Architect Offers New Bridge Design for Hometown Genoa After Tragedy

Italy’s best-known architect, Renzo Piano, offered on Tuesday to donate the design for a bridge to replace the one that collapsed in his birthplace of Genoa this month, saying he cannot think about anything else after 43 people were killed in the tragedy.

The 80-year-old Piano, who shot to fame with the design of the Centre Pompidou in Paris in the 1970s and decades later designed The Shard in London, lives in France but still keeps an office near Genoa.

The project was announced after a discussion between the regional governor of Liguria, Giovanni Toti, and Piano.

“My commitment is above all moral, to make sure that the new bridge has the traits of Genoa, of our qualities and a little of our parsimony,” Piano told reporters after the meeting. “I can’t think of anything else but that bridge.”

Italy’s populist government has pledged to strip the state concession to the toll road company that managed the bridge, and to have it rebuilt quickly, preferably by the state-controlled Fincantieri.

The collapsed bridge, completed in 1967, was seen as an avant-garde work of engineering at the time, and became a symbol connecting two sides of a city that snaked along the seashore.

“Renzo Piano voluntarily offered, as a competent Genovese, to give this new bridge project as gift to the city,” Toti said. “We happily accepted the help, and he’s already made a few proposals.”

Instagram: Users Can Now Evaluate Authenticity of Accounts

Photo-sharing app Instagram’s more than 1 billion users will now be able to evaluate the authenticity of accounts, weeks after parent Facebook Inc rolled out similar measures in a bid to weed out fake accounts on its social media platform.

Instagram said on Tuesday it will launch the “About This Account” feature that will allow users to see the advertisements an account is running, the country where the account is located, username changes in the past year as well as other details.

“Keeping people with bad intentions off our platform is incredibly important … that means trying to make sure the people you follow and the accounts you interact with are who they say they are, and stopping bad actors before they cause harm,” Instagram co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Mike Krieger said.

Instagram also said it will allow the use of third-party apps such as DUO Mobile and Google Authenticator for two-factor authentication to help users securely log in to their accounts.

Two-factor authentication adds an extra layer of security on top of usernames and passwords by prompting users for information they have access to.

Earlier this month, Facebook introduced this feature for users who managed pages with a large U.S. following, seeking to make it harder to administer a page using a fake or compromised account.

These features will be broadly available in the coming weeks, the photo-sharing app said in a blog post.

Starting Tuesday, Instagram will allow accounts with a large reach to request verification through a feature within the app, it said.

US Trade Chief: Both US, Mexico Winners in New Pact

The tentative new U.S. trade deal with Mexico is a win for both countries, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer believes, creating more jobs for workers and farmers alike.

Final details have yet to be worked out in the trade deal announced Monday, and Canada could join it yet in a broad revision of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement.  But some of the specific terms in the U.S.-Mexican agreement are aimed at boosting the manufacture of cars in the two countries to curb the import of vehicles from Asia, especially from China.

To escape tariffs, the deal calls for 75 percent of “auto content” – parts and amenities – to be made in either the U.S. or Mexico, up from the current 62.5 percent North American content.  In addition, wages for some auto workers in Mexico are likely to climb sharply, with the agreement decreeing that 40 to 45 percent of the auto content must be produced by workers earning $16 or more an hour.

The average hourly pay for U.S. auto workers is more than $22 an hour, but in Mexico it is now less than $3.50 an hour.  With the increase in labor costs, it likely will boost the cost of buying a vehicle.

“I think it’s going to modernize the way we do automobile trade, and I think it’s going to set the rules for the future at the highest standards in any agreement yet negotiated by any two nations for things like intellectual property, and digital trade, and financial services trade, and all of the things that we think of as the modernizing, cutting-edge places that our economy is going,” Lighthizer said.

“So this is great for business,” he said.  “It’s great for labor.  It has terrific labor provisions in it.  Stronger and more enforceable labor provisions than have ever been in an agreement by a mile.  Not even close.”  

However, lawmakers in both countries still need to approve the pact in the coming months.

Some of the agreement mirrors elements contained in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the 12-nation Pacific Rim trade pact that Mexico and the U.S. both agreed to, before President Donald Trump withdrew the United States.  It requires Mexico to allow more collective bargaining for workers and calls for more stringent air quality and marine life protections.

The accord is set to last for six years, at which point the United States and Mexico will review it, and if both sides agree, they would extend it for 16 more years.

But the agreement does not end steel and aluminum tariffs Trump imposed on Mexico earlier this year, leading to Mexican levies on U.S. imports.  

Trade between the U.S. and Mexico totaled an estimated $615.9 billion in 2017, with the U.S. exporting $63.6 billion more in goods and services than it imported.

Trump spoke Monday with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about trade negotiations between the two countries.  Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland headed to Washington to open new trade talks with Lighthizer, but it was uncertain whether the two countries could quickly resolve long-standing disputes over duties on autos and dairy products that for months have kept them from a NAFTA revision.  

 

 

Venezuela’s Warao Struggle to Adapt to Brazil Camp

Among the things that the Baudillo Centeno family brought from Tucupita (Venezuela) to Brazil is a big roll of a natural fiber called fique.

“I knew we were going to need it,” said his mother, Maria Centeno, whose age is unknown even to her children.

Centeno and her family are Warao, members of an indigenous community that lives in the Orinoco Delta of Venezuela and in bordering countries such as Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago.

They use fiber extracted from the leaves of the fique to weave hammocks, hats and plates.

Since the Centeno family arrived in Boa Vista, a city in northeastern Brazil, their source of income is selling crafts, re-selling copper and asking for money on the street.

They are living in the Pintolândia shelter in Brazil.

Hundreds of hammocks

Six hundred 34 people from indigenous communities in Venezuela are living in the shelter provided by Brazil’s government and by non-governmental agencies like the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA).

The shelter is actually an adapted sports center. Hundreds of hammocks, provided by the NGOs, are hung in the open space for places for the refugees to sleep. There are also several tents where Venezuelan migrants live and rest. Every day at dusk, an area is adapted for children to play soccer.

The Waraos, a name that means “boat people,” are one of the indigenous groups who have been forced to leave their territory due to the economic and political crisis in Venezuela. According to UNHCR, food shortages, unbridled inflation and violence are some of the factors that have pushed them to cross borders seeking humanitarian aid.

There are about 20,000 Warao in Venezuela.

Jesús Gutiérrez, chief of his Waraos tribe, says that the situation in Venezuela affects his people in a particularly crude way.

“Most of the Warao do not have a salary. We are farmers and artisans, but there is no one who buys [our products] in Venezuela,” he said.

But not many in Brazil are buying either. The Centeno family say that their fique products are not selling well and most of the time, they have to beg for money on the street.

On occasion men have asked younger Centeno females for sex in exchange for money.

“The [men] arrive and show you the money. Once, a guy told me, you’re so pretty, what are you asking for [money]?” said 19-year-old Erica Gonzales.

Missing home

Warao tribes are composed of several families. Gutiérrez’s, for example, has 600 members, of which 75 are in Boa Vista. One of the particularities of the immigration of the indigenous groups, said Helena Souders, coordinator of ADRA, is that they usually travel in big family units.

In Pintolândia and in five other refugee camps in Boa Vista, ADRA provides migrants with hygiene, domestic and kitchen kits. In this particular settlement, explains Souders, they try to adapt to the needs of the indigenous people. For instance, they hand out hammocks instead of mattresses and they distribute uncooked food, so the refugees can prepare meals on charcoal fires.

However, both Gutiérrez and members of the Centeno family say that in Venezuela they slept on mattresses.

“Sleeping in hammocks was done before … there are very few who still do it,” said Erica Rodrígez, Centeno’s granddaughter, who left her career as an agro-industrial engineer when she immigrated to Brazil.

Chief Gutiérrez says that sometimes problems arise in coexistence. “We are not used to sleeping like this, all together.” He adds that what bothers him the most is having to keep an eye on his possessions, such as spoons and plates, so they do not get stolen.

However, he says,  as hard as it is to adapt to living in a camp, to a certain extent he is better here than in Venezuela, where he struggled to find a way to feed his family.

Although grateful for the help he is receiving, Baudillo Centeno says that he feels locked up in the shelter.​

WATCH: A peek inside the shelter

His mother, Maria Centeno, has a one-month old grandhchild, who was born in Boa Vista. She feels that the little one “does not live free.” In Venezuela, says Centeno, “we lived more open and close to the river. We listened to the animals, as they sang. Here we only hear the cries of our babies.”

She says that she prays for the other Venezuelans who, like her, want to come to Boa Vista: “There is no room for more people”.

US, Canada Set for Talks to Revise NAFTA

With a deal with Mexico out of the way, U.S. trade officials are due to resume talks with Canada on Tuesday to try to salvage the North American Free Trade Agreement as a trilateral accord.

After months of intense negotiations, the United States and Mexico announced an agreement Monday on a thorough overhaul of the 25-year-old free trade pact but President Donald Trump suggested he could cut Ottawa out.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stressed in a phone call with Trump on Monday the aim was to reach a new NAFTA deal.

The leaders “had a constructive conversation” on NAFTA, and “look forward to having their teams engage this week with a view to a successful conclusion of negotiations,” Trudeau’s office said.

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland interrupted a trip to Europe to rush back to Washington to begin talks with US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.

But it remains unclear when the trade officials will begin their discussions or whether the first meeting will happen Tuesday after all.

Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto and President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador both said NAFTA should remain a trilateral deal.

The outlines of a NAFTA 2.0 are now on paper, including provisions on auto trade, tougher worker protections and a provision to review the deal every six years.

“It’s a really good deal for both countries,” President Trump said in announcing the agreement from the Oval Office.

Negotiators have worked for a year to update and rewrite NAFTA but in the last five weeks Washington and Mexico City held talks to resolve their bilateral issues, especially on the auto industry rules, without Ottawa.

Trump stressed that he could go ahead without Ottawa in the new agreement.

“We could have a separate deal or we could put it in the same deal,” Trump said.

He indicated he would take a tough line with Canada on autos and dairy tariffs, long a source of tension between the neighboring countries.

Time pressure

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow reiterated that point on Tuesday, saying the United States would not accept continued steep tariffs on dairy exports.

“There’s a word that Canada has trouble with — it’s M-I-L-K,” Kudlow said on Fox News.

The Canadian government effectively sets production quotas and the price of milk, which ends up costing consumers a bit more but provides farmers with a stable income.

The system has been in place since the 1970s and has survived several attempts to undo it — as well as the prohibitive tariffs that limit foreign imports.

However, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the administration was keen to get Canada on board quickly.

“The US market and Canadian markets are very intertwined,” Mnuchin said on CNBC. “It’s important for them to get this deal and it’s important for us to get this deal.”

There is some urgency as the United States seems eager to have the issue resolved before the November midterm elections, and Pena Nieto wants to sign it before handing the reins over to Lopez Obrador on December 1.

But Canada may not feel the pressure to hurry, especially at the expense of a good deal.

Trudeau’s government also faces political pressure with elections due in a year, which could make him wary of being seen as capitulating to Trump, especially on the sensitive dairy supply management system.

Freeland’s spokesman Adam Austen said in a statement Canada would “only sign a new NAFTA that is good for Canada and good for the middle class. Canada’s signature is required.”

Mexican officials have insisted all along that the NAFTA must be a trilateral deal, but also acknowledged that either way their country would have free trade commitments with both nations.

Lighthizer said the administration would notify Congress by Friday of the new agreement, which would allow the required 90 days’ notice to get the pact signed by December 1.

However, legislators and former US trade officials say the White House does not have the authority to replace NAFTA with a two-nation trade agreement, and must have the text of the treaty ready by September 30.

Not a sunset clause

The Canadian team could be more amenable to the talks now that the United States has backed away from a controversial and strenuously-opposed provision to require the three nations to renegotiate NAFTA after five years.

Instead, senior US officials told reporters the agreement had been extended for 16 years but would be reviewed every six years.

“It’s an alternative to sunset which we think works,” another senior official said.

A key element of the U.S.-Mexico talks has been content requirements for autos produced in the region in order to qualify for duty-free NAFTA treatment, which Mexico agreed to increase to 75 percent from 62.5 percent.

The two sides also agreed that 40-45 percent of vehicles must be made at “high wage” factories where workers receive $16 an hour, something that could deter off-shoring US auto manufacturing to Mexico.

 

 

 

As Tesla Deals With Internal Woes, Rivals Make Their Move

While Tesla grapples with internal issues like production delays, a sometimes-erratic CEO and a recent about-face on whether to go private, its rivals are moving aggressively into the luxury electric vehicle space.

In the next few days, German competitors Mercedes-Benz and Audi, the luxury arm of Volkswagen, are both showing off production-ready electric sport-utility vehicles aimed at Tesla’s Model X.

Meanwhile Jaguar Land Rover offers the I-Pace electric SUV while further out, Porsche is taking on Tesla’s Model S high performance luxury car with the Taycan, expected to reach the market in late 2019.

The established carmakers have multiple motives. They need zero driving emissions vehicles to meet tougher greenhouse gas limits coming into effect in Europe in 2021. Diesel is in the doghouse. And China, a major market, is pushing hard for more electrics.

But the new models will also aim to win back some of the luxury customers drawn away by Tesla’s electric vehicles at a time when the company is consumed by multiple distractions . Its CEO, Elon Musk, took to Twitter on Aug. 7 to abruptly announce he had secured funding to take his company private, only to turn around 17 days later to say that Tesla would remain public . The electric carmaker is also facing financial pressure, with a $230 million debt payment that’s due in November on top of the $920 million that must be paid off three months later. And it has only recently hit production targets for its Model 3 mass-market vehicle.

In the meantime, its rivals — who had emphasized diesel and hybrids — are finally rolling out the leading edge of what they say will be a slew of all-electric models. Their latest offerings are “the vanguard” of more to come, said Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, director of the Center for Automotive Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen.

“By 2020, Tesla must stabilize itself or be overtaken,” he said.

The new entrants challenge what has been one of Tesla’s key selling points: range. The EQC sport utility crossover from Daimler AG’s luxury brand Mercedes, for instance, should go up to 500 kilometers (300 miles) on a single charge. That’s comparable to Tesla’s SUV, the Model X, which has a range of up to 295 miles. The EQC, to be unveiled outside of Stockholm on Sept. 4, is the first in the Mercedes EQ sub-brand that bundles the company’s efforts in electric, connected and autonomous driving. Media representatives didn’t provide a price ahead of the unveiling.

Volkswagen’s Audi will show off its e-tron in San Francisco on Sept. 17. It offers more than 400 kilometers (248 miles) on a single charge. The company says the e-tron should be able to use high-speed charger facilities — if they’re available — to charge in less than 30 minutes. The German price will be around 80,000 euros ($93,000) and it should go on sale near the end of the year in Europe, and next year in the U.S.

The Porsche Taycan will also pose a stiff challenge to Tesla’s Model S in terms of range: Porsche claims it can load enough power for 400 kilometers (248 miles) in just 15 or 20 minutes. The company hasn’t announced a price. The I-Pace, whose price starts at $69,500 before local and federal incentives, offers 292 miles (470 kilometers) under the tougher European Union standard. The Model S, meanwhile, has a range of up to 335 miles.

The starting price for Tesla’s Model X is around $80,700 while the Model S is around $74,500.

Not that Tesla is standing still while the competition laps it. Musk has said the company intends to develop a Model Y, a small SUV to be unveiled in the first half of next year — a growing sales category that other carmakers have been piling into as fast as they can.

But Tesla’s ambitions go way beyond the luxury electric vehicle market. That’s the whole point of the Model 3, which is aimed at the mass market with a starting price of $35,000 and an EPA range of 310 miles. But there, too, the company must go head to head with rivals. They include the BMW i3 with a starting price of $44,500 and an EPA range of 114 miles; the Nissan Leaf with a starting price of $30,000 and an EPA range of 151 miles; and the Chevrolet Bolt with a starting price of $37,495 and an EPA range of 238 miles. Nissan promises a longer range version of the Leaf for 2019 and in 2020, Volkswagen plans to launch a compact version of its all-electric ID lineup.

Tesla’s Supercharger network has a big advantage over competitors. The company’s website says it has 1,332 fast-charging stations with 10,901 charging units worldwide. Electric cars made by other manufacturers can’t use Tesla stations and public and private charging stations are sporadic. European carmakers are rolling out their own fast-charging highway network through a joint venture, but only a few stations are up and running.

Chris Hopson, manager of North American light vehicle forecasting for IHS Markit, said that established manufacturers are going electric not just in response to Tesla, “but because of a whole host of other things, with Tesla in mind.” New electrics serve “not just to alleviate some of sales going to Tesla but to also to grab hold of the ongoing trend globally toward electric vehicles.”

The electric push also comes in the wake of Volkswagen’s 2015 diesel scandal. The company’s illegal rigging of vehicles to cheat on emissions testing helped turn consumers off diesels. Falling diesel sales numbers make it harder for European car makers to meet lower fleet emissions requirements coming into force in the EU in 2021.

China is also pushing for more electric vehicles through regulation, requiring carmakers to ensure 10 percent of their fleets are electrics in 2019. Regulations limit foreign brands to about 4 percent of the market, with Tesla owning half that. Other carmakers such as BMW, Ford and GM work with local partners.

Analysts James J. Albertine and Derek J. Glynn said they do not see competition as a threat to Tesla, “but a validation of electric vehicle technology that will grow the global electric vehicle demand pie, of which Tesla is likely to maintain a significant share.”

Russia’s Putin Hints He’ll Dilute Unpopular Pension Reform

President Vladimir Putin hinted on Tuesday he was ready to soften an unpopular proposal to reform the pension system which has pushed his approval rating down to its lowest level in more than four years.

He said he would deliver his views in a public statement on the issue, perhaps as soon as Wednesday, adding he was aware of public unhappiness about the proposed reform and decisions had to be undertaken cautiously.

“I ask you not to forget that our decisions will affect the fates of millions of people and must be fair. One should not act mechanically, formally, but only take a balanced and cautious approach,” Putin said.

Lawmakers, in a preliminary vote in July, backed a government proposal to sharply raise the retirement age, part of a controversial budget package designed to shore up state finances.

Putin, who once promised never to raise the retirement age, had until now been careful to distance himself from the proposed reforms, which envisage raising the retirement age to 65 from 60 for men and to 63 from 55 for women.

Polls show that around 90 percent of the population oppose the proposed reform.

But on Tuesday he told a government meeting in the Siberian city of Omsk that he would soon intervene.

“In the nearest future, maybe even tomorrow, I will formulate my attitude [to the reform] in detail and will make the respective statement.”

Putin said any decision on the pension system had to be balanced and cautious. He said he was aware of the public’s extremely negative reaction to the proposed reform.

“Of course, all this has drawn a predictable reaction, a rather sharp discussion in public,” Putin said, adding that any changes in the pension age must provide a decent standard of living for Russia’s 147 million-strong population.

‘Politically sensitive’

The retirement age proposal is politically sensitive for Putin, who was re-elected in March, because it has prompted a series of protests across Russia since it was announced on June 14, the day Russia played the first match of its soccer World Cup.

According to opinion polls, Putin’s approval ratings have fallen to levels last seen before Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea which provided the Russian leader with a popularity boost.

Putin’s spokesman on Tuesday dismissed speculation that Putin had been pushed into addressing the issue by a drop in his approval ratings, however.

While Putin said authorities could not act “routinely” and “formally” when it came to reforming the pension system, he made clear that some kind of reform was needed though.

“… We need to take into account the current situation in the economy and the labor market, we must understand what the future holds for the country in 10, 20 and even 30 years,” Putin said.

He said he had asked the government to consult with political parties, public organizations and regional administrations to review the legislation before its second reading in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament.

Lawmakers passed the bill in the first reading in July. To become law, the bill must pass three readings in the State Duma and must then be approved by the upper house and finally signed into law by the president.

 

Threats Mount Over Dutch Cartoon Contest With Bounty Placed on Wilders

A Pakistani cricketer has offered a reward for the murder of firebrand anti-Muslim Dutch politician Geert Wilders for organizing a cartoon contest depicting Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

The incendiary bounty offer is adding to fears in the Netherlands that the cartoon competition, which was announced June 12, will lead to targeted violence, either in Holland or against Western targets in Pakistan, by religious militants including so-called Islamic State (IS) or assassins inspired by the terror group.

In 2015, two French militants who had sworn allegiance to al-Qaida massacred 12 people at satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo’s offices, ostensibly for the printing of cartoons of Muhammad.  The attack was the first in a wave of terrorism in France that has left more than 240 dead during the past three years.

Between 2,000 and 3,000 protesters in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, were prevented earlier this month from pelting the Dutch embassy with stones.  Protesters say the contest is sacrilegious.

Khalid Latif, who last year was banned from playing cricket for five years in a spot-fixing scandal, announced a $24,000 bounty on Wilders and his far-right party colleagues on Facebook.  Spot-fixing is predetermining the outcome of a particular passage of play, as opposed to fixing the outcome of a match.

Wilders has said he has more than 200 entries for the contest, which will be judged by American cartoonist and former Muslim Bosch Fawstin.

Because the judge is an American, Pakistani Islamists say the United States should also be blamed for holding the contest.  The Islamist party, Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), which has demanded Islamabad break diplomatic ties with the Netherlands, says “strict measures should also be taken against the U.S.”  

Pakistan’s new Prime Minister Imran Khan, a former international cricketer, has acknowledged the growing furor, promising in his maiden speech this week in the Pakistani Senate that he will raise the issue of blasphemous caricatures in the U.N. General Assembly.  “Very few in the West understand the pain caused to Muslims by such blasphemous activities,” said Khan.

Wilders’ Dutch Party for Freedom, which opposes Muslim immigration to the Netherlands, is the second-largest in the Dutch parliament.  Wilders tweeted he had received clearance from the Dutch counterterrorism agency to hold the competition in the PVV’s parliamentary offices.

Wilders’ Dutch critics say the contest is needlessly provocative and Prime Minister Mark Rutte has denounced the competition as “not respectful,” but he has refused Pakistani demands for the contest to be banned, arguing the Netherlands values freedom of speech.

Three years ago, the Dutch parliament turned down Wilders’ plan to hold an exhibition of anti-Islam cartoons inside the legislature’s complex, saying “exhibitions in parliament must focus on the role of parliament and should not offer a platform to party political statements or be controversial.”

Khan says he will campaign for a global ban on cartoons of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.  A pledge secular-minded critics of the new prime minister say is playing politics with religion.  Khan has condemned religious killings, but he supports an article in Pakistan’s constitution mandating the death penalty for any “imputation, insinuation or innuendo” against Muhammad.

“Less than a week in office, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has made blasphemy one of his first issues, empowering militants and initiating international moves, long heralded by Saudi Arabia, that would restrict press freedom by pushing for a global ban,” argues James Dorsey, an analyst at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

On Monday, Pakistan’s Senate approved a unanimous resolution condemning the caricature contest, saying that it “considers the proposed competition tantamount to inciting hatred, racial prejudice, unrest, conflict and insecurity in a world that has already seen much bloodshed, racism, extremism, intolerance and Islamophobia.”

The furor over Wilders’ contest echoes Muslim protests 13 years ago against a Danish newspaper for publishing cartoons depicting Muhammed in bad light.  The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a dozen editorial cartoons in 2005, saying it was an attempt to contribute to the debate about criticism of Islam and self-censorship. One of the cartoons showed the prophet with a bomb in his turban. Anger about the publication built up over time.

Now, as then, hardline Islamists began to jump on the controversy.

Last week, the head of an influential madrassa in Lahore, radical spiritual leader Mufti Muhammad Abid Jalali, warned, “In the name of so-called freedom of speech, the West continues to publish blasphemous texts and images.  Even certain animals are sometimes used, while knowing how sensitive that is in Islam.  If the West perseveres in this, it can expect an appropriate response.”

He told Dutch reporters, “Islam is above all a religion of peace, and we condemn all terrorist groups that commit violence on behalf of Islam.  But if non-Muslims have no respect for the prophet, peace with him, or ridicule Islam, as is happening in the Netherlands, we have no choice but to respond.”

Russia to Hold Biggest War Games in Nearly Four Decades

Russia will next month hold its biggest war games in nearly four decades, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday, a massive military exercise that will also involve the Chinese and Mongolian armies.

The exercise, called Vostok-2018 (East-2018), will take place in central and eastern Russian military districts and involve almost 300,000 troops, over 1,000 military aircraft, two of Russia’s naval fleets, and all its airborne units, Shoigu said in a statement.

The maneuvers will take place at a time of heightened tension between the West and Russia, which is concerned about what it says is an unjustified build-up of the NATO military alliance on its western flank.

NATO says it has beefed up its forces in Eastern Europe to deter potential Russian military action after Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014 and backed a pro-Russian uprising in eastern Ukraine.

The war games, which will take place from September 11-15, are likely to displease Japan which has already complained about what it says is a Russian military build-up in the Far East.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is due to attend a forum in Vladivostok over the same period, and a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said on Tuesday Tokyo always paid attention to shifts in Russian-Chinese military cooperation.

Shoigu said the war games would be the biggest since a Soviet military exercise, Zapad-81 (West-81) in 1981.

“In some ways they will repeat aspects of Zapad-81, but in other ways the scale will be bigger,” Shoigu told reporters, while visiting the Russian region of Khakassia.

The Russian Ministry of Defense has said that Chinese and Mongolian military units will also take part in the exercise.

‘A more assertive Russia’

When asked if the cost of holding such a massive military exercise was justified at a time when Russia is faced with higher social spending demands, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said such war games were essential.

“The country’s ability to defend itself in the current international situation, which is often aggressive and unfriendly towards our country, means [the exercise] is justified,” Peskov told reporters on a conference call.

When asked if China’s involvement meant Moscow and Beijing were moving towards an alliance, Peskov said it showed that the two allies were cooperating in all areas.

China and Russia have taken part in joint military drills before but not on such a large scale.

NATO spokesman Dylan White said that Russia had briefed the alliance on the planned exercise in May and that NATO planned to monitor it. Russia had invited military attaches from NATO countries based in Moscow to observe the war games, an offer he said was under consideration.

“All nations have the right to exercise their armed forces, but it is essential that this is done in a transparent and predictable manner,” White said in an emailed statement.

“Vostok demonstrates Russia’s focus on exercising large-scale conflict. It fits into a pattern we have seen over some time: a more assertive Russia, significantly increasing its defense budget and its military presence.”

Shoigu this month announced the start of snap combat readiness checks in central and eastern military districts ahead of the planned exercise.

“Imagine 36,000 armored vehicles – tanks, armored personnel carriers and armored infantry vehicles – moving and working simultaneously, and that all this, naturally, is being tested in conditions as close as possible to military ones,” Shoigu said on Tuesday.

 

Berlin Offers Police Help After Violent Far-Right Protest

Germany’s top security official offered to send federal assistance to the eastern state of Saxony on Tuesday following violence during a far-right protest in the city of Chemnitz that left at least 18 people injured.

The protest late Monday, sparked by the killing of a 35-year-old German man in an altercation with migrants over the weekend, erupted into clashes between neo-Nazis and left-wing counter-protesters. Opposition parties criticized police for failing to prevent the violence.

“The police in Saxony are in a difficult situation,” Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said. “Should it be requested, the federal government will provide police support.”

He was backed by Chancellor Angela Merkel, who condemned the violence.

“Should Saxony need help to maintain law and order, and to uphold the law, the federal government stands ready,” she said.

Saxony’s police chief Juergen Georgie acknowledged authorities had underestimated the size of the protest. Initial estimates had forecasts about 1,000 far-right protesters and half that number of counter-protesters would descend on Chemnitz, he said.

In the end, some 600 officers struggled to prevent 6,000 supporters of the far-right from breaking through police lines. Footage showed demonstrators performing Nazi salutes and chanting “the national resistance is marching here!”

Georgie said the police presence in Chemnitz would be stepped up in the coming days, with more protests planned.

Green lawmaker Konstantin von Notz urged Seehofer to consider resigning, accusing him of fanning anti-migrant sentiment over the past year. Von Notz told the news portal t-online.de that the violence in Chemnitz recalled events elsewhere in eastern Germany during the early 1990s, when authorities failed to stop far-right mobs from attacking migrants.

The state of Saxony has long been a hotbed of anti-migrant sentiment, with some accusing police of turning a blind eye to sympathizersin their own ranks. The far-right Alternative for Germany party received almost a quarter of the vote in Chemnitz last year.

Chemnitz police said they have arrested a 22-year-old Syrian and a 21-year-old Iraqi on suspicion of manslaughter in the stabbing death of the German man after a street festival early Sunday. Prosecutors said the killing was preceded by a verbal confrontation that escalated.

Saxony’s governor slammed far-right extremists for using the man’s death as a political tool and for spreading false information online about it. While the influx of migrants to Germany in recent years has resulted in a rise in violent crime, experts have noted that this is largely due to demographic factors: young men, who make up a large share of the migrant population, are generally more likely to commit crimes, whether they’re German or foreign-born.

Governor Michael Kremtscher said authorities would swiftly and thoroughly investigate the killing but will also come down hard on those who had stoked violence in its wake, including attacks on migrants on the sidelines of the protest.

“We will show that we have a strong state,” he told reporters in Dresden, noting that pastfar-rightattacks in the state had demonstrated the need for grassroots efforts to prevent extremism.

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas expressed concern that Germany’s reputation could suffer as a result of violent far-right protests.

“We have to keep in mind that these are pictures that will be seen abroad,” Maas told reporters in Berlin. “But I don’t think that what was seen there even comes close to reflecting the reality in Germany. I firmly believe that the majority of people living in this country want an open and tolerant country.”

5-Person Sub Readies for Titanic Dive

The ocean has untold wonders waiting to be discovered. A U.S. company has developed an improved, ultra-deep diving submersible craft to search for them. It will take a 5-person crew as deep as 4000-meters, with the wreck of the Titanic its first deep sea destination. If the craft can withstand the staggering water pressure found several kilometers below the surface, it can explore the riches of an unknown world. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more.

Toyota to Invest $500 Million in Uber

Toyota will invest half a billion dollars into ride-sharing giant Uber as part of a deal for the two companies to work together on developing self-driving vehicles. 

Toyota, one of the world’s largest car makers, is seen as lagging behind other companies, including General Motors and Google’s Waymo, in the autonomous-vehicle race. 

Uber has already begun testing self-driving vehicles, but was forced to remove hundreds of autonomous cars from the road in March after one of its test vehicles struck and killed a pedestrian on a street in Tempe, Arizona. 

The deal between Uber and Toyota is an indication that Uber does not want to go it alone in creating the complex, autonomous driving systems. 

Self-driving cars have always been important to Uber, which sees them as a way to reduce the cost of carrying passengers. Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick had insisted on developing a proprietary self-driving system, however current CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has been working to develop more partnerships for the company. 

Uber has been doing safety evaluations since the March crash that killed a 49-year-old woman as she walked her bicycle across the street. The company took a step in July toward relaunching its vehicle testing in Pittsburgh, putting its self-driving cars back on the road in manual mode. 

Toyota has been cautious in its approach to self-driving vehicles and has focused on partial autonomous systems. However, the company says it plans to begin testing self-driving electric cars around 2020. 

Both companies aim to work together to solve the huge challenge of how to design and mass produce self-driving cars, which use computers, cameras and sensors to guide the vehicles.

Proponents of the new technology argue that self-driving cars will prove to be safer than human drivers because the cars will not get distracted and will obey all traffic laws.

Critics have expressed concern about the technology’s safety, including the ability of the autonomous technology to deal with unpredictable events.

On Foot, Venezuela’s Poor Seek Better Lives Across South America

During his two-week trek through the bitterly cold Andean mountains, penniless Venezuelan migrant Jesus Mendoza has eaten better than he has for months in his impoverished homeland.

“In Venezuela, I’d eat two meals a day if I was lucky,” said Mendoza, walking along the Pan-American highway with a tattered backpack. He illegally crossed an unguarded border into Ecuador from Colombia.

“Along the way, Colombians have been generous. They have given us food and water,” the 25-year-old carpenter told Reuters. “I’ve even been eating chicken, which is a luxury back home.”

An economic meltdown, growing poverty and medical shortages have forced more than 1.6 million Venezuelans to abandon the oil-rich nation since 2015, one of the largest mass migrations in Latin American history, the United Nations says.

Venezuela’s rich, skilled and university-educated left to find oil jobs and set up businesses abroad years ago.

Today’s wave of migrants are Venezuela’s poor and most desperate.

Without money for airfare, bus tickets or even a passport, thousands, some carrying babies in their arms, are on foot, walking to find what they hope are better lives in Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Brazil and Argentina.

Karina Mendez, 38, and her husband left Venezuela two weeks ago for Peru, where they hope to earn money for antibiotics and other medicine for their sick young daughter.

“When you can actually find the medicine you need, it’s too expensive to buy,” Mendez told Reuters, as they waited hours to hitch a ride with truck drivers.

With rampant hyperinflation — the International Monetary Fund forecasts Venezuela’s inflation could reach 1 million percent by year’s end — the monthly minimum wage barely covers the cost of a kilo of rice or flour.

Money has become so worthless that bills are used to make trinkets and souvenirs.

“With what you earn in a month, you can’t even afford to buy the basic things you need to survive. Food prices can rise 40 percent overnight,” said Rafael Barboza, another migrant walking along the windy highway.

‘Crisis moment’

Colombia has taken in the highest number of Venezuelans, about 870,000, and growing numbers are spreading across South America.

More than 4,000 Venezuelans poured into Ecuador every day during a record peak in mid-August.

Officials from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru are meeting in Bogota this week to seek a solution to the migration issue, which threatens to overwhelm the region.

The U.N.’s International Organization for Migration said last week a “crisis moment” is building, comparable to the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean.

“We need a regional response plan,” said Christian Visnes, country director in Colombia for the Norwegian Refugee Council. “As the exodus grows in scale and breadth, any unilateral action will have numerous consequences for other nations in the region.”

Peru this month tightened entry rules for Venezuelans, requiring passports instead of just national identity cards. A judge in Ecuador has postponed a similar rule for six weeks.

“These type of measures will not stop people from crossing borders. They will keep doing it,” Visnes said.

Yolanda Montenegro, who runs a private migrant shelter called Casa Hogar Jesus del Migrante in the Ecuadorian border town of Tulcan, said controls will fuel the numbers crossing illegally.

“Behind every migrant is a family waiting to be fed. It’s only logical that people will carry on regardless of any restrictions placed,” Montenegro said.

“Those benefiting are the human smugglers who use the desperation of people to gain profit.”

Cheap labor

More and more migrants have their hearts set on Peru, one of the fastest-growing economies in the region.

Some 350,000 Venezuelans have settled in Peru this year, up from 2,350 in 2015.

Peru is seen as having fewer work visa restrictions and offering the best chance of jobs as builders, cleaners, waiters and farm laborers.

“I’ve heard Peru has a good economy. My son found construction work there within weeks,” said 52-year-old Daniel Segura, a migrant and lorry driver, who hopes to join his son.

Migrants are also drawn to Ecuador where they can earn in U.S. dollars. It has become home to about 40,000 Venezuelans.

Many have made a new home in picturesque Ibarra, a two-hour drive from Ecuador’s mountainous border with Colombia, washing car windscreens at traffic lights, peddling sweets or working as cheap labor for local businesses.

Angel Mejia, 35, who came to Ibarra in March, works as a hotel cleaner and get tips from guarding parked cars at night.

The former supermarket manager earns less than half the nation’s monthly legal minimum wage.

“I’m just grateful to have work that allows me to send $40 a month to my wife and baby in Venezuela for their basic survival,” he said.

On the highway heading to Peru, 21-year-old Javier Caballero dragged a wheeled suitcase stuffed with blankets and a large cross, unfazed by measures to deter migrants.

“We’re not afraid of anything anymore. We’ll keep going. We’ve seen catastrophic things in Venezuela, people dying of hunger,” said Caballero.

“We have no passports but returning to Venezuela isn’t an option,” he said. “It would be going back to misery.”

Carnival-crazy Trinidad Seeks New Economic Muse in Culture

The word for the night was “heat.” With that prompt, spoken word artists delivered poems about love, sex, gangs, street food, public transport and even a trip to the barbershop.

Sipping beer and rum, the fashionable 100-strong crowd in this open-air performance space just off Ariapita Avenue, the bustling heart of Trinidad’s capital, snapped, clapped and cheered on the verbal dexterity.

The monthly slam poetry event is one of several cultural offerings that have emerged in recent years to liven up the slack period between the annual Carnival celebrations that flood Port of Spain’s streets with costumed revelers.

Trinidad and Tobago’s cultural ecosystem still revolves around Carnival, hooked to Ash Wednesday in February or March.

But arts advocates, creative entrepreneurs and government officials are seeking ways to stimulate a year-round scene that could build an economic alternative for a country otherwise dependent on oil and natural gas.

“I see the creative sector as being key in diversifying our national economy,” said Calvin Bijou, chairman of state-owned cultural promotion enterprise CreativeTT.

Besides rich oil and gas reserves, the twin-island Caribbean country has a wealth of cultural talent.

It is the birthplace of steel pan, widely believed to be the only non-electric, acoustic instrument invented in the 20th century, and the origin of calypso.

Those musical traditions blend with folk crafts like wire-bending and costume design in Trinidad’s world-famous Carnival. Since 2014, it has brought an annual average of 36,000 visitors to the island, who spend some TTD 324 million ($48 million).

But spreading culturally driven economic activity throughout the year is a tough task, and has sparked debate over whether a small island state should focus on audiences at home or abroad.

Backyard Theatre

The spoken word event, “True Talk No Lie,” began in 2013 to capitalize on the Carnival off-season.

It runs from March through November, when the cultural calendar heats up again, with parties showcasing the latest soca hits ahead of the next Carnival.

Poets hit the stage at The Big Black Box, a re-purposed backyard in the former residence of a respected playwright.

Multimedia production outfit 3canal renovated the space in 2014 as a simple “black box” theater with a mango tree soaring through the roof.

In the off-season, the venue hosts weekly live shows and rehearsals for annual productions.

It has also become an incubator for taking Trinidadian arts abroad. Two of 3canal’s rising stars toured Pride and carnival events in Britain and the Netherlands this summer, and ensemble members will perform at the National Theatre of Scotland in November.

In the run-up to Carnival, there are nightly rehearsals for 3canal’s annual show, culminating in Friday night “backyard jams” where spectators can get a taste of the work in progress.

Inside the restored gingerbread house, 3canal maintains a recording studio, office and merchandise store. Having its own infrastructure has allowed the ensemble to escape the constraints of Trinidad’s seasonal cultural scene.

“The convenience of having your own base out of which to explore, express and experiment can’t be beat,” 3canal’s artistic director Wendell Manwarren told the Thomson Reuters Foundation as dancers rehearsed in the courtyard.

“With our new album, we could luxuriate and take our time – as opposed to that Carnival pressure cooker.”

The Big Black Box has joined a cluster of historic residences converted for cultural use within a few blocks of each other in the Woodbrook neighborhood.

A decade ago, a trio of creatives established an artist residency program called Alice Yard. In 2011, Medulla Art Gallery opened to showcase contemporary Caribbean art, while older establishments like the Little Carib Theatre, built in 1947, round out the scene.

Carnival remains the center of gravity for some activities like the #1000mokos project in Alice Yard, which teaches a new generation of stilt walkers – moko jumbies in Carnival parlance.

Visual art is less in thrall to the Carnival rhythm, finding a larger audience through the quiet season. In May, a show opening and talk by an up-and-coming painter packed out the subterranean Medulla gallery.

Global or Local?

But as Trinidad’s cultural scene grows, it faces a key question: should it prioritize local audiences or export abroad?

For Rubadiri Victor, president of the Artists’ Coalition of Trinidad and Tobago and a former advisor to the arts minister, the answer lies overseas.

When in government from 2013-2014, he fought unsuccessfully to expand the mission of Pan Trinbago, the world body for steel pan set up by Trinidad, to “make pan and rhythm sections the festival music of Planet Earth.”

He wanted the country’s best steel pan bands playing the world’s top festivals, including the dozens of Caribbean-style carnivals in cities globally, which he estimates generate some TTD 15 billion ($2.23 billion) in revenues per year.

He pointed to examples of Trinidadian cultural success abroad – from several Olympic opening ceremonies choreographed by Carnival artist Peter Minshall in the 1990s and early 2000s, to the popular steel pan band that accompanied fans to Germany for Trinidad’s first-ever World Cup appearance in 2006.

But exporting Trinidadian culture requires public funding and support, Victor noted. “If you don’t have those enablers, it’s just difficult,” he said.

3canal’s Manwarren is more interested in local audiences.

“We tend to focus too much on outside validation,” he said. “We need to break through to ourselves.”

The government, meanwhile, is trying to straddle both lines.

It runs youth programs to teach steel pan, maintains a national artist registry, and coordinates mentorship by master artists – including Manwarren, who teaches live show production.

It hopes to offer funding for artists to showcase their skills abroad, but lacks a national cultural policy that would streamline such opportunities, though public consultations are underway to develop one.

“The cultural has to be seen as a political tool and priority, alongside energy, trade and manufacturing,” said Ministry of Arts official Marlon De Bique.

($1 = 6.7070 Trinidad & Tobago dollars)

Tarnished by Bailout, Greek PM Eyes Reshuffle Before Election

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras saw his interior minister take up a key post in his leftist Syriza party on Monday, heralding a cabinet reshuffle to shore up waning support after painful bailouts.

In a rousing speech, Tsipras ruled out early elections, telling his party faithful that polls would be held as scheduled in the autumn of 2019, but that his government and the Syriza movement needed ‘new blood.’

The country emerged from the biggest bailout in economic history last week but jaded Greeks found little reason to celebrate after nine years of cuts and job losses.

“It will be the mother of all battles,” Tsipras declared, referring to the election next year, effectively firing the opening salvo to what appears to be a long-drawn out election campaign.

“To give all these battles victoriously we need to rally together, unity and renewal. Our country, the government and the party, need new blood and more appetite to get to work,” he said.

Greece holds parliamentary elections every four years, with the next expected by October 2019 at the latest.

Based on the latest three opinion polls conducted by Greek media, Syriza is trailing the main opposition New Democracy conservatives by between 5.3 and 11.6 percentage points.

Panos Skourletis, the interior minister nominated by Tsipras to become new Secretary of Syriza’s Central Committee, is a party stalwart with widespread support at a grassroots level. He was backed by a wide majority of central committee members and was elected for the post late on Monday.

Tsipras was elected in 2015 promising to end years of austerity for Greece, imposed by international creditors. But he was forced to reverse course by the prospect of the country being kicked out of the euro zone and pursue deeper reforms under a third international bailout program.

“From now on… we no longer have the alibi of implementing a program which is not ours,” Skourletis told the central committee, adding that he saw potential for reform but also challenges for the party in the post-bailout period.

Austerity and political turmoil followed as the economy shrank by a quarter, pushing a third of the population into poverty and forcing the migration of thousands abroad.

The bailout programmes concluded last week. Greece has received 288 billion euros in financial aid since 2010.

Tsipras said the government now had the fiscal space to alleviate some tax burden on business and individuals, but was not specific. “We are ready to proceed with brave interventions,” he said.

Government officials have previously said the government may scrap plans for further pension cuts next year.

Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos, who steered the country’s exit from the third bailout, was likely to remain in his post, sources said.

Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias, instrumental in brokering an accord ending years of dispute with Macedonia over its name, was also  expected to stay on board.

Fernandez Lawyer: Argentine Corruption Scandal Takes a Toxic Turn

The scandal that started with a former Argentine official stashing cash in a convent and deepened when records of alleged bribe payments were published took new turn on Monday with accusations by a lawyer for former President Cristina Fernandez that a dressing room in her apartment might have been contaminated by a toxic substance.

More than a dozen construction company executives and officials from Fernandez’s administration have been arrested as result of a graft probe. The scandal threatens to damage Argentina’s already ailing economy and upset next year’s presidential election.

Investigators searched Fernandez’s Buenos Aires apartment last week, looking for evidence. On Monday she posted on her Facebook page a statement from her lawyer saying domestic employees cleaning her dressing room after the search became mysteriously ill.

“An extraordinarily grave situation arose in the residence,” the statement by lawyer Carlos Alberto Beraldi said.

He described cleaning personnel suddenly beset by “dizziness, strong itching in the throat and eyes and breathing difficulties.” It said the cleaners were treated at a hospital.

“It was found that the ailments were caused by contact with a toxic substance, and it was recommended to avoid re-exposure to the same environment,” the statement said. “For this reason, my client decided not to return to the apartment until there is an examination of the place and the items that were subject to manipulation during the raid.”

A government spokeswoman declined to comment. Fernandez denies wrongdoing and says she is being persecuted by President Mauricio Macri. The two may face off in next year’s presidential election.

Fernandez has been indicted on charges she ran a corruption scheme with her public works secretary, Jose Lopez, who was caught stashing millions of dollars in a convent near capital city Buenos Aires. Lopez has struck a deal giving him lenient treatment in exchange for his cooperation in the investigation, according to court documents.

He has been moved from jail to an unknown location.

A local newspaper this month published contents of notebooks kept by a chauffer employed by the Fernandez administration who said he transported bribe money from construction companies to public works officials from 2005 to 2015.

The scandal has further shaken confidence in an economy beset by high inflation and a tumbling peso currency.

The government on Monday unveiled a new system for increasing  transparency in the way public works contracts are awarded.

“We know that the so-called ‘notebooks case’ has generated uncertainty,” Transportation Minister Guillermo Dietrich told reporters.

UN: In Battles Over Land Rights, Activists Branded as Criminals

Governments and corporations are increasingly using legal persecution to portray indigenous activists as criminals and terrorists, putting them at heightened risk of violence, the United Nations said Monday.

Indigenous leaders and campaigners fighting to protect land from development are being stymied and silenced by rising militarization, national security acts and anti-terrorism laws, according to a report submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Globally, up to 2.5 billion people live on indigenous and community lands, which make up more than half of all land worldwide, but they legally own just 10 percent, according to rights groups.

The U.N. report cited a “drastic increase” in violence against indigenous people actively opposing large-scale projects such as mining, infrastructure, hydroelectric dams and logging.

“It’s a new war,” said Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, who authored the report.

“It’s getting worse because many of the remaining resources in the world are found in indigenous territories,” Tauli-Corpuz told Reuters.

This month, an indigenous leader was murdered in Brazil, part of a battle over logging in the Amazon.

In Guatemala, seven indigenous members of farmers’ organizations advocating for land rights and political participation were killed, it said.

Last year, more than 200 activists were killed, the highest since 2002, according British campaign group Global Witness.

“In the worst instances, escalating militarization, compounded by historical marginalization, results in indigenous peoples being targeted under national security acts and antiterrorism legislation, putting them in the line of fire, at times literally, by the army and the police,” it said.

No global numbers

Governments and corporations are using legal means to designate indigenous people as trespassers subject to eviction, while arrests are made on vague charges or uncorroborated witness testimony, followed by long periods of pretrial detention.

Criminal charges have been filed against activists, showing prosecutors and judges colluding with companies and landowners in some cases, it said.

In Ethiopia, indigenous land rights defenders have been prosecuted and imprisoned under antiterrorist legislation, it said.

There are no tallies of criminal charges filed against indigenous peoples worldwide, but Tauli-Corpuz cited recent upticks in the Philippines, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Kenya, Mexico and Peru.

“What disarticulates a community? Arresting its leaders, criminalizing the leaders,” said Dinaman Tuxa, executive coordinator of Brazil’s Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples known as Apib, an umbrella group of advocacy groups.

Call Growing for Treaty to Ban Killer Robots

The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots is urging the United Nations to begin talks on a legally binding treaty to ban the use and development of lethal autonomous weapons systems. Representatives from more than 70 countries are attending a weeklong meeting of the Convention on Conventional Weapons, or CCW, to recommend future work on this issue.

The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots is a global coalition of 76 organizations in 32 countries. Members include Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Mines Action Canada and the Nobel Women’s Initiative. It began in April 2013 to pre-emptively ban lethal autonomous weapons systems, better known as killer robots.

Activists say momentum is building for states to negotiate a ban on the devices when the CCW holds its annual meeting in late November; however, the recommendation for further action is required during the current CCW meeting.

Since the last meeting in April, the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots reports 26 countries have joined the call for a ban. It says China is agreeable to a partial ban on the use of these weapons, though not on their development, and Russia has announced its support for a non-binding agreement.

Mary Wareham of Human Rights Watch, the coordinator of the campaign, says this is putting pressure on the United States and other countries to support a ban on fully autonomous weapons.

“All of the ingredients are there for states to take action now,” Wareham said. “It is just a matter of who is willing to be the bad guy and try and block this, and that is what we will know at the end of the week. … The CCW operates by consensus, and it is always an awkward thing to witness. We will find out on Friday if any country wants to block the consensus for the proposed mandate.” 

The proposed mandate is to negotiate a legally binding agreement by the end of 2019. During the last meeting, France, Israel, Russia, Britain and the United States emerged as potential spoilers — they all explicitly rejected moves to prohibit these weapons systems.

Activists say legally binding arrangements must be enacted to ensure human control over lethal fully autonomous weapons. To do otherwise, they say, would violate international ethical standards. They say it is not possible to hold killer robots accountable for acts that would amount to war crimes if triggered by a human.

Russian Court Jails Kremlin Critic Navalny Over Protest

A Russian court sentenced opposition leader Alexei Navalny to 30 days in jail on Monday after convicting him of breaking public protest laws, a move he said was illegal and aimed at stopping him leading a rally against pension reform next month.

Navalny, who was detained by police outside his home on Saturday, was found guilty of breaking the law by organizing an unauthorized Moscow rally on Jan. 28 which called for a boycott of what he predicted would be a rigged presidential election.

Under Russian law, the time, place and size of such protests must be agreed in advance with the authorities who have a track record of rejecting applications to rally in central Moscow and of suggesting less prominent locations instead.

Navalny, who was barred from taking part in the March presidential election over what he said was a trumped-up suspended prison sentence, has been repeatedly jailed for going ahead with such protests anyway despite official rejections.

The 42-year-old politician, who told the court he would never give up trying to organize street protests, said on Monday he believed the authorities were jailing him now, more than six months after his alleged offense, to stop him taking part in a protest planned for Sept. 9 against plans to raise the retirement age in Russia.

That is the same day as Moscow elects a new mayor, a contest expected to be easily won by incumbent Sergei Sobyanin, an ally of President Vladimir Putin, and authorities have rejected an application by Navalny’s supporters to rally in central Moscow.

‘Strange trial’

“This strange trial is happening with the single aim of not allowing me to take part in the protest,” Navalny told the presiding judge. “You and I both know it.”

As he was led out of the courtroom, he shouted out the date and time of the planned rally.

“Everyone come to the meeting,” he said. Navalny is hoping to tap into public anger over government plans to raise the retirement age to 65 from 60 for men and to 63 from 55 for women.

Opinion polls show most Russians strongly oppose the plan, which has been seen as responsible for a drop in Putin’s approval rating in recent months, prompting speculation that the Russian leader, whom Navalny has likened to an autocratic tsar, may decide to dilute the reform.

Putin, who makes a point of never saying Navalny’s name aloud when asked about him, has dismissed him as a troublemaker bent on sowing chaos on behalf of the United States.

Navalny has used protests and corruption exposes of the sometimes gilded lives of government officials to mobilize support. But many Russians, who still get much of their news from state TV which either ignores or derides him, say they do not know who he is.

EU Disagrees with Russia That Syrian Refugees Can Go Back

The European Union does not believe Syria is safe for refugees to go back, officials in Brussels said of a Russian push to have people return to the war-torn country and the international community to spend money on rebuilding it.

The bloc’s foreign ministers will discuss the matter in Austria later this week.

EU officials expect the bloc to stick to its line that it would not offer reconstruction money for as long as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — propped back to power by Russian and Iranian militaries — does not let the opposition share power.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said before talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel earlier this month that everything needed to be done for Syria refugees to return. “But the conditions are just not there. Russia would want us to pay for it but Syria under Assad is not safe,” said one EU official.

The EU has backed Syrian opposition groups in the multi-faceted war that has raged for more than seven years, largely because global and regional powers disagree on how to end it.

Workers Protest Shutdown of Tire Maker Pirelli’s Venezuela Plant

About 100 workers protested outside tire manufacturer Pirelli’s Venezuela plant on Monday after finding the gateslocked, ten days after the country announced a broad set of reforms including a massive hike in the minimum wage.

Employees were not told the plant would be shut, said union leader Luis Alvarez, who added it was not immediately known if it was temporary or if the operation had permanently closed its doors.

“Production was falling, but they always kept us on the job,” said worker Nicolas Altomaris, who was waiting at a gate for information. “Now they’ve made this decision to send us out without knowing if we’ll return.”

Union leaders say about 700 employees work at the plant. Pirelli and parent company China National Chemical Corp Ltd did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Venezuela’s Information Ministry also did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment.

On Aug. 17 President Nicolas Maduro ordered a 3,000 percent minimum wage increase while also requiring that companies leave prices of their products fixed amid a hyperinflationary crisis. Business leaders say the package is unsustainable and would force many firms to close their doors.

In the past, Pirelli Venezuela has temporarily halted operations due to a lack of raw materials. Currency controls make it difficult to import such materials, while price controls can at times force companies to sell below production costs.

The company, which supplies tires for Formula One, manufactures tires for cars, motorcycles, trucks and buses in Venezuela. It was acquired in 2015 by China National Chemical, known as ChemChina, which is owned by the Chinese government.

Multinational companies including Clorox Co and Kellogg Co have been steadily leaving the country amid shrinking demand caused by an economic collapse.

Maduro has said the country is victim of an “economic war” led by political adversaries with the help of Washington.

In Familiar Dance, Turkey Warms to Russia As US Ties Unravel

Relations between Turkey and Russia are cozy, prompting worries in the West of a potentially critical rift in the NATO alliance. But Turkey’s president may be engaged in a balancing act, tactically turning to Russia as ties with the United States further deteriorate over the detention of an American pastor.

President Donald Trump tweeted this month that U.S.-Turkey relations “are not good at this time!” and announced tariff hikes on the NATO ally, precipitating a nosedive in the Turkish currency. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was on the phone with Russia’s Vladimir Putin that same afternoon, when they promised more cooperation in the areas of defense, energy and trade.

Switching partners is becoming a familiar dance for Turkey, which is strategically situated between Asia and Europe and often caught in the geopolitical push and pull of the turbulent Mideast region. Despite his country’s economic vulnerability, Erdogan seemed to be signaling that it had alternatives to the traditional alliances that date from its Cold War role as a regional bulwark against Soviet power.

In Turkey’s view, “the U.S. has become even more threatening than Russia” due to strains over critical issues, Sener Akturk, an associate professor of international relations at Koc University in Istanbul, said. The perceived threat makes the U.S. “an ally that has to be paradoxically kept at arm’s length and even balanced against with Russian cooperation.”

Points of contention between the U.S. and Turkey include American military support for Kurdish fighters in Syria who are considered terrorists by Turkey; Turkish appeals to the U.S. to extradite Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric Turkey accuses of plotting a failed 2016 coup; and American pastor Andrew Brunson, who is being prosecuted in Turkey on terror-related charges.

A lever in Turkey’s diplomatic maneuvering is its pledge to buy a Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile defense system, with deliveries starting next year. U.S. and NATO officials say the Russian system conflicts with NATO equipment and would lead to security breaches.

Trump signed a defense bill this month that would delay delivery of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey. Separately, the U.S. president has criticized NATO allies, saying they should pay more for their defense and rely less on American support.

Koc University’s Akturk said the missile deal with Russia makes sense since Western allies have sometimes suspended military deals with Turkey because of political disputes and concerns about the country’s human rights record.

Meanwhile, Russia and Turkey have come a long way in restoring their rapport since the Turkish military shot down a Russian military jet in 2015 along the Turkish-Syrian border.

Erdogan and Putin have met at least 11 times since August 2016. Outgrowths of the frequent contact between the two regional powers include the resumption of a deal for a natural gas pipeline through Turkey and Russian plans to build a nuclear power plant in Turkey.

The rapprochement “demonstrates a striking level of pragmatism in this relationship,” Anna Arutunyan, a Moscow-based senior analyst for the International Crisis Group, said.

“The prospect of a friendly NATO member is very valuable for Moscow” as it aims to bolster its influence in the Middle East, Arutunyan said. “Turkey is a good avenue to do that. Syria has been a good avenue to do that.”

Russia, along with Iran, supports Syrian President Bashar Assad in his country’s long war. Turkey backs some groups fighting Assad. Despite their support for opposing sides, the two countries are working together.

Turkey has dropped its insistence on the immediate departure of the Syrian president, while Russia has allowed Turkey to conduct cross-border operations against Kurdish militants in Syria. Turkey has also asked Russia to restrain Assad from launching an all-out offensive against the last major rebel stronghold in Idlib province, on the border with Turkey.

“Russia and Turkey, within the Syrian context, need each other, and the relationship is far more robust,” said Aaron Stein, a senior fellow at the U.S.-based Atlantic Council. But he thinks Russia holds the upper hand, using the reconciliation to have Turkey bring the rebels under regime control.

Even if Putin and Erdogan find accommodation in Syria, their interests diverge further north in the Black Sea, a theater for conflicts since Russian and Ottoman imperial days. Russia’s war with Georgia a decade ago, its 2014 annexation of Crimea and ongoing military intervention in Ukraine have challenged Turkish influence and position in the Black Sea.

Russia’s moves prompted Erdogan to warn NATO in 2016 that the Black Sea, dubbed the “Turkish lake” under the Ottomans, was turning into a “Russian lake.” NATO now maintains a “tailored forward presence” with increased land, air and naval capabilities.

“Russia’s expansion makes the NATO alliance more and more significant for Turkey in the Black Sea,” the Crisis Group said in a June report, noting that Ankara has reversed a decades-long policy of keeping the Western military alliance out of the region.

Turkey’s position on the Black Sea points to what Akturk described as co-existing “a la carte alliances,” in which the Turkish government moves between Russia and the West depending on what’s at stake.

That makes it hard to know if Turkey’s pivot toward Moscow will last in a region of shifting allegiances and periodic crises. But it’s a remarkable turnaround in the three years since Putin described the downing of the Russian jet as a “stab in the back.”