Month: February 2024

Gunmen Take Hostages at US Company’s Turkish Factory in Apparent Protest of Gaza War
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BRUSSELS — Farmers descended on Brussels to press a summit of European Union leaders to do more to help them with taxes, rising costs and cheap imports, throwing eggs at the European Parliament, starting fires near the building and setting off fireworks.

Major thoroughfares in Brussels, the heart of the European Union, were blocked by around 1,000 tractors, according to a police estimate.

One tractor displayed a banner saying “If you love the earth, support those who manage it” as farmers from Belgium and other European countries try to make themselves heard by EU leaders meeting later.

Another banner read: “No farmers, no food.”

Security personnel in riot gear stood guard behind barriers where the leaders are due to meet, a few blocks away from the European Parliament building where tractors were parked in a central square.

“If you see with how many people we are here today, and if you see it’s all over Europe, so you must have hope. We must have hope that these people see that farming is necessary. It’s the food, you know,” said Kevin Bertens, a farmer from just outside Brussels.

Farmers say they are not being paid enough, are choked by taxes and green rules and face unfair competition from abroad.

They have already secured several measures, including the bloc’s executive commission proposals to limit farm imports from Ukraine and loosen some environmental regulations on fallow lands.

In France, where farmers have been protesting for weeks, the government has dropped plans to gradually reduce subsidies on agricultural diesel and promised more aid.

But farmers say that is not enough, and protests have spread to countries including Belgium, Italy, Spain and Portugal.

Mercosur trade talks

The protests across Europe come ahead of European Parliament elections in June in which the far right, for whom farmers represent a growing constituency, is seen making gains.

While the farmers’ crisis is not officially on the agenda of the EU summit, it is bound to be discussed, at least on the margins.

Already, with all eyes on Viktor Orban as the other 26 EU leaders want to convince him at the summit to join a plan to offer stable financing to Ukraine, the Hungarian Prime Minister made a point of meeting farmers overnight.

“We need to find new leaders who truly represent the interests of the people,” his spokesman quoted him as saying, referring to the European Parliament elections.

“The @EU_Commission should represent the interests of European farmers against those of Ukraine, not the other way around,” he quoted Orban as saying.

As he arrived at the summit, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said farmers’ grievances should be discussed.

“They offer products of high quality, we also need to make sure that they can get the right price for the high quality products that they provide,” he said.

Meanwhile, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar echoed French resident Emmanuel Macron’s opposition to signing a trade deal with the Mercosur group of South American countries in its current form – another key demand for farmers.

In France, where farmers stepped up protests at the start of the week, the impact of dozens of blockades is starting to be felt, said Eric Hemar, the head of a federation of transport and logistics employers.

“We did a poll among our federation members: all transport firms are impacted (by the farmers’ protest) and have lost over the past 10 days about 30% of their revenue, because we are not able to deliver on time or with delays,” he told franceinfo broadcaster.

 
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Bangkok — A dissident Russian-Belarusian rock band held in Thailand on immigration charges have left the kingdom to fly to Israel, according to a post Thursday on the group’s official Facebook page.

Bi-2 have criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine, and their arrest sparked fears they would be deported to Russia where they would face persecution.

Thailand’s National Security Council, chaired by Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, took charge of the case on Wednesday, and early Thursday the band’s Facebook page confirmed they had left the country.

“All musicians of the Bi-2 group have safely left Thailand and are heading to Tel Aviv,” read the post.

Several members of the band have dual nationalities, including Israeli and Australian.

On Wednesday, the band said singer Egor Bortnik, known by his stage name Lyova, had already left Thailand to fly to Israel.

The band were held last week after they played a gig on Phuket, a southern island popular with Russian holidaymakers.

Thai officials said they were arrested for performing without the correct work permits and transferred to an immigration detention center in Bangkok.

The organizers of the band’s Thailand concerts — which also included a show in the raucous beach resort of Pattaya — said all the necessary permits were obtained, but the band had been issued tourist visas in error.

VPI Event accused the Russian consulate of having waged a campaign to cancel the concerts since December and said they had faced “unprecedented pressure” as they sought the band’s release.

Bi-2 are well known in Russia.

Several of their concerts were cancelled in 2022 after they refused to play at a venue with banners supporting the war in Ukraine, after which they left Russia.

One of the band’s founders has openly denounced the Putin government, saying it makes him feel “only disgust” and accusing the long-serving leader of having “destroyed” Russia.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) earlier this week urged Thailand to let the band go free, saying they would face “persecution” if returned to Russia — pointing to comments by a Kremlin foreign ministry spokesperson accusing the band of “sponsoring terrorism.”

HRW said Russia’s foreign ministry last year designated frontman Bortnik a “foreign agent” for opposing the war in Ukraine.

Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya weighed into the case on Wednesday, urging Thailand to “find a solution” to ensure the band’s freedom.

“I’m worried about the situation involving the Belarus-born rock band Bi-2,” she wrote on social media platform X.

“It’s now absolutely clear that Russia is behind the operation to deport the band.” 
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London — European Union heads of state will try to persuade Hungary to unblock billions of dollars of EU aid for Ukraine at a crucial EU Council summit in Brussels on Thursday, as Kyiv warns it is running low on ammunition to fight Russia’s invasion.

The bloc’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, called for more military support for Kyiv as he spoke to reporters in Brussels on Wednesday.

“Ukraine needs more ammunition. There is a big imbalance on the fire capacity from one side and the other, and this gap has to be filled. And this is why this council will take a quite dramatic dimension,” Borrell said.

However, the EU must first overcome internal splits. At the last council summit in December, Hungary vetoed a four-year, $54 billion aid package for Ukraine, arguing the money should not come from the bloc’s budget, as Ukraine is not a member state. All 26 other member states voted in favor of the aid package.

The EU financial assistance is vital for Kyiv, said Luigi Scazzieri with the Centre for European Reform.

“That’s essentially budget support that Ukraine needs to stay in the war and to stay solvent. But it doesn’t aim to increase its military capacity. There is a separate budget line for that — that is also being held up by Hungary — and that will be discussed, as well. And that is a 5 billion [euro] top-up to a common fund that the EU has to supply weapons to Ukraine,” he told VOA.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has long been a thorn in the side of EU unity on Russia and has good relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Hungary has refused to join sanctions [against Russia] at the beginning. Hungary has refused to send weapons to Ukraine. Hungary refused to give Ukraine candidate status for EU membership until it got the return that it wanted,” noted Liana Fix, a fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.

That return included the EU releasing $11 billion of EU funds to Hungary in December that had been frozen over concerns about democratic backsliding in the country. The EU is still withholding a further $24 billion, and Orban will likely demand that some of it is released, according to Fix.

“That is a game that Viktor Orban knows very well how to play. But it’s also a game that both the EU and NATO have adapted to by now, so I would be very surprised if this is not a stumbling block which will be resolved. But it will be resolved with concessions toward Hungary.”

Brussels has threatened to “sabotage” Hungary’s economy unless it drops its veto of the Ukraine aid, according to a report Monday in London’s Financial Times newspaper. Budapest has accused the EU of “blackmail.”

Writing on social media platform X, Hungary’s EU minister János Bóka said Wednesday, “Hungary does not give in to blackmail! The document, drafted by Brussels bureaucrats only confirms what the Hungarian Government has been saying for a long time: access to EU funds is used for political blackmailing by Brussels.”

Meanwhile, European leaders are also set to discuss an EU naval mission to the Red Sea, to protect commercial shipping from attacks by Houthi rebels in Yemen.

“The creation of a new navy mission of the European Union to participate in escorting the merchant ships in the Red Sea, facing the attacks by the Houthis, will be decided. I’m sure it will be decided,” Borrell said Wednesday.

Agriculture also will be on the agenda, amid growing protests by farmers across Europe who complain that cheap imports are destroying their incomes. Many of the demonstrators have used tractors to block major roads around European capitals, including Brussels, in the run-up to Thursday’s EU summit.
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European Union leaders will try to persuade Hungary to unblock billions of dollars of EU aid for Ukraine at a crucial summit Thursday in Brussels – as Kyiv warns it is running low on ammunition to fight Russia’s invasion. As Henry Ridgwell reports from London, Hungary is likely to demand hefty concessions in return.
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Moscow — President Vladimir Putin vowed Wednesday to push back Ukrainian forces to reduce the threat of attacks on Russian territory as he met with activists running his campaign ahead of the March presidential election that he’s all but certain to win.

Asked about plans for the military campaign in Ukraine, Putin said the line of contact needs to be pushed back to “such a distance from our territory that will make it safe from Western-supplied long-range artillery that Ukrainian authorities use for shelling peaceful cities.”

He added the Russian military has been doing just that, “pushing the enemy back from vital populated centers.”

“This is the main motive for our guys who are fighting and risking their lives there — to protect the Motherland, to protect our people,” he added.

Ukraine has struck inside Russia recently, including a December 30 attack on the border city of Belgorod that killed 25 people, injured over 100.

Putin also said Russian investigators concluded that Ukraine used U.S.-supplied Patriot air defense systems to shoot down a Russian military transport plane in the Belgorod region on January 24. Russian authorities said the crash killed all 74 people onboard, including 65 Ukrainian POWs heading for a swap.

Ukrainian officials didn’t deny the plane’s downing but didn’t take responsibility and called for an international investigation.

Putin said Russia wouldn’t just welcome but would “insist” on an international inquiry on what he described as a “crime” by Ukraine.

Putin, 71, who is running as an independent candidate, relies on a tight control over Russia’s political system that he has established during 24 years in power.

With prominent critics who could challenge him either jailed or living abroad and most independent media banned, his reelection in the March 15-17 presidential vote is all but assured.

“Russia has been forced to defend its interests, including by military means,” Putin told the meeting with his campaign staff, saying that even as the meeting was going on, Russian troops made new gains on the edge of the town of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine.

“We are passing through a very difficult and important period in the development of our country, the strengthening of its independence and sovereignty in all vectors,” he said. “Scum that is always present is being washed away bit by bit.”

Under a constitutional reform that he engineered, Putin is eligible to seek two more six-year terms, potentially allowing him to remain in power until 2036. He is already the longest-serving Kremlin leader since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, who died in 1953.

Three other candidates who were nominated by parties represented in parliament are also running: Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party, Leonid Slutsky of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party and Vladislav Davankov of the New People Party.

All three parties have been largely supportive of the Kremlin’s policies. Kharitonov ran against Putin in 2004, finishing a distant second.

Boris Nadezhdin, a 60-year-old local legislator in a town near Moscow, also is seeking to run. He has openly called for a halt to the conflict in Ukraine and starting a dialogue with the West.

Thousands of Russians across the country signed petitions in support of Nadezhdin’s candidacy, an unusual show of opposition sympathies in the rigidly controlled political landscape that raises a challenge for the Kremlin. On Wednesday, Nadezhdin submitted 105,000 signatures to the Central Election Commission, which is expected to review them over the next few days.
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THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The United Nations’ top court on Wednesday rejected large parts of a case filed by Ukraine alleging that Russia bankrolled separatist rebels in the country’s east a decade ago and has discriminated against Crimea’s multiethnic community since its annexation of the peninsula. 

The International Court of Justice ruled Moscow violated articles of two treaties — one on terrorism financing and another on eradicating racial discrimination — but it rejected far more of Kyiv’s claims under the treaties. 

It rejected Ukraine’s request for Moscow to pay reparations for attacks in eastern Ukraine blamed on pro-Russia Ukrainian rebels, including the July 17, 2014, downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 that killed all 298 passengers and crew. 

Russia has denied any involvement in the downing of the jetliner. A Dutch domestic court convicted two Russians and a pro-Moscow Ukrainian in November 2022 for their roles in the attack and sentenced them in their absence to life imprisonment. The Netherlands and Ukraine also have sued Russia at the European Court of Human Rights over  Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. 

Court rules Russia violated order 

In another rebuke for Moscow, the world court ruled that Russia had violated one of the court’s orders by launching its full-scale invasion in Ukraine nearly two years ago. 

The leader of Ukraine’s legal team, Anton Korynevych, called the ruling “a really important day, because this is a judgment which says that the Russian Federation violated international law, in particular both conventions under which we made our application.” 

The legally binding final ruling was the first of two expected decisions from the ICJ linked to the decade-long conflict between Russia and Ukraine that exploded into all-out war almost two years ago. 

At hearings last year, a lawyer for Ukraine, David Zionts, said the pro-Russia forces in eastern Ukraine “attacked civilians as part of a campaign of intimidation and terror. Russian money and weapons fueled this campaign.” 

Another ruling expected Friday

The court, however, ruled that sending arms and other equipment didn’t constitute terrorism funding, according to the 1999 treaty. 

“The alleged supply of weapons to various armed groups operating in Ukraine and the alleged organization of training for members of those groups fall outside the material scope” of the treaty, said ICJ President Joan E. Donoghue. 

Another lawyer for Ukraine, Harold Koh, said during last year’s hearings that in the Crimean Peninsula, Russia “sought to replace the multiethnic community that had characterized Crimea before Russia’s intervention with discriminatory Russian nationalism.” 

Lawyers for Russia urged the world court to throw out the case, arguing that the actions of pro-Moscow rebels in eastern Ukraine did not amount to terrorism. 

The court found that Russia failed to investigate allegations by Ukraine of alleged terrorist acts but rejected all other claims by Kyiv of breaches of the Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism. 

It also ruled that Moscow breached the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination by limiting school education in the Ukrainian language and by maintaining a ban on a Tartar representative assembly called the Mejlis. 

The court is scheduled to rule Friday on Russia’s objections to its jurisdiction in another case filed by Ukraine shortly after Russian troops invaded on February 24, 2022. It alleges Moscow launched its attack based on trumped-up genocide allegations. The court already has issued an interim order for Russia to halt the invasion, which Moscow has flouted. 

In recent weeks, the ICJ also heard a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. Judges issued provisional measures last week calling on Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in the conflict. 
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