A lawyer for Julian Assange said Wednesday that the WikiLeaks founder plans to claim during his extradition hearing that he was offered a pardon by the Trump administration if he agreed to say Russia was not involved in leaking Democratic National Committee emails during the 2016 U.S. election campaign.Assange is fighting extradition to the United States on spying charges, and his full court hearing is due to begin next week.At a preliminary hearing, lawyer Edward Fitzgerald said that in August 2017, then-Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher visited Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.Wikileaks founder Julian Assange leaves in a prison van after appearing at Westminster Magistrates Court for an administrative hearing in London, Jan. 13, 2020.Fitzgerald said a statement from another Assange lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, recounted “Mr. Rohrabacher going to see Mr. Assange and saying, on instructions from the president, he was offering a pardon or some other way out, if Mr. Assange … said Russia had nothing to do with the DNC leaks.”The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Emails embarrassing for the Democrats and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign were hacked before being published by WikiLeaks in 2016.District Judge Vanessa Baraitser said the evidence was admissible in the extradition case.Assange appeared at London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday by video-link from Belmarsh prison, where he is being held as he awaits his extradition hearing.U.S. prosecutors have charged the 48-year-old Australian computer hacker with espionage over WikiLeaks’ hacking of hundreds of thousands of confidential government documents. If found guilty, he faces up to 175 years in jail.He argues he was acting as a journalist entitled to First Amendment protection.Assange spent seven years in Ecuador’s embassy after holing up there in 2012 to avoid questioning in Sweden over unrelated sexual assault allegations.Assange was evicted from the embassy in April 2019 and was arrested by British police for jumping bail in 2012. In November, Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigation because so much time had elapsed.There is no quick end in sight to Assange’s long legal saga. His full extradition hearing is due to begin with a week of legal argument starting Monday. It will resume in May, and a ruling is not expected for several months, with the losing side likely to appeal.
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Russia’s entry ban for Chinese nationals will be partial and affect only those who travel with tourist, private, student or work visas, the country’s Foreign Ministry said Wednesday, clarifying the conditions of a sweeping entry ban for Chinese citizens announced the day before. Visitors with official, business, humanitarian or transit visas will still be allowed into the country, the ministry said. The ban goes into effect Thursday at midnight Moscow time (2100 GMT). It was announced by the Russian government on Tuesday amid the new coronavirus outbreak centered in China that has infected more than 75,000 people worldwide. The measure is one of many Russia has taken to keep the virus from spreading. The country so far has reported three confirmed cases of the COVID-19 disease — two Chinese citizens in Russia who were treated and released, and a Russian national infected on the Diamond Princess cruise ship. Trains stopped, school vacation extendedRussia suspended all trains to China and North Korea, shut down its land border with China and Mongolia, and extended a school vacation for Chinese students until March 1. Hundreds of Russians who returned from China this year have been hospitalized as a precaution, and medics continue to monitor more than 14,000 people in total. However, while some of these steps at first appeared sweeping, they turned out to have loopholes and caveats that allowed Russia to maintain its political and economic ties with China. Those ties became increasingly important for Moscow after its relations with the West soured over Russian’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and other disputes. Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova argued that the entry ban was necessary because Russia lacks enough facilities to hospitalize all Chinese travelers who may have the virus. Ensuring quarantine conditions with permanent monitoring for thousands of travelers from China is unfeasible,'' Golikova said. As described Wednesday, this week's partial entry ban would minimize the effect on business connections between China and Russia and on the operation of Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport, a major transit hub for Chinese tourists traveling to Europe. FILE - A medical staffer works with test systems for the diagnosis of coronavirus at the Krasnodar Center for Hygiene and Epidemiology microbiology lab in Krasnodar, Russia, Feb. 4, 2020.In the same vein, the Russian government last month halted most air traffic to China, with exceptions for four Chinese airlines and flagship Russian carrier Aeroflot. Currently, there are still regular flights to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong. China has remained a top trading partner for Russia for the last decade, so cutting the ties completely is hardly an option, said Alexander Gabuyev, chair of the Russia in the Asia-Pacific Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center. This contradiction between the need to … control the spread of disease and at the same time to maintain good economic ties with China is dictating this two-steps-forward-one-step-back policy,” Gabuyev said. Visitors coming to Russia for business or humanitarian purposes account for 10% of all Chinese travelers, according to Gabuyev. Last year, 1.5 million Chinese tourists traveled to Russia. Millions could be lostHowever, Russia’s tourism industry is about to suffer a significant blow with the flow of Chinese visitors effectively cut off during the entry ban. Because of all the restrictions, tour operators working with Chinese travelers could lose up to $47 million of profits in the coming months, Maya Lomidze, head of the Association of Tour Operators of Russia, said Wednesday. The forecast is pessimistic at this point,'' Lomidze said.It would be good to have an understanding of how the situation in China will unfold and how long the travel ban for Chinese nationals will last.” 
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Albania’s president on Wednesday called on the people of his nation to topple the left-wing government, which he accused of violating the country’s constitution and of links to organized crime.
    
President Ilir Meta said at a news conference that he hopes people will come to the capital Tirana on March 2. He said on that day he plans to sign his first decree against what he says is a “coup d’etat” being carried out by the government through the justice system.
    
The call by Meta comes as the Balkan nation of nearly 3 million has been enacting reforms in hopes of getting a green light to launch membership talks with the European Union in hopes of joining the bloc one day.
   
He said that a justice system reform approved three years ago to root out bribery and ensure that judges and prosecutors are independent from politics, part of the effort to embrace EU standards, has failed.
    
Meta’s appeal was apparently a counter-move against the governing Socialist Party of Prime Minister Edi Rama, which has launched impeachment proceedings against him, the first in post-communist Albania, stemming from Meta’s attempt to cancel last year’s municipal elections.
    
Before taking the post almost three years ago Meta was leader of the Socialist Movement for Integration Party, a small left-wing grouping now in opposition.
    
He tried to cancel municipal elections last year, arguing that a boycott by center-right opposition parties made them undemocratic and that he feared a violent civil confrontation.
   
Election authorities overruled his attempt and the Socialists won most of the elections and also dominate parliament now.
    
Lat year the opposition boycotted the parliament and the vote, accusing the government of vote-rigging and of links to organized crime. For months it held protests that often turned into violent clashes with police.
    
The parliament, dominated by the Socialists, is expected to produce a report in March that will likely ask for Meta’s ouster.
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​In October 2016, the head of Russia’s largest oil company traveled to the birthplace of Hugo Chavez, in the empty, sweltering plains of Venezuela, to unveil a giant bronze statue  of the late socialist leader that he and his longtime friend, Russian President Vladimir Putin, commissioned from a prominent Russian artist.It was a turning point in the relationship between Russia and Venezuela, and Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin brought with him a 600-year-old choir from a Moscow monastery to celebrate. Speaking to throngs of red-shirted government supporters in fluent Spanish gleaned from his days as a Soviet military translator in Africa, Sechin praised Chavez as a “leader of multi-polarity” and a “symbol of an entire era.”
“We have no choice between victory or death,” said Sechin, quoting a Venezuelan independence hero to describe the deepening ties between the two U.S. adversaries. “We must achieve victory.”
Now the Trump administration wants to break up that blossoming alliance as part of its campaign to oust Chavez’s successor, Nicolas Maduro.
On Tuesday, the Treasury Department blocked U.S. companies from doing business with Rosneft Trading SA, accusing the Geneva subsidiary of the Russian state-owned oil giant of providing a critical lifeline to Maduro as he seeks to bypass U.S. sanctions.
For months, U.S. officials have been warning foreign companies that they could face retaliation if they continue to do business with Maduro. Those admonishments have been aimed primarily at Russia, which U.S. officials say handles about 70% of Venezuelan oil transactions that have been rerouted since the Trump administration a year ago made it illegal for Americans to by crude from Venezuela.
Francisco Monaldi, a Venezuelan oil expert at Rice University in Houston, said the latest actions should send a chill through companies in Spain, China and elsewhere that continue to partner with state-run oil monopoly PDVSA. It could also foretell the ending of a special license for Chevron that has so far exempted the San Ramon, California-based company from having to pull out of the country, where it’s a partner in joint ventures with PDVSA that produce about a quarter of the OPEC nation’s total production.
“It’s no longer the dog barking,” said Monaldi. “It’s biting now.”
PDVSA in a statement condemned what it called “economic assassination” by the U.S. aimed at taking control of Venezuela’s oil industry. Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza said the new actions would bolster Venezuela’s lawsuit filed against the Trump administration at the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.
Rosneft operates with PDVSA several oil fields that it acquired after U.S. drillers were forced out by Chavez’s nationalization drive.
But as the new, go-to supplier of the country’s pariah crude it wins two ways, according to analysts. First, Rosneft purchases Venezuela’s premium Merey 16 crude at a steep discount. It then uses the proceeds from its sale to pay down $6.5 billion lent to PDVSA since 2014 for the purchase of Russian-made weaponry and other goods.
Meanwhile, refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast that used to depend on Venezuela’s heavy crude have nearly tripled their imports of unfinished Russian petroleum products in the year since sanctions have been in place, according to U.S. Energy Department data.
To avoid complications for customers in China and India, Rosneft has been hiring tankers that try to hide their cargo by turning off their mandatory tracking systems and carrying out risky ship-to-ship transfers off the coast of west Africa and other distant locations.
In the short term, he expects Maduro will have to pay more to find another intermediary to take on the added risk of moving the country’s oil. That means his cash-strapped government will have even less money to import scarce food and medical supplies as well as repair the country’s crumbling electricity infrastructure. And with storage facilities already at capacity, production that is already at a seven-decade low is likely to fall even further, he added.
Still, short of a U.S. naval blockade of Venezuelan ports — a military option that the Trump administration has refused to rule out but has shown no sign of pursuing — nobody expects oil sales from the nation sitting atop the world’s largest petroleum reserves to dry up completely.
“They can find always find ways to sell it, but it’s much harder,” said Monaldi.
Even less clear is the impact on the U.S.’ goal of engaging Russia to find a solution to Venezuela’s year-old political impasse.
The U.S. leads a group of now nearly 60 nations that recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s rightful leader following what it considers Maduro’s fraudulent 2018 re-election. In turn, Russia has accused the Trump administration of spreading false information to engineer a coup, needling the U.S. in what has traditionally been considered Washington’s backyard as the two sides wage proxy battles for influence in Syria, Ukraine and other global hot spots.
Richard Nephew, an energy researcher at Columbia University, said that in sparing Rosneft itself, and only going after one of its many units, the impact on Russia’s continued political support for Maduro is likely to be more muted.
The bulk of Rosneft’s long-term supply contracts are arranged directly by the parent company in Moscow, with the Swiss-based trading unit handling spot sales, he said. The sanctions also include a three-month winding down period, which should give the company — and ravenous oil traders — plenty of time to redirect transactions, including with Venezuela.
In addition, Rosneft and Sechin were already partially sanctioned in 2014 in retaliation for Russia’s annexation of Crimean peninsula in Ukraine. As a result, many U.S. companies had already been steering clear of the company.
“This seems more like a warning shot designed to look bigger than it actually is,” said Nephew, who helped design U.S. sanctions policy while at the State Department under President Barack Obama. “It’s shooting someone who is Russian sounding without really punishing the Russians themselves.”
Several pro-Putin lawmakers were dismissive of the actions, saying they would appeal to the World Trade Organization to remove what they described as unilateral, unlawful U.S. actions.
“I think this issue can be resolved,” Vladimir Dzhabarov, a member of Russia’s upper house of parliament, told RIA Novosti news agency. “They’re smart over there [in Rosneft] and they will find a way to get around it.”
But even if Putin maintains outward support for Maduro, it’s unclear if he’ll double down and lend even more money to the bankrupt country.
At the height of unrest in 2018, anti-government protesters tried to destroy the Chavez statue dedicated by Russia. Today, it’s under heavy guard, pointing to the uneasy calm that prevails in the normally pro-government Venezuelan countryside, where power outages are an almost daily occurrence and misery widespread.
While Venezuela has stayed current on its debt to Russia, and is expected to pay off the last remaining amount in the coming weeks, it’s defaulted on almost all other lenders and investors in the country’s bonds. Meanwhile, its debt with Russia is backed by a lien on 49.9% of PDVSA’s American subsidiary, Houston-based CITGO, control of which the Trump administration has handed to a board named by Guaido.
“The Russians are nothing if not good chess players,” Russ Dallen, the Miami-based head of Caracas Capital Markets brokerage, wrote in a recent report. Rosneft’s “choice here will be an important tell for us about the future direction of their policy.” 
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An international appeals court in the Netherlands has ordered Russia to pay $50 billion in compensation to shareholders of the former oil company, Yukos.It is the latest chapter in a long-running saga that came to define Russia’s political and business climate in the early years of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rule.According to the ruling issued by The Hague Court of Appeal, Yukos — the one-time oil giant owned by Russian businessman-turned-Kremlin-foe Mikhail Khodorkovsky — unfairly lost tens of billions of dollars in revenue after Khodorkovsky was jailed and his company seized by the Russian government amid unpaid tax claims in 2004.Tuesday’s ruling in effect reinstated an earlier 2014 court-ordered compensation package that had been overturned during a later appeal that went in Russia’s favor.The court ruled that decision “not correct,” adding “the arbitration order is in force again.”Yukos alumni and allies celebrated the decision. “This is a victory for the rule of law,” Tim Osborne, chief executive of GML, a company that represents Yukos shareholders, said in a statement. “The independent courts of a democracy have shown their integrity and served justice. A brutal kleptocracy has been held to account.”Russia’s Justice Ministry indicated it would appeal the decision, arguing the court ”failed to take into account the illegitimate use by former Yukos shareholders of the Energy Charter Treaty that wasn’t ratified by the Russian Federation.”The ministry also noted that a 2011 European Court for Human Rights review had rejected allegations the case against Yukos was politically motivated.In a message posted on Facebook, Khodorkovsky denied that he had gained financially from the decision, but celebrated its outcome nonetheless.“For it has confirmed not only in procedure but in essence: The seizure of Yukos was not about taxes, but a fight with a political opponent,” he said.New president, ambitious oligarchThe Yukos case played an outsized role in defining what kind of Russia Putin would come to build.On the surface, it was a business dispute. The Kremlin argued that Khodorkovsky and his company owed millions in unpaid taxes. In reality, it was more about politics and power.  Putin, still relatively new to the Kremlin post in the early 2000s, sought to assert himself over powerful business barons — the so-called oligarchs — who had played a big role in government affairs under his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin.Putin’s offer: Stay out of politics and keep your wealth.  While some took the warning seriously, Khodorkovsky, then Russia’s wealthiest man, continued to openly fund Russia’s budding civil society and liberal political parties.  To supporters, Khodorkovsky represented the best of an emerging Russian business culture — a reformed oligarch looking to play by western rules of transparency and fair play.To his detractors, including Putin, he was merely a wolf in sheep’s clothing.  The arrestA turning point was a meeting with Putin and the business elite in 2003, in which Khodorkovsky and the Kremlin leader openly sparred over corruption.Six months later, FSB agents stormed Khodorkovsky’s plane at a Siberian airport. Russia’s wealthiest man was now its most famous prisoner.  An initial trial found him guilty of tax evasion and sentenced him to nine years in prison. A second criminal investigation added money laundering and additional years to Khodorkovsky’s prison term.Amnesty International labeled the former tycoon a prisoner of conscience.Meanwhile, the Kremlin oversaw Yukos’s dismantling, divvying up its prized assets to a new cadre of Kremlin loyalists at bargain prices until the oil giant was bankrupt.Life after prison  Putin freed Khodorkovsky as part of a wider amnesty ahead of the Sochi Games in 2014 — and a promise the businessman would stay out of politics.  Yet Russia, and Putin, have remained the focus of Khodorkovsky’s work after he fled Russia for Europe.He relaunched his NGO, Open Russia, with an eye toward reforming Russian civil society and insuring free and fair elections.  The organization was put on Russia’s “undesirable organizations” list in 2017, and its employees were routinely hounded by police.In a further sign that Khodorkovsky’s activities are perceived as a threat to the Kremlin, Putin proposed a ban on Russians who lived abroad from assuming the presidency, amid a wide-ranging set of reforms to the constitution earlier this year.  The amendment, currently under review by Russian lawmakers, seemed almost tailor-made to Khodorkovsky.And yet, it was another constitutional amendment suggested by Putin — that Russia no longer abide by international court decisions when it felt its state interests were infringed — that seemed to anticipate today’s Hague ruling in favor of compensation.Indeed, while Khodorkovsky acknowledged money to Yukos would likely not be forthcoming, he waxed lyrical on Russia’s future beyond the Putin era. “Russia is my homeland. And my homeland has no secret accounts, does not rob companies, and has no political opponents,” Khodorkovsky said on Twitter. “It has only sons.”Россия мне и не должна. Россия – моя Родина, а Родина тайных счетов не имеет, компании не ворует и политических противников у нее нет. Только сыновья. А вот с Кремлем счеты не закрыты и луж для всех кремлевских приготовлено еще не мало. pic.twitter.com/uzGrq5KZgy— Ходорковский Михаил (@mich261213) February 18, 2020
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In a dramatic move, Turkish prosecutors issued a detention order for prominent philanthropist Osman Kavala, just hours after an Istanbul court had acquitted him on charges of sedition.Kavala’s acquittal on sedition charges Tuesday was met with euphoria by rights groups seeing it as a watershed moment for human rights and  judicial independence in Turkey. Kavala and eight other defendants were acquitted on all charges for a “lack of concrete evidence.”But as family and supporters waited for hours outside Istanbul’s Silivri prison to welcome Kavala into freedom after over two and half years in pre-trial detention, they quickly left after news of the new detention order.FILE – April 29, 2015 file photo of Osman Kavala, taken in Istanbul.In a statement,  Istanbul prosecutors said the detention order for Kavala was in connection to an investigation into the 2016 failed coup in Turkey. The statement also said an appeal against Kavala’s acquittal would be made.Kavala’s detention drew swift condemnation.”This is a vindictive and lawless move, further demonstrating that Turkey’s justice system is under tight political control,” said Emma Sinclair-Webb, senior Turkey researcher for Human Rights Watch.Prosecutors pushed tough sentencesProsecutors had sought sentences of up to life in prison without parole.Arrest warrants for seven defendants who had left the country and were tried in absentia have been lifted.”We are startled,” defendant Can Atalay said, reacting shortly after his acquittal outside Istanbul Silivri prison where the trial was held.   “We are hoping that something will change for the better in our country, and that is, of course, our struggle,” Atalay added to applauding supporters. Ekrem Imamoglu , Mayor of Istanbul metropolitan municipality, speaks during a rally in Istanbul, Feb. 18, 2020. Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu of the opposition CHP was quick to praise the verdict, tweeting, “The acquittal of all the defendants in the #GeziPark trial is a true source of joy and restores trust in the Turkish judicial system. I salute all those who stand to defend our city’s history, culture, and nature.”     Human rights groups weigh in   Amnesty International Turkey researcher Andrew Gardener praised the verdict.”If you look at the whole process of the trial and case, and to end in a just way is as surprising as it’s welcome. Obviously, it doesn’t erase the past two-and-a-half years. To be imprisoned when there is overwhelming evidence of his innocence is unforgivable,” Gardener said.The trial has been widely condemned as an attempt to silence dissent in Turkey’s broader civil society. In December, the European Court of Human Rights ruled the case was politically motivated, and called for Kavala’s immediate release.    The Istanbul court called for Kavala’s immediate release, but Istanbul prosecutors were already preparing a new detention order against the philanthropist.   The defendants faced charges of supporting and organizing the 2013 nationwide anti-government protests against then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is now president. Family members and friends celebrate after a court acquitted nine leading Turkish civil society activists of terrorism-related charges including Osman Kavala, Feb. 18, 2020. Hours later, Kavala faced new charges.   Gezi movementThe protests were called the “Gezi Movement” named after a small park in central Istanbul, where the unrest began against plans to redevelop the area into a shopping mall.    Tuesday’s  verdict took defendants and their supporters by surprise.”The evidence is vague, witnesses are controversial, and the verdict is pre-ordered. They trashed the law,” Atalay tweeted shortly before the verdict.     Defense lawyers were denied the right to cross-examine anonymous witnesses of the prosecution and to see some of the evidence.    Erdogan has strongly supported Kavala’s prosecution, which critics saw as an attempt to intimidate wider Turkish civil society. Analysts point out the trial was also crucial to the Turkish president’s narrative that Gezi was a conspiracy against him rather than a grassroots popular uprising.    “What does this verdict mean? It means that Gezi cannot be put on trial. This verdict proves you cannot put Gezi on trial,” said acquitted defendant Mucella Yapici, who along with Kavala and Yigit Aksakoglu, was facing life in prison without paroleFrom thrilled to chilled     Initial jubilation has been replaced with shock and anger among many rights activists, as news spread of Kavala’s new detention. “Judicial cruelty” is trending across Turkish social media.Ankara was facing mounting international pressure over the trial — in particular from the EU. That pressure is predicted to increase over Kavala’s latest detention.     Brussels reportedly warned Ankara that future assistance could be at risk if the trial ended with convictions. Turkey is looking for billions of dollars in new aid to deal with an expected new exodus of Syrian refugees.     Turkey’s judiciary will face further scrutiny Wednesday with the anticipated conclusion of a separate trial of prominent human rights activists.   Taner Kilic, former Turkey head of Amnesty International, along with 10 other human rights defenders, are facing up to 15 years in jail on terrorism charges.   
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