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A key separatist leader in eastern Ukraine has been killed in a blast at a coffee shop in Donetsk, according to rebels.

The explosion on Friday fatally wounded Alexander Zakharchenko, head of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic, which has been pushing for independence since 2014 after Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula.

Russia accused Ukraine of assassinating the 42-year-old, but Kiev said it had nothing to do with the explosion and blamed separatist infighting.

Zakharchenko “received injuries incompatible with life as a result of an explosion in the centre of Donetsk”, the separatist administration said in a statement. It added that the blast also injured  Alexander Timofeyev, the deputy prime minister of the self-proclaimed republic. 

“Zakharchenko was with a colleague at the cafe when the bomb went off,” said Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands, reporting from the Russian capital, Moscow. “He is the only confirmed fatality so far from that explosion.”

Challands added Donetsk was in lockdown following the blast.

“Nobody is allowed in and nobody is allowed out,” he said.

‘Bloody fight’

Russian-backed rebels threw off Ukrainian central rule in an armed uprising after pro-Western leaders opposed by Moscow came to power in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, in 2014.

A shaky internationally-brokered ceasefire has been in force since 2015, halting large-scale fighting, though there are still frequent outbreaks of shooting incidents on the front line between the separatists and Ukrainian forces.

Russia’s foreign ministry said it had every reason to believe Kiev was responsible for Zakharchenko’s death, ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on the Rossiya-24 state television station.

Zakharchenko’s death shows that Kiev has decided to engage in a “bloody fight” and has passed on its promises of seeking peace, she said.

In Kiev, a spokeswoman for the state security service, Yelena Gitlyanskaya, dismissed Moscow’s accusations.

“According to our information, this was the result of internal fighting which has already been continuing for years between the terrorists and their Russian sponsors,” she said.

Coalmine electrician to rebel leader

Zakharchenko, a former coal mine electrician, joined pro-Russian separatists in an armed uprising in Donetsk in 2014 and sold his business to help fund the movement.

He took the reins as the leader of the Donetsk Republic in November 2014 from a number of Russians, in a bid to show that Ukraine’s separatist movement wasn’t a Russian-led operation.

Other rebel leaders say he was handpicked for the role by Moscow. A vote held by separatists confirmed him in office.

Zakharchenko introduced Soviet-style military parades with tanks in Donetsk and usually wore military fatigues, despite his political role.

He proposed the creation of a new country called “Malorossia” or “Little Russia”, encompassing Ukraine, with its capital in Donetsk.

In the past, he said had been the target of several assassination attempts, accusing Ukraine of trying to kill him in an explosion back in 2016.

SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies

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Eric Tucker and Chad Day, The Associated Press
Published 1:52 p.m. ET Aug. 31, 2018

WASHINGTON – A senior Justice Department lawyer says a former British spy told him at a breakfast meeting two years ago that Russian intelligence believed it had Donald Trump “over a barrel,” according to multiple people familiar with the encounter.

The lawyer, Bruce Ohr, also says he learned that a Trump campaign aide had met with higher-level Russian officials than the aide had acknowledged, the people said.

The previously unreported details of the July 30, 2016, breakfast with Christopher Steele, which Ohr described to lawmakers this week in a private interview, reveal an exchange of potentially explosive information about Trump between two men the president has relentlessly sought to discredit.

They add to the public understanding of those pivotal summer months as the FBI and intelligence community scrambled to untangle possible connections between the Trump campaign and Russia. And they reflect the concern of Steele, a longtime FBI informant whose Democratic-funded research into Trump ties to Russia was compiled into a dossier, that the Republican presidential candidate was possibly compromised and his urgent efforts to convey that anxiety to contacts at the FBI and Justice Department.

The people who discussed Ohr’s interview were not authorized to publicly discuss details of the closed session and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Among the things Ohr said he learned from Steele during the breakfast was that an unnamed former Russian intelligence official had said that Russian intelligence believed “they had Trump over a barrel,” according to people familiar with the meeting. It was not clear from Ohr’s interview whether Steele had been directly told that or had picked that up through his contacts, but the broader sentiment is echoed in Steele’s research dossier.

Steele and Ohr, at the time of the election a senior official in the deputy attorney general’s office, had first met a decade earlier and bonded over a shared interest in international organized crime. They met several times during the presidential campaign, a relationship that exposed both men and federal law enforcement more generally to partisan criticism, including from Trump.

Republicans contend the FBI relied excessively on the dossier during its investigation and to obtain a secret wiretap application on Trump campaign aide Carter Page. They also say Ohr went outside his job description and chain of command by meeting with Steele, including after his termination as a FBI source, and then relaying information to the FBI.

Trump this month proposed stripping Ohr, who until this year had been largely anonymous during his decades-long Justice Department career, of his security clearance and has asked “how the hell” he remains employed.

Trump has called the Russia investigation a “witch hunt” and has denied any collusion between his campaign and Moscow.

Trump and some of his supporters in Congress have also accused the FBI of launching the entire Russia counterintelligence investigation based on the dossier. But memos authored by Republicans and Democrats and declassified this year show the probe was triggered by information the U.S. government received earlier about the Russian contacts of then-Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos.

The FBI’s investigation was already under way by the time it received Steele’s dossier, and Ohr was not the original source of information from it.

One of the meetings described to House lawmakers Tuesday was a Washington breakfast attended by Steele, an associate of his and Ohr. Ohr’s wife, Nellie, who worked for the political research firm, Fusion GPS, that hired Steele, attended at least part of the breakfast.

Ohr also told Congress that Steele told him that Page, a Trump campaign aide who traveled to Moscow that same month and whose ties to Russia attracted FBI scrutiny, had met with more senior Russian officials than he had acknowledged meeting with.

That breakfast took place amid ongoing FBI concerns about Russian election interference and possible communication with Trump associates. By that point, Russian hackers had penetrated Democratic email accounts, including that of the Clinton campaign chairman, and Papadopoulos, the Trump campaign associate, was said to have revealed that Russians had “dirt” on Democrat Hillary Clinton in the form of emails, according to court papers. That revelation prompted the FBI to open the counterintelligence investigation on July 31, 2016, one day after the breakfast but based on entirely different information.

Ohr told lawmakers he could not vouch for the accuracy of Steele’s information but has said he considered him a reliable FBI informant who delivered credible and actionable intelligence, including his investigation into corruption at FIFA, soccer’s global governing body.

In the interview, Ohr acknowledged that he had not told superiors in his office, including Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, about his meetings with Steele because he considered the information inflammatory raw source material.

He also provided new details about the department’s move to reassign him once his Steele ties were brought to light.

Ohr said he met in late December 2017 with two senior Justice Department officials, Scott Schools and James Crowell, who told him they were unhappy he had not proactively disclosed his meetings with Steele. They said he was being stripped of his associate deputy attorney post as part of a planned internal reorganization, people familiar with Ohr’s account say.

He met again soon after with one of the officials, who told him Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein did not believe he could continue in his current position as director of a drug grant-distribution program – known as the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force.

Sessions and Rosenstein, Ohr was told, did not want him in the post because it entailed White House meetings and interactions, the people said.

Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores declined to comment.

Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2C5vn8N

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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has pledged its “full support” for Argentina as the country seeks to overcome an ongoing economic crisis that has prompted a world-record interest rate hike and seen the value of the peso plunge to a record low against the dollar.

Gerry Rice, IMF chief spokesperson said in a statement on Friday that a delegation from the Washington, DC-based body would meet with Argentine officials next week to agree on a “revised economic plan” following President Mauricio Macri’s request this week for an early release of funds from a $50bn bailout package agreed to in June.

“We are confident that the strong commitment and determination of the Argentine authorities will help the country overcome the current difficulties,” Rice said.

His comments came a day after students and university professors rallied in the capital, Buenos Aires, to protest against austerity measures – including education budget cuts – tied to the IMF package.

Many Argentines are wary of the body after its perceived role in the country’s worst ever financial crisis during 2001-2002, which left one out of every five people unemployed and thrust millions into poverty.

In May, a survey of more than 1,000 people by Argentine pollsters D’Alessio Irol/Berensztein revealed that 75 percent of respondents felt seeking assistance from the IMF was problematic.

On Friday morning, the peso rallied slightly after a disastrous Thursday which saw it drop by 13.5 percent against the dollar by the time markets closed, marking a 53 percent loss in value since the beginning of the year.

In a bid to arrest the decline, Argentina’s Central Bank has raised the country’s interest rate from 45 to 60 percent – the world’s highest.

The government is expected to announce further economic measures at the beginning of next week.

‘Political blowback’

The economic crisis, which worsened after Macri said on Wednesday he had reached a deal with the IMF for accelerated payouts, has spooked investors and prompted public protests.

The General Confederation of Labour, the country’s largest labour union, has called for general strikes in late September over the government’s economic policies.

Argentina has agreed with the IMF to cut its fiscal deficit to 1.3 percent of gross domestic product by 2019, down from 3.9 percent last year, resulting in cutbacks including slashed energy subsidies and the freezing of some government salaries. 

Fiona Mackie, the Economist Intelligence Unit’s regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, warned the country’s attempt at a “rapid” economic adjustment could prove “painful”.

“Recession could be deep, and political risk will spike amid dwindling confidence at home,” she said in a Twitter post on Thursday.

The economic problems and Macri’s alignment with the IMF have cast doubt over his chances of re-election in next year’s polls.

Argentina just raised interest rates to whopping 60 percent to contain the peso plunge. A big political blowback coming in 2019? Risks on the rise.

— Monica de Bolle (@bollemdb) August 30, 2018

Monica de Bolle, a senior fellow at the US-based Peterson Institute for International Economics, questioned on Thursday whether there will be a “big political blowback” during the vote with “risks on the rise” ahead of the ballot in October 2019.

Macri’s Chief Cabinet Minister Marcos Pena, meanwhile, said on Thursday that Argentina was “not facing economic failure”.

“This is a transformation, not failure. In that transformation there are difficult moments,” Pena told a Council of the Americas meeting in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires.

Argentina, Latin America’s third-largest economy, currently has an unemployment rate of about nine percent.

According to the World Bank, more than 28 percent of its some 43 million people live in poverty.

How does a VPN (virtual private network) stand out from the crowd today? With privacy concerns and a sheer number of quality options, even great VPNs may not get the attention they deserve.

Perhaps the best approach is a minimalist design with a bit of flair and backed by advanced security features. That way, the newcomer will feel at home using the default setting and know they are getting the privacy they seek. As they get comfortable, they can learn how to switch servers or experiment with other options.

Advanced users can tailor their experience right away and turn on any features they need to feel secure. The flair is just there because we’re all suckers for a bit of personality with our apps.

IPVanish eschews most of that for a basic experience. There’s value in the service and the actual VPN service works, but will you give IPVanish a chance?

A throwback

All VPNs need to do one thing and one thing well. Everyone connecting to the internet needs to do so through an Internet Service Provider (ISP). However, that means all of our online activity is in some way recorded by our ISP, and the door is wide open for those companies to use it for marketing purposes.

A VPN, however, will route your internet traffic through their servers instead of your ISP’s. This effectively masks your activity and location — perfect for anyone seeking a bit of true privacy. 

The first thing I notice when using IPVanish is the almost retro feel of the app. It’s rocking a dark theme of green, black, and gray. There are hints of white and the Disconnect button is distinctly red. Good calls, color-wise.

No fun map greets you to let you know where your VPN server is located. No cute naming conventions. Just vanilla drop-down menus and country flags. The only visual flair comes in the form of an active graph of your VPN activity. It feels dated, but I don’t mind that. And you shouldn’t either if you’re seeking a VPN that just works.

I do give credit to IPVanish for a brief tutorial. It’s minimal in detail, but provides the gist of what the app has to offer. You’ll learn about what a VPN is, how it routes your IP address through a server to mask your location, and how to select different servers. Simple, yet effective.

Everything you need can be found in the main menu. IPVanish defaults to a Quick Connect option to find the fastest server available. If you want to be specific about it, heading to the Server button reveals the global network of available servers. Some countries are better represented than others, which is standard for VPN services. The bulk of IPVanish’s servers are located in the United States with the UK a distant second, just ahead of the Netherlands.

While I mostly want a lightweight VPN service on my phone, I want a similar, seamless app experience for my Chromebook. I know it’s not the coolest device around, but it’s a solid and cheap workhorse. I can open it up, surf the web or edit some Google Docs. As my faithful web browsing device, I definitely want to cover my tracks on my Chromebook. 

Most VPN services have an app for a Chromebook, but it’s not the same as the one you may download for a PC or Mac. VPN services typically use a proxy system to mask your web activity on a Chromebook. There’s a subtle, but distinct, difference between the two offerings. 

VPNs do everything to mask your IP address by encrypting your data and funneling it through their server. Proxies don’t encrypt your data and act more as a relay system so you can quickly bypass any regional restrictions.

Instead of an app, I was greeted by a visual guide. I was told to head to my settings and change my connection to a default IPVanish server. It was simple and took no time to connect to IPVanish. There were even screenshots in case you were uncertain of the next step.

While everything worked, it was still a little underwhelming. This is how you set up your printer at work, not a VPN at home in 2018. We’ve gotten spoiled with the plethora of VPN services with minimalist apps and a simple button to turn the whole thing on. When there are so many options out there, having to manually install your VPN may be a non-starter for Chromebook users.

Private enough

I’ve been spoiled by features on other VPNs. Both TunnelBear and NordVPN have multiple options within their respective Android apps.

IPVanish has just one additional security feature: Scramble. You can toggle the option to make your VPN activity look more like regular internet activity. This is a great feature to bypass stricter regulations and should be used by anyone in a country with restrictive internet laws.

And that’s it, feature-wise. There are a few additional security options, but they’re limited to auto start and connection preferences.

There are other major considerations when finding the right VPN for you. First, you need to look for leaks. If any data escapes from the VPN’s encrypted tunnel, you’re exposed. Any website you visit requests your IP address and the website should receive the new IP address from the VPN and not from your ISP. If that happens, you have a domain network service (DNS) leak.

PVanish has just one additional security feature: Scramble.

Finding a DNS leak requires a quick online test. If the DNS leak test reveals two servers, you’re leaking data. I found there were no DNS leaks while using IPVanish across all my devices. 

Another important privacy feature is the company behind the service. All VPNs have a privacy policy and some are way better than others. IPVanish claims to have a no logs meaning they don’t store any personally identifiable data.

Diving further into the policy, IPVanish states the only data collected from the website is used to verify a user’s account and payment method. That’s all great with one caveat. IPVanish’s parent company is headquartered in the United States, which has intelligence agreements with other countries. The Five Eyes Alliance is an agreement between the U.S., the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to share intelligence. If a VPN service is located in one of these countries, it could be compelled to send any data it has.

There are also conflicting reports of IPVanish handing over data despite the no-log policy. This was the result of a criminal complaint that was first surfaced on . StackPath, IPVanish’s parent company, states this occurred in 2016 and before StackPath acquired Highwinds Network Group. StackPath reiterated IPVanish follows a strict no-log policy, and it’s apparently been run as a new company since the acquisition, for whatever that’s worth.

We need to talk about speed

Better privacy and security are the primary purposes for any VPN service, but speed counts, too. If your website is loading slower than molasses, what’s the point? IPVanish touts itself as the best VPN and the world’s fastest VPN.

Well, about that.

I pay for 50Gbps download speed from my ISP. Using IPVanish, I noticed significant speed drops on two different servers for my Chromebook. After seeing download speeds in the teens for the default server, I switched to another server in the U.S. Download and upload speeds were better, but still a significant drop from my standard service.

I experienced the same disappointing speeds on my MacBook Air. I was sent to a server in Las Vegas and experienced a massive drop in download and upload speeds. I switched to their Ashburn location and speeds were better, but still lower than my regular download speed. 

UK download speed was fine, but it was another 30+ Mbps drop in upload speed. The Netherlands server fared worse. 

What about Netflix? You can usually forgive all VPN sins if it lets you bypass Netflix’s security. Unfortunately, IPVanish was unable to slip through.

Just another VPN

To be sure, IPVanish did its job and provided a VPN option. The app was minimal, but intuitive. The services were all there. It just fell short of other services. There’s just so much competition out there that when you’re figuring out if IPVanish is worth its monthly fee, the service will leave many wanting more.

Having thousands of available servers, P2P availability, and a no-log policy are all worthwhile features. IPNVanish is a good place to start your search for a quality VPN, but it might not your final choice.