Saturday, November 11, 2017

A life worth living?

Young people in Gaza are finding few prospects for a better life. Anne PaqActiveStills

Hamza Abu Eltarabesh -9 November 2017

On Tuesday, 29 August, Mohannad Younis swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills and ended his life.
He was only 22 and seemed to have much going for him. A budding author, he had recently completed a series of short stories and just put the finishing touches on a stage play – Escape.

Mohannad was only two months from finishing a postgraduate degree in pharmacy at Al-Azhar University, and was planning to propose to a fellow student at the faculty of medicine.
His suicide, therefore, came as a shock to those who knew him and loved him.

I know. I was his friend. I mourn him. I miss him. And I am angry at what he did.

But Mohannad’s decision to take his life is less unusual that it might once have been in Gaza, where tradition and religion frown upon suicide.

In fact, 2016 saw a spike in the number of suicides and suicide attempts in the Gaza Strip, one that has authorities so worried, Gaza’s Ministry of Health decided to cancel fees for anyone needing treatment after a failed suicide attempt and offer free counseling.

According to Gaza’s police department, where such numbers are registered, there were 17 suicides in Gaza in 2016 and 80 attempts. It’s not a lot compared to Gaza’s two million-strong population, but it marked a significant increase from 2015, when there were just five recorded suicides and 35 attempts.

Trapped

Psychologists don’t have to reach far for an explanation.

“People are trapped in all areas of life,” said Muhammad Abu al-Sabah, a psychologist with the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme and neuroscientist who also runs a private clinic. Abu Al-Sabah was referring to the blockade on Gaza imposed by Israel and Egypt.

“People’s aspirations to travel, work and study abroad have been shattered. There are no job opportunities and no prospects for a better life.”

Over time – and the closure on Gaza has now lasted more than 10 years – this isolation along with the intense violence that has been visited upon Gaza in three separate Israeli military assaults have increased rates of depression and exacerbated already existing psychological problems like personality disorders, Abu al-Sabah said. Both are likely to lead to exactly the kind of increase in rates of suicides and suicide attempts that Gaza is witnessing.

According to one well-placed source in the Ministry of Health who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, 2017 is on course to be even worse. The source said hospitals have received on average some 20 suicide attempts a month this year.

The profile of those attempting or committing suicide also seemed to fit a pattern, according to the source. Some 80 percent are in the range of 17 to 28 years old, and some 60 percent are degree holders. Of those attempting suicide around 60 percent are women.

Young people are particularly vulnerable, said Abu al-Sabah. “Young people have little hope for the future. They have no support to start their careers or continue their education. And at an age where they want to try something new, they have no possibility to do so.”

Taboo

One impediment to understanding the pervasiveness of the suicide problem is that families are traditionally reluctant to talk about what is a cultural and religious taboo. Families feel community peer pressure not to admit that relatives have attempted to take their own lives.

In a small village west of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, twins Samar and Salem, 24, did agree to talk about what led to their joint suicide attempt. The brother and sister insisted that their family name not be published, fearing the judgment of their community.

The siblings had both graduated with a degree in business administration from the Islamic University of Gaza with good grades. After trying and failing to find work in Gaza, they decided to try to pursue a postgraduate degree in Europe.

They applied for and secured a scholarship to study literature in the UK, but ultimately could not leave Gaza through the Rafah crossing to Egypt, which was closed for almost all of last year.

“We come from a poor family,” said Samar. “We found no job opportunities in Gaza and when our dreams collapsed at the gates of Rafah, we despaired at ever being able to provide for our family.”
The twins fell into a depression. “We cannot provide for our family and they cannot provide for us,” said Samar. “Our community cannot help us. Death seemed better than a life trapped here.”

They made a pact and one day in the middle of last year they both took an overdose of antidepressant and sleeping pills that could have killed them had their father, Said, not noticed the missing pills, found the siblings and alerted relatives and neighbors who came to their aid at the last moment.

Said, 48, still fears for them, however. The one-time construction worker, whose work is intermittent at best and who has seen job opportunities dwindle with Gaza’s besieged economy, said he worries they will try to kill themselves again.

“I hope I can provide my children a job opportunity or provide them anything. I fear I am going to lose them on a dark moonless night. Gaza has destroyed me and now it is destroying my hardworking children.”

Repeated suicide attempts

Muhannad Iyad tried once to take his own life. He then tried a second time and then a third.

Perversely, the 22-year-old medicine student might be considered incredibly lucky. In the space of one year, Iyad cut his wrists, hanged himself and took an overdose of pills. On each occasion he was discovered at the last moment and treated in time.

He puts his depression down to a combination of his political engagement, which led to a deep despondency over Gaza’s prospects, and stress over his studies at the Islamic University.
“I failed my first year. Politics came to dominate my life. It got under my skin. I just wanted to end my misery.”

After the third attempt his family reacted and with some assurance. They secured Iyad a scholarship to attend the Jordan University of Science and Technology in Amman, and also managed to obtain a permit for him to leave Gaza – one that set them back $3,000 in cash to Egyptian and Palestinian officials to smooth his passage.

The move has changed him.

“I never think about suicide now,” he said, boasting that he is now top of his class. “The atmosphere in Gaza dragged me to the bottom. Now I am focused on completing my education so I can go back and help my family and my depressed city.”

True to all

In Gaza there are many reasons to lose the will to live just as was the case with Mohannad Younis. There are few prospects for a better life.

Here, we can educate ourselves, but can find no employment. We live in a prison forgotten and neglected by the world. We have all lost loved ones, friends or relatives to violence that we are both powerless to combat and unable to escape.

But suicide is also personal. Mohannad’s parents divorced when he was just 2 years old. As he grew up, he tried to establish a bond with his PhD-holding father, but, for whatever reason, this did not work out.

Whether that was the cause or just one trigger, it plunged Mohannad into a depression. Writing seemed almost like therapy for him. He wrote about Gaza, its problems and its miseries. But he ultimately lost faith – in Gaza, in his family, in himself.

I have battled with depression too. I feel suicide is a cowardly act.

But maybe that is just when I think about it in the abstract. I saw the battles Mohannad engaged in with himself. I know I have nothing but love and respect for him.

Mohannad had a character so pure his friends would always describe him as true to everyone except himself.

Hamza Abu Eltarabesh is a freelance journalist and writer from Gaza.

Zionism’s undoing; the aftermath of the Balfour Declaration.

2017-11-11

Even former US president Jimmy Carter who single-handily (without much Jewish appreciation) did more to make Israel secure than any other living person confesses neither he nor anyone can change the march of demographics. Within the boundaries of the Holy Land there are just over six million Jews and six million Palestinians. The Palestinian birth rate is almost three times that of the Israeli Jews. If anything the Jewish population is starting to fall as an increasing number of Jews decide that Israel has no future for them and emigrate.

Another former US president, Richard Nixon, when asked by Patrick Buchanan how he saw the future of Israel, turned down his thumb “like a Roman emperor at the gladiators’ arena”.

Perhaps we are witnessing the death of Israel by a thousand cuts, the friction of conflict and the attrition of population. Maybe after all the rabbis of Vienna who were sent in 1897 on a fact-finding mission to Palestine to investigate whether it was a suitable place for Jewish settlement were right. They reported back that the “bride was beautiful but married to another man.”

The rabbis had been moved to visit Palestine by Theodore Herzl, an Austrian journalist, who had just published his highly influential book, “The Jewish State”, which launched the movement called “political Zionism”.

Herzl, a broad minded man, was happy to think of the new Israel in Argentina which had a considerable Jewish migration in the nineteenth century and was well away from the clutches of anti-Semitic Europe. He was also inclined to accept the offer of Joseph Chamberlain, then the British colonial secretary, for a site on the Uasin Gishu plateau near Nairobi in what was then British East Africa. The Zionist Conference overruled him.

When the British government, Palestine’s ruler, gave into Zionist lobbying and in the words, of the Balfour Declaration of 1917, favoured “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” the only Jewish member of the cabinet, Edwin Samuel Montague, denounced the whole project as a reconstruction of the tower of Babel. “Palestine”, he said, “would become the world’s ghetto”. Lord Curzon, the former Viceroy of India, observed that Britain had “a stronger claim to parts of France” than the Jews did to Palestine after two millennia of absence. He denounced it as an act of “sentimental idealism”.

But unmistakably this is the direction events and demographics are moving. Probably the best thing that outsiders can now do for Israel is to stop trying to help organize the creation of a two state solution and let the Israelis themselves look the Palestinians in the eye, as the demographics bite. If the white South Africans can do it so can the Israelis.

There are few rewards in this life for being farsighted on political questions. The Zionists still have the bit between their teeth on the creation of a permanent Jewish state, even as they face long term self-destruction. A few can see it coming and among the few is the former Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert. In an interview he said, “If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights then, as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished.”

For the Zionist this would be a terrible end. But need it be for rank and file Jews who just want to bring up their families and live in an atmosphere emptied of violence? (Read Israeli novelist Shifra Horn’s book, “Ode to Joy” if you want to smell the cordite and sense deep in the soul the Jews’ everyday fear of being blown up.)

But unmistakably this is the direction events and demographics are moving. Probably the best thing that outsiders can now do for Israel is to stop trying to help organize the creation of a two state solution and let the Israelis themselves look the Palestinians in the eye, as the demographics bite. If the white South Africans can do it so can the Israelis. If this became the solution the Israelis would find that the only thing that most Palestinians would now want is a prosperous, capitalist economy that lives in peace with its neighbours.

The Jews would not be driven into the sea. But those who wanted to return to Europe, America or even Russia would be more than welcome. Both Germany and Russia, the great centres of anti-Semitism in the past, have seemed to have flushed that horror away, and treat their Jews well.
The Jews should never have tried to turn back the historical clock by returning to Palestine after fleeing in AD 70. But now they are there in such significant numbers their only solution is to honour the rest of the text of the Balfour Declaration. “Nothing should be done that may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”, it said. This was the British condition. The Israelis have long overlooked this. If they go on overlooking it they do so at their peril.
For 17 years the writer has been a foreign affairs columnist and commentator for the International Herald Tribune/New York Times.

'Bring Saad back' protest cancelled as Lebanon president says Hariri 'kidnapped'

Despite warning by Lebanon's army, a small group still gathered in Beirut demanding prime minister's return

Posters of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who resigned last week in a televised speech airing from the Saudi capital Riyadh, hang on Beirut's seaside corniche on November 10, 2017 (AFP)

Federica Marsi-Saturday 11 November 2017

A protest scheduled in central Beirut under the slogan "Bring Saad back" was cancelled on Saturday, following a circular issued by the interior ministry. The demonstration would have been the first collective show of support for Saad Hariri, who is allegedly being detained in Saudi Arabia following his surprise resignation as Lebanon's prime minister on 5 November.

The protest was planned as a row between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon over Hariri's freedom of movement escalated, with the Lebanese president accusing the Gulf-nation of "kidnap".

Warren Sleiman, a civil activist and organiser of the protest, said the idea behind the rally was to send out a message that was collectively shared. "We do not accept the power of other countries on our land," he told Middle East Eye. "What is happening to the prime minister is disrespectful."

'We do not accept the power of other countries on our land'

-Warren Sleiman, civil activist

However, Sleiman decided to call off the protest after receiving a call from army officials. "They gave their opinion and said they hoped the protest would not go ahead," he said, adding that there was no pressure on their part.

"We finally decided to call it off because we don't want the protest to take us places we don't want to go to," he said. According to Sleiman, there currently is "a feeling of unity among Lebanese people" and staging a protest could potentially backfire.

"We want back our prime minister and we [the organisers] didn't want [the protest to be used to] send out a message different from this," he said.

Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk said prior to the protest that all demonstrations contravening a 2006 circular would be forbidden. The circular obliges organisers to file a formal request that includes the personal details of the organisers, as well as information on the place and time at which the protest would be held prior to the event.

Lara Bitar @LarsBit

Lebanon's Interior Minister Machnouk did not "ban" protests in Beirut; rather, (re-) asserted organizers must request permit and conform to 2006 circular stipulations. Question is, who will face consequences for "illegal" protests and who won't. https://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2017/Nov-11/426023-machnouk-underscores-protest-law-ahead-of-rally.ashx …

6:53 AM - Nov 11, 2017

Machnouk underscores protest law ahead of rally

Ahead of a protest planned for Saturday afternoon in Martyrs Square, Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk said that demonstrations contravening a 2006 circular would be “forbidden.”

dailystar.com.lb

The demand should then be approved by the local governor, who has the power to reject it.

Despite the interior ministry circular and army caution, a small group of people gathered in Martyr's Square in the centre of Beirut. Blogger and activist Ghassan Germanos expressed his disappointment at the cancellation.

"I came because I believe it is our right to protest and express ourselves freely ... Nobody has the right do cancel a democratic expression [of dissent]," he said.

Germanos also added that it "was not a legitimate decision" and that he believed that, while no other protests are currently being planned, people would eventually take to the streets should Saad Hariri not return to Lebanon soon.

'Kidnapped'

Meanwhile, a senior Lebanese official said Lebanese President Michel Aoun told foreign ambassadors that Hariri had been "kidnapped" and should benefit from immunity as prime minister.

"Lebanon does not accept its prime minister being in a situation at odds with international treaties," Aoun said in a statement.

Hariri's resignation, which caught even his close aides by surprise, has plunged Lebanon into crisis. It has thrust the country back to the forefront of a power struggle between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran - a rivalry that has wrought upheaval in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Bahrain.

Lebanon's President Michel Aoun looks on at Hotel de Ville in Paris during a state visit on 26 September 2017 (AFP)

Aoun added that anything Hariri has said or may say "does not reflect reality" due to the mystery surrounding his status since his shock resignation in a broadcast from Saudi Arabia.

Lebanese authorities believe Riyadh is holding Hariri, according to two top Lebanese government officials, a senior politician close to Hariri and a fourth source.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who made an unscheduled visit to Riyadh this week, phoned Aoun on Saturday to discuss the crisis, after comments by a French official that suggested Paris believed Hariri may not be a free man.

Riyadh says Hariri is free and had decided to resign because Iran's Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, was calling the shots in his coalition government.

'On one hand, we believe that we were the puppet of Saudi Arabia and that this led him to [what happened]. On the other hand, he is Lebanon's prime minister, and this is humiliating for us.'

Ghassan Germanos, blogger

Western countries have looked on with alarm at rising regional tensions.

Hariri has made no public remarks since quitting last week, when he said he feared assassination and accused Iran along with Hezbollah of sowing strife in the Arab world.

In the streets of Beirut, however, the vast majority believed their prime minister is being held against his will and demand his release.

"We have mixed feelings for this situation," Germanos said. "On one hand, we believe that we were the puppet of Saudi Arabia and that this led him to [what happened]. On the other hand, he is Lebanon's prime minister, and this is humiliating for us."

Reuters contributed to this report

The Next Phase in the War on Terror Is Here

But talk of Guantánamo, “extreme vetting,” and ending the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program is just a distraction from the real threat.

Flowers mark the location where Sayfullo Saipov crashed into cyclists along a Manhattan bike path on Oct. 31 in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

BY LISA MONACO-

NOVEMBER 8, 2017, 12:42 PM
Last week, in the deadliest terrorist attack in New York City since 9/11, Sayfullo Saipov allegedly turned a nearly mile-long stretch of bike path along Manhattan’s West Side Highway into a killing ground. The attack reflects a terrorism threat that is morphing from the complex, externally directed attack carried out by a network that we saw on 9/11 to violent individuals, inspired online by the Islamic State and other radical jihadi groups. We built an architecture to prevent another 9/11, but we have a long way to go when it comes to tackling this latest phase of terrorism.

The good news is that communities have proven resilient when attacked. The bad news is that this week — with calls for “extreme vetting” and denigration of our criminal justice system as a tool against terror — we saw dangerous backsliding instead of a renewed focus on the work needed for the next phase in the war on terror.

How should we respond to this latest terror act on our soil? Rather than demagoguing immigrants, launching divisive political attacks, or disparaging our criminal justice system, we should focus on what works. Effectiveness should be our lodestar. Russia is not the only one that wants to weaken the United States by sowing division in our country — the terrorists want to do so as well. We shouldn’t let them.

When tragedy and terror strike, we must deliver swift and certain justice consistent with the rule of law. While it appears cooler heads have prevailed to reverse President Donald Trump’s initial impulse to send the New York attack suspect to Guantánamo (an unprecedented and legally dubious move), the fact that we found ourselves having the debate yet again about “war” vs. “law enforcement” in the terror fight prompted disturbing déjà vu. Dedicated professionals across two administrations worked hard to ensure that this country can apply all tools — military, intelligence, law enforcement, diplomacy, and financial sanctions — to disrupt threats and hold terrorists accountable. For terrorists caught on U.S. soil, we have relied on a criminal justice system that is the envy of the world not only because it is the hallmark of our rule of law society but also because it gets results.

The record is clear when it comes to generating intelligence, securing convictions, and safely holding terrorists. The more than 1 million federal, state, and local law enforcement officers who work in that system and put their lives on the line to keep us safe are anything but a “laughing stock.” To the contrary, they include more than 30,000 FBI agents, intelligence analysts, and other professionals who I was proud to call colleagues when I served as chief of staff to then-FBI Director Robert S. Mueller. This nation is also served everyday by dedicated federal prosecutors who are no “joke.” That includes those in the Southern District of New York who, true to their tradition of independence, tuned out the political talk and moved swiftly to charge the New York attack suspect. It was precisely the need for intelligence-driven criminal prosecutions of terrorists and spies that led to the creation of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, which I was privileged to lead during the Barack Obama administration. These elements of our post-9/11 architecture — solidified over both Republican and Democratic administrations — have brought justice in hundreds of terrorism-related cases since 9/11.

Contrast that approach with the (hopefully short-lived) impulse to send Saipov to Guantánamo on the theory that we’re at war (we are) and he’s an enemy (he is) and enemies don’t get lawyers (not quite). The Supreme Court has determined that Guantánamo Bay, where a detainee has the right to challenge his detention, is not a lawyer-free zone. And while a bipartisan effort reformed military commissions in 2009 to maintain a prosecution tool for terrorists caught on a hot battlefield, they have proven anything but swift and certain. In 15 years, the military commissions have delivered just eight convictions or guilty pleas, and several of those have been overturned or invalidated. The 9/11 and USS Colebombing victims and their families are still waiting for justice today.

Justice would not be served by sending Saipov to Guantánamo. Nor would it serve the goal of generating intelligence and understanding how someone came to plow down pedestrians on Halloween afternoon. Saipov reportedly has talked to FBI agents and told them that he consumed Islamic State propaganda prior to his attack. Understanding more about how and when he became radicalized is critical to stopping future attacks. But the surest way to keep that from happening would be to interrupt the FBI interrogation and ship Saipov to Guantánamo.

It is dangerous pre-9/11 thinking to suggest that the FBI can’t act in this case — as it has in so many others since 9/11 — to obtain intelligence from a terrorist in custody. In fact, the FBI can immediately question terrorists — without giving Miranda warnings — to identify other threats and plots. In 2011, when Congress was considering a mandatory military custody law for terrorist captures here or abroad, the FBI was right to argue that such a mandate would interrupt their intelligence-gathering process by turning a terrorist over to the military, where he could challenge his military detention with the benefit of a lawyer. Sure enough, in case after case where the FBI has moved quickly to gather intelligence and then bring a prosecution in our courts, terrorists have pled guilty or received lengthy sentences in the highest-security federal prisons. And, importantly, the FBI has been able to generate intelligence that led to the capture of other terrorists. (Just ask Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.) We need this intelligence now more than ever in order to understand how Saipov was allegedly radicalized and how someone might have intervened in time to stop him.

It appears that Saipov did not slip through the vetting system, but instead may fall into the more common category that the Department of Homeland Security described in March of this year when it concluded that most foreign-born, U.S.-based terrorists are radicalized after they arrive. At the moment, we have a rare opportunity, having taken Saipov into custody alive. As New York City Police Department Deputy Commissioner John Miller said, Saipov appears to have followed the Islamic State playbook “to a tee” by weaponizing a vehicle and leaving a note to brag about it. This breed of terrorist poses a significant challenge to law enforcement, and we should strive to learn as much as we can about Saipov’s path to radicalization.

In response to this challenge, we should reject impulsive responses in favor of what works. Recycling campaign chants of “extreme vetting” and pulling the plug on the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program which reportedly allowed Saipov entry in 2010, is a distraction; he reportedly was radicalized years after he entered the United States. To be clear, we should support strong and thorough vetting for anyone who wants to enjoy the rights and benefits of this country. Such vetting, regardless of specific program, should be refined based on threat intelligence. This is why following the Paris attacks in 2015, DHS strengthened the visa waiver program to respond to the threat from foreign fighter returnees who may have traveled to join the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq but held European passports eligible for visa-free travel to the United States. The future of the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program might be a reasonable topic for debate, but based on what we know now is in no way related to the tragedy on the West Side Highway

Rather than creating distractions and issuing blanket travel bans, our vetting process should respond to the actual threats we face. We should be building trust in communities we need to identify future threats, not alienating and marginalizing them. Let’s focus on working with social media companies to stop abuse of their platforms. Let’s work to strengthen relationships with our international security partners.

Sixteen years after 9/11, we face a different type of threat. In response, we should emulate the best we’ve seen from this country. We should model resilience and support, and we should reject politics in favor of pragmatism. We must summon the best in our communities, in our government and politics, and rely on that which makes us different from every other country in the world: the rule of law and our justice system. Anything less allows terrorists to divide us.

Boris Johnson met ‘London professor’ linked to FBI’s Russia investigation

Fresh questions as photograph emerges of Joseph Mifsud and foreign secretary at Brexit dinner

Boris Johnson pictured at the dinner with the ‘London professor’, Joseph Mifsud (left) and Prasenjit Kumar Singh.

Carole Cadwalladr-Saturday 11 November 2017

Boris Johnson is facing questions about the government’s links to key individuals named by the FBI in its Trump-Russia investigation, following the emergence of a photo of him with Joseph Mifsud, the “London professor” with high-level Kremlin contacts.

The foreign secretary is facing accusations of a potential security breach following the emergence of the photo of him with Mifsud, whose identity emerged as part of investigations into alleged links between Donald Trump’s election campaign and Russia.

This development comes less than a week after Johnson denied meeting the professor, and at a time when concern is growing about possible Russian interference in the Brexit campaign, in which the foreign secretary played a crucial role.

Although the FBI had known about Mifsud’s role as a high-level go-between linking the Trump campaign and the Russian government since at least July, it appears British intelligence did not warn the foreign secretary about the potential embarrassment or security implications before he attended a fundraising dinner with Mifsud on 19 October.

Ben Bradshaw, the MP for Exeter, who has been raising questions about possible Russian interference, said: “It’s inconceivable that the FBI didn’t tell their UK counterparts about Mifsud … so how was this allowed to happen?” The only explanation, he suggests, is “our own agencies are keeping information from Johnson for some reason … which only begs further worrying questions”.

Last week, the Observer reported that Mifsud had told colleagues he was planning to meet Johnson “to discuss Brexit”. The third man in the photo, businessman Prasenjit Kumar Singh, told the Observer he had known Mifsud, a Maltese academic named in FBI documents concerning possible Trump-Kremlin connections, for several years, and had attended seminars on Brexit that Mifsud had held at the London School of Diplomacy: “He is a very good speaker and he’s had a lot of seminars about Brexit at the academy.”

Singh said they had met the foreign secretary at the event and had chatted to him “about normal things”. Asked if Mifsud had introduced himself to Johnson, he said: “I don’t know. I introduced myself to him and we talked. He is a very good man, a good politician.”

Last week, a spokesman said Johnson had “never met” Mifsud, a statement that was updated to “never knowingly met” after they confirmed his presence at the event. Last week a Foreign Office source said: “The foreign secretary has his photo taken with countless people he does not know, particularly during events attended by 150 people at which he’s the main speaker.”

Intriguingly, the photograph also presents new evidence of links to a further key individual named in the FBI documents.

On Friday, the New York Times identified a woman in the documents whom Mifsud introduced to a Trump campaign operative, George Papadopoulos, as “Putin’s niece”. The New York Times named her as Olga Polonskaya, 30, from St Petersburg, the former manager of a wine distribution company. The FBI documents state that she has high-level connections to the Russian government.

And she is also a contact of Singh’s, though he had no idea of her connection to the Trump-Russia investigation until told by the Observer. He said he had met her at Link Campus University in Rome, where Mifsud was based. “I had no idea she called herself ‘Putin’s niece’! She was just a normal student. Very nice. An ordinary girl.” He said she had rung him “about two and a half months ago” and had asked to meet.

“I was with my family and we were going to the Westfield shopping centre and I said: ‘Yes, come and meet me there.’ She was going to translate my website – for the London Executive School – from English into Russian so I could try and attract more Russian students. She did that: I just haven’t put it up yet.”

She had not been in touch since, Singh said. Nor had he heard from Mifsud who appears to have gone to ground. Polonskaya has now changed the privacy settings on her Facebook page, but a freelance investigative journalist, Gavin Sheridan, had already downloaded her data and discovered she had “liked” the photo of Joseph Mifsud and Boris Johnson and a status update of Prasenjit Kumar Singh that showed him with Theresa May.

Chris Bryant MP, the vice chair of the all-party parliamentary Russia group, said: “It’s all distinctly fishy. Boris Johnson’s relationship with the truth right now seems distinctly casual. We asked him about Russian interference in Brexit in the foreign affairs committee last week and he categorically denied he had seen a shred of evidence. I just thought ‘blimey’. Even as a junior minister in the foreign office, Russian stuff came across my desk every single day.”

Trump says U.S. won’t be ‘taken advantage of anymore.’ Hours later, Pacific Rim nations reach deal on trade without America.

President Trump said the U.S. would “no longer tolerate chronic trade abuses” during his remarks at the APEC summit in Vietnam on Nov. 10. (Amber Ferguson/The Washington Post)

By Ashley Parker November 10 at 10:36 PM

DANANG, Vietnam — President Trump delivered a fiery speech on trade here Friday, declaring that he would not allow the United States to be “taken advantage of anymore” and planned to place “America first.”

And then, less than 24 hours later, 11 Pacific Rim countries collectively shrugged and moved on without the U.S.

On Saturday, the countries announced they had reached a deal to move ahead with the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade pact that Trump threw into question when he withdrew from it earlier this year.

The agreement represents something of a rebuke of Trump, coming near the end of his five-country, 12-day swing through Asia, and reflects the willingness of other nations to proceed without the buy-in of the United States.

A statement early Saturday trumpeted a breakthrough on the “core elements” of the trade agreement. “Ministers are pleased to announce that they have agreed on the core elements of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership,” it read.

The deal was originally expected to be announced Friday — the same day Trump addressed business leaders at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit here, in a speech heavy on tough talk and protectionist rhetoric — but was delayed after Canada raised concerns.

The decision to move ahead with the TPP agreement, minus the United States, reflects how Trump’s decision to withdraw from the deal created a vacuum other nations are now moving to fill, with or without the president.

President Trump arrives to speak at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders' summit in Danang, Vietnam, on Friday. (Associated Press)

In his speech Friday, Trump struck an aggressive note, saying he believed the United States had for too long been the victim of poor trade deals.

“We are not going to let the United States be taken advantage of anymore,” he said. “I am always going to put America first, the same way that I expect all of you in this room to put your countries first.”

Instead, he said the U.S. was still a willing trade partner, but only for deals based on “mutual respect and mutual benefit.”

“I will make bilateral trade agreements with any Indo-Pacific nation that wants to be our partner and that will abide by the principles of fair and reciprocal trade,” he said. “What we will no longer do is enter into large agreements that tie our hands, surrender our sovereignty, and make meaningful enforcement practically impossible.”

A senior administration official, asked if the new trade announcement foreshadowed the United States being left behind in the region, rejected the notion, pointing out that “the president is here visiting and is part of the dialogue, and has already spent a significant portion of time talking to his allies and like-minded partners in Japan and South Korea.”

“We'll continue that conversation with many parties here,” the official said. “So we absolutely are engaged on the economic side, and we’ll continue to be so."

Merkel tries to bridge climate gap as coalition talks heat up

Michael Nienaber-NOVEMBER 11, 2017

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany should lead the fight against climate change and cut emissions without destroying jobs, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday, treading a fine line as she tries to clinch a coalition deal with environmentalist and pro-business parties.

Angela Merkel, leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), arrives at Reichstag building before the start of exploratory talks about forming a new coalition government in Berlin, Germany, November 7, 2017. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke

Merkel’s comments, made in her weekly podcast in the midst of 200-nation talks on limiting global warming in Bonn, show the dilemma of the center-right leader in tricky coalition negotiations to form the next government.

Merkel’s conservatives, which bled support to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the Sept. 24 election, are trying to forge a coalition government with the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and the environmentalist Greens.

The unlikely partners have cited progress after three weeks of exploratory talks about a three-way coalition. But the Greens raised the pressure on Merkel ahead of a meeting on Sunday in which party leaders are due to thrash out differences over climate, immigration and euro zone policy.

The Greens want Merkel and the other parties to spell out which additional measures the next government will implement for Germany to reach its 2020 goal of lowering emissions by 40 percent from 1990 levels.

In her podcast, Merkel said industrialized countries had a special responsibility to reduce their emission of climate-damaging greenhouse gases, warning that time was running out.

“The urgency, I think we all see this in light of the natural disasters, is great,” Merkel said. Climate change is leading to droughts and famine and this is causing mass migration from poorer to richer countries, she added.

Referring to the Paris climate agreement, Merkel said: “As things stand right now, the target to keep the rise in temperature below two degrees Celsius - ideally at around 1.5 degrees - will be missed.”

WRESTLING

Due to strong economic growth and higher-than-expected immigration, Germany is at risk of missing its emissions target if the next government does not implement further measures.

“That’s why we are also wrestling in exploratory talks for a possible new coalition about this: How can we adopt even more measures in order to try and reach this 2020 goal,” Merkel said.

But the chancellor insisted that Germany’s “industrial core” should not be put at risk and any further climate measures should not force companies to relocate.

“If steel mills, aluminum factories, copper smelters, if they all leave our country and go somewhere where environmental regulations are not as strict, then we have won nothing for global climate,” Merkel said.

The government should therefore adopt a sound mix of regulatory policy, financial incentives and voluntary measures in order to avoid major disruptions and job losses, she said.

“We have to push ahead forcefully with electromobility and alternative drive systems,” Merkel said. She also suggested that the next government should give tax incentives for home owners to improve building insulation.

The Greens called on Merkel’s conservatives and the FDP to make concessions after the party itself gave ground on Tuesday by dropping its demand for fixed dates to ban cars with internal combustion engines and shut down coal-fired power stations.

“Instead of the week of truth, this was a week of disappointment,” parliamentary floor leader Anton Hofreiter told Der Spiegel magazine, adding that the Greens had done their part by offering “painful” compromises.

Juergen Trittin, another senior member of the Greens, warned Merkel personally that her political future was at stake.

“Mrs Merkel, the lead candidate of the conservatives and acting chancellor, she wants to get re-elected - with our votes,” Trittin said. “And for this, she must move now.”

Hundreds of thousands take to Barcelona streets demanding release of jailed leaders (VIDEO)

Protesters hold the lights of their mobile phones as they wave Estelada flags during a demonstration called by pro-independence associations asking for the release of jailed Catalan activists and leaders, in Barcelona, Spain, November 11, 2017 © Albert Gea / Reuters

Published time: 11 Nov, 2017 21:07

A sea of protesters filled the streets of the Catalan capital, Barcelona, demanding Madrid release several jailed regional leaders and officials who have been charged with rebellion, sedition and the misuse of public funds.

Some 750,000 Catalans took part in the massive protest march on Saturday, according to Barcelona police estimates. The rally was called by the two pro-independence groups, the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) and Omnium Cultural, whose leaders were jailed last month over sedition charges.

The marchers carried Catalan flags, “Freedom for the political prisoners” placards, and photos of the jailed leaders. Many people wore and waved yellow ribbons, signifying support for those in custody. Pro-independence activists started to use the yellow ribbon late in October as a symbol of Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Cuixart, the jailed leaders of ANC and Omnium. As evening fell, protesters turned on the lights of their mobile phones and held them high, turning the march into a sort of ‘candle-lit’ procession.

A wave of strikes and mass protests have been staged in response to Madrid’s crackdown of Catalonia, which followed the unilateral declaration of independence by the Catalan parliament on October 27. Spain triggered Article 155 of its constitution, stripping the regional government of power and imposing direct rule on the region.

READ MORE: Catalonia chaos: Pro-independence rallies block 60 roads & stop trains (VIDEOS)

The Spanish government then sacked Catalan President Carles Puigdemont and dismissed the regional parliament, calling local snap elections for December 21. Key Catalan government and parliamentary figures were arrested, while Puigdemont and four of his ex-ministers managed to leave Spain for Belgium. Madrid promptly issued a European arrest warrant and the five turned themselves into Belgian authorities. They have since been granted bail.