After a three-day investigation that entailed searching through files and copying data from certain digital devices, the income tax inspectors departed the BBC offices in New Delhi and Mumbai on Thursday night.
The UK national broadcaster confirmed the news on Twitter and stated that they will keep working with the authorities.
“The income tax authorities have left our offices in Delhi and Mumbai. We will continue to cooperate with the authorities and hope matters are resolved as soon as possible.
We are supporting staff – some of whom have faced lengthy questioning or been required to stay overnight – and their welfare is our priority. Our output is back to normal and we remain committed to serving our audiences in India and beyond.
The BBC is a trusted, independent media organisation and we stand by our colleagues and journalists who will continue to report without fear or favour,” a statment by the BBC read.
Some 130,000 demonstrators swarmed the streets that night last month to rally against the country’s new far-right government — arguably the most extreme in Israel’s history — and an agenda that even centrist politicians say threatens Israel’s democracy. The protest wasn’t a one-off. Pro-democracy demonstrations have taken place every Saturday since the start of January, bringing in some of the largest crowds in recent memory (though smaller than the 2011 social justice protests that, at their height, brought approximately a quarter million people to the streets).
The new government is led by a familiar face, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been in and out of office since 1996 and is still on trial for corruption charges.
But the coalition he cobbled together to regain power includes elements that once composed the fringe of Israeli politics. That includes Itamar Ben Gvir, a far-right religious nationalist who heads a political party named “Jewish Power.” Previously, he was a member of Kach, a party that was outlawed in Israel and that spent 25 years on the U.S. State Department’s list of terror organizations; in a twist of irony, Ben Gvir is now serving as the country’s national security minister. Since taking the helm, he has visited the Al Aqsa compound in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, home to the third holiest site in Islam. Al Aqsa is sacred to Jews as well, but such visits are viewed by Palestinians as a huge provocation — an act so contentious that Ariel Sharon’s September 2000 visit is widely credited with sparking the Second Intifada, or Palestinian uprising.
Another controversial figure in the new government is Bezalel Smotrich, a settler and the leader of an ultra-nationalist religious Zionist party. Smotrich is now serving as a finance minister; it is widely believed that, in this role, he will ensure West Bank settlements get the money they need to continue to grow, threatening what little possibility remains of a territorially contiguous Palestinian state.
Already, this new government is making moves to chip away at the country’s democratic space. A proposed overhaul to the judiciary would render the High Court’s judgments toothless and would destroy its independence, upending the country’s system of checks and balances. The government also announced an intent to shut down Kan — the country’s only publicly funded broadcast news service — with Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi “calling public broadcasting unnecessary.” Outrage was so intense that it’s been put on ice for now as the government focuses instead on pushing through its controversial judicial reforms. Netanyahu defends the reshuffling of the judiciary, dismissively calling them a “minor correction.”
But even Israel’s own president, Isaac Herzog, is sounding the alarm. In a speech given on Sunday — the day before a massive nationwide strike that brought 100,000 Israelis to protest outside of the Knesset on Monday — Herzog warned that the country is “on the brink of constitutional and social collapse.”
“I feel, we all feel, that we are in the moment before a clash, even a violent clash,” Herzog said. “The gunpowder barrel is about to explode.”
When I wade into the crowd on that Saturday night, just after Shabbat has ended, there’s another consistent fear I hear from Israelis: that this new government will undermine its standing in the world, including with its most important ally, the United States. But while there are fears about losing American support, some Israelis also voice concern that American backing will continue regardless of what this new government does — a scenario they view as enabling and dangerous. Because what would an Israel — held accountable to no one, left entirely to its own devices — look like?
Avi, who works in high-tech, a key Israeli industry, says he is particularly worried about the government targeting the rights of secular Israelis, women and LGBTQ individuals — which could also prove to open rifts between America’s Democratic Party and the Israeli government. (Just a few days later, hundreds of Israeli high-tech employees would take to the streets, leaving their desks abruptly at midday to march on Rothschild Boulevard as they carried signs that read, “No democracy, no high-tech.”)
Asked if Israel’s relationship with the United States is a concern, Hila replies, “It’s always a concern. We’re supposed to be the only democracy in the Middle East and that doesn’t seem like where we’re going with the latest changes.”
Maya Lavie-Ajayi, a 48-year-old professor at Ben Gurion University, says she hopes to see some sort of intervention from the Biden administration and the European Union. “We see Hungary and we see Russia and we know you get to a point where [citizens] can’t fight back anymore.” She added that while Israel isn’t there yet, “I think that we need support to keep the democratic nature that was problematic in the first place.”
Lavie-Ajayi notes the withdrawal of American support would be a powerful lesson to Netanyahu: “Bibi would understand that he can’t just do whatever he wants, that he doesn’t have an open ticket to chip away at the democratic nature of this country.”
It’s not just people in the streets who see the prospect of pressure from abroad. In December, over 100 former Israeli diplomats and retired foreign ministry officials sent an open letter to Netanyahu expressing concern about the new government’s impact on the country’s international standing, warning that there could be “political and economic ramifications.”
Indeed, senior American officials seem to share at least some of protesters’ worries about the direction Israel is taking. U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan visited Israel last month reportedly in hopes of “syncing up” with the new government. Then came Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip, during which he said he had a “candid” talk with Netanyahu, with Blinken touting the need for a two-state solution with Palestinians and the importance of democratic institutions.
Still, it seems unlikely Israel will lose American support — including billions in military aid — anytime soon.
“This administration will go to great lengths to avoid a public confrontation with the new Netanyahu government,” says Aaron David Miller, a longtime State Department official who worked on Middle East negotiations and is now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
At the same time, Israel’s shifting politics — particularly with a government that’s now more religious right than secular right — could have unintended reverberations. It’s taken for granted that American liberals are likely to grow ever more skittish with an ultra-conservative Israel. But some in conservative corners are also worried, according to Yossi Shain, a political science professor at Tel Aviv University, professor emeritus at Georgetown University and former Knesset Member from Yisrael Beiteinu, a secular nationalist party on the right. He says he’s constantly on the phone with American counterparts who are deeply concerned about how the new government will impact the country’s security and economy.
“The Israeli right pretends to reflect American conservative values, but in fact distorts them,” he adds. “It builds on clericalism and religious orthodoxy that negates liberties, the core of American conservative creed.”
Now, Shain says, some of the same political actors who helped foster the circumstances that enabled this government to rise are wringing their hands.
To which Israel’s pro-democracy protesters would likely respond, “Told you so.”
Back on the street in Tel Aviv, many in the crowd, though not all, link the decades of Palestinian occupation with the decline of Israel’s democracy.
“Rights for Jews only is not a democracy,” reads one poster. A massive black sign — made out of cloth and held up by half a dozen protesters — depicts the separation barrier, guard towers and barbed wire that contain the West Bank; in the middle, a dove bearing an olive branch bursts through the structure. “A nation that occupies another nation will never be free,” says the sign in Arabic, Hebrew and English.
Nearby, a woman calls through a bullhorn, “Democracy?”
“Yes!” the crowd responds.
“Occupation?”
“No!” they cry.
“I’m terrified of a situation where [Israel’s new government] doesn’t reduce American support,” says Rony HaCohen, an economist, pointing to the way the military occupation of the Palestinian territories has become normalized amid a lack of American censure.
But one protester questions even the United States’ ability to rein in its closest ally in the Middle East. Jesse Fox, a 41-year-old doctoral candidate at Tel Aviv University, says that while he’d like to see the Biden administration raise some pressure, he believes Israel is already headed down “the path of Hungary” and other countries that have abandoned democratic principles.
“It starts with the court reforms,” he says. “After that, they have plans to try to bring the media under government control. And then, who knows?”
And as an American Jewish immigrant who has lived in Israel for the better part of 20 years, Fox adds, “I want Americans to realize that, right now, being ‘pro-Israel’ means opposing the Israeli government.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
To walk on to the Great Salt Lake, the largest salt lake in the western hemisphere which faces the astounding prospect of disappearing just five years from now, is to trudge across expanses of sand and mud, streaked with ice and desiccated aquatic life, where just a short time ago you would be wading in waist-deep water.
But the mounting sense of local dread over the lake’s rapid retreat doesn’t just come from its throttled water supply and record low levels, as bad as this is. The terror comes from toxins laced in the vast exposed lake bed, such as arsenic, mercury and lead, being picked up by the wind to form poisonous clouds of dust that would swamp the lungs of people in nearby Salt Lake City, where air pollution is often already worse than that of Los Angeles, potentially provoking a myriad of respiratory and cancer-related problems.
This looming scenario, according to Ben Abbott, an ecologist at Brigham Young University, risks “one of the worst environmental disasters in modern US history”, surpassing the partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor in Pennsylvania in 1979 and acting like a sort of “perpetual Deepwater Horizon blowout”.
Salt Lakers are set to be assailed by a “thick fog of this stuff that’s blowing through, it would be gritty. It would dim the light, it would literally go from day to night and it could absolutely be regular all summer,” said Abbott, who headed a sobering recent study with several dozen other scientists on the “unprecedented danger” posed by lake’s disintegration.
Ben Abbott on a mound of bleached and exposed microbialites at the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Photograph: Kim Raff/The Guardian
“We could expect to see thousands of excess deaths annually from the increase in air pollution and the collapse of the largest wetland oasis in the intermountain west,” he added.
There is evidence that plumes of toxic dust are already stirring as the exposed salt crust on the lake, which has lost three-quarters of its water and has shriveled by nearly two-thirds in size since the Mormon wagon train first arrived here in the mid-19th century, breaks apart from erosion. Abbott now regularly fields fretful phone calls from people asking if Salt Lake City is safe to live in still, or if their offspring should steer clear of the University of Utah.
“People have seen and realized it’s not hypothetical and that there is a real threat to our entire way of life,” Abbott said. “We are seeing this freight train coming as the lake shrinks. We’re just seeing the front end of it now.” About 2.4 million people, or about 80% of Utah’s population, lives “within a stone’s throw of the lake”, Abbott said. “I mean, they are directly down wind from this. As some people have said, it’s an environmental nuclear bomb.”
Alvin Sihapanya, a research student at Westminster College, looks in the water of the Great Salt Lake. Photograph: Kim Raff/The Guardian
Emergency action
The Great Salt Lake’s predicament is often compared to that of the dried-up Owens Lake in California, one of the worst sources of dust pollution in the US since the water feeding it was rerouted to Los Angeles more than a century ago. But the sheer heft of the Great Salt Lake, sometimes called ‘America’s Dead Sea’ but in fact four times larger than its counterpart that straddles Israel and Jordan, presages a loss on the scale of the Aral Sea, once the world’s fourth largest lake but strangled to death by Soviet irrigation projects.
The demise of the Aral Sea was dumfounding to many Soviets, who thought it virtually impossible to doom a lake so large just by watering some nearby cotton. “But these systems are actually very, very delicate,” said Abbott, and they can quickly spiral away. The Great Salt Lake, its equilibrium upended by the voracious diversion of water to nourish crops, flush toilets and water lawns and zapped by global heating, could vanish in just five years, a timeline Abbott admits seems “absurd”.
“History won’t have to judge us, not even our kids will have to judge us – we will judge ourselves in short order,” said Erin Mendenhall, the mayor of Salt Lake City, who is now regularly bombarded with questions about the toxic dust cloud from mayors of other cities. “The prognosis isn’t good unless there’s massive action. But we have to start within one year, we have have to take the action now.”
Haunted by these prognostications, Utah’s Republican leadership has responded with hundreds of millions of dollars in ameliorative measures and pugnacious rhetoric. “On my watch we are not allowing the lake to go dry,” Spencer Cox, Utah’s governor, has vowed. “We will do whatever it takes to make sure that doesn’t happen.” Cox, who previously requested Utahns pray to help alleviate the worst drought to grip the US west in the past 1,200 years, has suspended any new claims for water in the Great Salt Lake basin.
Two photos of the Great Salt Lake. One from 1985, and another from 2022 showing a greatly reduced size.
A swathe of bills before the Republican-dominated legislature would tear up thirsty turf, encourage farmers to be more efficient with water and create a new role of Great Salt Lake commissioner. “We have to re-evaluate our relationship with water and how we live,” Brad Wilson, the Utah house speaker, said. “We are second driest state in country and we have opportunity to reimagine use of water.”
But scientists who study the lake worry that the proposed remedies don’t yet match the extent of the problem. A network of dams and canals have siphoned off so much water from the three main rivers – Bear, Jordan and Weber – that flow from the mountains to the lake that in the past three years it has got just a third of its natural streamflow. The level of the lake is 19ft below its natural average level and the decline has accelerated since 2020, with the lake in just three years starved of enough water that could cover the whole of Connecticut in a 1ft-deep swimming pool.
Continue this way and the lake faces complete collapse. “It’s definitely the feeling of standing at the precipice and rocks are crumbling under your feet,” Bonnie Baxter, a biologist at Westminster College who has spent years studying the lake. “And you know you’re about to go over. It’s like that close. That’s what it feels like.”
Bonnie Baxter, professor of biology and part of the Great Salt Lake Institute, in the research labs at Westminster College in Salt Lake City. Photograph: Kim Raff/The Guardian
Baxter and her fellow researchers are anxious about the fate of the lake’s ecological foundations, structures called microbialites which look a bit like dull coral reefs but are made of millions of microbes. The microbial community grows in a mat, feeding brine flies which, in turn, along with the lake’s brine shrimp, feed the 10 million birds that use the lake a crucial stop-off.
The receding waters, however, have left many of the microbialites stranded in the open air, slowly dying. The lake’s shrinking pool of water is becoming far more saline, a bit like how the last of the bathwater concentrates the grime, making conditions intolerable for the flies, shrimp and microbes. The lake is typically three or four times saltier than the ocean but this year it is about six times as salty, which Baxter said is “just crazy. We are a little bit worried about that.”
The risks
Losing the lake threatens a strange and terrible cocktail of ramifications. Birdlife and recreation on the lake will vanish as the lake’s surface area – now less than 1,000 square miles, down from three times that in the 1980s – turns into a crusty, potentially toxic miasma.
The lucrative extraction of lithium, magnesium and other minerals from the lake would be in peril, as would ski conditions on the mountains that loom next to the lake – moisture from the lake is sucked up by storms that then deposits it as snow for skiers and snowboarders to enjoy. Billions of dollars in economic damage would result.
Westminster College students Cora Rasmuson, left, and Bridget Dopp set up an experiment testing the effects of water salinity and brine fly larva at Westminster College. Photograph: Kim Raff/The Guardian
A projection of a brine fly under the microscope in the research labs at Westminster College in Salt Lake City. Photograph: Kim Raff/The Guardian
As the lake’s plight has become apparent, there’s been an outpouring of unconventional ideas on how to save it. Lawmakers have pledged millions of dollars towards cloud seeding – putting chemicals into clouds to prompt more snowfall – while some have advocated cutting down trees, in the belief they are sucking up too much water, or even building an enormous pipeline to the Pacific ocean to funnel water into the lake.
Baxter said she gets a lot of “old retired men” emailing her or dropping by her office to impart such wisdom. “The pipeline – well I mean it would be too much money, too much energy, the carbon equation is huge,” she said. “Also, we don’t want to add salt to the lake, we need the fresh water that’s already in the watershed.”
Utah is America’s youngest and fastest growing state – the population leapt 18% in the past decade – but the Great Salt Lake is being parched by an antediluvian network of water rights for agriculture rather than thirsty newcomers. About three-quarters of the diverted water goes to growing crops, with the growing of alfalfa, a water-intensive crop that is turned into animal feed, the largest consumer. Just 9% of the diverted water goes to cities.
Already an overdrawn account subjected to unrestrained spending, the Great Salt Lake is being pushed further into the red by the climate crisis. Rising temperatures are winnowing away the snowpack that feeds its rivers and evaporating the water that sits in the closed, saucer-like lake. “The diversions got us in the situation we’re in now where we don’t have the resiliency to deal with the impacts of climate change,” said Baxter. “So now we’re dealing with both things.”
The shrinking shoreline of the Great Salt Lake. Photograph: Kim Raff/The Guardian
Urban growth and agriculture collide with drought
The story of the Great Salt Lake, much like that of the ailing Colorado River, is very much a tale of the US west, of scant resources being harnessed to seed major cities and bloom a cornucopia of food in an arid land.
But this fantasy of ongoing, untamed growth is colliding with a new climatic reality – the US west’s sprawling Great Basin network of terminal lakes, which includes the Great Salt Lake at its eastern extremity, is in the process of drying up as 3.3tn liters of water are diverted from its streams each year. The shortfall is sparking jarring disagreements between states over cuts to the Colorado’s use and, in Utah, calling into question the long-held water primacy of farming.
Abbott and Baxter’s report calls for “emergency measures” to cut water use in the region by up to a half. Such a massive reduction would probably require stringent curbs in alfalfa growing, among other major reforms, in order to push millions of gallons of water back through the system.
The Salt Lake City mayor, Erin Mendenhall. Photograph: Kim Raff/The Guardian
The state’s Republican leadership is wary of forcing farmers’ hands, however, leaning on the settlers’ principle of “right in time, first in right” for water allocations. “Alfalfa has got a really bad wrap lately but we have got to create economic incentives for water conservation, let the free market guide those decisions,” said Joel Ferry, the executive director of the Utah department of natural resources, and who has grown alfalfa himself at his farm near Bear river.
“Farmers fundamentally have the right to grow alfalfa, they produce some of the finest crop in the world,” Ferry added. “It’s not the role of government to say ‘you can’t do that.’” Wilson, the house speaker, has said “we don’t need sticks” to prod Utahns to do the right thing.
Ferry said that the challenges faced by the Great Salt Lake are “large but not insurmountable”, pointing to reforms taken by farmers to better conserve water through sprinklers and other technology. “I’m optimistic the people of Utah will rise to the challenge,” he said. “I’m a fifth-generation farmer and rancher and I want this to be sustainable for five more generations.”
Line chart of the elevations of the Great Salt Lake over time.
The crisis has, at least, prompted a reappraisal of what the Great Salt Lake means to its nearest inhabitants. John Fremont, a military officer who was the first white explorer of the lake in 1843, marveled that it “possessed a strange and extraordinary interest” and erroneously speculated that a “terrible whirlpool” took its waters to the ocean. Subsequent Mormon settlers found the area harsh but captivating, an oasis amid the desert, and rumours swirled for decades that monsters lurked within the lake. For a while, a few vacation resorts dotted the lake’s shores.
Since then, the Great Salt Lake has been rather looked down upon for its briny, fly-ridden appearance and rotten egg smell. It was a place to dump trash, rather than take a picnic. “We haven’t had a love affair with the Great Salt Lake until recently, there was a lot of disparagement that it was this inaccessible, useless lake,” said Mendenhall. “People thought it was ugly.”
A visitor to Lady Finger Point that overlooks the lake bed of the Great Salt Lake. Photograph: Kim Raff/The Guardian
But as the lake hit a record low level in 2021, and then again last year, a certain warmth started to stir among Salt Lakers of the body of water their city is named after. “We dismissed the Great Salt Lake, we ignored it,” as Joel Briscoe, a Democratic state lawmaker, lamented in January. “We failed to appreciate it for too long.” There’s a growing desire to save this sprawling, ebbing ecosystem, even if the main motivation is to avoid a choking miasma of dust pollution.
“There is this whole personal connection to the lake now,” said Baxter, who suggests the ‘first in time’ water priority should apply to the malnourished, 11,000-year-old lake itself. “People say to me we are losing this lake and that it is part of their fabric, someone even said they have written poems to the lake. It’s changing. We’ll see if it’s enough.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
SRINAGAR: CPI(M) leader Mohamad Yousuf Tarigami has asserted that the ongoing so called anti-land encroachment drive and eviction has on ground generated fear among the common masses.
In a statement issued in Jammu today, the CPI(M) leader said, while big land grabbers have to be identified and action be taken strictly under law, the manner and the method used to evict the alleged land encroachers, especially the peasants, marginal farmers, small shopkeepers and those living in small houses constructed years back, sends a message that the administration is insensitive to the interests and sentiments of the general public and that of the individuals and organisations which express resentment against the reckless drive and coercive manner of the evictions.
“If the present Campaign of eviction attains roughshod propostions, it will generate more resentment,” said Tarigami in a statement.
The present ‘drive’ gives the impression as if the administration has waged a ‘war’ against the public, he said.
The selection of areas and individuals for bulldozing, creates doubts regarding the real intentions of the administration.The eviction campaign seems selective and discriminatory, he added.
Referring to the Chief Secretary’s latest directions to the officers regarding action against those who dare to criticize the handling of the eviction drive, Tarigami affirmed that it speaks of a highhanded approach of the dispensation.
“Those at the helm should keep in mind that it has to function under the Constitution and it should not give the impression that there is an undeclared emergency in J&K. This will in no way serve the cause of peace, law and order and the larger interests of the country,” said Tarigami in a statement.
New Delhi: The Ministry of Rural Development said on Friday that the concern that lower allocation for the MGNREGA scheme for 2023-24 may affect the rural employment scheme is far from the truth.
“A concern has been raised over the Union Budget allocating Rs 60,000 crore for the MGNREGA scheme for 2023-24, which is 18 per cent lower than the Rs 73,000 crore budget estimates of 2022-23. This may affect the rural employment scheme of MGNREGA to achieve its objective of providing wage employment against the demand from the rural households. This is far from thr truth,” the ministry said in a statement on Friday.
MGNREGA is a demand-driven scheme. Any household demanding employment shall be provided at least 100 days of unskilled manual work in a financial year in accordance with the scheme. During FY 2022-23, a total of 99.81 per cent rural households have been offered wage employment against their demand for work. If an applicant for employment under the scheme is not provided such employment within 15 days of receipt, he shall be entitled to a daily unemployment allowance, the ministry said.
“In FY 2019-20, the BE was Rs 60,000 crore which got revised to Rs 71,001 crore; for FY 2020-21, the BE was Rs 61,500 crore which increased in the RE to Rs 1,11,500 crore; and for FY 2021-22, the BE of Rs 73,000 crore was revised to Rs 98,000 crore. Therefore, it can be seen that the actual releases to the states have been much higher than that provided for at the BE level.
“Even during the current financial year 2022-23, the BE was Rs 73,000 crore, which was revised to Rs 89,400 crore. From the perusal of the above, it is inferred that the previous release has no bearing on the requirement for funds for next year,” said the ministry.
“Whenever additional fund is required, the Ministry of Finance is requested to provide the funds. The government of India is committed to release funds for wage and material payments for proper implementation of the scheme, as per the provisions of the act and guidelines applicable for Central government as well as the state governments,” it added.
The possibility of Lake and Masters entering the political waters once more is complicating the newfound optimism GOP officials felt about capitalizing on Sinema’s recent party switch to independent. With Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego already in the race, Republicans see a prime opportunity to win the election with a plurality of the vote.
Now there are new fears that they’d fumble the opportunity by putting forth a candidate who remains aligned with former President Donald Trump or fixated on election denialism. Lake’s protests about her gubernatorial loss have particularly raised eyebrows in the party after she was narrowly defeated by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.
“Any candidate in ’24 that has, as their principal campaign theme, a stolen election, is probably going to have the same issues that some of the ’22 candidates had,” said Sen. John Thune, the Senate GOP’s No. 2 leader. “I just don’t think that’s where the American public is. It’s a swing state — we need to have a good Republican nominee, obviously. You know, whoever gets in, I hope they focus on the future, not the past.”
Far from being bowed by what happened in 2022, the MAGA set in Arizona appear further emboldened to try for office. Caroline Wren, a senior adviser to Lake, shot back that Thune is “everything wrong with the Republican establishment” and that the “Washington cartel” is “signaling that they’re willing to hand an Arizona Senate seat to the radical left.”
Few, if any, states in the country present as clear a testing ground for the future of the Republican Party as Arizona. For decades a bastion of conservatism and libertarianism, the state is drifting leftward. Democrats have won three straight Senate races, the last governor’s race and the presidential race in 2020. What’s more, primaries are typically held late in Arizona, making it tougher for challengers to consolidate support before the general election.
“Just look at what happened in the last two elections. You in no way have to guess what happens when MAGA candidates ignore bread-and-butter issues that Arizonans care about,” said Barrett Marson, an Arizona-based GOP strategist. “Kari Lake is not governor. Blake Masters is not senator. Republicans have to get back to basics.”
The trends have alarmed more establishment Republicans, who are privately discussing ways to head them off. GOP consultants have gone so far as to encourage Masters to run for the House instead of the Senate due to his high unfavorability ratings and the exorbitant amount of money it would take to rehabilitate his reputation in a statewide race, according to a person familiar with the conversations. Republicans believe Lake and Masters are unlikely to run against each other.
There are rumors that Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) could retire, opening up a safe red seat and helping ease what could be a crowded field in the contest. Gosar batted down that speculation in a brief interview with POLITICO: “No, I’m not leaving. I still think I’d like to see this majority go to the White House and the Senate.”
Sen. Steve Daines, chair of the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, said in an interview that “it’s early” but “I want to see a candidate who can win a general election.”
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) put it this way: “I want to win it to get the majority, And I’ll let Arizonans decide who the nominee is going to be. And I think somebody who can win should be the presiding factor. They didn’t win before, so I think that makes it difficult.”
After so much focus on whether they’ll support Sinema or Gallego, Democrats are happy to talk up the GOP’s problems.
“In Arizona Republicans are stuck with a ragtag band of failed candidates,” said Nora Keefe, a spokesperson for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “We are confident we will stop Republicans in their effort to take this Senate seat.”
Asked about Lake’s interest in a Senate run, Wren said that “her focus right now is the lawsuit — that hasn’t changed.” A person close to Lake characterized her position as “the door’s not being closed” to a Senate campaign.
Other potential candidates for Senate include Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, Rep. Juan Ciscomani, unsuccessful 2022 Senate candidate Jim Lamon, and businesswoman Karrin Taylor Robson, who lost to Lake in last year’s primary.
Establishment Republicans have shown particular interest in trying to get Robson and Ciscomani into the race, eager to avoid a repeat of 2022, when expectations of a red wave ended in a net Democratic gain in Senate races. Robson, a self-funder, contributed millions of dollars from her own bank account to her gubernatorial campaign last year, only to lose to Lake in the primary.
A person close to Robson said she had not ruled out a Senate run, describing her mindset as: “A lot of people voted for me and I don’t take that for granted. Maybe this is the moment.”
Ciscomani, who was just sworn into office after winning a competitive congressional seat, was a prized GOP recruit in 2022. Steven Law, CEO of the GOP Senate super PAC Senate Leadership Fund, tweeted recently that Ciscomani is a “[f]antastic new addition to the House,” raising eyebrows in the GOP. But launching a statewide bid from his Tucson-based district could be difficult for Ciscomani, particularly in a field of candidates who just wrapped up statewide races.
The ultimate dream candidate for traditional Republicans is former Gov. Doug Ducey, though few think that is a possibility after he passed on a Senate campaign last year, and clashed with Trump over the 2020 presidential election.
“He’s made it pretty clear he’s not interested, but he’d be a great option,” Thune said.
Lamb, like Masters, is a Lake ally. Lamb is speaking with consultants, sources said, and is expected to make a decision early this year. Lamb spokesperson Corey Vale said he is “seriously considering running for the United States Senate.”
Lamon spokesperson Stephen Puetz said that “[i]f a winning candidate emerges, he will strongly back that person — if not, Jim will run in 2024.”
One candidate who has ruled out a run is Kelli Ward, former chair of the Arizona Republican Party. She told POLITICO she was not looking at another Senate bid — she ran in 2016 and 2018 — or a run for the House. The state party is now run by Jeff DeWit, who helped Trump with his 2020 run. The Arizona GOP did not respond to requests for comment.
Though Lake’s advisers insist that she is currently dialed in on her lawsuit to reverse the election, she found time to mention Gallego at a rally Sunday that was otherwise focused on her legal efforts, referring to him as “the AOC of Arizona.”
Lake remains popular within the GOP rank-and-file in Arizona. She appeared to cheers at the state party’s convention in Phoenix on Saturday and drew a large crowd at her rally the following night.
Lake had “supporters show up on a Sunday night in January of the odd year to simply hear her speak,” said Brady Smith, an Arizona-based GOP strategist and former Lake aide. “She’s demonstrated that she still wields the loyalty of the GOP base; anyone eyeing the Senate race has to factor that into their calculus.”
David Siders contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
KYIV — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy refused to veto a new law that strengthens punishment for wayward military personnel on Thursday, rejecting a petition signed by over 25,000 Ukrainians who argue it’s too harsh.
“The key to the combat capability of military units and ultimately of Ukraine’s victory, is compliance with military discipline,” Zelenskyy said in his written response to the petition.
Ukrainian soldiers have stunned the world with their resilience and battlefield successes, withstanding a year-long onslaught from Russian troops. But among Kyiv’s forces, made up largely of fresh recruits lacking previous military experience or training, some are struggling to cope. There are those who have rebelled against commanders’ orders, gotten drunk or misbehaved; others, running low on ammunition and morale, have fled for their lives, abandoning their positions.
Seeking to bring his forces into line, Zelenskyy in January signed into force a punitive law that introduces harsher punishment for deserters and wayward soldiers, and strips them of their right to appeal.
The law aims to standardize and toughen the repercussions for rule-breaking, improving discipline and the combat readiness of military units. Disobedience will be punishable by five to eight years in prison, rather than the previous two to seven; desertion or failure to appear for duty without a valid reason by up to 10 years. Threatening commanders, consuming alcohol, questioning orders and many other violations will also be dealt with more harshly, potentially with prison time; those who broke these rules in the past may have gotten away with a probation period or the docking of their combat pay.
Those who lobbied in favor of the new law, such as the Ukrainian Army General Staff, argue it will make discipline fairer: Previously, because courts adjudicated infractions on a case-by-case basis, some perpetrators were able to escape punishment for serious rule-breaking entirely, while others received harsher sentences for less significant violations, according to an explanatory note that accompanied the new law.
But soldiers, lawyers and human rights watchdogs have slammed the measures as an inappropriate and blunt instrument that won’t deal with the root causes of military indiscipline — and over 25,000 Ukrainians called on the president to veto the law altogether in a petition submitted to the president late last year.
The new punitive rules remove discretion and turn courts into a “calculator” for doling out punishment to soldiers, regardless of the reasons for their offenses, lawyer Anton Didenko argued in a column on Ukraine’s Interfax news agency.
“This law will have negative consequences for the protection of the rights of military personnel who are accused of committing a crime and will reduce the level of motivation during service,” an NGO, called the Reanimation Package of Reforms Coalition, said in a statement. “This can carry risks both for the protection of human rights and for the defense capability of the state.”
Zelenskyy’s military commanders disagree, arguing the measures are necessary to hold firm in the face of Russia’s assault.
Ukraine’s armed forces have swelled to over a million soldiers in the past year | Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP via Getty Images
“The army is based on discipline. And if the gaps in the legislation do not ensure compliance, and refuseniks can pay a fine of up to 10 percent of combat pay or receive a punishment with probation, this is unfair,” argued the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhnyi in a video in favor of the new rules.
Zelenskyy, in his response to the popular petition asking him to scrap the changes, agreed that disciplinary action against military personnel should take into account their individual circumstances, and promised that the cabinet of ministers would further consider how to improve the disciplinary mechanism — though he did not specify when this work might be done; nor suspend the law in the meantime.
Army of civilians
Ukraine’s armed forces have swelled rapidly to over a million soldiers in the year since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022 — up from 250,000 personnel.
The influx of hundreds of thousands of new recruits, whom Ukraine has had to equip and train while withstanding the barrage from Russia, has compromised the usual vetting process and meant some unsuitable soldiers have ended up in combat, Valerii Markus, the chief master sergeant of the 47th Separate Assault Brigade, told subordinates in a lecture about “desertion at the front,” posted to his YouTube channel in January.
“We were trying to vet the candidates as well as we could in those circumstances,” Markus said. “However, many people in our own brigade don’t want to be there.” He said some of those who had joined up for the wrong motivations, such as for a pay check, subsequently “break down under pressure and want to flee; start to revolt.”
Markus said commanders frequently didn’t understand the problems and shortages faced by their troops on the ground due to local sergeants failing to communicate with them. He played videos of soldiers complaining about a lack of weapons or inappropriate or illegal orders from their commanders, before telling those in the audience that most problems could be resolved internally through the proper channels, while publicly airing complaints discredited Ukraine’s army and undermined attempts to help troops.
“Do I recognize the existence of problems that lead to the arbitrary abandonment of positions? Yes,” Zaluzhnyi said in his video supporting the reforms. “Am I working on their elimination? Successful operations to liberate the territories of our state are a confirmation of that.”
But members of Ukraine’s armed forces, many of whom have expressed respect for Zaluzhnyi, were deeply disappointed by his support of the new law.
“It is very demotivating. This is such a striking contrast with Zaluzhnyi’s human- and leader-oriented ‘religion,’” said Eugenia Zakrevska, a human rights lawyer who enlisted in the war effort and is now a member of the 92nd Ivan Sirko Separate Mechanized Brigade. This was a pointed reference to an interview the commander-in-chief gave to the Economist in December, in which he said that unlike the Kremlin, the “religion” he and Ukraine practised was “to remain human in any situation.”
Treating the symptoms, not the disease
Those who oppose the new law argue that Ukraine needs to deal with the underlying causes of desertion and misbehavior, rather than punishing soldiers who break the rules more harshly.
A Ukrainian army officer who recently left the frontline city of Bakhmut (and requested anonymity as officers are not authorized to speak to the press) told POLITICO: “Sometimes abandonment of positions becomes the only way to save personnel from senseless death. If they cannot deliver ammunition or [relieve troops], when you sit in the trenches for several days without sleep or rest, your combat value goes to zero.”
In responding to the petition asking him to reconsider, President Zelenskyy agreed that disciplinary action should take into account the individual circumstances of military personnel | Yuriy Dyachyshyn/ AFP via Getty Images
The officer added that many discipline problems are rooted in ineffective or careless command, as well as the strain placed on Kyiv’s forces battling a far larger army of invaders, meaning they are not rotated as often as they ought to be.
“Fatigue and trauma lead to mental disorders, and bring chaos, negligence and even depravity into a soldier’s life. This strongly affects fighting qualities and obedience,” the officer said.
Zakrevska, from the Ivan Sirko brigade, said Ukrainian soldiers rarely abandon their positions — continuing to fight even when outnumbered and carrying significant casualties.
“Once, I had to call the command and ask for our sergeant to be ordered to go to the hospital — because he refused evacuation even though he was badly wounded,” Zakrevska said. “He stayed with us, although he could not get proper medical help as our doctor was also injured.”
It is only out of sheer desperation that soldiers leave their posts, Zakrevska argued, adding that to prevent desertion, commanders should rotate fighters more frequently. But she acknowledged that in many places, R&R for the troops is impossible due to a shortage of combat-capable fighters.
Most brigades are full, Zakrevska said — but some of those in them aren’t fit to fight, and “it is impossible to fire them. Because no one can be fired from the army at all. Only after a verdict in a criminal case. Such a system also greatly undermines morale. Because it turns service in the army from an honorable duty into a punishment.”
“In the situations of despair and complete exhaustion, fear of criminal liability does not work,” Zakrevska argued.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
