U.S. President Donald Trump is now in the German port city of Hamburg for the start of the G-20 summit of the world’s leading economies. After a successful visit to Poland, the U.S. leader faces a difficult scenario at the G-20 that includes meetings with leaders of China, Germany, and Russia and a long list of contentious issues.  VOA Europe Correspondent Luis Ramirez reports from Hamburg.
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U.S. President Donald Trump urged the leaders of central and eastern European nations Thursday to enter into agreements to purchase U.S. energy exports, instead of relying heavily on imports from Russia.

“America stands ready to help Poland and other European nations diversify their energy supplies, so that you can never be held hostage to a single supplier,” Trump said in Warsaw, Poland, where he attended a meeting of 12 European nations.

Trump did not mention Russia, but many observers believed his remarks were meant to get the leaders to view the U.S. as a viable alternate source of energy.

In 2008, Russia cut supplies of natural gas to Europe during a dispute with Ukraine. Russia’s subsequent military intervention in Ukraine and its annexation of Crimea raised concerns about Europe’s over-reliance on Russian gas.

The meeting of the European nations, The Three Seas Summit, was attended by nations located around the Adriatic, Baltic and Black Seas. The nations are involved in an ongoing initiative to strengthen relations through energy, trade and infrastructure deals.

One of the goals of the Three Seas nations is to develop energy infrastructure that aligns with recent European Union efforts to more effectively merge gas pipelines to guard against supply disruptions, particularly from Russia.

The Trump administration hopes to export more liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the region. The U.S. has large inventories of low-priced natural gas and is constructing new terminals for shipping the gas overseas.

Trump’s comments were made one day before he is scheduled to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany.

FBI and several congressional probes are under way into whether Trump’s presidential campaign colluded with Russia when it interfered in the 2016 U.S. election.

Trump has dismissed or downplayed findings by the U.S. intelligence community that Russia meddled in the election with the intent of helping Trump win the presidency.
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A congressman seriously wounded by a gunman while practicing for a baseball game in June has been moved back into intensive care due to an infection, according to the hospital that has been treating him.

Rep. Steve Scalise, a Republican from Louisiana and the House Majority Whip, was shot in the hip when a gunman attacked a group of Republican members of Congress on June 14.

Also injured were congressional aide Zachary Barth, Capitol Police special agents Crystal Griner and David Bailey as well as Tyson Foods lobbyist Matt Mika.

Scalise was shot only once, but the bullet from the high-powered-rifle traveled from his left hip across his pelvis and shattered when it struck bone. He also suffered damage to a number of internal organs, which doctors have declined to discuss in detail. In the days following the shooting, Scalise was in critical condition, on the brink of death and faced numerous surgeries.

In late June, his condition improved, and he was moved out of intensive care at MedStar Washington Hospital Center in Washington.

The shooter, 66-year-old James T. Hodgkinson, was shot by police at the scene of the attack in Alexandria, Virginia, and later died as a result of his wounds.

The police investigation revealed Hodgkinson had purposely targeted Republicans.
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The U.S. Department of Justice said on Wednesday it had reached a settlement with national arts and crafts retailer Hobby Lobby to forfeit thousands of ancient artifacts illegally smuggled into the country from the Middle East.

Under the terms of the settlement filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York, Hobby Lobby Stores has agreed to forfeit the antiquities, which originated from the region of modern-day Iraq, as well as $3 million, federal prosecutors said in a statement.

“The protection of cultural heritage is a mission that (Homeland Security Investigations) and its partner U.S. Customs and Border Protection take very seriously as we recognize that while some may put a price on these artifacts, the people of Iraq consider them priceless,” Angel Melendez, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in New York, said in the statement.

Representatives for privately-held Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. could not immediately be reached by Reuters for comment.

The president of Hobby Lobby, Steve Green, is the chairman and founder of the Museum of the Bible, which is under construction in Washington, D.C., and on its website describes its collections as biblical objects and artifacts.

Prosecutors say that Hobby Lobby, which is based in Oklahoma City, began assembling a collection of historically significant manuscripts, antiquities and other cultural materials in 2009.

The following year an expert on cultural property law retained by Hobby Lobby cautioned company executives that artifacts from Iraq could have been looted from archaeological sites, advising the company to verify that those being sold had been obtained legally.

Despite that warning and other red flags, prosecutors say, Hobby Lobby in December 2010 spent $1.6 million to purchase more than 5,500 artifacts comprised of cuneiform tablets and bricks, clay bullae and cylinder seals. Cuneiform is an ancient system of writing on clay tablets.

A dealer based in the United Arab Emirates shipped packages containing the items to three different Hobby Lobby corporate addresses in Oklahoma City, bearing labels that falsely described their contents as “ceramic tiles” or “clay tiles” and the country of origin as Turkey.
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The issuance of U.S. visas, passports and other travel documents should be transferred to the Department of Homeland Security from the State Department, a consulting company commissioned by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has recommended in a report.

The study, by Insigniam Holding LLC, which was seen by Reuters, also urges extending foreign postings for U.S. diplomats by one year and ensuring overlap between arriving and departing diplomats to improve efficiency and impact.

The 110-page study was based on online surveys of 35,386 people within the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development as well as one-on-one interviews with about 300 workers. It was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Tillerson commissioned the study as he looks to reorganize the State Department to cut its budget by roughly 30 percent, as laid out in President Donald Trump’s budget proposal.

Influential members of Congress, which has the power of the purse, have made clear that they are not willing to institute such sharp budget reductions, which have contributed to anxiety and low morale among many State Department employees.

In the report, the consultants recommended that Tillerson “move issuance of passports, visas and other travel documents to Homeland Security.”

“There may be an opportunity to elevate efficiency and reduce cost by this change,” it said. “Indications are that doing so would elevate security at our borders.”

Jeffrey Gorsky, a former State Department consular official, said the idea of shifting visa issuance from the State Department had been around since the September 11, 2001, attacks, but that improved U.S. security had undercut the argument for this.

Such a shift, he said, would likely require congressional action and could erode the principle of “non-reviewability,” the current doctrine under which consular decisions may not be reviewed by the courts.

The report also called for crafting “a unifying, clear and vibrant mission” for the State Department and USAID, though the recommendations did not specify one; focusing on “front-line” staff at U.S. embassies and consulates rather than headquarters personnel; and improving management to measure performance, remove “poor performers” and update personnel policies.
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North Korea’s newly demonstrated missile muscle puts Alaska within range of potential attack and stresses the Pentagon’s missile defenses like never before. Even more worrisome, it may be only a matter of time before North Korea mates an even longer-range ICBM with a nuclear warhead, putting all of the United States at risk.

The Pentagon has spent tens of billions to develop what it calls a limited defense against missiles capable of reaching U.S. soil. The system has never faced combat or been fully tested. The system succeeded May 30 in its first attempted intercept of a mock ICBM, but it hasn’t faced more realistic conditions.

Although Russia and China have long been capable of targeting the U.S. with a nuclear weapon, North Korea is seen as the bigger, more troubling threat. Its opaque, unpredictable government often confounds U.S. intelligence assessments. And North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, has openly threatened to strike the U.S., while showing no interest in nuclear or missile negotiations.

“We should be worried,” said Philip E. Coyle III, a former head of the Pentagon’s test and evaluation office. North Korea’s latest success, he said, “shows that time is not on our side.”

U.S. officials believe North Korea is still short of being able to miniaturize a nuclear warhead to fit atop an intercontinental missile. And it’s unclear whether it has developed the technology and expertise to sufficiently shield such a warhead from the extreme heat experienced when it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere enroute to a target.

A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, said Wednesday, “We’ve still not seen a number of things that would indicate a full-up threat,” including a demonstrated ability to mate a nuclear warhead to an ICBM. “But clearly they are working on it. Clearly they seek to do it. This is an aggressive research and development program on their part.”

Davis said the U.S. defensive system is limited but effective.

“We do have confidence in it,” he said. “That’s why we’ve developed it.”

The Trump administration, like its recent predecessors, has put its money on finding a diplomatic path to halting and reversing North Korea’s nuclear program. While the Pentagon has highly developed plans if military force is ordered, the approach is seen as untenable because it would put millions of South Korean civilians at risk.

But diplomacy has failed so far. That’s why U.S. missile defenses may soon come into play.

Hitting a bullet with a bullet

The Pentagon has a total of 36 missile interceptors in underground silos on military bases in Alaska and California, due to increase to 44 by year’s end. These interceptors can be launched upon notice of a missile headed toward the United States. An interceptor soars toward its target based on tracking data from radars and other electronic sensors, and is supposed to destroy the target by sheer force of impact outside the Earth’s atmosphere. Sometimes likened to hitting a bullet with a bullet, the collision is meant to incinerate the targeted warhead, neutralizing its nuclear explosive power.

This so-called hit-to-kill technology has been in development for decades. For all its advances, the Pentagon is not satisfied that the current defensive system is adequate for North Korea’s accelerating missile advances.

“The pace of the threat is advancing faster than I think was considered when we did the first ballistic missile defense review back in 2010,” Rob Soofer, who is helping review missile defenses, told a Senate Armed Service subcommittee last month. Beyond what U.S. officials have said publicly about the North Korean nuclear threat, he said the classified picture “is even more dire.” Soofer didn’t provide details.

The escalating danger has led the administration to consider alternative concepts for missile defense, including what is known as “boost phase” defense. This approach involves destroying a hostile missile shortly after its launch, before the warhead separates from the missile body and decoys can be deployed. One proposed tactic would be to develop a drone capable of long-endurance flight and armed with a solid-state laser to destroy or disable a missile in flight.

These and other possible new approaches would add to budget strains already felt in the missile defense program.

President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 budget would cut $340 million from missile defense programs intended to deter a potential strike by North Korea, Iran or other countries. The Republican-led Congress has taken the first steps in rejecting the reduction. Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, the House Armed Services Committee chairman, declared last month that he was “astonished” Trump would propose trimming missile defense.

Thornberry’s committee voted last week to provide about $12.5 billion for missile defense in the 2018 fiscal year that begins in October, nearly $2.5 billion more than Trump’s request. The Senate Armed Services Committee also called for millions more than Trump requested. The full House and Senate are expected to consider the committees’ legislation, and the boost in missile defense money, later this month.
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