Month: July 2020

A Swiss MP has accused the Turkish government of passing off olive oil plundered from Syria as Turkish in order to sell it in European Union countries, including Spain.

Bernhard Guhl of Switzerland’s Conservative Democratic Party has alerted the Swiss government to the possibility of olive oil seized as loot from the conflict in Syria entering the European Union single market falsely labelled as Turkish, with the aim of financing militias backed by Ankara.   

“In Turkish-occupied Afrin, the olive groves are being pillaged by both Turkish forces and the militias they support. The olives they steal have been sold to Spain, and the sale will continue,” Mr Guhl claimed.

He made the claims in a motion presented before Switzerland’s national parliament in which he asked what action was being taken to investigate the trade and revenues potentially deriving from it.

The Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army forces took the city of Afrin in northern Syria, south of the Turkish border, from Kurdish militias in March 2018.

According to Spanish online newspaper Público, the Turkish government is using a number of intermediary companies to export olive oil seized from former Kurdish-held areas into Spain.

Público quotes a dossier on the alleged looting of olive oil from the Afrin area that states the haul from last year’s crop could be worth around €70 million (£62 million) in the Spanish wholesale market, with a quarter of revenues due to be handed to FSA militias.

Turkey’s agriculture minister, Bekir Pakdemirli, has been quoted in the Turkish media as saying that his government planned to claim the olive oil being produced in Afrin to stop it falling into the hands of Kurdish forces that Ankara considers to be separatist terrorists.

“It doesn’t matter if the final destination is Spain or Germany but, I believe it is very important that the country or countries concerned launch a criminal investigation to determine whether companies are trading in stolen olives or olive oil,” Mr Guhl told Público.   

Turkey is the third-largest external source of imported olive oil into the EU behind Tunisia and Morocco.  

The Telegraph approached Spain’s agriculture ministry for a response.

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Kim Jong-un’s top negotiator is expected to travel to Washington this week in a potential sign that the momentum for a second summit between the North Korean leader and Donald Trump, the US president is building. 

Kim Yong Chol, Pyongyang’s former spymaster, is likely to meet his US counterpart Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, and possibly President Trump himself, reported CNN on Wednesday, although no firm details of meetings have been publicly announced. 

“A lot of positive things are happening. He (President Trump) and Chairman Kim have established a good relationship, and conversations between the United States and North Korea continue,” a White House spokesperson told the news channel. 

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News of Mr Kim’s possible  journey to the US had been reported earlier in the week by the South Korean press. According to the Yonhap newswire, he and two other North Korean officials have confirmed flights from Beijing to Washington on Thursday evening. 

Mr Kim, one of Kim Jong-un’s most trusted advisers, also visited the White House last year, delivering an over-sized envelope with a letter from the North Korean leader less than two weeks before his first historic summit with Mr Trump in Singapore in June. 

The top official had been due to meet with Mr Pompeo in the US in November but their plans were abruptly cancelled amid an ongoing standoff between Washington and Pyongyang over the progress of nuclear disarmament on the Korean peninsula. 

Kim and Mr Trump agreed in Singapore in vague terms to move towards the complete denuclearisation of the peninsula but talks have since stalled over how to do so. 

It is hoped that this week’s high-level delegation can forge a path to a second summit to break the impasse, and the date and location of the meeting are likely to be discussed. 

It follows an exchange of letters between the two leaders earlier this month, where Mr Trump wrote that the US would consider Bangkok and Hanoi as possibilities. 

The progress has been welcomed in Seoul, where Moon Jae-in, the South Korean president, has invested much political capital in pursuing peace with the North. 

In a further sign of the diplomatic thaw that began last year between Pyongyang and Seoul, South Korea’s ministry of defence ditched its reference to the North’s government and military as an “enemy” in a white paper released on Tuesday. 

The move has been viewed as part of ongoing efforts to build trust with the North, but it was not universally welcomed in the South, where some critics described it as a “betrayal of common sense” that endangered the nation. 

The biennial paper no longer singles out North Korea as the largest threat to national security, and instead refers more broadly to the enemy as “any force threatening the nation’s sovereignty, territory and property.”

However, critics have pointed out that Kim’s regime remains highly unpredictable and has made no progress towards abolishing its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile capabilities.

Pyongyang also retains a standing army believed to be nearly one-million-strong, while there are suspicions that it has significant stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. 

Concerns remain that toning down the security stance might reduce the South’s battle readiness or could encourage the North to test Seoul’s military resolve. 

“North Korea has not changed its declared ambition of taking over the entire Korean Peninsula and turning it into a communist state”, said Song Young-chae, a professor at Seoul’s Sangmyung University and an activist with the Worldwide Coalition to Stop Genocide in North Korea. 

“To no longer identify the North as the biggest threat to this nation’s security is a betrayal of common sense”, he told The Telegraph.

“Since 1950, the Korean military has been the strongest deterrent to the North and those forces have sustained our nation”, he said. “A decision like this only serves to weaken us and strengthen the North”.

An editorial in the South’s JoongAng Daily echoed his fears, arguing that “The North’s massive military power – including its weapons of mass destruction, like nuclear and chemical weapons – still pose a serious threat to the security of our nation.

“It is time for our military to distinguish enemy from ally and prepare for a crisis on the Korean Peninsula rather than adhering to political interests at home”, it added.   

A strange sight has begun to appear at political demonstrations in Germany: a group of elderly ladies, most of them wearing distinct hand-knitted woolly hats, holding up placards that read: “Omas gegen Rechts” — Grannies against the Right.

At a time of life when most people are content to live in retirement and play with their grandchildren, the Grannies are out on the streets in the bitter cold of a German winter,  braving police lines and counter-protestors, with what they say is a warning to today’s generations not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

The women, many in their seventies, say they fear the far-Right is returning to German politics and they want to stop it while there is still…

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A former US Air Force intelligence officer has been charged with helping Iran target ex-colleagues with cyberattacks after defecting to the country in what was dubbed a “betrayal” of America. 

Monica Witt, 39, was accused of switching sides after more than a decade of US military service and identifying American intelligence officers and their personal Facebook accounts for the Iranian regime. 

Messages quoted in an indictment unsealed yesterday showed Witt saying that she wanted to “put the training I received to good use instead of evil” around the time of her defection. 

Four Iranians said to have been involved in the cyber-attacks were also charged along with two Iran-based businesses, New Horizon Organization and Net Peygard Samavat Company. 

The five individuals charged are all at large, meaning the chances of a successful prosecution remain unclear. The investigation to uncover the alleged crimes was being run for years. 

John Demers, the US assistant attorney general, said: “This case underscores the dangers to our intelligence professionals and the lengths our adversaries will go to identify them, expose them, target them, and, in a few rare cases, ultimately turn them against the nation they swore to protect."

Witt, a US citizen, worked for the US Air Force as an intelligence specialist and special agent between 1997 and 2008. She worked with the Defence Department as a contractor until 2010. 

During her service she was given access to secret and top secret information relating to counterintelligence, including material that contained the true names of secret agents and sources. 

Early in her career she was taught the Farsi language and was deployed in a number of overseas locations, carrying out missions to counter America’s enemies. 

Witt repeatedly promised to act in America’s interests and not share classified information she accessed, according to US prosecutors – pledges which she is accused of flagrantly breaking. 

The first signs of Witt’s alleged defection came when she attended the Iranian New Horizon Organization’s “Hollywoodism” conference in February 2012. 

The gathering was sponsored by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a branch of Iran’s armed forces which was recently sanctioned by the Trump administration for its “malign” activities. 

The conference was partly aimed at “condemning American moral standards and promoting anti-US propaganda”, US prosecutors said.

Witt responded: “LOL thank the sec of defense? For me? Well, I loved the work, and I am endeavoring to put the training I received to good use instead of evil.” She added a smiling emoji and the words: “Thanks for giving me the opportunity.”

In another message Witt wrote “If all else fails, I just may go public with a program and do like Snowden :)”. The apparent reference is Edward Snowden, the former CIA employee who leaked classified material in 2013 and then fled to Russia. 

Once Witt was in Iran she was given housing and computer equipment by Iranian government officials, according to US prosecutors. 

She is then accused of disclosing classified information about secret US projects and combing Facebook under an alias to identify former colleagues, putting together “target packages” that would help the Iranians find, track and “neutralize” the threat posed. 

Terry Phillips, a US special agent with the Air Force, said: “The alleged actions of Monica Witt in assisting a hostile nation are a betrayal of our nation’s security, our military, and the American people. 

 “While violations like this are extremely rare, her actions as alleged are an affront to all who have served our great nation.” 

It is not known how those charged will plead if the case came to court. The five individuals charged had not commented publicly in the hours immediately after the indictment was unsealed. 

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Canada’s economy will grow at a reduced rate for the next 10 years because high household and business debt levels will act as a drag on the recovery from COVID-19, a new report says.

The report from U.K.-based Capital Economics predicts the economy will end the year 6.3 per cent smaller than before the pandemic, and will recover most ― but not all ― of that next year.

It also sees the country ending the year with 6.2 per cent fewer jobs, despite the wave of rehiring being seen right now as provinces lift their lockdown orders.

Watch: Canada reclaims nearly one million jobs lost to the pandemic. Story continues below.

 

Statistics Canada reported that the country added a massive 953,000 jobs in June as businesses reopened.

But the statistical agency noted that there were still 3.1 million Canadians who continue to be “affected by the COVID-19 economic shutdown.” That includes 1.8 million people who lost their jobs as well as those facing forced absences or reduced hours.

And it will take until 2022 for Canada to return to the pre-pandemic level of jobs again, wrote Stephen Brown of Capital Economics. Beyond that, the recovery will be slow, held back by already high levels of debt, the economist predicted.

“High private-sector (business and consumer) debt is likely to hold back productivity growth in the coming decade relative to that in the U.S.,” Brown wrote.

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He predicts that Canada’s economy will grow at an average pace of 1.5 per cent per year in the coming decade, down from an average of 1.8 per cent in recent years. But he sees growth returning to its longer term trend after 2030.

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Brown also expects Canada to keep running large government deficits in future years, though not as large as this year. 

The federal government’s recent fiscal update forecast a deficit of $343.2 billion this fiscal year, equal to 16 per cent of Canada’s economic output. Brown expects that Canada will run another large deficit next year, but at around 7 per cent of economic output.

He sees Canada’s trade deficit widening, as imports pick up faster than exports. The demand for many Canadian exports ― such as energy ― is weak, while Canadian consumers are returning to normal spending levels.

“Accordingly, net trade will subtract from (economic growth) this year and next,” Brown wrote.

Wrestling Observer Live’s Bryan Alvarez on Thursday stated that right now WWE has plans for a one-on-one match between RAW Women’s Champion “Rowdy” Ronda Rousey and Becky Lynch, but it will take place before WrestleMania 35. In one of our earlier reports, we mentioned that the WrestleMania main event plan calls for Rousey and Lynch to be joined by Charlotte Flair in a triple threat match, but that has yet to be finalized. 
“As of today, plans subject to change, the WrestleMania match is Ronda vs. Charlotte vs. Becky in a three-way. But for those of you that want your Ronda Rousey vs. Becky Lynch match, it is still penciled in to take place between now and WrestleMania.”
There are two pay-per-views between the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania. WWE Elimination Chamber is set for February 17 in Houston, Texas. Fastlane is set for March 10 in Cleveland, Ohio.

Also, Alvarez mentioned that the reason Sasha Banks got a title shot out of nowhere is that initially the plan for the Royal Rumble was to have Rousey and Flair meet in a rematch of the kendo stick beatdown The Queen gave The Rowdy One at Survivor Series, but that was changed.