In a world first, Facebook has agreed to hand over the identification data of French users suspected of hate speech on its platform to judges, France’s minister for digital affairs Cedric O said on Tuesday.

O, whose father is South Korean, is one of French President Emmanuel Macron’s earliest followers, and has been influential in shaping the president’s thinking on Big Tech as an advisor at the Elysee palace in the first two years of Macron’s presidency.

The decision by the world’s biggest social media network comes after successive meetings between Zuckerberg and Macron, who wants to take a leading role globally on the regulation of hate speech and the spread of false information online.

So far, Facebook has cooperated with French justice on matters related to terrorist attacks and violent acts by transferring the IP addresses and other identification data of suspected individuals to French judges who formally demanded it.

Following a meeting between Nick Clegg, Facebook’s head of global affairs, and O last week, the social media company has extended this cooperation to hate speech.

“This is huge news, it means that the judicial process will be able to run normally,” O told Reuters in an interview. “It’s really very important, they’re only doing it for France.”

O, who said he had been in close contact with Clegg over the last few days on the issue, said Facebook’s decision was the result of an ongoing conversation between the internet giant and the French administration.

Since his nomination as minister in March, O has made the fight against hate speech online a key priority through regular contacts with Facebook’s top executives, including founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Facebook declined to comment.

Strong signal

“It is a strong signal in terms of regulation,” said Sonia Cisse, a counsel at law firm Linklaters, adding that it was a world first. “Hate speech is no longer considered part of freedom of speech, it’s now on the same level as terrorism.”

With Facebook’s latest move, France is now a clear frontrunner in the quest to regulate big social media outlets, and other platforms might follow suite, Cisse said.

The discussions on how to best regulate tech giants began with a Zuckerberg-Macron meeting last year, followed by a report on tech regulation last month that Facebook’s founder considered could be a blueprint for wider EU regulation.

Facebook had refrained from handing over identification data of people suspected of hate speech because it was not compelled to do so under U.S.-French legal conventions and because it was worried countries without an independent judiciary could abuse it.

France’s parliament, where Macron’s ruling party has a comfortable majority, is debating legislation that would give the new regulator the power to fine tech companies up to 4% of their global revenue if they don’t do enough to remove hateful content from their network.

O also signaled his openness to seeing French startups being snapped up by larger U.S. companies, in a spite of recent measures taken by Macron’s government to bolster anti-takeover rules to protect the country’s strategic companies.

“My only goal is to spur the creation of a lot of companies,” he said. “I have no problem with the fact that some of them are bought by U.S. companies, as long as they don’t have critical technology.”

Too big

The minister is also reluctant to support the idea of breaking up companies like Facebook or Google, whose size, weight on the Internet and financial firepower have turned them into systemic players just as much as big banks.

Facebook has been called a social media monopoly by co-founder Chris Hughes, and calls for a break-up of the group have intensified.

“We cannot impose very tough obligations on Western companies and dismantle them because they are very big, and not do the same thing with Chinese companies that enter the Western market,” he said, referring to groups like Alibaba and Tencent.

A graduate of France’s top business school, HEC, O combines political experience – he was an aide to Dominique Strauss-Khan, like many of the tight group of “Macron Boys” who propelled him to power – and a stint in the private sector, at engine maker Safran.

At the Elysee, he was in charge of advising Macron on the French government’s vast portfolio of stakes in French companies, having to deal with hot corporate sagas such as Renault-Nissan, as well as handling relations with Big Tech.

 

President Donald Trump is still committed to a pressure campaign to force Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to step aside to make way for opposition leader Juan Guaido, Washington’s envoy for Venezuela said on Tuesday.

The campaign has failed to dislodge Maduro, who has the support of Russia and China. Arguing that Maduro’s 2018 re-election was illegitimate, Guaido invoked Venezuela’s constitution in January to declare himself interim president with backing from the United States and other Western countries.

Elliott Abrams, U.S. special representative for Venezuela, brushed aside questions over whether Washington had lost interest amid other pressing foreign policy issues such as tensions with Iran and China trade talks.

He also firmly rejected the possibility that Maduro could be part of a unity government in Venezuela. “It is hard to see how he is part of the solution or could be part of a transition government,” Abrams told reporters.

Citing examples that Venezuela remained a priority for the administration, Abrams said Trump raised the topic with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during their June 20 meeting. Vice President Mike Pence also traveled to Miami to help send off the U.S. Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort on a medical mission to South America to help with displaced Venezuelans.

“It is not a sign of uninterest,” said Abrams. “The notion that there is at the highest levels of the government a diminution of interest is just simply false.”

Without elaborating, Abrams said the number of countries which have announced their support for Guaido will soon grow from a current 54 nations.

“There will be a change in that number,” he said.

Military defector

Abrams said he hoped to meet with Manuel Cristopher, a Venezuelan general who turned against Maduro, who is now in the United States.

“He is in the U.S. and he is a free man. I would like to talk to him myself, and I assume other U.S. officials would like to because he quite obviously … has a lot of interesting things to say about the Maduro regime and about life in
Venezuela,” Abrams said.

Abrams said the administration “did not bring” Cristopher to the United States, but added: “We’re happy he is here, makes it easier to have more conversations with him.”

Maduro has accused Cristopher, who was the head of the South American country’s Sebin intelligence service, of conspiring to help Guaido’s uprising by releasing opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, who was under a house arrest enforced by Sebin.

 

A Saudi military spokesman says the country’s special forces have captured the leader of the Islamic State group’s branch in Yemen during a raid on a house that was under surveillance.

Spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition at war in Yemen, Col. Turki al-Maliki, says the June 3 operation lasted just 10 minutes and resulted in the arrest of Yemen’s IS leader, known by his moniker as Abu Osama Al-Muhajir, along with the group’s chief financial operator in Yemen and other suspects who were not named.

The statement did not say where the men are now being held nor where in Yemen the raid occurred.

Al-Maliki said in Tuesday’s statement the raid, in cooperation with Yemeni forces, also led to the confiscation of weapons, ammunition, laptops, cash and communication equipment.

 

Palestinians burned effigies of President Trump and marched a donkey pasted over with images of Gulf royals in the West Bank on Tuesday, as the U.S. prepares to open its conference in Bahrain, which focuses on the economic portion of the White House’s long-awaited plan for Mideast peace.

At this week’s conference, the Trump administration hopes to draw pledges from business leaders and wealthy Gulf states to fund its economic plan, which calls for $50 billion of investment and infrastructure projects in the West Bank, Gaza and neighboring Arab countries.

“Palestine is not for sale!” protesters chanted as they filled the streets of major West Bank cities. “From Bahrain to Saudi Arabia we are not tempted by your millions!”

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Jordan and various Gulf states have sent finance officials to the workshop. The White House says it did not invite Israeli representatives, so as to keep the event “apolitical.” The Palestinian Authority, for its part, has rejected the plan and wants nothing to do with the conference, arguing that an economic proposal cannot pre-empt a political resolution that addresses its long-standing demand for statehood.

Thousands across the West Bank held up signs saying “Down with the Bahrain conference!” and “Do not sell the Palestinian cause and erase our identity.”

Scattered clashes erupted as demonstrators hurled stones at Israeli soldiers, who fired back tear gas and rubber-tipped bullets to disperse the crowds. In the northern city of Nablus, protesters hanged an effigy of President Trump from a column. In Bethlehem, the protesters’ donkey took center stage, its backside covered with the crossed-out faces of Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who are viewed as supporting the White House’s efforts.

Multiple Palestinian factions, including the Gaza Strip’s militant Hamas rulers, have called for continued mass rallies across the West Bank Gaza to coincide with the conference, set to begin Tuesday night.

In Gaza, stores and public institutions shuttered Tuesday in observance of a general strike.

A black-and-white banner calling for a strike replaced the usually illuminated billboard over the central Omar al-Mukhtar street in Gaza City.

Residents of the impoverished territory, where unemployment exceeds 50%, voiced opposition to the Trump team’s ambitious proposal, which envisions health, education and public works projects but does not deal with the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank or blockade of Gaza.

“We don’t need money. We are not hungry for bread. We are hungry for dignity,” said Gaza physician Said Jadba.

“They are selling the remainder of the Palestinian cause,” said Gaza City resident Abu Atef Ellaw. “This will never pass.”

In Beirut, Lebanon, hundreds of Palestinians took part in a protest orchestrated by Hamas outside the U.N. headquarters, chanting against the economic workshop and the possible naturalization of Palestinians in Lebanon.

Some 175,000 Palestinian refugees live in Lebanon, and consider the right of return to their ancestral lands in what is now Israel a part of any future resolution to the conflict. Despite 70 years in the country, Palestinians continue to live under harsh conditions, confined to squalid camps and deprived of basic rights afforded to Lebanese citizens.

The U.S. economic plan’s large sums for Jordan and Lebanon, countries with substantial Palestinian refugee populations, have raised fears that the Trump administration aims to have Palestinian refugees absorbed into these nations, rather than allow them to someday return to Israel — one of the most sensitive issues in the conflict.

Mahfouz Monawar, head of international relations for the Islamic Jihad group in Lebanon said: “Today the Palestinian people are saying clearly that the deal of the century with all its components and today with what is going in Manama workshop do not represent the Palestinians.”

“We as Palestinian resistance factions will be unified to confront this deal until … the vanishing of the occupation from the Palestinian territories,” he added.

Ahmed Abdul-Hadi, deputy Hamas representative in Lebanon, said the protest represents the Palestinian commitment to the right of return.

Rising sea levels could threaten the very existence of Miami and much of the rest of south Florida, and Democrats are facing calls to confront climate change squarely during this week’s presidential debates in the low-lying city.
 
The City of Miami has a $400 million bond program to finance climate change resiliency projects, including $192 million for seawalls, pumps and similar projects. Miami Beach has already begun spending up to $500 million to raise roads, install pumps and do similar work over five years.
 
Those huge price tags are just one reason why many think it’s vital that climate change take center stage at the debates Wednesday and Thursday.
 
Nearly all of the candidates have offered significant climate change plans.
 

 

 

Senior U.S. officials say they are already busy buttressing the nation’s defenses against foreign interference for the 2020 presidential election. Only they admit the public may be kept in the dark about attacks and intrusions.

Intelligence and election security officials have warned repeatedly that Russia, among other state and nonstate actors, remains intent on disrupting the upcoming elections and that the Kremlin may even have gone easy on the U.S. during the 2016 midterm elections, seeing the ability to impact the 2020 presidential race as the bigger prize.

At the same time, election and security officials have come under increased scrutiny for failing to reveal the size and scope of Russia’s efforts to hack into voter databases and other critical systems.

In April, special counsel Robert Mueller released his report into Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election as well as allegations of obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump.

Florida representatives

In May, two U.S. representatives from Florida, Republican Michael Waltz and Democrat Stephanie Murphy, wrote to the FBI and Justice Department, demanding a classified briefing on the extent of Russia’s exploits after the Mueller report indicated Moscow managed to infiltrate critical systems in at least one county during the 2016 presidential election.

“Florida voters have the right to know the extent to which foreign actors may have breached our state’s election security systems, and what the federal government is doing to prevent it from happening again,” Murphy said in a statement.

Senior Trump administration officials, however, cautioned Monday they may decide to keep information like that from the public.

“There are hard choices to be made,” one official told reporters while briefing them on efforts to protect the 2020 election from foreign interference.

“The ultimate question is going to be whether the federal or national interests in doing so — publicly disclosing it — outweigh any counter veiling consideration,” the official added.

Intelligence and law enforcement officials said the ability to disclose information can often be limited by the need to protect the sources and methods that discovered the attacks or intrusions in the first place.

Impact on victims

There are also concerns about the impact on the victims.

“Victims who work with the FBI do so because they trust that we’ll protect and handle their information appropriately,” a senior law enforcement official said. “For example, the majority of technical information that we were able to give election officials during the 2016 time frame was initiated from this type of trusted outreach.”

In cases involving foreign influence campaigns, the decision to make them public can be even more difficult.

“Disclosing a foreign influence operation might do more harm than good because it might draw more attention to an operation that would otherwise go unnoticed,” the senior administration official said.

A senior intelligence official agreed that in some cases, the less said, the better.

“It’s less about highlighting for the public that there might be a problem,” the official said. “We actually want to stop it from happening, whether we do that through cyber channels or diplomatic channels or other operations.”

2020 campaign

With the 2020 presidential campaign getting under way, intelligence agencies, along with the Department of Homeland Security and FBI, have set about briefing the candidates and making them aware of the resources available should their campaign come under attack.

There are also increased efforts to reach out to U.S. state and local officials to make sure they have the information they need to protect their voter databases and election systems from attacks.

Officials said there have even been ongoing discussions with the private sector, both those that provide voting machines and other election infrastructure, as well as with social media companies.

The U.S. Treasury inspector general says he will look into why the Trump administration decided to scrap plans to put escaped slave turned abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced the move last month, saying the change is because of “counterfeiting issues.”

But Democratic Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer said he is not satisfied with Mnuchin’s vague explanation, saying it lacked credibility.

He asked the Treasury’s watchdog to investigate the circumstances “including any involvement by the White House.”

“There are no women, there are no people of color on our paper currency today even though they make up a significant majority of our population,” Schumer said.

The redesigned bill was to have entered circulation next year, but Mnuchin said it will be put off until 2028. It is also unclear whether Tubman will still be on the new bill when it is finally rolled out.

He said the “imagery feature” (who will appear on the bill) will not be a matter until long after he and U.S. President Donald Trump are out of office.

The $20 bill currently features a picture of 19th century U.S. President Andrew Jackson. Jackson owned slaves and forced Native Americans out of their ancestral lands in the southeastern U.S. leading to the deaths of thousands of Indians. 

The move to replace Jackson, preferably with a historically-important woman, was announced during the Obama administration. 

Tubman was chosen from an online poll of Americans.

President Trump is said to be an admirer of Andrew Jackson — not because of Jackson’s racism — but because Trump regards him as a populist and anti-establishment. 

Trump called replacing Jackson with Tubman “pure political correctness” and proposed putting Tubman on the $2 bill, which is rarely printed. 

Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery in Maryland as a young woman and returned to the southern U.S. to help other slaves escape and to work as a union government spy during the Civil War.

She was thought to be in her early 90s when she died in 1913.

A notorious Italian Mafia boss has escaped from a prison in Uruguay where he was awaiting extradition to Italy. 

Rocco Morabito and three other inmates got out of  the National Institute of Rehabilitation in Montevideo “through the roof,” the Uruguayan interior ministry said Monday.  

The fugitives made their way to a nearby farm and robbed its owner, the ministry statement said. 

A member of the Ndrangheta or Calabrian cartel, Morabito has been one of Italy’s most-wanted fugitives since 1994. He was arrested in Uruguay in 2017 after more than 20 years on the run.

He was sentenced to 30 years in prison by an Italian court, Prosecutors say Morabito was instrumental in drug trafficking operations between South America and Milan. 

“It’s disconcerting and serious that a criminal like Rocco Morabito, a boss of Ndrangheta, has  managed to escape from an Uruguay prison while waiting to be extradited to Italy,” Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said on Twitter. “I’m making two pledges: shedding full light on the escape, asking for immediate explanations from the Montevideo government, and chasing Morabito, wherever he is, to throw him in prison as he deserves.”

When he was arrested, Morabito had been living a life of luxury under a false Brazilian identity with fake Portuguese passports.

U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday which he calls a “groundbreaking action” that will increase the “quality, affordability, and fairness” in the U.S. healthcare system.

The order would require hospitals to disclose prices up front showing what patients can expect to pay for services in a manner Trump says will be “clear, straightforward, and accessible.”

This also means patients must be told at the beginning how much they can expect to pay out-of-pocket for deductibles and co-pays.

Trump says patients would be able to find another doctor if their first choice is too high.

“We believe the American people have a right to know the price of services before they go to visit the doctor,” he said.

The president complained that for decades, insurance companies, lobbyists, and special interests have not been transparent in disclosing the real costs of medical procedures to patients, often leaving them with huge bills and unexpected costs.

“This lack of price transparency has enriched industry giants greatly, costing Americans hundreds of billions of dollars a year.”

Trump says he has seen such bills as $800 for saline, $6,000 for simple drug tests, and more than $17,000 to stitch a wound.

He also said prices can vary greatly between doctors and hospital in the same city for the same procedure.

But because of the complex process of writing the rules for the president’s executive order, it could be years before patients see any changes or price lists at their local hospitals.

Unable to send disease fighters to help battle one of the deadliest Ebola outbreaks in history, U.S. health officials are turning to basketball hall of famer Dikembe Mutombo for help.
 
Mutombo, regarded as one of the greatest defensive players in NBA history and a well-known philanthropist in his native Congo, recorded radio and video spots designed to persuade people to take precautions and get care that might stop the disease’s spread.
 
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began posting the spots Monday on its YouTube channel and on the agency’s website . Officials are trying to get radio and TV stations in the Democratic Republic of Congo to air them.

 More than 2,200 people have been reported ill — and about 1,500 have died — since an Ebola outbreak was declared in August in eastern Congo. It is the second deadliest outbreak of the lethal virus, which jumps from person to person quickly through close contact with bodily fluids.
 
Rebel attacks and community resistance have hurt Ebola response work in Congo. A World Health Organization doctor was killed in April, health centers have been attacked and armed groups have repeatedly threatened health workers. Because of safety concerns, the U.S. State Department last year ordered CDC disease specialists to stay out of the outbreak areas.
 
Mutombo, who moved to the U.S. in the 1980s intending to pursue a medical degree, told The Associated Press he understands where the distrust comes from.
 
“Someone who doesn’t look like you, who doesn’t think like you, who is not from your village, who is from other places, just walk to your village with a nice beautiful white truck and telling you … ‘inject this chemical into your body to protect you from this deadly virus.’ That’s where there’s a fight. This is where we’re having a conflict,” he said.
 
“How do you that build trust? That’s the big problem we’re having in the Congo,” he said. “I believe as a son of Congo, I think my voice can be heard. Because everyone in the country knows my commitment to the humanity and the health.”
 
The idea for the PSA was sparked in February when Mutombo, a member of the CDC Foundation’s governing board who lives in Atlanta, was talking with Dr. Robert Redfield, the CDC’s director.
 
“We are deeply appreciative of his interest to try to get accurate information to the community,” Redfield said.
 
Mutombo, who turns 53 on Tuesday, previously did public service announcements focused on polio and yellow fever. A dozen years ago, his foundation established a 300-bed hospital on the outskirts of his hometown of Kinshasa.
 
The new spots were recorded in Kiswahili, French and Lingala. They talk about recognizing the early signs of Ebola, early treatment and prevention measures.

Zimbabwe made its interim currency the country’s sole legal tender on Monday, ending a decade of dollarization and taking a another step towards relaunching the Zimbabwean dollar.

The central bank also hiked its overnight lending rate to 50% from 15% as a part of a set of measures to protect the RTGS dollar introduced in February.

“The march towards full currency reform is part of our transitional stabilization program,” Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube said in a video posted on Twitter. “This move is really beginning to restore full monetary
policy.”

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who replaced longtime leader Robert Mugabe after an army coup in November 2017, is trying to repair an economy ruined by hyperinflation and a long succession of failed economic interventions.

But a hoped-for economic turnaround is yet to materialize, and many Zimbabweans are distrustful of Mnangagwa’s promises.

Mnangagwa’s government last month agreed a staff-monitored program with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) whereby the fund will help Zimbabwe implement coherent economic policies.

Analysts are skeptical that the latest currency reforms will be a quick fix for the deep problems that have constrained economic growth in the southern African country.

“Zimbabwe will have to show results before people are convinced,” said Jee-A Van Der Linde, an economist at South Africa-based NKC African Economics.

Van Der Linde said banning the use of currencies such as the U.S. dollar and South African rand could create panic since Zimbabwe did not have large foreign-currency reserves to back the RTGS dollar.

There was nothing standing in the way of the Zimbabwean central bank printing money as it had done in the past, he added.

The central bank said in a statement on Monday that it had put in place letters of credit worth $330 million to secure imports for important goods such as fuel.

It would also try to boost liquidity on the interbank forex market by removing a cap on margins for banks and making sure that more than 50% of the foreign currency that Zimbabwean companies have to surrender ends up on the interbank market.

Zimbabwe abandoned its own dollar in 2009 after years of hyperinflation had destroyed trust in the local unit.

Mnangagwa said this month that Zimbabwe must reintroduce its own currency by the end of the year.

The IMF has said Zimbabwe should quickly allow the RTGS dollar to float freely, allow exporters to sell dollars at the interbank rate rather than surrender them to the central bank, and raise interest rates to curb inflation.

The RTGS dollar has been hitting new lows on the black market in recent days.

It was trading between 11 and 12 against the U.S. dollar on the unofficial market on Monday versus a level of around 6 on the official interbank market.

Many Zimbabweans complain that goods and services are still priced in other currencies.

While more than 80% of Zimbabweans earn RTGS dollars, goods ranging from bricks to groceries have their prices pegged in U.S. dollars.

Inflation raced to 97.85% in May, eroding salaries and savings and causing Zimbabweans to fear a return to the hyperinflation era a decade ago.

BBC executive Ann Sarnoff was named chief of Warner Bros. on Monday, making her the first woman to head the movie studio in its 96-year history. Her appointment follows the departure in March of Kevin Tsujihara, who stepped down after misconduct allegations. 

WarnerMedia chief executive John Stankey announced Sarnoff’s hiring, concluding a three-month search for one of Hollywood’s most prized posts. Many had expected WarnerMedia to turn to an experienced film executive like movie-division head Toby Emmerich, who was part of the interim committee running the studio after Tsujihara’s departure, Disney veteran Anne Sweeney or former Fox chief Stacey Snider. 

Surprise move

But to surprise of much of the industry, WarnerMedia turned to Sarnoff, who has worked primarily in television. Sarnoff, who takes over as chief executive and chair of Warner Bros., is currently president of BBC Studios Americas. She has previously been a top TV executive at Viacom and with the WNBA. 

“She brings a consistent and proven track record of innovation, creativity and business results to lead an incredibly successful studio to its next chapter of growth,” said Stankey. “Ann has shown the ability to innovate and grow revenues and has embraced the evolution taking place in our industry.”

In March, Tsujihara stepped down following claims that he promised roles to an actress with whom he was having an affair. Tsujihara, whose attorney denied that Tsujihara had any direct role in the woman’s hiring, said he was departing to avoid being a distraction.

Awkward time

The rupture came at an awkward time for WarnerMedia, which has just expanded Tsujihara’s role at the global conglomerate. AT&T last year acquired Time Warner Inc., which was renamed WarnerMedia, and the company is planning to a launch a streaming service later this year.

In Warner Bros., Sarnoff takes over one of the most storied studios in Hollywood. In recent years, the Walt Disney Co. has surpassed Warner Bros. as the market leader, sliding Warner Bros. to an increasingly distant second. The studio this year has continued the turnaround of its DC Comics films with “Shazam!”though its big summer movie, “Godzilla: King of Monsters,” has underperformed.

 

Live-ammunition drills the Serbian military is holding with Russian and Belarusian troops show Belgrade has allies in any future war in the Balkans, Serbia’s defense minister said Monday.

Aleksandar Vulin said the joint Slavic Brotherhood military maneuvers Serbia is hosting this month demonstrate “we are no longer alone.”

“We have friends,” Vulin said in a statement. “That horrible moment in our history when we were all alone will never repeat again.”

Vulin was referring to the 1999 U.S.-led NATO bombing of Serbia. The bombing stopped a bloody Serb crackdown against Kosovo Albanian separatists and civilians, while Russia remained largely on the sidelines.

Serbia is seeking European Union membership, but has also been sliding toward Russian influence. Moscow supplies arms and warplanes for the Serbian armed forces, triggering worry among Serbia’s neighbors, which are either NATO allies or are seeking to become members of the Western military alliance.

Belarus, Russia and Serbia have conducted the Slavic Brotherhood drills for several years. The ones underway in Serbia started earlier this month. Taking part are more than 200 troops from Russian elite Airborne Forces, about 300 from Serbia and 60 from Belarus, as well as some 50 combat vehicles, according the Russian Defense Ministry.

“The Serbian army is being armed and trained, that’s why the drills such as the Slavic Brotherhood are so important to us,” said Vulin, who is known for his staunchly pro-Russia stands.

“These drills are not only about the military practice. This is a meeting of brotherly nations, those who understand each other, those who love each other,” he said.

Tensions recently have increased in the Balkans, with Serbia and Kosovo accusing each other of undermining efforts at reconciliation.

Kosovo declared independence in 2008. The former Serbian province is recognized by the U.S. and most other Western states, but not by Serbia, Russia or China.

While claiming military neutrality, Serbia has been an active member of NATO’s Membership For Peace outreach program.

A University of Iowa team has won a $115 million grant to develop satellites for studying a system of radiation created by the sun — “space weather.”

The NASA grant will underwrite development of satellites expected to be launched within the next three years with more satellites developed by Southwest Research Institute scientists.

The Iowa City Press-Enterprise reports that the satellites are designed to gather data on how the sun creates solar wind and how Earth responds to the solar wind. NASA scientists say goal is to understand what drives space weather so humans can mitigate any harmful effects.

NASA official Nicky Fox says solar particles generated by the sun can interfere with undersea cables, power grids, radio communications and other electronic equipment.

 

The European Court of Human Rights has asked Italy to provide information on the case of Sea Watch 3, a ship off the island of Lampedusa carrying rescued migrants who Italy has refused to allow to disembark. Italy’s interior minister has said he will hold the Netherlands and the European Union “responsible” for the fate of the 36 migrants on board.

Italy has refused to allow the Sea Watch 3 into its territorial waters and the port of the southern island of Lampedusa. Only a small group of migrants on board the ship, including two pregnant women, were allowed to disembark.

The Dutch-flagged vessel, representing an German organization that rescues migrants at sea, picked up the migrants from an inflatable raft in the Mediterranean 12 days ago.  The crew has refused to return them to Libya, saying Tripoli is not a safe port.

Deteriorating situation

The spokeswoman of Sea Watch Italy, Giorgia Linardi said the situation on board the Sea Watch 3 is deteriorating every day and described the Italian authorities’ treatment of these migrants as “inhumane and degrading.”

“The partial disembarkation of ten people, now almost a week ago, destabilized even further the situation on board. The remaining people are asking why they do not have a right to disembark,” said Linardi.

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has now requested the Italian government and Sea Watch provide it with information about the ship, in order to allow the migrants to disembark in Italy.

Linardi said single individuals on board asked the European Court to intervene with so that urgent provisional measures are adopted to guarantee their rights.

Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has been operating a “closed ports” policy in Italy. He said he will hold the Netherlands and the European Union responsible for the fate of the migrants, adding that he has written to his counterpart in the Netherlands.

Salvini said vessels that are illegal will not come to Italy. He said reception is guaranteed for those truly fleeing war, adding that his figures indicate only small percentage of recent arrivals were fleeing conflict.  

Migrant arrivals in Italy have dropped significantly since Salvini took office last year, down more than 80 percent in 2018, and because of this the interior minister’s popularity has soared.

The Italian government has imposed a policy that effectively stops NGO ships with rescued migrants from entering Italian waters.

Vessels that fail to respect the ban face fines of up to $56,000.

 

VOA’s national security correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.

U.S. President Donald Trump, set Monday to impose new sanctions on Iran, says he has one demand for Tehran: “No Nuclear Weapons and No Further Sponsoring of Terror!”

Trump, in Twitter comments, gave no hint of the scope of the new sanctions, instead complaining that the U.S. has not been paid anything for protecting oil shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz that mostly has benefited China, Japan and other countries while the U.S. has ramped up its own energy production.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described the new sanctions as “significant” as he left Washington on Sunday for a trip to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to continue the Trump administration’s effort to build a coalition of allies to counter Iran.  Pompeo met Monday with Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

“The world should know,” Pompeo said, “that we will continue to make sure it’s understood that this effort that we’ve engaged in to deny Iran the resources to foment terror, to build out their nuclear weapon system, to build out their missile program, we are going to deny them the resources they need to do that thereby keeping American interests and American people safe all around the world.”

Concern about a potential armed confrontation between Iran and the U.S. has been growing since U.S. officials recently blamed Tehran for mine attacks on two oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, allegations Tehran denies, and Iran’s shoot-down of a U.S. drone last week.

President Trump said that late Thursday he had canceled a retaliatory strike against several Iranian targets. But on Thursday, according to U.S. news accounts, Trump also approved U.S. Cyber Command attacks on an Iranian intelligence group’s computer systems used to control missile and rocket launches. 

Iran has denied working on nuclear weapons and signed an agreement in 2015 with the United States, Britain, China, France, Russia and Germany to allay those concerns by limiting its nuclear activity in exchange for sanctions relief.

But U.S.-Iran relations have deteriorated during Trump’s tenure, particularly since his decision last year to withdraw from the nuclear deal and reimpose economic sanctions. Trump objected to the deal as being too weak and not including limits on Iran’s ballistic missile program, although the United Nations’ atomic watchdog agency says Tehran is complying with the international accord.

Iran has defended its missile work as legal and necessary for its defense. Tehran has sought support from the remaining signatories to the 2015 agreement to provide the economic relief it wants, especially with its key oil exports as the U.S. has tightened sanctions in an attempt to cut off Iranian oil shipments.

Pompeo said the new sanctions Monday “will be a further effort to ensure that their capacity not only to grow their economy but to evade sanctions becomes more and more difficult, and it will be an important addition to our capacity to enforce sanctions against Iran to ultimately achieve the objective that we’ve laid out.”

Trump said in a series of tweets Saturday about the sanctions that he looks forward to the day when “sanctions come off Iran, and they become a productive and prosperous national again — The sooner the better!”

He also said in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press that he is “not looking for war” with Iran and is willing to negotiate with its leaders without preconditions.

 

U.S. scientists are predicting an area in the Gulf of Mexico known as “the dead zone”  to grow to a near record size in coming months. The area – where there is low or no oxygen – is expected to increase to nearly 20,300 square kilometers. The dead zone is believed to be caused by nutrient pollution from human activity and can kill fish and other marine life. That is especially worrying to watermen who make a living fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports from the coastal city of Port Arthur.

Four years ago on June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that same sex couples have the right to marry, a right guaranteed by the Constitution’s equal protection clauses. The landmark ruling accelerated a growing public acceptance of LGBTQ marriage, which includes lesbian, gay and other diverse sexual orientations. But as VOA’s Brian Padden reports, while opposition to same sex marriage is declining, it is still a strong political force in the country.

In a predominantly conservative country like Pakistan, for most people; dreams of becoming a music artist remain just that; a dream. Parents don’t always encourage their children to pursue music as careers. So, what do you do if you are a working adult and still interested in music? National Music Academy in Lahore city provides music classes for people of all ages. VOA’s Saman Khan has more in this report narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.