On June 4^th, 2018 the President of the Russian Federation (“President”) signed into Federal Law No 127-FZ “On measures of reaction (counteraction) to adversarial actions of the United States of America and other foreign states” (“Anti-sanctions law,” “Law”) which became effective the same day.

On June 12, 2018, an indictment charges eight businessmen, including five Russian nationals and three Syrian nationals, for conspiring to violate U.S. economic sanctions against Syria and Crimea, by sending jet fuel to Syria and making U.S. dollar wires to Syria and to sanctioned entities in Syria without receiving a license  from U.S. Treasury Department.  The indictment was returned in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

On June 4, 2018, Eric Christopher Conn, 58, of Pikeville, Kentucky, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Kentucky to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, one count of conspiracy to escape, and one count of conspiracy to retaliate against an informant.

On May 24, 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice announced a superseding indictment charging two employees of an international engineering consulting firm for their alleged participation in a scheme to launder briber payments to foreign government officials for the benefit of a Columbus, Ohio-based subsidiary of Rolls-Royce plc, to obtain a contract to supply equipment and services to power a gas pipeline from Kazakhstan to China.

On May 11, 2018, Kasim Kurd and several others filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the Republic of Turkey and five other defendants (two American citizens and three Canadian citizens) for the assault on allegedly peaceful protestors in D.C.  The two Americans are Sinan Narin and Eyup Yildirim, and the Canadians are Mahmut Ellialti, Alpkenan Dereci, and Ahmet Dereci.  The incident raises the following issues: (1) whether the Turkish government can be subjected to jurisdiction within the United States for the alleged incident, (2) whether the security guards involved in the incident could be added to this suit, and (3) what would the diplomatic ramifications be for allowing a U.S. court to have jurisdiction over these security guards?

On May 24, 2018, international investigators probing the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 made their interim findings public in the Dutch town of Bunnik. They said detailed analysis of video images showed the missile used to down the Malaysian flight came from a Russian military unit. They said they had “legal and convincing evidence which will stand up in a courtroom.”

At its 13^th sitting held on April 24, 2018, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted Resolution 2211 (2018) calling for undertaking all measures available, including close international cooperation, to eliminate the funding sources Daesh used in the past.

What will happen to Colombia’s efforts to disarm and reintegrate transnational criminal organizations and street gangs if the local officials in whom they place their trust and hopes are suddenly jailed under specious charges by the national government?  This is the concern of many individuals closely following the case of Gustavo Villegas, the ex-Secretary of Security for the city of Medellín, who was arrested last February and sentenced to 31 months confinement on two charges that on close examination smack of political corruption and prosecutorial misconduct—and make no sense, whatsoever.  Villegas asserts that he has done nothing wrong other than to be successful as a peace negotiator between the Mayor’s office and Medellín’s violent transborder criminal gangs and former paramilitary combatants, and that national government politicians and prosecutors targeted him because they cannot allow Medellín’s mayoral officials to upstage the peace and reconciliation efforts between the Colombian government and illegal armed groups, including and most especially, the guerrilla army-turned-transborder-criminal organization known as the FARC.