NATO Military Intelligence on Russia 'Not Good Enough': Breedlove Wednesday May 4th, 2016 at 4:47 PM
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U.S. General Philip Breedlove, the outgoing NATO commander in Europe, has praised allied intelligence officers but also warned that the West’s desire to partner with Russia means military intelligence wasn’t good enough before the Ukraine crisis and “isn’t good enough now.”
Breedlove, who came into the role of commander in 2013 and was succeeded by General Curtis Scaparrotti on Tuesday, presided over a period of deteriorating relations between the West and Russia, including Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. He spoke to The Wall Street Journal prior to his departure to give his thoughts on how the Kremlin’s military posture had changed of late.
“Russia has proved itself to be a learning and adaptive military force. They performed pretty badly in Georgia,” he said, referring to the 2008 conflict that failed to bring a unanimous resolution to the wrangling over two separatist regions in Georgia’s north.
“I believe what we saw when they went into Crimea is that they had come a long way in correcting the deficiencies they saw in their abilities in Georgia,” he added.
Breedlove said it is important not to overstate Russia’s power, as it could cost NATO’s credibility. But he added that the country has made “drastic improvements in their abilities” since 2008.
According to Breedlove, Russia was not seen as an adversary to NATO when he stepped in as commander “because we were still in the mode of trying to make a partner out of Russia.”
“We weren’t very far into this conversation about how we would refocus our training and our exercises when we began to see Russia exercise its military power in invading and occupying the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea then later as it went into Donbas,” Breedlove said.
Although well-armed Russian-speaking forces have led the separatism push in Crimea and in Ukraine’s eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk—known collectively as Donbas—Russia denies they are officers on duty. Ukraine, U.S. and NATO allies have presented evidence bringing Russia’s denials into serious doubt.
When asked if allied military intelligence on Russia was good enough in 2013, Breedlove praised U.S. and allied efforts, but admitted it was not.
“Please allow me to answer but try to tell the whole story because the answer is no, it wasn’t good enough then, and no, it isn’t good enough now,” he said. “Our nation made policy decisions to refocus that limited asset into other areas, and frankly, by doing that, we lost contact with Russia at the operational and tactical level.”
Instead, the U.S. and its allies focused resources on Middle Eastern conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Meanwhile, they relied on Russia for cooperation.
“Now that we see that Russia has not accepted that hand of partnership but has chosen a path of belligerence, we need to readdress where we’re heading,” Breedlove said.
NATO is in the midst of its biggest reinforcement since the Cold War, focusing on shoring up defenses in Eastern Europe. It will assess the status of this reinforcement program at a summit in Poland in July.
At Breedlove’s retirement ceremony on Tuesday, when he handed the reigns to the allied forces to Scaparrotti, defense officials presented a hard line against Russia.
U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said NATO must show that “if they start a war, we have the capabilities and capacity to ensure they regret it.” Scaparotti, who comes in from leading U.S. forces in Korea, also pointed to Russia as one of NATO’s biggest challenges, saying NATO should be “ready to fight should deterrence fail.”
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 Newsweek |
NATO Military Intelligence on Russia 'Not Good Enough': Breedlove
Newsweek U.S. General Philip Breedlove, the outgoing NATO commander in Europe, has praised allied intelligence officers but also warned that the West's desire to partner with Russia means military intelligence wasn't good enough before the Ukraine crisis and ... New NATO supreme commander vows tough line on RussiaChannel News Asia New Commander, Old Story: NATO Considers 'Resurgent Russia' a ChallengeSputnik International all 68 news articles » |
Tensions Surface Between Turkish President, Prime Ministerby webdesk@voanews.com (Associated Press)
Long-denied tensions between Turkey's president and prime minister are beginning to surface publicly, leading to speculation from political observers that the country's powerful leader may be considering replacing the premier with a figure more willing to take a backseat role. The rift comes at a precarious time for Turkey, which is gripped by a surge in violent attacks perpetrated by Kurdish and Islamic State militants. The country has also seen renewed fighting with the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, and growing spillover from the war in neighboring Syria, including a refugee and migrant crisis. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hand-picked Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to succeed him as premier and leader of his ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, after he was elected president in 2014. Davutoglu was largely expected to play second fiddle as Erdogan pushed ahead with plans to make the largely ceremonial presidency into an all-powerful position. The president, who has dominated Turkish politics for more than a decade, is pressing for a new constitution to change Turkey's political system to a presidential one, which would push his prime minister deeper into the shadows. Davutoglu, an independent-minded former professor, adviser to Erdogan and foreign minister, is struggling to be his own man. He has offered half-hearted support at best to an all-powerful presidential system and has also established himself as a moderating influence on an array of issues, by opposing, for example, the pre-trial imprisonment of academics or journalists. He has also addressed the possibility of the resumption of a peace process with Kurdish rebels. Some observers even call him the voice of reason in the party. Tensions between the two men were exposed this week, when the AKP's executive committee — dominated by Erdogan loyalists — seized Davutoglu's powers to appoint local and provincial leaders, further weakening his grip on the party. This development was billed as a "coup'' against Davutoglu by independent media. Divisions between the Erdogan and Davutoglu camp spilled into the open over the conflict with Kurdish militants in the southeast. Erdogan took issue with Davutoglu after he spoke of the possibility of resuming peace talks with the PKK if it withdraws its armed fighters from Turkish territory. Erdogan said in a public speech that it was out of the question for the peace process to restart, saying military operations would continue until the very last rebel is killed and the PKK threat is removed. More fissures were apparent over Davutoglu's opposition to the pre-trial detention of journalists accused of spying and academics accused of voicing support for the PKK. Erdogan spurned Davutoglu and even suggested that anyone deemed to be supportive of extremists should be stripped of their citizenship. The two men will meet face to face late Wednesday, but few expect them to iron out their differences. Calls placed to Davutoglu's spokesman for comment weren't answered. "While Erdogan and Davutoglu may appear keen to dispel any notions that divisions are emerging between them, the writing on the wall shows that a rift is in fact developing on a number of levels, and it is just a matter of time before this erupts in earnest,'' wrote Semih Idiz, a columnist for Hurriyet Daily News newspaper. Journalist and political commentator Mustafa Akyol said Davutoglu was likely to step down and be replaced with a figure "100 percent loyal to Erdogan.'' "Davutoglu will never be comfortable being prime minister after being targeted and seeing his powers decrease,'' Akyol, who writes for the Al-Monitor website, told The Associated Press. "It is not something that will make Turkey look good. The accusations of authoritarianism [against Erdogan] will be more legitimate. Criticisms about a one-man show will be emboldened.'' The gulf between the two leaders has led others to attack Davutoglu, seen as the weaker of the two. Nasuhi Gungor, a prominent pro-Erdogan journalist, said the AKP can "no longer carry on'' with Davutoglu and that the party should find itself a new path. Gungor, among other things, accused the Davutoglu government of not being active enough in going after supporters of U.S.-based Muslim cleric, who has become the president's chief foe. An anonymous blog — believed to have been authored by Erdogan aides or a pro-Erdogan journalists — aired the presidential camp's alleged grievances with Davutoglu, including not advocating the presidential system strongly enough or defending Erdogan against opposition parties' allegations of corruption against the president. During an address to party legislators on Tuesday, Davutoglu mounted a veiled attack on the authors of the blog calling them "virtual charlatans.'' He said he would "step aside if necessary,'' adding that he would never "back down from the truth we believe in and clean politics.'' Critics fear that a presidential system sought by Erdogan will further erode Turkey's checks and balances leading to one-man rule. Erdogan has already overstepped the traditional mandate of a president by chairing Cabinet meetings. He is also largely believed to steer the Cabinet to a certain extent through ministers loyal to him, including son-in-law Berat Albayrak, the energy minister. Erdogan has also appointed an army of advisers who are accused of running a "shadow Cabinet'' at his huge new presidential palace which boasts 1,150 rooms, apparently built in anticipation of Turkey's possible switch to a presidential system.
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A new report by Bellingcat has presented new claims about the anti-aircraft missile launcher supposedly responsible for the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17.
US, Allies Discuss Next Steps in Islamic State Fightby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
The United States along with allies from 11 other countries met in Germany to discuss the joint efforts in their campaign against Islamic State. In a joint statement, released after the meeting, the group reaffirmed its support "to further accelerate and reinforce the success of our partners on the ground and for the deployment of additional enabling capabilities in the near term" in order to hasten the collapse of Islamic State's control of Mosul and Raqqa in Iraq. "We called on all of Iraq's political leaders to commit themselves to the legal and peaceful reconciliation of political differences in order to confront the nation's challenges and to remain united against the common enemy," it added. Defense ministers from Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain and the Britain participated in Wednesday's session at the U.S. military's European Command headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. The meeting, which was a follow up to February's session in Brussels, comes a day after a U.S. Navy SEAL was killed while fighting Islamic State forces in northern Iraq. "Now, this fight is far from over and there are great risks and we were reminded of this yesterday when an American service member - Petty Officer First Class Charles Keating, a Navy SEAL - was killed while providing advice and assistance to the Peshmerga forces north of Mosul, who are directly in the fight [against the Islamic State group]," U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Wednesday. "These risks will continue and we greatly regret his loss." Meanwhile Wednesday, coalition forces announced that they conducted 22 strikes on Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq on Tuesday. The strikes were conducted in coordination with Iraqi forces. Some material for this report came from AP and Reuters.
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NATO's New Commander: Ready To Fight If Deterrence Failsby support@pangea-cms.com (Charles Recknagel)
NATO's new supreme commander, General Curtis Scaparrotti, says Russia's aggressive behavior must be met by force should deterrence fail.
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Medical Errors Third Leading Cause of Death in US: Studyby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
Medical errors now are the third leading cause of death in the United States, according to a new study. Writing in The BMJ, researchers from the Johns Hopkins University say more than 250,000 deaths are caused by medical errors every year. This means medical errors have passed respiratory disease as the third most likely cause of death. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention keeps the official statistics about leading causes of death in the U.S., but Hopkins researchers say the CDC's way of collecting data “fails to classify medical errors separately on the death certificate.” "Incidence rates for deaths directly attributable to medical care gone awry haven't been recognized in any standardized method for collecting national statistics," said Martin Makary, professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and an authority on health reform. "The medical coding system was designed to maximize billing for physician services, not to collect national health statistics, as it is currently being used." The researchers say the CDC’s methods, which were adopted in 1949, need to be changed to account for medical mistakes. "At that time, it was under-recognized that diagnostic errors, medical mistakes, and the absence of safety nets could result in someone's death," said Makary, "and because of that, medical errors were unintentionally excluded from national health statistics." The researchers looked at death rate data from 2000 to 2008 as well as hospitalization rates from 2013. Using that data, they determined that out of more than 35.4 million hospitalizations, medical errors caused more than a quarter million deaths. This, researchers say, represents 9.5 percent of all deaths in the U.S. each year. In 2013, the CDC said heart disease was the leading cause of death in the U.S., with cancer the second, followed by respiratory disease. "Top-ranked causes of death as reported by the CDC inform our country's research funding and public health priorities," Makary says. "Right now, cancer and heart disease get a ton of attention, but since medical errors don't appear on the list, the problem doesn't get the funding and attention it deserves." Researchers caution that medical errors should not be synonymous with bad doctors, but “represent systemic problems, including poorly coordinated care, fragmented insurance networks, the absence or underuse of safety nets, and other protocols, in addition to unwarranted variation in physician practice patterns that lack accountability.”
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It was 2:25 a.m. on Friday when the SMS function on Oleg Kozlovsky's mobile phone was silently disabled. 15 minutes later, an unknown device requested access to Kozlovsky's account on Telegram.
Kenyan Police 'Foiled' Anthrax Attack Linked to IS Groupby webdesk@voanews.com (Jill Craig)
Kenyan police say they have foiled a terrorist plot by a group believed to have links to so-called Islamic State. The group was allegedly planning "large-scale" attacks intended to kill innocent Kenyans. Suspects include medical experts who police say were planning to launch an attack using the biological agent anthrax. Kenyan police have arrested medical intern Mohammed Abdi Ali, his wife, and her friend for their alleged involvement in an East African terror network. Police say other accomplices, including two medical interns, are on the run. “I believe that we have upped our game, in terms of collection of intelligence," said George Musamali, a security analyst for East and Central Africa. "Because this was a very, very big breakthrough on the part of the intelligence agencies in Kenya, and this includes the national intelligence services, the Kenya police and also, people from the military intelligence. It shows that right now, the intelligence units are working together and they are well-coordinated.” Plans for bio-terror attack Police say the foiled plot included plans for a biological terror attack using anthrax, an infectious bacteria that spreads rapidly once spores get into the body. They say the attack, planned for April 29, was to be on a similar scale to the Westgate Mall assault of September 2013, in which 67 people were killed. That attack was carried out by the Somalia-based al-Qaida-linked group, al-Shabab. Police released the names and photos of all five suspects on Twitter. They say the group was radicalizing and recruiting university students and other Kenyan youth, even encouraging them to join terror groups in Libya and Syria. Concerned about IS movements And the alleged involvement of so-called Islamic State with this group is a concern, according to Musamali. “Clearly, it shows that IS [Islamic State] now wants to be a part of the play in East and Central Africa. And I think that this is something that should worry us, very much," he said. Warning that the two suspects at-large are armed and dangerous, Kenyan police are offering two million Kenyan shillings, almost $20,000, for information leading to their arrest.
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Former Military Intelligence Chief Advising Trump Joins Drone Aviation by webdesk@voanews.com (Reuters)
Retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, who has been advising Donald Trump informally on foreign policy, will join Drone Aviation Holding Corp. as vice chairman of its board of directors, the company said in a statement on Wednesday. Flynn, who was chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency under President Barack Obama from 2012-2014 and has since been advising Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner, wants the United States to work more closely with Russia to resolve global security issues. "Having evaluated the [company's] technologies, I believe they can positively impact our military’s defense and situational awareness and that is why I am joining Jay and his team in expanding the role of persistent aerial solutions in the marketplace,” Flynn said in the statement, referring to company CEO Jay Nussbaum. Drone Aviation develops and manufactures aerostats and electric-powered drones to give its customers "enhanced surveillance and communication capabilities." The company's customers include the U.S. military, Saudi Arabia and the Ecuadorian Air Force, according to its website. Flynn resigned as the head of the Pentagon's main intelligence agency a year before his term was officially due to end. He raised eyebrows among some U.S. foreign policy veterans when he was pictured sitting at the head table with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a banquet in Moscow late last year celebrating Russia Today, an international broadcasting network funded by the Russian government. He told Russia Today in an interview published on Dec. 10 that the United States and Russia should work together to resolve the Syrian civil war and defeat the Islamic State militant group. Flynn's experience would "help ensure that our tethered solutions, today and in the future, will continue to meet the needs of our soldiers and security forces at home and abroad as they respond to evolving threats,” Nussbaum said in the same statement.
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Russia has revealed details on three new army divisions designed to counteract NATO's military buildup near the country's borders, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced Wednesday.
Researchers Working to Solve Planet 9 Mysteryby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
Scientists are pretty sure Planet Nine is out there, they just can't figure out how it got to the outer reaches of our solar system. That's the perplexing conclusion of some new research by astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). "The evidence points to Planet Nine existing," says Gongjie Li, a CfA astronomer and lead author on the new research. "...but we can't explain for certain how it was produced." Long journey The existence of Planet Nine has been the stuff of myth and mystery for years. For conspiracy theorists, it has long been the mythical planet Nibiru that winds its way to earth every 10,000 years or so, leaving destruction in its wake. That ridiculousness aside, scientists have long been noticing odd things about the movements of a few extrasolar bodies way out beyond Neptune. These little planetoids are called dwarf planets, because they are much smaller than Earth. Pluto - the former ninth planet in our solar system before it was 'demoted' from planetary status - is one, then there's Eris, and Makemake, and a host of others. But it was the movements of two planetoids in particular, Sedna and 2012 VP that caught the eye of some Caltech scientists. In January, Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin published research that crunched the numbers and pretty definitively proved that there is something very big, much bigger than Earth out there, tossing around all the little guys. They named it Planet Nine. It has about 10 times the mass of Earth, and its year is measured between 10 and 20,000 years. OK it's there! But how? Since then, scientists have been working to learn more about this super Earth, and they're not getting any definitive answers. In this new report, astronomers reportedly ran millions of computer simulations to test one way that such a large planet ended up in the outskirts of our solar system. That scenario involves a star that moved close enough to our sun to pull Planet Nine out into its orbit. The math says there's only a 10 percent chance of that happening. Li's new research was just accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. But that's not the end of the story! Some of Li's colleagues have already submitted two complementary papers to the Astrophysical Journal. Their work presents two other likely scenarios: one is that Planet Nine formed in the same neighborhood as our other big guys, Jupiter and Saturn, and that a series of gravitational tugs bullied it out of the region. The other possibility is that Planet Nine actually formed as it was, way out in the hinterlands. It's a mystery that astronomers are excited to solve. "The nice thing about these scenarios is that they're observationally testable," CfA astronomer and author Scott Kenyon points out. "A scattered gas giant will look like a cold Neptune, while a planet that formed in place will resemble a giant Pluto with no gas." Stay tuned.
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 Росбалт.RU |
В Крыму на глазах туристов обрушился мыс Хамелеона (видео)
Росбалт.RU В Крыму близ Коктебеля обрушился мыс Хамелеон. Уникальное явление заснял на видео депутат Ялтинского городского совета Сергей Ефанов. Как сообщает «Юг Ялта», Сергей Ефанов вместе со своим сыном путешествовали на мотоциклах, когда 2 мая в районе Коктебеля им ... В Коктебеле мыс обрушился в море на глазах отдыхающих. ВидеоВести.Ru Очевидцы засняли обрушение мыса Хамелеон в КрымуПравда.Ру В Коктебеле огромный мыс обрушился в море на глазах депутатаMKRU Все похожие статьи: 48 » |
NATO Alliance Gets New Supreme Commanderby webdesk@voanews.com (Associated Press)
NATO's new supreme allied commander, U.S. Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, said Wednesday the alliance should consider what weaponry it could provide so Ukraine can better combat a pro-Moscow insurgency. "I do believe that we should support the Ukrainians with what they need to successfully defend their territory and their sovereignty,'' Scaparrotti said. The four-star general made the remarks to reporters about an hour after taking over as military leader responsible for the overall direction and conduct of global military operations at the 28-nation NATO alliance. The command job, known in NATO jargon as the SACEUR, always goes to an American general or admiral, and was first filled by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1951. Scaparrotti, 60, a West Point graduate and the former commander of U.S. and U.N. forces in Korea, succeeds U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, who was SACEUR for three years and oversaw sweeping changes at NATO designed to deal with a resurgent Russia and the threat of armed Islamic extremism in the Middle East and Africa. The new NATO commander said he expected to have only "limited'' communications with the top Russian brass until Moscow begins adhering again to international norms and laws. He said the Kremlin continues to be active militarily in eastern Ukraine — charge from the West that Russians officials routinely and flatly deny — and that the U.S.-led NATO alliance should reconsider what sort of concrete assistance it can give Ukraine. "Now, I'll take a look at that as the SACEUR, specifically because I need to assess what weapons are best, what capabilities they can use, what capabilities are complementary to their forces today,'' Scaparrotti said. "And I'll make the more refined decision here as I get into this job.''
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Trump Faces Tough Presidential Odds Against Clintonby webdesk@voanews.com (Ken Bredemeier)
Billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump is now the presumptive Republican nominee for the U.S. presidency, but early indications are he faces a daunting contest against the likely Democratic candidate, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. Numerous national election surveys show Clinton, seeking to become the country's first female president, defeating Trump, who surged to the top of a large field of Republican candidates with tough talk to halt illegal immigration into the country from Mexico and temporarily block Muslims from entering the country. His rise has prompted his closest Republican rivals to drop out of the race. Collectively, the polling gives Clinton, the country's top diplomat from 2009 to 2013, about a six-percentage point edge over Trump, a one-time television reality show host who has never held elective office. A new CNN/ORC poll Wednesday showed a bigger Clinton margin, 54 to 41 percent. The CNN poll also showed voters prefer Clinton, the wife of former president Bill Clinton, over Trump on how each would deal with a range of issues, including terrorism, foreign policy, immigration, health care and education. U.S. political analysts say the last quarter century of presidential elections also would seem to favor Clinton. One map showed this week that to win the presidency, she would need only to capture 20 of the country's 50 states in November's national election against Trump, the 19 that have voted for Democratic candidates in the past six presidential elections, plus the large southeastern political battleground state of Florida, where one poll shows her ahead of Trump by 13 percentage points. State-by-state voting plays the dominant role in U.S. presidential elections. The quadrennial contests for a four-year term as the American leader are not decided by a national popular vote, but by the outcome of individual contests between the Republican and Democratic nominees in each state, with each state's number of electoral votes based on its population and the number of senators and members of Congress. As he became the party's presumptive presidential nominee Tuesday, after a resounding primary victory over his remaining challengers in the Midwestern state of Indiana, Trump showed no concern that the odds-of-the-moment might be stacked against him. "We're going to win in November," he declared at a victory rally at his signature skyscraper building in New York. "We want to bring unity to the Republican Party. We have to bring unity." In an interview with CNN Wednesday, Clinton described Trump as "a loose cannon" and a "blustering and bullying guy." She said the 16 Republican presidential candidates Trump defeated to secure his party's nomination "didn't know how to deal with him," often ignoring his more controversial policy statements because they agreed with him. Clinton said she would be prepared for his attacks, even on questions related to investigations conducted during her husband's presidency, when he was impeached, but not convicted and removed from office, for lying about an extramarital affair he carried out in the White House with an intern. "If he wants to go back to the playbook of the 1990s, I'm happy to do that," Clinton said of Trump. Establishment Republicans Some establishment Republicans have continued to voice their opposition to Trump becoming the standard bearer for the party in the election to pick the successor to President Barack Obama, who leaves office in January. Some fear he has little chance of defeating Clinton, while others continue to protest that he does not hold some of the conservative values on which U.S. Republicans traditionally campaign. After Trump routed his chief remaining competitor in Indiana, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, one conservative stalwart, Erick Erickson, said, "I don't want to congratulate Hillary Clinton in winning the presidency tonight, but she just did." After his defeat, Cruz dropped out of the presidential race and the party's national chairman, Reince Priebus, described Trump as the presumptive nominee. Clinton eyes Trump For days, Clinton has been aiming her verbal attacks at Trump, but she also has yet to clinch her party's nomination. Clinton lost her party's Indiana primary to her lone rival, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. He is a self-described democratic socialist who has attacked Clinton for her ties to Wall Street financial chieftains and her vote as a senator more than a decade ago to approve the U.S. military invasion of Iraq to topple dictator Saddam Hussein. After winning in Indiana, Sanders has won 18 state contests against Clinton. He told supporters Tuesday that he has a "narrow path to victory" over Clinton for the Democratic nomination, but noted that national election surveys show him defeating Trump more handily than Clinton does. In Indiana, as elsewhere, he continued to win by wide margins among voters 29 years old and younger. Sanders's campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, told CNN, "The pundits want to say (the Clinton-Sanders race) is over, but the voters have a different view."
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Международная исследовательска
Originally published at - http://www.golos-ameriki.ru/media/video/bellingcat-investigation/3315119.html
Originally published at - http://www.golos-ameriki.ru/media/video/bellingcat-investigation/3315119.html
Поддержка экстремистов может стать угрозой европейской безопасности
Originally published at - http://www.golos-ameriki.ru/media/video/russia-and-europe-ultra-right/3315124.html
Originally published at - http://www.golos-ameriki.ru/media/video/russia-and-europe-ultra-right/3315124.html
Portuguese and European police say they have broken up a cell of an important Russian mafia group that allegedly laundered money through European soccer clubs.
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Spain issues arrest warrants for Russian officials close to Putinby Alec Luhn in Moscow and Luke Harding
Move by Spanish national court judge follows decade-long investigation into the activities of the Russian mafia
Spain has issued arrest warrants for senior Russian government officials close to Vladimir Putin following a decade-long investigation into the activities of the Russian mafia.
A Spanish national court judge is seeking to arrest 12 people allegedly linked to Russian gangsters operating in Spain. They include Vladislav Reznik, a prominent MP for Putin’s ruling United Russia party, and Reznik’s wife Diana Gindin.
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Vox |
The West needs to stop panicking about Russia's "hybrid" warfare
Vox There is currently a great deal of alarmist concern, triggered by a recent RAND report, aboutRussia's supposed ability to conquer the Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, three former Soviet republics that are now part of NATO — and thus ... and more » |
 The Globe and Mail |
Russia arrests groups for planning attacks in Moscow region: agencies
Reuters The Federal Security Service (FSB) said the attacks had been planned for Russia's May holiday celebrations and it had seized large numbers of weapons and explosives. "(The attacks) were ordered by leaders of international terrorist groups operating in ... Russia Claims Arrest of Group Planning Holiday AttacksABC News Russia arrests group suspected of planning attacks in Moscow regionThe Globe and Mail Russia foils attacks ordered by 'terrorists' in Turkey, Syria: spy agencyYahoo7 News all 11 news articles » |
Reports Point to Sluggish-Stable US Economyby webdesk@voanews.com (Wayne Lee)
A mixed-bag of economic reports released on Wednesday points to a sluggish but stable U.S. economy. U.S. companies added jobs last month at their slowest pace in three years, according to payroll processor ADP. Business added 150,000 jobs in April, fewer than the 194,000 added in March. The reasons for the decline were the loss of 11,000 manufacturing jobs and weaker hiring at medium and larger companies. The ADP report precedes Friday's monthly government unemployment update. Last month, the U.S. Department of Labor reported the jobless rate was little changed at 5.0 percent. Some economists expect firm growth in the range of 200,000 jobs. The Labor Department reported American workers were less productive in the first quarter of this year. Productivity fell at an annual rate of one percent, compared to a 1.7 percent drop in the fourth quarter of 2015. Productivity, the amount of output per hour of work, has been weak for the last five years. It is a key ingredient needed for raising living standards. The bright spot was the U.S. trade deficit, which narrowed sharply in March, thanks to a drop in imports. The U.S. Department of Commerce reported the deficit shrank nearly 14 percent from February to $40.4 billion, its lowest level in a year. The report said the trade gap with China, one of America's largest trade partners, narrowed more than 34 percent. Wells Fargo Global Economist Jay Bryson said the trade deficit news "came as little surprise" because recent preliminary data on trade in goods "signaled a sharp reduction in the overall deficit."
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Sadiq Khan, the Labour Party’s mayoral candidate, during a campaign stop at a market in London on Wednesday. He is the front-runner in the race to replace the outgoing mayor, Boris Johnson, a Conservative.
Though the effort has been portrayed as a blow to corruption and organized crime, some critics say it is as an infringement on personal freedom and a stealthy tool of monetary policy.
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Note commonly used by criminals and terrorists to smuggle cash through Europe
10-year-old Hacks Instagramby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
Step aside Mark Zuckerberg, a new programming prodigy is in town. Jani is a 10-year-old Finnish boy who won a $10,000 prize for finding a glitch in the popular photo sharing application, Instagram, which is owned by Facebook. Jani’s last name is not being publicly released for privacy concerns. The glitch allowed users to put malicious code in the comments field on Instagram, that erased comments. "I wanted to see if Instagram's comment field could stand malicious code. Turns out it couldn't," Jani told Finland's Iltalehti newspaper. Jani is the youngest person to ever win Facebook’s “bug bounty” award, which the company, founded by Zuckerberg, uses to help patch bugs and other glitches. Jani said he learned to code watching YouTube videos. "I could have deleted anyone's comments from there. Even Justin Bieber's," Jani told Iltalehti. Jani said he plans to get a new bike and a football with the prize money. Facebook said it fixed the bug in February. According to the BBC, Facebook has paid out a total of $4.3 million to winners of the bug bounty since 2011.
Sadiq Khan, the Labour Party’s mayoral candidate, during a campaign stop at a market in London on Wednesday. He is the front-runner in the race to replace the outgoing mayor, Boris Johnson, a Conservative.
Russia to Deploy Troops to Counter Growing NATO Presenceby webdesk@voanews.com (Isabela Cocoli)
Russia says it will deploy three divisions of troops along its borders to counter NATO's increasing military presence in Eastern Europe. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Wednesday after a meeting in Moscow that the new divisions will be stationed along Russia’s western and southern borders. "The Defense Ministry is taking a series of measures aimed at countering the buildup of NATO forces in close proximity to Russian borders. By the end of the year, two new military divisions will be formed in the Western Military district and one in the Southern Military District. At the moment, facilities construction is being carried out at the sites where these units will be deployed," he said. Shoigu gave no details about the size and timing of the new Russian deployment, or where the troops would be stationed. He first mentioned the plan to create three new divisions back in January, and Russian media reports at the time estimated up to 30,000 troops would be involved. NATO looking at additional troop boost U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said this week that NATO is considering stationing a force of around 4,000 troops in Poland and the three Baltic states - Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia - all of which are members of the western alliance. This would be in addition to another deployment already authorized - a U.S. armored brigade, about 4,200 troops, that will be sent to eastern Europe in February. Carter said Monday that the additional eastern-Europe force NATO is considering would consist of four battalions of soldiers, contributed by NATO members on a "continuously rotating" basis. Another senior Russian Defense Ministry official, Andrei Kelin, said Wednesday that dispatching four additional NATO battalions to the Baltic states and Poland would amount to "a very dangerous build-up of armed forces pretty close to our borders," Interfax news agency reported. Worries over Russian posturing The United States and other governments in both Western and Eastern Europe have been increasingly concerned by Russia's military moves since 2014, when it annexed Ukraine's Crimea region. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have been particularly anxious about what they see as aggressive posturing by Russia, and all three have asked NATO to expand its presence in the Baltics as a deterrent to Russia. Russian military moves in recent weeks have included flight maneuvers by Russian jets that simulated attacks on a U.S. warship in the Baltic Sea, and an interceptions by Russian warplanes of U.S. reconnaissance planes flying over international waters. Despite tensions created by the incidents, Moscow has rejected protests by American authorities, and denied U.S. claims its pilots' actions were reckless and dangerous. The Kremlin has repeatedly disavowed any plan to intervene militarily in the Baltic states which, formerly part of the Soviet Union, were for decades under Moscow’s rule.
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The United States and Russia have agreed to extend a cessation of hostilities in Syria to include Aleppo Province, site of an uptick in fighting.
Russian Artillery Engaged in Aleppo as Dozens Killed in Rebel Assault by webdesk@voanews.com (Jamie Dettmer)
Russian artillery units were involved Wednesday in fighting in Syria's divided northern city of Aleppo in the fiercest ground clashes in a year between rebel groups and Assad regime forces in the area, which has suffered two weeks of blistering government airstrikes. It is the first time Russian ground troops have assisted Syrian government forces outside the coastal province of Latakia or at Palmyra, say rebel commanders. The development came as the State Department said the U.S. and Russia reached an agreement to extend a "cessation of hostilities" in Syria to Aleppo while acknowledging that "there have been reports of continued fighting in some locations." Dozens were killed as rebels advanced into Syrian government-controlled western districts, according to political activists. The insurgents were forced to withdraw after several hours of intense fighting. The assault was mounted to disrupt regime forces, say rebel commanders who have long warned of a major offensive in the coming weeks to wrest back the battered insurgent-held districts of a city that remains a key battlefield prize for the government. The clashes come amid diplomatic efforts in Berlin to stop the fighting. The Western-favored Syrian National Coalition, the umbrella anti-Assad opposition group, accused Russia of deceiving the international community, arguing that Russian participation on the ground and in the air contradicts Moscow’s claims that it is eager for a resumption of a partial cease-fire agreed to in late February. Russian warplanes have been leading the government aerial bombardment of rebel-held areas of Aleppo since April 21, opposition politicians say, further highlighting the falsity of Moscow’s involvement in talks about cease-fires or political solutions to the five-year-long civil war. “Russia is deceiving the international community by falsely claiming it supports a political solution in Syria,” says Nora al-Ameer, a member of the SNC’s political committee. “Russians pretend to engage positively with the United Nations efforts to reach a political solution in Syria while supporting the Assad regime in its ongoing brutal onslaught on Aleppo." "The Assad regime, backed by Russia, is exploiting negotiations to pursue a military solution on the pretext it is fighting terrorism,” al-Ameer added. Russian spokesmen say al-Qaida fighters, who were not included in the U.S.-Russian brokered cessation of hostilities deal finalized in February, allied to other rebel groups, are at fault for the violence in Aleppo, saying that the assault by insurgents disrupted negotiations for a temporary truce in Aleppo that had nearly been complete. Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying that a "regime of calm" in Aleppo that had been due to take effect was shelved following the deadly ground assault. Rebels dismiss Moscow’s claim, saying that the regime has remained focused on Aleppo and its two-week-long aerial bombardment of the city is a softening up ahead of an inevitable ground assault. The regime bombing, says Hawass Khalil, an SNC politician, is “aimed at intimidating the civilian population and forcing them into submission …and provides further proof that the Assad regime is not a serious partner in negotiations.” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has said American and Russian negotiators are working with United Nations officials to restore the cessation of hostilities deal brokered by Washington and Moscow in February. “Our teams, on a military-to-military basis, are working through the details that need to be implemented so that this can be restored,” Kerry said Tuesday. He made the comments a day after holding emergency talks in Geneva with U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based pro-opposition monitoring group, said rebel rockets killed 19 civilians in government-held portions of the city, including an unspecified number at the al-Dabit hospital, which was badly damaged Tuesday after an insurgent-fired shell struck the fuel tank of a military vehicle near the maternity hospital, the sixth medical facility to be impacted by the fighting and airstrikes. The other five clinics were hit by government forces, including a hospital run by the French charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which was struck last week in an airstrike, killing 55 civilians. The rebel ground assault in west Aleppo, which started late Tuesday, was mounted by fighters from al-Qaida affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, as well as Western-favored Free Syrian Army militias and the Islamist group Jaysh Al-Mujahideen. It began after rebels detonated a large bomb in a tunnel underneath an Air Force Intelligence building in the Al-Zahra district of west Aleppo. Government spokesmen said 70 rebels were killed in the fighting, which was at its most intense around al-Rahman Mosque in the al-Zahra’a neighborhood of the city. Although repelled by regime forces, rebels maintained Wednesday their rocket fire — much of it indiscriminate, according to the observatory. The monitoring group warned the civilian death toll would climb throughout the day, saying 20 civilians were killed Wednesday morning, including four children and five women, in the shelling by rebel factions on western Aleppo districts. The intensity of rebel shelling is testimony to insurgent fears that the Russian military and other regime forces, including fighters from the Lebanese Shi’ite movement Hezbollah, are gearing up for a new offensive on the rebel-held portion of the city. Last week, Col. Steve Warren, the spokesman for the U.S.-led campaign against Islamic State, said regime forces were beginning “to mass and concentrate combat power around Aleppo.” He added, “It is primarily [the] al-Nusra [Front] who holds Aleppo, and, of course, al-Nusra is not part of the cessation of hostilities. So it's complicated. We're watching it.” His comment angered rebel leaders, who fear that Washington is ready to turn a blind eye on any regime assault on the city in an effort to salvage something from the collapse of the cessation of hostilities agreement. They insist al-Nusra fighters do not constitute most of the insurgent forces in Aleppo. Warren’s remarks drew criticism also from rights groups. Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth accused the U.S. of inviting “devastating attacks" on Aleppo by “fixating on Nusra presence.” U.S. State Department spokesmen insist Washington has not given up on Aleppo, arguing a restoration of the cessation of hostilities elsewhere in Syria would clear the way for one in Syria’s one-time commercial capital. In an effort to revive the cease-fire, temporary local truces have been put into place in two parts of Syria, the Damascus suburbs and in Latakia; however, political activists reported fresh clashes and airstrikes Wednesday in rebel-held eastern Ghouta near the Syrian capital.
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A look at the best news photos from around the world.
US-Mexico Border Opens to Immigrants for 3 Minutesby webdesk@voanews.com (Aline Barros)
U.S. Border Patrol agents recently opened the so-called Door of Hope, a maintenance door in the fence on the U.S.-Mexico border, to let a handful of families reunite face to face for three minutes. The moment was filled with tears and long-awaited hugs. The Door of Hope is located in the border fence at Friendship Park where, on Saturdays and Sundays, families are allowed to "congregate" and spend time with each other on opposite sides of the fence, each in their respective country. Gabriela Esparza was among those chosen to be at the door April 30 to meet relatives. She lives in California and normally sees her family in Mexico through the fence at the border most Saturdays. But with the emergency door open to walk through, this time was different. "We just started crying," Esparza told CNN after reuniting with her mother and sister. "When I last saw them, I was 16. And now I'm a mom, I have my family. I still can't believe that this happened." Esparza is a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient. She benefited from an executive order signed by President Barack Obama in 2014 that offers protections to young immigrants, allowing them to work legally for two years. The policy, however, is being challenged before the U.S. Supreme Court, along with the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) order, in the case U.S. v. Texas. The April 30 initiative was held in honor of Mexico's "El Dia del Nino" or "Children's Day," and was organized by Border Angels, a San Diego nonprofit organization that advocates for immigration reform. Enrique Morones, founder and executive director of Border Angels, told VOA that this is the third time the nonprofit has promoted the opening of the border gate near San Diego and Tijuana. The first time was in 2013, when one family could reunite for only two minutes. In 2015, four families were able to spend time together, and this year five families participated. According to Morones, his nonprofit gets "lots of interest" once it begins to search for families who would like to participate. The organization forwards cases to the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. Border Patrol Agent James Nielsen said the agency then checks the names to see if there is any criminal history. Nielsen added that agents attended the event to offer support and "make sure everything was safe." "We just facilitated the event. We were there as the enforcement ... to make sure nothing bad happened in the area," he said. The Fusion television channel reported that the Border Patrol canceled the event in 2014 because, the year before, a little girl ran toward her dad and jumped into his arms without giving prior warning. Morones said the incident caused the agency to call off the event, but it returned last year when four families were given a brief moment to hug. "We plan to do this at least once a year,” Morones said, adding that a celebration is planned this Sunday at Friendship Park in honor of Mother's Day. But this time, mothers, daughters and sons will only be able to touch fingertips.
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New NATO Commander Says Military Alliance Still Vitalby support@pangea-cms.com (RFE/RL)
NATO's new supreme commander in Europe says the military alliance remains essential more than 25 years after the end of the Cold War.
A disturbing new report shows that the FBI may have a severe hair problem on its hands, one it’s fully aware of – and acknowledging – and one that may have led to an unknown number of wrong convictions spanning decades. Apparently, FBI experts gave flawed testimony in criminal trials for a period of more than two decades, and the agency is just now trying to fix its mess.
According to The Washington Post, the Justice Department and the FBI have acknowledged that “nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000.”
26 of the 28 examiners with the FBI Laboratory’s microscopic hair comparison unit overstated forensic matches, favoring the prosecution in more than 95% of the 268 trials reviewed so far. And there are even more trials to look into, assuming there’s data available to analyze.
The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and the Innocence Project are assisting with this massive investigation. The Post says that the cases include 32 defendants sentenced to death, with 14 of them having already been executed or died while imprisoned.
“The FBI’s three-decade use of microscopic hair analysis to incriminate defendants was a complete disaster,” Innocence Project co-founder Peter Neufeld said. “We need an exhaustive investigation that looks at how the FBI, state governments that relied on examiners trained by the FBI and the courts allowed this to happen and why it wasn’t stopped much sooner.”
The Post does say that these errors do not indicate whether or not there was other evidence to prove a suspect’s guilt, yet defendants and prosecutors in 46 states and Washington D.C. are being notified in order to determine grounds for appeals. But the investigation was launched in 2012 after a report from the same paper revealed that flawed forensic matches related to hair might have led to the conviction of hundreds of potentially innocent people since the 1970s.
The FBI has identified some 2,500 cases where the FBI Lab’s hair matches need to be reviewed. More than 340 cases were already reviewed.
In 2002, the Bureau reported that its DNA testing found that examiners reported false matches 11% of the time. The Post found that in the District, where all the FBI hair convictions were reinvestigated, three of seven defendants were exonerated — and courts later exonerated two more men. The five people in question each served between 20 and 30 years in prison for either rape or murder.
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Fifteen years after the attacks that killed her husband, Lorie Van Auken thinks she still hasn't been told the whole truth about 9/11.
The European Commission said on Wednesday that member states will vote on a proposal to allow visa-free travel within Europe for citizens of Turkey if that country meets some requirements.
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The director of the Russian Central Commercial Bank in the capital of Russia's region of Bashkortostan, Ufa, has been found shot dead in his apartment block.
A suspected gas explosion in an apartment block in the southwestern Russian city of Balakovo has left one person dead and six injured.
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department took steps Tuesday to restore the access of some government watchdogs to sensitive internal records, but officials called on Congress to enact a permanent, wider fix.
The inspector general offices for 72 agencies across the federal government charged that legal policy changes made by the Obama administration over the last several years had curtailed their access to records, harmed a wide range of investigations and compromised their independence.
At least 20 investigations into topics such as sexual abuse at the Peace Corps and fatal shootings by the Drug Enforcement Administration were slowed, hindered, or sometimes closed as a result of the changes, the inspectors general said.
Justice Department officials said Tuesday that a new directive and an accompanying legal opinion would address some of those concerns.
In a memo dated Monday, Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates said that responding to investigations by the Justice Department’s inspector general “is of the highest priority” for the department, and she directed officials to provide timely access to all the material requested.
That includes grand jury documents, wiretapping records and other confidential materials that a controversial Justice Department legal opinion last year concluded could be withheld in some circumstances. Ms. Yates’s memo was first reported by The Associated Press.
In December, a congressional spending bill signed by President Obama threatened to cut off funding if records were improperly withheld from the inspectors general for the Justice Department and five others covered by the bill: the Commerce Department, NASA, the National Science Foundation, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Legal Service Corporation.
A legal opinion last week by the Justice Department’s office of legal counsel — replacing the one that came out last year — said that because of that funding measure, all material must now be turned over to those watchdogs through the end of the fiscal year in September.
In a telephone interview, Michael E. Horowitz, the Justice Department’s inspector general and leader of the governmentwide association of inspectors general, said it was unfortunate that it had taken the threat of a cutoff in funding by Congress for his office to see its full access to investigative records restored for now.
“The I.G.s have a right to access these documents — period,” he said.
He urged Congress to act on a proposal that would ensure permanent access for all 72 inspectors general — not just those covered by the funding measure through September.
Justice Department officials said they, too, welcomed congressional action to clear up what they said were ambiguities in the law.
Correction: May 4, 2016
An earlier version of this article misstated which part of the Justice Department released a legal opinion last week which said that because of a funding measure, all material must now be turned over to watchdogs through the end of the fiscal year in September. It was the department’s office of legal counsel, not the inspector general.
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 Business Insider |
Pentagon chief: US won't be intimidated by Russia's 'nuclear saber-rattling'
Business Insider "We do not seek to make Russia an enemy," Carter said at a ceremony to install a new head of the military's U.S. European Command and top NATO commander in Europe. "But make no mistake: We will defend our allies, the rules-based international order, ... US accuses Russia of nuclear sabre-rattling, amid Nato tensionsBBC News Defense chief blasts Russia's aggressive actions and 'saber rattling'USA TODAY US Military Chief Urges Russia To End 'Saber-Rattling,' Move ForwardRadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty U.S. News & World Report -CNSNews.com all 211 news articles » |
Exiled Tibetans: Man Detained, Tortured for Singing National Anthem by webdesk@voanews.com (Yeshi Dorje)
A father of three of was reportedly detained and tortured by security officials for singing the Tibetan national anthem at a public gathering in China's western Sichuan province. Video of the Tibetan man singing the banned anthem at a public gathering in what appeared to be a village in the Tibet Autonomous Region went viral on Wechat in April. A Tibetan monk in India who knows the man told VOA's Tibetan Service that Pema Wangchen, a single parent, was recorded singing the anthem Feb. 13, the fifth day of the Tibetan New Year, in Ogzang Township, Ganze County, Sichuan. After the video surfaced, the man was detained for 15 days before being released in early May. Choe Gyaltsen, an exiled Tibetan who is also from Ganze County, says Wangchen, whose pinky finger is now paralyzed, was possibly suspended by his smallest finger during interrogation, during which he was repeatedly told that his "family members are all criminal." Wangchen's brother, Palden Trelan, a monk from Ganze Monastery, was arrested in 2008 after he and two other monks marched through Ganze shouting "Long live the Dalai Lama," according to a Radio Free Asia report in 2015. Trelan had served seven years in prison by the time he was released May 18, 2015. This report was produced in collaboration with VOA's Tibetan Service.
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 Voice of America |
US, Russia Push to Restore Syria Cease-fire
Voice of America A team led by the United States, Russia and the United Nations is working to finalize a plan that could restore the cessation of hostilities in Syria, where fighting between the government and rebels could unhinge a multinational effort to fight the ... Syria conflict: How does Russia view the endgame?Christian Science Monitor Russia and UN discuss new Aleppo truceThe Guardian Kerry warns Russia to hop to it on SyriaArkansas Online BBC News-CNN-Bloomberg all 904 news articles » |
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