Tag: Angela Merkel

BERLIN (TIP): German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief of staff will meet the US ambassador on July 2 to discuss allegations that US spies bugged senior government ministers, a German government source said.

In the latest twist in an ongoing scandal over extensive US spying in Europe which has caused outrage in Germany, media reported that the US National Security Agency (NSA) had bugged the economy and finance ministers.

“The Chancellor’s Chief of Staff has invited US Ambassador John Emerson to a meeting because of the new bugging revelations. The conversation is due to take place on Thursday afternoon,” the source told Reuters.

Privacy is a particularly sensitive issue in Germany due to its experience of extensive surveillance by the Stasi secret police during the Cold War and the Gestapo in the Nazi era. The scandal, triggered by revelations from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, has caused a chill in relations between Berlin and Washington.

Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily and broadcasting network ARD reported that the NSA targeted 69 telephone and fax numbers in the German government administration.

They based their reports on documents released on the Wikileaks website.

Among the officials targeted were the economy minister and as well as several deputy ministers, the reports said.Asked about the reports, Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said he was most worried by the risks of industrial espionage, particularly given the links his ministry has to companies.

“It is an absurd carry-on,” Gabriel told ARD television.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, responsible for security issues, said Germany would look at the latest allegations.

“We have become more distrustful,” he said.

The role of Germany’s spies has also been in the spotlight since reports surfaced earlier this year that its BND foreign intelligence agency had cooperated with the NSA.

BERLIN (TIP): Germany’s chief prosecutor has dropped a probe into the alleged tapping of chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone by US intelligence agencies, his office said on June 12.

“The chief federal prosecutor has closed the investigation over suspected spying on a mobile phone used by the chancellor by US intelligence services … because the allegation cannot be proven in a legally sound way under criminal law,” it said in a statement.

Kiev accused pro-Russian rebels of opening fire with rockets and artillery at villages in southeastern Ukraine on Monday, all but burying a week-old European-brokered ceasefire deal.

The Ukrainian military said it could not pull weapons from the front as required under the tenuous truce, as long as its troops were still under attack.

Ukraine’s currency, nearly in freefall this month, fell a further 10 percent on Monday on fears that the truce could collapse. The central bank said it would tighten currency rules to sustain the hryvnia. The value of Ukrainian debt also fell, with bonds now trading at 40 cents in the dollar.

The reported shooting came closer to killing off the truce, intended to end fighting that has killed more than 5,600 people, which rebels ignored last week to capture the strategic town of Debaltseve in a punishing defeat for Kiev.

Kiev and its Western allies say they fear the rebels, backed by reinforcements of Russian troops, are planning to advance deeper into territory the Kremlin calls “New Russia”. Moscow denies aiding the rebels.

Fighting has diminished since Kiev’s forces abandoned Debaltseve in defeat last Wednesday, and there were hopeful signs for the truce over the weekend, with an overnight exchange of around 200 prisoners late on Saturday and an agreement on Sunday to begin pulling back artillery from the front.

But Kiev said on Monday that two of its soldiers had been killed and 10 wounded in overnight fighting.

“Given that the positions of Ukrainian servicemen continue to be shelled, there cannot yet be any talk of pulling back weapons,” spokesman Vladislav Seleznyov said.

Dmytro Chaly, spokesman for the Ukrainian military in the port of Mariupol, a city of 500,000 people which Kiev fears will be the next target, said rebels opened fire in the afternoon with Grad rockets, artillery and tanks on villages nearby.

Anatoly Stelmakh, another military spokesman, said rebel forces had attacked the village of Shyrokyne on the coast road towards Mariupol overnight.

“The fighters have not stopped their attempts to storm our positions in Shyrokyne, in the direction of Mariupol. At midnight armed groups again attempted unsuccessfully to attack our soldiers. The battle lasted half an hour.”

Rebel commander Eduard Basurin denied rebel fighters had launched any such attack, and said the situation was calm. “At the moment all is quiet, there is no shelling,” he told Reuters.

The head of the Kiev-controlled Donetsk regional police, Vyacheslav Abroskin, said one police officer was killed and two wounded in Mariupol in a shootout when they stopped a militant “reconnaissance group” carrying explosives in a car. One of the rebels was also killed.

UNJUSTIFIABLE AND ILLEGAL

Western countries still hope the truce can be salvaged if the rebels halt, now that they achieved their objective at Debaltseve last week. The foreign ministers of France, Germany,Russia and Ukraine will meet on Tuesday in Paris to try to get the peace deal back on track, a French diplomatic source said.

But Germany, whose Chancellor Angela Merkel was the driving force behind the peace deal, said in unusually strong terms that it was now clear that the ceasefire was not being implemented.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said any further attempt to expand rebel territory would be met with fresh Western sanctions on Moscow: “Far from changing course, Russia’s totally unjustifiable and illegal actions in eastern Ukraine have reached a new level with the separatists’ blatant breach of the ceasefire,” he told parliament.

Nevertheless, the U.S. ambassador to NATO Douglas Lute said it was still too early to “give up hope on the ceasefire” and Russian President Vladimir Putin told state television the deal was the right way to resolve the crisis.

There were signs, however, that a deal reached late last year to ensure Ukraine receives gas from Russia was also in jeopardy. Last week, Kiev cut back supplies of gas to rebel-held areas and Moscow said it would supply some gas to the rebels directly. On Monday, Ukraine’s gas company said Russia had failed to deliver some supplies Kiev had paid for in advance.

In Debaltseve, now under rebel control, thousands of civilians who were trapped through the storming of the town are still living in cellars in the ruins. No one has tallied the civilian dead from last week’s assault.

Nina Shono, 80, one of eight people sheltering in a basement beneath the ruins of their five-storey apartment building, made soup and baked bread on a homemade wood-burning stove in the darkness while a rat scampered in a corner.

“When we were bombed, we were praying and I was crossing myself, everything was collapsing. One explosion. The second explosion, the third. But we are still sitting here,” she said.

In the biggest rebel stronghold Donetsk, occasional artillery fire could be heard through the night and on Monday morning, although it was not clear who was firing and it was far less intense than before the truce.

The separatist press service DAN reported two homes destroyed by shelling on the city’s outskirts overnight.

Nearly a million people have been driven from their homes by the war between pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine and government forces. Rebels say they launched their advance because previous battle lines had left their civilians vulnerable to government shelling.

Donetsk resident Sergei, 52 said he could do no more than hope that the truce would work out. “No one knows what will happen with the way the sides are behaving,” he said.

Kiev fears unrest could spread to other parts of the mainly Russian-speaking east, where its troops are in control and most residents are loyal but violent separatist demonstrations have occasionally flared in the past year.

Two people were killed on Sunday in Kharkiv, 200 km (125 miles) from the war zone, in a blast at a pro-Ukrainian rally. Kiev said it had arrested four suspects who had received weapons and instructions in Russia.

Brussels: Euro zone finance ministers agreed in principle on Friday to extend Greece’s financial rescue by four months, averting a potential cash crunch in March that could have forced the country out of the currency area.

The deal, to be ratified once Greece’s creditors are satisfied with a list of reforms it will submit next week, ends weeks of uncertainty since the election of a leftist-led government in Athens which pledged to reverse austerity.

“Tonight was a first step in this process of rebuilding trust,” Jeroen Dijsselbloem, chairman of the 19-nation Eurogroup, told a news conference. “We have established common ground again to reach agreement on this statement.”

The agreement, clinched after the third ministerial meeting in two weeks of acrimonious public exchanges, offers a breathing space for the new Greek government to try to negotiate longer-term debt relief with its official creditors.

But it also forced radical young Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras into a major climbdown since he had vowed to scrap the bailout, end cooperation with the “troika” of international lenders and roll back austerity.

European Union paymaster Germany, Greece’s biggest creditor, had demanded “significant improvements” in reform commitments by Athens before it would accept an extension of euro zone funding.

The two main combatants around the table put a radically different gloss on the result.

“Being in government is a date with reality, and reality is often not as nice as a dream,” German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told reporters, stressing Athens would get no aid payments until its bailout programme was properly completed.

“The Greeks certainly will have a difficult time to explain the deal to their voters,” the conservative veteran said.

Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said the talks had shown elections could bring change to Europe. He insisted he had averted “recessionary measures” and said the government still hoped to raise the minimum wage and rehire some public sector workers.

“Nobody is going to ask us to impose upon our economy and society measures that we don’t agree with,” Varoufakis said.

The euro rebounded against the dollar and global equity markets surged to record closing highs while Greek government bond yields fell on optimism for a debt deal.

REFORM LIST

The accord requires Greece to submit by Monday a letter to the Eurogroup listing all the policy measures it plans to take during the remainder of the bailout period.

If the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund are satisfied, euro zone member states will ratify the extension, where necessary through their parliaments.

Euro finance ministers may sign off on the deal on Tuesday via a teleconference. However, if there are doubts they would reconvene in Brussels, officials said, a conditions insisted upon by Spain, whose government also faces a radical leftist insurgency at an election later this year and is keen that Tsipras gets no special treatment.

Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan voiced caution, telling reporters: “It’s an important first step that we hope will lead to a successful second step on Monday night/Tuesday morning, but then of course there’s a third step with ratifications in parliament.”

With the 240 billion euro EU/IMF bailout programme due to expire in little more than a week, Tsipras had requested a six-month extension of a loan agreement but Germany and its allies objected to the initial formulation of the request.

Greece’s partners insisted on the shorter period and tied further disbursements to a satisfactory review at the end. They also obliged Athens to commit to fully funding any new spending measures and obtaining approval from its lenders.

The ECB said there would be no need for Greece to impose capital controls restricting cash withdrawals after the deal.

An ECB source said the bank’s governing council was ready to resume accepting Greek government bonds as collateral for lending once necessary steps were taken for the extension and the bank determined there was a “great likelihood” that Greece would achieve a “positive conclusion” to its rescue programme.

TRUST IN SHORT SUPPLY

The complex document was crafted in preliminary talks among Varoufakis, Schaeuble, Dijsselbloem and IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde.

Finance ministers from other euro zone states insisted on more guarantees that Greece would meet the bailout’s strict conditions on budget discipline and economic reforms.

Tsipras had a long telephone call with Germany’s Angela Merkel on Thursday and has spoken repeatedly to the leaders of France and Italy in the search for a solution that allows his radical government to fulfil election promises.

Euro zone officials said Greece’s track record and the combative behaviour of its new leaders had undermined their confidence in whether Athens would deliver what it agrees to in talks with the other countries sharing the euro.

That drove ministers to make Greece hand over custody of nearly 11 billion euros in aid earmarked for stabilising its banks to the euro zone’s rescue fund.

“We wanted to make sure that the … money for Greek bank recapitalisation is for that purpose, not for recapitalisation of the government,” Dijsselbloem said.

Some pointed comments were directed at Varoufakis, an outspoken Marxist economist and blogger, and his casual style. “Even hardliners like us have to give the benefit of the doubt to a communist in a Burberry scarf,” an official of one hawkish European country joked.

Adding to pressure to reach a deal, Greek savers have withdrawn their money from the banks at an accelerating pace despite government assurances that there is no plan to introduce capital controls to stem the outflows.

Deposit outflows rose to a total of over 1 billion euros in the past two days, some of the highest daily levels seen this year, three senior banking sources told Reuters.

Greeks were nervous before a three-day weekend, given memories of capital controls imposed in Cyprus in 2013 over a long weekend, a senior banker said. Monday is a public holiday.

 

BRUSSELS (TIP): Greece’s new Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras edged closer to securing a massive overhaul of its huge bailout on February 12 after making his case to sceptical EU leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Tsipras, the leftist leader elected by austerity-weary Greeks last month, agreed that Athens would start technical talks with eurozone partners on Friday in a bid to find common ground before a last ditch meeting of finance ministers on Monday.

But with Greece facing a possible exit from the euro when its 240-billion-euro ($270-billion) EU-IMF bailout expires at the end of February, Tsipras kept talking tough during his first summit with the other 27 European Union leaders.

“Greece will not blackmail or be blackmailed,” Tsipras said in a press conference after the talks in Brussels.

He insisted that Greece would ditch the hated “troika” of creditors — the EU, IMF and European Central Bank — which oversees the bailout programme and carries out inspections to see that Greece is living up to its punishing reform commitments.

“Forget the programme, it no longer exists. The troika doesn’t exist either,” Tsipras said.

But he said that he discussed with his counterparts the possibility of a six-month bridging programme to give Greece time to work on a different programme that would be acceptable to its creditors, and “find an end to the crisis.”

– Merkel ‘amicable’ –

Germany has been the strongest opponent of Tsipras’s plans, adding to anger in Greece against Europe’s biggest economy, which many in Athens blame for imposing years of austerity since the country’s first bailout in 2010.

But Merkel suggested a “compromise” was possible and spoke of a “friendly” encounter with Tsipras in Brussels, during which they shook hands in front of the cameras.

“We greeted each other amicably, I congratulated him on his election,” said Merkel, fresh off the plane from Minsk where she helped broker a peace deal for the conflict in Ukraine.

“On my part I showed my willingness to cooperate. Now we have to see which points we can agree on.”

The more positive mood saw Greek shares surge over 6.0 percent while European stock markets rose and the euro was firmer against the dollar.

It was a far cry from the previous night in Brussels, when six hours of tense talks between Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis and his eurozone counterparts broke down acrimoniously without even agreeing on how to word a joint statement.

But on Thursday, Tsipras and Eurogroup head Jeroen Dijsselbloem agreed to renew efforts to “start work on a technical assessment of the common ground between the current programme and the Greek government’s plans,” a step that had nearly been agreed on Wednesday.

– ‘Optimistic’ Europeans –

Under the Greek proposals, Athens would stick to 70 percent of the programme but it would overhaul the remaining 30 percent which it sees as damaging to growth and toxic on issues including the new government’s plans to raise the minimum wage.

Athens also wants a bridging loan until September to buy time to hammer out a new reform and bailout package, and to offer debt swaps based on economic performance as the Greek economy moves out of recession.

Other European leaders said they were hopeful of a deal before Monday, likely the last chance for an agreement if it is to have time to be passed by eurozone parliaments.

“It’s my understanding that the discussions between Tsipras and Dijsselbloem were quite constructive and good,” Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb, usually a strong advocate for austerity, told AFP.

“At the end of the day, no one should underestimate the capacity of the Eurogroup meeting to find a solution and I’m carefully optimistic that something will come out over the weekend.”

Grumbling continued however over the collapse of Wednesday’s talks, with European sources telling AFP there had originally been an agreement on a joint statement with the other ministers, but that it was torpedoed by Tsipras after his finance minister spent 30 minutes on the phone with him to confirm.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble had already left on the understanding the statement had been approved, they said.

Greek sources denied this account and said Germany had tried to insert new wording.

KIEV, UKRAINE (TIP): Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko shook up his faltering military on July 3, appointing a new defense minister and top general while speaking angrily about the years of decay and corruption that left the forces unable to deal effectively with the well-armed eastern insurgency. His tougher tone, analysts say, reflects public pressure to continue the fight against the insurgents in the regions bordering Russia — even with a rickety military that’s had little success. Poroshenko denounced the “complete collapse” of the government’s ability to supply the armed forces in a sometimes angry, finger-wagging speech in parliament.

He won quick approval for his choice of former top police official Valery Heletey as defense minister, replacing Mikhailo Koval. He also tapped Lt. Gen. Viktor Muzhenko as chief of the military’s general staff and Yury Kosyuk, an agriculture magnate and one of Ukraine’s richest men, to oversee defense issues in the presidential administration and to help “purge the army of thieves and grafters.” Accusations of corruption have been rife as Kiev’s operation against the rebels continues.

“Today the revival of the army is starting from scratch, an army which is capable of fighting and winning,” Poroshenko said in parliament. Poroshenko’s shakeup underscores the complex job he faces of making peace overtures and at the same time suppressing the insurgency that threatens to tear his country apart or create a permanent twilight zone beyond government control. Other pressures come from outside: Ukraine and the West say Russia is helping arm the rebels and letting its citizens cross the border to fight, while key allies France and Germany are pushing Poroshenko to pursue talks over attacks. President Barack Obama consulted with German Chancellor Angela Merkel by phone Thursday about how to get peace talks back on track. The White House said they discussed diplomatic efforts to bring about a lasting ceasefire and agreed that the US and Europe should levy further costs on Russia if it doesn’t de-escalate the situation quickly.

Poroshenko’s forceful words and demeanor Thursday contrasted with his emphasis on starting a peace process voiced in his inaugural address June 7. He declared a unilateral cease-fire for 10 days in hopes rebels would lay down their arms and join talks. But the ceasefire was repeatedly violated and ultimately expired. Foreign ministers from Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France are pushing to get talks going again by Saturday, with the aim of achieving a cease-fire honored by both sides. Rebels in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, where more Russian speakers live, have declared independence and occupied government buildings.

The insurrection, in which more than 400 people have died, started after pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was driven from office by a protest movement among people wanting closer ties with the European Union instead of Russia. Russia called Yanukovych’s ouster a coup by radical nationalists and seized Ukraine’s Russian-speaking Crimea region. Poroshenko was elected in a special election May 25 to replace Yanukovych and faces high expectations. “The level of impatience in society is very high,” said Alyona Getmanchuk, director of the Institute of World Policy research institute in Kiev.

“They want to see results.” Getmanchuk said Poroshenko is careful to meet with a wide range of people, a habit he cultivated when serving as foreign minister in an earlier government, and knows what people are thinking. News media and traffic on social media urge action. The mood was underscored when members of volunteer battalions demonstrated in front of his office, demanding an end to the cease-fire. Getmanchuk cautioned that much of the desire for action is based on fear of Russia and anger at the loss of life suffered already, and “doesn’t consist of serious analysis of possible consequences.

” In Donetsk many people just want the fighting to be over. The city center was the scene of a gunfight in broad daylight Tuesday when separatists from the selfdescribed Donetsk People’s Republic attacked a police building, “We are tired of war. Our only wish is for all of this to be over so we can work in peace,” said Anton Orlets, a 58-yearold businessman. He expressed “hope that the new appointments will help the Ukrainian army achieve success, which so far has not been terribly noticeable in Donbass.”

DONETSK (UKRAINE) (TIP):
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on May 1 that Ukraine should withdraw its military from the eastern and southern regions of the country, a statement that could bolster antigovernment insurgents who are seizing buildings. Hours later, Ukraine’s acting president ordered that the military draft be renewed, citing “threats of encroachment on the nation’s territorial integrity” and interference by Russia in its internal affairs.

Moscow has consistently denounced Ukrainian security forces’ largely ineffectual operation against the eastern insurgents and warned they should not commit violence against civilians. In a telephone conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Putin said the removal of military units was the “main thing,” but it was unclear if that could be construed as an outright demand.

Oleksandr Turchynov’s conscription order marked a turnaround for the country, which last year announced plans to end military conscription in favor of an all-volunteer force. His order did not specify where conscript-bolstered forces could be deployed. The renewal of military conscription affects only men 18 to 25 years old. Earlier in the week, the acting president said police and security forces had been effectively “helpless” against insurgents in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the heart of the unrest, and that efforts should be focused on preventing the instability from spreading to other parts of the country.

In the regional capital city of Donetsk, anti-government demonstrators took over the regional prosecutor’s office Thursday. Several dozen riot police standing guard at the office fired stun grenades and tear gas when some at the front of the crowd of several hundred people attempted to force their way into the building. As the confrontation escalated, some in the crowd threw rocks and managed to wrest away shields from police.

An Associated Press reporter saw a handful of officers being dragged away and beaten by members of the crowd. Hundreds of onlookers accompanying the protesters shouted slogans and hurled abuse. A car outside the building blared out patriotic World War II music. Inside, a passenger waved a flag bearing a doctored image of Soviet leader Josef Stalin in a black vest and holding a machine gun superimposed with the words: “Death to Fascism.”

Upon occupying the building, protesters discarded the Ukrainian flag and replaced it with that of the Donetsk People’s Republic — a movement that seeks either greater autonomy from the central government, or independence and possible annexation by Russia. Donetsk is the heartland of support for Russia-friendly former President Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted in February after months of protests in the capital.

Opponents of the government that succeeded him have seized buildings in about a dozen cities and towns in eastern Ukraine. Local news website Novosti Donbassa reported that earlier in the day around 30 armed men arrived in six cars in the town of Amvrosiivka, which lies close to the Russian border, and took over the city council and forced the mayor to resign. On Wednesday, insurgents took control of the customs-service building in Donetsk and city hall in Alchevsk, an industrial center of about 110,000 people, adding to the scores of buildings taken by the separatists over the past month in the east, where a dozen cities are now in the hands of the separatists.

There has also been a spate of reported kidnappings of pro-government politicians. The Svodoba nationalist party said a local party branch leader in Kostiantynivka, 65 kilometers (40 miles) north of Donetsk, initially managed to fight off attackers at his home but was taken away as he was phoning for help. Turchynov has twice proclaimed “antiterrorist” operations to regain control of the east, but to little effect.

Unlike many recent seizures of the government offices, the assault on the prosecutor’s office appeared to have been spearheaded by people armed with little more than sticks. However, at least one young man was seen with a handgun tucked into his trousers, and at least one firebomb was thrown at the building. The armed element of the insurgency is focused on Slovyansk, a city 110 kilometers (70 miles) north of Donetsk in which seven European observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe remain held by pro-Russia gunmen.

Merkel on Thursday again called Putin and asked for his assistance in freeing the group, Merkel spokeswoman Christiane Wirtz said. Russia denies allegations from Kiev and the West that it is influencing or fomenting strife in eastern Ukraine. The Kremlin confirmed the conversation and said Putin stressed “the main thing was for Ukraine to withdraw its troops from southeastern Ukraine, stop the violence and quickly start a broad national dialogue on constitutional reform.” In Washington, the second-ranking official of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization said the alliance now feels compelled to start treating Moscow as an adversary.

“In central Europe, clearly we have two different visions of what European security should be like,” Alexander Vershbow, the deputy secretary-general of NATO, said in a question-and-answer session with reporters. He said Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its apparent efforts to manipulate turmoil in eastern Ukraine have fundamentally changed the NATO-Russia relationship.