The European Union says it is taking measures to protect its trade interests in the ongoing row with the United States over the shutdown of the World Trade Organization’s appellate body.
EU trade chief Phil Hogan said Thursday that the 28-nation bloc “cannot afford being defenseless if there is no possibility to get a satisfactory solution within the WTO.”
Since Wednesday the WTO’s appellate body, whose decisions affect billions of dollars in trade, lost its ability to rule on new dispute cases. Without having to worry about possible penalties, countries could use tariffs or be tempted to implement protectionist measures.Hogan said that with the proposal to change some EU trade rules will enable it to act even when the WTO cannot give a final ruling.Anticipating the end of the appellate body, the EU and Canada agreed this summer on a new trade dispute resolution system as a temporary backstop. The EU wants to expand it, but it’s unclear how many countries might join.  
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Central banks in the United States and Europe say they’ve done their part to help the economy for now. The European Central Bank on Thursday decided to leave it stimulus programs unchanged as its new president highlighted signs that the economy has steadied after a period of weaker growth.ECB head Christine Lagarde said that recent economic indicators are “weak overall” but “point to some stabilizing in the slowdown of of economic growth.”
The decision to keep interest rates low followed a similar move this week by the U.S. Federal Reserve, where officials indicated they expect no change through 2020.
The ECB enacted a stimulus package as recently as September, when it cut a key rate and launched a bond-buying program that pumps newly created money into the economy. Lagarde said that package, decided before she took over from Mario Draghi on Nov.1, would continue to support the economy with easier borrowing terms for companies.
Doubts have grown among some economists about how much good more central bank stimulus can do to support developed economies.
Interest is meanwhile focused on Lagarde, who presided over her first meeting as head of the institution that sets monetary policy for the 19 euro countries that use the euro and their 342 million people. She is well known from her previous jobs as head of the International Monetary Fund and as French finance minister but investors will want to see how she communicates and explains the complexities of monetary policy to markets and voters.
Other themes that were getting attention were Lagarde’s plans for a review of the bank’s monetary policy framework and how it defines price stability, the goal it is supposed to seek under the European Union treaty. There’s also been discussion of whether the ECB should do more to support financing of projects aimed at fighting environmental pollution and climate change.
Analysts are looking also for signs on how she will manage dissent on the ECB’s 25-member governing council. A minority criticized the measures enacted under predecessor Mario Draghi on Sept. 12.
Those included a cut in the deposit rate to minus 0.5% from minus 0.4%. The rate is charged on excess cash left at the central bank overnight by commercial banks, so the negative rate is in effect a penalty that aims to push banks to lend the money to companies. The bank also started 20 billion euros ($22 billion) in monthly purchases of government and corporate bonds.  
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Voters in Britain are casting ballots Thursday in an early general election that may bring a long-awaited resolution to the departure from the European Union they approved in a 2016 referendum.Prime Minister Boris Johnson focused his campaigning efforts on a slogan to “Get Brexit Done.” He says a parliamentary majority for his Conservative Party would allow him to push through a previously rejected divorce deal with the EU and carry out Brexit by January 31.His challenger, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, said if he wins Britain will hold a new referendum to ask if people still want to leave the European Union, or would rather stay in the 28-member bloc.Johnson took office in July after his predecessor, Theresa May, failed in her repeated attempts to get parliament to approve the deal she reached with the EU. May also tried during her tenure to strengthen her Brexit negotiating position by calling an early election, but the move backfired with the Conservatives losing seats.Opinion polls ahead of Thursday’s voting suggested Johnson’s party was favored to win, but that the race appeared to tighten in the final days of campaigning.Official results are expected early Friday. 
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Environmentalists and climate change activists worldwide are hailing Time magazine’s decision to make Greta Thunberg its 2019 Person of the Year. The teenage activist has attracted the world’s attention with her eloquent calls on political and industrial leaders to make courageous decisions on climate change. Her actions have inspired young people worldwide to fight for the protection of the planet. But as VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports, there are critics who say Thunberg’s mission and her celebrity status are all wrong
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The leaders of Russia and Ukraine met for the first time in three years in an attempt to end the conflict in eastern Ukriane. In the wake of that meeting earlier this week in Paris, attention now shifts to renewed peace efforts to stem the violence between Ukrainian government forces and Moscow-backed separatists.Yet in interviews and comments online, analysts warn that while important gestures were made, Russia and Ukraine remain far apart on key aspects of the five-year conflict, which has killed at least 13,000 people, and shows no signs of abating.One well-accepted view holds that the mere fact that Monday’s Paris talks took place was reason enough for French President Emanuel Macron to smile.”The fact that we sat side by side today … is an achievement,” Macron told reporters.    The French leader, with backing from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, has been the driving force behind renewed European efforts to persuade Ukraine and Russia to return to the negotiating table.”Macron showed that Paris is ready to play a bigger role in European politics,” Alexey Pushkov, a Kremlin ally and former member of Russia’s Federation Council, wrote in a tweet that praised the meeting.Left unmentioned? Macron is also seen by Kremlin allies as a rare and recent European voice pushing for renewed detente with Moscow.Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin attend a joint news conference after a summit in Paris, Dec. 9, 2019.Zelenskiy vs. PutinThe highest stakes going into the talks, however, belonged to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.Analysts wondered how Zelenskiy, a 41-year-old comedy actor elected to the presidency in a stunning landslide victory earlier this year, would fare against a far more seasoned opponent in Russian President Vladimir Putin.Indeed, in advance of the summit, crowds gathered in Kyiv warning Zelenskiy against appeasing the Kremlin. Protesters held signs saying, “No Capitulation” and “No Red Lines.”The Ukrainian leader seemed to receive the message.”I felt the whole of the Ukrainian nation with me,” Zelenskiy said during a press conference following the talks. “I’m here representing all Ukrainians.”Analysts said Zelenskiy held his own, with neither Russia nor Ukraine gaining the edge in negotiations, which bore signs of a thaw in relations, yet no overt breakthroughs.”Everyone believed that Putin would be able to prevail over Zelenskiy, that Zelenskiy is no competitor to him,” Konstantin Skorkin, a Ukraine specialist at the Carnegie Moscow Center, told VOA.”But the reality showed that they could talk to each other and their previous telephone communications led to some progress in the peace effort,” Skorkin said.”I think it would be appropriate to be diplomatic as we’ve just started talking. Let’s say for now it’s a draw,” Zelenskiy said to journalists.Putin, more sanguine, allowed that a spate of recent diplomatic initiatives signaled a “warming” in relations.”All this gives us the grounds to suppose that the process is developing in the right direction,” the Russian president said.For all the diplomatic pleasantries, neither leader appeared to acknowledge the other in public.Results not talkFor now, the Paris talks yielded the promise of a cease-fire, despite what Russia and Ukraine acknowledge were several previous failed attempts to stop the fighting.The warring parties will take “immediate measures to stabilize the situation in the conflict area,” according to a signed communique.Equally pressing? An agreement for a mass prisoner swap with the rebels before year’s end.Beyond a gesture of goodwill to unite families ahead of New Year’s, the measure builds on a widely heralded prisoner exchange negotiated between Putin and Zelenskiy in September.  Putin also hinted at a deal to transit discounted Russian gas to, and through, Ukraine to Europe.French President Emmanuel Macron, second left, Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy gather for talks at the Elysee Palace, in Paris, France, Dec. 9, 2019.There was wide agreement, however, that the Paris talks brought little progress to the core issue of the war: the future of the Donbass region in east Ukraine, and the status of two unrecognized “independent republics” in Donetsk and Luhansk.Prisoner exchanges and other compromises are on the “outline of the conflict, issues that go around the heart,” wrote Tatiana Stanovaya of Reality of Russian Politics in a Facebook post assessing the Paris negotiations.”Question the status Donbass. Everything quickly dies,” Stanovaya wrote.”Both sides are confident that they are right and they are not going to retreat. It doesn’t matter who’s right or wrong,” Shorkin, of the Carnegie Moscow Center, told VOA.”Each side is sticking to their position. No one is willing to back down,” he said.Zelenskiy said Kyiv still wants to reestablish full control over Luhansk and Donetsk, the two self-proclaimed independent republics.Putin also is insisting Ukraine adhere to promises under the so-called Minsk Agreements negotiated under Zelenskiy’s predecessor, Petro Poroshenko.The Minsk accords, negotiated in 2015 and 2016 with European backing, allow for increased autonomy in the separatists regions, as well as direct talks with the rebels as a precursor to Russia handing over control of the Ukraine-Russian border to Kyiv.East vs. WestMany in Kyiv argue the Minsk accords give Moscow undue influence over their ambitions to join the European Union and, perhaps, one day NATO.In Russia, the battle over Ukraine is widely seen as part of the Kremlin’s insistence that Ukraine serve as a buffer state against the alliance’s expansion east toward Russia’s border.  Analysts argue the Minsk agreements also portray Russia  as a mediator in the conflict, masking its role as the separatists’ key backer, providing money, soldiers and weapons, facts well documented by independent journalists on the ground.  “Everyone perfectly realizes who these leaders in Luhansk and Donetsk are,” Moscow-based political analyst Yuliy Nesnevich told VOA.”What is the point to come to an agreement with them when it’s clear who really stands behind them? When it’s clear who is the puppet master?” Nesnevich said.  Going forward, the diplomatic calendar is clear.The so-called Normandy Format quartet of nations reconvenes in four months in Berlin.Its mission is to assess the Paris agreements and revisit what are seemingly incompatible positions between Moscow and Kyiv.  Whatever progress the parties make may determine the Donbass’ last chance at seeing something resembling peace, analysts said.Withdrawal from negotiations has “no broad support,” Carnegie’s Skorkin said. But the alternative is far messier, he said.
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European Union leaders on Thursday will push to agree to make their bloc climate neutral by 2050, luring reluctant eastern member states with promises of extra money for their heavily-polluting economies.The bloc’s 27 national leaders will meet in Brussels from 1400 GMT, a day after the bloc’s executive proposed a Green Deal to mobilize 100 billion euros worth of investment to help the bloc’s economies move away from fossil fuels.With floods, fires and droughts wrecking millions of lives around the world, the EU’s new executive cast the plan as the bloc’s “man on the moon moment,” kindling hopes among campaigners that other big emitters may follow suit.But coal-reliant Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were not on board, saying a draft decision must spell out in more detail the scale and scope of financing available, and pushing to include nuclear in the EU’s fresh push to cut emissions.”There will certainly be an amount of arm-wrestling,” said a senior EU diplomat from a country more enthusiastic about the 2050 goal. “There will have to be new money … but some member states will be less than enthusiastic about the target of raising 100 billion euros.”Underlining divisions in the bloc on climate, EU national diplomats in Brussels on Wednesday blocked a set of new rules governing which financial products can be called “green” and “sustainable.””It’s going to be very difficult,” said a second senior EU diplomat, from a country more reluctant to do more to fight climate change, about chances for agreement at the summit.The climate discussion feeds into another difficult one the leaders will have, namely on their next long-term budget.No agreement is expected on that after a proposal by the bloc’s current president Finland to cap joint spending at 1.087 trillion euros for 2021-27 was rejected by both the frugal camp and those seeking heavier outlay. The leaders might agree, however, to hold a summit next February to seal a deal.”We’re getting near the time when we have to sit in the sauna and sweat it out,” said another senior EU diplomat.Russia Brexit and Euro ZoneOver dinner on Thursday, the leaders are also expected to support extending for six months from February the bloc’s economic sanctions on Russia over its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and support for rebels in the east of the country.The summit will be notable for the absence of British prime minister Boris Johnson, staying at home for a national election he is fighting on a promise to get Brexit done.After partial results come in through the night, the 27 other leaders will meet again on Friday to discuss Brexit.Should Johnson’s Conservatives win a parliamentary majority, the 27 will reaffirm their support for a divorce deal that would take Britain out of the bloc at the end of January.They will state their aim for “as close as possible” future ties with Britain and embark on preparations for trade talks “based on a balance of rights and obligations” to “ensure a level playing field,” according to their latest draft decision.Eyes will be on two more leaders at the Brussels talks: Finland’s new Prime Minister Sanna Marin — the world’s youngest at 34 — and Malta’s Joseph Muscat, who will be stepping down amid a crisis over the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said on Wednesday that he has a possible skin cancer, after a medical visit where he had a mole removed from his ear.The presidential office, however, said there is no sign that Bolsonaro has a cancer, adding that the president had been to a hospital in Brasilia in the afternoon. “The president is in good health, without any indication of a skin cancer and is keeping his appointments for this week,” said the statement.Earlier, Bolsonaro also said he had been advised to cancel a trip to Salvador, in the state of Bahia, due to suffering from exhaustion.
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Debris believed to be from a military transport plane carrying 38 people that vanished two days ago en route to the Antarctic has been discovered in the frigid, treacherous waters between the icy continent and South America, Chile’s Air Force said Wednesday.Air Force Gen. Eduardo Mosqueira said “sponge” material, possibly from the plane’s fuel tank, was found floating roughly 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the place the C-130 Hercules last had radio contact.The debris will be analyzed to see if it corresponds to the missing plane, he said, adding that the process could take up to two days.The C-130 Hercules took off Monday afternoon from a base in far-southern Chile on a regular maintenance flight for an Antarctic base. Radio contact was lost 70 minutes later.The debris was spotted by a private plane assisting in the search, and officials said a Brazilian ship in the area equipped with instruments will next scan 3,200 meters (10,499 feet) underwater at the site.“We estimate that the debris may in fact be from the C-130 fuel tank,” Mosqueira said.The discovery came as Chilean officials had expanded the search for the missing military plane.Mosqueira said the search area covered an area of about 400 by 450 kilometers (250 by 280 miles) and he said improved visibility was helping the crews of searchers using planes, satellites and vessels from Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and the U.S. as well as Chile.The search area extended over treacherous waters of Drake Passage between the tip of South America and the Antarctic. The plane was carrying 17 crew members and 21 passengers, three of them civilians.The two pilots had extensive experience, according to the Chilean air force, which said that while the plane was built in 1978, it was in good condition. The air force said it flies this route monthly.The four-engine C-130 is a “military workhorse” and experts say in general well maintained airplanes can fly for 50-plus years.The aircraft would have been about halfway to the Antarctic base when it lost contact, officials said, adding that no emergency signals had been activated.The plane had taken off in favorable conditions, though it was flying in an area notorious for rapidly changing weather, with freezing temperatures and strong winds. Seven hours after contact was cut off, the air force declared the plane a loss, though there was no sign of what happened to it.Ed Coleman, a pilot and chair of the Safety Science Department at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona, said rapidly changing weather in the Antarctic makes it a difficult place for pilots.Air masses converge there, driving storms with powerful wind gusts, while stirring the sea with swells 6 meters (20 feet) or bigger, he said. Flying becomes challenging, and making a smooth sea landing nearly impossible, he said.“You can have a clear sky one minute, and in a short time later storms can be building up making it a challenge,” he said. “That causes bigger swells and rougher air.”The inhospitable Antarctic is equally formidable to rescuers, who have to respond quickly to pull any survivors from the cold, rough waters, he said.
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With the leaders of Russia and Ukraine having met in Paris for their first talks in nearly three years aimed at ending the conflict in east Ukraine, attention now turns to what’s next in the quest to stop the simmering five-year war between Ukrainian government forces and Moscow-backed separatists. From Moscow, Charles Maynes reports the talks resulted in little progress on the core issue that sparked the conflict.
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Kosovo declared Peter Handke persona non grata Wednesday in the latest protest against his induction as a Nobel literature laureate, barring the Austrian writer from a place he has visited numerous times. 
 
The Swedish Academy’s pick for the 2019 prize, which Handke received Tuesday, offended many in the Balkans who see him as an apologist for Serb war crimes during the conflicts that fractured the former Yugoslavia. 
 
One Nobel committee member resigned over the choice, while the ceremony was boycotted by representatives of the embassies of Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, North Macedonia and Turkey. 
 
“Today I have decided to declare Peter Handke as not welcome in Kosovo. He is a non grata person from today. Denying crimes and supporting criminals is a terrible crime,” Kosovo’s Foreign Minister Behgjet Pacolli wrote on Facebook. Milosevic funeralHandke has drawn especially acute criticism for speaking at the funeral of late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, who died in 2006 while on trial for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. 
 
Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority fought Belgrade for independence in a 1998-99 war that claimed 13,000 lives. 
 
Handke was a frequent guest in the tiny Serb enclave of Velika Hoca, one of several small ethnic Serb communities that are scattered around the former Serbian province. Handke visited Velika Hoca at least five times, most recently in 2014, and donated nearly 100,000 euros to the village of 500 people. He was also formally barred Wednesday from Bosnia’s capital, Sarajevo, where the regional government said his appearance would “provoke the anger and humiliation” of war victims. Srebrenica massacreHandke’s elevation to Nobel laureate has been painful for many Bosnian Muslims. He is accused of questioning the Srebrenica massacre, in which Bosnian Serbs slaughtered 8,000 Muslim men and boys in 1995. 
 
In 1997, Handke was accused of minimizing Serb war crimes in his book “A Journey to the Rivers: Justice for Serbia.” 
 
But he is still welcome to visit the Serb-run region that spans nearly half of Bosnia’s territory — a legacy of the war that left the country carved up along ethnic lines. 
 
On Tuesday, Handke told a TV channel in Bosnia’s Serb-run region that he would like to visit “in the spring.” 
 
Among his Serb fans, Handke is celebrated for taking note of their suffering during the conflicts and challenging the narrative that Serbs were the sole aggressors in the wars. 
 
In Belgrade, one MP proposed creating a human rights prize in Handke’s name on Wednesday. 
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Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Wednesday he will send a new regional trade agreement to the Senate immediately for ratification.
                   
The president suggested it would be just a formality because senators from all parties were present at the signing Tuesday with representatives of Canada and the United States and were in agreement.
                   
“There’s already agreement because they were consulted before the signing,” he said. “They were told what the agreement contained and there was a condition that nothing would be signed until they gave their consent.”
                   
The trade pact will replace the North American Free Trade Agreement.
                   
Lopez Obrador said that the agreement would benefit Mexico’s economy. Mexico had been the first country to agree to the new accord, but was waiting for it to overcome hurdles in the U.S. Congress, including Democratic concerns over labor protections.
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Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg has been named Time  magazine’s  Person of the Year for 2019.Editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal made the announcement Wednesday during an appearance on NBC’s Today   show.”She became the biggest voice on the biggest issue facing the planet this year, coming from essentially nowhere to lead a worldwide movement,” Felsenthal said.Time cover features Swedish teen climate activist Greta Thunberg named the magazine’s Person of the Year for 2019 in this undated handout.Thunberg is the youngest person to win the award after quickly evolving into one of the world’s most prominent climate change activists.Her Friday protests alone outside the Swedish parliament during school hours at age 15 helped trigger a global movement to fight climate change.The movement, which became known as “Fridays for Future,” prompted millions of people in about 150 countries “to act on behalf of the planet,” Felsenthal said.Felsenthal noted that Thunberg, now 16, “represents a broader generational shift in culture,” with more youth advocating for change worldwide, including during demonstrations in countries such as Hong Kong, Chile, Sudan and Lebanon.Thunberg’s straightforward speaking style captured the attention of world leaders, resulting in invitations to speak at several high-profile events, including at the United Nations and before the United States Congress.During her appearance before  U.S. lawmakers, Thunberg, who has Asperger syndrome, refused to read prepared remarks. She, instead, submitted the  U.N.’s 2018 global warming report to them and declared, “I don’t want you to listen to me. I want you to listen to the scientists, and I want you to unite behind the science.”One of her most memorable moments came at the  U.N. Climate Change Summit in September, when she berated  U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and other world leaders, declaring they had stolen her “dreams of childhood” with their “empty words.””We are in the beginning of a mass extinction,” she said, “and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”Those words resonated worldwide, energizing climate change activists and sparking a series of prompting scornful reactions from others.Thunberg’s dedication to fighting climate change also earned her a nomination for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize. 
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French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said the minimum retirement age will remain 62, but workers will have to work until 64 to get a full pension. 
In a sweeping speech Wednesday, he said the implementation of the pension changes will be delayed. The new pension system will only apply to people born after 1975. 
The measures will start being implemented for new workers entering the labor market in 2022, which is the final year of President Emmanuel Macron’s current term.
The government says a minimum pension of 1,000 euros (about $1,100) per month will be put in place for those who have worked all their life.
The government’s announcements come on the seventh straight day of a crippling transport strike and after hundreds of thousands of angry protesters have marched through French cities. 
The government is hoping that the plan might calm tensions as hundreds of thousands of angry protesters have marched through French cities. 
On Wednesday in the Paris region, authorities measured around 460 kilometers (285 miles) of traffic jams, and all but two of the city’s metro lines closed. Commuters also used means other than cars to get to work, such as shared bikes and scooters.
Many French commuters still express support for the strikes despite the chaos, owing to fears their pensions will shrink under Macron’s plan.
Unions fear that a new system, which replaces a national pension system with special privileges for some in the transport sector, will force people to work longer for smaller pension allocations. The government says it won’t raise the age of retirement up from 62. 
 
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The U.S. Justice Department’s inspector general is due to testify Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee about his report that found no evidence of political bias in the FBI’s launching of its investigation into Russian election interference.Michael Horowitz issued the report Monday with findings that amounted to a rejection of President Donald Trump’s repeated claim that the FBI probe was a political witch hunt to undo his presidency.Trump nonetheless asserted that the report confirmed an “attempted overthrow” of the government far worse than he had ever thought possible.The president on Tuesday criticized FBI Director Christopher Wray for saying in an interview with ABC News that the investigation “was opened with appropriate predication and authorization.” Wray also noted Horowitz found the FBI made numerous mistakes during its inquiry.”I don’t know what report the current Director of the FBI Christopher Wray was reading, but I’m sure it wasn’t the one given to me,” Trump tweeted.  “With that kind of attitude, he will never be able to fix the FBI, which is badly broken despite having some of the greatest men & women working there!”I don’t know what report current Director of the FBI Christopher Wray was reading, but it sure wasn’t the one given to me. With that kind of attitude, he will never be able to fix the FBI, which is badly broken despite having some of the greatest men & women working there!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) FILE – U.S. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz testifies on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Sept. 18, 2019.The long-anticipated report contradicted some of Trump’s and his Republican allies’ most damning assertions about the investigation, such as the charge that senior FBI officials were motivated by political bias against Trump. The FBI investigation, dubbed Crossfire Hurricane, was subsequently taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller.Horowitz sharply criticized the FBI for a series of “significant errors” in obtaining authorization from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to surveil Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser suspected of ties to Russian intelligence.In one crucial omission, the FBI failed to disclose from the court and the Justice Department that Page had been approved as an “operational contact” for the CIA and had told the spy agency about his contacts with Russian intelligence officers, according to the report. However, the report said that the disclosure would not have prompted the court to reject the application.Regardless, the investigation was launched months before the Page surveillance began and was based on well-founded suspicion about links between Trump campaign operatives and Russia, according to the report.The other Trump campaign associates investigated by the FBI were campaign chairman Paul Manafort, national security adviser Mike Flynn and foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos.”We … concluded that … the FBI had an authorized purpose when it opened Crossfire Hurricane to obtain information about, or protect against, a national security threat or federal crime, even though the investigation also had the potential to impact constitutionally protected activity,” Horowitz wrote in the more than 400–page report.Barr has ordered a separate internal probe into its origins, after rejecting the IG’s finding that there was sufficient basis for opening the investigation.Wray ordered a series of more than 40 corrective steps in response to the inspector general report.”The FBI has some work to do, and we are committed to building on the lessons we learn today to make sure that we can do better tomorrow,” an FBI spokesperson said in a statement.The FBI launched its investigation in July 2016 after receiving a tip that the Russian government was considering helping the Trump campaign by releasing damaging information about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee.
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The number of journalists imprisoned globally remains near a record high, according to an annual survey released Wednesday by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which identifies China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt as the world’s largest jailers of reporters.”For the fourth consecutive year, hundreds of journalists are imprisoned globally as authoritarians like Xi Jinping, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Mohammad bin Salman, and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi show no signs of letting up on the critical media,” says A Turkish police officer walks past a picture of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi prior to a ceremony, near the Saudi Arabia consulate in Istanbul, marking the one-year anniversary of his death, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2019.The growing number of arrests and documented abuse, say CPJ researchers, reflect a brutal crackdown on dissent under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom U.S. and UN officials blame for the October 2018 murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Istanbul.The crown prince told CBS News’s “60 Minutes” in September accepted responsibility for Kashoggi’s murder, but denied that it was done on his order. Most of the 26 reporters currently imprisoned in Egypt, CPJ reports, are prosecuted en masse, brought before a judge in groups, typically to face charges of terrorism and “fake news” reports.Egyptian government officials, much like their counterparts in Turkey, China, Russian, and Iran, typically insist they target only reporters who aim to destabilize their respective countries.CPJ’s 2019 census also says Iran saw an uptick of journalist incarcerations in 2019, as did Russia, which now has seven reporters in state custody.”Of 38 journalists jailed in sub-Saharan Africa, the bulk remain in Eritrea, where most have not been heard from for nearly two decades,” the report says, adding that Cameroon has the second worst record of African nations, while evidence of free-speech safeguards are backsliding in Ethiopia and Nigeria.Three journalists are jailed in the Americas, with incarcerations in Venezuela, Honduras, and Cuba.”The highest number of journalists imprisoned in any year since CPJ began keeping track is 273 in 2016,” the report states. “After China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the worst jailers are Eritrea, Vietnam, and Iran.”CPJ’s annual census does not account for disappeared journalists or those held by non-state actors. The survey accounts only for journalists in government custody as of 12:01 a.m. on Dec. 1, 2019.
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Venite Bernard’s feet are bloodied and torn because, she said, she had no time to grab her sandals when she fled her shack with her youngest children as gangsters roamed the Haitian capital’s most notorious slum, shooting people in their homes.Now the 47-year-old Bernard and her family are camped in the courtyard of the town hall of Cite Soleil in Port-au-Prince, along with more than 200 others, fleeing an outbreak of violence that is part of what civic leaders say is the country’s worst lawlessness in more than a decade.”Bandits entered the homes of some people and beat them, and they were shooting,” Bernard said through her tears, lying on a rug in the shade of a tree. “Everyone was running so I left as quickly as I could with the children.”United Nations peacekeeping troops withdrew from Haiti in 2017 after 15 years, saying they had helped to re-establish law and order in the poorest country in the Americas, where nearly 60 percent of the population survives on less than $2.40 a day.But that left a security vacuum that has been exacerbated over the past year by police forces being diverted to deal with protests against President Jovenel Moise.”With limited resources, they have been unable to contain the activity of gangs as they might have wished,” said Serge Therriault, U.N. police commissioner in Haiti in an interview.Demonstrators loot a burning truck after the wake of demonstrators killed during the protests to demand the resignation of Haitian president Jovenel Moise in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, Nov. 19, 2019.An economic downturn with ballooning inflation and a lack of investment in low income districts has also helped boost crime, turning them into no-go areas.The situation – which diplomats fear represents a growing threat to regional stability that could have knock-on effects on migration and drugs and weapons trafficking – is causing alarm in international circles.The U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing on Haiti on Tuesday, its first in 20 years.Moise’s critics say he has lost control of the country and should resign. The 51-year old says the situation is already calming down and he will carry out his full term.Residents say gangs fight over territory where they extract “protection” fees and carry out drugs and arms trades.Politicians across the spectrum are using the gangs to repress or foment dissent, providing them with weapons and impunity, according to human rights advocates and ordinary Haitians.”When those in power pay them, the bandits stop the population from participating in the anti-government protests,” said Cite Soleil resident William Dorélus. “When they receive money from the opposition, they force people to take to the streets.”Both opposition leaders and the government deny the accusations.Impunity Breeds CrimeMoise said in an interview with Reuters last month he was working on strengthening Haiti’s police force and had revived a commission to get gang members to disarm.”Allegations of unlawful violence will be investigated and responded to by our justice system as a matter of priority,” the presidency wrote in a statement to Reuters on Tuesday.Critics say, however, that under his watch, authorities have failed to prosecute gang leaders, effectively giving the criminals carte blanche and weakening the authority of police.”Every time the police stop a gangster, there is always the intervention of some authority or another to free them,” said Pierre Esperance, who runs Haiti’s National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH) that monitors rights violations.Esperance, who addressed Tuesday’s Congress hearing, said more than 40 police officers had been killed this year, compared with 17 last year.A boy eats next to makeshift shelters at La Saline neighborhood in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Aug. 8, 2019.The most high-profile case of apparent impunity is the massacre a year ago in the neighborhood of La Saline, a hotbed of mobilization against Moise’s government, according to rights advocates.Over two days, gangs killed at least 26 people while police failed to intervene, according to a U.N. report. Eyewitnesses cited in the report say they saw a senior government official with the gang members.”These allegations raise the possibility of a complicity between the gangs and state authorities,” the U.N. wrote.The government eventually fired the official, who denied any involvement. Neither he nor anyone else has been arrested or prosecuted over the massacre.”This dossier (on the La Saline massacre) is in the hands of the justice system,” Moise told Reuters.Lo Saline residents say they feel abandoned to their fate.”We never received an official visit after these events,” said Marie Lourdes Corestan, 55, who said she found her 24-year old son’s corpse among a pile of mutilated bodies and whose house was burnt down. “The bandits said they would come back and not distinguish between children, women, and men.”There have been six massacres since Moise took office, according to the RNDDH, the most recent one last month.The U.N.’s Therriault said a recent waning of protests was allowing police officers to regain a grip on the overall security situation and Cite Soleil Mayor Jean Hislain Frederic said authorities hoped to convince people to return home next week.But many, including Bernard, who has been unable to locate her two eldest sons, say they are too afraid.”I hope my boys are not dead,” she said. “I wish for the end of this violence, and that God helps us to find somewhere to live.”
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Lawyers for Huawei’s chief financial officer have won a court battle after a judge asked Canada’s attorney general to hand over more evidence and documents relating to the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, according to a court ruling released Tuesday.Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes in the Supreme Court of British Columbia agreed with Huawei Technologies Co Ltd’s legal team that there is an “air of reality” to their assertion.FILE – A logo of Huawei marks one of the company’s buildings in Dongguan, in China’s Guangdong province, March 6, 2019.But she cautioned that her ruling is limited and does not address the merit of Huawei’s allegations that Canadian authorities improperly handled identifying information about Meng’s electronic devices.Meng, 47, was arrested at the Vancouver International Airport on Dec. 1, 2018, at the request of the United States, where she is charged with bank fraud and accused of misleading the bank HSBC about Huawei Technologies’ business in Iran. She has said she is innocent and is fighting extradition.She was questioned by Canadian immigration authorities prior to her arrest, and her lawyers have asked the government to hand over more documents about her arrest.Meng’s legal team has contested her extradition in the Canadian courts on the grounds that the United States is using her extradition for economic and political gain, and that she was unlawfully detained, searched and interrogated by Canadian authorities acting on behalf of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).Judge’s rulingIn her ruling, Holmes wrote that she found the evidence tendered by the attorney general to have “notable gaps,” citing the example of why the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) “made what is described as the simple error of turning over to the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police), contrary to law, the passcodes CBSA officers had required Ms. Meng to produce.”Holmes also said the attorney general did not provide adequate evidence to “rebut inferences from other evidence that the RCMP improperly sent serial numbers and other identifiers of Ms. Meng’s devices to the FBI.”Holmes said these gaps in evidence raise questions “beyond the frivolous or speculative about the chain of events,” and led her to conclude that Meng’s application “crosses the air of reality threshold.”The order does not require the disclosure of documents — the attorney general may assert a privilege, which Meng could contest in court.Neither the Canadian federal justice ministry nor Huawei immediately responded to requests for comment.No timeline was outlined in Holmes’ ruling.Meng’s extradition hearing will begin Jan. 20, 2020, in a federal court in Vancouver.
 
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Alberto Fernandez assumed the presidency of Argentina on Tuesday, returning the country to the ranks of left-leaning nations at a moment of right-wing resurgence in the Western Hemisphere.
                   
Taking the vice presidency was Cristina Fernandez, 66, a polarizing figure who served as president from 2007 to 2015 and whose presence has raised questions about the extent of her influence in the new administration.
                   
Alberto Fernandez, a 60-year-old lawyer from the country’s center-left Peronist movement, faces the grave and immediate challenge of trying to pull Argentina from economic crisis: The country has a 35% poverty rate and is struggling to make debt payments on time.
                   
The economy is expected to shrink 3% by the end of 2019, with inflation at 55%.
                   
“I come before you to call for unity from all Argentina, to build a new social contract of brotherhood and solidarity,” Fernandez said in his inaugural address before Congress. “I come before you calling for all to put Argentina on its feet, to put the country on a path toward development and social justice.”
                   
He said that his administration’s first meeting would focus on reducing hunger, and said that Argentina wanted to pay all its creditors but lacked the capacity to do so.
                   
Outgoing leader Mauricio Macri became the first non-Peronist president to complete his term in 74 years, a landmark seen as a sign of Argentina’s maturing democracy.
                   
The new president said on Twitter that he would dedicate himself to “putting my dear Argentina back on its feet.”
                   
Alberto Fernandez served as head of Cristina Fernandez’s Cabinet for the beginning of her time in power and many wonder if the new vice president will wield outsized power in the new government. She and Alberto Fernandez have denied that.
                   
However, close allies of Cristina Fernandez have already been named to key government positions and her son is head of the governing party in the lower house of the legislature.
                   
Peronists cheered as the pair were inaugurated, saying they had high hopes for an improved quality of life.
                   
“I see a lot of people unemployed, a lot of hunger, and that is very frustrating,“ said Claudia Pouso, a 57-year-old retiree. I want everything to be turned around, more jobs for people. My daughter works in the hospital and there is nothing there. … Everything needs to change.”
                   
Outgoing Interior Minister Rogelio Frigerio praised Alberto Fernandez’s conciliatory attitude toward his political opponents, and his openness toward dialogue.
                   
“We have to give the next government the benefit of the doubt, he needs help and we will help,” Frigerio said.
                   
The incoming president has already announced plans to fight poverty with the distribution of subsidized basic foods, and he has outlined measures to lower food prices and fight malnutrition in poor families.
                   
He has also announced plans to raise retirees’ pensions and increase benefits for public employees and welfare recipients.
                   
Alberto Fernandez is expected to move Argentina away from close cooperation with the U.S. and other conservative governments that are trying to unseat Venezuela’s embattled socialist president, Nicolas Maduro.
                   
Fernandez is close to former left-leaning Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Mexico’s populist president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Meanwhile, tensions have been rising between Fernandez and far-right President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, which Argentina’s main trading partner.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he is ready to deploy soldiers to Libya following the announcement of a security agreement with the Libyan government. Ankara has been actively seeking to project its influence across the Mediterranean as a scramble intensifies for the region’s energy resources.”If Libya were to make a request, we would send a sufficient number of troops,” Erdogan said Tuesday in an address to university students in Ankara. “After the signing of the security agreement, there is no hurdle.”FILE – Khalifa Haftar, center, the military commander who dominates eastern Libya, leaves after an international conference on Libya at the Elysee Palace in Paris, May 29, 2018.The Wagner Group is a private security force run by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman reported to have close ties to the Kremlin.”I wish that the matter of Haftar would not create a new Syria in our relations with Russia,” Erdogan said Monday in a television interview. Ankara and Moscow back rival sides in the Syrian civil war. The Turkish president said he plans to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin about Libya by phone next week.Despite backing rival sides in the Syrian conflict, Putin and Erdogan have built up a good working relationship. Bilateral ties are deepening in the fields of energy and trade, which even extends to Ankara purchasing Russian military hardware — to the alarm of Turkey’s traditional western allies.Alarm in GreeceMoscow is not the only country, however, that likely is concerned by Ankara’s deepening relationship with Libya. Athens is voicing alarm over Ankara’s Libya agreement to declare an exclusive maritime zone between the two countries.Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos slammed the agreement Tuesday, claiming it compromised Greece’s territorial waters. “Turkey’s thoughts are on how it imagines it’s imperialist fantasies,” said Pavlopoulos.FILE – President of Greece Prokopis Pavlopoulos arrives at Rundale Palace, Latvia, Sept. 13, 2018.Athens and Ankara have engaged in increasingly bitter maritime territorial disputes across the Mediterranean, fueled by recent discoveries of vast natural gas reserves. “The strategy is that Turkey should protect its legitimate rights in the Mediterranean,” said Rende, who is now an energy expert.”We [Greece and Turkey] have overlapping claims, overlapping declarations of maritime zones, and Turkey is left alone in the Mediterranean. Other countries — Greece, Israel Egypt — have formed gas partnerships forums and so on and Turkey was isolated. So it’s only natural that Turkey concludes agreements to protect its rights in the Mediterranean.”Adding to Athens’ unease is that Mediterranean waters claimed by Ankara under its Libyan agreement is the only viable route for a planned gas pipeline to distribute recently discovered Israeli and Cypriot gas through Greece to Europe.”Greek Cypriots, Egypt, Greece, and Israel cannot establish a natural gas transmission line without Turkey’s consent,” Erdogan said Monday.Ankara’s Libya deal is seen as part of a more assertive regional policy. “It’s part and parcel of a new doctrine,” said former senior Turkish diplomat and now regional analyst Aydin Selcen.”The first move was challenging the Greek Cypriot over energy searches, in the disputed exclusives economic zones of Cyprus. Then this move with Libya is the second one. It’s extremely important and significant,” said Selcen.EU sanctionsAnkara is currently deploying research ships searching for hydrocarbons in the disputed waters of the Greek Cypriot government.  “Greece will defend its borders, it’s territory,” said Pavlopoulos, “which are also the European Union’s border … with the help of the international community and the EU.”The EU is already considering sanctions against Ankara for violating Greek Cypriot territorial waters. “They [the EU] should remain neutral,” said Rende. “If they don’t, Turkey is prepared to face the consequences because what is at stake are Turkey’s national interests, and we don’t give up our national interests.”Rende insists Ankara is ready to negotiate with Athens. Turkey argues that an agreement with Athens and the Greek Cypriots would pave the way for Turkish territory to provide a route for distributing recently discovered gas reserves.”The most natural market for this prospective gas is Turkey,” said political scientist Cengiz Aktar of Athens University. “It not just to sell through Turkey. But Turkey is the most reasonable and feasible market to absorb this gas.”Analysts suggest Ankara’s robust regional foreign policy is part of a broader strategy to remake Turkey as a regional energy hub. Procuring recently discovered Mediterranean gas ultimately could provide Ankara significant leverage with Moscow and Tehran. In the next two years, major Iranian and Russian gas supply agreements to Turkey are due for renewal.”Turkey’s main strategy is to diversify its energy resource imports and their routes, to enable flexibility of supply,” said Rende.
 
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Growing tensions between Turkey and the United States do not have to result in the end of the long-standing alliance despite some major rifts between Ankara and Washington.The most notable split has come over Turkey’s decision to proceed with the purchase of Russia’s top-of-the-line missile defense system, the S-400, seen as a threat to NATO defense systems and to the U.S. F-35 stealth fighter jet.But the commander of U.S. European Command believes both countries have enough in common to salvage the relationship.”The mil[itary]-to-mil[itary] convergence far outweighs the mil[itary]-to-mil[itary] divergence with the U.S. and Turkey and with NATO and Turkey,” General Tod Wolters told reporters during an appearance in Washington Tuesday.”I saw no cracks in the armor in Turkey’s willingness to work side by side as a NATO partner with us,” he added, referring to talks with Turkish officials during the recent NATO meeting in London. “That’s what I know from my foxhole.”U.S. Secretary for Defense Mark Esper waits for the start of a meeting of NATO defense ministers at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Oct. 24, 2019.The sentiment from the top-ranking U.S. general in Europe, though, contrasts with that of U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who warned Saturday that Turkey “may be spinning out of the NATO orbit.””I think Turkey has put itself in a position where it’s disadvantaged itself,” Esper said, adding he hoped relations could be repaired.”They’ve fought with us from Korea to Afghanistan, and I think it’s in all of our interest to make sure that we pull them in closer to NATO,” he said.But the hurdles are substantial.Not only did Turkey incur the wrath of U.S. officials with the purchase of Russia’s S-400, it further raised the Pentagon’s ire with its decision to launch an incursion into northeastern Syria, targeting Kurdish forces that had partnered with the U.S. in the fight against the Islamic State terror group.And there have been few signs Turkey is willing to back down. Officials there are still bristling at the U.S. decision to cut Ankara out of the F-35 development program and ban sales of the jet to Turkey.Turkey’s Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, left, and Supreme Allied Commander Europe U.S. Air Force General Tod Wolters attend a NATO Defense Ministers meeting in Brussels, June 26, 2019.Turkish FILE – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo talks to journalists during a news conference during a NATO Foreign Ministers meeting at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, Nov. 20, 2019.”The time for patience has long expired,” U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen and Lindsey Graham wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo earlier this month.And it is not just the U.S. Some NATO allies also are cautious about the possibility of repairing ties with Turkey.”It doesn’t depend on us,” Phillipe Etienne, the French ambassador to the U.S., said during a panel discussion in Washington Monday, though he noted at least during NATO’s meeting in London, all sides were talking.”It’s clear we don’t agree on everything,” Etienne said. “But we had this discussion, which is very important.”U.S. European Command’s General Wolters on Tuesday said the foundation for an improved relationship with Turkey exists, though he encouraged Ankara to take the first steps.Dorian Jones contributed to this report.
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U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are meeting Tuesday in Washington with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, with the two nuclear powers discussing the possibility of extending their last remaining major arms control deal.The officials, meeting as Democrats unveiled impeachment charges against Trump, also plan to talk about election security and national security, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley told the Fox Business Network.”It’s incumbent on any American president to try and build relationships across the world,” Gidley said.It is Lavrov’s first visit to Washington since May 2017, when Trump was first enmeshed in allegations that he cooperated with Russia to help him win the 2016 election and was accused of sharing classified information with the Russian diplomat at their White House meeting. U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller concluded after a lengthy investigation that Russia meddled in the election to help Trump win, but that there insufficient evidence to prove Trump’s campaign conspired with Moscow.FILE – President Donald Trump speaks with reporters before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House, Dec. 7, 2019.Russia has denied any interference in the election three years ago, a claim Lavrov renewed after meeting with Pompeo, before talks later in the day with Trump.”All speculations about our alleged interference in domestic processes in the United States are baseless,” Lavrov said. “There are no facts that would support that.”Pompeo said, “I made clear, (any Russian election interference) was unacceptable.”Trump is facing impeachment allegations centering on his efforts to get Ukraine to investigate one of his chief 2020 Democratic political rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden, and a debunked theory that Kyiv worked to undermine Trump’s 2016 campaign, with Trump’s request coming at a time when he was withholding $391 million in military aid Kyiv wanted to help fight pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.Pompeo said he told Lavrov that the U.S. considers the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow unilaterally annexed from Ukraine in 2014, to still be part of Ukraine.Lavrov, speaking through an interpreter, said, “We talked about strategic stability, arms control. We spoke frankly and business-like. It is useful to talk to each other, however difficult this period in our relationship is.”The top U.S. diplomat said the impeachment allegations would not impinge on the talks with Lavrov.”We didn’t pick this date to coincide with the process on Capitol Hill, but we can’t allow the zaniness that’s taking place on Capitol Hill to impact our job,” Pompeo told conservative broadcaster One America News on Monday.New START treatyRussian President Vladimir Putin has called for the quick renewal of the New START arms control treaty that does not expire until February 2021. It was negotiated under Trump’s predecessor, former President Barack Obama, obligating the two powers to halve their arsenals of strategic nuclear missile launchers.The Trump administration has not ruled out a treaty extension, but wants a new pact to include China. Beijing has increased its arsenal, but it is much smaller than that held by Washington and Moscow.Earlier this year, the U.S. withdrew from the Cold War-era Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces treaty, which curbed the number of missiles that could hit European cities, contending that Russia was violating the agreement.Other topicsPompeo, Trump and Lavrov are also expected to discuss Ukraine, Iran, North Korea and Syria. Russia, which backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has increased its role in the Syrian conflict after Trump withdrew most U.S. troops from Syria.After Lavrov’s White House visit 2 1/2 years ago, The Washington Post reported that Trump shared classified information with him and Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s then-ambassador to Washington, about a threat from the Islamic State terrorist group.The U.S. ally that provided the information did not authorize Trump to divulge it, but it led to restrictions on the use of laptops in the cabins of commercial flights from the Middle East, the newspaper said.Trump later said he had the “absolute right” to share “facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety.”
 
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A man who served as secretary of public security in Mexico from 2006 to 2012 has been indicted in New York City on drug charges alleging he accepted millions of dollars in bribes to let the Sinaloa cartel operate with impunity in Mexico.Genaro Garcia Luna, 51, a resident of Florida, was charged in Brooklyn federal court with three counts of cocaine trafficking conspiracy and a false statements charge, authorities said in a release.
Garcia Luna was arrested Monday by federal agents in Dallas. Prosecutors in Brooklyn said they will seek his removal to New York. The arrest and charges were announced Tuesday.
U.S. Attorney Richard P. Donoghue said Garcia Luna took millions of dollars in bribes from the former leader of the Sinaloa cartel, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, “while he controlled Mexico’s federal police force and was responsible for ensuring public safety in Mexico.”
 “Today’s arrest demonstrates our resolve to bring to justice those who help cartels inflict devastating harm on the United States and Mexico, regardless of the positions they held while committing their crimes,” he said.
Garcia Luna received millions of dollars in bribes from 2001 to 2012 while he occupied high-ranking law enforcement positions in the Mexican government, authorities said.
From 2001 to 2005, Garcia Luna led Mexico’s Federal Investigation Agency, and from 2006 to 2012 served as Mexico’s secretary of public security, controlling the nation’s federal police force, authorities said.
They said the bribes paid to Garcia Luna cleared the way for the Sinaloa cartel to safely ship multi-ton quantities of cocaine and other drugs into the United States while getting sensitive law enforcement information about investigations and information about rival drug cartels.
There was no immediate comment from representatives for Garcia Luna.
Garcia Luna was once seen as a powerful ally in the American effort to thwart Mexican cartels from flooding the U.S. market with cocaine and other illegal drugs. But he had also previously come under suspicion of taking bribes.
In 2018, former cartel member Jesus Zambada testified at El Chapo’s New York trial that he personally made at least $6 million in hidden payments to Garcia Luna, on behalf of his older brother, cartel boss Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.
The cash was delivered during two meetings at a restaurant in Mexico between the start of 2005 and the end of 2007, he said.  
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