allworldsnews

Category: WORLDS

  • U.K. military aiding spy probe; Russia says it’s not to blame

    British police asked the military on Friday to help investigate the nerve-agent poisoning of a former spy, as Russia’s foreign minister expressed resentment at suggestions Moscow was behind the attack

    LONDON (AP) — British police asked the military on Friday to help investigate the nerve-agent poisoning of a former spy, as Russia’s foreign minister expressed resentment at suggestions Moscow was behind the attack.

    The Metropolitan Police force said counterterrorism detectives had asked for military help “to remove a number of vehicles and objects from the scene” of Sunday’s attack in the city of Salisbury.

    Police said troops were being called in because “they have the necessary capability and expertise” and health advice remains the same – there is no broader risk to the public.

    British investigators are scrambling to trace the nerve agent that has left former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in critical condition.

    Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow was “ready to consider” lending a hand, “whether it’s poisoning of some British subjects, whether it’s rumors about interference in the U.S. election campaign.”

    “But in order to conduct such cases, it is necessary not to immediately run out on TV screens with unfounded allegations,” Lavrov was quoted as saying by Russian state news agency Tass in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

    Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence officer, was convicted in 2006 of spying for Britain and released in 2010 as part of a spy swap.

    He had been living quietly in Salisbury, where he and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a bench Sunday. They are in critical but stable condition in a hospital in the city, 90 miles (140 kilometers) southwest of London.

    A police officer who treated them at the scene is in serious condition, and a total of 21 people have received medical treatment.

    The U.K. has vowed to take strong action against whoever was responsible for the “brazen and reckless” attack.

    British authorities say it’s too soon to lay blame, but suspicions have fallen on Russia.

    Those branded enemies of the Russian state have sometimes died mysteriously abroad, and the Skripal case echoes the death of Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian agent who was poisoned in London in 2006 with radioactive polonium-210.

    A British public inquiry found that Russia was responsible for Litvinenko’s killing, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin probably approved it.

    A former head of London’s Metropolitan Police called Friday for new investigations into the deaths of 14 Russians in the U.K. amid suggestions they were targeted by the Russian state.

    Former Commissioner Ian Blair, who led the London force when Litvinenko was fatally poisoned, told the BBC it is important to find out “whether there is some pattern here.”

    A BuzzFeed News investigation claimed U.S. spy agencies have linked 14 deaths to Russia, but U.K. police shut down the cases.

    Russian media have mocked suggestions of Moscow involvement in the attack – but also noted that those who betray Russian seem to come to a bad end.

    One anchorman on a Russian state television news show began a report on Skripal’s poisoning with a warning to anyone considering becoming a double agent.

    Channel One anchorman Kirill Kleimenov said in the Wednesday broadcast that he didn’t wish death or suffering on anyone but wanted those “who dream of such a career” to know that traitors rarely live long.

    “Alcoholism, drug addiction, stress and depression are inevitable professional illnesses of a traitor resulting in heart attacks and even suicide,” Kleimenov said.

    __

    Jim Heintz in Moscow contributed to this story.

  • U.S.-Russian clash in Syria merits a much closer look

    For all the hysteria about Russian collusion and President Trump being in Vladimir Putin’s pocket, you would be hard-pressed to find in the mainstream media the fact that the United States military ju

    ANALYSIS/OPINION:

    For all the hysteria about Russian collusion and President Trump being in Vladimir Putin’s pocket, you would be hard-pressed to find in the mainstream media the fact that the United States military just killed at least a hundred Russian mercenaries, possibly twice that number or more, with hundreds more wounded.

    I am speaking of course about the recent battle in Syria, where American air power decimated a ground force advancing on U.S. positions and U.S.-backed local Syrian allies.

    The media would rather froth at the mouth about Kellyanne Conway saying the wrong thing in a TV interview than a hot war between the two nations who could literally destroy the human race in a few minutes.

    Why does no one want to talk about this? The answer is obvious — the inevitable conclusions are just too horrifying to contemplate.

    The 30,000-foot narrative of the incident was that a Russia oligarch, affectionately nicknamed “Putin’s cook” because he literally served meals for the Russian president and then the Russian military for lucrative contracts, decided upon his own to ink a deal with Syrian President Bashar Assad to “take” some oil fields the regime had lost control of, and naturally, share the profits.

    This oligarch, Yevgeny Prigozhin, also runs a private mercenary force, called Wagner, which made lots of money in East Ukraine and has been involved in the Syrian conflict for some time, fighting for Mr. Assad and taking care of things Mr. Putin doesn’t want to use official Russian forces to handle.

    Once the necessary agreements were signed between Wagner and Syria (agreements the Kremlin was most assuredly aware of and maybe even approved), Mr. Prigozhin decided to send in a few companies of his private army to attack in the middle of the night.

    The American command center saw them coming and contacted the Russians, asking if they were sending forces into the American area. The Russians denied they had military operations near the U.S. positions. The result was a massive airstrike using close air support aircraft from Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) and Army Apache gunships, among other assets. The results were devastating, as only an AC-130 can deliver.

    The reason no one wants to talk about the killings is obvious. First of all, American air power literally tore up the Russian mercenary force like a rototiller in a spring garden. It was just too easy. Of course there was no Russian air power or air defense systems to deal with, so it was not a fair fight. But the thought of hundreds of Russians being killed easily by American air power is something I’m sure the Kremlin doesn’t want to advertise.

    Second, the image of the two nations with the largest nuclear stockpiles literally fighting to the death is also a mental picture most national security professionals don’t really want to think about. The thought is just not pleasant.

    Finally, the suggestion that President Putin may have authorized Russian nationals to attack American special forces is also very disturbing. Perhaps Mr. Putin wanted to give the world the same “unpredictable” image that Mr. Trump has so carefully nurtured in the press. If he did, it backfired spectacularly. If you notice, it was only a few days after the Syria clash that Mr. Putin gave his now-famous “I’ve got invincible nuclear weapons” speech.

    Mr. Putin has said the West should not “forget” that Russia is a nuclear power. He has also made a conscious decision not to meet the West head to head with conventional forces, preferring to spend big bucks on modernizing his nuclear stockpile, including cruise missiles and underwater drones.

    The Syrian incident shows that probably was a wise decision. Nuclear forces have been shown to be Mr. Putin’s trump card, not massive conventional force.

    I’m sure the Chinese have been monitoring the situation as well.

    • L. Todd Wood is a former special operations helicopter pilot and Wall Street debt trader, and has contributed to Fox Business, The Moscow Times, National Review, the New York Post and many other publications. He can be reached through his website, LToddWood.com.

  • Donald Trump to meet with Kim Jong-un in May

    President Trump has agreed to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un by May for historic talks on denuclearization, a senior South Korean official announced Thursday night.

    President Trump has agreed to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un by May for historic talks on denuclearization, a senior South Korean official announced Thursday night.

    South Korean National Security Adviser Chung Eui-yong told reporters at the White House that Mr. Kim conveyed the invitation for a meeting with Mr. Trump after breakthrough talks this week between the North and South in Pyongyang.

    Mr. Trump called the development “great progress” but vowed that the U.S. would not lift sanctions on North Korea while diplomacy is under way.

    Mr. Chung said the North Korean leader “expressed his eagerness to meet President Trump as soon as possible.”

    South Korean President Moon Jae-in already had been scheduled to meet with the North Korean leader at a summit in April at the Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas. Mr. Chung is part of a South Korean delegation visiting Washington following the talks this week in Pyongyang.

    Mr. Chung said the North Korean leader is “committed to denuclearization” and that he pledged to refrain from any further nuclear weapons or ballistic missile tests. He said Mr. Kim also has accepted that the U.S. and South Korea will proceed with “routine” military exercises scheduled for next month.

    “I explained to President Trump that his leadership and his maximum pressure policy, together with international solidarity, brought us to this juncture,” Mr. Chung said, adding that he expressed Mr. Moon’s “personal gratitude” for Mr. Trump’s leadership on confronting Pyongyang.

    Mr. Trump tweeted Thursday night about the sudden announcement: “Kim Jong Un talked about denuclearization with the South Korean Representatives, not just a freeze. Also, no missile testing by North Korea during this period of time. Great progress being made but sanctions will remain until an agreement is reached. Meeting being planned!”

    There has never been a face-to-face meeting between the leaders of the U.S. and North Korea. A senior administration official said Mr. Kim conveyed the message by word of mouth through the South Koreans that he wants to meet with Mr. Trump “as quickly as possible.”

    The South Korean officials briefed Mr. Trump in the Oval Office on Thursday, with National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, Defense Secretary James Mattis, White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly and other U.S. officials present.

    The official said Mr. Trump agreed to meet with Mr. Kim “in a matter of a couple of months.”

    While the U.S. has often made concessions to North Korea in return for lower-level talks, the official said that keeping sanctions in place “is what differentiates the president’s policy from the policies of the past.”

    “President Trump has been very clear from the beginning that he is not prepared to reward North Korea in exchange for talks,” the aide said.

    White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed that Mr. Trump will meet with Mr. Kim “at a place and time to be determined.”

    “We look forward to the denuclearization of North Korea. In the meantime, all sanctions and maximum pressure must remain,” she said.

    Mrs. Sanders said the president “greatly appreciates the nice words of the South Korean delegation and President Moon.”

    Mr. McMaster is to brief U.N. Security Council envoys on North Korea on Monday, Reuters reported.

    As the prospect of direct Trump-Kim talks has risen, analysts and U.S. intelligence officials have noted that the North Korean dictator, in his mid-30s, has had hardly any interactions with high-profile Americans. The exception is multiple meetings in recent years with former basketball star Dennis Rodman.

    It’s a factor that has made it hard for U.S. intelligence to predict how Mr. Kim might behave in a meeting with Mr. Trump and created a challenge for officials tasked with briefing the president on what to expect.

    Some analysts warned Thursday night that the risks remain incredibly high that hopes for diplomacy could fizzle on both the U.S. and North Korean side.

    “We’d expect such an unprecedented meeting to happen after some concrete deliverables were in hand, not before,” said Suzanne DiMaggio, a senior fellow with the New America think tank in Washington.

    While Ms. DiMaggio said that if the developments evolve into “a process for serious, sustained negotiations,” then Mr. Trump’s willingness to embrace North Korea’s reported offer will turn out to be a “positive move.”

    “But it will have to be managed very carefully with a great deal of preparatory work,” she told The Times on Thursday night. “Otherwise, it runs the risk of being more spectacle than substance. Right now, Kim Jong-un is setting the agenda and the pace, and the Trump administration is reacting.”

    “The administration needs to move quickly to change this dynamic,” Ms. DiMaggio said.

    Analysts have also warned that there has yet to be an official offer for talks directly from the Kim regime — that all of the latest news developments on the situation have come through the South Korean government.

    As of early Friday, Korean time, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency had not mentioned the events in Washington.

    “There seems to be no direct message from North Korea to the U.S. government,” Michael Pillsbury, a Mandarin-speaking Pentagon consultant and head of Chinese strategy at the Hudson Institute in Washington, noted on Wednesday.

    “This is all being filtered through the South Korean government,” said Mr. Pillsbury, adding that Chinese officials, who are generally regarded to be far more in touch than anyone else with goings-on in Pyongyang, have also been unsure about the South Korean claims of Mr. Kim’s eagerness to talk with Mr. Trump.

    The Chinese government has yet to make an official statement on the situation, and the de facto newspaper of the ruling Communist Party in Beijing went so far as to question whether Mr. Kim’s offer to Mr. Trump really happened.

    “North Korea still has not confirmed the South’s version of events,” stated an editorial in the Global Times, which also pointed out that Pyongyang’s official state newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun, had asserted in its editorial that the Kim regime plans to proceed with the “advance” of the nation’s “nuclear weaponry.”

    Earlier Thursday, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson played down hopes for a breakthrough on North Korea’s nuclear program, saying the U.S. is a long way from negotiations after the country’s leader offered to give up his weapons in exchange for security guarantees.

    “We’re a long way from negotiations; we just need to be very clear-eyed and realistic about it,” Mr. Tillerson said during a stop in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

    Mr. Moon’s office said Tuesday that the North had expressed a “willingness to hold a heartfelt dialogue with the United States on the issues of denuclearization” and “made it clear that while dialogue is continuing, it will not attempt any strategic provocations, such as nuclear and ballistic missile tests.”

    China barely reacted to word of a possible thawing of relations.

    U.S. officials believe that sanctions against North Korea are beginning to sting the communist country, which has staged multiple nuclear and ballistic missile tests in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

    Administration officials also have repeatedly pointed out that Mr. Kim has gone through the motions of talks with the U.S. previously, all the while continuing to refine his weapons programs.

    Rep. Edward R. Royce, California Republican and House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, said Mr. Kim’s desire for talks “shows sanctions the administration has implemented are starting to work.”

    “We can pursue more diplomacy as we keep applying pressure ounce by ounce,” Mr. Royce said. “Remember, North Korean regimes have repeatedly used talks and empty promises to extract concessions and buy time. North Korea uses this to advance its nuclear and missile programs. We’ve got to break this cycle.”

    Part of what made the announcement so unexpected is that from the start of his presidency, Mr. Trump has determined to take a more aggressive approach to North Korea than his predecessors.

    He has taunted Mr. Kim on Twitter as “Little Rocket Man” and vowed last year that Pyongyang would be met with “fire and fury” if Mr. Kim followed through on threats to attack the U.S. mainland or its territories. Mr. Trump also has pressed China to adhere to harsh economic sanctions.

    That history prompted one key Democrat to warn the U.S. president about diplomacy by Twitter.

    Mr. Trump needs to “abandon his penchant for unscripted remarks and bombastic rhetoric to avoid derailing this significant opportunity for progress,” said Sen. Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the East Asia panel of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

    “And if the talks between the two leaders do not go well, it is not an excuse to justify military action for a situation that has no military solution,” Mr. Markey said.

    Retired Rear Adm. John Kirby, who was a spokesman for the Pentagon and State Department in the Obama administration, said on CNN. “It certainly does feel like a different moment.”

    He said Mr. Trump deserves credit for the announcement, though he also cited Seoul, saying Mr. Moon may be the most eager South Korean leader ever to produce a breakthrough with the North.

    Kevin Martin, president of Peace Action, said Mr. Kim’s reported commitment not to test nuclear weapons or ballistic missiles during diplomacy “is excellent news, as is President Trump accepting Kim’s invitation to meet in person for the first time.”

    “North Korea is putting virtually all topics of concerns on the table,” Mr. Martin said. “Trump now has the opportunity to achieve what no president has been able to achieve in seven decades of U.S.-North Korea relations: make real strides towards lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula.”

    • Guy Taylor contributed to this article.

  • China tries to gauge North Korea nuclear offer

    President Trump praised China for helping drive North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s toward potential denuclearization talks with Washington, but a cautious Beijing has barely even reacted to reports thi

    President Trump praised China for helping drive North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s toward potential denuclearization talks with Washington, but a cautious Beijing has barely even reacted to reports this week that Mr. Kim is offering to halt all nuclear and missile tests while such negotiations play out.

    Despite its status as the North’s ally and main link to the outside world, the Chinese government has not made an official statement on the claim by South Korean officials that Mr. Kim made the offer during talks with them this week, and the newspaper of the ruling Communist party even questioned whether the offer really happened.

    “North Korea still has not confirmed the South’s version of events,” stated an editorial in the Global Times, noting that Pyongyang’s own official state newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun, had said Pyongyang’s actual plan is to proceed with the “advance” of the nation’s “nuclear weaponry.”

    U.S. officials said the editorials underscored ongoing “puzzlement” inside the White House over the true nature of the offer South Korean officials claim Mr. Kim made with regard to missile and nuclear tests.

    South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s office said in a statement Tuesday the North in direct talks had expressed a “willingness to hold a heartfelt dialogue with the United States on the issues of denuclearization” and “made it clear that while dialogue is continuing, it will not attempt any strategic provocations, such as nuclear and ballistic missile tests.”

    But Mr. Moon on Wednesday tried to tamp down expectations for the detente and ease fears that the talks could separate Seoul from Washington and other allies urging a hard line on the North’s nuclear and missile programs. He noted many of the sanctions of the North were imposed by the U.S. or through the United Nations, and would only be eased by “substantive progress” on denuclearization.

    “These international efforts cannot be loosened by inter-Korean dialogue,” Mr. Moon told a meeting of South Korean party leaders in Seoul. “We don’t aim for that to happen and it’s also impossible.”

    The issue, according to Michael Pillsbury, a Mandarin-speaking Pentagon consultant and head of Chinese strategy at the Hudson Institute in Washington, is that “that there seems to be no direct message from North Korea to the U.S. government.”

    “This is all being filtered through the South Korean government,” Mr. Pillsbury said, adding that Chinese officials, who are generally regarded as having better sources on the inner workings of the Pyongyang regime, are still unsure about what is on the table.

    According to the Global Times editorial, the Chinese government so far “does not see a major shift in North Korea’s negotiating position,” said Mr. Pillsbury, who warned in an interview that “there is often a price to pay just to learn that North Korea has not made any real concessions.”

    Joseph DeTrani, a former CIA official who served as the State Department’s special envoy to the North Korean talks that broke down in 2009, said the Chinese have appeared to be “as surprised as everyone else” about South Korea’s claim that Mr. Kim has offered to halt tests and discuss denuclearization with Washington.

    “We’ve got to sit down with the North Koreans and not have anything go through filters,” said Mr. DeTrani. “It’s got to be direct so we can figure out what’s going on, what does Kim Jong Un want, and does he know what he’s doing?”

    President Trump has expressed guarded optimism about the prospect for such talks, but it’s not clear when and whether the talks will occur. South Korean officials said they hope details could take shape during a direct meeting slated for late-April between the North and South Korean presidents.

    Some analysts say Beijing is poised to claim credit for any future progress on U.S.-North Korea talks and may even seek concessions from Washington in exchange for influencing the regime in Pyongyang. The North Korean offer came at the same time Mr. Trump was putting the finishing touches on steel and aluminum tariffs that administration officials were primarily sparked by massive Chinese overproduction and dumping abroad.

    Patrick Cronin, who heads the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, said Tuesday that if the talks turn out to be successful, “China will then be seeking to extract favors and take credit for it.”

    “The Chinese are all over us on this,” Mr. Cronin said, asserting that Beijing will want concessions from Washington “on trade” relating to everything from “solar panels to aluminum and steel.”

    • Seth McLaughlin contributed to this article.

  • Karl Marx statue in Trier, Germany, gets mixed reactions ahead of 200 birthday

    A towering bronze statue of Karl Marx, a gift of China’s communist government, arrived in Germany on Tuesday two months ahead of a celebration honoring the Communist Manifesto author’s 200th birthday

    A towering bronze statue of Karl Marx, a gift of China’s communist government, arrived in Germany on Tuesday two months ahead of a celebration honoring the Communist Manifesto author’s 200th birthday in his birthplace of Trier.

    But the gift is getting a sharply mixed reaction. Some say the statue honoring the author of “Das Kapital” and the Communist Manifesto celebrates a thinker whose ideas were embraced by some of history’s deadliest regimes. The head of the European Union’s executive arm is taking flak over reports that he may take part in the bicentennial celebrations this spring.

    European politicians and opponents of communism have denounced the statue’s installation and other festivities marking the bicentennial. They say the celebration is a slap in the face to millions who suffered under governments acting in the philosopher’s name.

    Marion Smith, executive director of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, a Washington-based nonprofit, questioned the wisdom of celebrating a thinker whose ideas have led to “some of the greatest episodes of human suffering in all of history.”

    “Every time Marxism has tried, it resulted in abject economic collapse or a repressive police state — or, as we are seeing right now in Venezuela, both,” Mr. Smith said in a statement. “The 200th anniversary of Karl Marx’s birth should not be celebrated, but instead marked by serious historical reflection on the human calamities caused by more than 100 years of communist tyranny.”

    Designed by sculptor Wu Weishan, the 14-foot-tall superstructure depicts Marx with a bushy beard, pensive gaze and flowing frock coat. He carries a book in his left hand and steps slightly forward with his left foot.

    The statue will be unveiled May 5 in Trier’s Simeonstift Plaza, right next to the house where the revolutionary thinker was born. Other celebrations marking Marx’s 200th birthday will accompany the unveiling.

    The Karl Marx House, now a museum, will debut an exhibition, “From Trier to the World: Karl Marx, His Ideas and Their Impact to This Day.”

    Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm and one of the Continent’s most well-known leaders, is expected to speak at the opening of an exhibition, “Karl Marx 1818-1883, Life, Works, Time,” at the Basilica of Constantine in Trier.

    Daniel Kawczynski, a British member of Parliament who fled the Soviet-dominated communist regime in Poland as a 7-year-old, said an appearance from Mr. Juncker would be in “very poor taste” and encouraged him to turn down the invitation.

    “Marxism led to the killing of millions around the world as it allowed a small band of fanatics to suppress the people. We must learn the lessons from this and share with our children,” Mr. Kawczynski told Express.

    A spokesperson for Mr. Juncker did not confirm nor deny his plan to attend the Marx exhibition, saying his schedule is released publicly only a week in advance.

    Troubled relationship

    Trier, a Rhineland town in southwestern Germany best known for its spectacular Roman ruins and architecture, has always had a troubled relationship with its famous son. Marx and his wife, Jenny, were born in the city, and the young scholar and revolutionary spent the first 17 years of his life in Trier.

    More than four decades after his death in London in 1883, the leftist Social Democratic Party turned his boyhood home into a museum. Adolf Hitler’s Nazis gutted the site and used it for a party newspaper. The museum was resurrected after Germany’s defeat in World War II and got a post-Cold War boost in interest when the financial crisis shook the world in 2008.

    Officials say the site now attracts some 40,000 visitors a year and that the biggest non-German contingent comes from China.

    Mr. Kawczynski said erecting a statue of Marx in Germany, which endured decades of division before the Soviet empire collapsed in 1989, is equivalent to “unveiling a statue of Mussolini” in Italy.

    Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germany has grappled with how to acknowledge a thinker as consequential and controversial as Marx.

    The Trier City Council approved the statue’s installment last year on a 42-11 vote, despite objections from some residents who are ashamed of the town’s association with the revolutionary thinker and suspicious of China’s motive behind the gift.

    “Setting up a statue of a man who played a major role in the development of communism is a shame and not an honor for Trier,” one resident of Trier told the local newspaper, as reported by the English-language website Deutsche Welle.

    But Trier Mayor Wolfram Leibe told the British Telegraph newspaper at the time that the vote “has nothing to do with glorification” of Marx or his ideas. “Those times are over.”

    Andreas Ludwig, who heads Trier’s planning department, told the newspaper: “That the largest country on earth has thought about the small town of Trier is great. 150,000 Chinese tourists come every year to Trier — and that could rise even more.”

    Beijing also financed a statue of Friedrich Engels, who co-wrote the Communist Manifesto, that was erected in his hometown of Wuppertal in 2014.

    Mr. Smith said China’s promotion of Marx is not surprising, given the continuing dominance of the Chinese Communist Party long after other communist regimes were relegated to what Marxists would call the dustbin of history.

    “It’s telling that the statue in Trier is being donated by the People’s Republic of China — the largest totalitarian state in the 21st century,” he said. “Right now, Beijing is building a digital surveillance state the likes of which even George Orwell could not imagine, conducting campaigns of outright cultural genocide in Tibet and Xinjiang, and implementing a ‘social credit system’ to rank its more than 1 billion citizens by their commitment to Marxist ideology.”

  • Donald Trump considering tariff exemptions for Canada, Mexico

    The White House opened the door Wednesday to exempting Canada and Mexico from the proposed tariffs on steel and aluminum, the first pullback from a plan that critics say will spark a trade war.

    The White House opened the door Wednesday to exempting Canada and Mexico from the proposed tariffs on steel and aluminum, the first pullback from a plan that critics say will spark a trade war.

    Much of the pressure to carve out Canada from President Trump’s big tariffs came from within the U.S. steel industry, which shares ownership in steel mills across the Great White North and reaps hefty profits from cross-border trade.

    A tariff exemption for Canada, Mexico and possibly other countries could help tamp down fears about a trade war, but it definitely promises to further boost profits for U.S. steel companies, analysts say.

    “The U.S. steel industry has had a long history of pursuing cartel-enhancing trade policies,” said Thomas Prusa, an international trade policy scholar at Rutgers University. “In most cases, the steel executives would benefit from exclusions because it would allow the [multinational corporations] to continue to maximize global profits.”

    Some of the largest steel conglomerates, including Arcelor Mittal and Nucor, operate in both the U.S. and Canada.

    Canada is the No. 1 supplier of steel imported by the U.S. It supplied about 16 percent of the 26.9 million tons of steel imported last year. Canada also buys more U.S. steel than any other country, accounting for half of U.S. exports.

    Other top steel suppliers to the U.S. are the European Union, Brazil, South Korea, Japan and Mexico. Many have threatened to retaliate against Mr. Trump’s tariffs by taxing such U.S. goods as bluejeans, bourbon and motorcycles.

    China supplies about 2 percent of steel to the U.S., ranking it as the No. 11 supplier. The country’s steel is also subject to anti-dumping and countervailing duties.

    Mr. Trump argues that China supplies much more steel to the U.S. by transshipping, or disguising the origin of the steel by shipping it through other countries.

    The president had repeatedly voiced opposition to granting exemptions to his proposed tariffs — 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum.

    He said this week that the tariffs could be adjusted as part of the ongoing renegotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement among the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The tariffs, however, are a relatively small issue within that massive trade deal.

    A redo of NAFTA and slapping tariffs on steel were prominent campaign promises from Mr. Trump.

    White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders made the pivot to potential exemptions.

    “There are potential carve-outs for Mexico and Canada based on national security, and possibly other countries as well based on that process,” she said.

    She said the exemptions for Canada, Mexico and possibly other countries would be on “case-by-case and country-by-country basis, but it would be determined whether there is a national security exemption.”

    The pullback came a day after the resignation of Gary Cohn, the president’s top economic adviser who was fiercely opposed to the tariffs. His resignation was blamed on his clash with Mr. Trump over the tariff plan.

    The Commerce Department recommended the tariffs based on an investigation that determined there was a national security risk from U.S. reliance on imported steel and aluminum, which are used extensively in military goods.

    Mr. Trump also has been under intense pressure from Capitol Hill Republicans and free trade conservatives who want him to narrowly target tariffs at bad actors such as China.

    House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady of Texas and 106 fellow House Republicans sent Mr. Trump a letter arguing for exceptions to the tariff, including grandfathering current contracts for imports and a process to exempt countries.

    “We support your resolve to address distortions caused by China’s unfair practices, and we are committed to acting with you and our trading partners on meaningful and effective action. But we urge you to reconsider the idea of broad tariffs to avoid unintended negative consequences to the U.S. economy and its workers,” they wrote.

    Despite the alterations to the plan, Mr. Trump is still expected to sign the order by the end of the week, Mrs. Sanders said.

    “Look, it’s a lengthy process finalizing the details,” she said. “It’s a complicated process, and we want to make sure we every i’s dotted and all t’s are crossed.”

  • New opening from the Suudi Prince: Women are soldiers

    Six people were killed and 15 injured in the bombed car attack in Ceradel of northern Syria.

    According to the information obtained from local sources, a bomb-loaded vehicle was attacked at the police point in Cerablus, where the terrorist organization DEAŞ was rescued from the terrorist organization DEAŞ in the operation of the Firat Kalkanı at about 14.30 pm.

    Six people were killed in the attack, 15 people were injured, including women and children. It was stated that the condition of the 3 of the injured was heavy.

    The attack has not been undertaken yet.

    Local security sources are concerned about the possibility that the attack was organized by the terrorist organization PYD / PKK.

    One of the civilians died and five civilians were injured in a bomb-loaded car attack near the police station yesterday.

  • Moon Jae-in, South Korean president, says talks won’t ease pressure on North

    South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Wednesday downplayed concerns that the resumption of inter-Korean dialogue will be accompanied by an easing of international sanctions and pressure on North Korea

    SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Wednesday downplayed concerns that the resumption of inter-Korean dialogue will be accompanied by an easing of international sanctions and pressure on North Korea over its nuclear program.

    Moon made the comments in a meeting with political party leaders a day after South Korea announced an agreement with the North to hold a rare summit in April. Senior South Korean officials who met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang on Monday also said the North expressed a willingness to hold talks with the United States on denuclearization and normalizing ties.

    Conservative opposition leaders expressed concern during Wednesday’s meeting at Seoul’s presidential palace that North Korea could use the talks as a way to reduce the pressure, and also questioned whether the North in genuinely interested in abandoning its nuclear weapons.

    SEE ALSO: Trump takes credit for Kim Jong-un’s sudden shift on talks

    “The sanctions and pressure on North Korea aren’t maintained by South Korea alone — these are actions based on U.N. Security Council resolutions, and then there are strong unilateral sanctions imposed by the United States,” Moon said, added that the pressure on the North could only be reduced by “substantive progress” on denuclearization.

    “These international efforts (to pressure the North) cannot be loosened by inter-Korean dialogue. We don’t aim for that to happen and it’s also impossible.”

    Moon’s presidential national security director, Chung Eui-yong, who led the South Korean delegation that met with Kim, is to leave for the United States on Thursday to brief U.S. officials on the outcome of his trip to the North. Chung told reporters on Tuesday that he received a message from North Korea intended for the United States, but didn’t disclose what it was.

    Japan has responded cautiously to the South Korean announcement of summit talks, saying Tokyo’s policy of keeping maximum pressure on North Korea is unchanged.

    Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Wednesday that dialogue for dialogue’s sake is meaningless and that the allies “should fully take into consideration lessons from our past dialogues with the North, none of which achieved denuclearization.” He said Japan is on the same page as the United States, citing U.S. Vice President Mike Pence as saying Washington’s pressure campaign is unchanged, with all options still on the table.

    China, which is North Korea’s only major ally, cheered the exchanges between the Koreas and called for a return to six-nation talks on denuclearization that it previously hosted.

    Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters Wednesday that China was “pleased to see the positive outcomes from those exchanges and interactions between the two sides. … We hope the North and South will earnestly implement their consensuses and proceed with the process of reconciliation and cooperation.”

    ___

    Associated Press writers Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and Chris Bodeen in Beijing contributed to this report.

  • Pakistan official: U.S. should end Afghanistan war with Taliban

    The United States must abandon any hope of winning the war in Afghanistan on the battlefield and seek a peace deal with the Taliban, Pakistan’s top national security official said Tuesday.

    ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The United States must abandon any hope of winning the war in Afghanistan on the battlefield and seek a peace deal with the Taliban, Pakistan’s top national security official said Tuesday.

    “End the suffering of Afghanistan and of its people. Let us seek the closure of the conflict instead of winning it,” Pakistani National Security Adviser Nasser Khan Janjua, a former army general, said during an exclusive roundtable with reporters in the Pakistani capital.

    President Trump’s blueprint released last summer for the Afghanistan conflict, now in its 17th year, called for an escalated American military effort to force the radical Islamist Taliban to the bargaining table, but Mr. Trump questioned the idea of negotiations after a string of deadly Taliban and Islamic State strikes this year.

    The State Department says the U.S. government backs a peace process proposed by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani Feb. 28 that would allow the Taliban to organize as a political party if it agrees to end its insurgency and joins the political process. The U.S. has consistently rejected the Taliban’s demands for direct talks between Washington and the terrorist group and the immediate withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops from Afghanistan.

    Mr. Janjua called for the U.S. to forgo any hope of military victory amid reports that the U.S.-backed government in Kabul controls less than 60 percent of the war-torn country in the face of a resurgent Taliban.

    “It is not possible for the U.S. to win back 44 percent of Afghanistan,” he said, speaking at Pakistan’s National Security Division headquarters. “Let us resolve [the war] politically. Let us reconcile. How long do we want to continue to fight in Afghanistan?”

    Tensions between Islamabad and Washington soared in recent months in the aftermath of the Trump administration’s hard-line rhetoric against Pakistan’s role in the war on terrorist groups in South Asia, capped by a sharp cut in U.S. aid and military support programs in January.

    Members of the Financial Action Task Force, an international regulatory group combating terrorism financing, last month voted to put Pakistan on its watch list over its inability to curtail known terrorist groups’ funding and operations. The move could severely restrict foreign investment and movement of capital in and out of the country, Islamabad argues.

    Pakistan has rejected the criticism, citing its aggressive, costly four-year counterterrorism campaign against extremist groups along the volatile Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

    “We have already paid a heavy price,” Mr. Janjua said.

    Pakistan wants to repair relations with the Trump administration, he said, but is also prepared to take a step back from the U.S. and its regional goals in South Asia should the White House impose further economic sanctions or restrictions on the country’s armed forces.

    “Any unilateral action by the U.S. against Pakistan will create a huge, huge difficulty for us, and we will not be able to support the U.S.” in Afghanistan and the region, he said. Conversely, the White House’s embrace of a new peace road map in Afghanistan could bring the two longtime allies closer together.

    “Peace in Afghanistan means peace in Pakistan. Both countries have been suffering,” Mr. Janjua said. “This is the way forward. This is way to reduce the violence.”

    Mr. Ghani, who faces a national election in July, said late last month that he was ready to offer the Taliban a political role in the Afghan government, including the establishment of a political office in Kabul, should the organization’s leaders join stalled peace talks, an approach Mr. Janjua said was long overdue.

    “Why could he not have done this three years before?” he asked. “Ashraf Ghani has done a great thing” with the peace offer.

    While supporting Afghanistan peace talks that include the Taliban, Alice Wells, the State Department’s top diplomat on South and Central Asian affairs, flatly ruled out any support for bilateral talks between the Taliban and Washington.

    Mr. Ghani’s plan “is not a surrender that’s being offered to the Taliban, but a dignified process for reaching a political framework,” she told a group of reporters Tuesday, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

    Mr. Janjua urged Washington to be more flexible in dealing with the Taliban.

    “That is the U.S. way of thinking, so what can we do?” Mr. Janjua said regarding Washington’s opposition to face-to-face talks with the Taliban.

    An Afghanistan peace conference has been scheduled for late March in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent.

  • Donald Trump right on immigration, gang violence, Sweden finds

    Sweden’s prime minister, who criticized President Trump last year for blaming Swedish violence on Muslim refugees, said Tuesday that he’s cracking down on immigration and gang violence to make Sweden

    Sweden’s prime minister, who criticized President Trump last year for blaming Swedish violence on Muslim refugees, said Tuesday that he’s cracking down on immigration and gang violence to make Sweden great again.

    At a White House news conference with Mr. Trump at his side, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven spoke of his own Trump-like agenda of implementing tougher laws on immigration and crime, and of spending more money on law enforcement.

    “We have our share of domestic challenges, no doubt about that,” Mr. Lofven said. “We are dealing with it every day, allocating more resources to the police, more resources to the security police, tougher laws on crime, tougher laws on terrorism.”

    Not only that, he said Sweden’s crackdown on immigration and gangs is working.

    “We can see some results now in our three major cities, decrease in shootings because we’re attacking the organized crime very tough,” the prime minister said. “And we’ll keep on doing that. There is no space in Sweden for organized crime. They decrease freedom for ordinary people.”

    It sounded very much like Mr. Trump’s rhetoric against the MS-13 gang members that he seeks to deport in larger numbers, and his policies to limit migration from certain Muslim-majority countries until better screening is in place to weed out potential terrorists.

    The president, who enjoys being right as much as anyone, told the audience in the East Room that he had been correct about Sweden all along.

    “Certainly you have a problem with immigration, it’s caused problems in Sweden,” Mr. Trump told a Swedish journalist. “I was one of the first ones to say it. I took a little heat, but that was OK. I proved to be right. But you do have a problem. I know the problem will slowly disappear, hopefully rapidly disappear.”

    A year ago, soon after Mr. Trump took office, he was roundly criticized in the U.S. media and in Europe for blaming a rise in crime in Sweden on an influx of Muslim refugees.

    “You look at what’s happening last night in Sweden,” the president said back then at a rally in Florida. “Sweden. Who would believe this? Sweden. They took in large numbers. They’re having problems like they never thought possible.”

    At the time, Swedish officials said they didn’t know what Mr. Trump was talking about. Some people accused Mr. Trump of responding to an erroneous news report.

    A year ago, Mr. Lofven chided Mr. Trump publicly, saying “We must all take responsibility for using facts correctly and for verifying anything we spread.”

    But on Tuesday at the White House, the prime minister had changed his tune. He noted that Sweden had received 163,000 refugees in 2015, with most arriving in a span of a few months.

    “We inherited a legislation that was not sustainable, legislation on migration,” Mr. Lofven said. “We changed the legislation, so now we have decreased the number of refugees, and we’re also putting pressure on the other European Union countries to take their share of the responsibility.”

    The New York Times reported last weekend that Sweden has experienced a rise in clan-like violence, including gangs using hand grenades, that accompanied an influx of immigrants from certain parts of Europe and the Middle East. There have been more than 100 incidents involving military-grade explosives in the Stockholm metro area, which police have attributed to an “arms race” among immigrant gangs, the paper reported.

    The story said there were few such incidents in Sweden until 2014, but since then, the number of explosions and seizures of grenades has risen.

    Mr. Lofven refuted recent reports that immigrant-related crime in Sweden had become so bad that authorities had designated “no-go zones” deemed too dangerous to enter.

    “We also have problems with organized crime in Sweden, shootings,” he said. “But it’s not like you have these ‘no-go’ zones.”

    Until recently, Sweden had the most generous immigration laws in Europe. Former Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt in 2014 made a famous speech urging Swedes to “open their hearts” to refugees seeking shelter.

    But in 2016, as problems grew, Sweden enacted a law valid for three years that makes family reunification of refugees more difficult. The law stopped recent immigrants with residency permits from bringing their immediate family members to Sweden.

    In the U.S., Mr. Trump wants to end so-called “chain migration,” which he says has allowed an immigrant to sponsor numerous relatives to follow him or her, with not enough vetting of the family members.

    Mr. Lofven, again sounding a lot like Mr. Trump, said Sweden is overcoming its immigration and crime problems with a thriving economy.

    “Sweden has high growth,” he said. “Unemployment is going down. We have high investment rates. We have a strong, strong economy.”