Tag: tensions

Spurred border tensions: India’s 2022 military spending rose by 6%

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New York: Spurred by tensions along its borders, India’s defence spending rose by nearly six per cent to $81.4 billion last year, ranking it fourth in military expenditures, according to an analysis by SIPRI, the premier think-tank tracking military spending.
The increase in India’s spending was attributed to “the effects of its border tensions with China and Pakistan” by the Stockholm Peace Research Institute better known by its initials, SIPRI, in the latest edition of its Trends in World Military Expenditure report released this week.
New Delhi’s “expenditure on capital outlays, which funds equipment upgrades for the armed forces and to the military infrastructure along its disputed border with China, amounted to 23 per cent of total military spending in 2022,” it said.

China, the second highest military spender, is estimated to have spent $292 billion last year, the report added.
The military expenditure of Pakistan, which is facing a financial crisis, shrunk to $10.3 billion from $11.3 billion in 2021, according to SIPRI data.
Personnel expenses like salaries and pensions “remained the largest expenditure category in the Indian military budget, accounting for around half of all military spending,” the report said.
India’s military expenditure was $76.6 billion in 2021, according to SIPRI.
Despite the increase, India’s ranking in military expenditures slid from third place in 2021 to fourth because Russia, which had been in fifth place that year, ramped up its spending by 9.2 per cent to $86.4 billion in a year that it invaded Ukraine to displace India, according to the report.

With $877 billion in military spending last year, the US dwarfed all others, accounting for 39 per cent of the global military spending of $2.24 trillion, according to the report.
China’s share of the total military spending was 13 per cent, while India’s share was 3.6 per cent, the report said.
Saudi Arabia, with an increase of 16 per cent from the previous year to $75 billion leapfrogged from the eighth spot to the fifth spot displacing Britain, which spent $68.5 billion, according to the report.
Another Gulf region country Qatar, increased its military spending by 27 per cent to $15.4 billion, while Kuwait showed a decrease of 11 per cent to $8.2 billion, it said.
According to the Trends report, China’s military expenditure has increased for 28 consecutive years, “the longest uninterrupted period of spending growth made by any country in the SIPRI Military Expenditure Database”, but it was showing signs of slowing down.
“The growth rate of 4.2 per cent in 2022 was the second lowest rate of annual growth recorded by China since 1995”, with the lowest rate in the period being 2.6 per cent in 2021, it said.
The spending pattern follows priorities reaffirmed by the Communist Party Congress last year, “which placed a strong focus on boosting China’s arms-industrial base and promoting emerging military technologies, including military applications of artificial intelligence,” according to the report.
Military spending calculated as a share of the GDP was 2.4 per cent for India, an estimated 1.6 per cent for China and 2.6 per cent for Pakistan.
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#Spurred #border #tensions #Indias #military #spending #rose
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 27, 2023
Tensions build around Jerusalem shrine after Syria rockets

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Such tours by religious and nationalist Jews have increased in size and frequency over the years, and are viewed with suspicion by many Palestinians who fear that Israel plans one day to take over the site or partition it. Israeli officials say they have no intention of changing long-standing arrangements that allow Jews to visit, but not pray in the Muslim-administered site. However, the country is now governed by the most right-wing government in its history, with ultra-nationalists in senior positions.
Tensions have soared in the past week at the flashpoint shrine after an Israeli police raid on the mosque. On several occasions, Palestinians have barricaded themselves inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque with stones and firecrackers, demanding the right to pray there overnight, something Israel has in the past only allowed during the last 10 days of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Police removed them by force, detaining hundreds and leaving dozens injured.
The violence at the shrine triggered rocket fire by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon, starting Wednesday, and Israeli airstrikes targeted both areas.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah’s media office announced that the militant group’s chief, Hassan Nasrallah, received a delegation headed by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Sunday. The two discussed “the most important developments in occupied Palestine, the course of events at al-Aqsa Mosque, and the escalating resistance in the West Bank and Gaza, in addition to general political developments in the region, the readiness of the resistance axis and the cooperation of its parties,” the statement said.
Haniyeh, who arrived in Lebanon last week shortly before rockets were launched at Israel from south Lebanon, had been scheduled to make a public appearance in Beirut on Friday. But it was canceled for security reasons following the exchange of strikes between Lebanon and Israel. No group has officially claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks, but Israel has accused Hamas of being behind them.
Late on Saturday and early Sunday, militants in Syria fired rockets in two salvos toward Israel and the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. A Damascus-based Palestinian group loyal to the Syrian government claimed responsibility for the first round of rockets, saying it was retaliating for the Al-Aqsa raids.
In the first salvo, one rocket landed in a field in the Golan Heights. Fragments of another destroyed missile fell into Jordanian territory near the Syrian border, Jordan’s military reported. In the second round, two of the rockets crossed the border into Israel, with one being intercepted and the second landing in an open area, the Israeli military said.
Israel responded with artillery fire into the area in Syria from where the rockets were fired. Later, the military said Israeli fighter jets attacked Syrian army sites, including a compound of Syria’s 4th Division and radar and artillery posts.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed the violence in a telephone call with Israeli counterpart Isaac Herzog late Saturday, telling Herzog that Muslims could not remain silent about the “provocations and threats” against the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and said the hostilities that have spread to Gaza and Lebanon should not be allowed to escalate further.
In addition to the cross-border fighting, three people were killed over the weekend in Palestinian attacks in Israel and the occupied West Bank.
The funeral for two British-Israeli sisters, Maia and Rina Dee, who were killed in a shooting was scheduled for Sunday at a cemetery in the Jewish settlement of Kfar Etzion in the occupied West Bank.
An Italian tourist, Alessandro Parini, 35, a lawyer from Rome, had just arrived in the city a few hours earlier with some friends for a brief Easter holiday. He was killed Friday in a suspected car-ramming on Tel Aviv’s beachside promenade.
Over 90 Palestinians and have been killed by Israeli fire so far this year, at least half of them affiliated with militant groups, according to a tally by The Associated Press. Palestinian attacks on Israelis have killed 19 people in that time. All but one were civilians.
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#Tensions #build #Jerusalem #shrine #Syria #rockets
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 9, 2023
Israel extends closure of Palestinian territories amid tensions

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Jerusalem: Israel has announced that all crossing points of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip would remain closed until Thursday for security reasons.
Entry permits to Israel for working purposes or for Ramadan prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem during the period will be canceled, Xinhua news agency reported, citing a statement issued by Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on Saturday.
It was decided upon “an operational situation assessment” that the closure, originally planned to be lifted overnight on Saturday, will be in place until the end of the week-long Jewish holiday of Passover, according to the statement.

Gallant also instructed the defense establishment to allocate more resources and soldiers to enforce the activities of the Israeli police.
The decision came after two deadly attacks which Israel deemed as acts of terror by Palestinians. On Friday, two British-Israeli sisters were killed and their mother seriously injured in a drive-by shooting attack in the West Bank Jordan Valley. At night, an Arab citizen of Israel rammed his car at a group of tourists at Tel Aviv’s coastal promenade, killing an Italian tourist and injuring seven others.
Tensions have been high in the region following Israeli police raids at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, triggering clashes with Palestinian worshippers, and sparking a fresh round of cross-border strikes between Israel and Gaza militants earlier this week.
Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war and has continued to control these territories, where Palestinians hope to establish their future state.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by Siasat staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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#Israel #extends #closure #Palestinian #territories #tensions
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 9, 2023
Tensions remain along Israel’s borders with Lebanon, Gaza Strip

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Jerusalem: Tensions have remained high despite an easing of the fightings between Israel and militants in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, lowering fears of a major escalation in the region.
On Friday night, a tourist was killed and five others were injured during a shooting and run-over attack in the Israeli capital city of Tel Aviv, reports Xinhua news agency.
The attacker was identified as an Arab citizen of Israel from Kafr Qasim, east of Tel Aviv, Israel’s state-owned Kan TV news reported.

Also on Friday, two British-Israeli sisters, aged 16 and 20, were killed in a drive-by shooting in the northern West Bank, and their mother was critically injured, according to Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service.
Friday’s Ramzan prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem concluded without any major incidents after consecutive nights of violence.
Israel lifted the high alert level in the south, which had required residents in communities near the Gaza Strip to stay indoors and close to shelters.
However, Israel’s Chief of the General Staff called up reservists, particularly from the Air Force, citing concerns of further escalation.
Following the attack in Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the border police and military to call up reserve forces “in the wake of terrorist attacks,” according to a statement issued by his office.

On Thursday, militants in Lebanon fired 34 rockets at northern Israel, in the largest rocket attack since the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel.
The attack injured two civilians and caused damage to several buildings and cars.
Israel accused Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that governs Gaza, of being responsible for the attack.
In response, Israel carried out airstrikes in southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip late Thursday night, targeting Hamas sites.
The escalation was triggered by two consecutive days of Israeli raids at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem.
Israeli police forces fired gas canisters and stun grenades at Palestinian worshipers.
It came during a sensitive time when Muslims are observing the holy month of Ramzan with prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, while Jews were commemorating the Passover holiday.
Despite the heightened tensions, conflicting sides expressed a desire to avoid a full-fledged war, with Israel’s army spokesman stating that “quiet will be answered with quiet” during a press briefing.
The peacekeeping UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has appealed for calm and stated that it was in contact with Israeli and Lebanese authorities.
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#Tensions #remain #Israels #borders #Lebanon #Gaza #Strip
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 8, 2023
Tensions mount in Gaza after Israel intensifies airstrikes

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Gaza: Israel on Friday intensified airstrikes on military posts in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, in response to rockets fired at several parts in the Jewish state, escalating tensions with Palestine over the past three days the Israeli police and Palestinian worshippers clashed at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem.
Hamas security sources said that Israeli reconnaissance drones and fighter jets launched dozens of airstrikes on military posts and facilities that belong to the Al-Qassam Brigades, the militant group’s armed wing, reports Xinhua news agency.
Rsidents told Xinhua that they heard the buzz of the fighter jets and drones hovering over the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and that bombings were heard all over the coastal enclave.

وزارة التربية والتعليم العالي: “تعرض مركز التدريب التربوي التابع لمديرية تعليم شرق غزة لأضرار بسبب العدوان الإسرائيلي على القطاع”. pic.twitter.com/zcdNeVfWWJ
— المركز الفلسطيني للإعلام (@PalinfoAr) April 7, 2023
Medical sources in Gaza said that no injuries were immediately reported and hospitals and clinics have declared a state of emergency and readiness to receive possible casualties.
The Al-Qassam Brigades and other minor militant groups said in separate statements that their militants fired anti-craft missiles at the Israeli jets that hovered over the Gaza Strip.
The joint Palestinian chamber of operations, which comprises several armed wings of Palestinian factions, including Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, said earlier that their militants “are ready to confront any Israeli attack”.
“In light of the enemy’s threats to our resistance and our people in Gaza, we affirm our readiness to confront and respond with all force to any aggression and to defend our people in all places of its presence and our sanctities,” it said in a statement.
Meanwhile, an Israeli army spokesman said that sirens were turned on in southern Israel after barrages of projectiles and rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip and that Israeli fighter jets bombed several Hamas posts and facilities in the southern, central, western and northern Gaza Strip.

“The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attacked tonight, using a remotely manned aircraft, a heavy launcher from which missiles were fired at IDF aircraft and Israeli territory,” said the spokesman.
The Israeli army on Friday confirmed that the country’s air force struck southern Lebanon as Israel accused Hamas and other militant groups of being responsible for firing at least 34 rockets from south Lebanon at northern Israel.
According to the army, 25 rockets were intercepted by the IDF Aerial Defense Array, while five landed in Israeli territory and four additional launches were under review.
The Israeli military warned that it will not permit Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip and has a smaller presence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to operate from within Lebanon, and that it “holds the state of Lebanon responsible for every directed fire emanating from its territory”.
The Israeli airstrikes began as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was convening his Security Cabinet to discuss possible military responses to the rockets fired from Lebanon — the biggest single barrage in 17 years.
إذاعة جيش الاحـ ـتلال: “قبل وقت قصير تم تفعيل صفارات الإنذار في منطقة مفتوحة بغلاف غزة”.
— المركز الفلسطيني للإعلام (@PalinfoAr) April 7, 2023
The latest escalation comes during a sensitive holiday time as Muslims were observing the holy month of Ramadan with prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and Jews were commemorating the Passover holiday.
The clashes erupted after Israeli police had raided at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the third holiest site to Muslims for two consecutive days, firing gas canisters and stun grenades at worshipers.
Earlier this week, militants in Gaza fired about 20 rockets at southern Israel in a response to Israeli raids at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
In the past as well, the shrine has often witnessed clashes between Palestinian worshippers and Israeli security forces, triggering wider unrest.
In May 2021, an Israeli raid here contributed to an 11-day full-scale conflict between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist militant group which governs the Gaza Strip.

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#Tensions #mount #Gaza #Israel #intensifies #airstrikes
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 7, 2023
‘Tensions are rising’: Congress concerned about Russia moving nuclear weapons

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“Tensions are rising,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said during an interview on “Fox News Sunday.” “I think this is saber-rattling on the part of Putin.”
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) described Putin as “a dangerous man,” and said the threat demonstrates the need for U.S. leaders — and those vying for leadership — to see that threat as vital to U.S. interests.
Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Warner said that if American support for Ukraine wavers, Putin could move on to threaten Poland or President Xi Jinping could take U.S. weakness as “more of a green light to potentially take action against Taiwan.”
“Anyone who doesn’t understand that is remarkably naïve, or not understanding the kind of geopolitical challenging times that we live in,” he said.
On Sunday, NATO criticized Russia for what it described as “dangerous and irresponsible” nuclear rhetoric, though a NATO spokesperson said the organization had not seen any changes in Russia’s nuclear posture.
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#Tensions #rising #Congress #concerned #Russia #moving #nuclear #weapons
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 26, 2023
Israel moves forward with new settlements amid tensions

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Jerusalem: The Israeli Land Authority has published tenders for more than 1,000 housing units in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israel’s anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now said in a statement.
According to the statement released on Friday, the tenders are for 940 houses in the West Bank and nearly 90 in East Jerusalem. They were made public earlier this week, Xinhua news agency reported.
“Despite Israel’s commitments to its allies around the world, it appears to continue promoting construction that harms the chances for a political agreement and increases tensions between Israelis and Palestinians in both the short and long term,” read the statement released by the organisation, which regularly monitors the construction of Israeli settlements.
The publication of the tenders came amid rising tensions between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank since January.
Earlier this week, the Israeli parliament repealed a 2005 act that led to the evacuation of four Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, a move that could pave the way for Israeli settlers to return to the abandoned settlements, possibly stoking more tensions.
In the 1967 Middle East war, Israel occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which are claimed by the Palestinians. Since then, Israel has populated the area with more than half a million Jewish residents. The international community considers the establishment of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories illegal.
The Palestinians have been seeking to establish a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

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#Israel #moves #settlements #tensions
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 25, 2023
Gun attack on policeman deepens political tensions in Northern Ireland

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DUBLIN — As if political tensions in Northern Ireland weren’t bad enough, Irish Republican Army die-hards unwilling to accept their side’s cease-fire appear determined to make matters worse.
An off-duty police officer is in hospital in a critical condition after being shot several times at close range Wednesday night as he coached a youth football practice on the outskirts of the Northern Irish town of Omagh. No group claimed responsibility, but politicians from all sides agreed that one of the small IRA splinter groups still active in the U.K. region must be to blame.
“The people behind this attack think they’re at war. Well they’re not,” said Colum Eastwood, the moderate Irish nationalist leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party. “Their fight isn’t with any government, any police service or anyone else. It’s with the people of Ireland who have chosen peace. And it’s a fight they will never, never win.”
The last time any of the IRA factions killed a Northern Ireland police officer was in 2011, again in Omagh — also the scene of the deadliest attack of them all, when a Real IRA car bomb killed 29 people in 1998 in hopes of wrecking that year’s Good Friday peace accord.
The largest Irish republican paramilitary group, the Provisional IRA, killed nearly 300 officers as part of its own 27-year campaign of shootings and bombings, but laid down its arms in 1997 and surrendered them to foreign disarmament officials in 2005.
That key peacemaking step, required as part of the Good Friday deal, ultimately helped persuade the Democratic Unionist Party to end its opposition to power-sharing and finally form a unity government in 2007 with their Irish republican enemies in Sinn Féin, longtime partners of the Provisional IRA. However, last year the DUP collapsed their coalition as part of its campaign against post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland, a dispute that U.K. and EU negotiators have spent months trying to resolve.
Wednesday night’s shooting brought back grim memories from a generation ago when such violence was a nightly occurrence, an era when militants effectively filled Northern Ireland’s prevailing political vacuum with bloodshed. The Good Friday pact and the cross-community government it spawned were supposed to keep such violence at bay.
With the Stormont parliamentary building shuttered amid Brexit fallout, politicians from all sides briefly spoke with one voice on social media to condemn the officer’s attackers.

“Those responsible for such horror must be brought to justice,” said Britain’s secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Chris Heaton-Harris, who has been in the post only since September.

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#Gun #attack #policeman #deepens #political #tensions #Northern #Ireland
( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

February 21, 2023
Truss to call for tough sanctions against China if it escalates Taiwan tensions

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Britain and the rest of the G7 should urgently agree a tough package of sanctions to impose on China if it escalates military tensions with Taiwan, Liz Truss will argue, as she uses her first public overseas speech to pile pressure on Rishi Sunak.
Speaking in Tokyo on Friday, the former prime minister will urge her successor to be more hawkish in standing up to Beijing, warning coordinated action is needed to block “the rise of a totalitarian China” given “the free world is in danger”.
Truss is expected to raise concerns about the threat to Taiwan’s independence, saying the self-governed island should have its diplomatic status upgraded by being accepted into international organisations.
Other calls to action Truss will make as part of a six-point plan being presented to a conference in Tokyo include the creation of “an economic Nato” and regular audits by democratic countries to reduce dependence on China across critical industries.
Her speech is a further attempt to rebuild her political reputation, after resigning in October and becoming the UK’s shortest-serving prime minister.
However, it will also be viewed as an attempt to put pressure on Sunak to ensure a promised update to the government’s defence and security plan, known as the integrated review, and a stronger stance on China.
Truss herself ordered the review be updated only 18 months after the strategy – meant to look ahead to the next decade – was published, with suggestions China would be reclassified as a “threat” instead of a “systemic challenge”.
During the summer Conservative leadership contest, the then foreign secretary and her allies sought to present her as more hawkish in standing up to Beijing and less enticed by closer economic ties, given concerns about human rights abuses in Xinjiang, the erosion of democracy in Hong Kong and military tensions with Taiwan.

Sunak has backed away from escalating a diplomatic row with China, but stressed in November that the so-called “golden era” of relations was over.
Defence and foreign affairs officials in Whitehall believe that China is closely watching the west’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and acknowledge that deep economic sanctions were in part designed to deter other potential aggressors.
But Russia’s economy is substantially smaller, and any sanctions against China would carry potentially much greater consequences for the global economy.
The Guardian revealed earlier this week that government officials were strategising a series of scenarios about the economic fallout if China invaded Taiwan – both due to the disruption to supply chains of items like microchips and the impact of sanctions.
China’s government claims Taiwan as a province, and its authoritarian premier, Xi Jinping, is set on what he terms “reunification”.
Truss herself will admit that having “rolled out the red carpet” for Xi on his state visit in 2015, when she was a cabinet minister, was a mistake. In her speech to the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China symposium, she is will say: “I should know – I attended a banquet in his honour. Looking back, I think this sent the wrong message.”
Taiwan is a “beacon of freedom” and “flourishing democracy, with a thriving free press and an independent judiciary”, Truss will stress, adding that the UK should “learn from the past” and “ensure that Taiwan is able to defend itself”.
Some Conservatives still want Sunak to take a more lenient approach to China. Philip Hammond, a Tory peer and former chancellor under Theresa May, wrote an article for China Daily suggesting the UK and China should “return to business as usual”.
He acknowledged “the background noise to that relationship over the last three years has been challenging”, but said political differences should “not become an impediment” to boosting trade ties.
“Quite honestly, if we only trade with people with whom we have no political differences, we can close half our ports tomorrow,” Hammond added.
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#Truss #call #tough #sanctions #China #escalates #Taiwan #tensions
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

February 17, 2023
Moldovan MPs approve pro-western PM amid tensions over Russia

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Moldova’s parliament has approved the formation of a pro-western government led by the new prime minister, Dorin Recean, amid continuing economic turmoil and allegations of Russian meddling.
Recean, 48, was nominated by President Maia Sandu to replace Natalia Gavrilita, whose government resigned last week amid a series of crises in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Sandu repeatedly accused Russia of trying to destabilise Moldova and on Monday accused Moscow of plotting to topple the country’s leadership, stop it joining the EU and use it in the war against Ukraine.
Her comments came after Moldova’s intelligence service reported last week that it had identified “subversive activities”, after Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Kyiv had intercepted a “plan for the destruction of Moldova” by Russian intelligence.
On the streets of Chișinău and other cities, tensions have ratcheted up amid a string of unusual incidents. Moldovan airspace was temporarily closed after authorities spotted an unidentified flying object near the northern town of Soroca, and missile debris from Russian airstrikes on neighbouring Ukraine has fallen inside Moldova’s borders.
Even an annual march by veterans of the Soviet campaign in Afghanistan, where about 13,000 Moldovans fought, caused disquiet amid lingering concerns that the country could get drawn into the conflict in Ukraine.
“It will soon be a year since I woke up hearing bombs [from neighbouring Ukraine],” said Svetlana, 37, a seamstress from a Chișinău suburb. “I try to avoid watching the news now, otherwise I can’t sleep at night. My mother used to like Putin and now she prays for his death every day.”
In response to growing unease, police patrols have been stepped up and the interior ministry released an map of bomb shelters.

Valeriu Pașa, of the WatchDog thinktank, said that while Russia was unlikely to bring down the government, it could still sow further instability. “The risk of attempts of destabilisation is medium-sized. They may cause damages but not a total state overthrow,” he said. “The authorities will need to be more transparent in order to make people aware of the security risks.”
For many Moldovans, however, the day-to-day economic struggle is a more immediate concern. Inflation is at 30%, the highest in Europe, and the average monthly salary is just MDL 9,900 (£495). A recent survey showed that while 44% of the population was worried about war in Ukraine, 48% were concerned over high prices.
“I want them to let us live. We may not live well, but just let us live,” said Ecaterina Fieraru, 68, from Băcioi, a village near Chișinău. “A 1,000 MDL [£45] pension is hard to live off.” Even with her husband’s salary, Fieraru is only able to get by with help from remittances from her daughter, who has been working in a hotel in Italy for eight years.
Before 2022, the former Soviet republic imported almost all of its gas and electricity from Russia and Transnistria, a breakaway region in the east of Moldova where 1,500 Russian soldiers are stationed. As the two reduced supplies last year and the government bought energy from the west at higher prices, bills have shot up by as much as 600%.
With the help of financial aid from Europe and the US, the government was able to partly subsidise bills, but opposition parties have attempted to capitalise on economic concerns. The pro-Kremlin Șor and BECS parties have organised a string of demonstrations in which mainly elderly protesters have brandished signs in Russian and Romanian accusing the government of corruption and mismanagement.
The opposition has faced allegations that some of the demonstrators were paid to show up, but the economic crisis undoubtedly contributed to the falling popularity of Sandu’s government.
Recean, the new prime minister, has shifted focus from efforts to fight corruption towards reviving the economy and accelerating reforms for EU integration, after Moldova gained candidate status last year.
“We need a more active, rapid economic relaunch because we had a dramatic economic fall at the end of last year, and we require some balanced, intelligent policies to help business, while controlling inflation,” Pașa said.
Meanwhile, many Moldovans are emigrating, or considering it. “My mortgage used to cost me MDL 1,500 [£68] per month and now I’m paying MDL 8,500 [£386],” said Victor, 27. With a newborn at home, he struggles to cover his costs, working as a taxi driver in Chișinău. He blames the authorities for the increase in the bank rate from 6% to 19% within two years. “I think they just want us to leave the country.”
Others blame Russia for the economic crisis. “We need patience,” said Mihail Stegărescu, 65, a minibus driver. “Prices are high, but at least the government doesn’t kneel before Putin – the rise in the cost of living starts with him.”
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#Moldovan #MPs #approve #prowestern #tensions #Russia
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

February 17, 2023