The European Union wants to hold joint naval exercises as part of plans published Friday to step up its efforts to protect critical infrastructure at sea. 

Concerns about threats to Europe’s maritime infrastructure were heightened by attacks in September on the Nord Stream pipelines, which left them spewing natural gas into the Baltic Sea. 

The EU has updated its maritime security strategy, outlining plans to hold an annual naval exercise from 2024 and coordinate member countries’ national efforts to protect gas pipelines, undersea data cables, offshore wind farms and other critical maritime infrastructure. 

EU environment commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius told Reuters that planning had been underway before the Nord Stream blasts, but had been strengthened in response to them. 

“After that, member states were very clear that we need to further strengthen cooperation, build capacity, ensure that our critical infrastructure is better protected,” he said. 

The EU plan sets out to increase cooperation between the EU and NATO, expand coastal patrols and improve efforts to identify threats early — such as by using EU satellite programs to detect unidentified vessels. 

The EU will also produce a risk assessment, disaster recovery plans and regional surveillance plans, according to the strategy. 

“The threat level is increasing,” Sinkevicius said.

Energy infrastructure is a particular concern, as Europe expands its offshore wind farms and its use of liquefied natural gas terminals to replace Russian pipeline gas.

The Netherlands said a Russian ship detected at an offshore wind farm in the North Sea last month was part of attempts by Moscow to gain intelligence to sabotage infrastructure.

Improved surveillance of maritime areas should also help countries monitor and respond to environmental degradation and the effects of climate change such as sea level rise.

Authorities in Sweden, Germany and Denmark are investigating the blasts on the Nord Stream pipelines, which were constructed to supply Russian gas to Europe. They have said the explosions were deliberate but have not said who might be responsible. 
…

Following the wave of missiles strikes that Russia launched Thursday against Ukraine, the British Defense Ministry said Friday that the intervals between such strikes will likely grow.

The ministry said that Russia needs time “to stockpile a critical mass of newly produced missiles directly from industry before it can resource a strike big enough to credibly overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses.”

Russia launched the barrage of missile attacks across Ukraine on Thursday, killing at least six and leaving hundreds of thousands without heat and electricity.

It was the largest such attack on Ukraine in three weeks, with Ukrainian forces saying they shot down 34 of the 81 missiles that Russia fired, far less than the usual ratio, as well as four Iranian-made drones.

“No matter how treacherous Russia’s actions are, our state and people will not be in chains,” Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy said in his daily address.

He also said he met with members of Ukraine’s cultural committee to discuss “ways to strengthen the capacity of Ukrainian culture to communicate with the world to ensure support for Ukraine.”

“Diplomacy, journalism, and culture are the three areas that do the most to make the world understand our struggle and help us,” he said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the attacks were in retaliation for a recent assault on the Bryansk region of western Russia by what Moscow alleged were Ukrainian saboteurs. Ukraine has denied the claim and warned that Moscow could use the allegations to justify stepping up its own assaults.

Moscow said it hit military and industrial targets in Ukraine “as well as the energy facilities that supply them.” Nearly half of the households in the capital of Kyiv were left without heat as were many in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, where the regional governor said 15 Russian strikes hit the city.

About 150,000 households were left without power in Ukraine’s northwestern Zhytomyr region. In the southern port of Odesa, emergency blackouts occurred because of damaged power lines.

Among the weapons fired were six hypersonic Kinzhal cruise missiles, Ukrainian air force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat said.

Nuclear power fears

Thursday’s attack also knocked out the power supply to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest. The plant’s operator, Energoatom, said diesel generators were being used to run the plant and that there was enough fuel available to continue for 10 days. The plant was later reconnected to the electrical grid.

International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi called for urgent action, noting the plant’s power supply had been cut for a sixth time since Russia invaded Ukraine more than a year ago.

“I am astonished by the complacency – what are we doing to prevent this happening? We are the IAEA; we are meant to care about nuclear safety,” Grossi said. “Each time we are rolling a dice. And if we allow this to continue time after time then one day our luck will run out.”

Important stretch

Top U.S. intelligence officials, testifying before lawmakers Thursday, cautioned that the war between Russia and Ukraine is entering a critical period.

“The next four, five, six months are going to be crucial on the battlefield to Ukraine,” CIA Director William Burns told members of the House Intelligence Committee.

“Any prospect for a serious negotiation, which [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin I don’t think is ready for today, is going to depend on progress on the battlefield,” Burns said. “Therefore, I think, analytically, what’s important is to provide all the support that we possibly can, which is what the president and our Western allies are doing for the Ukrainians as they prepare for a significant offensive in the spring.”

During Senate testimony Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said Russia’s military has been so badly damaged that it is unlikely Russian forces will be able to make any significant territorial gains for the rest of the year.

But Haines also cautioned Ukraine forces have suffered casualties as well and have been forced to draw heavily on their reserves due to what she described as a grinding war of attrition.

US outreach

Zelenskyy on Wednesday invited the top U.S. House lawmaker to visit Kyiv to see “what’s happening here” in an interview broadcast on CNN.

“Mr. [Kevin] McCarthy, he has to come here to see how we work, what’s happening here, what war caused us, which people are fighting now, who are fighting now. And then after that, make your assumptions,” Zelenskyy told the news outlet through an interpreter.

Responding to CNN, House Speaker McCarthy said, “I don’t have to go to Ukraine or Kyiv” to understand it. He said he received information in briefings and other ways.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 of last year, the United States has sent nearly $100 billion in military, economic and relief aid to Ukraine. That aid was sent when the Democratic Party controlled both chambers in Congress.

The Republican Party took control of the U.S. House after the November midterm elections. Some Republicans have expressed opposition to sending additional arms and financial aid to Ukraine.

McCarthy has said he supports Ukraine, but that House Republicans will not provide “a blank check” for additional U.S. assistance to Kyiv without closer scrutiny of how it is being spent.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

U.S. President Joe Biden will meet European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Friday at the White House to discuss potential sanctions against China amid concerns that Beijing is preparing to send weapons to Russia, and Europe’s frustration over Washington’s plans to subsidize American companies under the Inflation Reduction Act.

Biden and von der Leyen also will discuss U.S.-EU coordination to combat the climate crisis through investing in clean technology based on secure supply chains, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

The meeting is the latest in a flurry of high-level diplomacy with European leaders to coordinate support for Ukraine in defending itself one year after Russia’s invasion. Biden met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Washington last week. Last month, he traveled to Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, then to Warsaw to visit Polish President Andrzej Duda and leaders of the Bucharest Nine.

‘De-risk this dependency’

Amid the war on Ukraine, Europe is racing to end its reliance on Russia for fossil fuels by ramping up its domestic renewable energy production. To do so, it would need more access to critical minerals such as lithium, cobalt and rare earth metals, the majority of which are processed by China.

“China produces 98% of Europe’s supplies of rare earths,” von der Leyen said during a joint news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Kingston, Ontario, earlier this week. “Europe needs to de-risk this dependency.”

Von der Leyen, however, has been more cautious in joining the Biden administration in warning China not to arm Moscow in its war effort. During a news conference with Scholz in Meseberg, Germany, earlier this month, she said “no evidence so far” suggested that China was doing so and that the issue of sanctions against Beijing was a “hypothetical question.”

Discriminatory subsidy

Another key topic is the Biden administration’s plan to provide American companies with $369 billion in green subsidies and tax credits aimed at cutting carbon emissions in half by 2030 under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which the EU views as discriminatory. A special task force was set up in October to address these concerns and avoid a trans-Atlantic subsidy race.

Biden and von der Leyen are expected to begin negotiations to allow the EU to have a status similar to that of a free trade partner so that it may be exempt from an Inflation Reduction Act clause that requires a certain percentage of minerals used in manufacturing batteries to be domestically produced or come from a free trade partner.

The EU and Canada have been working toward establishing a “green alliance” to grow respective economies that are “climate-neutral, circular and resource-efficient.” Biden is expected to coordinate on the effort in his visit to Canada later this month.
…

Shots were fired inside a building used by Jehovah’s Witnesses in the northern German city of Hamburg on Thursday evening, and several people were killed or wounded, police said.

The shooting took place in the Gross Borstel district, a few kilometers north of the downtown area of Germany’s second-biggest city.

“We only know that several people died here; several people are wounded, they were taken to hospitals,” police spokesman Holger Vehren said.

He said he had no information on the severity of the injuries suffered by the wounded.

Police did not confirm German media reports — which named no sources — of six or seven dead.

The scene of the shooting was the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Kingdom Hall, a modern, three-story building next door to an auto repair shop.

Vehren said police were alerted to the shooting about 9:15 p.m. local time and were on the scene quickly.

He said that after officers arrived and found people with apparent gunshot wounds on the ground floor, they heard a shot from an upper floor and found a fatally wounded person upstairs who may have been a shooter. He said police did not have to use their firearms.

Vehren said there was no indication that a shooter was on the run and that it appeared likely that the perpetrator was either in the building or among the dead.

Two witnesses interviewed on television, whose names weren’t given, said they heard 12 shots.

Police had no information on the event that was under way in the building when the shooting took place.

They also had no immediate information on a possible motive. Vehren said that “the background is still completely unclear.”

Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher tweeted that the news was shocking and offered his sympathy to the victims’ relatives.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are part of an international church, founded in the United States in the 19th century and headquartered in Warwick, New York. It claims a worldwide membership of about 8.7 million, with about 170,000 in Germany.

Members are known for their evangelistic efforts that include knocking on doors and distributing literature in public squares. The denomination’s distinctive practices include a refusal to bear arms, receive blood transfusions, salute a national flag or participate in secular government.
…

Rights groups are warning that independent Turkish media face fines and arrests over critical reporting of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s handling of February’s deadly earthquakes. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
…

Russia said on Thursday that a landmark deal to ensure the safe export of grain from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports was only being half-implemented, raising doubts about whether it would allow an extension of the agreement set to expire next week.

The Black Sea Grain Initiative, brokered by the United Nations and Turkey last July, aimed to prevent a global food crisis by allowing Ukrainian grain blockaded by Russia’s invasion to be safely exported from three Ukrainian ports.

The deal was extended for 120 days in November and will renew on March 18 if no party objects. However, Moscow has signaled it will only agree to an extension if restrictions affecting its own exports are lifted.

Russia’s agricultural exports have not been explicitly targeted by the West, but Moscow says sanctions on its payments, logistics and insurance industries are a barrier to it being able to export its own grains and fertilizers.

“There are still a lot of questions about the final recipients, questions about where most of the grain is going. And of course, questions about the second part of the agreements are well known to all,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Russia has complained that Ukrainian grain exported under the deal is going to wealthy countries. The “second part” refers to a memorandum of understanding with the U.N. that facilitates Russian food and fertilizer exports.

‘It has to be extended’

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff said the grain deal was part of the country’s plan to end the war and should be extended indefinitely.

Andriy Yermak, quoted by Interfax Ukraine news agency, said any suggestion of ending the grain initiative amounted to “pressure on its intermediaries — Turkey and the U.N.”

“At the very least, it has to be extended by the same term as before,” Yermak was quoted as telling reporters.

Zelenskyy and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres held talks in Kyiv on Wednesday on extending the deal, which Guterres said was of “critical importance.”

There are no plans for direct talks between Guterres and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a news conference on Thursday that what he called the “two parts” of the deal, ensuring safe exports of Ukrainian grain and removing barriers to Russian exports, were “inextricably linked.”

“The first part is being implemented, and we are fulfilling all our obligations in this regard together with our Turkish colleagues,” Lavrov said. “The second part is not being implemented at all.”

“If we’re talking about a deal, it’s a package deal. You can only extend what is already being implemented, and if the package is half-implemented, then the issue of extension becomes quite complicated,” Lavrov said.

Top U.N. trade official Rebeca Grynspan is set to discuss the grain deal with senior Russian officials in Geneva next week.

Ukraine has so far exported more than 23 million metric tons of mainly corn and wheat under the initiative, according to the United Nations. The top primary destinations for shipments have been China, Spain, Turkey, Italy and the Netherlands.

“Exports of Ukrainian, as well as Russian, food and fertilizers are essential to global food security and food prices,” Guterres told reporters on Wednesday.
…

Is the fight for democracy at a turning point? Freedom House documents a global decline for the 17th consecutive year. One of the biggest concerns: media freedom. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias explains. VOA footage by Saqib Ul Islam.
…

China’s government on Thursday criticized the Netherlands for joining Washington in blocking Chinese access to technology to manufacture advanced processor chips on security and human rights grounds.

A Dutch minister told lawmakers Wednesday that exports of equipment that uses ultraviolet light to etch circuits on chips would be restricted on security grounds. ASML of the Netherlands is the only global supplier. Industry experts say a lack of access to ASML’s most advanced technology is a serious handicap for China’s efforts to develop its own chip industry.

Washington in October blocked Chinese access to U.S. tools to make advanced chips that it said might be used in weapons or in equipment for the ruling Communist Party’s surveillance apparatus. The Biden administration is lobbying European and Asian allies to tighten their own controls.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman complained that “an individual country,” a reference to the United States, was trying to “safeguard its own hegemony” by abusing national security as an excuse to “deprive China of its right to development.”

“We firmly oppose the Netherlands’s interference and restriction with administrative means of normal economic and trade exchanges between Chinese and Dutch enterprises,” said the spokeswoman, Mao Ning. “We have made complaints to the Dutch side.”

Mao appealed to the Netherlands to “safeguard the stability of the international industrial and supply chain.”

ASML’s extreme-ultraviolet, or EUV, equipment uses light to etch microscopically precise circuits into silicon, allowing them to be packed more closely together. That increases their speed and reduces power demand.

The Dutch government has prohibited ASML from exporting its most advanced machines to China since 2019, but the company is allowed to supply lower-quality systems.

Chinese manufacturers can produce low-end chips used in autos and most consumer electronics but not those used in smartphones, servers and other high-end products.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and U.S. President Joe Biden held talks in January on ASML’s chip machines.
…

Ukrainian officials reported Russian missile strikes Thursday in multiple parts of the country, killing at least five people. 

Ukraine’s military said it shot down 34 of 81 missiles that Russia fired, and that it downed four Iranian-made drones used by Russian forces. 

The governor of the western Lviv region said four people were killed there when a missile hit a residential area. 

In the Dnipropetrovsk, officials said the Russian attacks killed one person and injured two others.   

The governor of the Odesa region, Maksym Marchenko, said Russian missiles struck energy infrastructure and that power cuts were in place. Marchenko also said the strikes damaged residential buildings, but that no casualties had been reported.    

In Kharkiv, the regional governor, Oleh Synehubov, said 15 Russian strikes hit the city and surrounding region, with targets that included critical infrastructure facilities. 

Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, was also struck. 

US outreach    

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy invited the top U.S. House lawmaker to visit Kyiv to see “what’s happening here” in an interview broadcast Wednesday on TV news channel CNN.      

“Mr. [Kevin] McCarthy, he has to come here to see how we work, what’s happening here, what war caused us, which people are fighting now, who are fighting now. And then after that, make your assumptions,” Zelenskyy told the news outlet through an interpreter.   

Responding to CNN, House Speaker McCarthy said, “I don’t have to go to Ukraine or Kyiv” to understand it. He said he received information in briefings and other ways.      

Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 of last year, the United States has sent nearly $100 billion in military, economic and relief aid to Ukraine. That aid was sent when the Democratic Party controlled both chambers in Congress.

The Republican Party took control of the U.S. House after the midterm elections, and some Republican have expressed opposition to sending additional arms and financial aid to Ukraine.      

McCarthy has said he supports Ukraine but that House Republicans will not provide “a blank check” for additional U.S. assistance to Kyiv without closer scrutiny of how it is being spent.      

In the CNN interview, Zelenskyy said, “I think that Speaker McCarthy, he never visited Kyiv or Ukraine, and I think it would help him with his position.”      

Many U.S. lawmakers and officials and world leaders have visited Zelenskyy in Kyiv as a show of solidarity, including President Joe Biden and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.      

Guterres visit      

Earlier Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres assailed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a violation of international law as he arrived in Kyiv for talks with Zelenskyy.      

The two were to discuss extending grain shipments from the war-torn country and securing the safety of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.       

“The sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Ukraine must be upheld, within its internationally recognized borders,” Guterres said ahead of talks with Zelenskyy.         

“Our ultimate objective is equally clear: a just peace based on the U.N. Charter, international law and the recent General Assembly resolution marking one year since the start of the war,” he said.     

But with fighting raging and no peace talks on the horizon, Guterres said the U.N. is trying “to mitigate the impacts of the conflict, which has caused enormous suffering for the Ukrainian people — with profound global implications.”        

He called for the continuation of Ukrainian grain shipments through the Black Sea with Russian acquiescence. Since July 2022, he said 23 million tons of grain have been exported from Ukrainian ports, much of it shipped to impoverished countries. Absent a new agreement, the program is set to expire March 18.         

Guterres said the grain exports have “contributed to lowering the global cost of food” and offered “critical relief to people, who are also paying a high price for this war, particularly in the developing world. Indeed, the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Food Price Index has fallen by almost 20% over the last year.”         

“Exports of Ukrainian — as well as Russian — food and fertilizers are essential to global food security and food prices,” he said.     

Guterres also called for “full demilitarization” of the region around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, where nearby fighting has periodically shut down the facility and raised fears of a catastrophic nuclear meltdown.         

Attempts for months to end fighting in the region have failed, but Guterres said that safety and security near the power plant are vital so that the facility can return to normal operations.         

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.   
…

Georgia’s ruling party announced Thursday it is withdrawing a proposed foreign agent law after the legislation sparked two days of massive protests. 

The measure would have required media and nongovernmental organizations receiving more than 20% of their funding from foreign sources to register as “agents of foreign influence.” 

Opponents of the bill compared it to a 2012 Russian law that has been used to suppress or shut down organizations critical of the Russian government. 

The ruling Georgian Dream party said Thursday the bill was presented in a negative way and that a portion of the public was misled. 

Georgia’s President Salome Zurabishvili had said she would veto the bill if it reached her desk, while other opponents expressed concerns that the measure would affect Georgia’s hopes of joining the European Union. 

Tens of thousands of people protested against the proposal outside the parliament on Tuesday and Wednesday. 

Some demonstrators threw objects at police, while officers dispersed crowds with tear gas, stun grenades and water cannons. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
…

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy invited the top House lawmaker in the United States to visit Kyiv to see “what’s happening here” in an interview broadcast Wednesday on TV news channel CNN.

“Mr. (Kevin) McCarthy, he has to come here to see how we work, what’s happening here, what war caused us, which people are fighting now, who are fighting now. And then after that, make your assumptions,” Zelenskyy told the news outlet through an interpreter.

Responding to CNN, House Speaker McCarthy said, “I don’t have to go to Ukraine or Kyiv” to understand it. He said he received information in briefings and other ways.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the U.S. has sent nearly $100 billion in military, economic and relief aid to Ukraine. That aid was sent when President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party controlled both chambers in Congress.

The Republican Party took control of the U.S. House after the midterm elections, and some Republicans have expressed opposition to sending additional arms and financial aid to Ukraine.

McCarthy has said he supports Ukraine but that House Republicans will not provide “a blank check” for additional U.S. assistance to Kyiv without closer scrutiny of how it is being spent.

In the CNN interview, Zelenskyy said, “I think that Speaker McCarthy, he never visited Kyiv or Ukraine, and I think it would help him with his position.”

Many U.S. lawmakers and officials and world leaders have visited Zelenskyy in Kyiv as a show of solidarity, including President Biden and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Guterres calls invasion violation of law

Earlier Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres assailed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a violation of international law as he arrived in Kyiv for talks with Zelenskyy.

The two were to discuss extending grain shipments from the war-torn country and securing the safety of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

“The sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Ukraine must be upheld, within its internationally recognized borders,” Guterres said ahead of talks with Zelenskyy.

“Our ultimate objective is equally clear: a just peace based on the U.N. Charter, international law and the recent General Assembly resolution marking one year since the start of the war,” he said.

But with fighting raging and no peace talks on the horizon, Guterres said the U.N. is trying “to mitigate the impacts of the conflict, which has caused enormous suffering for the Ukrainian people — with profound global implications.”

He called for the continuation of Ukrainian grain shipments through the Black Sea with Russian acquiescence. Since July 2022, he said, 23 million tons of grain have been exported from Ukrainian ports, much of it shipped to impoverished countries. Absent a new agreement, the program is set to expire March 18.

Guterres said the grain exports have “contributed to lowering the global cost of food” and offered “critical relief to people, who are also paying a high price for this war, particularly in the developing world. Indeed, the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Food Price Index has fallen by almost 20% over the last year.”

“Exports of Ukrainian — as well as Russian — food and fertilizers are essential to global food security and food prices,” he said.

Guterres also called for “full demilitarization” of the region around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant — Europe’s largest — where nearby fighting has periodically shut down the facility and raised fears of a catastrophic nuclear meltdown.

Attempts for months to end fighting in the region have failed, but Guterres said that safety and security near the power plant are vital so that the facility can return to normal operations.

EU defense ministers push for ammunition

Meanwhile, European Union defense ministers gathered Wednesday in Stockholm with a push to provide more ammunition to Ukrainian forces high on their agenda.

Under a plan by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, the EU states would get financial incentives worth about $1 billion to send ammunition to Kyiv, while another $1 billion would be spent on procuring new ammunition, Agence France-Presse reported.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, who attended the Stockholm meeting, said Kyiv needed 90,000-100,000 artillery rounds per month, and that Ukraine’s military is using the ammunition faster than allies can manufacture them, AFP reported.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters Wednesday, “There is enormous demand out there. … The current rate of consumption compared to the current rate of production of ammunition is not sustainable and therefore we need to ramp up production.”

Stoltenberg said the conflict is “now a war of attrition.”

He said he could not rule out the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut falling into Russian control in the coming days.

“Therefore, it is also important to highlight that this does not necessarily reflect any turning point of the war, and it just highlights that we should not underestimate Russia,” Stoltenberg said. “We must continue to provide support to Ukraine.”

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

The World Uyghur Congress, a Germany-based Uyghur rights group, has been nominated for the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize.

Canadian lawmakers and a leader of the Young Liberals in Norway, the youth wing of Norway’s Venstre political party, nominated the organization. The rights group was cited for its work toward peace, democracy and the plight of the Uyghur and other Turkic people who live under what the nomination letter described as a “repressive regime in China.”

“The World Uyghur Congress has the main purpose of promoting democracy, human rights, and freedom for the Uyghur People and supporting the use of peaceful, non-violent, and democratic means to help the Uyghurs achieve self-determination,” stated the nomination letter. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, one of two Canadian members of parliament who nominated the group, shared the letter with VOA.

The committee that selects the eventual Nobel Peace laureate does not disclose the names of the nominees to the news media or to the candidates. Under its rules, such information must remain secret for 50 years. The awards ceremony takes place in December in Oslo.

The nomination letter noted the WUC has drawn global attention to China’s treatment of Uyghurs with “the overwhelming campaign of physical, religious, linguistic, and cultural repression” by the Chinese government.

“To achieve this, the WUC has a wide range of activities, including campaigning for the rights of people being forcefully disappeared, advocating for the release of political prisoners, protecting the rights of asylum seekers to prevent forcible repatriation to China, and advocating at the UN, EU, and national level, where the WUC has successfully contributed to numerous achievements, which led to the international community developing policies and actions to help secure the rights of the Uyghurs,” Brunelle-Duceppe said in the letter.

Beijing has repeatedly denied mistreating Uyghurs, with China’s state news agency, Xinhua, describing the allegations as “lies” concocted by “anti-China forces in the West.”

“Xinjiang-related issues are not about human rights, ethnicity or religion at all, but about combating violent terrorism and separatism,” stated Xinhua in a 2021 article, as it pointed out the region has experienced economic and social development.

The Chinese embassy in Washington criticized the WUC’s nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.

“It is hoped that the prize will contribute to global peace and development, rather than falling into a political tool at the disposal of a few politicians,” embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu told VOA in an email. “The so-called ‘World Uyghur Congress’ has close linkages with terrorist organizations. Nominating such an organization for the Nobel Peace Prize is highly detrimental to world peace and is a great irony of the Nobel Peace Prize.”

Last August, the U.N. human rights office released a report on Xinjiang, stating that the Chinese government’s treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in so-called vocational education and training centers could constitute crimes against humanity. The United States and several other countries have classified human rights abuses in the region as genocide.

“The Chinese government has perpetrated the same lies for decades,” Zumretay Arkin, advocacy manager of the WUC, told VOA.

“The fact that the WUC was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize is proof that the free and democratic world has recognized the WUC’s work as valuable and important. Instead of defaming such organizations, the Chinese government should listen to the democratic world,” Arkin said.

According to the group’s website, the WUC was founded in 2004, in Munich, Germany, after the East Turkistan National Congress and the World Uyghur Youth Congress merged into one organization.

“The main objective of the WUC is to promote democracy, human rights, and freedom for the Uyghur people and to use peaceful, nonviolent, and democratic means to determine their political future,” the group’s website states in its mission statement. “By representing the sole legitimate organization of the Uyghur people both in East Turkistan and abroad, WUC endeavors to set out a course for the peaceful settlement of the East Turkistan Question through dialogue and negotiation.”

East Turkistan is the name some Uyghurs prefer to use instead of Xinjiang, which means “new territory” in Chinese and is what China calls the Uyghur homeland.

“It makes me very proud to see that the World Uyghur Congress’ hard work to end the Uyghur genocide has not gone unnoticed,” Dolkun Isa, the president of the WUC, said in a press statement.

The nomination was also significant because it was “a show of support for the Uyghur people,” Isa said.
…

As parts of southeastern Turkey struggle to recover from last month’s earthquake, many are questioning why so many relatively modern buildings collapsed in the 7.8 magnitude tremor, with some engineers pointing the finger at Turkish government policy.

‘Liquefied’ buildings

Piles of concrete and twisted metal tower over the roadsides in southeast Turkey’s worst-hit towns and cities. Bodies are still buried inside. More than 45,000 people died in the earthquake in Turkey, while the death toll in Syria is estimated at more than 6,000 people.

The damage extends across 11 provinces in Turkey. Millions of metric tons of debris are slowly being removed. But questions over the level of devastation are not going away.

Survivors describe buildings “liquefying” as the tremors hit, each floor collapsing onto the next. Why did some buildings survive relatively unscathed – while others collapsed? 

Construction failures

Hasan Aksungur, chairman of the Chamber of Civil Engineers in the city of Adana on the edge of the earthquake zone, told VOA key stages in the buildings’ construction – what he called interlocking rings – had failed.

“The fact that the buildings next to those [collapsed] buildings, which were exposed to the same impact, were not destroyed shows that either the design, the implementation, or the control stages of these collapsed buildings were broken,” Aksungur said.

Amnesties

Critics of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan say his government repeatedly offered amnesties for illegal buildings — what Erdogan called “zoning peace” — allowing builders to skip crucial safety regulations. Millions of buildings were certified in this way. 

“Since 1985, there have been consecutive zoning amnesties. In the last ‘zoning peace’ (in 2018), these buildings were given a building registration certificate without being subject to any control — without being subject to anything — by paying certain fees,” Aksungur said. 

Arrests

Since the earthquake, more than 200 people have been arrested on suspicion of breaching building codes, with hundreds more arrest warrants issued.

However, before the earthquake hit, the government was mulling another building amnesty ahead of the May presidential election. President Erdogan boasted of these amnesties during the 2019 election campaign, including on a visit to the province of Hatay, now one of the worst-hit by the earthquake. “We have solved the problems of 205,000 of the citizens of Hatay, with ‘zoning peace’,” he told supporters in Antakya on February 24, 2019.

The Turkish government has not responded to VOA requests for comment.  

Election 

Turkey’s justice minister has pointed out that opposition parties also supported the building amnesties. President Erdogan accused rivals of exploiting the earthquake for political gain. “We know that some are rubbing their hands, waiting for the state and the government to fall under the ruins along with our people,” Erdogan told lawmakers March 1.

Erdogan said the presidential election would be brought forward from June to May 14. It’s not clear how the vote will go ahead in the regions affected by the earthquake.

The emergency response – and what caused more than 45,000 people to lose their lives – looks set to be a key issue as the incumbent president seeks a third term in office.
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As parts of southeast Turkey struggle to recover from last month’s earthquake, many are questioning why so many relatively modern buildings collapsed in the 7.8 magnitude tremor — with some engineers pointing the finger at government policy, as Henry Ridgwell reports. Video: Memet Aksakal, Henry Ridgwell
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European Union foreign ministers gathered Wednesday in Stockholm with a push to provide more ammunition to Ukrainian forces high on their agenda. 

Speaking to reporters ahead of the meeting, Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur advocated for EU countries to provide money to jointly procure ammunition for Ukraine, arguing that effort will boost the capacity of the industry and help EU security in the future. 

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters that in addition to a joint effort to expand defense industry capacity, EU members should also in the short term provide ammunition quickly to Ukraine from their existing stocks.  Borrell said sending what is available now could be accomplished in a matter of weeks. 

“The issue is how to provide the ammunition Ukraine needs to continue defending,” Borrell said. 

Ukraine has asked in particular for allies to provide more 155-millimeter artillery rounds. 

Bakhmut fighting 

The head of Russia’s Wagner Group mercenaries, Yevgeni Prighozin, said Wednesday its units had taken control of the eastern part of the city of Bakhmut. 

Russia has been trying to seize the city in Donetsk province in eastern Ukraine for months. 

Prighozin said Wagner forces controlled all districts east of the Bakhmutka River, which would represent about half of the city. 

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday that seizing Bakhmut was important for launching further offensive operations in the region. 

Ukrainian leaders have said in recent days they intend to keep fighting in Bakhmut.   

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 
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Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will soon travel to the United States to meet with President Joe Biden amid reports the two leaders will unveil details of a trilateral defense pact among Australia, Britain and the U.S. first announced in 2021. 

Prime Minister Albanese told reporters Wednesday before departing for India that he will travel to the U.S. after his three-day visit to the South Asian nation. But he would not confirm a report in The Sydney Morning Herald that he, Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will meet in San Diego next Monday to unveil details of the pact. 

The new partnership, known by the acronym AUKUS, will allow the three countries to share information and expertise more easily in key technological areas such artificial intelligence, cybertechnology, quantum technologies, underwater systems and long-range strike capabilities. The agreement also includes the building of a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines for Australia. 

Analysts say the trilateral pact is an effort by the Western allies to blunt China’s increasingly aggressive military presence in the Pacific region.  

China has denounced the agreement, saying it would seriously undermine “regional peace and stability.”   

The agreement also angered France, which had a deal to sell Australia a dozen diesel-electric powered submarines for up to $66 billion.   

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.  
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Thousands of workers will join a nationwide strike on Wednesday in protest over Greece’s deadliest train disaster that killed 57 people, and mass demonstrations are expected to culminate outside parliament in Athens. 

The crash on February 28 has stirred public outrage over the crumbling state of the Greek rail network, and striking workers say years of neglect, underinvestment and understaffing — a legacy of Greece’s decade-long debt crisis — are to blame. 

Many of the around 350 people aboard an intercity passenger train that collided head-on with a freight train while traveling on the same track were university students heading to the northern city of Thessaloniki from Athens after a long public holiday weekend. 

The disaster has sparked protests across Greece with more than 10,000 rallying in Athens on Sunday, releasing hundreds of black balloons into the sky. 

Rail workers have staged rolling, 24-hour strikes since Thursday, bringing the network to a halt. They say their demands for improvement in safety protocols have gone unheard for years. 

Wednesday’s strike, to be joined by various public sector workers, is expected to disrupt metro, tram and bus services, and ferries will remain docked in ports as seamen join the walkout. 

“We will impose safe railways so that no one will ever experience the tragic accident at Tempi ever again,” the main railway workers union said in a statement. 

“We have an obligation towards our fellow humans and our colleagues who were lost in the tragic accident.” 

ADEY, the umbrella union representing hundreds of thousands of public sector workers, also called for a day-long strike and protest over the “murderous crime.” 

Students and teacher groups have said they will join the rallies. 

Greece sold its state-owned railway operator, now called Hellenic Train, under its international bailout program in 2017 to Italy’s state-owned Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane. 

The government, whose term expires this summer, has blamed human error for the crash but Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis appeared to accept some of the criticism, acknowledging decades of neglect could have contributed to the disaster. 
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In March 1990, Lithuania became the first republic to break away from the Soviet Union by declaring itself an independent state, a decision the White House applauded.

Thirty-three years later, this Baltic country of around 2.7 million people is making bold moves to counter China, the century’s rising global power, and finding support from Washington as the Biden administration seeks to leverage transatlantic partnerships amid Western fears that Beijing is considering supplying Russia with weapons in its war on Ukraine.

High-level, bilateral consultations were held Tuesday in Washington between Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis and U.S. National Security Council Coordinator for the Indo-Pacific Kurt Campbell. A statement said they discussed a “shared commitment to democratic values, human rights and support for the international rules-based order” and “the importance of supply chain resiliency,” diplomatic speak for policies aimed to counter China’s influence.

“We have long supported Lithuania in withstanding coercion by the PRC (People’s Republic of China) and trying to turn that coercion into economic opportunity,” John Kirby, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, told reporters.

“We’re going to continue to work together to strengthen Lithuania’s robust economic partnership with Taiwan, toward Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international fora as well as developing and deepening those people-to-people ties,” Kirby said, using language from a joint statement by Landsbergis and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Tensions have been brewing in recent years as Lithuania expands diplomatic and trade ties with Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing considers its breakaway province.

Days after the establishment in 2021 of the “Taipei Representative Office in Lithuania,” Taiwan’s de facto embassy, Beijing downgraded diplomatic relations and blocked most trade with Vilnius over what it calls a violation of the One China policy. The action prompted the European Union to sue China at the World Trade Organization over “discriminatory trade practices” against Lithuania that it said threatened the integrity of the EU single market. Beijing denies instructing Chinese companies to stop doing business with Lithuanian partners.

Lithuania had minimal trade with China, so Beijing’s punitive trade actions had limited effect. Still, in November 2021 the U.S. provided $600 million in an export credit agreement to help the country withstand pressure from China and joined the WTO lawsuit in support of Vilnius.

Fears of China arming Russia

The consultation with Vilnius is happening amid a flurry of diplomatic activities in Washington. In recent and upcoming days, European NATO allies will decide whether to join Washington in imposing sanctions on China, should it decide to supply arms to Moscow.

President Joe Biden, who met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the White House last week, spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron Tuesday and will meet with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen later this week to discuss the matter.

So far, there is no indication that China is providing more than rhetorical support as it continues to purchase cheap Russian oil.

Observers say Beijing’s interests are to ensure Western focus remains on pouring resources into Ukraine, distracting it from the Indo-Pacific region.

However, tensions are ramping up. In remarks during the annual session of parliament on Monday, Chinese leader Xi Jinping made a rare, explicit comment accusing the United States of leading an international coalition to contain China.

“Western countries led by the U.S. have implemented comprehensive containment, encirclement and suppression against us, bringing unprecedented severe challenges to our country’s development,” Xi said.

Xi’s comments were followed by harsh criticisms from new Foreign Minister Qin Gang, who blamed the U.S. for deteriorating bilateral relations and for undermining peace efforts in Ukraine to extend the conflict for Washington’s benefit.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden’s approach to China has not changed.

“We’ve been very clear; we do not seek conflict and we do not want conflict. What we’re seeking is competition, and we’ve been very clear about that these past two years,” she said in a press briefing Tuesday.

Lithuania-Taiwan ties

Vilnius has emerged as one of Taipei’s most unlikely yet outspoken allies in Europe, particularly after Lithuania’s December 2020 election, in which the ruling coalition set out to pursue a “values-based foreign policy” to defend “those fighting for freedom around the world, from Belarus to Taiwan.”

The new foreign policy translated into steps that angered Beijing, including criticizing China for its handling of a World Health Organization study into the origins of COVID-19, accusing Chinese smartphone manufacturers of building censorship capabilities into their products and withdrawing from the “17+1” initiative established by Beijing to strengthen ties with Central and Eastern European countries.

Lithuania’s history as a small country in a geopolitically volatile environment that is subject to foreign communist imperialist power is partly what drives its support for Taipei, said Konstantinas Andrijauskas, associate professor of Asian Studies and International Politics at Vilnius University.

“It is only natural that there is a certain amount of skepticism within the Lithuanian society and among decision-makers towards all the communist, authoritarian and totalitarian regimes,” Andrijauskas told VOA. “At the same time, there is quite the support to the people who suffer from those respective regimes.”

But there is also a realpolitik rational for the Baltic country to be vocal against Beijing, particularly as it gears up to host the NATO summit in Vilnius in July.

Lithuania is a member of the Bucharest Nine, a grouping of NATO’s newest members on the bloc’s easternmost flank. The group is wary that if Russian President Vladimir Putin succeeds in Ukraine, he would target these countries next.

“The way that China has positioned itself in the war in Ukraine has definitely cemented feelings in Europe, that Russia and China are an axis,” Viking Bohman, associate analyst at the Swedish National China Centre, told VOA. “Lithuania is gaining some visibility from this, of being this principled.”

Despite 10,000 kilometers of land and ocean between Vilnius and the Indo-Pacific, Lithuania is developing its strategy for the region, which was a key focus of high-level bilateral consultations with Vilnius in Washington Tuesday.
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Iranian missile attacks across the Iraqi border are unacceptable and put both civilians and regional stability at risk, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on a visit to the Iraqi capital nearly 20 years after the U.S.-led invasion.

“With its missile attacks, the Iranian regime shows not only that it recklessly and brutally suppresses its own people, it also puts human life and the stability of the whole region at risk to hold on to power,” she said on Tuesday.

“It is unacceptable and dangerous for the whole region,” she told a news conference with her Iraqi counterpart.

Last year, Tehran fired missiles at bases of Kurdish groups in northern Iraq it accuses of involvement in protests against its restrictions on women, displacing hundreds of Iranian Kurds and killing at least one person and wounding at least eight.

Iran has for years denied Western claims it is a destabilizing influence in the region. Tehran has accused Western countries of orchestrating unrest and has accused protesters in ethnic minority regions of working on behalf of separatist groups.

Baerbock, visiting Iraq on the same day as U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, said she was sending a signal that Europe’s biggest economy wanted deeper cooperation with Iraq.

She said she would discuss Iraq’s security and stability, the question of Yazidis and cooperation on climate change.
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France has reported an outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu among red foxes northeast of Paris, the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) said on Tuesday, as the spread of the virus to mammals raised global concerns.

After three foxes were found dead in a nature reserve in Meaux near where gulls had died, one of the foxes was collected and tested, WOAH said in a report, citing French authorities.

The World Health Organization last month described the bird flu situation as “worrying” due to the recent rise in cases in birds and mammals and that it was reviewing its global risk assessment in light of recent developments including cases of human transmission in Cambodia.

Avian influenza, commonly called bird flu, has been spreading around the world in the past year, killing more than 200 million birds, sending egg prices rocketing and raising concern among governments about human transmission.

The virus infected a cat in France in late December.

It has also been detected in minks in Spain, foxes and otters in Britain, sea lions in Peru and grizzly bears in the United States.
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