For any world-class athlete, losing most of his or her vision would be a devastating setback. For former Portuguese boxer Jorge Pina however, it was an opportunity to give back to young people in his country. VOA’s Elizabeth Cherneff has more.
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Norwegian Air Shuttle said Friday one of its Boeing 737s has been stuck in Iran for three weeks after an unscheduled landing because of engine problems, as U.S. restrictions reportedly create headaches for the airline and possibly passengers.
The aircraft was en route from Dubai to Oslo with 192 passengers and crew members when it carried out a “safety landing” in Shiraz in southwestern Iran because of engine trouble Dec. 14, a Norwegian Air Shuttle spokesman, Andreas Hjornholm, told AFP.
While passengers were able to fly on to Oslo the following day on another aircraft, the Boeing 737 Max has been stuck on Iranian soil where the airline’s mechanics are trying to repair it, Hjornholm said.
Parts needed
According to specialized websites, the repair work has encountered problems because international sanctions bar the airline from sending spare parts to Iran.
With the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, the Trump administration decided to re-impose sanctions on Tehran.
Norwegian Air Shuttle refused to comment on those reports.
“I can only say that we are working with several options to get the plane back on the wings, and right now we are waiting for our technicians to be able to service the plane and to get it working,” Hjornholm said.
The incident has fueled jokes on social media.
“Iran has become a Bermuda Triangle that feeds on planes,” one Iranian Twitter user wrote.
Problem for passengers, crew
It could also pose problems for the plane’s passengers and crew members if they want to travel to the U.S. in future.
Since 2015, anyone who has traveled to seven countries considered at risk (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen) since March 2011 is excluded from the U.S. visa waiver program applied to most Europeans.
According to Hjornholm, the passengers and crew on the Dubai-Oslo flight officially entered Iran and stayed overnight at a hotel, Dec. 14-15.
The US embassy in Oslo was not available for comment.
Last year, former NATO secretary general Javier Solana was refused entry to the U.S. because he had visited Iran for the inauguration ceremony of President Hassan Rouhani in 2013.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says his country will host the leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan for a meeting geared toward bringing peace to Afghanistan.
Erdogan spoke Friday at a joint news conference with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who is making his first visit to Turkey since he came to power in August.
Erdogan said the trilateral meeting would take place in Istanbul after Turkey’s March local election.
Khan told reporters he hoped the meeting would bring “badly needed peace” to Afghanistan.
Erdogan, meanwhile, welcomed Pakistan’s decision to hand over schools affiliated with exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen to a Turkish government foundation. Turkey blames Gulen for a 2016 failed coup.
Khan on Thursday visited the tomb of the 13th-century Sufi mystic Jalaladdin Rumi in the city of Konya.
read moreA suspected case of the deadly Ebola virus has been reported by a Swedish hospital, officials said Friday, adding that the patient has been isolated.
Region Uppsala, which oversees several hospitals and medical clinics north of Stockholm, says a test had been carried out on the patient, who was not identified, adding a result would be available late Friday.
In its statement, Region Uppsala said it was so far “only a matter of suspicion,” adding “other diseases are quite possible.”
It did not say where the patient had traveled, but Sweden’s TT news agency said the patient had returned from a trip to Burundi three weeks ago and had not visited any region with the Ebola virus.
The authorities said the hospital in Enkoping where the patient was first admitted had its emergency room shut down and the staff who treated the patient were “cared for.” The patient was eventually transferred to an infection clinic in Uppsala.
“The patient came in Friday morning and reportedly was vomiting blood which may be a symptom of Ebola infection,” hospital spokesman Mikael Kohler told local newspaper Upsala Nya Tidning. He was not immediately available for further comment.
Eastern Congo currently faces an Ebola outbreak. All major outbreaks have been in Africa, though isolated cases have been reported outside the continent. The hemorrhagic fever’s virus is spread via contact with the bodily fluids of those infected.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Israeli counterpart, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have held telephone consultations centering on Syria.
In the Friday call, Putin and Netanyahu “focused on developments in Syria, including in light of the United States’ stated intention to withdraw its troops from that country. They pointed to the need for the final defeat of terrorism and speedy achievement of a political settlement in Syria,” a Kremlin statement said.
Netanyahu also offered condolences following an apartment building collapse in the Russian city of Magnitogorsk this week that killed 39 people, the statement said.
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Two of Britain’s largest international airports are planning to install military-grade anti-drone defense systems to avoid attacks like the one that grounded nearly 1,000 flights at London’s Gatwick Airport over the Christmas holidays.
Last month, British authorities sought help from the military after a number of drone sightings over Gatwick, Britain’s second-busiest airport, forced it to shut down, disrupting travel plans of tens of thousands of people just before Christmas.
British media said the military deployed technology similar to the Israeli-designed Drone Dome system, which can detect and disable a drone by jamming its communication frequencies.
Airport security officials worldwide are studying the issue.
Officials at London’s Heathrow Airport and Gatwick on Thursday confirmed the purchase of the anti-drone systems but would not say if they were the same as the one used by the military. The reports of the purchase first appeared in The Times.
The airport purchases were made despite a comment last month, in which Security Minister Ben Wallace said Britain’s security forces had detection systems that could be deployed throughout the country to combat the threat of drones.
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Tensions between the U.S. and Turkey are threatening to resurface following President Donald Trump’s apparent walking back of his commitment to immediately withdraw U.S. troops from Syria and end support for a Syrian Kurdish militia.
Washington’s backing of the YPG Kurdish militia in its war against the Islamic State group pushed U.S.-Turkish relations to a breaking point. Ankara links the militia to the Kurdish rebel group PKK, which has been fighting a decades-long insurgency inside Turkey.
Trump’s declaration of victory over IS and vow to quickly withdraw about 2,000 American forces based mainly with the YPG ushered in hopes of a breakthrough in strained ties with Ankara. Trump on Wednesday, though, said, “I never said fast or slow. Somebody said four months, but I did not say that either.”
Adding to Ankara’s nervousness, Trump said, “We want to protect the Kurds [in Syria].” The U.S. president is facing growing national and international pressure over the decision to leave Syria and abandon the YPG. Turkish military forces continue to mass ahead of an expected strike against the YPG.
“In Ankara, the strategic thinking is a threat to Turkish national security emanating from Syria,” said former senior Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen. “It’s an extension of PKK controlling the Syrian border, and Ankara has repeatedly said this will not be allowed.”
Green light
Trump’s initial statements of an unconditional quick pullout from Syria were widely interpreted in Turkey as a green light for a Turkish military operation against the YPG. However, Trump’s latest comments of a more gradual withdrawal and protection of the Kurds are seen as putting Ankara’s plans in question.
“There was euphoria by the [Turkish] government. It was a historic decision for Ankara by Trump to leave Syria immediately,” said international relations professor Huseyin Bagci, of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University.
“But now Trump is also classically acting again, trying not to leave without giving protection to Kurds. And Turkey in this respect cannot do anything about this; Turkey will have to accept Kurds are under American protection,” Bagci added.
Analysts suggest Ankara also is likely to be alarmed by growing calls for the creation of a buffer zone between Turkish and YPG forces along the Syrian border. South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham, speaking to reporters after meeting with Trump, said the president was considering such a move.
Roderich Kiesewetter, chair of the German parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, is backing a similar initiative. “We need a sanctuary, and the United Nations could do that for the Kurds of northern Syria, under U.N. influence,” Kiesewetter said Wednesday to German radio.
“The creation of buffer zone is to protect the Kurds. In this respect, it’s not good for Turkey. Turkey will lose the opportunity to fight the YPG troops there,” said Bagci. “Turkey will oppose, but at the end of the day they will have to accept.”
Pre-emptive strike
Analysts suggest Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan may be tempted to thwart any buffer zone by launching a pre-emptive military operation in Syria, east of the Euphrates River, where most of the YPG forces are based. Key March local elections could also enter into Erdogan’s calculations, given growing voter dissatisfaction over a slowing economy.
“The timing of an operation east of the Euphrates may be an attempt to solidify the voter base,” said analyst Atilla Yesilada of GlobalSource Partners, an investment analysis service. “But these attempts are futile at the end. People care whether they can bring bread home, and if they can’t, a very clear victory in some remote location doesn’t mean much to them.”
Whether Ankara launches a Syrian operation is likely to depend on Moscow’s cooperation. Russian missiles control much of Syrian airspace. Turkey’s last cross-border operation against the YPG in Syria’s Afrin province relied on the use of air support.
The Turkish defense and foreign ministers, along with the intelligence chief, reportedly failed recently to secure permission to use Syrian airspace during a visit to Moscow. Analysts suggest Moscow is balancing conflicting interests of seeking to court Ankara in a bid to draw it away from its NATO partners, while knowing Damascus will be opposed to Turkish seizure of more Syrian territory.
Ankara also has conflicting interests. A U.S. delegation of judiciary and security officials Thursday began a two-day visit to Ankara to discuss Turkey’s bid to extradite U.S.-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen for his alleged role in masterminding the 2016 failed coup. Ankara in the past has accused Washington of foot-dragging over its extradition calls.
Holding Gulen to account and reining in his network of followers remains a strategic priority of Ankara’s. Analysts suggest concessions by Washington to Ankara over Gulen’s extradition could well help to assuage Turkish concerns over Syria.
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Political pressure is growing on the European Union from some member states to rethink freedom of movement rules and to start introducing restrictions to stem what they see as disruptive migration.
The latest challenge doesn’t lie with the refugee crisis and the irritation with non-EU migrants easily moving across the continent and cherry-picking which European state to try to settle in, but the concern that migration between EU countries is further depopulating economically depressed regions and towns, condemning them to a gloomy future of being “left behind” permanently.
Last month, the pro-EU former British prime minister, Tony Blair, added his voice to the idea that free movement should be re-thought. Blair, who is campaigning for Britain to hold a second referendum on whether to leave the EU, said a rethink could help Britain remain in the Brussels bloc under new membership terms.
“If you take freedom of movement and the question of immigration, this is an issue all over European politics today,” he told the BBC. Many Britons who voted for Brexit cited free movement as their main reason for wanting to quit the EU.
‘Sacred pillar’
Freedom of movement is one of the ‘sacred’ pillars of the EU’s single market and seen by Brussels as crucial for European integration. Many younger Europeans see it as a birthright, allowing them to travel, work and study in any EU member states they want. And millions have embraced the opportunity to relocate.
But central and southern European member states have seen a hollowing out of their populations, thanks to youth emigration, which in turn is putting a brake on their economic growth and leaving behind ghost towns inhabited by pensioners and the less-skilled and resourceful. Left with aging populations, countries that have seen high levels of migration are finding there are fewer young working taxpayers to fund increased health care and pension needs.
In the past 20 years, more than 3.6 million mostly young Romanians have left their native country. And a recent survey suggests that half of all young people still living in Romania have concrete plans to leave. Since Poland joined the EU in 2004, more than 2 million Poles have left.
And Latvia has been especially impacted by migration. Since its accession to the EU, nearly a fifth of the nation has left to work in other more affluent states, mainly Britain, Ireland and Germany. The exodus has prompted fears of Latvia becoming a “disappearing nation.”
Last year, the Latvian government appointed an ambassador with the main task of wooing Latvians back home. Next door, Lithuania has also experienced an exodus, seeing its population shrink by 17.5 percent.
Time to rethink?
Blair isn’t alone among prominent European politicians to question whether it is time for a rethink.
In November, Romania’s finance minister, Eugen Teodorovici, warned that migration of many young skilled Romanians is having deleterious effects on the country by causing a “brain drain” from some industries.
“If someone goes to Germany and keeps getting the right to work, then he will never return to Croatia or Romania, where he left,” he said. “We need to learn at the European level that as one area becomes poorer, another becomes richer,” he added.
Teodorovici argues young Europeans who have migrated should be issued with five-year work permits, after which they would have to leave and possibly return home.
His remarks prompted uproar both in Romania and Brussels. But some other Central European governments are exploring ways to entice back workers, including considering offering financial incentives to encourage youngsters to return.
Advocates of free movement say migration fears are being overblown, arguing money workers send back to their families is crucial for depressed regions. They point out depopulation is being caused as much by low birth rates.
Many youngsters eventually return, they say, often coming back more skilled, affluent and entrepreneurial, which adds to development potential in their home towns. According to the Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia, the number of emigres returning home in 2016 was about 40 percent of those who left.
Efforts to limit freedom of movement are likely to fail, with young Europeans especially critical of the idea that there should be within Europe free circulation of money, goods and services but not of labor.
Atis Sjanits, the Latvian diplomat charged with enticing young Latvians back home, has argued that changing the rules now isn’t possible. He says the focus should be on making it more attractive for emigres to return.
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Blue was a rare, expensive color in ancient times, whether it was derived from lapis lazuli mined in Afghanistan some 6,000 years ago, made by blending copper with other elements throughout the Middle East and in ancient China, or mixing an extract of the indigo plant with clay and resin by Mayans in Mesoamerica. Now, a centuries-old tradition of dyeing blue cloth with delicate patterns in parts of eastern Europe has been recognized for its cultural importance by UNESCO. Faith Lapidus reports.
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Britain’s impending departure from the European Union poses a big risk, but domestic demand is still fueling growth in the German economy, Europe’s largest, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said in an interview published Thursday.
Altmaier said Brexit, global trade conflicts and changes in automotive industry approvals had slowed economic growth in the second half of 2018, but Germany’s gross domestic product looked set to enter its 10th year of expansion in 2019.
“The order books of industry and the trades are full,” Altmaier told the Passauer Neue Presse newspaper. “The chances are good that economic growth will continue for a 10th consecutive year,” the longest period of continuous growth since the 1960s.
The German government last month cut its economic growth forecast for 2018 to around 1.5 to 1.6 percent from 1.8 percent.
The German economy has shifted into a lower gear as Brexit and trade conflicts sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First” policies cause business uncertainty.
German exporters are also struggling with a more general slowdown of foreign demand as the global economy cools.
Altmaier cautioned that the prospects for continued economic expansion hinged on the ability of German industry to adapt to promising new areas such as electric mobility, sustainable energy production and artificial intelligence.
He said Brexit and a shortage of skilled labor posed risks to the economy, and many companies had not invested enough in expanding production. He called for quick parliamentary approval of a new immigration law aimed at filling those gaps.
Making it easier to attract skilled workers to Germany could boost economic growth by several tenths of a percentage point, he said, noting that Germany had some 57,000 unfilled trainee positions.
“The growth effects are difficult to quantify, but I expect that a functioning influx of migrants to the labor market could add multiple tenths of a percentage point of additional growth in Germany,” Altmaier told the paper.
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U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman on Wednesday visited the retired U.S. Marine who has been detained on espionage charges in Russia.
He also spoke on the phone with the family of Paul Whelan, 48, according to a State Department statement that did not release any details of the call “due to privacy considerations for Mr. Whelan and his family.”
It did say, “Ambassador Huntsman expressed his support for Mr. Whelan and offered the embassy’s assistance.”
Access was granted just hours after U.S. Secretary Mike Pompeo said he expected an explanation of why the American was arrested and demanded his release if the detention was not appropriate.
On Monday, Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officials said Whelan had been detained Dec. 28 “while carrying out an act of espionage” and that a criminal probe had been ordered.
The FSB provided no further details, but Russia’s state-run TASS news agency said Whelan faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Whelan is employed as director of global security at BorgWarner, an American automotive parts supplier.
Whelan’s family learned of his arrest only after it was reported by Russian state news outlets, prompting the family to contact congressional representatives and U.S. diplomats.
“We are deeply concerned for his safety and well-being,” the family said. “His innocence is undoubted and we trust that his rights will be respected.”
Scandals
Whelan’s arrest coincided with several spy scandals that have exacerbated tensions between Russia and the West, including the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Britain.
News of Whelan’s detention came less than 24 hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a New Year’s greeting to U.S. President Donald Trump in which he said Moscow was amenable to a continuing dialogue with Washington on a range of topics.
In 2016, Izvestia, a Kremlin-aligned news outlet, reported there were 13 U.S. citizens in Russian jails at the time. The Kremlin has not since published any details on other Americans currently in Russian detention.
VOA’s Peter Cobus in Moscow contributed to this report.
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The suspect in the stabbing of three people on New Year’s Eve in Manchester was being held under mental health laws, British police said Tuesday.
Manchester police, however, said in a statement they were continuing to investigate the attack because of suspected terrorism links.
A suspect, whose identity has not been disclosed, has been detained on suspicion of attempted murder, police said. He has not been charged.
Police released no other details, but said the suspect’s home was being searched late Tuesday.
“There is nothing to suggest the involvement of other people in this attack, but confirming this remains a main priority for the investigation,” police said in a statement, adding the counterterrorism probe “remains ongoing.”
A witness to the attack, BBC producer Sam Clack, recalled, “I just heard the guy shout, as part of a sentence, ‘Allah.’ ”
“I heard the man say, ‘As long as you keep bombing these countries this is going to keep happening,’ ” Clack told BBC 5 Live radio, according to a Reuters report.
Assistant Chief Constable Rob Potts said intelligence suggests there is not a wider threat but that additional police would patrol the streets to reassure the public.
Two of the victims were treated at a local hospital for knife wounds. The third victim was a police officer, who was treated in a hospital for a stab wound to the shoulder and released.
Victoria Station is located near Manchester Arena, where a suicide bomber killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert in 2017.
Britain’s threat level is “severe,” the second-highest level, meaning an attack is considered highly likely.
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Think of public spaces in big cities, and formal parks, bustling markets and grand squares come to mind.
Think again.
In the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, residents have redrawn the map and come up with innovative ways for locals to congregate in their ancient and fast-changing city.
A boxing ring was built on a bridge. Next to it — architects installed art to amuse commuters as they hurried over the river.
The grimy gaps between garages were turned into a ‘stadium’ where locals could face off over dominoes. Inside the disused garages, bakeries, barbers and beauty salons plied their trade.
It is not how most cities do public spaces, but Tbilisi — which stands at the crossroads of Europe and Asia — has a long history shaped by diverse masters, all of whom left their architectural imprint on the Caucasus.
As the city shakes off decades of Soviet rule and reinvents itself again, developers have bent once-tight planning rules and a building boom is underway — one that is changing the face of the city and jeopardizing the open areas where Georgians meet.
“Left behind … (in) the construction boom, public spaces are still important and constitute a resource, a big treasure to be preserved,” says Nano Zazanashvili, head of the urban policy and research division at Tbilsi’s Department of Urban Development, a city office. “The main challenge of the City Hall is to protect these areas.”
Boxing Bridge
The DKD bridge — which connects two Soviet-era residential districts — is a perfect example of how locals adapted centrally-imposed urban design to fit their own suburban needs.
Flat dwellers in this northeastern sprawl live in the sort of anonymous, concrete blocks typical of any Soviet city.
Beauty is not their selling point, so in the 1990s architects installed informal shops, a hotel and a boxing gym on the bridge, which connects two identikit micro-districts.
The bridge building was part of an outdoor exhibition created for the Tbilisi Architecture Biennial earlier this year.
The event – the first since Georgia regained independence in 1991 – brought together experts to study the city’s rapid transformation and to involve locals in the debate.
“It is the very beginning, not even a first step,” Tinatin Gurgenidze, co-founder of the Biennial, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “The local community needs to understand what is the necessity of working on these issues.”
Rich Mix
Downtown, the cityscape makes for an eclectic backdrop.
Deco mansions jostle with Soviet constructivism. Ancient sulphur baths and tiny churches squat at the feet of futuristic skyscrapers, while rickety wooden houses lean into the hills, their gaily painted balconies perched in thin air.
Much of this history is fading into oblivion, sagging walls propped up with outsize beams to stop whole ghost streets crashing to dust.
Other parts of town are bulldozed and built over.
The city center is a decade into a frenetic construction boom, but the drab Gldani suburb mostly cleaves to its 1970s integrity, an era when uniform blocks were built to accommodate workers relocated from older, central neighborhoods.
This dormitory suburb became the area of the city with the highest density of population – and as communism and central control began to crumble, residents stole the chance to tack on ad-hoc balconies, garages and makeshift gardens.
With Georgian independence came a headlong rush to architectural deregulation, free of any supervision or control, changing the look, feel and use of once sacred public spaces.
“People came up with their own solutions to the problems,” said Gurgenidze, who trained in Georgia as an architect. “The informal structures need to be taken into consideration when decision makers and architects plan the future of these areas.”
Informal and Changed
Take the garages — erected in front of flats to park cars in the 1990s, they were later transformed into basic fruit and vegetable shops, bakeries, barbers and beauty salons.
Rented for 40-100 lari ($15 to £38) a month, the self-declared shops generate extra income for the residents and many were legalized after the fact into formal commercial spaces.
Now they face a possible next life.
The mayor of Tbilisi, former soccer star Kakha Kaladze, this year launched an initiative with local backing to replace the ‘garages’ with playgrounds or gardens.
So far, the plan has had limited success.
But according to architect Nikoloz Lekveishvili, locals are regaining the tiny spaces in between to play dominoes, soak up the greenery and relax with neighbors.
“People see this public space as an opportunity,” he said.
Lali Pertenavi, an artist who grew up in Gldani, temporarily turned Block 76 — a local residential building — into an exhibition space in October as part of the biennial. Residents opened their homes to artists, who in turn transformed them into social spaces recalling the best of Soviet-era collectivism.
While a master plan for the whole city is under discussion at municipal level, public spaces for ordinary people are low in the pecking order of priorities.
“Public spaces and green areas are a hot topic in the local debate but people don’t have enough time to fight for it,” said Anano Tsintsabadze, a lawyer and activist managing the Initiative for a Pubic Space, an NGO that focuses on urban planning and supports residents fighting for public spaces.
In parts of the city, such as Saburtalo and Didi Digomi, the community is slowly mobilizing against the privatization of public spaces amid a drive to keep them free and accessible.
“The social tissue has grown more than the local government.
People know what happens in Europe and are asking for more organised, clean urban spaces,” said architect Nikoloz Lekveishvili, co-founder of Timm Architecture, an international network stretching from Milan to Moscow, Istanbul to Tbilisi.
($1 = 2.6550 laris)
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Populist forces returned with a vengeance to Europe in 2018, seizing power in Italy and extending their grip in countries like Hungary and Poland. In France, street protests erupted demanding the resignation of the president. The populist wave could have major implications for European parliamentary elections scheduled this coming year where the political center now faces an assault from both right and left. Henry Ridgwell has more from Brussels.
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Ukrainian officials are warning that Russia may be about to escalate its conflict with Ukraine, including possibly launching a breakout offensive from Crimea.
And they accuse Moscow-backed separatists in Ukraine’s Donbas region of violating the latest cease-fire — dubbed a “New Year’s Truce”— by attacking Ukrainian positions with a heavy-caliber weapon banned under the Minsk peace agreements.
An increasing number of Russian military convoys have been spotted moving toward the border between Crimea, the peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014, and Ukrainian-held territory, and there have been ominous fighter-jet redeployments to Crimean airfields, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.
“Russia continues to build up and prepare its military forces for possible offensive operations against Ukraine from the Crimean peninsula and the East,” the institute has reported. It says Russia could conduct such operations on short notice.
Analysts say the movements are threatening, but they are divided over the intent, with some suggesting President Vladimir Putin is keeping the West guessing.
“The data suggests that Putin is preparing to attack, although alternative interpretations are possible,” the institute said.
“The unpredictability is the point,” a senior European defense official told VOA. “Putin is testing Ukraine and the West to see if he’ll be checked, to see what he can get away with, and maybe with an eye to securing another summit early this year with [U.S. President] Donald Trump,” he added.
The Russian leader issued New Year greetings to dozens of global leaders on Sunday, including Trump, saying relations between the U.S. and Russia are the key to “ensuring strategic stability and international security.” Putin added that Russia is “open to dialogue with the United States on the most extensive agenda.”
With tensions running high between Ukraine and Russia after Russian coastal forces seized three Ukrainian vessels on Nov. 25 — a tugboat and two patrol boats — in international waters in the Black Sea near Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Crimea peninsula, fears are mounting in Kyiv of another major confrontation.
The press service of the Joint Forces Operation, the military command structure overseeing Ukraine’s defense against the Russian-led military intervention in eastern Ukraine, said Ukrainian positions near Novotashkivsk were struck by 120 millimeter mortar rounds Monday night.
Weapons with calibers of more than 100mm are banned under the 2015 Minsk II agreement from a 50-kilometer zone running along the front line between Ukrainian and Russian-led forces in Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts.
Russian-led forces shelled Ukrainian positions also near the port city of Mariupol with 82mm mortars, the press service said.
A former adviser to Putin, Andrey Illarionov, now one of the Russian leader’s most strident critics, warned last month that Moscow is ready to deploy special forces to seize a vital Communist-era canal that used to provide 85 percent of Crimea’s fresh water before Ukraine blocked it in 2014. He says the peninsula will face a severe water shortage in the summer, impacting farms and factories, as well as households.
llarionov told the Kyiv Post he believes the West has inadvertently given Moscow the green light for further adventurism by failing to sanction Russia for the November incident in the Azov Sea when Russian coastal forces rammed, fired upon and seized three small Ukrainian vessels.
“Putin [thinks he] has nothing to lose. We’ve seen since the Azov Sea incident that the West has not imposed any serious penalties.”
In recent weeks, Russian news outlets have published articles about water shortages on the Crimean peninsula, as well as about Russian military exercises taking place near the narrow land corridor linking Crimea to Ukraine’s Kherson region.
Some analysts suggest that Putin might cast any seizing of the canal as an intervention necessitated to prevent a Ukraine-provoked humanitarian crisis on the peninsula. An occupation of parts of the Kherson region would give Russian forces the ability to tighten their stranglehold on Ukraine’s ports and to interfere with ship movements in and out of Mykolaiv and Mariupol, which are already experiencing sharp decreases in freight traffic.
Among the Russian military movements being observed by Kyiv and Western powers are the redeployments of fighter jets. Just before Christmas, Reuters reported more than a dozen Su-27 and Su-30 fighter jets were relocated to Belbek Airbase near Sevastopol from Krymsk airfield in Krasnodar Territory.
The redeployments and military build up is alarming the former commander of U.S. Army Europe, Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, who retired last year from active service. The Russia government is seeking to redraw the borders more, he fears. In an interview with the Military Times newspaper Monday, Hodges said, unless there’s greater Western pushback, “they won’t stop until they completely own the Sea of Azov and have choked out Ukraine’s very important seaport of Mariupol.”
“The next phase will probably be land and sea operations that would eventually secure maybe even Mariupol but continue to take the Ukrainian coastline and connect Crimea back up to Russia along the Sea of Azov,” Hodges said. “It’s not going to happen in the next six months, but this is the direction they’re taking until they completely own the Black Sea and they’ve isolated Ukraine,” he added.
read moreU.S. Anti-Doping Agency chief Travis Tygart urged the World Anti-Doping Agency to reinstate the ban on Russia, calling the country’s return to the sports fold “a total joke.”
“The situation is a total joke and an embarrassment for WADA and the global anti-doping system,” Tygart said in a statement on Tuesday, after Russia missed a December 31 deadline to hand over data from its anti-doping laboratory in Moscow.
The deadline was set in September, when WADA lifted a ban on the Russian Anti-Doping Agency, paving the way for Russian athletes to return to competition across all sports after a report which uncovered a state-sponsored doping program in Russia.
“In September, WADA secretly moved the goal posts and reinstated Russia against the wishes of athletes, governments and the public,” Tygart said. “In doing this WADA guaranteed Russia would turn over the evidence of its state-supported doping scheme by today.
“No one is surprised this deadline was ignored and it’s time for WADA to stop being played by the Russians and immediately declare them non-compliant for failing yet again to meet the deadline.”
WADA personnel traveled to Russia in December but were unable to extract all of the promised data.
WADA said at the time its team could not complete its mission “due to an issue raised by the Russian authorities that the team’s equipment to be used for the data extraction was required to be certified under Russian law.”
With WADA waiting and the December 31 deadline looming, RUSADA chief Yury Ganus had asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to intervene to stave off another ban that put Russia “on the brink of the abyss”.
However, the Kremlin said RUSADA’s concerns bout new sanctions were “without foundation.”
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Paul Whelan, the American citizen detained in Moscow on Friday on espionage charges, has been identified as a retired U.S. Marine.
Whelan’s family posted messages on social media Tuesday, saying they first grew concerned when he did not contact them on Friday.
“‘We have read reports of the arrest in Moscow of Paul Whelan, our son & brother,” the statement reads. “Paul is a retired Marine and was visiting Moscow to attend a wedding.”
The family learned of his arrest only after it was reported by Russian state news outlets, prompting the family to contact congressional representatives and U.S. diplomats.
“We are deeply concerned for his safety and well-being,” the family said. “His innocence is undoubted and we trust that his rights will be respected.”
On Monday, Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officials said Whelan had been detained on December 28 “while carrying out an act of espionage,” and that they have opened a criminal probe.
They provided no further details, but Russia’s state-run TASS news agency said that Whelan faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
A State Department spokesperson said Monday the United States is aware of Russian authorities’ detention of a U.S. citizen.
“We have been formally notified of the detention by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” the official said in an emailed statement to VOA. “Russia’s obligations under the Vienna Convention require them to provide consular access. We have requested this access and expect Russian authorities to provide it.” The State Department did not provide further details, citing privacy concerns.
Tensions between Moscow and the West
The arrest coincides with several spy scandals that have exacerbated tensions between Russia and the West, including the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Britain, along with the recent U.S. conviction of Russian citizen Maria Butina for acting as an illegal foreign agent.
Butina pleaded guilty to acting under the direction of a Russian official to establish relationships with influential Americans.
News of Whelan’s detention came less than 24 hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a New Year’s greeting to U.S. President Donald Trump in which he said Moscow is amenable to a continuing dialogue with Washington on a range of topics.
In 2016, Izvestia, a Kremlin-aligned news outlet, reported that there were 13 U.S. citizens in Russian jails at the time. The Kremlin has not since published any details on other Americans currently in Russian detention.
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Chancellor Angela Merkel says Germany will keep pushing for global solutions to challenges in 2019 and also has to take greater responsibility in the world.
Closing a politically turbulent 2018 in Germany, Merkel devotes a significant part of her annual New Year’s address to the merits of bringing a multilateral approach to international problems — a style she has consistently defended in the face of U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First” tactics.
Climate change, migration, terrorism
The fourth-term chancellor pointed to curbing climate change, managing migration and combating terrorism as the kinds of challenges that benefit from a wide view. Germany starts a two-year stint on the U.N. Security Council on Jan. 1.
“We want to resolve all these questions in our own interest, and we can do that best if we consider the interests of others,” Merkel said in a text of the message her office released ahead of a scheduled Monday broadcast.
“That is the lesson from the two world wars of the last century,” she added. “But this conviction is no longer shared today by everyone, and certainties of international cooperation are coming under pressure.”
“In such a situation, we must again stand up for, argue and fight more strongly for our convictions,” Merkel said. “And we must take on more responsibility in our own interests.”
‘Global solutions’
She said Germany will push for “global solutions” at the U.N. and noted the country is spending more on humanitarian aid and defense. She said Berlin wants to make the European Union “more robust and able to make decisions.”
Turning to home, Merkel acknowledged that many Germans have “struggled very much” with her latest government amid persistent infighting since it took office in March after unprecedentedly long talks to form the governing coalition. She said it had been “an extremely difficult political year.”
‘New beginning’
Germany’s leader for 13 years said she set the stage for a “new beginning” in late October by announcing she won’t seek a fifth term. She also gave up the leadership of the conservative Christian Democratic Union, Germany’s main center-right party, which has been led since Dec. 7 by ally Annegret Kramp Karrenbauer.
Merkel has said she plans to remain chancellor for the rest of this parliamentary term, which is supposed to run until 2021. But questions remain over whether she will actually stay that long, not least because of tensions within her governing coalition.
“Democracy lives from change,” she said in her new year message. “We build on what our predecessors left us, and shape things in the present for those who will come after us.”
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British Prime Minister Theresa May urged lawmakers on Monday to back her Brexit deal, promising that it would allow the country to “turn a corner” and let the government focus on solving domestic problems such as housing and a skill shortage.
May made the appeal in a New Year’s message little more than two weeks before a make-or-break vote in parliament on her plan for Britain’s exit from the European Union which is due to happen on March 29.
The vote, which May postponed in December to avoid defeat, will be a pivotal moment for the world’s fifth-largest economy: it will determine whether Britain follows her plan for a managed exit and relatively close economic ties, or faces massive uncertainty about the country’s next step.
“New Year is a time to look ahead and in 2019 the UK will start a new chapter. The Brexit deal I have negotiated delivers on the vote of the British people and in the next few weeks MPs (members of parliament) will have an important decision to make,” May said in a video released by her office. “If parliament backs a deal, Britain can turn a corner.”
Conservative Party
Attempting to appeal to those within her Conservative Party who have criticized her leadership, and responding to criticism from opponents that Brexit has stalled her domestic agenda, May stressed her desire to move beyond the EU exit debate.
“Important though Brexit is, it is not the only issue that counts,” she said, highlighting policies to address a lack of housing, skills shortages and strengthen the economy. “Together I believe we can start a new chapter with optimism and hope.”
The vote on May’s Brexit deal with the EU is scheduled to take place in the week beginning Jan. 14.
May is still seeking reassurances from Brussels that a deeply unpopular fallback arrangement within her proposed deal, over the Northern Irish border, would only be temporary.
Northern Ireland
It seeks to prevent the return of a hard border between Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland if a better solution to keep trade flowing freely cannot be agreed.
The so-called backstop is the main obstacle between May and a victory in parliament, costing her the support of dozens of members of her own party and the small Northern Irish party that props up her minority government.
The government and businesses are ramping up preparations in case a deal cannot be reached to smooth Britain’s exit from the bloc, amid warnings of delays at borders and disruption to supplies of medicines, food and components.
read moreFrance’s embattled president, Emmanuel Macron, vowed on Monday to press on with his reform agenda in 2019 despite a spate of “yellow vest” protests that have challenged his government and extended a plunge in his approval ratings.
Promised overhauls of France’s unemployment benefits, civil service and public pensions will be undertaken in the coming year, Macron said in his televised New Year message.
Unapologetic tone
Confounding some expectations of a more contrite message, Macron struck an unapologetic note as he urged voters to face up to economic realities underpinning recently enacted reforms of French labor rules, and others yet to come.
“In recent years, we’ve engaged in a blatant denial of reality,” Macron said in the address, delivered — unusually — from a standing position in his Elysee Palace office.
“We can’t work less, earn more, cut taxes and increase spending.”
In a veiled attack on the far-left and hard-right groupings active on the fringes of the often violent protests, Macron also decried self-appointed “spokespeople for a hateful mob” who he said had targeted foreigners, Jews, gays and the press.
Popularity at all-time low
Almost 20 months after he became France’s youngest president, Macron’s popularity is at the lowest level recorded in modern French history.
It stood at just 24 percent in late December compared to 47 percent a year earlier, according to a Journal du Dimanche aggregate of polls, as he struggled to draw a line under numerous setbacks.
The current wave of demonstrations, which have brought disruption and destruction to Paris and other major cities, has yet to abate despite fiscal giveaways and an increase in the wage for the poorest workers.
Protesters were expected to join the New Year crowds thronging Paris’s Champs-Elysees Avenue overnight, amid a heavy police presence.
Bodyguard scandal
A scandal over Macron’s former bodyguard Alexandre Benalla, who was eventually fired after video emerged of him beating protestors, has resurfaced with the revelation that he continued to travel on diplomatic passports and exchange messages with Macron long after his dismissal.
Macron said efforts to bolster international controls on immigration and tax evasion would be at the heart of European Union proposals he plans to announce in “coming weeks” — to be pursued in parallel with a domestic agenda reconciling ambitious reform with France’s commitment to social solidarity.
“This is the line I have followed since the first day of my mandate, and which I plan to keep following,” he said. “This coming year, 2019, is in my view a decisive one.”
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The euro currency turns 20 years old on January 1, surviving two tumultuous decades and becoming the world’s No. 2 currency.
After 20 years, the euro has become a fixture in financial markets, although it remains behind the dollar, which dominates the world’s market.
The euro has weathered several major challenges, including difficulties at its launch, the 2008 financial crisis, and a eurozone debt crisis that culminated in bailouts of several countries.
Those crises tested the unity of the eurozone, the 19 European Union countries that use the euro. While some analysts say the turmoil and the euro’s resilience has strengthened the currency and made it less susceptible to future troubles, other observers say the euro will remain fragile unless there is more eurozone integration.
Beginnings
The euro was born on January 1, 1999, existing initially only as a virtual currency used in financial transactions. Europeans began using the currency in their wallets three years later when the first Euro notes and coins were introduced.
At that time, only 11 member states were using the currency and had to qualify by meeting the requirements for limits on debt, deficits and inflation. EU members Britain and Denmark received opt-outs ahead of the currency’s creation.
The currency is now used by over 340 million people in 19 European Union countries, which are: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain.
Other EU members are required to join the eurozone when they meet the currency’s monetary requirements.
Popularity
Today, the euro is the most popular than it has ever been over the past two decades, despite the rise of populist movements in several European countries that express skepticism toward the European Union.
In a November survey for the European Central Bank, 64 percent of respondents across the eurozone said the euro was a good thing for their country. Nearly three-quarters of respondents said they thought the euro was a good thing for Europe.
In only two countries — Lithuania and Cyprus — did a majority of people think the euro is a bad thing for their nation.
That is a big contrast to 2010, the year that both Greece and Ireland were receiving international bailout packages, when only 51 percent of respondents thought the euro was a good thing for their country.
Challenges
The euro faced immediate challenges at its beginning with predictions that the European Central Bank (ECB) was too rigid in its policy and that the currency would quickly fail. The currency wasn’t immediately loved in European homes and businesses either with many perceiving its arrival as a price hike on common goods.
Less than two years after the euro was launched — valued at $1.1747 to the U.S. dollar — it had lost 30 percent of its value and was worth just $0.8240 to the U.S. dollar. The ECB was able to intervene to successfully stop the euro from plunging further.
The biggest challenge to the block was the 2008 financial crisis, which then triggered a eurozone debt crisis that culminated in bailouts of several countries.
Tens of billions of euros were loaned to Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Cyprus and Spain, either because those countries ran out of money to save their own banks or because investors no longer wanted to invest in those nations.
The turmoil also highlighted the economic disparity between member states, particularly between the wealthier north and the debt-laden southern nations.
Poorer countries experienced both the advantages and disadvantages to being in the eurozone.
Poorer countries immediately benefited from joining the union, saving trillions of euros due to the lowering borrowing costs the new currency offered.
However, during times of economic downturn, they had fewer options to reverse the turmoil.
Typically in a financial crisis, a country’s currency would plunge, making its goods more competitive and allowing the economy to stabilize. But in the eurozone, the currency in poorer countries cannot devalue because stronger economies like Germany keep it higher.
Experts said the turbulent times of the debt crisis exposed some of the original flaws of the euro project.
However, the euro survived the financial crisis through a combination of steps from the ECB that included negative interest rates, trillions of euros in cheap loans to banks and buying more than 2.6 trillion euros in government and corporate bonds.
Future
ECB chief Mario Draghi was credited with saving the euro in 2012 when he said the bank would do “whatever it takes” to preserve the currency.
Some experts say the flexibility of the bank proves it is able to weather financial challenges and say the turmoil of the past two decades have left the ECB better able to deal with future crises.
However, other observers say that the 19 single currency nations have not done enough to carry out political reforms necessary to better enable the countries to work together on fiscal policy and to prepare for future downturns.
Proposals for greater coordination, including a eurozone banking union as well as a eurozone budget are still in the planning phases.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has told U.S. President Donald Trump in a New Year’s letter that the Kremlin is “open to dialogue” on the myriad issues hindering relations between their countries.
The Kremlin published a summary of Putin’s “greeting message” to Trump on Sunday. The summary states the Russian leader wrote: “Russia-U.S. relations are the most important factor behind ensuring strategic stability and international security.”
Trump canceled a formal meeting with Putin scheduled for Dec. 1 at the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires, tweeting “it would be best for all parties” given Russia’s seizure days earlier of three Ukrainian naval vessels.
Since then, the Kremlin has repeatedly said it is open to dialogue.
The message to Trump was among dozens of holiday greetings Putin sent to other world leaders, each tailored to reflect a bilateral theme. The recipients included Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whom Putin has backed throughout a civil war that started in 2011.
Putin’s message to Assad “stressed that Russia will continue to provide all-around assistance to the government and people of Syria in their fight against terrorism and efforts to protect state sovereignty and territorial integrity,” according to the Kremlin summary.
Moscow hosted talks with Turkey on Saturday in which the two countries agreed to coordinate actions in northern Syria after Trump’s announcement that he was withdrawing U.S. forces from the country.
The main group of Kurdish-led forces fighting against Assad with U.S. support has said the U.S. pullout could lead to the revival of the Islamic State group.
Putin, in his message to Assad, “wished the Syrian people the earliest return to peaceful and prosperous life.”
read moreAn international trade association says on-the-job slayings of journalists and news media staff rose again in 2018 following an overall decline during the past half-dozen years.
The International Federation of Journalists said in an annual report set for release Monday that 94 journalists and media workers died in targeted killings, bomb attacks and conflict crossfire this year, 12 more than in 2017.
Before the declines seen in five of the past six years, 121 people working for news organizations were slain in 2012. Since the federation started its annual count in 1990, the year with the most work-related killings, 155, was 2006.
The deadliest country for people who work in the news media this year was Afghanistan, where 16 of the killings occurred. Mexico was next, with 11. Yemen had nine media slayings and Syria eight in 2018.
Beyond the tragedy of lives lost, such killings affect the pursuit of truth and sharing of information in communities and countries where they happen, the president of the International Federation of Journalists said.
“Journalists are targeted because they are witnesses,” the group’s president, Philippe Leruth, told The Associated Press. “And the result of this, when a journalist or many journalists are killed in a country, you see an increase of self-censorship.”
Iraq, where 309 media professionals were killed over the past quarter-century, long topped the federation’s annual list. The federation identified a photojournalist as the one victim in the country this year.
While 2018 brought a worldwide increase, the total remained in the double digits for a second year running. The total of 155 in.
The IFJ connects some 600,000 media professionals from 187 trade unions and associations in more than 140 countries. The group said the new report showed that journalists face dangers apart from the risks of reporting from war zones and covering extremist movements.
“There were other factors, such as the increasing intolerance to independent reporting, populism, rampant corruption and crime, as well as the breakdown of law and order,” the Brussels-based group said in a statement.
Suddenly high on the list, in sixth place, was the United States with five killings. On June 28, a gunman in Annapolis, Maryland, opened fire in the newsroom of the Capital Gazette newspaper and fatally shot four journalists and a sales associate. The man had threatened the newspaper after losing a defamation lawsuit.
The Oct. 2 slaying of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post who lived in self-imposed exile in the United States, had worldwide impact. He went to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to formalize a divorce so he could marry his Turkish fiance, but instead was strangled and dismembered there – allegedly by Saudi agents.
Khashoggi wrote critically of Saudi Arabia’s royal regime, and the alleged involvement of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the journalist’s slaying has put the governments of other countries under pressure to sever economic and political ties.
“Jamal Khashoggi was a very well-known figure, but you know, the most shocking statistic is that we know that nine of 10 journalist murders remain unpunished in the world,” Leruth said.
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Emmanuel Macron’s former security aide, who was sacked this summer after his violent conduct fueled a political scandal, acknowledged on Sunday he was still traveling on a diplomatic passport, in an affair that has rattled the French presidency.
After he was fired when a video emerged of his beating a May Day protester, Alexandre Benalla returned to the spotlight in France this week, under scrutiny over his recent consultancy work and unauthorized use of diplomatic passports.
The original Benalla scandal became a major headache for Macron just over a year into his tenure, after the president, whose popularity ratings have since slipped, was criticized for acting too slowly in dealing with a member of his inner circle.
Benalla said in an interview with France’s Journal du Dimanche (JDD) on Sunday that he would return the diplomatic passports in the coming days, and rejected that he was somehow trying to profit from his status as a former insider by using them or in his work as a consultant.
“Maybe I was wrong to use these passports,” Benalla said, in a telephone conversation from overseas according to the JDD. “But I want to make it clear that I only did it for my own ease, to facilitate my passage through airports.”
The French presidency has sought to distance itself from the former bodyguard, and the government said it had formally requested the passports be returned on at least two occasions.
Paris prosecutors on Saturday opened a preliminary inquiry into Benalla’s usage of the passports.
Benalla maintained in the JDD, however, that he had initially returned the two ID documents in August, and that they were returned to him along with other personal items by a member of the president’s staff in October.
Scrutiny over Benalla comes at a sensitive time for Macron, who is grappling with a wave of “yellow vest” street protests by disgruntled voters calling for more measures to help lift household incomes.
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A French technology company has created a tiny tracking device to combat poaching. The tracker is smaller, lighter and cheaper than previous methods, such as radio collars. The creators say the technology can also allow those in remote villages to share information on the internet regardless of language or literacy barriers. Arash Arabasadi reports.
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The European Union is not trying to keep Britain in and wants to start discussing future ties the moment the U.K. parliament approves Brexit, partly to focus on its own unity ahead of May elections, the head of the bloc’s executive said Saturday.
“It is being insinuated that our aim is to keep the United Kingdom in the EU by all possible means. That is not our intention. All we want is clarity about our future relations. And we respect the result of the referendum.” Jean-Claude
Juncker, the head of the European Commission, told German newspaper Welt am Sonntag in an interview.
Juncker said the EU was ready to start negotiating a new deal with Britain right after the British Parliament approves the divorce deal. A vote is now due in the week starting Jan. 14.
He also said Britain should get its act together.
“And then tell us what it is you want,” he said.
“I am working on the assumption that it will leave, because that is what the people of the United Kingdom have decided,” he added, refusing to be drawn into whether Britain would hold a second Brexit vote. “That is for the British to decide.”
Watching Trump
On other challenges facing Europe, Juncker said he was watching U.S. President Donald Trump closely on trade.
“I trust him for as long as he keeps his word. And if he no longer keeps it, then I will no longer feel bound by my word, either,” Juncker said of tensions between the EU and Washington around car tariffs.
He said he felt EU citizens were increasingly growing apart, another problem to tackle ahead of Europe-wide parliamentary elections in May.
“We have to ensure that these rifts do not become too deep,” Juncker said. “We must not imply that the populists are right. … They are just loud and do not have any specific proposals to offer on solving the challenges of our time.”
He said Europe had to stand united “in combating the trolls and hacker groups from China or Russia” that could seek to sway the European vote.
He expressed doubt about EU state Romania, which takes over the bloc’s rotating presidency Jan. 1 but struggles with corruption and bitter divisions.
“The government in Bucharest has not yet fully understood what it means to take chair over the EU member states. … Romania’s internal situation is such that the country cannot act as a compact unit in Europe,” Juncker said.
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In his New Year’s message, U.N. Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres urges international cooperation to resolve the many dangers and divisions facing humanity.
As Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres carries the burdens of the world upon his shoulders. At the same time, he is expected to be the world’s cheer-leader-in-chief, reassuring nations that solutions to the world’s many problems are available.
He does not disappoint in either category. On the one hand, he wishes the world a happy, peaceful and prosperous New Year. On the other hand, he issues a stark warning about the many crises and risks threatening global stability and security.
Chief among these is climate change, which he says is moving faster than it can be controlled. But Guterres does not throw up his hands in despair. Rather, he notes work is moving ahead, albeit slowly, to confront this danger.
“The United Nations was able to bring countries together in Katowice to approve the Work Program for the implementation of the Paris Agreement on climate change,” Guterres said. “Now we need to increase ambition to beat this existential threat. It is time to seize our last best chance. It is time to stop uncontrolled and spiraling climate change.”
Guterres warns geo-political divisions are deepening, making conflicts more difficult to resolve. He says inequality is growing with only a handful of people owning most of the world’s wealth. He notes intolerance is on the rise.
Despite this grim picture, he sees reasons for hope. The U.N. chief finds chances for peace in Yemen and South Sudan are better than ever. He says a recently signed agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea is easing tensions between the two countries.
He says these and other hopeful developments show when international cooperation works, the world wins.
read moreDuring the past four years, Russia’s $1.7 trillion economy has been plagued by under-investment, broadening state ownership of enterprise and Western sanctions over Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. Kremlin economic ministers have even warned of unexpectedly high inflation, but you wouldn’t know that talking to people passing through one of Moscow’s shopping districts as Russians prepare for their legendary Christmas and New Year’s holiday celebrations.
“I don’t plan to economize,” said Andrey, a Muscovite who suggested he personally has no financial constraints. “This is a planned holiday for which the budget has already been allocated without any real economy.”
Others, however, offered more conservative assessments. Some say they are worried about spending this year.
“I’m certainly concerned,” said Tatiana, who lives on a fixed income. “I see that the situation among the ordinary people is not getting better.” Tatiana, like an estimated 40 million Russians who live on a pension, says she feels vulnerable.
“My financial position depends, naturally, solely on the policy pursued by the state,” she said, saying she feels like no one is watching out for her interests. “I wish someone would think more about the pensioners.”
Like many Russians in the post-Soviet era, her greatest sense of security comes from her family.
“Thank God I have a son who takes care of me,” she said. “That’s why the situation affects me less than other people.”
Those concerns are not unfounded, analysts say.
Parallel economies
“Despite the fact that we have economic growth, we have had for years slumping real incomes,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center who describes the Russian economy as “contradictory.”
“Here’s one more Russian paradox: high salaries, growing salaries and decreasing real incomes. This is all because of the quite big shadow sector, the black economy, without any official taxation.”
WATCH: Russia’s Prosperity Depends on Whom You Ask
A combination of international sanctions and prevailing state economic policies are likely to result in reduced holiday spending compared to the prior four years, Kolesnikov said.
There are efforts to change Russia’s tax laws, and draft legislation is pending in the Duma to tax black market gains. But Kolesnikov and others say a new law could backfire because the notion of additional tax inspections will not go over well with most Russians.
“This isn’t good time for such an intervention from the government side,” he said, referring in part to an impending value-added tax hike slated for January, and the Central Bank’s decision this month to raise interest rates, which analysts warn might only exacerbate inflation and hurt ordinary Russians.
“It will be quite harmful for normal businesses, primarily middle- to small-sized businesses,” Kolesnikov said.
In Moscow, which accounts for 20 percent of total income nationwide, consumers may well weather an economic downturn better than their counterparts in other parts of the nation where much of Vladimir Putin’s support base is.
Sanctions hurt ordinary Russians
Asked about the degree to which Western sanctions are having a direct impact on normal Russian consumers nationwide, Kolesnikov offered a pointed assessment.
“Right now it’s quite harmful when you’re sanctioning oligarchs, which are controlling big sectors of the Russian economy,” he said.
In an economy “monopolized by oligarchs,” he said, the targeted sanctions have an impact distinct from those levied against nations where small- and mid-sized businesses are the primary economic drivers.
“Russians are perceiving the situation not as an attack on oligarchs, but on their own working places,” he said. “At the end of the day, Russians are paying the price. Oligarchs will just get help from government, as they’re quite close to it.”
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