After public grilling, ex-Trump lawyer Cohen to testify on Russia in private

Former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen talks to the news media after Cohen concluded his testimony at a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, US on February 27. (REUTERS Photo)

WASHINGTON, February 28 (Reuters): President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen will talk behind closed doors on Thursday to a congressional panel investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election, capping an explosive week of testimony in which he leveled new allegations of wrongdoing at his former boss.

In his third and final Capitol Hill session this week, Cohen will testify, starting at 9:30 a.m. ET (1430 GMT) and going all day, to the House Intelligence Committee. It has been probing Russian election meddling and any collusion with the Trump campaign.

It will follow dramatic public testimony by Cohen on Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee, in which the one-time “fixer” for Trump accused the president of breaking the law while in office and said for the first time that Trump knew in advance about a WikiLeaks dump of stolen emails that hurt his 2016 election rival Hillary Clinton.

As he did before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, Cohen is expected to apologize for lying to Congress in 2017. That was when he submitted a statement saying efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow had ceased by January 2016. In fact, the talks stretched to June 2016. Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for that lie and other crimes.

Democratic House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said in a tweet on Wednesday that he planned to dig into the Trump Moscow project, the revelations about Wikileaks and any White House role in Cohen’s prior false statements.

“Today Cohen provided the American public with a first-hand account of serious misconduct by Trump & those around him,” Schiff said. “Tomorrow we’ll examine in depth many of those topics.”

At Wednesday’s hearing Cohen said Trump never explicitly told him to lie to Congress about the Moscow skyscraper negotiations. But Cohen said he believed he was following implicit directions to minimize their efforts on the tower.

Cohen told the House Oversight Committee he had no direct evidence that Trump or his campaign colluded with Moscow during the election campaign, but that he had suspicions that something untoward had occurred.

Possible collusion is a key theme of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, which has dogged the president during his first two years in office. Trump has repeatedly denied the allegation, as has the Kremlin.

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As Assad holds on in Syria, EU’s ‘strategic patience’ tested

People walk in front of a bilboard with a picture of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Homs, Syria on September 18, 2018. (REUTERS File Photo)

BRUSSELS, February 28 (Reuters): After eight years of civil war from which Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is emerging victorious, the European Union is divided over how to deal with a man accused of using chemical weapons on his own people.

Next month the bloc hosts an international conference in Brussels to raise billions in aid for displaced Syrians, a moment of reckoning for Europe’s efforts to isolate Assad as the United States pulls back its troops, diplomats say.

The EU, the world’s biggest aid donor, has repeatedly made its reconstruction support conditional on a U.N.-led peace process to end a war that has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced about half of Syria’s pre-war 22 million population.

But with the U.N. process stuck, Russia’s 2015 intervention proving decisive for Assad, and Arab neighbours considering re-establishing diplomatic ties, the EU’s divisions risk eroding what little power it has.

“The pressure on us to rebuild Syria is increasing, particularly from the Russians,” said one senior EU diplomat.

Italy, Austria and Hungary, all fierce critics of European immigration policy and closer to Moscow, favour talking to Syrian authorities to allow millions of refugees to go home.

Italy’s foreign minister, Enzo Moavero Milanesi, said in November that Assad, whom the West accuses of using banned chemical weapons, “could still be an interlocutor” and has mused about re-opening Italy’s embassy in Damascus.

Assad is pushing EU states do that by suspending visas used by diplomats in Beirut to enter Syria, EU officials say.

“POLITICAL PROBLEM”

Poland’s nationalist ruling party says it is ready to finance homes and schools to help Syrians return, although it will not break with the EU’s official position not to rebuild Syria until a political transition is underway.

“We show solidarity (with the EU), however this is a very important political problem,” Poland’s Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz told Reuters.

France, Germany and Britain say there can be no money for Syria while Assad – who is under EU sanctions – remains in power and no suggestion of renewing diplomatic contact.

They have called on governments to consider even tighter rules on aid, echoing humanitarian agencies who say Assad tries to channel aid to loyalists.

“Big countries speak of strategic patience,” a second senior diplomat said.

Others such as Sweden, Spain and Ireland say it makes no sense to talk about sending Syrians back to homes destroyed by war.

“The geopolitical situation is not right for us to take out our cheque books. It’s a matter of leverage and we can’t just give away the only leverage we have,” another EU envoy said.

A U.N. agency estimates the war has cost Syria $388 billion in economic damage.

MORE VOCAL ON ACCESS

EU leaders glossed over Syria at their summit with Arab leaders in Egypt in February, relieved the meeting came before any possible decision to re-admit Assad to the Arab League.

In an attempt to find a middle way, rights campaigners say EU governments should be more vocal in pushing Assad and his Russian backers to allow aid to reach all Syrians.

The European Commission has put aside 1.1 billion euros ($1.25 billion) in assistance to civilians in Syria, but not all of that has been spent because of access problems. The Brussels conference is likely to raise more such funds.

It must benefit all civilians, rights groups say.

“If countries want to engage in reconstruction … it should be done in a non-discriminatory manner, based on need, that they reach the most vulnerable, it shouldn’t benefit the government that is responsible for war crimes,” said Diana Semaan, a Beirut-based Amnesty International researcher who documents Syrian rights violations.

Other possible conditions tied to aid include access to political prisoners, and an end to forced conscription, arbitrary arrests and the seizure of property, although Semaan said these were unrealistic given Assad’s record.

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Senegal president wins re-election with 58 percent of vote

Senegal’s President and a candidate for the presidential elections Macky Sall, speaks after casting his vote at a polling station in Fatick, Senegal on February 24, 2019. (REUTERS Photo)

DAKAR, February 28 (Reuters): Senegal President Macky Sall won re-election with 58 percent of votes cast in last Sunday’s poll, according to provisional results announced by the official counting body on Thursday.

The majority win hands Sall a second term without a run-off vote. Opposition candidate Idrissa Seck came second with 21 percent of votes, while Ousmane Sonko placed third with 16 percent.

Sall, whom rights groups have criticized for squeezing out rivals, was tipped to win after a modernising first term that propelled Senegal’s economic growth to more than six percent – one of the highest in Africa.

Since Sunday’s vote, opposition candidates have rejected reports of an out-right victory for Sall, saying their tallies point to a second round of voting.

Seck and Sonko have not yet commented on the National Vote Counting Commission’s results, which are preliminary until validated by the constitutional council. The candidates have 72 hours to register an appeal.

Senegal has long been viewed as West Africa’s most stable democracy, with peaceful transitions of power since it gained independence from France in 1960.

More than 66 percent of 6.7 million registered voters took part in the election.

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TODAY in HISTORY: MARCH 01

Following are some of the major events to have occurred on Mar 01

Reuters

1932 – The 20-month-old son of the American aviator Charles Lindbergh was kidnapped; he was found dead in May.

1999 – General Olusegun Obasanjo was declared Nigeria’s president-elect.

2001 – The Fiji Court of Appeal ruled that Fiji’s military-backed ethnic-Fijian-dominated interim government was illegal, and said the multi-racial 1997 constitution remained the law of the land.

2001 – Fatal train crash in Yorkshire, Northern England.

2003 – Roy Jones Jr. beat John Ruiz and claimed the WBA heavyweight title, becoming the first fighter in 106 years to capture middleweight, light-heavyweight and heavyweight crowns.

2004 – Iraq’s Governing Council agreed on an interim constitution, marking a crucial step forward in the United States’ plan to hand sovereignty back to Iraqis.

2005 – 75th Geneva International Auto Show opens.

2008 – The blind Canadian jazz guitarist Jeff Healey, known for his blues-based rock and his distinctive playing style, with the instrument across his lap, died aged 41.

2010 – Peru and China reach historic trade deal.

2012 – In and Out Club, one of London’s oldest private members clubs, celebrates its 150th anniversary.

2017 – Airstrike against Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq.

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How much does your government spy on you? U.N. may rank the snoopers

A magnifying glass is held in front of a computer screen in this picture illustration taken in Berlin on May 21, 2013. (REUTERS File Photo)

GENEVA, February 28 (Reuters): A U.N. human rights expert has published a draft list of questions to measure countries’ privacy safeguards, a first step towards ranking the governments that are potentially doing the most snooping on their own citizens.

Joseph Cannataci, the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to privacy, submitted the draft questionnaire – touching on everything from chatrooms to systematic surveillance – to the U.N. Human Rights Council, and invited comments by June 30.

Cannataci’s role investigating digital privacy was created by the council in 2015 after Edward Snowden’s revelations about U.S. surveillance, and he has strongly criticised surveillance activities by the United States and other countries.

As the first person in the job, Cannataci set out an action plan for tackling the task and said he planned to take a methodical approach to monitoring surveillance and privacy laws to help him to decide which countries to investigate.

The council’s 47 member states are not be obliged to agree with his findings, but special rapporteurs’ reports are generally influential in a forum where governments are keen to appear to have an unblemished human rights record.

The 28 draft questions, each with a suggested score attached, begins with a potential five points if a country’s constitution had a provision to protect privacy or has been interpreted to encompass such a protection.

Under the first version of Cannataci’s scoring system, systematic monitoring of private communications could subtract 55 points, as could intensive policing of the internet and monitoring of chatrooms.

Other questions focus on subjects ranging from parliamentary and judicial oversight of surveillance and intelligence activities, profiling of civilians, and the use of “bulk powers” — such as downloading an entire set of phone records rather than getting a judge’s permission to listen into one call.

The last question asks: “Does your country have a police and/or intelligence service which systematically profiles and maintains surveillance on large segments of the population in a manner comparable to that of the STASI in the 1955-1990 GDR (East Germany)?”

Any country answering “yes” to that would forfeit 1,000 points and should abolish its system and start again, he wrote.

Cannataci stressed that the questionnaire was incomplete and “very much a work in progress”, and more questions might be added on open data, health data and privacy and gender.

“The intention would be to use such metrics as a standard investigation tool during country visits, both official and non-official,” Cannataci wrote in his report. He will report to the Council on Friday.

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India drugs regulator finds no asbestos in J&J talc: sources

Bottles of Johnson & Johnson baby powder line a drugstore shelf in New York on October 15, 2015. (REUTERS File Photo)

NEW DELHI, February 28 (Reuters): India’s drugs regulator has found no asbestos in Johnson & Johnson talc, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday.

J&J was recently informed about the findings of a probe by India’s Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO), the sources said.

The regulator and its counterparts in Indian states launched an investigation into J&J’s Baby Powder following a Reuters report in December that the firm knew for decades that cancer-causing asbestos could be found in the product.

J&J has described the Reuters article as “one-sided, false and inflammatory”.

The Indian regulator wrote to the U.S. company in December asking it to stop using the “huge quantities” of raw materials stocked in its plants in northern and western India.

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Centre okays Rs 1,604-cr aid to 4 disaster-hit states

New Delhi, February 28 (IANS) The Centre on Thursday approved an additional assistance of Rs 1,604.15 crore to Andhra Pradesh, Manipur, Jharkhand and Rajasthan for damages incurred in natural disasters during 2018, said a Home Ministry statement.

Of the Rs 1,604.15 crore assistance announced under the National Disaster Response Fund, Andhra Pradesh will get Rs 82.65 crore for damages caused by cyclonic storm “Phethai”, Manipur will get Rs 42.46 crore for rehabilitation post floods and landslides, while Jharkhand and Rajasthan will get Rs 272.42 crore and Rs 1,206.62 crore respectively for drought relief.

The Central assistance was approved by a high-level committee that included Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh and senior officers of Ministries of Home Affairs, Finance and Agriculture and NITI Aayog and was chaired by Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

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