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News ID: 60167
Publish Date : 28 November 2018 - 21:39

U.S. Intel Chief to Brief NATO on Nuclear Treaty Exit


WASHINGTON (AFP) – U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said Tuesday that he is heading to Europe to explain to allies Washington's decision to pull out of a major nuclear weapons treaty because of Russian violations.
Coats told reporters that he will meet NATO defense and intelligence officials in Brussels this week to discuss President Donald Trump's decision in October to withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), a move that has fueled fears of a dangerous arms race.
"The intelligence community assesses Russia has flight-tested, produced, and deployed cruise missiles with a range capability that are prohibited by the treaty," Coats said.
"Russia has shown no sign that it is willing to acknowledge its violation, let alone return to full and verifiable compliance."
Coats said he would explain the threat to Europe from Russia's furtive development of its new 9M729 ground-based missile system, which Washington says has a reach that exceeds the INF limit of 500 kilometers (300 miles).
"Russia continues to press forward and as of late 2018 has fielded multiple battalions of 9M729 missiles, which pose a direct conventional and nuclear threat against most of Europe and parts of Asia," Coats said.
The Trump administration has yet to pinpoint a date for its official withdrawal from the treaty, leaving room for a possible fix that would likely also have to involve China, which was not a party to the INF.
"Number one, they would have to admit that they cheated," Coats said of Russia.
"Number two, they would have to acknowledge that they would then take actions to get us back on an even keel, so that (Russia) didn't retain that strategic advantage" from the new missile program.
"We need full verifiable elimination of all missiles that fall in this category, if we're going to go forward," he said.

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New Study Finds:
Discrimination Against Black People Rife in Europe
BRUSSELS (Euronews) -- Almost a third of black people in the European Union have been on the receiving end of racial harassment in the past five years, a new survey revealed on Wednesday, describing discrimination in the bloc as "commonplace."
More than 5,800 first-generation immigrants or descendants of immigrants in 12 EU member states took part in the survey by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, which concluded that "simply "being Black" means often facing entrenched prejudice and exclusion."
Nearly a third of respondents (30%) stated that they had experienced racial harassment in the five years before the survey, with results varying widely between member states.
Finland had the highest rate of all 12 member states surveyed, with 63% of respondents reporting having been the target of offensive non-verbal cues, threatening comments or even threats of violence.
The Mediterranean island nation of Malta had the lowest prevalence (20%).
Five percent also said they had experienced a racist attack in the past five years. In most cases, a vast majority of victims eschewed going to the police, stating that they felt reporting the incident would not change anything or that they either didn't trust or were afraid of the police.
"Racial discrimination and harassment are commonplace," EUAFA director Michael O'Flaherty said in the report. "Discriminatory profiling by police, too is a common reality," he added.
One-quarter of all people surveyed were stopped by the police in the past five years. Among these, four in 10 characterized the most recent stop as racial profiling.
Additionally, nearly 40% of respondents felt they had been discriminated against in the past five years because of their skin color, ethnic origin or religion.
This was particularly true in the labor market, where "people of African descent are often engaged in low quality employment that does not correspond to their level of education," the report flagged.