Tag: Russia

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Politics

Trump lawsuit towards Hillary Clinton, DNC over Russia claims dismissed

Trump lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, DNC over Russia claims dismissed

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks at the opening of the Vital Voices Women’s Embassy, ​​just days after a leak revealed the possibility that the US Supreme Court could hear the landmark abortion-rights decision in May in Washington, US v. Wade might pick it up on 5, 2022.

Evelyn Hockstein Reuters

A federal judge dismissed former President Donald Trump’s sweeping lawsuit alleging that Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee and many others conspired to spread a false narrative about collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential election.

In a sharp ruling Thursday, Judge Donald Middlebrooks said Trump’s lawsuit was merely “intended to display a two-hundred-page political manifesto setting out his grievances against those who opposed him.”

The former president’s claims “not only are not supported by any legal authority, but are clearly barred by binding precedent,” Middlebrooks wrote in the US District Court in South Florida.

Trump filed the lawsuit in March, seeking tens of millions in damages for violations of the RICO Act, a federal law aimed, among other things, at fighting organized crime. It came more than five years after Trump defeated Clinton in a vicious and scandal-ridden presidential campaign that focused on Trump’s relationship with Russia.

The lawsuit alleges the defendants worked to provide false or misleading evidence of damaging ties between Trump’s campaign and Russia. It names dozens of people and organizations as accused, including Clinton, the DNC, ex-Clinton adviser John Podesta, law firm Perkins Coie, research firm Fusion GPS, ex-Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook, and others.

Trump claimed he suffered at least $24 million in damages as a result of the defendants’ actions. His lawsuit was aimed at recovering three times the amount of the damage.

“Many of the characterizations of events in the amended complaint are implausible because they contain no specific allegations that could factually support the conclusions reached,” Middlebrooks wrote in Thursday’s order.

“What the amended complaint lacks in substance and legal support it seeks to make up for with length, hyperbole, and settlement of bills and complaints,” he wrote.

The judge agreed with the defendants’ characterization of Trump’s lawsuit as “a series of unrelated political disputes which the plaintiff has turned into a broad conspiracy among the many individuals whom the plaintiff believes have offended him.”

Trump’s legal team “will promptly appeal this decision,” his attorney Alina Habba said in a statement Friday morning. Middlebrooks’ order was “riddled with misapplication of the law” and ignored “numerous government investigations supporting Trump’s conspiracy claims,” ​​Habbas’ statement added.

Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into interference in the 2016 Russian election concluded that the Kremlin interfered in the contest but found insufficient evidence to prove collusion with Trump’s campaign.

Trump has repeatedly called the Mueller investigation a witch hunt, one of many he claims have been launched against him since his foray into politics.

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Business

Russia halts pure fuel flows to Germany once more.

Russia halts natural gas flows to Germany again.

Gazprom, Russia’s government-owned energy giant, shut off natural gas flows early Wednesday through Nord Stream 1, the critical pipeline that connects Russia to Germany, raising fresh worries about European energy supplies.

Gazprom said the cutoff was temporary and was necessary for maintenance, although the German government and energy executives consider it to be politically motivated. After three days, Gazprom said, the pipeline will restart “provided that no malfunctions are identified.” It said flows would resume at 20 percent of capacity, the same reduced level it has provided since late July.

Energy markets will be closely watched to see if supplies do resume as scheduled. In July, the pipeline was shut down for 10 days, again for maintenance.

Like other European countries, Germany is rushing to fill natural gas storage facilities before winter as insurance against cutoffs by Russia. The Russian government appears to be trying to obstruct that effort as well as create uncertainty over future gas deliveries.

So far, the results have been mixed. German gas storage facilities have reached more than 83 percent of capacity and appear likely to meet the government’s goal of 90 percent by Nov. 1.

On the other hand, the cutoffs of flows and worries about supplies in the coming months have driven natural gas prices in Europe to record levels in recent weeks, inflicting some of the economic damage that the efforts to store up gas are aimed at preventing.

Gazprom is not only aiming at Germany. On Tuesday, Engie, a large French utility, said that Gazprom had informed the company that it was cutting gas supplies over a contract dispute. “Russia is using gas as a weapon of war and we must prepare for the worst case scenario of a complete interruption of supplies,” France’s energy transition minister, Agnes Pannier-Runacher, told France Inter radio, Reuters reported.

On Monday, Uniper, a German utility that is one of Europe’s largest natural gas buyers and suppliers, said that it had already exhausted a 9 billion euro credit facility from the German government and was asking for €4 billion more.

Uniper said that with contracted supplies from Gazprom down 80 percent, it was having to buy gas on the market at significantly higher prices to supply customers, leading to losses that it said exceed €100 million a day.

Uniper agreed to a bailout in July that would include the government taking a stake in the company, but further steps including approval from the European Union are needed before it can be put fully in place.

The company’s chief executive, Klaus-Dieter Maubach, said in a statement that Uniper was working with the German government on “a permanent solution to this emergency.” Otherwise, he warned, the company would not be able to fulfill what he called its “system-critical function” as a supplier of natural gas to municipalities and factories.

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World News

Russia might invade Ukraine ‘within the blink of a watch’: Ukrainian international minister

EU warns Russia: if you invade Ukraine, a high price will be paid

If Russia decides to invade Ukraine, as feared by Western officials and experts, it could happen very quickly, said the Ukrainian Foreign Minister.

“Putin has not yet decided whether to conduct a military operation,” Dmytro Kuleba told CNBC on Thursday. “But if he does, things will happen in no time.”

In recent months, concerns have increased that Russia is planning military action against Ukraine. It follows Russian troop movements on the border and increasingly aggressive rhetoric against Kiev from Moscow.

However, Putin pointed his finger the other way and said in late November that Russia was concerned about military exercises in Ukraine near the border that threatened Moscow.

He has insisted that Russia be free to move troops into its own territory and has denied claims that the country may be preparing to invade Ukraine, calling such notions “alarmist”.

Ukraine and its allies in the US and Europe, as well as the NATO military alliance, disagree. All have warned Russia against aggressive action against Ukraine, but there are few signs of tensions easing.

“We [still] have Russian troops on our border. We have them in our occupied areas of Crimea and Donbass, and according to our assessments and assessments by our partners, and they agree, Russia already has the capacity to conduct offensive operations in the region … and we see that they continue to build up their forces “Kuleba told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble.

Ukrainian soldiers participate in a rehearsal of an official ceremony for the handover of tanks, armored personnel carriers and military vehicles to the Ukrainian Armed Forces as the country celebrates Army Day in Kiev, Ukraine, Dec. 6, 2021.

Gleb Garanich | Reuters

He added that Ukraine “was attacked by Russia at the lowest point of our strength in 2014,” referring to Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, a move of international condemnation and far-reaching sanctions against Russian business and state officials triggered. Russia is also accused of supporting pro-Russian uprisings in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine. However, it denies playing any role there.

Last week, US President Joe Biden spoke to his counterpart Vladimir Putin and warned the Russian head of state of an attack on Ukraine.

Experts say the US is running out of time to prevent further hostilities between neighboring countries, but how far the West will go to defend Ukraine is uncertain: Ukraine is not a member of NATO and not a member of the EU, despite it this strives to join both.

Russia vehemently rejects Ukraine’s possible future NATO membership and sees this as an expansion of the military alliance to its doorstep.

At his meeting with Biden, Putin was expected to ask the U.S. president for assurances that NATO – which has expanded greatly in the past 25 years to include many countries in Europe, including the former Soviet states in the Baltic States – would never expand would become Ukraine. No such assurances were given.

Kuleba said that if Ukraine had been a member of NATO in 2014 then “Putin would take care of his affairs” and there would have been “no war, no destruction” in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine and thousands of people living in the Eastern Ukraine died the conflict could have been spared.

When asked if Ukraine’s allies did enough to help, Kuleba said, “As long as Russian troops stay in Crimea and Donbass, neither of us is really doing enough. We can only judge by the bottom line. And that bottom line should be the trigger. ” Russia from Ukraine. However, it would have been much worse if we hadn’t had these relationships with our partners and our partners hadn’t changed their attitude towards Russia, “he said.

The EU is also concerned about Russia’s “aggressive” stance towards Ukraine and has warned Moscow that if invaded, it will pay a “heavy price”.

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On Wednesday, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told CNBC that “the military build-up around Ukraine is underway. So the big question is, what are they really up to?”

“Is it something you are trying or planning to attack Ukraine? Or is it just a bluff to negotiate a deal out of this situation? And we have to look very carefully at that.” She said.

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World News

Russia Doesn’t Ship U.S. Investor to Jail however Nonetheless Sends a Warning

Russia Doesn’t Send U.S. Investor to Jail but Still Sends a Warning

MOSCOW – A Russian court on Friday sentenced an American businessman, who is one of the country’s most prominent foreign investors, to five and a half years suspended sentence in a penal colony for embezzlement conviction, undermining Russia’s ability to attract foreign investment.

The suspended sentence for businessman Michael Calvey, founder of Baring Vostok, a private equity firm with $ 3.7 billion in assets under management, means he has no time in Russia’s notoriously harsh penal colony system, the successor to the Gulag Camp, unless he is in breach of probation.

However, the risk of jail time that Mr Calvey and his six co-defendants still face in the case was expected to dampen foreign interest in doing business in Russia, where FDI is already hampered by weak property rights and Western sanctions.

The ruling became all the more worrying for business leaders when, despite deteriorating ties with the West, Calvey had consistently advocated investment in Russia despite many companies pulling out of the country.

Mr. Calvey, 53, founded Baring Vostok in the 1990s, shortly after the collapse of communism, with the aim of bringing investors into Russia’s newly capitalist economy. In its 27 years in business, the company has attracted billions of dollars in private equity capital for Russian companies like Yandex, a search engine that competes locally with Google, and Ozon, an online retailer.

The co-defendants, including Philippe Delpal, a French national and senior executive at Baring Vostok, received similar suspended sentences in the Russian prison system.

The case arose out of a business dispute with shareholders in a Siberian bank.

Prosecutors said Mr. Calvey and other executives of his fund embezzled 2.5 billion rubles (about $ 34 million) by persuading the bank’s shareholders, Vostochny Bank, to inflate a stake in another company Accept price.

In his defense, Mr. Calvey argued that the bank’s shareholders had full access to information about the value of the shares when they accepted them in lieu of repaying a loan and that the case should also have been resolved through commercial arbitration.

“I came to Russia and stayed here because I loved this country from the start and believed that Russia had the potential to become one of the world’s leading investment markets,” Calvey said in a closing statement at his trial last month .

“I convinced investors to share my confidence in Russia’s future,” he said. “Even after 2014, when the geopolitical climate deteriorated and sanctions were imposed on Russia, I continued to defend Russia’s image as an attractive country to work and invest in.”

Calvey’s investment drive continued despite two decades of corporate government takeovers, ruble devaluations, and politically tinged arrests, including Sergei L. Magnitsky, who died on custody and worked as an attorney for another prominent foreign investor, William F. Browser.

Russia’s once richest man, Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, the founder of an oil company, was convicted twice and sentenced to long prison terms in the penal colonies.

The conditions there are tough. In a prison, Mr. Khodorkovsky was stabbed in the face with a homemade knife. The guard said another detainee was blocking unwanted sexual advances, which Mr. Khodorkovsky denied.

Mr. Calvey’s investment firm had focused on internet and retail start-ups that benefited from the riches of the petroleum industry and successfully served the country’s emerging middle class.

The arrest and detention of Mr Calvey and his colleagues in 2019 raised fears that executives at other American companies might be similarly arrested in a climate of strained relations with the United States. The seven executives were convicted by a Russian court on Thursday and sentenced on Friday.

During his detention, Mr. Calvey continued to speak out in favor of the investment case for Russia and read statements about it at hearings from the aquarium in which defendants are being held in Russian courts.

Russian entrepreneurs are often the target of market shakes and shadowy plans to steal assets, said Russia’s own corporate ombudsman. Arrests are common. Today, around one in ten prisoners in Russia’s penal colonies are white-collar criminals.

Government revenues from commodity exports such as oil and natural gas, which flow regardless of what Russian courts do in the country, have left the country’s investment climate largely unconcerned, economists noted. And an independent judicial system that would help investors could also weaken control over the political opposition.

“Russia is in what could be described as an investment pause,” said Natalia Akindinova, a researcher at the Higher School of Economics, in an interview.

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Politics

Russia Bans Bard School – The New York Occasions

Russia Bans Bard College - The New York Times

Michael C. Kimmage, a former State Department official who specializes in US-Russian relations, said the bard action sent a terrifying message to academics.

“I can’t think of a responsible administrator at an American college or exchange program who doesn’t take this seriously and is concerned,” said Dr. Kimmage, now professor at the Catholic University of America in Washington.

Russia has taken several steps to reduce educational exchanges between the two countries, despite trying to establish educational partnerships elsewhere and improve the quality of its domestic public universities.

In 2014, the Russian government withdrew from the Future Leaders Exchange program, a US State Department-funded initiative to promote US study by foreign high school students, after a Russian teenager studying in Michigan sought political asylum had. More recently, limited consulate services have made it difficult for Russian students to obtain a visa to study in the United States.

Suspicions have also increased in the USA. In 2019, a program at the American University in Washington was criticized as being too soft on Russia, and the Russian ambassador, Anatoly Antonov, accused the US news media of Russophobia while calling for increased cultural exchange between the countries.

Several American universities set up programs in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but some of them have closed in recent years. In 2018, Stanford University announced that it was suspending its Russian study abroad programs, citing security issues. That same year, Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts began phasing out its program at Astrakhan State University in Astrakhan, Russia, citing the cost and difficulty of managing its program from the United States as reasons.

The decline may be largely symbolic, indicative of the deterioration in relations between countries. Russia has never been a major partner in international study programs with the United States and ranks low on the list of countries whose students come to the United States. And according to the Institute of International Education, the number of Americans studying abroad in Russia fell to 1,305 in 2019, and data is available for the last year, from 1,827 in 2011.

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Politics

Lawmaker to Name for Renewed Push to Free Paul Whelan, U.S. Marine Jailed in Russia

Lawmaker to Call for Renewed Push to Free Paul Whelan, U.S. Marine Jailed in Russia

Paul N. Whelan, the former US Marine who was sentenced to 16 years in prison in Russia on espionage charges, has been unable to contact his family or the US embassy since July 4, and relatives and members of Congress are increasingly concerned about his welfare. His.

“No one has heard from him,” said Haley Stevens, a Michigan Democrat who represents Mr. Whelan, in an interview. “We haven’t heard from him or really been able to speak to him since the beginning of July.”

Ms. Stevens and the family members of Mr. Whelan and Trevor Reed, another former Marine who has been sentenced to prison terms in Russia, will hold a press conference to discuss detention conditions and press for new Congressional resolutions calling for their release.

Speaking to the Capitol on Thursday, Ms. Stevens said Mr. Whelan had to work in a prison clothing factory six days a week, injuring his arm and being held by Russia for 944 days.

“That’s 944 days he’s been away from his friends and family,” Ms. Stevens said at the press conference. “It’s 944 days too long.”

In early June, Mr Whelan interviewed CNN, after which the Russian authorities restricted his access to cell phones, although he was still allowed to call his family. President Biden raised the cases of Mr Whelan, 51, and Mr Reed, 30, during his June summit with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin.

Mr. Whelan called his parents in early July and then a second on July 4th.

“At that time he said, ‘If you don’t hear from me tomorrow, there will be trouble,'” said Elizabeth Whelan, his sister, in an interview.

Since then, neither the US embassy in Moscow nor Mr. Whelan’s parents have been able to contact him, Ms. Whelan said.

Joey Reed, Mr Reed’s father, said Thursday that his son had Covid and that he hadn’t heard from him in more than two weeks. “We are very concerned about his health,” he said. “Both of our families are concerned that Paul and Trevor might die in a Russian prison because of the poor conditions and lack of medical care.”

Evidence against Mr Whelan is thin, and nothing Russian prosecutors have produced has convinced American officials that he was spying on Russia.

Mr Whelan was arrested in late 2018 and, following his conviction last year, was detained in the IK-17 labor camp in Mordovia, about eight hours from Moscow.

Ms. Whelan said she believed her brother was returned to camp after being taken to hospital for treatment for an arm injury. But Mrs. Stevens said it was not clear where the Russians were holding him now. She also said that he was in solitary confinement.

Ms. Stevens, the Congresswoman, said, “The reality is that there has been no contact with him. This reaches another crucial moment. ”

Congress passed a resolution on Mr Whelan in 2019, but new action is in order, Ms Stevens said. She added that a vote would hardly force Mr Whelan’s release, but would demonstrate bipartisan opposition to Moscow’s tactics and “get under the skin of Russia.”

Rep. August Pfluger, the Texas Republican who represents the district Mr. Reed is from, urged Mr. Biden to step up pressure on Russia.

“We won’t compromise until we get Trevor and Paul home,” he said. “We will not tolerate American citizens being illegally detained by the Putin regime.”

Ms. Stevens said Moscow was trying to use Mr. Whelan and Mr. Reed to its own advantage.

“Americans absolutely cannot be used as political pawns for other countries, period, end of story, unacceptable,” she said. “These are the Russians who engage in the dark arts of political interference. I think this is part of an attempt to play with the inner psychology of our political structure. “

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Politics

Biden Will Press Merkel on China and Russia

Biden Will Press Merkel on China and Russia

WASHINGTON – President Biden and German Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed their shared values ​​on Thursday as a sign that the US-European alliance remained strong after the tensions of the Trump era, despite both admitting the differences in a major Russian pipeline and how to best approach to China.

During the White House meetings, Mr Biden’s agenda included several of his most pressing geopolitical priorities, such as curbing Chinese influence, curbing Russian aggression and lifting intellectual property restrictions on coronavirus vaccine manufacturers.

While there were no apparent breakthroughs, the visit was a way to show a unified front after President Donald J. Trump’s hostile exchanges with Ms. Merkel over NATO contributions, trade and multilateralism severely disrupted ties. The meeting will also take place before the Chancellor’s term of office expires and a new German government will be sworn in after the elections on September 26th.

“Good friends may disagree,” said Biden, who appeared next to Ms. Merkel at a press conference in the East Room after the meeting.

For the most part, the trip appeared to be a triumph of the personal over politics. Mr Biden joked that Ms. Merkel, who has worked with four US presidents, “knows the Oval Office as well as I do”. The Chancellor referred to the President several times as “Dear Joe” when she praised the friendly relationship that has lasted since his time in the Senate. But the warmth couldn’t hide the fact that neither leader had turned away from their main disagreements.

Mr Biden said he had raised the controversial issue of the $ 11 billion Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a natural gas pipeline that is being built between Germany and Russia and is expected to be completed by the end of the year. The president and his predecessors attacked the project only as a means of coercion against Ukraine and other allies.

“We have come to different assessments,” said Merkel about the project.

Mr Biden said the two agreed that they “are united in our belief that Russia should not be able to use energy as a weapon”.

The president waived congressional sanctions against the Russian company that built the pipeline and its German chairman that year, practically admitting that an attempt to halt the project was not worth the expected cost to German-American relations was.

Ms. Merkel kept her comments on fighting China nonspecific, whose influence Biden believes poses an existential threat to American democracy.

“There is great agreement that China is our competitor in many areas,” said the Chancellor, taking care not to come into conflict with Germany’s largest trading partner. She added that “trade with China must be based on the assumption that we are on a level playing field”.

The two leaders also signaled that they will remain separate in their approach to containing the pandemic. Ms. Merkel has not committed to revoking patents on coronavirus vaccines, and Mr Biden has not raised the issue in front of reporters. Ms. Merkel said she asked the president if his government would lift a travel ban on Europeans, but he had not made a commitment to lift it.

“I raised the issue,” said the Chancellor, “and got the same answer that the President gave you: the Covid team is looking into the matter.”

Nevertheless, the heads of state and government repeatedly emphasized their one-on-one relationship in their public appearances, a sharp deviation from Ms. Merkel’s frosty and stilted interactions with Mr. Trump, who slandered her as “prisoners of Russia”. When asked to compare Mr. Biden’s management style with that of his predecessor, the Chancellor was characteristically reserved and emphasized that she and Mr. Biden had a “very friendly exchange”.

“We are not just partners and allies,” said Merkel, “but are very close friends.”

At the start of the event, the President expressed his condolences to the Germans for the loss of life and property caused by the recent floods. He thanked the Chancellor for “an exemplary life with pioneering services for Germany”.

Mr Biden has been asked to deal with cases of diplomatic unrest closer to his home, including protests in Cuba and civil unrest following the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse. He told a reporter that other than sending marines to guard the US embassy, ​​he would not send any American troops there.

Addressing a wave of demonstrations across Cuba, Mr. Biden accused his government of being a “failed state” that “oppresses its citizens” and said he would change the rules against payments Americans can make to their Cuban relatives, not pick it up because he couldn’t be sure the government wouldn’t take it.

“I wouldn’t do that now,” he said, “because the fact is that the regime would most likely confiscate these transfers or large chunks.”

The president became irritated when asked about his top domestic economic priorities. When asked if he was confident that a $ 3.5 trillion budget created by the Democrats would be enough to pass with every Democratic Senator on board, Mr Biden blamed the news media as preemptively advising that the plan, along with negotiating an infrastructure deal, was on the way to failure.

“I am very confident that everything will work out perfectly,” he said dryly. “I’ve seen and heard the press so far have declared my initiative dead. I don’t think it’s dead. I think it’s still alive. “

Aside from sensitive political issues, Merkel’s visit before the end of her term in office was a kind of diplomatic victory round. She started her day with a cheese soufflé breakfast with Vice President Kamala Harris.

Later in the day, the Chancellor received an honorary doctorate from Johns Hopkins University and added to her collection of degrees from Harvard and Stanford. Arrived at the White House, Ms. Merkel and the President exchanged compliments in the Oval Office.

The exchange was not particularly warm, but a lot more collegial than at Merkel’s previous meeting in the Oval Office. When she asked Mr. Trump in 2017, “Would you like to have a handshake?” Mr. Trump apparently not.

Just as Ms. Merkel reacted mildly to Mr. Trump for years, she was not always overzealous to follow Mr. Biden’s requests to restore normality in American-German relations. Speaking of US relations during this year’s virtual Munich security conference, she said that “our interests will not always converge”.

At the time of Thursday’s press conference, Mr Biden and Mrs Merkel seemed more interested in continuing their farewell party than discussing what parted them.

After the press conference, they attended dinner with longtime allies, including Hillary Clinton. California minority representative Kevin McCarthy was also slated to visit Mr. Trump at his New Jersey golf club after traveling earlier in the day.

After the two leaders asked questions, Mr. Biden distracted Ms. Merkel from reporters.

“If we don’t leave immediately,” he said to her, “we’ll miss dinner.”

Glenn Thrush contributed to the coverage.

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Politics

Biden, Merkel agree Russia can not use Nord Stream pipeline as weapon

Biden, Merkel agree Russia cannot use Nord Stream pipeline as weapon

US President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Angela Merkel hold a joint press conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, July 15, 2021.

Saul Loeb | AFP| Images

President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed on Thursday that they will oppose any effort by Russia to use the contentious Nord Stream pipeline as a weapon against neighboring nations such as Ukraine.

The completion of Nord Stream 2, an $11 billion gas pipeline that would run directly to Germany from Russia under the Baltic Sea, has long been a source of tension between Washington and Berlin, otherwise close NATO allies.

“While I reiterated my concerns about Nord Stream 2, Chancellor Merkel and I are absolutely united in our conviction that Russia must not be allowed to use energy as a weapon to coerce or threaten its neighbors,” Biden said. 

“My view on Nord Stream 2 has been known for some time. Good friends can disagree, but by the time I became president, it was 90% completed and imposing sanctions did not seem to make any sense,” he said.

The president waived sanctions against Swiss-based company Nord Stream 2 AG, which is running the pipeline project, and its German CEO in May. Nord Stream 2 AG is owned by the Russian state energy company Gazprom.

Biden has opposed the completion of the pipeline over concerns that it would allow Moscow to gain increased political leverage over other European nations and more control over energy reserves. 

In particular, the U.S. fears that the pipeline would threaten the security and economy of Ukraine by depriving it of crucial gas transport revenues.  

The route of a proposed new gas pipeline from Russia to Europe.

nord-stream2.com

Merkel has supported the pipeline, but emphasized on Thursday that Nord Stream would not replace Ukraine’s transit pipelines for natural gas. 

“Our idea is and remains that Ukraine remains a transit country for natural gas, that Ukraine, just as any other country in the world, has the right to territorial sovereignty,” Merkel said at the joint press conference.

“We will be actively acting should Russia not respect this right of Ukraine that it has as a transit country,” Merkel said. 

Biden said he and Merkel asked their teams to examine practical measures that can be taken to determine if Europe’s energy security is “strengthened or weakened based on Russian actions.”

The pipeline was among the several global issues that the two leaders addressed at the White House on Thursday in what is likely to be Merkel’s last visit to Washington before she steps down from office. 

The two leaders also announced a climate and energy partnership, which Biden said will support energy security and the development of sustainable energy in emerging economies in Central Europe and Ukraine. 

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Biden and Merkel also signed a pact, called the Washington Declaration, which reaffirms the U.S. and Germany’s commitment to democratic principles and outlines a joint vision to address global issues guided by those values. 

“Both our nations understand the imperative of proving that democracies can deliver the needs of our people in the second quarter of the 21st century,” Biden said.  

Among the other issues that the two leaders addressed were China, climate change, security issues in Afghanistan and combating Covid-19. Biden said the U.S. is reviewing when it can lift Covid-related travel restrictions that ban most Europeans from entering the U.S., an issue that Merkel had raised prior to the joint news conference.

Merkel’s visit serves as a stark contrast to former President Donald Trump’s notorious clashes with her during his term, which contributed to the deterioration of the two nations’ relationship. 

Trump publicly called out Merkel for not meeting the 2% GDP spending goal established at the 2014 NATO summit in Wales, claiming that Germany owed “vast sums of money” to the U.S. Trump also hammered Merkel on trade and moved to withdraw nearly 12,000 U.S. troops from Germany. 

In response, Merkel often pushed back on Trump’s rhetoric and criticized policy decisions such as his travel ban targeting citizens of several mainly Muslim countries. 

Biden has made it a priority to repair relationships with Germany and other European nations. Merkel is the first European leader to meet with Biden at the White House, and her visit serves as a final farewell to the U.S. as she approaches the end of a historic political career that has lasted nearly 16 years.

Merkel’s visit will end with a dinner hosted by the president and first lady Jill Biden in the State Dining Room. The dinner will be attended by Vice President Kamala Harris, second gentleman Dough Emhoff and others who are boosters for Germany’s relationship with the U.S. 

“I know that the partnership between Germany and the United States will continue to grow stronger on the foundation that you’ve helped to build,” Biden said to Merkel. 

“But on a personal note, I must tell you, I’ll miss seeing you at our summit, I truly will. So thank you again for making the journey, for a productive meeting today and for your friendship,” he said. 

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Politics

Biden presses Putin to disrupt cybercriminals in Russia

Biden presses Putin to disrupt cybercriminals in Russia

United States President Joe Biden speaks before signing an executive order in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, DC, the United States, on Friday, July 9, 2021.

Alex Edelmann | Bloomberg | Getty Images

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden in a phone call Friday morning urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to take action to contain recent ransomware attacks by groups based in Russia.

“I made it very clear [Putin] that when a ransomware operation comes off its soil despite not being state sponsored, the United States expects that if we give them enough information to act who it is, we expect them to act said Biden at the White House on Friday afternoon.

When asked by a reporter whether there would be “consequences” for such attacks, Biden replied, “Yes”.

The US and Russia, according to the President, have “now regularly set up a means of communication in order to be able to communicate with each other when each of us thinks that something is happening in another country that affects our home country”.

Overall, the call “went well, I’m optimistic,” said Biden.

The conversation came just days after a massive new cyber attack by the REvil group believed to be based in Russia.

The hacking gang is demanding $ 70 million in cryptocurrency to unlock data from the attack that spread to hundreds of small and medium-sized businesses in a dozen countries.

A senior government official said Friday that the United States will take “action” to respond to the attack.

“We will not telegraph what exactly these actions will be. Some will be obvious and visible, others may not, but we expect these to take place in the coming days and weeks,” said the official, who asked for anonymity discuss sensitive negotiations.

The official spoke just moments after Biden, who boarded Air Force One en route to Delaware, was asked if it made sense for the United States to attack the actual servers that are hosting ransomware attacks. Biden replied, “Yes.”

The latest REvil attack is part of a series of serious ransomware attacks carried out by groups originating in Russia this spring and summer.

In May, REvil targeted JBS, the world’s largest meat supplier. The company eventually paid a $ 11 million ransom, but not before it temporarily ceased all of its U.S. operations.

Earlier that month, another cybercriminal targeted the operator of the country’s largest gas pipeline, the Colonial Pipeline. The attack forced the company to shut down a pipeline roughly 5,500 miles long, cutting fuel supplies to the east coast of almost half.

As of early Friday afternoon, the Kremlin had not yet published its own reading of the Biden Putin appeal, so it is unclear how the Russian president reacted to Biden’s pressure.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Friday the United States had no new information suggesting the Russian government was directly responsible for the attacks.

Putin has always denied any involvement or direct knowledge of ransomware attacks from Russia.

However, US officials say the idea that Putin does not know who these attackers are is not credible as he has a tight grip on Russia’s intelligence services and its more opaque network of contractors.

In June, Biden met personally with Putin in Geneva, where he warned the Russian President to crack down on cyberattacks from Russia.

US President Joe Biden gestures at a press conference after the US-Russia Summit with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on June 16, 2021 in Geneva, Switzerland.

Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

There, Biden said he presented Putin with a list of critical infrastructures in the United States that, if attacked by Russia-based cybercriminals, would pose a serious national security threat to the United States

“Certain critical infrastructures should be closed to attacks, cyber or other means,” said Biden after the meeting. “I gave them a list, 16 specific entities that are defined as critical infrastructure under US policy, from the energy sector to water systems.”

“So we agreed to hire experts in our two countries to work on specific agreements on what is forbidden and investigate specific cases that come from other countries or from one of our countries,” he said.

By identifying critical infrastructure as locked down, Biden also circled targets that, if attacked by state or non-state actors, would likely deserve a government response.

The White House has so far declined to detail the retaliatory measures taken by the United States in several recent attacks against the cybercriminals themselves on the grounds that such information must remain confidential.

During the phone call on Friday, Putin and Biden also praised their teams’ joint work after the meeting in Geneva, the White House said.

This work led to an important vote in the UN Security Council on Friday to resume the delivery of humanitarian aid to Syria.

4:00 p.m. – This story has been updated to include President Joe Biden’s comments on the call, as well as remarks from a senior administrator.

– CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger contributed to this report.

Categories
Health

Putin reveals he had the Sputnik V shot as Russia struggles with Covid

Putin reveals he had the Sputnik V shot as Russia struggles with Covid

Watching a live broadcast of the annual phone call of Russian President Vladimir Putin in the newsroom of the TASS news agency.

Gavriil Grigorov | TASS | Getty Images

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday said he received the Sputnik-V coronavirus vaccine as the Kremlin struggles to convince a skeptical public of the benefits of vaccination.

“I thought I needed to be protected as long as possible. So I decided to vaccinate with Sputnik V. The military is vaccinated with Sputnik V and after all I am the commander in chief, ”Putin said during his annual conference call where the public asked questions to the president.

“After the first shot, I didn’t feel anything. About four hours later there was some tenderness where I had the shot. I took the second.” [shot] at noon. I took my temperature at midnight. It was 37.2 [Celsius]. I went to sleep, woke up and my temperature was 36.6. That was it, “Putin said in a Reuters-translated commentary.

Putin had previously refused to say what Covid vaccine he received in March and the Kremlin said it would keep the information “a secret”. Putin was not filmed or photographed when he received the shot, leading to speculation among the Russian public and the international press that he had not received any Russian vaccine at all.

Doubts about Putin’s vaccination status have not helped allay Russians’ apparent reluctance to get a Covid vaccination, despite the incentives for older people to get the vaccination.

Russia has now approved four home-grown vaccines for use and was the first country in the world to approve a coronavirus vaccination, Sputnik V (its most famous vaccine), last August.

The fact that the vaccine was approved prior to the completion of clinical trials caused a stir in the global scientific community and is believed to have contributed to public skepticism about the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness.

Still, an interim analysis of the shot’s Phase 3 clinical trials, which included 20,000 participants and which were published in the peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet in early February, found 91.6% of it against symptomatic Covid-19 infection was effective. Russia has tried to sell its vaccine to several countries around the world, especially its allies.

Still, vaccination rates at home remain very sluggish, much to the chagrin of Putin, who has extolled the benefits of Russian Covid vaccines and encouraged the public to take up vaccination. The vaccination rate is lagging behind many countries, including India, Mexico and Brazil.

Our World in Data figures show that 15% of the Russian population received one dose and 12% received their second dose.

Putin’s comments come as Russia struggles to contain Covid and the Delta variant in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Last Friday, the Russian coronavirus task force reported 20,393 new Covid cases, most of the cases confirmed in a single day since January 24, according to Reuters. 7,916 new infections were in Moscow. Russia has recorded nearly 5.5 million cases since the pandemic began.

During the question-and-answer session in front of various members of the public from across Russia, Putin raised a variety of issues including rising food prices, energy infrastructure, relations with Ukraine and housing issues. Over 1 million questions were put to Putin, the TASS news agency reported.

Regarding the mandatory vaccination of the population in light of the low vaccination rate, Putin reiterated on Wednesday that he still disagreed with it, despite steps being taken to get Russians to accept the vaccination with the prospect of restrictions and possible job losses those who do not accept it.

In Moscow, for example, officials said that 60% of workers in the service sector must have their first dose of a Covid vaccine before July 15.