Tag Archives: United States

After tough week, Trump looks for a lift at Liberty University

U.S. President Donald Trump gestures while attending a “celebration of military mothers" at the White House in Washington, U.S., May 12, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Saturday is set to deliver the commencement address – his first as president – to Liberty University, the nation’s largest Christian college, where he is expected to find to a friendly audience after a week of turmoil in Washington.

Trump has been closeted in the White House all week, making only a few, brief public appearances after he took the highly unusual and fraught step of abruptly firing James Comey as FBI director on Tuesday.

Dismissing the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation at a time when the agency probes alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election has overshadowed Trump’s push to boost jobs through tax reform and a massive infrastructure program.

The Lynchburg, Virginia, college should provide a receptive crowd for Trump’s economic message. He campaigned there during his run for office and was bolstered by the endorsement of its president, Jerry Falwell Jr., who helped secure support from religious conservatives.

“He’s going to tell them what he wants to do to make their careers run more smoothly and make it easier for them to raise families,” Falwell told WDBJ7, a CBS television affiliate in Roanoke, Virginia, about Trump’s message to graduates.

“I’ve been working with his speech writers and I think he’s going to deliver a wonderful speech that will be personal to Liberty,” Falwell said in the interview.

Trump has expressed frustration that the Russia probe has loomed over his presidency. He insisted this week that he fired Comey over his performance, not because of the investigation, but the timing of the dismissal and his comments afterward have raised alarms with his critics.

Trump, who has been preparing for his first foreign trip to the Middle East and Europe late next week, also will deliver the commencement address to the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, on Wednesday.

“To young Americans at both schools, I will be bringing a message of hope and optimism about our nation’s bright future,” Trump said in his weekly address to the nation.

Trump will encourage students to “be a force for good in the world by standing up for the values that Liberty has taught them,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said.

Liberty University said it expects more than 7,000 of its 18,000 graduates to participate in the ceremonies, most of whom earned their degree online. Past commencements have attracted as many as 40,000 people, the college said.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Bill Trott)

North Korea says will have dialogue with U.S. under right conditions: Yonhap

FILE PHOTO - A North Korean flag flies on a mast at the Permanent Mission of North Korea in Geneva October 2, 2014. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo

SEOUL (Reuters) – A senior North Korean diplomat who handles relations with the United States said on Saturday Pyongyang would have dialogue with the U.S. administration if conditions were right, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.

Choe Son Hui, North Korea’s foreign ministry director general for U.S. affairs, made the comment to reporters in Beijing as she was traveling home from Norway, Yonhap said.

“We’ll have dialogue if the conditions are there,” she told reporters when asked if the North was preparing to hold talks with the Trump administration, according to Yonhap.

When asked if North Korea was also preparing to talk with the new government in South Korea, of liberal President Moon Jae-in, Choe said: “We’ll see.”

The comments by Choe, who is a veteran member of the North’s team of nuclear negotiators, came amid stepped up international efforts to press North Korea and ease tension over its pursuit of nuclear arms.

U.S. President Donald Trump warned in an interview with Reuters in late April that a “major, major conflict” with the North was possible, but he would prefer a diplomatic outcome to the dispute over its nuclear and missile programs.

Trump later said he would be “honored” to meet the North’s leader, Kim Jong Un, under the right conditions.

Choe was in Norway for so-called Track Two talks with former U.S. government officials, according to Japanese media, the latest in a series of such meetings.

A source with knowledge of the latest meeting said at least one former U.S. government official took part but the U.S. administration was not involved.

South Korea’s Moon, elected this week on a platform of a moderate approach to North Korea, has said he would be willing to go to Pyongyang under the right circumstances and said dialogue must be used in parallel with sanctions to resolve the problem over North Korea’s weapons.

North Korea has conducted five nuclear tests in defiance of U.N. and U.S. sanctions and is also developing long-range missiles to deliver atomic weapons.

It says it needs such weapons to defend itself against U.S. aggression.

(Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Robert Birsel)

China says all welcome at Silk Road forum after U.S. complains over North Korea

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang meets Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, May 13, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

By Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) – China welcomes all countries to a forum this weekend on China’s new Silk Road plan, the foreign ministry said on Saturday, after the United States warned China that North Korea’s attendance could affect other countries’ participation.

Two sources with knowledge of the situation said the U.S. embassy in Beijing had submitted a diplomatic note to China’s foreign ministry, saying inviting North Korea sent the wrong message at a time when the world was trying to pressure it over its repeated missile and nuclear tests.

The disagreement over North Korea threatens to overshadow China’s most important diplomatic event of the year for an initiative championed by President Xi Jinping.

Asked about the U.S. note, the foreign ministry said in a short statement sent to Reuters that it did “not understand the situation”.

“The Belt and Road initiative is an open and inclusive one. We welcome all countries delegations to attend the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation,” it said.

The ministry did not elaborate. It said on Tuesday North Korea would send a delegation to the summit but gave no other details.

The United States is sending a delegation led by White House adviser Matt Pottinger.

Despite Chinese anger at North Korea’s repeated nuclear and missile tests, China remains the isolated state’s most important economic and diplomatic backer, even as Beijing has signed up for tough U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang.

China has over the years tried to coax North Korea into cautious, export-oriented economic reforms, rather than sabre rattling and nuclear tests, but to little avail.

China has not announced who North Korea’s chief delegate will be, but South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said Kim Yong Jae, North Korea’s minister of external economic relations, would lead the delegation.

‘MISGIVINGS’

Leaders from 29 countries will attend the forum in Beijing on Sunday and Monday, an event orchestrated to promote Xi’s vision of expanding links between Asia, Africa and Europe underpinned by billions of dollars in infrastructure investment.

Delegates will hold a series of sessions on Sunday to discuss the plan in more detail, including trade and finance. China has given few details about attendees.

Some Western diplomats have expressed unease about both the summit and the plan as a whole, seeing it as an attempt to promote Chinese influence globally.

China has rejected criticism of the plan and the summit, saying the scheme is open to all, is a win-win and aimed only at promoting prosperity.

Zhang Junkuo, deputy director general of cabinet think-tank the State Council Development Research Centre told reporters there were “misgivings, misinterpretations and misunderstandings” about the initiative.

“We must increase communication and exchanges so as to broaden our areas of cooperation and consolidate the basis for cooperation,” Zhang said.

In an English-language commentary on Saturday, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency said the new Silk Road, officially called the Belt and Road initiative, would be a boon for developing countries that had been largely neglected by the West.

“As some Western countries move backwards by erecting ‘walls’, China is contriving to build bridges, both literal and metaphorical. These bridges are China’s important offering to the world, and a key route to improving global governance,” it said.

Some of China’s most reliable allies and partners will attend the forum, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

There are also several European leaders coming, including the prime ministers of Spain, Italy, Greece and Hungary.

Xi offered Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of deeply indebted Greece strong support on Saturday, saying the two countries should expand cooperation in infrastructure, energy and telecommunications.

(Additional reporting by Elias Glenn; Editing by Eric Meijer, Robert Birsel)

Hanford nuclear site accident puts focus on aging U.S. facilities

An aerial photo shows Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, U.S. on July 5, 2011. Courtesy National Nuclear Security Administration/Handout via REUTERS

By Tom James

SEATTLE (Reuters) – The collapse of a tunnel used to store radioactive waste at one of the most contaminated U.S. nuclear sites has raised concerns among watchdog groups and others who study the country’s nuclear facilities because many are aging and fraught with problems.

“They’re fighting a losing battle to keep these plants from falling apart,” said Robert Alvarez, a former policy adviser at the U.S. Department of Energy who was charged with making an inventory of nuclear sites under President Bill Clinton.

“The longer you wait to deal with this problem, the more dangerous it becomes,” said Alvarez, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, where he focuses on nuclear energy and disarmament.

The Energy Department did not respond to requests for comment.

No radiation was released during Tuesday’s incident at a plutonium-handling facility in the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state, but thousands of workers were ordered to take cover and some were evacuated as a precaution.

The state of facilities in the U.S. nuclear network has been detailed by the Department of Energy, Government Accountability Office and Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. They have noted eroding walls, leaking roofs, and risks of electrical fires and groundwater contamination.

In 2016, Frank Klotz, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, an Energy Department agency overseeing maintenance of nuclear warheads, warned Congress about risks posed by aging facilities.

Decontaminating and demolishing the Energy Department’s shuttered facilities will cost $32 billion, it said in a 2016 report. It also noted a $6 billion maintenance backlog.

In the 1940s the U.S. government built Hanford and other complexes to produce plutonium and uranium for atomic bombs under the Manhattan Project.

“That was an era when the defense mission took priority over everything else,” said Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “We’re dealing with the legacy of that.”

RISKS DOCUMENTED

Many of those sites are now vacant but contaminated.

A 2009 Energy Department survey found nearly 300 shuttered, contaminated and deteriorating sites. Six years later it found that fewer than 60 had been cleaned up.

A 2015 Energy Department audit said delays in cleaning contaminated facilities “expose the Department, its employees and the public to ever-increasing levels of risk.”

Risks identified at the sites included leaking roofs carrying radioactivity into groundwater, roof collapses and electrical fires that could release radioactive particles.

A 2014 Energy Department audit noted a high risk of fire and groundwater contamination at the shuttered Heavy Element Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which is surrounded by homes and businesses near California’s Bay Area.

Problems have also been identified at active facilities including the Savannah River Site, a nuclear reservation in South Carolina. A 2015 report by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board found “severe” erosion in concrete walls of an exhaust tunnel used to prevent release of radioactive air.

A 2016 Energy Department audit of one of the United States’ main uranium handling facilities, the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, warned that “intense precipitation or snow” could collapse parts its roof, possibly causing an accident involving radioactivity.

“It sounds crazy, but it’s true,” said Don Hancock, who has studied the Tennessee facility in his work at the Southwest Information and Research Center, an Albuquerque nonprofit that monitors nuclear sites.

In Hanford’s case, risk of a tunnel collapse was known in 2015, when the Energy Department noted wooden beams in one tunnel had lost 40 percent of their strength and were being weakened by gamma radiation.

Energy Department spokesman Mark Heeter in nearby Richland said in an email that the agency saw Tuesday’s prompt discovery of the collapse as a success.

“The maintenance and improvement of aging infrastructure across the Hanford site … remains a top priority,” he said.

Nationwide, part of the risk comes from having to maintain and safeguard so many sites with different types of nuclear waste, said Frank Wolak, head of Stanford University’s Program on Energy and Sustainable Development.

“You’re asking for trouble with the fact that you’ve got it spread all over the country,” he said. “The right answer is to consolidate the stuff that is highly contaminated, and apply the best technology to it.”

(Reporting by Tom James; Editing by Ben Klayman)

U.S. retail sales rise broadly; consumer prices rebound

FILE PHOTO - A employee walks by a meat cooler in the grocery section of a Sam's Club during a media tour in Bentonville, Arkansas, U.S. on June 5, 2014. REUTERS/Rick Wilking/File Photo

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. retail sales increased broadly in April while consumer prices rebounded, pointing to a pickup in economic growth and a gradual rise in inflation that could keep the Federal Reserve on track to raise interest rates next month.

The reports on Friday added to labor market data in suggesting the near stall in economic activity in the first quarter was an anomaly. But a moderation in year-on-year inflation led financial markets to dial down expectations of at least two more rate increases this year.

“The economy picked it up a notch from the slow start earlier this year, but the inflation fires are not burning brightly and this will likely keep the Fed on just a gradual pace for interest rate hikes later this year,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at MUFG Union Bank in New York.

The Commerce Department said retail sales rose 0.4 percent last month after an upwardly revised 0.1 percent gain in March. Sales rose 4.5 percent in April on a year-on-year basis.

Economists had forecast overall retail sales increasing 0.6 percent last month. Excluding automobiles, gasoline, building materials and food services, retail sales gained 0.2 percent after advancing 0.7 percent in March.

These so-called core retail sales correspond most closely with the consumer spending component of gross domestic product.

The economy grew at a 0.7 percent annualized rate in the first quarter, held back by the weakest increase in consumer spending in more than seven years. The Atlanta Fed estimates GDP will rise at a 3.6 percent pace in the second quarter.

In a separate report on Friday, the Labor Department said its Consumer Price Index rose 0.2 percent after dropping 0.3 percent in March. The rise in prices suggested that March’s decline, which was the first in 13 months, was an aberration.

In the 12 months through April, the CPI increased 2.2 percent. While that was a slowdown from March’s 2.4 percent increase, it still exceeded the 1.7 percent average annual increase over the past 10 years.

Financial markets are pricing in more than a 70 percent chance of a rate hike at the Fed’s June 13-14 policy meeting, according to CME Group’s FedWatch program. But the likelihood the U.S. central bank will raise rates twice before the end of the year fell after Friday’s data.

The Fed lifted its benchmark overnight interest rate by 25 basis points in March and has forecast two more hikes this year.

Prices of U.S. Treasuries rose and the U.S. dollar <.DXY> weakened against a basket of currencies after the release of Friday’s data. U.S. stocks were trading mostly lower, pulled down by weak financial and industrial sectors.

‘COMPETITIVE PRESSURES’

Gasoline prices jumped 1.2 percent in April after falling 6.2 percent in March. Food prices rose 0.2 percent as prices for fresh vegetables recorded their biggest increase since February 2011.

The so-called core CPI, which strips out food and energy costs, edged up 0.1 percent last month, reversing March’s 0.1 percent dip. The monthly core CPI was restrained by declines in the prices of wireless phone services, medical care, motor vehicles and apparel.

Rental costs increased 0.3 percent after a similar gain in March. The core CPI increased 1.9 percent on a year-on-year basis, the smallest gain since October 2015, after rising 2.0 percent in March. Still, April’s increase was above the 1.8 percent average annual increase over the past decade.

“To some extent, this new weakness in price inflation is due to competitive pressures rather than weak demand, so the Fed can afford to discount it,” said Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics in Toronto.

Consumer spending is being supported by a tightening labor market, marked by an unemployment rate at a 10-year low of 4.4 percent. A third report on Friday showed consumer sentiment rose in early May as the outlook for wages improved.

Motor vehicle sales increased 0.7 percent in April after three straight months of decreases.

There were hefty gains in sales at building material and electronics and appliance stores.

But sales at clothing stores fell 0.5 percent. Department store retailers have been hurt by declining traffic in shopping malls and increased competition from online retailers, led by Amazon.com <AMZN.O>.

Retailer J.C. Penney Co Inc <JCP.N> said on Friday its net loss widened to $180 million, or 58 cents per share, in the first quarter. On Thursday, Macy’s Inc <M.N> reported a 4.6 percent drop in first-quarter sales.

Sales at online retailers jumped 1.4 percent in April.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Paul Simao)

Global cyber attack fuels concern about U.S. vulnerability disclosures

An undated aerial handout photo shows the National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters building in Fort Meade, Maryland. NSA/Handout via REUTERS

By Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A global cyber attack on Friday renewed concerns about whether the U.S. National Security Agency and other countries’ intelligence services too often hoard software vulnerabilities for offensive purposes, rather than quickly alerting technology companies to such flaws.

Hacking tools believed to belong to the NSA that were leaked online last month appear to be the root cause of a major cyber attack unfurling throughout Europe and beyond, security researchers said, stoking fears that the spy agency’s powerful cyber weapons had been stolen and repurposed by hackers with nefarious goals.

Some cyber security experts and privacy advocates said the massive attack reflected a flawed approach by the United States to dedicate more cyber resources to offense rather than defense, a practice they argued makes the internet less secure.

Across the U.S. federal government, about 90 percent of all spending on cyber programs is dedicated to offensive efforts, including penetrating the computer systems of adversaries, listening to communications and developing the means to disable or degrade infrastructure, senior intelligence officials told Reuters in March. (http://reut.rs/2o7qHqN)

“These attacks underscore the fact that vulnerabilities will be exploited not just by our security agencies, but by hackers and criminals around the world,” Patrick Toomey, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement.

The NSA did not respond to a request for comment.

Hospitals and doctors’ surgeries in parts of England on Friday were forced to turn away patients and cancel appointments after they were infected with the “ransomware”, which scrambled data on computers and demanded payments of $300 to $600 to restore access.

Security software maker Avast said it had observed more than 57,000 infections in 99 countries. Russia, Ukraine and Taiwan were the top targets, it said.

Private security firms identified the virus as a new variant of ‘WannaCry’ ransomware with the ability to automatically spread across large networks by exploiting a bug in Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system.

Security experts said the ransomware used in the attacks leveraged a hacking tool found in a leak of documents in April by a group known as Shadow Brokers.

At the time, Microsoft acknowledged the vulnerabilities and said they had been patched in a series of earlier updates pushed to customers, the most recent of which had been rolled out only a month earlier in March. But the episode prompted concerns about whether the tools could be leveraged by hackers to attack unpatched systems.

In a statement, a Microsoft spokesman said on Friday its engineers had provided additional detection and protection services against the WannaCry malware and that it was working with customers to provide additional assistance. The spokesman reiterated that customers who have Windows Updates enabled and use the company’s free antivirus software are protected.

Shadow Brokers first emerged last year and began dumping tranches of documents that it said belonged to the NSA, though the files appeared at least a few years old.

Over time, western researchers have grown more confident that Russia may be behind Shadow Brokers and possibly other recent disclosures of sensitive information about cyber capabilities that have been pilfered from U.S. intelligence agencies.

Some researchers cast blame not on the NSA but on the hospitals and other customers that appeared to leave themselves open to attack.

“The main problem here is organizations taking more than eight weeks to patch once Microsoft released the update,” said Chris Wysopal, chief technology officer at the cyber firm Veracode. “Eight weeks is plenty of time for a criminal organization to develop a sophisticated attack on software and launch it on a wide scale.”

Former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who in 2013 leaked documents to journalists revealing the existence of broad U.S. surveillance programs, said on Twitter the NSA had built attack tools targeting U.S. software that “now threatens the lives of hospital patients.”

“Despite warnings, (NSA) built dangerous attack tools that could target Western software,” Snowden said. “Today we see the cost.”

(This version of the story has been refiled to correct spelling of hoard in first paragraph)

(Reporting by Dustin Volz; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

U.S., EU set meeting on airline security, electronic devices

FILE PHOTO - A TSA worker loads suitcases at the checked luggage security screening station at Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, California, U.S. on September 7, 2011. REUTERS/Jonathan Alcorn/File Photo

By David Shepardson and Julia Fioretti

WASHINGTON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) – U.S. and European officials will discuss airline security issues at a meeting in Brussels next week, including possibly expanding the number of airports that ban passengers from carrying electronic devices bigger than cellphones aboard flights, a European Commission spokeswoman said on Friday.

U.S. Homeland Security Department Secretary John Kelly told European ministers by phone Friday the department does not plan to immediately unveil any new measures, the EU said.

U.S. Homeland Security spokesman David Lapan said no final decision had been made on whether to expand the restrictions and he declined to immediately confirm Kelly’s trip to Brussels.

“The U.S. and the EU are on the same side when it comes to fighting terrorism and protecting our security,” Dimitris Avramopoulos, EU commissioner for migration, home affairs and citizenship, said in a statement.

“Our phone call today proved once again the strong cooperation we have on these matters. I look forward to welcoming Mr Kelly and his experts in Brussels next week to continue our positive talks.”

Fears that a bomb could be concealed in electronic devices prompted the United States to announce in March that it would restrict passengers from bringing laptops onto flights originating from 10 airports, including those in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey. Britain followed suit with restrictions on a slightly different set of routes.

Airlines and several countries affected by the electronics ban have pushed for more consultation with American and British regulators after the abrupt introduction of the restrictions took the industry by surprise.

U.S. and European carriers are concerned about the logistics of checking large numbers of devices. Some airline officials say they would need to hire more staff to impose additional curbs, and are worried about how much advance notice they would have.

On Wednesday, Reuters reported that the Trump administration is likely to include some European countries in the in-cabin electronics ban.

Some U.S. and European airlines have been planning for a wider ban, industry officials have told Reuters.

European regulators have warned that placing hundreds of devices in the hold on long-haul flights could also compromise safety by increasing the risk of fire from poorly deactivated lithium-ion batteries.

Kelly briefed members of Congress Thursday and held a meeting with high-level executives of Delta Air Lines <DAL.N>, United Airlines <UAL.N>, American Airlines Group Inc <AAL.O> and Airlines For America, a trade group. A congressional official said Homeland Security was likely to expand the ban soon, but did not say when or to what airports.

The airlines declined to comment, but an airline official said government officials suggested an expansion of the ban was expected soon but it wasn’t certain when.

The trade group said in a statement it appreciated the meeting “to discuss the current state of aviation security.”

The group voted to work with government officials to “minimize the impact on the traveling public by utilizing the risk-based solutions that are the core of our foundation as the safest aviation system in the world.”

In 2016, 30 million people flew to the United States from Europe, according to U.S. Transportation Department data.

According to airports association ACI Europe, summer schedules for 2017 at airports in 28 European Union countries show there are 3,257 flights per week to the United States.

Kelly said last month the ban was likely to expand, given the sophisticated threats in aviation and intelligence findings that would-be attackers were trying to hide explosives in electronic devices.

The predicament is reminiscent of the aviation industry’s response to the 2014 downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17.

At the time, airlines called for greater sharing of information about potential threats to commercial aircraft from conflict zones, even as intelligence agencies expressed reluctance over the risk of revealing sources.

Kelly was scheduled to meet President Donald Trump on Friday but a DHS official said the meeting was about a different topic.

(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington; Additional reporting by Julia C. Fioretti in Brussels, Victoria Bryan in Berlin and Tim Hepher in Paris; Editing by David Gregorio and Bernadette Baum)

Erdogan sees ‘new beginning’ in Turkish-U.S. ties despite Kurdish arms move

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a news conference at Esenboga International airport in Ankara, Turkey May 12, 2017. Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Presidential Palace/Handout via REUTERS

By Humeyra Pamuk and Daren Butler

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday his visit to the United States next week could mark a “new beginning” in relations between the NATO allies which were shaken by a U.S. decision to arm Kurdish YPG fighters in Syria.

Erdogan repeated Ankara’s criticism of President Donald Trump’s decision, saying it ran counter to the two countries’ strategic interests – but also sought to portray it as a relic of the Obama administration’s Middle East policy.

“The United States is still going through a transition period. And we have to be more careful and sensitive,” he told a news conference at the Ankara airport before departing for China and the United States, where he will meet Trump for the first time since the president’s January inauguration.

“Right now there are certain moves in the United States coming from the past, such as the weapons assistance to the YPG,” Erdogan said. “These are developments that are in contradiction to our strategic relations with the United States and of course we don’t want this to happen.”

Turkey considers the YPG an extension of the outlawed PKK, which has fought an insurgency in its southeast region for three decades and is designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the European Union and United States.

Erdogan said he did not want to see “a terrorist organization alongside the United States”, and that Turkey would continue military operations against Kurdish militia targets in Iraq and Syria.

He also said he would pursue “to the end” Turkey’s demand for the extradition of the U.S.-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen who Ankara says was behind a failed military coup last July. That was followed by a purge of tens of thousands of Turkish state employees accused of links to Gulen, who has denied any involvement in the coup attempt.

But the tone of Erdogan’s comments, four days before he is due in Washington to meet Trump, contrasted with angry rebukes from Ankara earlier this week, when the foreign minister said every weapon sent to the YPG was a threat to Turkey and the defense minister described the move as a crisis.

Erdogan, who had a fraught relationship with former President Barack Obama, said his meeting with Trump at the White House next week would be decisive. “I actually see this U.S. visit as a new beginning in our ties,” he said.

Trump’s Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said after talks in London on Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim that he had no doubt the two countries could work through the tensions caused by the decision to arm the YPG.

A U.S. official also told Reuters that the United States was looking to boost intelligence cooperation with Turkey to support its fight against the PKK.

Asked about U.S. pledges of support, Erdogan suggested he will seek further guarantees when he meets Trump. “Among the information we have received, there is some that satisfy us and others that are not sufficient,” he said.

(Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by David Dolan)

U.S. Justice Department orders tougher criminal punishments

FILE PHOTO: Attorney General Jeff Sessions delivers remarks at the Ethics and Compliance Initiative annual conference in Washington, U.S., April 24, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File Photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration called for tougher charges and longer prison time for criminals in a move to return to strict enforcement of mandatory minimum-sentencing rules, according to a memo the U.S. Department of Justice released on Friday.

In a two-page memo to federal prosecutors, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions reversed course from the previous Obama administration and told the nation’s 94 U.S. attorneys to “charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense.”

The move is in line with tough campaign rhetoric against criminals by U.S. President Donald Trump, a Republican who had also pledged to support police and law enforcement.

“It ensures that the Department enforces the law fairly and consistently, advances public safety and promotes respect for our legal system,” Sessions said in the memo dated on Wednesday.

Sessions will make additional comments on the changes later on Friday, the Justice Department said in a separate statement.

Under former president Barack Obama, a Democrat, the Justice Department had sought to reduce mandatory sentencing to reduce jail time for low-level drug crimes and ease overcrowding at U.S. prisons.

Obama’s then-attorney general Eric Holder had advised prosecutors to avoid pursuing the toughest charges in certain cases, such as more minor drug offenses, that would have triggered mandatory sentencing under laws passed in the 1980s and 1990s.

In recent years, however, there has been growing bipartisan interest among some in Congress, the U.S. states and the courts to reevaluate lengthy prison terms.

Sessions’ memo rescinds the Obama-era policy, saying prosecutors must now disclose all information about a case to the courts and follow current sentencing rules. It also requires prosecutors seeking a different sentence to get approval and make a case in writing.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will oversee the new policy’s implementation and issue any additional guidance or clarifications, Sessions wrote.

(Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

New Orleans crews remove second Confederate statue amid protests

A construction crew works to remove a monument of Jefferson Davis in New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S., May 11, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Bachman

By Jonathan Bachman

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – New Orleans authorities dismantled a statue honoring president of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis amid cries by protesters waving Confederate flags and cheers from a group that said the monument glorified racism in the U.S. South.

Police watched the two groups taunt each other early on Thursday as crews used a crane to pluck the 8-foot (2.4 m) bronze statue from the granite pedestal where it had sat for more than a century on a piece of land near an intersection in the Mid-City neighborhood.

“I am here to witness this debacle, taking down this 106-year-old beautiful monument,” said Pierre McGraw, president of the Monumental Task Committee, which restored the statue as one of its first projects 29 years ago. “It hurts a lot.”

Quess Moore said he came out “to celebrate the victory in the battle against white supremacy, particularly in New Orleans.”

Confederacy statues and flags have been removed from public spaces across the United States since 2015, after a white supremacist murdered nine black parishioners at a South Carolina church.

Critics of the monuments say they foster racism by celebrating leaders of the Confederacy in the pro-slavery South during the U.S. Civil War.

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu posted photos on Twitter of the removal of the Jefferson Davis Monument.

“This historic moment is an opportunity to join together as one city and redefine our future,” Landrieu tweeted.

McGraw’s committee rejected that, saying in a statement that the mayor “cannot be inclusive, tolerant, or diverse when he is erasing a very specific and undeniable part of New Orleans’ history.”

A committee member sued on Monday to stop the city from removing a statue of Confederate States Army General P.G.T. Beauregard.

The Davis monument had been frequently vandalized, according to the New Orleans Historical website that showed a photo of the words “slave owner” sprayed in red paint on its base.

The statue will be stored in a city warehouse until a permanent location can be determined, officials said.

The Davis and Beauregard monuments are among four in New Orleans that critics have been pushing to have dismantled. In 2015, the city decided to take them down, and a U.S. appeals court ruled in March that it had the right to proceed.

The first of the monuments was removed last month.

On Sunday, dozens of supporters of the monuments clashed with hundreds of demonstrators near the site of a statue honoring Confederate General Robert E. Lee that is also slated for removal.

(Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee and Laila Kearney in New York; Editing by Toby Chopra and Lisa Von Ahn)