UK seeks two Russian spies over nerve agent attack. US, Canada again try to salvage three-country NAFTA. India's top court expected to rule on gay sex.

UK seeks two Russian spies over nerve agent attack

Metropolitan Police Service/AFP / HO Police identified Boshirov (L) and Petrov as the men who allegedly tried to kill Russian former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia with Novichok in March

Prime Minister Theresa May said Wednesday that two Russian spies carried out a nerve agent attack on a former colleague on British soil, as prosecutors issued a warrant for the suspects' arrest.
Prosecutors announced charges against Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov for trying to kill Russian former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia with Novichok in the city of Salisbury on March 4.

May told MPs the pair "are officers of the Russian military intelligence service, also known as the GRU" -- adding the attack had been sanctioned from higher up.
"This was not a rogue operation. It was almost certainly also approved outside the GRU at a senior level of the Russian state," May said.
London and its allies had previously blamed Moscow for the attack, which Russia angrily denied.
The row sparked a wave of diplomatic expulsions on both sides, as well as fresh US sanctions against Moscow which again denied involvement on Tuesday.

Metropolitan Police Service/AFP / HO A handout picture taken on Fisherton Road in Salisbury, west of London on March 4, 2018, and released by the British Metropolitan Police Service in London on September 5, 2018, shows Alexander Petrov (R) and Ruslan Boshirov, who are wanted by British police in connection with the nerve agent attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

"Unfounded accusations are being levelled against Russia… and absurd demands are being made for explanations in connection with a situation which we have nothing to do with," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
"Instead of conducting an independent, objective and transparent investigation into the incidents in Salisbury and Amesbury, London continues to engage in anti-Russian megaphone diplomacy, continuing its propaganda show," the statement added.

Earlier a spokeswoman for the Russian foreign ministry said the names and photos of the two men wanted by Britain "say nothing to us," accusing London of "manipulating information".
The US ambassador to London, Woody Johnson, tweeted: "The US and UK stand firmly together in holding Russia accountable for its act of aggression on UK soil."
Britain requested an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council, expected on Thursday, to update members on the situation.
- European Arrest Warrant -
The Foreign Office summoned Russia's charge d'affaires in London to demand Petrov and Boshirov come to Britain to stand trial, a spokeswoman said.
But prosecutors said they would not formally seek their extradition, as Russia has made clear in previous cases that it did not extradite its nationals.

AFP / John SAEKI Novichok, the nerve agent used in the attack of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, and in the accidental fatal poisoning of 44-year-old mother of three, Dawn Sturgess near Salisbury in July.

In 2007, Russia refused to extradite Andrei Lugovoi, the prime suspect in the murder by radioactive poisoning of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko in London.
"We have, however, obtained a European arrest warrant (EAW)," said Sue Hemming of the Crown Prosecution Service.

"(This) means that if either man travels to a country where an EAW is valid, they will be arrested and face extradition on these charges", which will never expire.
Britain's top counter-terror police officer, Neil Basu, said the two suspects had probably travelled to Britain using aliases. Photos of the pair were being made public in the hope that someone would recognise them.

PRU/AFP / HO Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May briefed MPs on progress with the police investigation into the March 4 nerve agent attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia

He said the pair, who are in their 40s, flew into London two days before the attack and stayed in a hotel, where traces of Novichok were found in their room.
They visited Salisbury the day before to carry out reconnaissance and were captured on security cameras near Skripal's house.

Police believe they put Novichok, a military-grade nerve agent developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, on the door handle.
Skripal and his daughter were found unconscious park bench a few hours later. The suspects flew back to Moscow later that evening.
Petrov and Boshirov face charges of conspiracy to murder Skripal and the attempted murder of him, his daughter, and Nick Bailey, a policeman injured in the aftermath, prosecutors said.
They are also accused of using a banned chemical weapon and causing grievous bodily harm to Yulia Skripal and Bailey.
- Perfume bottle -
Skripal was a colonel in the GRU who was jailed for betraying fellow agents to Britain's MI6 security service. He moved to England in 2010 as part of a spy swap.
The Skripals and Bailey both recovered from their poisoning, but on June 30, a British couple fell ill from the same type of nerve agent in the nearby town of Amesbury.
One of them, 44-year-old mother of three Dawn Sturgess, died on July 8.

AFP/File / Ben STANSALL The nerve agent was believed to have been smeared on the front door of his house in the sleepy southwestern English city of Salisbury

Her partner Charlie Rowley had found and given to her a perfume bottle, falsely labelled as "Premier Jour" by Nina Ricci, which police said contained a "significant amount of Novichok".
Rowley was also hospitalised and although he was discharged, recently returned and is being treated for meningitis and loss of eyesight.

Basu said the British pair were not targeted but fell ill "as a result of the recklessness in which such a toxic nerve agent was disposed of".

US, Canada again try to salvage three-country NAFTA

AFP / Brendan Smialowski Canada's Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland says she is looking forward to "constructive conversations" in talks with US trade negotiators on a revamped North American Free Trade Agreement

Efforts to salvage the North American Free Trade Agreement as a three-country pact resumed at the ministerial level Wednesday, after Canadian and US officials continued the lower level technical talks over the weekend.
But the talks will be dogged by President Donald Trump's repeated threats to leave Canada on the sidelines and proceed with Mexico, which reached a deal with Washington last week and could sign NAFTA 2.0 as soon as November 30.

Amid rising optimism last week that an agreement would soon be finalized on a rewrite of the 25-year-old trade deal, inflammatory comments from Trump angered officials in Ottawa and the discussions ended Friday with no agreement.
Canada's Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters Wednesday she is "looking forward to constructive conversations today" with US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.
"Our officials have continued to work hard and constructively over the weekend," she said.
Trump, meanwhile, continued his tough talk throughout the weekend, and was unlikely to be in a more cooperative mood after trade data showed the US deficit with Canada expanded, and deficits with China and the European Union hit new records.
"There is no political necessity to keep Canada in the new NAFTA deal. If we don't make a fair deal for the U.S. after decades of abuse, Canada will be out," Trump tweeted.
"Congress should not interfere with these negotiations or I will simply terminate NAFTA entirely & we will be far better off."
The White House notified Congress on Friday of its "intent to sign a trade agreement with Mexico -- and Canada, if it is willing -- 90 days from now."
The White House has until September 30 before it must present the full text of the new agreement to Congress, which gives Ottawa and Washington time to iron out remaining differences.
- Trilateral or bilateral? -
But legislators and trade law experts have warned that Trump does not have the authority to supplant the three-nation NAFTA with a bilateral pact with Canada.

AFP / Nicolas RAMALLO Trade between NAFTA countries

Freeland and Lighthizer said there had been progress in the negotiations last week, which frequently went late into the night.
But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stressed Tuesday that no NAFTA is better than a bad deal for Canada, and he will insist on retaining the dispute mechanism in Chapter 19 that provides binational panels to resolve disagreements.

"We will hold firm on that," Trudeau said Tuesday.
"We will not sign a deal that is bad for Canadians, and quite frankly, not having a Chapter 19 to ensure that the rules are followed would be bad for Canadians."
Canada has used the mechanism to fight off US antidumping duties.
After the US and Mexico reached an agreement on new rules for trade in autos, and tougher protections for workers and intellectual property, talks with Canada were hung up on the mechanisms used to resolve disputes among partners, and on Ottawa's strictly controlled dairy sector.
Mexican officials stressed in a joint statement that they are "continuing to promote an agreement to which Canada is a party."
But they also have said that either way they are protected with a bilateral deal with the United States, while Mexican businesses also have said they would support a two-nation deal.
A deal without Canada "is not the ideal scenario, but it's better than ending up without any agreement at all, it's better than living in uncertainty," said Gustavo de Hoyos, the president of the Mexican Employers' Association (COPARMEX).
But the US business sector strongly prefers that NAFTA remain a trilateral agreement.
"Anything other than a trilateral agreement won't win Congressional approval and would lose business support," warned Thomas Donohue, president of the US Chamber of Commerce.
And in a rare show of common cause with the business group, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka also supports a trilateral NAFTA.
He said it was "pretty hard to see" how efforts to revamp the pact would work "without having Canada in the deal."
Minutes later, Trump lashed out at the labor leader on Twitter for "poorly" representing his union and making comments that were "against the working men and women of our country, and the success of the U.S. itself."

India's top court expected to rule on gay sex

AFP/File / - An Indian supporter of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) community takes part in a pride parade in Bhopal in July: the supreme court is about to pass judgement on laws outlawing homosexuality

India's Supreme Court is likely on Thursday to deliver an eagerly awaited judgement on colonial-era legislation criminalising homosexuality, lawyers said.
Section 377 of the Indian penal code, a relic from 1860s British legislation, bans gay acts as "carnal intercourse against the order of nature" punishable by jail terms of up to life.

The top court began hearing petitions against the ban in July, beginning an emotional debate in the world's largest democracy over the right to freedom and privacy.
Tripti Tandon, a lawyer for one of the petitioners in the case, confirmed to AFP the judgement was listed for Thursday.
Her client Aris Jafer was arrested and sent to prison for 50 days in 2001.
"We have high hopes from the Supreme Court," said Rituparna Borah, a co-director of Nazaria, which describes itself as a queer feminist advocacy group.

AFP/File / ARUN SANKAR India has quietly made some strides in sexual rights

"This law should not have been there in the first place. This should have gone long back. We are asking for our basic human rights, nothing more," she told AFP.
Utsav Maheshwari, a 20-year-old gay college student, said he was "super excited" and hoping the "court will legitimise the community by acknowledging their existence".

The Delhi High Court effectively decriminalised gay sex in 2009, but the Supreme Court reinstated legal sanctions in 2014 after a successful appeal by religious groups.
Gay sex has long been taboo in conservative India -- particularly in rural areas where nearly 70 percent of people live -- and homophobia is widespread. Some still regard homosexuality as a mental illness.
According to official data, 2,187 cases under Section 377 were registered in 2016 under the category of "unnatural offences". Seven people were convicted and 16 acquitted.
Section 377 "is a law that propagates homophobia", said Keshav Suri, one of the petitioners, who has used his family's luxury hotel chain to promote gay rights by improving conditions for staff.
"In rural areas it is a harassment tool, used by cops, used by authorities for extortion for glorifying rape and molestation," said Suri.
A transgender man was killed in Hyderabad in June by a mob who accused him of being a child kidnapper.
- Suicide note -
A lesbian couple committed suicide in Gujarat the same month, leaving a note stating: "We are leaving this world to live with each other. The world did not allow us to stay together."
About a third of lesbian women have reported physical abuse including rape by their own relatives, according to a recent survey.

AFP / Chandan KHANNA Choreographer Mandeep Raikhy has used his dance troupe to highlight the experiences of gays

"Because of this law, there are a lot of people in the LGBT community outside of India who are afraid to travel to India because of this sense of paranoia that they might get arrested," said Suri.
Many Indian professionals have moved to Canada and Europe where gays are more accepted, he added.

Section 377 has been at the centre of court battles in India since 2001. In 2009, the Delhi high court ruled that it breached the constitution, bringing long-sought relief to the LGBT community until the Supreme Court quashed the decision in 2014.
Indian choreographer Navtej Johar launched a new petition in 2016 which was joined by Suri and others.
Religious groups of all kinds fiercely oppose ending Section 377. Government lawyers have however said they will leave it up to the "wisdom" of the court to decide on Thursday.
And India has quietly made some strides in sexual rights.
A transgender judge, Joyita Mondal Mahi, presides over courts in West Bengal state, Indian passports now state whether a holder is "male", "female" or "other" and the city of Raigarh, with 139,000 people, has a transgender mayor.
"Gay sex is criminalised here, but at another level, there is an intrinsic acceptance of difference," said New Delhi choreographer Mandeep Raikhy who has used his dance troupe to highlight the experiences of gays even at the risk of making audiences feel "uncomfortable".
Former students from the elite Indian Institute of Technology have also joined the battle against Section 377 while other professionals such as doctors have felt more emboldened to come out.
Suri said the Indian economy could make "billions" from pink tourism and investment if it lifted the ban on gay sex.
But he and others see marriage between two men or two women as the ultimate prize and ending Section 377 as only part of the struggle.

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