cast doubt on the bloc’s existing strategy to counter a growing Russian and Chinese presence in the Balkans.     “Recently we have seen that some short-sighted populist circles have blocked EU enlargement policy.    Negative trends toward division and discrimination have spread across the continent and endanger not only internal peace within the EU but…hope and potential of the (Balkans) region.”
    The EU’s appetite for further enlargement has been eroded by anti-immigration sentiment among voters and by increased criticism of the 28-nation bloc’s already complex and lumbering decision-making processes.
    France and the Netherlands, with support from Denmark, also may seek further conditions such as more reform to tackle corruption and organized crime in Albania and Macedonia.
    Turkey’s own bid for EU membership, launched back in 2004, has been stalled for years, with EU officials citing Ankara’s disregard for human rights and civil liberties under Erdogan.    Some EU leaders want the talks to be scrapped. Erdogan has blamed alleged prejudice against Muslims for the impasse.
    Montenegro President Milo Djukanovic called on other Western Balkan leaders to come up with a clear, common approach regarding expectations for relations with the EU.
    “We are concerned about enlargement policy being slowed down and being made vague,” Djukanovic said, adding that other countries of the region had also received discouraging signals regarding the EU accession process.
    He said the EU had failed to abolish visa requirements for Kosovo citizens or approve the opening of the last chapter in Montenegro’s accession process, while postponing the approval of Bosnia’s candidate status for later this year.
    “I believe the issue of a real enlargement perspective will have to be opened very soon – whether we, the countries of the Western Balkans and the EU, are privileged partners or we are going back to the position of neighbors who (merely) share concern about the future of our common continent,” he said.
    Western Balkans states that comprised the former Yugoslavia were wracked by ethnic war in the 1990s, and tensions linger.
    Erdogan also paid respect to victims of the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica, laying flowers on trucks bearing the coffins of 33 among the 8,000 Muslim men and boys massacred by Bosnian Serb forces.    The remains, which were exhumed from mass graves, will be reburied in a ceremony on July 11, the massacre anniversary.
(Additional reporting by Maja Zuvela in Sarajevo; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

7/10/2019 Party of Ukraine’s new president leads parliamentary vote race
FILE PHOTO: Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy walks on the stage at an IT conference in Kiev, Ukraine May 23, 2019.
The sign on a screen reads "Let's create the future of Ukraine together!" REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/File Photo
    KIEV (Reuters) – A party set up by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who took office in May, is the most popular political movement in the country, according to an opinion poll published on Wednesday ahead of a snap parliamentary election due on July 21.
    The survey conducted by KIIS research institute from June 25 to July 7 showed Zelenskiy’s party, Servant of the People, had the support of 37.8% of people who said they would vote.
    In a previous poll, done in a period of May 26 – June 7, Zelenskiy’s party got 34.4%.
    A good showing next month would cement the former television comedian’s meteoric rise to upend Ukrainian politics.
    The outgoing parliament, dismissed by Zelenskiy after his landslide election victory in April, is dominated by loyalists of his defeated predecessor Petro Poroshenko. Servant of the People, campaigning on a pro-European, anti-corruption ticket, has no lawmakers at present.
    Opposition Platform was in second place with 11%, compared with 7.8% previously.
    Among other political forces seen able to overcome the five-percent threshold, Poroshenko’s European Solidarity party was on 7.2%. The party of former prime minister and presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko, is close to the threshold with 4.8%.
    Another new party – Voice – established in May by Ukrainian rock-singer Sviatoslav Vakarchuk – managed to lose support: 3.4% versus 4.0% according to the previous poll.
    KIIS said it interviewed 2,004 voters in all regions, except annexed Crimea.
    Half of the 450 seats in Ukraine’s parliament are elected via party lists and the other half in single-member constituencies.
    Ukraine’s most pressing issue is conflict with its neighbor Russia, which annexed its Crimea region in 2014.    Zelenskiy has said his first task is to achieve a ceasefire.
    Zelenskiy became famous playing the TV comedy role of a schoolteacher who unexpectedly becomes president after a pupil films his foul-mouthed tirade against corrupt politicians and posts the video online.    His presidential campaign exploited parallels with that fictional narrative, portraying him as an everyman who would stand up to a crooked political class.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk, Editing by William Maclean)

7/10/2019 Ukraine president kicks official out of meeting over criminal record by Pavel Polityuk
FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy holds a news conference after meeting European Council
President Donald Tusk in Brussels, Belgium, June 5, 2019. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir
    KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had a regional official expelled from a meeting broadcast live on television on Wednesday because of a past criminal record.
    “Get out of here, rogue!    Are you not hearing me correctly?” he told Yaroslav Hodunok, to applause from other officials present at the otherwise routine meeting.
    The official threatened legal action against Zelenskiy, telling a newspaper the 2002 case against him was wrong.
    A comedian and actor, Zelenskiy won election in April promising to root out corruption.    His Servant of the People party is on course to win a July 21 parliamentary election.
    Zelenskiy was meeting officials from the Kiev region to discuss projects including a new city hospital yet to be built.
    Hodunok, local council secretary and member of the Fatherland party of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, said there were problems with financing.
    Zelenskiy said Hodunok talked a lot but did nothing, then read from his phone what he said was his criminal record for robbery and violence.
    “Tell me whether it is true or not … a secretary of Boryspil city council was previously convicted of … robbery, combined with causing serious bodily injuries. Yaroslav Mikolayovych, is that you?,” he asked, using Hodunok’s first name and patronymic.
    “I don’t like gangsters,” he said after his bodyguards led Hodunok out of the hall.     He told Ukrainska Pravda newspaper the 2002 case against him had been falsified.    The paper published a photocopy of a court ruling in which Hodunok received a conditional sentence.
    Zelenskiy ran for president despite having no previous political experience.    He became famous playing the TV comedy role of a schoolteacher who unexpectedly becomes president after a pupil films his foul-mouthed tirade against corrupt politicians and posts the video online.
    His presidential campaign exploited parallels with that fictional narrative, portraying him as an everyman who would stand up to a crooked political class.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Matthias Williams and Andrew Cawthorne)

7/10/2019 Slovakia’s new president takes aim at China’s rights record
FILE PHOTO: Slovakia's President Zuzana Caputova reviews the guard of honour at the Presidential Palace after
her swearing-in ceremony in Bratislava, Slovakia, June 15, 2019. REUTERS/Radovan Stoklasa
    BRATISLAVA (Reuters) – Slovakia’s new president, a former activist lawyer, used a meeting with China’s top diplomat on Wednesday to criticize Beijing’s human rights record, in a rare departure for an east European politician in a region hungry for Chinese investment.     Most politicians in post-communist eastern Europe have steered clear of criticizing China’s record on freedom of speech, its treatment of religious and ethnic minorities and other issues.
    President Zuzana Caputova, who took office last month, raised her concerns with Chinese State Councillor Wang Yi, who is on a week-long trip to the region that also includes Poland and Hungary.
    “In line with the EU’s joint policy, I expressed concern and worries about the deteriorating situation in terms of human rights protection in China, about the detainment of lawyers and human rights activists, and about the position of ethnic and religious minorities,” Caputova said in a statement.
    China is actively seeking to boost business ties with Europe through President Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road Initiative, which draws inspiration from the ancient Silk Road that linked East and West.
    Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government has issued bonds in China and is using a Chinese loan to finance a rail link
.
    Czech President Milos Zeman has long pushed for closer ties with Beijing and firmly supported Chinese technology giant Huawei as it came under global scrutiny amid allegations that its equipment could be used by Beijing to spy on customers.    Both Huawei and the Chinese government strongly deny the allegations.
    Caputova, who had no previous political experience, easily beat the ruling Smer party’s candidate in Slovakia’s March presidential election, riding a wave of anger over public graft.
    Her record of fighting human rights and environmental cases also boosted her support.
    In 2017, Caputova worked for an NGO that initiated the eventual cancellation of amnesties granted by former prime minister Vladimir Meciar to his secret service chief and 12 others over the 1995 kidnapping of the son of then-president Michal Kovac. The amnesties had come to symbolize Slovakia’s slide away from democracy in the 1990s.
(Reporting By Tatiana Jancarikova; Editing by Jason Hovet and Gareth Jones)

7/11/2019 Russian police detain Crimean Tatar protesters outside supreme court: monitor
FILE PHOTO: A still image taken from a video footage and obtained by Reuters on July 10, 2019, shows Crimean Tatars during a
demonstration to draw attention to alleged rights abuses in Crimea, in Red Square in Moscow, Russia. TVRAIN.RU/Handout via REUTERS TV
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian police on Thursday detained over 40 Crimean Tatars who were protesting outside the Supreme Court in Moscow over what they said was the wrongful conviction of four compatriots on terrorism-related charges, a monitoring group said.
    OVD-Info, the monitor, said in a statement that police had detained 44 Crimean Tatars who had gathered outside the court with placards while an appeal in the case went on inside.
    The incident came a day after police detained seven Crimean Tatars on Moscow’s Red Square after dispersing a similar demonstration aimed at drawing attention to alleged rights abuses on the Black Sea peninsula which Russia annexed from Ukraine five years ago.
    The Tatars, a mainly Muslim community that makes up about 15 percent of Crimea’s population, have largely opposed Russian rule and say the 2014 annexation was illegal, a view supported by the West as well as Ukraine.
    Moscow suspended the Crimean Tatars’ semi-official Mejlis legislature after taking control and later jailed some Crimean Tatars it believed were extremists and members of banned Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir.
    Russia says it is acting purely to prevent acts of terrorism, but some Crimean Tatars say the authorities are using religious extremism as a trumped-up pretext to lock up people they deem to be ideological opponents.
    Thursday’s protests related to a case in which four Crimean Tatars were handed long prison sentences on terrorism charges which they denied.
(Reporting by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Tom Balmforth)

7/11/2019 Ukraine ex-president Poroshenko summoned for questioning
FILE PHOTO: Petro Poroshenko in Kiev, Ukraine April 21, 2019. REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko
    KIEV (Reuters) – Detectives from Ukraine’s state investigation bureau have summoned former president Petro Poroshenko for questioning, the bureau said on Thursday.
    “We confirmed that he will be questioned,” a bureau spokesman said. He declined to give a reason for the questioning, which will take place on July 17. A spokeswoman for Poroshenko had no comment but said one might be available later.
    Poroshenko, owner of the country’s biggest confectionery business, lost a presidential election in April to comedian and politician novice Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who campaigned on a promise to root out corruption.
    Zelenskiy ran for president despite having no political experience.    He played a teacher in a TV comedy who unexpectedly became president after a pupil filmed his foul-mouthed tirade against corrupt politicians and posted the video online.
    His party, Servant of the People, now leads in the campaign for parliamentary elections to be held on July 21 — it had the backing of 37.8% of people who said they would vote, according to a poll conducted by KIIS research institute from June 25 to July 7.
    Poroshenko’s European Solidarity party had the support of 7.2%, putting it in third place.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk, editing by Larry King)

7/11/2019 EU’s Tusk says Russia’s Georgia flight ban ‘unjustified’br>
FILE PHOTO: European Council President Donald Tusk attends a news conference after the European Union
leaders summit, in Brussels, Belgium, July 2, 2019. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir
    TBILISI (Reuters) – European Council President Donald Tusk said on Thursday that Russia’s decision to ban flights to Georgia was “unjustified and disproportional.”
    Relations between Russia and Georgia came under strain three weeks ago when protests erupted in Tbilisi over a visit by a Russian lawmaker with many demonstrators saying they were angry about the continued presence of Russian troops on Georgian soil.
    The small nation, an ally of the United States, fought and lost a short war against Russia in 2008.
    The countries have not had diplomatic ties since, and Russia went on to recognize the independence of two breakaway Georgian regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, where Russian troops are now garrisoned.
    Tusk said that the European Union was ready to support Georgia to withstand current challenges.
    “The EU stands with Georgia in solidarity and with a full commitment to your sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the EU executive said at a conference dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the Eastern Partnership.
    He added that the EU’s relations with Georgia, which has aspirations to join the EU and NATO, were built on common values.
    Citing risks to its citizens after recent events, the Kremlin suspended passenger flights to Georgia, a move that threatens to hurt Georgia’s tourist industry since over 1 million Russians visit each year.
    Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili said that occupation of the Georgian regions by Russia was “a frustration that is in a long-term is a matter for further instability.”
    “The reaction of the Georgian population is a sign that has to be considered here and by our partners,” Zurabishvili said after meeting Tusk. (Reporting by Margarita Antidze; Editing by Toby Chopra)

7/11/2019 Major fire erupts at power station in Moscow region
Flames and smoke rise from a fire at an electricity generating power station in
Moscow region, Russia July 11, 2019. REUTERS/Tatyana Makeyeva
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – A major fire broke out at a power station in the Moscow region on Thursday, injuring six to nine people, the energy ministry and Russian media reports said.
    Huge flames could be seen leaping into the sky from Thermal Power Station-27 in the Mytishchi district northeast of Moscow.
    An eyewitness quoted by the RIA news agency said the flames were 50 metres (yards) high.
    Emergency services deployed more than 150 firefighters to the scene, as well as dozens of vehicles including fire engines, helicopters and trains, Zhanna Terekhova, spokeswoman for the emergency services, said on state television.
    There was no risk of the fire spreading to residential areas, she said, adding that firefighters hoped to extinguish the blaze within the hour.
(Reporting by Maxim Rodionov; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Edmund Blair)

7/11/2019 Russia’s Putin, Ukraine’s Zelenskiy discuss ending conflict in eastern Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks as he meets with his Bolivian counterpart at the Kremlin
in Moscow, Russia July 11, 2019. Kirill Kudryavtsev/Pool via REUTERS
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy held their first telephone conversation on Thursday and discussed settling the conflict in eastern Ukraine and the return of prisoners, the Kremlin said.
    Zelenskiy, a former comic actor with no previous political experience, won Ukraine’s presidential election in April and he has declared the settlement of the conflict between pro-Russian separatists and Kiev’s forces one of his priorities.
    The Kremlin said the phone call between Putin and Zelenskiy had been initiated by the Ukrainian side.
    The two men discussed the possibility of continuing contacts on the issue in the ‘Normandy’ format, which involves the participation of France and Germany, the Kremlin statement said.
    Zelenskiy said on Sunday he planned to continue European-backed talks with Russia on a so-far largely unimplemented peace deal and would try to free Ukrainians imprisoned in Russia. These include 24 Ukrainian sailors, among others.
    The conflict erupted in eastern Ukraine in 2014, shortly after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula, and more than 10,000 people have been killed.
(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Gareth Jones)

7/11/2019 Slovakia’s new president calls on EU’s eastern bloc to respect rule of law
FILE PHOTO: Slovakia's President Zuzana Caputova pays her respects at the grave of former Czech President Vaclav Havel
at Vinohrady Cemetery in Prague, Czech Republic, June 20, 2019. REUTERS/Bundas Engler
    BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Slovakia’s new president called on the Visegrad group of eastern EU member states on Thursday to protect the rule of law to avoid being seen as “weakening the European Union,” signaling a possible rift within a bloc that often acts together.
    After meeting with Hungarian President Janos Ader, Slovak President Zuzana Caputova said cooperation in the Visegrad group comprising Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic should be based on common values.
    Without naming names, Caputova – who took office last month – took aim at Hungary and Poland, the two eastern member states often in conflict with the EU over rule of law concerns.
    “Our (V4) cooperation must also represent such values as the rule of law, democracy and freedom and such basic values of co-operation which are laid down in the founding treaty of the V4,” Caputova told a news conference.    “So that we are not regarded as such who are weakening or dissolving the European Union.”
    Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party have tightened controls on courts and judges, media and academics, as well as non-governmental groups. That has triggered conflicts with Brussels and alarmed rights groups worried they violate democratic principles, but they remain popular at home thanks to a tough line on migrants.
    Caputova said on Thursday she was “convinced that the liberal democracy which guarantees everyone equal rights is the most effective tool for the protection of minorities.”
    She also dismissed allegations by some pro-government Hungarian media that she was an agent working for Hungarian-born, U.S.-based billionaire George Soros as “lies.”
    Orban’s government has been waging a campaign against Soros – who promotes liberal causes through his charities – for years.
    Ader, an ally of Orban, sought to play down a rift, saying Hungary and Slovakia could differ on issues in the coming years.
    “But I am sure that it will not make our co-operation impossible, neither on the bilateral and the V4 levels,” Ader added.
(Reporting by Krisztina Than and Krisztina Fenyo, editing by Deepa Babington)

7/11/2019 Putin says he hopes Venezuela talks will normalize situation
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with his Bolivian counterpart at the Kremlin
in Moscow, Russia July 11, 2019. Kirill Kudryavtsev/Pool via REUTERS
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he hoped Norway-brokered talks between Venezuela’s government and the opposition would normalize the situation in country and bring an end to political turmoil.
    Russia, like China and Cuba, is a staunch ally of Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro, while the opposition’s Juan Guaido is backed by the United States and many other western countries.
(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Toby Chopra)

7/11/2019 Cuba sees tourism dropping 8.5% due to Trump travel restrictions by Nelson Acosta and Sarah Marsh
Tourists enjoy the beach in Varadero, Cuba, May 12, 2019. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini
    HAVANA (Reuters) – Tourism to Cuba will likely drop 8.5% this year in the wake of tighter U.S. restrictions on travel to the Caribbean island, the government said on Thursday, and the decline in arrivals will further hurt Cuba’s already ailing centrally planned economy.
    A boom in tourism over the last few years has helped offset weaker exports and a steep decline in aid from key ally Venezuela that has forced the government to take austerity measures like cutting imports.
    The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has decided to squeeze that hard currency revenue stream too as part of its attempt to force the Communist government to reform and stop supporting Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro.
    Last month it banned cruise ships and private planes and yachts from traveling to the island and ended a heavily used educational category of travel allowed as an exemption to the overall ban on U.S. tourism.
    “These measures sparked a 20.33% reduction in tourist activity,” Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero was quoted as saying by state news agencies in a speech to the National Assembly.
    The minister estimated 4.3 million people would visit Cuba this year, down from the goal of more than 5 million, and 4.7 million last year.
    Looser restrictions on U.S. travel to Cuba under former President Barack Obama, the re-establishment of diplomatic relations and commercial flights and cruises had caused a spike in U.S. visits to the country.
    U.S. travelers excluding Cuban-Americans became the second- biggest group of tourists on the island in recent years after Canadians, with cruise travelers accounting for half of them.
    But Trump has rolled back much of Obama’s detente and taken additional measures to punish the economy and government.     Marrero noted the Trump administration’s decision in April to allow U.S. lawsuits against foreign companies deemed to be “trafficking” in properties in Cuba nationalized after Cuba’s 1959 revolution was also affecting the tourism sector.
    Several hotel operators and a unit of online travel agency Expedia have been targeted with lawsuits.
    Cubans working in the tourism sector complain that while the policy targets the government, they are the ones who suffer.
    “Our income has dropped by 80 percent,” said Carlos Cristobal Marquez, owner of the private restaurant San Cristobal, where Obama dined on his historic trip to Havana in 2016.
    “Many restaurants will have to close, while others will have a hard time.    Trump has said he wants to support the private sector, but he isn’t,” he said.
    Marrero said the country would continue to develop the tourism sector regardless of the U.S. measures.    It is planning new dolphinariums and the country’s first amusement park, for example.
    Cranes tower around Havana at the construction sites of what are to be the city’s first generation of luxury hotels, in a bid to attract a new type of client.
    Cuba, which receives just two-thirds of the visitors that neighboring Dominican Republic does although it is twice as large, has traditionally focused on resort tourism or travelers on a medium budget.
    José Luis Perelló, a former University of Havana professor who studies Cuba’s tourism industry, said the country should not take short-term shifts in U.S. policy too much into account in the long-term development of its tourism industry.
    “A large part of the revenues we use weekly… comes from tourism,” President Miguel Diaz-Canel told the National Assembly.    “For this reason, we must continue betting on the development of tourism.”
(Reporting by Sarah Marsh; Editing by Dan Grebler)
[To the Cuban people tell your president to remove Cuban soldiers from Venezuela to stop the sanctions.].

7/12/2019 Open audition: Ukraine’s comedian president invites citizens to run in July poll by Matthias Williams and Margaryta Chornokondratenko
Roman Hryshchuk, a 29-year-old comedian and parliamentary election candidate, shows a banner with a life-size cutout
of himself at his election headquarters in Kiev, Ukraine July 4, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
    KIEV (Reuters) – A comedian and entrepreneur, 29-year-old Roman Hryshchuk had only been in politics for a few weeks when he found himself in front of a semicircle of voters in a park in western Kiev, fielding questions from a testy audience.
    One woman in a pink hoodie repeatedly asked whether he would sell his television production business if he became a lawmaker, and then asked where his campaign office was so she could visit him.
    Another voter heckled that Ukraine’s president didn’t appear to know what the capital of Canada was, after his team mistakenly said it was Toronto in a statement. At one point, a tipsy man loudly waded into the meeting and was escorted away.
    As a student, Hryshchuk worked as a stagehand on the comedy shows of the man who went on to become Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
    Now he is following his showbiz role model into politics because Zelenskiy, vowing to scrub Ukraine’s parliament clean of corruption and nepotism, invited members of the public to run on his party’s ticket at a parliamentary election on July 21.
    Zelenskiy caused a political earthquake with his landslide victory in the presidential election in April.    He appealed to voters as an everyman outsider, making a virtue out of his lack of political experience, and struck a chord with Ukrainians fed up with how their country has been run since independence in 1991.
    Ukraine has some of the worst poverty levels in Europe and Hryshchuk said Ukrainians had reached “boiling point” where they want to vote in anyone but the old politicians.
    “The meeting was very emotional,” Hryshchuk told Reuters.
    “And this is normal, because, once again, when people have been given promises for 27 years and nothing was done … they are ready to project onto any person who comes to them and says, ‘I want power’, all that is bad in their lives, and they dump it on this person.”
    Zelenskiy’s Servant of the People party, named after a TV comedy series where he played a fictional president, is on course to win most seats in the parliamentary election, according to surveys of voter intentions.
    At stake is the chance to form the government of a country on the frontline of the West’s standoff with Russia following Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its role in a conflict in eastern Ukraine that has killed 13,000 people.
    Zelenskiy currently shares power with a government and parliament dominated by people loyal to his predecessor.
    If he wins control of parliament, he has pledged to implement anti-corruption measures such as stripping lawmakers of immunity from prosecution and pro-business policies like lifting a moratorium on the sale of farmland.
    He has also promised to find a peaceful solution to the eastern conflict and offered to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin for talks.
UNORTHODOX CAMPAIGNING
    Zelenskiy won big in April by departing from traditional politics, relying on comedy gigs, social media savvy and crowdsourcing policy ideas to climb the polls, while eschewing rallies.
    His team hopes to reprise that unorthodox campaign success and bringing people like Hryshchuk on board is an example. Hryshchuk was one of around 3,500 people who applied to run for Zelenskiy’s party through a specially created website.
    “Previously – especially for young people – guys understood that everything was decided for them and in many respects this was true,” said the head of Zelenskiy’s party, Dmytro Razumkov.
    With Zelenskiy’s candidacy, “a completely different category of our fellow citizens appeared, who believed that they too could influence this process,” he told Reuters.
    “And today, many of them are standing next to us, and I hope that they will be represented in parliament.”
    To be sure, Zelenskiy has faced scrutiny about some of his appointments and his business connections to Ihor Kolomoisky, a powerful tycoon whose TV channel 1+1 was a platform for Zelenskiy’s presidential campaign.
    Nevertheless, no current or former lawmakers were allowed to run for Zelenskiy’s party.
    After applying, Hryshchuk was interviewed about his background, family, political views and ambitions, before being given training at Zelenskiy’s headquarters on how to campaign.
    “Before it was announced that I would be a candidate, I decided with my friends: ‘Roman, let’s go to Google, and look at the search history that comes up when we Google your name, because it will never be so beautiful and clean,'” Hryshchuk said.
    “So, I have something to lose.”
BREAD FOR EMPTY BOTTLES
    Hryshchuk is contesting a constituency with a large student population in the Solomianskyi district of Kiev. Voters can set up meetings with him through messenger apps like Viber.
    He holds public meetings three times a day, and uses Facebook to target specific groups to encourage them to attend. Via his campaign website, Facebook users can download a frame they can put on their profile picture to show support.
    The election takes place in summer when classes at the university have finished.    To try and get students to stick around and vote, Hryshchuk said he planned an initiative called SolomaCouchserf where residents offer students to stay overnight in their apartments on election day so they can go to the polls.
    Millions of Ukrainians, including university graduates, have moved abroad in search of better paid jobs.    After a sharp devaluation of the hryvnia currency, in dollar terms, Ukrainians earn $50 less per month than they did before the annexation of Crimea in 2014. The average salary is less than $400 a month and the average pension is around $115.
    A July survey for the International Republican Institute found 18 percent of Ukrainian voters needed to save money to buy food. A further 31 percent had enough for food but needed to save or borrow money to buy clothes and shoes.
    “The first time you return from Europe, you want to cry,” Hryshchuk told Reuters.
    “Recently, my wife and I went on a cruise and saw pensioners from all over Europe on holiday.    And then I meet with a Ukrainian grandmother who came to a meeting, and after the meeting said: ‘I’ll go collect some bottles to buy bread.'
(Additional reporting by Sergiy Karazy and Valentyn Ogirenko. Editing by Carmel Crimmins)

7/12/2019 Czech Social Democrats to decide Monday whether to quit government
FILE PHOTO: Czech Republic's Prime Minister Andrej Babis talks to media as he arrives to take part in a
European Union leaders summit, in Brussels, Belgium July 2, 2019. REUTERS/Piroschka Van De Wouw
    PRAGUE (Reuters) – Czech Social Democrats will decide on Monday whether to leave the minority government led by Prime Minister Andrej Babis due to a long-running spat over replacing one of their ministers, party chief Jan Hamacek said on Friday.
    The spat threatens the survival of the uneasy center-left coalition that has governed the Czech Republic since last year.
    The Social Democrats have been irked by a series of investigations over possible conflicts of interest involving Babis, a billionaire businessman, which have prompted mass street protests against the government.
    They are also furious with President Milos Zeman over his reluctance to sack Culture Minister Antonin Stanek, whom they accuse of being ineffective, and to replace him with their preferred candidate, Michal Smarda.
    On Friday, Zeman said he was ready to dismiss the minister at the end of July, Hamacek said after a meeting with the president.    But he added that Zeman had stopped short of agreeing to appoint Smarda in his place, meaning the standoff continues.
    “There are two alternatives on the table, one that minister Stanek will be dismissed and the (Social Democrat) leadership sticks with the nomination of Michal Smarda, or the leadership decides that our ministers will submit their resignations and our government role will be over,” Hamacek told reporters.
    Hamacek declined to say which options he preferred.
    The Social Democrats’ departure would strip the government of its parliamentary majority.
    Zeman has suggested Babis, who leads the populist ANO party, turn to the far-right, anti-EU and anti-NATO Freedom and Direct Democracy Party for support in parliament, a suggestion Babis has rejected.
    A snap early election could only be held if 120 members of the 200-seat lower house agreed on calling the vote.
(Reporting by Jan Lopatka and Robert Muller; Editing by Gareth Jones)

7/13/2019 Poland’s opposition promises to cut out coal in top election pledge
FILE PHOTO: Grzegorz Schetyna, leader of Civic Platform (PO) party, speaks following the release of the first election results
of the European Parliamentary elections in Warsaw, Poland May 26, 2019. Maciek Jazwiecki/Agencja Gazeta/via REUTERS
    WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland’s biggest opposition group, the European Coalition, plans to eliminate coal from power production by 2040, its leader said on Saturday as he unveiled pledges ahead of an autumn election to be fought against the coal-friendly, conservative government.
    Poland generates electricity mostly from coal and has some of the worst air quality in Europe.    The ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, which won a 2015 election partly on promises to sustain coal, plans to cut the use of the polluting fuel to around 60 percent by 2030 from around 80 percent now.
    “We are committed that by 2030 we will eliminate coal in household heating, by 2035 in systemic heating and by 2040 in the energy sector,” Grzegorz Schetyna, the European Coalition leader said in a televised speech at the group’s convention.
    “We must clean Poland up,” he said.
    Coal has fueled Poland’s economy for years and a promise to support it has been used in previous political campaigns, due to the strength of the coal unions and a large mining workforce.
    However attitudes among Poles have shifted in recent years due to increased awareness of coal’s impact on the environment.
MORE PROMISES
    Schetyna also promised that if the European Coalition won the election – likely to be held in October or November – it would remove the Sunday trade ban introduced by PiS and raise salaries.
    PiS has led in most opinion polls since the 2015 election due to robust social spending. In European elections in May it won 45.4% of votes.
    The European Coalition, made up of the Civic Platform formerly led by European Council President Donald Tusk and a group of leftist and rural politicians, was second, with 38.5%.
    Schetyna also pledged to “renovate” democracy in one legislative package, in reference to PiS moves to increase control over the judiciary and media which critics say have undermined the democratic system.
    Other pledges that counter conservative PiS proposals include the possibility for unmarried couple to register their relationship and stronger women’s rights.
    “One can talk a lot and promise much,” PiS spokeswoman Anita Czerwinska told public television after Schetyna’s speech.    “We ask for calculations and concrete projects.    If these are not revealed, then it could mean that Grzegorz Schetyna is not telling the truth.”
(Reporting by Agnieszka Barteczko and Pawel Florkiewicz; Editing by Ros Russell)

7/13/2019 Cuba passes law to improve governance that keeps one-party system
FILE PHOTO: A general view of a session of the National Assembly in Havana, Cuba, December 21, 2018. REUTERS/Stringer
    HAVANA (Reuters) – Communist-run Cuba passed a new electoral law on Saturday that restructures governance including creating the role of prime minister and provincial governors while retaining the one-party system.
    The law, which enacts changes already announced in the new constitution and was passed unanimously by the national assembly, aims to lighten the load on single figureheads such as the president and boost policy execution.
    Some Cubans wish the political reform under Miguel Diaz-Canel, who took the presidency from Raul Castro last year, had gone further in light of Cuba’s social and economic opening over the last decade.
    It should, for example, have abolished the Communist Party-controlled commissions that select the candidates for the national assembly elections, they say.
    “It’s important citizens feel they are choosing between several candidates and are not just ratifying names that have been selected previously,” said Carlos Rodriguez, a bus driver in Havana.
    Diaz-Canel however has signaled the presidential handover does not mean sweeping political change.    He has, for example, used the hashtag #SomosContinuidad (#WeAreContinuity) since launching his twitter account last year.
    Cuba has long argued its system it more democratic than western ones as it is not driven by parties funded by lobbies seeking to push their specific interests.
    Half of the national assembly’s lawmakers must be municipal delegates who are directly elected at neighborhood meetings in elections where campaigning is banned.
    The rest are chosen by commissions composed of mass organizations, such as the trade union federation.
    “Real democracy is socialist, which is why I approve this law which synthesizes the thoughts of our Commander in Chief, (The late) Fidel Castro,” said lawmaker Miguel Barnet.
    The new law streamlines governance by reducing the number of National Assembly lawmakers to 474 from an unwieldy 605, to be implemented at the next elections in 2024.
    Some analysts had expected the assembly to shrink even further in order to fit into the newly restored Capitol, an imposing neoclassical gem previously shunned as a symbol of U.S. imperialism.
    It also replaces provincial assemblies with councils made up of municipal leaders and led by governors.
    Moreover the law stipulates that the president presides over the Republic rather than the Council of State and Council of Ministers.
    The assembly is set to elect the president under this new system in October, national assembly head Esteban Lazo said last month, with Diaz-Canel widely expected to remain in this position.
    The president will then name a prime minister, to be ratified by the assembly, he said.
(Reporting by Nelson Acosta and Sarah Marsh; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

7/14/2019 Cuba hopes for slight growth as Trump pummels Caribbean island by Marc Frank
FILE PHOTO: People walk in a shopping zone in downtown Havana, Cuba, May 10, 2019. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini/File Photo
    HAVANA (Reuters) – Communist-run Cuba put on a brave face Saturday at a mid-year session of the National Assembly, the government insisting it would not let a growing financial crisis and mounting pressure from the administration of President Donald Trump thwart development.
    Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said upon closing the meeting on Saturday that a series of emergency measures announced this month aimed to stimulate domestic production and he hoped for slight growth this year.
    “Even in the eye of the hurricane of adversity that the enemy conceived to suffocate us, the Cuban economy can grow slightly, thanks to the fact that we have the potential to resist and continue advancing in our development,” he said, referring to the measures.
    Diaz-Canel said the economy grew 2.2% in 2018, compared with an earlier estimate of 1.2%, and that stronger base would make it harder to reach this year’s goal of 1.5% growth.
    He gave no figure for the first half of this year, when some European diplomats believe the economy went into recession.
    The emergency measures include salary and pension raises for more than 2 million civil servants and pensioners, along with efforts to financially stimulate state-run businesses and municipal level output to meet the increased annual demand of more than 8 billion pesos the raises will generate.
    Cuban economist Ricardo Torres termed the measures positive because they “indicate that the government intends to go beyond the condemnation of the United States and become more proactive.”
    At the same time, Torres said “price controls that will accompany the raises in hopes of blunting inflation show the government is still relying on administrative versus financial and market mechanisms.”
MIRED IN STAGNATION
    The measures come at a time when falling imports have caused scattered shortages of food, hygiene and other products across the country.
    Diaz-Canel admitted the country was suffering from a liquidity crisis and bureaucracy and was short on fuel.    He called on officials and the public to join together in the national emergency and each do their part to move the country forward.
    “Putting aside vanities and selfishness, practicing honesty, industriousness and decency, we will also be contributing to GDP,” he said.
    Cuba has been mired in stagnation and its trade has steadily fallen since 2014 as oil producer and ally Venezuela succumbed to falling oil prices combined with its own errors and U.S. sanctions, depriving the island of fuel and cash in exchange for medical and other assistance.
    The government began falling behind on payments to foreign suppliers and joint venture partners in 2015 and had hoped a boom in tourism and investment during a brief detente with the United States under Barack Obama would continue and help overcome financial difficulties.
    But the Trump administration quickly made clear it would dismantle detente and since October, expressing fury over Cuba’s close ties with crisis-racked and sanctioned Venezuela, has targeted Cuban tourism, investment and the fuel supply.
    The administration has sanctioned more than 100 Cuban companies, imposed stricter travel restrictions on its citizens and put into effect a 1996 law, suspended by its predecessors, that allows Cuban-Americans to sue foreign companies and individuals deemed to be trafficking in properties nationalized after the 1959 Revolution.     It has also imposed sanctions on any company or ship involved in carrying Venezuelan fuel to Cuba.
(Reporting by Marc Frank; Additional reporting by Nelson Acosta; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

7/14/2019 Cuba takes first step in railways upgrade with Chinese, Russian help by Mario Fuentes and Sarah Marsh
Cuba's Chinese-made first new train passenger cars move after departing from La Coubre
train station in Havana, Cuba, July 13, 2019. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini
    HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuba’s first new train passenger cars in more than four decades set off on their maiden journey across the island on Saturday in what the government hopes will prove a total revamp of its decrepit railway system with help from allies Russia and China.
    Cuba’s railway system is one of the oldest in the world; its first stretch was launched in the 1830s.    But it has suffered from a lack of maintenance and new equipment in an inefficient state-run economy under a crippling U.S. trade embargo that lacks cash.
    Trains have for years been one of the cheapest but also least efficient ways to travel long distances on the Caribbean’s largest island, typically taking 24 hours to cross the nearly 900 km (600 miles) from Havana in the west to Santiago in the east – twice as long as by car.
    Tickets are often elusive, with the ramshackle infrastructure unable to cope with the demand, and trains do not run on schedule.     Passengers, meanwhile, must contend with missing windows and doors, and cracked seats.    Accidents have become increasingly common in recent years.
    But Cuba’s government is planning to change all that by 2030, starting with upgrading its equipment, before moving onto the more daunting task of restoring the railroads.
    In May it received 80 Chinese-made, gleaming blue rail cars, including those that set off eastwards from Havana on Saturday, and expects to receive 80 more next year, according to state-run website Cubadebate.
    “i>This is the first step of the transformation of the Cuban railway system,” said Eduardo Hernandez, head of the National Railway Co of Cuba.
    Reflecting market reforms of the centrally planned economy in the socialist country, the new rail cars are split into first and second class, with the former boasting air conditioning.
    “Cuba has not received new rail-cars since the 1970s,” Transport Minister Eduardo Rodriguez was quoted as saying by Cubadebate last month.    “We had only received second hand cars.”
    While the new trains are expected to shave off some traveling time, they will require new or restored track to run at their full speed.
    Cuba has signed a deal worth almost $1 billion with Russia to modernize its railways, according to Interfax news agency, although details have not yet been released.
    In 2017, state-owned monopoly Russian Railways (RZD) told Reuters it was also negotiating to install a high-speed link between Havana and the beach resort of Varadero.
    Trains carried 6.1 million passengers in 2018, down from 10 million passengers in 2013, according to the statistics office.
(Reporting by Sarah Marsh; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

7/14/2019 Dozens detained in Moscow as opposition demands to be included in vote by Vladimir Soldatkin
Russian opposition figure Ilya Yashin addresses his supporters, next to a bas-relief of
Soviet state founder Vladimir Lenin, at a rally to protest against alleged violations ahead of elections to
Moscow City Duma, the capital's regional parliament, in Moscow, Russia July 14, 2019. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Police in Moscow detained more than 25 protestors at a rally to demonstrate against a possible ban on opposition candidates running in elections to the Russian capital’s parliament.
    Opposition leaders cried foul after Moscow’s election commission said most of their sponsored candidates failed to secure the required number of signatures to participate in the election.
    The commission has yet to officially announce the list of legitimate candidates for the Sept. 8 vote to the 45-seat parliament.
    Ilya Yashin, a critic of President Vladimir Putin, and several other activists had called for a meeting with the voters on Sunday, an event, which transformed into a march to the Moscow city mayor office and then to the headquarters of the election commission.
    Yashin said earlier on Sunday the election commission’s allegation that many of the signatures supporting him were rigged was an “absolute fraud.”
    A police spokesman said more than 25 people, including some organizers of the protest, were detained in the center of Moscow.    “They have not responded to police’s command to stop their actions.    They are being bussed to police stations for further inquiries,” a spokesman said.
    The participants shouted anti-government and anti-Putin slogans, urging the authorities to register their candidates.
    There is a history of anti-Kremlin activists being denied access to run for the parliament seats or presidential office.
    Alexei Navalny, a prominent opposition leaders, was barred from running in the 2018 presidential election after officials ruled he was ineligible to take part due to a suspended prison sentence.
    The Moscow city election commission was not available for comment on Sunday.
(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin and Maxim Shemetov, editing by Louise Heavens)

7/15/2019 France’s Macron pledges to relaunch Serbia-Kosovo dialogue by Ivana Sekularac
French President Emmanuel Macron and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic shake hands after a joint news conference
at the Serbia Palace building in Belgrade, Serbia, July 15, 2019. REUTERS/Djordje Kojadinovic
    BELGRADE (Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday he would to help relaunch talks to normalize ties between Serbia and Kosovo in the next few weeks.
    After meeting his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic, Macron said he would invite delegations from the two countries to Paris along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
    An EU-sponsored dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina has been stalled since Kosovo introduced a 100 percent tax on all goods imported from Serbia to put pressure on Belgrade to recognize its sovereignty.
    Kosovo declared independence with Western backing in 2008, but Serbia still considers it an integral part of its territory.
    Together with its traditional ally Russia, Serbia is blocking Kosovo from joining international organizations including the United Nations, UNICEF and Interpol.
    “We are seeing rising tension and sometimes these tensions are fueled here and there by external powers that have an interest in making sure no deal is found,” Macron said.
    “Reaching an agreement implies that each party abstains from unilateral and non-constructive gestures and, in that respect, developments over the last few weeks have been a concern, and decisions that were against past commitments must be abrogated.”
    Vucic said he had asked Macron to help Serbia in its bid to join the European Union, but Macron made no promises.
    He reiterated his previous view that the EU needed to make decision-making more efficient before Serbia and other countries can join.     Macron is the first French president to visit Serbia since 2001; a visit planned for last December was canceled after “yellow vest” anti-government protests turned violent in Paris.
    In a sign of increased cooperation, Serbia has agreed to buy the French light surface-to-air missile system Mistral.
    During Monday’s visit, the two sides signed a letter of intent for construction of a metro in the capital Belgrade.
    Serbia and France have intensified economic cooperation in recent years; France’s Vinci has a 25-year concession to run Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla airport.
    Serbia is balancing its relations with Russia, a traditional Slavic and Orthodox Christian ally, with a push to join the European Union and foster ties with NATO, though it wants to remain militarily neutral.    In 2016 it agreed to buy nine military helicopters from the European Airbus Helicopters.
    Vucic and Macron laid wreaths at a monument built to thank France for helping Serbia during World War One.
(Additional reporting by Michel Rose in Paris; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

7/15/2019 Czech Social Democrats dig in heels over minister nominee, threatening government by Robert Muller
FILE PHOTO: Czech Republic's Prime Minister Andrej Babis takes part in a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump
in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S., March 7, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo
    PRAGUE (Reuters) – The Czech Republic’s junior coalition party the Social Democrats said on Monday they were sticking with their preferred candidate for culture minister, prolonging a spat that is threatening the survival of Prime Minister Andrej Babis’s minority government.
    The Social Democrats requested in May that President Milos Zeman sack Culture Minister Antonin Stanek, whom they accuse of being ineffective, and to replace him with their preferred candidate, Michal Smarda.
    Zeman has so far refused to finalize the personnel change, angering the party he once led and creating a standoff.
    At a meeting of the wider party leadership on Monday, the Social Democrats stopped short of a decision to leave the coalition with Babis’s ANO party or have their ministers resign, but kept the threat of resignations on the table.
    They called in a resolution for Babis to ensure the party’s nomination for culture minister is respected.
    “I expect another round of negotiations between the prime minister and president in this matter,” Social Democrat leader Jan Hamacek told reporters.    “We are convinced that the rules apply to everyone.”br>     Under the Czech constitution, the president is obliged to fire ministers if requested to do so by the prime minister, but Zeman is known for acting independently of the government.    In this dispute he has said there is no deadline for taking action.
    While Zeman has defended current minister Stanek, he last week promised to dismiss him by the end of July.    But Zeman gave no assurances he would appoint Social Democrat nominee Smarda.
    His office declined to comment on Monday.
    Babis has sought to keep his coalition alive, visiting the Social Democrats’ leadership meeting on Monday. He told reporters the coalition has been successful.
    The Czech economy has grown strongly in recent years with Babis first as finance minister in a previous government and since he came to power after a 2017 election.
    The state has posted some of its first budget surpluses in decades.    Critics, though, say spending has grown to generous and will weigh on future budgets, ending the period of surpluses.
    Markets have been unfazed by the latest government dispute, similar to disputes in ruling coalitions that have marked Czech politics for over a decade.
    The Social Democrats’ departure would strip the government of its parliamentary majority.
    Zeman has suggested Babis could turn to the far-right, anti-EU and anti-NATO Freedom and Direct Democracy Party for support in parliament.    Babis has rejected the suggestion.
    A snap early election could only be held if 120 members of the 200-seat lower house agreed on calling the vote.    Babis has said early elections would hurt the country.
(Reporting by Robert Muller; Writing by Jason Hovet; Editing by Toby Chopra)

7/15/2019 Czech Social Democrats stick to minister nominee in government dispute
FILE PHOTO: Czech Republic's Prime Minister Andrej Babis arrives to take part in a European Union
leaders summit, in Brussels, Belgium July 2, 2019. REUTERS/Piroschka Van De Wouw/File Photo
    PRAGUE (Reuters) – The Czech Republic’s junior coalition party the Social Democrats said on Monday they were sticking with their preferred candidate for culture minister, prolonging a spat that is threatening the survival of Prime Minister Andrej Babis’s minority government.
    The Social Democrats requested in May that President Milos Zeman sack Culture Minister Antonin Stanek, whom they accuse of being ineffective, and to replace him with their preferred candidate, Michal Smarda.
    Zeman has so far refused to finalize the personnel change, angering the party he once led and creating a standoff.
    At a meeting of the wider party leadership on Monday, the Social Democrats stopped short of a decision to leave the coalition with Babis’s ANO party or have their ministers resign, but kept the threat of resignations on the table.
    They called in a resolution for Babis to ensure the party’s nomination for culture minister is respected.
    “I expect another round of negotiations between the prime minister and president in this matter,” Social Democrat leader Jan Hamacek told reporters.    “We are convinced that the rules apply to everyone.”
    Under the Czech constitution, the president is obliged to fire ministers if requested to do so by the prime minister, but Zeman is known for acting independently of the government.    In this dispute he has said there is no deadline for taking action.
    While Zeman has defended current minister Stanek, he last week promised to dismiss him by the end of July.    But Zeman gave no assurances he would appoint Social Democrat nominee Smarda.
(Reporting by Robert Muller; Writing by Jason Hovet; Editing by Catherine Evans)

7/15/2019 Kremlin ally says prisoner swap could be soon if Ukraine serious by Pavel Polityuk and Matthias Williams
A couple walk past an election campaign poster of Ukrainian Opposition Platform - For Life political party
in Kiev, Ukraine July 15, 2019. Picture taken July 15, 2019. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich
    KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine and Russia could swap prisoners within a matter of days, including filmmaker Oleg Sentsov whom Moscow jailed on terrorism charges, if Kiev shows the necessary political will, a close Kremlin ally in Ukraine said.
    Viktor Medvedchuk, 64, the main face of Ukraine’s Russia-friendly opposition, was speaking before a parliamentary election on Sunday where polls suggest President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s party will win but may fall short of a majority.
    Medvedchuk’s party will likely come second but he ruled out seeking a coalition with former comedian Zelenskiy, telling Reuters their ideologies were too far apart.
    Medvedchuk said Russian President Vladimir Putin respected Zelenskiy but was waiting to hear his position on solving the Donbass conflict, which has claimed 13,000 lives in five years.
    Ukraine and its western allies have pressed Moscow to release prisoners, including Sentsov, who was jailed in 2015.
    A native of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula who opposed its annexation by Russia in 2014, Sentsov says his original conviction was politically-motivated.
    Ukraine has dozens of prisoners in Russia, though it is unclear how many Russians are being held in Ukraine.
    “It depends on the political will of the Ukrainian president Mr Zelenskiy.    If there is such a political will, it is possible to negotiate and I affirm that it is possible to agree on this,” Medvedchuk said about prisoner swaps.
    “I know the opinion of the other side (Russia) – it is possible to agree,” he added in the interview at his office in Kiev on Friday.    “And this can be done in a few days.”
FRIEND OF PUTIN
    Medvedchuk’s words carry weight due to his friendship with Putin and record as a go-between.    The Russian leader is godfather to Medvedchuk’s daughter, and the Ukrainian said they spoke on his most recent visit to Moscow last week.
    A comic actor and political novice, Zelenskiy, 41, won Ukraine’s presidency in April, saying his priority was peace in Donbass, where Ukrainian soldiers are fighting Russian-backed fighters.
    Zelenskiy and Putin spoke by phone for the first time last Thursday and discussed a possible prisoner exchange.
    Zelenskiy has offered to talk with Putin in a neutral venue – the Belarus capital Minsk.    Ukraine and Russia have previously held talks accompanied by Germany and France.
    “He (Putin) respects this person (Zelenskiy), but he does not yet know his position and therefore this respect is not enough – it is necessary to know his position for the restoration of relations,” Medvedchuk said.
    Zelenskiy has proposed widening the talks to include the United States and Britain.    Medvedchuk called that unrealistic and “pre-election PR,” though he said a meeting between Zelenskiy and Putin should happen as soon as possible.
    A lawyer and businessman, Medvedchuk is a senior figure in the Opposition Platform – For Life party and is under investigation for treason over his views on Donbass.
    Western sanctions on Moscow have proved unproductive, Medvedchuk added.    “It means that one must look for another way, it means one must sit down at the negotiating table.”
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk and Matthias Williams)

7/17/2019 Russia’s Putin extends passport offer to Ukraine citizens
Russia's President Vladimir Putin places a candle as he visits the Transfiguration of the Saviour Cathedral at the
Valaam Monastery in the Republic of Karelia, Russia July 17, 2019. Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin via REUTERS
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an order on Wednesday further expanding the number of Ukrainian citizens who can apply for fast-track Russian passports.
    Moscow made the move ahead of a Ukrainian parliamentary election on Sunday, when a Russia-friendly party may become the strongest competitor of the more popular Servant of the People party, led by new president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, according to opinion polls.
    The new order, published on the Kremlin website, amended Putin’s earlier decree, which made it simpler for residents of separatist-controlled eastern Ukraine to apply for Russian passports.
    According to the new document, residents of the neighboring government-controlled parts of east-Ukrainian Donetsk and Luhansk regions can also use this procedure if they were registered as permanently living there as of April 2014, when the conflict started.
    Five years of war between Ukrainian troops and Russian-backed forces have killed 13,000 people despite a ceasefire signed in 2015.     Zelenskiy has said he will do everything in his power to end the conflict.
    Putin has already expanded the list of people eligible for fast-tracked passports by adding Ukrainians who once lived in Ukraine’s Crimea region before it was annexed by Russia in 2014, and citizens of Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Afghanistan who were born in Russia during the Soviet era.
(Reporting by Maria Tsvetkova, Editing by William Maclean)

7/17/2019 Hungary should move children from ‘prison-like’ transit zones: U.N.
FILE PHOTO - Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrives to take part in a European Union leaders summit,
in Brussels, Belgium July 2, 2019. Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt/Pool via REUTERS
    BUDAPEST (Reuters) – A senior U.N. human rights official urged Hungary on Wednesday to move asylum-seeking families held in “prison-like” transit zones on the Serbian border to other facilities in Hungary that he said are almost empty.
    Migrants arriving at the European Union’s southern border from Serbia have been held at special holding camps called transit zones while their asylum requests are pending, a practice that has already drawn criticism from the United Nations.
    The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Felipe Gonzalez Morales, said that last week there were 280 people in two such facilities on Hungary’s southern border with Serbia, 60% of them children.
    Presenting the first findings of a report on the treatment of migrants, he told a news conference that children should not be detained based on their migratory status.
    The report had found “very restrictive” conditions for people being held there, he said, adding he had visited a number of other facilities where children could be accommodated with their families, which he said were almost empty.
    Prime Minister Viktor Orban leads a nationalist government with a strongly anti-immigrant platform, an issue that has dominated his agenda since 2015, when hundreds of thousands of migrants marched through Hungary en route to western Europe.
    Gonzalez Morales said the fact that asylum-seekers were still held in the “prison-like environment” of transit zones, with barbed-wire defenses even on the roofs of sections holding children, might be seen as an attempt to intimidate people there.
    “I am afraid that all people held there regardless of age acts as a sort of deterrent,” he said, adding that the fact that people could leave the zones toward Serbia “does not prevent me from saying these are places of detention.”
    Gonzalez Morales said Orban’s government, which provided the monitor unimpeded access to facilities it wanted to visit, did not consider transit zones places of detention and did not provide a reason why children with families were held in there.
    He also called on Orban’s government to repeal a declaration of a state of emergency due to mass immigration as the conditions of its application were no longer in place.    In any case, no such regulation should override human rights, he said.
    “If in reality there is no mass influx of immigration the security situation cannot be considered the same as four years ago,” he said, adding the position that a crisis could resurface was not a sufficient reason to keep renewing the measure.
    Orban’s government had no immediate comment on the remarks by Gonzalez Morales.
(Reporting by Gergely Szakacs; Editing by Frances Kerry)

7/17/2019 Ukraine’s Russian-speaking president gives glimmer of hope to war-torn east
A member of the Ukrainian State Border Guard Service gives a sign to people to stop as they approach a checkpoint at the
contact line between pro-Russian rebels and Ukrainian troops in Mayorsk, Ukraine July 3, 2019. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich
    DONETSK/SLOVYANSK, Ukraine (Reuters) – In one of his first acts as Ukrainian president, comedian-turned-politician Volodymyr Zelenskiy held out a symbolic olive branch to people in Ukraine’s mostly Russian-speaking Donbass region, by switching from Ukrainian to Russian.
    That gesture, during his inauguration in the Ukrainian parliament in May, sent a message of inclusion to people in the mainly separatist-controlled Donbass region.    And for some, at least, it offers a faint glimmer of hope in a conflict that has claimed 13,000 lives and shows no sign of resolution.
    Language was a factor in the outbreak of the conflict in 2014, with Russian speakers in Donbass saying they feared Kiev would impose the Ukrainian language on them.    Ukraine says Russia exploited such fears to foment an anti-Kiev uprising that it also backed with troops and weapons.    Moscow says it only provides political and humanitarian support to the rebels.
    Separatist-controlled areas of the Donbass did not take part in Ukraine’s presidential election in April, won by Zelenskiy, and will also shun Sunday’s parliamentary poll, which the new president’s Servant of the People is expected to win on an anti-corruption platform.
    But for the Donbass, Zelenskiy has broken the mould of Ukrainian leaders who since 2014 – when Moscow also seized Ukraine’s Crimea region – have avoided using Russian in public.
    “He knows Russian better than Ukrainian, whatever they teach him over there.    He won’t ever know Ukrainian as well as Russian,” Lyudmila Korneeva, 65, a market stall worker, told Reuters TV in Donetsk, the biggest city in the Donbass.
    Dmitry Barabanov, 31, who runs a shisha bar in Donetsk, said Zelenskiy speaking both Ukrainian and Russian reflected the reality for people in the region.
    “We border Russia.    All of us have relatives in Russia, all of us got used to this language and speak Russian here,” he said.    “When I go to Ukraine, I speak Russian and Ukrainian.”
DISTRUST
    Zelenskiy has said he will do everything in his power to end the conflict in Donbass, but without territorial concessions to the separatists.
    Doing a deal in Donbass remains fraught with difficulty.
    The separatists distrust Kiev, their Russian backers have given no sign they are willing to meet Kiev’s demands, and a majority of Ukrainian voters might not forgive anything they see as compromising Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
    “Many people favor it (peace) at any price… For me that’s absolutely unacceptable,” said Alexei Pichakhchi, who moved from rebel-controlled Donetsk to Slovyansk, a city retaken by government forces during a major rebel retreat in 2014.
    “I lived in Donetsk, had an amazing job, everything was good.    And then this ‘Russian world’ came up and I simply couldn’t live with it,” he said, referring to the Russian nationalism of the separatists.    “How can you talk about compromises with people who destroyed your life?
(Reporting by Sergei Kirichenko and Serhiy Takhmazov, writing by Maria Tsvetkova; Editing by Gareth Jones)

7/18/2019 Zelenskiy’s second act: Ukraine leader set to win snap parliamentary election by Matthias Williams
FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelenskiy reacts following the announcement of the first exit poll in a
presidential election at his campaign headquarters in Kiev, Ukraine April 21, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/File Photo
    KIEV (Reuters) – The party of Ukraine’s new president looks set to win Sunday’s snap parliamentary election, repeating Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s shock victory in the April presidential race that has upended politics in the war-scarred nation.
    Zelenskiy, a former comedian with no previous political experience, hopes his Servant of the People party can secure control of parliament by tapping into public anger over graft and low living standards in one of Europe’s poorest countries.
    At present, the 41-year-old leader shares power with a cabinet and lawmakers who are mostly loyal to his predecessor.
    Whoever wins the election will inherit a country at the center of the West’s standoff with Moscow following Russia’s annexation of     Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014 and its role in a separatist conflict in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine that has killed 13,000 people in the past five years.
    Zelenskiy and his new government will also need to implement reforms agreed with international donors in order to secure billions of dollars of new loans and keep the economy stable.
    Servant of the People is named after the TV comedy series where Zelenskiy played a scrupulously honest history teacher who accidentally becomes president after a video of him ranting about corruption goes viral.
    He has burnished that image on the campaign trail and as president.
    In one of his first acts after taking office, Zelenskiy announced he was moving out of the presidential administration building as a symbolic break with the old way of doing politics – just as his fictitious president did in the TV series.
    Iryna Bekeshkina, director of the Kiev-based Democratic Initiatives Foundation, said Zelenskiy represented a “dream” for voters but it was not clear what the reality would be.
    It is a dream “that this party will come and it will be completely different from the former political elite.    That the ‘Servant of the People’ will really serve as the servant of the people,” she said.
    Nikita Vohomyanin, a 28-year-old Kiev resident, is not convinced.    “They say that there will be some movement, new changes, but in general it’s always the same, nothing happens.”
FED UP WITH OLD POLITICS
    Zelenskiy shot to power by tapping into an anti-establishment mood in Ukraine, mirroring the success of Donald Trump in the United States or the rise of the Five Star Movement in Italy that was also propelled by a comedian.
    That mood appears to be holding. A July survey by the International Republican Institute showed that nearly twice as many Ukrainian voters wanted a political party that delivered change compared to a party that ensured stability.
    Nearly two thirds of voters also wanted a party that represented a new generation of politicians compared to 24 percent who prized a party with experienced leaders.
    State corruption was cited as the biggest issue facing Ukraine, ahead of the Donbass conflict or relations with Russia.
    Beyond his everyman image, Zelenskiy has faced scrutiny over his business connections to one of Ukraine’s most powerful tycoons, Ihor Kolomoisky.
    Kolomoisky has been locked in a legal battle with the state over control of Ukraine’s largest lender, PrivatBank, which was nationalized in 2016 against his wishes as part of a sweeping clean-up demanded by the country’s creditors.
    Zelenskiy insists he is not beholden to Kolomoisky and has sought to reassure investors that he will not help him recover ownership of the bank or receive compensation – moves that would likely result in donors freezing aid.
    For now, most voters appear ready to give Zelenskiy the benefit of the doubt.
    A July survey by the KIIS research institute put his party on 37.8 percent, well ahead of his closest rivals though short of a majority.    He has not yet named his preferred candidate for prime minister.
    The Russia-friendly Opposition Platform was second with 11 percent, and the party run by Zelenskiy’s predecessor Petro Poroshenko in third.
    The Voice party, headed by rock star Sviatoslav Vakarchuk, is seen as a possible coalition ally for Zelenskiy.
    Zelenskiy and Vakarchuk both say they would stick to an aid program agreed with the International Monetary Fund – a reassuring signal to investors.
    “Zelenskiy is saying the right things, so if he gets the majority in parliament he will have the power to do things,” said David Nietlispach, a fund manager at Pala Asset Management.
    “Expectations in Ukraine are always very low, normally nothing changes really.    But this time he says he wants to change things, he has the power to change things so there will be no excuse if he gets the majority in parliament.”
(Additional reporting by Marc Jones and Karin Strohecker in London and Bogdan Basii in Kiev; Editing by Gareth Jones)

7/18/2019 School for Children of U.S. diplomats in Russia denying visas to U.S. teachers by OAN Newsroom
Russian President Vladimir Putin is pictured. (Reuters/Photo)
    A popular school for the children of foreign diplomats in Russia is reportedly denying visas to dozens of U.S. teachers.
    U.S. and U.K. embassy officials confirmed 30 teachers who were set to begin teaching next month at the Anglo-American School of Moscow have not received visas.
    Russia’s foreign ministry declined to comment on why the Kremlin made the move, but lawmakers suggest its meant to add pressure on the U.S. government to scale back on sanctions against the country.
    State Department officials are speaking out against the move, saying its unfair to use the children of diplomats as “political pawns.”
    “Most of the children now are children of business people working in Russia, and those would be the children who would be first to be denied the services of the school,” explained Alexis Rodzianko, President of the American Chamber of Commerce.
    Russia has attemtped to use the school for political leverage in the past.    Back in 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin allegedly threatened to close the school in retaliation against the Obama administration for imposing sanctions related to Russia’s election meddling.

7/18/2019 Ukraine’s president party builds support days before vote: polls
FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends a briefing in Kiev, Ukraine June 3, 2019. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich/File Photo
    KIEV (Reuters) – The party of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has extended its lead over other groups, according to polls published three days before parliamentary elections.
    Zelenskiy, a TV comedian with no previous political experience, took the presidency in April on a platform of promising to crack down on corruption and lift living standards.
    He is now hoping his Servant of the People party – named after the TV series in which he played a fictional, honest graft-fighting president – can give him control of parliament after Sunday’s vote.
    Surveys by the Razumkov center non-government think-tank and the pollster Reiting showed his party with the support of 40.2% and 41.8% of voters – up from the 36.5% and 37.3%, respectively, recorded by the same pollsters in late June and early July.
    The surveys show the next biggest party – the Opposition Platform party, which promotes restoration of ties with Russia – largely holding its ground through July with between 8.8% and 12.1%.
    European Solidarity, the party of the previous president, Petro Poroshenko, was also hovering between 6.5% and 6.8%.
    The bulk of the extra support heading to Zelenskiy appeared to come from a cluster of smaller groups that sank down the rankings.
    Following is a table showing the percentage support for leading parties among voters planning to take part in the election in recent polls.
    The table does not include parties that are not expected to exceed the 5 percent threshold for winning seats in parliament.
Razumkov Reiting KIIS
center July 13-17 July 3-13
July 12-17
Servant of the People 40.2 (36.5) 41.8 (37.3) 38.6 (37.8)
Opposition Platform 12.1 (11.0) 8.8 (9.9) 7.6 (11.0)
Fatherland 7.7 (6.1) 5.8 (5.8) 4.3 (4.8)
European Solidarity 6.8 (7.3) 6.5 (5.9) 5.8 (7.2)
Voice 6.1 (7.7) 5.0 (6.9) 3.0 (3.4)
(Reporting by Maria Tsvetkova; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

7/18/2019 Poland’s fragmented opposition coalesces into left, center blocs by Joanna Plucinska and Angelika Meczkowska
FILE PHOTO: Poland's Law and Justice (PiS) leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski and Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki
applaud as they attend a Law and Justice (PiS) party convention ahead of the EU election,
in Krakow, Poland May 19, 2019. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/File Photo
    WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland’s main opposition parties have formed two coalition blocs to vie for left-leaning and centrist votes ahead of a national election later this year, in the hope of denting the popularity of the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party.
    Critics say a PiS win could drive Poland deeper into conflict with the European Union over reforms to the judiciary as well as migration and environmental policy, while moving the central European country further away from liberal values.
    PiS has remained popular in part due to generous social spending programs.
    With opinion polls showing PiS on course to win a new term in the election expected in October, opposition politicians have struggled to formulate a competing message, riven by divisions over issues such as abortion and gay rights.
    A broad coalition of opposition parties on the left and center-right lost to PiS in May’s European Parliament elections.    It broke up shortly after the vote, underlining the political divisions in Poland.
    Leading opposition party Civic Platform — once led by outgoing European Council President Donald Tusk — said on Thursday it would join forces with two small, liberal groupings to compete in the national vote.
    “We believe that only this new formula will stand a chance against PiS,” PO’s leader Grzegorz Schetyna told reporters.
    The progressive Wiosna of Robert Biedron, Poland’s first openly gay lawmaker, who advocates taxing the powerful Catholic Church, as well as two small left-wing groups, announced plans to form a separate coalition.
    Many political observers in Poland have said fragmentation within the opposition has weakened its chances of overcoming PiS, drawing parallels with the strength of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
    Like PiS, Orban’s Fidesz party has built its popularity on opposing migration and advocating traditional Christian values, while squabbling with Brussels over democratic standards.
    Whether the new opposition blocs can grab power may depend on their ability to galvanize voters — turnout at Polish elections can be as low as 50 percent.
    Some observers also say the leftist grouping could fail to win at least 8% of votes, the threshold needed to enter parliament.    A similar scenario helped PiS win a majority four years ago, when a different left-leaning coalition won just over 7%.     If Civic Platform were to go into the elections alone, PiS would garner 43% of the vote while PO would get 26.1%, according to an IBRiS poll published on Wednesday. Alone, Wiosna could get 4.2%, the survey showed. Its coalition partners were not measured.
    But while the split might weaken the chances of either coalition conquering PiS, it might lead to a stronger opposition overall in the next parliament, Agnieszka Kwiatkowska, a sociologist at SWPS University, told Reuters.
    That could prevent PiS from securing its aim of a two-thirds majority in parliament that would allow the party to change the constitution and make it more difficult for PiS to push through further reforms.
    “The opposition going in two blocs, a centrist one and a leftist one, could spur a greater mobilization of leftist voters, and that could lead to more seats for the democratic opposition,” Kwiatkowska said.
(Additional reporting by Alan Charlish and Ania Gavina, Writing by Joanna Plucinska, Editing by Justyna Pawlak and Catherine Evans)

7/19/2019 Croatian parliament approves ministers appointed in cabinet reshuffle
FILE PHOTO: Croatia's Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic arrives to take part in a European Union leaders
summit, in Brussels, Belgium July 2, 2019. Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt/Pool via REUTERS
    ZAGREB (Reuters) – Croatia’s parliament on Friday approved the new ministers that conservative Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic named in a cabinet reshuffle two days earlier.
    He proposed the changes just over a year before his government’s term in office expires in late 2020.
(Reporting by Igor Ilic)

7/19/2019 Cuba says fuel shortage, blackouts are temporary, being fixed
Cars line-up to buy fuel at a gas station in Havana, Cuba, July 19, 2019. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini
    HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuban authorities sought to reassure jittery citizens this week that recent power outages and a fuel shortage were due to temporary problems that were being fixed rather than a broader decline in the economy under heavier U.S. sanctions.
    The Communist-run island is battling a cash crunch brought on by a decline in aid from leftist ally Venezuela and lower exports, as well as a tightening of the decades-old U.S. trade embargo, including attempts to block Venezuelan oil shipments.
    Sporadic shortages of basic goods are common in the cash-strapped, centrally-planned economy, but have picked up over the past year, with items like flour, chicken and milk becoming scarce for weeks and sometimes months.
    Vehicle owners have struggled to locate gas stations in Havana stocked with the upper grades of gasoline in the past few weeks, and when they do they have been forced to queue for hours to tank up.
    “This is the third gas station we’ve visited,” Rodolfo Romero said.    “And when there is any fuel, there’s a kilometer-long queue.”
    Tomás Pérez Álvarez, the head of sales at state-owned oil company Cuba-Petroleo, confirmed on Friday on the midday news broadcast on state television that there had been a deficit in fuel distribution, which he said would be fixed by next week.
    He said there has been a 10 percent increase in consumption because there are now more vehicles on the road.    The government has imported hundreds of microbuses over the past year to improve public transport.
    Cubans have also been complaining on social media of a string of power outages, this time outside the capital, raising for some the specter of a return to the long blackouts of the economic crisis following the fall of benefactor the Soviet Union.
    Energy Minister Raul Garcia earlier this week sought to reassure citizens that the outages were due to breakdowns in power plants rather than a lack of oil, and said the problems should be solved by this weekend.
    Cuba’s government has become more responsive since it introduced mobile internet, which has given Cubans a public forum to express discontent and directly address authorities.
(Reporting by Sarah Marsh, Nelson Acosta and Reuters TV; Editing by Leslie Adler)

7/19/2019 Russia’s Putin says he ‘sympathized’ with Trump before U.S. election
U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin hold a bilateral meeting at the
G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan June 28, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said he had “sympathized” with Donald Trump before the 2016 presidential election that swept Trump to power because of his desire to restore normal relations with Russia.
    In an interview with U.S. filmmaker Oliver Stone dated June 19 and published on the Kremlin web site on Friday, Putin also said that any alleged Russian hackers were still not able to influence the vote’s outcome.
    The Russian president reiterated that he had not and would not interfere in U.S. elections.
    The Moscow-Washington ties have long been strained by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement findings – denied by the Kremlin – that     Russia tried to influence the results of the 2016 U.S. presidential election to boost Trump’s chances of winning the White House.
    U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies say Russia used disinformation and other tactics to support Trump’s 2016 campaign.    Putin has denied it.
    “And whichever our bloggers – I don’t know who works there in the Internet – had expressed their point of view on the situation in the USA in this or that way, this had not been able to play a decisive role.    This is nonsense,” Putin said.
    “But we had sympathized with him (Trump), because he said that he wanted to restore normal relations with Russia.    What’s bad in this?    And of course, we couldn’t unwelcome such a position.”
(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Susan Thomas)

7/20/2019 Thousands protest in Moscow after opposition barred from city vote
People take part in a rally in support of independent candidates for elections to Moscow City Duma,
the capital's regional parliament, in Moscow, Russia July 20, 2019. REUTERS/Tatyana Makeyeva
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – More than 10,000 people took to the streets of Moscow on Saturday to protest against the exclusion of most opposition-minded candidates from an election for the Russian capital’s legislature.
    Election officials barred around 30 candidates, mostly opposition-leaning, from running for the 45-seat legislature on the grounds they failed to garner enough genuine signatures from voters to qualify.
    The barred candidates say they have secured the required number of signatures, but that they had been excluded because they were challenging the control over the legislature exercised by those loyal to President Vladimir Putin.
    Police said around 12,000 people took part in the protests, while opposition groups said the figure was higher.    Local authorities gave permission for the protest to go ahead, and there were no reports of any arrests.
    The protesters, led by Alexei Navalny, the most prominent critic of the Kremlin, demanded the authorities allow opposition candidates to run in the Sept. 8 vote.
    Protesters held placards with the inscriptions “I have the right to choose” and “Putin lies.”
    Police detained more than 25 people last week in Moscow following a protest that had not been approved by the authorities.
(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Christian Lowe and Peter Graff)

7/21/2019 Zelenskiy’s party in spotlight as Ukraine holds snap parliament election by Matthias Williams
FILE PHOTO: A volunteer holds electoral materials in support of the Servant of the People party led by Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelenskiy during an event ahead of the parliamentary election in Kiev, Ukraine July 18, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
    KIEV (Reuters) – Ukrainians started to vote in a snap parliamentary election on Sunday that could consolidate the power of new President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and hand the novice politician a stronger mandate for driving change in the war-scarred nation.
    A comedian with no prior policymaking experience, Zelenskiy caused a political earthquake by winning a landslide presidential election victory in April. He cast himself as an everyman outsider who would tackle corruption and raise living standards in one of Europe’s poorest countries.
    Zelenskiy’s Servant of the People party, named after the TV comedy where he played a fictional president, has consistently led the opinion polls for the parliamentary vote but might fall short of a majority.
    At present, the 41-year-old leader shares power with a cabinet and lawmakers who are mostly loyal to his predecessor.
    Whoever wins the election will inherit a country at the center of the West’s standoff with Moscow following Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014 and its role in a separatist conflict in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine that has killed 13,000 people in the past five years.
    The new government will also need to implement reforms agreed with international donors in order to secure billions of dollars of new loans to keep the economy stable.    Zelenskiy announced a snap election on the day he was inaugurated in May.
    “By calling an early election, the new president hoped to keep the momentum of his presidential victory going.    He is backed in this attempt by a majority of Ukrainians who view parliament as inherently corrupt and have given Mr Zelenskiy a mandate to ‘clean up’ the political class,” said Agnese Ortolani of the Economist Intelligence Unit.
    “We expect Mr Zelenskiy to be given a broad mandate from the Ukrainian people to move forwards with the set of ambitious reforms that he laid out in the first weeks of his presidency.”
    Beyond his everyman image, Zelenskiy has faced scrutiny over his business connections to one of Ukraine’s most powerful tycoons, Ihor Kolomoisky.
    Kolomoisky has fought a protracted legal battle with the state over control of Ukraine’s largest lender, PrivatBank, which was nationalized against his wishes in 2016.
    Zelenskiy insists he is not beholden to Kolomoisky and will not take his side.    A rollback of PrivatBank’s nationalization would likely lead to foreign creditors freezing aid.
TALKING TO YOUR FRIEND
    So far, Ukrainians appear willing to give Zelenskiy the benefit of the doubt.    Servant of the People has held a commanding opinion poll lead over the Russian-friendly Opposition Platform in second place.
    Also in the running are the parties headed by the man Zelenskiy beat in April – former president Petro Poroshenko, and that of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.    The Voice party, fronted by rock star Sviatoslav Vakarchuk, is seen as a possible coalition ally for Zelenskiy.
    Zelenskiy has promised to keep the country on a pro-Western course while securing peace in the Donbass region.
    He will seek a new aid-for-reforms program with the International Monetary Fund and has promised crowd-pleasing anti-corruption measures, such as stripping lawmakers of their immunity from prosecution.
    Often tie-less and speaking to voters through social media videos, Zelenskiy has carried his informal style from the campaign trail into the presidency.
    A recent poll by the Washington-based National Democratic Institute asked voters which politicians they thought were interested in hearing their opinions.
    Zelenskiy scored 49 percent, compared to eight percent for former president Poroshenko.    Two-thirds of those surveyed thought Zelenskiy would make changes that mattered to them.
    “The president and his team have demonstrated a new way of doing things.    Politics is changing.    It’s more interactive,” said Ian Woodward, the Ukraine Deputy Director for the NDI.
    “Communicating directly in real language that people can understand, it’s not standing from up on high or at a distance,” he said.    “It’s like talking to your friend. Much more informal and conversational language.”
(Editing by Stephen Powell)

7/21/2019 Ukraine president’s party leads in parliament election: exit poll
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his wife Olena stand in front of ballot boxes at a polling station
during a parliamentary election in Kiev, Ukraine July 21, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
    KIEV (Reuters) – President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s party led Ukraine’s snap parliamentary election on Sunday with 43.9% of votes, an exit poll showed.
    The Opposition Platform was in second place, former President Petro Poroshenko’s party was in third place, former Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s party was in fourth place and rock star Sviatoslav Vakarchuk’s party in fifth.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Peter Graff)

7/21/2019 Ukraine president wants to discuss coalition with Voice party
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy reacts at his party's headquarters after a
parliamentary election in Kiev, Ukraine July 21, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
    KIEV (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Sunday said he wants to invite the Voice party, headed by rock star Sviatoslav Vakarchuk, for talks about forming a governing coalition in parliament.
    Zelenskiy was speaking after an exit poll showed his party ahead in a snap parliamentary election.
    A senior member of the Voice party separately said it was open to an alliance with new political forces provided they were not backed by oligarchs.
(Reporting by Natalia Zinets and Maria Tsvetkova; Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by David Goodman)

7/21/2019 Polish police detain 25 after attacks on equality march
Police officers detain a protester during a demonstration against the first Pride Parade in the city of Bialystok, Poland
July 20, 2019 in this picture obtained from social media July 21, 2019. Magda Bogdanowicz/via REUTERS
    WARSAW (Reuters) – Police have detained 25 people in Bialystok, eastern Poland, after attacks on those taking part in the city’s first equality march amid accusations that the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party benefits from fuelling anti-gay sentiment.
    Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights have become an issue in Poland ahead of a general election expected in October, with the conservative party depicting campaigners as a threat to traditional Polish values.
    “Officers ensure security regardless of the ideas, values and beliefs proclaimed by citizens.    Any person who breaks the law (…) should know they can be held responsible,” interior minister Elzbieta Witek said on Twitter on Sunday.
    Videos posted on Twitter show men attacking participants in the march, including a woman, and shouting anti-LGBT insults.    Some of the attackers were wearing football club t-shirts.
    Last year during an equality march in Lublin, another eastern Polish city, activists were hounded by groups of men, who were dispersed by riot police firing tear gas.
    This year, at a political rally before European Parliament elections, PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski urged Poles to vote for what he called “the only party that gives a 100% guarantee that our values will be protected.”
    LGBT rights constitute foreign values that pose “a real threat to our identity, to our nation,” he said.    Some observers see parallels with the party’s 2015 campaign, when it deployed anti-immigrant rhetoric.
    “One should condemn any act of hooliganism and I condemn it doubly (…) Firstly because you can’t beat, yank people under any circumstances,” PiS legislator Marcin Horala told broadcaster TVN24.     “But also because nothing helps promote LGBT in Poland as much as giving them the role of victim, as was the case in Bialystok,” he added.
    PiS took power in 2015 and remains popular thanks to generous welfare payouts, low unemployment and its nationalist rhetoric.
    A newspaper supporting PiS was criticized in recent days by the U.S. and British embassies for its plan to put an “LGBT-free zone” sticker on one of its editions.
(Reporting by Marcin Goclowski; Editing by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk and Dale Hudson)
[There are still a few countries that fear the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob.].

7/22/2019 Ukraine president’s party declares winning majority in parliament
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy reacts at his party's headquarters after a parliamentary election
in Kiev, Ukraine July 21, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
    KIEV (Reuters) – Servant of the People, the party of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, could win a majority in the new parliament, a senior party official said on Monday.
    Under Ukraine’s mixed election system, half of the seats in the 450-member parliament are chosen on the basis of party lists and the rest in first-past-the-post constituency races.
    Oleksandr Korniyenko said Servant of the People could win 121-122 seats in the party list voting and 125-127 seats in the constituencies following Sunday’s parliamentary election.
(Reporting by Natalia Zinets, writing by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Gareth Jones)

7/22/2019 Ukraine president on course for unprecedented majority after election win by Maria Tsvetkova and Pavel Polityuk
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks at his party's headquarters after a
parliamentary election in Kiev, Ukraine July 21, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
    KIEV (Reuters) – President Volodymyr Zelenskiy looked set on Monday to become Ukraine’s first leader since the fall of communism to command a single party majority in parliament, in what would be an unprecedented mandate to deliver promised reforms.
    His party’s victory in Sunday’s snap parliamentary election caps a meteoric rise for the former TV comedian who has tapped into widespread anger over entrenched corruption and low living standards in one of Europe’s poorest countries.
    Zelenskiy’s Servant of the People party, named after the satirical TV series where he played a humble history teacher who accidentally becomes president, was on course to win 246-249 seats out of 424 seats, his party estimated.
    That would give Zelenskiy, 41, the power to decide the make-up of the next government and control over a parliament that had previously been loyal to his predecessor Petro Poroshenko and blocked his legislative agenda.
    Since defeating Poroshenko by a landslide in April’s presidential race, Zelenskiy has promised to keep Ukraine on a pro-Western course and seek a new aid-for-reforms program with the International Monetary Fund.
    He has also pledged to find a lasting peace in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region, where war between Kiev’s forces and Russian-backed armed separatists has killed 13,000 in five years since Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014.
    His back-to-back election victories “create the necessary support for the newly elected president to implement much-needed and long-delayed reforms,” a note by Citi said.
.     Markets welcomed the prospect of a period of political stability, with some of Ukraine’s dollar-denominated sovereign bonds rising to their highest since early 2018.
    Russia’s foreign ministry said the election result offered hope but added that Ukrainian lawmakers should use their mandate “wisely for peaceful purposes and for the benefit of the population of the whole country.”
WEIGHT OF EXPECTATIONS
    Under Ukraine’s mixed election system, Zelenskiy’s party won in both party list voting and in constituencies, preliminary election commission data showed.
    It would be the first time since Ukraine won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 that most members of parliament belong to one political party.
    “Zelenskiy will have effective control over the choice of prime minister and government, making the presidency de facto the dominant Ukrainian political institution,” Daragh McDowell of the risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft said.
    “While this will make it easier for Zelenskiy to push through reforms it also undermines the checks and balances of Ukraine’s fragile political institutions.”
    Power is shared in Ukraine between the president and parliament.
    The president nominates key appointments including the head of the central bank, the foreign and defense ministers and the head of the armed forces, while the biggest party or coalition in parliament determines the make-up of the government.
    In Ukraine’s fractious politics, where parliamentary disputes have sometimes ended in mass brawls, hostilities between the government and president have stymied policymaking in the past.
    Zelenskiy will now have to manage the high expectations that his large mandate has generated.
    A pre-election survey by the Washington-based National Democratic Institute said 45% of voters expected Zelenskiy to negotiate a peace in the Donbass within 12 months — the biggest single priority among voters.
    But 57% would not accept peace at the cost of allowing Crimea to become a recognized part of Russia — something Moscow is likely to insist on — and 62% would not accept peace if Donbass did not return to Kiev’s full control.
    More than half of respondents also expected Ukraine to be a member of the European Union by 2030.
    “There should be changes in our country.    I am 49 years old and judging from my experience, I know we had no other way but to make such a choice.    Otherwise, we would not be able to get rid of the past,” said Olena Moskalenko, a finance specialist from Kiev.
.     “I have one hope only – that we won’t get disappointed in our choice again and in our expectations,” she told Reuters TV.
.     Parliament nominally has 450 seats but in this election the number of constituencies fell to 199 from 225, reflecting the loss of control over Crimea and parts of the Donbass region.
    The Russian-friendly Opposition Platform was in a distant second place, followed by Poroshenko’s party and that of a former prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko.
.     Another new pro-Western party, Voice, fronted by rock star Sviatoslav Vakarchuk, also passed the 5% threshold to enter parliament.    Voice is the only party to which Zelenskiy has offered coalition talks.
    Vakarchuk said it was too early to discuss a potential alliance while votes were still being counted.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk, Natalia Zinets, Matthias Williams and Bogdan Basii in Kiev and Karin Strohecker in London; writing by Maria Tsvetkova and Matthias Williams; Editing by Gareth Jones)

7/23/2019 Scans show changes to brains of ‘injured’ Havana U.S. embassy workers by Gene Emery
FILE PHOTO: A vintage car passes by the U.S. embassy in Havana, Cuba, March 12, 2019.
Picture taken March 12, 2019. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini/File Photo
    (Reuters) – Advanced brain scans of U.S. Embassy employees who reported falling ill while serving in Havana revealed significant differences, according to a new study published on Tuesday that does little to resolve the mystery of injuries the Trump administration had characterized as a “sonic attack.”
    University of Pennsylvania researchers said symptoms described by the embassy workers may be reflected in their brain scans when compared with those of healthy volunteers.
    The difference between the brains of the workers and people in a control group “is pretty jaw-dropping at the moment,” lead researcher Dr. Ragini Verma, a professor of radiology at Penn, told Reuters in a phone interview.
    “Most of these patients had a particular type of symptoms and there is a clinical abnormality that is being reflected in an imaging anomaly,” she said.
    However, in findings published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Verma and her colleagues said it is not clear if the brain patterns directly translate into meaningful health problems.    Initial MRI scans of 21 Havana embassy workers had revealed no abnormalities.
    The health problems of more than two dozen workers surfaced in 2016 after the Obama administration reopened the embassy in an effort to improve relations with the Communist island nation. Most of the employees were removed from Cuba in 2017.
    Symptoms included headache, ringing in the ears, sleep disturbances, trouble thinking, memory problems, dizziness and balance problems.
    U.S. President Donald Trump has said Cuba was responsible for what the U.S. State Department called “significant injuries” suffered by the workers.    Canadian embassy workers complained of similar mysterious health problems and were also removed from Cuba.    Cuban health officials rejected the hypothesis that health attacks and brain damage caused symptoms described by U.S. diplomats. [nL2N1W001Z]
    The Penn team, in an earlier JAMA report, described the injuries experienced by the first 21 diplomats it examined as like a concussion without a blow to the head.
    The latest brain scans may provide fresh evidence of some injury, but the study was not without critics and some researchers have questioned whether there was any kind of attack at all.
    “Finding evidence of brain change doesn’t provide evidence of brain injury or damage,” said Dr. Jon Stone, a professor of neurology at the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, who was not involved in the study.
    Dr. Sergio Della Sala, a professor of human cognitive neuroscience also at the University of Edinburgh, in an email called the study “half baked.”
    He noted that 12 of the affected workers who had a history of concussion prior to going to Cuba were included in the analyses.    “In comparison, none of the controls declared previous brain injury.    This in itself could cause statistical group differences,” Della Sala said.
    When those 12 were omitted, researchers did not calculate whether the differences in the brains of the remaining workers was significant.
    Skeptics have raised a host of questions challenging State Department assertions that some unknown weapon had attacked the workers.
    For example, the odd sound that some felt may have caused the problems was later identified by insect experts as the mating call of the male Indies short-tailed cricket, which is notorious for its volume.
(Reporting by Gene Emery; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

7/23/2019 Slain Russian gay-rights activist had received threats: campaigner
A supporter of LGBT community attends a rally after a murder of Elena Grigoryeva, activist for LGBT rights,
in Saint Petersburg, Russia July 23, 2019. REUTERS/Igor Russak NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Russian activist for LGBT rights who was fatally stabbed in St Petersburg had regularly received death threats and reported them to police, who did nothing to protect her before she was murdered, a fellow campaigner said.
    Elena Grigoryeva, 41, was found dead with multiple knife wounds on Sunday evening, according to a statement from the Investigative Committee, the state body that investigates major crimes.
    “Recently she had been a victim of violence and was regularly threatened with murder,” Dinar Idrisov, a rights activist who said he knew Grigoryeva, wrote on Facebook.
    “Lena and her lawyer appealed to law enforcement both on account of violence and on account of threats, but there was no noticeable reaction.”
    Police in St Petersburg confirmed she had reported being threatened repeatedly, but said the threats had not seemed a risk to her life and were related to domestic conflicts with people she knew, the RBC media portal reported.
    Grigoryeva campaigned for gay rights and also took part in anti-war protests and rallies on other issues.
    The Investigative Committee’s St Petersburg branch said late on Monday it was working to establish the identity of the suspect or suspects responsible for the murder.
    Local online news outlet Fontanka reported on Monday a 40-year-old male suspect from the region of Bashkortostan had been detained.
(Reporting by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Peter Graff)

7/23/2019 Bulgaria president vetoes $1.26 billion deal for F-16 fighter jets
FILE PHOTO: A U.S. Air Force F-16 fighter taking part in the U.S.-led Saber Strike
exercise flies over Estonia June 6, 2018. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins/File Photo
    SOFIA (Reuters) – Bulgarian President Rumen Radev on Tuesday vetoed a deal to buy eight new Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter jets, describing a lack of consensus over the purchase as “extremely worrying.”
    The $1.26 billion deal would be the country’s biggest military purchase since the fall of Communism three decades ago.
    But Radev, a former air force commander, said the sharp disputes in parliament during the debate on its ratification showed that public consensus on the contracts had been neither sought nor achieved.
    “Because of the shortened legislative procedure, a number of important issues such as prices, warranties, delivery times, penalties, indemnities, and so on, have remained unclear,” he said.
    “The commitment of the Republic of Bulgaria to obligations, for years to come, without a national consensus and conviction in the mutually acceptable conditions of the treaty, is extremely worrying,” Radev said in a statement.
    In 2017, an interim government selected the Gripen built by Sweden’s Saab but the deal was later canceled and a new procedure was launched a year later.
    Radev said it was important that Bulgaria receive “a full package of equipment, accompanying equipment and personnel training.”
    “The public needs a definite answer as to whether this is actually achieved by the contracts.”
    The ruling center-right GERB party defended the contracts and expressed its readiness for another vote at a parliamentary session on Friday.    Parliament could overrule Radev’s veto with a vote of at least 121 votes in the 240-seat assembly.
    “We have a consensus that we need to modernize (Bulgaria’s) armed forces,” Konstantin Popov, chair of parliamentary defense committee, said.    “The F-16 is a wonderful airplane.”
    The Black Sea state, a staunch Washington ally, is looking to replace its aging Soviet-made MiG-29 aircraft after 2023 and improve its compliance with NATO standards.
(Reporting by Angel Krasimirov; editing by Jason Neely and Alison Williams)

7/24/2019 Kremlin critic Navalny detained by police near Moscow home
FILE PHOTO: Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is charged with participation in an unauthorised
protest rally, attends a court hearing in Moscow, Russia July 1, 2019. REUTERS/Tatyana Makeyeva/File Photo
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian police detained opposition politician Alexei Navalny on Wednesday as he left his home in Moscow days before he planned to lead an opposition protest in the capital, Navalny said on social media.
    The Kremlin critic’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, said police had detained Navalny for calling on protesters to stage an unauthorized opposition rally this weekend, an offense that carries a penalty of up to 30 days in jail.
    “I left home for a jog and to buy my wife flowers for her birthday… There was a small bus of riot police near my stairwell and I was detained,” Navalny said in a video message on Instagram.
    Navalny’s detention came days after a protest on Saturday against the exclusion of most opposition-minded candidates from an election for the Russian capital’s legislature in September.    A monitor said more than 20,000 people had attended the protest.
    Election officials barred the opposition-minded candidates for what it said was their failure to garner enough genuine signatures from voters to qualify to run, an allegation they rejected as false.
    The candidates say the real reason they were excluded was because they were trying to challenge control over the legislature exercised by allies of President Vladimir Putin.    Navalny’s supporters are among those barred from running in the election.
    Speaking at the protest, Navalny gave election officials a week to register the excluded candidates and urged protesters to hold an unauthorized protest outside Moscow city hall on Saturday if they failed to do so.
(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova, writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Andrew Osborn)

7/24/2019 Police raid cybersecurity firm over Bulgaria’s biggest data breach
Police enter offices of a cybersecurity company in Sofia, Bulgaria, July 23, 2019. REUTERS/Stringer NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES
    SOFIA (Reuters) – Police investigating Bulgaria’s biggest-ever data breach have detained a manager of a cybersecurity company, raided its offices and seized computers, they said on Wednesday.
    The company, Tad Group, has become a focus of the investigation.    Another of its employees, Kristian Boykov, is the only person so far charged with involvement in last month’s cyber-attack on the tax agency, in which nearly every Bulgarian adult’s financial records were compromised.
    Boykov, 20, has denied wrongdoing.    He has been released from custody but banned from leaving the country.
    Police and prosecutors searched Tad Group’s premises on Tuesday.    “One senior manager has been taken in for questioning.    He is being detained for 24 hours,” an interior ministry spokeswoman said.    She did not identify the person detained.
    have said they believe Boykov did not act alone and were now looking for instigators of the attack and contractors they used.
    Prosecutors believe he was behind an email sent from someone purporting to be a Russian hacker who was offering stolen tax agency files to local media.    They do not currently believe the attack came from abroad.
    The tax agency is facing a fine of up to 20 million euros ($22.5 million) over the breach, which officials have said compromised about 3% of the agency’s database.
    According to financial newspaper Capital, the leaked data also included files from the EU’s anti-fraud network EUROFISC, which allows national tax administrations to share information on fraudulent activities and combat organized VAT fraud.
(Reporting by Tsvetelia Tsolova; editing by John Stonestreet)

7/24/2019 Slain Russian gay-rights activist had received threats: campaigner
A woman attends a rally after a murder of Elena Grigoryeva, activist for LGBT rights,
in Saint Petersburg, Russia July 23, 2019. REUTERS/Igor Russak
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Russian activist for LGBT rights who was fatally stabbed in St Petersburg had regularly received death threats and reported them to police, who did nothing to protect her before she was murdered, a fellow campaigner said.
    Elena Grigoryeva, 41, was found dead with multiple knife wounds on Sunday evening, according to a statement from the Investigative Committee, the state body that investigates major crimes.
    “Recently she had been a victim of violence and was regularly threatened with murder,” Dinar Idrisov, a rights activist who said he knew Grigoryeva, wrote on Facebook.
    “Lena and her lawyer appealed to law enforcement both on account of violence and on account of threats, but there was no noticeable reaction.”
    Police in St Petersburg confirmed she had reported being threatened repeatedly, but said the threats had not seemed a risk to her life and were related to domestic conflicts with people she knew, the RBC media portal reported.
    Grigoryeva campaigned for gay rights and also took part in anti-war protests and rallies on other issues.
    The Investigative Committee’s St Petersburg branch said late on Monday it was working to establish the identity of the suspect or suspects responsible for the murder.
    Local online news outlet Fontanka reported on Monday a 40-year-old male suspect from the region of Bashkortostan had been detained.
(Reporting by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Peter Graff)

7/24/2019 On Albania border patrol, EU’s Frontex helps tackle migrant flow by Benet Koleka
A member of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (FRONTEX) uses binoculars as he patrols with his colleagues near
Albania-Greece border, in Kapshtica near Korce, Albania, July 23, 2019. Picture taken July 23, 2019. REUTERS/Florion Goga
    TRESTENIK, Albania (Reuters) – Patrolling dirt paths on sun-baked hills bordering Greece, a European police team is helping Albania intercept more of the migrants trying to reach European Union states to the north.
    The EU border and coastguard police Frontex deployed 50 officers with night vision cameras and vehicles two months ago at two border entry points favored by migrants, in its first operation outside the bloc’s frontiers.
    “We have seen a steady flow of migrants coming across from the Greek border… We are seeing apprehensions pretty much every day,” said Krzysztof Borowski, a Frontex spokesman.
    Teams from Germany, the Czech Republic, Latvia and Lithuania helped stop 200 migrants in their first month since deploying on May 22, and since then groups of 10, 20 and 30 have been intercepted daily at the border with Greece in eastern Albania’s Korce area, Borowski added.
    Most of the migrants caught on the border appear to be from Iraq, Syria and Morocco.
    Another northern neighbor of Greece, North Macedonia, was the main route used by more than a million migrants from the Middle East, Africa and Asia in a huge 2015-2016 influx.
    But several thousand of them went through Albania to cross into Montenegro or Kosovo and move north to northern EU states.
    Now, Frontex is trying to ensure security on the Albania-Greece is as tight as possible.
    Jan Seibold, 42, and Christian Schonwalde, 31, members of a riot police unit from Leipzig, Germany, and their Albanian colleague Marenglen Metolli, 30, have been running 12-hour shifts on the border near Trestenik village for a week now.
    The migrants get off taxis or other vehicles at a toll booth on a highway in Greece, hide and sleep during the day in the forest and cross at night or early in the morning, Metolli said.
I WANT TO GO TO GERMANY
    Their team had stopped half a dozen migrants, including four men aged from 17 to 49 who had not eaten for four days.
    “One of them had been in Germany for four years, working in a hotel, and wanted to go back,” Schonwalde told Reuters.
    Their patrols have helped reduce the numbers of migrants stopped in the interior from 565 people from May 22 to July 22 last year to 320 in the same period this year, showing less evaded the joint net.
    “Before FRONTEX started the Joint Operations, we used to apprehend more migrants in the urban areas; now thanks to their troops patrolling the green border, the migrants are located mainly on the border section with Greece,” Albania’s Border Police director Eduart Merkaj told Reuters.
    Some 2,047 migrants were apprehended in 2015, then numbers fell to 915 and 1,047 respectively in 2016 and 2017, growing to 6,893 migrants in 2018.    The numbers may be slightly higher this year, since Greek holding centers are closer to Albania now.
    Once fingerprinted, migrants are sent to an Asylum Seekers Center in the outskirts of Albania’s capital Tirana.    Few apply for asylum, most choose to go back to Greece, while others flee and attempt to make their way to western European countries.
    At the center, some members of a group caught by Albanian police said they had left the Iraqi town of Duhok a year and a half ago for Turkey.    They spent most of that time in Greece before being rounded up by Albanian police.
    Ali Sulejman, 30, said his life in Iraq was “crazy” and he had paid 500 euros ($556) to get to Turkey.    Another 1,500 euros got him by ship from Turkey to Greece.
    One of his friends, who gave his name as Ahmed Ahmed, 40, was traveling with his wife and seven children aged from seven months to 12 years.    All of them were in good health.
    “I am staying in Greece one year and five months and yesterday I came to Albania.    I want to go to Germany, Germany is very good, my sister lives there,” Sulejman told Reuters.
($1 = 0.8981 euros)
(Reporting by Benet Koleka, Editing by William Maclean)

7/24/2019 Czech government spat over minister drags on, president to decide on post in August
FILE PHOTO: Czech President Milos Zeman gestures in Vienna, Austria April 3, 2019. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger/File Photo
    PRAGUE (Reuters) – Czech President Milos Zeman will decide in August on whether to accept the Social Democrats’ preferred pick for culture minister, a personnel move at the heart of a dispute rattling the ruling coalition.
    The Social Democrats, a party Zeman once led before a falling out, are the junior member to Prime Minister Andrej Babis’s ANO party in a center-left minority government that gets parliamentary backing from the Communist party.
    They requested in May that Zeman remove Antonin Stanek, whom they accuse of being ineffective, and replace him with their preferred candidate, Michal Smarda.
    But Zeman has defended Stanek, angering the Social Democrats and creating a standoff that led to Social Democrat threats of resignations as the president has yet to finalize the change.
    Babis met Zeman on Wednesday and said the president confirmed he would remove Stanek by the end of July as the Social Democrats requested.
    “He will decide on the (Social Democrats’) nomination for the post of culture minister around the middle of August,” Babis said on Twitter.
    Under the Czech constitution, the president is obliged to fire ministers if requested to do so by the prime minister, but Zeman is known for acting independently of the government.    In this dispute he has said there is no deadline for taking action.
    The Social Democrat leadership confirmed last week Smarda remained their choice for culture minister, calling on Babis to ensure the nomination is respected.    The party stopped short of deciding to leave the coalition already although resignations by its ministers remain an option.
    Babis has fought to maintain his one-year-old government.    The Social Democrats’ exit would cost him a parliamentary majority, leaving him few options. Babis has said early elections could hurt the country.
    With the Czech economy and public finances mostly on firm footing, markets have been unfazed by the latest government dispute, similar to disputes in ruling coalitions that have marked the country’s politics for over a decade.
(Reporting by Jason Hovet; Editing by Alison Williams)

7/24/2019 Russia says world should foster Venezuela talks, not impose agenda
The Capitol is seen where Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (not pictured) and Cuba's First Secretary
of the Communist Party and former President Raul Castro (not pictured) attended the inauguration of the
Statue of the Republic, in Havana, Cuba July 24, 2019. REUTERS/Fernando Medina
    HAVANA (Reuters) – The international community should continue fostering dialogue between the government in Venezuela and the opposition, but not in order to impose its own agenda, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters during a visit to Havana.
    In the joint news conference with his Cuban counterpart Bruno Rodriguez, Lavrov said Havana and Moscow agree that Venezuela’s political crisis should be resolved pacifically through dialogue and without foreign interference, in a jibe at the West.
    Both countries are staunch allies of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro while most Western powers have recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country’s legitimate leader, arguing that Maduro’s 2018 re-election was fraudulent.
    Talks between the Venezuelan government and the country’s opposition are continuing in Barbados, the foreign ministry of mediator Norway said late last week in a rare statement about the progress of the discussions.    This was the latest round of talks that began in Norway in May in an effort to resolve the stalemate resulting from Maduro’s disputed re-election.
    “Regarding the contacts stimulating direct dialogue between the government and opposition – we want these to develop but again we want to mention that these should strengthen dialogue and not aim to impose” certain results, Lavrov said.
    Russia’s foreign ministry website on Tuesday cited interviews Lavrov had given in Latin America in which he said the situation in Venezuela was changing for the better.
    Moscow had been in touch with Venezuela’s opposition and told it not to “decide its domestic problems by provoking external interference,” Lavrov was quoted as saying.
    Rodriguez said on Wednesday Cuba remained profoundly loyal to the administration of Maduro.
(Reporting by Nelson Acosta and Sarah Marsh, editing by G Crosse)

7/24/2019 Conservative Polish magazine issues ‘LGBT-free zone’ stickers
A sticker with words "LGBT-free zone" distributed in weekly conservative magazine
"Gazeta Polska" is pictured in Warsaw, Poland July 24, 2019. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel
    WARSAW (Reuters) – A conservative magazine in Poland distributed “LGBT-free zone” stickers with its weekly edition on Wednesday, amid a mounting backlash against gay rights in central Europe’s largest nation ahead of a parliamentary election this year.
    Diplomats and opposition politicians in Poland have criticized the Gazeta Polska’s campaign and a major bookseller, Empik, as well as the Polish branch of British oil company BP, have said they would not carry the edition.
    Gazeta Polska’s editor-in-chief, Tomasz Sakiewicz, said the campaign wasn’t directed against any individual but against those who try to censor views that are critical of “LGBT ideology.”
    “i>We wanted to prove that censorship in this case exists and we have proved it,” Sakiewicz told Reuters, referring to criticism of the stickers.    “What is happening is the best evidence that LGBT is a totalitarian ideology.”
    The nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) government, which has faced accusations of fomenting anti-gay sentiment in recent months, said Gazeta Polska should be free to publish under Poland’s freedom of expression laws.
    “As the ruling party, we won’t impose on the free media and the free press what it should write and what stickers it should distribute,” deputy prime minister Jacek Sasin told private TV station TVN on Monday.
    The campaign includes stickers with a black “x” through a rainbow flag and was announced last week by Gazeta Polska.
    The move comes as PiS has made LGBT rights a central campaign issue, pegging the party against more liberal forces in the country.
    The magazine is largely loyal to the government line and receives significantly more advertising placements from state-run companies than other privately run media.
    Along with the stickers, gay pride marches have become a pressure point in Poland, with many ruling party politicians saying that they unnecessarily encourage public display of sexuality.
    “These kinds of marches, initiated by groups that are trying to force through their non-standard sexual behaviors, awaken resistance … it’s worth considering if such events should be organized in the future,” Education Minister Dariusz Piontkowski told private broadcaster TVN on Sunday.
    Police have detained more than 30 people in Bialystok, eastern Poland, after attacks on gay pride march participants on Saturday.
    Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and human rights officials condemned the violence.
    Poland ranks second to last out of 28 European Union states when it comes to equality and non-discrimination, according to Rainbow Europe, an organization linked to the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association.
    Gay marriage is illegal in Poland and homosexual partnerships are not legally recognized.
(Reporting by Joanna Plucinska and Alicja Ptak, Additional reporting by Anna Koper, Writing by Joanna Plucinska, Editing by Justyna Pawlak and Nick Macfie)

7/24/2019 On Albania border patrol, EU’s Frontex helps tackle migrant flow by Benet Koleka
A member of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (FRONTEX) uses binoculars as he patrols with his colleagues near
Albania-Greece border, in Kapshtica near Korce, Albania, July 23, 2019. Picture taken July 23, 2019. REUTERS/Florion Goga
    TRESTENIK, Albania (Reuters) – Patrolling dirt paths on sun-baked hills bordering Greece, a European police team is helping Albania intercept more of the migrants trying to reach European Union states to the north.
    The EU border and coastguard police Frontex deployed 50 officers with night vision cameras and vehicles two months ago at two border entry points favored by migrants, in its first operation outside the bloc’s frontiers.
    “We have seen a steady flow of migrants coming across from the Greek border… We are seeing apprehensions pretty much every day,” said Krzysztof Borowski, a Frontex spokesman.
Teams from Germany, the Czech Republic, Latvia and Lithuania helped stop 200 migrants in their first month since deploying on May 22, and since then groups of 10, 20 and 30 have been intercepted daily at the border with Greece in eastern Albania’s Korce area, Borowski added.
    Most of the migrants caught on the border appear to be from Iraq, Syria and Morocco.
    Another northern neighbor of Greece, North Macedonia, was the main route used by more than a million migrants from the Middle East, Africa and Asia in a huge 2015-2016 influx.
    But several thousand of them went through Albania to cross into Montenegro or Kosovo and move north to northern EU states.
    Now, Frontex is trying to ensure security on the Albania-Greece is as tight as possible.
    Jan Seibold, 42, and Christian Schonwalde, 31, members of a riot police unit from Leipzig, Germany, and their Albanian colleague Marenglen Metolli, 30, have been running 12-hour shifts on the border near Trestenik village for a week now.
    The migrants get off taxis or other vehicles at a toll booth on a highway in Greece, hide and sleep during the day in the forest and cross at night or early in the morning, Metolli said.
I WANT TO GO TO GERMANY
    Their team had stopped half a dozen migrants, including four men aged from 17 to 49 who had not eaten for four days.
    “One of them had been in Germany for four years, working in a hotel, and wanted to go back,” Schonwalde told Reuters.
    Their patrols have helped reduce the numbers of migrants stopped in the interior from 565 people from May 22 to July 22 last year to 320 in the same period this year, showing less evaded the joint net.
    “Before FRONTEX started the Joint Operations, we used to apprehend more migrants in the urban areas; now thanks to their troops patrolling the green border, the migrants are located mainly on the border section with Greece,” Albania’s Border Police director Eduart Merkaj told Reuters.
    Some 2,047 migrants were apprehended in 2015, then numbers fell to 915 and 1,047 respectively in 2016 and 2017, growing to 6,893 migrants in 2018.    The numbers may be slightly higher this year, since Greek holding centers are closer to Albania now.
    Once fingerprinted, migrants are sent to an Asylum Seekers Center in the outskirts of Albania’s capital Tirana.    Few apply for asylum, most choose to go back to Greece, while others flee and attempt to make their way to western European countries.
    At the center, some members of a group caught by Albanian police said they had left the Iraqi town of Duhok a year and a half ago for Turkey.    They spent most of that time in Greece before being rounded up by Albanian police.
    Ali Sulejman, 30, said his life in Iraq was “crazy” and he had paid 500 euros ($556) to get to Turkey.    Another 1,500 euros got him by ship from Turkey to Greece.
    One of his friends, who gave his name as Ahmed Ahmed, 40, was traveling with his wife and seven children aged from seven months to 12 years.    All of them were in good health.
    “I am staying in Greece one year and five months and yesterday I came to Albania.    I want to go to Germany, Germany is very good, my sister lives there,” Sulejman told Reuters.
($1 = 0.8981 euros)
(Reporting by Benet Koleka, Editing by William Maclean)

7/25/2019 Russian opposition vows to hold Moscow protest despite crackdown by Tom Balmforth
FILE PHOTO: Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny addresses demonstrators during a rally in support of independent candidates
for elections to Moscow City Duma, the capital's regional parliament, in Moscow, Russia July 20, 2019. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian opposition activists said on Thursday they planned to press ahead with an unauthorized rally in Moscow this weekend despite overnight police searches and a raft of detentions, including the jailing of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
    Navalny, a prominent opposition figure, was jailed on Wednesday for 30 days for calling on people to protest in Moscow this Saturday against the exclusion of several opposition-minded candidates from a Sep. 8 local election.
    His allies indicated the Saturday protest would go ahead regardless of the crackdown.
    “Guys, even if they bang us all up tonight, you know where to be on Saturday,” Ilya Yashin, an excluded opposition election candidate and Navalny ally wrote on Twitter.
    Lyubov Sobol, another Navalny ally barred from running, posted a flyer for the rally on her social media page late on Wednesday, while Navalny’s followers said in a statement on Thursday they were angry but unbowed.
    “Alexei’s arrest won’t stop the protests,” they said.
    Although the election to select members of Moscow city’s parliament is not a national one, opposition activists view it as an opportunity to try to gain a foothold in the Russian capital where Kremlin-backed candidates have proved less popular in the past than in other parts of the country.
    Election officials have barred opposition candidates from running for the Moscow city legislature however on the grounds that they failed to gather enough signatures of support.
    The barred candidates dispute that.    The real reason they were blocked, they say, was to stop them from challenging the Kremlin’s grip on power.
    Four opposition activists had their homes searched by police on Wednesday night, human rights campaigners said.    One of the activists whose home was searched, Ivan Zhdanov, a Navalny ally, said he had been taken in for questioning late at night.
    The crackdown came after Russia’s Investigative Committee on Wednesday opened a criminal investigation into an opposition rally in June which it said may have obstructed the work of Moscow’s electoral commission.
    A protest last weekend calling for the candidates to be registered was attended by more than 20,000 people, according to a monitor.
(Editing by Andrew Osborn)

7/25/2019 Putin allies’ oil feud spills into public view by Andrew Osborn
FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures as he talks with Igor Sechin, the chief executive of
Russia's top oil producer Rosneft, during a signing ceremony following a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni
at the Bocharov Ruchei state residence in Sochi, Russia, May 17, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Kadobnov/File Photo
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – The blame game over a contamination scandal in Russia’s oil industry has breached President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.
    Igor Sechin, head of Rosneft, the world’s biggest publicly-traded oil company, and Nikolai Tokarev, the boss of Transneft, the world’s largest pipeline network, are embroiled in an unusually public and rancorous dispute over their companies’ responses to the contamination of Russia’s Druzhba (“Friendship”) pipeline, an episode that disrupted exports and tarnished Moscow’s image as a reliable energy supplier.
    Sechin and Tokarev have quarreled on and off for over a decade about everything from tariffs to Chinese oil deliveries.    But the bitter and public nature of their latest clash is new and puts Putin in a tricky position, two government sources say, since both have been part of his circle of loyalists for decades.
    Publicly, Putin has remained on the sidelines while the two men wage a war of words by news release leveling allegations of treachery and incompetence.
    “The situation is complicated by the fact that they are both Putin’s friends.    That’s why Putin is reluctant to take anyone’s side,” said one of the government sources, who declined to be named because of the matter’s sensitivity.
    Tatiana Stanovaya, head of analysis firm R.Politik, said Putin’s hands-off approach also reflected a change in how he governed Russia and a move to distance himself from some domestic matters and focus instead on international affairs.
    “The Putin system is still there but Putin isn’t because he’s gone into geopolitics,” said Stanovaya.    “And without him everyone fights among themselves.”
    The Kremlin has denied Putin spends most of his time on foreign affairs.    It did not respond to questions about the nature of the dispute or why Putin had not intervened.    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has previously said that the row was a corporate matter and not something for Putin to get involved in.
    Representatives of Rosneft and Transneft did not respond to questions about the nature of their dispute or whether they believed Putin should mediate.    Emailed requests for Sechin and Tokarev to comment went unanswered.     A third government source said he thought Putin was letting the dispute play out because it helped distract from a central and unanswered question: who was to blame for the dirty oil scandal.
    Russia is still looking into how the Soviet-era Druzhba oil pipeline to Europe, the world’s longest, was contaminated with organic chloride, a chemical used to boost oil extraction but which can damage refining equipment.
    Since the contamination was uncovered in April, Rosneft has publicly accused Transneft of fumbling its response and of failing to devise a plan to prevent it happening again, while Transneft has accused Rosneft of getting its facts wrong and of making unsubstantiated compensation claims.
    Transneft needs a truce with its largest customer if it is to draw a line under the scandal and agree compensation deals with it and other oil producers.
    Their row hit a low-point earlier this month when Transneft curbed oil intake from Rosneft, cutting Russian production close to a three-year low.    The curbs have since been lifted and output levels have been restored, Energy Minister Alexander Novak said last week.
INSIDERS
    Putin got to know Sechin, 58, when they both worked in the St Petersburg mayor’s office in the early 1990s.    When Putin later moved to Moscow to join the presidential administration, Sechin moved too.I liked him,” Putin told authors of a book about his own life.
    Initially, Sechin had a low profile.    A 2008 U.S. embassy cable released by Wikileaks noted that, “During much of Putin’s first term, Sechin was so shadowy that it was joked he may not actually exist but rather was a sort of urban myth, a bogeyman, invented by the Kremlin to instill fear.”
    Eight years later, Sechin’s participation in a police sting operation that led to the then economy minister being imprisoned for taking bribes, cemented his reputation as a ruthless operator.
    Tokarev worked with Putin in the KGB in East Germany in the 1980s.
    At a birthday party in 2017 for Lazar Matveev, their former KGB boss in East Germany, Putin told the gathering that working with Matveev had been a great school of life for him and Tokarev, according to television footage released by the Kremlin.
    Some analysts say the public feuding between Sechin and Tokarev is symptomatic of a long period of uncertainty running up to 2024 when Putin is due to step down. People will jockey for position and battles for influence will become more pronounced, they say.
    “It’s a political game of musical chairs,” said Chris Weafer, a founding partner in Moscow-based political and economic consultancy Macro-Advisory.
    “When the music stops in 2024 people want to make sure they’re not just standing by the right chair but that they’re sitting in the most comfortable chair.”
(Additional reporting by Olesya Astakhova, Vladimir Soldatkin, Christian Lowe and Daria Korsunskaya in Moscow and Dmitry Zhdannikov in London. Editing by Carmel Crimmins)

7/25/2019 Trump congratulates Ukraine’s Zelenskiy on parliamentary elections
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks at his party's headquarters after a parliamentary
election in Kiev, Ukraine July 21, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump congratulated Ukraine’s new president Volodymyr Zelenskiy on holding parliamentary elections which Zelenskiy’s party won, and offered U.S. help to promote reforms in Ukraine, Zelenskiy’s office said on Thursday.
    Zelenskiy, a television sitcom star who was elected in a landslide in May, called an early parliamentary election to replace a parliament dominated by loyalists of his predecessor. His party won a majority of seats in the vote, held on Sunday.
    Trump told Zelenskiy by phone he was confident that the new Ukrainian leadership would improve the country’s image, Zelenskiy’s office said.
    Zelenskiy thanked Trump for maintaining and intensifying sanctions on Russia.    The United States and European Union imposed financial sanctions in 2014 after Russia seized Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula and backed a separatist uprising.
(Reporting by Andrey Ostroukh)

7/25/2019 Ukraine seizes Russian tanker, frees crew after Moscow threat by Maria Tsvetkova and Pavel Polityuk
A view shows the Russian tanker (C, back), now called Nika Spirit and formerly named Neyma, which was
detained by the Ukrainian security service in the port of Izmail, Ukraine in this handout picture obtained
by Reuters on July 25, 2019. Security Service of Ukraine (SBU)/Handout via REUTERS
    KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine on Thursday seized a Russian tanker for its alleged involvement in the capture of three Ukrainian navy vessels by Russia, prompting Moscow to warn of consequences if any Russian citizens were “taken hostage.”
    The crew members were later freed by Ukraine and were on their way home, but the tanker remained in Ukrainian custody in the Danube river port of Izmail, a spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Kiev said by telephone.
    The seizure threatens to upset delicate negotiations on a possible prisoner swap between the two countries and came weeks after Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraine’s new president, spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time.
    The incident is also certain to further sour relations between Kiev and Moscow, which remain blighted by Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and its backing for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
    The Ukrainian prosecutor’s office said 10 Russian crew were detained for questioning.    Russian news agencies said around 15 Russians had been on board at the time of the seizure.
    Ukraine’s security service alleged that the tanker, the “Nika Spirit,” used to be called “NEYMA” and was placed beneath a bridge near Crimea in November in order to block three Ukrainian navy ships from entering the Sea of Azov.
    Russia seized the Ukrainian ships after opening fire on them and is still holding 24 Ukrainian sailors who were on board at the time, accusing them of illegally entering its territorial waters, a charge they deny.
ACCUSATIONS
    “The Ukrainian security service and military prosecutors’ office detained a Russian tanker, the Neyma, which blocked Ukrainian warships in the Kerch Strait,” Ukraine’s SBU security service said in a statement.
    The SBU published footage of the tanker being searched. It showed two crew members, introduced as the captain and a senior crew member.     They were not handcuffed and their faces were blurred.
    The same footage showed the name of the detained ship, the Nika Spirit, on the vessel’s bow next to a darker patch of paint that apparently covered up its old name. Two men in camouflaged uniforms with Ukrainian insignia were shown walking through the Russian-flagged vessel.
    Russia’s Foreign Ministry warned Ukraine “there will soon be consequences” if any Russian crew members were “taken hostage,” the RIA news agency reported.
    The SBU said the Russian vessel had entered Ukraine under its new name, the Nika Spirit, “to cover its involvement in illegal actions”, but that it had identified the ship from its unique International Maritime Organization number (IMO).
    “The above named vessel is considered to be a piece of material evidence, (and) a petition to a court for its seizure is being prepared,” the security service said in its statement.
    The Ukrainian president’s office and the foreign ministry declined to comment.
    In Moscow, senior Russian lawmaker Vladimir Dzhabarov described Ukraine’s actions as “absolutely illegal” and detrimental to relations between the two countries, RIA said.
    In Kiev, Ukraine’s ombudswoman said negotiations on the release of the 24 Ukrainian sailors being held by Russia from the November incident had intensified after Russian and Ukrainian leaders spoke by phone earlier this month.
(Additional reporting by Polina Ivanova in Moscow and by Matthias Williams and Natalia Zinets in Kiev; Writing by Tom Balmforth/Maria Tsvetkova/Andrew Osborn; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

7/25/2019 North Macedonia must reform judiciary before accession talks can start: EU’s Hahn
FILE PHOTO: European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Commissioner Johannes Hahn presents the
Commission's Enlargement Package for 2019, which sets out the way forward for candidate countries and takes stock of the
situation in each candidate country and potential candidate, in Brussels, Belgium May 29, 2019. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
    SKOPJE (Reuters) – North Macedonia needs to reform its judiciary to ensure it can handle high-level crime and corruption cases before the European Union can set a date to start accession talks, top EU official Johannes Hahn said on Thursday.
    The former Yugoslav republic changed its name from Macedonia to North Macedonia this year, ending a more than two decade dispute with Greece over its name and removing an obstacle to its membership of the EU and NATO.
    It expects the new EU Commission to set a date for accession talks in October.
    “I’m confident that the decision (on the start of accession talks) will be taken in October,” Hahn, EU commissioner for enlargement of the bloc, said after meeting Prime Minister Zoran Zaev.
    “North Macedonia has worked hard for it and now it’s time for EU leaders to deliver.”
    Hahn said the government in Skopje should implement reforms to ensure the judiciary is ready to complete cases handled so far by the special prosecutor’s office.
    “What is important now in view of the crucial decisions in October is to adopt the law on the public prosecutor which provides important guarantees for the rule of law,” Hahn said.
    The office of the special prosecutor was created under the 2015 agreement which ended a two-year political crisis in North Macedonia.     The mandate of the office expired last September, but very few cases have been completed.
    Parliament is now expected to pass a law that would extend the mandate of the public prosecutor to cases handled by the office of the special prosecutor.
    Parliament is expected to vote on the draft law after the summer recess.
(Reporting by Kole Casule; Writing by Ivana Sekularac; Editing by Susan Fenton)

7/25/2019 EU takes Hungary to court for criminalizing help for asylum seekers by Gabriela Baczynska
FILE PHOTO: Migrants wait in the transit zone where their asylum claims are processed in Tompa, Hungary, June 14, 2017. REUTERS/Laszlo Balogh
    BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union executive on Thursday took Hungary to court over a law that makes it a crime to help asylum seekers, the latest in many running battles between Brussels and Budapest on migration, human rights and democracy.
    The Commission filed a case against Hungary at the bloc’s top court, the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, over the law passed last year, which also enforces new restrictions on the right to claim asylum.
    Orban’s government dubbed it the “Stop Soros” law, a reference to the Hungarian-born U.S. billionaire George Soros, whose promotion of liberal and open societies is at odds with Budapest’s nationalistic stance.
    “The Hungarian legislation curtails asylum applicants’ right to communicate with and be assisted by relevant national, international and non-governmental organizations by criminalizing support to asylum applications,” the Commission said.
    “Additional inadmissibility grounds for asylum applications … curtail the right to asylum in a way that is not compatible with EU or international law.”
    The court case could lead to hefty fines for Hungary, where the EU has tried in vain to stop Prime Minister Viktor Orban tightening restrictions on media, academics and critical non-governmental groups in recent years.
    Hungary – along with its regional ally Poland, also run by a nationalist government – now faces the prospect of losing EU handouts as the wealthier, western EU states that contribute to the bloc’s joint budget want to make aid conditional on upholding democratic principles.
    The feuds over migration and democratic standards have isolated the eastern states, who were left out in this month’s carve-up of top EU jobs.
    It is the European Commission’s job to monitor member states’ enforcement of EU laws, and the incoming executive has vowed not to let Budapest and Warsaw off the hook on democracy in its next five-year term, starting in November.
    The current Commission has also opened a legal probe against Hungary for not feeding people awaiting deportation in transit zones near Serbia.    The United Nations has repeatedly criticized conditions in these “prison-like” transit zones.
(Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
[Poland and Hungary keep giving the E.U. the hell they are creating on the earth as you are the last stand for the Christian values of the God in heaven against the anti-Christian forces.].

7/26/2019 Russia warns British media after RT fined for coverage of poisoned spy by Guy Faulconbridge and Andrew Osborn
FILE PHOTO: Vehicles of Russian state-controlled broadcaster Russia Today (RT) are seen at
Red Square in central Moscow, Russia March 18, 2018. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich/File Photo
    LONDON/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia on Friday warned British media operating on its territory that they should be ready for consequences after Britain’s media regulator fined the state-financed RT television channel over its coverage of the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal.
    Relations between London and Moscow sank to a post-Cold War low over the 2018 poisoning of Skripal, a mole who betrayed hundreds of Russian agents to Britain’s MI6 foreign spy service.
    Britain said Russian military intelligence poisoned Skripal and his daughter Yulia with a Soviet-developed nerve agent known as Novichok. Russia repeatedly denied any involvement and said Britain staged the attack to stoke anti-Russian hysteria.
    Britain’s media regulator Ofcom said on Friday it had fined RT 200,000 pounds ($248,740) for breaching impartiality rules in broadcasts over the poisoning, the conflict in Syria, and Ukraine’s polices on Nazism and gypsies.
    The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement it regarded Ofcom’s actions as part of “an anti-Russian campaign” intended to limit Russian media’s activities in Britain.
    “We are carefully following the situation and remind British media working in Russia that they should be ready to face the consequences of official London’s actions,” the ministry said.
    In the same statement, Russia’s foreign ministry complained about Russia-related stories reported by Reuters, the Guardian and the BBC.
    Russia has repeatedly said in the past it will subject British media in Russia to the same treatment RT gets from British authorities, suggesting it may move to fine British outlets for alleged impartiality failures if the punishment for RT stands.
    An RT spokeswoman said the fine was “very wrong” in principle and had in any case been imposed prematurely before the High Court in London had finished a judicial review of Ofcom’s findings.    She also called the amount of the fine “particularly inappropriate and disproportionate.”
    Britain’s media ministry said the independent media regulator stepped in when broadcasting rules were breached.
    “As a society we must remain vigilant to the spread of harmful disinformation and it is right that Ofcom, as the independent regulator, steps in when broadcasting rules have been breached,” the ministry said.
    Russian officials say RT is a way for Moscow to compete with the dominance of global media companies based in the United States and Britain, which they say offer a biased world view.
    Critics say RT, which broadcasts news in English, Arabic and Spanish, is the propaganda arm of the Russian state and aims to undermine confidence in Western institutions.
(Editing by Paul Sandle, Andrew Cawthorne and Frances Kerry)

7/27/2019 Police in Moscow detain opposition activists before protest by Andrew Osborn and Gleb Stolyarov
FILE PHOTO: Russian opposition figure and excluded election candidate Ilya Yashin addresses the media
after a meeting with members of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights ahead of elections to Moscow City Duma,
the capital's regional parliament, in Moscow, Russia July 25, 2019. REUTERS/Gennady Novik
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian police have detained prominent members of the opposition in Moscow ahead of a planned protest later on Saturday which the authorities have declared illegal and warned could become violent.
    The demonstration, due to be held outside the Moscow mayor’s office from 1100 GMT, is designed to protest against what the opposition says is the unfair exclusion of a raft of opposition-minded candidates from a Sept. 8 local election in Moscow.
    The authorities say the candidates were barred from running because they had failed to collect a sufficient number of genuine signatures in their support, an allegation the opposition rejects as false.
    Although the election to select members of Moscow city’s parliament is not a national one, opposition activists view it as an opportunity to try to gain a foothold in the Russian capital where Kremlin-backed candidates have proved less popular in the past than in other parts of the country.
    Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was jailed for 30 days on Wednesday ahead of Saturday’s protest and other members of the opposition have previously had their homes searched.
    Ilya Yashin, a Navalny ally, said on Facebook on Saturday that police had searched his Moscow flat overnight before detaining him and driving him out of the Russian capital.
    Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s spokeswoman, said on Twitter she and another activist had been detained on Saturday morning. Other activists had their homes searched.
    Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin warned on social media that the authorities would act decisively to guarantee public order.
    “According to information from law enforcement authorities serious provocations are being prepared which pose a threat to the safety, lives and health of people,” Sobyanin said in a statement.
    “Attempts at ultimatums, disorder will not lead to anything good.    Order in the city will be maintained.”
    Reuters reporters said there was a heavy police presence in central Moscow ahead of the protest with groups of ununiformed athletic-looking young men accompanying police.
    Russia’s Investigative Committee has already opened a criminal investigation into an opposition rally in June which it said may have obstructed the work of Moscow’s electoral commission.
(Reporting by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Mark Potter)

7/27/2019 Polish rights campaigners gather in Warsaw to condemn homophobic violence
Participants attend a protest against violence that took place against the LGBT community during the
first pride march in Bialystok earlier this month, in Warsaw, July 27, 2019. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel
    WARSAW (Reuters) – Over 1,000 people gathered in Warsaw on Saturday in support of LGBT rights a week after the first pride march in the city of Bialystok was marred by violence.
    Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has made LGBT rights a campaign issue ahead of parliamentary elections expected in October, with many politicians arguing pride marches promote unnecessary public displays of sexuality.
    “The tension is growing and is tied to the politics of the ruling party, which are hateful and intolerant,” said Marta Zawadzka, a 17-year-old student who attended the gathering.    She said examples “include blaming LGBT people and painting them as paedophiles and bad people.”
    Disapproval over displays of LGBT rights spilled over on the streets of Bialystok last Saturday.    Videos posted on Twitter showed men attacking marchers and shouting anti-LGBT insults.
    Police have detained over 30 people in connection with the violence while politicians, including Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, have condemned the attacks.
    A Warsaw court this week put a temporary hold on the distribution of “LGBT-free zone” stickers distributed by a Polish conservative magazine.
    Those who gathered on Saturday in solidarity with Bialystok waved LGBT rainbow flags and carried rainbow umbrellas, with some condemning the week’s events.
    “I am here because of what happened in Bialystok and because of the ‘LGBT-free zone’ stickers,” said Amelia Rae, a 15-year-old student.     “If something is going to change than the government needs to change.”
    Analysts say PiS hopes to reenergize its mainly rural base by vowing to push back against Western liberalism and benefit from the deepening divisions in society over policies toward minority groups, the environment, abortion and migration.
    “Everyone has the right to gather and express their views on any matter.    In Poland, we have freedom of assembly,” a PiS spokeswoman told Reuters.
    Warsaw held one of its largest pride marches to date earlier this year, with tens of thousands of participants.
(Reporting by Joanna Plucinska and Alicja Ptak; Writing by Joanna Plucinska; Editing by Mike Harrison)

7/27/2219 Russia’s Lavrov says Venezuela dialogue should have ‘no preconditions’ by Ank Kuipers
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov addresses the media during a press statement at the
Foreign Affairs Ministry in Paramaribo, Suriname July 27, 2019. REUTERS/Ranu Abhelakh
    PARAMARIBO (Reuters) – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday a dialogue to resolve Venezuela’s political crisis should have “no preconditions,” as he visited the small South American country of Suriname at the end of a multi-nation Latin American tour.
    Venezuela’s bitterly divided government and opposition are engaged in a dialogue mediated by Norway’s government.    The opposition, led by National Assembly president Juan Guaido, has insisted President Nicolas Maduro step down to allow a transition government to call fresh elections.
    Guaido in January invoked the constitution to assume a rival presidency, arguing Maduro’s 2018 re-election was illegitimate.    He has been recognized as the rightful leader by most Western nations, including the United States, but Maduro retains control of state functions and the backing of Russia, China and Cuba.    Maduro has denounced Guaido as a U.S. puppet who is seeking to foment a coup.
    “We, just like our Surinamese friends, are convinced that it can result through a direct dialogue between the government and opposition with no preconditions, and without any threats that we hear coming from various capitals,” Lavrov said alongside Surinamese Foreign Minister Yldiz Pollack-Beighle in the capital Paramirabo.
    The reference to “threats” was a jibe at the United States, which has said military intervention is “on the table” to resolve the crisis in Venezuela, which is marked by a hyperinflationary economic collapse and an exodus of more than 4 million people to neighboring countries.
    Earlier this week, Lavrov said Venezuela’s opposition was in contact with Moscow, and that the world should foster dialogue in Venezuela rather than impose its own agenda.
    Pollack-Beighle did not mention Venezuela during her remarks. During a meeting of the Mercosur trade bloc earlier this month, Suriname’s ambassador to Cuba, Marciano Edgar Armaketo, said the country’s position on Venezuela was based on “non-interference in the affairs of states.”
(Reporting by Ank Kuipers in Paramaribo; Writing by Luc Cohen; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

7/28/2019 Moscow police crackdown on election protest by Jim Heintz, ASSOCIATED PRESS
    MOSCOW – Russian police cracked down fiercely Saturday on demonstrators in central Moscow, beating some people and arresting more than 1,000 who were protesting the exclusion of opposition candidates from the ballot for Moscow city council.    Police also stormed into a TV station broadcasting the protest.
    Police wrestled with protesters around the mayor’s office, sometimes charging into the crowd with their batons raised.    State news agencies Tass and RIA-Novosti cited police as saying 1,074 were arrested over the course of the protests, which lasted more than seven hours.
    Along with the arrests of the mostly young demonstrators, several opposition activists who wanted to run for the council were arrested throughout the city before the protest.    Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition figure, was sentenced Wednesday to 30 days in jail for calling an unauthorized protest.
    The protesters, who police said numbered about 3,500, shouted slogans including “Russia will be free!Who are you beating?”    One young woman was seen bleeding heavily after being struck on the head.
    Helmeted police barged into Navalny’s video studio as it was conducting a YouTube broadcast of the protest and arrested program leader Vladimir Milonov. Police also searched Dozhd, an internet TV station that was covering the protest, and its editor-in-chief, Alexandra Perepelova, was ordered to undergo questioning at the Investigative Committee.
    Police eventually dispersed protesters from the area of the mayor’s office, but many demonstrators reassembled at a square about half a mile away, where new arrests began, with police beating some to the ground with wide truncheon swings while other demonstrators tried to push them away.
    Before the protest, several opposition members were detained, including Ilya Yashin, Dmitry Gudkov, Lyubov Sobol and top Navalny associate Ivan Zhdanov.
    All were released later in the day; Zhdanov and Sobol went to the relocated protest and were detained again.
    There was no immediate information on what charges the detainees might face.
    Once a local, low-key affair, the September vote for Moscow’s city council has shaken up Russia’s political scene as the Kremlin struggles with how to deal with strongly opposing views in its sprawling capital of 12.6 million.
    The decision by electoral authorities to bar some opposition candidates from running for having allegedly insufficient signatures on their nominating petitions had already sparked several days of demonstrations even before Saturday’s clashes in Moscow.
A protester carries a placard as Russian riot police disperse opposition activists in Moscow. YURI KOCHETKOV/EPA-EFE

7/28/2019 Russia detains more than 1,000 people in opposition crackdown by Gleb Stolyarov and Andrew Osborn
Law enforcement officers stand guard during a rally calling for opposition candidates to be registered for elections
to Moscow City Duma, the capital's regional parliament, in Moscow, Russia July 27, 2019. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian police rounded up more than 1,000 people in Moscow on Saturday in one of the biggest crackdowns of recent years against an increasingly defiant opposition decrying President Vladimir Putin’s tight grip on power.
    The detentions came around a protest to demand that opposition members be allowed to run in a local election.    Authorities had declared it illegal and sought to block participation, but thousands of people turned up anyway in one of the longest and most determined protests of recent times.
    Chants of “Russia without Putin” and “Putin resign” echoed through central Moscow as guardsmen clad in riot gear beat back protesters with batons and roughly detained people.
    At least one woman and a man appeared to have suffered serious head wounds.    Activists said the crackdown was the harshest since a wave of anti-Kremlin protests in 2011-12.
    Saturday’s events showed how Kremlin critics and especially younger people remain intent on pressing to open Russia’s tightly-choreographed political system to competition.
    Jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny had called the protest to persuade officials to allow opposition-minded candidates to run in a Sept. 8 vote.
    Authorities say they were barred because they failed to collect sufficient genuine signatures in their support.
    Navalny and his allies have no seats in parliament and are starved of air time on state TV where many Russians still get their news.
    Opinion polls in the past have shown support for Navalny, a lawyer and anti-corruption activist, only in the single digits.    But backers note he won almost a third of the vote in a 2013 Moscow mayoral race and say his movement could build momentum in the Russian capital if allowed to compete fairly.
    Though Putin’s approval rating is still high at well over 60 percent, it is lower than it used to be due to discontent over years of falling incomes.    Last year, the 66-year-old former KGB intelligence officer won a landslide re-election and a new six-year term until 2024.
    Burnishing his man of action image, Putin spent Saturday diving to the bottom of the Gulf of Finland in a mini-submarine to honor a Soviet submarine that sunk there in World War Two.
ARRESTED “SITTING ON A BENCH
    OVD-Info, an independent monitoring group, said police detained at least 1,373 people before or at Saturday’s protest.    As in past sweeps, many were only held for a matter of hours.
    Police put participation at more than 3,500 people, of whom it said around 700 people were journalists and bloggers.    Activists said the number attending was likely to have been much higher.
    Some activists were arrested twice after being released and then returning to protest in a different place.    Reuters witnesses said some of those detained appeared to be ordinary passersby in the wrong place at the wrong time.
    One of those detained, Alexander Latyshev, 45, said he had came from the nearby Vladimir region to discuss business with an associate and been randomly detained.    “I was just sitting on a bench (when they took me),” he told Reuters inside a police bus.
    Police also raided an office being used by Navalny’s supporters to live-stream the protest.
    TV Rain, an independent station covering the protests, said its editor-in-chief had been called in for questioning after police visited its offices.
    Under Russian law, the location and timing of such protests needs to be agreed with authorities beforehand, something that was not done for Saturday’s event.
    Kremlin critic Navalny was jailed for 30 days on Wednesday and other members of the opposition have had their homes searched.    Ilya Yashin, a Navalny ally, said police had searched his Moscow flat overnight before detaining him and driving him out of the capital.    He called for another protest next Saturday.
    Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s spokeswoman, said on Twitter she had been detained on Saturday morning.    Other prominent activists Dmitry Gudkov and Lyubov Sobol were also held.
    Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, a Putin ally, had warned beforehand that authorities would act decisively against the risk of “serious provocations.”
    The police’s investigative arm has already opened a criminal investigation into an opposition rally in June which it said may have obstructed the work of Moscow’s electoral commission.
    An authorized protest in Moscow last weekend, also calling for the disbarred candidates to be registered, was attended by more than 20,000 people, according to the White Counter monitoring group.
(Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov, Maria Tsvetkova, Maxim Shemetov, Katya Golubkova, Shamil Zhumatov, Maria Vasilyeva and Andrey Ostroukh; Writing by Katya Golubkova/Andrew Osborn; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)

7/28/2019 Russian opposition leader Navalny may have been poisoned: doctor by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber
FILE PHOTO: Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny attends a rally in memory of politician Boris Nemtsov,
who was assassinated in 2015, in Moscow, Russia February 24, 2019. REUTERS/Tatyana Makeyeva
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was hospitalized on Sunday after suffering an acute allergic reaction which one doctor said may have been the result of him being poisoned with an unknown chemical substance.
    Navalny, 43, was rushed to hospital from jail where he is serving a 30-day sentence for violating tough protest laws, a day after police in Moscow detained more than 1,000 people for an illegal demonstration called for by Navalny.
    His spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said Navalny had signs of an acute allergy with “severe swelling of the face and skin redness.”
    A doctor at the hospital treating him told the Interfax news agency that Navalny had been diagnosed with hives and that he was feeling better.
    But one doctor who has treated him in the past and was able to speak briefly with him and look at him through the crack of a door on Sunday said she could not rule out that he had been poisoned.
    “We cannot rule out that toxic damage to the skin and mucous membranes by an unknown chemical substance was inflicted with the help of a ‘third party’,” Anastasia Vasilyeva, the doctor, wrote on Facebook.
    Vasilyeva, who said Navalny had a rash on his upper body, skin lesions, and discharge from his eye, called for samples of Navalny’s bed sheets, skin and hair to be tested for chemicals.
    She said she found the fact that she had not been allowed to examine him properly suspicious.
    The Moscow hospital where Navalny’s spokeswoman said he was being treated could not be reached for comment.
    Separately, Navalny’s lawyer, Olga Mikhailova, wrote on Facebook on Sunday evening that doctors did not know what was wrong with her client, but that she deemed his symptoms strange given that he had never suffered from allergies in the past.
    Navalny suffered a serious chemical burn to his right eye in 2017 as a result of an assault.    Doctors were able to restore his sight and save the eye.
    He was jailed on Wednesday this week for 30 days for calling for Saturday’s unauthorized march to protest against the exclusion of several opposition candidates from a local election later this year.
    While Navalny was behind bars, police rounded up more than 1,000 people in the Russian capital during Saturday’s rally in one of the biggest crackdowns in recent years against the opposition, drawing international criticism.
    A spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy in Moscow, Andrea Kalan, wrote on Twitter on Sunday that the large number of detentions in Moscow and the “use of disproportionate police force undermine rights of citizens to participate in the democratic process.”
OPPOSITION ACTIVIST DETAINED
    In a separate incident on Sunday, Russian activist Dmitry Gudkov, who was among the opposition candidates barred from running in local elections later this year, said he had been detained and taken to a Moscow police station.     The reason for Gudkov’s detention was not immediately clear, his spokesman Alexei Obukhov told Reuters.     Russia’s Interior Ministry did not respond to a request for comment on Navalny and Gudkov’s detention.     Police on Sunday night detained about 10 people, including journalists, who had gathered in front of the hospital where Navalny was being treated.     Navalny, a lawyer and anti-corruption activist, has served several stints in jail in recent years for organizing anti-government demonstrations.     The European Court of Human Rights last year ruled Russia’s arrests and detention of Navalny in 2012 and 2014 were politically motivated and breached his human rights, a ruling Moscow called questionable.
(Additional reporting by Tatiana Gomozova, Andrew Osborn and Maria Vasilyeva in Moscow and Joanna Plucinska in Warsaw; Editing by Deepa Babington, Dale Hudson, Chris Reese and Daniel Wallis)

7/29/2019 Czech president fires minister, still foot-dragging on replacement
FILE PHOTO: Czech President Milos Zeman gestures in Vienna, Austria April 3, 2019. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger/File Photo
    PRAGUE (Reuters) – Czech President Milos Zeman dismissed the culture minister on Monday after two months of delay that brought the ruling coalition to the brink of collapse.
    Zeman had long backed Culture Minister Antonin Stanek despite a request in May by Stanek’s Social Democrat party and Prime Minister Andrej Babis that he be removed.
    The constitution demands that presidents remove and appoint ministers at the prime minister’s request.    However, Zeman had said the constitution gave him no deadline to act.
    Stanek’s removal is not the end of the conflict.    Zeman has so far not said whether he would appoint the Social Democrats’ chosen successor to the ministry, Michal Smarda.
    In an announcement of the dismissal, Zeman’s spokesman made no mention about the replacement.
    Zeman’s inaction led the Social Democrats to threaten to leave the center-left cabinet they share with Babis’s populist ANO party.
    They demanded that Babis use his official powers to force Zeman to act, by legal action if necessary.    Babis has refused to do so to protect his relationship with the president.
    Zeman had said Stanek was a solid minister.    He also said the coalition’s failure would be no political upheaval, as Babis could turn to the pro-Russian, anti-EU opposition Freedom and Democracy Party (SPD) to support his cabinet instead of the Social Democrats.
    Babis, who already needs the votes of similarly anti-western Communists to secure his parliamentary majority, has repeatedly ruled out working with the SPD.
    The Czech economy has been on a path of growth and the markets have been unfazed by the political instability.
(Reporting by Jan Lopatka; Editing by Peter Graff)

7/29/2019 Kremlin critic Navalny returned to jail despite poisoning fears by Andrew Osbornbr
FILE PHOTO: Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is charged with participation in an unauthorised protest
rally, attends a court hearing in Moscow, Russia July 1, 2019. REUTERS/Tatyana Makeyeva/File Photo
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was discharged from a Moscow hospital on Monday and returned to prison under guard after being treated for what his lawyer and doctor have described as suspected poisoning from a chemical agent.
    Navalny, 43, was rushed to hospital from jail on Sunday with what his spokeswoman said were signs of an acute allergy with “severe swelling of the face and skin redness.”
    The Moscow hospital treating him said on Monday it had discharged him after his condition had improved.    It said it could not disclose what it believed had been behind his sudden illness due to patient confidentiality.
    Elena Sibikina, one of the doctors who treated Navalny, told reporters that the idea that he had been poisoned with a chemical substance had “not been proven.”    She said his life was not in danger.
    His own doctor and lawyer said they opposed the “strange” decision to return Navalny to a prison cell where they believe he was somehow poisoned in the first place.
    “He was really poisoned by some unknown chemical substance,” Olga Mikhailova, his lawyer, told reporters.    “But what the substance was has not been established.”
    Navalny’s sudden hospitalization infuriated supporters who suspect he may have been targeted as part of one of the biggest crackdowns in recent years against the opposition.
    The fierce Kremlin critic and anti-corruption campaigner is currently serving a 30-day sentence for violating tough protest laws after urging people to take part in a Moscow demonstration on Saturday.    That rally ended with the police detaining more than 1,000 people for what they said was an illegal event.
    Allies say he risks another flare-up if traces of the substance they fear poisoned him are still present in his cell.
SAMPLES TAKEN
    Mikhailova, his lawyer, said she would file an appeal to try to get his jail time cut short due to his health problems.
    His personal doctor, Anastasia Vasilyeva, said she had taken samples of his hair and a T-shirt to be tested at an independent laboratory for signs he had been poisoned.
    She said she also wanted CCTV footage of his cell to be examined.
    Vasilyeva said Navalny had had a severe rash on his upper body, skin lesions and discharge from his eye which she described as a reaction to an unknown chemical substance.
    She dismissed the idea that he may have had a chance allergic reaction to something he’d unwittingly come in contact with like washing powder.
    “How can you unintentionally poison someone?” she said, adding it had probably been done to scare him.
    A doctor at the hospital told the Interfax news agency on Sunday evening that Navalny had been diagnosed with hives.    But Mikhailova, his lawyer, said none of the doctors had mentioned the idea that he had hives on Monday.
    Navalny suffered a chemical burn to his right eye in 2017 as a result of an assault.    Doctors were able to restore his sight.
    He was jailed on Wednesday for 30 days after calling for Saturday’s unauthorized march to protest against the exclusion of several opposition candidates from a local election later this year.
(Additional reporting by Dmitry Turlyun, Anton Kolodyazhnyy and Maria Kiselyova; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

7/30/2019 Russia says U.S. may be aiming to quit nuclear test ban treaty
Russian and U.S. state flags fly in Vsevolozhsk, Leningrad Region, Russia March 27, 2019. REUTERS/Anton Vaganov
    GENEVA (Reuters) – The United States may be planning to blame Russian non-compliance as a pretext to pull out of the Comprehensive nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), a Russian diplomat told the Conference on Disarmament, the world’s main arms talks forum, on Tuesday.
    “It would appear that through propaganda around false claims about Russia’s compliance there are attempts to prepare international opinion for a U.S. exit from the CTBT and then to blame Russia again for everything,” the Russian diplomat said.
    The United States has signed but not ratified the CTBT.
(Reporting by Tom Miles, Editing by William Maclean)

7/30/2019 Ukraine pundit who predicted Zelenskiy’s rise now forecasts his fall by Natalia Zinets
FILE PHOTO: Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks at his party's headquarters after
a parliamentary election in Kiev, Ukraine July 21, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
    KIEV (Reuters) – A once-obscure Ukrainian regional pundit who gained national attention for predicting the unlikely rise of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is now predicting the new leader’s popularity will swiftly evaporate.
    Zelenskiy, who played a schoolteacher who becomes president on a TV sitcom, repeated the trick in real life with a landslide victory in April.    This month his new party also won control of parliament in a snap election.
    Viktor Bobyrenko, a former local councilor who heads a think tank on local governance in the northern city of Sumy, was quite possibly the first person to predict Zelenskiy’s rise in print, in a newspaper editorial published in Dec. 2015.
    But today he says he believes Zelenskiy will be voted out of office in five years with his popularity in single digits.
    If previously Zelenskiy, 41, “was just an artist playing a role, now he is turning … from a boy into someone who realized what kind of power he has,” Bobyrenko told Reuters.
    “And this power lies in the Ukrainian people believing in a miracle.    We do not go to church; we go to the TV.    On TV they saw an idol to which they now pray,” he said.
    Zelenskiy won the presidency with 73% of the vote and his party won a 43% vote share last week, but “Zelenskiy in two or three years’ time … will have a rating of 8-10% , not 73 or 43 or even 20,” Bobyrenko said.
    Bobyrenko had earlier success predicting the careers of Ukrainian leaders.    A few months into the presidency of Viktor Yanukovich in 2010, he said the Kremlin-friendly leader could meet a similar fate to that of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who was toppled in a revolution in 1989.    Yanukovich fled to Russia after a popular revolt in February 2014.
    Bobyrenko said Zelenskiy will face the same conundrums as his predecessors.    Many voters expect Zelenskiy to sharply cut their household heating bills and raise their wages and pensions, he said. Such largesse would likely run counter to Ukraine’s reform commitments to foreign donors.
    Zelenskiy may also struggle to deliver on a promise to end the Donbass conflict between Ukrainian troops and Russian-backed separatists that has killed 13,000 over five years.
    In his 2015 piece in the Ukrayinska Pravda newspaper, Bobyrenko said Zelenskiy’s political project would be financed by Ihor Kolomoisky, whose TV channel broadcast his show.    The two have business ties but both have repeatedly denied suggestions that Zelenskiy is beholden to Kolomoisky.
(Additional reporting by Margaryta Chornokondratenko; writing by Matthias Williams)

7/30/2019 Putin ally warns opposition protesters: We won’t allow anarchy by Andrew Osborn
FILE PHOTO: Moscow's Mayor Sergei Sobyanin attends a session of the St. Petersburg International
Economic Forum (SPIEF), Russia June 6, 2019. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, an ally of President Vladimir Putin, told opposition activists on Tuesday he would not allow their protest movement to plunge the Russian capital into anarchy and accused them of plotting mass disorder.
    Sobyanin was speaking after police rounded up more than 1,000 people in Moscow on Saturday in one of the biggest crackdowns of recent years against an increasingly defiant opposition decrying Putin’s tight grip on power.
    Dozens of demonstrators and several police officers were injured after police used batons to disperse crowds and, in some cases, beat protesters taking part in what the authorities said was an illegal demonstration.
    Allies of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny have urged people to take to Moscow’s streets again this Saturday, again without the authorities’ approval and pressing the same demand.
    They are calling for opposition-minded candidates to be allowed to run in a Sept. 8 vote in the Russian capital.    Authorities barred the candidates from running on the grounds that they failed to collect sufficient genuine signatures in their support, an assertion the candidates reject as false.
    The United States, the European Union, the United Nations and human rights groups have condemned what they called the disproportionate use of force by police on Saturday and opposition activists say their protest was peaceful.
    But Sobyanin, in his first public comments on Saturday’s demonstration, described the protest as mass disorder and praised the police for what he called their appropriate response, saying they had fulfilled their duty.
    “How do I assess them?    As mass disorder well planned in advance,” Sobyanin told the TV Centre television channel when asked to say what he thought of Saturday’s events.
    The protesters “tried to block roads, block streets and assault police officers.    They simply forced the police to use force,” he said.
    Sobyanin accused the organizers of trying to use illegal means to win power in Moscow and said the election for the 45-seat city parliament that the barred opposition candidates are trying to take part in would be competitive without them, with five people vying for each seat.
    When asked to comment on activists’ plans for another protest this Saturday, he called it a provocation.
    “Anarchy, disorder and lawlessness make real problems worse and end in tragedy,” said Sobyanin.
    “There are more than enough examples in our country’s history.    Order will be maintained and it cannot be any other way.”
(Editing by Frances Kerry)

7/31/2019 Czech 2020 budget talks stall, Social Democrats want more funds
FILE PHOTO: Czech Republic's Prime Minister Andrej Babis arrives to take part in a European Union
leaders summit, in Brussels, Belgium July 2, 2019. REUTERS/Piroschka Van De Wouw/File Photo
    PRAGUE (Reuters) – Czech government talks on the 2020 budget hit a wall on Wednesday after the junior ruling party Social Democrats rejected current plans and said its ministries were around 20 billion crowns ($870 million) short of funds.
    The Finance Ministry, held by ANO party of Prime Minister Andrej Babis, faces tough negotiations in August and September to secure a final draft.    It is expected to be the first plan since 2015 that will not deliver a surplus.
    Budget talks are usually difficult, but the 2020 plan will be particularly hard for Babis’ minority government as it seeks to keep the central state deficit unchanged from 2019 at 40 billion crowns and also deals with other rows in the coalition.
    Finance Minister Alena Schillerova said the Social Democrats were “torpedoing” the state budget by demanding more cash for their ministries.
    Social Democrat leader Jan Hamacek told a news conference: “As the budget is proposed now, it is destructive, at least for our ministries, and we could not support it.”
    The party said it wanted to increase budget income, partly by introducing a banking sector tax that Babis has rejected.
    Babis said ministers should seek savings, CTK news agency reported.
    The finance minister said it was “unacceptable” for ministers not to propose savings and to raise the deficit by 20 billion crowns when the economy was growing at just 2.5% a year.
    The Czech Republic has been a model budget performer in the European Union, running surpluses thanks to EU funds, record-low unemployment and solid economic growth.
    But economists have criticized recent plans for being too generous with spending and limiting room for maneuver in the budget, which could threaten investment plans.
    The ANO-Social Democrat coalition is already frayed due to public protests, a spat over investigations into Babis’s alleged conflicts of interests and a row over who should run the culture ministry.
    The Communist party, whose support in parliament gives the government a majority, wants a lower central state deficit target.
    The central budget accounts for the bulk of public commitments, including financing regional governments and healthcare.
    The Finance Ministry forecasts the economy will grow 2.4% a year in 2019 and 2020 and sees a slight overall fiscal surplus remaining this year before a 0.3% gap next year.
(Reporting by Jason Hovet; Editing by Edmund Blair)

7/31/2019 Kremlin critic to Putin: Allow free election or face weekly protests by Andrew Osborn
Police officers detain an opposition politician Lyubov Sobol, one of the candidates barred from elections to Moscow City Duma,
the capital's regional parliament, before a rally in Moscow, Russia July 27, 2019. REUTERS/Stringer
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – A hunger-striking opposition politician and close ally of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has warned Russian authorities to allow a free and fair election in Moscow later this year or face weekly street protests and rising discontent.
    Lyubov Sobol, 31, is one of 16 opposition-minded candidates the authorities have barred from running in September’s election for Moscow’s city legislature, a vote seen as a dry run for a national parliamentary election in 2021.
    The authorities say they are not allowing Sobol and her colleagues to take part because they failed to collect enough genuine signatures of support, a condition of being registered.
    Sobol and the others say that’s a lie and are insisting they be allowed to take part in a contest they believe they could win at a time when the ruling United Russia party’s rating is at its lowest since 2011 and President Vladimir Putin’s own rating has fallen due to discontent over falling living standards.
    Polls in the past have shown support for Navalny, a lawyer and anti-corruption activist, only in the single digits nationwide.    But backers note he won almost a third of the vote in a 2013 Moscow mayoral race and say his allies like Sobol enjoy widespread support in the Russian capital.
    Sobol said the Kremlin faced a political crisis.
    “It won’t be solved until they understand that people are demanding political representation that takes account of their own opinion and will, that these people are not going away, and that the country and Moscow have changed.    It’s not possible to ignore people anymore,” Sobol, 31, told Reuters.
    “The main thing now is to have mass regular but peaceful protests … and not to give up.”
    Putin and the Kremlin have not commented on the standoff, but Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has accused opposition activists of plotting mass disorder, something he has promised to head off.
JAIL
    Police rounded up more than 1,000 people in the Russian capital on Saturday in one of the biggest crackdowns of recent years.
    Sobol was detained and released by police three times in connection with Saturday’s protest and was carried out of Moscow’s electoral commission on a sofa by police officers on one occasion.
    Eight of Sobol’s political allies including Navalny are in jail for breaking tough protest laws and potential criminal cases hang over others, including Sobol.
    Sobol, on her 18th day of a hunger strike to protest over her exclusion from the election, said the protests would continue every week until the authorities allowed a free election.
    “People are ready to go on.    I plan to go out every weekend on the city’s streets.    I’m not afraid of the possibility of detention, of beatings, or of the opening of criminal cases,” she said.
    Sobol, who said she had lost about 8 kg, earlier this week called on people to gather in Moscow this Saturday whether the authorities authorize a protest or not.
    The authorities say Russian law requires the timing and location of such protests to be agreed with them in advance.    Sobol says she and her allies try to agree such details with authorities but are often refused and that the Russian constitution allows freedom of assembly.
    After 17 days of consuming only water and vitamins, Sobol, who at one point needed two people to help her walk across a room, said she intended to continue her hunger strike even though she felt “pretty bad.”
    Watched by a bodyguard, Sobol, who has a 5-year-old daughter, said she received daily threats from unknown individuals and believed the authorities were tracking her.
    “It’s very dangerous to do opposition politics in Russia,” she said.    “Of course it’s not just me who is at risk but members of my family and close allies too.”
    Her husband, a sociologist, was stabbed in the thigh with a psychotropic substance in 2016 by an unknown assailant.
    Although the election for the Moscow city parliament is a local one, Sobol believes it is a litmus test.
    “If they steal these elections there won’t be any more elections in Russia,” she said.    “These elections are the last point that will show if there is a chance to do battle on the legal electoral field or not.”
(Editing by Janet Lawrence)

7/31/2019 Ukraine’s Zelenskiy opens boot camp for his 254 rookie lawmakers by Serhiy Takhmazov
Newly elected lawmakers of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's political party Servant of the People
attend classes at a boot camp in Truskavets, Ukraine July 29, 2019. REUTERS/Pavlo Palamarchuk
    TRUSKAVETS, Ukraine (Reuters) – What’s your biggest weakness and could it get you into trouble?
    Those were some questions put in front of the political novices representing President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s party in the next parliament, as they attended a boot camp in a spa town in western Ukraine this week.
    Having won a snap general election by an unprecedented majority in July, Zelenskiy’s Servant of the People party wants to prepare its 254 lawmakers – none of whom have ever sat in parliament before – for battle.
    A former comedian who played a fictional president in a popular TV series, Zelenskiy swept to power promising to clean up Ukrainian politics and root out entrenched corruption.
    He did not allow former lawmakers to run on his party’s ticket.    Instead, the slate ran the gamut from a wedding photographer to a world champion Greco-Roman wrestler.
    Some 80% of the next parliament will be new lawmakers, a level unseen since the early years after the fall of the Soviet Union.    Their average age is just 41 — Zelenskiy’s own age, and more than seven years younger than the last incoming group.
    One of the new intake, interior designer Yelyzaveta Bogutska from Crimea, 55, compared it to starting out at university.
    “Nobody enters university as a well-trained specialist.    We will start from the very beginning but we will gain experience.”
    She said some Ukrainians were skeptical of so many novices, but “it seems to me that in a very short period of time, people will conclude that this was a most successful experiment.”
    Gwendolyn Sasse, senior fellow at Carnegie Europe, wrote that the wholesale change was remarkable even when compared to the fall of communism, calling it an “immense challenge.”
    “The key question is whether such a radical turnover in one of Ukraine’s least-trusted political institutions will translate into effective legislative work,”, or “will vested interests and rivalries emerge and divert the reform process, as in previous political cycles?
SPECIAL FORCES UNIT
    The new lawmakers gathered in a hotel conference hall in the town of Truskavets in the Carpathian foothills for a week-long course, where classes last from 9 in the morning to 10 at night.
    The curriculum included lessons on subjects ranging from crisis communications to public policy to drafting legislation.
    “It is almost impossible to teach 250 people in a single week.    It feels as though they’ve been enrolled in an academic army, a sort of special forces unit.    And it is very difficult to endure it,” said Tymofiy Mylovanov, honorary president of the Kyiv School of Economics, who runs the course.
    The lawmakers were split into groups of eight.    The evening lessons included role-play scenarios of sitting on committees.
    At one stage, the students were given the names of former lawmakers and asked if they remember anything they did in parliament — a lesson that they should use their time.
    “Man is always learning, always developing,” Dmytro Razumkov, the head of the Servant of People party, told Reuters.
    “And if a person who has come into politics is ready to gain more knowledge in order to become more effective, more nimble, of a higher caliber, not only as a politician, but also a person who will change this country, I think this is a big plus.”
    Zelenskiy won the presidency in April but had to deal with a government and parliament mostly loyal to his predecessor, prompting him to call a snap parliamentary election.
    High on the agenda of the next parliament will be fulfilling a major Zelenskiy election promise: that lawmakers should vote to remove their own immunity from prosecution.
    “As I used to always say: ‘I live in Ukraine, I adore it as a country, but I hate the state,'” Bogutska said.    “I want this division to disappear.”
(Additional reporting by Margaryta Chornokondratenko and Natalia Zinets in Kiev; Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Peter Graff)

8/1/2019 Trump offers Putin help with Siberian wildfires: Kremlin by Andrey Ostroukh and Andrew Osborn
U.S. President Donald Trump stands outside the Oval Office after welcoming Mongolia’s President
Khaltmaagiin Battulga at the White House in Washington, U.S., July 31, 2019. REUTERS/Leah Millis
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump offered his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin help in putting out vast wildfires that are raging in Siberia, the Kremlin said late on Wednesday, a move it said Putin took as a sign that battered ties can be restored.
    The Kremlin said the two leaders had spoken by phone at Washington’s initiative, hours after Putin ordered the Russian army to help firefighters battle the wildfires.
    The fires have spread to around 3 million hectares of mostly remote forest, an area almost the size of Belgium, according to the Federal Forestry Agency, wafting smoke across Siberia and prompting several regions to declare states of emergency.
    “The U.S. president offered Russia cooperation in fighting forest fires in Siberia,” the Kremlin statement said.
    “President Putin expressed his sincere gratitude for such an attentive attitude and for the offer of help and support.”
    Putin told Trump that Moscow would take him up on his offer if necessary, the Kremlin said, adding: “The Russian president took this step from the U.S. president as a sign that in the future we can restore full-scale ties between our two countries.”
    Russia has long been keen to try to start rebuilding battered U.S.-Russia relations, which remain strained by everything from Syria to Ukraine and allegations of Russian interference in U.S. politics, which Moscow denies.
    The two leaders agreed to continue their contacts over the phone and in face-to-face meetings, the Kremlin said.
    The White House confirmed the two men had spoken by phone and said they had discussed the wildfires as well as trade between their two nations.
(Editing by Bill Berkrot/Tom Balmforth)

8/1/2019 Trump discusses Siberian wildfires, trade in call with Russia’s Putin
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin hold a bilateral meeting
at the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan June 28, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump spoke by phone on Wednesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss wildfires in Siberia and trade between their two nations, the White House said.
    Spokesman Hogan Gidley said Trump talked to Putin “and expressed concern over the vast wildfires afflicting Siberia.”
    “The leaders also discussed trade between the two countries,” he said in a brief statement.
(Reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Paul Tait)
[So will the Democrats now accuse Trump of interfering in Russia's politics as they did about Baltimore?    To Democrats 'Race' is the only "racism" in their own ranks.].

8/2/2019 U.S. pulls out of Soviet-era nuclear missile pact with Russia by Steve Holland and Andrew Osborn
FILE PHOTO: A component of SSC-8/9M729 cruise missile system is on display during a news briefing, organized by Russian defence
and foreign ministries, at Patriot Expocentre near Moscow, Russia January 23, 2019. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
    WASHINGTON/MOSCOW (Reuters) – The United States formally withdrew from a landmark nuclear missile pact with Russia on Friday after determining that Moscow was in violation of the treaty, something the Kremlin has repeatedly denied.
    Washington signaled it would pull out of the arms control treaty six months ago unless Moscow stuck to the accord, but Russia said that was a ploy to exit a treaty it said the United States wanted to leave anyway in order to develop new missiles.
    The 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) was negotiated by then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
    It banned both sides from stationing in Europe land-based missiles with a range of between 310 and 3,400 miles (500-5,500 km), reducing their ability to launch a nuclear strike at short notice.
    “The United States will not remain party to a treaty that is deliberately violated by Russia,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement about the U.S. withdrawal.
    “Russia’s non-compliance under the treaty jeopardizes U.S. supreme interests as Russia’s development and fielding of a treaty-violating missile system represents a direct threat to the United States and our allies and partners,” Pompeo said.
Senior administration officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Russia had deployed “multiple battalions” of a Russian cruise missile throughout Russia in violation of the pact, including in western Russia, “with the ability to strike critical European targets.”
    Russia denies the allegation, saying the missile’s range puts it outside the treaty.    It has also rejected a U.S. demand to destroy the new missile, the Novator 9M729, which is known as the SSC-8 by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
    Moscow has told Washington its decision to quit the pact undermines global security and removes a key pillar of international arms control.
RUSSIAN RESPONSE
    On Friday Russia said it had asked the United States for a moratorium on the deployment of short and intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe.
    “We have proposed to the United States and other NATO countries that they weigh the possibility of declaring the same kind of moratorium on the deployment of short and intermediate range missiles as ours,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as saying by the TASS news agency.
    President Vladimir Putin says Russia does not want an arms race and he has promised he will not deploy Russian missiles unless the United States does so first.
    However, should Washington take such a step, he says he would be forced to deploy Russian hypersonic nuclear missiles on ships or submarines near U.S. territorial waters.
    NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg dismissed Russia’s moratorium request on Friday, saying it was “not a credible offer” since he said Moscow had already deployed illegal missiles.
    “There are no new U.S. missiles, no new NATO missiles in Europe, but there are more and more new Russian missiles,” he said.
    The dispute is aggravating the worst U.S.-Russia friction since the Cold War ended in 1991.    Some experts believe the treaty’s collapse could undermine other arms control agreements and speed an erosion of the global system designed to block the spread of nuclear arms.
‘WE DON’T WANT A NEW ARMS RACE’
    NATO said it had agreed a defensive package of measures to deter Russia.    It said its response would be measured and only involve conventional weapons.
    NATO’s Stoltenberg said there would be “no rash moves” by the alliance which he said “would not mirror what Russia does.”
    “We don’t want a new arms race,” Stoltenberg said.
    European officials have voiced concern that if the treaty collapses, Europe could again become an arena for nuclear-armed, intermediate-range missile buildup by the United States and Russia.
    The U.S. officials said the United States was months away from the first flight tests of an American intermediate-range missile that would serve as a counter to the Russians. Any deployment would be years away, they said.
    “We are just at the stage of looking at how we might further the development of conventional options,” one official said.
    Trump has said he would like to see a “next-generation” arms control deal with Russia and China to cover all types of nuclear weapons, something Beijing has so far rejected.
(Reporting by Steve Holland; Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton in WASHINGTON, Andrew Osborn in MOSCOW and Robin Emmott in BRUSSELS; Editing by Peter Cooney and Jon Boyle)

8/2/2019 After INF treaty’s demise, U.S. seeks funds for missile tests by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart
National flags of Russia and the U.S. fly at Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow, Russia April 11, 2017. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States will no longer be prohibited from having ground-launched intermediate-range missiles once it pulls out of an arms control treaty with Russia on Friday, but funds to test and develop the missiles may soon run out, officials say.
    Washington said last year it would be withdrawing from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), accusing Russia of failing to comply with it. Moscow denies it has violated the treaty and says Washington is pulling out because it wants to pursue a new arms race.
    Within the next few weeks, the United States is expected to test a ground-launched cruise missile.    In November, the Pentagon will aim to test an intermediate-range ballistic missile. Both would be conventional weapons tests – and not nuclear.
    U.S. officials told Reuters this week that once existing funding runs out, future research and testing would be at risk because of resistance from the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives.
    Unlike in the Senate, which is led by President Donald Trump’s Republicans, the House declined to fund the Trump administration’s request of about $96 million for the development of the missiles in its version of a fiscal-year 2020 budget and defense policy bill.
    “If you cut this, you’re hampering the Department of Defense’s ability to respond to the Russian treaty violation,” said a senior U.S. defense official, describing the Pentagon’s message to Congress.
    “It’s not going to bring the treaty back, it’s going to help Russia.”
    The 1987 pact banned ground-launched nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 310 to 3,400 miles (500-5,500 km).
    Washington and Moscow blame each other for the breakdown of the treaty, the latest in a growing list of East-West tensions.    The United States says it needs to develop its own intermediate-range missiles to deter Russia, even if it does not field them in Europe.
    The Pentagon also sees a benefit in developing the new weapons as a counter to China, which boasts an increasingly sophisticated land-based missile force.
PLAYING INTO PUTIN’S HANDS
    The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Representative Adam Smith, has opposed the U.S. pullout of the treaty.
    “Withdrawing from the treaty would allow Putin to deflect responsibility and blame the U.S. for both the treaty’s collapse and any ensuing arms race,” Smith wrote in an op-ed earlier this year with the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.     They added: “The Trump administration has played right into (Russian President) Vladimir Putin’s hands.”
    The Pentagon hopes that the funding will be restored when the House and Senate confer to resolve discrepancies in the legislation.    A Senate Armed Services Committee spokeswoman said those discussions were expected to take place in coming weeks.
    U.S. officials have been warning for years that the United States was being put at a disadvantage by China’s development of increasingly sophisticated land-based missile forces, which the Pentagon could not match thanks to the U.S. treaty with Russia.
    Defense Secretary Mark Esper said last month that leaving the INF treaty would free up the U.S. military “to deal with not just Russia, but China.”
    China has a very, very capable and robust INF Treaty-range missile inventory, if you will.    So you can see, it frees us up to do other things,” he said.
    While no decisions have been made, the United States could theoretically put easier-to-hide, road-mobile conventional missiles in places like Guam.
    The officials said it was not clear how China would handle the United States leaving the INF and potentially deploying ground-launched intermediate-range missiles closer to the country.
    “Who knows which way China might go?    But they are going to have to react some way … whether it’s hardening, moving things around, changing your (concept of operations),” a second U.S. official said.
(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart; Editing by Alistair Bell and Peter Cooney)

8/2/2019 Japan calls Russian PM’s visit to disputed island regrettable
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev shakes hands with Air Force officer at the Yasny airport during visits
the Southern Kuril Island of Iturup, Russia August 2, 2019. Sputnik/Alexander Astafyev/Pool via REUTERS
    TOKYO (Reuters) – A visit on Friday by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to an island claimed by both Japan and Russia was extremely regrettable, Japan’s foreign ministry said, urging Moscow to take constructive steps to advance ties.
    In his first visit since 2015, Medvedev traveled to one of four Russian-held islands off Japan’s northern region of Hokkaido, known as Iturup in Russian and Etorofu in Japanese, despite protests from Tokyo ahead of the visit.
    Japan claims the islands, which it calls the Northern Territories. They were invaded by the then Soviet army in the waning days of World War Two.
    Visits like Medvedev’s are incompatible with Japan’s position on the Northern Territories and hurt the feelings of its people, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
    “We strongly urge the Russian side to take constructive measures to further advance Japan-Russia relations, including the issue of the conclusion of the peace treaty,” it added.
    Medvedev has visited the islands before, but this week’s trip could impede talks towards a peace treaty and joint economic activities there.
    It comes barely a month after Russian President Vladimir Putin said the neighbors had moved towards establishing such activities.
    Medvedev said he was unconcerned by Tokyo’s protest, however.    “This is our land…What grounds could there be for our concern?” the RIA news agency quoted him as saying.
    The territorial row over the island chain has prevented a formal peace treaty between the two countries.
    At a conference in the Russian city of Vladivostok last September, Putin caught Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe off-guard when he suggested signing a peace treaty by year-end “without any pre-conditions.”
    Although Abe rejected that proposal, he vowed in January to push for a treaty at a meeting with Putin that month, but progress has proved elusive.
    Putin and Abe met on the sidelines of G20 meetings in the western city of Osaka on June 29 and discussed the treaty as well as economic activities on the islands, which Russia calls the Southern Kuriles.
    Senior officials and political leaders from both countries have since held talks to discuss ways to end the decades-old territorial dispute and conclude the treaty.
(Reporting by Chris Gallagher and Elaine Lies; Additional reporting by Tom Balmforth in MOSCOW; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

8/2/2019 Ukrainian president’s staff chief tries to quit after two months
FILE PHOTO: Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks after a parliamentary election
in Kiev, Ukraine July 21, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/File Photo
    KIEV (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff sent in a letter of resignation, after two months in his job, but Zelenskiy has not signed it, according to a statement on the presidential website on Friday.
    Mystery has surrounded the status of Andriy Bogdan, the head of the presidential administration, since Thursday evening.    The local news agency Interfax Ukraine had reported Bogdan’s resignation but later retracted the story.
    His appointment was controversial. He was previously a lawyer for Ihor Kolomoisky, one of Ukraine’s most powerful tycoons, whose business ties to Zelenskiy have been under scrutiny since the start of Zelenskiy’s election campaign this year.
    “Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has confirmed the existence of a letter of resignation of the chief of his staff,” a statement on the presidential website said.    “The head of the state clarified that he had not signed the letter yet.”
    A comedian with no prior political experience, Zelenskiy won the presidential election in April by a landslide on promises to fight corruption and transform Ukrainian politics.
    But he has come under the spotlight for his business ties to Kolomoisky, who is one of Ukraine’s richest men and who has been at loggerheads with the authorities over control of PrivatBank, the country’s largest bank.
    Zelenskiy has repeatedly pushed back against suggestions that he would take Kolomoisky’s side in the PrivatBank dispute.
    “We — all the key people who came with me — agreed from the beginning that we would write letters of resignations,” the statement quoted Zelenskiy as saying.
    “If society or the President feels that one or the other person cannot cope with the tasks set by Ukraine, then at any moment, this person… will resign.”
(Reporting by Natalia Zinets; editing by Matthias Williams, Larry King)

8/2/2019 Poland’s president wants parliamentary election on Oct 13
FILE PHOTO: President of Poland Andrzej Duda speaks during a news conference after the Brdo-Brijuni
Process Leaders' Meeting in Tirana, Albania May 9, 2019. REUTERS/Florion Goga/File Photo
    WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland’s President Andrzej Duda said on Friday he prefers Oct. 13 for the next parliamentary election which the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party is expected to win again thanks to generous social programs and strong economic growth.
    Under Polish law, the election has to be between Oct. 13 and Nov. 10, with the exact day chosen by the president.
    “I proposed October 13 as the election date,” Duda said in an interview with Polsat News television, adding that would be confirmed next week after consultation with the election board.
    A survey this week by IBRIS pollster showed that PiS would attract 41.7% of votes, versus 25% for the main opposition group Civic Coalition and 10.2% for the liberal and leftist movement.
    Another win for the nationalist PiS, after its 2015 victory, could drive Poland deeper into conflict with the European Union.
    There have been frictions over the judiciary, migration and environmental policy, with critics saying the former communist nation is moving away from European liberal values.
    Major campaign issues in the nation of 38 million are LGBT rights, traditional values, social benefits and climate change.
(Reporting by Agnieszka Barteczko; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)

8/2/2019 Russian police accuse 10 of mass unrest in crackdown on eve of rally by Tom Balmforth
FILE PHOTO: People take part at a rally calling for opposition candidates to be registered for
elections to Moscow City Duma, the capital's regional parliament, in Moscow, Russia July 27, 2019.
The placard reads: "I have a right to my candidate." REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian authorities on Friday moved to press criminal charges against 10 people for their involvement in what they called mass unrest at an opposition protest last weekend, as defiant Kremlin critics vowed to hold another rally on Saturday.
    Police rounded up more than 1,300 people at an unauthorized protest in Moscow last Saturday in one of the biggest crackdowns of recent years on an increasingly defiant opposition decrying President Vladimir Putin’s tight grip on power.
    Despite several of its leaders being jailed over the protest for up to 30 days, the opposition plans to stage another rally on Saturday, capitalizing on the tensions as Putin’s ratings have slipped following years of falling incomes.
    Moscow prosecutors on Friday warned would-be protesters that the demonstration had not been agreed with authorities, that its organizers could be brought to account and said it had issued a formal warning to hunger-striking activist Lyubov Sobol.
    Protesters are calling for Moscow city authorities to allow opposition members to be allowed to run in a Sept. 8 local election.    They were barred from running for failing to gather enough signatures of support, which they say is a lie.
    Sobol said she planned to join the protest on Saturday despite the warning from prosecutors, saying that “Political repressions will grow if we give in!
    Investigators opened criminal proceedings over the protest on Thursday, saying it had identified 10 key suspects in what it said was mass civil unrest last weekend. Organizing mass civil unrest carries a penalty of up to 15 years in jail.
    Courts in Moscow on Friday ordered four people to be held in custody for almost two months on suspicion of taking part in mass disorder, Russia’s Mediazona media outlet reported.
    A court was due to rule on a fifth suspect later on Friday.    The group could face up to eight years in jail.
    Two opposition activists being held in custody, including an ally of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and a man accused of mass civil unrest, declared hunger strikes on Friday, opposition activists said on social media.
    Police on Friday also detained five more suspects as part of the investigation, TASS news agency reported.
(Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

8/2/2019 Cuba reveals health, hotel, other service earnings
FILE PHOTO: Hundreds of Cuban doctors listen to a speech by Cuban President Fidel Castro
in Havana, Cuba September 4, 2005. REUTERS/Claudia Daut/File Photo
    HAVANA (Reuters) – Cash-strapped Cuba on Friday for the first time published details of its foreign exchange earnings from services such as telecommunications, hotels, health and education assistance, in an apparent concession to creditors.
    Service exports make up most of the Communist-run country’s foreign exchange earnings.    But for decades the Caribbean island nation has refused to publish details despite requests by foreign governments and businesses.
    A number of western diplomats involved in debt and trade talks with Cuba in recent months have expressed frustration that officials have not provided details on the country’s financial situation.
    A common complaint of potential foreign business partners is that their Cuban counterparts refuse to provide information needed for proper due diligence, for example, when discussing potential collateral through telecommunications or transportation earnings.
    According to the report on the National Statistics Office web page (http://www.one.cu/aec2018/08%20Sector%20Externo.pdf) the biggest export earner in 2018 was health services at $6.4 billion, followed by “support services” at $1.3 billion.
    The report on page 47 said hotel and related services garnered $970 million, followed by telecommunications at $722 million and transportation and support services, which includes everything from airlines to docking fees, at around $600 million.
    The report did not provide data for previous years.
    The country’s foreign exchange earnings have declined in recent years in tandem with the implosion of its ally and main economic partner, Venezuela, forcing the government to adopt austerity measures aimed at limiting imports.
    Total exports were $18.6 billion in 2013 and $14.5 billion last year. Imports fell from $15.6 billion to $12.6 billion.
    The economy has stagnated and tough new U.S. sanctions on some 175 Cuban companies, tourism and investment are expected to worsen the situation in 2019.
    Cuba last reported its foreign debt at $18.2 billion for 2016 and considers its current account and reserves state secrets.
(Reporting by Marc Frank; Editing by Dan Grebler)

8/3/2019 U.S. announces new Russia sanctions in connection with the 2018 poisoning of Sergei Skripal by OAN newsroom
    The U.S. announces a new round of sanctions on Russia, for its involvement in the 2018 poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal.
    Inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) arrive to begin work at the scene of a nerve agent attack on former Russian agent Sergei Skripal, Salisbury, Britain, March 21, 2018.
    In a statement Saturday, the State Department said Russia’s use of a chemical weapon endangered thousands of lives in the UK.
    The measures will require Russia to provide restitution to the victims of the attack in Salisbury, and tightens the country’s access to U.S. markets.
    The sanctions are set to take effect following a 15 day Congressional notification period, and will last 12 months.
    The State Department said the move will likely cost the country billions of dollars in activity with the U.S.

8/3/2019 Russian police detain nearly 700 in opposition crackdown in Moscow by Andrew Osborn and Maria Tsvetkova
People take part in a rally calling for opposition candidates to be registered for elections to Moscow City Duma,
the capital's regional parliament, in Moscow, Russia August 3, 2019. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian police forcibly detained nearly 700 people attending a protest in Moscow on Saturday to demand free elections, including prominent activist Lyubov Sobol, after authorities warned the demonstration was illegal.
    Police removed Sobol from a taxi and bundled her into a van minutes before the start of what anti-Kremlin activists described as a peaceful walk to protest against the exclusion of their candidates from an election next month.
    Soon after the start of the protest, a Reuters reporter saw several hundred people milling around at one of the designated protest points in central Moscow. Minutes later, a line of riot police began to squeeze people out of the area.
    OVD-Info, an independent monitoring group, said police had detained 685 people, in some cases beating them with truncheons as they lay on the floor.    Reuters reporters witnessed dozens of arrests.    In one case police carried off a man as he clung upside down to his bicycle.
    Police said they had detained 600 and said 1,500 had attended the protest, though footage of demonstrations which flared in different parts of Moscow suggested many more had taken part.
    Saturday’s protest was smaller than one a week earlier, but underlined the determination of some Kremlin critics — especially younger people — to keep pressing to open up Russia’s tightly-choreographed political system.
    The focus of protesters’ anger is a prohibition on a number of opposition-minded candidates, some of whom are allies of jailed opposition politician Alexei Navalny, from taking part in a September election for Moscow’s city legislature.
    That vote, though local, is seen as a dry run for a national parliamentary election in 2021.
    Authorities say opposition candidates failed to collect enough genuine signatures to register.    The excluded candidates say that is a lie and insist on taking part in a contest they believe they could win.
    “They (the authorities) are wiping their feet on us,” said Elena, a student attending Saturday’s protest.
    Another attendee, Yevgeny Snetkov, a 61-year-old engineer, described as brazen the way the authorities had prevented opposition candidates from running.    “I had no option left but to protest,” he said.
    Some protesters chanted “Putin is a thief” as they marched.
INTERNATIONAL CONDEMNATION
    Observers said the police presence was one of the biggest at such a protest in nearly a decade.    Mobile internet access went down in some areas and police cordoned off swathes of central Moscow to stop people gathering.
    At a similar protest a week earlier, police detained more than 1,300 in one of the biggest security operations of recent years that brought wide international condemnation.
    Authorities carried out a new round of detentions and home searches before Saturday’s protest and opened criminal proceedings for what they term mass civil unrest, an offense which carries a penalty of up to 15 years in jail.
    Activists say the Russian constitution allows them to freely protest.    But authorities say they need to agree the timing and location of any demonstrations in advance, something that was not done ahead of Saturday’s protest.
    Opposition activists say the authorities have repeatedly refused to allow protests in central Moscow, leaving them with no choice but to go ahead anyway.
    At least eight of Sobol’s allies, including Navalny, are in jail for breaking tough protest laws.    The ruling United Russia dominates the national parliament and Navalny plus his allies are starved of media air-time.
    Russian investigators said on Saturday they had opened a criminal investigation into the alleged laundering of 1 billion roubles ($15.3 million) by an anti-corruption foundation which Navalny set up.    Navalny and his allies say the foundation is transparently financed from public donations.
    President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin have not commented on the standoff with the opposition, but Moscow prosecutors on Friday warned would-be protesters that Saturday’s demonstration had not been approved and its organizers could be brought to account.
    At well over 60 percent, Putin’s approval rating is still high compared with many other world leaders, but is lower than it used to be due to discontent over years of falling incomes.
    Last year the 66-year-old former KGB intelligence officer won a landslide re-election and a new six-year term until 2024.
(Additional reporting by Tom Balmforth, Andrey Kuzmin and Dmitry Madorsky; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and David Holmes)

8/3/2019 New U.S. sanctions won’t hurt Russian financial system: Siluanov
Anton Siluanov, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, attends a meeting during a session of the
Supreme Eurasian Economic Council in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan May 29, 2019. REUTERS/Mariya Gordeyeva
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Additional U.S. sanctions damage bilateral ties between Moscow and Washington but Russia’s financial system is resilient to external pressures, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on Saturday.
    U.S. President Donald Trump has imposed another round of sanctions on Russia over the poisoning of a former spy in Britain, the White House said on Friday.
    “Russia’s economy has already proved to be resilient to external restrictions in recent years,” Siluanov said.
    He added: “With regard to the public debt and corporate debt, we are confident that the financial system we have created allows us to meet the needs of the budget and enterprises in borrowed resources.”
    The U.S. State Department said in a statement https://www.state.gov/imposition-of-a-second-round-of-sanctions-on-russia-under-the-chemical-and-biological-weapons-control-and-warfare-elimination-act that with the new round of sanctions Washington will oppose the extension of any loan or financial or technical assistance to Russia by international financial institutions.
(Reporting by Daria Korsunskaya; Writing by Andrey Kuzmin; Editing by Catherine Evans)

8/3/2019 Russia: Washington made a ‘grave mistake’ pulling out of INF Treaty by OAN newsroom
    Russia’s foreign ministry claims the U.S. made a massive mistake by pulling out of the INF Treaty.
Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a cabinet meeting in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia,
Wednesday, July 3, 2019. (Yekaterina Shtukina, Sputnik, Government Pool Photo via AP)
    In a statement Friday, a ministry spokesperson claimed the decision will have a negative impact on “global strategic security” adding, “the responsibility for escalating tensions across the world will rest with Washington.”
    The Kremlin also said it “remains open for dialogue” with the White House to restore bilateral cooperation, and “strengthen international security.”
    Russia announced it was pulling out of the accord on Friday as well, shortly after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed the treaty was dead.

8/5/2019 German government urges Russia to release people detained at protest
Law enforcement officers detain a participant in a rally calling for opposition candidates to be registered for elections
to Moscow City Duma, the capital's regional parliament, in Moscow, Russia August 3, 2019. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov
    BERLIN (Reuters) – The German government on Monday urged Russia to immediately release people detained at protest in Moscow on Saturday to demand free elections, with a spokeswoman saying Germany was “very concerned” about the measures police took.
    Russian police forcibly detained over 800 people attending a protest in Moscow, including prominent activist Lyubov Sobol, after authorities warned the demonstration was illegal.
(Reporting by Michelle Martin; Editing by Tassilo Hummel)

8/5/2019 Putin to Trump: We’ll develop new nuclear missiles if you do by Andrew Osborn and Polina Devitt
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends the Navy Day parade in Saint Petersburg, Russia
July 28, 2019. Sputnik/Aleksey Nikolskyi/Kremlin via REUTERS
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Monday that Moscow would start developing short and intermediate-range land-based nuclear missiles if the United States started doing the same after the demise of a landmark arms control treaty.
    The U.S. formally left the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Russia on Friday after determining that Moscow was violating the treaty and had already deployed one banned type of missile, an accusation the Kremlin denies.
    The pact banned land-based missiles with a range of between 310 and 3,400 miles (500-5,500 km), reducing the ability of both countries to launch a nuclear strike at short notice.
    Putin on Monday ordered the defense and foreign ministries and Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service to closely monitor any steps the U.S. takes to develop, produce or deploy missiles banned under the defunct treaty.
    “If Russia obtains reliable information that the United States has finished developing these systems and started to produce them, Russia will have no option other than to engage in a full-scale effort to develop similar missiles,” Putin said in a statement.
    U.S. officials have said the United States is months away from the first flight tests of an American intermediate-range missile that would serve as a counter to the Russians.    Any deployment would be years away, they have said.
    Putin issued his warning after holding a meeting with Russia’s Security Council to discuss the U.S. move, which Moscow had argued against for months, warning it would undermine a key pillar of international arms control.
    Putin said Russia’s arsenal of air and sea-launched missiles combined with its work on developing hypersonic missiles meant it was well placed to offset any threat emanating from the United States for now.
    But he said it was essential for Moscow and Washington, the world’s largest nuclear powers, to resume arms control talks to prevent what he described as an “unfettered” arms race breaking out.
    “In order to avoid chaos with no rules, restrictions or laws, we need to once more weigh up all the dangerous consequences and launch a serious and meaningful dialogue free from any ambiguity,” Putin said.
    Officials from President Donald Trump’s administration, speaking on condition of anonymity, have said Russia has deployed “multiple battalions” of a cruise missile throughout Russia in violation of the defunct pact, including in western Russia, “with the ability to strike critical European targets.”
    Russia denies the allegation, saying the missile’s range put it outside the treaty and rejected a U.S. demand to destroy the new missile, the Novator 9M729, known as the SSC-8 by the NATO Western military alliance.
(Additional reporting by Tom Balmforth, Editing by Ed Osmond)

8/5/2019 Blasts rock Russian arms depot, eight injured – TASS
A view shows flame and smoke rising from the site of blasts at an ammunition depot near the
town of Achinsk in Krasnoyarsk region, Russia August 5, 2019. REUTERS/Dmitry Dub
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – A series of blasts rocked an arms depot at a Russian military base in Siberia on Monday, injuring eight people and prompting aluminum producer Rusal to suspend operations at the country’s biggest alumina producing plant.
    Eleven thousand Russians were being evacuated from neighborhoods in Krasnoyarsk region’s city of Achinsk following blasts and a fire at a military storage facility, TASS news agency cited local authorities as saying.
    Photographs showed a huge explosion on the horizon with flames leaping into the sky followed by belching black smoke.
    Eight people were injured in the incident, TASS news agency cited doctors as saying. A Russian soldier was killed, TASS cited a source as saying. A source from another agency, RIA, at the defense ministry denied the information about the soldier’s death.
    Rusal, the world’s largest aluminum producer outside China, suspended operations at its Achinsk alumina plant and evacuated all but essential staff to ensure their safety, it said.
    The plant is Russia’s largest producer of alumina, a raw material which is smelted into aluminum.
    Loading is operating on schedule at Russian oil giant Rosneft’s Achinsk oil refinery, TASS quoted a refinery spokesperson as saying.    The refinery is located 30km from the military base.
(Reporting by Polina Devitt and Anastasia Lyrchikova; writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Ed Osmond)

8/5/2019 Russia says it would respond to U.S. missile deployments in Asia
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov speaks during a news conference in Moscow, Russia February 7, 2019. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia said on Monday it would take measures to defend itself if the United States stationed missiles in Asia following the collapse of a landmark arms control treaty and that it expected Japan to deploy a new U.S. missile launch system.
    After U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said he favored placing missiles in Asia, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Russia did not plan to get sucked into an arms race with Washington but would respond defensively to any threats.
    “… If the deployment of new U.S. systems begins specifically in Asia then the corresponding steps to balance these actions will be taken by us in the direction of parrying these threats,” Ryabkov told a news conference.
(Reporting by Tom Balmforth and Anton Kolodyazhnyy; Editing by Catherine Evans)

8/6/2019 Russia summons Japanese ambassador over disputed islands comments
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev visits the Southern Kuril Island of Iturup, Russia
August 2, 2019. Sputnik/Alexander Astafyev/Pool via REUTERS
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday it had summoned the Japanese ambassador in Moscow to complain about what it said was criticism from Tokyo that bordered on “an attempt to interfere in Russia’s domestic affairs.”
    Tokyo earlier this month called a visit by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to one of four islands claimed by both Japan and Russia extremely regrettable and urged Moscow to take constructive steps to advance ties.
    Japan claims the islands, which it calls the Northern Territories, while Russia, which controls them, calls them the Southern Kuriles.
    The Russian foreign ministry said Japan’s comments about what it did on its sovereign territory were unacceptable.
    It said it had also handed Japan’s ambassador a note of protest over what it said were violations of a visa-free exchange regime related to the disputed islands.
(Reporting by Maria Tsvetkova; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

8/6/2019 Croatia president will run for job again: PM
Croatia's President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic speaks as she holds a joint news conference with Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem July 29, 2019. Menahem Kahana/Pool via REUTERS
    SARAJEVO (Reuters) – Croatia President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarevic will run for a second five-year term on behalf of her ruling party, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, who also heads the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), said on Tuesday.
    Plenkovic confirmed Kitarevic’s candidacy for the job after she informally announced it to local media on Monday, state news agency Hina reported.
    Kitarevic’s current term will expire on Feb. 19, 2020 and the government is expected to call for the election at least 30 day before.
    Her biggest rivals for the job are Zoran Milanovic, the former prime minister from the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and Miroslav Skoro, a popular singer who will run as an independent candidate, according to polls published in Croatia.
(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by Ed Osmond)

8/7/2019 Resume peace talks, Ukraine’s Zelenskiy urges Putin after four soldiers killed by Pavel Polityuk and Maxim Rodionov
FILE PHOTO: Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks after a parliamentary election
in Kiev, Ukraine July 21, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/File Photo
    KIEV/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Wednesday pressed Russian leader Vladimir Putin for a resumption of peace talks after four Ukrainian soldiers were killed by shelling in the eastern Donbass border region.
    Conflict between Ukrainian troops and Russian-backed forces has killed an estimated 13,000 people since 2014.    A ceasefire deal brokered by France and Germany ended major conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2015, though small-scale clashes still occur regularly.
    Bringing peace to the Donbass region was a top campaign pledge for Zelenskiy, helping him to a landslide presidential election victory in April.    He strengthened his power base in a parliamentary election last month.
    He said that, in a phone call with Putin on Wednesday, he had urged his Russian counterpart to exert influence over the Donbass fighters and agree to relaunch peace talks.
    Tuesday’s four deaths marked the highest toll of Ukrainian troops in a single day since Zelenskiy took office.
    “I said that this doesn’t bring us closer to peace,” Zelenskiy said of the phone call.    “I beg you to influence the other side so that they stop the killing of our people.”
    He said the Russian president had promised him something, details of which would be disclosed later.
    Putin in turn said Ukrainian forces must stop the shelling of settlements in the Donbass that led to civilian casualties.
    Both sides agreed to intensify work on prisoner exchanges.    Russia holds dozens of Ukrainian captives from the conflict but it is unclear how many Russians are being held in Ukraine.
    The leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany last met in 2016 for their “Normandy Format” talks on the Donbass.
    Zelenskiy said he planned to speak to French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel about arranging more talks.     The Kremlin said Putin and Zelenskiy had discussed the prospect of such a meeting.
    “It is necessary to meet with the leaders of the Normandy four as soon as possible… And to end this war,” Zelenskiy said.
    Kiev accuses Moscow of waging an undeclared war in eastern Ukraine, supplying troops and heavy weapons to the Donbass.
    Russia, which denies the accusation, says Ukraine is not honoring commitments under a ceasefire agreement brokered in Minsk in 2015, including giving a special status to the Donbass region.
(Reporting by Natalia Zinets and Pavel Polityuk in Kiev and Maxim Rodionov in Moscow; writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Catherine Evans and John Stonestreet)

8/7/2019 Russia says outgoing U.S. envoy failed to improve poor ties
FILE PHOTO: U.S. ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman looks on during a news conference of U.S. National
Security Adviser John Bolton in Moscow, Russia June 27, 2018. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia called outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman a professional diplomat late on Tuesday, but said he had been unable to improve battered Russia-U.S. ties because he had been hamstrung by domestic U.S. politics, TASS news agency reported.
    Huntsman, who was appointed by U.S. President Donald Trump in 2017, said in a resignation letter circulated by U.S. media that he was stepping down after a two-year tenure overshadowed by U.S. sanctions on Moscow and tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions.
    His stint in Russia came at a time when relations between Washington and Moscow hit a post-Cold War low and were strained over everything from Syria to arms control and allegations, denied by Russia, that Moscow meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to help Trump win.
    “Huntsman is a professional,” TASS cited the foreign ministry as saying.
    “Unfortunately, the domestic political situation in the United States did not make it possible to realize the existing potential in bilateral relations,” it said.
    Huntsman, who is due to leave his post on Oct. 3, said in his resignation letter that “we must continue to hold Russia accountable when its behavior threatens us and our allies.”
    Huntsman, a one-time Republican presidential candidate, used to chair the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank that has sometimes been sharply critical of Russian domestic and foreign policy.
    Russia said last month it was preparing to ban the Atlantic Council, which Russia’s prosecutor general has described as a security threat.
(Reporting by Maxim Rodionov; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

8/7/2019 Russia upholds bar on Kremlin critics despite protests by Tom Balmforth
FILE PHOTO: Law enforcement officers detain a participant in a rally calling for opposition candidates to be registered for elections
to Moscow City Duma, the capital's regional parliament, in Moscow, Russia August 3, 2019. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov/File Photo
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s main election board on Wednesday upheld rulings barring several Kremlin critics from a Moscow election next month as the opposition said it would press ahead with nationwide protests this weekend.
    Police in Moscow have detained more than 2,000 people at recent rallies protesting the exclusion of opposition candidates from a Sept. 8 election, prompting the biggest standoff between authorities and the opposition in years.
    Most of those detained were released quickly.
    But investigators have accused protesters of using violence against the police and opened criminal proceedings against some people over what they have called mass civil unrest, an offense punishable with up to 15 years in jail.
    Protesters have said their rallies have been entirely peaceful and accuse authorities of using force and pressure tactics to try and scare people away.
    The opposition politicians, including hunger-striking activist Lyubov Sobol, were barred from running for the Moscow city legislature for failing to gather enough genuine signatures of support, something they say is a lie.
    Several of them appealed against their exclusion from the vote, but the Central Election Commission on Wednesday rejected complaints from Sobol as well as the opposition’s Dmitry Gudkov and Elena Rusakova.
    Leonid Volkov, an ally of jailed opposition politician Alexei Navalny, has said protests would continue on Saturday, this time also in cities beyond the capital.
    Some opinion polls indicate the opposition has won some broader support among Moscow’s residents.
    A poll by the Levada Centre said on Tuesday that 37 percent of Muscovites related “positively” to the protests in Moscow compared with 27 percent who said they viewed them negatively, the RBC medial portal reported.
    The Kremlin has not commented on the protests.
(Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)

8/8/2019 Ukraine president plans to implement land reform this year
FILE PHOTO: Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks after a parliamentary election
in Kiev, Ukraine July 21, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/File Photo
    KIEV (Reuters) – President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday that Ukraine will implement land reform this year and that his government would carry out major privatizations.
    “We will appoint a professional government and choose a decent general prosecutor.    We will certainly take advantage of our chance to change the country,” he told investors in Turkey in remarks that were broadcast on Ukrainian television.
    “This year we will definitely carry out land reform, which next year will create a land market of 40 million hectares.”
    Zelenskiy has promised to lift longstanding moratorium on the sale of farmland, which would please many investors but risks a political backlash.
(Reporting by Natalia Zinets; Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Alison Williams)

8/8/2019 Russia freezes bank accounts linked to opposition politician Navalny by Andrew Osborn
A still image taken from a CCTV footage shows masked officers gathering for a search in front of an office of the Anti-Corruption
Foundation (FBK), set up by opposition politician Alexei Navalny, in Moscow, Russia August 8, 2019. FBK/Reuters TV via REUTERS
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian authorities on Thursday froze a slew of bank accounts linked to jailed opposition politician Alexei Navalny as part of a money laundering investigation that his allies say is a trumped-up attempt to cripple his political movement.
    The move comes ahead of a series of planned nationwide demonstrations on Saturday being organized by Navalny’s allies to protest against the exclusion of opposition candidates from a Moscow election next month.
    Similar protests in the Russian capital in recent weeks have led to mass arrests and prompted a wider crackdown on anti-Kremlin activists who have had their homes searched and been handed short jail terms or listed as suspects in a more serious investigation into what the authorities call mass unrest.
    Russian investigators said in a statement on Thursday that they had frozen the bank accounts of Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation, those of another organization, and those of more than 100 linked individuals and legal entities.
    Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s spokeswoman, said on Twitter that investigators had also frozen the bank accounts of Navalny’s campaign headquarters across the country.
    Masked police officers searched the Moscow offices of Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation as well as the homes of several activists on Thursday taking away computers and documents.
    Investigators said they had also summoned some of the foundation’s employees for questioning.
    The crackdown came after investigators opened a criminal investigation on Saturday into the alleged laundering of 1 billion rubles ($15.31 million) by Navalny’s foundation.
    Navalny and his allies say the foundation, which has published a slew of embarrassing investigations into government officials, is transparently financed from public donations.
    Navalny is currently in jail for violating Russia’s tough protest laws after calling for people to demonstrate in central Moscow over the exclusion of opposition candidates from a local election next month.
(Reporting by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Andrey Ostroukh)

8/9/2019 Timeline: Vladimir Putin – 20 tumultuous years as Russian President or PM
Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting with members of the Security Council at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow, Russia August 5, 2019. Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin via REUTERS
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin was appointed acting prime minister on Aug. 9 1999 by then president Boris Yeltsin.    He has been in office as president or prime minister ever since, a period spanning two decades.
    Here are some highlights of Putin’s 20 years in power:
    Aug. 9, 1999 – During an economic crisis, Boris Yeltsin names little-known security chief Vladimir Putin as his fifth acting prime minister in less than a year, and says he wants Putin to succeed him as president.    In the following weeks, apartment bombings across Russia kill more than 300 people, which Putin blames on Chechen terrorists.    His popularity is boosted by his tough response, which includes the aerial bombing of parts of Chechnya and an assault to recapture the breakaway southern province.    Some Kremlin critics question if Chechen terrorists were really to blame for the apartment bombings.
    Dec. 31, 1999 – An ailing Yeltsin resigns, names Putin acting president.
    March 26, 2000 – Putin wins his first presidential election.
    Aug. 12, 2000 – The Kursk nuclear-powered submarine sinks to the bottom of the Barents Sea killing all 118 crew after an explosion onboard.    Putin’s image suffers a jolt after he comments on the crisis only after four days.
    2002 – Chechen militants take more than 800 people hostage at a Moscow theater.    Special forces end the siege, but use a poison gas in the process which kills many of the hostages.
    2003 – Oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky is arrested and charged with fraud.    He is later found guilty and jailed in a case his supporters said was punishment for his meddling in politics.    He is only released in 2013 after Putin pardons him.
    March 2004 – Putin wins second term as president with more than 70 percent of the vote after oil prices fuel a consumer boom and raise living standards, a trend that continues for another four years.
    September 2004 – Islamist fighters seize more than 1,000 people in a school in Beslan, southern Russia, triggering a three-day siege that ends in gunfire. A total of 334 hostages are killed.    Over half of them are children.    Some parents say the authorities botched the handling of the siege and blame Putin.
    December 2004 – Putin scraps direct elections for regional governors making them, in effect, Kremlin appointees.    Putin says the move is needed to keep Russia together.
    2005 – Putin describes the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union as the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the twentieth century.
    2006 – Investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a critic of rights abuses in Chechnya, is murdered in Moscow on Putin’s birthday.        Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko dies in London that same year after being poisoned with a radioactive substance.    A British inquiry years later concludes he was killed by Russian spies.
    2007 – Putin gives a speech in Munich in which he lashes out at the United States, accusing Washington of the “almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations.”
    May 2008 – Constitutional limits on him serving more than two consecutive presidential terms see Putin become prime minister after his ally, Dmitry Medvedev, becomes president.
    August 2008 – Russia fights and wins a short war with Georgia which loses control over two breakaway regions that are garrisoned with Russian troops.
    2012 – Putin returns to the presidency, winning re-election with over 60% of the vote after a decision to extend presidential terms to six from four years.    Large anti-Putin protests take place before and after the vote with critics alleging voter fraud.
    Feb 7-23, 2014 – Russia hosts the winter Olympic games in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
    Feb. 27, 2014 – Russian troops start annexing Ukraine’s Crimea region after Ukrainian protesters oust the country’s Russia-friendly president Viktor Yanukovich.    Russia incorporates Crimea the following month after a referendum condemned by the West. The United States and EU go on to impose sanctions on Moscow.
    April 2014 – A pro-Russian separatist uprising breaks out in eastern Ukraine which results in a conflict, still ongoing, which hands the separatists control of a vast swath of territory and leaves over 13,000 people dead.    Western countries accuse Russia of backing the uprising; Moscow denies direct involvement.
    Sept. 30, 2015 – Russia launches air strikes in Syria in its biggest Middle East intervention in decades, turning the tide of the conflict in President Bashar al-Assad’s favor.
    November 2016 – Donald Trump is elected president of the United States after promising to improve battered ties with Moscow.    U.S. authorities determine Russia tried to interfere in the election in his favor however, casting a pall over U.S-Russia ties despite Russian denials.
    March 4, 2018 – A former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter are poisoned in England with a nerve agent.    They survive but a woman who lives nearby dies after her partner brings home the poison found in a discarded perfume bottle.    Britain accuses Moscow, which denies involvement.
    March 19, 2018 – Putin wins a landslide re-election victory and the mandate to stay in office until 2024.
    June/July 2018 – Russia hosts the men’s soccer FIFA World Cup.
    2019 – Protests break out in Moscow over a municipal election which the anti-Kremlin opposition says is unfair.    Putin has yet to comment on the demonstrations.
(Writing and reporting by Andrew Osborn; Editing by)

8/9/2019 Russian protesters hurt in police crackdown seek redress in courts by Maria Vasilyeva and Tatyana Gomozova
FILE PHOTO: Law enforcement officers detain a participant of a rally calling for opposition candidates to be registered for elections
to Moscow City Duma, the capital's regional parliament, in Moscow, Russia July 27, 2019. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov/File Photo
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Bruised Russian teenager Alexander Kostyuk spent three days in hospital being treated for concussion he said he sustained on Aug. 3 when four policemen beat him with truncheons at an opposition protest in Moscow.
    It was the second peaceful demonstration in as many weeks by an increasingly defiant opposition to President Vladimir Putin. Both were met by police in riot gear who detained hundreds of protesters, sometimes violently.    In some cases, they beat people as they lay on the ground.
    A new protest, again to call for free elections in Moscow, is planned in the Russian capital on Saturday.
    Kostyuk was among more than 2,300 people detained on July 27 and Aug. 3 in one of the biggest opposition crackdowns in Russia in recent years.    He spent several hours in custody like most, and was hospitalized from the police station for his injuries.
    “The four of them forced me to the ground and started to beat me up … They hit me around the head with truncheons and their fists,” Kostyuk, 17, said of the police officers who detained him.
    It is unclear how many people were injured during the two protests, but at least 15 of them have filed complaints against the police, according to independent rights groups.
    The original focus of protesters’ anger was a prohibition on a number of opposition-minded candidates from taking part in a September election for Moscow’s city legislature.
    That vote, though local, is seen as a dry run for a national parliamentary election in 2021.
    Activists say the constitution allows them to freely protest.    But authorities say the timing and location of any demonstrations must be agreed in advance, something that was not done for either protest which police have called mass unrest.
    “At what was a peaceful protest police used brutal force against everyone, and I don’t know a single case when this use of force was justified,” Fyodor Sirosh, Kostyuk’s lawyer said.
    Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin and other officials have said that the amount of force used during the July 27 protest was appropriate and that what he called the reckless actions of some protesters had forced the police to respond.
    “It was like a gang of thugs who attack you in a backstreet out of the blue and thrash you, but in this case the thugs were dressed in uniforms,” another injured protester, Andrei Kurgin, said about his experience on Aug. 3.
    Kurgin, 37, plans to go to court to prove he was gratuitously and violently attacked by the police.
    Konstantin Konovalov, who lawyer Sirosh is also representing, had his leg broken during his detention in central Moscow on July 27 ahead of the protest.    He said he was out jogging with no intention of joining the protest when police grabbed him and broke his leg while detaining him.
    Andrey Statov, another injured protester, says he was beaten by police after being detained on Aug. 3 while peacefully standing among other protesters.
    “They want to scare people,” Statov said.
    Both Kurgin and Statov say they plan to take part in a new protest scheduled for Aug. 10, which was authorized by authorities.
    “I feel some fear, and to be honest this fear has grown but I will try to keep up my support (for the protests),” said Statov.
(Additional reporting by Dmitry Turlyun and Gennady Novik; Writing by Maria Vasilyeva; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Raissa Kasolowsky)

8/9/2019 Trump says Ukraine’s new president, Zelenskiy, to visit White House soon
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy chairs a meeting with the country's military leadership
in Kiev, Ukraine, August 7, 2019. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS
    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Friday that Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, was going to be invited to the White House and that he would be coming very soon.
    Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said he thought Zelenskiy was “a very reasonable guy” and that he was likely to make a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin.    Zelenskiy, a television sitcom star, was elected in a landslide in May.
(Reporting by Roberta Rampton and Jonas Ekblom; Writing by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

8/9/2019 Russians rush to buy iodine after blast causes radiation spike: reports by Tom Balmforth and Maria Kiselyova
FILE PHOTO: A view shows an entrance checkpoint of a military garrison located near the
village of Nyonoksa in Arkhangelsk Region, Russia October 7, 2018. REUTERS/Sergei Yakovlev
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Residents of two northern Russian cities are stocking up on iodine that is used to reduce the effects of radiation exposure after a mysterious accident on a nearby military testing site, regional media reported.
    The Ministry of Defence has given few details of the accident, saying only that two people were killed and six injured by the explosion of a liquid-propelled rocket engine at a test site in Russia’s north.
    Although the ministry initially said no harmful chemicals were released into the atmosphere and radiation levels were unchanged, authorities in the nearby city of Severodvinsk reported what they described as a brief spike in radiation.    No official explanation has been given for why such an accident would cause radiation to spike.
    “Everyone has been calling asking about iodine all day,” one pharmacy was quoted as saying by 29.Ru, a media outlet that covers the Arkhangelsk area.
    It said the run on iodine had occurred in the northern port cities of Arkhangelsk and Severodvinsk and that several pharmacies had run out.    Severodvinsk is the site of a shipyard that builds nuclear-powered submarines.
    “We still have iodine left … but a really large number of people have come in for it today,” another pharmacy was quoted as saying.
    Authorities have shut down an area of the Dvina Bay in the White Sea to shipping for a month near the accident site, without explaining why.
    An unidentified naval officer quoted by Kommersant newspaper said the accident could have occurred at a testing site at sea and that the explosion of a rocket could have caused a toxic fuel spill.
    Russia media have said that the rocket engine explosion may have occurred at a weapons testing area near the village of Nyonoksa in Arkhangelsk region.
    Those reports say an area near Nyonoksa is used for tests on weapons, including ballistic and cruise missiles that are used by the Russian navy.    Some reports have speculated that the test may have involved a new hypersonic missile called Tsirkon.
    Greenpeace cited data from the Emergencies Ministry that it said showed radiation levels had risen 20 times above the normal level in Severodvinsk around 30 kilometers (18 miles) from Nyonoksa.
(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Peter Graff)

8/10/2019 Russian nuclear agency says five killed in accident at test site by Tom Balmforth and Maria Tsvetkova
A view shows an entrance checkpoint of a military garrison located near the village of Nyonoksa
in Arkhangelsk Region, Russia October 7, 2018. REUTERS/Sergei Yakovlev
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s state nuclear agency Rosatom said on Saturday that five of its staff members were killed in an accident during tests on a military site in northern Russia.
    The accident occurred during the engineering and technical support of isotope power sources on a liquid propulsion system, Rosatom said in a statement.
    The statement did not give details of the isotope power sources.
    A further three staff members suffered injuries, including burns, and were receiving medical treatment in specialized facilities, it said.
    Russian authorities had previously said two people had been killed in the incident and that a nearby city had reported a rise in radiation levels when a liquid propellant rocket engine blew up at a testing site in the Arkhangelsk region on Thursday.
    Authorities said they had been forced to shut down part of a bay in the White Sea to shipping as a result.
    Local residents have been stocking up on iodine, used to reduce the effects of radiation exposure, after the accident, regional media have reported.
    Russia’s Ministry of Defence has given few details of the incident.
    Although the defense ministry initially said no harmful chemicals were released into the atmosphere and that radiation levels were unchanged, authorities in the city of Severodvinsk reported what they described as a brief spike in radiation.    No official explanation has been given for why such an accident would cause radiation to spike.
    The radiation statement put out by the city of Severodvinsk disappeared from the Internet on Friday without explanation.
    An unidentified naval officer quoted by the Kommersant newspaper said the accident could have occurred at a testing site at sea and that the explosion of a rocket could have caused a toxic fuel spill.
    U.S.-based nuclear experts said on Friday they suspected the blast and radiation release occurred during the testing of a nuclear-powered cruise missile.
    Russian media have said the rocket engine explosion may have occurred at a weapons testing area near the village of Nyonoksa.
    Those reports say an area near Nyonoksa is used for tests on weapons, including ballistic and cruise missiles that are used by the Russian navy.
    Greenpeace has cited data from the Emergencies Ministry that it said showed radiation levels had risen 20 times above the normal level in Severodvinsk around 30 km (18 miles) from Nyonoksa.
(Additional reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Janet Lawrence)

8/10/2019 Thousands defy crackdown in Moscow’s biggest protest for years by Maria Tsvetkova and Gleb Stolyarov
Law enforcement officers detain a man after a rally to demand authorities allow opposition candidates to run
in the upcoming local election in Moscow, Russia August 10, 2019. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of Russians staged what a monitoring group called the country’s biggest political protest for eight years on Saturday, defying a crackdown to demand free elections to Moscow’s city legislature.
    Police rounded up scores of people after the demonstration in Moscow and at another rally in St Petersburg, and detained a leading opposition figure before it began.    But the response from the authorities was milder than the previous week when more than 1,000 protesters were detained, sometimes violently.
    The White Counter monitoring group said up to 60,000 people had attended the Moscow rally, describing it as the biggest in Russia for eight years.    Police put turnout at 20,000.
    A month of demonstrations over elections for the Moscow city legislature have turned into the biggest sustained protest movement in Russia since 2011-2013, when protesters took to the streets against perceived electoral fraud.
    Crowds at the rally in Moscow roared “down with the tsar!” and waved Russian flags.    They are demanding that opposition-minded candidates be permitted to run in a city election next month after they were not allowed onto the ballot.
    “The authorities have become brazen.    It’s time to defend our rights,” said Natalya Plokhova, a recruiting consultant.
    As the scenes unfolded in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin was shown on state television in a leather jacket at a biker show organized by the Night Wolves motorcycle club on the peninsula of Crimea which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
    Putin and the Kremlin have so far avoided commenting on the unrest over the Moscow city elections.
    OVD-Info, a monitoring body, said 245 people were arrested at Saturday’s demonstration in Moscow and 80 in St Petersburg.    A small number of other arrests took place in other cities, including Rostov-on-Don and Bryansk.
RUSSIA WILL BE FREE
    The Moscow protest was held with official permission, unlike last week’s demonstration.    Afterwards, hundreds of mostly young people chanting “Putin is a thief” began gathering near the presidential administration building, prompting masked riot police to ring off the area and detain dozens.
    Authorities had earlier warned protesters not to continue protesting after the officially authorized event.    Until that point the rally had largely passed without major incident, apart from isolated police detentions and a smoke grenade set off nearby.
    Ahead of the rally, police detained hunger-striking opposition activist Lyubov Sobol. Masked men raided her office and the police said they had information she and other activists were plotting a “provocation” at Saturday’s rally.
    “I won’t make it to the protest.    But you know what to do without me….Russia will be free!” Sobol wrote on Twitter.
    Sobol was released by police late on Saturday, she said in a video posted on Twitter, adding her detention was linked to a week-earlier rally.
    Some pro-Kremlin politicians and officials have suggested that the West has helped orchestrate the protests.    Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and at least seven of his allies are in jail for breaking protest law.
    Investigators have opened criminal proceedings against about a dozen people for what they say was mass civil unrest at earlier protests, a crime that carries a heavy jail term.    They have also opened a money-laundering investigation into Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation.
    Throngs of protesters, sheltering from rain under umbrellas, chanted “freedom for political prisoners” and “Russia will be free”    Several Russian musicians with youth followings, including rapper Face and electronic band Ic3peak, performed at the rally despite city authorities saying that would be banned.
    The focus of protesters’ anger is a prohibition on a slew of opposition-minded candidates, some of whom are allies of Navalny, from taking part in a September election for Moscow’s city legislature.    That vote is seen as a dry run for a national parliamentary election in 2021.
    Authorities say the opposition candidates failed to collect enough genuine signatures to register.    The excluded candidates say that is a lie and insist on taking part in a contest they believe they could win.
    The ruling United Russia party’s popularity rating is at its lowest since 2011 and President Putin’s own rating has fallen due to discontent over falling living standards.
    At well over 60%, it is still high compared to many other world leaders however, and last year the 66-year-old former KGB intelligence officer won a landslide re-election and a new six-year term until 2024.
(Additional reporting by Tom Balmforth, Maria Kiselyova, Maria Tsvetkova and Gleb Stolyarov, Andrew Osborn; Writing by Andrew Osborn/Tom Balmforth; Editing by Angus MacSwan, Peter Graff and Jonathan Oatis)

8/10/2019 Thousands rally in Romania on anniversary of violent protest
Thousands of people protest against the Romanian government in Bucharest, Romania August 10, 2019. Inquam Photos/George Calin via REUTERS
    BUCHAREST (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of protesters rallied peacefully against the ruling Social Democrat government in the capital, Bucharest, on Saturday on the one-year anniversary of a violent protest where riot police disproportionately used force.
    The protest was organized and promoted by groups of Romanians working abroad, angry at what they say is entrenched corruption, weak public administration and attempts by the ruling coalition to weaken the judiciary in one of the European Union’s most corrupt states.
    The recent murder of a 15-year-old girl in southern Romania who was found 19 hours after she called emergency number 112 three times has further incensed protesters over authorities’ slow response times.
    More than 20,000 people both from the diaspora and from within Romania rallied outside government headquarters in scorching temperatures, waving Romanian and European Union flags and demanding the Cabinet’s resignation.
    “I’ve seen better cabinets at IKEA,” one protest sign read.
    “Anyone who takes care of things knows that cleaning must happen, be it a house, a garden or a country,” said Octavian Traian Gatuna, a farmer from the northwestern Romanian town of Baia Mare who traveled 14 hours to attend the protest.
    “I’m here to … help draw attention to the fact that this country must be cleaned up.”
    Peaceful protests have been a staple of the last 2-1/2 years since the ruling Social Democrats came to power and enforced a series of legal changes that are seen as threats to judicial independence and have raised concerns in the EU, the U.S. State Department and among thousands of local magistrates.
    The only violent protest occurred on Aug. 10, 2018, when riot police repeatedly fired tear gas into the crowd and were shown beating nonviolent protesters holding their hands up. More than 400 people required medical assistance.
    Prosecutors have opened an investigation into the handling of the protest by authorities but the case remains unresolved a year later.
    An estimated 3 million to 5 million Romanians are working and living abroad, the World Bank has said, up to a quarter of the EU state’s population, ranging from day laborers to doctors.
(Reporting by Luiza Ilie and Sinisa Dragin; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

8/11/2019 Russia tells Google not to advertise ‘illegal’ events after election protests
People attend a rally to demand authorities allow opposition candidates to run in the
upcoming local election in Moscow, Russia August 10, 2019. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s state communications watchdog has asked Google to stop advertising “illegal mass events” on its YouTube video platform, it said on Sunday.
    Tens of thousands of Russians staged what observers called the country’s biggest political protest for eight years on Saturday, defying a crackdown to demand free elections to Moscow’s city legislature.    Multiple YouTube channels broadcast the event live.
    The watchdog, Roscomnadzor, said some entities had been buying advertising tools from YouTube, such as push notifications, in order to spread information about illegal mass protests, including those aimed at disrupting elections.
    It said Russia would consider a failure by Google to respond to the request as “interference in its sovereign affairs” and “hostile influence (over) and obstruction of democratic elections in Russia.”
    If the company does not take measures to prevent events from being promoted on its platforms, Russia reserves the right to respond accordingly, Roscomnadzor said, without giving details.
    Over the past five years, Russia has introduced tougher laws requiring search engines to delete some search results, messaging services to share encryption keys with security services, and social networks to store Russian users’ personal data on servers within the country.
    A Google spokesperson in Russia declined to comment on Sunday.
    Moscow has a track record of putting regulatory pressure on Google, one of the main rivals of Russian internet search company Yandex .
    In late 2018, Russia fined Google 500,000 rubles ($7,663) for failing to comply with a legal requirement to remove certain entries from its search results.
    Earlier that year, Google removed a YouTube advert by Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny after authorities complained that the videos violated a law prohibiting campaigning ahead of a vote for regional governors.
($1 = 65.2455 rubles)
(Reporting by Andrey Ostroukh and Nadezhda Tsydenova; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Jan Harvey)

8/12/2019 Viral clip of Russian policeman punching female protester stirs anger by Andrew Osborn
Law enforcement officers detain Muscovite Daria Sosnovskaya after a rally to demand authorities allow opposition
candidates to run in the upcoming local election in Moscow, Russia August 10, 2019. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Video footage of a Russian police officer punching a young woman in the stomach has stirred anger among many Russians who believe the authorities have used excessive force to disperse weeks of political demonstrations in Moscow.
    The clip, filmed on Saturday and later circulated online by Russian celebrities with millions of followers, shows the moment two helmeted riot policemen drag the woman, Daria Sosnovskaya, to a waiting police bus.
    Sosnovskaya, 26, is seen struggling to break free and trying to trip up one of the police officers who responds by punching her in the stomach, prompting one of the reporters filming the incident to sarcastically call the policeman “a hero.”
    The statistician was one of over 200 people detained in central Moscow on Saturday for taking part in what authorities said was an illegal protest following a sanctioned demonstration to demand free elections in the city legislature.
    The authorized part of the protest was attended by around 60,000 people, the White Counter monitoring group said, making it the biggest event of its kind in eight years as an increasingly emboldened anti-Kremlin opposition movement challenges President Vladimir Putin’s tight grip on power.
    Popular singer Egor Krid shared the clip of the arrest with his 10.7 million followers on Instagram, as did Sergey Lazarev, another well-known singer, with over 4 million followers.    The clip garnered well over 3 million views as a result.
    In an expletive-laden post Krid said he had filed a complaint with the police asking them to find and punish the police officer involved.
    “What kind of a scumbag do you need to be to hit a member of the fairer sex,” he wrote.    “I don’t care what she did. This kind of thing just shouldn’t happen.”
    Lazarev called the police officer’s behavior a “disgrace” and many Russians took to social media to condemn the incident using strong language.
    Russian authorities have rejected accusations they have used excessive force to disperse such protests, which have now been going on for five weeks, although the United States and the European Union have questioned their use of force.
    Moscow’s police force declined to comment by phone, but the Interfax news agency said it had launched an internal investigation into the incident.
    Sosnovskaya, who had earlier attended the sanctioned demonstration, said she was detained after complaining to police about their arrest of a man who appeared to suffer from some kind of a disability.
    She has since filed a complaint about the manner in which she was detained.
    In a reflection of the anger the clip generated, Pavel Chikov, a human rights lawyer, had offered a reward of 100,000 rubles ($1,500) to anyone who could identify the police officer who was wearing a face mask and a helmet at the time.
    One Russian online outlet later said it had identified him and published his name and picture while declining to take Chikov’s money.    Moscow police said the officer identified had not been involved in the incident.
    Several Russians hurt by police at the protests are seeking redress through the courts.
    Activists say they are planning to hold another protest on Aug. 17.
(Additonal reporting by Maria Tsvetkova; Editing by Alison Williams)

8/13/2019 Kremlin says protests in Moscow have not created a political crisis
Law enforcement officers and journalists run along a street after a rally to demand authorities allow opposition
candidates to run in the upcoming local election in Moscow, Russia August 10, 2019. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin denied on Tuesday that a series of political protests in Moscow in recent weeks have created a political crisis in Russia in its first comments on the rallies.
    The demonstrations, over elections for the Moscow city legislature, have turned into the biggest sustained protest movement in Russia since 2011-2013, when protesters took to the streets against perceived electoral fraud.
    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call that tough police action at the rallies had been justified, but that individual cases of police excess were being looked into.
(Reporting by Tom Balmforth, Andrew Osborn and Andrey Kuzmin; editing by Andrew Osborn)

8/13/2019 Putin to visit Macron in France this month to discuss Ukraine: Kremlin
Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with French President Emmanuel Macron during a meeting on the
sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan June 28, 2019. Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin via REUTERS
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir would visit France later this month to hold talks with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron on a wide range of topics, including Ukraine.
    The Kremlin said preparations were underway for Putin to visit France on Aug. 19.
(Reporting by Reuters reporters; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

8/13/2019 Moscow court allows opposition candidate to run after protest: TASS
People attend a rally to demand authorities allow opposition candidates to run in the upcoming
local election in Moscow, Russia August 10, 2019. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Moscow city court cancelled a decision by an election commission to bar a Russian opposition candidate, Sergei Mitrokhin, from running in a municipal election in September, TASS news agency reported.
    The court ruled in favour of Mitrokhin three days after tens of thousands of protesters turned out at a rally in Moscow, in which Mitrokhin also took part.
    A month of demonstrations over elections for the Moscow city legislature have turned into the biggest sustained protest movement in Russia since 2011-2013, when protesters took to the streets against perceived electoral fraud.
(Reporting by Maria Tsvetkova; Editing by Gareth Jones)

8/13/2019 Kremlin says it is winning arms race against U.S. despite rocket accident by Andrew Osborn and Tom Balmforth
FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses the troops during the military parade during the Navy Day
celebration in St.Petersburg, Russia, July 28, 2019. Dmitri Lovetsky/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin boasted on Tuesday it was winning the race to develop new cutting edge nuclear weapons despite a mysterious rocket accident last week in northern Russia that caused a temporary spike in radiation levels.
    Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear agency, has said that the Aug. 8 accident occurred during a rocket test on a sea platform in the White Sea, killing at least five and injuring three more.
    It has pledged to keep developing new weapons regardless, portraying the men who died in the test as heroes.
    U.S. President Donald Trump said on Twitter on Monday the United States was “learning much” from the explosion which he suggested happened during the testing of a nuclear-powered cruise missile vaunted by President Vladimir Putin last year.
    Russia, which has said the missile will have an “unlimited range” and be able to overcome any defenses, calls the missile the 9M730 Burevestnik (Storm Petrel).    The NATO alliance has designated it the SSC-X-9 Skyfall.
    A senior Trump administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity on Tuesday, said Washington was not prepared to say at this point whether it was a nuclear explosion but believed it did involve radioactive elements.
    The official said the explosion could represent a potentially significant setback to the Russian program although it remained unclear whether it was caused by a launching failure.,br>     Trump had said on Twitter that the United States had “similar, though more advanced, technology” and said Russians were worried about the air quality around the facility and far beyond, a situation he described as “Not good!
    But when asked about his comments on Tuesday, the Kremlin said it, not the United States, was out in front when it came to developing new nuclear weapons.
    “Our president has repeatedly said that Russian engineering in this sector significantly outstrips the level that other countries have managed to reach for the moment, and it is fairly unique,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
    Putin used his state-of-the nation speech in 2018 to unveil what he described as a raft of invincible new nuclear weapons, including a nuclear-powered cruise missile, an underwater nuclear-powered drone, and a laser weapon.
    Tensions between Moscow and Washington over arms control have been exacerbated by the demise this month of a landmark nuclear treaty.     Russia says it is also concerned that another landmark arms control treaty will soon expire.
    In a sign of how serious the situation in the accident area remains, Russian news agencies cited authorities as advising residents of the nearby village of Nyonoksa to briefly leave while clear-up work was being carried out.    That recommendation was later rescinded, the same news agencies reported.
    Russia’s state weather service also said on Tuesday that radiation levels in the nearby city of Severodvinsk had spiked by up to 16 times last Thursday, while medics who treated victims of the accident have been sent to Moscow for a medical examination, the TASS news agency reported.
    It said the medics had signed non-disclosure agreements about the nature of the accident.
(Additional reporting by Maria Tsvetkova, Andrey Kuzmin and Steve Holland; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Alison Williams)

8/13/2019 Ukraine’s president offers citizenship to Russian political refugees
FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends a briefing in Kiev, Ukraine June 3, 2019. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich/File Photo
    KIEV (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy signed a decree on Tuesday offering citizenship to Russians suffering political persecution, and also to foreigners who fought on Kiev’s side in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
    Zelenskiy had announced such a move last month in response to a Russian decree expanding the number of Ukrainians who can apply for fast-track Russian passports.
    Separately Ukraine’s state security service declared a Russian consular officer in the western city of Lviv as persona non grata, accusing him of spying. The officer had already left the country, a statement said.
    Russia’s foreign ministry said Moscow had expelled a Ukrainian consular worker from St. Petersburg in response, TASS news agency reported.
    Relations between Kiev and Moscow plunged after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its support for fighters in the eastern Donbass region in a conflict that has killed 13,000 people despite a notional ceasefire.
    Zelenskiy has prioritized achieving peace in the Donbass region, but days after his election victory in April Russian President Vladimir Putin eased rules for residents of rebel-controlled parts of Donbass to receive passports.    In July he extended the offer to government-held areas.
    Zelenskiy’s decree would apply to citizens of the Russian Federation who had been persecuted for political reasons, a statement on the presidential website said.
    They would need to provide a certificate from Ukraine’s foreign ministry or a diplomatic mission or a consular post confirming they were being persecuted in their native country for their political beliefs.
    It is now up to the government and parliament to legislate for the proposal to take effect.
    The president’s Servant of the People party will be the largest in the new parliament following its landslide victory in a snap election in July.
    Zelenskiy last week pressed Putin for a resumption of peace talks after four Ukrainian soldiers were killed by shelling in the Donbass region.    Putin in turn said Ukrainian forces must stop the shelling of settlements in the Donbass that led to civilian casualties.
(Reporting by Natalia Zinets and Matthias Williams; Editing by David Holmes and Gareth Jones)

8/13/2019 Poland’s rights commissioner on faultlines of divided country by Alan Charlish and Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk
Adam Bodnar, Poland's Commissioner for Human Rights speaks during an interview
with Reuters in Warsaw, Poland July 16, 2019. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel
    WARSAW (Reuters) – With his square, horn-rimmed glasses and measured academic tone, Poland’s human rights commissioner seems an unlikely figure to attract a crowd at a rock festival.
    But when Adam Bodnar appeared this month at the Pol’and’Rock Festival to take part in a discussion on hate speech there was a sizeable audience.
    The lawyer has found himself at the meeting point of conflicting currents in Polish society.    He is feted by liberals as a relentless defender of civil rights at a time when critics of the government say they are under threat, but is a bugbear for many on the right for his criticism of the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party and defense of minority groups.
    “I am really not able to understand, even with the best of good will, why … for four days in a row I was the top item on the main news program,” Bodnar, 42, told the festival crowd, referring to attacks on him by state-run television over his questioning of the manner in which an alleged child murderer was arrested.
    The Pol’and’Rock Festival, held on a dusty field near the German border, is organized by well-known liberal fundraiser Jurek Owsiak.
    For PiS, Bodnar’s efforts to defend gay rights activists or people detained by police in criminal investigations embody a liberal agenda the party sees as a threat to the country’s traditional Catholic values.
    “In my opinion he stands up for some citizens and not others.    He is becoming more of an opposition politician than an ombudsman,” Ryszard Czarnecki, a PiS politician and member of European Parliament, told Reuters.
    Bodnar said his role can be tough.
    “I have a few principles which help me, but they also make it more difficult.    Firstly – don’t get offended.    Secondly – don’t attack people personally.    Thirdly – in spite of everything look for things which bring people together rather than dividing them,” he told Reuters in an interview.
    “Sometimes I feel isolated… An ombudsman as the person who speaks up for the values of the liberal democratic world can have a sense of isolation.”
    But while Bodnar may feel empowered to censure the PiS government, with the weight of a state institution behind him, he fears a growing number of Poles do not.
FEELING MUZZLED
    Bodnar believes a succession of legal threats against government opponents, researchers and NGOs countering the party’s conservative agenda has shrunk the space for public debate in Poland.
    “There are people who could do something, but for a variety of reasons they don’t, they are afraid or feel constrained,” he said.
    One case Bodnar points to as evidence of PiS pressure on non-governmental institutions is a spat last month between the Justice Ministry and a foundation popularizing the study of law.
    The foundation accused PiS of circumventing parliamentary procedure, the constitution and international standards to adopt new criminal rules as part of the government’s “tough-on-crime” policy.    In response, the ministry threatened to sue its members.
    “The ministry backed off, of course, but in the long term such a signal leads to a reduction in the number of people willing to engage in public debate (…) because we don’t know what the consequences there may be,” Bodnar said.
    PiS’s support is riding high ahead of a national election scheduled for Oct. 13.    It has taken advantage of robust economic growth in central Europe’s largest economy to implement a generous program of social spending, while its defense of traditional values is popular with many Poles.
    PiS argues its wide-ranging reforms of the justice system and public media, which have attracted accusations of a tilt toward authoritarian rule, aim to make Polish society more fair and true to its Catholic heritage.
MEDIA OWNERSHIP CHANGES
    However, Bodnar said a PiS ambition to curb foreign media ownership if it wins another term could further muzzle public criticism of the government.
    PiS officials have signaled in recent weeks the party will consider steps to bring more news outlets under of the control of Polish capital, in a policy similar to that of PiS ally, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
    The potential changes to media ownership, a policy called “repolonisation,” are touted by PiS as a reform that should be tackled to ensure open debate, free of foreign influence.
    Few details have emerged so far, although officials said various steps could be considered, including legal caps on ownership or efforts to buy publishers or broadcasters.
    “It’s a scenario which appears rather real,” Bodnar said.    “If new rules are introduced to influence the rights of owners, the profitability of investments, it can lead to a further diminishing of public debate.”
(Additional reporting by Joanna Plucinska; Writing by Justyna Pawlak and Alan Charlish; Editing by Frances Kerry)

8/14/2019 Kremlin says WTO’s existence would be in doubt if U.S., others left
FILE PHOTO: The World Trade Organization (WTO) headquarters are pictured in
Geneva, Switzerland, July 26, 2018. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Wednesday that the existence of the World Trade Organization (WTO) would be in serious doubt if major economies such as the United States left it, a prospect raised a day earlier by U.S. President Donald Trump.
    The Kremlin made the comment in response to a question about U.S. media reports which said Trump had threatened on Tuesday to pull out of the WTO over what he described as the organization’s unfair treatment of the United States.
    “It is obvious that the existence of keystone international economic organizations (like the WTO) would be called into serious question after the exit of the biggest economies on earth,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call.
(Reporting by Andrew Osborn and Maria Kiselyova; Writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Andrew Osborn)
["The Beast That Came Up Out Of The Sea” is now a subject of its future existence is in question, but it is prophesied in Revelation about some of the seven heads have an event and some of the ten horns have an incident.].
[Note: I wrote this in my Original 2018 "Scarlet Woman" website:
Rev. 17:10 Seven Kingdoms: Five are in the past, One is at present, The other is yet to come.
Rev. 17:11 The Eighth Head: The Seventh Head (revived Roman Empire) will grow an Eighth Head in verse 11 (Some claim this to be "The scarlet animal that is to be destroyed).
    Rev. 17:11 And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth (‘Ogdoos’ eighth is connected to ‘Okta’ eight; here the vision shows that the seventh head will briefly sprout another as an eighth head or an outgrowth which will be destroyed; “the eighth” king, his “wound being healed,” Rev. 13:3, Antichrist manifested in the fullest and most intense opposition to God.    He is “the little horn” with eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things, before whom three of the ten horns were plucked up by the roots, and to whom the whole ten “give their power and strength,” in Rev. 12:13, 17.), and is of the seven (originally came from the seven heads; The eighth is not one of the seven restored, but a new power or person proceeding out of the seven, and at the same time embodying all the God opposed features of the previous seven.    For this reason there are not eight heads, but only seven, for the eighth is the embodiment of all the seven.),
and goeth into perdition (‘Apoleia’ indicating loss of well-being, not of being, is used of the Beast, the final head of the revived Roman Empire; In the birth-pangs which prepare the “regeneration” there are wars, earthquakes, and disturbances, at which Antichrist takes his rise, from the sea, Rev. 13:1; Mark 13:8; Luke 21:9-11.).
(Paraphrased: “The scarlet animal that died is the eighth king, having reigned before as one of the seven; after his second reign, he too, will go to his doom.”).
    No one can really narrow down who or what this new entity came from, but the following is food for thought.    I ran across a news article dated 6/9/2018 on my “KingOfTheWest2018.htm" file and I discovered the following statement, was made in it and was titled "Russia joined the G-7 in the late 1990s almost a decade after the fall of the Soviet Union, making the group the G-8."    And as it is seen above in prophecy the seventh head will briefly sprout another as an eighth head, which was Russia, the eighth as one of the seven.    So as it says above "in his second reign," which was in 2018, "he too, will go to his doom.
    Group of Seven is a group consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States and they are the seven largest IMF-described advanced economies in the world, who represent 58% of the global net wealth.].
[Noted on a news article seen below on 8/19/2019 it states: "Macron, who was meeting Putin at his summer residence in southern France five days before hosting summit of G7 rich nations, is keen to show Moscow it is not ostracized despite being kicked out of the G7 after its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014."
Google shows: Why was Russia kicked out of g7?    On 24 March 2014, the G7 members cancelled the planned G8 summit that was to be held in June that year in the Russian city of Sochi, and suspended Russia's membership of the group, due to Russia's annexation of Crimea; nevertheless, they stopped short of outright permanent expulsion.].

8/14/2019 Russia’s Mail.Ru eyes pre-installing software on Huawei devices
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Russian Internet company Mail.ru Group is seen on the facade
of its headquarters in Moscow, Russia June 26, 2019. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian internet group Mail.Ru is in talks with China’s Huawei about the possibility of having its software pre-installed on the Chinese tech giant’s devices, Mail.Ru told Reuters.
    Mail.Ru owns Russian social networks Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki.    It is developing several messenger services and has an email and browser service.
    “Yes, we can confirm the talks,” Mail.Ru said without providing details.
    Huawei did not reply to a request for immediate comment.
(Reporting by Nadezhda Tsydenova; writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Jason Neely)

8/14/2019 Russia flies nuclear-capable bombers to region facing Alaska by Andrew Osborn
FILE PHOTO: Russian Tu-160 Supersonic Bomber flies during a military parade marking the
Belarus Independence Day in Minsk, Belarus July 3, 2019. REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia said on Wednesday it had flown two nuclear-capable TU-160 bombers to a far eastern Russian region opposite Alaska as part of a training exercise that state media said showed Moscow’s ability to park nuclear arms on the United States’ doorstep.
    The Tupolev TU-160 strategic bomber, nicknamed the White Swan in Russia, is a supersonic Soviet-era aircraft capable of carrying up to 12 short-range nuclear missiles and of flying 12,000 km (7,500 miles) non-stop without re-fuelling.
    Russia’s Ministry of Defence said in a statement that the planes had covered a distance of over 6,000 km (3,728 miles) in over eight hours from their home base in western Russia to deploy in Anadyr in the Chuktoka region which faces Alaska.
    It said the flight was part of a tactical exercise that would last until the end of this week and was designed to rehearse the air force’s ability to rebase to operational air fields and to practice air-to-air refueling.
    Russian government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta said on its website that the flight showed Moscow’s ability to base nuclear bombers within 20 minutes flight time from the United States, which it said was just over 600 km (372 miles) away.
    TU-160s have flown from bases in Russia to Syria where they have bombed forces opposed to President Bashar al-Assad, one of Moscow’s closest Middle East allies.
    The defense ministry said a total of around 10 TU-160 bombers and TU-95MS and IL-78 planes were involved in the exercise, suggesting it covered other areas too.
(Reporting by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Toby Chopra)

8/14/2019 Future of last nuclear pact between Russia and U.S. uncertain: U.S. envoy by Andrew Osborn
FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman,
left, as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stands behind prior to their talks in the Black Sea
resort city of Sochi, Russia, May 14, 2019. Pavel Golovkin/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – The last major nuclear arms control treaty between Russia and the United States is outdated and flawed, the U.S. ambassador to Moscow said on Wednesday, saying it could be scrapped altogether when it expires in 2021 and replaced with something else.
    The New START treaty limits the number of strategic nuclear warheads the world’s two biggest nuclear powers can deploy to no more than 1,550, the lowest level in decades.    It also curbs the number of nuclear launchers and deployed land- and submarine-based missiles and nuclear-capable bombers they can have.
    “Some want to extend New START. Some are arguing in favor of creating something new.    I’m not sure where it will go,” U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman told the Ekho Moskvy radio station on Wednesday.
    The treaty’s future is in focus after the United States withdrew from another landmark nuclear missile pact with Russia this month after determining that Moscow was violating that treaty, an accusation the Kremlin denied.
    President Donald Trump, who told President Vladimir Putin in 2017 he thought it a bad deal for the United States, will only decide next year whether or not to extend the surviving New START treaty, U.S. officials have said.    It was signed by his predecessor Barack Obama with Russia in 2010.
    Regarded by many experts as the only thing preventing an unfettered arms race between the two Cold War rivals, the treaty can be extended for another five years, beyond its expiry date in February 2021, by mutual agreement.
‘OPEN QUESTIONS’
    Huntsman said the treaty had been agreed at a time that predated cyber warfare, hypersonic missiles, underwater nuclear platforms and torpedoes and what he said was China’s strategic nuclear build-up.
    It did not cover tactical nuclear weapons either and perhaps there was a case to include non-nuclear weapons in any new update, said Huntsman.
    “So there are a lot of open questions.    There will be discussions and agreements and disagreements about the vehicle to use – should it be an extension of New START, should it be something altogether new?” he said, saying Trump favored an arrangement that would bring things into the modern era.
    Putin has said Moscow is ready to extend the pact, but has complained about what he sees as Washington’s lack of interest.
    In June, after describing the nuclear threat as a “fiery serpent” that needed to be kept under control, Putin lamented what he said was a U.S. refusal to engage properly on the subject.
    “If no one is interested in renewing (the treaty)… we will not renew it,” said Putin.
    On Tuesday, the Kremlin boasted that it was winning the race to develop new cutting-edge nuclear weapons despite a mysterious rocket accident last week in northern Russia that killed at least five people and caused a brief spike in radiation levels.
    Moscow is developing a nuclear-powered cruise missile that it says will have an “unlimited range” and be able to overcome any defenses.
(Editing by Gareth Jones)

8/14/2019 Czech president rejects minister nominee in row with government party
FILE PHOTO: Czech President Milos Zeman gestures in Vienna, Austria April 3, 2019. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger/File Photo
    PRAGUE (Reuters) – Czech President Milos Zeman on Wednesday rejected the nominee for culture minister proposed by the junior government partners, the Social Democrats, in a dispute that has threatened Prime Minister Andrej Babis’s coalition.
    Since May the Social Democrats have demanded that Zeman appoint their deputy chairman Michal Smarda, arguing that the president has no constitutional authority to reject him.
    But Zeman rejected nominee Michal Smarda as unqualified.
    “Mr Smarda was never involved in culture-related matters.    For that reason he is not qualified for the position of culture minister,” Zeman said in a statement.
    Constitutional experts have said Zeman does not have the right to veto candidates, but the president has repeatedly stretched his powers.
    Babis could use his prime ministerial right to challenge Zeman in the Constitutional Court, but he has refused to go into an open conflict with the president.
    The ruling coalition of Babis’s ANO and the Social Democrats relies on Zeman’s allies in the Communist Party to secure a majority in parliament.
    Social Democrat chief Hamacek repeated Zeman should heed the constitution and appoint Smarda.
    “The constitution does not include the possibility that the president should evaluate professional qualifications of ministerial candidates,” he told Reuters via WhatsApp.
    “The Czech Republic is a parliamentary democracy where the prime minister is responsible for the cabinet and chooses his ministers.”
    Babis was quoted by Czech Television as saying that he would meet Hamacek to discuss the issue after he returns form holiday later this month.
    Zeman has suggested Babis could survive the departure of the Social Democrats from the coalition if he invited the far-right, anti-European and anti-NATO Freedom and Direct Democracy Party (SPD) to support the cabinet.    Babis has rejected teaming up with the SPD.
(Reporting by Jan Lopatka and Robert Muller; Editing by Peter Graff and Stephen Powell)

8/14/2019 Armed security officers search office of Russian rights group
FILE PHOTO: A board at a tram stop reads "Human rights" in front of the European Court
of Human Rights in Strasbourg, July 26, 2013. REUTERS/Vincent Kessler/File Photo
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian security officers armed with automatic rifles on Wednesday searched the Moscow offices of a rights group that represents the interests of Russian nationals in the European Court of Human Rights, the group said.
    Members of the Federal Security Service (FSB) searched an office used by Justice Initiative and its partner organization Astreya and confiscated the telephones of employees and photographed their passports, the group’s spokeswoman said.
    The FSB sought access to an office used by the group’s director, but was not allowed in, Ksenia Babich said, adding that the security officers did not give an explanation for the search.
    She said it began after officers searched a neighboring office in the same building used by a unrelated auditing company.
    Justice Initiative has offices in the North Caucasus in southern Russia and has helped hundreds of Russian citizens file cases over rights violations at the European Court of Human Rights.
    President Vladimir Putin has tightened controls on non-governmental organizations, requiring those with foreign funding to register as “foreign agents,” and introducing legislation outlawing groups seen as “undesirable.”
    The FSB did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Peter Graff)

8/15/2019 Russia, Venezuela sign deal on warship visits to each other’s ports: Ifax
Russian warships sail during the Navy Day parade in Kronstadt near Saint Petersburg, Russia July 28, 2019. REUTERS/Anton Vaganov
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia and Venezuela signed an agreement on Thursday governing visits by the countries’ warships to each other’s ports, the Interfax news agency reported.
    The agreement was signed in Moscow by Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and his Venezualan counterpart Vladimir Padrino Lopez, Interfax said.
(Reporting by Polina Ivanova; Writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by)

8/15/2019 Cuban government imposes price controls as it seeks to keep lid on inflation by Marc Frank and Nelson Acosta
A vendor sells pineapples at a fresh produce market, in Havana, Cuba August 15, 2019. REUTERS/Stringer
    HAVANA (Reuters) – Communist-run Cuba has imposed price controls on goods and services ranging from lemons and pork to haircuts and taxi fares in what it says is an effort to tame inflation as it increases state wages and pensions.
    On Thursday, prices in Havana were set for some basic foods such as beans, pork, lemons, bananas, onions and cabbage.
    In recent weeks, regional authorities have slapped price controls on taxi fares, beverages and haircuts, among other items.    The price controls differ from province to province.
    Cuba has controlled prices of certain goods in the past but the new controls mark a more systematic approach.
    President Miguel Diaz-Canel announced last month a series of emergency measures to fight economic stagnation and dwindling foreign currency earnings that began in 2015 as the economy of key ally Venezuela imploded, and which have been aggravated by a series of new U.S. sanctions.
    The measures included increased wages and pensions for more than 2 million state employees.    That amounts to 8 billion Cuban pesos annually, equivalent to 13% of this year’s budget.
    The government is also introducing price controls and still-to-be-announced policies aimed at stimulating local production to meet increased consumer demand without sparking inflation.    It estimates inflation was 2.4 percent in 2018.
    The price controls apply both to state-run companies that dominate the economy, and a growing private sector of cooperatives, farmers, small businesses and self-employed individuals who, for example, sell produce or drive taxis.
    Pork, a staple of the Cuban diet, has been set at 45 pesos a pound, although market sellers said it previously went for some 65 pesos a pound.
    “With the new prices we are super asphyxiated because the farmer who moves the pigs to Havana still charges 28 pesos a pound,” butcher Humberto Soler said, as he slapped ribs on his stand.
    Other vendors in Havana were also unhappy.
    Produce seller Laura, who declined to provide her last name, said she was no longer selling lemons, as the fixed price of 10 pesos to 15 pesos was the same she paid farmers.    Previously, she had sold them at 30 pesos a pound.
    The measures show the government is increasingly concerned about the influence of self-employed and cooperative businesses in the agricultural sector, said Paul Hare, a former British ambassador to Cuba who lectures at Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies.
    “The vestiges of market elements that had been introduced in certain areas are being eradicated in another message that the government does not want them to expand,” he said.
(Reporting by Marc Frank, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

8/16/2019 ‘Nobody is not afraid’: Chernobyl pilot recalls his fear 33 years ago by Sergei Karazy and Bogdan Basii
Ukrainian military pilot Mykola Volkozub looks around as he tries to find a place where he landed his helicopter in April 1986,
in the abandoned city of Pripyat, near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Ukraine July 5, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
    CHERNOBYL, Ukraine (Reuters) – More than three decades after he flew his helicopter above the radioactive volcano that was Chernobyl’s nuclear reactor number four, the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident, Mykola Volkozub recalls how he feared for his life.
    Now 87, the Ukrainian military pilot returned to Chernobyl last month for the first time since the 1986 accident and recalled how he had made three separate flights over the reactor to measure the temperature and composition of gases inside.
    “Some people may say they have no fear but nobody is not afraid. The only thing is that people perceive fear differently.    One person is frozen by fear, another driven by it.    I had to do it (fly over the reactor).    I knew it was dangerous.”
    The accident in then Soviet Ukraine was caused by a botched safety test that sent plumes of nuclear material across much of Europe.    It killed dozens of people within weeks and forced tens of thousands to flee.    The final death toll of those killed by radiation-related illnesses such as cancer is subject to debate.
    Volkozub, who donned a heavy lead vest to protect himself from radiation, was awarded a “Hero of Ukraine” medal for his bravery.    After making three flights that lasted for 19 minutes, 40 seconds in total, he was nonetheless exposed to such a high dose of radiation that some dosimeters went haywire when he tried to measure his exposure.
    The brand new MI-8 helicopter he made the flights in, which was fitted with special lead plates on the floor, was also exposed to radiation.    It was later abandoned at a cemetery for irradiated equipment, having made only three flights.
    Volkozub, who despite his age still supervises test pilots who work for Antonov, a Ukrainian state-run aircraft manufacturer, said he was calm and calculating at the time despite his fear.
    “I had been preparing,” he said. “It was a very in-depth preparation process.    I did all the calculations for the helicopter – its weight, etc. Interactions among crew members were also very well planned.”
    Eyeing up the reactor for the first time in 33 years, Volkozub said he couldn’t recognize it.
    “It has nothing in common with how it was in the past.    It was devastated.    It was totally devastated.    There was a pipe (jutting into the sky) and some parts (of the reactor) were simply hanging,” he said.
    Today the reactor is covered by a massive confinement shelter that was built to cover an aging sarcophagus designed to stop radiation leaking out.
    As he strolled through Pripyat, an abandoned town where the nuclear power plant’s workers once lived, Volkozub recalled being present at the first session of an emergency commission.
    “I heard how they discussed the question ‘What shall we do? What shall we do?’ (Nuclear scientist) Valeriy Alexeyevich Legasov said measures had to be urgently taken in order to cover the area to prevent the emission of radiation.”
    Legasov was later featured in this year’s HBO mini-series “Chernobyl.”
(Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Frances Kerry)

8/17/2019 Russian opposition activists picket for free elections
A woman takes part in a protest demanding authorities to allow opposition candidates to run in the
upcoming local election and release people arrested for participation in opposition rallies, in
Moscow, Russia August 17, 2019. A placard reads: "It's time to change". REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian opposition activists staged a string of pickets in central Moscow on Saturday to call for free elections and for charges against protesters detained at recent rallies to be dropped.
    Moscow has been rocked by weekly protests for more than a month since the authorities barred opposition candidates from running in an election for the city’s legislature in September.
    Police have briefly detained more than 2,000 protesters in recent weeks, launched criminal cases against some dozen people for mass disorder and used force to disperse what they said were illegal protests.
    In contrast Saturday’s solo pickets, spread across three locations in Moscow, were peaceful and opposition supporters scarce.
    The recent opposition demonstrations have turned into the biggest sustained protest movement in Russia since 2011-2013, when protesters took to the streets against perceived electoral fraud.
    Earlier on Saturday some 4,000 people attended a Communist rally in Moscow that had been authorized by the authorities to call for “clear and honest elections” in Moscow, police said.
(Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber, Lev Sergeev, Carsten Seibold, Andrey Kuzmin, Mikhail Antonov, Maria Vasilyeva; Editing by Gareth Jones)

8/18/2019 Russia says no plans to install new missiles unless U.S. deploys them
FILE PHOTO: Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu attends the opening ceremony of the International military-technical forum
ARMY-2019 at Patriot Congress and Exhibition Centre in Moscow Region, Russia June 25, 2019. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia will not deploy new missiles as long as the United States shows similar restraint in Europe and Asia, Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu said on Sunday, after Washington’s withdrawal from a Soviet-era arms pact.
    The United States formally left the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Russia earlier this month after accusing Moscow of violating the treaty and deploying one banned type of missile, allegations the Kremlin denies.
    Russia has also pulled out of the deal, but Shoigu said it had no plans to deploy new missiles.
    “We still stick to that. Unless there are such systems in Europe (deployed by Washington), we won’t do anything there,” he told the Rossiya-24 TV channel, according to Interfax news agency.
    The pact banned land-based missiles with a range of between 310 and 3,400 miles (500-5,500 km), reducing the ability of both countries to launch a nuclear strike at short notice.
    Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Moscow would start developing short and intermediate-range land-based nuclear missiles if the United States started doing the same after the demise of the arms control treaty.
(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Mark Potter)

8/18/2019 Poland’s Kaczynski condemns gay pride marches as election nears
FILE PHOTO: Poland's Law and Justice (PiS) leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski speaks during a party convention ahead
of the EU election, in Krakow, Poland May 19, 2019. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/File Photo
    STALOWA WOLA, Poland (Reuters) – Poland must resist the “traveling theater” of gay pride marches, the leader of its conservative ruling party said on Sunday, as the staunchly Roman Catholic country gears up for a parliamentary election on Oct. 13.
    Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has used LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) rights as a key campaign issue, depicting them as a dangerous Western idea that undermines traditional Catholic values.
    “The hard offensive, this traveling theater that is showing up in different cities to provoke and then cry… we are the ones who are harmed by this, it must be unmasked and discarded,” PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski said at a party campaign picnic in the town of Stalowa Wola.
    The law must be fully enforced to “regulate these matters,” he added, without elaborating.
    Kaczynski also said he was “grateful” to a Polish archbishop who said this month that Poland was under siege from a “rainbow plague” of gay rights campaigners whom he compared to Poland’s former Communist rulers.
    Only PiS can defend the Catholic Church and ward off threats to the traditional family coming from the West, he said.     “(We must) live in freedom, and not be subject to all that is happening to the west of our borders… where freedom is being eliminated,” Kaczynski added.
    Political analysts say PiS’ criticism of LGBT rights could be a strategy to rally its conservative rural base for the election.    It is leading in opinion polls and is expected to win a fresh four-year mandate.
    Critics say PiS has fomented violence toward the gay community in recent weeks as it has continued to criticize what it calls “LGBT ideology.”
    A “gay pride” march in the northeastern city of Bialystok was marred by violence in July as counter-protesters chased down, attacked and yelled at participants.
    Police provided heavy protection to a similar march this month in the central city of Plock.
(Reporting by Alicja Ptak; Writing by Joanna Plucinska; Editing by Gareth Jones)

8/18/2019 Germany, Hungary to mark end of the Iron Curtain by Marton Dunai
People walk at the Pan-European Picnic Memorial Park in Sopronkohida, Hungary,
August 16, 2019. Picture taken August 16, 2019. REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo
    SOPRON, Hungary (Reuters) – Thirty years ago on Monday Hungarian border guards for the first time allowed people from communist East Germany to cross freely into Austria and hundreds of them rejoiced. The Iron Curtain was passing into history.
    This was a milestone in a year of momentous change in Europe, leading in a few short months to the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989.
    But Hungary, the first country to dismantle the east-west frontier, was also the first to fortify its southern border against a big new influx of Asian and African immigrants.
    2015, Hungary built a high-tech double razor wire fence, complete with heat sensors, night vision cameras and constant border patrols along its 300-kilometre (186-mile) border with Serbia and Croatia.
    This was the physical manifestation of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s vision of a “fortress Europe.”
    The immigration issue threw a wrench into the usually close ties between Hungary and Germany, since Orban clashed with the views of Chancellor Angela Merkel, who initially threw the gates open to migrants.
    Orban and Merkel will mark the fall of the Iron Curtain together in Sopron on Monday.
    In Europe, opinions are divided on these new barriers. For some of those whose lives were changed forever by their chance to flee to the West, they are a calamity.    They remember fondly the so-called Pan-European Picnic, where hundreds of East Germans broke through to Austria as border guards stood aside.
    “That was our second birthday,” said Hermann Pfitzenreiter, who took his wife and small children across the border that day and came back to the border town Sopron to mark the anniversary and meet old Hungarian friends.
    “Erecting these walls and fences, it’s catastrophic,” added his wife Margarete. “As Germans we belonged in Germany, but we had experienced the same unliveable life (as today’s immigrants).    I’d love to drop Viktor Orban on the other side so he feels what that is like.”
    “High as these walls may be, they will never deter people,” Hermann Pfitzenreiter said.    “What you see in the pictures (of us crossing) can’t be put into words.    We could not believe it was happening, it was total ecstasy, it had been unthinkable.”
    The Pfitzenreiters, interviewed by Reuters in Sopron, now live in Germany, near Mannheim.
THIS FENCE IS NOT THAT FENCE
    Hungarians who helped bring down the Iron Curtain resent any parallels with Hungary’s current southern border fortifications or its practice of keeping immigration next to zero, saying such practice is necessary to preserve the Europe that the events of 1989 created.
    Arpad Bella, who headed up the border station unit posted at the Sopron crossing in August 1989, said he had his hands full with the Pan-European Picnic, a political jamboree packed with hundreds of “Ossies,” or east Germans.
    “I could confront them and risk violence, or let them through and face the consequences,” he said at the memorial park now on that spot.    He chose the latter.    “Every border guard was sick of the task… We just wanted them gone.”
    Eventually he evaded consequences as his chief waited on the national chief, who waited on the interior minister, who waited on then prime minister Miklos Nemeth, who waited on Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev.
    “Everyone waited until in September the borders were opened officially and everyone was free to march West.”
    “We did that for the sake of European unity. And what we do now serves to preserve that unity. If some countries dislike that or it hurts some interests, let them worry about it.    I fully support Viktor Orban in this policy.”
    Laszlo Magas, who organized the Pan-European picnic in 1989, said it was “shocking and wonderful to see those people with their kids on their shoulders, approaching the border all scared then erupt in happiness when they stepped over to Austria.”
    Magas said that had nothing to do with today’s situation.
    “It was anachronistic to have two Germanys.    We were helping a nation.    This here is completely different.    Let’s not mix that up with the fence that the masses of migrants forced us to build.”
(Reporting by Marton Dunai; Editing by Stephen Powell)

8/19/2019 Chiding Macron, Putin says ‘I don’t want yellow vests in Russia’ by Clotaire Achi and John Irish
French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron pose with Russia's President Vladimir Putin,
at the French President's summer retreat of the Bregancon fortress on the Mediterranean coast, near the village
of Bormes-les-Mimosas, southern France, on August 19, 2019. Gerard Julien/Pool via REUTERS
    FORT BREGANCON, France (Reuters) – Vladimir Putin rebuked his French counterpart on Monday, saying he did not want “yellow vest” protests spring up like in France, after Emmanuel Macron urged the Russian leader to abide by democratic principles following weeks of protests in Moscow.
    Macron, who was meeting Putin at his summer residence in southern France five days before hosting summit of G7 rich nations, is keen to show Moscow it is not ostracized despite being kicked out of the G7 after its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
    Despite the talks focusing on international crises, Macron sought to tackle Putin on the internal Russian situation.    Moscow has been rocked by weekly protests for more than a month after the authorities barred opposition candidates from running in an election for the city’s legislature in September.
    “We called this summer for freedom of protest, freedom of speech, freedom of opinion and the freedom to run in elections, which should be fully respected in Russia like for any member of the Council of Europe,” Macron told a joint news conference ahead of their meeting.
    While initially, Putin ignored the comment, he was quick to retort after a follow-up question on the Moscow protests saying things were being handled in line with the law, but that he didn’t want the situation to develop like in France.
    “We all know about the events linked to the so-called yellow vests during which, according to our calculations, 11 people were killed and 2,500 injured,” Putin said.
    “We wouldn’t want such events to take place in the Russian capital and will do all we can to ensure our domestic political situation evolved strictly in the framework of the law.”
    The yellow vest protests, named after motorists’ high-visibility jackets, began in November over fuel tax increases but evolved into a sometimes violent revolt against politicians and a government seen as out of touch.
    Macron said the comparison with France was inaccurate, since at least yellow vest protesters could stand in elections.
    “Those we call the yellow vests were able to run freely in European elections, will run in municipal elections, and that’s very well like that,” he said.
    “I’m glad that they express themselves freely in elections because it reduces confrontation.    Because we are a country where people can express themselves freely, protest freely, go to elections freely,” Macron added.
    Since he took office in 2017, Macron has sought to display firmness to Putin while at the same time encouraging Moscow into a less confrontational stance on international issues by trying to “anchor” it to Europe.
    The two men said they would discuss a raft of international crises including Iran, Syria and arms control issues. However, it is on Ukraine where Paris hopes to see progress after its new president offered an olive branch to Putin.
    Macron said he hoped to be able to convince Putin to agree to a so-called ‘Normandy Format’ summit involving France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia.    Its leaders have not met together since October 2016.Normandy” format heads of state talks on the Ukraine crisis, but stopped short on Monday of signing up to a new summit on the subject.
    He said phone conversations with Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskiy had given him cautious grounds for optimism, but stressed that he believed that any meeting aimed at resolving the Ukraine crisis should yield tangible results.
(Additional reporting by Michel Rose in Paris and Polina Devitt and Andrew Osborn in Moscow; Writing by John Irish; editing by Richard Lough, William Maclean)
[I ran across a news article dated 6/9/2018 on my “KingOfTheWest2018.htm" file and I discovered the following statement, was made in it and was titled "Russia joined the G-7 in the late 1990s almost a decade after the fall of the Soviet Union, making the group the G-8.    "Google shows: Why was Russia kicked out of g7?    On 24 March 2014, the G7 members cancelled the planned G8 summit that was to be held in June that year in the Russian city of Sochi, and suspended Russia's membership of the group, due to Russia's annexation of Crimea; nevertheless, they stopped short of outright permanent expulsion.].

8/19/2019 Polish opposition unites in bid to wrest Senate from ruling nationalists by Joanna Plucinska and Marcin Goclowski
FILE PHOTO: People attend the Polish regional elections, at a polling station in Warsaw, Poland, October 21, 2018. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel
    WARSAW (Reuters) – Polish opposition parties have joined forces to try to win a majority in the upper house of parliament, the Senate, in parliamentary elections on Oct. 13, as they struggle to oust the ruling nationalist Law and Justice party (PiS) from power.
    Opinion polls show PiS winning a second four-year term with more than 40 percent of the vote for the more powerful lower house, the Sejm, which is elected on a system of proportional representation based on party lists.
    But the Senate is chosen on a system of first-past-the-post, whereby the candidate who wins most votes in a given constituency is duly elected.    By agreeing not to put up rival candidates, the opposition parties increase their chances of defeating PiS.
    “We believe that a list of jointly agreed candidates for the Senate offers us an opportunity to win the Senate elections,” Krzysztof Gawkowski, secretary-general of the leftist Wiosna party, told private Radio Zet on Sunday.
    The Senate scrutinizes, debates and can reject legislation passed by the Sejm.
    Critics say PiS has used its current majority in both the Sejm and the Senate to rush through bills without proper oversight or time to analyze their impact.
    PiS, a socially conservative, euroskeptic party but which leans to the left on economic policy, hopes to win a two thirds majority in the Sejm in the October election, which would allow it to change Poland’s constitution.
    But the opposition could block such a move if it held a majority of the Senate’s 100 seats.
    The opposition groupings involved in the Senate deal include the centrist Civic Coalition and several leftist parties.
    “If the opposition parties don’t compete with each other (in the Senate race) and unite behind one candidate in each district, they have a chance to win a Senate majority,” said Anna Materska-Sosnowska, a political scientist at Warsaw University.
    PiS was quick to dismiss the opposition initiative. One PiS senator, Jan Maria Jackowski, told the Wyborcza.pl portal that according to his party’s analysis, PiS was still on track to win more than half of the seats in the Senate.
    “On that side there are only negative emotions, their only program is that they are anti-PiS.    We are a party that has a real program,” Joachim Brudzinski, an MEP and the head of PiS’ campaign team, told reporters on Monday.
(Reporting by Joanna Plucinska and Marcin Goclowski; Editing by Gareth Jones)

8/19/2019 Global network’s nuclear sensors in Russia went offline after mystery blast by Francois Murphy
FILE PHOTO: Antennas of a testing facility for seismic and infrasound technologies of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty
Organization (CTBTO) are shown in the garden of their headquarters in Vienna, Austria, September 28, 2017. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger
    VIENNA (Reuters) – The operator of a global network of radioactivity sensors said on Monday its two Russian sites closest to a mysterious explosion on Aug. 8 went offline two days after the blast, raising concern about possible tampering by Russia.
    The Russian Defense Ministry, which operates the two stations, did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
    Russia’s state nuclear agency Rosatom has acknowledged that nuclear workers were killed in the explosion, which occurred during a rocket engine test near the White Sea in far northern Russia.
    The explosion also caused a spike in radiation in a nearby city and prompted a local run on iodine, which is used to reduce the effects of radiation exposure.
    Russian authorities have given no official explanation for why the blast triggered the rise in radiation.    U.S.-based nuclear experts have said they suspect Russia was testing a nuclear-powered cruise missile vaunted by President Vladimir Putin last year.
    “We’re … addressing w/ station operators technical problems experienced at two neighboring stations,” Lassina Zerbo, head of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), said on Twitter overnight.
    The CTBTO’s International Monitoring System includes atmospheric sensors that pick up so-called radionuclide particles wafting through the air.    Zerbo said data from stations on or near the path of a potential plume of gas from the explosion were still being analyzed.
COMMUNICATION AND NETWORK ISSUES
    The two Russian monitoring stations nearest the explosion, Dubna and Kirov, stopped transmitting on Aug. 10, and Russian officials told the CTBTO they were having “communication and network issues,” a CTBTO spokeswoman said on Monday.
    “We’re awaiting further reports on when the stations and/or the communication system will be restored to full functionality.”
    While the CTBTO’s IMS network is global and its stations report data back to CTBTO headquarters in Vienna, those stations are operated by the countries in which they are located.
    It is not clear what caused the outage or whether the stations might have been tampered with by Russia, analysts said.
    “About 48 hours after the incident in Russia on Aug. 8 these stations stopped transmitting data.    I find that to be a curious coincidence,” Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, a Washington-based think tank.
    He and other analysts said any Russian tampering with IMS stations would be a serious matter but it was also likely to be futile as other IMS or national stations could also pick up telltale particles.
    “There is no point in what Russia seems to have tried to do.    The network of international sensors is too dense for one country withholding data to hide an event,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Non-Proliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute in California.
    The CTBTO’s Zerbo also posted a simulation of the explosion’s possible plume, showing it reaching Dubna and Kirov on Aug. 10 and Aug. 11, two and three days after the explosion.
    Rosatom has said the accident, which killed five of its staff, involved “isotope power sources.”
    The CTBTO’s IMS comprises more than 300 seismic, hydroacoustic, infrasound and radionuclide stations dotted around the world that together are aimed at detecting and locating a nuclear test anywhere.    Its technology can, however, be put to other uses, as in the Russian case.
(Additional reporting by Andrew Osborn in Moscow; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

8/19/2019 A WW2 battle reverberates in Poland’s national election campaign by Joanna Plucinska and Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk
People visit the World War Two Westerplatte Memorial in Gdansk, Poland,
August 12, 2019. Picture taken August 12, 2019. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel
    GDANSK, Poland (Reuters) – A monument to a battle fought in the opening days of World War Two has become a new frontline in the fight between Poland’s ruling nationalists and the liberal opposition in the countdown to a parliamentary election on Oct. 13.
    The granite column that towers over the Baltic port of Gdansk commemorates the seven-day siege of Westerplatte in September 1939, when dozens of Polish soldiers defied the overwhelming firepower of a Nazi German naval fleet.
    For many Poles the monument – comprising the column and a small park – is a symbol of national courage, but the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) accuses the Gdansk municipality, which is linked to the opposition, of allowing the site to fall into disrepair.    Near the column stand ruined barracks with rusted wires protruding.
    Last month PiS rushed legislation through parliament to transfer oversight of the area to the central government in Warsaw.
    Critics of PiS say the row over Westerplatte is part of a broader government policy of historical revisionism they say is aimed at fanning nationalist sentiment among voters and discrediting the opposition.
    PiS officials say the bravery of the Westerplatte soldiers has not been celebrated sufficiently.
    Since it won power in 2015, PiS has repeatedly accused liberal governments that ruled Poland since the collapse of communism in 1989 of failing to conduct “the politics of history” effectively, allowing young Poles to forget patriotism.
    PiS, a socially conservative, euroskeptic party, also says Poland can only be effective in the international arena if its Western allies come to understand and appreciate the extent of its suffering and bravery under Nazi and then Soviet occupation.
    “After 1989, what we call the politics of memory or history was badly neglected.    There was no tool, capacity or desire to carry this symbol,” Karol Nawrocki, a historian nominated by PiS to run a World War Two museum in Gdansk, told Reuters.    His museum will oversee an overhaul of the Westerplatte site.
    Underscoring divisions over remembrance, the PiS government has moved the ceremonies commemorating the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of World War Two from Gdansk, where such events have been held in the past, to Warsaw and the town of Wielun, the site of another battle in September 1939.
    While Gdansk authorities will still hold their own ceremony, events in Warsaw will be attended by U.S. President Donald Trump, who shares the PiS government’s views on a range of issues, including migration, climate change and abortion.
BATTLES OVER THE PAST
    The government’s message seems to be working. Opinion polls show PiS likely to win a second four-year term in October with the support of more than 40 percent of Poles.
    An alliance of liberal parties called the Civic Coalition is polling second with less than 30 percent.
    Aleksandra Dulkiewicz, the mayor of Gdansk who has long been tied with the opposition, denies the city has neglected the Westerplatte site but says PiS is trying to foment a retrogressive nationalism.
    “This is a message that is being used to influence voters,” Dulkiewicz told Reuters.    “Eighty years after the start of World War Two, do we want to glorify war or do we want to think about how to have peaceful relations in the future?
    “We should be building relationships between people, between societies, to prevent war,” she said.
    Gdansk, cradle of the Solidarity trade union that toppled communist rule and now one of Poland’s most liberal cities, has been the focus of tensions over remembrance in the past.
    Last year, the PiS government decided to slash the state subsidy to a museum commemorating Solidarity, saying it had become too supportive of opposition politicians.
    Criticism of Poland’s transition from communism is central to the PiS goal of redefining how national history is perceived.
    While hailing the end of Soviet domination, PiS says liberal politicians wasted the chance to create a fairer society true to its Christian roots after 1989.
    It says more should have been done in those heady days of transition to purge state institutions of communist officials and also to shield more vulnerable Poles from the impact of painful market reforms.
    In Gdansk, some voters disagree with the PiS plan to spruce up the monument.
    “I belong to a large group of people who still see Westerplatte as a symbol of our resistance,” said 91-year-old Jerzy Grzywacz, who runs a veterans association and remembers cycling as a boy to watch the battle to defend the site.
    “I’d like very much for Westerplatte to remain just the way it was on Sept. 7, 1939.    It should unite us, not divide us.”
(Additional reporting by Malgorzata Wojtunik and Ania Gavina, Editing by Justyna Pawlak and Gareth Jones)

8/19/2019 Estonia President says far-right minister unfit for job
FILE PHOTO: Estonia's Finance Minister Martin Helme of far-right EKRE Party reacts after the swearing-in
of the incoming coalition government in Tallinn, Estonia April 29, 2019. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins
    TALLINN (Reuters) – Estonia President Kersti Kaljulaid said on Monday that Finance Minister Martin Helme, one of the leaders of the far-right EKRE party, was unfit to serve in the cabinet, citing Helme’s attempt to fire the head of the police force last week.
    The president’s statement put pressure on Prime Minister Juri Ratas, although he has shown little sign of moving against his partner in a four-month-old coalition.
    Helme, who is currently standing in as interior minister, tried to fire the police chief but failed as the post is appointed by the cabinet, not by the minister.    Helme apologized to Ratas, saying he had acted too strongly and too fast.
    “Even an attempt to do so is unacceptable, and the minister taking such steps is unfit to be a member of the government of the republic,” Kaljulaid said in a statement after meeting with Ratas on Monday evening.
    “I also said this to the Prime Minister, but it is, of course, Parliament that decides what the composition of the Government is, in a parliamentary democracy,” she said.
    The Reform Party – which won the March elections, but was left out of the cabinet when the Centre cut a deal with EKRE and the conservative Fatherland – has decided to call for a no-confidence vote in parliament.
    It has also admitted, however, that the likelihood of success is limited as the coalition has a comfortable majority.
(Reporting by Tarmo Virki, editing by Ed Osmond)

8/20/2019 Russia accuses U.S. of stoking tensions with missile test: TASS
FILE PHOTO: National flags of Russia and the U.S. fly at Vnukovo International Airport
in Moscow, Russia April 11, 2017. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia accused the United States on Tuesday of stoking military tensions by testing a ground-launched cruise missile, but said it would not be drawn into an arms race, TASS news agency reported.
    The Pentagon said on Monday it had tested a conventionally-configured cruise missile that hit its target after more than 500 km (310 miles) of flight, its first such operation since the demise of a landmark Cold War-era nuclear pact this month.
    The United States formally withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) with Russia on Aug. 2 after accusing Moscow of violating the pact, a charge dismissed by the Kremlin.
    The U.S. missile test would have been prohibited under the treaty.
    “All this elicits regret, the United States has obviously taken the course of escalating military tensions.    We will not succumb to provocations,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as saying.
    “We won’t allow ourselves to be pulled into a costly arms race.”
    The INF banned land-based missiles with a range of between 310 and 3,400 miles (500 and 5,500 km), reducing the ability of both countries to launch a nuclear strike at short notice.
    Ryabkov said that despite the test, Russia did not plan to deploy any new missiles, unless the United States did so first.
    China also expressed concern.
    In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the test showed the United States was stoking a new arms race and confrontation, which would have a serious negative impact on regional and global security.
    “We advise the U.S. side to abandon outdated notions of Cold War thinking and zero sum games, and exercise restraint in developing arms,” Geng told a daily news briefing.
(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Clarence Fernandez)

8/20/2019 Russia to nuclear test ban monitor: Test accident not your business
FILE PHOTO: A radionuclide particulate station of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) is
seen on the roof of their headquarters in Vienna, Austria September 28, 2017. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia on Tuesday told an international organisation set up to verify a ban on nuclear tests that a military testing accident in northern Russia earlier this month was none of its business and that handing it radiation data was entirely voluntary.
    The Vienna-based Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) said on Monday that two Russian monitoring sites closest to the mysterious explosion went offline days after the blast, soon followed by two more, fuelling suspicions that Russia tampered with them.
    Russia’s state nuclear agency, Rosatom, has acknowledged that nuclear workers were killed in the explosion on Aug. 8, which occurred during a rocket engine test near the White Sea in far northern Russia.
    The Interfax news agency on Tuesday cited Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying his country’s transmission of data from radiation stations to the CTBTO was voluntary and that the Aug. 8 accident was not a matter for the CTBTO anyway.
(Reporting by Maria Kiseylova; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

8/20/2019 Israeli prime minister visits Ukraine Holocaust Memorial by OAN Newsroom
    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined the president of the Ukraine to honor the victims of the Babi Yar massacre.    Netanyahu arrived in Kiev over the weekend in his first visit to the country in nearly 20 years for a ceremony at the Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial Center.    The Babi Yar massacre took place over a one week period in September of 1941, shortly after Germany took over then-Soviet-held Kiev.
    Accompanied by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Netanyahu emphasized why it’s important to remember the atrocities of WWII.
    “Together we remember those tragedies that have already happened, and we predict a good future together,” he stated.    “Most of all, we ask to continue honoring the memory in Babi Yar and to remember this tragedy to not allow this to happen again.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, centre left, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attend a welcome ceremony
during their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Aug 19, 2019. ( Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
    Nazis marched over 30,000 Jews to the Babi Rar ravine, where they were stripped their clothes and brutally murdered.    It’s estimated more than 100,000 Jews, Soviet officials, and Russian prisoners of war were executed there.    Although the exact death toll is unknown, evidence and eyewitnesses documented the horrors at Babi Yar –making it a symbol for Jewish suffering during the Holocaust.
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8/20/2019 Leaders dismiss Sara Netanyahu’s Ukrainian bread blunder
FILE PHOTO: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara wave as Netanyahu speaks following the announcement of
exit polls in Israel's parliamentary election at the party headquarters in Tel Aviv, Israel April 10, 2019. REUTERS/Ammar Awad
    JERUSALEM/KIEV (Reuters) – Israeli and Ukrainian leaders have come to the defense of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife Sara after she appeared to toss away a piece of bread offered to her at an official Ukrainian welcoming ceremony.
    Netanyahu and his wife, on a two-day official trip to Ukraine, were greeted at the airport upon their arrival overnight between Sunday and Monday.
    Footage showed Netanyahu and Sara disembarking the plane and being greeted by women in traditional Ukrainian embroidered dress holding out a tray with bread on it.
    A smiling Netanyahu then breaks off a piece of bread and eats it. He then breaks off what appears to be a very small piece for Sara and hands it to her.    Sara takes it, looks at it and discards it.
    The incident was widely reported in Ukraine, where it drew mixed reactions, some angry by what was seen as Sara Netanyahu’s disrespect and others calling for the apparent misunderstanding not to be blown out of proportion.
    Bread has an almost sacred status for many Ukrainians who see it as a symbol of life and use it in traditional ceremonies.
    In Israel, local media described the incident as a gaff that had angered the prime minister’s Ukrainian hosts.
    Netanyahu posted a video to his Facebook page, in which he dismissed the incident.    “I am here on a historic visit to Ukraine.    But it’s doubtful this visit would have gotten such a boost in media attention had there been no bread incident."
    “The Ukrainian president’s chief of staff … said it is clear that Mrs. Netanyahu had no intention to disrespect Ukraine.    He said ‘It’s complete nonsense’,” said Netanyahu.
    Israeli Cabinet Secretary Tzachi Braverman, on the delegation to Kiev, told Israeli Army Radio on Tuesday that Sara Netanyahu did not toss the bread, but rather, that it had simply crumbled away in her hand.
    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s spokeswoman, Iuliia Mendel told the Interfax Ukraine news agency on Monday: “This was done inadvertently and is in no way a manifestation of disrespect for Ukraine.”
    Netanyahu and his wife have a stormy relationship with the Israeli media, which they have both accused of providing unfair and negative coverage of them.
(Reporting by Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem and Pavel Polityuk in Kiev; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)

8/20/2019 Polish deputy minister resigns over judge trolling scandal by Alan Charlish
FILE PHOTO: Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki leaves a European Union leaders
summit in Brussels, Belgium July 1, 2019. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir
    WARSAW (Reuters) – Polish Deputy Justice Minister Lukasz Piebiak said he was resigning on Tuesday, following a report he sought to discredit judges critical of the government’s judicial reforms by planting media rumors about their private lives.
    It was the latest in a series of scandals to hit Poland’s ruling nationalists – who have come under European Union fire over moves to increase political controls over the judiciary – ahead of elections in October.
    “With a sense of responsibility for the success of reforms to which I have devoted four years of hard work, I am handing in my resignation from the office of undersecretary of state to the minister of justice,” Piebiak said in a statement sent to state-run news agency PAP.
    The Onet.pl website reported late on Monday that Piebiak was behind a campaign to blackball critical judges including Krystian Markiewicz, a prominent critic of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party and head of the judicial association Iustitia.
    It published alleged transcripts of conversations between Piebiak and a woman named as Emilia in which they weighed plans to anonymously send material with rumors about Markiewicz’s private life to regional branches of Iustitia and to his home.
        Emilia, whose surname was not given, acted as an intermediary between the ministry of justice and pro-government media, and posted material online intended to compromise certain judges, according to Onet.pl.
    Onet.pl’s report provoked an outcry from the centrist opposition and prompted Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki to demand explanations.
    Markiewicz told private broadcaster TVN 24: “We are dealing with systematic actions taken against judges, against the rule of law in Poland.    If such an attack can be made against judges and professors, it means it can be made against everyone.”
    Contacted by Onet.pl, Piebiak said he knew Emilia only “from Twitter” and declined further comment.
SCANDALOUS SITUATION
    Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party has pushed through a range of reforms since taking power in 2015 that the European Commission and rights groups say jeopardize the rule of law by politicizing judicial appointments.
    The PiS has argued the changes were needed to improve the efficiency of the courts and rid Poland of residues of Communist rule, which ended three decades ago.
    Opposition politicians accused the government on Tuesday of using state structures to discredit critics and demanded the dismissal of both Piebiak and Justice Minister and Prosecutor General Zbigniew Ziobro.
    “Mr Ziobro, according to the media reports, knew perfectly well about this scandalous situation of baiting independent judges, what’s more, he accepted it,” opposition lawmaker Pawel Olszewski told a news conference.
    Onet.pl said Piebiak was supposed to inform an unidentified “boss” about the effects of the posted rumors.
    “This is dangerous for the state, for democratic order… especially because it affects judges and it is paid for with public money,” said Anna Materska-Sosnowska, a political scientist at Warsaw University.
    Poland’s parliament speaker resigned this month after it was revealed that he used government aircraft for private trips, a move that suggested the PiS was keen to defuse bad publicity that could affect its re-election bid.
    The PiS still looks set to win the Oct. 13 parliamentary vote, regularly polling over 40%.    The main opposition Civic Coalition is below 30% in most polls.
(Reporting by Alan Charlish, Marcin Goclowski and Joanna Plucinska, Editing by Mark Heinrich and Ed Osmond)

8/20/2019 Kremlin: missile test shows U.S. is to blame for demise of nuclear pact
FILE PHOTO: Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov looks on during a visit to the Mazda Sollers Manufacturing Rus joint venture plant of
Sollers and Japanese Mazda in Vladivostok, Russia September 10, 2018. Valery Sharifulin/TASS Host Photo Agency/Pool via REUTERS
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Tuesday the U.S. test of a ground-launched cruise missile showed that Washington had long prepared to leave the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and that the United States, not Russia, was to blame for the pact’s demise.
    The Pentagon said on Monday that it had tested a conventionally-configured cruise missile that hit its target after more than 500 km (310 miles) of flight, the first such test since the United States pulled out of the treaty on Aug. 2.
    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call that the missile test, which would have been prohibited under the INF treaty, could not have been conducted without preparations that would have taken longer than a few weeks.
(Reporting by Andrew Osborn, Maria Kiselyova; Writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by John Stonestreet)

8/21/2019 France wants progress in Ukraine before Russia returns to G7
FILE PHOTO: The Russian flag is seen through barbed wire as it flies on the roof of
the Russian embassy in Kiev, Ukraine March 26, 2018. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich
    PARIS (Reuters) – Russia’s readmission to the group of seven nations depends on progress in peace talks over Ukraine, a French diplomatic source said, responding to comments by U.S. President Donald Trump that Moscow should be restored to the group.
    “We have taken note that the Americans want to reintegrate them next year. Ukraine is vital.    There is a context that could be favorable to some progress,” the diplomatic source said on Wednesday, referring to comments by the new Ukrainian president.
    Trump said on Tuesday it would be appropriate to let Russia return the G7 group of advanced industrialized countries, telling reporters at the White House that his Democrat predecessor Barack Obama had wanted Russia out of what used to be the G8.
    Russia was pushed out of the G8 in 2014 because of its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.    The European Union subsequently slapped sanctions on Moscow after it supported rebels fighting Kiev troops in the east of the country.
    It was not the first time Trump has floated the idea of Russia getting back together with the G7, which groups the United States, Germany, Japan, France, Britain, Italy and Canada.    Their leaders meet this weekend in the southwestern French town of Biarritz.
(Reporting by Michel Rose; writing by John Irish; editing by Richard Lough)

8/21/2019 Russia, China accuse U.S. of stoking tensions with missile test by Tom Balmforth and Maria Kiselyova
FILE PHOTO: National flags of Russia and the U.S. fly at Vnukovo International Airport
in Moscow, Russia April 11, 2017. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia and China accused the United States on Tuesday of stoking military tensions by testing a ground-launched cruise missile, but the foreign ministry in Moscow said it would not be drawn into an arms race.
    The Pentagon said on Monday it had tested a conventionally-configured cruise missile that hit its target after more than 500 km (310 miles) of flight, its first such test since the demise of a landmark nuclear pact this month.
    The United States formally withdrew from the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) with Russia on Aug. 2 after accusing Moscow of violating it, a charge dismissed by the Kremlin.
    The text would have been banned under the INF, which prohibited land-based missiles with a range of between 310 and 3,400 miles, reducing the ability of both countries to launch a nuclear strike at short notice.
    Washington had “obviously taken the course of escalating military tensions,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said.
    Russia would, however, not allow itself “to be pulled into a costly arms race” and did not plan to deploy new missiles unless the United States did so first, he was quoted as saying by TASS news agency.
    The Kremlin said the U.S. missile test showed that Washington had long been preparing to exit the nuclear pact.
    “It is simply not possible to prepare for such tests in a few weeks or a few months.    This …shows that it was not Russia, but the United States with its actions that brought the breakdown of the INF,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
    China also expressed concern.
    In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the test showed the United States was stoking a new arms race and confrontation, which would have a serious negative impact on regional and global security.
    “We advise the U.S. side to abandon outdated notions of Cold War thinking and zero-sum games, and exercise restraint in developing arms,” Geng told a daily news briefing.
(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Andrew Heavens and John Stonestreet)

8/21/2019 Tourism to Cuba plunges after Trump’s tightening of travel ban: data
FILE PHOTO: Men watch the cruise ship MS Empress of the Seas, operated by Royal Caribbean International,
as it leaves the bay of Havana, Cuba, June 5, 2019. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini/File Photo
    HAVANA (Reuters) – Tourist arrivals to Cuba plunged 23.6% on the year in July, official data showed on Wednesday, confirming the blow dealt to the sector by the Trump administration’s tightening of U.S. restrictions on travel to the Caribbean island.
    Data from the Statistics Office had already shown a 20% drop in arrivals in June, after Washington that same month banned cruises to Cuba and made it harder for U.S. citizens to get an exemption from the ban on travel there.
    The sustained decline reverses a boom in arrivals and therefore the broader tourism industry in recent years following the U.S.-Cuban detente under former U.S. President Barack Obama that President Donald Trump is now unraveling.
    The Trump administration has targeted two of the few bright spots in Cuba’s otherwise beleaguered economy, tourism and foreign investment, as part of its campaign to pressure the Communist government to reform and drop support for embattled leftist Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Analysts say Trump appears to also be eyeing the 2020 presidential elections, with the swing state of Florida home to many Cuban     Americans who welcome the harder line on Havana and his base applauding it as part of his broader attack on socialism.
    The administration’s measures are hurting an economy already battling a cash crunch in the wake of a steep decline in aid from leftist ally Venezuela and a drop in exports.
    The Cuban government last month revised sharply downwards its estimate for full-year visitors arrivals to 4.3 million from an original goal of more than 5 million.    That will spell a 8.5% drop from the 4.7 million reported last year.
    While the decline is impacting the state tourism sector, it is also hurting the many restaurants, bed-and-breakfasts and taxi drivers in the fledgling Cuban private sector that the United States says it wants to support.
    Washington’s recent decision to allow lawsuits by U.S. citizens against firms deemed to be trafficking in property expropriated by the Cuban government is also impacting the foreign companies working in Cuba’s tourism sector, with several facing claims.
(Reporting by Sarah Marsh; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

8/21/219 Putin says U.S. is able to deploy new cruise missile in Europe by Olesya Astakhova and Anne Kauranen
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a joint news conference with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto in
the Presidental Palace in Helsinki, Finland, August 21, 2019. Markku Ulander/Lehtikuva/via REUTERS
    HELSINKI (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that the United States was now in a position to deploy a new land-based cruise missile in Romania and Poland, a scenario he considered a threat that Moscow would need to respond to.
    The Pentagon said on Monday it had tested a conventionally-configured cruise missile that hit its target after more than 500 km (310 miles) of flight, its first such test since the demise of a landmark nuclear pact this month.
    The test followed the U.S. formally withdrawing from the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) on Aug. 2 after accusing Moscow of violating it, a charge dismissed by the Kremlin.
    Putin, speaking during a visit to Helsinki, said that Washington could potentially now use existing launch systems in Romania and Poland to fire the new missile, meaning it could deploy it easily and swiftly if it chose to.
    “Launches of this missile can be carried out from (launch) systems already located in Romania and Poland.    All you have to do is change the software.    And I don’t think our American partners will inform even the European Union about this.    This entails new threats for us that we must react to,” Putin said.
    The test would have been banned under the INF, which prohibited land-based missiles with a range of between 310 and 3,400 miles, reducing the ability of both countries to launch a nuclear strike at short notice.
    The United States has said it has no imminent plans to deploy new land-based missiles in Europe.
    Putin was speaking to reporters following talks with his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinistö.
    The Russian leader used a joint news conference to defend the authorities’ response to a series of political protests in Moscow and to reassure people that an accident at a military testing site in northern Russia this month did not pose any threat to neighboring countries or people living nearby.
(Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

8/21/2019 Putin says deadly military accident occurred during weapons systems test by Olesya Astakhova and Anne Kauranen
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a joint news conference with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto
in the Presidental Palace in Helsinki, Finland, August 21, 2019. Markku Ulander/Lehtikuva/via REUTERS
    HELSINKI (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that a deadly blast at a military site in northern Russia earlier this month had taken place during the testing of what he called promising new weapons systems.     Putin said that Moscow could not reveal everything about the blast because of its military nature, but that information exchanges about such accidents should be improved.
    “When it comes to activities of a military nature, there are certain restrictions on access to information,” Putin told a news conference in Helsinki, standing alongside Finnish President Sauli Niinisto.
    He did not reveal which weapons system was being tested at the time of the blast on Aug. 8.
    “This is work in the military field, work on promising weapons systems.    We are not hiding this,” Putin said.    “We must think of our own security.”
    Russia’s state nuclear agency said this month that five of its staff members were killed and three others injured in a blast involving “isotope power sources” that took place during a rocket test on a sea platform.    Two Russian military personnel were also reported to have been killed.
    Putin said this week that there was no risk of increased radiation levels following the blast and that all necessary preventive measures were being taken.
(Reporting by Olesya Astakhova and Anne Kauranen; Writing by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

8/21/2019 Czech president backs new culture minister nominee, defusing government crisis
FILE PHOTO: Czech President Milos Zeman gestures in Vienna, Austria April 3, 2019. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger/File Photo
    PRAGUE (Reuters) – Czech President Milos Zeman on Wednesday backed the new nominee for culture minister from the junior party in the ruling coalition, defusing a political crisis that had threatened to topple the government.
    The Social Democrats earlier nominated Lubomir Zaoralek, a former foreign minister and lower house of parliament speaker, to head the Culture Ministry, after Zeman last week rejected their previous nominee for the post.
    In rejecting the party’s nominee, Zeman broke with the constitutional custom whereby a president does not veto a ministerial candidate presented by the prime minister.
    The Social Democrats threatened to quit the ruling coalition with Prime Minister Andrej Babis’s ANO party if it could not pick the culture minister.    But then the rejected nominee, Michal Smarda, stepped aside, opening the way for a compromise.
    “Lubomir Zaoralek was a successful speaker of the lower house, he was a successful foreign minister, when he was in charge of much bigger ministry and he also worked in culture,” the party’s leader, Jan Hamacek, told a news conference.
    Zeman’s spokesman said on Twitter that the president agreed with the choice and would meet with Zaoralek before setting a date for his official appointment.
    Zeman had argued that Smarda lacked qualifications in the cultural sphere.
    Babis, a billionaire businessman, founded the ANO party and has fought conflict of interest allegations since entering politics. He faces criminal charges for alleged subsidy fraud but denies any wrongdoing.
    Zeman has backed Babis, who needs the votes of pro-Zeman factions in parliament to command a majority.
    In turn, Babis refused to get into a fight with the president over his coalition partner’s ministerial nomination.
    The Social Democrats and Babis’s ANO party still face tough negotiations to finalize a 2020 budget draft before the end of September.
    The next Czech parliamentary election is due in the autumn of 2021.
(Reporting by Jason Hovet and Robert Muller; Editing by Gareth Jones)

8/22/2019 Kosovo lawmakers vote to dissolve parliament, paving way for election by Fatos Bytyci
FILE PHOTO: People are pictured through Kosovo flag as they take part in celebrations of the 10th anniversary
of Kosovo's independence in Pristina, Kosovo February 17, 2018. REUTERS/Ognen Teofilovski
    PRISTINA (Reuters) – Kosovo lawmakers voted to dissolve parliament on Friday, paving the way for a parliamentary election after Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj resigned last month.
    A total of 89 deputies voted to dissolve the 120-seat parliament.    An election should take place within 45 days.
    Haradinaj resigned after being summoned for questioning by the country’s war crimes prosecutor over his role in the 1998-99 insurgency against Serbian forces, when he was a commander of the guerilla Kosovo Liberation Army.    He denies any wrongdoing and said he is ready to face any accusations.
    Polls show that no party will gain enough support to form a government on its own, and lengthy coalition talks are expected.    The last government was a coalition between Haradinaj’s party, the center-right Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) and the Social Democratic Initiative (NISMA).
    Haradinaj resigned from the role of prime minister once before in 2005 when he was indicted by the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal for former Yugoslavia.    He was tried and acquitted twice by that court.
    A major task facing the new government will be to relaunch talks with Belgrade on normalizing relations, key for both countries in their bid to join the European Union.    Talks collapsed last November when Pristina introduced a 100 percent tax on products made in Serbia.
    Kosovo, with a 90 percent ethnic Albanian majority, declared independence from Serbia in 2008, nearly 10 years after NATO bombing drove Serb forces out of the country.    It has been recognized by more than 110 states but not by five EU member states, Serbia and Russia.
    In 2013 the two countries agreed to an EU-sponsored talks, but little progress has been made since.    Serbia which still considers Kosovo part of its territory said it would return to negotiating table only once the 100 percent tax is abolished.
    Pristina on the other hand says it would abolish tax only when Belgrade recognizes Kosovo as sovereign state.
(Reporting by Fatos Bytyci; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

8/22/2019 Putin speaks on recent fatal military blast by OAN Newsroom
This photo taken on Oct. 7, 2018, shows a billboard that reads “The State Central Navy Testing Range” near residential buildings in the
village of Nyonoksa, northwestern Russia. The Aug. 8, 2019, explosion of a rocket engine at the Russian navy’s testing range just outside
Nyonoksa led to a brief spike in radiation levels and raised new questions about prospective Russian weapons. (AP Photo/Sergei Yakovlev)
    Russian President Vladimir Putin has revealed the reason behind a recent deadly blast off Russia’s north coast.
    During a news conference Wednesday, he announced this month’s explosion in the White Sea was a military system test.
    Russian officials say the explosion was triggered by isotop power, which led to the massive radiation that resulted in multiple casualties and the death of five military specialists.
    President Putin claimed preventive procedures on growing radiation levels have been taken.
    “The tragedy which happened in the White Sea, unfortunately claimed lives of our experts…these were works in the military sphere, works on the perspective arms systems,” explained the Russian leader.    “We do not conceal this…people who were killed and injured were doing a very important job to ensure security of our state.”
    No details have been revealed on which specific weapons system was being tested.

8/22/2019 Slovenia erects more border fence to curb migrant inflow
Workers installs a fence on the bank of the Kolpa river in Preloka, Slovenia, August 22, 2019. REUTERS/Srdjan Zivulovic
    PRELOKA, Slovenia (Reuters) – Slovenia has begun work on an additional stretch of fence along its southern border with Croatia with which it aims to keep out a rising number of migrants entering the country illegally.
    Slovenia’s police registered 7,415 illegal migrants in the first seven months of this year, a jump of 56% compared to the same period of 2018 as more people are try to reach wealthy Western states via the Balkans.
    Last month the government signed a contract with a Serbian firm Legi-SGS to put up 40 kilometers (25 miles) of fence on the border with Croatia.    Once that section is completed, the total length of fence will be 219 kilometers and cover almost a third of the Slovenian border with Croatia.    Slovenia’s total land and sea border is 1,370 km long.
    “The fence will be erected temporarily in the areas where it is necessary to prevent illegal crossings of the state border and ensure the safety of people and their property,” said Irena Likar, a spokeswoman of the Interior Ministry.
    A Reuters photographer near the village of Preloka in southern Slovenia saw construction work underway at the site.     Likar said the exact time plan and location of for the erection of the fence would not be made public.
    Slovenia first began constructing a border fence during the refugee crisis of 2015 when in a period of six months about half a million illegal migrants passed through the country.
    This new stretch of fence is around 2.5 meters high and is being erected on the banks of the river Kolpa which runs between Slovenia and Croatia.
    The government’s immigration policy has met with little opposition in Slovenia, although some civil society groups are against the wire fence.
    Most illegal migrants come from Pakistan, Algeria, Afghanistan, Morocco and Bangladesh.    Only a fraction seek asylum in Slovenia, with most continuing on to neighboring Italy and Austria.
    Last month Italian and Slovenian police started joint border patrols in order to curb the flow of illegal migrants.
(Reporting by Srdjan Zivulovic and Marja Novak; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

8/22/2019 Ukraine, EU oppose Trump’s suggestion of readmitting Russia to G7 by Natalia Zinets and Gabriela Baczynska
A G7 Summit patch is seen on a French Gendarme's uniform as he patrols at a toll station in Anglet ahead of
the G7 Summit in the French coastal resort of Biarritz, France, August 21, 2019. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau
    KIEV/BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Ukraine’s president backed leading European powers on Thursday in opposing the readmission of Russia to the Group of Seven advanced economies, saying Moscow still occupied Crimea and was frustrating peace in eastern Ukraine.
    U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday it would be “appropriate” to have Russia rejoin what used to be the G8. France will host a meeting of G7 leaders this weekend.
    But Germany, France, Britain — all G7 members — quickly rebuffed Trump, noting that Russia was excluded after it annexed Ukraine’s Crimea and then backed an anti-Kiev rebellion in the industrial region of Donbas in eastern Ukraine.
    “Nothing has changed since March, 2014, when Russia’s participation in the G8 was stopped.    Ukrainian Crimea is being occupied as before, Ukrainian Donbas is suffering from war,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.
    Echoing that view, a European Union official said readmitting Russian President Vladimir Putin to the group without conditions would be “counterproductive, a sign of weakness.”
    “The EU remains strongly of the view that the reasons for Russia’s exclusion in 2014 from the then-G8 are still valid today as they were valid five years ago.    So the EU will be against the idea of reinviting Russia to G7,” he said.
    The EU and the United States have imposed sanctions on Russia over its role in the Ukraine conflict, in which some 13,000 people have been killed to date, according to U.N. data. Fighting continues in Donbas, albeit at a low intensity.
    A peace process brokered by Berlin and Paris has stalled.
    Speaking in Berlin on Wednesday, Britain’s new prime minister, Boris Johnson, also cited the poisoning of a former Russian double agent in England last year as a reason not to readmit Russia to the G7.
    Britain and the EU blamed Russia for that attack. The Kremlin denied any involvement.
    Zelenskiy thanked Johnson in a telephone call for supporting Ukraine’s sovereignty, the Ukrainian president’s office said on Thursday.
    The disagreement over how to handle Russia – where Trump has praised Putin despite Western criticism of his record – is just one of several areas of tension in trans-Atlantic ties that will be on display at the G7 gathering in France.
    The G7 groups the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada.
(Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Gareth Jones)

8/23/20219 Putin orders reciprocal Russian response to U.S. missile test by Andrew Osborn and Anton Kolodyazhnyy
FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a joint news conference with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto
in the Presidental Palace in Helsinki, Finland, August 21, 2019. Markku Ulander/Lehtikuva/via REUTERS
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday ordered a like-for-like response to a recent U.S. missile test, which he said showed that Washington aimed to deploy previously banned missiles around the world.
    The Pentagon said on Monday it had tested a conventionally-configured cruise missile that hit its target after more than 500 km (310 miles) of flight, its first such test since the demise of a landmark nuclear pact this month.
    Washington formally withdrew from the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) on Aug. 2 after accusing Moscow of violating it, a charge dismissed by the Kremlin.
    The pact had prohibited land-based missiles with a range of 310-3,400 miles, reducing the ability of both countries to launch a nuclear strike at short notice.
    Putin told his Security Council on Friday that Russia could not stand idly by, and that U.S. talk of deploying new missiles in the Asia-Pacific region “affects our core interests as it is close to Russia’s borders.”
    U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said this month he was in favor of placing ground-launched intermediate-range missiles in Asia relatively soon, and Putin complained this week that the United States was now in a position to deploy its new land-based missile in Romania and Poland.
    “All this leaves no doubts that the real intention of the United States (in exiting the INF pact) was to … untie its hands to deploy previously banned missiles in different regions of the world,” said Putin.
    “We have never wanted, do not want and will not be drawn into a costly, economically destructive arms race.    That said, in the light of unfolding circumstances, I’m ordering the Defence Ministry, the Foreign Ministry and other appropriate agencies to analyze the threat to our country posed by U.S. actions, and to take exhaustive measures to prepare a reciprocal response.”
    Despite his order, Putin said Russia remained open to talks with the United States aimed at restoring trust and strengthening international security.
    The United States has said it has no imminent plans to deploy new land-based missiles in Europe.
(Additional reporting by Anastasia Teterevleva and Maria Kiselyeva; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

8/23/2019 Kremlin: Putin held Security Council meeting to discuss U.S. missile test
FILE PHOTO: Russia's President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with Mozambique's President Filipe Nyusi
in Moscow, Russia August 22, 2019. Alexander Zemlianichenko/Pool via REUTERS
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Friday that President Vladimir Putin had held a meeting of Russia’s Security Council to discuss a recent U.S. cruise missile test.
    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call that Putin would make “an important announcement” shortly.
    The Pentagon said on Monday it had tested a conventionally-configured cruise missile that hit its target after more than 500 km (310 miles) of flight, the first such test since the United States pulled out of a major arms control treaty with Russia on Aug. 2.
(Reporting by Anastasia Teterevleva; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

8/23/2019 Freed Kremlin critic Navalny predicts bigger opposition protests by Andrew Osborn and Anastasia Teterevleva
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny walks out of a detention centre after he was jailed for 30 days
for calling an unauthorised protest in Moscow, Russia August 23, 2019. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny on Friday used his first statement after being released from jail to predict that opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin and protests against the authorities would only grow.
    Navalny, who tries to garner popular support by exposing what he says is appalling official corruption, was speaking minutes after being freed from prison where he had served 30 days for encouraging a protest calling for free elections.
    “Now we see that lies and fraud are not enough for them. It’s not enough for them to ban candidates from an election.    They deliberately want to arrest dozens and to beat up hundreds… This shows that there is no support for this regime.    They feel this and they are afraid,” Navalny told reporters.
    “I have no doubt that despite genuine acts of intimidation and terror that are happening now as random people are being arrested that this wave (of protests) will increase, and this regime will seriously regret what it has done,” he said.
    The 43-year-old lawyer and activist was jailed last month after calling for people to demonstrate in central Moscow over the exclusion of opposition candidates from a local election in the Russian capital next month.
    The election, though local, is seen as a dry run for a national parliamentary election due in 2021.
    The authorities’ refusal to register a slew of opposition candidates, including some of Navalny’s allies, on technical grounds has triggered the biggest sustained protest movement in Russia since 2011-2013, when protesters took to the streets against perceived electoral fraud.
    Police have briefly detained over 2,000 people, launched criminal cases against around a dozen people for mass disorder, handed short jail terms to almost Navalny’s entire entourage and used force to disperse what they said were illegal protests.
    Putin said this week that authorities were handling the situation in line with the law and that he didn’t want “yellow vest” protests of the kind that have sprung up in France.
    The ruling United Russia party’s popularity rating is at its lowest since 2011 and Putin’s own personal rating has also declined due to discontent over falling living standards.
    However, at well over 60%, it is still high compared to many other world leaders.    Putin, who first came to power in 1999 and is now 66, won re-election last year on a landslide with a six-year term that only ends in 2024.
    Navalny on Friday thanked people for taking to the streets and lauded what he said was the bravery of those opposition candidates excluded from the election.
    “They are doing their best.    And in them we see real new opposition,” he said.    “And I am very happy about it.”
(Additional reporting by Anton Kolodyazhnyy; Editing by John Stonestreet, William Maclean)

8/23/2019 Ex-U.S. Marine held by Russia in spy case says prison authorities hurt him: Interfax
Former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who was detained and accused of espionage, stands inside a defendants'
cage before a court hearing in Moscow, Russia August 23, 2019. REUTERS/Tatyana Makeyeva
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – A former U.S. Marine held in Russia on suspicion of spying said on Friday that prison authorities in Moscow have hurt him, Interfax news agency reported.     Paul Whelan, who holds U.S., British, Canadian and Irish passports, was detained in a Moscow hotel room on Dec. 28 and accused of espionage.    He had been given a flash drive that his lawyer said Whelan thought contained holiday photos, but that actually held classified information.
(Reporting by Anton Kolodyazhnyy; Writing by Anastasia Teterevleva, Editing by William Maclean)

8/23/2019 Russia launches floating atomic power plant in Arctic Ocean by OAN Newsroom
    Russia has launched a floating atomic power plant amid a push to improve infrastructure in the Arctic.    The country launched the vessel, called the Akademik Lomonosov, in the port city of Murmansk in Northern Russia on Thursday.
    The nation’s nuclear energy agency, Rosatom, said the vessel carries a portable power plant that can supply electricity to places disconnected from the grid.
    The announcement comes shortly after a nuclear incident in Northern Russia, which some say was a result of a failed nuclear weapon test.    The unit comprises two nuclear reactors, which Rosatom has claimed are absolutely safe.
FILE – In this Saturday, April 28, 2018 file photo, the floating nuclear power plant, the ‘Akademik Lomonosov’,
is towed out of the St. Petersburg shipyard where it was constructed in St. Petersburg, Russia. The Akademik Lomonosov
that carries two 35-megawatt nuclear reactors set out Friday Aug. 23, 2019, from the Arctic port of Murmansk on the
Kola Peninsula on a three-week journey to Pevek on the Chukotka Peninsula. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky, File)
    “It has no negative impact on environment.    It has a positive impact, in fact, because there’s no coal or other fossil fuel burning, there’s no emissions whatsoever.    The station can not produce an oil spill.    No waste from the station is dumped into the environment. Everything is inside here, nothing goes out.” — Dmitry Alekseenko, Deputy Director – Rosenergoatom
    Russian officials say the station will navigate along Russia’s Arctic coastline, assisting in economic development of the region.

8/23/2019 Russia’s Chechnya inaugurates what it says is Europe’s largest mosque
A general view shows a mosque named after the Prophet Mohammed, the largest in Europe according to local authorities,
during an inauguration ceremony in the Chechen town of Shali, Russia August 23, 2019. REUTERS/Said Tsarnayev
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Authorities in the Russian region of Chechnya on Friday inaugurated what they said was the largest mosque in Europe in a pomp-filled ceremony attended by local and foreign officials.
    Named after the Prophet Mohammed, the marble-decorated mosque has capacity for more than 30,000 people and has been described by the Chechen authorities as the “largest and most beautiful” mosque in Europe.
    Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, an ally of President Vladimir Putin, said the mosque — located in Shali, a town of 54,000 just outside the regional capital Grozny — was “unique in its design, and majestic in its size and beauty.”
    The mosque’s grounds, planted with flowers and sprinkled with fountains, can host an additional 70,000 worshippers, local authorities said.
    Kadyrov, who was appointed by Putin to rule the Muslim-majority region in 2007, has spearheaded a revival of Islam in Chechnya, including by building opulent mosques.
    In 2008 he unveiled the “Heart of Chechnya,” a mosque with a capacity of 10,000 worshippers in Grozny, a city that had been ravaged by two wars between Moscow and separatists after the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union.
    Kadyrov has been criticized by rights groups for widespread rights abuses in the region, allegations he denies.
    His supporters credit him with bringing relative calm and stability to a region dogged for years by a simmering insurgency.
(Writing by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber; Editing by Andrew Osborn and)

8/23/2019 Poland’s ruling party hit by scandals, poll shows
FILE PHOTO: Poland's Law and Justice (PiS) leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski speaks during his media statement
at the party headquarters in Warsaw, Poland May 22, 2019. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel
    WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland’s ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, hit by two high profile resignations, lost 5 percentage points in an opinion poll published on Friday ahead of October’s election.
    This is the first poll that has shown the gap between PiS and pro-democratic opposition narrowing significantly in the campaign for the vote in which the deeply divided nation will elect members of the upper and lower houses of parliament.
    The figures come after a deputy justice minister resigned this week following a website’s report he sought to discredit judges critical of the government’s judicial reforms by planting media rumors about their private lives.
    His resignation followed that of the PiS parliament speaker for using government aircraft for private trips.
    A poll by Kantar conducted on Aug. 22 showed PiS with 39% support, down from 44% on Aug. 13, while its arch-rival the centrist Civic Platform (PO) had 30%, up 3 points since mid-August.    The leftist coalition Lewica remained on 11%.
    According to the opposition the election will decide if the ruling party, which remains at loggerheads with the European Union over issues such as the rule of law, logging forests, CO2 emission targets and refugees, will be able to finish its reforms and install itself in power for decades thanks to planned changes to the constitution.
    Polling numbers had held steady, as economic factors such as the ruling party’s generous welfare handouts, had prevailed – leading analysts previously to predict the party would weather the storm over the resignations.
    But now they are questioning whether that will continue.
    “It is all about the commotion over private flights and the deputy justice minister.    It may be reflected in the poll and it helps the liberals.    Of course one has to wait to see if this is a trend or not,” said Rafal Chwedoruk, a political scientist at Warsaw University. The Kantar poll was conducted for private broadcaster TVN24.     The coalition of agrarian party PSL and the anti-system Kukiz’15 would receive 6%, up 2 percentage points, while far-right grouping Konfederacja also rose 1 percentage point to 6%.
(Reporting by Pawel Florkiewicz, Marcin Goclowski; Additional reporting by Alan Charlish; Editing by Alison Williams)

8/23/2019 Russian President Putin orders military to prepare missile launch after U.S. tests by OAN Newsroom
    Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered preparations for a missile launch in response to U.S. missile tests.    On Friday, he told his military to develop plans to retaliate against Washington’s recent weapons experiments.
    Earlier this week, the Pentagon said a cruise missile test off California hit its target after more than 300 miles in flight, which would have been a violation of the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty if the U.S. were still apart of it.
    Putin said Russia has to protect itself against the U.S. and claimed Americans used propaganda to exit the agreement, so they could increase threats for their own gain.
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks at a meeting with members of the Security Council in the Kremlin in
Moscow, Russia, Friday, Aug. 23, 2019.    Putin ordered the Russian military to ponder a quid pro quo response after
Sunday’s test of a new U.S. missile banned under a now-defunct arms treaty. (Alexei Nikolsky, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
    “How would we know what they will deploy in Romania and Poland — missile defense systems or strike missile systems with a significant range?” asked Putin.    “All that does not leave any doubts what the real aims of the United States are — getting clear of the limitations…they freed its hands to deploy the previously banned missiles in different parts of the world.”
    Amid the escalation, Putin stated Russia is still open to talks with the U.S. He said he wishes to restore trust between the nations and “reinforce international security.”

8/24/2019 Romanian PM Dancila gets party nod to run for president
FILE PHOTO: Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dancila casts her vote during the European Parliament
Elections in Bucharest, Romania, May 26, 2019. Inquam Photos/Octav Ganea via REUTERS
    BUCHAREST (Reuters) – Romania’s ruling Social Democrats (PSD) on Saturday confirmed Prime Minister Viorica Dancila as the party’s candidate in a Nov. 10 presidential election that polls show the incumbent centrist Klaus Iohannis winning comfortably.
    The latest voter surveys show Iohannis garnering about 42% of the votes, followed by four other contenders on 10-13%, with Dancila trailing in sixth place on about 8%.
    Dancila said, however, the “real opinion poll is only the election day.”
    “I’m much stronger than all those men (politicians) shouting from the sidelines.    I became Romania’s first female prime minister, I will become Romania’s first female president,” said Dancila — a protégé of former leader Liviu Dragnea, who is serving a three-and-a-half-year jail term for corruption.
    About 1,000 PSD members gathered at a party congress on Saturday and voted unanimously to pick Dancila as the party’s sole candidate.
    The party, which has a slim parliamentary majority with a junior ally, lost support in May’s European parliament election, winning about 26% of the vote — far below the 45% they won in the last national ballot in 2016.
    The European ballot was the first popularity test for the PSD, which has been strongly criticised by Brussels and Washington for its overhaul of the judiciary and changes to anti-graft legislation.    Romania will hold a second round of the presidential lection on Nov. 24 if no candidate wins an outright majority. Parliamentary elections are due in December 2020.
(Reporting by Radu Marinas; Editing by Helen Popper)

8/26/2019 Russia finds radioactive isotopes in test samples after accident by Maria Kiselyova and Tom Balmforth
FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting in Moscow, August 22, 2019. Alexander Zemlianichenko/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s state weather agency said on Monday it had found the radioactive isotopes of strontium, barium and lanthanum in test samples after a mysterious accident during a test at a military site earlier this month.
    The deadly accident on Aug. 8 caused a brief rise in radiation levels in the nearby city of Severodvinsk.    President Vladimir Putin later said the mishap occurred during testing of what he called promising new weapons systems.
    A cloud of inert radioactive gases formed as a result of a decay of the isotopes and caused the brief spike in radiation in Severodvinsk, the weather agency said in a statement.
    The isotopes were Strontium-91, Barium-139, Barium-140 and Lanthanum-140, which have half-lives of 9.3 hours, 83 minutes, 12.8 days and 40 hours respectively, it said.
    Russia’s state nuclear agency has said five of its staff members were killed and three injured in a blast during a rocket test on a sea platform that involved “isotope power sources.”
    U.S.-based nuclear experts suspect the incident occurred during tests of a nuclear-powered cruise missile.
    Norway’s nuclear test-ban monitor said on Friday that the explosion that killed the scientists was followed by a second blast two hours later and that this was the likely source of a spike in radiation.
    The second explosion was probably from an airborne rocket powered by radioactive fuel, the Norsar agency said – though the governor of Russia’s Arkhangelsk region, where the blast took place, dismissed reports of another blast.
(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

8/26/2019 Kosovo president sets Oct. 6 as date for snap parliamentary vote
FILE PHOTO: Kosovo's President Hashim Thaci attends an interview with Reuters in Berlin, Germany, April 29, 2019. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke
    PRISTINA (Reuters) – Kosovo’s President Hashim Thaci set Oct. 6 as the date for an early parliamentary election on Monday, following the resignation of Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj.
    Haradinaj resigned on July 19 after being summoned for questioning by the country’s war crimes prosecutor over his role in the 1998-99 insurgency against Serb forces.
    Kosovo’s parliament voted last week to dissolve itself, paving the way for Thaci to call an early vote.
    Polls predict no party gaining enough support to form a government on its own, and lengthy coalition talks are expected.
    The last government was a coalition between Haradinaj’s center-right Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) and the Social Democratic Initiative (NISMA).
    The new government will be expected to relaunch talks with Belgrade on normalizing relations, the main precondition for both Kosovo and Serbia to join the European Union.
    Talks collapsed last November when Pristina introduced a 100% tax on products made in Serbia.
    Predominantly Albanian Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, nearly a decade after NATO bombing drove Serb security forces out of what was then a Serbian province.    In 2013, Kosovo and Serbia agreed to EU-sponsored talks, but little progress has been made since.
    Kosovo’s independence has been recognized by more than 110 states but not by others, including five EU member states, as well as Serbia, Russia and China.
    Under its constitution, Serbia considers Kosovo part of its territory.    Belgrade wants the 100% tax abolished before it returns to talks.    Pristina says it would abolish the tax only after Serbia recognizes Kosovo as a sovereign state.
(Writing by Aleksandar Vasovic; Reporting by Fatos Bytyci in Pristina; Editing by Peter Graff)

8/26/2019 Russia’s Putin calls for rise in incomes, stronger economic growth
FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting in Moscow, August 22, 2019. Alexander Zemlianichenko/Pool via REUTERS
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin on Monday described Russia’s economic growth as insufficient, telling the head of the central bank and top government officials to come up with ways to boost real incomes growth.
    The issue of real disposable incomes has recently been one of the most socially-sensitive in Russia where economic growth has slowed from an average of about 7% a year from 2000-08, coupled with a steep drop in the rouble amid Western sanctions and lower oil prices.
    Putin raised the lingering incomes issue at a meeting with Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina, Economy Minister Maxim Oreshkin, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov and Aide to the President, Andrei Belousov.
    Praising a slowdown in annual inflation to 4.5% from double-digit levels a few years ago, Putin, who has been in power for nearly 20 years, said that was not enough to improve the living conditions of Russian citizens.
    “Even against this background, and given the increase in wages in the economy, people’s real incomes are growing slowly.    This state of affairs cannot but cause concern,” Putin said.
    Households’ real disposable incomes, or the money they have after taxes and inflation are taken into account, rose 0.1% in 2018 after falling for several years in a row.    In the first half of 2019, they dropped again by 1.3% compared with a year ago.
    Putin, who has repeatedly ordered attempts to boost Russia’s economic growth to make the country one of the world’s top five economies, said gross domestic product growth of 0.7% in the first six months of 2019 was not sufficient.
    “The pace is certainly positive but the overall dynamics can’t be satisfactory for us.    We need to make economic growth more sustainable and dynamic,” Putin said.
    Putin’s comments came less than two weeks before the central bank’s board meeting where analysts expect it to cut the key rate, lowering the cost of borrowing amid sluggish economic growth and slowing inflation.
    In the whole of 2019, the Russian economy is expected to grow by 1.0-1.5%, the central bank projects, below the global average of 2.6%, calculated by the World Bank.
(Reporting by Andrey Ostroukh,; Editing by Katya Golubkova and Ed Osmond)

8/26/2019 Russian economy ministry lowers 2020 inflation, GDP growth forecasts
FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a joint news conference with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto
in the Presidental Palace in Helsinki, Finland, August 21, 2019. Markku Ulander/Lehtikuva/via REUTERS
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Russian economy ministry has revised a set of key economic forecasts, lowering its economic growth and inflation projections for 2020, the ministry’s data showed on Monday.
    The revision came hours after President Vladimir Putin described Russia’s economic growth as insufficient, telling the head of the central bank and top government officials to come up with ways to boost growth in real incomes.
    The economy ministry kept is 2019 gross domestic product growth forecast at 1.3% but lowered its 2020 forecast to 1.7% growth from 2.0%.
    Less than two weeks before the central bank’s rate-setting meeting, the ministry also lowered its 2019 inflation forecast to 3.8% from 4.3% and revised its 2020 inflation assessment to 3.0% from 3.8%.    The central bank aims to keep inflation near its 4% target.
    The economy ministry now expects the rouble exchange rate to average 65.4 versus the U.S. dollar this year and 65.7 in 2020.    Previously, the ministry forecast the rouble to average 65.1 in 2019 and 64.9 in 2020.
    On Monday, the rouble hovered at around 66 against the greenback .
(Reporting by Darya Korsunskaya; Writing by Andrey Ostroukh; Editing by Peter Graff)

8/27/2019 Romanian government looks unlikely to survive confidence vote after it loses ally by Radu-Sorin Marinas
FILE PHOTO: Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dancila casts her vote during the European Parliament
Elections in Bucharest, Romania, May 26, 2019. Inquam Photos/Octav Ganea via REUTERS
    BUCHAREST (Reuters) – Romania’s Social Democrat (PSD) minority government may not survive an expected no-confidence vote next month after its sole potential partner said on Tuesday it would not lend support.
    Prime Minister Viorica Dancila’s government lost its majority on Monday after a junior ally, Liberal party ALDE, quit over policy, leaving the PSD vulnerable as the main opposition party said it planned to launch a no-confidence vote against the government after the summer recess.
    PSD officials said on Monday they would try to secure the backing of the ethnic Hungarian UDMR party, but the party ruled that out on Tuesday.
    “Our position is clear, we won’t back this PSD minority government.    We don’t have and won’t have any deal with PSD to help them stay afloat… There’s no logical reason to do that,” ethnic Hungarian UDMR party deputy Attila Korodi told Reuters.
    EU and U.S. authorities have strongly criticized the governing alliance for an overhaul of Romania’s judiciary that they say threatens the rule of law, and for watering down anti-graft legislation.
    Voters turned on the government in European parliament elections in May, with the PSD’s support almost halving while ALDE was unable to reach the threshold to enter the assembly.
    Korodi said the UDMR would back a government made up of opposition parties until the next general election in 2020.
    With 31 parliamentary seats, the UDMR could have ensured the PSD has a slim but functioning majority.    The PSD is now 25 seats short of a majority.
    Other smaller opposition parties have said they want to bring the government down and the biggest opposition party, the centrist National Liberal Party (PNL) said it was preparing to draft a no-confidence vote to try to topple the government.
    “We will be gathering signatures to back a censure motion as of next week,” said PNL president Ludovic Orban.    “We will file it once we garner 233 signatures, to be sure there’s a clear majority able to bring Dancila’s government down.”
    A government can be toppled if a majority of Romania’s 233 members of parliament vote to back the no-confidence motion.
    ALDE withdrew from the alliance two days after leader Calin Popescu Tariceanu lost a bid to become the sole pro-government candidate in a presidential election scheduled for November.
    The PSD instead picked its leader, Dancila, to challenge incumbent Klaus Iohannis.
    The Romanian leu was 0.2% down on the day, trading at 4.7325 against the euro.
(Editing by Susan Fenton)

8/27/2019 U.S. advisor Bolton arrives in Ukraine for talks
FILE PHOTO - U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton arrives for a meeting with Britain's Chancellor of the
Exchequer Sajid Javid at Downing Street in London, Britain, August 13, 2019. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls
    KIEV (Reuters) – John Bolton, U.S. President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, traveled to Kiev on Tuesday, the U.S. Embassy said, the first visit to Ukraine by a top U.S. official since the election of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
    Zelenskiy, a television sitcom star, was elected in a landslide in May and strengthened his power base at a parliamentary election last month.
    “Ambassador Bolton is here to underscore U.S. support for Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and Euro-Atlantic path.    He looks forward to productive meetings with Ukrainian officials,” the U.S. Embassy in Kiev wrote on Twitter.
(Reporting by Natalia Zinets; writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

8/27/2019 U.S. adviser Bolton to visit Belarus, meet Lukashenko
FILE PHOTO - U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton arrives for a meeting with Britain's Chancellor of the
Exchequer Sajid Javid at Downing Street in London, Britain, August 13, 2019. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – John Bolton, U.S. President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, will travel to Belarus and meet President Alexander Lukashenko, the presidential office said on Tuesday.
    The meeting will happen no earlier than Thursday and the date and format have not yet been finalised, the presidential office added.
(Reporting by Maria Vasilyeva; writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Andrew Heavens)

8/27/2019 Poland’s ruling party holds ground before October vote
Law and Justice (PiS) leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski speaks during an election meeting
in Stalowa Wola, Poland, August 18, 2019. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel
    WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland’s ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party would still win the largest number of seats in parliamentary elections scheduled for October, according to a poll released on Tuesday.
    A poll showed PiS with 41% support, just down from 42% on Jul. 26-27, while its main rival, the centrist Civic Platform (PO), was unchanged at 25%.    The leftist coalition Lewica rose 3 percentage points to 13%.
    The ruling party’s ability to form a governing coalition in such circumstances would depend on the mix of parties that got seats in the elections – the poll suggested a number of smaller groups would get through.
    Poland, the European Union’s biggest eastern member, will hold elections to the lower and upper houses of parliament on Oct. 13 after four years of PiS rule.
    The poll was conducted by pollster IBRiS for Dziennik Gazeta Prawna daily on Aug. 23-24.
(Reporting by Marcin Goclowski; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

8/27/2019 Russia, Turkey agree steps to tackle militants in Syria’s Idlib: Putin by Gleb Stolyarov
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan talk next to a Sukhoi Su-57 fighter jet as
they visit the MAKS 2019 air show in Zhukovsky, outside Moscow, Russia, August 27, 2019. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Russia and Turkey had agreed steps to tackle militants in northwest Syria and “normalize” the situation there after a Syrian army offensive encircled rebel fighters and a Turkish military post.
    Putin was speaking after talks in Moscow with President Tayyip Erdogan, who has said the Syrian army attacks in the Idlib region bordering Turkey have caused a humanitarian crisis and threaten Turkey’s national security.
    “Together with Turkey’s president we have outlined additional joint steps to neutralize the terrorists’ nests in Idlib and normalize the situation there and in the whole of Syria as a result,” Putin told a joint briefing with Erdogan.
    He did not mention Erdogan’s call for the Syrian army assault to be halted.
    Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, backed by Russian air power, have been waging an offensive in the Idlib region, the last remaining rebel-held territory in Syria.    Much of the region is controlled by jihadists linked to the former Nusra Front, which was linked to al Qaeda.
    Erdogan, standing alongside Putin, said it was unacceptable that Syrian forces were “raining death on civilians from the air and land under the pretence of battling terrorism.”
    He also said Turkey had the right to self-defense on its border.    “I conveyed our country’s determination on this matter personally to my dear friend Mr Putin,” Erdogan added.
    Syrian troops have encircled rebels and a Turkish military post in northwest Syria in an offensive to reclaim territory and towns the government lost early in the war.
    The military observation post near the town of Morek is one of 12 that Ankara established in northwest Syria under a deal with Moscow and Tehran two years ago to reduce fighting between Assad’s forces and rebels.
CLOSE TIES DESPITE SYRIA
    A senior Turkish official said ahead of the talks that Turkey expected Russia, as a powerful supporter of Assad, to take steps to “alleviate the problem.”
    Erdogan and Putin hold frequent talks and – despite the differences over Syria – have forged close ties focused on energy and defense cooperation.    In July, Turkey began taking delivery of Russian S-400 missile defense systems, a move that strained ties with Ankara’s NATO ally the United States.
    As the two leaders were meeting in Moscow, deliveries of the second battery of the S-400 system began.
    As well as putting Turkish troops in the region in the firing line, the advances of Assad’s forces have threatened Ankara’s hopes of preventing a fresh wave of refugees – including fighters – on its southern border.
    The United Nations says more than 500,000 people have been uprooted since the Syrian army began its offensive in late April, most of them escaping deeper into the rebel bastion and towards the border.    Turkey opened its border at the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011 and now hosts 3.6 million Syrian refugees.
    “The necessary measures need to be taken to prevent a migrant wave from there to Turkey.    Measures should be taken against any problems that may arise on this issue,” the official also said.
(Additional reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu and Orhan Coskun in Ankara; Editing by Gareth Jones; Writing by Dominic Evans)

8/27/2019 Russia delivers another S-400 battery to Turkey: Ifax
FILE PHOTO: Russian servicemen sit in the cabins of S-400 missile air defence systems in
Tverskaya Street before a rehearsal for the Victory Day parade, which marks the anniversary of the victory over
Nazi Germany in World War Two, in central Moscow, Russia April 29, 2019. REUTERS/Tatyana Makeyeva
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia delivered another battery of Russian S-400 missile defenses on Tuesday, Interfax news agency cited President Vladimir Putin as saying.
    “By the way, another delivery was made this morning,” Putin told Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who was on a visit to Russia.
    Turkey’s Defence Ministry said that the delivery of a second battery of S-400 defense system had started as of Tuesday and that it would take around one month.
(Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber in Moscow and Ezgi Erkoyun in Turkey; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Alison Williams)

8/27/2019 Poland’s ruling party has 41% support before October vote: Indicator
FILE PHOTO: Law and Justice (PiS) leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski speaks during an election
meeting in Stalowa Wola, Poland, August 18, 2019. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel
    WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland’s ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party still enjoys the highest support out of any grouping ahead of parliamentary elections in October, according to a poll released on Tuesday.
    The poll by Indicator showed PiS with 41.3% support, while its main rival, the centrist Civic Coalition, which includes Civic Platform (PO), was at 28.5%, a leftist bloc at 11.3% and the alliance of PSL/Kukiz’15 at 5.7%.
    The poll suggests no other parties would get through.    The ruling party’s ability to form a governing coalition in such circumstances would depend on the mix of parties that got seats in the elections.
    EU member Poland will hold elections to the lower and upper houses of parliament on Oct. 13 after four years of PiS rule.
    The poll was conducted by Indicator for public broadcaster TVP on August 24-26.
    A poll by Kantar taken last Thursday showed that PiS had lost 5 percentage points and the gap between it and the pro-democratic opposition was narrowing significantly.    It gave support for PiS at 39%, down from 44% on Aug. 13, while PO had 30%, up 3 points since mid-August.
    Below are the latest party polls (the newest at the top):
P’ster PiS PO Lewica PSL/Kukiz’15 Konfederacja
Indicator 41.3 28.5 11.3 5.7 3.1
IBRiS 41 25 13(+3) 6 5
Kantar 39(-5) 30(+3) 11 6(+2) 6(+1)
PiS – ruling Law and Justice party along with its two small satellite parties.
PO – Civic Platform along with small parties Nowoczesna and others.
Lewica – block of three leftist parties including post-communist SLD and progressive Wiosna.
PSL/Kukiz’15 – agrarian Polish Peasants’ Party and anti-system Kukiz’15 run by rock-star Pawel Kukiz acting together.
Konfederacja – block of far-right parties.
(Reporting by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk; Editing by Joanna Plucinska and Angus MacSwan)

8/27/2019 Russia flouted dead lawyer Magnitsky’s rights, says European court by Tom Balmforth
FILE PHOTO: Flowers lie near the grave of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in the Preobrazhensky
cemetery in Moscow March 11, 2013. REUTERS/Mikhail Voskresensky/File Photo
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Europe’s top human rights court rebuked Russia on Tuesday for multiple violations of the basic rights of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky who died in a Moscow prison in 2009 after complaining of mistreatment.
    Magnitsky, whose death became a cause celebre, received inadequate medical care in custody which led to his death, was ill-treated by prison guards and was held in over-crowded conditions, the European Court of Human Rights ruled.
    The court said the subsequent investigation into his death had been lacking, and ordered Russia to pay out 34,000 euros ($38,000) to Magnitsky’s widow and mother who took up his case at the court in Strasbourg after he died.
    The court rejected a complaint calling his arrest and detention ill-founded and said that authorities had reasonable grounds to suspect him of being involved in tax evasion.
    That suspicion, however, should not have been grounds to keep him in custody for more than a year, the court said, adding that it had been “inherently unfair” to continue proceedings after his death.
    Russia’s Justice Ministry said it was studying the ruling and would decide whether or not to appeal against it in the next three months, Interfax news agency reported.
    Magnitsky died in pre-trial detention in November 2009, having been charged with organizing tax evasion.    Russia later convicted him posthumously.
    Bill Browder, an investment fund manager who employed Magnitsky, led a campaign to expose corruption and punish Russian officials whom he blames for Magnitsky’s death.
    Russian prosecutors have said they suspected Browder of ordering a string of murders, including of Magnitsky, in a twist the financier dismissed as ludicrous.
    The United States passed a law known as the Magnitsky Act in 2012 under which it has imposed visa bans and asset freezes on Russian officials linked to the lawyer’s death.    Similar legislation has been passed in other European capitals.
    Browder on Tuesday said the European Court ruling was a “resounding victory” that “completely destroys the lies and propaganda about Sergei Magnitsky
($1 = 0.8973 euros)
(Editing by Ed Osmond)

8/27/2019 Norway nuclear monitor backtracks on theory of second Russia blast
FILE PHOTO: A view shows an entrance checkpoint of a military garrison located near the village
of Nyonoksa in Arkhangelsk Region, Russia October 7, 2018. REUTERS/Sergei Yakovlev
    OSLO (Reuters) – Reports of a second blast from a deadly Russian rocket engine test may be wrong, and the signals could stem from unrelated mining activity, the Norwegian monitor that first presented the double explosion theory said.
    Norsar, Norway’s nuclear test-ban monitor, last week said an Aug. 8 explosion that killed five Russian scientists was followed by a second blast two hours later, and that this was the likely source of a spike in radiation.
    The second explosion was detected by infrasonic air pressure sensors in the Norwegian town of Bardufoss, but further analysis, taking in additional data from Norway and Finland, pointed to a different explanation, Norsar said on its website.
    “The direction shows a small deviation of 1-2 degrees difference from the first event to the station in Bardufoss.
    Further analysis of the event with additional seismic data indicates that the event also may stem from mining activity in Finland
,” it added.
    The governor of Russia’s Arkhangelsk region, where the blast took place, has dismissed reports of another explosion.
    Russia’s state weather agency said on Monday it had found the radioactive isotopes of strontium, barium and lanthanum in test samples after the accident.
    President Vladimir Putin has said the mishap occurred during testing of what he called promising new weapons systems.
    U.S.-based nuclear experts believe the incident occurred during tests of a nuclear-powered cruise missile.
(Reporting by Terje Solsvik, editing by Ed Osmond)

8/28/2019 Ukraine frees jailed Russian journalist Vyshinsky on bail: TASS
FILE PHOTO - Kirill Vyshinsky, director of the Ukrainian office of the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, who was detained by
Security Service of Ukraine on treason charges in 2018, speaks during a court hearing in Kiev, Ukraine July 19, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Jailed Russian journalist Kirill Vyshinsky was freed from custody in Ukraine on Wednesday after a court ordered his release on bail, the TASS news agency reported.
    Vyshinsky, the head of Russia’s state-backed RIA Novosti news agency in Ukraine, was arrested last year and accused of supporting pro-Russian separatists.    Vyshinsky faces up to 15 years in jail if convicted of the charges.
(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Toby Chopra)

8/28/2019 Russia, Turkey discuss supply of Russian warplanes: RIA
FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan inspect
Sukhoi Su-57 fifth-generation fighter during the MAKS-2019 International Aviation and Space Salon in Zhukovsky
outside Moscow, Russia, August 27, 2019. Maxim Shipenkov/Pool via REUTERS
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia and Turkey are discussing the possibility of deliveries of the Russian-made Sukhoi Su-57 stealth fighter jet and Su-35 aircraft to Turkey, the RIA news agency cited a Russian official as saying on Wednesday.
    Russia began delivering S-400 missile systems to Turkey this year, in a step that strained ties with Ankara’s NATO allies and prompted Washington to begin removing Turkey from its program for manufacturing F-35 jets, which Turkey also planned to buy.
    The head of Russia’s Federal Service of Military-Technical Cooperation said he planned to discuss the S-400 missile defense system with a Turkish colleague later on Wednesday as well as “possibly deliveries of the Su-35 or Su-57.”
    “Much interest has been shown, it’s early to talk of contract negotiations, there hasn’t been an application yet, consultations have to take place,” Dmitry Shugaev, the official, was quoted as saying.
    President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that Turkey wants to continue defense industry cooperation with Russia, including on warplanes, following talks in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Louise Heavens and Hugh Lawson)

8/28/2019 Trump adviser Bolton tells Ukraine: Beware Chinese influence
FILE PHOTO: U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton arrives for a meeting with Britain's Chancellor of the
Exchequer Sajid Javid at Downing Street in London, Britain, August 13, 2019. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls
    KIEV (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s national security adviser told Ukraine on Wednesday to avoid being lured into China’s orbit by what he called Beijing’s “debt diplomacy” amid a Chinese move to buy a Ukrainian aerospace giant.
    The United States sees pro-Western Ukraine as an ally on the frontline of its geopolitical tussle with Russia, Kiev’s Soviet-era overlord, but Bolton used his two-day trip to warn of intellectual property theft by China and unfair trade practices.
    John Bolton’s warning to Ukraine comes as Washington is locked in a trade war with Beijing and has sounded the alarm over China’s rapid technological advances and the global clout of its technology giant Huawei [HWT.UL].
    Asked about a pending deal for China to acquire Ukrainian aircraft engine maker Motor Sich, Bolton told reporters he did not want to discuss specific transactions and that such deals were a sovereign matter for Kiev.
    But Bolton, who is the first senior U.S. official to visit Ukraine since President Volodymyr Zelenskiy swept to power in May, made clear that Washington disapproved of the deal.
    “We laid out our concerns about … unfair Chinese trade practices, threats to national security we’ve seen in the United States…” he said at a news conference in Kiev.
    The Chinese firm Beijing Skyrizon Aviation Industry Investment signed a deal in 2016 to acquire a stake in Motor Sich, although the deal was blocked by Ukrainian security services who opened an investigation into suspected sabotage.
    A series of court hearings were held, but the court ruled that the shares could be sold and a deal is now pending approval by Ukraine’s national anti-monopoly committee.
    Motor Sich was forced to sever ties with Russia, its biggest client, due to sanctions imposed by Kiev on Moscow to punish it for its 2014 annexation of Crimea and support for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
    The output of Motor Sich, which makes engines for both civil and defense planes and helicopters, fell 40 percent after it lost access to the Russian market.
    Bolton said he had an “outstanding” meeting with Zelenskiy, writing on Twitter that he was “very impressed by his commitment to real reform to benefit the Ukrainian people.”
    Zelenskiy, a former television comedy star, scored a landslide election victory in May and strengthened his power base in a parliamentary election last month.
    Bolton said he had also discussed the possibility of a meeting between Zelenskiy and Trump in Poland soon.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk in Kiev and Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow; Writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Andrew Osborn and Gareth Jones)

8/28/2019 Russia says new U.S. sanctions hurt prospects for bilateral ties: RIA
FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a news conference with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the
MAKS 2019 air show in Zhukovsky, outside Moscow, Russia, August 27, 2019. Sputnik/Aleksey Nikolskyi/Kremlin via REUTERS
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday a new round of sanctions imposed by the United States undermined the possibility of normalizing bilateral ties, RIA news agency reported.
    New U.S. sanctions against Russia linked to the poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia came into force on Monday.    Russia denies any role in the poisoning.
(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

8/28/2019 At least one killed in gas explosion in Ukraine
Members of emergency services work at the site of a partially collapsed apartment block after a gas explosion in the
town of Drohobych in Lviv region, Ukraine August 28, 2019. State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Handout via REUTERS
    KIEV (Reuters) – At least one person died and seven were injured after part of an apartment building collapsed in the western Ukrainian town of Drohobych, Ukrainian state emergencies service said on Wednesday.
    A gas explosion was the reason for the incident, the service said in a statement, adding that rescuers were searching for survivors.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Stephen Coates)

8/29/2019 Jailed Ukrainian filmmaker brought to Moscow amid prisoner swap talks: Russian media
FILE PHOTO - Barbed wire and placards with images of Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov
are seen after a rally demanding the release of Sentsov, who was jailed on terrorism charges and is currently on
hunger strike in Russian jail, in front of the Russian embassy in Kiev, Ukraine August 21, 2018. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia has transferred jailed Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov from a remote Arctic prison to custody in Moscow amid talks with Kiev on a possible prisoner swap, news agencies TASS and Interfax cited unnamed sources as saying on Thursday.
    A native of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula who opposed the region’s annexation by Russia in 2014, Sentsov says his original conviction was politically motivated. He was jailed in 2015 on terrorism charges that he denied.
    The reports came a day after a court in Ukraine ordered the release on bail of Russian journalist Kirill Vyshinsky, who was arrested last year and accused of supporting pro-Russian separatists, charges that could see him jailed for 15 years.
    Commenting on the reports of Sentsov’s transfer, Viktor Medvedchuk, a close Kremlin ally, said talks on a prisoner swap between Ukraine and Russia were still underway, but that no date had been set for an exchange, RIA news agency reported.
    Medvedchuk, 64, the main face of Ukraine’s Russia-friendly opposition, also said that no final decision had been made on whether such an exchange would include Sentsov.
    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said last month that Kiev could release Vyshinsky if Moscow freed Sentsov.
    There was no immediate comment from Russia’s national prison service on Thursday’s reports.
(Reporting by Maxim Rodionov; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

8/29/2019 Trump may block $250 million in aid to Ukraine: officials
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump waves as he boards Air Force One upon departure
after the G7 summit in Biarritz, France, August 26, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House is reviewing whether $250 million in military assistance should be sent to Ukraine in keeping with President Donald Trump’s view that U.S. foreign aid must be justified, two senior administration officials said on Thursday.
    The money is intended for use by Ukraine in its struggle with pro-Russian separatists backed by Moscow.
    “The president has made no secret when it comes to foreign assistance that U.S. interests abroad should be prioritized and other foreign countries should also be paying their fair share,” said one of the officials, who shared details of the plan on condition of anonymity.
    The officials said chances are the money will be allocated as usual but that the determination will not be made until a policy review is completed and Trump makes a final decision.    The federal fiscal year ends on Sept. 30.
    “Agencies are under no restrictions from preparing to obligate those funds, and agencies still have adequate time to obligate those funds prior to the end of the fiscal year,” the official said.
    Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014.
(Reporting by Steve Holland, Lisa Lambert and David Alexander; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Howard Goller and Jonathan Oatis)

8/29/2019 Wakeboarder, wrestler, dentist: novices of Ukraine’s new ruling party take over parliament by Margaryta Chornokondratenko and Pavel Polityuk
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy addresses lawmakers during the first session of
newly-elected parliament in Kiev, Ukraine August 29, 2019. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich
    KIEV (Reuters) – A wakeboarder, a wrestler and a dentist were among 254 lawmakers from President Volodymyr’s party who took up their seats as the new majority in the Ukrainian parliament on Thursday — not one of whom has ever worked there before.
    Zelenskiy, himself a former comedian, recruited fellow political novices to run as candidates for his Servant of the People party, which won an outright majority in the 450-seat parliament in July.
    “It’s like standing in front of a ski slope, in front of something unknown,” said lawmaker Dmytro Nalotov, 34, who used to make his living in extreme sports as a wakeboarder, mountain biker and snowboard instructor.
    “I am a new person in this field and I don’t know what I will face.    According to rumors, there are many risky moments, so of course there are similarities.”
    He won his parliamentary seat by beating a former mayor and a lawmaker by a huge margin in Poltava in central Ukraine.
    “I want to end the era when lawmakers are celestial bodies, and begin the era when they are ordinary people, who live among ordinary people and do everything for ordinary people,” he said after the ceremonial first meeting of the new parliament.
    Other new lawmakers include a dentist, a primary school teacher, a wedding photographer, several previously unemployed people, an interior designer, and a wrestler.
    Zelenskiy, who came to fame in a TV sitcom playing the part of a schoolteacher who becomes president, defeated incumbent Petro Poroshenko in a landslide presidential election earlier this year.
    He immediately called a parliamentary election to replace a chamber dominated by Poroshenko’s supporters.    His new party’s outright majority makes Zelenskiy the first president in Ukraine’s 28-year independent history not to need a coalition to form a cabinet.
    Expectations that Zelenskiy and his party can deliver change fast are running high.
    In particular, many Ukrainians hope he can make real progress fighting corruption and bring peace to the east, where more than 13,000 people have already been killed in a five-year conflict with Russian-backed separatists.
    “The extent of people’s trust is even a little scary because everyone expects quick, almost instant changes,” said Nalotov, while exercising in a sports park in Kiev.
    “I don’t think everything will happen as fast as they want.”
    According to an August survey, the number of Ukrainians who believe that the country’s current difficulties will be overcome in the next few years has risen to 48 percent from just 17 percent in 2016.
    Analysts say a failure to deliver quick changes could hurt Zelenskiy’s rating and that of his party, but Nalotov says he is confident of a positive result even if it takes longer than people expect.
    “As always and in any extreme sport you are approaching something which at first seems impossible, unrealistic, and very difficult,” he said.
    “I think (in politics) it is very similar.    We will look around, we all have good motives…so I think we will succeed.”
(Editing by Andrew Osborn and Peter Graff)

8/29/2019 Trump adviser says he’ll warn leader of Belarus about Russian threat
Belarus' President Alexander Lukashenko meets with U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton
in Minsk, Belarus August 29, 2019. Nikolai Petrov/BelTA/Handout via REUTERS
    CHISINAU (Reuters) – U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton said on Thursday he planned to use a trip to Belarus to warn its leader, President Alexander Lukashenko, of the security threat posed by Russia.
    Bolton will be the most senior U.S. official in years to visit Belarus, a move that comes as Moscow and Minsk are moving to closer integrate their countries as part of a union state project that has fueled fears of a quiet annexation by Moscow.
    Russia views Belarus as a buffer between its western border and Europe as ties with the West have sunk to post-Cold War lows, but it denies there is anything untoward going on with its union state project and says Belarus is a close and valued ally.
    Speaking to reporters in Moldova on Thursday, Bolton said “…we thought that in light of the things we’ve heard from Moscow that it’s important to go to Belarus and talk about their sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
    Bolton made the comments in Chisinau following talks there with Prime Minister Maia Sandu who came to power in June and has said she wants to free Moldova from an oligarchic system that has dogged the country since independence from Moscow in 1991.
    “I can say on behalf of the U.S. government we wish you and the new government here all the best wishes for your anti-corruption campaign, which is extremely important for potential U.S investors…” Bolton said.
    Moldova, sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine, is one of Europe’s poorest countries.    The former Soviet republic of 3.5 million people has long been on the front lines of geopolitical rivalry between the European Union and Russia.
(Reporting by Alexander Tanas; writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Toby Chopra)

8/29/2019 Political novice Honcharuk appointed Ukraine PM, to focus on economy by Pavel Polityuk and Natalia Zinets
Oleksiy Honcharuk, Ukrainian politician nominated to become new Prime Minister, addresses lawmakers during the
first session of newly-elected parliament in Kiev, Ukraine August 29, 2019. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich
    KIEV (Reuters) – Political novice and presidential protege Oleksiy Honcharuk was appointed as Ukraine’s prime minister on Thursday and said economic reforms aimed at accelerating growth would be the focus of his premiership.
    Lawmakers reconvening after a national election in July ratified the 35-year-old lawyer’s nomination, presented earlier in the day by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.    He had warned the legislature that it risked being dissolved if it dragged its feet over reforms.
    Deputies also appointed lawyer and activist Andriy Zahorodnyuk as defense minister.
    Honcharuk became a deputy head of Zelenskiy’s office in May, having previously led a non-governmental organization focused on economic reform and worked as an adviser to the Ecology Ministry.    He ran for parliament in 2014 but did not get elected.
    “This government is facing the task of accelerating economic growth,” Honcharuk told lawmakers.
    “We need to grow, but to grow not by 2-3%, but minimum by 5-7%,” he said, adding that speed and successful economic reforms would be the focus of his cabinet.
    Later on Thursday, the parliament voted for a new government in which Finance Minister Oksana Markarova retained her post.
    Since 2015, Markarova worked as deputy finance minister and last year she took the post of minister and negotiator with the International Monetary Fund.
    Honcharuk said that Ukraine would continue to cooperate with the IMF and start talks over a new program – which would replace an existing $3.9 billion standby deal – in a few weeks.
    The IMF helped the economy recover from a sharp recession and currency crash following the outbreak of hostilities between the government and pro-Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine in 2014.
    Separately, two senior administration officials said the White House was reviewing whether $250 million in military assistance should be sent to Ukraine in keeping with U.S. President Donald Trump’s view that foreign aid must be justified.
    The money is intended for use by Ukraine in its struggle with pro-Russian separatists backed by Moscow.
‘DO NOT ENGAGE IN POPULISM’
    Zelenskiy, a comedian-turned-politician, became president in April in a landslide election win that transformed Ukraine’s political landscape.
    His party, Servant of the People, won 254 of 450 seats in parliamentary elections in July, the first time a ruling president’s party has won an absolute majority in the legislature and the right to independently form a government.
    On Thursday he cautioned lawmakers that he could dissolve the chamber if he saw no progress.
    “I’m very glad that we have a parliament that is really ready to work,” he told the parliament.
    “(But) do not engage in populism, and not overwhelm important decisions with thousands of meaningless amendments, but implement the real reforms that the citizens of Ukraine and the entire civilized world are tired of waiting for.”
    Volodymyr Fesenko, an analyst with Kiev-based think tank Penta, called Zelenskiy’s government “the most liberal … in the history of Ukraine,” adding that reforms were expected to intensify.
    Zelenskiy nominated former Ukrainian ambassador to NATO Vadym Prystaiko as foreign minister.
    Late on Thursday, supporting Zelenskiy’s suggestions, parliament also appointed Ivan Bakanov as head of Security Service (SBU) and Ruslan Ryaboshapka as prosecutor general.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk and Natalia Zinets; Editing by Toby Chopra, John Stonestreet and Lisa Shumaker)

8/30/2019 Ukraine president’s office says no prisoner swap with Russia yet
FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov looks on from a defendants' cage as he attends a
court hearing in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, August 25, 2015. REUTERS/Sergey Pivovarov/File Photo
    KIEV (Reuters) – The office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday said no prisoner swap had taken place with Russia yet and the process was ongoing, after an earlier Facebook post by Ukraine’s general prosecutor suggested a swap had been completed.
    Ukraine is hoping to secure the release of dozens of prisoners, including 24 sailors who were detained by Russia in the Kerch Strait last year, and filmmaker Oleg Sentsov.
    “The process of the prisoner swap is ongoing.    Information that it has been completed is untrue,” the president’s office said in a statement.    Russia’s Interfax news agency also cited a source in Moscow denying that an exchange had taken place.
    Ukraine’s general prosecutor had earlier reposted a comment on Facebook that the sailors and Sentsov were flying back from Russia after a prisoner swap had been completed.
    Russia had transferred Sentsov from a remote Arctic prison to custody in Moscow amid talks with Kiev on a possible prisoner swap, news agencies TASS and Interfax reported on Thursday.
    A Ukrainian court also freed a senior Russian journalist accused of supporting pro-Russian separatists.
    Securing a prisoner swap would be a win for Zelenskiy, who became president this year promising to bring an end to the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
    Ukrainian troops have been battling Russian-backed forces in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine since 2014, in a conflict that has claimed more than 13,000 lives. Sporadic fighting continues despite a ceasefire agreement.
    Russia is holding dozens of Ukrainian captives from the conflict.    Oleksandr Danylyuk, a top Ukrainian security official, told Ukrainian media he hoped the prisoner swap might happen on Friday, but added:
    “We have to wait for the exchange and then comment.”
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Michael Perry and Hugh Lawson)

8/30/2019 Location for additional U.S. troops in Poland already agreed: minister
Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak speaks during U.S. Vice President Mike Pence's
arrival in Warsaw, Poland, February 13, 2019. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel
    WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland has agreed with the United States where additional U.S. troops will be deployed on its soil, Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said on Friday, a day after President Donald Trump canceled a trip to Warsaw as a hurricane headed toward Florida.
    Trump called off his weekend trip due to the hurricane, with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence to take his place at events in Poland to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the start of World War Two.
    Military declarations were expected during Trump’s visit, but Blaszczak said some agreements had already been made, without going into details.
    “We are prepared to tell the public the agreed information regarding places where soldiers will be stationed,” he told state radio, although he did not name any locations.
    Poland’s opposition had said the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party wanted to use Trump’s visit as a tool in its campaign ahead of Oct. 13 parliamentary elections.
    In June, Poland signed a deal to increase the American military presence on its soil to counter Russia’s growing assertiveness since its 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
    Poland has a border in the northeast with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, where Moscow has deployed advanced nuclear-capable Iskander missiles.
    The military deal signed in June will increase the number of non-permanent American troops in Poland by 1,000.    There are on average about 4,500 U.S. troops in Poland on rotation as part of NATO forces.
    Apart from declarations about military cooperation, some analysts had expected Trump to comment on energy and technology cooperation, and possibly on easing U.S. visa requirements for Poles.
    An aide to Polish President Andrzej Duda said on Thursday that Trump may visit in the coming months.
    “Probably some part of the declarations, which only the U.S. president can make, will be delayed (…) and probably some of the declarations will wait for his visit to Warsaw,” minister at Polish president’s chancellery Krzysztof Szczerski told public radio.
    He did not reply directly to questions about relaxing the visa regime, saying only that there are talks about Polish-US “cooperation.”
(Reporting by Marcin Goclowski; additional reporting by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

8/30/2019 Estonian PM survives no-confidence vote
FILE PHOTO: Estonia's Prime Minister Juri Ratas leaves after a meeting with Britain's Prime Minister
Boris Johnson at Downing Street in London, Britain, August 6, 2019. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls
    TALLINN (Reuters) – Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas survived a no-confidence vote in parliament on Friday called by the opposition after a minister from his junior coalition partner, the far-right EKRE party, tried to fire the head of the police force.
    Ratas, whose three-party coalition has held power for just four months, was supported by 55 lawmakers, compared with 40 who voted against him.    The motion had been expected to fail as the government has 56 seats in the 101-seat parliament.
    The vote was called by the Reform party, the biggest opposition group, after Finance Minister Martin Helme of EKRE tried to fire Estonia’s top policeman over a row about funding.
    Despite the row, Ratas said he still had confidence in all his ministers.
    “We have had a number of tough moments between coalition partners, but I assume all governments have had them,” he said.
    The Reform Party won the March elections, but was left out of the cabinet when Ratas’ Center cut a deal with EKRE and the conservative Fatherland to form the coalition.
    Reform leader Kaja Kallas accused Ratas of being unable to control his government.
    “After the new government took over, the prime minister has 14 times had to condemn the acts of its coalition partner, to apologize for them, or to explain that their words are not true, or are not the government’s position,” she said.
(Reporting by Tarmo Virki; Editing by Simon Johnson and Hugh Lawson)

8/30/2019 Warsaw, Washington agree on locations for new U.S. troops in Poland: minister by Marcin Goclowski
FILE PHOTO: Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak attends the signing ceremony for a deal to buy High Mobility Artillery Rocket
System (HIMARS) launchers, during U.S. Vice President Mike Pence's visit in Warsaw, Poland, February 13, 2019. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel
    WARSAW (Reuters) – Warsaw and Washington have agreed on six locations for new U.S. troops to be stationed in Poland, the country’s Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said on Friday, a day after Donald Trump canceled a trip to the eastern European nation.
    Trump called off his weekend trip due to a hurricane bearing down on Florida, with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence to take his place at events in Poland to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the start of World War Two.
    “We have agreed on six locations, we talked about a seventh location,” Blaszczak said later at a joint news conference with U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton, who has come to Poland for the anniversary.
    In June, Poland signed a deal to increase the American military presence on its soil to counter Russia’s growing assertiveness since its 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
    Poland has a border in the northeast with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, where Moscow has deployed advanced nuclear-capable Iskander missiles.
    The military deal signed in June will increase the number of non-permanent U.S. troops in Poland by 1,000.    There are on average about 4,500 U.S. troops in Poland on rotation as part of NATO forces.
    “Poland has been an outstanding partner of the U.S. and NATO, spending more than 2% of GDP on defense,” Bolton told the conference.    He added that Trump’s visit will be rescheduled as soon as possible.
    Apart from declarations about military cooperation, some analysts had expected Trump to comment on energy and technology cooperation, and possibly on easing U.S. visa requirements for Poles.
    An aide to Polish President Andrzej Duda said on Thursday that Trump may visit in the coming months.
    “Probably some part of the declarations, which only the U.S. president can make, will be delayed (…) and probably some of the declarations will wait for his visit to Warsaw,” minister at Polish president’s chancellery Krzysztof Szczerski told public radio.     He did not reply directly to questions about relaxing the visa regime, saying only that there are talks about Polish-US “cooperation.”
(Reporting by Marcin Goclowski; additional reporting by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

8/30/2019 EU ministers ‘more positive’ over West Balkan membership talks: Finnish FM
FILE PHOTO: Finnish Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto speaks to media while arriving to the informal meeting
of EU foreign ministers in Helsinki, Finland August 29, 2019. Lehtikuva/Markku Ulander/via REUTERS
    HELSINKI (Reuters) – Finland’s foreign minister said on Friday his EU colleagues were increasingly hopeful they could eventually move towards membership talks with North Macedonia and Albania, though he gave no timeline.
    Pekka Haavisto spoke after meeting his EU counterparts in Helsinki to discuss, among other issues, the membership ambitions of the two West Balkan countries which have been held up by delays and opposition from some states.
    “In my opinion, there were more positive expectations in the air that at some point we could proceed to talks with North Macedonia and Albania,” Haavisto told reporters, without saying who had expressed greater optimism.
    Macedonia, a former Yugoslav republic, changed its name to North Macedonia this year, ending a more than two decade dispute with Greece and removing an obstacle to its membership of the EU and NATO.
    But some EU states have said Albania needs to do more to tackle organized crime and corruption and strengthen the rule of law.
    Earlier on Friday, the European Union’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini declined to comment on which states supported moving forward on the membership talks and which were opposed.
    “I’ve seen today an even stronger support and determination and awareness among member states on the strategic importance for the European Union to be consistent on the next steps of the enlargement process,” Mogherini said.
(Reporting by Anne Kauranen; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Andrew Heavens)

8/31/2019 Russians demand free elections in Moscow, defying protest ban
People attend a rally to demand authorities allow opposition candidates to run in the upcoming local election and release
protesters, who were detained during recent demonstrations, in Moscow, Russia August 31, 2019. REUTERS/Tatyana Makeyeva
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – A few thousand Russians took to the streets of central Moscow on Saturday to demand free elections to the capital’s city legislature on Sept. 8, defying a ban which has been enforced with violent detentions during previous protests.
    Weeks of demonstrations over elections for the city legislature have turned into the biggest sustained protest movement in Russia since 2011-2013, when protesters took to the streets against perceived electoral fraud.
    Chanting “Russia will be free!” and “This is our city!,” protesters marched through one of Moscow’s thoroughfares.    Reuters witnesses estimated their number at a few thousand, while Moscow police said only 750 attended the event, which has not been sanctioned by the government, making it illegal.
    The demonstrators have been demanding that opposition candidates be allowed to stand in the election.    Around 30 of them – mostly running as independents – have been dropped from the race by the election commission which said they had too many fake voter signatures.
    The city council is dominated by President Vladimir Putin’s allies.
    Protesters are now also calling for the release of activists detained over earlier rallies, and opposition activist Lyubov Sobol on Saturday described the arrests as “mayhem” blaming it on the city government and Putin’s office.
    “Sobyanin must resign,” she said at the rally, referring to Moscow mayor and Putin ally Sergei Sobyanin.
    The Kremlin has shrugged off the protests as insignificant, but supported the heavy-handed police response.    Russia’s state communications watchdog this month asked Google to stop advertising “illegal mass events” on its YouTube video platform.
    Although the protests have failed to achieve their main objective, those who showed up on Saturday said they were important as an expression of further civil resistance.
    “If we stop going out (and protesting) there will be no hope left at all,” said protester Alexandra Rossius, 23.
    “We must show the authorities we are not just going to give up and accept the fact that innocent people are being jailed and elections are being stolen.”
    Artyom, a 16-year-old school student, said it was “indignation and fear” that brought him to the rally.
    “I do not want … to have my legs broken, to be killed, to be thrown in prison,” he said.    “The authorities are refusing to compromise, they have started dispersing people, throwing them in jail.    I think this is unacceptable.”
    Saturday’s protest, the last before the vote, was smaller than some of the previous ones attended by tens of thousands of people.
    Although police asked the protesters through loudspeakers to disperse, they made no attempt to detain them.
(Reporting by Maria Tsvetkova and Polina Ivanova; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Clelia Oziel)

8/31/2019 U.S. likely to toughen sanctions on Russia: secretary Perry
U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry speaks during a news conference in Jerusalem July 22, 2019. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
    WARSAW (Reuters) – U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said on Saturday that Washington will most likely continue to toughen sanctions on Russia after its annexation of Ukraine’s territory of Crimea in 2014.
    Perry was speaking in Warsaw after meeting with Polish and Ukrainian politicians.
(Reporting by Agnieszka Barteczko; Writing by Marcin Goclowski; Editing by Justyna Pawlak)

8/31/2019 Poland wants sanctions against Russia over Crimea to continue
FILE PHOTO: President of Poland Andrzej Duda speaks during a news conference after the Brdo-Brijuni
Process Leaders' Meeting in Tirana, Albania May 9, 2019. REUTERS/Florion Goga/File Photo
    WARSAW (Reuters) – President Andrzej Duda said on Saturday that Poland saw a need to maintain Western sanctions against Russia over its 2014 annexation of the Crimea region from Ukraine.
    He also said Ukraine should have closer relations with the European Union and the NATO military alliance.
    The EU and the United States have both imposed sanctions on Russia over its role in the Ukraine conflict.
    U.S. President Donald Trump has said it would be appropriate to have Russia rejoin what used to be the G8 group of advanced economies, from which Russia was excluded in 2014 over Crimea’s annexation and for backing pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine.
    But the European Council president on Aug. 24 rebuffed Trump’s suggestion, saying there were even more reasons than before for keeping Moscow out.
(Reporting by Alan Charlish; Writing by Marcin Goclowski; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

9/1/2019 Anger over alleged Moscow election tampering spurs protest
    MOSCOW – Thousands of people protested the exclusion of candidates from a coming election Saturday, but riot police did not swoop in to make mass arrests or administer beatings as at earlier demonstrations.    Some marchers on Saturday also demanded freedom for political prisoners: 14 people arrested in earlier protests face charges that could send them to prison for up to eight years.    Only traffic police lined the route to Pushkin Square, rather than the phalanxes of truncheon-wielding officers at earlier rallies.

9/1/2019 Poland marks 80th anniversary of start of World War Two by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk and Pawel Goraj
Officials, including Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, head of the Constitution
Tribunal Julia Przylebska and Law and Justice (PiS) leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, attend a commemorative ceremony to mark the 80th
anniversary of the outbreak of World War Two in Warsaw, Poland September 1, 2019. Dawid Zuchowicz/Agencja Gazeta via REUTERS
    WARSAW/GDANSK, Poland (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence joined local leaders on Sunday to commemorate 80 years since the start of World War Two in Poland, where the conflict is still a live political issue.
    Few places saw death and destruction on the scale of Poland. It lost about a fifth of its population, including the vast majority of its 3 million Jewish citizens.
    After the war, its shattered capital of Warsaw had to rise again from ruins and Poland remained under Soviet domination until 1989.
    Ceremonies began at 4:30 a.m. (0230 GMT) in the small town of Wielun, site of one of the first bombings of the war on Sept. 1, 1939, with speeches by Polish President Andrzej Duda and his German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
    Parallel events, attended by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and European Commission deputy chief Frans Timmermans, were held in the coastal city of Gdansk, site of one of the first battles of the war.
    Morawiecki spoke of the huge material, spiritual, economic and financial losses Poland suffered in the war.
    “We need to talk about those losses, we need to remember, we need to demand truth and demand compensation,” Morawiecki said.
    For Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, the memory of the war is a major plank of its “historical politics,” aiming to counteract what it calls the West’s lack of appreciation for Polish suffering and bravery under Nazi occupation.
    PiS politicians have also repeatedly called for war reparations from Germany, one of Poland’s biggest trade partners and a fellow member of the European Union and NATO. Berlin says all financial claims linked to World War Two have been settled.
    Critics say the party’s ambition is to fan nationalism among voters at a time when populists around the world are tapping into historical revisionism. PiS says the country’s standing on the global stage and national security are at stake.
    Articles paid for by a foundation funded by state companies, showing Poland’s experience in the war, appeared in major newspapers across Europe and the United States over the weekend.
    The Polish National Foundation also paid for supplements in some papers consisting of a copy of their front pages from Sept. 2, 1939, that highlighted the German army’s attack on Poland.
APPORTIONING BLAME, COST
    Wartime remembrance has become a campaign theme ahead of a national election due on Oct. 13, with PiS accusing the opposition of failing to protect Poland’s image.
    “Often, we are faced with substantial ignorance when it comes to historical policy … or simply ill will,” Jaroslaw Sellin, deputy culture minister, told Reuters.
    Merkel and Pence, who arrived on Sunday after President Donald Trump abruptly canceled a planned trip due to a hurricane, called it an honor to participate in events later in the day in Warsaw.
    “We look forward to celebrating the extraordinary character and courage and resilience and dedication to freedom of the Polish people and it will be my great honor to be able to speak to them,” Pence said.
    The cancellation of Trump’s visit is a disappointment to the PiS government, which is seen as one of Washington’s closest allies in Europe.    Polish and U.S. officials have said another visit could be scheduled in the near future.
    For PiS, a high-profile visit by Trump would serve as a counterargument to critics who say the country is increasingly isolated under its rule because of accusations by Western EU members that it is breaching democratic norms.
    Opinion polls show PiS is likely to win the October ballot.    The party’s ambition is to galvanize voters and disprove critics by winning a majority that would allow it to change the constitution.
    PiS agrees with the Trump administration on a range of issues including migration, energy and abortion.
(Reporting by Alexandra Alper, Goclowski, Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk, Joanna Plucinska, Justyna Pawlak and Alicja Ptak in Warsaw and Pawel Goraj in Gdansk; Editing by Stephen Powell and Dale Hudson)

9/1/2019 U.S. still strongly supports Ukraine’s Crimea claim: Pence
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence delivers a speech during a commemorative ceremony to mark the 80th anniversary of the
outbreak of World War Two in Warsaw, Poland September 1, 2019. Slawomir Kaminski/Agencja Gazeta via REUTERS
    WARSAW (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Mike Pence reassured Ukraine on Sunday that Washington continues to back its claim for Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, even as U.S. President Donald Trump mulls cutting aid to the European nation.
    Speaking ahead of a bilateral meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Warsaw, Pence did not address reports that Trump is considering cutting $250 million in military assistance to the country.    However, he said the two countries’ relationship has never been stronger.
    “We will continue to stand with the people of Ukraine on your security, on territorial integrity, including Ukraine’s rightful claim in Crimea.”
    Washington is a key ally for Kiev, having imposed sanctions on Russia for annexing Crimea and backing pro-Moscow separatists in Ukraine’s east.
    But Trump, who enjoys close ties to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, thinks all aid money should be justified and is mulling the move ahead of a September 30 fiscal deadline.
    Last month, he dropped a bid to slash billions of dollars in foreign aid, after an outcry from Congress about what was seen as an attempt to sidestep lawmakers’ authority over government spending. nL2N25I12L
    Pence’s vote of confidence echoes comments by National Security Advisor John Bolton, who met with Zelenskiy in Kiev last week and said restoring Ukrainian sovereignty over the Crimea and the Donbass region was discussed.
    The Donbass conflict between Ukrainian troops and Russian-backed separatist forces has killed 13,000 people in the past five years.
    Pence and Zelenskiy were in Warsaw for commemoration to mark the 80th anniversary of the start of World War Two.
(Reporting by Alexandra Alper, writing by Justyna Pawlak and Nick Zieminski)

9/2/2019 Czech attorney drops fraud case against PM Babis: newspaper
FILE PHOTO: Czech Republic's Prime Minister Andrej Babis arrives to take part in a European Union
leaders summit, in Brussels, Belgium July 2, 2019. REUTERS/Piroschka Van De Wouw/File Photo
    PRAGUE (Reuters) – A Czech state attorney has halted a fraud investigation against Prime Minister Andrej Babis, the newspaper Denik N reported on Monday, citing two sources with knowledge of the decision.
    Babis is charged with securing a 2 million euro ($2.2 million) EU development subsidy illegally to build a conference center outside Prague a decade ago, before entering politics.
    His populist ANO party, which won an election in 2017 and remains by far the most popular political group, has found it hard to build a ruling coalition as most opposition parties have refused to cooperate while Babis faces charges.
    ANO’s minority coalition with the center-left Social Democrats relies on support in parliament from the pro-Russian Communist party.
    A spokesman for the state attorney’s office said the attorney who had been overseeing the case for four years had “submitted his final decision in the case, in which he changed his legal opinion
    But he declined to provide further details, except to say that “a senior state attorney will now revise the decision to determine whether the change is legal and justified.”
    Babis, who turned 65 on Monday, told Reuters in a text message that he would not comment because he did not know the substance of the decision.
    He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and said the investigation is politically motivated.
    Agrofert, the chemicals, farming, food and media group that Babis has built since the 1990s, returned the subsidy provided to the Stork’s Nest conference center after the EU’s auditing body, OLAF, found irregularities in the case.
    Babis, his wife and two adult children were charged with fraud in 2017 for allegedly illegally manipulating the ownership of the firm to get the subsidy, which was intended for smaller businesses.
    Under the Czech legal system, police charge a suspect on the basis of initial findings, then complete evidence gathering and hand the case to the state attorney, who decides whether or not to bring the case to trial.
    Babis transferred ownership of Agrofert to two trust funds in 2017 to comply with a law on conflict of interest.
    Apart from the criminal investigation, Babis faces an audit from the EU, which has reached a preliminary conclusion that he remained in conflict of interest despite moving the ownership of Agrofert.
    A confirmation of that finding could strip Agrofert of some past and future subsidies, an important source of income, especially for its farming division.
(Reporting by Robert Muller and Jan Lopatka; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

9/2/2019 Ukraine president plans land reform, large privatizations
FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy addresses lawmakers during the first session
of newly-elected parliament in Kiev, Ukraine August 29, 2019. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich
    KIEV (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy ordered his government to submit a draft law for land market reform by the start of October and to prepare large scale privatizations of state companies, which would start in April next year.
    Zelenskiy has pledged to lift a longstanding ban on the sale of farmland, a move that supporters say will unlock enormous opportunities for investment in the agriculture sector of one of the world’s largest grain exporters.
(Reporting by Natalia Zinets; Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Peter Graff)

9/2/2019 U.S. Vice President Pence calls for vigilance about Russia by Justyna Pawlak and Alexandra Alper
Polish President Andrzej Duda and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence speak during a press conference
in Warsaw, Poland September 2, 2019. Slawomir Kaminski/Agencja Gazeta via REUTERS
    WARSAW (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Mike Pence sought on Monday to reassure Poland about Washington’s commitment to protecting it from Russia, saying allies should “remain vigilant” about Moscow’s election meddling and work towards independence from Russian energy supplies.
    In Warsaw for a two-day visit, Pence spoke days after President Donald Trump drew disagreement from U.S. allies by calling for Russia to be readmitted to the Group of Seven advanced industrialized countries.
    “With its efforts to meddle in elections across Europe and around the world now is the time for us to remain vigilant about the intentions and the actions being taken by Russia,” Pence said.
    Trump’s call at a G7 summit last month for Russia to be allowed to return to the group was rejected by other members.
    Asked about the issue, Polish President Andrzej Duda said Moscow’s actions in Ukraine raised a question over whether relations with the country should amount to “business as usual.”
    “Unfortunately, over the last several years, Russia has taken actions which cannot be ignored by anyone who respects international law,” he told a joint news conference with Pence.
    “In this context we need to ask ourselves whether this means we can approach Russia in a business as usual way.”
    Poland is seen as one of Washington’s closest allies in Europe and counts on the United States for support, seeing eye on to eye on issues such as climate change, energy and abortion.
    The U.S. administration has agreed to increase its military presence on Polish soil, because of nervousness in Warsaw following Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
    “We know there is still more work to do on many fronts, because despite years of negotiations Russian forces still illegally occupy large parts of Georgia and Ukraine,” Pence told the news conference.
    “The truth is Moscow seeks to divide our alliance, now with its oil and gas reserves.    Poland has taken a strong stand as we have to promote energy independence and security.”
    Pence was visiting Warsaw on a trip that was originally scheduled to be by Trump, to commemorate 80 years since the start of World War Two on Sept. 1, 1939.    Trump pulled out last week because of the impending hit by Hurricane Dorian.
    Pence also signed a cooperation agreement with Poland aimed at making mobile networks immune from espionage.    The United States is pressing allies to ban China’s Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, the world’s top telecommunications equipment supplier, from 5G networks.
    The U.S. government says Huawei is able to spy on customers, has violated U.S. sanctions on Iran and stolen American intellectual property.    Huawei denies the allegations.
(Reporting by Justyna Pawlak, Agnieszka Barteczko and Alexandra Alper; Editing by Frances Kerry)

9/3/2013 Russia jails blogger for Tweet, charges Kremlin critics over protests by Tom Balmforth and Andrew Osborn
FILE PHOTO: Russian journalist Ilya Azar delivers a speech during a rally to demand authorities allow opposition candidates
to run in the upcoming local election in Moscow, Russia August 10, 2019. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Russian court sentenced a blogger to five years in jail on Tuesday after convicting him of inciting violence against the children of police officers, and charged two Kremlin critics with organizing an illegal protest.
    The court action follows a summer of opposition protests demanding free elections to Moscow’s city legislature on Sept. 8, the biggest sustained protest movement in the Russian capital since 2011-2013.
    Protesters have demanded that a slew of opposition-minded candidates be allowed to take part in the election, something the authorities have refused citing a lack of necessary signatures in their support.    The opposition contests this.
    The authorities have allowed some opposition protests, but declined to sanction others.    Police have briefly detained more than 2,000 people at various rallies since mid July, opened criminal cases into a dozen people over mass unrest and handed down short jail terms to scores of activists.
    Up to 60,000 people attended an authorized protest on Aug. 10 in Moscow, which a monitoring group called the country’s biggest political protest for eight years.    But an unauthorized protest last weekend attracted only a few thousand.
    On Tuesday, a Moscow court found blogger Vladislav Sinitsa guilty of extremism after he wrote a Twitter post on July 31 that suggested that police officers who used violence against protesters might find their children targeted.
    At least one police officer told the court he interpreted the tweet as a threat against his own family.
    Sinitsa was sentenced to five years in jail. He denied the tweet amounted to incitement to violence and said he would appeal.
    Prominent Kremlin critic Lyubov Sobol and journalist Ilya Azar said on Tuesday they had been charged with organizing last weekend’s protest, an event the authorities regarded as illegal.
    Both were briefly detained by police and then freed late on Monday.    They face fines of up 300,000 rubles ($4,545) or 30 days in jail if found guilty.
    “I’m not scared, I don’t plan to give in,” Sobol wrote on Facebook after her release, saying police had detained her as she walked out of a shop.
    Azar said police had detained him after he stepped out of his flat to have a cigarette after putting his small child to bed. He said police had left the door to his flat unlocked and his young daughter on her own there after arresting him.
    Courts in Moscow were due to hear criminal cases later on Tuesday against several other opposition activists.    They are charged with using violence against police officers at protests, charges the opposition have said are disproportionate.
($1 = 65.9950 rubles)
(Additional reporting by Polina Devitt and Maxim Rodionov; Editing by Frances Kerry)

9/3/2019 Ukraine parliament votes to strip lawmakers of immunity from prosecution
FILE PHOTO - Ukraine's newly-appointed Parliamentary Speaker Dmytro Razumkov and politician Ruslan Stefanchuk listen to
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy during the first session of new parliament in Kiev, Ukraine August 29, 2019. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich
    KIEV (Reuters) – Ukrainian lawmakers voted to strip themselves of immunity from prosecution on Tuesday, moving to help push through a signature election promise by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to root out corruption in politics.
    Previously, lawmakers could only be stripped of immunity by a parliamentary vote on each individual case.    Critics have said removing lawmakers’ protection leaves them vulnerable to targeted prosecutions by those in power.
(Reporting by Natalia Zinets and Matthias Williams; editing by John Stonestreet)

9/3/2019 Quick win for Zelenskiy as Ukraine parliament strips lawmakers` immunity by Natalia Zinets and Matthias Williams
FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends a parliamentary session in Kiev, Ukraine August 29, 2019. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich
    KIEV (Reuters) – Ukrainian lawmakers voted to strip themselves of immunity from prosecution on Tuesday, fulfilling an anti-corruption election promise by reformist President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
    A former comedian with no prior political experience, Zelenskiy won the presidency by a landslide in April, tapping into voter anger over graft and low living standards.
    Previously, lawmakers could only be stripped of immunity by a parliamentary vote on each individual case.    But the new measure passed easily by 373 votes in the 450-seat parliament where Zelenskiy won a majority in a July snap election.
    “We promised to remove immunity, we promised that there would be no people with a special status in Ukraine,” said Alexander Dubinsky, a lawmaker in Zelenskiy’s Servant of the People party.
    “It is our duty to vote for this law and put people who are outside this hall on equal terms with those people in this hall.”
    Before the vote, the president had said it was time to consign lawmakers’ immunity “to the dustbin of history,” arguing that 90% of Ukrainians wanted to see this happen.
    Opponents, however, said removing lawmakers’ protection leaves them vulnerable to politically-motivated prosecutions.
    Sviatoslav Vakarchuk, leader of the Voice party, said it would vote for the measure because all people should be equal before the law, but said those in power should not succumb to the temptation to abuse the change.
PRESIDENTIAL ZEAL
    The law, which signals Zelenskiy’s commitment to push through reforms, will take effect from the start of next year.     His party is the first in Ukraine’s independent history to command a majority on its own.
    Zelenskiy called a parliamentary election in July to give his party control over parliament and to form a new government.
    A pre-election survey by the National Democratic Institute in May said only 5% of Ukrainians thought political parties represented citizens’ interests and just 3% said politicians met their expectations.    On the other hand, 87% believed political parties were engaged in corruption.
    On Monday, Zelenskiy’s new government announced a legislative agenda aimed at bringing more investment into Ukraine, including lifting a longstanding ban on sale of farmland.
    Zelenskiy grew to national fame playing the TV comedy role of a schoolteacher who unexpectedly becomes president after a pupil films him making a foul-mouthed tirade against corrupt politicians and posts the video online.
    His presidential campaign exploited the parallels with that fictional narrative, portraying him as an everyman who would stand up to a crooked political class.
(Reporting by Natalia Zinets and Matthias Williams; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)

9/3/2019 Bulgaria condemns Russian exhibit lauding WW2 ‘liberation’ of Eastern Europe
FILE PHOTO: A woman holds a Bulgarian communist flag next to an old Soviet flag as she attends Victory Day celebrations
in front of the Soviet Army monument in Sofia, Bulgaria May 9, 2015. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov/File Photo
    SOFIA (Reuters) – Bulgaria lambasted a World War Two exhibition organized by the Russian Embassy marking “the liberation of Eastern Europe from Nazism,” saying the region had instead being subjected to a half century of repression by “Soviet army bayonets.”
    In a statement, the Foreign Ministry of Bulgaria – which for decades a Soviet satellite in Eastern Europe but now a Westernized democracy – urged Russia’s mission in Sofia “not to take a stand in support of a dubious historical claim” that treated Soviet forces’ arrival in 1944 as a liberation.
    The statement said this position amounted to meddling in the internal affairs of Bulgaria, now a member of the European Union and the U.S.-led NATO alliance.
    While acknowledging the critical Soviet role in defeating Nazi Germany in the Second World War, the ministry said the Soviet Union had also forcibly cut off eastern European countries from the rest of the continent during the Cold War.
    “Soviet army bayonets brought to the people of Central and Eastern Europe half a century of repression, a suppression of civilian conscience, deformed economic development and detachment from developed European countries,” it said.
    Despite the scathing criticism, Bulgaria maintains generally friendly relations with contemporary Russia, its main energy supplier.
    The exhibition, called “75 Years of the Liberation of Eastern Europe from Nazism,” is to open on Sept. 9 at the Russian Culture and Information Centre in Sofia.
    A coup on Sept. 9, 1944, a day after Red Army forces swept into Bulgaria, swept the country into the Soviet orbit and made it one of Moscow’s most obedient satellites under hardline Communist rule for 45 years.
    Some 30 years after the collapse of Communism, the Balkan country – now governed by the center-right GERB party, is still coming to terms with its past.
    Some Bulgarians pine for the low levels of crime, free education and healthcare under Communist rule while others denounce its trampling of dissent and individual freedoms.
    Supporters of the formerly communist Socialist Party, the second largest political faction in Bulgaria, commemorate Sept. 9 each year and lay flowers at a Soviet Army monument.
    Liberal and right-wing parties denounce the date and pay tribute to over 20,000 people believed to have been executed by the Communist regime for political offences or died in its prisons.
(Reporting by Tsvetelia Tsolova; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

9/3/2019 North Macedonia expects date for EU accession talks in October by Marja Novak
FILE PHOTO: Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov raises his fist during a signature ceremony of the accession protocol between the
Republic of North Macedonia and NATO at the Alliance headquarters in Brussels, Belgium February 6, 2019. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir/File Photo
    BLED, Slovenia (Reuters) – North Macedonia expects to get a date for the start of EU accession talks in October and is worried the Balkans region would be discouraged about reform if discussions do not begin, its foreign minister said on Tuesday.
    In remarks to Reuters, Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov added that a start to accession talks would help persuade young people not to emigrate and seek a “European style of life” elsewhere.
    The former Yugoslav republic changed its name from Macedonia to North Macedonia this year, ending a more than two-decade dispute with Greece over its name and removing an obstacle to its membership of the EU and NATO.
    The European Commission formally recommended in May that North Macedonia should start negotiations to join the EU.    The country had hoped to get the date to start accession talks in June, but the Commission postponed the decision for October.
    “The big issues are resolved.    If there is no proper realization of this opportunity this essentially means that there is no perspective for the region,” Dimitrov said.
    “It would send a message to other leaders in the Balkans that it is not really worth investing political capital in making difficult decisions, reforming,” Dimitrov said on the sidelines of a regional political forum in Bled.
    He also said Macedonia expected to become a member of NATO in December or early next year after NATO members signed an accord on its accession in February. The accord is currently going through a ratification process in member states.
    Dimitrov said foreign direct investment had increased strongly after the accord with NATO and is due to increase further once Macedonia starts EU accession talks.
    He said North Macedonia’s NATO membership would bring an element of stability and predictability that was needed in the Balkans.
    He could not say when North Macedonia could join the EU but added: “The process (of getting ready for EU membership) is important.    The biggest battle for us is keeping youngsters at home so we need to make our country European so that they can have European style of life at home and not look for it elsewhere.”
    Only 50 percent of working-age Macedonians are employed, and low birth rates and emigration are shrinking the workforce, a World Bank report said in 2018.br>     Dimitrov said preparations for EU membership should lead to a further drop in unemployment and an increase in GDP, with more jobs leading to higher salaries.
    Once a part of Yugoslavia, the country peacefully seceded in 1991 but came close to civil war in 2001 when ethnic Albanians launched an armed insurgency seeking greater autonomy.    NATO and EU diplomacy pulled it back from the brink of civil war.
(Reporting By Marja Novak, Editing by William Maclean)

9/4/2019 Russian Agri Minister, Saudi’s Falih to discuss Russia-Saudi trade
FILE PHOTO - Saudi Arabia's Oil Minister Khalid Al-Falih talks to journalists as he arrives for
an OPEC and NON-OPEC meeting in Vienna, Austria, July 2, 2019. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian Agriculture Minister Dmitry Patrushev and Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih will discuss the development of bilateral relations, including agricultural trade, during their meeting on Thursday, the Russian ministry said.
    In August, Saudi Arabia decided to relax its bug-damage specifications for wheat imports, opening the door to Black Sea imports and strengthening ties with Russia beyond energy cooperation.
    Falih and Patrushev will meet as part of Patrushev’s visit to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, the ministry added. Patrushev will also meet his Saudi Arabian counterpart, Abdulrahman al-Fadhli, and visit one of Saudi Arabia’s agriculture companies.
    Russia, the world’s largest wheat exporter, has long sought access to Saudi Arabia’s wheat market as Moscow tries to take further market share in Middle Eastern and North African wheat markets from the European Union and the United States.
    After Saudi Arabia said in August it would relax its limits for bug-damage in hard wheat to 0.5% from 0% from its next tender, a Russian industry source told Reuters that Moscow would continue to press Saudi Arabia to reduce the bug damage level to 1%.
    The change in these specifications has had wider implications as Riyadh – which regards the United States as its most important ally – moves closer to Moscow, with Russian President Vladimir Putin due to visit Saudi Arabia in October.
    A delegation from Russia which includes major Russian grain, meat and dairy companies has also arrived with Patrushev to Saudi Arabia, the Russian ministry said.    It did not disclose their names.
    The meeting between Falih and Patrushev is also due days after Saudi Arabia named Yasir al-Rumayyan, head of the kingdom’s PIF sovereign wealth fund as chairman of Saudi Aramco, replacing Falih as the company prepares for an initial public offering (IPO).     Russia’s top Saudi negotiators have praised Falih, saying changes in Saudi Arabia’s oil industry would not affect cooperation between Moscow and Riyadh.
(Reporting by Polina Devitt; editing by Louise Heavens)

9/4/2019 Russia, India back legitimate trade ties with Iran: RIA cites joint statement
Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi before their meeting on the sidelines
of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia, September 4, 2019. Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin via REUTERS
    VLADIVOSTOK (Reuters) – Russia and India said on Wednesday they planed to continue legitimate economic and trade cooperation with Iran, the RIA news agency reported, citing a joint statement issued after talks between the two country’s leaders.br>     The statement was released after Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held talks at an economic forum in Vladivostok in Russia’s Far East.
(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; writing by Tom Balmforth Editing by Andrew Osborn)

9/4/2019 Russia jails two more protesters ahead of Sunday’s Moscow vote
Participant of a recent rally to demand free elections Kirill Zhukov stands inside a defendants' cage
during a court hearing in Moscow, Russia September 4, 2019. REUTERS/Tatyana Makeyeva
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Russian court sentenced two men to up to three and a half years in jail on Wednesday for using violence against police officers at a political protest calling for a free election on Sunday.
    The jail terms, which the opposition said were clearly disproportionate, are among the longest to be handed down to protesters since Russia’s biggest protests in years erupted this summer over a local election in the capital.
    Protesters wanted a slew of opposition-minded candidates to take part in the Sept. 8 vote for Moscow’s legislature, but they were barred from doing so for failing to gather enough signatures of support, something the opposition said is a lie.
    Police have briefly detained more than 2,000 people at the protests and opened criminal investigations.    Two men were jailed on Tuesday for attacking police at one of the protests and became the first people who took part in the rallies to be given lengthy prison terms.
    On Wednesday, courts convicted two more people, including Kirill Zhukov, 28, who was jailed for three years for hitting a police officer’s helmet at a July 27 protest, charges he denied.
    His supporters said the sentence was grossly unfair and that it was clear from footage of the incident that Zhukov had barely touched the policeman’s helmet.
    Hours later, another court in Moscow found 48-year-old protester Yevgeny Kovalenko guilty of the same crime and jailed him for three and a half years.
    Kovalenko, who also denied the charges, was shown in footage circulated online throwing a rubbish bin towards police officers as they detained protesters at a protest.
    Around 60,000 people attended an authorized opposition rally on Aug. 10 in Moscow, which a monitoring group called the country’s biggest political protest for eight years. But an unauthorized protest last weekend attracted only a few thousand.
(Reporting by Andrey Ostroukh, Maxim Rodionov and Maria Kiselyova; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Catherine Evans and Alison Williams)

9/4/2019 Top Hungarian scientist appeals against overhaul of academic research
FILE PHOTO: People gather outside the Hungarian Academy of Sciences to protest against the government's legislation
to overhaul the institution, in Budapest, Hungary, July 2, 2019. REUTERS/Tamas Kaszas/File Photo
    BUDAPEST (Reuters) – The president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS) has appealed to the Constitutional Court to strike down a reform that strips his august institution of its research network, part of government plans to tighten state control over academic life.
    The new law, pushed through parliament in July by Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s nationalist government, strips the 200-year-old Academy of its network of research bodies and hands them over to a committee with a chairman appointed by Orban and half its members from the government.
    HAS President Laszlo Lovasz’s appeal, first flagged in an interview with Reuters in June, aims to roll back key provisions of the reform, which triggered angry protests by scientists and others over the summer.
    “The protection of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences enshrined in the Fundamental Law necessarily entails the continued existence of the academic research network,” Lovasz wrote in a letter published on the HAS website.
    “Therefore, stripping the Hungarian Academy of Sciences of its scientific research activity as a public service violates the constitution,” he wrote, adding that the law also violated the right to property and scientific liberties.
    Orban has steadily tightened government control over various areas of Hungarian public life including the universities, courts and media over the past decade.
    In a possible setback for Lovasz’s appeal, all members of the Constitutional Court have been appointed since Orban took power in 2010.    If the judges reject the appeal, it was not immediately clear whether he could seek redress from a European court.
    Before the new law was passed, the European Commission urged the Orban government “to refrain from any decision restricting scientific and academic freedom.”
Orban has often been at odds with the European Union, which accuses him of undermining the rule of law in Hungary.
(Reporting by Gergely Szakacs; Editing by Gareth Jones)

9/5/2019 Putin says Russia will produce new missiles after demise of nuclear pact
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during a plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum
in Vladivostok, Russia September 5, 2019. Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin via REUTERS
    VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia would produce missiles that were banned under a landmark Cold-War era nuclear pact that ended last month, but that Moscow would not deploy them unless the United States did so first.
    Speaking at an economic forum in Russia’s Far East, Putin said he was concerned by U.S. talk of deploying missiles in Japan and South Korea, a deployment he said would cover parts of Russian territory.
    Washington pulled out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) pact last month accusing Russia of violating it, allegations Moscow denied. (Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber, Vladimir Soldatkin, Andrey Kuzmin; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Alison Williams)

9/5/2019 Putin rebuffs call by Japan’s Abe to sign World War Two peace treaty
Russian President Vladimir Putin opens a plenary session of Eastern Economic Forum
in Vladivostok, Russia September 5, 2019. Alexander Nemenov/Pool via REUTERS
    VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin told his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe on Thursday that Tokyo’s military ties with the United States and many other issues made it hard for Japan and Russia to sign a World War Two peace treaty.
    Putin made the comment at an economic forum in Russia’s Far East after Abe called on him to resolve a row between the countries over a disputed chain of islands that has prevented the two countries signing a peace treaty.
    Tokyo claims the western Pacific islands, which were seized by Soviet troops in the final days of World War Two.    They are known in Japan as the Northern Territories and as the Southern Kuriles in Russia.
    The Russian leader said he hoped that a peace treaty could be signed in future, however, and that the two countries could eventually resolve their long-running differences.
    “Unfortunately, sadly for us, there are military, defense issues, security issues.    We have to understand … Japan’s commitments to third countries, including the United States,” Putin said.
    Moscow has repeatedly raised concerns about U.S. military systems being deployed on Japanese territory.
    Moments before Putin’s comments, Abe hailed business ties between Russia and Japan, and said that the natural next step in relations would be to sign a peace treaty, which he said was the “historial mission” of the two countries’ leaders.
    “Vladimir, let’s do everything together to move forward all the time until we reach (our) objective,” Abe said.
(Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber, Vladimir Soldatkin, Andrey Kuzmin, Olesya Astakhova; writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Andrew Osborn)

9/5/2019 Putin slams Italy’s arrest of Russian executive at U.S. request
Russian President Vladimir Putin takes part in an awarding ceremony following the Jigoro Kano Cadet Judo Tournament on the
sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia September 5, 2019. Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin via REUTERS
    VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin complained on Thursday about Italy’s arrest of a Russian state executive on suspicion of industrial espionage at Washington’s request, saying the move would harm ties with the United States.
    Alexander Korshunov, director for business development at Russia’s United Engine Corporation (UEC), was detained at an airport in Naples on Aug. 30 after Washington issued a warrant for his arrest.
    UEC produces engines for civil and military aircraft as well as power turbines.    Russian state conglomerate Rostec, which owns the engine maker, said Korshunov was innocent of any wrongdoing as did UEC, Russian news agencies reported.
    Italy’s foreign ministry said it had no immediate comment to make on the case.
    Speaking at an economic forum in the Russian Far East, Putin said the arrest looked like it was motivated by what he called unfair competition.
    “This is a really bad practice,” Putin said.    “In this case we’re dealing with attempts at dishonest competition.”
    Putin said UEC had developed a new Russian engine and concluded a contract with an Italian consulting firm.    “It’s a normal global practice.    It’s open commercial work with European partners,” said Putin.
    Russia has repeatedly criticized the United States for requesting that Russian citizens be detained in third countries.
(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin, Olesya Astakhova Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber in Vladivostok, Gleb Stolyarov in Moscow, Angelo Amante in Rome; Writing by Tom Balmforth and Andrew Osborn; Editing by Frances Kerry)

9/5/2019 Putin rebuffs call by Japan’s Abe to sign World War Two peace treaty
Russian President Vladimir Putin opens a plenary session of Eastern Economic Forum
in Vladivostok, Russia September 5, 2019. Alexander Nemenov/Pool via REUTERS
    VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin told his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe on Thursday that Tokyo’s military ties with the United States and many other issues made it hard for Japan and Russia to sign a World War Two peace treaty.
    Putin made the comment at an economic forum in Russia’s Far East after Abe called on him to resolve a row between the countries over a disputed chain of islands that has prevented the two countries signing a peace treaty.
    Tokyo claims the western Pacific islands, which were seized by Soviet troops in the final days of World War Two.    They are known in Japan as the Northern Territories and as the Southern Kuriles in Russia.
    The Russian leader said he hoped that a peace treaty could be signed in future, however, and that the two countries could eventually resolve their long-running differences.
    “Unfortunately, sadly for us, there are military, defense issues, security issues.    We have to understand … Japan’s commitments to third countries, including the United States,” Putin said.
    Moscow has repeatedly raised concerns about U.S. military systems being deployed on Japanese territory.
    Moments before Putin’s comments, Abe hailed business ties between Russia and Japan, and said that the natural next step in relations would be to sign a peace treaty, which he said was the “historial mission” of the two countries’ leaders.
    “Vladimir, let’s do everything together to move forward all the time until we reach (our) objective,” Abe said.
(Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber, Vladimir Soldatkin, Andrey Kuzmin, Olesya Astakhova; writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Andrew Osborn)

9/6/2019 Russian protester handed 4 year prison term for ‘repeatedly’ taking part in protests by OAN Newsroom
    Russian courts continue to hand lengthy prison terms to protesters, who took part in anti-government rallies over the summer.    In a ruling Thursday, a Moscow court sentenced activist Konstantin Kotov to four years in prison.    The judge said Kotov repeatedly abused the right to free assembly by participating in protests three consecutive times.
    The ruling sparked outrage among Russian opposition, human-rights groups. and anti-corruption activists.    They say the sentence is anti-constitutional and is designed to intimidate Russian citizens as well as discourage future protests.
    “Kostya Kotov is holding up, he is a man of principle.    He has been sincerely concerned for everyone who was convicted illegally, and he was ready to come out in protest for each and every one.    The regime had warned him.    The district police officer stopped by and told him — ‘if you continue to come out to protests, things may happen’.” — Maria Eismont, attorney for jailed Russian protester Konstantin Kotov
    Over the past few days, several protesters have been sentenced to years in prison in the run-up to highly contested municipal and regional elections across Russia.
In this photo taken on Saturday, Aug. 17, 2019, Russian politician Grigory Yavlinsky holds a poster reading:
Freedom to Konstantin Kotov,” an opposition activist in jail, during a protest in the center
of Moscow, Russia. Fourteen Russians have been slapped with charges of rioting stemming from an opposition protest in July
in Moscow in a criminal inquiry largely seen as a Kremlin intimidation tactic. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

9/6/2019 Russia says Facebook, Google must ban political ads during election
FILE PHOTO: Small toy figures are seen in front of Facebook logo in this
illustration picture, April 8, 2019. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian state watchdog Roskomnadzor said on Friday it asked Facebook and Google to ban the publication of political advertising during elections on Sunday and on the preceding day, in line with Russian law.
    Russia will hold several regional elections on Sunday, including in Moscow.
    Non-compliance would be viewed as meddling in Russia’s sovereign affairs, the watchdog said.
(Reporting Nadezhda Tsydenova; writing by Anton Kolodyazhnyy; editing by Polina Ivanova and John Stonestreet)

9/7/2019 Russia and Ukraine swap prisoners in first sign of thawing relations by Anton Zverev and Natalia Zinets
A view shows a Russian plane (L) ahead of a prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine, at
Borispil International Airport outside Kiev, Ukraine September 7, 2019. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich
    MOSCOW/KIEV (Reuters) – Russia and Ukraine began a long-awaited prisoner swap on Saturday in a step that could ease bitter tensions over Moscow’s annexation five years ago of the Crimea region.
    While the unfolding exchange could help build confidence between Moscow and Kiev and allow them to start negotiating seriously on other issues, any road to a full rapprochement is likely to be long and complex.
    After lengthy negotiations, expectations have been running high for the prisoner swap, which was described as imminent by the leaders of both countries in recent days.
    On Saturday a Russian plane carrying Russian prisoners was finally en route from Kiev to Moscow, while at the same time a Ukrainian plane with Ukrainian prisoners on board was bound for Kiev from Moscow.
    Although Ukraine still wants the Crimea region back after it was annexed by Moscow in 2014, the exchange will be seen in some quarters as a win for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy who swept to power this year promising to bring home Ukrainian prisoners held in Russia.
    Russian-backed separatists continue to control a swath of eastern Ukraine in a conflict that has claimed more than 13,000 lives and Zelenskiy has also pledged to end the regular, low-level clashes which persist despite a ceasefire signed in 2015.
    The swap could set the stage for serious talks, even though major differences remain between the two countries.    French President Emmanuel Macron has been pushing for a summit to discuss the issue with Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France.
    Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday the prisoner exchange would be “a good step forward toward the normalization (of relations),” adding he expected large numbers of prisoners to be involved.
    All 24 Ukrainian sailors detained by Russia during a clash near Crimea last year were waiting for the flight from Moscow to Kiev, their lawyer Nikolai Polozov told 112 TV before the plane took off.
    Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, jailed in Russia, is also among 35 Ukrainians who is being transferred from Moscow to Kiev, his lawyer, Mark Feygin said.
    It is not clear how many Russian prisoners are held in Ukraine.    Among those handed over to Moscow as part of the exchange could be Volodymyr Tsemakh, a former commander of separatist forces in Ukraine’s east.
    Tsemakh is suspected of involvement in the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014 in a crash which killed 298 people flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.
    Dutch prosecutors have urged Kiev not to allow Tsemakh to travel to Russia, fearing this could jeopardize the investigation into Flight MH17.    He was released on bail by a Ukrainian court on Thursday.
(Writing by Polina Ivanova, Polina Devitt and Andrew Osborn; editing by Alexander Smith)

9/7/2019 Poland’s PiS promises older voters more cash ahead of October elections
Poland's Law and Justice (PiS) leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski speaks during a party convention in
Bialystok, Poland September 5, 2019. Agnieszka Sadowska/Agencja Gazeta via REUTERS
    WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland’s ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party will offer pensioners a regular yearly cash bonus, party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski was quoted as saying on Saturday ahead of next month’s parliamentary elections.
    And Kaczynski, who has no formal government post but is seen as Poland’s de-facto leader, was also quoted as saying in an interview with tabloid Super Express that he expects Mateusz Morawiecki to remain as Prime Minister if PiS wins on Oct. 13.
    PiS, which is leading in opinion polls, faces a tough election campaign as its image as the party fighting for justice in Poland has been tarnished by political scandals.
    Its parliamentary speaker resigned after Polish media revealed that he had used a government jet for private trips with his family.
    And Poland’s deputy justice minister quit after he sought to discredit judges critical of the government’s judicial reforms by planting rumors about their private lives.
    Against this background, PiS, which is targeting a majority in the new parliament, has decided to increase handouts to voters, especially its core electorate, including the elderly who this year received a one-off cash bonus.
    Kaczynski told Super Express ahead of the PiS party congress taking place on Saturday that the cash payments would be made permanent as the party tries “to improve the situation of the poorest pensioners.”
    Analysts have said that this year’s one-off bonus for pensioners, which was offered ahead of the elections to the European Parliament, cost the Polish state almost 11 billion zloty ($2.8 billion).
    PiS won 26 seats and the anti-PiS opposition 25 in the election to select members of the European Parliament.    Polls show Poles remain a very pro-EU nation.
    The latest opinion polls show PiS may win around 43% of the votes in next month’s general election, while other parties combined may get 41%.    Due to Poland’s voting system, this could mean a safe majority for PiS.
    Despite domestic scandals and spats with the European Union over rule of law, environmental policy, migrants, PiS has maintained its popularity, thanks largely to a social program which includes 500 zloty handouts for every child in a family.
    Kaczynski, who has been in constant conflict with Brussels, also said that Poland probably lost more money due to mafia organizations taking money out than it received in EU support.
($1 = 3.9310 zlotys)
(Reporting by Marcin Goclowski; Editing by Alexander Smith)

9/8/2019 Ukraine-Russia prisoner swap is opportunity to resolve crisis: French minister
FILE PHOTO: French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian speaks during a news conference at the
Itamaraty Palace in Brasilia, Brazil July 29,2019. REUTERS/Adriano Machado/File Photo
    PARIS (Reuters) – France’s foreign minister said on Sunday a prisoner swap between Ukraine and Russia was an opportunity to find a solution to the crisis.
    “There is an opportunity, a door opened to start making progress towards settling this conflict,” Le Drian told Europe 1 radio, Russia and Ukraine swapped dozens of prisoners on Saturday in a carefully-negotiated rapprochement that brought Western praise and could thaw a freeze in relations since Moscow’s annexation of the Crimea region in 2014.
(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Edited by David Evans)

9/8/2019 Russians vote in local and regional elections after biggest protests in years by Gleb Stolyarov and Andrew Osborn
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny speaks with people outside a polling station during the Moscow city
parliament election in Moscow, Russia September 8, 2019. REUTERS/Tatyana Makeyeva
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Residents of Moscow voted on Sunday in one of the most closely watched local elections in years after the exclusion of many opposition candidates triggered the biggest protests in the Russian capital for nearly a decade.
    Protests erupted in mid-July after the Central Election Commission refused to register a large numbers of opposition-minded candidates, saying they had failed to collect enough signatures from genuine backers – a response that President Vladimir Putin endorsed on Sunday after casting his ballot.
    Those excluded, including allies of prominent opposition politician Alexei Navalny, denounced the move as a ruse designed to stop them winning seats in Moscow’s parliament.
    Local or regional elections took place across all of Russia’s 11 time zones on Sunday.    But the main focus was on Moscow after this summer’s demonstrations there turned into the biggest sustained protest movement in Russia since 2011-2013.
    Data from the election commission suggested the turnout in Moscow would be a little more than 20%.    Several videos shot in polling stations showed some voters openly stuffing ballot boxes with multiple voting slips circulated on social media.
    Though local, the Moscow election was earmarked by Navalny and his allies as an opportunity to make inroads against the ruling pro-Putin United Russia party ahead of a national parliamentary election in 2021.
POPULARITY DROP
    The party’s popularity is at its lowest level in more than a decade.
    Putin, asked after voting in central Moscow if he would have preferred more diversity and a larger number of election candidates, told reporters: “In some countries there are 30, 50 and 100 (candidates).    It’s not important how many there are, but of what quality they are.”
    At more than 60%, Putin’s own popularity rating is much higher than most Western leaders, though lower than it has been previously.    The former KGB officer won a landslide election victory last year that will keep him in office until 2024.
    United Russia’s popularity is suffering from discontent over a move to raise the retirement age at a time of steadily falling incomes and its Moscow candidates rebranded as independents in an apparent effort to distance themselves from it formally.
    Navalny advised his supporters to vote tactically across Russia to reduce the party’s influence.
    One 25-year-old Muscovite, a lawyer who gave his name only as Vladislav, said he had voted tactically for Sergey Mitrokhin, of the opposition Yabloko party, “because I’m tired of United Russia, stealing and everything that follows.”
    “I hope that smart voting will work … We have to start changing something (and) … there is nothing to lose any more,” he told Reuters.
    Police detained about a dozen opposition activists near Moscow’s city hall on Sunday.    The activists were wearing T-shirts drawing attention to the fate of people the authorities have charged in connection with this summer’s protests.
(Additional reporting by Andrey Kuzmin; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by David Goodman)

9/8/2019 Macron, Putin discussed Ukraine, Iran by phone
FILE PHOTO: French President Emmanuel Macron meets with Russia's President Vladimir Putin, at his summer retreat of the Bregancon fortress
on the Mediterranean coast, near the village of Bormes-les-Mimosas, southern France, on August 19, 2019. Gerard Julien/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
    PARIS (Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin spoke by phone on Sunday ahead of a meeting of the joint Franco-Russian Council on security issues scheduled for Monday in Moscow, the French presidency said in a statement.
    They also discussed a recent prisoner swap between Ukraine and Russia, agreeing that gave momentum for a summit of the so-called “Normandy” group – France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine – to discuss issues between Kiev and Moscow, the statement said.
    They also discussed global frictions over Iran and expressed the wish that all parties seek to reduce them, it said.
(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)

9/9/2019 Russia’s ruling party loses a third of seats in Moscow election after protests by Andrew Osborn and Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber
A man casts his ballot at a polling station during the Moscow city parliament
election in Moscow, Russia September 8, 2019. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s ruling United Russia party, which backs President Vladimir Putin, has lost one third of its seats in the Moscow parliament, near complete data cited by Russian news agencies showed on Monday, in an awkward setback for the Kremlin.
    However, the party still retained its majority in the Moscow assembly following Sunday’s nationwide local elections, and its candidates for regional governor appeared to have won in St Petersburg and in 15 other parts of the vast country.
    The outcome of the local elections was closely watched in Moscow after the exclusion of many opposition candidates triggered the biggest protests there in nearly a decade.
    Public anger over more than five years of falling incomes and an unpopular hike in the pension age also helped fuel the Moscow protests, with the Communist Party benefiting most in Sunday’s polls from the discontent.
    Putin’s spokesman told reporters the Kremlin thought United Russia had done well despite the setback in Moscow.
    “In general the election campaign across Russia was very successful for the United Russia party.    It won more in some places than others.    But in general for the country the party showed its political leadership,” said the spokesman, Dmitry Peskov.
    The Kremlin was not inclined to link the Moscow result to a protest vote, added Peskov.
    Prominent opposition politician Alexei Navalny and his allies saw the Moscow poll as an opportunity to make inroads against United Russia ahead of a national parliamentary election in 2021.
TACTICAL VOTING
    Navalny’s close allies were among those excluded from the Moscow vote and he had advised supporters to vote tactically for the candidates with the best chance of defeating United Russia.
    He saw the results as vindicating his strategy, though other activists were unhappy that he had asked people to hold their noses and vote for parties that cooperate with the Kremlin.
    United Russia was on track to control 26 of the Moscow’s parliament’s 45 seats, data showed, meaning it will not have to rely on the Communists, who in any case have often voted with the ruling party on major national issues to get things done.
    In the last Moscow election in 2014, United Russia performed better, winning 28 seats in its own name and a further 10 through independent candidates whom it had backed.
    The Communist Party won 13 seats on Sunday, up from five, at the expense of United Russia, the data showed.    Two other opposition parties, the opposition Yabloko Party and the Fair Russia Party, appeared to have won three each.
    Several videos circulating on social media showed some voters openly stuffing ballot boxes with multiple voting slips.
    United Russia’s Moscow candidates rebranded as independents in an apparent effort to distance themselves from the party, whose popularity is at a more than decade-long low, a tactic that appears not to have paid off.
    Local or regional elections took place on Sunday across all of Russia’s 11 time zones.    United Russia also suffered a setback in an election for the Khabarovsk region’s local parliament in the Far East winning just two seats.
    But the main focus was on Moscow, where the Central Election Commission refused in July to register a large number of opposition candidates, saying they had failed to collect enough signatures from genuine backers.
    That decision triggered the biggest sustained protest movement in Russia since 2011-2013.
    Putin’s own popularity rating, at more than 60%, is much higher than most Western leaders, though lower than it has been previously.    The former KGB officer won a landslide election victory last year that will keep him in office until 2024.
(Additional reporting by Gleb Stolyarov, Andrey Kuzmin, Maria Tsvetkova and Tom Balmforth; Editing by Darren Schuettler and Gareth Jones)

9/9/2019 Putin pushes idea of Russian gas supplies to China via Mongolia
FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines
of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia September 4, 2019. Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin via REUTERS
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin told the head of state-controlled Gazprom to consider making Russian gas exports to China via Mongolia, the Kremlin said on Monday.
    Gazprom is due to start exporting gas to China in December via the eastern Power of Siberia pipeline.
    “Please, look into the resources of Yamal (Peninsula) as well, in order to gather the necessary resources for the supplies via the western route to China via Mongolia,” Putin told Gazprom head Alexei Miller at a meeting, adding that the partners in China also “lean toward” this route.
(Reporting by Maria Grabar; Writing by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Edmund Blair)

9/10/2019 EU stresses support for Cuba even as U.S. hikes sanctions
European Union Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini speaks during a joint news conference with Cuba's
Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez in Havana, Cuba, September 9, 2019. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini
    HAVANA (Reuters) – The European Union is committed to helping Cuba develop its economy, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said on Monday, during a three-day trip to Havana, even as the United States hikes sanctions on the Communist-run island.
    The EU started normalizing relations with one-party Cuba about the same time as the United States five years ago, ending decades of Cold War-era hostility.
    But EU and U.S. policies have diverged, as U.S. President Donald Trump has unraveled the detente pursued by his predecessor.    He has reverted to seeking to coerce the government to reform, a strategy that many experts say has long failed.
    “The EU is Cuba’s top commercial partner and investor, and we have tripled cooperation in the last two years,” Mogherini, the EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, told a news conference with Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez.
    EU development aid is welcome in an ailing economy – one of the world’s last Soviet-style command economies – struggling with tighter U.S. sanctions and lower aid from leftist ally Venezuela in the wake of its own economic and political crisis.
    Last week, the United States issued new regulations limiting the remittances its citizens can send to Cuba.
    Europe could help Cuba update its economy, said Mogherini, who also met Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel on Monday.    Investment would also help European companies consolidate their foothold on the island as it opens up.
    The official said the two countries already held bilateral talks on topics such as sustainable development and human rights within the framework of a political dialogue and cooperation pact agreed in 2017.
    “We have also continued the dialogue on the situation in the region and cooperation, on Venezuela in particular,” she said.
    Cuba is a strong ally of leftist President Nicolas Maduro, whom most Western nations want to step down in favor of opposition leader Juan Guaido, arguing his election was fraudulent and there must be a new vote.
    Several opposition groups have called for the EU to suspend its cooperation agreement with Cuba, due to what the groups call an increase in repression on the one-party island.
    They accuse authorities of raiding dozens of activists’ homes in recent weeks and detaining more than 100 people last weekend alone.
    Cuban authorities dismiss dissidents, who have limited support on the island, as a tiny minority of provocateurs financed by the United States to subvert the government.
    EU officials say they believe they can better influence Cuba on human rights through dialogue than coercion.
(Reporting by Nelson Acosta; Writing by Sarah Marsh; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

9/10/2019 Populist surge spells trouble ahead for Norway’s government by Terje Solsvik
Norway's Prime minister Erna Solberg walks to her party's election vigil after local elections,
in Oslo, Norway September 9, 2019. NTB Scanpix/Heiko Junge via REUTERS
    OSLO (Reuters) – Norwegians voting in local elections abandoned major parties in record numbers on Monday, according to early counts, opting for a plethora of smaller groups in the latest show of political discontent in Europe.
    While Prime Minister Erna Solberg’s ruling Conservatives were on track for their worst performance in regional voting since 2003, the top opposition Labour Party’s support could dwindle to record lows, broadcasters NRK and TV2 reported.
    The election boosted a broad range of parties, including Socialists, Communists, the Greens and the rural Centre Party, as well as the pro-motorist FNB, which dedicates itself to opposing congestion charges and other road tolls.
    Although regional votes have no impact on the composition of parliament, and a general election is two years away, the growing rural-urban divide and a backlash against government reforms make it more difficult to govern, analysts say.
    Among the decisions driving discontent were the forced merger in recent years of several municipalities, along with unpopular decisions to reorganize the police and hospitals, leaving some communities with less access to public services.
    Last month, Solberg’s four-party Cabinet came to the brink of collapse over disagreement on whether to pay for roads and public transport with more tolls on drivers, a major election topic.
    “The government parties will likely see their lowest combined support on record,” said Johan Giertsen, a law professor whose nonprofit Poll of Polls website has become a go-to site for election data.
    Solberg’s Conservatives and her government partners, the Liberals, the Christian Democrats and Progress, looked set to win just 34% of the vote combined, collectively losing 9 percentage points from four years ago.
    Historically, an electoral swing of that magnitude would have benefited the largest opposition party, but Labour backed several major reforms and could itself lose more than 8 points in the election, dropping to around 24.5%.
    Instead, the top gainer would likely be the Centre Party, seen surging to a record 14.7% from 8.5% four years ago on a wave of support that will see it capture the mayor’s office in dozens of rural towns.
    The Greens and the FNB, polar opposites on the environment and transport policies, were each set to make solid gains in cities.
    If the 2021 vote for parliament were to show a similar outcome, Solberg would lose her narrow majority, while Labour leader Jonas Gahr Stoere would face complex coalition talks with centrist and far-left parties.
    “If anything, it points to a change of government (in 2021), but the polarization of the electorate has also made it harder to predict,” Giertsen said.
(Reporting by Terje Solsvik; Editing by Peter Cooney)

9/10/2019 Ukraine president meets tycoon Kolomoisky amid concerns over their business ties
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy meets tycoon Igor Kolomoisky in Kiev, Ukraine
September 10, 2019. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS
    KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met business tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky on Tuesday, the president’s office said, the first reported meeting since Zelenskiy’s inauguration in May between the two men who had long-standing business ties.
    The president’s relationship with Kolomoisky, one of the richest businessman in Ukraine, has been under heavy scrutiny since the start of Zelenskiy’s election campaign, amid fears that the tycoon may be wielding influence behind the scenes.
    Both men deny such suggestions.
    The president’s office said in a brief statement that Zelenskiy and Kolomoisky had met to discuss the business climate and the energy sector in Ukraine.Oleg Smolenkov It gave no further details.
    Zelenskiy, a former comedian with no prior political experience, won the presidential election in April by a landslide on promises to fight corruption and transform Ukrainian politics.
    Kolomoisky has been embroiled in a long running legal battle over control of PrivatBank, Ukraine’s largest lender, which he used to own before it was nationalized in late 2016.
    Zelenskiy has repeatedly denied suggestions that he would help Kolomoisky win back control of PrivatBank or receive compensation.
    The saga is closely watched by investors because the International Monetary Fund could freeze aid to Ukraine if the PrivatBank nationalization were reversed.
(Reporting by Natalia Zinets and Matthias Williams; Editing by Gareth Jones)

9/10/2019 Kremlin says alleged U.S. spy did not have access to Putin by Andrew Osborn and Mark Hosenball
FILE PHOTO: National flags of Russia and the U.S. fly at Vnukovo International Airport
in Moscow, Russia April 11, 2017. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo
    MOSCOW/LONDON (Reuters) – The Kremlin played down reports of a CIA spy inside Russia’s presidential administration, but said an official identified by Russian media as the likely U.S. mole had worked there although he did not have access to President Vladimir Putin.
    CNN reported on Monday that the United States had successfully extracted one of its highest-level covert sources inside Russia in 2017.
    Two sources familiar with U.S. monitoring of Russian activities confirmed to Reuters that such a CIA informant did exist inside the Russian government and had been extracted and brought to the United States.
    The sources indicated that U.S. officials were seriously concerned that Kremlin officials had made public what they claimed was the individual’s name.
    Russian daily newspaper Kommersant said on Tuesday the official may have been a man called Oleg Smolenkov, who is reported to have disappeared with his wife, Antonina, and three children while on holiday in Montenegro in June 2017.
    It cited unnamed Russian law enforcement officials as saying Moscow had initially opened an investigation into his suspected murder in Montenegro before concluding he was alive and living abroad.
    Kommersant published a picture of a house in Virginia which it said had been bought later by the Smolenkovs and linked to details of the property’s purchase, including its exact address, in a real estate listing and a local county tax filing.
    One U.S. official familiar with the background to the story said it was not necessarily totally stupid or against standard spy practice for a defector to buy property in his own name. He did not say why.
    But now that the story had become public it was highly likely the U.S. government would have to make serious efforts to protect the defector, said the source, who did not dispute the mole was Oleg Smolenkov.
    U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking at a White House briefing, dismissed reports that the CIA pulled the informant out of Russia over concerns the asset’s identity could be exposed.
    “The reporting there is factually wrong,” said Pompeo, without elaborating.
    Daniel Hoffman, a former CIA station chief with deep expertise on Russia, said the informant is a marked man because Putin cannot risk Russian officials “thinking they can get away with betraying Russia.”
    “This means that guy has a bullseye on his face,” said Hoffman, who noted that a 2006 law empowers Putin to order extrajudicial killings outside Russia.    “When Vladimir Putin has known about high-value sources who he says betrayed Russia, he tried to kill one of them with a Soviet nerve agent and he killed another with polonium.”
    He was referring to the 2018 attempted murder in Britain of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence officer and double agent for British intelligence, with the nerve agent Novichok and the 2006 killing with radioactive polonium of Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian intelligence officer who received political asylum in Britain.
‘PULP FICTION’
    Asked about the matter, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Smolenkov had worked in the Russian presidential administration but had been fired in 2016/17.
    “It is true that Smolenkov worked in the presidential administration, but he was fired several years ago.    His job was not at a senior official level,” said Peskov.
    Smolenkov did not have direct access to Putin, Peskov added, declining with a laugh to confirm whether he had been a U.S. agent or not.
    “I can’t confirm that. … I don’t know whether he was an agent.    I can only confirm that there was such a person in the presidential administration, who was later sacked."
    “All this U.S. media speculation about who urgently extracted who and saved who from who and so on – this is more the genre of pulp fiction, crime reading, so let’s leave it up to them,” said Peskov.
    Smolenkov at different times worked at the Russian Embassy in the United States, in the Russian government administration and in the Russian presidential administration, open-source documents inside Russia show.
    His wife worked in another Kremlin department, Kommersant said.
    It cited some unnamed sources as saying they thought Smolenkov had only done routine work and could not have passed anything more than “two-bit rumors” to the Americans.
    But other sources were cited as saying that Smolenkov worked with and enjoyed the trust of Putin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov who does have access to the Russian leader
    “This is serious,” it cited one unnamed Russian official as saying.
    Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said separately on Tuesday he had never heard of Smolenkov.
    “I have never seen this man, have never met him, and have never monitored his career or movements,” Lavrov said.
    CNN reported on Monday that the U.S. decision to extract its informant had occurred soon after a May 2017 meeting in the Oval Office in which U.S. President Donald Trump had discussed highly classified intelligence with Lavrov.
    Lavrov said on Tuesday that nobody had divulged any secrets to him at the meeting with Trump.
    A U.S. government source also insisted that Trump did not disclose secrets, such as the informant’s existence or identity, at any meeting with Russian officials.
(Additional reporting by Tom Balmforth and Rinat Sagdiev in Moscow and Jonathan Landay and Steve Holland in Washington; Editing by Giles Elgood and Jonathan Oatis)
[ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW HERE IS THAT IT STARTED FROM CNN THE #1 FAKE NEWS.].

9/10/2019 Bulgarian official charged with espionage for Russia
FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov hug each other after a joint news
conference following their talks at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia May 30, 2018. Pavel Golovkin/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
    SOFIA (Reuters) – Bulgarian prosecutors charged the head of a non-governmental organization (NGO) on Tuesday with spying for Russia as part of a scheme they said aimed to draw Bulgaria away from its Western allies and toward Moscow.
    Bulgaria, Moscow’s most loyal satellite in Soviet times, is now a member of NATO and the European Union but has close cultural and historic ties to Russia, which remains its biggest energy supplier.
    The prosecutors said Nikolai Malinov, 50, head of the National Russophile Movement, had worked for Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, run mainly by former foreign intelligence officials, and also for a Russian NGO, the Double-Headed Eagle, since 2010.
    “Nikolai Malinov has been charged with putting himself in the service of foreign organizations to work for them as a spy,” deputy chief prosecutor Ivan Geshev told reporters.
    Malinov has been released on bail but is barred from leaving the country, Chief Prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov said.
    Malinov was not immediately reachable for comment.
    Prosecutors said they had found a Russian-language document prepared by Malinov that spoke of “the necessary geopolitical re-orientation of Bulgaria.”
    “The document outlines the steps needed to be taken to completely overhaul the geopolitical orientation of Bulgaria away from the West toward Russia,” Geshev said.
    The prosecutors did not say when the document was written.
    The document, which prosecutors did not date, showed Malinov planned to create internet sites, a TV channel, an influential think-tank and a political party to encourage Bulgarians to form more positive views of Russia based on their shared Slavic traditions and Orthodox Christianity.
    The prosecutors also said on Tuesday they had banned a veteran Russian foreign intelligence official, Leonid Reshetnikov, from entering Bulgaria for 10 years.    Reshetnikov is deputy chair of the Double-Headed Eagle and the former head of the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies.
    Malinov had traveled regularly to Russia to meet with Reshetnikov and Konstantin Malofeev, an influential Russian financier and head of the Double-Headed Eagle, where he was given funds and assigned tasks, Geshev said.
    Bulgarian President Rumen Radev, who is friendly toward Russia, said the charges against Malinov were “very serious” and said the prosecutors needed to come up with indisputable evidence of wrongdoing.
    Some opposition politicians saw the case as an attempt to influence public opinion ahead of local elections on Oct. 27.
(Reporting by Tsvetelia Tsolova; Editing by Gareth Jones)

9/10/2019 Ukraine ruling party gets impeachment law through parliament by Natalia Zinets
FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy (C), newly-appointed Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk (R) and newly-appointed
Parliamentary Speaker Dmytro Razumkov attend a meeting in Kiev, Ukraine September 2, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/File Photo
    KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine’s ruling party on Tuesday passed legislation that allows a sitting president to be impeached if they break the law, acting on an election pledge by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on the campaign trail this year.
    A former comedian who had no political experience before running for president, Zelenskiy has vowed to clean up Ukrainian politics and tackle entrenched corruption.
    The impeachment legislation aims to make the president more accountable by ensuring the post is not above the law.
    It follows last week’s ending of lawmakers’ immunity from prosecution.
    Buttressed by an unprecedented parliamentary majority after a snap July election, Zelenskiy’s Servant of the People party has set an ambitious timetable for passing such reforms.
    But opponents of Tuesday’s vote said the legislation was rushed through without proper consultation and that the law itself was so convoluted as to be meaningless.
    The law was passed at a first reading and then immediately voted on again a second time.    Typically, legislation is sent to a committee for further scrutiny before being voted on again.
    Ruslan Stefanchuk, Zelenskiy’s representative to parliament, said the vote showed the president was committed to keeping promises.
    Under the new law, parliament must first initiate impeachment proceedings, which must then be approved by both the Constitutional Court and Supreme Court, and later be sanctioned by three-quarters of lawmakers.
    “Perhaps the president was deceived, because this bill on impeachment does not really change anything.    This is a collection of articles of the constitution,” said Roman Lozinsky of the Voice party.
    “In fact, it is only a facade of reform that does not change anything.”
    Zelenskiy’s party also plans to lift a long-standing ban on sale of farmland, which supporters say will unlock enormous investment potential in one of the world’s top grain exporters.
(Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)

9/10/2019 U.S. senators expect Congress to reinstate aid for Ukraine even if Trump cuts it by Patricia Zengerle
National flags of Ukraine and the U.S. fly at a compound of a police training base outside Kiev, Ukraine, May 6, 2016. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican and Democratic senators said on Tuesday they expected the U.S. Congress would pass legislation restoring $250 million in military aid for Ukraine if President Donald Trump goes ahead with plans to block the assistance.
    “If he decides not to spend this money, I truly am fairly confident, that, on a bipartisan basis, Congress will reappropriate it,” Republican Senator Ron Johnson told reporters.
    Johnson made his remarks at a news conference with Democratic Senator Chris Murphy about their recent trip to Europe, which included stops in Ukraine, Kosovo and Serbia.    Murphy also visited Germany.
    The two lawmakers had requested visas to visit Russia, but Moscow denied their request.
    Trump administration officials said last month that the White House was reviewing whether the $250 million in military assistance for Ukraine should be sent to the country, even though it had already been approved by Congress in legislation signed into law by the president.
    The money is intended for use by Ukraine in its struggle with pro-Russian separatists backed by Moscow.    Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014.
    Johnson said he had spoken to Trump about the aid just before the trip, and Trump had told him his concern was about whether European countries, not the United States, should be providing funds to Ukraine because the country is in their “backyard.”
    Murphy said it was clear in meetings with Ukrainian officials that they did not have a full understanding of why the money might be withheld.    He said the Ukrainians brought up the issue in every meeting with the U.S. lawmakers.
    The two senators said they had sought to reassure the Ukrainians that Congress was behind the country as it faces Russian aggression.
    “Regardless of what the president does, the United States Congress is with you, and we support the courage of the Ukrainian people,” Johnson said.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

9/10/2019 Anti-Kremlin candidate wins Moscow assembly seat with help of army votes: data by Maria Tsvetkova and Polina Nikolskaya
FILE PHOTO: Russian politician Sergei Mitrokhin attends a rally to demand authorities allow opposition candidates to run in the upcoming local
election and release protesters, who were detained during recent demonstrations, in Moscow, Russia August 31, 2019. REUTERS/Tatyana Makeyeva
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – An anti-Kremlin opposition candidate has won a rare seat in Moscow’s legislature with the help of some army votes, election data showed, suggesting that discontent over falling living standards may have reached parts of the military.
    Sergei Mitrokhin won his seat in Sunday’s election partly by triumphing at two of four polling stations near the Russian army’s main headquarters where military families voted en masse, Reuters data shows.
    His victory also came despite the army’s practice of ordering soldiers to cast their ballots in elections to help boost usually poor turnout and – the authorities hope – also increase support for Kremlin-backed candidates.
    Mitrokhin, who represents the opposition Yabloko Party, had taken part in a wave of street protests over the exclusion of other opposition candidates in the weeks leading up to the vote.
    He won 39% and 32% of the vote, more than other candidates, at polling stations No. 167 and 168 near the main Defence Ministry building on the Moscow river embankment where some 1,140 servicemen and their family members voted, election officials said.    Overall, Mitrokhin won more than 50 percent of votes cast in the area where he was standing.
    Russia’s electoral system allows Russian troops and their families to be registered to vote at the Defence Ministry’s compounds in Moscow despite living in other neighborhoods or even outside the capital.
    Their votes in past elections have helped pro-Kremlin candidates to victory in central Moscow neighborhoods with a strong opposition presence.
    During Sunday’s vote Mitrokhin, who was himself initially barred from running by the local election commission, told Reuters he thought the press-ganging of soldiers into voting at these polling stations could affect his chances of winning a seat in the Moscow legislature.
    When asked to explain his victory on Tuesday despite the military vote he said: “I don’t know what happened.”
    At least six Russian soldiers told Reuters during Sunday’s vote that they had been coerced into voting by their superiors and some of them had been asked to provide photographic evidence that they had cast their ballot.
    The Russian Defence Ministry did not reply to a request for comment.
    The ruling United Russia party lost one third of its seats in the Moscow assembly but retained its majority.
    The military vote didn’t go all Mitrokhin’s way however.
    He finished behind other candidates with just 577 votes at polling station number nine near another Defence Ministry complex.    Nearly 3,200 military and their family members voted there, largely outweighing 10 civilian voters.
(Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber, Gleb Stolyarov, Polina Nikolskaya and Maria Tsvetkova; Editing by Gareth Jones)

9/11/2019 Russia says exit of Trump adviser Bolton unlikely to help ties: RIA
FILE PHOTO: U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton attends a meeting with Russian President
Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia October 23, 2018. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia does not expect its ties with Washington to suddenly improve following the exit of U.S. national security adviser John Bolton, RIA news agency cited Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Wednesday.
    U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly fired Bolton amid disagreements with his hardline aide over how to handle foreign policy challenges such as North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan and Russia.
    Ryabkov said that such staff reshuffles in the United States have not led to a normalization in relations in the past.
(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Kim Coghill)

9/11/2019 Russia blasts idea a CIA mole lifted lid on its U.S. meddling by Tom Balmforth and Mark Hosenball
FILE PHOTO - A view shows the St. Basil's Cathedral (L) and the Kremlin wall, before the lights were
switched off for Earth Hour in Red Square in central Moscow, Russia, March 25, 2017. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
    MOSCOW/LONDON (Reuters) – Russia on Wednesday condemned as lies and slander suggestions a suspected CIA mole in President Vladimir Putin’s administration had handed over information to the United States about alleged Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential elections.
    Deputy Foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov made the comment after U.S. media reports, confirmed to Reuters by two sources, said a CIA informant in the Russian government had been extracted and brought to the United States in 2017.
    U.S. intelligence agencies have said Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election campaign in order to tilt the vote in U.S. President Donald Trump’s favor.    Moscow has denied any interference.
    A source familiar with the U.S. government’s handling of the informant told Reuters the mole had provided information that helped establish Russian involvement in efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. campaign.    CNN said on Tuesday the informant had helped show that Putin had directed Russian interference into the election to favor Trump.
    But Ryabkov said the alleged mole could not have had any role in revealing election meddling because there was no meddling.
    “And what is happening in terms of such interpretations is just the piling up of one lie on top of another and the multiplication of slander about us,” he was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.
    The Kremlin said separately on Wednesday it did not know if one of its former employees had been a CIA informant, but that Russia’s intelligence services were working on the case.
    Russian daily newspaper Kommersant has said that the official may have been a man called Oleg Smolenkov.    He was reported to have disappeared with his wife, Antonina, and three children while on holiday in Montenegro in June 2017.
    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday: I can only state that this employee existed, that he was fired, and that we don’t know whether he was a spy or not.    This is a question for the intelligence services – they are doing their job.”
    The source familiar with the U.S. handling of the case said on Wednesday that the CIA had moved to extract the informant because of growing fears his activities and identity could leak.
The CIA has said any suggestion that Trump, in contacts with Russian leaders, had somehow compromised the source’s existence was false. On Wednesday, Russian daily newspaper Vedomosti cited an unnamed source close to the security services as saying Smolenkov had latterly worked for at least five years as a top aide to Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov and that he had access to “very sensitive information, including intelligence information
    Smolenkov was stationed as a Russian diplomat in the United States during the same time as Ushakov was ambassador to Washington, official Russian documents show.
    The Kremlin has said that Smolenkov was not a high-level official when he later transferred to the presidential administration after returning to Russia and did not have access to President Vladimir Putin.
    Russian state news agency RIA said on Wednesday it had visited a house listed as owned by a man named Oleg Smolenkov in Stafford, Virginia, near Washington D.C., an area where it said many former U.S. military and FBI personnel live.
    It said the curtains of the house were drawn, that there was no sign of any activity inside and that no one answered the door.
    One of the neighbors, a man named Greg Tally, said the house’s residents had Russian accents and that they had left the property abruptly after a reporter turned up in the area, RIA said.
(Additional reporting by Andrew Osborn and Maria Kiselyova in Moscow; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

9/11/2019 U.S. backs proposed $6.5 billion sale of 32 F-35 Lockheed jets to Poland by Bryan Pietsch
FILE PHOTO - A Lockheed Martin F-35 aircraft is seen at the ILA Air Show in Berlin, Germany, April 25, 2018. REUTERS/Axel Schmidt
    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. State Department said on Wednesday it had approved a proposed sale of 32 Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jets worth $6.5 billion to Poland.
    In April, the Pentagon told Congress it was considering selling the jets to the European nation, a NATO member, as well as Greece, Romania, Spain and Singapore.
    The sale would boost Poland’s contributions to NATO and reduce the country’s dependence on Russian equipment, a State Department official said in a statement. During the Cold War, Poland, which shares borders with Russia and fellow NATO member Germany, belonged to the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact.
    The approval of the sale comes days after U.S. Vice President Mike Pence visited Poland, a key ally in the region, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the start of World War Two.
    Under President Donald Trump, the United States has rolled out a “Buy American” plan that relaxed restrictions on sales and encouraged U.S. officials to take a bigger role in increasing business overseas for the American weapons industry.
    However, the United States began the process in April to remove Turkey from the multinational F-35 program after Ankara said it would proceed in purchasing a Russian S-400 missile defense system that NATO officials say is not compatible with the F-35.
    Congress was notified of the State Department’s approval on Tuesday, a State Department official said.
(Reporting by Bryan Pietsch, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien and Jonathan Oatis)

9/12/2019 Russia raps Netanyahu’s Jordan Valley plan before Putin meeting
FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures while speaking to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
during their meeting in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, April 4, 2019. Alexander Zemlianichenko/Pool via REUTERS
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to annex the Jordan Valley ahead of a meeting between the Israeli leader and President Vladimir Putin later on Thursday, warning it could sharply increase regional tensions.
    Netanyahu, who is campaigning for re-election on Sept. 17, announced on Tuesday he intended to “apply Israeli sovereignty” to the Jordan Valley and adjacent northern Dead Sea – territory in the West Bank that it captured in the 1967 Middle East war and which Palestinians seek for a state.
    The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement late on Wednesday that it had noted what it said was the Arab world’s “strongly negative reaction” to Netanyahu’s announcement.
    “We share concerns about such plans from the Israeli leadership, the implementation of which could sharply escalate tensions in the region, undermine hope for establishing a long-awaited peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors,” it said.
    Netanyahu and Putin are due to hold talks in the southern Russian Black Sea city of Sochi later on Thursday.
(Reporting by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Mark Heinrich)

9/12/2019 Russia carries out mass raids on Kremlin critic Navalny’s supporters by Andrew Osborn and Maria Tsvetkova
FILE PHOTO: Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny speaks with journalists after he was released
from a detention centre in Moscow, Russia August 23, 2019. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian law enforcement authorities on Thursday carried out mass raids on the homes and offices of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s supporters, as part of an investigation into money-laundering.
    Searches took place in 39 towns and cities, four days after the ruling United Russia party, which supports President Vladimir Putin, lost a third of its seats in the Moscow city assembly while easily retaining its dominant nationwide position.
    Navalny had urged his supporters to vote tactically in last weekend’s local and regional elections to try to reduce the chances of Kremlin-backed candidates, a strategy that appears to have had some success in the capital.
    “Putin is very angry,” Navalny wrote on social media after the raids.    “This is a case where the actions of the police are no different from those of burglars.”
    Authorities told activists that the searches were related to a money-laundering investigation into Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, an organization that has published embarrassing investigations into what it says is the wrongdoing of corrupt officials.
    State investigators last month opened a criminal investigation into the alleged laundering of 1 billion roubles ($15 million) by the foundation itself.    It also froze a slew of bank accounts linked to the foundation, a move Navalny’s allies said was a trumped-up attempt to cripple his political movement.
    Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s spokeswoman, said on Thursday that the scale and nature of the latest raids was unprecedented.
    Leonid Volkov, another senior Navalny ally, published a list of towns and cities where activists had been targeted.
    “The overall number of searches is over 150 and no less than 1,000 Russian law enforcement employees are involved (in the raids),” Volkov wrote on social media.
    He linked the searches to Navalny’s tactical voting strategy and said the homes of activists, their relatives and the regional headquarters of Navalny’s movement were being targeted.
    Activists were being taken in for questioning, he added, saying technical hardware was being confiscated.
    “The state has two tasks – to frighten and steal,” wrote Volkov.    “It’s obvious that the aim of this operation is to destroy our headquarters structure and to obstruct the work of our (regional) headquarters.”
    Golos, a non-governmental organization that monitors Russian elections, said on Thursday that the homes of its activists were also being raided by the authorities.
(Reporting by Andrew Osborn and Maria Tsvetkova; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

9/12/2019 Trump administration reinstates military aid for Ukraine
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters at the White House before departing to
Fayetteville, North Carolina in Washington, U.S. September 9, 2019. REUTERS/Erin Scott/File Photo
    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s administration has released $250 million in military aid for Ukraine, U.S. senators said on Thursday, after lawmakers from both parties expressed concern that the White House had held up money approved by Congress.
    The money is intended for use by Ukraine in its struggle with pro-Russian separatists backed by Moscow.    Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014.
    Some Democrats had questioned whether the administration had withheld the money to put pressure on Ukraine’s government to support Trump’s re-election campaign by launching an investigation of one of Trump’s main rivals in the 2020 U.S. election.
    Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Appropriations Committee said the White House released the money on Wednesday night, hours before the panel was due to debate an amendment to a defense spending bill that would have prevented Trump from such actions in the future.
    An administration official confirmed that the money had been released, providing no explanation.    The White House had said only that it was reviewing the Ukraine aid program.
    It was one of several disputes recently between Trump and members of Congress, including some of his fellow Republicans as well as Democrats, over his administration’s decision to sidestep congressional approval to fund its own policy initiatives.
    Lawmakers from both parties had said they expected Congress would pass legislation to reinstate the aid for Ukraine if the administration had not released the money.
    The White House has sought repeatedly to slash foreign aid since Trump took office in January 2017, but Congress has pushed back against such plans.
    Also this week, three national security committees in the Democratic-led House of Representatives announced that they were launching an investigation into whether Trump, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani and possibly others had been trying to put pressure on Ukraine’s government to assist in Trump’s re-election campaign.
    The committees had said they would investigate whether withholding the military aid was part of Trump’s effort “to coerce” the Kiev government into launching an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden and his family.
    Biden is running against Trump in the 2020 presidential campaign.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Cynthia Osterman)

9/12/2019 Russia carries out mass raids on Kremlin critic Navalny’s supporters by Andrew Osborn
A still image taken from a video footage shows a masked law enforcement officer addressing journalists during a raid in
a local office of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny in Perm, Russia September 12, 2019. 59.RU/Handout via REUTERS TV
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian law enforcement authorities on Thursday carried out mass raids on the homes and offices of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s supporters across the country, a move he described as the biggest crackdown of its kind in modern Russian history.
    More than 200 searches took place as part of an investigation into money-laundering in 41 towns and cities, Navalny said. CCTV footage showed masked men using power tools to remove doors and armed officers securing various premises associated with Navalny’s political movement.
    The raids happened four days after the ruling United Russia party, which supports President Vladimir Putin, lost a third of its seats in the Moscow city assembly while easily retaining its dominant nationwide position.
    Navalny, whose own allies had been barred from running in the Moscow city election, had urged people to vote tactically to try to reduce the chances of Kremlin-backed candidates, a strategy that appears to have had some success in the capital.
    “Putin is very angry and is stamping his feet,” Navalny said in a video released on Thursday.    “I congratulate you. Today the biggest police operation is modern Russian history is taking place.”
    told activists that the searches were related to a money-laundering investigation into Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, an organization that has published embarrassing investigations into what it says is the wrongdoing of corrupt officials.
    State investigators last month opened a criminal investigation into the alleged laundering of 1 billion rubles ($15 million) by the foundation itself.    It also froze a number of bank accounts linked to the foundation, a move Navalny’s allies said was a trumped-up attempt to cripple his political movement.
    Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s spokeswoman, said the scale and nature of the latest raids was unprecedented.
    Leonid Volkov, another senior Navalny ally, published a list of towns and cities where activists had been targeted.
    He linked the searches to Navalny’s tactical voting strategy and said the homes of activists, their relatives and the regional headquarters of Navalny’s movement were being targeted.
    Activists were being taken in for questioning, he added, saying technical hardware was being confiscated.
    “The state has two tasks – to frighten and steal,” wrote Volkov. “It’s obvious that the aim of this operation is to destroy our headquarters structure and to obstruct the work of our (regional) headquarters.”
    Navalny, a 43-year-old lawyer and activist, was jailed in July for 30 days after calling for people to demonstrate over the exclusion of opposition candidates from the Moscow election.
    The authorities’ refusal to register opposition candidates, including some of Navalny’s allies, on technical grounds triggered the biggest sustained protest movement in Russia since 2011-2013 with up to 60,000 people demonstrating at one point.
    Police briefly detained more than 2,000 people this summer, handed short jail terms to almost Navalny’s entire entourage and used force to disperse what they said were illegal protests.
.     Golos, a non-governmental organization that monitors Russian elections, said on Thursday that the homes of its activists had also being raided by the authorities.
($1 = 65.1300 rubles)
(Additional reporting by Maria Tsvetkova; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Giles Elgood)

9/12/2019 Twitter blocks accounts of Raul Castro and Cuban state-run media by Sarah Marsh
FILE PHOTO: Cuba's First Secretary of the Communist Party and former President Raul Castro (L) talks
with Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez during an event with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
(not pictured) at the Capitol, in Havana, Cuba July 24, 2019. REUTERS/Fernando Medina/File Photo
    HAVANA (Reuters) – U.S. social media firm Twitter Inc has blocked the accounts of Cuban Communist Party Leader Raul Castro, his daughter Mariela Castro and Cuba’s top state-run media outlets, a move the Cuban Union of Journalists denounced as “massive censorship.”
    Dozens of accounts of journalists for Cuban state-run media as well as the official account for the Communications Ministry were also blocked in the crackdown late on Wednesday.
    Twitter did not explain or forewarn of the measure, state-run media wrote on their websites.    The company did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
    The Cuban Union of Journalists said the platform had suspended individual accounts in the past which had been recovered.
    The move came just as President Miguel Diaz-Canel was addressing the nation on state-run TV, warning of an energy crisis due to U.S. sanctions.
    “What is new here is the massive scope of this act of cybernetic warfare, clearly planned, that aims to limit the freedom of expression of Cuban institutions and citizens and to silence the leaders of the revolution” it said in a statement.
    Some independent Cuban journalists commented ironically on the fact officials of a government which has a monopoly on public spaces and traditional media in a one party state were complaining of censorship.
    Independent journalism in Cuba is tolerated but not legal and the websites of several alternative outlets that are critical of the government are blocked on the island. Locals must use virtual private networks to access them.
    “Official Cuban press discovers ‘freedom of expression’ thanks to Twitter,” wrote 14ymedio, the digital news outlet run by prominent dissident Yoani Sanchez.
    Cuba was featured on the list of 10 most censored countries worldwide released this week by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), headquartered in New York.
    Long one of the world’s least connected countries, Cuba has been rapidly expanding web access in recent years, introducing mobile internet last December.
    Cuban officials piled onto Twitter last year after Diaz-Canel opened an account and called for them to be more in touch with the people.    Some do respond to citizen comments but critics complain most just retweet government statements.
(Reporting by Sarah Marsh; Editing by David Gregorio)

9/12/2019 Hungary’s Orban hopeful on ties with new EU Commission after migration disputes
FILE PHOTO: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrives to take part in a European Union leaders summit,
in Brussels, Belgium July 2, 2019. Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
    PRAGUE (Reuters) – Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Thursday he was optimistic that the new European Commission would improve ties with the EU’s eastern members, long strained by disagreements over migration and multi-culturalism.
    The Visegrad Four group (V4) – Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia – has often been at odds with outgoing Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and his team, especially over how to manage migration into the bloc.
    The eastern nations, which unlike their wealthier western peers have little experience of absorbing large numbers of immigrants, successfully resisted a Commission plan to distribute asylum seekers across EU member states.
    “I am optimistic.    The new commission, the behavior of the new commission, the denomination of the new commission, all that will determine how successful the next five years will be,” Orban told a news conference after a meeting of the V4 prime ministers in Prague.
    He accused the outgoing commission of pursuing policies based on “let’s let migrants in, let’s build multiculturalism,” adding that Hungary and its neighbors opposed this approach.
    Orban, who has also repeatedly clashed with Brussels over his reforms of Hungary’s judiciary and the independence of media and academic institutions, said the new Commission must not try to “impose on us the things that our citizens do not want.”
    “But if this process of imposing continues, we will be resistant,” said Orban, speaking through an interpreter.
PROTECTING EUROPEAN WAY OF LIFE
    Incoming Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen presented her proposed team of commissioners on Tuesday, including Greece’s Margaritis Schinas with a newly created portfolio entitled “Protecting the European Way of Life.”
    Among Schina’s responsibilities will be finding common ground on migration, including a new pact on migration and asylum, according to his mission statement.
    Asked about expectations for the new commissioner, Orban said the region was ready to cooperate but would resist any attempts to impose plans.
    The other V4 prime ministers said they were happy with the portfolios secured by their candidates in the new Commission, which must still be approved by the European Parliament before taking office on Nov. 1.
    The Czechs and Slovak candidates got vice-presidency posts, Poland’s nominee will be responsible for agriculture and Hungary’s candidate will be in charge of EU enlargement, which is a priority for the central European countries.
    The Czech commissioner, Vera Jourova, will be in charge of European values and transparency, and so may touch upon the disputes Brussels has over rule of law issues, media freedom and judicial independence with Hungary and also with Poland.
(Reporting by Jason Hovet, writing by Jan Lopatka; Editing by Gareth Jones)

9/12/2019 Ukraine drawing up roadmap to implement peace deal for Donbass: Zelenskiy
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinisto attend a welcoming
ceremony in Kiev, Ukraine September 12, 2019. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS
    KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine is preparing a roadmap with clear deadlines in order to implement a peace deal for eastern Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told reporters on Thursday, speaking alongside the visiting president of Finland.
    Zelenskiy hoped that the new roadmap would be discussed at a meeting in the so-called “Normandy” format between the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France in September.
    Ukraine has been fighting Russian-backed forces in the eastern Donbass region for five years in a conflict that has killed more than 13,000 people, despite a notional ceasefire that was agreed in 2015 in the Belarus capital Minsk.
(Reporting by Natalia Zinets; Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

9/13/2019 Ukraine president expects Trump meeting, Donbass peace talks in September by Natalia Zinets
FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy delivers a speech during a parliamentary
session in Kiev, Ukraine August 29, 2019. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich/File Photo
    KIEV (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday he expects to meet U.S. President Donald Trump in September and that peace talks to resolve Ukraine’s conflict with Russia in the eastern Donbass region will also take place this month.
    Zelenskiy was elected this year promising to bring peace to Donbass where Ukrainian troops are fighting Russian-backed forces in a conflict that has killed more than 13,000 people despite a notional ceasefire.
    Ukraine, Western countries and NATO accuse Russia of sending troops and heavy weapons to prop up separatists in the Donbass.    Moscow says it only provides political and humanitarian support to rebels and says Russians fighting in Ukraine are volunteers.
    A landmark prisoner swap between Moscow and Kiev last weekend has revived hopes of peace talks.    Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France last met in October 2016 for talks to implement a peace deal agreed in the Belarus capital Minsk the year before but which did not achieve a lasting ceasefire.
    French President Emmanuel Macron and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin spoke by phone on Sunday, agreeing the prisoner swap gave momentum for another summit between the four countries, dubbed the ‘Normandy format.'
    “We look forward to seeing the leaders of the four countries in the ‘Normandy’ format,” Zelenskiy said.    “We are waiting for this meeting at the end of September.    I think it will definitely take place.”
    Ukraine says Russia engineered quasi-separatist uprisings across a belt of eastern Ukraine that escalated into a full-scale conflict. Russia denies doing so.
    Two so-called “People’s Republics” – unrecognized by either Kiev or Moscow – have formed in the Donetsk and Luhansk industrial regions of eastern Ukraine, known as Donbass.
    Asked later what Zelenskiy expected to achieve at the talks, he said he wanted an agreement on a road map for peace in place with exact steps and dates that all sides would take.
    “This meeting (with Trump) will probably also happen in the near future, also in September,” he added.
    Zelenskiy said he expected another prisoner swap to build on the previous deal between Moscow and Kiev, but that Ukraine had to tread carefully on proposals to send peacekeepers to the region.
    He told the Yalta European Strategy (YES) summit in Kiev he did not want the area to become like the breakaway Moldova region of Transdniestria, where Russian troops are permanently stationed.
    Zelenskiy also called for sanctions on Russia to remain in place, describing them as a necessary “tax.”    “If you like, this is a tax for the sake of peace, and until it is restored, the sanctions must be maintained.”
    In reference to a decision by the Trump administration to release $250 million in military aid for Ukraine after lawmakers voiced concern that the White House had held up money approved by Congress, Zelenskiy said: “I want to thank the United States for supporting Ukraine.    We had heard that the United States temporarily blocked military assistance for the amount of $250 million for us.”
    Some Democrats had questioned whether the administration had withheld the money to put pressure on Ukraine’s government to support Trump’s re-election campaign by launching an investigation into one of Trump’s main rivals in the 2020 U.S. election.
    Zelenskiy also said he had ideas for how to end Russia’s annexation of Crimea, but that he did not want to disclose them publicly.    Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, after the Maidan street protests ousted Kremlin-friendly president Viktor Yanukovich.
(Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

9/13/2019 Ukraine presidential official Danylyuk worried about raid on PrivatBank
The logo of Privatbank is pictured outside its branch in central Kiev, Ukraine, December 18, 2016. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
    KIEV (Reuters) – The Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council Oleksandr Danylyuk on Friday told reporters he was worried about a raid by police on the offices of state-run PrivatBank and the investigation into officials at the bank.
    Danylyuk is the first senior member of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s staff to comment on the raid that took place on Wednesday.
    PrivatBank’s fortunes are closely watched by investors as a bellwether for the business climate under Zelenskiy, who has business ties to the bank’s former owner, Ihor Kolomoisky.
    “I’m rather worried about what’s happening,” Danylyuk told reporters on the sidelines of the Yalta European Strategy (YES) summit, but declined further comment.
(Reporting by Natalia Zinets; writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Catherine Evans)

9/13/2019 Czech state attorneys drop criminal charges against PM Babis
FILE PHOTO: Czech Republic's Prime Minister Andrej Babis arrives to take part in a European Union
leaders summit, in Brussels, Belgium July 2, 2019. REUTERS/Piroschka Van De Wouw/File Photo
    PRAGUE (Reuters) – The Prague state attorney has halted criminal investigations into Prime Minister Andrej Babis, his family members and others, the attorney’s office said on Friday.
    The investigations into accusations of fraud related to European Union subsidies had posed the biggest challenge to Babis’ political career.    He denied any wrongdoing.
    The investigation was the major reason why a number of Czech political parties refuse to cooperate with Babis’s ruling populist ANO movement.    He runs a minority administration together with the centre-left Social Democrats that must lean on Communist Party votes to secure a majority in parliament.
    The case against Babis, the billionaire owner of the chemicals, food, farming and media group Agrofert, focused on a 2 million euro subsidy granted a decade ago for building the Stork’s Nest conference centre outside Prague.
    Police said Babis had transferred ownership of the firm to his wife and other relatives so it would qualify for the funding, which was meant for small businesses.
    “The evidence gathering led to conclusion that the Stork’s Nest Farm met the definition of a small and medium-sized business,” attorney Martin Erazim said in a statement.
    The EU’s anti-fraud body OLAF had found multiple breaches of national and EU legislation in the project.
    Agrofert had voluntarily returned the subsidy.
(Reporting by Jan Lopatka; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Giles Elgood)

9/13/2019 Twitter restores some blocked Cuban official accounts by Sarah Marsh
FILE PHOTO: People holding mobile phones are silhouetted against a backdrop projected with the Twitter logo in this
illustration picture taken September 27, 2013. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Illustration/File Photo/File Photo
    HAVANA (Reuters) – Twitter Inc has restored some of the accounts of Cuban state-run media, journalists and government officials it had blocked on Wednesday, although others like that of Communist Party leader Raul Castro remain suspended.
    Cuban officials have accused Twitter, a social media firm based in the United States, of mass censorship.    Critics of the government say this is ironic, coming from a one-party state which itself practices censorship.
    Twitter has not explained specifically how it believes the accounts were breaking its rules.    However, a Twitter spokesman said users may not artificially amplify or disrupt conversations by using multiple accounts.
    “Twitter has finally given us back our accounts,” Mariela Castro, Raul Castro’s daughter and director of Cuba’s National Center for Sex Education, tweeted on Friday.
    “Thanks to those who expressed their solidarity in the face of the media aggression against Cuba.”
    Other accounts were not restored.    State-run website Cubadebate said all its accounts in several languages, as well as those of its directors and journalists, remained blocked.
    “It is well known that on various occasions, Twitter has put itself in the service of intelligence and foreign policy operations of the U.S. government,” it said.    “It would not surprise us if this was the case on this occasion.”
    Social media companies globally are under pressure to stem illicit online political influence campaigns.
    The Cuban state has a monopoly on public spaces and traditional media.    While the top state-run media outlets have different profiles, they frequently publish similar if not identical articles.
    Many Cuban state media, journalists and officials limit themselves to retweeting official statements.    Government critics complain of “cybercatfishes” – fake accounts pretending to support the government and attacking those who do not.
    Cubans on Twitter noted that some of the “cybercatfishes” who had bothered them in the past were now blocked.
    “When are we going to start the conversation about the use of bots farm in Cuba, initiated and financed by the government?” wrote Elaine Diaz Rodriguez, founder of independent Cuban news outlet Periodismo de Barrio.
    Others, like political scientist Harold Cardenas Lema, said Twitter should go after anti-Castro U.S. bots as well as Cuban government ones.    Not doing so suggests it is politically biased, he tweeted.
    Independent journalism in Cuba is tolerated but not legal, and the websites of several alternative outlets that are critical of the government are blocked on the island.
    Cuba was featured on the list of 10 most censored countries worldwide released this week by the Committee to Protect Journalists, headquartered in New York.
(Reporting by Sarah Marsh; Editing by Dan Grebler)

9/13/2019 With Zelenskiy in charge, Ukraine tycoon Kolomoisky sees amicable solution on PrivatBank by Natalia Zinets
Ukrainian business tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky attends the Yalta European Strategy (YES) annual
meeting in Kiev, Ukraine September 13, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
    KIEV (Reuters) – Ukrainian tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky said on Friday he saw room for an amicable solution in his long battle with the authorities over the country’s largest lender, PrivatBank, now that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was in power.
    The fortunes of PrivatBank are seen by many investors as a bellwether for Ukraine’s business climate and could also have a bearing on whether the International Monetary Fund and other donors disburse more aid to the war-scarred country.
    Kolomoisky, one of Ukraine’s richest men, used to own PrivatBank until it was nationalized against his wishes in 2016 under Zelenskiy’s predecessor, Petro Poroshenko.
    Zelenskiy, a former comic actor with no previous political experience who swept to power in an April election, has business ties with Kolomoisky but denies suggestions that he would help the tycoon to regain control of the bank.
    But a meeting this week between the two men, followed by a police raid on PrivatBank’s headquarters in the city of Dnipro, has brought the issue back into focus just as an IMF mission visits Kiev to discuss a new aid-for-reforms deal.
    Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Yalta European Strategy (YES) summit, Kolomoisky said he had not discussed PrivatBank with Zelenskiy at their meeting and that he did not want to get back PrivatBank at any cost.    He also said he had met Zelenskiy at the president’s request.
    “There is a good window of opportunity today,” Kolomoisky said.    “We (PrivatBank’s former owners) do not agree with the nationalization, this dispute is easier to resolve today than under the previous president.”
    He suggested that government negotiators be given a mandate to find a solution but did not go into further details.
    Kolomoisky fell out with Zelenskiy’s predecessor and spent the last years of Poroshenko’s presidency living in self-imposed exile.    He told reporters on Friday he planned to live in Ukraine permanently, having returned after Zelenskiy’s election victory.
SAME RULES FOR ALL
    Speaking to reporters at the same summit, Zelenskiy said he had discussed energy issues with Kolomoisky and conveyed a message that all businessmen would have to follow the same rules and that he would not tolerate monopolies.
    The authorities nationalized PrivatBank saying the lender had a $5.6 billion hole in its balance sheet caused by shady lending practices.    Kolomoisky contested that assessment, saying the bank was nationalized on spurious grounds.
    The dispute brought him into conflict with Valeria Gontareva, who was central bank governor at the time.
    Now working as an academic in Britain, Gontareva says she has been the target of a harassment and intimidation campaign.
    She says she was hospitalized with severe injuries after being hit by a car in London in late August.    Then days later a vehicle owned by her family was set ablaze outside their home, prompting the current central bank leadership to call for an investigation.
    Asked whether he was behind the car accident or a systematic campaign against the former central bank governor, as Gontareva has intimated, Kolomoisky denied any involvement.
(Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Gareth Jones)

9/13/2019 Russia ready for Ukraine peace talks but sets preconditions by Vladimir Soldatkin
The Russian flag is seen through barbed wire as it flies on the roof of the Russian embassy in Kiev, Ukraine March 26, 2018. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia is ready to take part in a four-way summit in Paris to try to breathe life into the stalled Ukrainian peace process but has strict preconditions for such a meeting, a senior Kremlin aide said on Friday.
    Kiev’s forces have been battling pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine since 2014 in a conflict that has claimed more than 13,000 lives. Sporadic fighting continues despite a ceasefire agreement.
    Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France last met in October 2016 for talks to implement a peace deal agreed in the Belarus capital Minsk the year before but which failed to achieve a lasting ceasefire.
    “We believe that such a meeting should take place and we agree that it can be held in Paris, as proposed by French President (Emmanuel) Macron,” said Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov.
    He said no date had yet been fixed but added that Moscow had three preconditions before it would agree to attend.
    The rival armed forces in eastern Ukraine should be separated on either side of the line of contact, he said.    Also, the wording on a special status for the Donbass region should be agreed and there must also be a preliminary agreement on what the summit’s conclusions should be.
    Hopes for an improvement in relations between Russia and Ukraine have revived following a prisoner swap last week Ushakov called the exchange “a very important action,” which he said could facilitate better ties between the two countries.
    He said he did not rule out the Paris summit taking place in October.
    Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said earlier on Friday he expects to meet U.S. President Donald Trump in September and that peace talks to resolve the Donbass conflict would also take place this month.
(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Gareth Jones)

9/13/2019 Bulgarian journalists protest over freedom of speech
A protester writes "Resignation" on a banner during a demonstration outside Bulgaria's
national radio building in Sofia, Bulgaria, September 13, 2019. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov
    SOFIA (Reuters) – Dozens of journalists at the state-run Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) staged a protest on Friday in support of media freedom after a colleague known for her coverage of the country’s graft-prone judicial system was briefly suspended from her job.
    The case drew criticism from human rights groups and the Bulgarian branch of the Association of European Journalists, which spoke of a “coup against journalistic professionalism” in a country that has the lowest ranking among the 28 European Union member states for press freedom.
    The new head of BNR news, Nikolay Krastev, on Thursday suspended Silvia Velikova, a respected radio anchor and reporter, saying she had violated her contract by urging listeners while on air to join a protest over the appointment of Bulgaria’s next chief prosecutor.
    But many journalists and others saw the move as politically motivated. Facing a strong backlash, Krastev then resigned and Velikova was reinstated.    Amid the turmoil, BNR took its Horizont news channel off the air for five hours and the communications regulation commission said it would investigate the case.
    “I’m outraged,” said Velichka Paunova, 67, one of dozens of ordinary citizens who also joined the journalists’ protest, accusing Bulgaria’s political establishment of trying to muzzle journalists.
    “It’s ugly, it’s scandalous.    What are they afraid of?    People are not stupid and they understand what this is about.”
    The issue has crystallized the frustration of many Bulgarians with what they see as a corrupt and opaque political elite and an ineffective judiciary, which have often been criticized by the European Commission.
    Bulgaria ranked 111th out of 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders world press freedom index this year – even below countries in the Western Balkans that are not yet EU members.
    In October 2017 hundreds of journalists protested in Sofia against threats from Deputy Prime Minister Valeri Simeonov against Bulgaria’s biggest broadcasters, whom he accused of waging a “massive smear campaign” against him.
(Reporting by Angel Krasimirov; Editing by Gareth Jones)

9/13/2019 Russia, Iran and Turkey to discuss Syria’s Idlib at Monday summit: Kremlin
Road direction signs are pictured at the entrance enroute to Khan Sheikhoun, Idlib, Syria August 24, 2019. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – The leaders of Russia, Turkey and Iran will discuss the difficult situation in Syria’s Idlib province when they meet in Ankara early next week for a summit, Yuri Ushakov, a senior Kremlin aide, said on Friday.
    Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani are due to hold talks on Syria in Ankara on Monday.
    Russia has asked Iran to refrain from any action that could jeopardize saving its troubled nuclear pact after Washington pulled out if it, Ushakov added.
(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; Writing by Anastasia Teterevleva; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

9/13/2019 Cuba’s acute fuel shortage begins to bite by Nelson Acosta
People wait for public transportation in Havana, Cuba, September 13, 2019. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini
    HAVANA (Reuters) – Cubans queued for hours for public transport on Friday at peak times in Havana, sweating in the heavy heat, while queues at gas stations snaked several blocks long, as a fuel shortage that the government blames on U.S. sanctions began to bite.
    Inspectors flagged down workers with state cars or trucks to get them to pick others up after President Miguel Diaz-Canel’s exhortation for Cubans to show solidarity in these times of crisis and everyone do their bit to improve fuel efficiency.
    He warned Cubans on Wednesday on state television of difficult times ahead as U.S. attempts to block fuel shipments to Communist-run Cuba meant there would be less diesel than usual available this month.
    The government has agreed a series of measures to ensure basic services, he said.    Some energy-intensive investments would be postponed, some train and bus services would be suspended and those who could work from home should.
    The crisis should only be temporary though, he assured, with shipments for October guaranteed.
    “The transport situation is getting ugly, even if the state says it is only temporary,” said Alexei Perez Recio, 55, who was fixing up a bicycle he had not used since the economic depression in Cuba following the fall of former benefactor the Soviet Union when public transport collapsed.
    “I have to have (my bike) ready.”
    The Communist government has assured Cubans this is not a return to those dark days as the economy is more diversified now, having opened up to tourism and foreign investment, and developed its own oil industry.
    Still, this is a sign of the worsening of Cuba’s economic situation.    The government started rationing energy several years ago due to a decline in subsidized oil shipments from leftist ally Venezuela, cutting street lighting and the use of electricity in state-run institutions.
    The Trump administration’s tightening of the decades-old embargo on Cuba’s already inefficient state-run economy has only worsened its economic situation and ability to pay for energy from elsewhere.
    New U.S. sanctions imposed on Venezuela’s state-run oil firm PDVSA in January have also made it harder for it to send oil shipments to Cuba.
    Cuba and Venezuela’s joint company, Transalba, for leasing and operating vessels covering the route between the two nations, has struggled to find enough tankers, captains and crew willing to work with two sanctioned countries, according to shipping sources involved in the trade.
    Some PDVSA ships, including the Manuela Saenz, Icaro, Terepaima and Yare, have had to complement the fleet.
    As such the flow of Venezuelan crude and fuel to Cuba has remained mostly stable this year, averaging 55,300 barrels per day (bpd) from February through August, according to Reuters calculations based in Refinitiv Eikon vessel tracking data and PDVSA’s export programs.
    But Diaz-Canel said some of the negotiations to secure enough ships for September – without referring explicitly to shipments from Venezuela – had fallen through.
    “I waited around three hours to catch a bus home yesterday,” said Eloisa Alvarez, 72, waiting with dozens of others at a bus stop where policemen and inspectors organized buses, state cars and even trucks to pick up people.
(The story fixes typo in 2nd paragraph in “do”)
(Reporting by Nelson Acosta in Havana; Additional Reporting by Marianna Parraga in Mexico City; Writing by Sarah Marsh; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

9/14/2019 Russia’s first sea-borne nuclear power plant arrives to its base
FILE PHOTO: A view shows Russia's floating nuclear power plant Akademik Lomonosov and tugboat Dixon before the departure from the service base
of Rosatomflot company for a journey along the Northern Sea Route to Chukotka in Murmansk, Russia August 23, 2019. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s first-floating nuclear power plant has arrived to its permanent base near an isolated Russian town across the Bering Strait from Alaska, Russian state nuclear energy company Rosatom said on Saturday.
    Developed by Rosatom, the plant, known as “Akademik Lomonosov,” set off on a 5,000 km (3,100 mile) journey on Aug. 23 through Arctic waters to reach the Chukotka region.
    Rosatom said it aims to make the floating station operational by the year-end.    It would become the world’s northernmost nuclear power station.
    The plant will replace a coal-fired power plant and an aging nuclear power plant supplying more than 50,000 people with electricity in Chukotka.
    Rosatom has long planned to launch the sea-borne power units, which, with their mobile, small capacity plants, are best suited to remote regions.    It has said they can help the environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.
    The small plants were designed to make it possible to supply electricity to hard-to-reach areas of Russia.    They can operate non-stop without the need for refueling for 3-5 years.
    Environmental protection groups, including Greenpeace, have expressed their concerns over potential safety issues.
(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin, editing by Louise Heavens)

9/14/2019 Ukraine wheat export memorandum with traders to be signed soon: minister
Ears of wheat are seen in a field near the village of Zhovtneve, Ukraine, July 14, 2016. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
    KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine will soon sign its annual wheat export memorandum with traders, the new Minister of Economy, Trade and Agriculture Tymofiy Mylovanov told Reuters on the sidelines of the Yalta European Strategy (YES) summit.
    The ministry and traders sign a memorandum each year to determine the forecast of how much wheat is expected to be exported in the marketing season.    In the document, traders promise not to exceed the agreed export volumes while the ministry promises to keep export rules unchanged.
    “We will sign it soon.    Everything is fine — there are no disruptions,” he said on Saturday.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Catherine Evans)

9/15/2019 Estonia to restrict government use of Huawei 5G technology
    HELSINKI – Estonia, which is among Europe’s most wired and technologically advanced nations, is set to restrict the use of equipment and technology from Chinese telecom giant Huawei in its government sector, citing security concerns. Raul Rikk, the leader of a government- sponsored group charged with setting policies and standards for the use of technology in Estonian government institutions said the issue isn’t the quality of Huawei’s goods, “but whether these devices can be used for political purposes in the future.”

9/15/2019 Ukraine government sees 2020 budget deficit at 2.09 percent
A woman looks at a sausage inside a supermarket in Kiev, Ukraine, November 23, 2016. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich
    KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine government proposes parliament to adopt the 2020 state budget with 2.09% deficit, finance minister Oksana Markarova said on Sunday.
    This year’s budget deficit is set at around 2.3 percent.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Toby Chopra)

9/16/2019 EU questions Hungary over rule of law concerns by Jorrit Donner-Wittkopf
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban applauds as he presents the programme of his Fidesz party
for European Parliament elections in Budapest, Hungary April 5, 2019. REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo
    BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union ministers grilled Hungary on Monday over Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s tightening of restrictions around free media, judges, academics, minorities and rights groups, which the bloc worries weakens democracy in the ex-communist country.
    A year after the European Parliament said Orban’s actions carried “a clear risk of a serious breach” of core EU values, ministers met in Brussels for a first formal hearing on Hungary.
    “The EU is like a family in many regards. And in a family there has to be a common set of rules… otherwise it cannot work.    And rule of law is a foundation of that,” said Austria’s EU affairs minister Alexander Schallenberg.
    Orban, in power since 2010, has also angered the EU with his harsh anti-immigration stance and crude campaigns against the bloc with anti-Semitic undertones.
    But, widely seen as a Machiavellian and shrewd operator, he has mostly escaped punishment beyond being suspended from the bloc’s biggest centre-right parliamentary group.
    The bloc is, however, seeking to make its generous assistance to poorer members like Hungary and Poland – where Orban’s fellow nationalists have also put media and judges under more state control – conditional on upholding the rule of law.
    The hearing was part of a prominent probe by the bloc against Hungary over flouting of the rule of law, the so-called Article 7 investigation, which could lead to the suspension of Budapest’s EU voting rights if all other capitals agreed.
    But, offering Budapest a clear lifeline, Poland’s EU minister Konrad Szymanski said after the session that Warsaw did not believe Orban’s policies constituted any systemic risk for democratic standards.
UNFORTUNATE CHAPTER
    Others stressed that Budapest would not be let off the hook.
    “Without respect for the rule of law there is no EU. This is the very foundation on which the EU was biult,” said Frans Timmermans, who has led the probes by the bloc’s executive European Commission both against Hungary and Poland.
    Speaking for both Paris and Berlin, French EU minister said the situation in Hungary was “worrying.”
    “When we speak of the independence of judges, the freedom of the media, when we speak of the protection of minorities, academic freedom… it reminds us of our identity, of our values,” said Amelie de Montchalin.
    With eurosceptic and nationalist politicians in several EU countries riding a wave of public discontent perpetuated by sluggish economies, anxiety over globalisation and immigration to Europe, the bloc is seeking to step up democratic defences.
    Hungary, however, rejects the bloc’s criticism, with Hungary’s Justice Minister Judit Varga saying after the session:
    “To deny the community of values with a member state only because of different positions in certain issues related to EU politics and policies would create a dangerous precedent and would question the very foundations of European integration.”
    “It is in the interest of the EU as a whole to close this unfortunate chapter and focus on the vast challenges that are in front of us.”
(Writing by Gabriela Baczynska, editing by Ed Osmond and Deepa Babington)

9/17/2019 Slovak Prime Minister Pellegrini survives no-confidence vote
FILE PHOTO: Slovakia's Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini arrives to take part in a European Union
leaders summit, in Brussels, Belgium July 2, 2019. Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt/Pool via REUTERS
    BRATISLAVA (Reuters) – Slovak Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini survived a no-confidence vote on Tuesday, days after losing his formal majority in parliament and as revelations about the reach of the main suspect in the murder of a journalist shake his government.
    The 2018 killings of investigative reporter Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova shone a spotlight on corruption in Slovakia and sparked huge protests that forced then-Prime Minister Robert Fico to resign.
    Kuciak had uncovered fraud cases involving politically connected businessmen.    A subject of his reportage was Marian Kocner, one of five people now awaiting trial for the killings and an acquaintance of politicians from various parties.
    Four of those charged, including Kocner, have pleaded not guilty, while the fifth has confessed to shooting Kuciak and has been cooperating with police.
    Special prosecutors said last month that Kocner’s phone showed communications with “representatives of state bodies and the justice system.”    A deputy justice minister resigned this month after her mobile phone was seized by the police, although she denied any contacts with Kocner.
    Two deputy general prosecutors had already resigned over their contacts with Kocner or a woman also charged in the case.
    Slovak media published parts of messages Kocner allegedly exchanged with the charged woman and with business allies in which they discuss his alleged contacts among the authorities.
    Zlatica Kusnirova, mother of Kuciak’s fiancee, and her lawyer Roman Kvasnica have confirmed the authenticity of leaked messages. Kocner’s lawyer did not respond to emailed questions.
    Pellegrini has not been shown to have been in contact with Kocner but opposition parties called a no-confidence vote when he refused to remove the deputy minister who later quit.
    He won on Tuesday with support from independents after the departure of two lawmakers from a junior coalition party this week cost the government its formal majority in the 150-member parliament.    Of 131 lawmakers present, 62 voted against Pellegrini while 66 backed him.
    The government will face renewed pressure on Friday when protesters return to the streets, aiming to “support courageous prosecutors and police officers and call for a trustworthy government” ahead of a general election due in February.
    At about 20 percent in opinion polls, Pellegrini’s Smer is still the strongest party, thanks to welfare spending and a strong economy.    It has suffered major loses in regional, local, presidential and EU elections in the past 18 months, however, and a new pro-EU/liberal coalition is catching up in the polls with around 15 percent support.
    In March, public fury over corruption in the wake of Kuciak’s murder helped liberal lawyer Zuzana Caputova become euro zone member Slovakia’s first female president.
(Reporting by Tatiana Jancarikova; Editing by Catherine Evans)

9/17/2019 Ukraine wants settlement with former PrivatBank owner: newspaper by Pavel Polityuk
FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy delivers a speech during the Yalta European Strategy (YES)
annual meeting in Kiev, Ukraine September 13, 2019. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS
    KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine’s president wants a settlement with the former owner of PrivatBank, Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk told a newspaper, potentially derailing the IMF-backed nationalization of the country’s largest bank.
    The remarks published in the Financial Times on Tuesday followed Friday’s statement by PrivatBank’s former owner Ihor Kolomoisky saying there was room for an amicable solution now Volodymyr Zelenskiy was president.
    PrivatBank was nationalized against Kolomoisky’s wishes in December 2016 and its fortunes are closely watched by investors because the International Monetary Fund may freeze aid to Ukraine if the nationalization were to be reversed.
    The statements by Kolomoisky and Honcharuk could sound alarm bells just as an IMF mission is in town to discuss a new aid-for-reforms deal with Honcharuk’s government, which took charge following a snap July election.
    As part of an IMF-supported clean-up of Ukraine’s financial system, the authorities nationalized PrivatBank in 2016 saying the lender had a $5.6 billion hole in its balance sheet due to shady lending practices.    Kolomoisky disputed this assessment.
    “I’m completely convinced that we need to concentrate on growth now and look for joint solutions instead of spending our resources on destroying each other,” the prime minister said.
    “So I am very positive about any rhetoric directed towards searching for a compromise,” he told the Financial Times.
    Honcharuk, his office and the International Monetary Fund did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
    Zelenskiy, a former comedian and actor, entered politics as a political novice this year promising to tackle corruption. He beat incumbent President Petro Poroshenko in April.
    Zelenskiy’s relationship with Kolomoisky has been under intense scrutiny.    The two have longstanding business ties and Kolomoisky’s 1+1 TV channel was the springboard for Zelenskiy’s presidential election campaign.
    The president has repeatedly denied suggestions he would help Kolomoisky win back PrivatBank or help Kolomoisky win compensation.    The two men met publicly last week but Kolomoisky told reporters that PrivatBank was not discussed.
(Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Louise Heavens and Edmund Blair)

9/17/2019 Russia’s Putin plans to visit Israel in January 2020
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a news conference following trilateral talks with his counterparts Hassan Rouhani
of Iran and Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey in Ankara, Turkey September 16, 2019. Sputnik/Valery Melnikov/Kremlin via REUTERS
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday he planned to visit Israel in January next year to inaugurate a memorial to World War Two victims in Jerusalem.
    Putin also told a meeting with a Jewish charity fund on Tuesday that Russia is paying a “high attention” to developing mutually beneficial relations with Israel.
(Reporting by Olesya Astakhova, Writing by Katya Golubkova, Editing by Angus MacSwan)

9/18/2019 Russia frees jailed protester as teachers, priests demand end to crackdown by Tom Balmforth
Russian opposition figure Lyubov Sobol holds a placard, which reads "I am/We are the entire country," during a
rally in support of Pavel Ustinov, who was sentenced to three and a half years in jail for dislocating
a police officer's shoulder when he was arrested during an unauthorised rally to demand free elections,
in front of the Presidential Administration building, in Moscow, Russia September 18, 2019. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Moscow court freed an opposition protester from custody on Wednesday, as school teachers and Orthodox priests told authorities to rein in a crackdown following the biggest anti-Kremlin protests in the capital for years.
    The court released Aidar Gubaydulin, who faced years in jail for assaulting a police officer at a protest last month, on bail.    His supporters say all he had done was throw a plastic bottle at a police officer and that he had missed his target.
    The court ruled the case should be reviewed by prosecutors, a move the opposition cast as a concession after an array of prominent Russians demanded the release of an actor jailed for 3-1/2 years on similar charges.
    Celebrities from film stars to a Eurovision pop singer took to social networks on Tuesday to condemn the conviction of novice actor Pavel Ustinov, protesting that he had not taken part in the rally and had not resisted arrest.
    Police arrested more than two thousand people at protests over the summer that began when more than a dozen opposition candidates were barred from taking part in a local election in Moscow that was held this month.
    Several protesters were given jail terms of around 3-4 years for assaulting police officers, convictions the opposition says are part of a broader crackdown aimed at stymying its activities.
    The authorities deny that, and say many of this summer’s opposition protests were illegal because they were not formally authorized and that people were prosecuted for breaking the law.
    On Wednesday, more than 700 school teachers signed an open letter circulated online condemning what it said were the “array of unjust sentences issued flouting the constitution…
    “People … have been arrested without cause, beaten, convicted and sentenced to imprisonment or large monetary fines without their guilt being proven …,” it said.
    A separate open letter signed by more than 70 Orthodox clerics said the convictions had been disproportionately harsh and appeared designed to intimidate protests. It called for them to be reviewed.
    Outside the Kremlin administration building in Moscow, scores of supporters queued up and took turns to stand in one-person pickets in Ustinov’s defense, a form of protest that does not require formal permission from city authorities.     The Kremlin declined to comment on the outcry, saying Ustinov had appealed against his conviction and that it was up to the courts to rule in the case.
(Editing by Mark Potter)

9/19/2019 Croatian government backs down on later retirement age
FILE PHOTO: Croatia's Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic arrives to take part in a European Union
leaders summit, in Brussels, Belgium July 2, 2019. REUTERS/Piroschka Van De Wouw/File Photo
    ZAGREB (Reuters) – The Croatian government will lower the country’s retirement age back to 65 from 67 following a protest campaign led by leading trade unions, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Thursday.
    Three top trade unions collected a petition of more than 700,000 citizens’ signatures last spring to force a referendum on the government’s decision to push back the retirement age.    However, rather than call a people’s vote, the government decided to back down.
    “By this we show that we listen to what our citizens tell us. However, some of our citizens want to carry on working beyond the age of 65 and we will make it possible in a revised (pension) law proposal,” Plenkovic told a cabinet session.
    “Thus we strike a balance between the demands of the campaign and the desire of those who can and want to work longer.”
    In December, parliament had approved a government proposal to raise the retirement age to 67 from 2033, for both men and women, and to reduce pensions for people who retire early.
    Croatia, like many European countries, has an ageing population.    Its public pension scheme costs almost 40 billion kuna ($6 billion) a year, but that cannot be covered by workers’ contributions and the budget has to finance about 17 billion kuna from taxes annually to cover the shortfall.
(Reporting by Igor Ilic; Editing by Pravin Char)

9/19/2019 Russian court to consider freeing jailed actor after outcry
FILE PHOTO: Defendant Pavel Ustinov, accused of using violence against a police officer during an unauthorized rally
to demand free elections, attends a court hearing in Moscow, Russia September 16, 2019. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Moscow court said on Thursday that it would review the jailing of an actor over an opposition protest after state prosecutors formally requested that he be released on bail following a public outcry over his conviction.
    Pavel Ustinov, 23, was sentenced on Monday to three and a half years in jail for dislocating a police officer’s shoulder during his detention at an Aug. 3 rally in Moscow.    He denied the charges and said he had not taken part in the protest.
    The Moscow court said it would rule on a request from prosecutors on Friday, meaning that Ustinov could potentially be freed from custody this week.
    Ustinov is one of several people jailed for about three to four years over a series of political protests that flared this summer when a slew of opposition candidates were barred from taking part in a local election in Moscow.
    The Kremlin’s critics say the convictions are harsh and that they sought to scare off would-be sympathizers from joining the biggest protest movement in the capital for years. The authorities deny that.
    Ustinov’s case struck a nerve with the public in particular and this week celebrity actors and show business stars took to social media en masse to call for his release.
    The conviction was subsequently also condemned by a senior official in the ruling United Russia party as well as a prominent pro-Kremlin state television presenter.
    In June, a similar public outcry prompted authorities to drop drug charges against an investigative journalist, Ivan Golunov, whose supporters said he had been framed to punish him for his reporting.
    Ustinov is due to appeal his conviction at a court hearing on Monday.
(Reporting by Maxim Rodionov; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

9/19/2019 Cuba suffers fuel shortages amid U.S. sanctions, drop in Venezuelan supplies by OAN Newsroom
    Cuba is suffering a severe fuel shortage amid a sharp decline in oil and gas imports from Venezuela.    Long lines have reportedly formed at gas stations across Cuba over the past few days.
    The socialist government in Havana is blaming U.S. sanctions, including the restrictions on Venezuelan oil exports, for the crippling shortages.
    Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has claimed the shortages are temporary as Cuba has secured oil delivery contracts for October from its other trading partners.    However, Cubans have expressed a growing dissatisfaction with the fuel crisis.
People line up with their vehicles to load up on fuel at a gas station in Havana, Cuba,Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2019. The island
nations is facing a diesel fuel shortage, but the government said there will be no electricity blackouts. The government blames
the recent economic sanctions placed by the U.S. Trump administration for this latest energy crisis. (AP Photo/Ismael Francisco)
    “I had to leave work today to be able to get petrol, and there I already know the problem is, there is no petrol at any CUPET stations.    I drove all the way from Miramar to put some in, and this is the only place that has petrol. And look at the queue, you can see it goes around the whole block.    A problem?    Yes, there is a problem.    There is no petrol anywhere.” — Alejandro Ruiz, resident – Cuba
    The shortages have reportedly already affected the Cuban economy, triggering a drop in consumer confidence and spending as well as transportation revenues.

9/19/2019 Neurotoxin may have caused diplomats’ illness in Cuba: study
FILE PHOTO: Tourists in a vintage car pass by the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba, November 1, 2018. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini/File Photo
    HAVANA (Reuters) – Fumigation against mosquitoes in Cuba and not “sonic attacks” may have caused some 40 U.S. and Canadian diplomats and family members in Havana to fall ill, according to a new study commissioned by the Canadian government.
    The incidents took place from late 2016 into 2018, causing the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump to charge that diplomats were attacked by some sort of secret weapon. Canada has refrained from such charges.
    The United States in 2017 reduced its embassy staff to a minimum and Canada followed more recently, citing the incidents and the danger posed to staff from what has become known as the “Havana Syndrome.”
    Various scientific studies have yet to identify the cause of the diplomats’ cognitive ailments, ranging from dizziness and blurred vision to memory loss and difficulty concentrating.
    The Canadian study by a team of researchers affiliated with the Brain Repair Centre at Dalhousie University and the Nova Scotia Health Authority studied Canadian victims and even the brain of a pet dog after its demise in Canada.
    The study was the first to include diplomats for whom there was baseline medical testing from before their postings in Havana, so as to better compare with the tests from afterwards.    Canada started implementing the practice after diplomats first started complaining of sickness.
    The researchers said they had detected different levels of brain damage in an area that causes symptoms reported by the diplomats and which is susceptible to neurotoxins.    They then concluded that cholinesterase, a key enzyme required for the proper functioning of the nervous system, was being blocked there.
    Some pesticides work by inhibiting cholinesterase, the report said, and during the 2016-2018 period when diplomats became ill normal fumigation in Cuba was stepped up due to the Zika epidemic in the Caribbean.
    The report said the diplomats’ illnesses coincided with increased fumigation in and around residences where they lived.    One of the authors of the study, Professor Alon Friedman, clarified in an email to Reuters that both Canadian and Cuban authorities were fumigating.
    “We report the clinical, imaging and biochemical evidence consistent with the hypothesis of over-exposure to cholinesterase inhibitors as the cause of brain injury,” the study concluded, while cautioning that other causes could not be ruled out and more study was needed.
    Friedman said it was not clear whether the broader Cuban population was affected by the fumigation and if not, why, but his team was planning a further study on this together with Cuban scientists.
(Reporting by Marc Frank; Editing by Leslie Adler)

9/19/2019 Ukraine, Russia fail to reach gas deal for Europe but agree to meet again by Vladimir Soldatkin, Gabriela Baczynska and Philip Blenkinsop
EU Commissioner for Energy Maros Sefcovic attends a news conference after gas talks between the European Union, Russia
and Ukraine at the EU Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium September 19, 2019. REUTERS/Yves Herman
    BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Russia and Ukraine failed to reach a new gas transit deal on Thursday, but said talks were “constructive” and they would meet again to try to find an agreement before the current one ends.
    There are a number of obstacles to a deal, such as a political row between Kiev and Moscow, a pro-Russian insurgency in eastern Ukraine, and litigation between Russian gas supplier Gazprom and Ukraine energy company Naftogaz.
    Ukrainian Energy Minister Oleksiy Orzhel said there was still a risk Russian gas deliveries could be interrupted and Kiev would make the necessary preparations to ensure continued supply in such a scenario.
    The Russia-Ukraine gas transit agreement expires in January.    Ukrainian energy authorities are worried Moscow could stop gas supplies through Ukraine, leaving some parts of the country without gas in winter.
    Moscow is building new pipelines to Europe, such as Nord Stream-2 and TurkStream, to bypass Ukraine, a main route of the Russian gas to Europe.
    Last year, Kremlin-controlled gas giant Gazprom supplied Europe with more than 200 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas, of which 87 bcm went through Ukraine, providing Kiev with valuable transit income.
    Orzhel said Gazprom was seeking lower transit tariffs, which was possible if Moscow agreed to higher volumes.
STOP-GAP DEAL
    His Russian counterpart, Energy Minister Alexander Novak, said he had proposed a temporary extension of the existing 10-year contract.
    Ukraine is also working on changes to its energy regulations to bring them in line with EU laws.
    “We proposed our partners and colleagues… to extend the current contract and sign an addendum until all the legal base, all the regulations are ready in Ukraine,” Novak said near the European Commission in Brussels, where the talks were held.
    Ukraine has stop buying Russian gas since the end of 2015 at the height of tensions with Moscow.    Novak said gas transit via Ukraine would depend on the volumes Kiev buys from Moscow.
    It was the first time the sides met since Volodymyr Zelenskiy became the president of Ukraine.    Animosity between Moscow and Kiev runs high, especially since the Kremlin annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and sided with rebels fighting government troops in the east of the country.
    The EU’s top energy official, Maros Sefcovic, was chairing the Thursday talks in Brussels and sounded upbeat after the 40-minute, three-way meeting.
    “Today we have taken steps in the right direction.    In other words, there was convergence of the position on most of the issues we discussed,” he told a news conference after a third round of trilateral talks in Brussels.
    Sefcovic said the sides had agreed a future contract should be based on EU law and it was important that Ukraine’s Naftogaz would be broken up, creating a new company to handle transit of gas through Ukraine.
    “We would resume our meeting at the political level by the end of October, when I hope we will have much more progress achieved on the issues that we put on the table today,” Sefcovic said.
    He added Ukraine currently had 4 billion cubic meters more gas stored than at the same time last year, meaning it had more resources to draw on in case of problems.
(Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Mark Potter)

9/20/2019 Kremlin says Venezuela’s Maduro due in Moscow soon for talks
FILE PHOTO: Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro takes part in a rally against the U.S. sanctions
on Venezuela, in Caracas Venezuela, August 10, 2019. REUTERS/Manaure Quintero/File Photo
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Friday that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was due in Moscow soon for talks.
    Russia has been one of Maduro’s biggest backers in the face of what it has described as unacceptable U.S. efforts to undermine him, providing loans and help for Venezuela’s military and oil industry.
(Reporting by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

9/20/2019 Russia widens Jehovah’s Witnesses crackdown with new jailings by Andrew Osborn and Tom Balmforth
FILE PHOTO: Dennis Christensen, a Jehovah's Witness accused of extremism, leaves after a court session
in handcuffs in the town of Oryol, Russia January 14, 2019. REUTERS/Andrew Osborn/File Photo
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia has widened a crackdown against Jehovah’s Witnesses, jailing six adherents of the Christian denomination for extremism in a move rights activists said was unjust and flouted religious freedom.
    A regional court in Saratov jailed six Jehovah’s Witnesses on Thursday for up to three-and-a-half years, a court spokeswoman said on Friday.
    “Yes they were convicted,” the spokeswoman, Olga Pirueva, said.    “Punishments ranged from three years and six months down to two years (in jail).”
    The court found the six men guilty of continuing the activities of an extremist organization, a reference to a 2017 ruling from Russia’s Supreme Court which found the group to be an “extremist” organization and ordered it to disband.
    The U.S.-headquartered Jehovah’s Witnesses have been under pressure for years in Russia, where the dominant Orthodox Church is championed by President Vladimir Putin.    Orthodox scholars have cast them as a dangerous foreign sect that erodes state institutions and traditional values, allegations they reject.
    The latest jailings follow the conviction in February of a Danish builder in Russia for his association with Jehovah’s Witnesses.    Dennis Christensen was found guilty of organizing an extremist group and jailed for six years.
    Over 250 Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia are facing criminal charges, according to the group, with 41 in detention and 23 under house arrest.
‘SPECULATIVE THESIS’
    Under Thursday’s ruling, Konstantin Bazhenov and Alexei Budenchuk were sentenced to three-and-a-half years in jail, Felix Makhammadiev to three years, and Roman Gridasov, Gennady German, and Alexei Miretsky to two years in prison each.
    The court also banned them from holding leadership positions in public organizations for five years.
    Jehovah’s Witnesses say Russia’s constitution guarantees their adherents’ right to exercise freedom of religion and deny wrongdoing.
    “The whole logic of the accusation was based on the speculative thesis that faith in God is ‘a continuation of the activities of an extremist organization’,” Jarrod Lopes, a U.S.-based spokesman for the group, said in a statement.
    “Instead of searching and proving the guilt of the defendants, the aim of the investigation was to prove their religious affiliation, despite the fact that no religion is prohibited in Russia.”
    Lawyers for the men plan to appeal what they regard as absurd convictions, said Lopes.
    With about 170,000 followers in Russia and 8 million worldwide, Jehovah’s Witnesses are a Christian denomination known for door-to-door preaching, close Bible study, and rejection of military service and blood transfusions.
    They believe the end of the world as we know it is imminent, an event “the obedient” will survive to inhabit the Kingdom of God they believe will follow.
    Rachel Denber of U.S.-based Human Rights Watch condemned the court’s ruling, saying the men had been jailed for nothing.
    “They should be freed,” Denber said on social media.
(Editing by Timothy Heritage)

9/20/2019 Slovak street protests return as investigation into murdered journalist builds
Demonstrators light up their mobile phones as they attend an anti-government protest rally in reaction to last year's killing of the
investigative reporter Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova in Bratislava, Slovakia, September 20, 2019. REUTERS/David W. Cerny
    BRATISLAVA (Reuters) – Thousands of Slovaks protested in the capital and other cities on Friday after new revelations from the investigation into a journalist’s killing in 2018, although turnout was down on last year’s demonstrations.
    Protesters filled the capital Bratislava weekly following the February 2018 murder of investigative reporter Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova at home, amid mounting anger over corruption.
    The protests, which attracted as many as 70,000 people at one point, forced then-prime minister Robert Fico to quit.
    His three-party ruling coalition, led by Fico’s hand-picked successor, Peter Pellegrini, has survived, but public anger has returned with new details from the investigation into Kuciak’s killing showing the reach a main suspect had into state bodies.
    A subject of Kuciak’s reportage was Marian Kocner, one of five people now awaiting trial for the killings, and an acquaintance of politicians from various parties.
    Four of those charged, including Kocner, have pleaded not guilty, while the fifth has confessed to shooting Kuciak and has been cooperating with police.
    Special prosecutors said last month Kocner’s phone showed communications with “representatives of state bodies and the justice system.”
    An estimated 5,000 people demonstrated in Bratislava on Friday, the first protest since February.    Marchers held signs saying “Kocner is Fico” and “Sick of it all.”
    “In the past 12 years, a system of certain privileged people has been built in this country that has eventually led to the murder of a journalist and his fiancee,” said Karolina Farska, an organizer.
    Pellegrini’s ruling Smer party, which has governed for ten out of past 12 years, still leads in polls with 21% – down from 28% in the 2016 election – but has suffered at various polls since the murders.
    There is no evidence Pellegrini had contacts with Kocner, but he has come under fire for what the opposition and protesters claim was inaction against implicated members of his government.
    A deputy justice minister resigned this month after her mobile phone was seized by the police, although she denied any contacts with Kocner.     Kocner’s lawyer did not respond this week to emailed questions on some of the media reports.
    Prosecutors said in August they expected to finish their investigation this autumn.
(Reporting by Tatiana Jancarikova; Editing by Mark Potter)

9/20/2019 Russia, in rare U-turn, frees jailed actor after outcry by Andrew Osborn and Tom Balmforth
A still image, taken from a video footage and released by the Moscow City Court, shows actor Pavel Ustinov, who was sentenced to three
and a half years in jail for using violence against a law enforcement officer at an opposition protest, on a screen via a video link
during a court hearing to review his jailing in Moscow, Russia September 20, 2019. Moscow City Court/Handout via REUTERS
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Russian court on Friday ordered the release of an aspiring actor whose prison sentence for injuring a police officer on the sidelines of an opposition protest sparked a public outcry over alleged police brutality and judicial injustice.
    The release of Pavel Ustinov, pending the outcome of his appeal, is a rare reversal by the Russian judicial system and follows a groundswell of public support for the 23-year-old.
    But others sentenced in connection with a summer of Moscow protests calling for free elections remain behind bars, and Ustinov’s case is seen by some opposition activists as a way of de-escalating tensions with Kremlin critics while avoiding making bigger concessions.
    Footage of his arrest on Aug. 3, which went viral, showed him scrolling through his mobile phone as he stood near a Moscow metro station, apparently minding his own business, as police disperse an opposition protest nearby.
    Four national guardsmen in full riot gear are then seen suddenly grabbing Ustinov, pushing him to the ground, and beating him with their truncheons before marching him off.    One of the guardsmen is seen falling over in the melee.
    Ustinov said he’d not been taking part in the nearby protest, one of several held this summer to demand free elections to the Russian capital’s assembly.
    His protests fell on deaf ears however and a court on Monday sentenced him to three and a half years in prison after finding him guilty of hurting the guardsman who fell.    State prosecutors had wanted a harsher sentence of six years.
    Anger over what many saw as a glaring injustice swiftly bubbled over, with Russian celebrities, including those who work on Kremlin-backed state TV, taking to social media to demand Ustinov be freed.     As pressure grew, state prosecutors, the same ones who had asked a court to jail him for six years, suddenly said they thought it was safe for Ustinov to be freed, on condition he did not leave Moscow.
LEGAL U-TURN
    A Moscow court on Friday duly ordered Ustinov’s release from custody until an appeal against his sentence, due on Thursday next week, is heard.    He was freed hours later, Russian news agencies reported.
    His supporters said other people who had also been unjustly jailed were still languishing behind bars and needed to be released too.
    The Kremlin said Ustinov’s case was a matter for the courts and it couldn’t intervene.    When asked if it was surprised that prosecutors had such a dramatic change of heart, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “no.”
    Ustinov was one of a handful of people jailed in connection with this summer’s protests that flared after the authorities barred opposition candidates from running in a Moscow election.
    The rallies were the largest sustained protest movement in the Russian capital in years, peaking at around 60,000 people, before appearing to lose momentum.    Another protest is planned later this month.
    Kremlin critics have accused the courts of handing down harsh sentences to protesters to deter would-be sympathizers, something the authorities deny.
(Additional reporting by Maria Vasilyeva and Maria Kiselyova; Editing by Toby Chopra)

9/20/2019 At IMF meeting, Ukraine’s president promises to safeguard central bank’s independence
FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy delivers a speech during the Yalta European Strategy (YES)
annual meeting in Kiev, Ukraine September 13, 2019. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS
    KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday at a meeting with the International Monetary Fund promised to safeguard the central bank’s independence and supported a comprehensive investigation of abuses in the banking sector.
    A statement published on the presidential website also said Zelenskiy and senior IMF officials discussed PrivatBank, Ukraine’s largest lender, and energy sector reforms.
(Reporting by Matthias Williams)

9/21/2019 Thousands gather in Tbilisi for protest against Georgian government
Georgian opposition supporters attend an anti-government rally in Tbilisi, Georgia September 20, 2019. REUTERS/Irakli Gedenidze
    TBILISI (Reuters) – Thousands of people gathered in the center of Georgian capital Tbilisi on Friday for a protest against the government and ruling Georgian Dream Party, three months after the brutal dispersal of an anti-Kremlin demonstration.
    The demonstration was organized by young activists who have been holding daily protests outside the parliament building for the past three months and drawing thousands at their peak.
    Protestors were blowing vuvuzelas and holding placards reading “Together against one!,” referring to ruling party leader Bidzina Ivanishvili, an oligarch who critics accuse in ruling the country from behind the scenes.
    “We should unite and finish this government,” Shota Digmelashvili, one of the protest organizers, told the crowd.
    The protest movement has presented Georgia’s government with the biggest domestic challenge to its authority in years and ahead of 2020 parliamentary election.
    It erupted in June when a visiting Russian lawmaker was allowed to address the Georgian parliament from the speaker’s chair, in Russian, touching a nerve in a country that fought a war with Russia 11 years ago.
    The rally outside parliament on June 20 descended into violent clashes with police, who used tear gas and rubber bullets against protesters.
    The opposition and anti-government activists and supporters were angered further this month when parliament approved a new government led by Russian-educated former interior minister Giorgi Gakharia and has been calling for his resignation since the June 20 police crackdown.
(Reporting by Margarita Antidze; Editing by David Goodman)

9/22/2019 Tens of thousands march for ban on abortions in Slovakia
Demonstrators march during an anti-abortion protest rally demanding a ban on
abortions in Bratislava, Slovakia, September 22, 2019. REUTERS/David W. Cerny
    BRATISLAVA (Reuters) – Tens of thousands marched in Slovakia’s capital on Sunday calling for a total ban on abortions in the predominantly Catholic central European country.
    Abortion laws in Slovakia are relatively liberal compared to those in countries like Poland or Malta, which have among the strictest laws in the European Union and often allow them only in cases like rape.
    In Slovakia, on-demand abortions are legal up until 12 weeks of a pregnancy while abortions for health reasons are allowed until 24 weeks.
    Conservative and far-right lawmakers want to allow them only to up to six or eight weeks of pregnancy or ban them outright, and parliament starts debating draft laws to restrict abortions this month.
    It is unclear if the proposals will become law since the ruling Smer – a leftist, socially conservative party – and junior center-right Slovak National Party in the government, have not said whether they will back any of them.
    Abortions have fallen in the country of 5.4 million to 6,000 last year, from almost 11,000 a decade ago.    A Focus agency opinion poll this month found 55.5% of people disagreed with restricting abortions while 34.6% supported the move.
    Protesters carrying signs saying “A human is human regardless of size” and "Who kills an unborn child kills the future of the nation” marched in the capital on Sunday demanding a total ban on abortions, including in cases of severe birth defects or rape.
    “The life of every human is invaluable, therefore it needs to be protected from conception until natural death,” one of the protest organizers, backed by the Catholic church, said on stage.
    The organizers estimated turnout at the protest at about 50,000.
    The ruling Smer party has led Slovakia nearly non-stop since 2006 and has built its base by lifting social benefits amid years of economic growth and backing conservative issues.
    Ahead of an election next year, the party pledged to back legislation to ban gay marriage and adoption by same-sex couples.    Slovak law does not recognize same-sex civil unions.
    The most recent official census in 2011 found 62% of the country identify as Roman Catholics, while 6% are Protestants.
(Reporting By Tatiana Jancarikova, editing by Deepa Babington)

9/23/2019 Honduras, Cuba to sign deal on deporting some Cuban migrants: Honduran president
FILE PHOTO: Honduras' President Juan Orlando Hernandez speaks during a news conference at the
Presidential House in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, August 19, 2019. REUTERS/Jorge Cabrera/File Photo
    TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) – Honduras will sign an agreement with Cuba to deport Cubans who arrive in the Central American country illegally en route to the United States, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez said on Sunday.
    The announcement comes as the United States presses Central American countries and Mexico to do more to curb the waves of migrants reaching the United States’ southern border.
    “With Cuba, we are about to sign an agreement at this time that if an irregular migrant Cuban appears, we will immediately return him to Cuba,” Hernandez said during an interview on local television that aired Sunday night.
    The United States and Honduras said in a joint statement on Saturday that they are discussing how to increase temporary legal employment opportunities for Hondurans in the United States as they hammer out details of an immigration agreement.
    The governments are due to continue discussions this week, according to the joint statement.
(Reporting by Gustavo Palencia; Writing by Julia Love; Editing by Richard Borsuk)

9/23/2019 Russia to fund modernization of army in breakaway Georgian region: Putin
FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin meets President of the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia, Raul Khadzhimba
at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia August 24, 2018. Alexander Zemlianichenko/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved a government proposal to bankroll the modernization of the armed forces in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia, a government document published online showed on Monday.
    Georgia lost control of the Black Sea region of Abkhazia after an inter-ethnic conflict which followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.
    Russia is one of only a handful of countries to recognize Abkhazia’s independence, something it decided to do in 2008 after it won a short war against Georgia over the fate of another Georgian breakaway region.
    Russia, which has its own troops on the ground, will sign an agreement to finance the modernization of Abkhazia’s armed forces after detailed negotiations are over, the Russian government document said.
    Georgia, which aspires to join the European Union and NATO, has not had diplomatic relations with Russia since 2008.
    It wants control of Abkhazia and another breakaway region, South Ossetia, back, and for Russian troops to leave.
(Reporting by Anton Kolodyazhnyy; writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Andrew Osborn)

9/23/2019 Ukraine official says any investigation would be transparent: report
FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy delivers a speech during the Yalta European Strategy (YES) annual
meeting in Kiev, Ukraine September 13, 2019. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
    KIEV (Reuters) – An aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was quoted on Monday as saying any investigation in Ukraine would be conducted transparently, after U.S. media reports said President Donald Trump asked Zelenskiy to investigate Joe Biden, a rival in next year’s U.S. election.     Trump’s July 25 call with Zelenskiy stoked controversy in Washington after reports that Trump repeatedly asked the Ukrainian leader to investigate whether Biden, the Democratic front-runner in next year’s election, misused his position when he was vice president.     Trump told reporters on Sunday he had discussed Biden and his son in a call with Zelenskiy but said their phone conversation was largely congratulatory.     Andriy Yermak, an aide to Zelenskiy, was quoted in Ukrainian media outlet lb.ua as saying that he had told Trump’s lawyer Rudolph Giuliani that any investigation would be transparent.
    “We can guarantee that during our term in office all investigations will be carried out transparently,” Yermak said.    “These are the fundamental principles and basis of President Zelenskiy’s program which we campaigned on.”
(Reporting by Matthias Williams; Editing by Nick Tattersall)

9/23/2019 Trump expects to announce visa waiver program for Poland in weeks
U.S. President Donald Trump listens to Poland's President Andrzej Duda during their biilateral meeting on the sidelines of the
annual United Nations General Assembly in New York City, New York, U.S., September 23, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
    NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump told Poland’s president he expected to announce Polish entry into the U.S. visa waiver program in coming weeks as the two held talks on defense, security, energy and other issues, the White House said on Monday.
    Speaking as he began a meeting with Andrzej Duda, Trump also confirmed his plans to move an unspecified number of U.S. troops to Poland from elsewhere in Europe and said the Polish government had agreed to pay for building facilities for them.
    In June, Trump pledged to Duda that he would deploy 1,000 U.S. troops to Poland, a step sought by Warsaw to deter potential aggression from Russia.    Duda has previously said he is considering naming the planned U.S. installation “Fort Trump.”
    Poland has long sought access to the State Department’s Visa Waiver Program under which most citizens of participating countries can travel to the United States for tourism or business for up to 90 days without obtaining a U.S. visa.
    “President Trump informed President Duda that he expects to announce Poland’s entry into the Visa Waiver Program in the coming weeks,” the White House said in a brief statement about the talks on the sidelines of the annual U.N. General Assembly.
    Trump, who canceled a trip to Poland for Labor Day weekend to deal with Hurricane Dorian, said he would reschedule it “fairly soon.”
(Reporting by Steve Holland; Writing by Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Peter Cooney)

9/24/2019 Russia says U.S. denied visas to its U.N. assembly delegation members: Ifax
FILE PHOTO: The United Nations flag flies outside the U.N. Headquarters in New York, U.S., March 26, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday that the United States had denied visas to several members of the Russian delegation to the United Nations General Assembly and called the move a violation of Washington’s international commitments, Interfax reported.
    Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will discuss the situation with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in New York, Interfax cited the ministry’s spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, as saying.
(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova and Andrew Osborn; Writing by Anastasia Teterevleva; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

9/24/2019 Ukraine needs U.S. support ahead of Donbass peace talks: Zelenskiy
FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian President Zelenskiy gestures during a news conference
in Berlin, Germany, June 18, 2019. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke/File Photo
    KIEV (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he expected to have a “meaningful, powerful” meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump this week, and Kiev needed the support of Washington.
    He added that he hoped there would soon be a meeting of the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany on the conflict Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region, he added in a statement issued on Tuesday.
    “We want to come out of this meeting with some results on the specific terms for ending the war and returning our territories,” Zelenskiy added.
(Reporting by Matthias Williams and Pavel Polityuk)

9/24/2019 Explainer: What is causing Cuba’s acute shortage of fuel?
A vintage car passes by a thermoelectric plant in Santa Cruz del Norte, Cuba, September 23, 2019. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini
    (Reuters) – Long lines of drivers at gas stations in Cuba and hours of wait for public transport are signs of the impact of sanctions imposed by the United States this year on the Caribbean island and its main ally, oil producer Venezuela.
    President Miguel Diaz-Canel this month warned Cubans of difficult times ahead due to limited fuel imports. He exhorted citizens to show solidarity and do their utmost to improve energy efficiency.
WHEN DID THE FUEL SHORTAGE START?
    Cuba has relied for decades on crude purchases from allies to feed its refineries.    It also imports fuel to help satisfy consumption of about 145,000 barrels per day by power plants, industrial complexes, gas stations, airports and homes.
    Fuel shortages have gradually grown worse since Cuba’s main ally, Venezuela, started reducing oil shipments as far back as 2016 after its own production declined and its economy slipped into a deep recession.
    A bilateral pact signed in 2000 allows Cuba to pay for Venezuelan oil imports by offering services to the South American country ranging from doctors to advisers.
    Venezuela had until 2015 supplied Cuba with about 90,000 bpd of crude and fuel.    But a first round of U.S. sanctions on Venezuela in 2017 limited PDVSA’s access to financing, aggravating its output decline and curtailing investment in the industry.
    As of 2017, Cuba produced just 51,000 bpd of crude, according to the most recent available data from the country’s National Office of Statistic and Information.
    Analysts say it is hard for Cuba to cover the shortfall with its fuel consumption by importing at market prices, given it is strapped for cash.
    Faced with fuel shortages, the country has implemented a series of austerity measures in recent years like cutting public street lighting and air conditioning usage in state institutions.
WHY DID THE SITUATION SUDDENLY GET SO MUCH WORSE?
    The Trump administration imposed sanctions in January banning U.S. firms or U.S. subsidiaries of foreign firms from selling fuel to Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA both for domestic consumption and for re-exports.    The measures also ban any trade in dollars with PDVSA or its units.
    Washington in July also sanctioned specific vessel operators covering the Venezuela-Cuba route and the entity receiving Venezuelan oil, state-run Cubametales.    The nations have since struggled to find tankers to transport the oil.
    Cuba imports not only crude from Venezuela but also gasoline, diesel, fuel oil, lubricants and cooking gas, according to internal PDVSA data.
IS VENEZUELA SUPPLYING CUBA AMID SANCTIONS? Yes. But volumes have decreased. Venezuela this has sent year some 55,300 bpd of crude and fuel to Cuba, below the average of the last decade, according to internal PDVSA data and Refinitiv Eikon data.     In 2018, PDVSA supplied Cubametales with some 89,000 bpd of crude and products, according to PDVSA’s internal data.
    PDVSA in turn has increasingly had to import refined fuel for its own domestic market, according to company data.
HOW IS VENEZUELA TRANSPORTING OIL TO CUBA?
    PDVSA is no using a large portion of its own fleet to transport Venezuelan crude and fuel to Cuba, including tankers Manuela Saenz, Icaro, Terepaima and Yare.
    Vessels owned by a joint Venezuela-Cuba transportation company, Transalba, also are covering the route, but the number of vessels operators and maritime crew willing to touch Venezuelan or Cuban ports has decreased in recent months due to the sanctions, according to shippers.
IS CUBA IMPORTING FROM OTHER COUNTRIES?
    Yes, but the island still overwhelmingly relies on oil supplies from Venezuela.
    From July through mid-September, Cuba imported 50,000-100,000 bpd, mostly from PDVSA.    Vessels loaded with imports coming from Russian ports, Caribbean terminals and oil hubs such as Rotterdam also arrived at Cuban ports in recent weeks, according to the Refinitiv data.
    Reuters was unable to identify all the companies chartering vessels to the island.
WILL THERE BE A PROMPT RECOVERY?
    Cuba’s president has said the situation should normalize in October as shipments have already been guaranteed for that month.
    Analysts are not so confident.    Cuba does not have a large number of oil suppliers since the U.S. government imposed an embargo on the island nearly 60 years ago and growing problems to find vessels are creating new obstacles to imports.
    The country is also strapped for cash.
    Other than Venezuela, Algeria historically has supplied up to 5,000 bpd as barter, mostly for ophthalmology services received from Cuba, said Jorge Pinon from the University of Austin in Texas.
WHAT IS CUBA DOING TO PALLIATE THE CRISIS?
    Cuba this month reduced the frequency of public transport and cut industrial production in order to save energy so it can ensure basic services like hospitals and food distribution.     Government officials have been encouraging citizens to make the most of natural daylight to save electricity and have urged the use of more animal power to save on diesel.     So far, there have been no major blackouts.    The president has warned there could be but, if so, said they will be planned and announced beforehand.
(Reporting by Marianna Parraga and Sarah Marsh; Editing by Dan Grebler)

9/24/2019 Ukraine warns ‘witch hunt’ over Biden may hurt relations by OAN Newsroom
    “Joe Biden and his son are corrupt, all right?    But the fake news doesn’t want to report it because they’re Democrats.” — President Trump
    Ukrainian officials have continued to dismiss the latest media attacks on President Trump over the mounting scandal surrounding Joe Biden’s alleged corruption in that country.    The president is raising the stakes in his standoff with the mainstream media in the wake of attempts to launch a new hoax alleging “Ukrainian collusion.”
    Democrats and the media have claimed the president was trying to force Ukraine to release “dirt on Biden” by threatening to cut U.S. aid to that country in a phone call in July.    However, remarks by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky earlier this month suggest President Trump never wanted to cut aid to Ukraine.
    “Now I can say that we have excellent relations with the USA because now, instead of the blocked $250 million, we will have $140 and $250 million,” Zelensky stated.    “So, I think we are moving in the right direction.”
    Ukrainian officials are now debating the questionable role of Biden’s son, Hunter, in the nation’s energy sector.
President Trump has suggested the Bidens may have been selling America’s political influence and receiving the proceeds of corruption overseas.
    “Based on energy?    He knows nothing about energy, so why did he leave China?    Why did he leave Ukraine with all this money?” questioned the president.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks at an LGBTQ Presidential Forum in the Sinclair Auditorium on the
Coe College campus in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Friday, Sept. 20, 2019. (Rebecca F. Miller/The Gazette via AP)
    A former member of the Ukrainian Parliament, Vladimir Oleynik, has indirectly confirmed the president’s view of the matter.
    “He never really played any management role, Hunter Biden never took part in decision making,” said the former Ukrainian official.    “I don’t think he even took part in corporate meetings, but he was formally with the company and received real money for that.”
    Meanwhile, Ukrainian National Security Adviser Alexander Danilyuk said any attempts to use Ukraine in domestic political debates in the U.S. could hurt bilateral ties.    The official also said a “Ukrainian witch hunt” could be used by either party for political gain in next year’s elections, adding, it’s unacceptable.    President Trump appears to agree:
    “It’s just a Democrat witch hunt.    Here we go again.    They failed with Russia.    They failed with recession.    They failed with everything, and now they’re bringing this up. The one who’s got the problem is Biden.    What Biden did was wrong.”
    The Biden-Ukraine scandal adds to a series of questionable ties between Democrat officials and high-profile corruption schemes overseas, which raises an issue of potential harboring of proceeds of international corruption in the U.S. at the expense of America’s foreign relations.
    The following found at https://threader.app/thread/1121585011998822400
THE ABOVE VIDEO CAN BE SEEN ON THAT PAGE SHOWING JOE BIDEN BRAGGING ABOUT GETTING THE PROSECUTOR FIRED.
Note that the mainstream fake news television and radio has failed to show this to the rest of the public because they know it is true

9/25/2019 Asked about Trump, Ukrainian leader says only his son can pressure him by Matthias Williams
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends a luncheon for world leaders at the 74th session of the United Nations
General Assembly (UNGA) at U.N. headquarters in New York City, New York, U.S., September 24, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
    KIEV (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, asked whether U.S. President Donald Trump had put improper pressure on him during a July phone call, said nobody can put pressure on him except his six-year-old son.
    Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday launched a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump, accusing him of seeking Ukraine’s help to smear Democratic rival Joe Biden ahead of next year’s election.    Trump has dismissed the inquiry as a witch hunt.
    The allegations turn on a July 25 telephone call between Trump and Zelenskiy during which critics allege Trump improperly pressured his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate Biden, the former U.S. vice president, and his son Hunter, who had worked for a company drilling for gas in Ukraine.
    Trump has said he did nothing wrong and that he’ll release a transcript of the conversation later on Wednesday to prove it.
    “Nobody can put pressure on me because I am the president of an independent state,” Zelenskiy told Russian reporters in New York where he is attending the United Nations General Assembly.
    “The only one person by the way who can put pressure on me … is my son, who is six years old,” said Zelenskiy whose comments were broadcast by the Rossiya 24 channel on Wednesday morning ahead of an planned meeting between Zelenskiy and Trump.
    Asked whether he would ask Trump for anything when they met, Zelenskiy said:
    “Asking for something is not Ukraine’s style.    It’s a new strong country and isn’t asking anyone for anything. We can help others ourselves.”
    Since the political scandal involving Trump and Ukraine erupted, a trip to the United States that began as a golden opportunity for Kiev to burnish relations with its most powerful international backer has turned into a diplomatic tightrope walk for Zelenskiy.
(Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

9/25/2019 Putin to Maduro: Russia backs talks between Venezuela’s government, opposition
Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro during
a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia September 25, 2019. Sergei Chirikov/Pool via REUTERS
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin told his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro at talks in Moscow on Wednesday that Russia supported dialogue between the government and opposition to find a way out of Venezuela’s political crisis.
    Venezuela’s opposition said earlier this month that a dialogue mediated by Norway to try to resolve the crisis in Venezuela had ended, six weeks after Maduro’s government suspended its participation.
    Maduro’s representatives walked away from the table in August to protest against U.S. President Donald Trump’s tightening of sanctions on the OPEC nation.
    Moscow has been one of Maduro’s biggest backers in the face of what it has described as U.S. efforts to undermine him.
(Reporting by Moscow bureau; writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Andrew Heavens)

9/25/2019 Russian minister to Putin: We must restore trust in courts, police
FILE PHOTO: Russian Economy Minister Maxim Oreshkin attends a session of the Moscow Financial
Forum in Moscow, Russia September 6, 2018. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin/File Photo
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Economy Minister Maxim Oreshkin told President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday that Russia must restore trust in its courts and law enforcement agencies if the government is to have a chance of fulfilling the Kremlin’s ambitious economic plans.
    The unusually direct comments to Putin were broadcast on state television and come as the government is searching for ways to kick-start a stagnant economy that is on course to grow just 1% this year.
    After his re-election by a landslide last year, Putin set sweeping political and economic goals for his government, among them making Russia a top-five global economy by the end of his current term in 2024.
    The economy has weathered an array of shocks over the last five years ranging from Western sanctions to volatile prices for oil, one of its main sources of revenue.    But although it is currently stable, a pickup in economic growth has remained elusive.
    The Kremlin’s critics say economic growth is hamstrung by the investment climate and point to the arrest this year of several executives at prominent private equity group Baring Vostok, including U.S. investor Michael Calvey.
    The embezzlement case against Baring Vostok rattled Russia’s business community and prompted several prominent officials and businessmen to voice concerns about the treatment of the executives.
    In an apparent nod to such concerns, Oreshkin told Putin at a meeting with officials that it was “very important” to “restore the faith of entrepreneurs in law enforcement and the courts.”
    “Without changing the trend now it will be very difficult to achieve a positive result in investment activity overall,” he said.
(Reporting by Andrey Ostroukh in Moscow; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Toby Chopra and Matthew Lewis)

9/26/2019 Venezuela’s Maduro did not discuss new loans with Putin: Kremlin
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro enter a hall during their
meeting in Moscow, Russia September 25, 2019. Sputnik/Alexei Druzhinin/Kremlin via REUTERS
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro did not discuss new loans for Caracas at talks in Moscow, but that they had touched on military technical cooperation.
    Maduro and Putin met in Moscow on Wednesday.    Moscow has been one of Maduro’s biggest backers in the face of what it has described as U.S. efforts to undermine him.
(Reporting by Tom Balmforth and Andrew Osborn; Editing by Maria Kiselyova)

9/26/2019 Ukraine president thought only U.S. side of Trump call would be published
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy listens during a bilateral meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the
74th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York City, New York, U.S., September 25, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
    KIEV (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday he thought that only U.S. President Donald Trump’s side of their July phone call would be published.
    According to a summary of the momentous telephone call released by the Trump administration, Trump pressed Zelenskiy to investigate a political rival, former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden, in coordination with the U.S. attorney general and Trump’s personal lawyer.
    “I personally think that sometimes such calls between presidents of independent countries should not be published,” Zelenskiy told Ukrainian media in a briefing in New York that was broadcast in Ukraine.    “I just thought that they would publish their part.”
    Zelenskiy said he did not know the details of an investigation into Biden’s son, repeating that he wants his new general prosecutor to investigate all cases.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Leslie Adler)

9/26/2019 U.S. issues travel ban for Cuba’s Castro over human rights accusations, support for Venezuela’s Maduro by Matt Spetalnick
FILE PHOTO: Cuban Communist Party leader Raul Castro addresses the audience during the enactment of the new constitution
at the National Assembly, in Havana, Cuba April 10, 2019. Irene Perez/Courtesy Cubadebate/Handout via REUTERS
    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration on Thursday imposed U.S. travel sanctions on Cuban Communist Party chief Raul Castro over his support for Venezuela’s socialist president, Nicolas Maduro, and involvement in what it called “gross violations of human rights.”
    Taking a direct but largely symbolic swipe at Cuba’s leadership as part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s continuing pressure campaign against Havana, the State Department banned travel to the United States by Castro, Cuba’s former president and younger brother of the late Fidel Castro, as well as family members.
    “Castro is responsible for Cuba’s actions to prop up the former Maduro regime in Venezuela through violence, intimidation, and repression,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.
    In addition to Castro, the State Department also sanctioned his children, Alejandro Castro Espin, Deborah Castro Espin, Mariela Castro Espin, and Nilsa Castro Espin.
    The measures that Pompeo said would block their entry to the United States are likely to have limited impact.    Castro last visited in 2015 to address the United Nations General Assembly. His children are also believed to have rarely traveled to the United States.    Mariela Castro Espin, a gay rights activist, made stops in New York and San Francisco in 2012.
    Pompeo also accused Castro, Cuba’s most powerful figure, of overseeing “a system that arbitrarily detains thousands of Cubans and currently holds more than 100 political prisoners.”
    The Cuban government, which strongly rejects such accusations, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
    It was the latest in a series of punitive measures that Trump has taken against Washington’s old Cold War foe since taking office in 2017, steadily rolling back the historic opening to Havana under his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama.
    Trump has focused especially on Cuba’s support for Maduro, a longtime ally of Havana.    Earlier this year, the United States and dozens of other countries recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s rightful president, though Maduro retains the backing of Russia and China as well as the OPEC nation’s military.
    “In concert with Maduro’s military and intelligence officers, members of the Cuban security forces have been involved in gross human rights violations and abuses in Venezuela, including torture,” Pompeo said.    Cuba has strongly denied the U.S. accusations.
    Speaking in New York while attending the U.N. General Assembly, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza scoffed at the U.S. measure against Castro, saying it was an attempt to humiliate him.
    “And neither Raul Castro nor his family even want to come to this country! We are forced to come here because the U.N. headquarters is in New York, for now,” said Arreaza, referring to a similar U.S. travel bar on Venezuelan officials and citing a Russian offer to host the United Nations in Sochi.
    Last week, the Trump administration ordered the expulsion of two members of Cuba’s delegation to the United Nations.
    Washington has made clear that a key objective of its tough approach to Cuba is to force it to abandon Maduro, something Havana has said it will never do.    However, Trump has stopped short of breaking off diplomatic relations with Cuba restored by Obama in 2015 after more than five decades of hostility.
    Maduro has accused Guaido – who earlier this year assumed an interim presidency after alleging that Maduro had rigged the last election – of trying to mount a U.S.-directed coup.
    “Castro is complicit in undermining Venezuela’s democracy and triggering the hemisphere’s largest humanitarian crisis,” Pompeo said.
(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick; Additional reporting by Lisa Lambert in Washington, Sarah Marsh and Marc Frank in Havana; and Andrew Cawthorne in Caracas; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Lisa Shumaker)

9/26/2019 Czech opposition lawmakers fail in bid to remove president
FILE PHOTO: Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen and Czech President Milos Zeman listen to
their national anthems in Vienna, Austria April 3, 2019. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger/File Photo
    PRAGUE (Reuters) – Czech opposition lawmakers have failed in a bid to remove President Milos Zeman from office, after he was accused by the senate or upper house of parliament of abusing the country’s constitution on multiple occasions.
    The opposition sought to use a 2013 amendment allowing the Constitutional Court to remove a head of state if after examining a case it finds a “blunt breach of the Constitution.”
    Zeman has said he has not abused the constitution.
    In the Czech Republic, the president holds a ceremonial office, whereas executive power lies with the government.
    However the president officially appoints ministers put forward by the prime minister and has the power to order or prevent state attorneys from launching investigations.
    Opponents accuse Zeman of stretching the limits of his office, interfering in the government’s personnel and in judicial affairs.
    The Senate-backed motion to have the court consider Zeman’s position was defeated in the lower house after the ruling ANO and Social Democrat parties, along with the Communists, who prop up Prime Minister Andrej Babis’s minority government, and the far-right SPD party rejected it.
    “The president acts in accordance with the constitution.    The so-called complaint of the Senate is a mere political attack and a legal manoeuver,” the president’s spokesman Jiri Ovcacek said.
    Senator Vaclav Laska, one of those behind the proposal said, “the president is trying to reach a state where the government will not be controlled by this chamber, but it will completely depend on the president’s will.”
    “The powers usurped by the president are your powers,” he told lawmakers.
    Laska and other senators who completed the bill in April were prompted by what they said were attempts by the president to influence court cases.
    Zeman’s rejection of some ministerial nominees also stirred anger.    A few months ago he refused to appoint a new culture minister nominated by the Social Democrats – his former party, which he broke with more than a decade ago.
    Zeman’s office said he did not immediately need to make the appointment.    After several months, the Social Democrats put forward a new name.
    Recently, Zeman said he would use his constitutional power to stop any renewal of a criminal case against Prime Minister Andrej Babis, a billionaire businessman before he entered politics and who is the country’s second richest man.
    Prague’s state attorney this month halted an investigation into allegations Babis had hidden his ownership of a convention center over a decade ago to get European Union subsidies meant for small businesses.
    Babis has denied wrongdoing.    The supreme attorney may still override the decision to halt the case.    Zeman said last week that should that happen, he would use his legal power to halt the case for good, drawing fierce criticism.
(Reporting by Robert Muller; Editing by Jason Hovet and Alexandra Hudson)

9/26/2019 For Ukraine’s leader, Trump memo on their call is a diplomatic car crash by Pavel Polityuk and Andrew Osborn
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks as he and U.S. President Donald Trump hold a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the
74th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York City, New York, U.S., September 25, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
    KIEV/MOSCOW (Reuters) – For U.S. President Donald Trump, White House publication on Wednesday of a memo summarizing his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy fueled a domestic political crisis.
    For Zelenskiy, it was a far-reaching diplomatic disaster.
    Zelenskiy’s comments to the Republican Trump, disclosed in the summary, will likely irk U.S. Democrats, risking the bipartisan U.S. support Kiev requires while irritating France and Germany whom Zelenskiy criticized in the same exchange.
    Locked in a geopolitical standoff with neighboring Russia after Moscow annexed the Crimea region and backed pro-Russian separatists fighting in eastern Ukraine in 2014, Ukraine needs all the international friends it can get.
    It relies heavily on Washington for aid and diplomatic help, and European countries like France and Germany are trying to help bring about talks aimed at breathing life into a stalled peace process over eastern Ukraine.
    “Unfortunately the main consequence of this is that Ukraine could become toxic,” said Alyona Getmanchuk, director of the New Europe Center in Ukraine.
    “Maybe not as toxic as Russia became during the Mueller investigation, but toxic,” she said, referring to a two-year U.S. investigation into contacts between Trump’s successful 2016 election campaign and Russia.
    The timing of the latest scandal is awkward for Zelenskiy, who is keen to reinvigorate parts of a stalled peace deal over eastern Ukraine, something for which he needs European and U.S. diplomatic muscle.
    The White House memo summarizing the call shows Zelenskiy promised to reopen an investigation into a company that employed former U.S.     Vice President Joe Biden’s son and voiced frustration about what he said was a lack of support from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron when it came to enforcing sanctions on Russia.
    It also showed Zelenskiy had agreed with Trump that the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine – Marie Yovanovitch – was “a bad ambassador.”
‘EAGER TO INGRATIATE’
    “Zelenskiy does not come out looking good from this – giving the ex-U.S. ambassador a kicking, Merkel and the Europeans a kicking, and then agreeing to do Trump’s dirty work on Biden,” said Timothy Ash, a senior emerging markets strategist at Bluebay Asset Management.
    “(He) seems very eager to ingratiate himself with Trump.”
    International investors have been hoping that Zelenskiy will make good on pledges to refashion Ukraine into a fully fledged transparent graft-free democracy.    Ash’s comments reflect growing scepticism on that score in some quarters.
    The French foreign ministry declined to comment and the Elysee was not immediately available for comment.    But French officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Macron had gone out of his way to meet Zelenskiy before he was elected, something that was uncommon in normal protocol.
    There was no immediate comment from German officials.
    Zelenskiy, who held talks with Trump in New York on Wednesday on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, had resisted calls for Ukraine to release details of the July 25 call with Trump during which the U.S. president asked him to investigate the son of Biden, the front-runner in the Democratic Party race for the November 2020 election.
    Zelenskiy told reporters on Wednesday he had thought that only Trump’s side of the call would be published and that he believed that details of such calls “between presidents of independent countries” should sometimes not be published.
    He said he did not know the details of the investigation into Biden’s son, saying it was one of many cases he discussed with world leaders if asked and that he wanted his new general prosecutor to investigate all cases without interference.
    Zelenskiy also tried to smooth over things with Merkel and Macron, saying he was grateful for their help and that he had made his comments about them during “a difficult period.”
    “I don’t want to say anything bad about anyone,” Zelenskiy said after meeting Trump.    “We thank everyone who helps us.”
DAMAGE DONE?
    But some at home said the damage had already been done.
    “Of course the background to relations with European leaders and especially Merkel will worsen,” said Volodymyr Fesenko of the Penta think tank.
    “There’s no direct criticism (in the call summary) but the context and tonality is such that Zelenskiy sounds like he’s complaining about Merkel to Trump.”
    Some Ukrainians fear that the damage the Trump scandal could inflict on U.S.-Ukraine ties could also play into Russia’s hands as it might imperil future U.S. military aid among other things.
    “For Ukraine there’s a huge danger that it could find itself alone with its enemy the Russian Federation … as the United States is a strategic partner in the military sphere and when it comes to pushing ahead with reforms,” said Maria Ionova, a lawmaker from former president Petro Poroshenko’s faction.
    “The Russian Federation will definitely use this chance.”
    The Kremlin has said the matter is one for the United States and Ukraine and that it is merely observing.
    “(The) facts are that Trump in effect asks Zelenskiy to dig dirt up on Biden, and Zelenskiy seemingly agreed,” Ash said.
    “After everything Biden did for the reform story in Ukraine, Zelenskiy stabs him in the back – along with the former U.S. ambassador, Merkel, et al."
    “The winner – Putin!
(Additional reporting by Sergiy Karazy and Matthias Williams in Kiev and John Irish in Paris; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Howard Goller)

9/26/2019 Ukrainian leader’s rivals use Trump call to kick him, voters more forgiving by Sergiy Karazy and Pavel Polityuk
FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy delivers a speech during a parliamentary session
in Kiev, Ukraine August 29, 2019. Picture taken August 29, 2019. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich/File Photo
    KIEV (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s political opponents rebuked him on Thursday over what they said was his amateurish handling of a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump, accusing him of damaging important international alliances.
    But on the streets of Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, people said they were either unfazed or merely disappointed by a politician they said they knew was short on experience and likely to struggle against more experienced political operators.
    Zelenskiy, a former comedian and political novice who was only elected in April, was blindsided on Wednesday when the White House released a memo summarizing his July 25 call with Trump during which the U.S. leader asked him to investigate Joe Biden and his son.
    The memo shows Zelenskiy promised to reopen an investigation into a company that employed Biden’s son and voiced frustration about what he said was a lack of support from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron when it came to enforcing sanctions on Russia.
    It also showed Zelenskiy had agreed with Trump that the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine – Marie Yovanovitch – was “a bad ambassador” and had Zelenskiy boasting that Ukraine’s new prosecutor general would “100%” be his person.
    Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and his party said on Thursday that the call showed Zelenskiy was an irresponsible custodian of the country’s foreign policy and accused him of upsetting key allies.
    They also questioned his commitment to a genuinely independent judiciary and demanded that the prosecutor general appear before parliament to explain whether he was Zelenskiy’s puppet or a genuine “servant of the law.”
    “European Solidarity notes with deep concern that such inadvertent and ill-advised statements by the president may complicate Ukraine’s international support,” Poroshenko’s party said in a statement.
    It said it wanted Zelenskiy to maintain Ukraine’s bipartisan support in the United States and retain the support of European allies.
    “Diplomacy and international relations do not forgive amateurism, they need a thoughtful attitude and professional approach,” the party said.
    U.S. congressional Democrats launched an inquiry to impeach Trump over allegations he pressed Zelenskiy to help smear Biden, the front-runner in the race to challenge Trump at presidential elections next year.
    Ordinary Ukrainians in Kiev on Thursday were more understanding of Zelenskiy.
    “My attitude toward Zelenskiy has not changed,” said Irina Belyayeva, who said she was on maternity leave from work.
    “I didn’t have unrealistic expectations.    His lack of experience and a good team who could have advised him so that we wouldn’t be in this situation has been confirmed.    Many things were said which shouldn’t have been.”
    Zelenskiy enjoys a popularity rating over 70% and his Servant of the People party controls parliament with many Ukrainians hoping he can refashion their country into a fully fledged transparent graft-free democracy.
    Some Ukrainians said his Trump phone call showed he was trying to do his best to keep a powerful ally on side and that he hadn’t known it would one day be made public.
    Bohdan Telenko, a writer, said he thought the sudden flurry of media attention in Ukraine was welcome even if it was for the wrong reasons.    But he said Zelenskiy had been shown to be out of his depth.     “I am worried a bit about Zelenskiy’s lack of experience,” he said.    “There are sharks out there.”
(Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Alistair Bell)

9/26/20019 How Ukraine got caught up in Trump’s impeachment battle by Matthias Williams
A view shows the U.S. embassy in Kiev, Ukraine September 25, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
    KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine is the unwitting participant in a political battle in Washington between President Donald Trump and the Democrats ahead of the 2020 election.
    Democrats launched an inquiry to impeach Trump over allegations he pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to help smear Joe Biden, the frontrunner in the race to challenge Trump as the Democratic Party nominee next year.
    Trump and Zelenskiy spoke by phone on July 25, and the White House has released a reconstruction of their conversation, in which Trump asks Zelenskiy to investigate the Biden family, and Zelenskiy agrees to do so.
    Earlier, Trump had frozen nearly $400 million of aid to Ukraine.    His critics accuse him of using the funds as leverage to pressure Zelenskiy into pursuing the investigation.
    Zelenskiy denies being put under pressure and Trump dismissed the inquiry as a “witch hunt.”
WHAT ARE TRUMP’S ACCUSATIONS AGAINST BIDEN?
    Biden was vice president in President Barack Obama’s administration and the point person for Ukraine.    Trump alleges that Biden bullied the Ukrainian authorities to fire General Prosecutor Viktor Shokin in 2016, threatening to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees if Kiev failed to comply.
    According to Trump, Biden had Shokin fired because he was investigating the activities of Biden’s son Hunter, who was working for a Ukrainian gas company called Burisma.
    Hunter Biden denies any wrongdoing during his work for Burisma.    Joe Biden denies trying to protect his son, and says pressure to fire Shokin was being applied widely by European governments at the time because of concern over corruption.
Burisma was founded by a former minister and member of ex-President Viktor Yanukovich’s party.    After the Kremlin-friendly Yanukovich was ousted following street protests in 2014, prosecutors opened a criminal probe into Burisma.
WHAT ELSE DOES TRUMP SAY ABOUT UKRAINE?
    Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph Giuliani also alleges some officials in Ukraine conspired to help Trump’s Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton in 2016 by leaking information damaging to Trump’s then-campaign manager, Paul Manafort.
    Manafort, a long-time Republican political consultant who is now serving a sentence after being convicted of fraud, had worked in Ukraine for Yanukovich for years before being hired by Trump.
    Giuliani has singled out Serhiy Leshchenko, a former lawmaker who published details of off-the-books payments made by Yanukovich to Manafort.
HOW DID GIULIANI APPROACH ZELENSKIY?
    A former comedian with no prior political experience, Zelenskiy won a landslide election victory in April.    Before Zelenskiy was inaugurated, Giuliani announced in May that he would visit Ukraine, but then abruptly canceled his visit saying Zelenskiy was surrounded by Trump’s enemies.    He named Leshchenko, who had been an advisor to Zelenskiy during his campaign.
    After Giuliani canceled the trip, Andriy Yermak, an aide to Zelenskiy, sought to meet Giuliani on what Yermak said was his own initiative.
HOW WAS SHOKIN’S SACKING VIEWED AT THE TIME?
    Shokin became General Prosecutor in February 2015 at a time when Ukraine’s Western backers were calling for Kiev to tackle corruption in exchange for billions of dollars in aid.    Diplomats, anti-corruption activists and some officials accused Shokin’s office of blocking reform and stalling investigations.
    Shokin’s critics included his deputy, Vitaliy Kasko, who publicly resigned in February 2016 saying the General Prosecutor’s office was a “brake on the reform of criminal justice, a hotbed of corruption.”    Shokin’s office dismissed the resignation as a stunt.
    The U.S. Ambassador at the time, Geoffrey Pyatt, in a September 2015 speech, singled out Shokin’s office as an obstacle to fighting corruption “by openly and aggressively undermining reform.”
    While Trump calls Shokin a “tough prosecutor” and Giuliani asserts that Shokin was fired for investigating Burisma, Pyatt accused Shokin’s office of deliberately undermining a probe into Burisma’s founder both in Ukraine and in Great Britain.
    Shokin was pushed out in March 2016, a decision publicly endorsed by the European Union.    In 2017, Burisma said all investigations against the company and its founder were closed.
HAS UKRAINE BEEN INVESTIGATING HUNTER BIDEN?
    Shokin and Shokin’s successor, Yuriy Lutsenko, both spoke to The Hill newspaper in Washington in articles published in March and April of this year.    Shokin said before he was fired he had made “specific plans” for an investigation that “included interrogations and other crime-investigation procedures into all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden.”
    Lutsenko said he had begun looking into Burisma and Biden’s activities in connection to it.    However, Lutsenko told Reuters last week there was no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Biden’s son in his relationship with the energy firm.
    According to the White House summary of Zelenskiy’s phone call with Trump, Zelenskiy assured Trump that his next prosecutor general, the man who replaced Lutsenko, “will be 100% my person” and “will look into the situation.”
WHAT ABOUT THE U.S. AMBASSADOR?
    Pyatt’s successor as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine was Marie Yovanovitch, a career diplomat who had previously served as ambassador to other ex-Soviet republics.    She returned home in May.    Trump strongly criticized her in his phone call to Zelenskiy, and Zelenskiy agreed with Trump’s criticism.
    Lutsenko has alleged that Yovanovitch had given him a list of people not to prosecute.    The State Department called the allegation “an outright fabrication”    Trump’s son called her a “joker” while Giuliani accuses her of colluding on Clinton’s behalf.    Yovanovitch left her post after what Democrats called a “political hit job.”
(Editing by Peter Graff)

9/27/2019 Ukraine agency says allegations against Burisma cover period before Biden joined
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy listens during a bilateral meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the
74th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York City, New York, U.S., September 25, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
    KIEV (Reuters) – A Ukrainian investigation of gas company Burisma is focused solely on activity that took place before Hunter Biden, son of former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, was hired to sit on its board, Ukraine’s anti-corruption investigation agency said.
    U.S. President Donald Trump asked Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in July to investigate whether Joe Biden tried to block an investigation into his son’s relationship with the company, which was drilling for gas in Ukraine.
.     Trump’s intervention is the subject of an impeachment investigation by the U.S. House of Representatives, with Democrats saying the Republican president was trying to push a foreign leader to smear Joe Biden, a political opponent.
    The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) said it was investigating permits granted by officials at the Ministry of Ecology for the use of natural resources to a string of companies managed by Burisma.
    But it said the period under investigation was 2010-2012, and noted that this was before the company hired Hunter Biden.
    “Changes to the board of Burisma Limited, which are currently the object of international attention, took place only in May 2014, and therefore are not and never were the subject of (the anti-corruption bureau’s) investigation,” the bureau’s statement said.
    Hunter Biden was a director on Burisma’s board from 2014-2018, according to documents filed by the company in Cyprus, where it is registered.
    The investigation into Burisma covers a period when Ukraine was governed by a Kremlin ally, Viktor Yanukovich.    Burisma hired Hunter Biden after Yanukovich was toppled in a popular revolt in 2014 and replaced by a pro-Western government.
    At the time, many Ukrainian firms were seeking to distance themselves from their relationships with the previous, pro-Moscow authorities, and some invited Western public figures to sit on their boards.
    Nazar Kholodnytsky, the head of anti-corruption investigations at Ukraine’s Prosecutor’s Office, a separate body to the NABU, said on Novoye Vremya radio that neither Joe nor Hunter Biden had been called in for questioning as part of NABU’s investigation into activities at Burisma.
    “At the moment, this case is up in the air, so to speak.    Up in the air means that there is no active investigative work ongoing.    At the moment, detectives and prosecutors do not understand what they are supposed to be investigating,” Kholodnytsky said.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk and Maria Tsvetkova; Writing by Polina Ivanova; Editing by Peter Graff)

9/27/2019 Ukraine’s Zelensky, UN’s Guterres meet in N.Y. to reaffirm ties by OAN Newsroom
    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently met with United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres in New York.    The two officials held talks on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Thursday to bolster cooperation between Ukraine and international institutions.
    Zelensky also had a chance to sign the UN guestbook during his first presidential visit to the UN.    The Ukrainian president reiterated his country is an independent nation that doesn’t accept any foreign pressure or guidance.
    “As for asking for something — it’s definitely not Ukraine’s style,” he stated.    “Ukraine is a new strong country and isn’t asking anyone for anything, we can help others ourselves.”
    Guterres also said he expects the UN-Ukrainian relation to remain “excellent” going forward.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky visits the site of the 9/11 terror attacks at ground zero in New York, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2019.
Zelensky made specific stops at the names of victims that were born in Ukraine. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
    This comes as amid the release of a whistleblower complaint that alleges President Trump’s actions regarding a July phone call with the Ukrainian president posed a national security risk.    The anonymous individual claimed the President Trump attempted to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election.    Zelensky has repetitively denied that he was pressured in any way by the U.S.
    Trump tweet: “The President of Ukraine said that he was NOT pressured by me to do anything wrong.    Can’t have better testimony than that! As V.P., Biden had his son, on the other hand, take out millions of dollars by strong arming the Ukrainian President.    Also looted millions from China. Bad!

9/27/2019 Ukraine security official offered to quit before Zelenskiy’s U.S. trip by Matthias Williams
FILE PHOTO: Oleksandr Danylyuk, a top Ukrainian security official who has tendered his resignation, addresses lawmakers
in his earlier role as finance minister in Kiev, Ukraine June 7, 2018. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/File Photo
    KIEV (Reuters) – A senior Ukrainian security official offered to quit before President Volodymyr Zelenskiy began a visit to the United States this week, the president’s office said on Friday.
    Oleksandr Danylyuk, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, gave no reason for his decision and will stay on until Zelenskiy decides whether to accept his resignation, it said in a statement.
    The statement gave no indication that the resignation was connected with a telephone call between Zelenskiy and Donald Trump that is at the center of a formal impeachment inquiry into the U.S. president.
    In the July 25 call, Trump asked Zelenskiy to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who worked for a Ukrainian gas company for several years, according to a summary of the conversation released by the White House.
    Biden, a former vice president, is a leading contender in the Democratic race to take on Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
    Trump’s administration also released a whistleblower’s complaint that questioned whether U.S. aid was held up until Ukraine showed it would act on Trump’s request.
    Reuters could not immediately contact Danylyuk for comment.    Earlier this week he told Reuters Ukraine did want not to be dragged into U.S. domestic politics.
    Danylyuk is a former finance minister who oversaw the nationalization of PrivatBank, Ukraine’s largest lender, and his appointment to his security role in May sent a positive signal to investors gauging Zelenskiy’s reformist credentials.
    Investors are also looking for Kiev to conclude a new loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund to help underpin economic stability, tackle reforms and fight corruption.    An IMF delegation left Ukraine on Friday without finalizing an agreement.
(Reporting by Matthias Williams and Ilya Zhegulev and Pavel Polityuk, Editing by Andrew Heavens and Timothy Heritage)

9/28/2019 Poland’s ruling PiS vows to boost public healthcare ahead of vote by Alan Charlish and Alicja Ptak
FILE PHOTO: Law and Justice (PiS) leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski speaks during an election
meeting in Stalowa Wola, Poland, August 18, 2019. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/File Photo
    WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland’s ruling nationalists promised on Saturday to raise funding of the health service, another hefty spending pledge in an election campaign where they have sought to position themselves as champions of the welfare state.
    Along with its defense of what it sees as traditional Polish values, the governing Law and Justice (PiS) party has made increased social spending a key plank of its bid to win reelection on Oct. 13.
    “There must be a health service that is universally available and at the same time, which I want to stress forcefully, public,” PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski told a party convention.
    “The private sector will play a supplementary role … above all we must ensure every citizen of our country, every compatriot, has medical services and support for free.”
    PiS plans to raise public healthcare expenditure to 160 billion zlotys ($40 billion) by 2024.    In 2016, it was 84.6 billion zlotys, according to Poland’s statistics office.
    The party also pledged to build a new oncology center, offer a package of medical check-ups for every Pole, improve care for senior citizens and create a fund for modernizing hospitals.
    In common with eastern European neighbors, private healthcare is booming in Poland, as low public spending has led to increased waiting times and staff shortages that have pushed many to seek faster treatment privately.
    In Poland, state healthcare spending reaching only about 4.6% of GDP in 2016 well below the 6.6% average among OECD countries.
CASH HANDOUTS
    The healthcare pledges follow hot on the heels of promises earlier this month to almost double the minimum wage for workers and offer pensioners regular annual cash bonuses.
    Earlier in the year, the party announced increased spending on child benefits and transport infrastructure as well as a package of tax cuts.
    While some observers have warned of the dangers of major increases in public spending ahead of an economic slowdown, PiS has been keen to present itself as fiscally responsible, vowing to cut debt and proposing the country’s first balanced budget in three decades.
    Economists have pointed out that the plan for a balanced budget in 2020 is dependent on a number of one-off factors and may be revised after the elections.
    PiS is well ahead in the opinion polls, consistently scoring over 40% while the main liberal opposition grouping, Civic Coalition, usually scores below 30%.
(Reporting by Alan Charlish and Alicja Ptak; Editing by Mark Potter)

9/28/2019 Ukraine must investigate Joe Biden’s son, says ex-Ukrainian PM by Anton Zverev and Ilya Zhegulev
Former U.S. Vice President and Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden makes a statement during
an event in Wilmington, Delaware, U.S., September 24, 2019. REUTERS/Bastiaan Slabbers
    MOSCOW/KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine must investigate the activities of U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son to establish whether his role in a Ukrainian gas company complied with the country’s laws, Mykola Azarov, Ukraine’s former prime minister, said in an interview.
    Azarov did not specify to which Ukrainian laws he was referring.
    Hunter Biden’s role in the company, Burisma Holdings Limited, is in focus after the White House released a memo showing U.S. President Donald Trump asked his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in a July phone call to get prosecutors to look into his activities. Zelenskiy agreed.
    “It’s a fact (his directorship and fees) and not made up.    It should be investigated so that the ‘i’s can be dotted and the ‘t’s crossed,” Azarov told Reuters.
    A spokesperson for Joe Biden’s campaign declined to comment on Azarov’s investigation call and none of Hunter Biden’s critics have provided any evidence that he broke Ukrainian law.
    Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau said on Friday it was investigating activity at Burisma between 2010-2012, but that it was not looking into changes to its board in 2014, when Hunter Biden joined.
    Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are pursuing an impeachment inquiry against Trump, a Republican, after a whistleblower complained about his call with Zelenskiy.    Lawmakers are looking into whether Trump’s actions jeopardized national security and the integrity of U.S. elections, saying he appeared to be soliciting a political favor from a foreign leader to get re-elected.
    Azarov lives in Moscow, but says he remains well-connected with parts of Ukraine’s political establishment and would like to return one day.    He did not provide further details.
    Hunter Biden was a director on Burisma’s board from 2014 until at least 2018, according to documents filed by the company in Cyprus, where it is registered.
    Azarov, who was prime minister from 2010-2014, is himself wanted by Ukrainian authorities for alleged abuse of power.    An Interpol red notice issued in 2015 at the request of Ukrainian authorities said he was wanted on accusations of charges including embezzlement and misappropriation.
    Azarov denies any wrongdoing and Reuters cannot determine whether there is any active investigation on him.
    Azarov said he was not aware of any evidence suggesting wrongdoing on Hunter Biden’s part, but said it was in the Ukrainian public interest to ascertain the legality of his activities.
    In particular, he said it was important to investigate what Biden had done for Burisma to justify his remuneration from Burisma.
    The younger Biden has said he consulted for Burisma, but critics have suggested he was not doing actual work in return for his compensation, an allegation he denies.
    “I think it’s essential (he’s investigated),” Azarov told Reuters in Moscow, where he fled after street protests toppled Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovich in 2014.
    “If, using his knowledge, he played an active role then there’s nothing scandalous about it,” Azarov said.    “But if he was simply on the books and getting money, then that could be seen as a violation of the law.”
    Burisma was not available for comment on Saturday night.
    Ukrainian prosecutors have said they are not investigating Hunter Biden, but are looking into the legality of Burisma’s activities before Biden joined its board.    Burisma, which denies any wrongdoing, has faced allegations of dodging taxes and of improperly securing licenses for gas deposits.
    Azarov said he thought it was “absolute nonsense,” but that he believed allegations from Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and others that Joe Biden had gotten Ukraine’s prosecutor general fired to protect his son Hunter must also be investigated.    He did not provide the basis for his views.
    The former U.S. vice president has denied using his influence to get Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, fired in 2016 to prevent him investigating his son’s involvement and has said he and his son have done nothing wrong.
    Shokin has said he was forced out at Joe Biden’s behest to thwart an investigation of Burisma and Hunter Biden.
(Additional reporting by Maria Tsvetkova and Matthias Williams in Kiev; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Alistair Bell and Dan Grebler)

9/29/2019 Austria votes in snap parliamentary poll, conservatives seen heading new coalition by Francois Murphy
Top candidate of Peoples Party (OeVP) and former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz talks with journalists after casting
his ballot at a polling station in Vienna, Austria September 29, 2019. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger
    VIENNA (Reuters) – Austrians vote on Sunday in a snap parliamentary election that conservative leader Sebastian Kurz looks set to win, but he will still need a coalition partner to secure a majority and it remains unclear whom he will pick.
    The election follows the collapse in May of Kurz’s coalition with the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) after a video sting scandal that forced FPO Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache to step down.
    Kurz, 33, has emerged largely unscathed from the scandal, even gaining voters from the FPO as its support has slipped to roughly a fifth of the electorate from just over a quarter in the last vote in 2017.    On the left, there has been some shift in support from the Social Democrats to the resurgent Greens.
    But the overall picture since the scandal’s immediate aftermath has been remarkably stable.    Opinion polls have generally shown Kurz’s People’s Party (OVP) far ahead on roughly a third of the vote, the Social Democrats slightly ahead of the FPO and the Greens a distant fourth.
    “Lots of agitation, but not much movement,” national broadcaster ORF said on Saturday, summarizing a campaign with many debates between party leaders that failed to make a serious mark on the opinion polls.
    Kurz has said he will talk to all parties after the election if he wins.    His two most likely options are either to ally with the FPO again or with the Greens and liberal Neos.    A centrist coalition with the Social Democrats is possible but unlikely under their current leadership.
LENGTHY TALKS
    Surveys suggest the environment is voters’ top concern, which has helped the Greens surge from less than 4% in the last election in 2017, when they crashed out of parliament, to around 13% now.
    While they might be able to give Kurz and his party a narrow majority in parliament, he is unlikely to want to be at the mercy of a small number of its left-wing lawmakers, meaning that if he chooses to ally with the Greens he will probably seek a three-way tie-up including the pro-business Neos.
    As the campaign wound up last week, the FPO sought to focus voters’ attention on its core issue of migration, railing against immigrants in general and Muslims in particular, rather than addressing recent scandals that have eroded its support.
    The widespread assumption among politicians and analysts is that the election will be followed by a long period of coalition talks, meaning the current provisional government of civil servants led by former judge Brigitte Bierlein could remain in place until Christmas or later.
    Polling stations open at 7 a.m. (0500 GMT) and the first projections are due shortly after voting ends at 5 p.m.
(Editing by Gareth Jones)

9/29/2019 Russians set to rally to demand release of jailed protesters by Tom Balmforth
FILE PHOTO: Police officers stand guard during a rally against the exclusion of opposition candidates
from a local election in Moscow, Russia August 31, 2019. REUTERS/Tatyana Makeyeva/File Photo
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian opposition leaders expect thousands of people to attend a rally on Sunday demanding the release of protesters jailed in what Kremlin opponents says is a campaign to stifle dissent.
    The protesters were arrested in demonstrations against the exclusion of many opposition candidates from a local election, and allegations of police brutality and what many Muscovites saw as harsh jail sentences have sparked an unusual public outcry.
    Several people were sentenced to up to four years, and others are being prosecuted, for crimes such as violence against police officers.
    In a rare step, courts have freed one person on bail and dropped charges against another.    But President Vladimir Putin’s opponents say their release may be a tactic to avoid wider concessions and want to step up pressure for others to be freed.
    “If there are 50,000 people, they’ll let everyone out,” opposition politician Leonid Volkov wrote on Twitter.
    The rally has been authorized by the Moscow mayor’s office, meaning mass detentions by police are less likely to happen.
    The series of protests began in July when more than a dozen opposition-minded candidates were not allowed to run in a Sept. 8 election to Moscow’s city legislature on a technicality.
    The police says people were detained or prosecuted for breaking the law and that the protests had to be dispersed as they had not been authorized and were illegal.
    After his allies were barred from the vote, opposition leader Alexei Navalny called on supporters to vote tactically for opponents of the ruling United Russia party, regardless of their political stripe.
    United Russia, which supports Putin, lost a third of its seats in the Moscow city assembly, a setback for the authorities that Navalny said was a victory for the Kremlin’s opponents even though the governing party kept its majority.
    The rallies were the largest sustained protest movement in Moscow in almost a decade, peaking at around 60,000 people, before appearing to lose momentum.
(Editing by Timothy Heritage)

9/29/2019 Election triumph leaves Austria’s Kurz with coalition options by Francois Murphy
Top candidate of Peoples Party (OeVP) and former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz speaks to supporters after the announcement
of Austria's snap parliamentary election results in Vienna, Austria September 29, 2019. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger
    VIENNA (Reuters) – Austrian conservative leader Sebastian Kurz triumphed in Sunday’s parliamentary election while the scandal-tainted far right took a beating and the Greens surged, leaving Kurz the option of forming a coalition with either of them.
    The election followed the collapse in May of Kurz’s coalition with the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) after a video sting scandal that forced FPO Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache to step down.
    Kurz, 33, has emerged largely unscathed from the scandal, even siphoning off voters from the FPO as further allegations surfaced last week over lavish and possibly fraudulent expenses Strache claimed from the party.    Strache denies any wrongdoing.
    As suggested by opinion polls for months, Kurz’s People’s Party (OVP) came a comfortable first, with 37.2% of the vote, according to a projection by pollster SORA for national broadcaster ORF based on a partial vote count.
    “It was a difficult four months and now the population has voted us back in,” Kurz told his supporters without indicating what his coalition preference might be.
    His two most likely choices are to ally with the FPO again or else with the Greens, possibly in a three-way tie-up with the liberal Neos.    A centrist coalition with the Social Democrats is possible but unlikely under their current leadership.
    The SORA projection showed the Social Democrats coming second with 21.7%, their worst result since World War Two but still well ahead of the FPO on 16.0% and the resurgent Greens on a record 14.0%.    The projection had a margin of error of 0.9 percentage points.
    “The ball is in Sebastian Kurz’s court now,” the left-wing Greens’ campaign manager Thimo Fiesel told ORF when asked about a coalition with Kurz.    “There is still a majority (for Kurz’s OVP) with the FPO.”
    Kurz has repeatedly said he will talk to all parties before narrowing down his preferences.
    While the FPO even issued campaign videos appealing to Kurz to revive their coalition, it was less clear whether they remained keen after their support collapsed by around 10 points compared with the last election in 2017.     “From my point of view this is no mandate to continue the (previous) coalition,” FPO Chairman Harald Vilimsky told ORF, though he did not rule out another tie-up with Kurz’s party.
LENGTHY TALKS
    Austrian voters’ top concern is the environment, surveys show, which helped lift the Greens from less than 4% of the vote in 2017, when they crashed out of parliament.
    While they appear able to give Kurz and his party a narrow majority, he is unlikely to want to be at the mercy of a small number of its left-wing lawmakers.    If he does ally with the Greens he will probably seek a three-way deal including the liberal, pro-business Neos, who are on 7.8%.
    It could take time for the Greens and Kurz to convince their supporters about working with each other.    Many Greens voters see Kurz as their enemy since he brought the far-right to power.    Many of Kurz’s core voters, such as farmers and big business, are wary of the left-wing Greens.
    “I’ve always had the impression that Mr Kurz continues to fancy turquoise-blue,” Greens leader Werner Kogler told ORF, referring to an OVP-FPO tie-up.    “He was praising its policies up until yesterday … We’ll see if they think again.”
    Kogler has said he is prepared to hold exploratory talks but only if Kurz shows quickly that he is serious.
    A tie-up with the Greens would at least spare Kurz the whiff of scandal that could accompany the FPO.
    Asked whom he should work with, Kurz supporter Jutta Hummel, 58, said at his election party: “
Surely not the Freedom Party.    That was a complete flop before.”
    Another, Paul Widmann, was less keen on the Greens, saying: “They make politics for people living in cities, not in rural areas where they need a car.”
    A long period of coalition talks could leave the current provisional government of civil servants led by former judge Brigitte Bierlein in place until Christmas or later.
(Additional reporting by Michael Shields and Kirsti Knolle; Editing by David Goodman and Gareth Jones)

9/29/2019 Moscow rally draws 9,000 people: protest monitor
People attend a rally to demand the release of jailed protesters, who were detained during opposition
demonstrations for fair elections, in Moscow, Russia September 29, 2019. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov
    MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Moscow rally to demand the release of protesters had drawn 9,000 people on Sunday as of 1200 GMT and more people were arriving, a Russian protest monitor, White Counter, said on Twitter.
    It said police were not blocking the entrance to the venue.
    The rally, called to demand the release of protesters jailed this summer, has been authorized by the Moscow mayor’s office, meaning mass detentions by police are less likely to happen.
(Reporting Tom Balmforth and Tatiana Voronova; writing by Katya Golubkova; editing by Jason Neely)

9/29/2019 Hungary will remain part of the European Union, PM Orban says
FILE PHOTO - Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrives to take part in a European Union leaders
summit, in Brussels, Belgium July 2, 2019. Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt/Pool via REUTERS
    BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Hungary has no plans to leave the European Union, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Sunday, adding however that eastern and western members of the bloc must find a compromise over the bloc’s future.
    Orban, in power for nearly a decade, has often been at loggerheads with Brussels, for example over his refusal to take in migrants under an EU quota scheme and his efforts to tighten control over the media, the judiciary and academic institutions.
    His combative stance has prompted speculation that Hungary might at some stage follow Britain’s example and leave the EU, though it provides billions of euros worth of funding to its poorer ex-communist member states.
    The EU is now seeking to make that generous assistance conditional on upholding the rule of law.
    “We are a member of the Union and will remain a member,” Orban told a congress of his ruling Fidesz party, which re-elected the 55-year-old premier as its president.
    However, in an apparent reference to criticism of Hungary’s record on the rule of law by some other EU members, he added: “This is our country, our home and our life and no one else but Hungarians can decide about that.”
    A “compromise” is needed between the two sides of Europe, said Orban, whose Fidesz faces local government elections in two weeks’ time and his hard line on immigration has been a strong vote winner for his right-wing party.
    “Even though the western and eastern halves of the Union clearly follow different paths … and respect different values, ways of living together can be formed even in such circumstances,” Orban said.
    Orban said “the other side” should abandon what he called their open attacks on governments in ex-communist central and eastern Europe.
    “We do not send them such paid political activists, so they should also take theirs home from central Europe,” he said.
    “They should abandon covert actions against central European governments,” Orban said.    “The EU budget should not be used to finance teams and media favored by liberals and immigrants serving their objectives."
    “If we really want to keep Europe together, we need to abandon these practices.”
(Reporting by Gergely Szakacs; Editing by Gareth Jones)

9/30/2019 Austria’s Kurz eyes economic growth after vote triumph by Michael Shields and Kirsti Knolle
Top candidate of Peoples Party (OeVP) and former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz speaks to the media prior to the TV discussion after the
announcement of Austria's snap parliamentary election at the Hofburg palace in Vienna, Austria September 29, 2019. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner
    VIENNA (Reuters) – Austrian conservative leader Sebastian Kurz basked in election victory on Monday, his People’s Party (OVP) strengthened by a parliamentary contest that punished the scandal-hit far right, although tough talks lie ahead on forming a ruling coalition.
    Sunday’s snap vote followed the collapse in May of Kurz’s coalition with the right-wing Freedom Party (FPO) after a video sting that forced FPO Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache to step down.
    Kurz, 33, emerged largely unscathed from the uproar, with the OVP having its widest lead over the second-place Social Democrats in the post-war era.    He now faces tortuous negotiations to choose one or two partners with which to govern.
    His most likely coalition choices are to ally with the resurgent Greens, possibly in a three-way tie-up with the liberal Neos, or link up again with the FPO.
    But FPO leader Norbert Hofer called chances of a renewed alliance “very unlikely” given its poor showing on Sunday.     Austrian voters’ top concern is the environment, surveys show, which helped lift the Greens to a record 14% of the vote from less than 4% in 2017, when they crashed out of parliament.
    A coalition with the Social Democrats is mathematically possible but unlikely under their current leadership.
    Kurz is keeping his cards close to the chest, reiterating his mantra that he would talk to all other parties in parliament to seek a stable coalition.
    In an interview with broadcaster ORF aired on Monday, he said his priorities included fostering economic growth at a time of trade and political jitters.
    “We are just now seeing very negative economic developments in Germany, we have not solved Brexit, we have tensions in trade ties with the United States,” he said.
    “The challenge for us will be securing good economic growth in the future as well and doing our utmost to keep unemployment in Austria from rising again.    This is going to be a challenging phase.”
    Kurz’s OVP came a comfortable first, with 37.1% of the vote, according to a projection by pollster SORA for ORF based on a count of all but postal ballots.
    The Social Democrats came second with 21.7%, their worst result since World War Two but still well ahead of the FPO on 16.1%.    The projection had a margin of error of 0.7 percentage point.
    While the Greens could give Kurz a narrow majority, his party is wary of being at the mercy of a handful of its left-wing lawmakers.    If he does ally with the Greens he might therefore seek a three-way deal including the liberal, pro-business Neos, who are on 7.8%.
    It could take time for the Greens and Kurz to convince their supporters about working together.    Many Greens voters see Kurz as their enemy since he brought the far right to power.    Many of Kurz’s core voters, such as farmers and big business, are wary of the Greens.
(Reporting by Michael Shields, Editing by William Maclean)

9/30/2019 After Saudi attacks, Russia makes its regional presence felt by Luke Baker
FILE PHOTO: Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Russia's President Vladimir Putin speak during a
meeting at the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, June 28, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo
    LONDON (Reuters) – In the two weeks since attacks blamed on missiles or drones shut down half of Saudi Arabia’s oil output, the country that has arguably moved most deftly to position itself for any upside is Russia.
    Within hours of the attacks, Moscow’s state arms exporter said it would hold talks with countries in the Middle East on selling them new anti-drone weapons systems, muscling in on a market long dominated by the United States. [nR4N265016]
    Next month, President Vladimir Putin is set to visit Saudi and the Gulf, a chance to deepen cooperation on energy and oil, drum up investment and promote Russia’s Pantsir group of anti-UAV weaponry, the arms systems the state export company will put on display at the Dubai Airshow in November.
    “Recent events in the world have shown that the effective fight against reconnaissance and strike UAVs, as well as other air attack weapons, is becoming increasingly important to ensure the protection of high-priority facilities,” Rosoboronexport said in a press release issued days after the Saudi attacks.
    To a large extent Moscow’s maneuverings reflect opportunism – Putin seldom misses an opportunity to expose any perceived U.S. shortcoming or to needle his rivals.
    But it also underscores his growing confidence in projecting influence in the region, building on the role Moscow has played in shoring up Bashar al-Assad in Syria, managing to deal with both Israel and Iran, and selling missile systems to NATO member Turkey despite U.S. objections.
    At a news conference in Ankara on Sept. 16, where Putin attended a summit with the presidents of Turkey and Iran, his self-assurance was on full display, all but trolling the United States, which sells the Patriot missile-defense system to Saudi, in saying that Riyadh should buy from Moscow instead.
    “All the political leaders of Saudi Arabia have to do is take a wise decision, as Iran did by buying the S-300 missile system, and as President Erdogan did when he bought Russia’s latest S-400 Triumph anti-aircraft system,” he said, prompting chuckles from President Hassan Rouhani alongside him.
    To Moscow watchers, the intent is clear.
    “Russia is positioning itself as a systemic actor in the Middle East, which means no ‘problem’ big or small will be left unturned by the Kremlin,” said Mathieu Boulegue, a research fellow in the Russia and Eurasia program at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London.
    “They want to be everywhere and meddle in everything to become an indispensable actor,” he said, describing the ultimate ambition as becoming a ‘rule shaper’ for the region.
SPACE TO ACT
    While that process has been under way since Putin went all-in by sending troops to Syria in 2015, it has gained strength as the United     States has pulled back, first after President Barack Obama sidestepped deeper engagement in Syria despite evidence of Assad’s use of chemical weapons, and then as Donald Trump has talked tough but mostly avoided action in the region.
    The latest example of that is the Saudi attacks, which Trump has blamed on Iran.    After initially saying Washington was “locked and loaded” to retaliate, he has held back from a punchy response, instead tightening sanctions on Tehran further.
    That leaves open the question of whether the United States is ready to use its military might to defend Riyadh, its closest Arab ally, a gap in commitment that may play to Russia’s hand.
    “If I were the Saudis, I’d be beating a path to Moscow, beating a path to Beijing, to find somebody more reliable than the United States,” said Kori Schake, deputy director-general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and a former director for defense strategy at the National Security Council.
    “There are opportunities that Russia will harvest from their investment in Syria,” she said.    “Showing that they are willing to run risks that countries in the West will not… may be comforting to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia right now.”
    Schake and others emphasize that this is far from Putin attempting to replace the United States as the overall security guarantor in the Gulf, a role the U.S. has played since the 1950s.    It’s also the case that Putin is not without problems at home, where he is under pressure to raise living standards, diversify the economy away from oil and improve growth.
    But it does remind the world that Russia retains geopolitical reach and a readiness to act.    Even in Europe, where a cold shoulder has been turned to Moscow since its annexation of Crimea in 2014, there are signs of a shift.
EU OPENING?
    In recent weeks, French President Emmanuel Macron has led calls for Europe and Russia to work more closely together, although he has underlined that EU sanctions, imposed after Crimea’s seizure, should not be lifted until Russia takes steps to resolve its disputes with Ukraine. [nL5N2603Q9]
    his time has come, the time is right, to work towards reducing the distrust between Russia and Europe, who ought to be partners on a strategic and economic level,” French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said this month. [nL5N2603Q9]
    That view was reinforced by the EU ambassador to Moscow, who wrote in a cable that EU leaders needed to be “pragmatic” in engaging with Russia, according to the Financial Times.
    Finland, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU and shares a 1,340 km border with Russia, has long been pushing the same message, arguing that re-engagement with Moscow offers more opportunity in the long-run than isolation.
    The chances of a quick change in posture on the EU side are slim, given the staunch opposition of Poland and the Baltic states.    But the number of EU states favoring a more pragmatic approach is growing, European officials say.
    From Moscow’s perspective, it may feel buoyed by a sense that it is making headway on three critical fronts: expanding trade and investment ties with China, making its influence felt in the Middle East and rebuilding ties in Europe.
    For the Trump administration, which has focused much of its recent energy on the trade dispute with China, analysts say it is a reminder of the danger of not engaging fully in corners of the world where U.S. interests are at stake.
    “The Russian experience clearly demonstrates the price of leaving a vacuum and projecting ambiguous intent,” Anna Borshchevskaya, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute wrote this month, referring in particular to Syria.
    “Russia often makes gains simply because the United States is too risk-averse to challenge it.”
(Additional reporting by Tom Balmforth in Moscow; Writing by Luke Baker; Editing by Peter Graff)

9/30/2019 Ukraine’s president fires head of national security council: decree
FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian Finance Minister Oleksandr Danyliuk attends a parliament session
in Kiev, Ukraine, April 14, 2016. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
    KIEV (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy fired national security council secretary Oleksandr Danyliuk, according to a decree published on the president’s official website.
    Danyliuk offered to quit before Zelenskiy began a visit to the United States last week, the president’s office said on Friday.
(Reporting by Polina Devitt, writing by Maria Tsvetkova, Editing by Catherine Evans)

9/30/2019 Hungarian premier Orban: conditions for EU funds just ‘political slogan’
FILE PHOTO: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban reacts during a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel
(not pictured) as they visit the Hungarian border town of Sopron, to mark the beginning of the fall of the
Iron Curtain thirty years ago, in Hungary, August 19, 2019. REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo
    BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Monday said a proposal to make EU development funds conditional on upholding democratic principles and the rule of law was no more than a “political slogan” used to attack member states.
    Orban told a late-night news conference with Finnish Prime Minister Antti Rinne, the holder of the bloc’s rotating presidency, that Hungary would discuss a proposal on conditionality if a specific one came, but none had been put forward yet.
    “The rule of law in Hungary is not a legal matter,” Orban said.    “It’s a matter of pride.    Those who doubt it challenge our honor, and I strongly suggest anyone thinks twice before doing that.”
    Hungary and its ally Poland have been at odds with the European executive for years over policies that Brussels says are eroding democratic checks and balances.
    Rinne said on Sunday that all EU countries looked ready to accept that European Union development funding should be made conditional on respect for democratic principles.
    On Monday he said conditionality was one of several issues in which member states were getting closer to a joint position.
    Orban, who has been the subject of rule of law procedures in the European parliament and nearly got his party evicted from the conservative mainstream earlier this year with his feisty resistance to outside influence, was adamant.
    He said it would be counterproductive to doubt a member state’s ideological resolve and create a climate in which members can be reprimanded.
    “I suggest we never reach the point where some leaders or bureaucrats can visit a member state to give them a hosing down about the rule of law,” he said.    “    That will yield many things but not cooperation.”
(Reporting by Marton Dunai; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Grant McCool)

9/30/2019 Hungary’s Orban nominates Oliver Varhelyi for EU Commissioner job
FILE PHOTO: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrives to take part in a European Union leaders summit,
in Brussels, Belgium July 2, 2019. Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
    BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Hungary’s top EU envoy in Brussels, Oliver Varhelyi, will step in as Budapest’s candidate for European commissioner, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told a news conference on Monday, confirming earlier reports.
    An EU diplomat told Reuters Hungary would send Varhelyi to the EU’s executive after the European Parliament blocked the first candidate Orban proposed.
(Reporting by Marton Dunai; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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