As Saudi Arabia faced intensifying international skepticism over its story about the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a senior government official laid out a new version of the death inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul that in key respects contradicts previous explanations.

The latest account, provided by a Saudi official who requested anonymity, includes details on how the team of 15 Saudi nationals sent to confront Khashoggi on Oct. 2 had threatened him with being drugged and kidnapped and then killed him in a chokehold when he resisted. A member of the team then dressed in Khashoggi’s clothes to make it appear as if he had left the consulate.

After denying any involvement in the disappearance of Khashoggi, 59, for two weeks, Saudi Arabia on Saturday morning said he had died in a fistfight at the consulate. An hour later, another Saudi official attributed the death to a chokehold, which the senior official reiterated.

Turkish officials suspect the body of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and critic of powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was dismembered, but the Saudi official said it was rolled up in a rug and given to a “local cooperator” for disposal. Asked about allegations that Khashoggi had been tortured and beheaded, he said preliminary results of the investigation did not suggest that.

The Saudi official presented what he said were Saudi internal intelligence documents that appeared to show the initiative to bring back dissidents as well as the specific one involving Khashoggi. He also showed testimony from those involved in what he described as the 15-man team’s cover-up, and the initial results of an internal probe. He did not provide proof to substantiate the findings of the investigation and the other evidence.

​Changing narratives

This narrative is the latest Saudi account that has changed multiple times. The authorities initially dismissed reports that Khashoggi had gone missing inside the consulate as false and said he had left the building soon after entering. When the media reported a few days later that he had been killed there, they called the accusations “baseless.”

Asked by Reuters why the government’s version of Khashoggi’s death kept changing, the official said the government initial account was based on “false information reported internally at the time.”

“Once it became clear these initial mission reports were false, it launched an internal investigation and refrained from further public comment,” the official said, adding that the investigation is continuing.

Turkish sources say the authorities have an audio recording purportedly documenting Khashoggi’s murder inside the consulate but have not released it.

Riyadh dispatched a high-level delegation to Istanbul on Tuesday and ordered an internal investigation, but U.S. President Donald Trump said n Saturday he is not satisfied with Saudi Arabia’s handling of Khashoggi’s death and said questions remain unanswered. Germany and France on Saturday called Saudi Arabia’s explanation of how Khashoggi died incomplete.

​Latest version of events

According to the latest version of the death, the government wanted to convince Khashoggi, who moved to Washington a year ago fearing reprisals for his views, to return to the kingdom as part of a campaign to prevent Saudi dissidents from being recruited by the country’s enemies, the official said.

To that end, the official said, the deputy head of the General Intelligence Presidency, Ahmed al-Asiri, put together a 15-member team from the intelligence and security forces to go to Istanbul, meet Khashoggi at the consulate and try to persuade him to return to Saudi Arabia.

“There is a standing order to negotiate the return of dissidents peacefully; which gives them the authority to act without going back to the leadership,” the official said. “Asiri is the one who formed the team and asked for an employee who worked with (Saud) al-Qahtani and who knew Jamal from the time they both worked at the embassy in London,” he said.

The official said Qahtani had signed off on one of his employees conducting the negotiations.

​Chokehold 

According to the plan, the team could hold Khashoggi in a safe house outside Istanbul for “a period of time” but then release him if he ultimately refused to return to Saudi Arabia, the official said.

Things went wrong from the start as the team overstepped their orders and quickly employed violence, the official said.

Khashoggi was ushered into the consul general’s office where an operative named Maher Mutreb spoke to him about returning to Saudi Arabia, according to the government’s account. Khashoggi refused and told Mutreb that someone was waiting outside for him and would contact the Turkish authorities if he did not reappear within an hour, the official said.

Khashoggi’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, has told Reuters he had handed her his two mobile phones and left instructions that she should wait for him and call an aide to Turkey’s president if he did not reappear.

Back inside the consul’s office, according to the official’s account, Khashoggi told Mutreb he was violating diplomatic norms and said, “What are you going to do with me? Do you intend to kidnap me?”

Mutreb replied, “Yes, we will drug you and kidnap you,” in what the official said was an attempt at intimidation that violated the mission’s objective.

When Khashoggi raised his voice, the team panicked. They moved to restrain him, placing him in a chokehold and covering his mouth, according to the government’s account.

“They tried to prevent him from shouting but he died,” the official said. “The intention was not to kill him.”

Asked if the team had smothered Khashoggi, the official said: “If you put someone of Jamal’s age in this position, he would probably die.”

Where is his body?

To cover up their misdeed, the team rolled up Khashoggi’s body in a rug, took it out in a consular vehicle and handed it over to a “local cooperator” for disposal, the official said.

Forensic expert Salah Tubaigy tried to remove any trace of the incident, the official said.

Turkish officials have told Reuters that Khashoggi’s killers may have dumped his remains in Belgrad Forest adjacent to Istanbul, and at a rural location near the city of Yalova, 90 kilometers (55 miles) south of Istanbul.

Turkish investigators are likely to find out what happened to the body “before long,” a senior official said.

The Saudi official said the local cooperator is an Istanbul resident but would not reveal his nationality. The official said investigators were trying to determine where the body ended up.

Meanwhile, operative Mustafa Madani donned Khashoggi’s clothes, eyeglasses and Apple watch and left through the back door of the consulate in an attempt to make it look as if Khashoggi had walked out of the building. Madani went to the Sultanahmet district where he disposed of the belongings.

The official said the team then wrote a false report for superiors saying they had allowed Khashoggi to leave once he warned that Turkish authorities could get involved and that they had promptly left the country before they could be discovered.

​Many questions

Skeptics have asked why so many people, including military officers and a forensics expert specializing in autopsies, were part of the operation if the objective was to persuade Khashoggi to return home of his own volition.

The disappearance of Khashoggi, a Saudi insider turned critic, has snowballed into a massive crisis for the kingdom, forcing the 82-year-old monarch, King Salman, to personally get involved. 

It has threatened the kingdom’s business relationships, with several senior executives and government officials shunning an investor conference in Riyadh scheduled for next week and some U.S. lawmakers putting pressure on Trump to impose sanctions and stop arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

The official said all 15 team members had been detained and placed under investigation, along with three other local suspects.
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The official Saudi statements on the fate of journalist Jamal Khashoggi have changed several times since he mysteriously disappeared after entering his country’s consulate in Istanbul earlier this month.

The latest announcement on Saturday, declaring that Khashoggi had died in a “fistfight” with officials who had gone to see him there, increased criticism of the Saudis’ handling of the case and concern about the kingdom’s possible complicity in the killing of the prominent Washington Post columnist.

Here is a look at the Saudi narrative regarding Khashoggi, as it developed.

Oct. 2: Khashoggi enters the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul at 1.14 p.m. He had left his mobile phones with his Turkish fiancee, who waited for him outside the consulate. She calls friends hours later to tell them that Khashoggi never emerged from the consulate.

Oct. 3: In a wide-ranging interview, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman tells Bloomberg he understands that Khashoggi left the consulate after “a few minutes or one hour.” Bin Salman says his kingdom’s authorities are in talks with the Turkish government to determine what happen. He insists Khashoggi is no longer inside the consulate and says Turkish authorities are welcome to search the diplomatic mission. “We have nothing to hide,” says the crown prince.

Oct. 4: On Twitter, the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul says it is following up on media reports of Khashoggi’s disappearance “after he left the building.” 

Oct. 4: Turkey summons the Saudi ambassador.

Oct. 6: Saudi Arabia says it has dispatched a team to “investigate and cooperate” with Turkish officials over Khashoggi’s case.

Oct. 7: Turkish officials say Khashoggi has been killed at the consulate. A Saudi government statement describes the Turkish allegations as “baseless.”

Oct. 9: Turkey says it will search the consulate.

Oct. 11: Turkey says it has agreed with Saudi Arabia to form a joint group to shed light on the journalist’s fate. The Saudi team arrives in Istanbul a day later.

Oct. 13: Saudi Arabia’s interior minister describes claims in the media that there were “orders to kill [Khashoggi]” as “lies and baseless allegations.” Turkish media quote officials as saying Khashoggi has been killed and dismembered inside the consulate.

Oct. 14: Turkey’s Foreign Ministry renews calls on Saudi Arabia to allow investigators to search the consulate.

Oct. 15: Nearly two weeks after Khashoggi’s disappearance, teams of Turkish investigators enter the consulate to start their search.

Oct. 15: A Saudi-owned satellite news channel says the 15-member team referred to by Turkish media as Khashoggi’s “hit squad” were “tourists” visiting Turkey.

Oct. 16: Without warning, the Saudi consul in Istanbul, a key witness in the case, leaves Turkey for Saudi Arabia.

Oct. 17: Turkish authorities begin searching the consul’s residence in Istanbul.

Oct. 19: In an announcement early Saturday, Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor says preliminary investigations show an “altercation” and “fistfight” led to Khashoggi’s death shortly after he arrived at the consulate. He adds that 18 Saudi nationals were detained. A Saudi Foreign Ministry official says the kingdom is investigating the “regrettable and painful incident of Jamal Khashoggi’s death” and is forming a committee to hold those responsible accountable.
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Wim Kok, a former Dutch prime minister who helped forge the country’s famed consensus-based politics and oversaw pioneering legalisations of euthanasia and gay marriage, died Saturday of heart failure. He was 80.

Kok led two centrist coalitions between 1994 and 2002, overseeing a period of recovery and then of strong economic growth.

A labor union leader earlier in his career, he was one architect of the country’s famed “polder,” or consensus model, in which unions agreed to restraint on pay in exchange for more jobs, while employers and the government guaranteed support and retraining after layoffs.

As prime minister he reined in spending on health care, pensions, education and child benefits, using the savings to promote employment.

In a world first, euthanasia was legalized in the Netherlands in 2002, formalizing decades of practice.

Though Denmark had first legalized gay partnerships in the 1980s, the Netherlands followed in 1998 and became the first to erase any distinction between same-sex and other marriages in 2001.

Kok was friends with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. President Bill Clinton as they crafted the moderate center-left “Third Way.”

“Shaking off ideological feathers is not a problem only. For a political party like ours, it’s also a liberating experience,” Kok said of steering Labor toward the political center.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte praised Kok as someone who “stood above political parties.”

Kok was “totally reliable, totally upright and always focused on solutions,” Rutte said in a statement.

Internationally, Kok was strongly pro-European, helping to seal European economic and monetary union at the Amsterdam summit in 1997.

Bosnian war

His political career ended in two dramas. Shortly before pivotal 2002 elections, his entire cabinet resigned over the role the Dutch military played as U.N. peacekeepers in Bosnia.

A study by the Netherlands Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies found Kok’s first cabinet blundered badly by sending Dutch troops to defend Srebrenica, a U.N.-declared safe zone, during the Bosnian war.

Outmanned and outgunned, the Dutch battalion did not fight to defend the enclave when battle-hardened Bosnian Serb forces stormed it in 1995. The Dutch looked on helplessly and even helped separate women from men and boys as the Bosnian Serbs prepared to slaughter 8,000 Muslim civilians in the worst mass murder in Europe since World War II.

Kok said in a recent interview the failure would haunt him forever. “That book will never be closed,” he said, “for many people, and for some that goes more intensely than for me. But it also weighs on me.”

After Kok’s resignation in April 2002, as his caretaker government prepared for elections, the Netherlands suffered its first political assassination of the post-World War II era.

Pim Fortuyn, the first of a new generation of Dutch populists, had declared the Kok years a “disaster” due to the country’s liberal immigration policies. Fortuyn was gunned down by an animal rights activist. That ushered in an era of political instability and a debate on immigrants, integration and Islam that dominated Dutch politics for the following decade and continues to the present day.

After leaving office, Kok served on the boards of Royal Dutch Shell and ING, among others, and lobbied unsuccessfully for a European Constitution.

He is survived by his wife, Rita, and three children.
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Macedonia’s parliament has approved a proposal to change the country’s name, a move that could pave the way for it to join NATO and the European Union.

Eighty members of parliament in the 120-seat body voted in favor of the measure Friday to rename the country North Macedonia, just surpassing the two-thirds supermajority needed to enact constitutional changes.

Parliament was forced to address the issue after a September referendum on the matter failed to achieve the turnout threshold of 50 percent.

According to election officials, only about a third of eligible voters cast ballots in the September referendum. However, they said more than 90 percent of those voting cast ballots in favor of changing the country’s name to North Macedonia. Conservatives in Macedonia strongly oppose the name change and boycotted the referendum.

Macedonians are being asked to change the name of their country to end a decades-old dispute with neighboring Greece and pave the way for the country’s admission into NATO and the EU.

Athens has argued that the name “Macedonia” belongs exclusively to its northern province of Macedonia and that using the name implies Skopje’s intentions to claim the Greek province.

The two countries agreed on the name change in June.

Greece has for years pressured Skopje into renouncing the country’s name, forcing it to use the more formal moniker Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in the United Nations. Greece has consistently blocked its smaller neighbor from gaining membership in NATO and the EU as long it retained its name.

The process for Macedonia’s parliament to fully change the country’s name is lengthy and will require several more rounds of voting.
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U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton will meet Saturday in Moscow with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, amid reports that Washington will tell Russia it plans to quit a landmark nuclear weapons treaty.

The visit comes ahead of what is expected to be a second summit between presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump this year.

Bolton, who will also meet Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, announced the visit to Moscow in a tweet, saying he would “continue discussions that began in Helsinki,” referring to a summit held in July.

The New York Times said the Trump administration plans to inform Russian leaders in the coming days that it is preparing to leave the three-decade-old Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, known as the INF.

The newspaper said the U.S. accuses Russia of violating the deal, signed in 1987 by president Ronald Reagan, by deploying tactical nuclear weapons to intimidate former Soviet satellite states that are now close to the West.

US-Russia ties are under deep strain over accusations that Moscow meddled in the 2016 presidential election, as well as tension over Russian support for the Syrian government in the country’s civil war, and the conflict in Ukraine.

However, Washington is looking for support from Moscow in finding resolutions to the Syria war and putting pressure on both Iran and North Korea.

No new summit between Trump and Putin has been announced, but one is expected in the near future.

The two leaders will be in Paris on Nov. 11 to attend commemorations marking the end of World War I.

A senior Trump administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said another potential date would be when the presidents both attend the Group of 20 meeting Nov. 30-Dec. 1.

“There are a couple possibilities, including the G-20 in Buenos Aires or the Armistice Day parade in Paris. At the G20 is probably more likely,” the official said. “President Trump’s invitation to Putin to visit Washington, D.C., still stands.” 
…

U.S. intelligence, law enforcement and security agencies are warning that Russia is persistently targeting the country’s upcoming midterm elections. They laid out the latest evidence in new charges against a Russian national connected to the oligarch known as “Putin’s cook.”

The U.S. on Friday unsealed the criminal complaint against Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova, 44, of St. Petersburg, making her the first Russian charged in connection with interference in the 2018 election.

According to the criminal complaint, Khusyaynova was the chief accountant for a Russian effort dubbed “Project Lakhta,” a self-described “information warfare” operation run by the Internet Research Agency — the same social media troll farm indicted earlier this year by U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller as part of his Russia investigation.

Charging documents say Khusyaynova oversaw spending for social media advertisements and promotions and proxy servers as she helped to create thousands of social media accounts on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, some of which generated tens of thousands of followers.

The criminal complaint says Khusyanova was working with a multimillion-dollar budget — money, according to U.S. officials, that came from Russian businessman Yevgeniy Prigozhin, known as “Putin’s cook” because of his catering company’s work for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Prigozhin is thought to have extensive ties to Russia’s political and military establishments.

Involved in 2018 elections

But unlike previous criminal complaints, U.S. officials said Khusyaynova’s activity extended well beyond the 2016 U.S. presidential election, as she funded efforts to create new social media accounts targeting both issues and candidates, Republican and Democratic, involved the 2018 election, now just a little more than two weeks away.

Like with previous efforts under “Project Lakhta,” all of the accounts were designed to make it appear as though they belonged to actual American political activists, using virtual private networks (VPNs) and other methods to hide their origin. 

U.S. officials also said those running them were told to intensify divisions and distrust between members of all political parties “through supporting radical groups” and to “aggravate the conflict between minorities and the rest of the population.”

Messaging focused on a variety of topics, including immigration, gun control, the Confederate flag and the debate over American football players kneeling for the U.S. national anthem.

Officials said specific incidents, including mass shootings, the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., and decisions coming from the Trump White House were also used as fodder.

“The strategic goal of this alleged conspiracy, which continues to this day, is to sow discord in the U.S. political system and to undermine faith in our democratic institutions,” U.S. Attorney Zachary Terwilliger said in a statement.

Asked about the new charges during a visit to Arizona, President Donald Trump called them irrelevant to his efforts.

“It had nothing to do with my campaign,” he told reporters. “If they are hackers, a lot of them probably like [2016 Democratic presidential nominee] Hillary Clinton better than me.”

Warning and reassurance

Friday’s indictment came as U.S. intelligence and security officials sought to both warn and reassure U.S. voters about the upcoming midterm elections.

“We’re not seeing anything anywhere remotely close to ’16,” Chris Krebs, undersecretary for the Department of Homeland Security’s National Protection and Programs Directorate, told reporters Friday following a tabletop election security exercise.

“2016 had a long lead-up of spear-phishing campaigns, compromise of networks,” he said. “We’re not seeing them right now.”

Krebs and other officials have also said there had been no increase in attempts to infiltrate U.S. voting systems, and that no system involved in tallying votes had been compromised.

Many of those systems have been upgraded or hardened, U.S. officials said, noting that more than 90 percent of the country’s election infrastructure was now being monitored by sensors that can detect malicious activity.

But at the same time, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence warned Friday of persistent efforts by U.S. adversaries to sway voters.

“We are concerned about ongoing campaigns by Russia, China and other foreign actors, including Iran, to undermine confidence in democratic institutions and influence public sentiment,” ODNI said in a joint statement with the Justice Department, the FBI and DHS.

“These activities also may seek to influence voter perceptions and decision-making in the 2018 and 2020 U.S. elections,” the statement said.

U.S. officials say both China and Iran have been increasingly active in their efforts to use influence operations, with current and former officials describing Beijing’s efforts as more sophisticated and more intent on generating a favorable view of China over the long term.

But neither yet compares in scope to the Russian efforts, just some of which were unveiled in the criminal complaint. 

Russian-financed

Financial documents obtained as part of the investigation indicate that as of January 2016, Khusyaynova and “Project Lakhta” were working with a budget of $35 million, spending about $10 million in the first half of 2018 alone.

Khusyaynova’s 2018 expenditures included $60,000 for Facebook advertisements, another $6,000 for ads on Instagram, and $18,000 for “bloggers” and for developing accounts on Twitter.

Russian businessman Prigozhin was the source of the money, according to U.S. officials.

Prigozhin controls Concord Management and Consulting LLC, one of three entities under indictment as part of the Mueller investigation.

A Washington-based lawyer representing Concord did not respond to a request for comment.

Masood Farivar contributed to this report
…

Turkish prosecutors investigating the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi questioned Turkish employees of the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Friday, widening the hunt for clues in a case straining Riyadh’s alliance with Western powers.

Khashoggi went missing more than two weeks ago after entering the consulate to obtain documents in relation to a forthcoming marriage. Turkish officials believe he was killed in the building on October 2, but Riyadh has denied the allegations.

In an expanding quest for evidence, police searched a forest on Istanbul’s outskirts and a city near the Sea of Marmara for Khashoggi’s remains, two senior Turkish officials told Reuters, after tracking the routes of cars that left the Saudi consulate and the consul’s residence on the day he vanished.

Investigators have recovered samples from searches of both buildings which it will analyze for traces of Khashoggi’s DNA.

State-run Anadolu news agency said the Turkish prosecutor’s office had taken testimonies by 20 consulate employees, and 25 more people including foreign nationals would be questioned as part of the investigation.

The consulate employees questioned as witnesses included accountants, technicians and a driver, Anadolu said. The investigation is being carried out by the prosecutor’s terrorism and organized crime bureau, it added.

Turkey said on Friday it had not shared audio recordings purportedly documenting Khashoggi’s murder inside the consulate, dismissing reports it had passed them to the United States.

Turkish pro-government newspaper Yeni Safak has published what it said were details from the audio, including that his torturers severed Khashoggi’s fingers during an interrogation and later beheaded and dismembered him.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Ankara had not shared information with any country, adding, “We will share the results that emerge transparently with the whole world.”

The disappearance and presumed death of Khashoggi, a U.S. resident and Washington Post columnist, has caused an international outcry and strained relations between Saudi Arabia and Western allies.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has painted himself as the face of a vibrant new kingdom, diversifying its economy away from oil and introducing some social changes. But other moves have faced criticism, including involvement in the Yemen war, the arrest of women activists, and a diplomatic row with Canada.

King intervenes

Khashoggi’s disappearance has tarnished his reputation and deepened questions about his leadership, prompting the king to intervene, five sources with links to the Saudi royal family told Reuters.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and senior ministers from France, Britain and the Netherlands have abandoned plans to attend an October 23-25 investor conference in Riyadh, putting the event in question.

On Friday, the CEOs of Deutsche Bank and ABB, plus Airbus’ defense chief and energy historian Daniel Yergin joined a growing list of Western business executives who have pulled out.

But Pakistan’s prime minister and a delegation led by Russian Direct Investment Fund head Kirill Dmitriev plan to participate, while Britain’s BAE Systems is sending senior representatives.

A pro-government Turkish daily published preliminary evidence last week from investigators who it said had identified a 15-member Saudi intelligence team that arrived in Istanbul on diplomatic passports hours before Khashoggi disappeared.

One name matches a LinkedIn profile for a forensic expert who has worked at the interior ministry for 20 years. Another matches a former diplomat at the Saudi Embassy in London. Others resemble officers in the Saudi Army and Air Force.

A New York Times report, citing witnesses and other records, linked four suspects to Prince Mohammed’s security detail.

Turkish pro-government newspaper Sabah also published time-stamped photos it said showed a man, who appears to travel sometimes with the Saudi crown prince, outside the consulate on the morning Khashoggi disappeared.

“Very serious matter”

U.S. President Donald Trump has appeared unwilling to distance himself too much from the Saudis, citing Riyadh’s role in countering Iranian influence in the region and tens of billions of dollars in potential arms deals.

He has said he believes Khashoggi is dead and the U.S. response will likely be “very severe” but he wanted to get to the bottom of what happened. He previously speculated without providing evidence that “rogue killers” could be responsible.

Trump, who has forged closer ties with Saudi Arabia and its crown prince, says Washington has asked Turkey for any audio or video evidence, while Pompeo said Riyadh should be given a few more days to complete its own probe.

U.S. intelligence agencies are increasingly convinced of Prince Mohammed’s culpability in the operation against Khashoggi, which they believe resulted in his death, a U.S. government source said.

The foreign ministers of Britain and Germany said on Friday that the allegations regarding Khashoggi would be totally unacceptable if true.

Arab allies have rallied to support Riyadh, with UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash denouncing what he called “attempts to undermine Saudi stability.”
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Pakistan has criticized and downplayed rival India’s acquisition of the Russian-made S-400 Triumph air defense system, claiming Islamabad can counter the threat.

New Delhi recently signed a $5.4 billion deal with Moscow to purchase what experts believe is the most modern ballistic missile defense (BMS) system available. India has said it needs the missile system that provides high-altitude protection from incoming missiles to bolster its defenses against China and Pakistan.

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, in an official reaction to the pact Friday, warned the purchase of the system will “further destabilize strategic stability” and lead to a “renewed” arms race in South Asia.

The Russian weapon system, according to reports, can simultaneously engage and destroy 36 targets, including aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and ballistic as well as cruise missiles within 400 kilometers at an altitude of 30 kilometers.

“Pakistan remains fully confident of its ability to address threats from any kind of destabilizing weapon system,” the ministry noted, without further explanation.

In January 2017, Islamabad announced the successful flight testing of a surface-to-surface “Ababeel” ballistic missile that it said was capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads to hit targets with “high precision” as far as 2,200 kilometers, “defeating the enemy’s hostile radars.”

U.S. and Western critics maintain that Pakistan has the fastest-growing nuclear arsenal in the world, assertions Islamabad dismisses as “misleading.”

The Trump administration on Wednesday reiterated persistent U.S. concerns about Pakistan’s development of long- and short-range missile launch capabilities and its growing nuclear stockpile.

“Specifically, we’ve expressed concern about the increased security challenges that accompany growing stockpiles, particularly battlefield nuclear weapons, as they pose a greater risk from theft and misuse,” State Department Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary Henry Ensher told a seminar at the Wilson Center, a Washington-based research institution.

“These weapons also increase the risk that a conventional conflict between India and Pakistan could escalate to use of nuclear weapons,” Ensher said.

Pakistani officials cite close defense and nuclear cooperation between the United States and India for reinforcing its nuclear deterrence capabilities.

Islamabad says its short-range battlefield nuclear weapons are aimed at deterring New Delhi from taking advantage of its massive military power to inflict a surprise limited conventional war on Pakistan.

Possible sanctions

New Delhi is hoping for a waiver from the United States, which passed a law last year placing automatic sanctions on countries dealing with Russia’s defense and intelligence sectors. With an eye on China, New Delhi and Washington have been building a closer partnership. U.S. officials, however, have said there is no guarantee for such a waiver and urged India not to enter into transactions with Russia.

Last month, Washington imposed sanctions on China’s military for its purchase of the S-400 missile system from Russia.

Russia’s sale of S-400 missiles to India comes as relations between Moscow and Islamabad have significantly improved in areas that include the defense, political and economic fields.

Pakistan will host another round of annual joint military drills with Russia starting Sunday.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since gaining independence from Britain in 1947 and military clashes along their disputed Kashmir border have lately become routine, raising concerns another war between the two countries could escalate into nuclear exchanges.
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Brexit could leave Britain more vulnerable to attacks like the nerve-agent poisoning of a Russian ex-spy in Salisbury, a former head of the U.K.’s overseas intelligence service said Friday.

“I don’t believe Russia would have used a nerve agent on the streets of an American or German city” because the consequences would be too great, John Sawers, who led MI6 between 2009 and 2014, said.

Sawers was speaking at an event in Salisbury, southwest England, where ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his adult daughter, Yulia, were poisoned in March with the military-grade nerve agent Novichok.

Britain alleges the attack was ordered at a senior level of the Russian government. While Moscow denies the allegation, Sawers said Britain’s “very weakness — as a result of Brexit, as a result of fraying trans-Atlantic ties — was an attraction for Russia.”

Sawers, who has previously criticized Britain’s 2016 decision to leave the European Union, said Brexit left the U.K. isolated from its European allies at a time when the United States was becoming more insular under President Donald Trump.

“At a time when America is stepping back from its enlightened leadership in the world … Britain is marching boldly out of our big protective regional grouping to face the cold winds of the modern world on our own,” he said.

“I find it hard to believe that this is in our long-term interests,” Sawers said.

Arguing that Brexit would harm U.K. security cooperation with the EU, Sawyers gave his support to campaigners calling for a new referendum to be held once Prime Minister Theresa May has struck a divorce agreement with the 28-nation bloc.

“With a clear deal on the table, the British people would have the choice between the historic decision to leave with the terms of departure known, or to decide that, actually, on reflection, we would rather stay in the EU,” Sawers said.

 
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A women-to-women investment fund is coming to Britain next month to boost financing for female-owned businesses, its founder said Thursday, as efforts grow to close the gender investing gap.

SheEO has lent more than $2 million to 32 female social entrepreneurs in the United States, Canada and New Zealand to grow their businesses since 2015 in an attempt to address a global gender investment gap.

“Most of the people writing checks and investing are men,” founder Vicki Saunders told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “SheEO wants to fund female innovators with great ideas to create stronger communities and a better world.”

Support for female entrepreneurs

It is the latest venture to support female entrepreneurs around the world, who often face more obstacles than men, including a lack of access to finance, business networks, international markets and role models.

Three out of 10 U.S. businesses are owned by women but they only receive $1 in investment for every $23 that goes to male-led businesses, the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee found in 2014.

A Goldman Sachs-World Bank Group partnership to provide capital to women entrepreneurs in emerging markets reached $1 billion in investments in May.

How it works

SheEO brings together 500 women each year who contribute $1,100 each, which they pool and lend, interest-free, to five women-led businesses of their choice.

The loans are paid back over five years and then loaned out again, creating a perpetual fund that SheEO hopes will grow to $1 billion, with 1 million investors supporting 10,000 women-led ventures.

More than 300 women in Britain wrote to SheEO asking it to launch there, Saunders said ahead of a visit to London where she hopes that 500 female investors will come on board.

Workplace gender equality is in the spotlight in Britain, where just 6 percent of the biggest publicly listed companies are headed by women and pay disparities were revealed at major institutions last year.

Twenty One Toys founder Ilana Ben-Ari, one of the first to get SheEO funding in 2015, said it changed her business, enabling her to push ahead with production and hire staff to help with a stressful workload. Her revenue has now doubled.

“It was easy to get my foot in the door and have a meeting but it was near impossible to have a serious conversation about my business,” she said, describing her efforts to get financing from venture capitalists. “Halfway through that meeting you find out — this isn’t a meeting, this is a date.”
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The United States suspended imports of pork from Poland Thursday because of an outbreak of the highly contagious hog disease African swine fever in that country.

African swine fever has spread rapidly in Eastern Europe and China, the world’s largest pork producer, where new cases are appearing and the disease is traveling far distances.

The United States is free of the disease and eager to keep it that way because infections in U.S. herds would likely kill hogs and limit pork exports.

Humans are not susceptible to African swine fever, according to the USDA.

The agency said it was reviewing Poland’s export protocols after finding one facility there shipped pork to the United States without following requirements designed to prevent the spread of serious livestock diseases. A second Polish facility is also being reviewed, according to a USDA notice.

The USDA is also working with Customs and Border Protection staff to enhance screening of passenger bags coming from Poland, the notice said. The checks aim to ensure restricted products are not brought into the country.
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Computer giant IBM Corp., financial services company Western Union

Co. and European police launched a project Thursday to share financial data that  they said may one day be able to predict human trafficking before it occurs.

The shared data hub will collect information on money moving around the world and compare it with known ways that traffickers move their illicit gains, highlighting red flags signaling potential trafficking, organizers said.

“We will build and aggregate that material, using IBM tools, into an understanding of hot spots and routes and trends,” said Neil Giles, a director at global anti-slavery group Stop the Traffik, which is participating in the project.

Data collection, digital tools and modern technology are the latest weapons in the fight against human trafficking, estimated to be a $150 billion-a-year global business, according to the International Labor Organization.

The U.N. has set a goal of 2030 for ending forced labor and modern slavery worldwide, with more than 40 million people estimated to be enslaved around the world.

Certain patterns and suspicious activity might trigger a block of a transaction or an investigation into possible forced labor or sex slavery, organizers said.

The project will utilize IBM’s internet cloud services as well as artificial intelligence and machine learning to compare data and to spot specific trafficking terms, said Sophia Tu, director of IBM Corporate Citizenship.

With a large volume of high-quality data, the hub one day may predict trafficking before it happens, she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“You can’t do it today because we’re in the process of building out that amount of data and those capabilities, but it’s in the road map for what we want to do,” she said.

While law enforcement is teaming up with banks and data specialists to chase trafficking, experts have cautioned that it can be a cat-and-mouse game in which traffickers quickly move on to new tactics to elude capture.

Also, less than 1 percent of the estimated $1.5 trillion-plus laundered by criminals worldwide each year through the financial system is frozen or confiscated, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

Along with IBM and Western Union, participants include Europol, Europe’s law enforcement agency; telecommunications giant Liberty Global; and British banks Barclays and Lloyds, organizers said.
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