Russia has transported 24 Ukrainian sailors captured off the coast of Crimea at the weekend to prison facilities in Moscow, Russian channel TV Rain reported on Friday.

Twenty-one of the men are being held in the Lefortovo remand prison in Moscow and three who were wounded during their capture are in a hospital wing of a jail, the channel reported, citing a public body that monitors prisons.
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Egypt’s parliament says it regrets the decision of Italy’s lower house to break parliamentary ties over the lack of progress in investigations related to the torture and killing of an Italian researcher nearly three years ago.

In a Friday statement, Parliament said it was “surprised” by the Italian chamber’s “unilateral” decision and called for the non-politicization of legal issues.

Italy has been pressing Cairo for years to identify and prosecute those responsible for the 2016 killing of Giulio Regeni. Researching labor unions in Egypt at the time, Regeni’s body was found bearing marks of torture.

Italian media says prosecutors in Rome are set to launch an investigation into seven Egyptian secret service members they suspect were involved in Regeni’s abduction and murder. Egypt has long denied its authorities were involved.
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Russian authorities said Friday that Vladimir Putin will have a brief meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump during the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina. 

“There is no scheduled pull-aside,” was the only response from a White House official when queried about a Kremlin spokesman saying there would be an “impromptu” meeting on the G-20 sidelines. The U.S. comment, however, leaves open the possibility there could, indeed, be an unscheduled encounter. 

On Thursday, Trump said he was canceling his scheduled meeting with the Russian leader following Russia’s seizure of three Ukrainian vessels and their crews in the Black Sea region. 

“Based on the fact that the ships and sailors have not been returned to Ukraine from Russia, I have decided it would be best for all parties concerned to cancel my previously scheduled meeting in Argentina,” Trump tweeted Thursday on Air Force One on his way to Buenos Aires. 

The announced cancellation also came hours after U.S. prosecutors revealed that Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, admitted lying to Congress about a Trump real estate deal in Russia.

The revelation signaled the special counsel is focusing more closely on the Trump campaign’s communications with Russian officials during the 2016 presidential campaign. When asked about the canceled Putin meeting Friday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders emphasized the move was about Russia’s action in Ukraine, not the special counsel’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.

“The Russian witch hunt hoax, which is hopefully now nearing an end, is doing very well. Unfortunately, it probably does undermine our relationship with Russia. However, the reason for our canceled meeting is Ukraine. Hopefully, that will be resolved soon so that productive conversations can begin,” Sanders told reporters in Buenos Aires.
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U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday abruptly canceled a planned two-hour meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in response to Moscow’s seizure of Ukrainian ships in the Black Sea region.

“Based on the fact that the ships and sailors have not been returned to Ukraine from Russia, I have decided it would be best for all parties concerned to cancel my previously scheduled meeting in Argentina,” Trump said on Twitter as he left Washington for Buenos Aires and the weekend G-20 summit of heads of the world’s leading economies.

“I look forward to a meaningful Summit again as soon as this situation is resolved!” Trump added.

Trump tweeted about canceling the talks with Putin not long after telling reporters at the White House that the meeting would likely proceed as planned.

“I probably will be meeting with President Putin,” he had said. “They would like to have it. I think it’s a very good time to have the meeting.”

But he said he would get a final report during his flight concerning the Russian seizure Sunday of the three vessels and their crews in the Kerch Strait as they tried to make their way to the Ukrainian port of Mariupol, in the Sea of Azov.

“I’m getting a full report on the plane as to what happened with respect to that and that will determine what I’m going to be doing,” he said.

The White House said Trump made the decision on board Air Force One after conferring with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Adviser John Bolton and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly.

Russian news agencies reported the Kremlin had not been notified in advance of Trump’s decision. The Russian embassy in Washington said that if Trump and Putin aren’t going to meet, then the Russian leader “will have a couple of additional hours on the program for useful meetings.”

Request for NATO aid

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko asked NATO countries to send naval ships to the Sea of Azov to aid his country and “provide security” amid tensions with Russia. Ukraine, once a Soviet satellite state, is not a NATO member.

Poroshenko’s comments were published Thursday in the German newspaper Bild.

NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu responded to Poroshenko’s request by saying the military alliance already has a strong presence in the Black Sea region.

She said NATO ships routinely patrol the area and several NATO allies conduct reconnaissance flights over the region. “We will continue to assess our presence in the region,” Lungescu added.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel also rejected Poroshenko’s request, urging Kyiv to adopt a “sensible” approach “because there is no military solution to these disputes.”

Also Thursday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he could play a mediator role between Ukraine and Russia.

Erdogan has held phone talks with leaders on both sides, and said he would continue discussing the issue with Putin and Trump at a G-20 summit.

Conflicting accounts

Ukraine said Russia used a tanker to block access to the Kerch Strait, which under a treaty is shared territory. Russia said the vessels illegally entered its waters.

Putin on Wednesday blamed Poroshenko for the incident, alleging it is an attempt by Poroshenko to boost his re-election chances next year.

Ukraine has imposed martial law in some of its border regions in response to the incident, and with a growing number of other European countries, urged Western allies to impose additional sanctions on Moscow.

Poroshenko said martial law will help “strengthen Ukraine’s defense capabilities amid increasing aggression and according to international law, a cold act of aggression by the Russian Federation.” He demanded Russia release the Ukrainian sailors and vessels.

The U.S. special envoy for Ukraine, Kurt Volker, told reporters Wednesday in Berlin he believes Kyiv’s account that its ships were operating within global maritime rules.

Volker said the Ukrainian vessels were returning to Odessa “when the Russian vessels then pursued them and attacked them.”

Ukrainian officials have released what they maintain is the precise location where its ships were fired upon.

Volker said he has not received independent U.S. verification of Ukraine’s information, but believed “the data the Ukrainians have provided is quite clear.”

Poroshenko wrote Thursday on Twitter that his country will impose unspecified restrictions on Russian citizens in response to Russia’s actions. Ukraine has already denied Russians entry into the country since last week’s incident.

Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in March 2014, saying its ethnic Russian majority was under threat from the Ukrainian government. A month later, it fomented a pro-Russia separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine in an ongoing conflict that to date has claimed more than 10,000 lives.

Ukraine and the West repeatedly have accused Russia of fueling the conflict by providing rebel forces with weapons and other support, a charge Moscow has denied despite strong evidence to the contrary.
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Until the Russian attack Sunday on Ukrainian vessels in the Black Sea, the White House and the Kremlin had at least agreed on one thing, the agenda for Saturday’s scheduled face-to-face between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, their second summit meeting.

Arms control, security issues as well as the Middle East and North Korea were all set to figure prominently, senior U.S. and Russian aides told reporters in the run-up to the meeting.

The Kremlin had earmarked as their key issue, say Russian officials, Trump’s recent decision to abandon a landmark Cold War-era agreement prohibiting the U.S. and Russia from possessing ground-launched short-range nuclear missiles.

For the White House, securing a public commitment from the Russians to enforce United Nations sanctions on North Korea before next month’s planned summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was a key objective, according to U.S. officials.

But the Russian attack on three Ukrainian vessels shifted the dynamics of Saturday’s planned two-hour face-to-face between Trump and Putin on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Argentina, say analysts, with the U.S. leader being urged to take a tough line that might imperil his overall determination to improve U.S.-Russian relations.

Trump suggested Tuesday he might cancel the meeting after Russian ships opened fire on and seized the Ukrainian ships near Crimea.  Then on Thursday, after telling reporters the meeting will go ahead, he tweeted that he has canceled the meeting “based on the fact that the ships and sailors have not been returned to Ukraine from Russia.”  “I look forward to a meaningful Summit again as soon as this situation is resolved!” he said.

Kremlin officials had earlier said they expected the meeting to be held.

“We don’t have to agree on all issues, which is probably impossible, but we need to talk.  It’s in the interests of not only our two countries, it’s in the interests of the whole World,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Earlier this week John Bolton, the U.S. National Security Adviser, said Trump was planning to discuss security, arms control and regional issues with Putin.  “I think it will be a continuation of their discussion in Helsinki,” he said, referring to the first summit meeting between the two leaders held in Finland in July, when they met for more than two hours with only their translators present.

The Helsinki sit-down prompted widespread criticism of Trump from across the U.S. political spectrum, with Republican and Democrat lawmakers expressing dismay at what they saw as the U.S. leader’s amplifying of Putin denials of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.

State Department Spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Washington wanted to see tougher enforcement of sanctions against Russia as a consequence of the Russian action, the first time the Kremlin has staged open aggression against Ukraine since Putin annexed Crimea four years ago and launched a destabilization campaign in Ukraine’s Donbas region.

German chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to address the Kerch incident at the G-20 meeting.

Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko piled pressure Thursday on the G-20 by calling for a tough collective response to Russia, saying he fears Moscow intends broader military action against his country.  European Union hawks have called for more sanctions to be imposed on Russia, although with the bloc already divided over policy towards Russia it is unlikely that will happen swiftly without a strong lead from Washington, say diplomats.

Trump waited more than 24 hours after the maritime clash before he commented on the incident, prompting criticism, once again, that he was going lightly on his Russian counterpart.  But once he did address the clash, his irritation was clear.  “I don’t like that aggression.  I don’t want that aggression at all,” he told the Washington Post.

Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and now an analyst at the Washington-based Brookings Institution told VOA if Trump “does not raise the question of the Russian conflict against Ukraine … the Russian would calculate the President is weak on this issue.  That’s going to be bad for Ukraine, but also bad for American foreign policy.”

 

 
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Senior U.N. Advisor of the Special Envoy for Syria, Jan Egeland, accused the international community of cruelly disregarding the suffering of the Syrian people and failing to protect them in the name of waging a war against terror.

Egeland has led the U.N.’s humanitarian effort in war-torn Syria for many years. Before stepping down from his post as senior advisor, he delivered a particularly blunt assessment of the international community’s role in abetting the worst instincts of all the warring parties — to the detriment of the civilian population.

“We allowed all hell to be let loose in the most populated civilian places of a heavily populated country … for more years than in any other of the contemporary 40 armed conflicts,” he said.

Egeland said this policy has unleashed more than seven years of fierce fighting, killing hundreds of thousands of people and displacing millions within the country and as refugees.

“One of the reasons that it got as bad as it got was that everybody said that they were there on a war on terror. Everybody, as far as I can see. This notion that everyone is fighting terror fuels the fierceness and fuels the devastation that engulfs the civilians.”

While most of the country has been forcibly pacified, Egeland warned the humanitarian situation throughout Syria remains critical. He said he is particularly worried by a recent escalation of violence in the northern cities of Aleppo and Idlib.

He said between 65 and 75 people have been hospitalized due to what appears to be a chemical weapons attack in Aleppo over the weekend. He said this would constitute a war crime if a forthcoming investigation into this event finds chemical agents were used.

He noted that over recent days, there has been a heavy exchange of mortars, grenades and shelling among armed groups in Idlib, potentially putting at risk the lives of 3 million civilians who have nowhere to go.
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Norway’s Magnus Carlsen has solidified his claim to be the greatest chess player in the world.

Carlsen beat Fabiano Caruana of the United States 3-0 Wednesday in a rapid-chess tiebreaker game at the world chess championships in London.

Carlsen and Caruana played to 12 draws in their series of championship matches that started Nov. 9, games that lasted as long as seven hours each.

They decided to settle the impasse in games of speed chess, in which each player is given just 25 minutes to try to beat his opponent.

After the long excruciating series of ties topped off by three speed games, Carlsen would only say that he had a “really good day,” while Caruana admitted that he “had a bad day.”

Carlsen takes home a $621,000 prize while Caruana pockets $508,000.

Carlsen has been the world chess champion since 2013, when he took the title from India’s Viswanathan Anand.

Caruana was hoping to become the first American to win the title since 1972, when Bobby Fischer defeated the Soviet Union’s Boris Spassky in a thrilling series of matches that made global headlines.
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Preliminary results from Georgia’s presidential runoff showed the ruling party-backed candidate, who favours balancing the ex-Soviet republic’s relations with Moscow and the West, leading her rival who advocates a stronger pro-Western line.

Figures from the Central Election Commission gave French-born Salome Zurabishvili 58.2 percent of the vote in the runoff, which was held on Wednesday. Opposition candidate Grigol Vashadze had 41.8 percent, based on results from 55 percent of the polling stations, the CEC said on its website.

Voting under close scrutiny

Earlier, two exit polls also showed Zurabishvili, a former French career diplomat who served as Georgia’s foreign minister from 2004-2005, with a clear lead.

The second round of voting was under close scrutiny by opposition and international observers for any sign that the ruling Georgian Dream party is using its control of state machinery to help Zurabishvili win.

The opposition said there have been attacks on its activists during campaigning and complained there were many irregularities during the vote, including attempts to pressure voters and manipulation of voter lists.

The ruling party has denied attempting to influence the outcome of the vote unfairly.

International observers said the first round of voting last month had been competitive, but had been held on “an unlevel playing field” with state resources misused, private media biased, and some phoney candidates taking part.

Balanced approach

Vashadze, who was foreign minister in 2008-2012, had been expected to use the presidency’s limited powers to send a vocal message of integration with the U.S.-led NATO alliance and the European Union — sensitive issues in the South Caucasus country that fought a war in 2008 with its neighbour Russia.

Georgian Dream and Zurabishvili take a more pragmatic line, balancing the country’s aspirations to move closer to the West with a desire to avoid antagonising the Kremlin.

Constitutional changes have reduced the authority of the president, and put most levers of power in the hands of the prime minister, a Georgian Dream loyalist.

Move to electoral college

The election was the last in which the president will be selected by popular vote. From 2024, presidents will be picked by an electoral college of 300 lawmakers and regional officials.

Zurabishvili won 38.6 percent of the vote in the first round on Oct. 28. That was just one percentage point ahead of Vashadze, who was a foreign minister in 2008-2012 in a resolutely pro-Western government that was in power when the conflict with Russia broke out over a Moscow-backed breakaway Georgian territory.

Georgian Dream was founded by billionaire banker Bidzina Ivanishvili, the country’s richest man, and critics say he rules the country from behind the scenes.

Zurabishvili’s supporters say she would bring international stature to the presidency. But her opponents have criticized her for statements that appeared to blame Georgia for the 2008 war and remarks about minorities that some see as xenophobic. 
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British Prime Minister Theresa May’s bid to win approval for her Brexit deal will have to overcome attempts to block or change it by rival lawmakers on Dec. 11, a proposed format for the debate published on Wednesday showed. 

 

The government has set out the details of a debate on a motion to approve May’s plan to take the country out of the European Union, allowing for amendments to be discussed that could try to reshape the deal she brought back from Brussels. 

 

The format of the debate has been keenly awaited to see whether rivals would have a chance to test their alternative exit plans, such as remaining in the EU’s customs union or making the exit conditional upon a second referendum. 

 

Any such amendments would not be legally binding on the government but would prove politically hard to ignore. 

May already has an arduous task to get the motion approved. It is opposed by a large group of lawmakers from her own party, the Northern Irish party that props up her minority government and by all opposition parties who say they will vote against it. 

 

Defeat would most likely unleash huge political uncertainty and could roil financial markets. 

 

According to documents filed at Britain’s Parliament on Wednesday, debates will be held on Dec. 4, 5, 6, 10 and 11, with up to six amendments selected on the final day. The opposition Labor Party said on Twitter the debate would conclude at 1900 GMT on Dec. 11. 

 

The amendments could be put to several votes, meaning that as well as overcoming the huge opposition to her plan, May will have to defeat attempts to add extra conditions to it or to thwart the exit agreement altogether. 

 

The government has previously voiced concerns that any of these so-called amendments that win support in the House of Commons could prevent the government from ratifying the exit deal because the amended motion would not provide the necessary unequivocal approval required under previously passed legislation.  
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