The United States wants to invest in Greenland to enhance its “military operational flexibility and situational awareness,” its Department of Defense (DoD) said on Monday.

Greenland is strategically important for the U.S. military and its ballistic missile early warning system, as the shortest route from Europe to North America goes via the Arctic island.

The U.S. intends to “pursue potential strategic investments vigorously, including investments that may serve dual military and civilian purposes,” the DoD said in a statement published by the U.S. Embassy in Copenhagen.

Greenland picked Denmark as its partner in a planned upgrade of two airports last week, seeking to defuse a diplomatic row over how the projects, of strategic interest to both Washington and Beijing, should be financed.

Greenland is a self-ruling part of the Kingdom of Denmark and while its government decides on most domestic matters, foreign and security policy is handled by Copenhagen.

Denmark has been concerned that a Chinese investment — on the agenda since Greenland’s Prime Minister Kim Kielsen visited Beijing last year — could upset its close ally the U.S. 

The DoD said in Monday’s statement that it intends to analyse and, where appropriate, strategically invest in projects related to the airport infrastructure in Greenland.

The one-page “Statement of Intent” did not go into financial details.

“We welcome the American Statement of Intent, and look forward to discuss details of possible U.S. airport investments in Greenland,” Greenland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Vivian Motzfeldt, said in a statement.

Greenland’s government lost its parliamentary majority as a row between coalition partners escalated last week over how the planned airport projects should be financed.
…

The Bosnian parliament on Monday approved long-delayed changes to a criminal code aimed at bolstering the rule of law and the fight against crime and corruption, which is expected to speed up the country’s progress towards European Union membership.

Bosnia’s top court had given lawmakers a June deadline to bring the country’s criminal procedure code into line with international standards, a key EU requirement for Western Balkan nations aspiring to join the bloc.

But politicians from Bosnia’s three rival ethnic parties could not agree on changes drafted by the Justice Ministry which included the use of undercover police personnel, communications interception, surveillance and the use of informants.

The EU also considered the amendments proposed by the ministry to be too weak, and warned that Bosnian prosecutors would be deprived of one of the major tools to effectively fight against the most serious crime.

A compromise solution agreed under international pressure allows the duration of investigative processes to be cut to a maximum of one year from up to 10 years previously, and reduces the scope for granting immunity to alleged offenders and witnesses.

A majority of lawmakers in Bosnia’s multi-layered parliamentary system have enjoyed immunity from prosecution and analysts in the country, which is mired in corruption, said politicians had resisted major changes to the law in order to keep this privilege.

Disputes among Bosnia’s ethnic leaders have nearly halted the Balkan country’s progress towards the EU and NATO. Bosnia formally applied for EU membership in 2016 but the process of joining is expected to take at least a decade.
…

Greece should urgently move children and other vulnerable migrants and refugees from its most overcrowded island camp to the mainland or to other EU countries for the sake of their mental and physical health, the MSF aid agency said on Monday.

The appeal from Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) came days after the governor of the region where the Moria camp is based said it should be closed next month unless authorities clean up “uncontrollable amounts of waste.”

MSF said it had witnessed an unprecedented health crisis in the camp, Greece’s biggest and home to some 9,000 migrants, a third of whom are children. It said many teenagers had attempted to commit suicide or were harming themselves on a weekly basis.

Other children suffer from elective mutism, panic attacks and anxiety, it said in a statement.

“This is the third year that MSF has been calling on the Greek authorities and the EU to take responsibility for their collective failures,” the agency said. “It is time to immediately evacuate the most vulnerable to safe accommodation in other European countries.”

The migrants in the camp, which is on the island of Lesbos, are housed in shipping containers and flimsy tents in conditions widely criticised as falling short of basic standards.

Greece is a gateway into the European Union for hundreds of thousands of refugees who have arrived since 2015 from Syria and other war-ravaged countries in the Middle East and from Africa.

Athens, which exited the biggest bailout in economic history in August, is struggling to handle the thousands of refugees who are stranded on its islands.

It has criticised Europe’s handling of the refugee crisis and some EU member states for being reluctant to share their burden.

Last week, 19 non-governmental organizations urged Greece to take action to alleviate the plight of refugees in all its island camps, not just Moria, to render them more fit for human habitation. 

The total number of migrants and refugees holed up in the island camps exceeds 17,000.
…

British Prime Minister Theresa May has warned opponents of her blueprint for Brexit that rejecting it means crashing out of the European Union without a deal, an outcome the International Monetary Fund said Monday would have “very large” economic costs.

May told the BBC that if rebel lawmakers shoot down a deal between her government and the EU, “the alternative to that will be having no deal.”

With just over six months until Britain is due to leave the 28-nation EU on March 29, May’s Conservative government remains divided over how close an economic relationship to seek with the bloc.

Ex-Brexit Secretary David Davis and Former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson both quit May’s Cabinet in July and joined other Conservative Brexit-backers to push for a clean break with the EU. May is proposing to keep the U.K. aligned to EU rules after Brexit in return for free trade in goods and an open Irish border.

Johnson wrote in Monday’s Daily Telegraph that May’s Brexit negotiations were heading for a “spectacular political car crash” that would leave Britain in “the ditch with a total write-off of Brexit.”

Opponents of May’s blueprint claim leaving the EU — the U.K.’s biggest trading partner — without a free-trade agreement would be preferable because Britain would be free to strike new trade deals around the world.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde poured cold water on that notion Monday, saying “all the likely Brexit scenarios will have costs for the U.K. economy.”

The IMF says that even a good deal would mean new barriers to trade. As part of the EU, Britain currently enjoys the freedom of goods, services, money and people to move across borders with 27 other countries in the region. Brexit will revoke some of those freedoms.

“Whatever the deal is will not be as good as it is at the moment,” Lagarde said. A no-deal Brexit “would impose very large costs on the U.K economy,” she said.

In an update on U.K. economic prospects, the IMF forecast growth of 1.5 percent in 2018 and 2019, down from 1.75 percent in 2016-17.

Britain has fallen behind other Group of Seven economies since the 2016 vote to leave the EU, with business uncertainty holding back investment and a fall in the value of the pound slowing growth in incomes and consumption, the IMF said.
…

The German government says it’s concerned about the health of Pyotr Verzilov, a member of Russian protest group Pussy Riot who is being treated in Berlin after falling severely ill.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Adebahr said Monday the government “hopes he will get better soon and recover fully.”

Fellow activists claim Verzilov, who served a 15-day jail sentence for a pitch protest during the World Cup final, was poisoned.

Adebahr told reporters in Berlin that the foreign ministry was informed in advance of plans for Verzilov to travel to the German capital from Moscow for treatment Saturday. She declined to say whether Foreign Minister Heiko Maas discussed the issue with Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov last week.

Berlin’s renowned Charite hospital plans to provide details Tuesday on Verzilov’s health and treatment.
…

Britain’s home secretary says on a visit to Pakistan that the eradication of corruption is a priority for both countries and announced a new partnership between them that would strive for “justice and accountability.”

 

Home Secretary Sajid Javid, a son of Pakistani immigrants, met Prime Minister Imran Khan and other Pakistani officials on Monday in Islamabad.

 

Javid told reporters later that “no one can escape justice or act with impunity” and urged for a “more concerted action” to combat terror groups.

 

He said after meeting law minister Farogh Nasim that they discussed security issues and mechanisms for bilateral prisoner transfers, as well as money laundering, trade and education.

 

Khan’s government has pledged corruption-free governance and has promised to return to Pakistan allegedly stolen public money that was spirited abroad.
…

Nineteen humanitarian aid groups are urging that steps be taken immediately to ease “desperate conditions” for more more than 17,000 migrants “crammed in Greek island reception centers with a total capacity for only 6,000.”

The groups, in a statement Thursday, said they were seeking “sustainable solutions” to relieve congestion and improve conditions.

Migrants, primarily from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan but also from African countries, are living in squalor on several overcrowded Greek islands near Turkey’s coast, according to the statement, whose signatories include Oxfam International. 

That organization released a separate statement of complaint earlier this week, noting that “thousands of refugees and other migrants are trapped … in trailers and tents that are blazing hot in summer and freezing cold in winter. Access to running water is limited.”

With overcrowding, “the situation is particularly alarming for women, who are at heightened risk of sexual violence and abuse,” the Oxfam statement said.

“Living conditions are dreadful,” Oxfam’s advocacy officer in Greece, Marion Bouchetel, told VOA’s English to Africa service in a phone interview Thursday.

She said that Moria, a camp on the eastern island of Lesbos near Turkey, holds nearly 8,800 people, almost triple its intended maximum capacity of 3,100.

The aid groups’ complaints dovetail with those of local government authorities, who found that, at Moria, broken sewage pipes have spilled wastewater near the tents and shipping containers that provide housing.

“The fact that there are too many people in tents and containers is also a risk for the spreading of diseases,” Bouchetel said, adding that “there are problems with access to medical services.”

The regional North Aegean Prefecture warned in a Sept. 7 letter to Greece’s Migration Policy Ministry that it would shut down Moria in 30 days unless health hazards there were corrected, various news media have reported.

The Athens government has been transferring some asylum-seekers to the mainland and aims to improve efficiency in processing, Reuters reported this week.

During the first full week in September, 504 asylum-seekers moved to the mainland, according to the U.N. refugee agency.

Bouchetel said Lesbos has roughly 11,000 people anticipating asylum hearings, awaiting their interviews “for months and sometimes for years. We meet regularly people who have been stuck in Lesbos for over a year or even two years awaiting a decision or for an interview.”

Different procedures for different nationalities explain some of the holdup, she said. But she also blamed delays on “the lack of staff and the lack of capacity by the asylum service administration in Greece.”

The European Commission this summer announced plans to set up “controlled centers” in volunteer countries in the European Union to process the asylum claims of migrants rescued at sea.

Bouchetel said the plan for controlled centers “would be a recipe for failure,” instead serving as “de facto detention centers inside Europe and basically … replicating a model that is very similar to the ‘hot spots’ that we see here in Lesbos. And it is obviously a system that is not working.”

Lesbos has been a favored entry point to the European Union since the migrant crisis unfolded in 2015. Since then, at least a million migrants have crossed Greek borders, the New Europe website reports.

This report originated with VOA’s English to Africa service.
…

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday that the enforcement of U.N. sanctions on North Korea was critical to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

His remarks came after the U.S. accused Russia of altering an independent U.N. report to cover up Moscow’s alleged violation of U.N. sanctions on North Korea.

“Russia has actively attempted to undermine the U.N. Security Council resolutions,” Pompeo said during a news conference, “by attempting to change the language” of a report that evaluates compliance with sanctions against Pyongyang.

Pompeo spoke with U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Friday. A day earlier, Haley said Russia pressured the independent sanctions monitors to amend a report that was eventually submitted to the Security Council’s North Korea sanctions committee last month.

“The United States is as committed as ever to continuing to enforce those U.N. Security Council resolutions. We believe they are central to President [Donald] Trump’s efforts to convince [North Korean leader] Chairman Kim Jong Un that full, final denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula is necessary,” Pompeo said.

Both Russia and China are seen as having pushed for the council to ease sanctions on Pyongyang since the U.S.-North Korea summit in June.

Tech companies sanctioned

Thursday, Washington imposed sanctions on two information technology companies based in China and Russia for supporting Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs.

Washington is accusing the companies, located in Beijing and Moscow but controlled by Pyongyang, of moving illicit funds to North Korea.

“These actions are intended to stop the flow of illicit revenue to North Korea from overseas information technology workers disguising their true identities and hiding behind front companies, aliases and third-party nationals,” said Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin in an official statement.

The department designated the China-based China Silver Star, its North Korean CEO Jong Song Hwa and its Russia-based sister company Volasys Silver Star as such fronts.

The sanctions come at a time when the U.S. is maintaining pressure on the North Korean government in its negotiations to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.
…

NATO  Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says he has no intention of backing down in the face of a “resurgent” Russia, insisting the Western alliance will hold a firm but fair line with Moscow while continuing to accept former Soviet states.

Stoltenberg made the comments Friday, following a meeting at the White House with National Security Adviser John Bolton.

“For us there is no contradiction between being firm, strong in our approach to Russia, as we are, and at the same time seeking dialogue,” he told an audience at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank in Washington.

Tensions between Russia and the West have been rising steadily since Russian forces rolled into Georgia over a decade ago, and reached new heights with Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea in 2014.

While emphasizing that NATO is not seeking confrontation, Stoltenberg put much of the blame on a Moscow “willing to use military force against neighbors.”

“What we have seen is a more resurgent Russia, a Russia which has invested in many different types of capabilities, also in intelligence,” he said. “That is the reason why NATO allies have started to invest more [in defense] for the first time since the end of the Cold War.”

Stoltenberg’s approach contrasts with that of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly sought to emphasize his ability to get along with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his desire to have a better relationship going forward.

Most notably, during his July 16 Summit with Putin in Helsinki, Trump said he believed Putin’s claims that Russia did not try to meddle in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, a claim that contradicted the findings of U.S. intelligence officials and which he subsequently tried to walk back.

Others in the White House have taken a harder line against Moscow. National Security Adviser John Bolton, who met with Stoltenberg, warned Russia last month the U.S. is “prepared to take necessary steps” to prevent the Kremlin from interfering in the upcoming midterm elections in November.

But the NATO secretary general said Friday he sees few signs Russia is scaling back its activities.

“We have seen they are using media and social media, disinformation to try to influence political processes in different European, NATO-allied countries,” Stoltenberg said, echoing concerns by U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, who is traveling to the Macedonian capital Skopje on Sunday, that some of those efforts are targeting the upcoming referendum there.

A vote on September 30 to officially change the country’s name to the Republic of North Macedonia would help pave the way for NATO membership, which Moscow strongly opposes.

Stoltenberg also said NATO would continue to support efforts by both Georgia and Ukraine to become NATO members, moves that Russia has long opposed.

“Georgia will become a member of NATO,” he said.

He further warned the alliance has responded to an increased Russian presence in the Arctic by strengthening its overall maritime posture and with member states like Britain and Norway increasing surveillance in the region.

“I still believe it is important to try to keep tensions down in the high north,” he said, adding it was NATO’s goal to find ways to work with Russia on environmental issues.

Stoltenberg has been in the U.S. meeting with key U.S. officials like Bolton, Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in an effort to solidify support for the alliance.

President Trump has consistently criticized NATO members for not spending enough on defense and for making the United States pay an unfair share of the costs.

Stoltenberg on Friday pushed for continued U.S. support for NATO, calling the transatlantic alliance “a bond that guarantees our prosperity, our security, and our freedom.”

He also said he is in favor of separate, European Union-led efforts to bolster Europe’s defense industry.

“We need more European capabilities. We need more European cooperation on defense,” he said, referring to the EU Permanent Structured Cooperation, or PESCO, initiative.

“This is not about creating an alternative to NATO. This is about strengthening the European pillar within NATO,” he said.

The Trump administration, in April, rolled out an initiative aimed at expanding U.S. arms sales worldwide, with the president himself encouraging allies to buy more U.S.-made weapons systems.
…

Russia is holding its largest military exercises since the Cold War in the far eastern part of the country, and for the first time it has invited contingents from China and Mongolia.

About 36,000 tanks and 300,000 Russian troops, a third of the country’s military personnel, are on maneuvers in the vast expanses of eastern Siberia. China has sent more than 3,000 troops.

The skies are patrolled by 1,000, aircraft, including strategic long-range bombers. In the Arctic and Pacific oceans, 80 Russian warships are conducting mock battles and landing drills.

Russian President Vladimir Putin took a front-row seat to observe the exercises Thursday and praised the relationship with the country’s eastern neighbors.

“I would like to say a special thank you to the armed forces of the People’s Republic of China and Mongolia. Our fraternity in arms has long and firm traditions,” Putin said.

 

WATCH: Russian War Games Seek to Cement Ties With China, Send Message to West

Global resonance

The war games, known as Vostok ’18, come as relations between Moscow and the West continue to worsen following the poisoning of a former double agent on British soil. Meanwhile the trade war between Beijing and Washington continues to deepen.

The exercises may be taking place in a remote corner of the world, but they have global resonance, said analyst Emily Ferris of London’s Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

“As well as demonstrating to the West that it has this alliance with China, it’s also an opportunity for Russia to show what it’s learned from its military interventions, for example in Syria, for example in eastern Ukraine,” Ferris told VOA in an interview.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine prompted the United States and its allies to impose sanctions on Moscow.

“The Western sanctions have damaged Russia’s ability to get, for example, military components that it used to get from its Western partners. And so, Russia’s military in the meantime is undergoing a 10-year-long renovation and upgrade. And so, to pay for those parts, Russia is going to need to find alternative partners,” Ferris said.

The exercises coincide with the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, attended by several heads of state. With China engaged in a spiraling trade war with the United States, analysts say Moscow sees an opportunity to deepen relations with Beijing.

“They are politically becoming very close. Economically, the Russian-Chinese trade is booming, when other kinds of trade, especially in Russia, is not booming at all. And also, of course, now militarily, they are acting together as brothers-in-arms in military games that are basically aimed at the United States and its allies,” said Pavel Felgenhauer, a military analyst based in Moscow.

Sources of tension

Ferris said there are also sources of tension in the relationship.

“Particularly the belt-and-road initiative of China’s that sort of bypasses Russia, especially because China is quite interested in countries like Ukraine and Belarus, and using its infrastructure as a gateway to Europe. I think Russia is quite suspicious of what China is planning,” she said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters Tuesday that he sees “little in the long term that aligns Russia and China.” The military exercises come amid threats from Washington of more sanctions against Russia if it conducts an assault on Idlib, the last rebel-held area in Syria. The United Nations has warned of a potential massacre of civilians.
…