1UA TV

Leaving the European Union is not the only split British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has to worry about.Johnson’s commanding election victory this week may let him fulfill his campaign promise to “get Brexit done,” but it could also imperil the future of the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland and Northern Ireland didn’t vote for Brexit, didn’t embrace this week’s Conservative electoral landslide — and now may be drifting permanently away from London.In a victory speech Friday, Johnson said the election result proved that leaving the EU is “the irrefutable, irresistible, unarguable decision of the British people.”Arguably, though, it isn’t. It’s the will of the English, who make up 56 million of the U.K.’s 66 million people. During Britain’s 2016 referendum on EU membership, England and much smaller Wales voted to leave bloc; Scotland and Ireland didn’t. In Thursday’s election, England elected 345 Conservative lawmakers — all but 20 of the 365 House of Commons seats Johnson’s party won across the U.K.In Scotland, 48 of the 59 seats were won by the Scottish National Party, which opposes Brexit and wants Scotland to become independent of the U.K.SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon said her party’s “emphatic” victory showed that “the kind of future desired by the majority in Scotland is different to that chosen by the rest of the U.K.”The SNP has campaigned for decades to make Scotland independent and almost succeeded in 2014, when Scotland held a referendum on seceding from the U.K. The “remain” side won 55% to 45%.At the time, the referendum was billed as a once-in-a-generation decision. But the SNP argues that Brexit has changed everything because Scotland now faces being dragged out of the EU against its will.Sturgeon said Friday that Johnson “has no mandate whatsoever to take Scotland out of the EU” and Scotland must be able to decide its future in a new independence referendum.Johnson insists he will not approve a referendum during the current term of Parliament, which is due to last until 2024. Johnson’s office said the prime minister told the Scottish leader on Friday that “the result of the 2014 referendum was decisive and should be respected.”The Scotsman newspaper summed up the showdown Saturday with front page face-to-face images of Sturgeon and Johnson: “Two landslides. One collision course.””What we’ve got now is pretty close to a perfect storm,” said historian Tom Devine, professor emeritus at the University of Edinburgh. He said the U.K. is facing an “unprecedented constitutional crisis” as Johnson’s refusal to approve a referendum fuels growing momentum for Scottish independence.Politically and legally, it’s a stalemate. Without the approval of the U.K. government, a referendum would not be legally binding. London could simply ignore the result, as the Spanish government did when Catalonia held an unauthorized independence vote in 2017.Mark Diffley, an Edinburgh-based political analyst, said Sturgeon “has said that she doesn’t want a Catalonia-style referendum. She wants to do this properly.”There’s no clear legal route to a second referendum if Johnson refuses, though Sturgeon can apply political and moral pressure. Diffley said the size of the SNP’s win allows Sturgeon to argue that a new referendum is “the will of the people.”Sturgeon said that next week she will lay out a “detailed democratic case for a transfer of power to enable a referendum to be put beyond legal challenge.”Devine said the administrations in Edinburgh and London “are in a completely uncompromising condition” and that will only make the crisis worse.”The longer Johnson refuses to concede a referendum, the greater will the pro-independence momentum in Scotland accelerate,” he said. “By refusing to concede it, Johnson has ironically become a recruiting sergeant for increased militant nationalism.”Northern Ireland has its own set of political parties and structures largely split along British unionist/Irish nationalist lines. There, too, people feel cast adrift by Brexit, and the political plates are shifting.For the first time this week, Northern Ireland elected more lawmakers who favor union with Ireland than want to remain part of the U.K.The island of Ireland, which holds the U.K.’s only land border with the EU, has proved the most difficult issue in Brexit negotiations. Any customs checks or other obstacles along the currently invisible frontier between Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland would undermine both the local economy and Northern Ireland’s peace process.The divorce deal struck between Johnson and the EU seeks to avoid a hard border by keeping Northern Ireland closely aligned to EU rules, which means new checks on goods moving between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K.”Once you put a border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland’s going to be part of a united Ireland for economic purposes,” Jonathan Powell, who helped negotiate Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace accord, told the BBC. “That will increase the tendency toward a united Ireland for political reasons, too.”I think there is a good chance there will be a united Ireland within 10 years.”In Scotland, Devine also thinks the days of the Union may be numbered.”Anything can happen,” he said. “But I think it’s more likely than not that the U.K. will come to an end over the next 20 to 30 years.
 
…

Britain “deserves a break from wrangling, a break from politics and a permanent break from talking about Brexit,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Friday, after his Conservative Party won what Johnson described as an “extraordinary” election.””Let the healing begin,” the prime minister said.Johnson focused his campaigning efforts on the slogan –  “Get Brexit Done.”  He said the parliamentary majority for his Conservative Party will allow him to push through a previously rejected divorce deal with the European Union and carry out Brexit by January 31, 2020.He thanked Labour Party supporters who voted for the Conservative Party for the first time and promised a “One Nation Conservative government.”  “I say thank you for the trust you have placed in us and in me and we will work round the clock to repay your trust and to deliver on your priorities with a Parliament that works for you,” Johnson said.The British leader, who accepted the Queen’s offer earlier Friday to form a government, said there is no one definition for one nation conservatism, “but broadly it refers to the idea the Conservative Party should act for everybody in the UK. That means policies that work for people from different economic backgrounds, from different regions and from the different nations of the UK.”The win gives the Conservatives their biggest margin in parliament since the 1980s.
…

Serbian opposition activists have blockaded the entrance of the building hosting the state Radio and Television service (RTS) in Belgrade to protest what they say are deteriorating media freedoms in the Balkan country under populist President Aleksandar Vucic.
Members of the Alliance of Serbia (SzS), an opposition umbrella group, began the eight-hour blockade at noon in the capital on December 13, holding a banner reading “EU, It’s Your Choice: Vucic Or Democracy” in both English and Serbian.WATCH: video report
Serbian independent media have repeatedly complained of being pressured by officials and have accused the government of fueling an atmosphere of intolerance toward journalists.
Vucic, who vowed to lead Serbia toward European Union membership, has been accused of curbing media freedoms and democracy, accusations he has denied.
The activists called on RTS to “perform its role and inform the public on all issues that matter.”
Vuk Jeremic, the leader of the People’s Party and the SzS chairman, said the protesters had no intention of entering the building and that they were not seeking personnel changes.
Jeremic told a news conference that “members of SzS organizations, activists, and citizens” blocked the entrance because the RTS, as he put it, “has been blocking the truth for the past eight years.”
Vucic’s ruling Serbian Progressive Party ascended to power in 2012. Vucic has been president since 2017 and his government has strengthened relations with traditional Slavic ally Russia.
Jeremic also said that the move was a “warning” to RTS journalists that they “should do their job professionally.”
He said that while the blockade was peaceful, participants were concerned about possible provocateurs “sent by Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party.”
Police refused to sanction the protest because the request was not filed at least five days in advance, Jeremic said.
The rally came a day after a few dozen Serbian journalists staged a protest in Belgrade against what they said were deteriorating media freedoms under Vucic.
Members of the Independent Journalists’ Association said there have been more than 100 cases of pressure and attacks on the media in the past year alone.
The protest also marked a year since the house of journalist Milan Jovanovic was torched outside Belgrade. Jovanovic was investigating alleged local government corruption. He escaped the fire, but his home burned to the ground.
The suspected arsonists are currently on trial. A senior official in Vucic’s ruling party has been accused of ordering the attack, which he has denied.With reporting by AP
…

Britain looks certain to leave the European Union by the end of January after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson secured a big majority of 78 seats in Thursday’s general election. His Conservative Party seized control of dozens of constituencies that had voted to leave in the 2016 referendum, vindicating Johnson’s decision to call an election. However,  as Henry Ridgwell reports, the country remains deeply divided – and the prime minister will face big challenges early on in his new term.
…

Britons woke Friday to an utterly transformed political landscape following an electoral earthquake that has ripped up modern British politics, and whose tremors will be felt for years to come.  Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s emphatic win in the country’s third general election in four years — giving the Conservatives, also known as Tories, their biggest parliamentary majority in more than a quarter of a century — marks a decisive turn in the country’s fortunes following the instability triggered by the 2016 Brexit referendum, say analysts.Armed with an 80-seat majority, the biggest at a general election since Margaret Thatcher’s in 1987, Johnson’s government now will be able to end the deadlock in Britain’s Parliament and deliver on the Conservative promise to “get Brexit done” without further delay. Britain will almost certainly exit the European Union by the end of January, triggering a second and likely trickier stage of negotiations with Brussels over the country’s future political and trade relations with the European continent.Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson delivers a statement at Downing Street after winning the general election, in London, Britain, Dec. 13, 2019.Speaking from the steps of No. 10 Downing Street, Johnson said Thursday’s election results show the “irrefutable” decision of the British people is to leave the EU and to end the “miserable threats” of a second Brexit referendum, a rerun plebiscite backed by Britain’s main opposition party, Labor, and the centrist Liberal Democrats.The huge victory, which saw the country’s main opposition Labor Party record its worst electoral performance since 1935, is a vindication of Johnson’s decision, say analysts, to focus the election campaigning on Brexit and not to be drawn in too much by Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn’s effort to make the poll about the crumbling state of Britain’s public services. Johnson’s strategy was posited on the idea that Britons, even those who would prefer to remain in the EU, have become sick and tired of the long-running Brexit mess and want the saga to end.’Red wall’Johnson also had his fair share of luck, “the biggest piece of which was Jeremy Corbyn,” according to Daniel Finkelstein, a onetime adviser to former Conservative leader David Cameron and now a columnist with The Times. “Corbyn kept more moderate Conservatives voting Tory even when they had doubts about Boris Johnson. He neither united the liberal left and center behind a policy of stopping Brexit nor the traditional Labor vote behind a populist manifesto,” he said.Britain’s opposition Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn leaves Islington Town Hall through the backdoor after a meeting following the results of the general election in London, Britain, Dec. 13, 2019.In the final days of the campaign, Johnson focused on Labor’s so-called “red wall” of constituencies searching for cracks to widen in former mining towns and farming villages crucial to the Conservatives’ hopes of winning Thursday’s election, warning voters they face a “great Brexit betrayal,” if they voted for an increasingly metropolitan and far-left Labor Party.On Thursday, Johnson managed not just to breach what was once considered an impregnable wall, but he bulldozed through it by persuading traditional working-class voters who favor Brexit in the north of England to ditch their lifetime habit of voting Labor. Constituencies that have been synonymous with Labor for decades fell like dominoes — seats like Workington in the northwest English county of Cumbria, which has been held by Labor for 97 out of the last 100 years.
Johnson’s Landslide Victory Sets Britain On Course for January Brexit video player.
Liberal Democrats candidate Jo Swinson speaks after losing her seat in East Dunbartonshire constituency, at a counting center for Britain’s general election in Bishopbriggs, Britain, Dec. 13, 2019.Labor moderates want him to go immediately, and they fear he wants to oversee the choice of his successor, which his internal party opponents see as a sign that he and the left wing of the party will not easily relinquish control.  Left-wingers attribute the party’s failure to Brexit and say it has nothing to do with Corbyn or his ideology. Richard Burgon, the shadow justice secretary, tweeted that this had been a “Brexit election.” “Johnson must continue to be fought with radical alternatives, not triangulation, that challenge the Tories head-on,” he added.But moderate Labor candidates say that on the doorsteps while campaigning, they found the main problem for the party wasn’t Brexit but deep distrust for the Labor leader. They note that while Labor did worse in seats that voted to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum, they also fared badly in constituencies that voted to remain in the EU.One Labor candidate, Phil Wilson, who failed to keep what had been a safe Labor seat in the north, said it was “mendacious nonsense” for Corbyn loyalists to blame the result on Brexit. “Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership was a bigger problem,” he said. “To say otherwise is delusional.”Scotland, Northern IrelandDespite their huge win, the victorious Conservatives will face challenges of their own, say analysts, both when it comes to Brexit and in terms of London’s relations with Scotland and Northern Ireland.Johnson’s victory may have seen a remaking of the Conservatives, a party now more working-class than it has ever been, but it may have come at the cost of unmaking Great Britain. North of the English border, in Scotland, the pro-EU Scottish Nationalists, or SNP, also pulled off a landslide win, heralding a coming battle over Scottish independence and setting London and Edinburgh on course for a possible constitutional showdown that risks being fraught as the current clash in Spain between Catalan separatists and Madrid.Scottish National Party (SNP) leader and Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon speaks in Edinburgh, Dec. 13, 2019.The nationalists gained a dozen seats as the Tories, Labor and the Liberal Democrats were wiped out north of the border with the SNP winning 48 of Scotland’s 59 seats, up from the 35 it won in 2017. The SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, vowed Friday to formally request a second independence referendum before the end of the year, saying that the election results north and south of the border showed “the divergent paths” Scotland and the rest of the UK are on.”Boris Johnson has a mandate to take England out of the EU, but he must accept that I have a mandate to give Scotland a choice for an alternative future,” Sturgeon told the BBC. Johnson repeatedly has promised to reject any demand for another independence ballot, saying that if there is any formal demand, “we will mark that letter return to sender and be done with it.”Nationalists enjoyed success, too, in British-run Northern Ireland. For the first time, nationalists, who favor reunification with the Irish Republic, now hold a majority of seats in the province, which voted to remain in the EU in the 2016 referendum.Brexit debateOn Brexit, Johnson likely will continue to face internal Conservative party disputes, say analysts, with half his Cabinet favoring a so-called soft Brexit, entailing a close trading and political relationship with the EU. Johnson is aiming to conclude a trade deal with the EU by the end of 2020, but EU leaders have warned the timetable is unrealistic and the complicated negotiations will be daunting and take years.  European Council President Charles Michel speaks during a news conference in Brussels, Belgium, Dec. 13, 2019.The new president of the European Council, Charles Michel, warned that Brussels won’t agree to a free trade deal that does excludes Britain agreeing to abide by EU regulatory rules and product standards. “The EU is ready for the next phase,” he said. “We will negotiate a future trade deal, which ensures a true level playing field,” he added.EU officials formally welcomed Johnson’s victory but added they hope the prime minister will negotiate a “close as possible future relationship.” Some European officials say the Conservatives’ big parliamentary majority should give Johnson political space to maneuver and override the objections of those Tories who want a “clean break” with the EU.Nigel Farage, the leader of the Brexit Party, which failed to win any parliamentary seats Thursday, says he fears Johnson will pivot now that he has a large majority and will eventually conclude a closer relationship with the EU than hard-line Brexiters would like.
 
…

Russia said on Friday it was alarmed after the United States tested a ground-launched ballistic missile that would have been prohibited under the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the RIA news agency reported.The United States carried out the test on Thursday. Washington formally withdrew from the 1987 INF pact with Russia in August after determining that Moscow was violating the treaty, an accusation the Kremlin has denied.”It alarms us. Of course we will take this into account,” said Vladimir Ermakov, head of the foreign ministry’s arms control and non-proliferation department.It was the second test by the United States that would have been prohibited under the INF treaty and too place as the future of another major nuclear arms control treaty between Russia and the United States is under question.New START, the last remaining major nuclear arms control treaty between the two countries, is due to expire in February 2021 and Moscow has warned there is already not enough time left to negotiate a full-fledged replacement.
…

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party has won a solid majority of seats in Britain’s Parliament — a decisive outcome to a Brexit-dominated election that should allow Johnson to fulfill his plan to take the U.K. out of the European Union next month.With just over 600 of the 650 seats declared, the Conservatives reached the 326 mark, guaranteeing their majority.Johnson said it looked like the Conservatives had “a powerful new mandate to get Brexit done.”The victory will likely make Johnson the most electorally successful Conservative leader since Margaret Thatcher, another politician who was loved and loathed in almost equal measure. It was a disaster for left-wing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who faced calls for his resignation even as the results rolled in. The party looked set to gain around 200 seats.Corbyn called the result “very disappointing” for his party and said he would not lead Labour into another election, though he resisted calls to quit immediately,Results poured in early Friday showing a substantial shift in support to the Conservatives from Labour. In the last election in 2017, the Conservatives won 318 seats and Labour 262.The result this time looked set to be the biggest Tory majority since Thatcher’s 1980s’ heyday, and Labour’s lowest number of seats since 1935.The Scottish National Party appeared set to take about 50 of Scotland’s 59 seats — a big increase — with a lackluster dozen or so for the centrist, pro-EU Liberal Democrats. Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson lost her own Scottish seat.The Conservatives took a swathe of seats in post-industrial northern England towns that were long Labour strongholds. Labour’s vote held up better in London, where the party managed to grab the Putney seat from the Conservatives.The decisive Conservative showing vindicates Johnson’s decision to press for Thursday’s early election, which was held nearly two years ahead of schedule. He said that if the Conservatives won a majority, he would get Parliament to ratify his Brexit divorce deal and take the U.K. out of the EU by the current Jan. 31 deadline.Speaking at the election count in his Uxbridge constituency in suburban London, Johnson said the “historic” election “gives us now, in this new government, the chance to respect the democratic will of the British people to change this country for the better and to unleash the potential of the entire people of this country.”That message appears to have had strong appeal for Brexit-supporting voters, who turned away from Labour in the party’s traditional heartlands and embraced Johnson’s promise that the Conservatives would “get Brexit done.”“I think Brexit has dominated, it has dominated everything by the looks of it,” said Labour economy spokesman John McDonnell. “We thought other issues could cut through and there would be a wider debate, from this evidence there clearly wasn’t.”The prospect of Brexit finally happening more than three years after Britons narrowly voted to leave the EU marks a momentous shift for both the U.K. and the bloc. No country has ever left the union, which was created in the decades after World War II to bring unity to a shattered continent.But a decisive Conservative victory would also provide some relief to the EU, which has grown tired of Britain’s Brexit indecision.Britain’s departure will start a new phase of negotiations on future relations between Britain and the 27 remaining EU members.EU Council President Charles Michel promised that EU leaders meeting Friday would send a “strong message” to the next British government and parliament about next steps.“We are ready to negotiate,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.The pound surged when an exit poll forecast the Tory win, jumping over two cents against the dollar, to $1.3445, the highest in more than a year and a half. Many Investors hope a Conservative win would speed up the Brexit process and ease, at least in the short term, some of the uncertainty that has corroded business confidence since the 2016 vote.Many voters casting ballots on Thursday hoped the election might finally find a way out of the Brexit stalemate in this deeply divided nation. Three and a half years after the U.K. voted by 52%-48% to leave the EU, Britons remain split over whether to leave the 28-nation bloc, and lawmakers have proved incapable of agreeing on departure terms.On a dank, gray day with outbreaks of blustery rain, voters went to polling stations in schools, community centers, pubs and town halls after a bad-tempered five-week campaign rife with mudslinging and misinformation.Opinion polls had given the Conservatives a steady lead, but the result was considered hard to predict, because the issue of Brexit cuts across traditional party loyalties.Johnson campaigned relentlessly on a promise to “Get Brexit done” by getting Parliament to ratify his “oven-ready” divorce deal with the EU and take Britain out of the bloc as scheduled on Jan. 31.The Conservatives focused much of their energy on trying to win in a “red wall” of working-class towns in central and northern England that have elected Labour lawmakers for decades but also voted strongly in 2016 to leave the EU. That effort got a boost when the Brexit Party led by Nigel Farage decided at the last minute not to contest 317 Conservative-held seats to avoid splitting the pro-Brexit vote.Labour, which is largely but ambiguously pro-EU, faced competition for anti-Brexit voters from the centrist Liberal Democrats, Scottish and Welsh nationalist parties, and the Greens.But on the whole Labour tried to focus the campaign away from Brexit and onto its radical domestic agenda, vowing to tax the rich, nationalize industries such as railroads and water companies and give everyone in the country free internet access. It campaigned heavily on the future of the National Health Service, a deeply respected institution that has struggled to meet rising demand after nine years of austerity under Conservative-led governments.It appears that wasn’t enough to boost Labour’s fortunes. Defeat will likely spell the end for Corbyn, a veteran socialist who moved his party sharply to the left after taking the helm in 2015, but who now looks to have led his left-of-center party to two electoral defeats since 2017. The 70-year-old left-winger was also accused of allowing anti-Semitism to spread within the party.“It’s Corbyn,” said former Labour Cabinet minister Alan Johnson, when asked about the poor result. “We knew he was incapable of leading, we knew he was worse than useless at all the qualities you need to lead a political party.”For many voters, the election offered an unpalatable choice. Both Johnson and Corbyn have personal approval ratings in negative territory, and both have been dogged by questions about their character.Johnson has been confronted with past broken promises, untruths and offensive statements, from calling the children of single mothers “ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate” to comparing Muslim women who wear face-covering veils to “letter boxes.”Yet, his energy and determination proved persuasive to many voters.“It’s a big relief, looking at the exit polls as they are now, we’ve finally got that majority a working majority that we have not had for 3 1/2 years,” said Conservative-supporting writer Jack Rydeheard. “We’ve got the opportunity to get Brexit done and get everything else that we promised as well. That’s investment in the NHS, schools, hospitals you name it — it’s finally a chance to break that deadlock in Parliament.”
…

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party will win an overwhelming victory in Britain’s election with a majority of 86 seats in parliament to deliver Brexit on Jan. 31, an exit poll showed Thursday.The exit poll showed Johnson’s Conservatives would win a landslide of 368 seats, more than enough for a very comfortable majority in the 650-seat parliament and the biggest Conservative national election win since Margaret Thatcher’s 1987 triumph.Labour were forecast by the poll to win 191 seats, the worst result for the party since 1935. The Scottish National Party would win 55 seats and the Liberal Democrats 13, the poll said.The Brexit Party were not forecast to win any.”That would be a phenomenal victory for the Conservative Party and Boris Johnson will feel completely vindicated with the gamble that he took,” said John Bercow, the former speaker of the House of Commons.”That would be an absolutely dramatic victory,” he said.Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson arrives with his dog Dilyn at a polling station, at the Methodist Central Hall, to vote in the general election in London, Britain, Dec. 12, 2019.Sterling surged after the exit poll, hitting its highest against the euro since July 2016, shortly after the Brexit referendum. Versus the dollar it jumped 2.3% to $1.3480.Official results will be declared over the next seven hours.In the last five national elections, only one exit poll has got the outcome wrong — in 2015 when the poll predicted a hung parliament when in fact the Conservatives won a majority, taking 14 more seats than forecast.If the exit poll is accurate and Johnson’s bet on a snap election has paid off, he will move swiftly to ratify the Brexit deal he struck with the European Union so that the United Kingdom can leave on Jan. 31, 2020 — 10 months later than initially planned.Britain’s paralysis Johnson called the first Christmas election since 1923 to break what he said was the paralysis of Britain’s political system after more than three years of crisis over how, when or even if to leave the European Union.The face of the “Leave” campaign in the 2016 referendum, 55-year-old Johnson fought the election under the slogan of “Get Brexit Done,” promising to end the deadlock and spend more on health, education and the police.The exit poll was produced by three broadcasters — the BBC, ITV and Sky — who teamed up to jointly produce similar surveys in the last three elections, held in 2010, 2015 and 2017.In 2010 and 2017, their exit polls accurately predicted the overall outcome and were close to forecasting the correct number of seats for the two main parties.Johnson’s strategy was to breach Labour’s so-called “Red Wall” of seats across the Brexit-supporting areas of the Midlands and northern England where he cast his political opponents as the out-of-touch enemies of Brexit.Brexit far from overWhile a majority will allow Johnson to lead the United Kingdom out of the club it first joined in 1973, Brexit is far from over: He faces the daunting task of negotiating a trade agreement with the EU in just 11 months.After Jan. 31, Britain will enter a transition period during which it will negotiate a new relationship with the EU27.This can run until the end of December 2022 under the current rules, but the Conservatives made an election promise not to extend the transition period beyond the end of 2020.
 
…

The U.S. Senate on Thursday unanimously passed a resolution that recognizes as genocide the mass killings of Armenians a century ago, a historic move that infuriated Turkey and dealt a blow to the already problematic ties between Ankara and Washington. Turkey condemned the measure, which passed a month after an official visit to the White House by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who enjoys a special rapport with President Donald Trump, amid mounting issues that have soured the relationship between the two NATO allies. Trump had cast his November 13 meeting with Erdogan as “wonderful” despite no concrete breakthrough on deep disagreements about issues such as Ankara’s purchase of Russian weapons systems and diverging views on Syria policy. The Democrat-led House of Representatives passed the resolution by an overwhelming majority in October. But Republican senators had blocked a vote in the Senate since the Erdogan meeting. ‘Tribute'”This is a tribute to the memory of 1.5 million victims of the first #Genocide of the 20th century and bold step in promotion of the prevention agenda. #NeverAgain,” Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan tweeted. FILE – Two people walk at the Tzitzernakaberd memorial to the victims of mass killings by Ottoman Turks, in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, Oct. 30, 2019.The resolution, which is nonbinding, asserts that it is U.S. policy to commemorate as genocide the killing of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923. The Ottoman Empire was centered in present-day Turkey. Turkey accepts that many Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire were killed in clashes with Ottoman forces during World War I, but contests the figures and denies that the killings were systematically orchestrated and constituted genocide. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu called the decision a “political show,” while presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said Ankara strongly condemned and rejected the measure. “History will note these resolutions as irresponsible and irrational actions by some members of the U.S. Congress against Turkey,” Fahrettin Altun, Turkey’s communications director, said on Twitter. Sticking with S-400Congressional aides said the White House did not want the legislation to move ahead while it was negotiating with Ankara on sensitive issues. However, since the visit, Erdogan repeatedly said Turkey had no intention of dropping the Russian S-400 air defense missile systems it bought, crushing any hopes for progress. For decades, measures recognizing the Armenian genocide have stalled in Congress, stymied by concerns about relations with Turkey and intense lobbying by Ankara. “I’ve invested, like, decades of my life,” said Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America. “So it was a sense of relief and a bit of a vindication that … [the United] States recognized the history of the Armenians, but also put up a firewall against foreign countries coming into our democracy and dictating to us.” Congress has been united in its opposition to Turkey’s recent policy actions. Republican senators have been incensed with Turkey’s purchase of the S-400, which the United States says poses a threat to its F-35 fighter jets and cannot be integrated into NATO defenses. Syrian incursionThey have also moved to punish Turkey for its October 9 incursion into Syria. A U.S. Senate committee backed legislation on Wednesday to impose sanctions on Turkey, pushing Trump to take a harder line on the issue. Many lawmakers blame Trump for giving a green light to Ankara for its military offensive. To become law, that legislation would have to pass the House of Representatives — which passed its own Turkish sanctions bill 403-16 in October — and be signed by 
Trump. 
…

Ukrainian police have detained several people suspected of involvement in the slaying of journalist Pavel Sheremet, who died in a car bomb blast in 2016, the country’s leadership announced Thursday. 
 
“Probable killers were detained today,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said during a press briefing in Kyiv with the interior minister and general prosecutor. “But there is another question: Who ordered it?” he added. Five accusedTwo women and three men, all former veterans of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, are accused of murdering Sheremet with the aim of “destabilizing the situation in the country by killing a famous person,” National Police chief Yevgen Koval said. 
 
Sheremet, 44, an acclaimed Belarus-born journalist with pro-European views, died in July 2016 when his car exploded while he was driving to work in central Kyiv. 
 
The investigation had considered four possible scenarios for the killing: a personal conflict, a killing by mistake, Sheremet’s professional activities and the destabilization theory.  Andriy Antonenko, suspected of involvement in the killing of journalist Pavel Sheremet, is seen outside his house as law enforcement officers prepare to search his apartment, Kyiv, Ukraine, Dec. 12, 2019.The two main suspects in the planting of the explosive device under Sheremet’s car are an ex-serviceman in the Ukrainian army, Andriy Antonenko, and a woman named Yuliya Kuzmenko. 
 
Footage from the crime scene that was released after the killing showed a man and a woman acting suspiciously near the car. 
 
Antonenko denied involvement in the incident and on Thursday managed to write on Facebook when police came to arrest him. 
 
“I am being accused of killing Sheremet. Right now (…) Help!” he wrote. 
 
The slaying has been a source of criticism of Ukraine’s interior ministry and security services, which made no progress on the case for years and classified parts of it, which invited suspicions of government involvement. 
 
Zelensky on Thursday said the Sheremet investigation was a “priority.” 
 
“Unfortunately, in our country there are many more cases like this,” he said. Respected criticSheremet was a columnist for Ukrainska Pravda, a popular online newspaper whose founder, Georgiy Gongadze, was beheaded 16 years ago after he probed alleged crimes of Ukrainian leaders. 
 
Sheremet was respected for criticizing the Kremlin while pointing out Ukraine’s mistakes. His death sent shock waves across Ukraine and is only one in a string of unresolved killings and assaults on members of the media in the country. 
 
On Thursday, Kyiv’s ex-boxer mayor, Vitaliy Klytchko, said a park in the Ukrainian capital would be named after Pavel Sheremet, after a decision by the city council. 
 
Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, is 102nd out of 180 countries in a world ranking of media freedom by Reporters Without Borders. 
…