Month: November 2018

The British prime minister says she intends to talk about the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the G-20 meeting in Argentina.

Theresa May said on the airplane to Buenos Aires that the British government “wants to see a full and transparent investigation in relation to what happened and obviously those responsible being held to account.”

The Guardian, a British newspaper, said Downing Street sources have not officially confirmed a bilateral meeting but have suggested that May and the crown prince would be “engaging.”

Khashoggi, a Saudi national and critic of the crown prince, was killed last month after entering the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, where he had gone to obtain documents needed for his upcoming wedding.

Saudi Arabia has denied allegations that Salman played a role in Khashoggi’s death, blaming the killing on rogue agents. U.S. President Donald Trump has echoed Riyadh’s denials and said the matter remains an open question.

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a frequent defender of Trump has joined other U.S. lawmakers in demanding a briefing by the CIA on Khashoggi’s death and has threatened to withhold votes on urgent legislation if it does not occur.
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U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday abruptly canceled a planned two-hour meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in response to Moscow’s seizure of Ukrainian ships in the Black Sea region.

“Based on the fact that the ships and sailors have not been returned to Ukraine from Russia, I have decided it would be best for all parties concerned to cancel my previously scheduled meeting in Argentina,” Trump said on Twitter as he left Washington for Buenos Aires and the weekend G-20 summit of heads of the world’s leading economies.

“I look forward to a meaningful Summit again as soon as this situation is resolved!” Trump added.

Trump tweeted about canceling the talks with Putin not long after telling reporters at the White House that the meeting would likely proceed as planned.

“I probably will be meeting with President Putin,” he had said. “They would like to have it. I think it’s a very good time to have the meeting.”

But he said he would get a final report during his flight concerning the Russian seizure Sunday of the three vessels and their crews in the Kerch Strait as they tried to make their way to the Ukrainian port of Mariupol, in the Sea of Azov.

“I’m getting a full report on the plane as to what happened with respect to that and that will determine what I’m going to be doing,” he said.

The White House said Trump made the decision on board Air Force One after conferring with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Adviser John Bolton and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly.

Russian news agencies reported the Kremlin had not been notified in advance of Trump’s decision. The Russian embassy in Washington said that if Trump and Putin aren’t going to meet, then the Russian leader “will have a couple of additional hours on the program for useful meetings.”

Request for NATO aid

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko asked NATO countries to send naval ships to the Sea of Azov to aid his country and “provide security” amid tensions with Russia. Ukraine, once a Soviet satellite state, is not a NATO member.

Poroshenko’s comments were published Thursday in the German newspaper Bild.

NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu responded to Poroshenko’s request by saying the military alliance already has a strong presence in the Black Sea region.

She said NATO ships routinely patrol the area and several NATO allies conduct reconnaissance flights over the region. “We will continue to assess our presence in the region,” Lungescu added.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel also rejected Poroshenko’s request, urging Kyiv to adopt a “sensible” approach “because there is no military solution to these disputes.”

Also Thursday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he could play a mediator role between Ukraine and Russia.

Erdogan has held phone talks with leaders on both sides, and said he would continue discussing the issue with Putin and Trump at a G-20 summit.

Conflicting accounts

Ukraine said Russia used a tanker to block access to the Kerch Strait, which under a treaty is shared territory. Russia said the vessels illegally entered its waters.

Putin on Wednesday blamed Poroshenko for the incident, alleging it is an attempt by Poroshenko to boost his re-election chances next year.

Ukraine has imposed martial law in some of its border regions in response to the incident, and with a growing number of other European countries, urged Western allies to impose additional sanctions on Moscow.

Poroshenko said martial law will help “strengthen Ukraine’s defense capabilities amid increasing aggression and according to international law, a cold act of aggression by the Russian Federation.” He demanded Russia release the Ukrainian sailors and vessels.

The U.S. special envoy for Ukraine, Kurt Volker, told reporters Wednesday in Berlin he believes Kyiv’s account that its ships were operating within global maritime rules.

Volker said the Ukrainian vessels were returning to Odessa “when the Russian vessels then pursued them and attacked them.”

Ukrainian officials have released what they maintain is the precise location where its ships were fired upon.

Volker said he has not received independent U.S. verification of Ukraine’s information, but believed “the data the Ukrainians have provided is quite clear.”

Poroshenko wrote Thursday on Twitter that his country will impose unspecified restrictions on Russian citizens in response to Russia’s actions. Ukraine has already denied Russians entry into the country since last week’s incident.

Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in March 2014, saying its ethnic Russian majority was under threat from the Ukrainian government. A month later, it fomented a pro-Russia separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine in an ongoing conflict that to date has claimed more than 10,000 lives.

Ukraine and the West repeatedly have accused Russia of fueling the conflict by providing rebel forces with weapons and other support, a charge Moscow has denied despite strong evidence to the contrary.
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Until the Russian attack Sunday on Ukrainian vessels in the Black Sea, the White House and the Kremlin had at least agreed on one thing, the agenda for Saturday’s scheduled face-to-face between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, their second summit meeting.

Arms control, security issues as well as the Middle East and North Korea were all set to figure prominently, senior U.S. and Russian aides told reporters in the run-up to the meeting.

The Kremlin had earmarked as their key issue, say Russian officials, Trump’s recent decision to abandon a landmark Cold War-era agreement prohibiting the U.S. and Russia from possessing ground-launched short-range nuclear missiles.

For the White House, securing a public commitment from the Russians to enforce United Nations sanctions on North Korea before next month’s planned summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was a key objective, according to U.S. officials.

But the Russian attack on three Ukrainian vessels shifted the dynamics of Saturday’s planned two-hour face-to-face between Trump and Putin on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Argentina, say analysts, with the U.S. leader being urged to take a tough line that might imperil his overall determination to improve U.S.-Russian relations.

Trump suggested Tuesday he might cancel the meeting after Russian ships opened fire on and seized the Ukrainian ships near Crimea.  Then on Thursday, after telling reporters the meeting will go ahead, he tweeted that he has canceled the meeting “based on the fact that the ships and sailors have not been returned to Ukraine from Russia.”  “I look forward to a meaningful Summit again as soon as this situation is resolved!” he said.

Kremlin officials had earlier said they expected the meeting to be held.

“We don’t have to agree on all issues, which is probably impossible, but we need to talk.  It’s in the interests of not only our two countries, it’s in the interests of the whole World,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Earlier this week John Bolton, the U.S. National Security Adviser, said Trump was planning to discuss security, arms control and regional issues with Putin.  “I think it will be a continuation of their discussion in Helsinki,” he said, referring to the first summit meeting between the two leaders held in Finland in July, when they met for more than two hours with only their translators present.

The Helsinki sit-down prompted widespread criticism of Trump from across the U.S. political spectrum, with Republican and Democrat lawmakers expressing dismay at what they saw as the U.S. leader’s amplifying of Putin denials of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.

State Department Spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Washington wanted to see tougher enforcement of sanctions against Russia as a consequence of the Russian action, the first time the Kremlin has staged open aggression against Ukraine since Putin annexed Crimea four years ago and launched a destabilization campaign in Ukraine’s Donbas region.

German chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to address the Kerch incident at the G-20 meeting.

Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko piled pressure Thursday on the G-20 by calling for a tough collective response to Russia, saying he fears Moscow intends broader military action against his country.  European Union hawks have called for more sanctions to be imposed on Russia, although with the bloc already divided over policy towards Russia it is unlikely that will happen swiftly without a strong lead from Washington, say diplomats.

Trump waited more than 24 hours after the maritime clash before he commented on the incident, prompting criticism, once again, that he was going lightly on his Russian counterpart.  But once he did address the clash, his irritation was clear.  “I don’t like that aggression.  I don’t want that aggression at all,” he told the Washington Post.

Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and now an analyst at the Washington-based Brookings Institution told VOA if Trump “does not raise the question of the Russian conflict against Ukraine … the Russian would calculate the President is weak on this issue.  That’s going to be bad for Ukraine, but also bad for American foreign policy.”

 

 
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Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is asking NATO allies to send naval ships to the Sea of Azov to aid his country and “provide security” amid tensions with Russia.

Poroshenko’s comments were published Thursday in the German newspaper Bild.

Also Thursday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he could play a mediator role between Ukraine and Russia.

He has held phone talks with leaders on both sides, and said he would continue discussing the issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump at the G-20 summit in Argentina.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin and Trump will have their own meeting Saturday to discuss relations between the two countries as well as regional conflicts and disarmament issues.

Russian forces seized three Ukrainian vessels and their crews Sunday as they tried to make their way through the Kerch Strait to the Ukrainian port of Mariupol, in the Sea of Azov.

Ukraine said Russia used a tanker to block access to the Kerch Strait, which under a treaty is shared territory. Russia said the vessels illegally entered its waters.

Putin blames Poroshenko

Putin on Wednesday blamed Poroshenko for the incident, alleging it is an attempt by Poroshenko to boost his re-election chances next year.

Ukraine has imposed martial law in some of its border regions in response to the incident, and with a growing number of other European countries, urged Western allies to impose additional sanctions on Moscow.

Poroshenko said martial law will help “strengthen Ukraine’s defense capabilities amid increasing aggression and according to international law, a cold act of aggression by the Russian Federation.” He demanded Russia release the Ukrainian sailors and vessels.

US envoy

The U.S. special envoy for Ukraine, Kurt Volker, told reporters in Berlin Wednesday he believes Kyiv’s account that its ships were operating within global maritime rules.

Volker said the Ukrainian vessels were returning to Odessa “when the Russian vessels then pursued them and attacked them.”

Ukrainian officials have released what they maintain is the precise location where its ships were fired upon.

Volker said he has not received independent U.S. verification of Ukraine’s information, but believed “the data the Ukrainians have provided is quite clear.”

Crimea annexed

Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in March 2014, claiming its ethnic Russian majority was under threat from the Ukrainian government. A month later, it fomented a pro-Russia separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine in an ongoing conflict that to date has claimed more than 10,000 lives.

Ukraine and the West repeatedly have accused Russia of fueling the conflict by providing rebel forces with weapons and other support, a charge Moscow denied despite strong evidence to the contrary.
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Georgian election officials say a French-born former foreign minister has won a presidential runoff, marking the last time citizens of the ex-Soviet nation elected their head of state by popular vote.

The Central Election Commission said Thursday that with 99.9 percent of precincts counted, Salome Zurabishvili has won nearly 60 percent of the vote, while her rival, Grigol Vashadze, polled just more than 40 percent in Wednesday’s ballot.

Zurabishvili ran as an independent, but backed by the ruling Georgian Dream party. Vashadze was supported by a coalition of opposition forces.

Georgia, a country with 4 million people in the volatile Caucasus region, is transitioning to a parliamentary republic. Presidential powers have been substantially reduced and after the new president’s six-year term ends, future heads of state will be chosen by delegates.
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Norway’s Magnus Carlsen has solidified his claim to be the greatest chess player in the world.

Carlsen beat Fabiano Caruana of the United States 3-0 Wednesday in a rapid-chess tiebreaker game at the world chess championships in London.

Carlsen and Caruana played to 12 draws in their series of championship matches that started Nov. 9, games that lasted as long as seven hours each.

They decided to settle the impasse in games of speed chess, in which each player is given just 25 minutes to try to beat his opponent.

After the long excruciating series of ties topped off by three speed games, Carlsen would only say that he had a “really good day,” while Caruana admitted that he “had a bad day.”

Carlsen takes home a $621,000 prize while Caruana pockets $508,000.

Carlsen has been the world chess champion since 2013, when he took the title from India’s Viswanathan Anand.

Caruana was hoping to become the first American to win the title since 1972, when Bobby Fischer defeated the Soviet Union’s Boris Spassky in a thrilling series of matches that made global headlines.
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Porsche says its future is in electric cars but for now it is rolling out a more powerful version of its internal combustion mainstay, the sleek 911 sports car.

Stuttgart-based Porsche, part of Volkswagen, is to show off the eighth version of its brand-defining model at the Los Angeles Auto Show.

 

The new 911 doesn’t look much different than earlier editions of the car. The new one has bigger wheel housings and a slightly wider body but the same long hood, sloping roof and prominent headlights that have marked successive versions since 1963.

 

The company said in a news release Wednesday that the new 911 Carrera S and 4S have flat six-cylinder turbocharged engines putting out 443 horsepower, 23 horsepower more than the predecessor. The Carrera S has a top speed of 191 mph and accelerates from zero to 60 mph (96.5 kph) in 3.5 seconds.

 

The rear-drive 2020 Carrera S has a base price of $113,200 and the 4S all-wheel drive version starts at $120,600, not including a $1,050 delivery fee. They can be ordered now and will reach dealers in summer 2019.

 

Porsche boss Oliver Blume says that the 911 remains “the core of our brand, we are making it even more emotional.”

 

Blume says nonetheless by 2025 about half of all new Porsche cars and SUVs will have electric motors, whether they are all-electric or hybrids combining batteries with internal combustion engines.

 

He was quoted by the Welt am Sonntag newspaper as saying that the company would be ready for a world in which some cities and countries are talking about banning internal combustion cars in coming decades. “It’s clear, the future belongs to electric mobility,” he said.

 

The company is developing an all-electric sports car, the Taycan, that would compete with sports car offerings by Tesla, BMW and others.

 

 

 
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Pope Francis praised the freedom — albeit “undisciplined” — of a disabled child who climbed onto the stage Wednesday to play during the pontiff’s general audience.

The Swiss Guards and Vatican gendarmes stood by Wednesday and gamely let 6-year-old Wenzel Wirth run around Francis as monsignors read out his catechism lesson in various languages in the Vatican audience hall.

 

At one point, the boy’s Argentine-Italian mother came on stage to fetch him and explained to Francis that he couldn’t speak. Francis told her “Let him be, let him be” and the mother retreated and let Wenzel continue to play.

 

When Francis took the microphone, he explained in Spanish to the crowd that the child was speech-impaired. “But he knows how to communicate, to express himself,” he said.

 

“And he has something that made me think: He’s free. Undiciplined-ly free, but he’s free,” a chuckling Francis said to applause from the crowd. “It made me think, ‘Am I so free before God?'”

 

“When Jesus says we have to be like children, it means we need to have the freedom that a child has before his father,” Francis continued. “I think this child preaches to all of us. And let us ask for the grace of speech [for him].”

 

The boy’s father, Ariel Wirth, told The Associated Press that Wenzel suffers from behavioral problems as well as his speech limitations, and that the family at home tries simply to let him express himself as he can.

 

“We try to let him be free. He has to express himself, and we live without hiding his problems,” he said.

 

The family lives in Verona and came to Rome just for Wednesday’s general audience. Wirth said Wenzel was tired after the long journey and long wait for the pope Wednesday morning, and clearly needed to run around.

 

“It was not planned,” he said, though he added that the family had told Wenzel that they were going to see the pope and that he was clearly excited at the prospect.

 

 

 

 
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The collapse in Turkey’s currency and surging interest rates have plunged the country’s construction industry into recession.  The construction sector was the driving force of the country’s booming economy and with it President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s electoral success.

Istanbul’s Fikirtepe district is the center of a massive urban redevelopment project, but dozens of cranes are idle, with most workers laid off.  Turkey’s once-booming construction sector has come to a grinding halt.

The currency collapse drove up the cost of imported materials, and industry has also suffered from massive interest rate hikes, which increased loan repayment costs while drying up demand for new homes.  

“At least at half of these builders will exit or the market or go bankrupt,” said analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners, ”there is a huge oversupply in particular in the luxury sector, which cannot be liquidated.  The government has tried several mechanisms that didn’t work because they don’t have the money.”

Workers unpaid

Workers owed thousands of dollars in unpaid wages are seizing some luxury apartment blocks in Istanbul.

“I live with my wife and two children, and we can’t afford to pay our rent and monthly expenses anymore,” said construction worker Taner Mutlu, “That’s why I am in protesting here for 56 days.  We can only live with debt.”

Mutlu claims he is owed about $40,000 and many suppliers and contractors are also owed money.

The construction crisis has seen many families losing their homes.

In the Fikirtepe district, about 2,000 families gave up their old homes in exchange for the promise of new apartments in massive developments built on the land where their houses stood.  A sizable cavernous hole is all that remains of their dream homes.

The families now occupy the abandoned construction site.  Weekly meetings are held in a metal container, which serves as a campaign headquarters in their battle to seek redress.  Many of those attending have photos of their old homes on their telephones, a painful reminder of a lost way of life.

“At 60 years old I have been kicked out of my home, my household, my land,” said Zeynep Duzgunoglu.  “All these contractors,” she added her voice now trembling with emotion, “men with briefcases, came, lied and embezzled people and had families sign away their lands and now they are not building.”

Widespread trouble

The construction industry was the engine of more than a decade of unprecedented Turkish economic growth.  Given construction’s large supply chains, economists estimate up to a third of Turkey’s economy is impacted by the sector.

“After tourism, it’s the most labor-intensive industry.  It pulls the most inputs from a diverse range of industries,” said analyst Yesilada.

Observers say prosperity is the key to Erdogan’s 16 years of unbroken electoral success.

“The construction bosses have also financed AKP election campaigns,” said Yesilada. “You see hundreds of thousands of jubilant people screaming at the rallies, they are bused in.  These construction bosses hire hundreds of coaches for the rallies.”

State building projects are continuing in a bid to keep the construction industry alive.  Last month saw the opening of Istanbul’s new airport, touted as one of the world’s largest.  Next year, Erdogan promises to start building 43-kilometer long canal near Istanbul, with accompanying new towns.  

Despite the scale of the projects that run into billions of dollars, they risk being dwarfed by the size of construction sector crisis.

“I haven’t seen anything like this for 35 years,” said, Mustafa Adnan Akyol, a veteran construction worker organizer.

“I have never experienced such a scale of people being laid off,” he added, “Salaries not being paid, and working conditions being this terrible.  We had all these before, but this time it is 100 times worse.  It is not something small.  It is huge and affecting big time.  Unemployment started because the construction sites came to a halt.”

Recent polls indicate a sharp drop in support for Erdogan’s AKP Party, with crucial local elections for control of Turkey’s cities due in March.

“This [crisis] has employment implications, unemployment workers won’t vote for AKP, and campaign finance implications, construction companies don’t have the money to support AKP anymore, this is why AKP is slipping in the polls,” said Yesilada.
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