RIYADMEDIA

The United States brought its most advanced fighter jet, the F-35, to India for the first time this week alongside F-16s, Super Hornets and B-1B bombers as Washington looks to woo New Delhi away from its traditional military supplier, Russia.

India, desperate to modernize its largely Soviet-era fighter jet fleet to boost its air power, is concerned about Russian supply delays due to the Ukraine war and faces pressure from the West to distance itself from Moscow.

The American delegation to the weeklong Aero India show in Bengaluru, which ends on Friday, is the biggest in the 27-year history of the show and underlines the growing strategic relationship between the United States and India.

In contrast, Russia, India’s largest weapons supplier since the Soviet Union days, had a nominal presence. Its state-owned weapons exporter Rosoboronexport had a joint stall with United Aircraft and Almaz-Antey, displaying miniature models of aircraft, trucks, radars and tanks.

At previous editions of the show, Rosoboronexport had a more central position for its stall, although Russia has not brought a fighter jet to Bengaluru for a decade after India began considering more European and U.S. fighter jets.

Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornets have already entered the race to supply fighter jets for the Indian Navy’s second aircraft carrier and Lockheed Martin’s F-21, an upgraded F-16 designed for India unveiled at Aero India in 2019, are also being offered to the air force.

A $20 billion air force proposal to buy 114 multi-role fighter aircraft has been pending for five years, brought into sharp focus by tensions with China and Pakistan.

The F-35 is not being considered by India “as of now,” according to an Indian Air Force (IAF) source, but the display of two F-35s at Aero India for the first time was a sign of New Delhi’s growing strategic importance to Washington.

It was “not a sales pitch” but rather a signal to the importance of the bilateral defense relationship in the Indo-Pacific region, said Angad Singh, an independent defense analyst.

“Even if weapons sales aren’t the cornerstone of the relationship, there is a cooperation and collaboration at the military level between India and the U.S.,” he added.

The United States is selective about which countries it allows to buy the F-35. When asked if it would be offered to India, Rear Admiral Michael L. Baker, defense attache at the U.S. Embassy in India, said New Delhi was in the “very early stages” of considering whether it wanted the plane.

An IAF spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on its interest in F-35s.

Ahead of the show, Russian state news agencies reported that Moscow had supplied New Delhi with around $13 billion of arms in the past five years and had placed orders for $10 billion.

The United States has approved arms sales worth more than $6 billion to India in the last six years, including transport aircraft, Apache, Chinook and MH-60 helicopters, missiles, air defense systems, naval guns and P-8I Poseidon surveillance aircraft.

India also wants to manufacture more defense equipment at home in collaboration with global giants, first to meet its own needs and eventually to export sophisticated weapons platforms.
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The head of Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group said  Thursday that it could take months to capture the Ukraine city of Bakhmut and slammed Moscow’s “monstrous military bureaucracy” for slowing gains.

Russia has been trying to encircle and take over the battered industrial city before February 24, the first anniversary of what it terms its “special military operation” in Ukraine.

“I think it’s [going to be in] March or in April,” Yevgeny Prigozhin said in one of several messages posted online.

“To take Bakhmut you have to cut all supply routes. It’s a significant task,” he said. “Progress is not going as fast as we would like.”

“Bakhmut would have been taken before the new year,” he added, “if not for our monstrous military bureaucracy.”

Prigozhin has previously accused the Russian military of attempting to steal victories from Wagner, a sign of his rising clout and the potential for dangerous rifts in Moscow.

Wagner’s claims to have captured ground without help from the regular army, which Prigozhin regularly criticizes, have spurred friction with senior military leadership.

In Bakhmut, a deputy commander with a mortar unit of the State Border Guard of Ukraine said fighting remained intense.

“We have to acknowledge the enemy’s successes,” he said. “There’s a regular Russian army here and they also have regular artillery groups, and they shoot accurately as well.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed to have annexed the Donetsk region where Bakhmut lies last year, but his forces are still fighting Ukrainian troops there.

The fierce fighting for the eastern city is now the longest-running battle of Russia’s campaign and Moscow’s key military objective.

Taking Bakhmut would be a major win for Moscow, but analysts say its capture would be mainly symbolic as the salt-mining town holds little strategic value.

Prigozhin, who is close to Putin, said the speed of Russian progress in the grinding battle would depend on whether Ukraine continued to send reserves.

Ukraine, determined not to cede any ground ahead of an anticipated counteroffensive in the spring, has been asking for more modern weapons from its allies.
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Hundreds of Ukrainian men charged across windswept northern England in army drills on Thursday, some of the more than 10,000 sent to Britain over the last year to turn them into soldiers in the war against Russia.

Under the tutelage of forces from Britain, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway, among others, the Ukrainians are learning over five weeks about the laws of armed conflict, urban and trench warfare, weaponry and battlefield medicine.

Britain’s government said on Thursday it aims to double the number taught in 2023 to 20,000, across a handful of locations around the country.

The move is one part of a ramping-up of support for Ukraine, after NATO alliance officials met the previous day to plot more assistance for Kyiv. Britain is sending 14 Challenger tanks and hundreds more missiles.

One of the recruits, a 48-year Ukrainian furniture maker who called himself Nick, said a year ago he could not have envisaged that he would be taking lessons in warfare in the north of England.

“I will have to use that knowledge to protect our country because there is a lot of blood in Ukraine nowadays and someone has to protect the motherland,” he said via an interpreter.

Training in a more ‘Western way’

Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year, saying it had to protect Russian speakers from persecution and prevent the western NATO alliance from using Ukraine to threaten Russia’s security.

Kyiv and its Western allies, including Britain, say these are baseless pretexts for an unprovoked war of acquisition.

On Wednesday, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said Britain is training Ukrainian soldiers to fight in a more “Western way” and use less ammunition than the traditional Soviet way of fighting.

Soldiers learn how to shoot, fight in houses

At the trench warfare grounds, where Ukrainian men in combat gear ran through muddy tunnels and dense forests with blank-firing rifles, British Army Corporal Carter, who declined to give his first name, said the Ukrainians were learning from the world’s top forces.

“I’m sure when they go back they’ll be able to survive and effectively win,” he said.

The program also includes urban warfare, where men train how to fight in ordinary houses and civilian structures, and shooting practice.

Nick, the Ukrainian soldier, said he would return to Ukraine with confidence.

“I think that all of us will be ready to come back, because Ukraine really needs us, the soldiers who will stand for Ukraine,” he said.
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As the number of people killed by the February 6 earthquake in Turkey and Syria keeps rising, so do the funding and donations from different parts of the world aimed at assisting survivors.

An online donation campaign launched by Saudi Arabia has raised more than $100 million from over 1.6 million individuals and companies in just over a week.

The Saudi government has also delivered planes loaded with food, medicine and shelter supplies, and has deployed search and rescue teams, according to the kingdom’s relief agency.

Other wealthy Arab kingdoms responded similarly. Only a day after the quake, the United Arab Emirates announced $100 million in humanitarian assistance for some of the millions of people displaced in Turkey and Syria amid punishing low temperatures.

Qatar has announced it will deliver 10,000 portable cabins and trailers that the oil-rich kingdom used during the 2022 World Cup in Doha, on top of food and medical aid.

Aid, even in small amounts, has poured in from every Muslim-majority country. Even Afghanistan, which faces nearly universal poverty under the repressive Taliban regime, has donated about $200,000 in cash.

Maryam Zarnegar Deloffre, director of the Humanitarian Action Initiative at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, said there is a diplomatic as well as a humanitarian element to the largesse.

“What we’re seeing is a normalization of relations between these states and Syria and Turkey,” Deloffre told VOA, adding that the Saudi royals and their allies are trying to reestablish ties with the Syrian regime in a bid to diminish Iran’s influence in the region.

The Gulf region’s Sunni monarchies accuse the Shia regime in Iran of trying to reshape regional power dynamics, a charge Tehran denies.

Iran also has sent aid supplies to Turkey and Syria.

A second Iran air force plane carrying relief supplies landed in Turkey on Tuesday. Iranian aid workers have set up emergency health clinics in the quake-affected areas and have assisted local authorities in rescue efforts, according to Iranian officials.

Deadly, destructive

As of Thursday, the number of people killed by the 7.8-magnitude quake stood at about 42,000 — over 36,000 in Turkey and some 5,800 in Syria — which makes it the fifth deadliest earthquake in the last 25 years.

The disaster has also caused at least $25 billion in economic damage in Turkey, JP Morgan Chase said on Thursday.

The Turkish economy was already squeezed by soaring inflation and a rapidly depreciating currency.

There has been no assessment of long-term economic damage in Syria, where years of war have shattered the national economy. About 9 million Syrians are impacted by the earthquake, the U.N. said.

The U.N. appealed Thursday for $1 billion to provide humanitarian relief in both countries over the next three months. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the money would “allow aid organizations to rapidly scale up vital support,” including in the areas of food security, protection, education, water and shelter.

The U.N.  launched a $397 million appeal to help quake victims in Syria earlier this week. The United States has pledged $85 million in an initial response.

“The State Department is working through U.N. agencies and NGOs to provide emergency assistance in Türkiye and in Syria, including providing hot meals, water, medical care and supplies, non-food items such as blankets and hygiene kits, temporary shelter, and structural engineers,” a spokesperson told VOA in written answers.

The State Department adopted the new spelling of Turkey in January at the request of the Turkish Embassy in Washington.
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In the Ukrainian village of Nova Kozacha – just six kilometers from Russia – war has brought death, destruction and separated families on both sides of the border. Yan Boechat reports. Artur Chupryhin contributed.
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Moldova’s parliament approved a pro-Western government led by new Prime Minister Dorin Recean on Thursday after he pledged to revive the economy and chart a course towards the European Union.

Recean, 48, was nominated on Friday by President Maia Sandu to replace Natalia Gavrilita whose government resigned following a difficult 18 months in office marked by economic turmoil and alleged meddling by Russia.

Recean, a former interior minister and presidential aide, secured the approval of 62 lawmakers in the 101-seat parliament after outlining his policy plans in a program entitled “Prosperous, Secure, European Moldova.”

“We want to live in a safe world where international treaties are respected, where problems between countries are resolved through dialog, where there is respect for small states,” the program declared.

“We want to be full members of the European Union,” it added.

Recean said before the parliamentary vote that his government would include only four ministers who were not in the old one — the ministers for finance, infrastructure, justice and energy.

He is an experienced politician who had been serving as secretary of the Supreme Security Council, an advisory body on military and national security matters, and was interior minister from 2012 to 2015.

Moldova, a former Soviet republic of 2.5 million people that borders Ukraine and EU member Romania, is already a candidate to join the EU but the process usually takes several years.

Its economy is highly dependent on Russian gas flows and has been hit by the spillover effects of the war in Ukraine. High energy and food prices pushed up inflation in 2022 and sparked anti-government protests as Moldova hosted large numbers of displaced persons from Ukraine.

Sandu has repeatedly accused Russia of trying to destabilize Moldova and accused Moscow on Monday of plotting to topple the country’s leadership, stop it joining the EU and use it in the war against Ukraine.

Russia, which has troops in Moldova’s breakaway Transdniestria region, denied the allegations.

Tensions have at times been exacerbated by missile debris landing on Moldovan territory after Russian attacks on Ukraine.

In the fourth such incident of the war, police said on Thursday missile debris had been found in northern Moldova near the border with Ukraine soon after the latest wave of Russian air strikes. Moscow did not immediately comment on the report.
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NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday “the time is now to ratify both Finland and Sweden” as new members of the alliance.

Speaking during a joint news conference in Ankara with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Stoltenberg said the main issue is not whether the two countries are ratified together, but that their ratification comes “as soon as possible.”

Çavuşoğlu said Turkey could evaluate the two bids separately.

Turkey and Hungary are the only NATO members that have not ratified Finland’s and Sweden’s accession in a process that must be unanimous.

Finland and Sweden applied to join following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.

Turkey has expressed more reluctance about Sweden, accusing the government there of being too lenient toward groups that Turkey considers terror organizations.

Stoltenberg said Thursday that both Sweden and Finland have implemented policies that recognize the concerns that Turkey has expressed, and that terrorism would be a major topic at a NATO summit in July.

“This is a Turkish decision,” he said.  “It’s the Turkish government, the Turkish parliament that decides on the issue of ratification.”

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
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NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was in the Turkish capital, Ankara, Thursday in a show of solidarity following last week’s earthquake that devastated parts of Turkey and Syria.

Speaking alongside Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Stoltenberg told reporters that NATO stands with Turkey, a NATO member, in its time of need.

“We salute the courage of the Turkish first responders and we mourn with you,” Stoltenberg said.

He said the alliance’s focus now will be on reconstruction and supporting those displaced by the earthquake. Specific efforts he mentioned were setting up temporary housing and using NATO strategic airlift capabilities to bring in thousands of tents to Turkey.

Turkey’s emergency management agency reported Thursday the country’s death toll rose to 36,187 people, with 108,000 others injured. The agency said more than 4,300 aftershocks have hit the area since the massive February 6 earthquake.

Meanwhile, more than 5,500 deaths have been confirmed in neighboring Syria, according to figures compiled by the United Nations humanitarian agency and Syria’s state-run news agency.

Millions of people who survived the quake need humanitarian aid, authorities say, with many survivors left homeless in near-freezing winter temperatures. Rescues are now few and far between.

With much of the region’s sanitation infrastructure damaged or rendered inoperable by the earthquakes, health authorities are facing a daunting task in trying to ensure that people now remain disease-free.

Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said Wednesday people in war-torn Syria also face new challenges.

After visiting Syria in the last few days, she said in a statement, “For more than a decade, people across Syria have experienced the devastation of armed conflict. When the 6 February earthquake struck the region, communities suffered dramatic levels of devastation no matter what side of the frontline they were on. Family and friends were killed, homes were destroyed, and people were displaced yet again. Medical care, safe drinking water, and reliable food supply sources immediately became crucial to survival.”

Relief effort scales up across Syria

Meanwhile, humanitarian organizations are trying to scale up operations in Syria to meet the massive needs.

The U.N. Population Fund’s regional director said that across Syria there are 40,000 women who are pregnant and due to give birth in the next three months.

“Many of the facilities that we visited are already depleted or damaged or both,” Laila Baker, UNFPA’s Arab States Regional Director told reporters by video from Aleppo. “There are stock outs of medications for treating very basic things like the flu, much less something as complicated as having a C[esarean]-section.”

She had just visited a maternity hospital in Aleppo, once a thriving metropolis, now scarred from 12 years of civil war and the earthquake. She said all of the wards were full and the facility lacked basics, such as bed sheets. Exhausted staff were working 18-hour shifts trying to assist as many women as they could.

At makeshift shelters, many in mosques and schools, Baker said there are no toilets.

“For a woman, many of whom are pregnant, they are facing dire circumstances,” she said.

UNFPA launched an appeal on Tuesday for $24 million to cover immediate needs for the next three months.

Separately, 22 trucks from the World Food Program carrying canned food and mattresses, crossed Wednesday into northwest Syria through the Bab al-Hawa border point from Turkey. WFP has also been distributing ready-to-eat meals and other food items in government-controlled areas, including Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces. Also Wednesday, the International Organization for Migration delivered shelter and nonfood items through the newly reopened Bab al-Salam crossing.

The United Nations says 117 trucks have crossed into the opposition-controlled northwest since aid started rolling on February 9.

On Tuesday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres launched a $397 million appeal for the earthquake response in Syria, adding that a similar appeal is being drawn up for Turkey.

The VOA Turkish Service contributed to this report, as did correspondent Margaret Besheer at the United Nations. This report includes some information from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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The United States is concerned about the expansion of Russia’s nuclear cooperation with the military-led government in Myanmar — also known as Burma — the U.S. State Department said this week.

“We are deeply concerned with — but not surprised by — Russia’s willingness to expand its material support, including through nuclear energy cooperation, to the repressive regime in Burma (Myanmar),” the State Department said in an emailed statement to VOA on Tuesday. “Russia’s actions are prolonging a crisis that threatens our efforts to advance peace and prosperity with our partners and allies in the Indo-Pacific.”

Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation, known as ROSATOM, and the Myanmar junta signed the “intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in the field of the use of nuclear energy” on February 6.

“This agreement is for the cooperation, not only for the small nuclear power plant, but also the applications of nuclear technology in multiple sectors, and it will enhance the socioeconomic development of the country,” said junta leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing in a signing ceremony last Monday at the newly opened Nuclear Technology Information Center in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city.

The two countries’ cooperation on nuclear energy begins “a new chapter in the history of Russian-Myanmar relations,” ROSATOM Director General Alexey Likhachev said during the signing ceremony. “The creation of a new industry in the country will undoubtedly benefit the energy sector, industry and the economy of Myanmar.”

Cooperation after coup

After the February 2021 coup, military-ruled Myanmar rapidly increased nuclear cooperation with Russia. A spokesperson for the Myanmar junta, Major General Zaw Min Tun, confirmed to VOA last Friday that Myanmar would build a small-scale nuclear reactor with Russia’s assistance.

Zaw Min Tun told VOA Burmese by phone that the junta’s nuclear experts “are looking for suitable places in the country to build a small-scale nuclear reactor together with Russian nuclear experts.”

“The feasibility studies will be conducted in several places across the country to build a nuclear reactor. We haven’t chosen a place yet,” he said. “We will do it in the best location with the most favorable and safest environment in order to minimize danger.”

Last September, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing visited Russia to attend the Eastern Economic Forum and agreed with Russia on a road map for nuclear cooperation, including the possibility of implementing a small modular reactor project in Myanmar.

The statement by ROSATOM declared that the road map would guide cooperation in the field of “peaceful use of atomic energy” for 2022-23. In addition, experts from both countries would conduct studies about the possible construction of a light-water moderated nuclear reactor in Myanmar.

After 1999, the previous junta in Myanmar began negotiations with Russia on a nuclear reactor project, confirming their plans in January 2002 to build a nuclear research reactor for “peaceful purposes.”

Past nuclear pursuits

Myanmar, however, has been suspected of pursuing a nuclear weapons program in the past.

VOA sought comment from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), asking if the Myanmar junta’s plan for the nuclear reactor would be in accordance with the IAEA’s Additional Protocol. The IAEA has not yet responded.

Myanmar signed a key nuclear nonproliferation agreement, known as the Additional Protocol, with the IAEA in 2013. According to the agreement, the IAEA can expand its access to information and sites related to the country’s nuclear activities.

However, international analysts have concerns that Myanmar lacks the necessary regulatory and management systems to operate a nuclear power facility safely.

“In this type of reactor (a light-water moderated nuclear reactor), after some time, leaking can become a problem if proper maintenance is strictly required,” Myanmar scientist Khin Maung Maung, a professor of physics at the University of Southern Mississippi, said in a statement to VOA. “Here proper maintenance is the key idea. As far as I am aware, there is not a single factory in Myanmar that enjoys this privilege.”

“There is no doubt that they (the military leaders) have the ambition and desire to own nuclear arsenals,” he said, “and acquiring nuclear reactors, no matter how small, is definitely a step in that direction.”

ROSATOM previously said it would supply 10 metric tons of enriched uranium fuel to Myanmar, which, according to scientist Khin Maung Maung, is enough to build a nuclear weapon. Though the country doesn’t have the technical ability to convert the uranium to weapons-grade material, it could potentially use it in a “dirty bomb” scenario.

“With this much fuel in hand, they do not even need to enrich or build a proper weapon,” he said. “But one must be careful and think through all possibilities when dealing with [the] Burmese military.”

Russians visit Myanmar

Last December, a Russian delegation composed of around a dozen senior military officers — led by Colonel-General Kim Alexey Rostislavovich — visited Myanmar. According to the Myanmar state media, the two sides focused on cooperation regarding defense and counterterrorism between the two militaries, saying this would contribute to “regional and global peace.”

Russia, however, has threatened global peace by invading Ukraine, while Myanmar’s military has removed the democratic system in the Southeast Asian country by staging a coup and bloody crackdown on civilians.

According to the State Department, many credible reports show that Russia is providing the Myanmar military with weapons that “enable it to perpetuate violence, atrocities and human rights abuses against the people of Burma.”

“Russia’s backing for the regime is also undermining stability in the broader region,” the State Department said in a statement to VOA on Tuesday. “The United States will continue working with the international community to promote accountability for the coup and all those responsible for the horrific violence, including those who support and arm the military regime.”

VOA’s Burmese Service contributed to this report.
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More than 100 members of the Ukrainian military are in Poland for intense training on the German-made Leopard 2 battle tanks. Ukrainian leaders say the tanks, promised by Western allies three weeks ago, will help save lives and play a key role in the fight against Russian forces. Myroslava Gongadze has more from an Army base in Swietoszow, Poland. Videographer: Daniil Batu
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Ukrainians in Chasiv Yar — a town near Bakhmut in the east of the country — are enduring near-constant shelling as battles between Russian and Ukrainian forces rage close by. Yaroslava Movchan has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera — Arthur Shagalin.
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Last week’s disastrous earthquakes have shaken the political fortunes of leaders in Turkey and Syria, analysts say. Some see a possible accelerated path to regime normalization for pariah Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while an onslaught of criticism has engulfed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, calling into question his re-election bid.

More than a decade of conflict and blocked borders to aid deliveries have hampered access to the rebel-held area of northwest Syria, decimated by the powerful quakes. Turkey has received the lion’s share of international assistance to date. The Norwegian Refugee Council and 35 other nongovernmental organizations are demanding increased support for Syria’s affected areas, saying “the humanitarian response must match the scale of the disaster.”   

Syria expert Charles Lister of the Washington-based Middle East Institute said, “It shouldn’t surprise us that the Assad regime is willing to take advantage of a catastrophic natural disaster to serve its own interests,” citing Syrian government appeals to the United Nations and aid deliveries from the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Iraq and Italy. But he warned against lifting sanctions on the government to further its normalization.

“The main area of exploitation is its demand for sanctions relief,” Lister told the Italian Institute of International Political Studies. “There is no correlation between the sanctions imposed on the regime by the United States, the European Union, Canada or the United Kingdom and the delivery of humanitarian aid. In 2022, the billions of dollars of aid that flowed into regime areas, through Damascus, 91% of that was funded by the four sanctioning entities.”

Lister added that “we do probably appear to be on an accelerated path toward the normalization of the regime, but a lot of it will depend on how the regime responds: whether it is stubborn or more pragmatic as it deals with requests for further aid and how it deals with the governments that continue to press against it.”  

Meanwhile, analysts say Erdogan has come under fire for his government’s reaction to the earthquakes, as the death toll rises in the southwest and affects his chances of re-election. 

Dorothee Schmid, who leads the Turkey and Mideast program at the French Institute for International Relations in Paris, said Erdogan “was already in a slightly delicate situation because he has not always been leading in the polls last year. Everybody is wondering whether the popularity of the party is going to be damaged by the difficult response to the earthquakes. The party is really on the front line to confront the growing anger of the local population.”

Schmid also said there a debate about whether Erdogan’s “government is totally unable to cope with the situation or if any government would be completely helpless, given the magnitude” of the quakes.
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The European Union is considering a new set of sanctions totaling 11 billion euros against Russia and several countries providing vital goods that Moscow is using to boost its troops on the battlegrounds in Ukraine.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday that the package under consideration by the EU’s 27 member countries seeks to deprive Russia of military equipment it needs and cannot get anywhere else.

It includes proposals to subject seven Iranian entities to sanctions to try to prevent Russia from using Iranian drones to hit Ukrainian civilian infrastructure.

The proposals put forward by von der Leyen center on additional electronic weapons components for equipment such as drones, missiles, helicopters and thermal cameras. She had hinted at some of the measures during an EU-Ukraine summit early this month.

If the proposals are endorsed unanimously by the EU members, “we have banned all tech products found on the battlefield,” von der Leyen said.

Ambassadors were to assess what is called a 10th package of sanctions against Russia later Wednesday. It is expected to be discussed during a Monday meeting of EU foreign ministers in hopes of having final approval by the February 24 anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The package also tries to close loopholes that have allowed some measures from earlier packages to be circumvented and seeks to go after oligarchs who try to escape sanctions.

EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said it will also target 100 additional individuals and entities, including those who have been involved in kidnappings and taking Ukrainian children to Russia.

Usually, EU sanctions are decided in close cooperation with major Western partners such as the United States and Britain. The partners usually announce similar packages within a very short time frame.
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Germany’s air traffic control agency said Wednesday that it is diverting all flights away from the country’s busiest airport, Frankfurt, after a problem with Lufthansa’s computer systems caused major disruption at the German airline.

Agency spokesman Robert Ertler said all plane parking spots in Frankfurt were full because passengers and crews are unable to board the airline’s flights.

“All incoming planes are being diverted to alternative airports” such as as Munich, Nuremberg and Duesseldorf, Ertler told The Associated Press.

Lufthansa Group, which also includes subsidiaries such as Swiss International Air Lines and Eurowings, said the IT outage was caused by construction works in the Frankfurt region.

“This is causing flight delays and cancellations,” the company said. “We regret the inconvenience this is causing our passengers.”

Telephone company Deutsche Telekom later confirmed that an excavator had cut through fiber optic lines at a depth of five meters (16 feet) while working on a railroad line.

The company said parts of the destroyed line had already been repaired and the situation will improve significantly in the course of Wednesday afternoon, German news agency dpa reported.

According to dpa all of Lufthansa’s domestic flights were canceled and passengers were urged to switch to alternative forms of travel, such as trains.
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The European Union proposed a new round of Russian sanctions on Wednesday, while NATO defense ministers gathered in Brussels discussed bolstering defense spending and arms production as they pledge ongoing support for Ukrainian forces.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the sanctions package includes a ban on exports of industrial goods and tech products to Russia, saying the measures would deny Russian forces the components needed for their weapons systems.

The proposal also includes sanctions against Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps in response to its supply of Shahed drones that Russian forces have used to attack Ukrainian infrastructure sites.

Another piece targets Russian propagandists and military commanders.

Von der Leyen said Russian President Putin is “waging war in the public space with an army of propagandists and disinformation networks,” and that they are “spreading toxic lies to polarize our societies.”

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at the start of the second of two days of defense ministerial talks that allies would examine ways to enhance defense industrial capacity.

Stoltenberg has stressed the need to provide Ukraine with more ammunition to keep up with its fight against Russian forces, and for allies to complete pledged deliveries of tanks and other heavy equipment.

Also Tuesday, the U.N. humanitarian affairs office and U.N. refugee agency launched a joint appeal for $5.6 billion to help those affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The agencies said the funds were needed to provide food, health care and other aid to those within Ukraine, as well as to help Ukrainian refugees and 10 host countries.

“Almost a year on, the war continues to cause death, destruction and displacement daily, and on a staggering scale,” U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said in a statement.

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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The combined death toll in Turkey and Syria from last week’s powerful earthquake has now risen above 40,000.  

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday that 35,418 people were killed in the 7.8 magnitude quake that struck near the southeastern city of Kahramanmaras on February 6, making it the deadliest earthquake in Turkish history.   

Eight days after the quake, rescue crews continued to dig more survivors from the rubble Tuesday, including 18-year-old Muhummed Cafer Cetin and his 21-year-old brother, who were pulled from the ruins of a building in Kahramanmaras nearly 200 hours after the earthquake. Another miraculous rescue occurred in the city of Antakya, when a teacher was rescued from the rubble of an apartment building. 

Turkish television broadcast scenes of the rescues, but experts warned the window is closing for finding more people alive in what remains of collapsed buildings after so much time.     

The quake, which President Erdogan called “the disaster of the century,” destroyed tens of thousands of buildings and rendered an equal number uninhabitable, leaving scores of residents without shelter from bitter winter temperatures. Authorities have arrested several building contractors and charged them with violating Turkey’s building codes. 

Meanwhile, more than 5,500 deaths have been confirmed in neighboring Syria, according to figures compiled by the United Nations humanitarian agency and Syria’s state-run news agency. At least 1,400 people were killed in areas under government control, while another 4,400 are dead in Syria’s rebel-held northwest. 

An 11-truck U.N. humanitarian convoy entered the rebel-controlled area Tuesday from Turkey through the newly opened Bab al-Salam border crossing, the first since the world agency reached an agreement with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday to allow humanitarian workers to use two additional crossing points from Turkey into opposition-held areas to speed deliveries. It is the first time since the civil war broke out in 2011 that Assad has agreed to allow aid to cross from Turkey to rebel-held areas.   

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres launched a $397 million appeal for the earthquake response in Syria, adding that a similar appeal is being drawn up for Turkey. 

The VOA Turkish Service contributed to this report, which includes some information from The Associated Press and Reuters.   
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A lifetime ban against former Haitian soccer federation president Yves Jean-Bart over allegations he sexually abused female players was overturned Tuesday by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The court upheld Jean-Bart’s appeal after noting “inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the statements of the victims and witnesses presented by FIFA.”

A FIFA ethics committee in November 2020 had found Jean-Bart guilty of having “abused his position and sexually harassed and abused various female players, including minors” over several years.

The 75-year-old Jean-Bart had also been fined $1.1 million.

Jean-Bart had denied the allegations, which involved national team players, including minors.

The CAS ruling said information submitted by third parties including Human Rights Watch and world players’ union FIFPro was not “sufficiently evidentiary.”

“In conclusion, the Panel of Arbitrators considers that the evidence against Yves Jean-Bart regarding the allegations of sexual abuse is inconsistent, unclear and contradictory and that, as a result, it is not sufficient to establish a violation of (FIFA’s ethics code),” the CAS ruling said.
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Despite intense pressure from his Republican opposition, President Joe Biden appears intent on maintaining a measured response to the Chinese spy balloon that crossed the continental United States early this month.

The approach appears calibrated to avoid escalation with a second major adversary as his administration deals with Russia’s almost 1-year-old war on Ukraine.

John Kirby, the National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, told reporters Tuesday the balloon drama does not change the fact that the administration intends to avoid a conflict and continues to seek open lines of communication with China.

Nothing has changed about the president’s desire “to move this relationship forward in a better place than it is right now,” Kirby said.

This despite Republican demands for a tougher stance on Beijing.

“[Biden] only shot down the Chinese spy balloon after public pressure demanded it,” said John Barrasso, a Republican senator from Wyoming, in a briefing Tuesday. “This is a complete violation of our integrity as a nation, and the president’s indifference and inaction showed weakness not just to China but to the world.”

U.S.-China tensions have been high since the discovery of the balloon that Biden ordered shot down on February 4. Administration officials say the device was part of an international “high-altitude balloon program for intelligence collection” by China’s People’s Liberation Army. Beijing maintains it was a civilian airship used for meteorological research.

Kirby said the administration’s approach to its adversaries has not changed, pointing to the National Security Strategy released in October that identifies the main U.S. strategic challenges as competition with China and Russia in shaping the global order, while working with allies and adversaries alike on transnational problems such as climate change, food insecurity, energy shortages and inflation.

“I’m committed to work with China where we can advance American interests and benefit the world,” Biden said in his State of the Union address this month, just days after he ordered his military to shoot down the spy balloon. “But make no mistake about it: as we made clear last week, if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country. And we did.”

Incentive to avoid escalation

Biden has incentives to avoid escalation with China. His administration is already seeking to manage the NATO response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine while facing other foreign policy challenges, including North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs, and a volatile Middle East following the formation of an extremely right-wing Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The administration has committed more than $27.1 billion in security assistance to Kyiv since the war started on February 24, 2022, and it is mindful not to provoke Beijing to further side with Moscow.

Beijing has spread Moscow’s anti-Western propaganda and ramped up trade with Russia, but it has not provided direct military support for Putin’s war effort — nor has it helped his government and banks to evade tough Western sanctions.

“One of the key areas where the Biden administration wants to talk to Beijing is making sure that it stays out of the war in Ukraine, that Beijing does not provide any kind of political, military support for Russia,” Erik Brattberg, senior vice president in the Europe practice at Albright Stonebridge Group, told VOA.

With China’s top diplomat Wang Yi scheduled to fly to Moscow this week and President Xi Jinping expected to follow within the next few months, analysts say the administration is left with limited options.

“The best the United States can hope for is to effectively deal with the immediate threat Russia poses and weaken Russia to the point where it cannot pose a major military threat to its neighbors, and then turn its attention to the far more serious challenge China poses,” said David Sacks, research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“The biggest issue, in my view, is the stress that the war in Ukraine is putting on the U.S. defense industrial base, which is seriously unprepared for a direct conflict with China,” Sacks told VOA.

“Unless the Biden administration addresses this issue with urgency and significantly ramps up production of critical munitions and weapons, the United States will be extremely vulnerable if China uses force against Taiwan in the coming years.”

Beijing is also making overtures to another U.S. adversary – Iran. Chinese President Xi Jinping was in Tehran on Tuesday, defending the Islamic Republic’s right to safeguard its rights and interests, according to Chinese state media.

“What we see emerging is a longterm competition between the global West — U.S., EU, and developed democracies — and China, Russia, Iran, and a few other nations that resent the global West’s domination of international systems,” said Robert Daly, director of the Wilson Center’s Kissinger Institute on China and the United States.

Hot-button issue

Several Republican politicians have used the incident to raise campaign contributions, at once attacking Biden and Beijing, according to Pundit Analytics, which tracks communications and social-media postings of elected officials and candidates.

With Republicans helping to stoke voters’ anger, the balloon is becoming a hot-button political issue. Ordinary Americans who had been largely ignoring U.S.-China tensions are now beginning to realize what many in the foreign policy circle agree on – that the U.S. has been on a cold war footing with China for a while now, Daly told VOA.

“This is the real significance of the spy balloon — not that it poses a new threat to the U.S., but that more Americans are signing on to the ‘China Threat’ narrative that had formerly been limited to Washington,” Daly said.

Should Biden decide to run again in 2024 as his officials say he intends to, observers say the political cost of appearing soft on China will be even greater.

VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson contributed to this report.
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U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says he expects Ukraine to conduct an offensive against Russia in the spring, and that the 54 members of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group are focused on providing Kyiv with the ammunition, fuel and spare parts they will need. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
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Tax officials in India searched the British Broadcasting Corporation’s offices Tuesday in New Delhi and Mumbai, weeks after the Indian government called a BBC documentary about Prime Minister Narendra Modi “propaganda.”

The documentary, “India: The Modi Question,” focuses on communal riots that swept through the western state of Gujarat in 2002, killing at least a 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, when Modi was its head.

In a statement on Twitter, the BBC said it was “fully cooperating” with income tax authorities, who are “currently” in the BBC offices in New Delhi and Mumbai.

“We hope to have the situation resolved as quickly as possible,” the BBC said.

Domestic media reports said authorities seized the phones of BBC employees. 

Gaurav Bhatia, a spokesman for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), called the action a “tax survey.”

“If you have been following the law of the country, if you have nothing to hide, why be afraid of an action that is according to the law?” he told reporters.

Accusing the BBC of having a “tainted and black history of working with malice against India,” Bhatia told reporters at a press conference, “It would not be wrong to say that it is the most corrupt and ridiculous corporation in the world.”

He said media outlets that “have a hidden agenda” and “spew venom” cannot be tolerated in the country.

The documentary angered the BJP and Modi’s supporters, who questioned why the broadcaster chose a subject that dates back two decades.  

The documentary highlights an unpublished report the BBC obtained from the British Foreign Office which according to the broadcaster raised issues over Modi’s actions during the riots, and claims he was “directly responsible” for the “climate of impunity” that enabled the violence.

In 2012, an inquiry by India’s Supreme Court exonerated Modi of any complicity in the riots, including charges that he had told police officers not to restrain the rioters.

The BBC documentary was not aired in India, but using emergency powers under its information technology laws, the government blocked videos and tweets sharing links to it. Police scrambled to halt screenings arranged by some student groups on university campuses and detained several students in connection with the screenings.  

India’s Foreign Ministry said the film “lacked objectivity” and called it a “propaganda piece designed to push a particularly discredited narrative.” The BBC had said the documentary was “rigorously researched” and that it had featured a range of opinions, including responses from people in the BBC.

Organizations representing media groups in India expressed concern at Tuesday’s search of the BBC offices.

The Editors Guild of India said the move mirrored similar actions against other news organizations such as NewsClick, Newslaundry and Dainik Bhaskar, whose coverage was perceived to be critical of the government. 

In a statement, the guild said the raids were a “continuation of a trend of using government agencies to intimidate and harass press organizations that are critical of government policies or the ruling establishment” and that the trend “undermines constitutional democracy.”

Opposition parties also criticized the action. 

“First came the BBC documentary, it was banned. Now, I-T has raided BBC.” “Undeclared Emergency,” the opposition Congress Party tweeted.

“As hosts of G-20 what we are telling the world that rather than an emerging great power we are an insecure power,” Manish Tewari, a member of the Congress Party and former information minister, tweeted.

Media watchdogs and critics have raised concerns about press freedom in India. Last month, the Committee to Protect Journalists said that ordering social media platforms to block the BBC documentary constitutes “an attack on the free press that flagrantly contradicts the country’s stated commitment to democratic ideals.”

India’s press freedom ranking fell from 142 in 2021 to 150 last year in the 2022 World Freedom Index by global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders. 
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Rescuers in Turkey pulled several more people alive from the rubble Tuesday, nearly 200 hours after a series of powerful earthquakes struck the region but experts warned the window is closing for finding more people alive.    

In neighboring Syria, more aid is starting to flow to war- and now earthquake-scared civilians in the country’s northwest, following President Bashar al-Assad’s agreement with the United Nations on Monday to allow humanitarian workers to use two additional crossing points from Turkey into opposition-held areas to speed deliveries.  

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters Tuesday that an 11-truck convoy “is on the move” to cross through the newly reopened Bab al-Salam border crossing from Turkey, “with many more [convoys] to come.”    

Guterres’ humanitarian chief negotiated the use of two border crossings from Turkey into northwest Syria, meeting with President Assad on Monday in Damascus, bringing to three the number the U.N. has to work with. It is the first time since the conflict began in 2011 that Assad has agreed to allow aid to cross from Turkey to rebel-held areas.     

The U.N. chief also announced an appeal for $397 million in the next three months for the earthquake response in Syria, adding that a similar appeal is being drawn up for Turkey. 

“We all know that lifesaving aid has not been getting in at the speed and scale needed,” Guterres said of opposition-held areas of Syria. “The scale of this disaster is one of the worst in recent memory.”

He emphasized that aid “must get through from all sides, to all sides, through all routes — without any restrictions.” 

The U.N. humanitarian office said Monday the death toll in Syria has surpassed 4,300, with another 7,600 injured.     

In Turkey, authorities have reported at least 31,643 deaths from the earthquake centered in the Gaziantep region.        

The latest rescues included one from a crumbled building in Adiyaman province and two others from a destroyed building in central Kahramanmaras, near the epicenter.   

  Turkish residents in Samandag in Hatay province, complained the government has not done enough in the search for survivors.        

One earthquake survivor told VOA’s Turkish service that everything is being done through volunteers and community efforts, not by the government.          

“We rescued a lady and her baby from under the rubble. Alive. With our own efforts. With our own sledgehammers, with our hammers. I had many friends with me. This is not acceptable,” the survivor said.         

Another said, “Volunteers are working here, day and night, nonstop. They don’t even eat. They don’t even come down to drink water. AFAD [Turkey’s Disaster Management Authority] came to save us supposedly. The team came here to work on detecting. They just came and left. They said, ‘There was nothing here,’ and turned back and left.”         

Turkish television broadcast scenes of the rescues, but experts warned the window is closing for finding more people alive in what remains of collapsed buildings after so much time.     

The VOA Turkish Service contributed to this report, which includes some information from The Associated Press and Reuters.   
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Eight Afghan journalists who worked for the BBC broadcaster won a legal challenge on Monday against Britain’s refusal to relocate them from Afghanistan, which they said put them at high risk of being killed by the Taliban rulers.

The journalists’ lawyers told London’s High Court in December that the government had “betrayed the debt of gratitude” owed to them by refusing to relocate them after the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021.

Representatives for the government had argued that none of the eight was eligible for relocation under its Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) program.

David Blundell, a lawyer for the Ministry of Defense, said the Taliban’s perception that the BBC is a part of the British government was irrelevant.

But Judge Peter Lane said in a written ruling that the perception was “clearly relevant” to the risks the journalists faced.

The decision on whether to relocate the eight will now have to be taken again, which their lawyers said would have to be done within three weeks.

The journalists were embedded with military personnel and worked on British government-funded projects, the lawyers said.

As part of their work, they spoke out against the Taliban and exposed corruption and abuse, resulting in numerous threats and attacks by Taliban fighters, the lawyers added.

Erin Alcock, who represented the journalists, said her clients have been “living in fear for over 18 months.”

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Defense said the department does not comment in detail on specific legal cases but was considering potential next steps. 
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Ford said Tuesday that it will cut 3,800 jobs in Europe over the next three years in an effort to streamline its operations as it contends with economic challenges and increasing competition on electric cars.

The automaker said 2,300 jobs will be eliminated in Germany, 1,300 in the United Kingdom and 200 elsewhere on the continent. It said its strategy to offer an all-electric fleet in Europe by 2035 has not changed and that production of its first European-built electric car is due to start later this year.

The Dearborn, Michigan-based company said it is looking for “a leaner, more competitive cost structure for Ford in Europe.” The automaker will embark on consultations “with the intent to achieve the reductions through voluntary separation programs.”

The job cuts come amid a sea change in the global auto industry from gas-guzzling combustion engines to electric vehicles. Governments are pushing to reduce the emissions that contribute to climate change, and a resulting race to develop electric vehicles has generated intense competition among automakers.

It’s even stirred tensions among Western allies as the U.S. rolls out big subsidies for clean technology like EVs that European governments fear could hurt homegrown industry.

Ford aims to cut 2,800 of the European jobs in engineering by 2025 as a result of the transition to electric cars that are less complex, though it plans to keep about 3,400 engineering jobs on the continent. The remaining 1,000 jobs will be cut on the administrative side.

“Paving the way to a sustainably profitable future for Ford in Europe requires broad-based actions and changes in the way we develop, build and sell Ford vehicles,” Martin Sander, general manager of Ford’s Model e unit in Europe, said in a statement. “This will impact the organizational structure, talent and skills we will need in the future.”

“These are difficult decisions, not taken lightly,” he added. “We recognize the uncertainty it creates for our team, and I assure them we will be offering them our full support in the months ahead.”

Ford also announced in August cuts of about 3,000 white-collar jobs in North America as it reduces costs to help make the long transition from internal combustion to battery-powered vehicles.

In a step in that direction, it said Thursday that it plans to build a $3.5 billion factory in Michigan that would employ at least 2,500 people to make lower-cost batteries for new and existing EVs.

Company officials reported that its net income fell 90% in the last three months of 2022 from a year earlier. It said costs were too high and that it contended with a global shortage of computer chips and other parts used in its vehicles.

In Europe, Ford has some 34,000 employees at wholly owned facilities and consolidated joint ventures.
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Rescuers in Turkey pulled several more people alive from the rubble Tuesday, nearly 200 hours after a series of powerful earthquakes struck the region. 

The latest rescues included one from a crumbled building in Adiyaman province and two others from a destroyed building in central Kahramanmaras, near the epicenter. 

Turkish television broadcast scenes of the rescues, but experts warned the window is closing for finding more people alive in what remains of collapsed buildings after so much time. 

Turkish residents in Samandag in Hatay province, complained the government has not done enough in the search for survivors.   

One earthquake survivor told VOA’s Turkish service that everything is being done through volunteers and community efforts, not by the government.  

“We rescued a lady and her baby from under the rubble. Alive. With our own efforts. With our own sledgehammers, with our hammers. I had many friends with me. This is not acceptable,” the survivor said.  

Another said, “Volunteers are working here, day and night, nonstop. They don’t even eat. They don’t even come down to drink water. AFAD (Turkey’s Disaster Management Authority) came to save us supposedly. The team came here to work on detecting. They just came and left. They said, ‘There was nothing here,’ and turned back and left.”   

Turkish authorities have reported at least 31,643 deaths from the massive earthquake centered in the Gaziantep region.   

Across the border in northern Syria, the United Nations humanitarian office said Monday the death toll there had topped 4,300, with another 7,600 injured.

The VOA Turkish Service contributed to this report, which includes some information from The Associated Press and Reuters. 
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