House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says President Donald Trump hasn’t paid attention to warnings from his own administration about threats posed by North Korea, Iran and other countries.
Pelosi says U.S. intelligence officials were “courageous” in speaking “truth to power” by contradicting Trump to Congress.
She says she’s dismayed that, in her words, Trump “just doesn’t seem to have the attention span or the desire to hear what the intelligence community has been telling him.”
Trump lashed out at his intelligence chiefs after they told Congress that North Korea is unlikely to dismantle its nuclear arsenal and that the Iran nuclear deal is working.
Trump tweeted that, “Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!”
Pelosi calls Trump’s comments “stunning” and suggests that congressional Republicans “have an intervention” with Trump.
your ad hereРосія не дозволяє розпочати миротворчий процес під егідою ООН на Донбасі, заявив 31 січня на телефонному брифінгу з Брюсселя спеціальний представник США з питань України Курт Волкер.
Відповідаючи на запитання про те, наскільки реалістичним є мирний план, який днями запропоновав посередник на переговорах від ОБСЄ Мартін Сайдік, Волкер наголосив: «Фундаментальним питанням є те, чи Росія готова погодитися з тим, щоб міжнародна миротворча місія замінила російські війська і створила справжній мир та безпеку на Донбасі. Якщо Росія готова на це погодитися, то це би відбувалося під мандатом ООН, і ООН могла б створити справжнє середовище безпеки, яке б дозволило виконати Мінські угоди і закінчити конфлікт», – вважає Курт Волкер.
«Головною проблемою є те, що Росія не погоджується з тим, що потрібні миротворчі сили, Росія заперечує той факт, що вона окупувала території», – додав американський дипломат.
Посередник на переговорах від ОБСЄ Мартін Сайдік запропонував замінити Мінські угоди новим мирним планом. В інтерв’ю австрійській газеті Kleine Zeitung він заявив, що йдеться про залучення ООН до проведення місцевих виборів і гарантування безпеки.
Сайдік сказав, що потрібний інший документ, який матиме «справжню політичну і правову вагу», оскільки Мінські угоди так і не були ратифіковані російським і українським парламентами. Сайдік також зауважив, що в новій угоді мають брати участь представники «окремих районів Донецької та Луганської областей».
Віце-спікер українського парламенту Ірина Геращенко, яка представляє Україну в гуманітарній підгрупі на мінських переговорах, в інтерв’ю Радіо Свобода перед переговорами в Мінську назвала пропозиції посла Сайдіка «нереалістичними».
За її словами, поява нового мирного плану означала фактично, що «потрібно пробачити Москві за порушення Мінських угод в гуманітарній сфері і сфері безпеки». На переконання Геращенко, Росія має бути покарана за невиконання Мінських угод.
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Sen. Sherrod Brown has kicked off his tour of states that cast pivotal early votes in the 2020 presidential primary by accusing Republican President Donald Trump of “phony populism” that disrespects minorities, workers and families while benefiting billionaires.
The Ohio Democrat launched his “dignity of work” tour Wednesday at a warehouse south of Cleveland. He and his wife, journalist Connie Schultz, head next to Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.
The 66-year-old senator and former representative told the crowd of several hundred that Democrats can’t let “extremists” at statehouses and in Washington claim populist credentials if they don’t support policies that benefit middle-class Americans.
Brown says his re-election victory in November shows progressive values can play even in a state Trump won by double digits.
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Наглядова рада «Суспільного» більшістю голосів проголосувала за дострокове розірвання контракту з головою правління ПАТ НСТУ Зурабом Аласанією, повідомила у Facebook представниця ради Світлана Остапа.
За її словами, за таке рішення проголосували 9 членів ради, проти було троє.
Сам Аласанія ситуацію наразі не коментує.
Повідомити про причини такого рішення до оприлюднення протоколів засідання відмовилася і голова наглядової ради Тетяна Лебедєва. За її словами, це відбудеться приблизно за тиждень.
На запитання Радіо Свобода, чи може бути причиною висловлення недовіри продовження на рік в ефірі «Суспільного» трансляції програм журналістських розслідувань, Лебедєва запевнила, що це питання під час засідання не обговорювалося.
«Це взагалі абсолютно штучна історія, яку я не знаю, для чого вигадали. І ніхто не вибачився минулого разу за цю історію і цей наклеп на нас», – сказала вона Радіо Свобода.
Зураб Аласанія був головою правління Національної суспільної телерадіокомпанії України з квітня 2017-го. Згідно з контрактом, він мав працювати на цій посаді до 14 травня 2021 року.
20 грудня минулого року Наглядова рада ухвалила рішення про продовження мовлення ще на рік програм журналістських розслідувань «Схеми» та «Наші гроші з Денисом Бігусом». На день раніше автори обох проектів Наталія Седлецька та Денис Бігус заявили про ймовірність, що на засіданні ради буде розглядатися припинення їхньої трансляції.
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Ghirardelli and Russell Stover have agreed to pay $750,000 in fines after prosecutors in California said they offered a little chocolate in a lot of wrapping.
Prosecutors in Sacramento, San Joaquin, Shasta, Fresno, Santa Cruz and Yolo counties sued the candy makers, alleging they misled consumers by selling chocolate products in containers that were oversized or “predominantly empty.”
Prosecutors also alleged that Ghirardelli offered one chocolate product containing less cocoa than advertised.
The firms didn’t acknowledge any wrongdoing but agreed to change their packaging under a settlement approved earlier this month. Some packages will shrink or will have a transparent window so consumers can look inside.
San Francisco-based Ghirardelli and Kansas City-based Russell Stover are owned by a Swiss company, Lindt & Sprungli.
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President Donald Trump will sign an executive order Thursday pushing those who receive federal funds to “buy American.” The aim is to boost U.S. manufacturing.
Peter Navarro, director of the White House National Trade Council, told reporters during a telephone briefing the policies are helping workers who “are blue collar, Trump people.” Later he amended that, saying he “every American is a Trump person” because Trump’s economic policies affect everyone.
Navarro said the order would affect federal financial assistance, which includes everything from loans and grants to insurance and interest subsidies.
He says some 30 federal agencies award over $700 billion in such aid each year. Recipients working on projects like bridges and sewer systems will be encouraged to use American products.
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Global smartphone sales saw their worst contraction ever in 2018, and the outlook for 2019 isn’t much better, new surveys show.
Worldwide handset volumes declined 4.1 percent in 2018 to a total of 1.4 billion units shipped for the full year, according to research firm IDC, which sees a potential for further declines this year.
“Globally the smartphone market is a mess right now,” said IDC analyst Ryan Reith.
“Outside of a handful of high-growth markets like India, Indonesia, (South) Korea and Vietnam, we did not see a lot of positive activity in 2018.”
Reith said the market has been hit by consumers waiting longer to replace their phones, frustration around the high cost of premium devices, and political and economic uncertainty.
The Chinese market, which accounts for roughly 30 percent of smartphone sales, was especially hard hit with a 10 percent drop, according to IDC’s survey, which was released Wednesday.
IDC said the top five smartphone makers have become stronger and now account for 69 percent of worldwide sales, up from 63 percent a year ago.
Samsung remained the number one handset maker with a 20.8 percent share despite an eight percent sales slump for the year, IDC said.
Apple managed to recapture the number two position with a 14.9 percent market share, moving ahead of Huawei at 14.7 percent, the survey found.
IDC said fourth-quarter smartphone sales fell 4.9 percent – the fifth consecutive quarter of decline.
“The challenging holiday quarter closes out the worst year ever for smartphone shipments,” IDC said in its report.
A separate report by Counterpoint Research showed similar findings, estimating a seven percent drop in the fourth quarter and four percent drop for the full year.
“The collective smartphone shipment growth of emerging markets such as India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Russia and others was not enough to offset the decline in China,” said Counterpoint associate director Tarun Pathak.
your ad hereЄвропейський суд із прав людини (ЄСПЛ) зобов’язав Росію виплатити Грузії 10 мільйонів євро. Влада Грузії має розподілити ці гроші як компенсацію серед громадян країни, депортованих із Росії в 2006 році.
Гроші повинні отримати не менше ніж півтори тисячі людей. Вони отримають від двох до 15 тисяч євро.
ЄСПЛ визнав порушення трьох статей Європейської конвенції – «колективна депортація», «незаконне позбавлення волі» і «нелюдські й такі, що принижують гідність, умови утримання під вартою».
Сума компенсації в 10 мільйонів євро перевищує щорічний обсяг коштів, що виділяються з бюджету Росії на виплати за рішеннями Європейського суду з прав людини.
У 2006 році в Грузії за звинуваченням у шпигунстві заарештували чотирьох співробітників розвідки Росії. Після цього з Росії під приводом порушення візового режиму почали висилати громадян Грузії. Всього, за даними Мін’юсту Грузії, були депортовані майже п’ять тисяч людей. У 2007 році Тбілісі звернувся в ЄСПЛ зі скаргою на ці дії Москви.
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Речник Генерального секретаря ООН Стефан Дюжаррік не має даних про можливу комунікацію між ОБСЄ та ООН щодо впровадження нового плану для врегулювання конфлікту на Донбасі, відмінний від Мінських домовленостей.
Про це він заявив на прес-конференції 30 січня.
«Звісно, ми бачили інформацію про новий план у пресі. Але мені нічого сказати. Я тільки скажу, в принципі, що ми рішуче підтримуємо керівництво Нормандської четвірки, Тристоронньої контактної групи і, звичайно, ОБСЄ у вирішенні українського питання», – сказав Дюжаррік.
24 січня посередник на переговорах від ОБСЄ Мартін Сайдік озвучив пропозицію замінити Мінські угоди новим мирним планом. В інтерв’ю австрійській газеті Kleine Zeitung він заявив, що мова йде про залучення ООН до проведення місцевих виборів і гарантування безпеки.
Читайте більше: Переговори у Мінську: «мирний план Сайдіка» щодо Донбасу офіційно не обговорювали
Сайдік серед іншого сказав, що потрібен інший документ, який буде мати «справжню політичну і правову вагу», оскільки Мінські угоди так і не були ратифіковані російським і українським парламентами.
Новий план передбачає серед іншого поліцейську місію ООН і діяльність в Донецькій і Луганській областях агентства із відновленню під егідою Євросоюзу.
Збройний конфлікт на Донбасі триває від 2014 року після російської анексії Криму. Україна і Захід звинувачують Росію у збройній підтримці сепаратистів. Кремль відкидає ці звинувачення і заявляє, що на Донбасі можуть перебувати хіба що російські «добровольці». За даними ООН іще станом на листопад 2017 року, за час конфлікту загинули понад 10 300 людей.
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Germany, France and Britain have officially set up a European mechanism to facilitate non-dollar trade with Iran and circumvent U.S. sanctions, two diplomats said Thursday.
The EU has been preparing the system, in effect a clearinghouse that avoids monetary transfers in dollars between the EU and Iran for months although it is unlikely to become operational for several months because of technical details.
German broadcaster NDR reported that the European Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) would be named INSTEX-Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges.
The idea is for the SPV to help preserve the economic nuclear program under a 2015 deal with world powers.
Small transactions
Europe has been keen to show good faith toward Iran since U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal last year.
The entity is not likely to revive trade with Iran because its focus will primarily be food, medicine and humanitarian, with small transactions. It will not be used for oil-related transactions that have been hit hard by U.S. sanctions.
“It won’t change things dramatically, but it’s an important political message to Iran to show that we are determined to save the JCPOA,and also the United States to show we defend our interests despite their extraterritorial sanctions,” one European diplomat said.
Worsening relations
However, relations between Tehran and the EU have worsened, and the EU this month imposed its first sanctions on Iran since the 2015 deal in reaction to Iran’s ballistic missile tests and assassination plots on European soil.
In a symbolic move, the EU added two Iranian individuals and an Iranian intelligence unit to the bloc’s terrorist list.
EU member states are also finalizing a joint statement on Iran to outline concerns about Tehran’s regional policies and ballistic missile program, but also to show their desire to maintain the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
France and Germany had taken joint responsibility for the SPV. A German banker would head up the vehicle, which would be based in France. France, Britain and Germany will be shareholders and they hope other states will join.
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Russia and the United States failed to bridge their differences over a landmark Cold War-era arms treaty at last-ditch talks in Beijing, Russia’s deputy foreign minister was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies Thursday.
The impasse sets the stage for the United States to begin pulling out of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty (INF) as early as Saturday unless Moscow moves to destroy a missile Washington says is violating the accord.
Moscow has refused to destroy the Novator 9M729 missile, insisting it is fully compliant with the treaty.
“Unfortunately, there is no progress,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as saying by the RIA news agency.
“As far as we understand, the next step is coming, the next phase begins, namely the phase of the United States stopping its obligations under the INF, which will evidently happen this coming weekend,” Ryabkov was quoted as saying.
Ryabkov met U.S. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Andrea Thompson in Beijing on the sidelines of a meeting of the P5 nuclear powers.
Thompson confirmed to Reuters that the U.S. government will likely announce the suspension of its obligations under the INF with Russia soon.
“The Russians still aren’t in acknowledgment that they are in violation of the treaty,” she said in an interview.
Thompson added, however, that “diplomacy is never done” and she anticipated more discussions.
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The steady loss of local newspapers and journalists across the country contributes to the nation’s political polarization, a new study has found.
With fewer opportunities to find out about local politicians, citizens are more likely to turn to national sources like cable news and apply their feelings about national politics to people running for the town council or state legislature, according to research published in the Journal of Communication.
The result is much less ticket splitting by voters. In 1992, 37 percent of states with Senate races elected a senator from a different party than the presidential candidate the state supported. In 2016, for the first time in a century, no state did that, the study found.
“The voting behavior was more polarized, less likely to include split ticket voting, if a newspaper had died in the community,” said Johanna Dunaway, a communications professor at Texas A&M University, who conducted the research with colleagues from Colorado State and Louisiana State universities.
Researchers reached that conclusion by comparing voting data from 66 communities where newspapers have closed in the past two decades to 77 areas where local newspapers continue to operate, she said.
“We have this loss of engagement at the local level,” she said.
Industry troubles
The struggling news industry has seen 1,800 newspapers shut down since 2004, the vast majority of them community weeklies, said Penelope Muse Abernathy, a University of North Carolina professor who studies the contraction. Many larger daily newspapers that have remained open have effectively become ghosts, with much smaller staffs that are unable to offer the breadth of coverage they once did. About 7,100 newspapers remain.
Researchers are only beginning to measure the public impact of such losses. Among the other findings is less voter participation among news-deprived citizens in off-year elections where local offices are decided, Abernathy said. Another study suggested a link to increased government spending in communities where “watchdog” journalists have disappeared, she said.
Dunaway said voters in communities without newspapers are more likely to be influenced by national labels — if they like Republicans like President Donald Trump, for example, that approval will probably extend to Republicans lower on the ballot.
The diminished news sources also alter politicians’ strategies, Dunaway said.
“They have to rely on party ‘brand names,’ ” she said, and are less focused on how they can do best for their districts.
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Міністр закордонних справ Чехії Томаш Петршичек заявив, що Україна повинна мати право сама вирішувати своє майбутнє, незалежно від бажань Росії.
«Україна є важливим партнером Європейського союзу та Чехії, і ми б хотіли, щоб вона мала право на те, щоб обрати своє власне майбутнє. Я переконаний, що питання «сфер впливу» є справою минулого, і ми б не хотіли, щоб воно поверталося до міжнародних стосунків», – сказав в ексклюзивному інтерв’ю Радіо Свобода міністр закордонних справ Чехії Томаш Петршичек після закінчення дводенного візиту до України.
Він наголосив, що для Чехії є важливим дотримання міжнародного права. «А якщо це не так, то ми б мали піднести свій голос та чітко назвати речі своїми іменами», – сказав міністр після своєї поїздки на Донбас, де він побував на лінії зіткнення та в Маріуполі.
Міністр також пообіцяв на зустрічі представників влади наступного тижня поінформувати їх про те, що він «дізнався і побачив тут в Україні, в Маріуполі». За словами Томаша Петршичека, це буде важливий аргумент до дискусії щодо скасування санкцій щодо Росії, що розпочалася серед керівників Чехії ще у вересні минулого року.
«Немає поступу у виконанні Мінських угод, конфлікт заморожується, а ми не повинні допустити, щоб у Європі створився ще один заморожений конфлікт», – наголосив Томаш Петршичек.
У рамках свого візиту до України 28–29 січня міністр закордонних справ Чехії Томаш Петршичек побував у Києві та на Донбасі. Він провів зустрічі з українськими урядовцями, відвідав лінію зіткнення та Маріупольський порт. Керівники цього підприємства, а також очільники приазовського міста ознайомили його з втратами людськими та економічними, яких зазнав регіон унаслідок російської агресії, що триває з 2014 року.
your ad hereRepublican U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley on Wednesday called on the Trump administration to lift tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Canada and Mexico before Congress begins considering legislation to implement the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) trade deal.
The three countries on Nov. 30 signed the pact replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which governs more than $1.2 trillion in trade. The agreement must be approved by the U.S. Congress and Canadian and Mexican legislators before becoming law.
“Unfortunately, our producers are unlikely to realize the market access promises of USMCA while the Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Canada and Mexico remain,” Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement. His committee is in charge of shepherding the pact to approval in the Senate.
U.S. farmers — hardest hit by President Donald Trump’s trade wars with China, a key buyer of American agricultural products, as well as Mexico and Canada — have long complained that with tariffs remaining in place, they will not be able to benefit fully from the new trade deal.
“Before Congress considers legislation to implement USMCA, the administration should lift tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from our top two trading partners and secure the elimination of retaliatory tariffs that stand to wipe out gains our farmers have made over the past 2½ decades,” Grassley said.
Trump had vowed to revamp NAFTA during his 2016 presidential campaign. At times during the USMCA negotiations, he threatened to tear up NAFTA and withdraw the United States from the pact completely, which would have left trade among the three neighbors in disarray.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 2017 said that exiting NAFTA without a new deal could devastate American agriculture, cost hundreds of thousands of jobs and “be an economic, political and national security disaster.”
Grassley, a powerful senator from farming state of Iowa, said U.S. farmers, under pressure because of tariffs imposed by Mexico and Canada, as well as China, needed relief fast.
“We’ll be working all hands on deck to get the job done. But we need the administration to help us pave the way,” he added.
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Zimbabwe’s public sector unions were divided on Wednesday over whether to launch a national strike after wage talks with the government failed, leaving the country on edge over the possibility of more unrest.
Zimbabwe was rocked by violent protests for three days in mid-January that led to a brutal security crackdown.
The security forces’ heavy-handed response raised fears that under President Emmerson Mnangagwa, the country was sliding back into the kind of authoritarianism seen during Robert Mugabe’s 37-year rule.
Mnangagwa’s spokesman said troops would stay on the streets and the state would block the internet again if violence flared.
Teachers and other state workers are demanding wage rises and payments in dollars to help them stave off spiralling inflation and an economic crisis that has sapped supplies of cash, fuel and medicines in state hospitals.
Rights groups say at least 12 people were killed this month after a three-day stay-at-home strike over a fuel price hike led to street protests and a crackdown by security services. The government says three people died.
At a meeting with unions, the government proposed to give land to build houses and food hampers for employees, union officials said. Public sector unions had on Monday issued the government with a 48-hour ultimatum to make a new salary offer or face a strike.
The Apex Council, which represents 17 public sector unions, then failed to agree on whether to hold a strike during a short meeting that broke down as officials accused each other of either working for the opposition or the government.
“The Apex Council meeting ended prematurely and people walked out. There is no consensus. How do we go on strike when our fellow unions are coming and saying some unions were paid?” said Raymond Majongwe, secretary general of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe.
He said his union was among those accused by colleagues of being paid by the opposition and donors to go on strike and cause violence, charges he denied.
The biggest teachers union has called for a strike on Feb. 5.
‘Bread and butter’
Mnangagwa — who came to power in November 2017 after long-time ruler Mugabe was forced to resign in a coup — promised to revive the economy and break with Mugabe politics. But frustration over the economic crisis is building and analysts say the pace of economic and political reform is too slow for impatient citizens.
Mnangagwa on Wedneaday picked a 24-member advisory council to advise him on economic reforms, a government source said.
The 76-year-old leader has promised to investigate the crackdown on protesters and to bring in measures to tackle the economic crisis but the opposition does not trust him.
His spokesman said it would take time to rebuild an economy that had been suffering for decades.
“There are key bread and butter questions which government cannot dodge, things are tough,” George Charamba told a state-owned Harare radio station.
“But it would be a sad day to think that the only way that we can remedy such a problem is by causing further damage to that already damaged economy through mayhem, through looting, through chaos.”
Charamba said police and soldiers would stay on the streets and that government would shut the internet again if violence broke out. He previously said the crackdown was a foretaste of how the government would react to future protests.
your ad here«Від імені всіх матерів наших захисників Вітчизни подам на Гриценка до суду. І всі гроші віддам на потреби армії»
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Президент США Дональд Трамп дорікає керівникам американських розвідувальних служб через їхню оцінку небезпеки, яку для Сполучених Штатів становить Іран.
«Представники розвідки здаються надзвичайно пасивними і наївними, коли йдеться про небезпеку Ірану. Вони помиляються!» – заявив Трамп 30 січня в звичний для себе спосіб – повідомленням у мережі Twitter.
На його думку, спецслужби США недооцінюють загрози, які виходять від Тегерана.
«З моменту закінчення жахливої ядерної угоди з Іраном (Трамп має на увазі вихід США з угоди, яку далі виконують інші її сторони – ред.), вони (загрози – ред.) дуже різні, але є джерелом потенційної небезпеки і конфліктів. Вони випробовують ракети (минулого тижня) і більше, і є все ближчими до межі. Їхня економіка зараз руйнується, це є єдиним, що стримує їх. Будьте обережні з Іраном. Можливо, розвідка повинна повернутися до школи!» – додав він.
Твіти Трампа з’явилися на наступний день після того, як керівники розвідки сказали в Сенаті, що загроза з боку Ірану зменшилася, оскільки Тегеран не вживає заходів для створення ядерної бомби.
Сполучені Штати відновили санкції проти Ірану в листопаді 2018 року після виходу з ядерної угоди 2015 року, згідно з якою Тегеран отримав послаблення міжнародних санкцій в обмін на обмеження ядерної програми.
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After spending close to two weeks at sea because no country would allow them to disembark, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said 47 migrants on the Dutch-flagged Sea-Watch 3 finally would come off that vessel. Europe had been arguing over the fate of the migrants and Italy agreed to let them disembark only after a half-dozen countries came forward to take them in.
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte ended the latest migrant standoff on Wednesday, announcing the 47 migrants would soon disembark. The migrants had been stuck on the vessel since their rescue off the coast of Libya January 19.
The Sea-Watch 3 rescue vessel has been moored off southern Sicily since Friday.
Europe has been struggling with how to deal with the migrants’ respective arrivals since Italy’s populist government, which came to power last March, announced it would close its ports to humanitarian vessels.
It was the second time in a month the Sea-Watch 3 had been stranded at sea with rescued migrants and no safe port that would allow it to dock.
Speaking in Milan on Wednesday, Prime Minister Conte said Luxembourg came forward as the latest country to answer Italy’s request for assistance.
The prime minister added that Luxembourg joined Germany, France, Portugal, Romania and Malta in agreeing to take some of the migrants from the Sea-Watch 3 ship operated by a German aid group. The migrants are expected to disembark in the coming hours.
Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said, “Mission accomplished! Once again thanks to the commitment of the Italian government and the determination of our Interior Ministry, Europe has been forced to intervene and take on its responsibilities.” Salvini added, “On the basis of the documentation gathered, an investigation should be opened to shed light on the conduct of the NGO.”
Steffen Seibert, spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said Germany has agreed to accept some of the migrants, declaring it is clear “a common and lasting solution is needed in Europe” to the issue.
The U.N. refugee agency says on average, six people a day lost their lives attempting to reach Europe by way of the Mediterranean last year.
your ad hereПрезидент США Дональд Трамп домовився із самопроголошеним виконувачем обов’язків президента Венесуели Хуаном Гуайдо підтримувати регулярні контакти.
Речниця Білого дому Сара Сандерс заявила, що Трамп під час телефонної розмови з Гуайдо висловив свою «міцну підтримку боротьби Венесуели для повернення своєї демократії».
Розмова Трампа та Гуайдо відбулася після того, як Верховний суд Венесуели заборонив опозиційному лідеру виїжджати з країни та заморозив його банківські рахунки.
23 січня голова Національної асамблеї Венесуели Хуан Гуайдо на тлі конституційної й економічної кризи оголосив себе тимчасовим президентом країни.
Гуайдо заявив, що Ніколас Мадуро, який у травні оголосив про свою перемогу на президентських виборах у Венесуелі, не здатний виконувати обов’язки глави держави, і пообіцяв провести в країні дострокові вибори.
Гуайдо визнали тимчасовим президентом майже всі країни Латинської Америки, США, Австралія, Канада й Ізраїль. Країни Євросоюзу пообіцяли визнати Гуайдо президентом, якщо у Венесуелі найближчим часом не будуть оголошені позачергові вибори. Мадуро підтримують Росія, Китай, Іран, Мексика, Куба, Туреччина і Сальвадор.
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Leaders across the European Union offered a united chorus of “No” on Wednesday to Britain’s belated bid to negotiate changes to the Brexit divorce deal so Prime Minister Theresa May can win the backing of her Parliament. In London, May acknowledged that her government hasn’t decided exactly how it will try to change the deal to address British lawmakers’ concerns about the Irish border.
All this while Britain is headed for the EU exit in less than two months, on March 29.
“We are, quite simply, running out of road,” said Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney, with a note of exasperation echoed across the continent.
Buoyed by winning a vote in Parliament, May has vowed to secure “legally binding changes” to the withdrawal agreement. British lawmakers voted Tuesday to send May back to Brussels seeking to replace an Irish border provision in the deal with “alternative arrangements,” ignoring EU warnings that the agreement cannot be altered.
“We’ve been down that track before and I don’t believe that such alternative arrangements exist,” Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said.
Chief EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier told reporters at the European Parliament that “the EU institutions remain united, and we stand by the agreement that we have negotiated with the U.K.” German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said “opening up the withdrawal agreement is not on the agenda.”
Britain and the EU struck a divorce deal in November after a year and a half of tense negotiations. But the agreement has run aground in Britain’s Parliament, which overwhelmingly rejected it on Jan. 15.
Much of the opposition centers on a border measure known as the “backstop,” a safeguard mechanism would keep the U.K. in a customs union with the EU to remove the need for checks along the border between the U.K.’s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland after Brexit.
The border area was a flashpoint during decades of conflict in Northern Ireland that cost 3,700 lives. The free flow of people and goods across the near-invisible border underpins both the local economy and Northern Ireland’s peace process.
Many pro-Brexit British lawmakers fear the backstop will trap Britain in regulatory lockstep with the EU, and say they won’t vote for May’s deal unless it is removed.
May was due to speak to Varadkar and European Council President Donald Tusk on Wednesday, and was meeting with opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in an attempt to find elusive cross-party unity on Brexit.
May conceded that her government hadn’t settled on a way to replace the backstop, telling lawmakers that “there are a number of proposals for how that could be done.” May said measures under consideration included a unilateral exit mechanism from the backstop for Britain, a time limit to the backstop and “mutual recognition and trusted trader schemes.”
The EU says the backstop is an insurance policy and as such can’t have a time limit or a get-out clause.
The EU parliament point-man on Brexit, Guy Verhofstadt, underlined that nobody in Europe wants to use the backstop, but that it’s “needed to be 100 percent sure that there is no border between Northern Ireland and the Irish republic.”
Verhofstadt said the only way for May to win concessions would be to back away from her long-held stance that Britain would not remain part of the EU’s customs union after Brexit.
“If the future relationship is, for example, a customs union that makes it completely different,” Verhofstadt told reporters.
He insisted that Britain needed to quickly move from its internal bickering and disputes in the House of Commons.
“What needs to stop is this: an amendment with 10 votes for, then an amendment with 10 votes against, an amendment that barely pulls through, one that fails,” he said of Tuesday’s session, which saw seven Brexit amendments, of which two were passed.
“That is no way to build a future relationship with the EU,” Verhofstadt said.
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Brazilian miner Vale SA identified concerns around its tailings dams in 2009 and studied but did not implement several steps that could have prevented or lessened the damage from last week’s deadly disaster, according to a corporate presentation seen by Reuters.
A tailings dam, used to store the muddy detritus of the mining process, collapsed on Friday, killing at least 65 in one of Brazil’s largest industrial accidents on record.
The Brumadinho disaster, coming just over three years after a similar incident at another mine partially controlled by Vale, has fueled calls for a management overhaul and erased more than 70 billion reais ($18.61 billion) in Vale’s market value.
But a decade ago, the world’s largest iron ore miner was considering ways to use fewer tailings dams, including alternative uses for the waste rock, according to the 73-page presentation.
The presentation pointed to the rising volume of tailings produced at the company’s mines, with some locations producing hundreds of thousands of tons of tailings daily.
The report suggested Vale make building materials from tailings, including bricks, a step that would give the company another revenue source and lessen the volume needing to be stored using dams.
The 2009 Vale report had recommended the company undertake a project to be called “Zero Dams” that would have involved drying out tailings, among other steps. It was not known whether the report reached the top levels of Vale management nor why it was not implemented.
Vale declined to comment. The report’s author, Paulo Ricardo Behrens da Franca, left Vale a year after submitting it and now works as an industry consultant. Reached by Reuters, he did not comment.
‘Inherently Dangerous Structures’
Vale’s Brumadinho facility was built using the cheapest and least-stable type of tailings dam design, a commonly used structure in mining known as “upstream construction.”
Chile, Peru and other earthquake-prone countries ban the design, in which tailings are used to progressively construct dam walls the more a mine is excavated. Brazil is not as earthquake-prone as its western neighbors, but even small seismic activity has been shown to affect tailings dams.
Because these types of tailings dams are waterlogged, they are easily susceptible to cracks and other damage that can cause bursts like the one that occurred last week near Brumadinho.
“A tailings dam may look safe, but it’s still retaining a lot of moisture behind it,” said Dermot Ross-Brown, a mining industry engineer who teaches at the Colorado School of Mines. “They’re inherently dangerous structures.”
Tailings dams tend to be shorter in height than conventional water dams, but often are far wider in span.
The disaster’s cause remains unknown. Vale said the dam had not received tailings for about two and a half years and was in the process of decommissioning, a step that should have lessened risk, engineers said.
“It’s really puzzling to me this happened as the (dam) was closing,” said Cameron Scott of SRK Consulting, a mining engineering firm. “This disaster will make future mine permitting harder.”
The dam had passed a September 2018 inspection by the German firm TUEV SUED AG and Vale Chief Executive Fabio Schvartsman said equipment had shown the dam was stable on Jan.
10.
On Tuesday, Brazilian state prosecutors arrested three Vale employees and two TUEV SUED employees.
Risk
Brazil has nearly 4,000 dams that are classified as having “high damage potential” or being at high risk, with 205 of those dams containing mineral waste, the country’s Regional Development Minister Gustavo Canuto said.
Analysts and engineers said that the Brumadinho disaster will hopefully push the industry to stop storing wet tailings and instead move toward the more-expensive-but-safer process of storing dry tailings.
That process requires drying the tailings and storing them on-site, abrogating the risk of a dam burst. The approach is becoming more popular in Canada and other countries with stricter mining regulations.
“The industry doesn’t yet fully realize the risk its taking on with those type of wet tailings dams,” said Matt Fuller of Tierra Group International Ltd, a tailings engineering consulting firm.
Officials in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state, where the disaster occurred, say they are now going to push for legislation requiring dry mining and forcing miners to tear down tailings dams when they are located above communities.
A similar proposal failed last summer, with its defeat attributed by the bill’s sponsor to lobbying pressure from mining companies.
Brazil is still reeling from the 2015 collapse of a larger dam, owned by the Samarco Mineracao SA joint venture between Vale and BHP, that killed 19 people.
After Samarco, the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) issued updated guidelines for its members to try to safeguard tailings dams used to store waste left over from mining operations.
The ICCM said on Saturday that the mining industry still has “lessons to learn” from Samarco and similar events.
Mining companies typically hire engineering firms that specialize in tailings dams to build the structures, not necessarily dam contractors themselves, a step that some industry observers hope changes soon.
“The mining companies are not placing dam safety at the forefront of their preoccupations,” said Emmanuel Grenier, a spokesman for the International Coalition of Large Dams (ICOLD), a non-governmental organization focused on dam engineering.
The group “is recommending that dams, especially large dams, be built by dam professionals, but it is too rarely the case for tailing dams,” Grenier said.
($1 = 3.7614 reais)
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Apple hoped to offset slowing demand for iPhones by raising the prices of its most important product, but that strategy seems to have backfired after sales sagged during the holiday shopping season.
Results released Tuesday revealed the magnitude of the iPhone slump – a 15 percent drop in revenue from the previous year. That decline in Apple’s most profitable product caused Apple’s total earnings for the October-December quarter to dip slightly to $20 billion.
Now, CEO Tim Cook is grappling with his toughest challenge since replacing co-founder Steve Jobs 7 years ago. Even as he tries to boost iPhone sales, Cook also must prove that Apple can still thrive even if demand doesn’t rebound.
It figures to be an uphill battle, given Apple’s stock has lost one-third of its value in less than four months, erasing about $370 billion in shareholder wealth.
Cook rattled Wall Street in early January by disclosing the company had missed its own revenue projections for the first time in 15 years. The last time that happened, the iPod was just beginning to transform Apple.
”This is the defining moment for Cook,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives. “He has lost some credibility on Wall Street, so now he will have to do some hand-holding as the company enters this next chapter.”
The results for the October-December period were slightly above the expectations analysts lowered after Cook’s Jan. 2 warning. Besides the profit decline, Apple’s revenue fell 5 percent from the prior year to $84 billion.
It marked the first time in more than two years that Apple’s quarterly revenue has dropped from the past year. The erosion was caused by the decline of the iPhone, whose sales plunged to $52 billion, down by more than $9 billion from the previous year.
The past quarter’s letdown intensified the focus on Apple’s forecast for the opening three months of the year as investors try to get a better grasp on iPhone sales until the next models are released in autumn.
Apple predicted its revenue for the January-March period will range from $55 billion to $59 billion. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had been anticipating revenue of about $59 billion.
Investors liked what they read and heard, helping Apple’s stock recoup some of their recent losses. The stock gained nearly 6 percent to $163.50 in extended trading after the report came out.
“We wouldn’t change our position with anyone’s,” Cook reassured analysts during a conference call reviewing the past quarter and the upcoming months.
The company didn’t forecast how many iPhones it will sell, something Apple has done since the product first hit the market in 2007 and transformed society, as well as technology.
Apple is no longer disclosing how many iPhones it shipped after the quarter is completed, a change that Cook announced in November. That unexpected move raised suspicions that Apple was trying to conceal a forthcoming slump in iPhone sales – fears that were realized during the holiday season.
Cook traces most of Apple’s iPhone problems to a weakening economy in China, the company’s second biggest market behind the U.S. The company is also facing tougher competition in China, where homegrown companies such as Huawei and Xiaomi have been winning over consumers in that country with smartphones that have many of the same features as iPhones at lower prices.
Although a trade war started by President Donald Trump last year has hurt China and potentially caused some consumers there to boycott U.S. products, many analysts believe the iPhone’s malaise stems from other issues too.
Among them are higher prices – Apple’s most expensive iPhone now costs $1,350 – for models that aren’t that much better than the previous generation, giving consumers little incentive to stop using the device they already own until it wears out. Apple also gave old iPhones new life last by offering to replace aging batteries for $29, a 70 percent discount.
”The upgrade cycle has extended, there is no doubt about that,” Cook conceded.
Apple is banking that investors will realize the company can still reap huge profits by selling various services on the 1.4 billion devices running on its software.
That’s one reason why Cook has been touting the robust growth of Apple’s division that collects commissions from paid apps, processes payments, and sells hardware warranty plans and music streaming subscriptions. Apple Music now has more than 50 million subscribers, second to Spotify’s 87 million streaming subscribers through September.
Apple is also preparing to launch a video streaming service to compete against Netflix, though Cook said he wasn’t ready to provide details Tuesday.
The company’s services revenue in the past quarter climbed 19 percent from the prior year to $10.9 billion – more than any other category besides the iPhone.
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An investor group managing some $6.5 trillion on Tuesday called on six of the world’s largest fast food restaurants, including McDonald’s, KFC and Burger King, to reduce their planet-harming greenhouse gas emissions and water use.
Companies selling burgers, chicken and milk products are trailing behind other high-emitting industries, like carmakers, in setting targets to clean up their supply chains and help meet the Paris Agreement to limit global warming, campaigners say.
More than 80 investors – members of Farm Animal Investment Risk and Return (FAIRR), a network educating investors – wrote to the fast food giants calling on them to publicly set and monitor targets on GHG emissions and freshwater impacts.
“Fast-food giants deliver speedy meals, but they have been super slow in responding to their out-sized environmental footprints,” said Mindy Lubber, head of Ceres, which lobbies for greener business practices and is backing the initiative.
McDonald’s told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that it set a target in 2018 to reduce emissions by 2030 that would be the “equivalent of taking 32 million passenger cars off the road for an entire year.”
Yum Brands – the owners of KFC – and Restaurant Brands International – the owners of Burger King – did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Investors are increasingly judging companies according to ethical, sustainable and governance criteria, which they say are important factors in company performance.
Livestock – largely cattle raised for beef and milk – are responsible for about 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization says.
But two-thirds of the world’s largest, publicly listed meat and livestock companies do not have targets for reducing their emissions, says FAIRR, which includes Canada’s BMO Global Asset Management and Britain’s Aviva Investors.
“Investors who have signed on believe these risks threaten the long term viability of the quick service restaurant sector,” said Aarti Ramachandran, London-based FAIRR’s head of research.
“The fact that investors with $6.5 trillion signed on is an indicator of how important this issue is,” she said, adding that some of the investors have fast food companies – a sector worth $570 billion – in their portfolios.
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Even in the densely packed Soviet-era apartment blocks at the edge of this faded Siberian industrial hub, little redheaded Masha always seemed to stand out.
“She was quite an unusual kid to some extent — physically quite tall in comparison with her peers, and she was in fact much more physically developed,” says her father, Valeriy Butin, a retired 55-year-old manufacturing engineer.
“Since childhood she had the strongly marked characteristics of a leader,” he says. “She enjoyed giving commands, organizing her peers, her brother and her sister. She has always tried to carry herself as a leader. That was just natural for her.”
Soft-spoken with a patient disposition, Valeriy is also unfailingly polite. Even upon declining initial interview requests, he would nonetheless thank us for asking and apologize for needing time to consider.
Meeting my videographer and me at the cafe beside our hotel, he seems oblivious to patrons who appear to recognize him immediately, even if they don’t dare say so.
After agreeing to the interview, he waits for us out in the car where, through the cafe window, he seems adrift in an aimless stare, his thoughts likely turning to a Virginia jail cell where his daughter, Maria Valeriyevna Butina, has been held in solitary confinement since U.S. officials brought espionage-related charges against her in July.
Despite a December plea bargain, Valeriy, just like his friends and family, still cannot square the foreign media depiction of a confessed foreign agent with his precocious daughter who, until weeks of incarceration, mailed home report cards and research papers — cherished tokens of the myriad academic accomplishments the family has scrapbooked since primary school.
“She was always gifted with a good memory and inquisitive mind, a willingness to research and really grasp something new,” he says, his vocal pitch beginning to tremble. “I have no doubt it was — it is — natural for her.”
The world that shaped Masha
Touching down on the chemically treated Tarmac at Barnaul International Airport in southwestern Siberia, the pilot stops the plane at the end of the runway and pivots the nose onto a massive five-centimeter-thick expanse of plow-scarred ice and snowpack.
Descending the airplane stairs to board a bus idling in the deep freeze of early dawn, passengers trudge through the glare of a single floodlight as four policemen in matching black Ushankas look on in silence. The only sound is an engine and the rhythmic crunching of snow under boots.
Nestled between the northern borders of Kazakhstan and Mongolia, Barnaul lies 228 kilometers due south of Novosibirsk, part of what Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn described as the “Gulag Archipelago.” Like nearly all of its centrally planned neighboring municipalities, the city, which is the administrative seat of the Altai Krai region, immediately evokes memories of its Soviet past. Once known for manufacturing tanks, ammunition and tractors, Barnaul — also like nearly all of its neighbors — has long since seen most of those jobs disappear.
A half-hour from the airport in a flat grid of city blocks where Maria Butina spent her first 20 years, camouflage-clad hunters tote bagged rifles alongside morning commuters with briefcases. For many youth, it’s the kind of place where one aspires to nothing more than one day residing anyplace else.
“The official statistics brought me into a state of dismay,” Maria wrote of regional brain drain in a 2008 essay for a local paper. “Last year the number of people leaving the region was 9,383 more than those who came to my native Altai.”
As an 18-year-old college junior, Maria was a Rotary Club member who had recently been elected to a civic organization comprising “prominent citizens of Russia, representatives of national, regional and interregional NGOs” that aimed to be a conduit between citizens and lawmakers.
“When first elected, I wondered if it would be possible to transform the region into a place with lifelong professional prospects for my peers,” wrote Butina. “Now I’m pretty confident [that]… if someone doesn’t ‘rejuvenate’ the regional elite, programs will neither succeed nor stop the young from leaving.”
Political aspirations
Adjacent to the Krai Administration building in Barnaul’s Soviets Square, the School of Real Politics (SRP) was architecturally designed to contrast with the stodgy edifice beside it that, until just years ago, still hosted regional legislative sessions.
“Maria came to the Real Politics faculty in 2005, where she instantly showed herself as an active leader,” said Konstantin Emeshin, SRP’s founder and, as Valeriy tells it, the personal mentor who perhaps more than any other individual has shaped Maria’s worldview.
Although not affiliated Altai State University, where Maria was concurrently enrolled, Emeshin’s “faculty,” as he called it, appears to be a government subsidized private organization aligned with the pro-Kremlin United Russia Party that mentors and develops aspiring politicians. Altai State University administrators did not respond to multiple inquiries about its relationship with SRP, and Emeshin declined follow-up interview requests to learn more about the organization.
The concept behind SRP, he said, is that “‘real policy’ doesn’t come from the TV set.”
“Television channels as a rule broadcast information as well as propaganda, whereas real politics is always made by [actual] deputies, officials.”
In “real politics,” he said, students are immersed in day-to-day parliamentary life, in government life, communicating directly with officials, even at the highest levels.
After her first year with the political organization, Butina’s SRP peers elected her school coordinator,a coveted position in which the student reports on legislation and wrangles VIPs for on-site events.
Smitten by her boundless energy and networking savvy, Emeshin nominated her for the prestigious Seliger forum for young leaders. The annual lakeside gathering — once dubbed “Russia’s nationalist summer camp” and sometimes attended by President Vladimir Putin — invites participants to give presentations of their work.
Having solicited the sponsorship of local businessmen, Butina would be expected to champion a regional cause.
At the time, Emeshin said, short-barrel arms legalization was strongly supported by Altai regional Governor Alexander Bogdanovich Karlin.
For the daughter of an avid hunter, a personal history of gun ownership suddenly dovetailed with a politically practical regional cause.
The gun rights cause
In Russia, private citizens can be licensed to own long-barreled shotguns, stun guns and gas pistols, but handguns and assault rifles are banned for the broader public.
Like a handful of provincial Russian politicians, Karlin had long framed pistol ownership as a civilian rights issue, but in his economically struggling region it meant more than that: Altai Krai is also home to one the few small-arms bullet manufacturers in Russia.
At Seliger, Butina connected with politically like-minded activists and expanded the pistol rights debate to the federal level, hosting roundtables throughout the country.
“It was no secret that Senator [Aleksandr] Torshin,” long an avid gun rights supporter, “was now in touch with Maria.”
“She knew everybody: [Alexei] Kudrin, [Andrey] Nechayev, she was at the top of public activities of Russia,” said Emeshin, referring to a close Putin ally and a former economic minister respectively.
Emeshin then encouraged Maria to pursue graduate work abroad.
“Having mastered real politics at the city, regional and federal level,” he told her in 2014 Facebook message, “you should certainly master the real politics at the international level.”
For personal friends of Maria, the rapid career developments came as no surprise.
“At the time, she seemed to be quite the young idealist, a person who awakes with an idea of changing the world,” said Lev Sekerzhinsky, a Barnaul-based photographer who was close to Butina before she departed for Moscow. “But unlike most people, she woke up not just with an idea but with some real energy … just a willful determination to implement all the plans to do something good.
“Every day she had to be doing something,” he recalled. “I’ve never met anyone else like her in all my life.”
Asked whether she could have turned that energy against the interests of a foreign nation, he was unconvinced.
“I’ve read trial documents saying she was doing or planning things against the United States, but I’m pretty confident she wanted to improve ties,” he said. “It’s quite a pity if she violated some laws on the way.”
Charges against her
On December 13, Butina pleaded guilty to conspiracy, engaging in unofficial diplomacy and lobbying after building relationships in American conservative circles — including the National Rifle Association — not unlike what she did on behalf of Altai officials at Seliger. She also admitted to working at the behest of her ex-employer, former Senator Torshin, to create back-channel communications between NRA contacts and Russian officials.
“She was playing a role familiar to professional intelligence officers…using her natural network of contacts to spot, meet, and assess potential targets for the Russian espionage apparatus,” writes Atlantic Monthly contributor John Sipher, a 28-year veteran of the CIA’s clandestine service and an authority on espionage at the Brookings Institution.
Describing modern Russia as “the world’s first intelligence state” and Putin’s actions as “those of a superpowered spy chief,” any Russian national living abroad — especially politically connected former State Duma aides such as Butina — can be tapped to act informally as the “overt face of covert operations.”
Ambitious young professionals who wish to maintain professional options at home, said longtime Russian affairs reporter Danila Galperovich, often have little choice but to accommodate the intelligence inquiries, which, for many, inevitably blurs boundaries between networking, lobbying and espionage.
“Can they be approached at any time? Yeah, absolutely, the same way, if we’re perfectly honest, a congressional aide in Washington can be approached by the CIA,” said Mark Galeotti, a globally renowned expert on Russian intelligence.
“But is there any evidence of her being a spy in the sense of someone who actually works for the Russian intelligence apparatus? For me, the answer is absolutely not,” said Galeotti. “I think what this all simply reflects is the way modern Russia works. That you have all kinds of different individuals and agencies who are pushing their own agendas, but also with an eye on whether their actions are likely to fit the kind of interests that we think the Kremlin has. Because, if you can pull off something that is a value to the Kremlin, then you will be rewarded.”
As Galeotti tells it, Russia’s president sets broad policy directives, “and then all these scurrying little entrepreneurs will use whatever leverage or interest they themselves have — and it may be totally different if you’re an ambassador compared to if you’re a journalist compared to if you’re whatever else” — to further those Kremlin interests.
“If they fail? Well, the Kremlin’s no worse off; it can deny anything and it hasn’t spent a penny,” he said. “But if they succeed, then sometimes the Kremlin will actually reach in and, in effect, takeover an operation, or simply reward them for a job well done.”
Calling Butina “ambitious in a perfectly normal way,” Galeotti said her long history of advocating gun rights made the NRA a logical place to network.
“She has a personal and passionate commitment to this issue of the right to bear arms, and therefore she obviously wants to have connections, she wants to have some sense of meaning,” he said. “Because of the extent to which the NRA and the Republican Party are incestuously intertwined, you can’t really network in one without the other.
For Galeotti, the best way to detect the presence of formal intelligence directives is by identifying a given suspect’s behavioral anomalies.
“Look at friendships pursued that, otherwise, just don’t seem to make sense or seem to fit a pattern,” he said. “Quite frankly, if one looks at what Butina was doing, it all seems pretty consistent with someone who’s just trying to see where she can get, see what she can do.”
Galeotti also said that former Senator Torshin, who declined multiple phone and email requests for interview, has long operated in this gray area between personal ambition and political favor.
“If you operate in Russia, you know this,” said Galeotti. “Everyone is constantly looking for what kind of blat, what kind of connections, what kind of leverage they can find. That’s just the nature of this environment.”
However, Yuri Shvets, a former KGB major who worked in the Washington office of the Soviet First Chief Directorate, the intelligence organization responsible for foreign operations, said the NRA has been a target of Soviet infiltration since at least the 1980s.
“She is certainly an ‘agent’ [of the Russian government], whether an active duty one or just an ‘agent of influence’ that I don’t know,” added Shvets, who defected to the West in the early 1990s. “But after the Anna Chapman story, I wouldn’t be surprised by anything.”
In June, American prosecutors said Butina possessed materials indicating direct communication with a Russian intelligence service, although a December Department of Justice affidavit summarizing charges against Butina cites none.
American parallels
Driving to the Butin family home, Valeriy’s gray late-model Nissan shoots down a snowy stretch of canopied coniferous byway about 32 kilometers west of Barnaul. I tell him that I can see why Solzhenitsyn chose voluntary exile in the U.S. state of Vermont, and that the surrounding pines could pass for a postcard from there.
“I’ve heard it’s lovely,” he said. “But we’ve got more bears.”
Does the lifelong hunter advocate the pistol legalization his daughter championed?
“I’m not as political as my daughter is,” he said after some hesitation. “But I think it’s important that one should at least have the right, if only for personal protection.
“Look at this guy in Kerch,” he said, referring to an October shooting at a polytechnic college in Russian-occupied Crimea that claimed 20 victims.
“This young man bought a gun absolutely legally and goes on rampage, but nobody could do anything because of gun restrictions. What if just one other person there had had a gun?
“Guns are deadly, but someone could be attacked with a frying pan or beaten to death by fists. To me legalization just means you can have an opportunity to protect yourself against these insane people, and they’re everywhere. They’re here and in America, too.”
As the road crests, we bear left down a snow-rutted unpaved access lane leading into a sprawling warren of scattered structures that betray a range of income levels. Some homes are new, some are old or restored, and a handful were abandoned mid-construction, the skeletal rebar-and-cement casualties of Russia’s chronic boom-and-bust economic cycles.
Waiting for Maria
Entering the Butin family drive, an automated steel gate slides open, revealing a low-slung structure all but buried in snow. On setting foot in the entryway, Maria’s younger sister, Marina, crosses the house to greet us and insists on taking our coats.
“You’re from Washington,” she sighs in almost unaccented English. “Such a cool city.”
Placing an arm around a sprightly older woman who emerges from the kitchen, Marina introduces her grandmother.
“This is the American?” she asks Marina, who nods.
“Welcome,” says the older woman, offering a hand and holding tight with a lengthy penetrating stare.”I’ll put on some tea.”
Arrayed on a table are family albums that chronicle the achievements of each Butin child. The photos and clippings show just how much academic engagement and school-based events were an organizing principle in the Butin household, which, until Maria left for university, had been located within a half-block of a primary school.
At only 24, Maria’s younger sister holds multiple degrees from one of Russia’s elite polytechnic universities in St. Petersburg, where she has since joined an electronics manufacturing firm.
Like both of her parents, she is an engineer. Also like both of her parents, she learned of Maria’s incarceration via news reports.
“I was in the car, going to work and I didn’t know what had happened,” says Marina, who says she spoke with her older sister at least once weekly until the arrest.
“I was confused and then heard her name and just pulled over and fell silent,” she recalls. “I thought it was fake news, and then I thought maybe after two days everything would be okay, that this was all a big misunderstanding.”
Since hearing the news on television that same morning, Valeriy says his impression of the accusations is unchanged.
“I can only imagine it must have been Maria’s legal ignorance about the details of these [lobbying] laws that her absolutely friendly activities resulted in such an accusation,” he says, insisting that his daughter was fond of the United States and wanted to see relations improved.”Maria couldn’t possibly wish any harm to the country where she was studying, that she treats with great respect.”
Maria’s mother, Irina, says Maria had often spoken taking “part in some global decisions that are being undertaken for (her) country and to be a public figure.”
“Masha did these things without any deliberate intentions,” she says. “I am confident that any illegal activity resulted from her legal ignorance, her young years, her drive, persistence, and of course some naïveté.”
Although the U.S. indictment refutes that opinion, the family remains hopeful that their daughter will be deported immediately after her mid-February hearing, and that U.S.-Russian ties can be salvaged.
“Our two countries are simply obliged to exist peacefully, at a minimum,” says Valeriy. “But even better, we can have absolutely friendly, good relations.”
Asked what he would say directly to President Donald Trump and other top U.S. officials, Valeriy appeared to have tears welling in his eyes.
“It is difficult to say what one could say to the U.S. president, as well as to the Secretary of State,” he says. “But if something will depend on them, I would ask them to release her as soon as possible.”
Asked if Russian officials have been adequately supportive, he exhales in mild exasperation. Although Russian officials have amplified the case via state-media news interviews, the family says they remain dependent upon crowdfunding to deal with more than $500,000 in legal fees.
Characteristically polite, Valeriy asks us to convey a message to Maria’s defense lawyers.
“I am tremendously grateful for their diligence and impartiality, their faith in the fact that Maria should not be punished,” he said before drawing a parallel to a positive memory from the Cold War.
“There was a situation between our countries, quite a tough one dating back to the presidency of Ronald Reagan and General Secretary Yuri Andropov,” he says. “A young American girl named Samantha Smith wrote a letter to Andropov in very human and straightforward tone that ultimately fostered a kind of détente in Cold War tensions. It seems to me there is now some similarity to that situation.”
Regardless of whether her upcoming court ruling can help mend relations, Maria’s younger sister sees the good that is resulting from her sister’s incarceration.
“I want her to stand firm and know that, despite the conditions of solitary confinement, the large distance separating us, she is actually the one keeping us all in the right mind set,” she says. “She reminds us that everything will be tackled, that everything will be okay, that truth and justice will prevail.”
“These are the basics we laid from childhood,” says Irina, calling their family bonds the “thread” to which her daughter holds tight in a Virginia jail.
Even for professor Emeshin, the weighty darkness of a naïve, high-energy extrovert stuck in solitary confinement may yet have one silver lining.
“She is unusually talented, an incredibly clever girl, you can’t deny that,” he said earlier that day. “That’s why she chose the path of public life, why she took charge of the school’s information center, joined our public chamber and quickly leaped to federal-level work.”
For better or worse, he said, she’s found herself in the high-profile international role she always sought.
“Quite a complicated one, yes, but still a real experience,” he said. “She’s now well-known and, like any decent and honest person from this country, she’ll come to occupy a worthy spot in Russia’s political sphere.”
Olga Pavlova in Moscow, Ricardo Marquina in Barnaul, Igor Tsikhanenka in Washington contributed to this report.
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