Ukraine’s prime minister offered his resignation on Friday after an audio recording was leaked in which he was heard making disparaging comments about president’s understanding of the economy.Oleksiy Honcharuk said in a Facebook post that he took the job of prime minister to fulfill the program of the president, calling him  “a model of openness and decency.”Referring to the leaked audio, Honcharuk said “in order to remove any doubts about our respect and trust in the president, I wrote a letter of resignation and submitted it to the president who can submit it to parliament.”President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will review the resignation letter and the decision will be announced separately his office said in a statement, according to Ukrainian news agency, UNIAN.
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Ukraine has asked the FBI in the United States for help  investigating a suspected cyberattack by Russian military hackers on Burisma, an energy company caught up in the impeachment of U.S. President Donald Trump.The Ukrainian interior ministry on Thursday also announced an investigation into the possible illegal surveillance of Marie Yovanovitch, formerly the American ambassador to Kiev, following the release of text messages this week by the U.S. Congress as part of the impeachment case.The FBI said it had visited the home and business of Robert Hyde, a Republican congressional candidate in Connecticut who sent the text messages to Lev Parnas, an associate of Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, that suggested Hyde had Yovanovitch under surveillance. The FBI declined to give further details.Hyde was not immediately available for comment but on Twitter he has said he has never been to Kiev and that he made up the story about keeping watch on Yovanovitch to fool Parnas.The FBI declined to comment on Ukraine’s request for help after California-based cybersecurity company Area 1 Security on Monday identified the hacking of Burisma Holdings and linked it to Russia’s Main Directorate of Military Intelligence, or GRU.Burisma was at the center of attempts by Trump in July to persuade Ukraine to announce an investigation into Joe Biden, a Democratic presidential contender, and his son, Hunter, who used to have a seat on the Ukrainian company’s board.There has been no evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens, who reject Trump’s allegations of corruption.Trump’s efforts have led to him being impeached on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The president, who denies wrongdoing, faces a trial in the U.S. Senate next week.The same hacking group, known as “Fancy Bear” or “APT28″ by cybersecurity researchers, breached the Democratic National Committee in 2016 in what U.S. investigators described as part of an operation to disrupt that year’s election.Russia’s defense ministry did not respond to a request for comment about Area 1 Security’s assertions.”It is noted that the hacking attack was probably committed by the Russian special services,” Ukrainian interior ministry official Artem Minyailo said at a briefing.Minyailo said Ukraine had asked the FBI and Area 1 Security for assistance regarding information that hackers stole personal employee data and emails from executives at Burisma and other companies. These other companies included the media production company of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, he said.”The national police has initiated the creation of a joint  international investigation team, to which FBI representatives have already been invited by the ministry,” Minyailo said.Yovanovitch surveillance probeIt was not clear what data the hackers wanted to steal, Area 1 said. Breaching Burisma could yield communications from, to or about Hunter Biden, who served as a director between 2014 and 2019.A source close to Burisma told Reuters earlier this week the company’s website had been subject to multiple break-in attempts over the past six months but did not provide further details.Ukrainian officials said they were also probing allegations that Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine, was subject to illegal surveillance before Trump fired her in May.U.S. Senator Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told CNN on Thursday he had sent a letter to the State Department seeking an immediate briefing.A former senior security official with the U.S. State Department told Reuters he did not regard the Hyde text messages as constituting an actual threat to Yovanovitch.“I would have trouble going to a U.S. Attorney and saying, ‘I want an arrest warrant for this person or I want to open an investigation,’” said the former senior security official, who spoke on condition that he not be identified.“I might send somebody to talk with them and say, you know, ‘You have any intent to harm her?’ and if he says no and there’s no other evidence to the contrary … that’s probably as far as I would go.”
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President Vladimir Putin moved to consolidate plans for constitutional reform and name a new government Thursday — one day after the 20-year Russian leader altered the political landscape by hinting at plans to retain influence when his current and final presidential term ends in 2024.Yet, for Russians, the most immediate shift involved an unexpected new prime minister. Mikhail Mishustin, the little known chief of Russia’s Tax Service until being promoted by Putin late Wednesday, was approved by the Duma to head the government in a unanimous vote.He replaces longtime Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev, who submitted his entire Cabinet’s resignation in a surprise move Wednesday.Speaking before the lawmakers, Mishustin insisted his mission was to enact economic reforms laid out by Putin in an address to Russia’s Federal Assembly that largely highlighted Russians’ growing dissatisfaction — over low wages, poor health care services, and lack of opportunity among other issues.  “I want to … maintain dialogue with the people,” Mishustin said in a speech to lawmakers outlining the need to better enact Putin’s reforms. “It’s important that we hear what happened, and what didn’t.”  It was the first time most Russians had ever heard his voice.Constitutional changes  There was little question of who — and what — was driving the political shakeup in Moscow.In concluding his speech Wednesday, Putin proposed a series of major constitutional amendments that would move power away from the presidency to the parliament.Among the most consequential: Russia’s Duma would have a say over the Cabinet appointments,  including prime minister and other key posts.  Another would give the country’s Security Council — currently an advisory body to Putin — new constitutional powers.  The amendments were widely seen as Putin creating options for a new role to exert power after his current term ends in 2024.  “It’s a constitutional coup,” said analyst Fyodor Krasheninnikov, in an interview with VOA. “The constitution will now be sewn to fit Putin individually and with one purpose: so that Putin can further rule Russia,” he added.True or not, the Russian leader immediately appointed a 75-member delegation of Kremlin-loyal writers, actors, religious leaders and sports stars to oversee the proposed constitutional changes, painting the move as part of efforts to move government “closer to the people.”Meanwhile, the head of the Russian Central Election Commission, Ella Pamfilova, said her commission was ready to carry out a vote on the constitutional reforms.In a separate move that raised eyebrows given the uncertainty in Moscow, Ramzan Kadyrov, the strong-arm leader of Russia’s southern Chechen Republic and Putin ally, announced he would be handing over power to a deputy for a few days because he would be undergoing a procedure that would leave him “temporarily incapacitated.”A placeholder or future Kremlin leader?Kremlin watchers also debated Putin’s choice for new prime minister. Was Mikhail Mishustin an improvised choice or part of some larger Kremlin plan?“It seems highly likely that Mishustin is just a technocratic placeholder,” wrote Tatiana Stanovoya, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center, in a post on Facebook. “Mishustin’s relative obscurity shouldn’t fool anyone,” wrote her colleague Alexander Baunov in a thread on Twitter that pointed to Putin’s own unexpected rise in government under then-President Boris Yeltsin in 1999.Mishustin’s relative obscurity shouldn’t fool anyone: Putin was also a little-known official until Yeltsin promoted him to 3 senior posts, one after the other, to everyone’s great surprise.— Alexander Baunov (@baunov) January 16, 2020“Putin was also a little-known official until Yeltsin promoted him to three senior posts, one after the other, to everyone’s great surprise,” he wrote.The rift reflected a central point of discussion: When it came to the prime minister — and Putin’s latest moves — everyone had an opinion.Indeed, the past 24 hours have sent Kremlinology — the Soviet-era science of reading Russia’s political tea leaves — into overdrive, with publications and blogs offering up theories over what would come next.“Putin will take over as head of the United Russia fraction in the parliament,” assured the daily Kommersant, a newspaper known for insight into Kremlin machinations.“Medvedev fired himself. It wasn’t planned,” claimed Biznes Online, while interviewing a political spin doctor.The daily Vedemosti offered a different scoop: Prime Minister Mishustin had penned several pop songs, including a hit called “A Real Woman.”More importantly, would Putin become a newly empowered prime minister?  Head of the new Security Council? Perhaps something else?  There was only one point of consensus. Vladimir Putin —  in one form or another — was here to stay. 
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On the day his Senate impeachment trial formally began, U.S. President Donald Trump scored a bipartisan victory Thursday as the Senate passed a North American trade pact, known as USMCA. The international accord replaces the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, and governs trade between the United States, Canada and Mexico. VOA’s Ardita Dunellari looks at what this pact is expected to deliver both for the U.S. economy and for the president’s re-election campaign.
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A caravan of about 2,000 Honduran migrants crossed into Guatemala on Thursday, hoping to make it into the United States, but it is unclear how far they can get. The caravan left San Pedro Sula on Wednesday, with most of the migrants allowed to enter Guatemala after submitting their documents to Honduran police at the border. Guatemala’s newly inaugurated President Alejandro Giammattei says Mexico has told him it will not let the migrants enter. Migrants walk along a highway in hopes of reaching the United States, near Agua Caliente, Guatemala, Jan. 16, 2020, on the border with Honduras. Hundreds of Honduran migrants started walking and hitching rides the day before at San Pedro Sula.Guatemala signed an agreement with the United States last year requiring migrants looking to come to the United States to apply for asylum in the U.S. while staying in Guatemala. The dangerous trip to Guatemala and the possibility of a long wait there for entry into the U.S. are not deterring the migrants, who say they are escaping poverty, gangs, violence and hopelessness in Honduras. “We have children and we don’t want our children to live through what we lived through,” one migrant said Thursday. A woman summed up her reasons for fleeing Honduras when she said, “In our country, you can kill yourself working and you can’t buy anything. You can’t achieve anything, The salaries are very low. It’s barely enough to eat.” Thousands of Central Americans headed to the U.S. border with Mexico in 2018, prompting U.S. President Donald Trump to threaten sanctions against Latin American governments that did not try to stop the caravans. 
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Ukrainian authorities say they have opened an investigation into whether Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Kyiv, was illegally spied on before U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly recalled her from her post last year. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the State Department have not replied to repeated requests for comment on the alleged surveillance and potential physical threats to the 33-year career diplomat. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department.
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Greece will block any European Union peace deal for Libya, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Thursday, unless a maritime deal between Turkey and Libya is scrapped.”Greece at the level of a summit meeting will never accept any political solution on Libya that does not include as a precondition the annulment of this agreement,” Mitsotakis told Greek television on Thursday. “To put it simply, we will use our veto.”Greece says the deal setting border and energy exploration areas in the Mediterranean between Libya and Turkey is “unacceptable and illegal” because Greek claims in the Mediterranean are ignored.Mitsotakis is also upset Greece is excluded from a peace summit on Libya to be held Sunday in Berlin. He says it is wrong not to invite Greece and plans to complain about it to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.FILE PHOTO: Khalifa Haftar, the military commander who dominates eastern Libya, arrives to attend an international conference on Libya at the Elysee Palace in Paris, May 29, 2018.Greece expelled the Libyan ambassador from Athens because of the deal signed with Turkey. It has also taken steps to boost ties with General Khalifa Haftar, head of a rival Libyan government whose forces have been fighting with those of the U.N.-backed administration in Tripoli.Haftar is in Athens where he plans to meet with Mitsotakis on Friday.Before flying to Greece, Haftar met in Benghazi with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who tweeted that Haftar is willing to come to the Berlin conference and is committed to the cease-fire that took effect in Libya this week.In Washington, a senior State Department official said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would also attend the Berlin conference on Libya. The official said Pompeo would push for three things — the cease-fire, a withdrawal of all foreign forces from Libya and a return to the political process.
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Seven people were killed in a bizarre religious ritual in a jungle community in Panama, in which indigenous residents were rounded up by about 10 lay preachers and tortured, beaten, burned and hacked with machetes to make them “repent their sins,” authorities said Thursday.Police freed 14 members of the Ngabe Bugle indigenous group who had been tied up and beaten with wooden cudgels and Bibles.Local prosecutor Rafael Baloyes described a chilling scene found by investigators when they made their way through the jungle-clad hills to the remote Ngabe Bugle indigenous community near the Caribbean coast Tuesday.Alerted by three villagers who escaped and made their way to a local hospital for treatment earlier, police were prepared for something bad, Baloyes said, but were still surprised by what they discovered at an improvised “church” at a ranch where a little-known religious sect known as “The New Light of God” was operating.”They were performing a ritual inside the structure. In that ritual, there were people being held against their will, being mistreated,” Baloyes said.Police and employees of the Public Ministry investigate near a mass grave with seven bodies at the indigenous region of Ngabe Bugle, Panama, Jan. 15, 2020, in this screen grab taken from Panamanian channel TVN Noticias.”All of these rites were aimed at killing them if they did not repent their sins,” he said. “There was a naked person, a woman,” inside the building, where investigators found machetes, knives and a ritually sacrificed goat, he said.The rites had been going on since Saturday, and had already resulted in deaths, Baloyes said.About a mile (2 kilometers) away from the church building, authorities found a freshly dug grave with the corpses of six children and one adult. The dead included five children as young as a year old, their pregnant mother and a 17-year-old female neighbor.”They searched this family out to hold a ritual and they massacred them, mistreated them, killed practically the whole family,” Baloyes said, adding that one of the suspects in the killing is the grandfather of the children who were slain.All the victims, and apparently all the suspects, were members of the same indigenous community.Ricardo Miranda, leader of the Ngabe Bugle semi-autonomous zone known as a Comarca, called the sect “satanic” and said it went against the region’s Christian beliefs.”We demand the immediate eradication of this Satanic sect, which violates all the practices of spirituality and co-existence in the Holy Scriptures,” Miranda said.’Message’ from GodApparently, the sect is relatively new to the area, and had been operating locally only for about three months.Things reportedly came to a head Saturday, when one of the church members had a vision.”One of them said God had given them a message,” Baloyes said. That message apparently boiled down to making everyone repent or die.The Ngabe Bugle are Panama’s largest indigenous group and suffer from high rates of poverty and illiteracy.It was not clear what belief or affiliations “The New Light of God” church has. A well-established evangelical church known as Luz del Mundo said in a press statement that it had no ties to the case.The area is so remote that helicopters had to be used to ferry the injured out to hospitals for treatment. They included at least two pregnant women and some children.
 
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Europe has so far remained united in its backing for the 2015 Iran nuclear deal or JCPOA, despite strong pressure from the Trump administration to abandon the agreement. The deal saw most sanctions on Iran lifted in return for limits on nuclear fuel enrichment – but the U.S. withdrew and re-imposed sanctions in 2018. As Henry Ridgwell reports from London, Washington is ramping up pressure on its closest European allies, following Tehran’s accidental shooting down of a Ukrainian passenger jet last week
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Five countries that lost citizens in the downing of a Ukrainian airliner are calling on Iran to conduct an open investigation and to provide compensation to the victims’ families.The demands came from Ukraine, Canada, Afghanistan, Sweden and the United Kingdom after the foreign ministers of those countries met Thursday at the Canadian High Commission in London.The ministers called for “an independent criminal investigation followed by transparent and impartial judicial proceedings.”The Ukraine International Airlines plane was mistakenly shot down Jan. 8 by Iranian ballistic missiles shortly after takeoff from an airport in Tehran, killing all 176 people on board.Among the victims were 57 Canadians, 17 people from Sweden, 11 Ukrainians, four Afghans, four British citizens and Iranians.FILE – Debris is seen from a downed Ukrainian plane as authorities work at the scene, in Shahedshahr, southwest of the capital Tehran, Iran, Jan. 8, 2020.Iran originally said technical difficulties led to the downing of the plane but admitted days later amid mounting evidence that its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard had accidentally fired missiles at the jetliner.The plane was shot down amid heightened tensions between Iran and the United States over the killing of Revolutionary Guard commander Qassem Soleimani in a U.S. drone strike.Iran retaliated by firing missiles at Iraqi bases that house U.S. troops.Canadian Transport Minister Marc Garneau said Wednesday that two Canadian investigators joined an international team of investigators in Iran. He said the investigators were collaborating effectively, but that Canada was still demanding an official role in the investigation.Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said this week the victims would be alive if tensions had not escalated in the Middle East. “If there was no escalation recently in the region, those Canadians would be right now home with their families,” Trudeau told in an interview with Global News Television. “This is something that happens when you have conflict and the war. Innocents bear the brunt of it.” 
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An Israeli court heard a case Thursday calling for restrictions to be slapped on NSO Group, an Israeli company that makes surveillance software that is said to have been used to target journalists and dissidents around the world.The case, brought by Amnesty International, calls for Israel to revoke the spyware firm’s export license, preventing it from selling its contentious product abroad, particularly to regimes that could use it for malicious purposes.“They are the most dangerous cyber weapon that we know of and they’re not being properly overseen,” said Gil Naveh, spokesman for Amnesty International Israel. “That is the reason why we think that their license should be revoked.”NSO is implicated in a series of digital break-in attempts and the court case is the latest pushback against the company and its product. Last year, Facebook sued the hacker-for-hire company in U.S. federal court for allegedly targeting some 1,400 users of its encrypted messaging service WhatsApp with highly sophisticated spyware.Khashoggi Friend Says Israeli Spyware Played Role in His Killing

        An Israeli software company calls the allegation that its spyware played a part in the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi "unfounded."

A fellow Saudi dissident and Khashoggi friend living in exile in Canada — Omar Abdelaziz — is suing NSO Group, alleging the Saudi government used NSO’s Pegasus spyware to track his and Khashoggi’s movements and communications.

The two dissidents had been working on a pro-opposition project targeting the Saudi government and calling for democracy in the…
In 2018, Amnesty said one of its employees had been targeted with the malware, saying a hacker tried to break into the staff member’s smartphone, using a WhatsApp message about a protest in front of the Saudi Embassy in Washington as bait.The spyware has also been implicated in the gruesome killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. It is also said to be behind a campaign to compromise proponents of a soda tax in Mexico and an effort to hack into the phone of an Arab dissident that prompted an update to Apple’s operating system.An Associated Press investigation last year found that critics of NSO were targeted in elaborate undercover operations in which operatives tried to discredit them. NSO has denied involvement.NSO Group’s flagship malware, called Pegasus, allows spies to effectively take control of a phone, surreptitiously controlling its cameras and microphones from remote servers and vacuuming up personal data and geolocations.NSO does not disclose the identities of its clients, but they are believed to include Middle Eastern and Latin American states. The company says it sells its technology to Israeli-approved governments to help them stop militants and criminals. The company said it would not comment on the case because it revolves around a demand directed at Israel’s defense ministry, but last year NSO announced that it had adopted “a new human rights policy” to ensure its software is not misused.The Israeli Defense Ministry, which issues export licenses to Israeli defense and security companies, declined to comment.Reflecting the interest in the case’s outcome, the Tel Aviv courtroom on Thursday was packed, with many attendees forced to stand until the hearing was moved to a larger space. As with previous cases involving defense exports, judge Rachel Barkai ruled that the legal proceedings would be closed to media and she imposed a gag order on the case.“There is a tangible concern that if the hearing is open it will cause harm to the state’s security and to its foreign relations,” she said, before journalists were ushered out of the courtroom.Thursday’s hearing is expected to be the only one in the case, Naveh said, and a decision is set to be handed down in the coming days.
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The U.S. Senate approved a new North American trade agreement Thursday, a key victory for President Donald Trump as the Senate officially opened an historic impeachment trial against him.The 100-member Senate approved the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) by an overwhelming 89-to-10 bipartisan vote, sending it to Trump to be signed into law.“This historic agreement not only modernizes and re-balances our trade relationship with Canada and Mexico, but it promotes economic growth, creates jobs, and provides crucial certainty for farmers, workers and manufacturers,” U.S. Treasury Steve Mnuchin said in a statement.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the initial draft of the agreement proposed by the Trump administration “left American workers exposed to losing their jobs to Mexico,” high prescription drug prices and low environmental standards.Pelosi added that the USMCA was “transformed by Democrats’ leadership for American workers, American patients and the environment.”The USMCA replaces the 25-year-old North American Free Trade agreement, known as NAFTA.The legislation includes more stringent rules on auto manufacturing, e-commerce and labor provisions, but leaves largely unchanged the trade flows between the North American countries valued at $1.2 trillion.The measure was passed in December by the House of Representatives, where it received bipartisan support after Democrats secured amendments to its enforcement, environment, pharmaceutical and worker provisions.Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell touted the measure’s approval as “a major win for country” and “a major win for the Trump administration.”But Senator Pat Toomey, a member of Trump’s Republican Party, offered a rare criticism of the deal.“It will mean higher prices for American consumers, who will have to pay more money for a car and therefore will have less money available for any of the other things they would like to consume.”Toomey added: “It will probably lead to an increase or acceleration in the shift of automation.”The pact aims to have more vehicles made in the U.S. and requires Mexico to revise its laws to facilitate the formation of independent unions, which should benefit workers and reduce the incentive for American companies to relocated their factories.The AFL-CIO, an association representing trade unions, endorsed the measure. But many environmental groups opposed it, maintaining that not only does it ignore climate change, but asserting that it would contribute to rising temperatures.  The USMCA had been delayed in the Senate due to political wrangling over the chamber’s impeachment trial of President Trump.The deal will not be fully implemented until it is ratified by Canada, whose House of Commons is expected to vote on it later this month. 
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Turkish airstrikes inside Iraq targeting members of an outlawed Kurdish rebel group have killed at least four minority Yazidi fighters allied with the rebels, an Iraqi army official said Thursday.The strikes, which took place on Wednesday, hit a military pickup truck in the northern town of Sinjar in Nineveh province, said the army official, speaking on condition of anonymity under regulations.The pickup was carrying members of the Iraqi Yazidi militia known as the Shingal Resistance Units, affiliated with the Kurdistan Worker’s Party, or PKK, which is fighting an insurgency in Turkey and has been outlawed by Ankara.Kurdish television channels in northern Iraq reported that Yazidi commander Zardasht Shingali was among the dead and that another five fighters were wounded in the strikes.In Baghdad, Iraq’s joint operations command said five people were killed in the attack in Sinjar. The different casualty tolls could not immediately be reconciled.The Yazidi militia was formed in 2014, after the Islamic State group overran much of northern Iraq in August of that year and took over security in Sinjar after IS was pushed out of town in November 2015. It maintains strong relations with Kurdish groups such as the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, in Syria, and the PKK in Turkey.Turkey has repeatedly struck the Yazidi militia positions in Sinjar in efforts to cut supply routes of the PKK. Also, a Turkish airstrike there last year killed Zaki Shingali, a PKK commander.Elsewhere in Iraq, a car bombing wounded at least four Iraqi solders on a highway leading to a border crossing with Saudi Arabia, according to a statement from the Iraqi joint command.No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack but it was suspected to have been carried out by remnants of the Islamic State group.
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President Hassan Rohani says Iran is now enriching more uranium than the country did before it agreed to a nuclear deal with world powers in 2015, as Tehran gradually scales back its commitments under the agreement.“Pressure has increased on Iran, but we continue to progress,” Rohani said in a televised speech on January 16. The country has lifted all limits on its production of enriched uranium, which can be used to make reactor fuel but also nuclear weapons.Iran has breached its main limitations, exceeding the stockpiles of heavy water and uranium allowed, the number and types of centrifuges it can operate to enrich uranium, and the purity of uranium, in response to sanctions reinstated by the United States after President Donald Trump unilaterally abandoned the nuclear agreement in 2018.Trump wants Tehran to negotiate a new accord that would place indefinite curbs on its nuclear program and restrict Tehran’s ballistic-missile program.The five remaining parties to the accord — Britain, France, and Germany, plus China and Russia — have pledged to keep the accord alive.But European partners have been unable to offer Tehran a way to sell its crude oil abroad despite the U.S. sanctions, which caused the value of Iran’s currency to plummet and sent its inflation rate soaring.Announcing they had triggered the 2015 deal’s Dispute Recognition Mechanism on January 14, Britain, France, and Germany warned that Tehran’s actions were “inconsistent with the provisions of the nuclear agreement” and had “increasingly severe and non-reversible proliferation implications.”Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on January 16 that the three countries were allowing themselves to be bullied by the United States, which had threatened new tariffs on their goods.”E3 sold out remnants of JCPOA to avoid new Trump tariffs,” he wrote in a tweet, referring to the nuclear accord.“It won’t work my friends. You only whet his appetite. Remember your high school bully?” Zarif added.He continued by telling Europeans: “If you want to sell your integrity, go ahead. But DO NOT assume high moral/legal ground. YOU DON’T HAVE IT.”The Trump administration has threatened to impose a 25 percent tariff on European automobile imports if Britain, France, and Germany did not formally accuse Iran of breaking the nuclear pact, the Washington Post reported on January 15.In a speech on January 15, Rohani criticized the European powers’ decision and their failure to ensure his country enjoyed the economic benefits of the 2015 deal.”The next step you need to take is to return to your commitments,” the Iranian president said, while Zarif asserted that the nuclear deal was “not dead.”Under the 2015 pact, Iran pledged to curb its nuclear ambitions in exchange for international sanctions relief.Tehran, which insists its nuclear program is for civilian purposes only, announced that the final limit on its production of enriched uranium had been lifted earlier this month, days after top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad.In retaliation, Iran on January 8 fired ballistic missiles at two bases housing U.S. forces in Iraq.Hours after the missile attack, a Ukrainian passenger airliner was shot down by Iran’s air defenses after it took off from Tehran, killing all 176 people on board.Rohani said in his speech on January 16 that his government was “working daily to prevent military confrontation or war.”He also said that that dialogue with the international community was difficult but remained “possible.”
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Lev Parnas, the indicted associate of U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer who worked to pressure Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, told the New York Times and the U.S.-based cable news network MSNBC that Trump was aware of his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani’s activities in Ukraine.Trump “knew exactly what was going on,” Parnas told Rachel Maddow in an interview broadcast Wednesday night.The Times quoted him as saying, “I am betting my whole life that Trump knew exactly everything that was going on that Rudy Giuliani was doing in Ukraine.”Previously, Trump has denied sending Giuliani to Ukraine to look for dirt on Biden, the former vice president and a rival in the 2020 presidential election.But Parnas told Maddow that Trump “was aware of all my movements.””I wouldn’t do anything without the consent of Rudy Giuliani or the president,” Parnas said.  “I was on the ground doing their work.”Parnas said his function in working with Giuliani was to meet with senior Ukrainian officials in a search for evidence of corruption by Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, who worked for Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company. Trump allegedly withheld aid to Ukraine until President Volodymyr Zelenskiy committed to investigating the Bidens, and those allegations are at the center of his impeachment by the House of Representatives.In a tweet later Wednesday night, Katherine Faulders, White House and Capitol Hill reporter for ABC News, said she asked Giuliani if he had any comment on the interview with Parnas. He texted, “None he’s a very sad situation.”Asked Giuliani if he had any comment on the ongoing Parnas interview and he texted me “None he’s a very sad situation.”— Katherine Faulders (@KFaulders) January 16, 2020″I mean they have no reason to speak to me,” Parnas told Maddow. “Why would President Zelenskiy’s inner circle or (Interior Minister Arsen) Avakov or all these people or (former) President (Petro) Poroshenko meet with me? Who am I? They were told to meet with me. And that’s the secret they’re trying to keep.”He added that Trump’s interest in Ukraine was never about rooting out government corruption but was “all about Joe Biden, Hunter Biden.”When Maddow asked Parnas about Trump’s claim that he does not know him, Parnas said, “He lied,” adding that he was with Giuliani four or five days a week in Ukraine during which Trump was in constant contact with Giuliani.Parnas said he wants “to get the truth out … it’s important for our country, it’s important for me … a lot of things are being said that are not accurate.”Parnas and another Giuliani associate, Igor Fruman, have been indicted on charges of making illegal contributions to the Trump campaign. Both have pleaded not guilty. 
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Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to shift some of the presidential powers to the parliament before he ends his fourth and most likely last term as president.  He proposed constitutional changes to that effect in his state-of the-nation speech Wednesday. Putin also reshuffled the cabinet, naming a little-known government official as new prime minister to replace Dmitry Medvedev. Analysts see Putin’s unexpected moves as paving the way to hold on to power after 2024, when his presidential term ends. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.
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The former pope Benedict XVI reportedly wants his name removed from a controversial book that appears to undermine his successor, Pope Francis, on issues of priestly celibacy. The book hit stores Wednesday in France, the first country to publish it. But despite the furor the book has stirred in the press, many French readers appear underwhelmed.The book, “Des Profondeurs de Nos Coeurs,” meaning “From the Depths of Our Hearts,”  defends priestly celibacy at a time when Pope Francis is considering whether to lift restrictions on married priests in remote areas. Cardinal Robert Sarah, who co-authored the book, rejects accusations he manipulated Benedict regarding the content.  The furor, which appears to lay bare spiritual divisions between the two popes, has made news headlines, but hasn’t stirred up much public interest.  Parisian Brigitte Gallay says she has heard about the book, but notes Protestant ministers are married with children. She sees nothing wrong about a church that’s closer to the lives of ordinary people — even though some Catholics might be shocked at the thought of married priests.  The Catholic Church has taken a hit in France, not just because of declining attendance, but also because of a major pedophilia scandal — the theme of a recent movie. A trial opened this month against a priest at the heart of the scandal, which has helped fuel debate about the dangers of priestly celibacy.  At Paris bookstore Gibert Joseph, social worker Alexander Monnot adds the book to a pile of others he’s planning to buy. Monnot says he supports celibacy for priests.  “The fact is, at the very beginning of the Church, there was Jesus and 12 apostles,” Monnot said. “And even some were married. They all left their families to preach. Jesus was not married. And priests should be an incarnation, a continuation of Jesus.”Monnot says he is looking forward to reading the book’s arguments in favor of celibacy, but that’s not the only reason he’s buying it. He predicts the French publisher will recall this edition, which has Benedict’s name as co-author, meaning the copy he’s buying may one day be a collector’s item.
 
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is planning what’s dubbed ‘the construction project of the decade’, a massive canal connecting Turkey’s Marmara and Black Sea. The canal will provide an alternative route to the Bosporus, one of the world’s busiest waterways, which divides Istanbul. But the project is proving controversial, both domestically and internationally. Dorian Jones reports.
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In the U.S. more than 3 million shelter animals are adopted every year. But if you can’t find the animal you’ve been waiting for at your local shelter locally, or even nationally, you can look even farther afield. Svetlana Prudovskaya met with the people who make these little miracles happen. Anna Rice narrates her story.
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Albania said Wednesday it has ordered the expulsion of two Iranian diplomats and declared them “persona non grata.”Acting Foreign Minister Gent Cakaj announced the decision in a Facebook post, writing that diplomats Mohammad Ali Arz Peimanemati and Seyed Ahmad Hosseini Alast have conducted “activities in breach of their [diplomatic] status and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.””The two representatives of the Islamic Republic have been asked to leave the territory of the Republic of Albania immediately,” Cakaj wrote, without offering further details.  Confidential sources within the Albanian government told VOA the two diplomats are being expelled for activity endangering Albania’s national security. They said that cultural attache Seyed Ahmed Hosseini Alast had previously held high positions with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and that Mohamed Peimanemati had been a member of the operational unit of Iran’s Intelligence Agency, MOIS. The source charged that he was responsible for terrorist acts in European Union countries.FILE – A picture of Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani, head of the elite Quds Force, who was killed in an airstrike at Baghdad airport, is seen on the former U.S. Embassy’s building in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 7, 2020.The same sources told VOA that the two had been associates of Quds Force commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike early this month.Rising tensionsAdrian Shtuni, a foreign policy and security expert in Washington, told VOA the expulsion marks a new low in the already strained diplomatic relationship between Albania and Iran.”While the specific nature of the actions undertaken by the expelled Iranian diplomats are yet unclear, the justification used by the Albanian authorities, namely ‘activities incompatible with their diplomatic status,’ is a standard euphemism for espionage,” he said.It is the second time in 13 months that Albania has declared Iranian diplomats “persona non grata.”In December 2018, Tirana expelled Iran’s ambassador and another diplomat whom the country accused of “damaging its national security.” Following talks with other countries, including Israel, AIbania declared the two diplomats were expelled for “violating their diplomatic status.”U.S. President Donald Trump subsequently thanked Albania, saying in a letter to Prime Minister Edi Rama that the action “exemplifies our joint efforts to show the Iranian government that its terrorist activities in Europe and around the world will have severe consequences.”Reaction from IranIran blamed the United States and Israel for the expulsions. Its foreign ministry said Albania “has become an unintentional victim of the United States, Israel and some terrorist groups.”Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, seemed to target Albania in a televised address last week decrying the killing of Soleimani. He spoke of a “small and sinister” country that he claimed “was instrumental in a Western plot to effect violent unrest” in Iran in November. Mass protests swept Iran at that time following an abrupt increase in gasoline prices.FILE – In this photo released by the official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting, in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 1, 2020.Albanian President Ilir Meta responded with a statement saying Albania “is not an evil country, but a democratic country that has suffered from an evil dictatorship unparalleled in its kind. [It] therefore considers human rights sacred.” Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha ruled for 40 years years before his death in 1985.Iranian hostility toward Albania stems in part from the Balkan country’s decision to provide a refuge for 2,500 members of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (Mojahedin-e Khalq or MEK), a militant Iranian opposition group regarded as terrorists by Tehran. The group was expelled from Iraq following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.The U.S. has assisted Albania in its efforts to resettle the MEK, which has supported the U.S. in military operations in the Middle East.Albanian police disclosed for the first time late last year that they had thwarted a 2018 plot involving a “terrorist cell” of Iran’s elite Quds Force. They said the group was targeting a gathering in Albania that included MEK members.Three Iranian men and one Turkish man were suspected of involvement in the cell.
 
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Armed security forces and civilian motorcycle groups loyal to Venezuela’s president forcefully blocked opposition lawmakers from entering the National Assembly building to hold a session on Wednesday.It’s the second time this month that lawmakers have been barred from from the building that houses the only branch of government out of control of President Nicolás Maduro’s socialist government.Attempting to reach the legislative chamber, t he caravan of cars carrying the deputies dodged through downtown streets, but ultimately failed.Gunshots could heard near the cars, but no injuries were reported. Two SUV’s carrying the lawmakers came under attack by people on the street dressed in civilian clothes. They struck the rear window of one, shattering it.“The dictatorship is intent on militarily kidnapping the Federal Legislative Palace and using repressive instruments and paramilitary groups,” Guaidó said on Twitter, accusing Maduro’s government of following a “clumsy and erroneous path.”He said that the lawmakers had decided to hold the session at another location in the Caracas suburb of El Hatillo.The incident was part of a struggle for control of the opposition-controlled National Assembly and Venezuela as a whole, a nation suffering economic and social collapse that’s led estimated 4.5 million to emigrate.A once oil-wealthy nation, Venezuela has been locked in a political, economic and social collapse for the last five years. Basic medicines, food and gasoline are scarce, despite the fact Venezuela sits atop the world’s largest oil reserves.The 36-year-old Guaidó leaped onto Venezuela’s political stage a year ago when he declared himself acting president under the constitution and vowed to to end Maduro’s rule. The United States and more than 50 other nations quickly backed him, saying Maduro’s reelection in 2018 was illegitimate.Guaidó was also blocked from the the National Assembly building early this month in a failed government attempt to prevent him from being reelected as the body’s leader.It’s unclear where Guaidó was during the attempted entry to the National Assembly building on Wednesday.Opposition lawmaker Delsa Solórzano said she was riding in a car with at least three other lawmakers that came under attack near the legislative building with rocks and sticks. She also reported hearing gunfire.“Evidently tried to kill us,” Solórzano said. “Today, our parliament is practically kidnapped.”
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A Turkish court on Wednesday lifted a ban on Wikipedia after almost three years.Turkey was the only country in the world apart from China to entirely block access to the online encyclopedia.But its constitutional court ruled last month that the ban, in place since April 2017, violated freedom of expression.Turkish officials said in 2017 that the ban was needed as Wikipedia had failed to remove content accusing its government of assisting terrorist groups.Rights groups have regularly criticized the erosion of free speech in Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, especially since a failed coup attempt in 2016 triggered a massive crackdown on government critics in the press and beyond.An Ankara judge gave the order on Wednesday for the ban to be lifted by the telecommunications watchdog.Users said the website was still inaccessible on Wednesday though it was expected to be gradually unblocked nationwide.
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