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Marking ‘International Anti-Corruption Day,’ Biden Administration Announces Raft of Sanctions

To mark “International Anti-Corruption Day,” the Biden administration announced a raft of sanctions Thursday on 15 foreign government officials and companies it says are involved in corruption.

The announcement of sanctions covering people and companies in Central America, Africa and Europe came as Biden opened a virtual “democracy summit.”

Among those targeted by the U.S. Treasury Department measures are officials from El Salvador and Guatemala whom the Biden administration accuses of corruption in the procurement of COVID-19-related medical supplies.

It said Salvadoran Chief of Cabinet Martha Carolina Recinos De Bernal allegedly was involved in “suspicious procurements” of medical supplies. A Guatemalan official, Manuel Victor Martinez Olivet, was accused of “misappropriation, fraud, and abuse of authority” regarding contracts.

“Corrupt acts take resources from citizens, undermine public trust, and threaten the progress of those who fight for democracy,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement.

Sanctions were also levied on two South Sudanese construction companies for allegedly receiving preferential treatment by officials.

Additionally, sanctions were imposed on Ukrainian Andriy Portnov, the former deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential administration under former President Viktor Yanukovych. Portnov is accused of buying influence in Ukraine’s court system.

Also sanctioned were former Angolan officials accused of embezzling billions of dollars.

Some information in this report came from Reuters.

Hundreds of Migrants Remain Trapped on the Belarus-Poland Border

More than one thousand people, many of them young children, are living in a makeshift refugee camp amid freezing temperatures in eastern Belarus, a humanitarian crisis that critics say is political. Europe nations accuse the disputed president Alexander Lukashenko of using migrants as a weapon against Poland. For VOA, Jamie Dettmer narrates this report from Ricardo Marquina in Belarus.

5 Western Nations Join Together in Diplomatic Boycott of China’s Winter Olympics

A small but influential group of Western nations has announced diplomatic boycotts of the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics, citing its record of human rights abuses.

The boycott allows the nations to send athletic delegations to the Games while refusing to send any high-ranking officials or dignitaries as an official delegation.

The nations involved in the diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Games include:

United States: White House spokesperson Jen Psaki told reporters Monday that the U.S. “will not be contributing to the fanfare of the Games, but said the nation will be behind the members of Team USA “100% as we cheer them on from home.”

Australia: Relations between Canberra and Beijing have deteriorated in recent years over several issues, especially Australia’s push for an independent probe into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was first detected in late 2019 in central China.China has retaliated by imposing heavy tariffs on Australian commodities.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Wednesday “there has been no obstacle” on Australia’s side to hold talks with China to resolve the issues, but said his country “will not step back from the strong position we’ve had standing up for Australia’s interests.”

Britain: Prime Minister Boris Johnson made the announcement Wednesday during a session in Parliament, adding that athletes would still participate as he did not believe “sporting boycotts are sensible.”

Canada: “We are extremely concerned about the repeated human rights violations by the Chinese government,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday in announcing his country’s diplomatic boycott.

Lithuania: Education, Science and Sport Minister Jurgita Šiugždinienė said in a press release last Thursday — days before the United States officially announced its diplomatic boycott — that she and other senior ministry officials will not travel to the Beijing Games. Relations between Vilnius and Beijing have worsened since Taiwan opened an unofficial embassy in Lithuanian capital last month.

Human rights groups have called on nations to fully boycott the Beijing Winter Games over China’s human rights abuses, including the detention of millions of Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang province and the crackdown on pro-democracy forces in Hong Kong.

Beijing has denounced the boycotts as “posturing” and has vowed to retaliate with unspecified “countermeasures” against the United States over its decision to stage a diplomatic boycott of the Games, which run Feb. 4-20.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.

 

Filipino, Russian Journalists to Receive Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo

Two journalists, one from the Philippines and the other from Russia, will receive the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in Oslo Friday. The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it was honoring the pair for their efforts to safeguard press freedom.

The Nobel Peace Prize is the latest accolade for Filipino American journalist Maria Ressa, who has received numerous awards for her fight for press freedom in the Philippines.  “There’s a part of me that is happy (to accept the Nobel Peace Prize), yes, but also angry, and hoping for a better future,” Ressa told reporters at the Manila airport Tuesday on her way to the Norwegian capital, Oslo.

Arrests

Ressa founded the news website Rappler, which has had its license suspended by Philippine authorities. She is an outspoken critic of President Rodrigo Duterte, and her scrutiny of the government’s often deadly war on drugs has seen her clash with authorities.   

She has been arrested several times, most recently in 2020 when she was convicted of “cyber-libel” and sentenced to six years in jail. She is currently out on bail.   

Further libel charges were filed against her and six other news organizations Wednesday by the Philippine government’s energy secretary, Alfonso Cusi. In total, Ressa is facing seven separate legal cases brought by the Philippine state.

Earlier this week, a Manila court gave Ressa permission to travel to Oslo, ruling she was not a flight risk. 

“It feels like it’s really a small price to pay to keep doing our jobs, but we shouldn’t have to worry about this,” Ressa said. “I shouldn’t have 10 arrest warrants. I shouldn’t be out on bail. There are so many ‘shouldn’ts,”… but, you know, what can you do? You deal with what it is. It’s like pollution in the environment, and you keep doing your job.”

Russia

Ressa is sharing the 2021 prize with Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov, editor-in-chief of the newspaper Novaya Gazeta. He is a frequent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Since 2000, six Novaya Gazeta journalists have been killed in connection with their work, including top investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya. She wrote extensively on the wars in Chechnya, including abuses by Russian military forces. She was murdered in Moscow in 2006.

Novaya Gazeta was co-founded by former Soviet leader and fellow Nobel Peace laureate Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev called Muratov a “courageous” journalist. 

Muratov spoke to reporters in October after learning of his win. “For us, this prize means the recognition of the memory of our late colleagues,” he said.

Putin

Putin was asked about Muratov’s Nobel prize in October.

“If he tries hiding behind the Nobel Prize, using it as a shield to violate Russian law, then he will be doing it deliberately to attract attention to himself or some other reason,” Putin said.

It is the first time since 1935 that the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to journalists. Press freedom campaigners have warmly welcomed the decision.

Free press

“If you care about being able to shape the society in which you live, if you care about being able to hold leaders accountable, if you care about solving problems like climate change or figuring our way out of this pandemic, then you need to be informed, and you can’t be informed if journalists can’t do their job,” said Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, in an October interview with the Reuters news agency.

Both the Philippine and Russian governments deny targeting journalists or stifling a free press.  

Arriving in Oslo Wednesday, Ressa told reporters the Nobel Prize would give encouragement to others. 

“It’s a lift not just for journalists and international journalists, as well as Filipino journalists who continue to hold the line. It’s also for our people. We have elections coming up, right? And when facts are under threat, when you don’t have integrity of facts, you cannot have integrity of elections. So, it begins with us. We must keep getting the facts and serving the people.”

Biden Says Deployment of US Troops to Ukraine is ‘Not on the Table’

U.S. President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he would not order the deployment of American troops to Ukraine to counter a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“That is not on the table,” Biden told reporters on the White House South Lawn. “The idea the United States is going to unilaterally use force to confront Russia invading Ukraine is not in the cards right now. But what will happen is there will be severe consequences that will happen.”

Biden’s remarks came one day after meeting virtually for two hours with Russian President Vladimir Putin, after which he said the United States and its European allies have “deep concerns” about Moscow massing troops near the border it shares with Ukraine and would respond with “strong” economic sanctions if Russia invades the country.

But even without the prospect of sending in U.S. troops, top White House and Pentagon officials insisted Wednesday there are still ways Washington could bolster Kyiv’s defense.

“There are options to expand security assistance to assist in Ukraine’s self-defense,” Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl told a virtual security summit, pointing to the ongoing provision of ammunition, javelin anti-tank systems, counter mortar radars and other capabilities.

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan further defended the administration’s assistance.

“What it means to be proactive is to set the table,” Sullivan told the summit. “We have gone above and beyond what any administration has done in terms of providing the kinds of defensive support to the Ukrainian military well in advance of any contingency that might happen.”

“We are working with them across the board and that does include the kinds of anti-armor, defensive weaponry that is central to their planning for how they would try to resist a substantial incursion,” he said.

The U.S. president also said Wednesday, before leaving for Kansas City to tout his new Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, he hoped to announce meetings “at a higher level” with Russia and other NATO countries by Friday.

According to the Kremlin, Putin emphasized to Biden the lack of progress by Ukraine in implementing the 2015 Minsk agreement, which was meant to stop the fighting in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, and he raised “serious concerns about the provocative actions of Kyiv in the Donbass.”

The Russian leader accused NATO “of making dangerous attempts to conquer Ukrainian territory” and of building up its military capabilities near the Russian border, according to the Kremlin.

The Washington Post reported last Friday that Russia is planning a multifront offensive into Ukraine involving up to 175,000 troops as early as next year, citing U.S. officials and an intelligence document obtained by the newspaper.

Biden said that same day he has been developing a set of initiatives that will make it “very, very difficult” for Russia to escalate the situation at the border.

In turn, Moscow has suggested the U.S. and Ukraine might launch their own offensive.

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters.

Russia Keeps Door Ajar for Further US Talks

Russian President Vladimir Putin said his aides are preparing a discussion document outlining the Kremlin’s views on what is needed for strategic stability and security on the continent of Europe, which will also further detail Moscow’s objections to Ukraine joining NATO. 

The document will be shared with Washington within a week, Putin said. 

In his first public remarks since a high-stakes, two-hour video conference with U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday, Putin once again accused NATO of being “openly confrontational against Russia” and “quite hostile to us,” but added, “We don’t want confrontation with anyone.”

Putin spoke during a press conference Wednesday in the Black Sea resort of Sochi after face-to-face talks with Greece’s prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the first leader of a NATO country to see him since Tuesday’s video conference. Biden and Putin appeared to make little headway in their talks and traded accusations over a Russian military buildup near Ukraine, which U.S. and Ukrainian officials fear is a prelude to an invasion.

During their talks, Biden outlined to his Russian counterpart the punitive steps America and its NATO allies will take should Moscow decide to invade Ukraine. Western officials hope the threat of sanctions, which will target among other institutions Russian banks, will be enough to dissuade Putin from ordering any large-scale incursion into Ukraine. According to both U.S. and Russian officials, Putin demanded legal guarantees that NATO would not expand further east and allow Ukraine to join as a member.

Washington has warned European allies that the Kremlin may be “attempting to rehash” 2014, when it annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and Russia-backed separatists seized a large part of the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine, bordering Russia. Kremlin officials maintain that Russia is not getting ready to invade Ukraine and accuse Ukrainians of mobilizing military units along their shared border. 

 

“If Russia further invades Ukraine, the United States and our European allies would respond with strong economic measures. We would provide additional defensive material to the Ukrainians above and beyond that which we are already providing,” Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, told reporters in a White House briefing following the virtual summit.

In separate readouts of the two-hour discussion, both Russia and the U.S. indicated that there would be further talks but were both vague about the exact subject of those talks and unclear when and how they would be conducted. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow on Wednesday just before Putin’s joint press conference with the Greek prime minister that Russia expects to begin a “discussion about strategic security on the continent” rapidly.

Peskov said the two leaders had agreed to appoint representatives and that Biden and Putin would speak after lower-level talks. But it was “impossible to say” when that would happen, he added. In the meantime, there are no signs that the Kremlin will withdraw an estimated 100,000 troops that are now within striking distance of Ukraine. 

Western diplomats said that Putin’s remarks Wednesday suggest he is not abandoning talks and is leaving the door ajar for more discussions. Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said, “We appreciate the crucial diplomatic engagement of the U.S. in efforts to bring Russia back to the table of negotiations.” Biden is scheduled to speak Thursday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who has been pressing for Ukraine to join NATO. 

In his remarks Wednesday, Putin said countries have the right to decide how they should defend themselves but “they should never undermine the national security of other countries.”

He added, “And we have said on many occasions to our partners that it is unacceptable for Russia to see NATO expand to the east.”

“When we talk about security, we should talk about global security and it should be comprehensive,” he said, adding, “But this is a long-term discussion. I think we will continue to talk about that in the future, and then we will express our views on that.”

Despite the absence of any substantial agreement between Biden and Putin, Dmitry Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Center, a policy research organization, says the video conference “has been useful.” He tweeted, “Acknowledging each other’s security concerns is key.” He added, “War fears in West will not subside just yet, but jaw-jaw is better than war-war.”

Other observers are less optimistic, pointing out that Putin has long believed that Ukraine is essentially part of Russia and not a real country, repeating that view in an opinion article in July.

“It’s not about NATO. It’s not about security. It’s all about Putin’s desire to gather the lands and dominate Ukraine,” tweeted Alexander Vindman, the former director for European affairs on the U.S. National Security Council. 

Former U.S. envoy to Russia Michael McFaul has voiced suspicions about the Kremlin’s intentions.

“Putin is not threatened by NATO expansion. Putin is threatened by Ukrainian democracy. Fellow Slavs — in Putin’s view, people of one nation — practicing democracy next door undermines Putin’s autocratic legitimacy inside Russia,” he tweeted. 

Britain Latest Nation to Announce Diplomatic Boycott of China Olympics

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says Britain will join the United States and Australia in a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympic games in February.

Johnson made the announcement Wednesday, in response to questions from lawmakers.

“There will be effectively a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, no ministers are expected to attend, and no officials,” the prime minister said in parliament. He added athletes would still participate as he did not believe “sporting boycotts are sensible.”

Britain joins the United States, New Zealand, Lithuania and Australia in deciding not to send diplomats and other government officials to the Beijing games.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a similar boycott Wednesday in Canberra, citing a range of issues including accusations of human rights abuses against China and Beijing’s refusal to hold bilateral talks to resolve lingering trade and diplomatic disputes.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin dismissed Morrison’s announcement, telling reporters “nobody cares” whether or not Australian officials attend the Olympics.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration announced Monday it would be staging a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics, which will run between February 4 to 20.

President Biden said last month he was considering a diplomatic boycott because of criticism of China’s human rights abuses, including the detention of Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang province and the crackdown on pro-democracy forces in Hong Kong.

Beijing has vowed to take “countermeasures” against Washington over the boycott.

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse.

Britain’s Sandhurst Superseded by Chinese Military Academies, Warns Report

Since the 1950s, the British army’s prestigious Sandhurst has often been the first choice for developing countries to send their best military officers for further training, and in the past 70 years around 5,000 international students from 120 countries have completed courses at the academy southwest of London. 

Some Sandhurst graduates went on to command the armed forces of their own nations and to head governments. 

But China is stepping up its foreign military training programs and appears to be targeting especially military officers from Commonwealth nations, formerly governed by the United Kingdom, who in record numbers are enrolling in China’s foreign training programs, according to a British research organization.

And several African nations, including Ghana, Uganda and Tanzania, have opened “politico-military schools” sponsored by China, says Civitas, a London-based policy research group.

 

In a report, titled China’s military education and Commonwealth countries, analysts Radomir Tylecote and Henri Rossano say China’s military training programs “should be understood in the context of Beijing’s growing efforts to train foreign elites generally,” part of a broad effort to gain influence over developing countries.

Spreading influence

The authors warn, “China increasingly uses its military training for foreigners as a method of promoting its models of governance; military training typically includes ideological education.” They say during the training China promotes its “Party-Army model,” in which the army is subordinate to a ruling party. Such a system is antithetical to multiparty democratic systems, they note.

Foreign students can attend regional academies, where courses are designed for cadets and junior officers. Most foreign students attend command and staff colleges, including the Army Command College and Command and Staff Colleges of the service branches of the People’s Liberation Army, PLA. Top officers undergo training at the National Defense University and National University of Defense Technology. More than 20 Chinese military academies accept foreign cadets and officers.

According to Civitas, China has trained thousands of officers at middle and senior levels from over 100 countries in recent decades, and the numbers are rising, especially when it comes to African nations of Britain’s Commonwealth. Beijing’s China-Africa Action Plan for 2018-2021 earmarked 5,000 training places for African soldiers, against 2,000 in 2015-2018. Sandhurst trains 1,500 foreign officers annually.

Many of the countries participating in the foreign military training programs are also recipients of loans and infrastructure investment funds from China’s Belt and Road Initiative, BRI, which has been criticized by the U.S. and the European Union. They argue the BRI is used for economic coercion and that the loans can be leveraged by Beijing for political purposes, known as debt-trap diplomacy.

Beijing denies this.

Nearly all of the Commonwealth nations have signed up for BRI loans. Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the British parliament’s defense committee, told Britain’s The Times newspaper last week, “China has ensnared dozens of countries, now equating to a quarter of the world’s GDP, into long-term economic programs they can ill afford while progressively reshaping the international landscape. It is no surprise to learn China’s increasing influence now extends to military training academies, with Sandhurst and Shrivenham [the U.K. Defense Academy] being replaced by elite military institutes in China.”

 

The Global Times, a daily tabloid newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, has said the military training programs help to change foreign officers’ preconceived notions about China, fueled by Western media. 

But some Western politicians and analysts warn there is evidence that the relationship China is forging with some foreign military elites can have political ramifications and contribute to the shaping of the political systems of some developing countries. They cite Zimbabwe, once a member of the Commonwealth, whose late leader, Robert Mugabe, graduated from China’s International College of Defense Studies. He identified as a Marxist for much of his rule.

 

Also being cited is Barbados, which removed the British monarch as head of state last month. Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the House of Commons foreign affairs committee, has accused China of playing a hand in Barbados’ ditching of the queen, saying that Beijing has actively sought to undermine Britain’s status as a key partner of Caribbean nations. Barbados has signed up to the BRI and its armed forces have received a $3 million donation from the PLA while some of its officers have attended Chinese military academies.

Other Commonwealth countries receiving Chinese military training include Cameroon, Rwanda, Guyana, Kenya and Uganda, where it is sponsoring the Oliver Tambo Leadership Academy, a politico-military school. Beijing is also sponsoring politico-military schools in Ghana and Tanzania. And China has also funded Namibia’s Command and Staff College as well as developing training programs for the Sri Lankan military.

“Given China’s military training programs and their potentially serious consequences for the governance of Commonwealth countries, the U.K. should consider how best to rejuvenate shared Commonwealth military aid and education programs and to reinforce the Commonwealth’s liberal and democratic structures of government in the coming decades,” say the authors of the Civitas report. 

Last year in testimony before the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission, an independent agency of the U.S. government, academic Paul Nantulya, compared U.S. training programs for foreign officers with China’s. “China approaches military training in fundamentally different ways from the U.S. where the concept of an apolitical military runs through the entire training experience,” he said.

Olaf Scholz Voted in to Replace Merkel as Germany’s Leader

Germany’s parliament has elected Olaf Scholz as the country’s ninth post-World War II chancellor, opening a new era for the European Union’s most populous nation after Angela Merkel’s 16-year tenure. 

Scholz’s government takes office with high hopes of modernizing Germany and combating climate change, but faces the immediate challenge of handling the country’s toughest phase yet of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Scholz won the support of 395 lawmakers on Wednesday. His three-party coalition holds 416 seats in the 736-seat lower house of parliament. 

Scholz was to be formally named as chancellor by Germany’s president and sworn in by the speaker of parliament later Wednesday.

At Summit, Biden Warns Putin Against Ukraine Invasion

In a virtual summit on Tuesday, U.S. President Joe Biden laid out to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, the steps that the U.S. would take should Moscow decide to invade Ukraine. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.

Produced by: Mary Cieslak   

Communism Down and Out in the Czech Republic

The communist party in the Czech Republic lost all of its 15 seats in the country’s 200-member Chamber of Deputies following elections earlier this year, marking a new political low for the party that once ruled the former Soviet satellite state.  

The incoming government is composed of a five-party coalition that bears no resemblance to an era when a single political party, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, was labeled – by the constitution – as the sole leading force of the state and society.  

Czech voters, led by younger generations aged 18 to 30, “totally rejected the old post-communist parties and voted overwhelmingly for the five parties that promised to defend liberal democracy,” Jiri Pehe, a Prague-based political scientist, told VOA.  

Elections in October essentially marked the end of the search for a “post-communist” identity that began with the party’s loss of power in 1989 following the fall of the Berlin Wall and then continued over three decades, according to Pehe.   

The years immediately following the ousting of the communist party were marked by ardent support for democracy and freedom, but a questioning period followed.  

“Back in the 1990s when Vaclav Havel was prominent, there was a lot of enthusiasm for change, but with time, a lot of the people who supported the change initially during the Havel years started doubting the transformation process and the value of liberal democracy, especially when the financial crisis and later the migration crisis hit,” Pehe said.  

As recently as six years ago, leading figures of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, or KSCM, an offshoot of the former ruling party which disbanded after 1989, expressed confidence that history was still on their side and their political fortunes would improve. Although the KSCM has cast itself as a different entity and voiced criticism for the atrocities committed by the former ruling party, it still held on to notions of allying the country with China and Russia, calling into question the Czech Republic’s membership in both the European Union and NATO.   

As it turns out, Czech communists found that message did not rally people to the party.

The head of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia resigned after the election. As the organization regroups, there are signs that some of its old habits could be changing. A party official recently acknowledged that there are different factions within the party itself, “contrary to the statute,” he said, which, to this day, prohibits factions and prohibits letting the outside world know of the existence of factions. 

Milos Vystrcil takes pride in the fact that the Czech Senate, which he now leads, did away with remnants of the communist party quite a few years before the lower house of parliament. No candidate from the party has been elected to the 81-member Czech Senate since 2014.   

Vystrcil told VOA of the deep impression the party’s rule made on his life when it was in power.  

Now 61, Vystrcil recalled when the party weighed in on his application to grammar school.  

“I had to pass entry exams. But whether I got admitted to the school did not only have to do with whether I did well in calculus, in mathematics, but it also was dependent upon what the party committee thought about me. The committee took into account how much my parents and myself were devoted to the ideals of the communist party,” Vystrcil recalled. He was 15 at the time.

Vystrcil recalled how that treatment meant many people “hated the system” even though most went along with the norms established by the party.

The disenchantment the general population felt toward communism at the height of the party’s power was echoed by others, including Andrej Babis, the outgoing prime minister.  

“You all know that I was a communist party member, and I’m not proud of it,” Babis told the audience at an event marking the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution.   

He said he knew he wasn’t as brave as people like Havel, but offered his “gratitude and humility” to Havel and others who were persecuted at the time but held on to their belief that the country could do better. It was thanks to them that he had the opportunity to run in elections, he said.  

Political analyst Jiri Pehe, a former aid to Havel, said although he and others advocated for banning the communist party immediately after the Velvet Revolution, Havel favored letting the country’s emerging democratic process to determine its fate.   

In October, soon after election results came in and it became clear that the ruling coalition lacked the votes to stay in power, Prime Minister Babis took to Twitter to announce that he led his entire Cabinet to resign as soon as the newly-elected parliament held its first assembly, in keeping with his earlier promise and “in keeping with the Czech constitution.”

A week ago, Petr Fiala was sworn in as the new prime minister, leading a coalition government with both conservative and progressives, to tackle the continuing pandemic and other challenges.   

Meanwhile the newly installed leader of the communist party, Katerine Konecna, said her priority is trying to build support among young people.  

Washington Hopeful of Close Relations With Germany’s Scholz

U.S. officials are hopeful of developing a good working relationship with Germany’s incoming chancellor, Olaf Scholz, whose new coalition government featuring the Social Democrats, the Greens and the neoliberal Free Democrats, has already indicated it will observe a longstanding nuclear sharing arrangement allowing the U.S. to continue to deploy 20 atomic bombs at an airbase in western Germany.

Since early on in the Cold War, Germany has allowed American tactical nuclear weapons to be based in the country, but the arrangement has been opposed by luminaries on the left among Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD). In their election manifestos, both the SPD and the Greens election programs condemned the basing of nuclear weapons in Germany.

The incoming coalition government’s decision to continue with the nuclear arrangement has prompted a sigh of relief in Washington. Any abandonment of the arrangement would have complicated transatlantic security ties. And the coalition government’s acceptance of the deal is being seen as a promising sign of how the relationship may develop between the new government and the Biden administration. 

Scholz has gone out of his way to emphasize the significance of German-U.S. relations, calling the United States “Europe’s closest and most important partner.” As finance minister in the outgoing government of his predecessor, Angela Merkel, he forged close ties with Washington policymakers. There are likely to be bumps in the road, though, according to Western diplomats.

They note the 64,000-word agreement struck by the German coalition partners — the SPD, the Greens and the Free Democrats — makes no mention of Nord Stream 2, the recently completed undersea natural-gas pipeline linking Russia and Germany. The U.S. and some of Germany’s eastern European neighbors want Germany to abandon the pipeline — and so do Germany’s Greens — but SPD insiders tell VOA it is highly unlikely Scholz will do so. 

If he decides to continue with Merkel’s policy and not to abandon the pipeline, Republican lawmakers in the U.S. Congress are likely to redouble their pressure on the Biden administration to impose sanctions on businesses involved with the pipeline, say analysts.

President Joe Biden waived Nord Stream sanctions earlier this year, a few months before the $11 billion pipeline was finished, on the grounds its completion was a “fait accompli.” His decision drew criticism from Republicans and some Democrats, but U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken sought to assuage congressional critics saying the Biden administration would respond, if the Kremlin seeks to leverage gas exports as a political weapon. 

Successive American administrations have opposed the building of Nord Stream 2, fearing it will deepen Europe’s energy dependence on Russia, as well as allow Russia to bypass Ukraine when it supplies energy to western European markets, depriving Kyiv of much needed transit fees.

The leaders of Germany’s three-party coalition formally signed a governing agreement Tuesday. The move came a day after the Greens voted to approve the deal, the last party to do so. Scholz is due to be sworn in later this week, marking the start of the post-Merkel era.

Coalition party leaders held a press conference in Berlin just hours before President Biden and Russia’s Vladimir Putin were set to hold a critical discussion amid rising tensions over a massive Russian military buildup along its border with Ukraine. Scholz was pressed to clarify his foreign policy aims and said his first overseas trip as chancellor will be to Paris and then Brussels — a signal of his government’s intentions to ensure “Europe is strong and sovereign,” he said. 

Scholz also emphasized the importance of transatlantic cooperation, saying he soon would be talking with President Biden. “It is now clear what binds us together,” Scholz said. On the Russian troop buildup, the incoming chancellor said it must be made “very, very clear” to Russia that threats to Ukraine would be unacceptable. But he did not detail how Germany would respond to any new Russian military action in Ukraine. 

Asked about what policy he intended to pursue toward China, he answered only by saying his immediate priorities would be working with the EU and the U.S. Some analysts predict Scholz is likely to continue with Merkel’s approach toward China. Merkel was the driving force behind the signing last December of an EU-China agreement on investment and trade that caused unease in Washington. 

Critics of the deal said it would give China preferential access to European markets while Beijing continued to tamp down Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement and maintain detention centers in Xinjiang province, where China’s Communist government has interned more than a million Uighurs, according to rights groups. Though signed, the European Parliament has not voted on the agreement amid rising tensions between the EU and China.

Some diplomats don’t expect Scholz to significantly change course from Merkel when it comes to China, arguing the German business lobby is strong and the country’s export-driven economy needs to be exporting to China. But other European diplomats tell VOA that with China becoming increasingly assertive, they suspect Scholz will have little alternative but to adopt a more muscular policy regarding Beijing.

Scholz appeared to signal that last month, when, during a press conference in Berlin, he highlighted his eagerness to pursue a values-driven foreign policy. “That which makes us who we are, that we are democracies, that we stand for freedom and the rule of law, will of course play a role, because we are particularly connected with some countries, especially the United States, because these values have shaped us,” he said.

How Germany responds in coming days toward an increasingly bellicose Russia will be an early indicator of what kind of foreign policy leader Scholz will be, say analysts. Putin may have decided to time the Russian military buildup to coincide with Germany’s political transition, according to Benjamin Haddad, senior director of the Europe Center at the Atlantic Council, a research group in New York. “Putin may think this is the right moment to act, with Germany going through a political transition and with France heading toward an election,” he told VOA recently. 

But if the Russian leader thinks he can bank on Berlin being distracted, that might be a miscalculation, Haddad underscores. He says the new center-left German government led by Scholz will “want to show it can be a good transatlantic partner.”  

End of An Era: Germany’s Merkel Bows Out after 16 Years

Angela Merkel was assured of a place in the history books as soon as she became Germany’s first female chancellor on Nov. 22, 2005.

Over the next 16 years, she was credited with raising Germany’s profile and influence, working to hold a fractious European Union together, managing a string of crises and being a role model for women.

Now that near-record tenure is ending with her leaving office at age 67 to praise from abroad and enduring popularity at home. Her designated successor, Olaf Scholz, is expected to take office Wednesday.

Merkel, a former scientist who grew up in communist East Germany, is bowing out about a week short of the record for longevity held by her one-time mentor, Helmut Kohl, who reunited Germany during his 1982-1998 tenure.

While Merkel perhaps lacks a spectacular signature achievement, the center-right Christian Democrat came to be viewed as an indispensable crisis manager and defender of Western values in turbulent times.

She served alongside four U.S. presidents, four French presidents, five British prime ministers and eight Italian premiers. Her chancellorship was marked by four major challenges: the global financial crisis, Europe’s debt crisis, the 2015-16 influx of refugees to Europe and the coronavirus pandemic.

“It’s undeniable that she’s given Germany a lot of soft power,” said Sudha David-Wilp, the deputy director of the German Marshall Fund of the United States’ Berlin office. “Undoubtedly she’s elevated Germany’s image in the world.”

“When she first came onto the scene in 2005, a lot of people underestimated her, but she grew in stature along with Germany’s role in the world,” David-Wilp added. Others in Europe and beyond “want more of an active Germany to play a role in the world — that may not have been the case before she was in office, necessarily.”

In a video message at Merkel’s final EU summit in October, former U.S. President Barack Obama thanked her for “taking the high ground for so many years.”

“Thanks to you, the center has held through many storms,” he said.

Merkel was a driving force behind EU sanctions against Russia over its annexation of Crimea and backing of separatists in eastern Ukraine, and also spearheaded so-far-unfinished efforts to bring about a diplomatic solution there. She was regarded as being “able to have a dialogue with (Russian President Vladimir) Putin on behalf of the West,” David-Wilp said.

She was steadfast in pursuing multilateral solutions to the world’s problems, a principle she set out at a military parade in her honor last week.

The global financial crisis and the migrant influx “made clear how much we depend on cooperation beyond national borders and how indispensable international institutions and multilateral instruments are to be able to cope with the big challenges of our time,” Merkel said, identifying those as climate change, digitization and migration.

That stance was a strong counterpoint to former U.S. President Donald Trump, with whom she had a difficult relationship. At their first meeting in the White House in March 2017, when photographers shouted for them to shake hands, she quietly asked Trump “do you want to have a handshake?” but there was no response from the president, who looked ahead.

Merkel dismissed being labeled as “leader of the free world” during that period, saying leadership is never up to one person or country.

Still, she was viewed as a crucial leader in the unwieldy 27-nation EU, famed for her stamina in coaxing agreements in marathon negotiating sessions.

“Ms. Merkel was a compromise machine,” Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel said recently. When negotiations were blocked, she “mostly found something that unites us to move things along.”

That was on display in July 2020, when EU leaders clinched a deal on an unprecedented 1.8 trillion-euro ($2 trillion) budget and coronavirus recovery fund after a quarrelsome four-day summit.

At her 107th and last EU summit, European Council President Charles Michel told Merkel: “You are a monument.” A summit without her would be like “Rome without the Vatican or Paris without the Eiffel Tower,” he added.

The appreciation from her counterparts was genuine, although there was plenty of friction over the years. Merkel always sought to keep the EU as tightly knit as possible but strongly defended Germany’s interests, clashing with Greece during the debt crisis and disagreeing with Hungary, Poland and others over their refusal — unlike Germany — to host migrants arriving in Europe.

Merkel said she was bowing out of the EU “in a situation that definitely gives me cause for concern as well.”

“We have been able to overcome many crises in a spirit of respect, in an effort always to find common solutions” she said. “But we also have a series of unresolved problems, and there are big unfinished tasks for my successor.”

That’s also true at home, where her record — dominated by the crises she addressed and including a pandemic that is flaring anew as she steps down — is a mixed bag. She leaves Germany with lower unemployment and healthier finances, but also with well-documented shortcomings in digitization — many health offices resorted to fax machines to transmit data in the pandemic — and what critics say was a lack of investment in infrastructure. 

She made progress in promoting renewable energy, but also drew criticism for moving too slowly on climate change. After announcing in 2018 that she wouldn’t seek a fifth term, she failed to secure a smooth transition of power in her own party, which slumped to defeat in Germany’s September election.

The incoming governing coalition under Scholz says it wants to “venture more progress” for Germany after years of stagnation.

But Germans’ overall verdict appears to remain favorable. During the election campaign, from which she largely was absent, Merkel’s popularity ratings outstripped those of her three would-be successors. Unlike her seven predecessors in postwar Germany, she is leaving office at a time of her choosing.

Merkel’s body language and facial expressions sometimes offered a glimpse of her reactions that went beyond words. She once lamented that she couldn’t put on a poker face: “I’ve given up. I can’t do it.”

She wasn’t intimidated by Putin’s style. The Russian president once brought his Labrador to a 2007 meeting with Merkel, who later said she had a “certain concern” about dogs after having once been bitten by one.

She was never the most glamorous of political operators, but that was part of her appeal – the chancellor continued to take unglamorous walking holidays, was occasionally seen shopping at the supermarket and lived in the same Berlin apartment as she did before taking the top job.

Named “The World’s Most Powerful Woman” by Forbes magazine for the past 10 years in a row, Merkel steps down with a legacy of breaking through the glass ceiling of male dominance in politics — although she also has faced criticism for not pushing harder for more gender equality.

Obama said that “so many people, girls and boys, men and women, have had a role model who they could look up to through challenging times.”

Former President George W. Bush, whose relationship with Merkel’s predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder, soured over the latter’s opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq, said that “Angela came in and changed that completely.”

“Angela Merkel brought class and dignity to a very important position and made very hard decisions … and did so based upon principle,” Bush told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle in July. He described her as “a compassionate leader, a woman who was not afraid to lead.”

US, Russian Presidents to Hold Virtual Summit Tuesday Amid Rising Tensions Over Ukraine

U.S. President Joe Biden will hold a high-stakes virtual summit with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin Tuesday amid a massive buildup of Russian troops along the Ukrainian border. 

President Biden is expected to make a series of diplomatic overtures to President Putin in an effort to de-escalate the situation, along with clear warnings of likely sanctions if Russian troops invade its smaller neighbor and former Soviet republic. 

WATCH: US and Russia leaders to meet 

Administration officials say Moscow has launched a massive cyberspace disinformation campaign against Ukraine’s government that echoes Russia’s 2014 invasion and annexation of Crimea. The U.S. intelligence community released a document last week that concluded that Putin is planning to deploy as many 175,000 troops along the Ukrainian border as soon as January as part of a multifront invasion.

Putin is expected to issue an oft-repeated demand that Ukraine never be allowed to join NATO, the seven decade-old military alliance between the United States and the nations of Western Europe, which Biden will likely reject. For his part, Biden is expected to threaten to cut Russia off from SWIFT, the international financial payments system. 

The U.S. has provided a vast array of military support to Ukraine, but administration officials say the U.S. will not deploy combat troops to Ukraine in the event of a Russian invasion.

Biden hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the White House in September, and  assured him that the U.S. was “firmly committed to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russian aggression.” 

On Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited troops in the eastern Donetsk region and said his forces were capable of fending off a Russian offensive.  

Nobel Prizes Awarded in Pandemic-Curtailed Local Ceremonies

Three 2021 Nobel Prize laureates said Monday that climate change is the biggest threat facing the world — yet they remain optimistic — as this year’s winners began receiving their awards at scaled-down local ceremonies adapted for pandemic times. 

For a second year, COVID-19 has scuttled the traditional formal banquet in Stockholm attended by winners of the prizes in chemistry, physics, medicine, literature and economics, which were announced in October. The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded separately in Oslo, Norway. 

Literature laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah was first to get his prize in a lunchtime ceremony Monday at the Swedish ambassador’s grand Georgian residence in central London.

Ambassador Mikaela Kumlin Granit said the U.K.-based Tanzanian author had been awarded the Nobel Prize in literature for his “uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.” 

“Customarily you would receive the prize from the hands of His Majesty, the king of Sweden,” she told Gurnah at the ceremony attended by friends, family and colleagues. “However, this year you will be celebrated with a distance forced upon us because of the pandemic.” 

Gurnah, who grew up on the island of Zanzibar and arrived in England as an 18-year-old refugee in the 1960s, has drawn on his experiences for 10 novels, including “Memory of Departure,” “Pilgrims Way,” “Afterlives” and “Paradise.” He has said migration is “not just my story — it’s a phenomenon of our times.” 

Italian physics laureate Giorgio Parisi was receiving his prize at a ceremony in Rome. U.S.-based physics laureate Syukuro Manabe, chemistry laureate David W.C. MacMillan and economic sciences laureate Joshua D. Angrist will be given their medals and diplomas in Washington. 

MacMillan, German physics prize winner Klaus Hasselmann and economics prize winner Guido Imbens, who is Dutch but lives in the United States, had a joint virtual news conference Monday where they were asked what they consider the biggest problem facing humanity and what they worry about most. All three answered climate change, with Imbens calling it the world’s “overarching problem.” 

“Climate change is something which is clearly going to have a large impact on society,” MacMillan said. “But at the same time given the science, given the call to arms amongst scientists, I really feel more optimism. And I feel there’s a real moment happening with scientists moving towards trying to solve this problem.” 

“I would bet on that fact that we would solve this problem,” MacMillan said. 

Hasselmann, whose work on climate change won him the prize, said he’s more hopeful because the world’s youth and movements like Fridays for the Future “have picked up the challenge and are getting across the message to the public that we have to act and respond to the problem.”

Hasselmann said he’s more optimistic now about climate change than 20 or 30 years ago. 

Imbens said he also is disturbed that misinformation, especially about COVID-19 and vaccines, is splitting society apart. He recalled growing up in the Netherlands and nearly everyone agreed on the need for the polio vaccine. 

“And yet, here we don’t seem to have found a way of making these decisions that we can all live with,” Imbens said. “And that’s clearly made it much harder to deal with the pandemic.” 

More ceremonies will be held throughout the week in Germany and the United States. On Friday — the anniversary of the death of prize founder Albert Nobel — there will be a celebratory ceremony at Stockholm City Hall for a local audience, including King Carl XVI Gustav and senior Swedish royals. 

A Nobel Prize comes with a diploma, a gold medal and a $1.5 million (10-million krona) cash award, which is shared if there are multiple winners. 

The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo because Nobel wanted it that way, for reasons he kept to himself. A ceremony is due to be held there Friday for the winners — journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia. 

The Norwegian news agency NTB said the festivities would be scaled down, with fewer guests and participants required to wear face masks. Norway has seen an uptick in cases of the new omicron variant, and a spokesman for the Norwegian Nobel Committee told NTB it was “in constant contact with the health authorities in Oslo.” 

 

In Biden-Putin Talks, Key Question Is Russia’s Intent in Ukraine 

When Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin meet virtually on Tuesday, the two presidents will have to negotiate a history of mutual suspicion as they take up the urgent issue of a major Russian military buildup on the Ukraine border.

The key question hanging over the talks — and the subject of keen debate among analysts and political leaders — is whether Putin might actually launch a cross-border offensive, or whether he is using the troops to pressure Biden for guarantees ex-Soviet Ukraine will never become a NATO launchpad.

The two have a daunting list of other differences to air, from Russia’s harsh treatment of dissidents to the presence of ransomware hackers on Russian soil to Moscow’s support for the repressive regime in Syria.

But the magnitude of the Russian buildup near Ukraine — the Kremlin may be planning an offensive early in 2022 involving up to 175,000 troops, according to U.S. intelligence obtained by The Washington Post and other outlets — has raised red flags in Washington and across Europe.

Many analysts doubt that Putin would carry through with an invasion — which would inevitably prompt international condemnation and probably new sanctions — but at least some take a darker view.

“Putin has sharply raised the stakes. He is no longer bluffing,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of the political consultancy R.Politik Center and a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Moscow Center.

“He’s ready to take a desperate step,” she told Agence France-Presse on Sunday.

The looming crisis could pose the sternest test yet of the foreign policy savvy and clout of the 78-year-old U.S. president.

Biden and Putin — who are expected to speak Tuesday around midday Washington time — have a history together.

They first met in person in the Kremlin in 2011. Then-Vice President Biden later said he told the Russian leader, “I don’t think you have a soul” to which, Biden says, Putin responded, “We understand one another.”

They met again in 2014 in Geneva to deal with the now familiar issue of Russian military pressure on Ukraine.

And they met in Geneva on June 16 of this year for the first time with Biden as president.

Contacts have continued since, as have tensions, with Putin seen as eager to pressure Biden into another in-person summit as a way to project parity on the world stage.

On Friday, Biden vowed to make it “very, very difficult” for Russia to launch an invasion but did not say how.

Putin has warned the West and Kyiv against crossing the Kremlin’s “red lines,” including building up weaponry in Ukraine.

Biden later responded, “I won’t accept anybody’s red line.”

Some analysts said Russia, deeply concerned with Ukraine’s warming ties to NATO, is applying pressure to cut that movement short.

Following Putin’s lead, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov last week called on U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to provide “security guarantees” that NATO would not come closer to Russia’s border.

Stanovaya said this might be Putin’s bottom line: “Either NATO provides guarantees or Russia invades Ukraine,” she said.

Russia has continued to deny any bellicose intentions, instead accusing the West of provocations in the Black Sea.

NATO recognized Kyiv in June 2020 as one of a handful of so-called “enhanced opportunity partners,” potentially a step toward membership.

Heather Conley, a former assistant U.S. secretary of state for European affairs, said she believes Putin is willing to apply “enormous pressure” in the Ukraine standoff.

He is set on another in-person summit with Biden, said Conley, who is with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. And he wants to loosen Western ties to Ukraine, which she said some see as “a sort of NATO aircraft carrier.”

Fyodor Lukyanov, a prominent political analyst close to the Kremlin, said he doubts Biden and Putin will agree on anything concrete on Tuesday, but he does not expect hostilities to break out if the talks fail.

“No, this is hysteria whipped up by the West,” he told AFP on Sunday. “Wars begin suddenly. If it begins, it will begin differently.”

Moscow seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and has since backed the separatist forces fighting Kyiv. The conflict has left more than 13,000 dead.

What if the virtual meeting between the rival leaders goes poorly on Tuesday?

If Russia fails to obtain the accommodations it seeks, and all efforts at diplomacy fail, said Conley, her sense is that “Mr. Putin would then use military means to achieve his political objective.” 

RTV Slovenia Feels Political Heat Amid Program Shuffles

Programming shifts at Slovenia’s public broadcaster could curb critical journalism and benefit the center-right government in next year’s elections, say journalists and free press advocates who sense politics behind the moves. 

The changes, adopted by the program council of RTV Slovenia on November 29, shorten or abolish some main news programs, while others move to a less-prominent second channel. TV Slovenia is a part of RTV Slovenia, which also includes a public radio channel. The radio channel will also undergo some changes, but those are not being disputed.

The new management of RTV Slovenia claims the changes, to be phased in by the end of March 2022, are designed to improve the ratings. Skeptics say that’s not the whole story.

“Whether or not the proposed reforms are designed to curb critical political journalism, their concrete impact would be to reduce RTV’s ability to inform the public and scrutinize the government,” Laurens C. Hueting, senior advocacy officer of the European Center for Press and Media Freedom, told VOA. 

Most journalists of TV Slovenia news programs agree. More than nine in 10 signed a petition in opposition.

“This plan presents a big change, which we believe does not bring any possibilities to increase quality of reporting,” senior TV Slovenia anchor Igor Evgen Bergant told VOA. 

“We want changes; we want a better work organization … but the adopted plan will disperse news reporting to several channels and thus reduce the interest of people in our news. So, our relevance will decrease,” Bergant maintained. 

He is an anchor of the prominent evening news show Odmevi, which is due to be shortened to 25 minutes from 30 minutes at present. But other programs will be more affected. 

The management did not disclose changes in detail, but TV journalists told VOA that all political debates ahead of the April 24 parliamentary election move to the second channel, while the main evening news show Dnevnik will be shortened by almost a third to 20 minutes. 

A weekly show, Politicno, which analyzes interior politics, will be abolished. Weekly shows Utrip, which examines events in the country, and Zrcalo tedna, which focuses on global events, will be moved to the second channel, along with many others. 

The journalists’ petition gained public support of a number of universities, academics, Slovenian diplomats, trade unions, business chambers and public institutes.

Still, the management of RTV Slovenia stands by the changes. The management did not respond to VOA’s detailed questions but sent a statement saying TV Slovenia is in a “serious crisis. ” 

“The viewership of most shows has been falling for years, only Dnevnik and Odmevi have since 2003 lost 250,000 or about half of once faithful viewers. That is why we are introducing changes in the news program,” the statement said.

Bergant said the viewership figures fail to include those who follow the shows on mobile phones and after a time delay, and that ratings are falling in other countries, as well.

Although the government has no direct influence on TV Slovenia production, many believe the changes benefit the government of Prime Minister Janez Jansa ahead of the April vote. 

“It is hard to prove whether the incumbent government is behind these decisions,” said Marko Milosavljevic, a professor of journalism at the Ljubljana University. “However, such marginalization of the information program can surely benefit this government, especially before the election, as the abolishment of analytical and potentially critical shows and reports could ease the media position and image of this government.”

The broadcaster receives most of its income from an obligatory RTV subscription paid by most households. It is run by a 29-member Program Council mandated to act independently. However, a majority of the council members, 21, are appointed by the parliament. 

TV Slovenia runs a 24-7 operation and is one of the most popular TV channels in the country. It competes with several private channels. Its largest competitor is owned by international investment group PPF that is based in the Czech Republic. Another competitor, Nova24TV, was established in 2016 by members and supporters of Jansa’s Slovenian Democratic Party.

The Ministry of Culture, which oversees media, did not respond to VOA’s questions about government influence over TV Slovenia. In September, the ministry denied exerting any political pressure on the leadership of TV Slovenia. 

The RTV’s new chief executive, Andrej Grah Whatmough, who took over last April after being appointed by the Program Council, had rejected rumors that his appointment was political and denied being under any pressure.

In August, however, he dismissed the director of TV Slovenia. The new director then appointed a new managing editor of TV’s news programs after the previous editor, Manica Janezic Ambrozic, resigned in October because of the planned program changes. 

Opposition parties say Jansa’s government is trying to control the broadcaster through the Program Council to get favorable coverage. 

“It is obvious that (the government parties) want to take control of the public medium and change it … into a pro-government mouthpiece,” Nika Vrhovnik, a spokeswoman of the largest opposition party, the center-left List of Marjan Sarec, told VOA. 

Since taking power in March 2020, Jansa’s government has been criticized by local and international institutions for its media policies. They include a decision to stop paying the national news agency, STA, which normally gets half of its income from the government. 

That happened after Jansa said on Twitter the agency was biased and “a national shame.” 

Government payments to the STA resumed in November after a new CEO was appointed following a September resignation of predecessor Bojan Veselinovic over his inability to reach a financing deal with the government.

Several TV journalists told VOA they feel more pressure since Jansa took power. Last year, Jansa used Twitter to accuse TV Slovenia of spreading falsehoods.

On December 3, Jansa shared a tweet that accused a TV Slovenia journalist of lying when she compared the government’s spending on the health system to military spending. 

Analysts said that Slovenian journalists are still able to produce independent news — for now.

Said Hueting: “Against a background of increasing intimidation and threats against RTV’s journalists, it is important to support the broadcaster and its staff so they can continue to deliver a high standard of news reporting.” 

 

Putin, Modi Reaffirm ‘Time-Tested’ Ties at New Delhi Summit

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed their ties at a New Delhi summit that aimed to reboot a relationship that has stagnated in recent years as India moves closer to the United States and Russia to China.

The Russian leader on Monday called India “a great power, a friendly nation, and a time-tested friend,” while Modi said that despite the emergence of different geopolitical equations in the last few decades, “the friendship of India and Russia has been constant.”

Although the altered geopolitical landscape poses challenges in maintaining close ties, a strong defense partnership that goes back to the Cold War years is a key pillar binding the two countries. New Delhi has diversified its defense procurement in recent decades, but Russia is still India’s largest arms supplier with more than two-thirds of its military equipment being of Russian origin.

Defense ties topped the agenda with Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh calling for increased military cooperation with Russia.

The bilateral agreements signed included one for India to procure more than 600,000 AK-203 assault rifles from Russia and another to extend their military technology cooperation over the next decade.

Indian officials said Russia has begun deliveries of the S-400 air defense missile systems that India is buying from Moscow – their biggest military deal was clinched by New Delhi in 2018 despite the threat of sanctions from its close strategic partner, the United States.

Washington has often warned New Delhi that the purchase of five long-range surface-to-air missile systems from Russia runs counter to U.S. legislation passed in 2017, whose aims include deterring countries from buying Russian military equipment.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a news conference in the Indian capital that the deal was being implemented despite what he said were U.S. efforts to undermine the accord.

India has told American officials that it needed the missile defense system – one of the most sophisticated in the world — to build its military capacities as it faces a hostile China along its northern borders. It is hoping for a presidential waiver from sanctions.

The Indian and Russian defense and foreign ministers of the two countries, who also held a strategic dialogue in the Indian capital, emphasized the importance of their relationship. With an eye on boosting trade, both sides signed 28 investment pacts in areas such as energy and shipbuilding.

The situation in Afghanistan was also on the agenda of both countries that remain wary of the potential for terrorism from the Taliban-ruled country.

Putin said that the “fight against terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime” were key challenges for both countries.

India also hopes its ties with Russia will help it regain some ground in the country where Pakistan and China have emerged as key players.

Key differences as the two countries build new alliances will test ties going ahead, say analysts. Russia opposes the creation of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, also known as the Quad, saying it is against security blocs in the Asian region. India has embraced the alliance of which it is a part and that is aimed at counterbalancing China in the Indo-Pacific region. Besides India, the Quad includes Australia, Japan and the United States.

Analysts point out that despite India’s growing strategic convergence with the U.S., both New Delhi and Moscow want to give momentum to their own ties.

“The summit’s key takeaway is that both nations are not willing to abandon each other,” according to Harsh Pant, director of research and head of the Strategic Studies Program at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.

“Their interests might be diverging, but the fact that Putin has come for his first bilateral visit to India since the pandemic, that India is buying the S-400 system despite the threat of U.S. sanctions, shows they see some value in each other as partners and want to invest in that relationship,” Pant said.

Turkey and Qatar Leaders Meet Amid Growing Isolation 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan starts a two-day visit to close ally Qatar on Monday. Afghanistan and economic support for Turkey’s crisis-ridden economy are expected to be on the agenda of talks between the two countries’ leaders. 

Turkish and Qatari officials say President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s two-day visit to Qatar aims to further deepen bilateral cooperation.

Erdogan will chair Tuesday’s meeting of the Turkey-Qatar Supreme Strategic Committee with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani in Doha. The two leaders have developed a close relationship built around mutual interests, says former Turkish ambassador to Qatar Mithat Rende. 

“Turkish-Qatari relations are important for both countries; the cooperation between the two countries to modernize the armed forces of Qatar and to train the Qatar armed forces by Turkey that provided a kind of security umbrella for the Qataris. This, in turn of course, benefited Turkey because Qatar invested heavily in Turkey also,” he said.

Security ties were further strengthened by the construction of a Turkish military base in Qatar. Analysts say such support was vital to Doha to resisting Saudi Arabian pressure, which at times has been intense. In 2017, Riyadh imposed a four-year blockade on Qatar.

Erdogan’s visit comes as Turkey faces severe economic strains and the Turkish leader is expected seek financial support from the energy-rich emirate. 

This year, the Turkish currency has lost nearly 50% of its value as international investors fled over Erdogan’s unorthodox economic policies.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, speaking in Doha Monday, said Turkey is not seeking a specific amount of money from Qatar, but rather to improve overall economic ties.

Huseyin Bagci, head of the Ankara-based Foreign Policy Institute says Erdogan will likely be looking to Qatar to add to its twenty billion dollars of investments in Turkey. 

“Every foreign investment is important for Turkey. Qatar remains for Turkey as the substitute source of international investment,” he said.

Qatar has remained a loyal ally to Turkey at a time when Ankara’s relations with its traditional Western allies have deteriorated.

The two countries share similar goals and they will, on this visit, seek to expand on those.

Ankara and Doha back the Egyptian opposition while also cooperating in Libya.

Foreign policy analyst Bagci says these talks in Qatar will focus on Afghanistan, where the two countries are working to reopen Kabul’s international airport.

 

“Qatar has the money, and Turkey has the technicians. Turkey has already sent a lot of technicians for the airport in Afghanistan and Kabul airport will be in operation soon internationally,” he said.

Aid groups see the reopening of the Kabul international airport as vital in alleviating Afghanistan’s unfolding humanitarian crisis. 

 

Scientist Behind UK Vaccine Says Next Pandemic May Be Worse

One of the scientists behind the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is warning that the next pandemic may be more contagious and more lethal unless more money is devoted to research and preparations to fight emerging viral threats.

In excerpts released before a speech Monday, Professor Sarah Gilbert says the scientific advances made in fighting deadly viruses “must not be lost” because of the cost of fighting the current pandemic.

“This will not be the last time a virus threatens our lives and our livelihoods,” Gilbert is expected to say. “The truth is, the next one could be worse. It could be more contagious, or more lethal, or both.”

Gilbert is scheduled to make the remarks Monday night when she delivers this year’s Richard Dimbleby lecture, named after the late broadcaster who was the BBC’s first war correspondent and a pioneer of television news in Britain. The annual televised lecture features addresses by influential figures in business, science and government.

Gilbert is set to call on governments to redouble their commitment to scientific research and pandemic preparedness, even after the threat of COVID-19 wanes.

“We cannot allow a situation where we have gone through all we have gone through, and then find that the enormous economic losses we have sustained mean that there is still no funding for pandemic preparedness,” she said. “The advances we have made, and the knowledge we have gained, must not be lost.”

Belgian Police Use Water, Tear Gas on COVID Protesters

Belgian police used water cannon and tear gas Sunday to disperse some rowdy protesters in Brussels after most demonstrators marched peacefully to protest tightened COVID-19 restrictions that aim to counter a surge of coronavirus infections.

Thousands came to reject the new measures announced Friday, the third week in a row that the government has tightened its rules as an avalanche of new cases strains the country’s health services, depriving people with other life-threatening diseases of treatment.

Shouting “Freedom! Freedom!” and carrying banners that said, “United for our freedom, rights and our children,” protesters marched to the European Union headquarters. Some also carried signs critical of vaccines and against making vaccine shots mandatory. 

The main crowd in Sunday’s mostly peaceful march had already dispersed when about 100 protesters ran into a riot police barricade cordoning off access to the European Commission. After a brief stand-off with police, protesters hurdled trash and other objects, including a bicycle, at police and set off firecrackers and flares. Police used water cannon and fired tear gas to disperse the crowd. There were no immediate reports of injuries. 

On Friday, Prime Minister Alexander De Croo announced that day care centers and primary schools will close for the holiday a week early, and children must now wear masks from the age of 6. Indoor events will only be allowed with a maximum of 200 people.

Previously, the government closed nightclubs, and ordered bars and restaurants to shut at 11 p.m. for three weeks. Speculation had been rife that closing times would be brought forward to 8 p.m. but the cabinet decided against it.

According to the latest coronavirus figures, the EU nation of 11 million appears to have reached a plateau.

On a weekly average, 17,862 new daily cases were reported in Belgium, a rise of 6% over the previous week. Hospital admissions rose 4%. More than 3,700 people are hospitalized with the virus, 821 of them in intensive care. More than 27,000 people with the virus have died in Belgium since the outbreak began last year.