Nine people were hurt, including two children, when Croatian border police fired at a van full of illegal migrants that refused to stop.

Police said they discovered 29 people inside the van after it crossed the border from Bosnia.

The driver fled into the woods, and police were searching for him. 

The two wounded children were recovering in a hospital, and officials said their lives were not in danger.

“We are sorry about the children being injured in this incident,” Zadar town police chief Anton Drazina said. “Our priority is the fight against organized crime and protection of the state border and not against the migrants, but against the criminals who are unfortunately endangering the lives of the migrants by their smuggling activities.”

Police said most of the people in the van were from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Hundreds of thousands of migrants used the so-called Balkan route to cross into the European Union before the route was shut down. But a number of people still slip through.
…

your ad here

Reaction to U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to slap tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from American trading partners — including the European Union — came fast and furious, with threats of retaliation and warnings they risk sparking a trans-Atlantic trade war.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said the European bloc would respond by imposing penalties of its own on American exports.

“Today is a bad day for world trade,” said Cecilia Malmström, the European trade commissioner. EU officials previously informed the World Trade Organization of the bloc’s plan to levy duties on $7.2 billion worth of U.S. exports if the Trump administration proceeded with threats to impose a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and 10 percent on aluminum.

Canadian and Mexican officials also threatened retaliatory responses but have as yet not indicated which U.S. products they will target. Both countries had hoped that the White House would continue to exempt them from the tariffs. 

National security cited

Europe, along with Canada and Mexico, had been granted a temporary reprieve from the U.S. tariffs after they were unveiled in March by Trump, who said the levies were needed to stem the flood of cheap steel and aluminum into the U.S. and that to impose them was a national security priority.

In Europe, there was disappointment, but less surprise. 

Juncker called the U.S. action “unjustified” and said Europeans had no alternative but to respond with tariffs of their own and to lodge a case against Washington with the World Trade Organization in Geneva. “We will defend the union’s interests, in full compliance with international trade law,” he said.

The EU had already publicly announced that in the event tariffs did go ahead, it would impose levies on Levi-made jeans, Harley-Davidson motorbikes and bourbon whiskey.

British officials appeared the most alarmed. The government of Theresa May had pinned post-Brexit hopes on securing a trade deal with the U.S., and the imposition of tariffs on steel is adding to fears that negotiating a quick trade liberalization agreement with Trump looks increasingly unlikely.

“We are deeply disappointed that the U.S. has decided to apply tariffs to steel and aluminum imports from the EU on national security grounds,” a government spokesman said. “The U.K. and other European Union countries are close allies of the U.S. and should be permanently and fully exempted.”

Discussion at summit

He said the British prime minister planned to raise the tariffs with the U.S. president personally in Canada at a scheduled G-7 summit of the seven largest advanced economies. That summit is likely to be a frosty affair, much like last year’s in Taormina, Sicily. 

With a week to go before the June 7-8 summit, there’s still no final agreement on the agenda, British and Italian officials said. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had earmarked climate change, women’s rights and economic growth as key issues, but there has been pushback from Washington. Thursday’s tariff announcement by the White House will further complicate agreeing on a G-7 agenda.

German reaction to the announcement of the tariffs was among the fiercest. Chancellor Angela Merkel dubbed them “illegal.” Manfred Weber, a key ally of the German chancellor and leader of the biggest bloc in the European Parliament, accused the Trump administration of treating American allies as enemies.

“If President Trump decides to treat Europe as an enemy, we will have no choice but to defend European industry, European jobs, European interests,” he said. “Europe does not want a trade conflict. We believe in a fair trade regime from which everybody benefits.” 

Wilbur Ross, U.S. commerce secretary, who’s in Europe and has been pressing the EU to make concessions to avert the tariffs, dismissed threats of a trade war, saying retaliation would have no impact on the U.S. economy. He held out hope that the tariffs could be eliminated, saying, “There’s potential flexibility going forward. The fact that we took a tariff action does not mean there cannot be a negotiation.” 

Business leaders cautious

Some European business leaders have urged their national leaders to be restrained in response, fearing a tit-for-tat spiral could be triggered quickly. Britain’s Confederation of British Industry warned against overreaction, saying no one would win on either side of the Atlantic if a major trade war erupted.

The director of UK Steel, Gareth Stace, said he feared there was clear potential for a damaging trade war.

“Since President Trump stated his plans to impose blanket tariffs on steel imports almost three months ago, the U.K. steel sector had hoped for the best, but still feared the worst. With the expiration of the EU exemption now confirmed to take effect tomorrow [June 1], unfortunately, our pessimism was justified, and we will now see damage not only to the U.K. steel sector but also the U.S. economy.” 
…

your ad here

A Russian journalist, who helped stage his own death to avoid an alleged Russian plot to murder him, says the operation involved pig’s blood and him being transported to a morgue.

Ukrainian authorities disclosed Wednesday they planned his mock death after learning Russian security officials supposedly had ordered his murder a month ago.

In his first detailed accounting of the sting since its revelation, Arkady Babchenko said at a news conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, he could have chosen not to participate when he was approached about a month ago. Instead, he promptly agreed.

“I said, ‘Great!’ Why have you been waiting for a month?”

Babchenko said after he arrived at the morgue, he changed his clothes and began watching the news.  

A Kremlin spokesman said Thursday that Russia is glad Babchenko is alive, but called the staging of his death “strange.”

The prominent Russian war correspondent and Kremlin critic had been reported to be shot dead in the stairwell of his Kyiv apartment building on Tuesday. But Babchenko stunned reporters when he appeared alive and well Wednesday as Ukrainian security officials explained the death had been faked.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday he did not know if the result of the case justified the actions taken, and that the situation does not change Russia’s view that Ukraine is a dangerous place for journalists.

Reporters Without Borders condemned Babchenko’s fake death, saying it was “distressing and regrettable” for Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) to play with the truth.

“Was such a scheme really necessary? There can be no grounds for faking a journalist’s death,” said the group’s secretary-general Christophe Deloire.

On the ethics of the operation

Babchenko responded to the criticism in front of his colleagues Thursday at a news conference in Kyiv.

“Do you want to survive or do you want to preserve the ethics, morals, purity and spiritual standards of your profession? You are welcome to preserve the ethics, morals and purity of your profession. I chose the option to survive.”

At a televised briefing Wednesday, SBU chief Vasyl Hrytsak stood alongside Babchenko as he recounted events leading up to the foiled assassination attempt.

The operation began with a tip from an anonymous source who said an unidentified Ukrainian national had been inquiring about buying weapons for a contract killing in Kyiv, which triggered the SBU probe.  Officials said he had been asked to find and hire someone to carry out the assassination.

During the negotiations, Hrytsak said, the man claimed Russia’s Secret Service had offered him $40,000 to organize and carry out the hit. He said the suspect was a former separatist fighter who had fought in eastern Ukraine.

SBU investigators then recruited Babchenko into the sting operation designed to catch Russian agents in the act of conducting an extrajudicial killing on foreign soil.

Investigators said the intermediary who had been tasked with hiring the gunman was in custody, and officials said they had additional hard evidence linking Russia’s secret service to the assassination plot, though they did not provide details.

Apologies

Addressing reporters, Babchenko told his family he was sorry for faking his own death.

 

“I’d like to apologize for everything you’ve had to go through,” he said. “I’ve been at the funeral of many friends and colleagues, and I know this nauseating feeling. Sorry for putting you through this, but there was no other way.

 

“Special apologies to my wife for the hell she’s been through these two days,” he added. “Olya, forgive me, please, but there was no other option.”

 

Police reports that followed initial reports of the shooting say it was Babchenko’s wife who discovered him lying in a pool of blood at the entrance of their Kyiv apartment.

It is not clear whether his wife was involved in the sting.

“As far as I know, this operation took two months to prepare,” Babchenko told the briefing. “They saved my life. I want to say thank you.”

Tuesday’s news of the shooting shocked the Ukrainian capital, prompting Kyiv and Moscow officials to blame each for the reporter’s death.

 

Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman suggested Russia had orchestrated the killing, while Kremlin spokesman Peskov rejected that claim.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said after Babchenko’s reappearance Wednesday that Ukrainian officials had circulated a false story for purposes of “propaganda.”

Kyiv police and officials from Ukraine’s Interior Ministry had announced on Tuesday that Babchenko had died in an ambulance on the way to a hospital after being shot in the back at his home in Kyiv, where he has lived in exile since August 2017.

News of the 41-year-old’s reported death had shocked colleagues and added to tension between Moscow and Kyiv, whose ties have been badly damaged by Russia’s seizure of Crimea and backing for separatist militants in a devastating war in eastern Ukraine.

This story originated in VOA’s Ukrainian Service; some reporting by AP and RFE/RL.
…

your ad here

The European Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday that Romania and Lithuania allowed the detention and abuse of a Saudi and a Palestinian at secret U.S. prisons.

The Strasbourg, France-based court said Thursday that Abd al-Rahim Al Nashiri, a Saudi national later sent to Guantanamo Bay, was detained and abused in Romania between Sept. 2003 and Oct. 2005, and urged Romania to investigate and punish perpetrators.

The court concluded that Al-Nashiri was blindfolded, hooded, shackled, kept in solitary confinement, and subjected to loud noise and bright light during his detention at the CIA prison in Romania.

Romania denies hosting such CIA facilities. There was no immediate reaction from the government.

The court said Al Nashiri and Zubaydah were both considered “high-value detainees” taken by the CIA at the start of the U.S.-led “war on terror.”

Al Nashiri’s lawyer, Amrit Singh, called the ruling “a sharp rebuke to Romania’s shameful attempts” to conceal its hosting of a secret CIA prison.She was the lead lawyer on the case with the New York-based Open Society Justice Initiative.

Singh also noted the court’s decision in light of the appointment of new CIA Director Gina Haspel, who supervised a covert detention site in Thailand where terror suspects, including al-Nashiri, were waterboarded, an interrogation technique that simulates drowning.

“The European court’s ruling is critical for upholding standards of international law — that torture is absolutely prohibited and those involved in torture must be held to account,” said Singh. “It stands in stark contrast to the United States’ decision to promote Gina Haspel to CIA Director despite her role in my client’s torture.”

 The court also said that Lithuania hosted a secret CIA detention facility from February 2005 to March 2006 where Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian suspected of being a planner for the Sept. 11 attacks, was detained.

It ruled that Lithuania allowed him to be moved to another CIA detention site in Afghanistan, “exposing him to further ill-treatment.” He is currently detained at Guantanamo Bay and has not been charged.

Lithuanian authorities said they would consider appealing the court’s decision and may also investigate the claims again.

Justice Minister Elvinas Jankevicius told reporters that “we will take a decision after carefully examining,” the ruling. Vytautas Bakas, the chairman of the parliamentary committee for national security and defense, said he would propose opening a new probe.

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, however, contradicted the justice minister and said in a statement that the small Baltic country’s “reputation damage is done,” adding that Lithuania “thus will have to execute a court judgment” and pay Zubaydah 130,000 euros ($152,000). She has regularly clashed with the Lithuanian government and forced a minister to resign after expressing her distrust.

Amnesty International called the rulings “a key milestone in holding European governments accountable for their involvement in illegal CIA activities in the aftermath” of the 9/11 attacks.

Roisin Pillay, director of the International Council of Jurists’ Europe and Central Asia Program claimed that “many other European governments colluded with the U.S. to illegally transfer, `disappear’ and torture people during rendition operations and must also be held accountable.”

A 2009 investigation in Lithuania concluded that the country’s intelligence agency helped the CIA set up two small detention centers there, but did not determine whether the facilities were actually used in the interrogation of terrorism suspects.
…

your ad here

In today’s energy-hungry world, scientists are constantly revisiting every renewable resource looking for ways to increase efficiency. One researcher in the Netherlands believes even gravity can be harnessed to produce free electricity on a scale sufficient to power small appliances. VOA’s George Putic has more.
…

your ad here