CPTPP: UK accepted into Indo-Pacific trade bloc in biggest trade deal since Brexit - Sky News

The UK has been accepted into an Indo-Pacific trade bloc in what the government says is its biggest trade deal since Brexit.

The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) is a free trade agreement between 11 countries across the Indo-Pacific, including Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam - and now the UK.

The partnership sees the countries open up their markets to one another, reducing trade barriers and tariffs, with the hope of bolstering the economies of its members.

Sunak hails UK joining CPTPP - live politics updates

Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch said the UK's accession to the CPTPP was formally confirmed in a telephone call between her and counterparts from the group at 1am BST on Friday.

The UK is the first European country to enter the agreement, and the government claims it will lead to a £1.8bn boost to the economy "in the long run".

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the deal shows "what we can achieve when we unleash the benefits of Brexit".

While the UK already has trade agreements with most of the CPTPP members, apart from Malaysia, UK officials said it would deepen existing arrangements, with 99% of UK goods exported to the bloc now eligible for zero tariffs.

This includes cheese, cars, chocolate, machinery, gin and whisky, while Downing Street said the services industry would also enjoy "reduced red tape and greater access to growing Pacific markets".

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The deal has been praised by a number of business groups, including the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), Standard Chartered bank and the world's second-largest wine and spirits seller Pernod Ricard.

But other trade experts have warned it will not make up for the economic hit caused by leaving the European Union.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said joining the CPTPP is a "massive opportunity" for British exporters and shows "our influence in this part of the world is becoming more significant".

The UK began negotiations to join the bloc in September 2021 when Boris Johnson was in Downing Street.

The signatory countries of the CPTPP are home to 500 million people and the government claims the deal will be worth £11 trillion in GDP, accounting for 15% of global GDP.

However, critics said the impact will be limited, with official estimates suggesting it will add just £1.8bn a year to the UK economy after 10 years, representing less than 1% of UK GDP.

Mr Sunak said the agreement "puts the UK at the centre of a dynamic and growing group of Pacific economies".

"We are at our heart an open and free-trading nation, and this deal demonstrates the real economic benefits of our post-Brexit freedoms," he added.

"As part of CPTPP, the UK is now in a prime position in the global economy to seize opportunities for new jobs, growth and innovation."

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'Real milestone for British industry'

The announcement was welcomed by business group the CBI which called it "a real milestone for the UK and for British industry".

Interim general director Matthew Fell said: "Not only does the agreement provide greater access to a group of fast growth economies representing 14% of global GDP and over 500 million consumers, but membership reinforces the UK's commitment to building partnerships in an increasingly fragmented world.

"CPTPP countries and business need to work together to future-proof the rules-based trading system and stimulate growth with a focus on digital, services and resilient supply chains."

Labour said the agreement represented "encouraging" progress but it needed to see details.

The party's shadow trade secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said: "The Conservative government's track record in striking good trade deals is desperately poor.

"Other countries joining CPTPP arrangements have secured important safeguards and put in place support for their producers: it is vital that ministers set out if they plan to do the same."

Image: Singapore is one of the now-12 members of the CPTPP

'EU should be priority'

The Institute of Directors said it was "vital the UK signs trade deals to restore our international reputation since Brexit".

But it added "complete reorientation" to the Indo-Pacific would not solve "the very real problem that businesses currently face - namely that they have many more trade related challenges than they did six years ago".

"From our surveys, directors have told us that the EU-UK relationship is a priority issue the government needs to address in order to support business," they said.

"UK companies still rely on the long-established links they have with EU markets, which are directly on our doorstep and with whom they have closer historical ties.

"The Indo-Pacific strategy will open up important opportunities for UK businesses, but the government must not forfeit the significance of our relationship with the EU in order to do so."

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2023-03-31 06:22:30Z
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US condemns arrest of WSJ journalist as Russia accused of 'hostage taking' - The Guardian

Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, has condemned Russia’s arrest of the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, as Moscow was accused of engaging in “hostage taking” by arresting a high-profile journalist who could be used as leverage in a potential prisoner swap.

“In the strongest possible terms, we condemn the Kremlin’s continued attempts to intimidate, repress and punish journalists and civil society voices,” Blinken said in a statement.

The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, also condemned the arrest and said “These espionage charges are ridiculous. The targeting of American citizens by the Russian government is unacceptable”.

Both Blinken and Jean-Pierre advised any US citizens still in Russia to leave immediately.

Gershkovich was detained on Wednesday during a reporting trip to the Urals city of Ekaterinburg. On Thursday, he appeared at the Lefortovo courthouse in Moscow for a brief hearing at which the charges were officially presented. The court ordered him to be held in pre-trial detention until at least 29 May, local media reported.

Russia’s FSB security service claimed Gershkovich “was collecting classified information about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military industrial complex”. The charges carry a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.

“The Wall Street Journal vehemently denies the allegations from the FSB and seeks the immediate release of our trusted and dedicated reporter, Evan Gershkovich. We stand in solidarity with Evan and his family,” the newspaper said in a statement.

Friends and colleagues of Gershkovich called the allegations absurd, describing Gershkovich as a professional and the allegations against him as “ridiculous”.

The arrest amounted to “hostage-taking as a tool of statecraft”, Russia analyst Mark Galeotti wrote on Twitter.

“It’s clear that they’ve taken a hostage,” agreed Ivan Pavlov, Russia’s leading defence lawyer in espionage cases, who now lives outside the country. “They’ve chosen a well-known journalist from an authoritative media outlet. The idea is to have an ace up their sleeve for negotiations.”

Pavlov said espionage cases like this could take up to two years from arrest to sentencing, and Gershkovich’s only hope of release was either to be included in an exchange or for the current Russian regime to fall.

“Back in 2015, we were sometimes able to get a few people out, but now that has become impossible,” he said.

Gershkovich, 31, has lived in Moscow for six years, speaks fluent Russian and is accredited as a journalist with Russia’s foreign ministry. Prior to the Wall Street Journal, Gershkovich had worked in Russia for the Moscow Times and Agence France-Presse.

Before his arrest, Gershkovich was reportedly working on a story about Wagner, the notionally private military group run by the businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, which has done much of the fighting in Ukraine.

Since Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, decided to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine last February, reporting from inside Russia has become much more difficult. Russia’s foreign ministry has put dozens of journalists on blacklists, barring them from entry, and refused accreditation to others.

A series of laws, including one outlawing “fakes”, have made honest reporting on the war from inside Russia difficult and dangerous, and many journalists have left.

However, this is the first time a foreign reporter has been charged with crimes since the beginning of the war.

“It’s a signal to foreign journalists that this is it, no more work. The unspoken immunity for accredited journalists does not work any more,” said Pavlov.

“Russian journalists heard this signal earlier and almost all of them left. Foreign journalists continued to work, but the times have changed and you can’t hope for business as usual any more,” he added.

Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for Russia’s foreign ministry, wrote on Telegram on Thursday morning that it was not the first time that journalistic accreditation had been used in Russia as “cover” for other activities.

“What the Wall Street Journal employee was doing in Ekaterinburg had nothing to do with journalism,” she wrote.

Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesperson, said Gershkovich was “caught red-handed”, RIA Novosti reported.

“Peskov’s statement is direct evidence that Putin is personally behind this and there will be no civilised way to extract the journalist, only an exchange,” wrote political analyst Tatyana Stanovaya.

High-profile arrests of foreigners in Russia often appear to be designed to boost an “exchange pool” of prisoners that Russia can swap for Russians arrested abroad. Last year, Russian authorities arrested the US basketball player Brittney Griner on drugs charges and sentenced her to nine years in prison. She was swapped in December for Viktor Bout, an arms dealer nicknamed the Merchant of Death, who had been held long-term in the US.

Last week, sources said negotiations were under way between western countries and Russia for the possible exchange of two alleged Russian deep-cover spies arrested in Slovenia, but that it had not been possible to reach an agreement. Some observers speculated that bringing espionage charges against Gershkovich could be aimed at improving Russia’s negotiating hand to bring these and other prisoners back to Russia.

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2023-03-30 20:41:00Z
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Russia-Ukraine war live: Wall Street Journal 'vehemently denies' espionage claims after reporter arrested by Russian security services - The Guardian

From 1h ago

The United States is “deeply concerned over Russia’s widely reported detention of a US citizen journalist”, the US secretary of state Antony Blinken has said, following the arrest of the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.

US officials have been in touch with the Wall Street Journal, Blinken said in a statement that did not directly name Gershkovich.

The statement continued:

In the strongest possible terms, we condemn the Kremlin’s continued attempts to intimidate, repress, and punish journalists and civil society voices.

The White House has confirmed that the US state department “has been in direct touch” with the Russian government over Gershkovich’s detention, “including actively working to secure consular access” for him.

The Biden administration has been in touch with his family and his employer, the White House said in a statement.

The White House added:

US citizens residing or traveling in Russia should depart immediately, as the State Department continues to advise.

It’s 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:

• Russian authorities have arrested a US journalist working in the country and accused him of espionage, a charge that could carry a prison sentence of up to 20 years. Evan Gershkovich, a well-respected reporter from the Wall Street Journal, was detained on Wednesday during a reporting trip to the Urals city of Ekaterinburg. On Thursday, he appeared at the Lefortovo courthouse in Moscow, where he was ordered to be held in pre-trial detention until at least 29 May, local media reported. The Wall Street Journal “vehemently denies” allegations of espionage against Gershkovich.

• The US is “deeply concerned over Russia’s widely reported detention of a US citizen journalist”, the US secretary of state Antony Blinken has said, following the arrest of the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. The White House has confirmed that the US state department “has been in direct touch” with the Russian government over Gershkovich’s detention, “including actively working to secure consular access” for him.

• Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, will chair a UN security council meeting in April when Russia assumes the international body’s presidency, foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has said. Russia’s upcoming UN security council presidency is “the worst joke ever for April Fools’ Day”, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said, and a “stark reminder that something is wrong with the way international security architecture is functioning”.

• Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has said Moscow will continue to give the US advance notice about its missile tests despite suspending participation in the New Start nuclear arms treaty, reversing a statement he made just yesterday. The White House on Tuesday said the US had told Russia it would cease exchanging certain data on its nuclear forces after Moscow’s refusal to do so.

• Russian forces have had some success in the eastern frontline city of Bakhmut, Ukrainian military officials said on Wednesday evening, adding that their fighters were still holding on in a battle that has lasted several months. The US thinktank the Institute for the Study of War’s regular update appeared to support this, saying: “Geolocated footage published on 28 and 29 March indicates that Russian forces advanced in southern and south-western Bakhmut.”

• Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to call up 147,000 Russian citizens for statutory military service as part of the country’s spring conscription campaign, Russian state media reported. The Russian leader last signed a routine conscription campaign in September, calling 120,000 citizens up for statutory service, state-run Tass news agency said.

• Russian authorities are preparing to launch a significant recruitment campaign aimed at signing up 400,000 new troops to fight in Ukraine, the UK Ministry of Defence said in its latest intelligence update, citing Russian media. Moscow is presenting the campaign “as a drive for volunteer, professional personnel, rather than a new, mandatory mobilisation”, it said, adding that in practice regional authorities might try to coerce men to join up. “It is highly unlikely that the campaign will attract 400,000 genuine volunteers,” it said.

• Some parents have been hiding their children in basements to prevent them from being taken, Ukrainian volunteers who have been evacuating civilians from the frontlines of the war with Russia have said. While parents have given different reasons, most volunteers have attributed the phenomenon to a combination of poverty and the psychological condition of the families, who have been living under bombing for months.

• A Russian man who fled house arrest after being sentenced to two years in prison for discrediting Russia in social media posts, following an investigation prompted by his daughter’s anti-war drawings, has been arrested in Belarus, his lawyer said. Alexei Moskalyov, 54, was sentenced to two years in prison as punishment for his criticism of Kremlin policies in social media posts. Police investigated him after his 13-year-old daughter, Maria, refused to participate in a patriotic class at her school and made drawings showing rockets being fired at a family standing under a Ukrainian flag and another that said “Glory to Ukraine!”

• Four bankers who helped a close friend of Vladimir Putin move millions of francs through Swiss bank accounts have been convicted of lacking diligence in financial transactions. The four were found guilty on Thursday of helping Sergey Roldugin, a concert cellist who has been nicknamed “Putin’s wallet” by the Swiss government. The executives – three Russians and one Swiss citizen – helped Roldugin, who is godfather to Putin’s eldest daughter, Maria, deposit millions of francs in Swiss bank accounts between 2014 and 2016.

• The US has imposed sanctions on a Slovakian citizen for trying to arrange the sale of more than two dozens types of North Korean weapons and munitions to Russia, the treasury department said. Ashot Mkrtychev has had the sanctions placed on him “for having attempted to, directly or indirectly, import, export, or re-export to, into, or from the DPRK any arms or related materiel” to Russia to help Moscow replace military equipment lost in its war with Ukraine, it said.

• Lawmakers from the pro-Russia, far-right Freedom party walked out of the lower house of Austria’s parliament on Thursday during a speech by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, claiming it violated Austria’s neutrality. Austria says its neutrality prevents it from military involvement in the conflict and while it supports Ukraine politically it cannot send the country weapons in its fight against the Russian invasion. The Freedom party had said days before that it would hold some form of protest against the address.

• The International Olympic Committee president, Thomas Bach, has hit back at criticism by some European governments – including Ukraine’s – of a plan for a full return of Russian and Belarusian athletes to international sport. “It is deplorable to see that some governments do not want to respect the majority within the Olympic movement and all stakeholders, nor the autonomy of sport,” Bach said on Thursday.

• King Charles III has lauded the current unity between the UK and Germany in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying “the scourge of war is back in Europe”. Both the UK and Germany had shown “vital leadership”, the king said in a bilingual speech in the Bundestag, praising Berlin’s decision to provide large military support to Ukraine as “remarkably courageous, important and appreciated”.

• China must play a part in pressing for a “just peace” in Ukraine and its role in the conflict will be vital in shaping relations with the EU, the European Commission president has said. “Any peace plan which would in effect consolidate Russian annexations is simply not a viable plan. We have to be frank on this point,” Ursula Von der Leyen said in a speech in Brussels on the eve of a trip to Beijing.

That’s is from me, Léonie Chao-Fong, and the Russia-Ukraine war blog today. Thank you for following. We’ll be back tomorrow.

Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to call up 147,000 Russian citizens for statutory military service as part of the country’s spring conscription campaign, Russian state media reported.

The Russian leader last signed a routine conscription campaign in September, calling 120,000 citizens up for statutory service, state-run Tass news agency said.

At the time, Russia’s defence ministry was quoted as saying that the autumn conscription was “not in any way related to the special operation”, Russia’s official term for its military campaign in Ukraine.

All men in Russia are required to do a year’s military service between the ages of 18 and 27, or equivalent training while in higher education.

My colleague Dan Sabbagh has been travelling on the road to Kharkiv, when he says the Guardian team helped out in the rescue of a car that had veered off the road into a large ditch and near a landmine.

The US has new information that Russia is actively seeking to acquire additional munitions from North Korea, the White House has said.

White House spokesperson John Kirby, speaking to reporters, said Russia was seeking to send a delegation to North Korea, offering food in exchange for weapons. Washington was concerned that Pyongyang would provide the aid, he said.

The United States is “deeply concerned over Russia’s widely reported detention of a US citizen journalist”, the US secretary of state Antony Blinken has said, following the arrest of the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.

US officials have been in touch with the Wall Street Journal, Blinken said in a statement that did not directly name Gershkovich.

The statement continued:

In the strongest possible terms, we condemn the Kremlin’s continued attempts to intimidate, repress, and punish journalists and civil society voices.

The White House has confirmed that the US state department “has been in direct touch” with the Russian government over Gershkovich’s detention, “including actively working to secure consular access” for him.

The Biden administration has been in touch with his family and his employer, the White House said in a statement.

The White House added:

US citizens residing or traveling in Russia should depart immediately, as the State Department continues to advise.

The US has imposed sanctions on a Slovakian citizen for trying to arrange the sale of more than two dozens types of North Korean weapons and munitions to Russia, the treasury department said.

Ashot Mkrtychev has had the sanctions placed on him “for having attempted to, directly or indirectly, import, export, or re-export to, into, or from the DPRK any arms or related materiel” to Russia to help Moscow replace military equipment lost in its war with Ukraine, it said.

The US treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, said in a statement:

Russia has lost over 9,000 pieces of heavy military equipment since the start of the war, and thanks in part to multilateral sanctions and export controls, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin has become increasingly desperate to replace them.

The treasury department said that between the end of 2022 and early 2023, Mkrtychev worked with North Korean officials to obtain over two dozen kinds of weapons and munitions for Russia in exchange for materials ranging from commercial aircraft, raw materials, and commodities to be sent to the DPRK.

She added:

Schemes like the arms deal pursued by this individual show that Putin is turning to suppliers of last resort like Iran and the DPRK.

Athletes, including the Ukrainian tennis player Marta Kostyuk, are speaking out against the International Olympic Committee’s recommendation that Russian and Belarusian athletes should be allowed to compete again across all sports.

The players would be allowed to compete as neutral athletes as long as they have no clear links to the military, and would be unable to wear national kit or see their flags and anthems.

The IOC president, Thomas Bach, used the example of Kostyuk competing against the Russian Varvara Gracheva in the recent ATK Open final as an example of athletes competing without friction in sport, despite Kostyuk refusing to shake her opponent’s hand.

Kostyuk in response has said that her “career would be over” if she refused to compete against Russians and that Ukrainian players felt ‘discriminated against’ by the tennis authorities.

The inconspicuous office is in Moscow’s north-eastern suburbs. A sign reads: “Business centre”. Nearby are modern residential blocks and a rambling old cemetery, home to ivy-covered war memorials. The area is where Peter the Great once trained his mighty army.

Inside the six-storey building, a new generation is helping Russian military operations. Its weapons are more advanced than those of Peter the Great’s era: not pikes and halberds, but hacking and disinformation tools.

The software engineers behind these systems are employees of NTC Vulkan. On the surface, it looks like a run-of-the-mill cybersecurity consultancy. But a leak of secret files from the company has exposed its work bolstering Vladimir Putin’s cyberwarfare capabilities.

Thousands of pages of secret documents reveal how Vulkan’s engineers have worked for Russian military and intelligence agencies to support hacking operations, train operatives before attacks on national infrastructure, spread disinformation and control sections of the internet.

The company’s work is linked to the federal security service or FSB, the domestic spy agency; the operational and intelligence divisions of the armed forces, known as the GOU and GRU; and the SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence organisation.

Read the Guardian’s report on the Vulkan files, which date from 2016 to 2021, leaked by an anonymous whistleblower angered by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

It’s 6pm in Kyiv. Here’s where things stand:

• Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, will chair a UN security council meeting in April when Russia assumes the international body’s presidency, foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has said. Russia’s upcoming UN security council presidency is “the worst joke ever for April Fools’ Day”, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said, and a “stark reminder that something is wrong with the way international security architecture is functioning”.

• Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has said Moscow will continue to give the US advance notice about its missile tests despite suspending participation in the New Start nuclear arms treaty, reversing a statement he made just yesterday. The White House on Tuesday said the US had told Russia it would cease exchanging certain data on its nuclear forces after Moscow’s refusal to do so.

• Russian authorities have arrested a US journalist working in the country and accused him of espionage, a charge that could carry a prison sentence of up to 20 years. Evan Gershkovich, a well-respected reporter from the Wall Street Journal, was detained on Wednesday during a reporting trip to the Urals city of Ekaterinburg. On Thursday, he appeared at the Lefortovo courthouse in Moscow, where he was ordered to be held in pre-trial detention until at least 29 May, local media reported. The Wall Street Journal “vehemently denies” allegations of espionage against Gershkovich.

• Russian forces have had some success in the eastern frontline city of Bakhmut, Ukrainian military officials said on Wednesday evening, adding that their fighters were still holding on in a battle that has lasted several months. The US thinktank the Institute for the Study of War’s regular update appeared to support this, saying: “Geolocated footage published on 28 and 29 March indicates that Russian forces advanced in southern and south-western Bakhmut.”

• Russian authorities are preparing to launch a significant recruitment campaign aimed at signing up 400,000 new troops to fight in Ukraine, the UK Ministry of Defence said in its latest intelligence update, citing Russian media. Moscow is presenting the campaign “as a drive for volunteer, professional personnel, rather than a new, mandatory mobilisation”, it said, adding that in practice regional authorities might try to coerce men to join up. “It is highly unlikely that the campaign will attract 400,000 genuine volunteers,” it said.

• Some parents have been hiding their children in basements to prevent them from being taken, Ukrainian volunteers who have been evacuating civilians from the frontlines of the war with Russia have said. While parents have given different reasons, most volunteers have attributed the phenomenon to a combination of poverty and the psychological condition of the families, who have been living under bombing for months.

• A Russian man who fled house arrest after being sentenced to two years in prison for discrediting Russia in social media posts after an investigation prompted by his daughter’s anti-war drawings, has been arrested, his lawyer said. Alexei Moskalyov was sentenced to two years in prison as punishment for his criticism of Kremlin policies in social media posts. Police investigated him after his 13-year-old daughter, Maria, refused to participate in a patriotic class at her school and made drawings showing rockets being fired at a family standing under a Ukrainian flag and another that said “Glory to Ukraine!”

• Four bankers who helped a close friend of Vladimir Putin move millions of francs through Swiss bank accounts have been convicted of lacking diligence in financial transactions. The four were found guilty on Thursday of helping Sergey Roldugin, a concert cellist who has been nicknamed “Putin’s wallet” by the Swiss government. The executives – three Russians and one Swiss citizen – helped Roldugin, who is godfather to Putin’s eldest daughter, Maria, deposit millions of francs in Swiss bank accounts between 2014 and 2016.

• Lawmakers from the pro-Russia, far-right Freedom party walked out of the lower house of Austria’s parliament on Thursday during a speech by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, claiming it violated Austria’s neutrality. Austria says its neutrality prevents it from military involvement in the conflict and while it supports Ukraine politically it cannot send the country weapons in its fight against the Russian invasion. The Freedom party had said days before that it would hold some form of protest against the address.

• The International Olympic Committee president, Thomas Bach, has hit back at criticism by some European governments – including Ukraine’s – of a plan for a full return of Russian and Belarusian athletes to international sport. “It is deplorable to see that some governments do not want to respect the majority within the Olympic movement and all stakeholders, nor the autonomy of sport,” Bach said on Thursday.

• King Charles III has lauded the current unity between the UK and Germany in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying “the scourge of war is back in Europe”. Both the UK and Germany had shown “vital leadership”, the king said in a bilingual speech in the Bundestag, praising Berlin’s decision to provide large military support to Ukraine as “remarkably courageous, important and appreciated”.

• China must play a part in pressing for a “just peace” in Ukraine and its role in the conflict will be vital in shaping relations with the EU, the European Commission president has said. “Any peace plan which would in effect consolidate Russian annexations is simply not a viable plan. We have to be frank on this point,” Ursula Von der Leyen said in a speech in Brussels on the eve of a trip to Beijing.

Good afternoon from London. It’s Léonie Chao-Fong still here with all the latest developments from the Russia-Ukraine war. Feel free to get in touch on Twitter or via email.

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, will chair a UN security council meeting in April when Russia assumes the international body’s presidency, foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has said.

Zakharova, in a press briefing, said:

Another key event of the Russian presidency [of the security council] will be a high-level open debate on the ‘effective multilateralism through the defence of the principles of the UN charter’.

The Guardian’s Dan Sabbagh is travelling through Donbas today.

The EU’s agriculture commissioner, Janusz Wojciechowski, would support curbs on trading with Ukraine if Poland proposed such a solution, he said on Thursday, amid anger from farmers over the effect of Ukrainian imports on grain prices.

“If the Polish government requests trading curbs with Ukraine obviously I will support that proposal,” Reuters reports he told the media in Brussels.

Several European countries have expressed concerns that the market could be flooded with cheap Ukrainian grain that it has been unable to export due to the limited volume of produce that can leave Ukraine’s ports.

Criticism by some European governments – including Ukraine’s – of a plan for a full return of Russian and Belarusian athletes to international sport is deplorable and cuts into the autonomy of sport, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) president, Thomas Bach, said on Thursday.

The IOC on Wednesday issued a set of recommendations for international sports federations that will allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to return since their ban last year following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Governments in Ukraine, Poland and the Czech Republic among others have been angered by the plan, arguing that Russian and Belarusian athletes have no place in world sport with the war still ongoing. Reuters quotes Back saying:

It is deplorable to see that some governments do not want to respect the majority within the Olympic movement and all stakeholders, nor the autonomy of sport. It is deplorable that these governments do not address the question of double standards. We have not seen a single comment on their attitude on the participation of athletes from countries of the other 70 wars and armed conflict around the world.

“Government interventions have strengthened the unity of the Olympic movement,” Bach continued. “It cannot be up to the governments to decide which athletes can participate in which competition.

“This would be the end of world sport as we know it today.”

The return plan does not include the 2024 Olympics in Paris, but the IOC’s latest guidelines allow for the return of Russian and Belarusian athletes citing human rights concerns for Russian athletes, and the current participation of Russians and Belarusians in some sports as reasons for the decision.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, plans to attend the Nato foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on 3 April to 5 April, where he will emphasise continued US support for Ukraine and transatlantic security, the state department said.

While there he will meet the top EU diplomat Josep Borrell, the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, and the Ukrainian foreign minister, Dymtro Kuleba, Reuters reports it said in a statement on Thursday.

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2023-03-30 17:32:17Z
1885486189

Kentucky: Nine soldiers killed after two US army helicopters crash - Sky News

Nine soldiers have been killed after two US army helicopters crashed in Kentucky, according to an official.

Crew members were flying the HH-60 Blackhawk helicopters during a routine night-time training exercise before the fatal incident in Cadiz, Trigg County, the Fort Campbell army base said in a statement.

One aircraft had five soldiers while the other was carrying four and they were using night-vision goggles - all those on board died.

Image: Debris from the helicopter crash

"Right now our focus is on the soldiers and their families who were involved," the statement added.

It is not clear if the two medical evacuation helicopters crashed into each other.

US army secretary Christine Wormuth called it a "heavy day", with the accident one of the worst for the military in recent years.

The two aircraft came down about 30 miles (48km) northwest of Fort Campbell around 10pm local time on Wednesday (3am on Thursday UK time).

"The crash occurred in a field, some wooded area," Kentucky state police trooper Sarah Burgess said.

"At this time, there are no reports of residence damage."

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There were no injuries on the ground and the incident is now being investigated, with a safety team heading to the site.

'We saw a huge glow like a fireball'

Local resident Nick Tomaszewski, who lives about a mile from the crash scene, said he saw two helicopters fly over his house moments before the tragedy.

"For whatever reason last night my wife and I were sitting there looking out on the back deck and I said, 'Wow, those two helicopters look low and they look kind of close to one another tonight'," he said.

The aircraft flew over and looped back around and moments later "we saw what looked like a firework [going] off in the sky".

"All of the lights in their helicopter went out... then we saw a huge glow like a fireball," he added.

Image: A HH-60 Black Hawk helicopter. File pic from US army

Flyovers for training exercises take place almost daily and the helicopters usually fly low but not so close together, Mr Tomaszewski continued.

The helicopters involved were from the 101st Airborne Division which is known as the "Screaming Eagles".

The HH-60 is a variant of the Black Hawk helicopter designed to provide support for various military operations, including air assaults and medical evacuations, according to the army.

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2023-03-30 14:37:30Z
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Russia arrests Wall Street Journal reporter on ‘espionage’ charges - The Independent

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Russia’s top security agency says it has arrested a reporter for The Wall Street Journal over alleged espionage.

Journalist Evan Gershkovich was arrested in Yekaterinburg on spying charges, according to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) – the successor to the KGB.

He was brought to Moscow where a court at a closed hearing ordered him held in pre-trial detention until 29 May. The TASS state news agency said he pleaded not guilty. The authorities released no evidence publicly and the case is said to have been marked “top secret”.

The arrest is the most serious public move against an international journalist since Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year. Espionage charges against someone from an American news outlet have not been seen since the end of the Cold War – with the detention coming amid a bitter war of words between Moscow and Washington over the Ukraine war. If convicted, Mr Gershkovich could face up to 20 years in prison.

The Wall Street Journal said in a statement it was “deeply concerned” for Mr Gershkovich’s safety and that it “vehemently denies the allegations from the FSB and seeks the immediate release of our trusted and dedicated reporter”.

Daniil Berman, a lawyer representing Mr Gershkovich, was not permitted inside the courtroom or allowed to see the charges, he told reporters outside. Mr Berman said he believed Mr Gershkovich would be taken to Lefortovo, the 19th century central Moscow jail notorious in Soviet times for holding political prisoners.

The US has been full-throated in its support of Kyiv, with Russia’s president Vladimir Putin having repeatedly hit out at Washington – and the wider West – for the weapons it is providing Ukraine. Mr Putin’s rhetoric has only grown more inflammatory as his invasion has faltered amid months of intense fighting in the country’s eastern regions.

Moscow has a habit of using detainees for political leverage. Basketball star Brittney Griner was caught arriving in Moscow with cannabis oil a week before the invasion of Ukraine began and was freed in a prisoner swap in December. Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, told the state RIA news agency that it was too early to talk of a possible prisoner swap for Mr Gershkovich.

Another American, Paul Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive, has been imprisoned in Russia since December 2018 on espionage charges that his family and the US government have said are baseless.

As for US correspondents being detained by Russia, Nicholas Daniloff, based in Moscow for US News and World Report, was arrested by the KGB in September 1986. The US believed he had been detained in retaliation for the arrest by the FBI of an employee of the Soviet Union’s United Nations mission. Mr Daniloff was released without charges 20 days later, with the UN worker also allowed to leave the US.

Evan Gershkovich leaves the court building in Moscow

(Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters)

The FSB said it had “stopped the illegal activities of US citizen Gershkovich Evan, born in 1991, a correspondent of the Moscow bureau of the American newspaper The Wall Street Journal, accredited at the Russian foreign ministry, who is suspected of spying in the interests of the American government”.

The Kremlin claimed the reporter had been “caught red-handed”. It was not immediately clear when the journalist was arrested. The FSB said Mr Gershkovich had been tasked “by the American side” with gathering information on “the activities of one of the enterprises of the military defence complex” – believed to be a factory.

The security service did not name the factory or say where it was but added that it had detained the 31-year-old journalist in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg as he was trying to procure secret information. The FSB did not provide documentary or video evidence of his guilt. Mr Gershkovich was reportedly visiting Nizhny Tagil, the site of the Russian battle tank producer Uralvagonzavod, according to Russian news website Meduza, which is based in Latvia. Dozens of companies producing weapons are based in the city.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova claimed that Mr Gershkovich’s activities in Yekaterinburg were “not related to journalism”. Ms Zakharova later suggested there would be an opportunity to verify the allegations as they would be made public. “Relevant statements have been made through our security services... I think [they] will also provide it publicly, and you will have an opportunity to verify it,” she said at an afternoon briefing.

The Kremlin said other journalists working for the US publication in Russia could remain in post, provided they had the right credentials and were carrying out what it called “normal journalistic activity”. A diplomatic source said that the US embassy in Moscow had not been informed about the incident and was seeking information from the Russian authorities about the case.

The Reporters Without Borders group said it was “alarmed” by the arrest of Mr Gershkovich and that it “looks like a retaliation measure of Russia against the United States”.

Andrei Soldatov, an author and expert in Russia’s security agencies who is outside the country, said on social media: “Evan Gershkovich is a very good and brave journalist, not a spy, for Christ’s sake. It [his detention] is a frontal attack on all foreign correspondents who still work in Russia. And it means that the FSB is off the leash.”

Mr Gershkovich covers Russia, Ukraine and the former Soviet Union for the WSJ. He has previously worked with news agency Agence France-Presse, The Moscow Times and The New York Times.

Russia has tightened censorship laws since the start of the Ukraine invasion, bringing in jail terms for people deemed to have “discredited” the military. This has curtailed all independent Russian news outlets but authorities have continued to accredit some foreign reporters. The definition of what constitutes a state secret, particularly in the military sphere, has been broadened too.

In Mr Gershkovich’s last report, “Russia’s economy is starting to come undone”, Mr Gershkovich reported that the country’s economy felt the heat of Western sanctions and faced a slowdown, adding that the Russian government’s revenue is “being squeezed”.

The news report said the Russian economy was entering a long-term regression.

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2023-03-30 14:53:15Z
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Nashville school shooting – latest: Audrey Hale’s post about partner’s death revealed as motive still unknown - The Independent

Bodycam footage shows Nashville police searching Christian school for gunman

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Jill Biden attended a candlelight vigil in Nashville on Wednesday night to honour the three children and three adults who were murdered at the Covenant school in the city.

Earlier it emerged that the shooting suspect, Audrey Hale, had previously posted on Facebook about the death of a romantic partner, according to a former teacher.

Art college instructor Maria Colomy, who taught Hale at the Nossi College of Art & Design in Nashville, recalled a social media post from the shooter “openly grieving” the unknown individual and said that Hale had announced the bereavement and asked to be addressed as Aiden and by masculine pronouns from then on.

Three children aged nine – Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney – were shot dead on Monday, as were staff members Katherine Koonce, Cynthia Peak and Mike Hill.

Meanwhile, Nashville police chief John Drake has said that Hale was “under doctor’s care for an emotional disorder” before the killings and had hidden seven legally purchased weapons at home.

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Parkland dad calls for national education strike in response to Nashville shooting

Manuel Oliver’s son Joaquin was among 17 victims in Florida mass shooting in 2018.

Graeme Massie30 March 2023 07:54

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How Washington reacted to the Nashville school shooting is sadly unsurprising

Passing a gun bill required just the right circumstances in Washington last year. Those don’t exist any more with Republican control, writes Eric Garcia.

Graeme Massie30 March 2023 07:30

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ICYMI: Roughly one in 20 Americans own an AR-15 rifle as firearm’s popularity explodes despite role in mass killings

Alex Woodward has this report on a truly shocking statistic on an assault rifle that was originally intended strictly for military use but which is now owned by 5 per cent of the US population.

Graeme Massie30 March 2023 07:00

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Parkland dad calls for national education strike in response to Nashville shooting

The father of a Parkland shooting victim who was violently arrested at the US Capitol has called for a national education strike in response to the Nashville shooting.

Manuel Oliver, whose 17-year-old son Joaquin was fatally shot in the Parkland High School Shooting, has called for “extreme measures” to prevent further gun violence in the US.

“I want to go in a more challenging, disruptive direction. I think we have been very polite,” he told ABC News.

Maroosha Muzaffar30 March 2023 06:30

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Tearful Melissa Joan Hart describes how she helped kindergarteners run to safety after Nashville shooting

‘They were climbing out of the woods. They were trying to escape the shooter situation at their school,’ the actor says.

Amber Raiken has the details.

Graeme Massie30 March 2023 06:04

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Democrat lawmaker interrupts Marjorie Taylor Greene’s transphobic rant to raise assault weapons ban

One of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Democratic rivals in the House interrupted her transphobic rant about the Nashville attack during a committee hearing in order to inject his own take on the shooting.

Police have identified the suspected shooter by their name at birth; Hale reportedly was a transgender man who used he/him pronouns, though law enforcement officials initially described the suspect as a woman in the aftermath of the shooting. Police did not provide another name but on the suspect’s social media accounts they refer to themselves as Aiden.

Maroosha Muzaffar30 March 2023 05:30

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ICYMI: What we know about Nashville school shooter Audrey Hale

Audrey Hale, a former student at the elementary school, allegedly entered The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, just after 10am.

Inside, the shooter opened fire on students and staff, killing six victims.

Students Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney, all aged nine, headmistress Katherine Koonce, 60, Cynthia Peak, 61, and Mike Hill, 61, all died in the attack.

Two responding police officers shot the suspect dead on the second floor just 14 minutes after arriving at the school.

Graeme Massie30 March 2023 05:02

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Democrat and Republican in Capitol shouting match over gun safety: ‘Calm down? Children are dying!’

New York Democrat Jamaal Bowman had been giving a furious speech to reporters in a corridor outside the House of Representatives on Wednesday evening, accusing the Republicans of inaction.

“They’re cowards. They’re all cowards! They won’t do anything to save the lives of our children,” yelled Mr Bowman, a former school principal.

Kentucky GOP representative Thomas Massie then tried to butt in, prompting a shouting match between the two men.

“You know, there’s never been a school shooting in a school that allows teachers to carry [guns],” Mr Massie said.

Maroosha Muzaffar30 March 2023 04:30

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Arizona governor’s press secretary resigns after ‘transphobe’ gun meme in wake of Nashville shooting

Right-wing Arizona caucus leader says staffer was ‘threatening to shoot people Democrats disagree with less than 12 hours after Nashville shooting’.

Graeme Massie30 March 2023 04:07

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We must reject the transphobic narrative around Nashville

‘The right is the radicalized threat to public safety, not the LGBTQ community. Here are the receipts to prove it.’

Graeme Massie30 March 2023 03:05

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2023-03-30 06:54:37Z
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Up to 31 dead after passenger ferry fire in Philippines - Sky News

Up to 31 people have died after a ferry carrying about 250 passengers and crew caught fire in the southern Philippines.

The Coast Guard Commodore Rejard Marfe confirmed that 28 people had drowned or died in the blaze

However, Jim Hataman, governor of Basilan, the southern island province near where the ferry caught fire, said 31 people had died.

Search and rescue efforts are continuing for at least seven missing passengers.

The MV Lady Mary Joy 3 was en route to the Sulu province from the southern port city of Zamboanga when it caught fire close to midnight local time, Mr Hataman said.

The bodies of 18 individuals were discovered in a passenger cabin.

Image: Pic: AP/Philippine Coast Guard

Image: Pic: AP/Philippine Coast Guard

"These victims perished onboard due to the fire," he added.

More on Philippines

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At least 23 passengers were injured and taken to hospital. It was discovered that some additional travellers were not listed on the vessel's documentation.

"Some of the passengers were roused from sleep due to the commotion caused by the fire. Some jumped off the ship," Mr Hataman said.

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Image: Pic: AP/Philippine Coast Guard

Frequent storms and badly maintained boats mean that accidents at sea are common in the Philippine archipelago. Overcrowding and patchy health and safety regulations, especially in remote provinces, also contribute.

Last year seven people died after a high-speed ferry carrying 134 people caught fire.

More than 4,300 people died in December 1987, after the ferry Dona Paz sank after colliding with a fuel tanker. It is known as the world's worst peacetime maritime disaster.

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2023-03-30 06:40:34Z
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