The News Caravan

Tag: war

  • Russia-Ukraine war at a glance: what we know on day 427 of the invasion

    Russia-Ukraine war at a glance: what we know on day 427 of the invasion

    [ad_1]

  • One person has been killed and 10 wounded in a strike on a museum in Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said: “The terrorist country is doing everything to destroy us completely. Our history, our culture, our people. Killing Ukrainians with absolutely barbaric methods.”

  • Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed a decree establishing temporary control of the Russian assets of two foreign energy firms, signalling Moscow could take similar action against other companies if need be. The decree – outlining possible retaliation if Russian assets abroad are seized – showed Moscow had already taken action against Uniper SE’s Russian division and the assets of Finland’s Fortum Oyj.

  • The number of daily casualties Russia is suffering has fallen by about 30% in April, UK intelligence has said. In its daily intelligence briefing, the Ministry of Defence reported that the drop was probably due to the end of Russia’s winter offensive, which, it added, had largely failed. The MoD also said Russia was now likely to be preparing its troops for Ukraine’s counteroffensive.

  • Kyiv admitted it was behind a drone attack in the bay of Sevastopol, Ukrainian authorities confirmed. However, officials rejected Russian claims that the attack had put the operation of the grain corridor at risk.

  • Moscow has seen “practically no results” from a pact with the United Nations that aimed to help Russia’s grain and fertiliser exports, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday. Russia has signalled that unless a list of demands is met to remove obstacles to those exports, it will not agree to extend a related deal beyond 18 May that allows the safe wartime export of grain from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. Lavrov blamed western countries for creating a deadlock.

  • Russia’s foreign ministry has said it is expelling a Moldovan diplomat in what it cast as retaliation for the expulsion last week of a Russian diplomat in Moldova. The ministry said in a statement it had summoned Moldova’s ambassador in Moscow to announce the expulsion, as well as to protest against what it called “unfriendly steps towards Russia” and “regular anti-Russian statements”.

  • Lithuania’s parliament voted on Tuesday in favour of allowing border guards to turn back migrants who illegally enter the country. Lithuania borders fellow EU states Latvia and Poland, as well as Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. In 2021, Latvia declared a state of emergency and Lithuania began planning a razor-wire fence to stop record numbers of migrants crossing its border from Belarus.

  • A former commander in Russia’s Wagner mercenary group seeking asylum in Norway has pleaded guilty to being involved in a fight outside an Oslo bar and carrying an air gun in public and said he felt “very ashamed”. Andrei Medvedev, 26, crossed the Russian-Norwegian border in January and has spoken out about his time fighting with Russian invasion forces in Ukraine.

  • Britain and France’s sports ministers insisted on Tuesday that Russian and Belarusian athletes must never compete as neutrals as recommended by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) because they could still be funded by their governments.

  • A court in Russia has convicted a former police officer of publicly spreading false information about the country’s military after he criticised the war in Ukraine to his friends over the phone. The ex-officer, Semiel Vedel, was sentenced on Monday to seven years in prison and barred from working in law enforcement for four years after his release.

  • Risks of a direct military confrontation between the two nuclear powers, Russia and the United States, are steadily growing, the Tass news agency quoted a senior Russian diplomat as saying on Tuesday. Vladimir Yermakov, the foreign ministry’s head of nuclear non-proliferation, told the Russian state news agency that Washington was escalating the risks through its conduct with Moscow.

  • South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, said his ruling ANC party has resolved to quit the international criminal court, which last month issued an arrest warrant against Putin. The ICC issued an arrest warrant against Putin in March, meaning Pretoria, which is due to host the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit this year, would be required to detain him on arrival.

  • It is time for the Nato alliance to “stop making excuses” and accept Ukraine as a member, as the country has demonstrated its readiness and has much to offer, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba said. Writing in Foreign Affairs, Kuleba said the political will of the alliance had been “sorely lacking” on the issue of admitting Ukraine.

[ad_2]
#RussiaUkraine #war #glance #day #invasion
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

  • ‘Shocking’: Putin critic handed 25 years in prison

    ‘Shocking’: Putin critic handed 25 years in prison

    [ad_1]

    russia putin 65259

    MOSCOW — A Russian court on Monday slapped opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza with 25 years in prison for treason and other claimed offenses.

    Moscow City Court sentenced Kara-Murza to a penal colony for spreading “fake news” about the army and “cooperation with an undesirable organization,” as Russian President Vladimir Putin steps up his crackdown on dissent and Russian civil society. But the bulk of his sentence had to do with another, third charge: treason, in the first time anyone has been convicted on that count for making public statements containing publicly available information.

    On the courthouse steps, British Ambassador Deborah Bronnert called the sentence for Kara-Murza, who holds both Russian and British citizenship, “shocking.” Her U.S. counterpart said the verdict was an attempt “to silence dissent in this country.” 

    The U.K. summoned the Russian ambassador after the conviction, with Foreign Secretary James Cleverly calling for Kara-Murza’s “immediate release.”

    Upon traveling to Russia in April 2022, Kara-Murza was detained for disobeying police orders. From that moment the charges piled up: first for spreading “fake news” about the Russian armed forces, then for his participation in an “undesirable organization,” and last for treason, on account of three public speeches he gave in the U.S., Finland and Portugal. The charges, all of which Kara-Murza denies, were expanded to treason last October.

    A close associate of the late opposition figure Boris Nemtsov, who was assassinated near the Kremlin in 2015, Kara-Murza was one of the last remaining prominent Putin critics still alive and walking free. But over the years he has ruffled many feathers as a main advocate for the Magnitsky Act, which long before the war called upon countries to target Russians involved in human rights violations and corruption.

    The defense’s attempts to remove the judge — who is also on the Magnitsky list — were dismissed.

    Kara-Murza continued to speak out against the Kremlin despite mounting personal risks, including what he described as poisonings by the Russian security services in 2015 and 2017, where he suddenly became ill, falling into a coma before eventually recovering.

    Neither journalists nor high-ranking diplomats were allowed into the courtroom to witness the ruling and instead followed the sentencing on a screen.

    Kara-Murza was in a glass cage, dressed in jeans and a gray blazer, with his mother and his lawyer standing outside of the cage. He smiled when the sentence was read out.

    After the verdict Oleg Orlov, the co-chair of Russia’s oldest human rights group, Memorial, who himself is facing charges for “discrediting the Russian army,” drew a parallel with the Soviet Union, when “people were also jailed for words.” Kara-Murza compared the legal process to Stalin-era trials, in his appearance at court.

    Kara-Murza’s lawyer Maria Eismont said the sentence was “a boost to his self esteem, the highest grade he could have gotten for his work as a politician and active citizen,” but added that there were serious concerns about his health.  



    [ad_2]
    #Shocking #Putin #critic #handed #years #prison
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

  • When a Legislature Goes to War With Its State’s Richest City

    When a Legislature Goes to War With Its State’s Richest City

    [ad_1]

    20230410 nashville politics 1499 edit

    ‘They’ve been stealing seats.’

    Tennessee was not ever thus. This is, after all, a state in which then-Senator Al Gore, a Democrat, carried every county in his 1990 re-election bid. “When I started in 1994, Democrats were in control of the House, the Senate, as well as the executive branch” statewide, said Larry Miller, a Memphis-area Democratic representative who is one of the longest-serving legislators in the Tennessee House. His tenure has overlapped with those of five governors — two Democrats and three Republicans. He was in his third term when Gore lost his home state in 2000. When Barack Obama started running for president, sometime in Miller’s seventh term, Miller noticed the rightward shift really accelerate. “The Republicans,” he said, “began every two years to gain more and more seats in the state.”

    In the decade or so since Republicans claimed a supermajority in both legislative chambers in 2012 — which effectively allows them to pass party-line laws without any votes from their handful of Democratic colleagues — the state has also grown, particularly the central zone that includes Nashville. Boosters have lately pitched the area to good effect as a kind of Silicon Valley of the South and, according to research from the Greater Nashville Technology Council, Middle Tennessee’s tech job growth exploded by more than 50 percent between 2015 and 2020, outpacing the national average. Amazon has set up shop there and Oracle has vowed to bring thousands more jobs to the area; other companies one wouldn’t think of as “tech” per se, such as Bridgestone and Nissan, have relocated their headquarters to Nashville and brought an army of tech jobs with them; and this being “Music City,” Apple, YouTube and Spotify all have a music tech presence here. The Wall Street Journal has dubbed Nashville 2022’s “hottest” job market, edging out Austin, Texas; another report found Tennessee leading the country in tech workers moving to the state since the pandemic. “Companies keep moving and opening new jobs. As soon as we fill them, we have more to fill,” said Elise Cambournac, the CEO of the Greater Nashville Technology Council.  

    This is one reason greater Nashville is the economic engine of the state, accounting for some 40 percent of the state’s GDP. (Another major one is tourism and, if there’s one bipartisan issue in the city, it’s annoyance with bachelorette parties.) And, though no one measures this directly, the city’s growing hordes of millennial tech workers may have contributed to its slight blue-ening over time — a Vanderbilt University poll shows an uptick of city residents calling themselves liberal or very liberal since it was first conducted in 2015, albeit from 26 percent to 30 percent. (They outnumber conservatives by six points, and self-described moderates handily prevail over both.) But metro-area residents do vote for Democrats: In the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden notched nearly 65 percent in the county that includes Nashville, a five-point improvement over Hillary Clinton’s 2016 showing there. So the “Silicon Valley of the South” thing isn’t necessarily driving a huge cultural shift as much as showcasing a low-tax, quite affordable alternative to living in the actual Silicon Valley.

    [ad_2]
    #Legislature #War #States #Richest #City
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Syiran FM makes first visit to Saudi Arabia since 2011 war

    Syiran FM makes first visit to Saudi Arabia since 2011 war

    [ad_1]

    Riyadh: Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad arrived in Saudi Arabia for a visit on Wednesday, amid a thaw in ties between Damascus and Riyadh, reported Al Jazeera.

    According to Saudi and Syrian state media, Mekdad arrived in Jeddah on Wednesday after receiving an invitation from Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan.

    The Saudi foreign ministry in a statement, said, “The two will hold a session of talks on efforts to reach a political solution to the Syrian crisis that preserves the unity, security and stability of Syria.”

    MS Education Academy

    It added, “They will also discuss facilitating the return of Syrian refugees to their homeland, and securing humanitarian access to the affected areas in Syria.”

    The visit to Saudi Arabia is the first by a Syrian foreign minister since the war in Syria in 2011. Although Saudi Arabia backed the Syrian opposition, the relations with the ruling regime have thawed recently, reported Al Jazeera.

    Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has mostly defeated the Opposition attempts to unseat him from power, with support from Russia and Iran.

    During the past few months, there has been increasing engagement with Al-Assad, who has been isolated ever since the Syrian war began.

    Assad travelled to the UAE and Oman this year, while Saudi Arabia announced last month that talks for resumption of consular services with Damascus had begun, reported Al Jazeera.

    On Friday, a gathering of regional foreign ministers will be held in Saudi Arabia to discuss Syria’s re-admission to the Arab League.

    Following reports of a potential restoration of relations, Saudi official media stated last month that talks were underway between Damascus and Riyadh to reinstate consular services.

    Diplomatic attempts have up steam after Saudi Arabia decided last month to normalise relations with Iran, a significant ally of the Syrian regime, Al Jazeera reported.

    (Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by Siasat staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

    [ad_2]
    #Syiran #visit #Saudi #Arabia #war

    ( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

  • War of words between ministers of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh

    War of words between ministers of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh

    [ad_1]

    Hyderabad: A war of words broke out between ministers of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday following some remarks by Telangana’s Finance Minister T. Harish Rao about the conditions in the neighbouring state.

    Defending his comments made while addressing workers from Andhra Pradesh settled in Sangareddy on Tuesday, Harish Rao lashed out at both the ruling and main opposition parties of Andhra Pradesh for ignoring the interests of people.

    The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader questioned the silence of the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) on special category status to Andhra Pradesh and the privatisation of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant by the Centre.

    MS Education Academy

    Addressing the BRS Athmeeya Sammelanam in Andole on Wednesday, the minister slammed both the parties for not questioning the Centre over its failure to fulfill commitment made to Andhra Pradesh at the time of bifurcation of the state.

    Harish Rao said both the YSRCP and the TDP were competing with each other to be in the good books of the BJP-led Union government and hence not raising their voice for special status to Andhra Pradesh, which was a promise made under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014. He said both the parties were silent on the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant issue too.

    Addressing a programme at Sangareddy on Tuesday, Harish Rao had asked construction workers, who arrived from Andhra Pradesh to Telangana, to enroll as voters here because the state had much better facilities.

    Some ministers in Andhra Pradesh took objection to comments made by Harish Rao and asked him what is there in Telangana.

    Countering the Andhra ministers, Harish Rao asked them to come and experience Telangana instead of throwing mud and making unnecessary comments against the state.

    “Let them come and experience for themselves what is here. Telangana has paddy crops on 56 lakh acres, which was half of the total paddy cultivation in India in the Yasangi season. Telangana is also giving Rythu Bandhu, Rythu Bima, Kalyana Lakshmi, round-the-clock free power supply, KCR Kit and many other schemes, which the Andhra Pradesh government could not even dare to implement,” he said.

    Andhra Pradesh’s Education Minister Botsa Satyanarayana, however, questioned Harish Rao’s locus standi to speak about Andhra Pradesh.

    “Who is Harish Rao to speak about Andhra Pradesh. Let him focus on his own state,” he said.

    “Our people know how to govern the state,” he remarked. The YSRCP leader feels that Harish Rao might have made the comments for political mileage.

    (Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by Siasat staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

    [ad_2]
    #War #words #ministers #Telangana #Andhra #Pradesh

    ( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

  • Russian soldiers are ‘beasts,’ Zelenskyy says over beheading video

    Russian soldiers are ‘beasts,’ Zelenskyy says over beheading video

    [ad_1]

    russia ukraine war ramadan 94162

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday condemned Russians forces as “beasts” over the execution of a Ukrainian soldier, who appeared to be beheaded while still alive in a video published on social media.

    Zelenskyy’s reaction comes as Kyiv is ramping up diplomatic pressure over Moscow’s presence in international forums ranging from the U.N. Security Council to the Olympics.

    “There is something that no one in the world can ignore: how easily these beasts kill,” the Ukrainian president said in a video posted on Twitter.

    “This video, the execution of a Ukrainian captive, the world must see it,” he added. “This is a video of Russia as it is, what kind of creatures they are, there are no people for them: a son, a brother, a husband, someone’s child.”

    In recent days, two videos have appeared. One supposedly filmed by Wagner group mercenaries shows the bodies of two Ukrainian soldiers, whose heads and hands were cut off, and appeared on pro-Russian social channels. Another — seeming shot in the summer — shows a Russian use a knife to sever the head of Ukrainian prisoner, who appears to be pleading with his killer.

    Ukrainian social media and street conversations are charged with anger and pain as people discuss yet more potential evidence of a Russian war crime in Ukraine. Officials from the Defense Ministry of Ukraine asked people not to share the video to spare the feelings of the relatives of the soldier, who might recognize him on the video. Other soldiers, tweeting from the frontline express grief and anger.

    “Each of us could and can be in the place of that guy whose head was cut off by the Russians,” Vitaly Ovcharenko, a Ukrainian serviceman from Donbas, tweeted.

    And Yaryna Chornohuz, Ukrainian marine and combat medic currently serving near the frontline town of Bakhmut, claimed the Russians posted the decapitation video to trigger a feeling of defenselessness, and helplessness in the face of evil. She saw it as a sign of cowardice.

    “It is important not to become like the enemy who commits atrocities, because that is what they are counting on. The enemy expects that we will also cut off heads, and they will feed it to their zombie population. Such videos are spread on purpose with this goal, to raise the degree of severity and take advantage of it,” Chornohuz said in a post.

    POLITICO was not able to independently verify the videos.

    Last month, another video showed a Ukrainian soldier saying “Slava Ukraini” (Glory to Ukraine) shortly before being executed by Russian troops.

    Zelenskyy called on world leaders to act, saying “action [was] required now.”

    “This is is not an accident, this is not an episode. This was the case before,” the Ukrainian president added.

    Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba also reacted to the execution video, saying Russia, which is currently presiding over the United Nations Security Council, “must be kicked out of Ukraine and the UN, and be held accountable for [its] crimes.

    Slovakia’s prime minister, Eduard Heger, also strongly condemned the execution, saying that the video shows Russia has “no legal or human limits in evil doing,” calling the beheading “ISIS style” and adding that this will be punished and not forgotten.

    Ukrainian authorities have called for the creation of a special tribunal to rule over war crimes committed by Russian forces since the launch of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

    The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has already started an investigation into this alleged war crime. “We will find these non-humans. If necessary, we will get them wherever they are: from underground or from the other world. But they will definitely be punished for what they have done,” SBU Head Vasyl Malyuk said in a statement.

    Moscow has denied committing war crimes in Ukraine — in spite of numerous reports showing otherwise, as well as the issuance of an arrest warrant last month against President Vladimir Putin over the forced deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.

    “We are not going to forget anything. Nor are we going to forgive the murderers,” Zelenskyy said in his video address Wednesday.

    Wilhelmine Preussen contributed reporting.



    [ad_2]
    #Russian #soldiers #beasts #Zelenskyy #beheading #video
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

  • Oh no, Joe: Biden confuses ‘All Blacks’ rugby team with ‘Black and Tan’ military force

    Oh no, Joe: Biden confuses ‘All Blacks’ rugby team with ‘Black and Tan’ military force

    [ad_1]

    ireland biden 36318

    DUBLIN — That didn’t last long.

    Joe Biden managed to tread carefully around historic and current political sensitivities during the first part of his trip to the island of Ireland this week, marking 25 years since the U.S.-brokered Good Friday Agreement sought to secure lasting peace for Northern Ireland.

    But not long after crossing from that U.K. region into the Republic of Ireland on Wednesday, the U.S. president made a major gaffe: He confused New Zealand’s “All Blacks” rugby team with the notorious “Black and Tans” British military unit that fought the Irish Republican Army a century ago.

    At the end of a rambling speech in a pub Wednesday night, Biden — flanked by Irish Foreign Minister Micheál Martin and star rugby player Rob Kearney, a distant cousin — tried to pay a compliment to one of Kearney’s greatest sporting accomplishments. That would be when Ireland’s rugby team defeated New Zealand for the first time in 111 years, in November 2016 in Chicago. New Zealand’s squad is famously called the All Blacks, in reference to their uniforms.

    Trouble is, Biden let slip a reference that could well reflect his affinity with Irish rebel history and its folk songs.

    “He’s a hell of a rugby player, and he beat the hell out of the Black and Tans,” Biden said to audience laughter.

    The Black and Tans were an auxiliary unit of Britain’s security forces that fought IRA rebels in their 1919-21 war of independence from Britain. Their name reflected the improvised and inconsistent colors of their uniforms.

    The unrelentingly pro-Biden coverage on state broadcaster RTÉ, which televised his speech live, didn’t acknowledge the mistake. The commentator’s sign-off? “Well, that’s Joe Biden: a little bit sentimental, a little bit schmaltzy, but a thoroughly decent guy and a great friend to Ireland. The trip is off to a great start.”

    But the gaffe and “Rob Kearney” blew up on social media in Ireland. Some listed the retired rugby fullback’s career accomplishments including, most famously, his single-handed defeat of the British forces a century ago.

    “The greatest gift Ireland wanted from Joe Biden was a signature gaffe. And … didn’t he just go and give us one for the century,” tweeted comedian Oliver Callan.

    Attempting to hose down the row on Thursday, Biden aide Amanda Sloat, the National Security Council senior director for Europe, said: “I think for everyone in Ireland who was a rugby fan it was incredibly clear that the president was talking about the All Blacks and Ireland’s defeat of the New Zealand team in 2016.”

    She added: “It was clear what the president was referring to. It was certainly clear to his cousin sitting next to him who had played in that match.”

    Lost in the shuffle was Biden’s other Kearney gaffe: He still hasn’t figured out how to say his name.

    When introducing Kearney at the White House on St. Patrick’s Day, Biden called him Keer-ney. The Irish pronounce the name Kar-ney. Biden stuck with Keer-ney on Wednesday.



    [ad_2]
    #Joe #Biden #confuses #Blacks #rugby #team #Black #Tan #military #force
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

  • Poland’s Morawiecki plays Europe’s anti-Macron in Washington

    Poland’s Morawiecki plays Europe’s anti-Macron in Washington

    [ad_1]

    Press play to listen to this article

    Voiced by artificial intelligence.

    There’s an Emmanuel Macron-shaped shadow hovering over this week’s U.S. visit by Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

    In contrast to the French president — who in an interview with POLITICO tried to put some distance between the U.S. and Europe in any future confrontation with China over Taiwan and called for strengthening the Continent’s “strategic autonomy” — the Polish leader is underlining the critical importance of the alliance between America and Europe, not least because his country is one of Kyiv’s strongest allies in the war with Russia.

    “Instead of building strategic autonomy from the United States, I propose a strategic partnership with the United States,” he said before flying to Washington.

    In the U.S. capital, Morawiecki continued with his under-the-table kicks at the French president.

    “I see no alternative, and we are absolutely on the same wavelength here, to building an even closer alliance with the Americans. If countries to the west of Poland understand this less, it is probably because of historical circumstances,” he said on Tuesday in Washington.

    Unlike France, which has spent decades bristling at Europe’s reliance on the U.S. for its security, Poland is one of the Continent’s keenest American allies. Warsaw has pushed hard for years for U.S. troops to be stationed on its territory, and many of its recent arms contracts have gone to American companies. It signed a $1.4 billion deal earlier this year to buy a second batch of Abrams tanks, and has also agreed to spend $4.6 billion on advanced F-35 fighter jets.

    “I am glad that this proposal for an even deeper strategic partnership is something that finds such fertile ground here in the United States, because we know that there are various concepts formulated by others in Europe, concepts that create more threats, more question marks, more unknowns,” Morawiecki said. “Poland is trying to maintain the most commonsense policy based on a close alliance with the United States within the framework of the European Union, and this is the best path for Poland.”

    Fast friends

    Poland has become one of Ukraine’s most important allies, and access to its roads, railways and airports is crucial in funneling weapons, ammunition and other aid to Ukraine.

    That’s helped shift perceptions of Poland — seen before the war as an increasingly marginal member of the Western club thanks to its issues with violating the rule of law, into a key country of the NATO alliance.

    Warsaw also sees the Russian attack on Ukraine as justifying its long-held suspicion of its historical foe, and it hasn’t been shy in pointing the finger at Paris and Berlin for being wrong about the threat posed by the Kremlin.

    “Old Europe believed in an agreement with Russia, and old Europe failed,” Morawiecki said in a joint news conference with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. “But there is a new Europe — Europe that remembers what Russian communism was. And Poland is the leader of this new Europe.”

    That’s why Macron’s comments have been seized on by Warsaw.

    GettyImages 1198372344
    According to Poland’s PM Mateusz Morawiecki, Emmanuel Macron’s talks of distancing the EU from America “threatens to break up” the block | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images

    “I absolutely don’t agree with President Macron. We believe that more America is needed in Europe … We want more cooperation with the U.S. on a partnership basis,” Marcin Przydacz, a foreign policy adviser to Polish President Andrzej Duda, told Poland’s Radio Zet, adding that the strategic autonomy idea pushed by Macron “has the goal of cutting links between Europe and the United States.”

    While Poland is keen on European countries hitting NATO’s goal of spending at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense — a target that only seven alliance members, including Poland, but not France and Germany, are meeting — and has no problem with them building up military industries, it doesn’t want to weaken ties with the U.S., said Sławomir Dębski, head of the state-financed Polish Institute of International Affairs.

    He warned that Macron’s talks of distancing Europe from America in the event of a conflict with China “threatens to break up the EU, which is against the interests not only of Poland, but also of most European countries.”



    [ad_2]
    #Polands #Morawiecki #plays #Europes #antiMacron #Washington
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

  • Biden’s Northern Ireland ultimatum looks doomed to fail

    Biden’s Northern Ireland ultimatum looks doomed to fail

    [ad_1]

    Press play to listen to this article

    Voiced by artificial intelligence.

    LONDON — Joe Biden is not someone known for his subtlety.

    His gaffe-prone nature — which saw him last week confuse the New Zealand rugby team with British forces from the Irish War of Independence — leaves little in the way of nuance.

    But he is also a sentimental man from a long gone era of Washington, who specializes in a type of homespun, aw-shucks affability that would be seen as naff in a younger president.

    His lack of subtlety was on show in Belfast last week as he issued a thinly veiled ultimatum to the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) — return to Northern Ireland’s power sharing arrangements or risk losing billions of dollars in U.S. business investment.

    The DUP — a unionist party that does not take kindly to lectures from American presidents — is refusing to sit in Stormont, the Northern Ireland Assembly, due to its anger with the post-Brexit Northern Ireland protocol, which has created trade friction between the region and the rest of the U.K.

    The DUP is also refusing to support the U.K.-EU Windsor Framework, which aims to fix the economic problems created by the protocol, despite hopes it would see the party reconvene the Northern Irish Assembly.

    The president on Wednesday urged Northern Irish leaders to “unleash this incredible economic opportunity, which is just beginning.”

    However, American business groups paint a far more complex and nuanced view of future foreign investment into Northern Ireland than offered up by Biden.

    Biden told a Belfast crowd on Wednesday there were “scores of major American corporations wanting to come here” to invest, but that a suspended Stormont was acting as a block on that activity.

    One U.S. business figure, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Biden’s flighty rhetoric was “exaggerated” and that many businesses would be looking beyond the state of the regional assembly to make their investment decisions.

    The president spoke as if Ulster would be rewarded with floods of American greenbacks if the DUP reverses its intransigence, predicting that Northern Ireland’s gross domestic product (GDP) would soon be triple its 1998 level. Its GDP is currently around double the size of when the Good Friday Agreement was struck in 1998.

    Emanuel Adam, executive director of BritishAmerican Business, said this sounded like a “magic figure” unless Biden “knows something we don’t know about.” 

    DUP MP Ian Paisley Jr. told POLITICO that U.S. politicians for “too long” have “promised some economic El Dorado or bonanza if you only do what we say politically … but that bonanza has never arrived and people are not naive enough here to believe it ever will.”

    “A presidential visit is always welcome, but the glitter on top is not an economic driver,” he said.

    GettyImages 1251843280
    Joe Biden addresses a crowd of thousands on April 14, 2023 in Ballina, Ireland | Charles McQuillan/Getty Images

    Facing both ways

    The British government is hoping the Windsor Framework will ease economic tensions in Northern Ireland and create politically stable conditions for inward foreign direct investment.

    The framework removes many checks on goods going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland and has begun to slowly create a more collaborative relationship between London and Brussels on a number of fronts — two elements which have been warmly welcomed across the Atlantic.

    Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said Northern Ireland is in a “special” position of having access to the EU’s single market, to avoid a hard border with the Republic of Ireland, and the U.K.’s internal market.

    “That’s like the world’s most exciting economic zone,” Sunak said in February.

    Jake Colvin, head of Washington’s National Foreign Trade Council business group, said U.S. firms wanted to see “confidence that the frictions over the protocol have indeed been resolved.”

    “Businesses will look to mechanisms like the Windsor Framework to provide stability,” he said.

    Marjorie Chorlins, senior vice president for Europe at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said the Windsor Framework was “very important” for U.S. businesses and that “certainty about the relationship between the U.K. and the EU is critical.”

    She said a reconvened Stormont would mean more legislative stability on issues like skills and healthcare, but added that there were a whole range of other broader U.K. wide economic factors that will play a major part in investment decisions.

    This is particularly salient in a week where official figures showed the U.K.’s GDP flatlining and predictions that Britain will be the worst economic performer in the G20 this year.

    “We want to see a return to robust growth and prosperity for the U.K. broadly and are eager to work with government at all levels,” Chorlins said. 

    “Political and economic instability in the U.K. has been a challenge for businesses of all sizes.”

    GettyImages 1251744441
    Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said Northern Ireland is in a “special” position of having access to the EU’s single market | Pool photo by Paul Faith/Getty Images

    Her words underline just how much global reputational damage last year’s carousel of prime ministers caused for the U.K., with Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey recently warning of a “hangover effect” from Liz Truss’ premiership and the broader Westminster psychodrama of 2022.

    America’s Northern Ireland envoy Joe Kennedy, grandson of Robert Kennedy, accompanied the president last week and has been charged with drumming up U.S. corporate interest in Northern Ireland.

    Kennedy said Northern Ireland is already “the number-one foreign investment location for proximity and market access.”

    Northern Ireland has been home to £1.5 billion of American investment in the past decade and had the second-most FDI projects per capita out of all U.K. regions in 2021.

    Claire Hanna, Westminster MP for the nationalist SDLP, believes reconvening Stormont would “signal a seriousness that there isn’t going to be anymore mucking around.”

    “It’s also about the signal that the restoration of Stormont sends — that these are the accepted trading arrangements,” she said.

    Hanna says the DUP’s willingness to “demonize the two biggest trading blocs in the world — the U.S. and EU” — was damaging to the country’s future economic prospects.

    ‘The money goes south’

    At a more practical level, Biden’s ultimatum appears to carry zero weight with DUP representatives.

    DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson made it clear last week that he was unmoved by Biden’s economic proclamations and gave no guarantee his party would sit in the regional assembly in the foreseeable future.

    “President Biden is offering the hope of further American investment, which we always welcome,” Donaldson told POLITICO.

    “But fundamental to the success of our economy is our ability to trade within our biggest market, which is of course the United Kingdom.”

    A DUP official said U.S. governments had been promising extra American billions in exchange “for selling out to Sinn Féin and Dublin” since the 1990s and “when America talks about corporate investment, we get the crumbs and that investment really all ends up in the Republic [of Ireland].”

    GettyImages 1251826482
    “President Biden is offering the hope of further American investment, which we always welcome,” Donaldson said | Behal/Irish Government via Getty Images

    “The Americans talk big, but the money goes south,” the DUP official said.

    This underscores the stark reality that challenges Northern Ireland any time it pitches for U.S. investment — the competing proposition offered by its southern neighbor with its internationally low 12.5 percent rate on corporate profits.

    Emanuel Adam with BritishAmerican Business said there was a noticeable feeling in Washington that firms want to do business in Dublin.

    “When [Irish Prime Minister] Leo Varadkar and his team were here recently, I could tell how confident the Irish are these days,” he said. “There are not as many questions for them as there are around the U.K.”

    Biden’s economic ultimatum looks toothless from the DUP’s perspective and its resonance may be as short-lived as his trip to Belfast itself.

    This story has been updated to correct an historical reference.



    [ad_2]
    #Bidens #Northern #Ireland #ultimatum #doomed #fail
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

  • UK’s Truss warns of Western ‘weakness’ over China in wake of Macron visit

    UK’s Truss warns of Western ‘weakness’ over China in wake of Macron visit

    [ad_1]

    britain truss in trouble 90515

    LONDON — Former U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss will take a not-so-subtle swipe at Emmanuel Macron over his attempt to build bridges with Beijing.

    In a Wednesday morning speech to the Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington, D.C. Truss will argue that too many in the West have “appeased and accommodated” authoritarian regimes in China and Russia.

    And she will say it is a “sign of weakness” for Western leaders to visit China and ask premier Xi Jinping for his support in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — just days after Macron’s own high-profile trip there.

    While Truss — who left office after just six weeks as crisis-hit U.K. prime minister — will not mention Macron by name, her comments follow an interview with POLITICO in which the French president said Europe should resist pressure to become “America’s followers.”

    Macron said: “The question Europeans need to answer … is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. agenda and a Chinese overreaction.”

    Macron has already been criticized for those comments by the IPAC group of China-skeptic lawmakers, which said Monday his remarks were “ill-judged.”

    And Truss — who had a frosty relationship with Macron during her brief stint in office last year — will use her speech to urge a more aggressive stance toward both China and Russia.

    “We’ve seen Vladimir Putin launching an unprovoked attack on a free and democratic neighbor, we see the Chinese building up their armaments and their arsenal and menacing the free and democratic Taiwan,” Truss will say according to pre-released remarks. “Too many in the West have appeased and accommodated these regimes.”

    She will add: “Western leaders visiting President Xi to ask for his support in ending the war is a mistake — and it is a sign of weakness. Instead our energies should go into taking more measures to support Taiwan. We need to make sure Taiwan is able to defend itself.”

    Relations between Macron and Truss’ successor Rishi Sunak have been notably warmer. The pair hailed a “new chapter” in U.K.-France ties in March, after concluding a deal on cross-Channel migration.



    [ad_2]
    #UKs #Truss #warns #Western #weakness #China #wake #Macron #visit
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )