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A U.S. official in Syria on Friday called for an “immediate de-escalation” following days of deadly airstrikes and shelling along the Syria-Turkey border, saying the actions destabilize the region and undermine the fight against the Islamic State group. 

Turkey this week launched a wave of airstrikes on suspected Kurdish rebels hiding in neighboring Syria and Iraq, in retaliation for a deadly November 13 bombing in Istanbul that Ankara blamed on the Kurdish groups. 

The groups denied involvement in the bombing and said the Turkish strikes had killed civilians and threatened the anti-IS fight. 

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said that 67 civilians, gunmen and soldiers had been killed in Turkish attacks in northern Syria since the airstrikes began. 

Nikolas Granger, the U.S. senior representative to northeastern Syria, said Washington “strongly opposes military action that further destabilizes the lives of communities and families in Syria and we want immediate de-escalation.” 

The developments are “unacceptably dangerous and we are deeply concerned,” said Granger, who is currently in Syria. He added that the strikes also were endangering U.S. military personnel there. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened a new land invasion of northern Syria targeting Kurdish groups. On Friday, he said Turkey would continue its “struggle against all kinds of terror inside and outside our borders.” 

Turkey and the United States both consider the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a terror group for the decades-long insurgency and attacks the group has staged within Turkey’s borders. 

But they disagree on the status of the main Kurdish militia in Syria, the People’s Protection Units, or YPG. The Syrian Kurdish group has been a key U.S. ally in the fight against IS. 

Turkey has carried out three major incursions into northern Syria since 2016 and its forces still control part of the country. 

Kurdish officials in Syria have been warning that any new Turkish incursion would disrupt the fight against IS, which still has sleeper cells and has carried out deadly attacks in recent months against the Syrian Kurdish-led opposition forces as well as Syrian government forces. 

“We take these threats seriously and prepare to confront any ground attacks,” Siamand Ali, a spokesman for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, told The Associated Press.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday in his nightly address, nine months to the day into Russia’s full-scale invasion, that the enemy had failed to find a way to “break us, and will not find one,” adding the Ukrainian military was holding “key lines” in all directions.

He said that Ukrainian advances were planned in some unnamed areas.

The grim nine-month milestone came with much of Ukraine still plunged in darkness and without reliable water supplies as a result of a furious series of Russian missile attacks on civilian infrastructure that cut off power all over the country Wednesday.

“Together we have endured nine months of full-scale war and Russia has not found any way to break us, and it will not find one,” Zelenskyy said.

He said Russian forces were heavily bombing the city of Kherson, which occupying forces abandoned earlier this month. It was the only regional capital they have captured so far in the full-scale invasion.

Zelenskyy said “almost every hour” brings reports of new Russian air strikes on the city, and seven people had been killed and 21 more wounded there Thursday, according to local officials.

“Such terror began immediately after the Russian Army was forced to flee from the Kherson region. This is the revenge of the losers,” Zelenskyy said. “They do not know how to fight. The only thing they can do for now is terrorize. Either energy terror, or artillery, or missile terror — that’s all that Russia has degraded to under its current leaders.”

Zelenskyy said Ukrainian troops “are holding key milestones in all directions…and there are directions in which we are preparing to move forward.”

He said the Russian side appeared to be transferring additional forces to certain areas.

RFE/RL was unable to confirm battlefield claims and casualty reports on either side in areas of heavy fighting.

The Ukrainian Army’s General Staff reported that the Russians have “intensified counter-sabotage and policing measures” in the occupied area of Skadovskiy in the Kherson region.

It said Russian troops were also strengthening fortification equipment and logistical support of advanced units in the Kherson, Kryviy Rih, and Kryvorizka areas.

It said Russians were concentrating their main efforts on offensives in the areas of Bakhmut and Avdiyivka.

Some information for this story came from Reuters.
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The wife of jailed Belarusian activist Ales Bialiatski, one of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winners, will accept the award on his behalf at the upcoming ceremony, organizers said Friday.

Bialiatski, 60, won the prestigious prize in October together with Russian rights group Memorial and Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties, which is documenting “Russian war crimes” against the Ukrainian people.

The prize will be presented to the trio at a formal ceremony in Oslo on December 10.

Bialiatski was jailed after large-scale demonstrations against the regime in 2020, when Belarus’ authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, claimed victory in elections the international community deemed fraudulent.

His wife, Natalia Pinchuk, will represent him in Norway.

“We are very happy that she has gotten out of Belarus and everything is arranged for her to be able to participate in the (Nobel) ceremony at Oslo City Hall on December 10,” the head of the Nobel Institute, Olav Njolstad, told AFP in an email.

Memorial will be represented by its chairman, Yan Rachinsky, and the CCL by its director, Oleskandra Matviychuk, the institute said.

A highly symbolic choice for this year’s prize, the trio represent the three nations at the center of the war in Ukraine, which has plunged Europe into its worst security crisis since World War II.

The committee said it honored the three for their struggle for “human rights, democracy and peaceful co-existence in the neighbor countries Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.”
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Lawmakers in France’s lower house of parliament on Thursday adopted a bill to enshrine abortion rights in the country’s constitution, the first step in a lengthy and uncertain legislative battle prompted by the rollback of abortion rights in the United States. 

The vote was 337-32 in the 557-member National Assembly. 

To be added into the constitution, any measure must be first approved by majorities in the National Assembly and the upper house, the Senate, and then in a nationwide referendum. 

Authors of the proposal, from a left-wing coalition, argued the measure was aimed at “protecting and guaranteeing the fundamental right to voluntary termination of pregnancy.” 

Abortion in France was decriminalized under a key 1975 law, but there is nothing in the constitution that would guarantee abortion rights. 

Mathilde Panot, head of the hard-left France Unbowed group at the National Assembly and co-signatory of the proposal, said that “our intent is clear: we want not to leave any chance to people opposed to the right to abortion.” 

French Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti said the centrist government supports the initiative. 

He referred to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in June, which eliminated the federal constitutional right to abortion and left the decision to the states. 

“The right to abortion we thought was acquired for 50 years [in the U.S.] was in reality not at all acquired,” he said. 

A recent poll showed that more than 80% of the French population supported the right to abortion. The results were consistent with those in previous surveys. The same poll also showed that a solid majority of people were in favor of enshrining it in the constitution. 

Centrists’ proposal dropped

French President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance, Renaissance, on Thursday decided to withdraw a similar proposal that was meant to be debated Monday also in the National Assembly. Centrist and leftist lawmakers agreed instead on supporting a single bill saying that “the law guarantees the effectiveness and equal access to the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy.” 

Success isn’t guaranteed for supporters of the bill. The Senate, where the conservative party, the Republicans, has a majority, rejected a similar bill in September. The Republican senators argued the measure was not needed since the right to abortion was not under threat in France. 

Dupond-Moretti said he was “hopeful” that some senators could change their minds and form a majority in favor. 

He and other proponents of constitutional change argue that French lawmakers should not take any chances on fundamental rights, since it is easier to change the law than the constitution. 

The right to abortion enjoys broad support across the French political spectrum, including from Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally. Yet Le Pen in recent days said she was opposed to the leftist proposal because she thought it could lead to extending or abolishing the time limit at which a pregnancy can be terminated. 

Following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in June, Macron had tweeted that “abortion is a fundamental right for all women. It must be protected.”
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Nurses across most of Britain will next month hold the first strikes in their union’s 106-year history, joining a host of other U.K. workers taking industrial action over pay.

Staff in England, Wales and Northern Ireland — but not Scotland — will walk out on Dec. 15 and 20, after the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) union said the government had turned down an offer of negotiations.

It will be the latest industrial action in Britain, where decades-high inflation and a cost-of-living crisis have prompted staff in various sectors to demand pay increases to keep up with soaring prices.

The nurses’ strike will be sandwiched between the first of a series of two-day walkouts by national railway workers, while postal service employees will stage fresh stoppages in the run-up to Christmas.

Numerous other public and private sector staff, from lawyers to airport ground personnel, have also held strikes this year.

“Nursing staff have had enough of being taken for granted, enough of low pay and unsafe staffing levels, enough of not being able to give our patients the care they deserve,” said RCN head Pat Cullen.

The union, which wants a pay raise significantly above inflation, announced earlier this month that a ballot of its more than 300,000 members had found a majority in favor of strikes.

“Ministers have had more than two weeks since we confirmed that our members felt such injustice that they would strike for the first time,” Cullen said, adding that an offer of formal negotiations was declined.

“They have the power and the means to stop this by opening serious talks that address our dispute.”

The RCN will next week announce which particular arms of Britain’s sprawling state-funded National Health Service (NHS) will be affected by the walkouts.

Amid the waves of industrial action, British inflation has continued its recent surge, reaching a 41-year high of 11.1% in October on jumps in energy and food costs.

Bosses in the NHS said in September that nurses were skipping meals to feed and clothe their children and struggling to afford rising transportation costs.

One in four hospitals had set up foodbanks to support staff, according to NHS Providers, which represents hospital groups in England.

The government says it has accepted independent pay recommendations and given over 1 million NHS workers a pay increase of at least $1,590 this year.

In Scotland, the union has paused announcing strike action after the devolved government in Edinburgh, which has responsibility for health policy, reopened pay talks.

Other U.K. health unions are also balloting workers for industrial action, while ambulance staff in Scotland are due to walk out Monday.

Meanwhile, across the wider economy, numerous sectors are set to continue their strikes into the new year. 
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More than three years since a devastating fire burned parts of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, reconstruction is underway, and organizations from the United States are helping. Karina Bafradzhian has the story.
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Russian lawmakers on Thursday gave their final approval to a bill that significantly expands restrictions on activities seen as promoting gay rights in the country, another step in a years-long crackdown on the country’s embattled LGBTQ community.

The new bill expands a ban on what authorities call “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” to minors, established by legislation dubbed the “gay propaganda” law. It was adopted by the Kremlin in 2013 in an effort to promote “traditional values” in Russia.

This year, the lawmakers moved to ban spreading such information to people aged 18 and older.

The bill was approved in the third and final reading on Thursday by the State Duma, the lower house of parliament. It will go next to the upper house, the Federation Council, and then to President Vladimir Putin, whose signature will give it legal force.

The new bill outlaws all advertising, media and online resources books, films and theater productions deemed to contain such “propaganda,” a concept loosely defined in the bill. The 2013 ban was often enacted against any depictions of same-sex unions and used as a tool to crack down on LGBTQ rights groups and activists.

Violations are punishable by fines. If committed by non-residents, they can lead to their expulsion from Russia. The fines range from 100,000 to 2 million rubles ($1,660-$33,000). For some violations, foreigners could face 15 days’ detention prior to expulsion.

The bill does not make violations a criminal offense. Russian law stipulates that the criminal code can be amended only through an independent bill. Some lawmakers have suggested they favor such a measure.

Russia explicitly outlawed same-sex marriages in 2020 by adopting amendments to the country’s Constitution that, among other things, stipulated that the “institution of marriage is a union between a man and a woman.”
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Chinese refugees in Italy, some of whom are dissidents, are increasingly wary of the presence of what appear to be four outposts of Beijing’s security apparatus operating without official diplomatic trappings, according to experts.

Beijing acknowledges the presence of the so-called “police stations” in Rome, Milan, Florence and Prato, which were first revealed by Safeguard Defenders, a human rights organization based in Spain, in September.

The 110 overseas offices, named after China’s emergency telephone line similar to 911 in the U.S., operate in cities with significant Chinese populations and are affiliated with civic associations in Chinese cities or provinces.

The Chinese government has denied the outposts are police stations, describing them more as service centers for Chinese citizens living overseas.

Italian police have conducted investigations into the offices but found no illegal activities, according to La Nazione, which reported on November 8 that the outposts in Italy were managed by civilians who provided Chinese expatriates with services such as drivers licenses or passport renewals.

The Italian government has not commented on the existence of the 110 offices overseas. In 2019, Italy signed a memorandum of understanding with China as part of its Belt and Road Initiative, a package of deals worth $2.8 billion at the time.

But for Chinese refugees carving out new lives in a country where they often don’t speak the language, the Chinese outposts are reminders of Beijing’s global reach.

“I know for sure that they are very scared about this,” said Marco Respinti, an Italian journalist who has written extensively on China’s human rights record. “There are two main reasons. One is some of them have families in China” who can be pressured by authorities there, so the outposts in Italy are “a very sensitive and dangerous development. Another thing is that technically they are illegal immigrants … so they are even more scared to speak out. They fled China for humanitarian reasons and don’t have all the documents. Many times (the refugees) don’t speak the language.”

The 110 overseas offices in Italy are among more than 50 such operations that China has established overseas in countries, including the U.S., according to Safeguard Defenders. On November 2, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian denied the outposts were “police stations” or “police service centers.” During a daily press briefing, he said the offices are to “assist overseas Chinese nationals who need help in accessing the online service platform to get their driver’s licenses renewed and receive physical check-ups for that purpose.”

Staff in the offices “are not police personnel from China. There is no need to make people nervous about this,” he added.

The 110 overseas offices represent “the latest iteration in [China’s] growing transnational repression, where it seeks to police and limit political expression far beyond its own borders,” said the Safeguard Defenders report.

Since the report’s release, at least 14 governments, including those of the U.S., Britain, Canada and Germany, have opened investigations into the operations, Safeguard Defenders research shows.

On October 26, Ireland ordered the closure of the 110 overseas office doing business in Dublin as the Fuzhou Police Service Overseas Station that opened earlier this year in an office building that had other Chinese organizations as tenants, according to the BBC. The Chinese embassy denied any wrongdoing in Dublin and the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs said no Chinese authority had sought its permission to set up the “police station,” according to the BBC report.

On November 1, the Dutch government ordered the 110 overseas offices in the Netherlands to be closed immediately. The outposts purported to offer diplomatic assistance, but they had not been declared to the Netherlands government, Dutch media reported last month.

On November 17, FBI Director Christopher Wray told a U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing that the FBI was investigating an unauthorized “police station” that China is running out of New York. The Chinese operation “violates sovereignty and circumvents standard judicial and law enforcement cooperation processes,” Wray said.

Jing-Jie Chen, a researcher at Safeguard Defenders, told VOA Mandarin that European countries have no clear concept of cross-border law enforcement by Chinese police.

Chen said, “Many countries in Europe have signed agreements on mutual criminal assistance or extradition with China, so they may begin to think that there is no big problem in this matter. Only after the report is published and the media follows up, do they feel that this matter involves the internal affairs” of any country with 110 overseas offices.

Daniele Brigadoi Cologna, associate professor of Chinese language and culture at the University of Insubria in Como, Italy, told VOA Mandarin these outposts have been helping Chinese expatriates maintain their Chinese residency renewals during the pandemic when people could not return home. The Chinese government issues to each citizen a permit that details their identity and address. It governs where they can live, attend school and work.

Cologna said, “I am confident that in the coming months, we will get to learn more about the outcome of such investigations, but I doubt that anything of interest will come of it, given that right now the media and the politicians are chasing nonexistent policemen and Chinese migrant spies that are unlikely to exist.”

Chen questioned why the ID renewal services are carried out by operations inside restaurants or grocery stores when the Chinese consulates should provide the same services.

“You don’t know whether the address (for the 110 office) is real, which is the weirdest thing. If you want to serve overseas expats, you should have an organization to run these businesses in an open and honest way. Why hide like this?” he said during a phone interview on November 16.

Respinti, the Italian journalist, said, “We know that bureaucracy and documents are one of the most important tools for controlling people and repressing people, because they have a partial recognition to prosecute people, to recognize them where they, when they move from one place to another.”

Members of the Italian Parliament have raised questions about the so-called police stations to the government.

La Nazione reported on October 29 that Italian Senator Mara Bizzotto wrote Matteo Piantedosi, Italy’s minister of the interior, to say, “Full light should be shed on the case of the Chinese police station in Prato known as Fuzhou Police Overseas Service Station, which turns out to be a real body of agents on duty for Beijing but hidden behind a façade of cultural association.”

According Bizzotto, “The affair presents dangerous profiles of a serious violation of our national sovereignty. And these overseas stations could hide a broader architecture of espionage and control located on Italian territory.”

According to Jiemian News, Chinese news media affiliated with the Chinese-government-owned Shanghai United Media Group, since 2016, China has sent several groups of police to Italy to conduct joint patrols with Italian police in major tourist cities.

A reciprocal arrangement had Italian police officers patrolling in four cities — Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing and Guangzhou — to help local officers address safety concerns of Italian tourists.

The project was suspended after the outbreak of COVID-19.

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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Ukrainian officials are pushing back against growing pressure to enter negotiations with Moscow even as relentless Russian airstrikes take a mounting toll on Ukrainian lives, wealth and infrastructure.

Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the Office of the President of Ukraine, dismissed Russian signals of a readiness for talks as simply part of an influence campaign to undermine support for Ukraine among its partners.

“We expect our partners to stop paying attention to Russia’s provocative statements regarding the negotiation process,” Podolyak said in an interview Friday with VOA, speaking from Kyiv.

So far, U.S. administration officials agree. At a November 11 press conference en route to Cambodia, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Russian overtures cannot be taken seriously as long as Moscow seeks to illegally annex Ukrainian territory.

Laying out what he described as “four core elements of consensus” in the U.S. government, Sullivan reiterated that only Ukraine could decide when and on what terms to negotiate. He added that any just peace must be based on the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity, and that the U.S. will do all it can to make sure that in any future talks, Ukraine will be able to negotiate from a position of strength.

Nevertheless, Moscow’s state representatives have been increasingly speaking about their openness to negotiations in the wake of Russia’s withdrawal from Kherson — their country’s third major reversal of the war.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said this month that his government is “open to dialogue, without preconditions,” Russian mass media reported. He was quoted as saying that Moscow had been ready to engage in negotiations earlier, but that Kyiv had interrupted the dialogue “at the command of its Western curators.”

Four days after Ryabkov’s remarks, Russian began its heaviest shelling of Ukrainian territory since its invasion in February. On November 15, up to 100 missiles and drones were launched, leaving almost half of Ukraine’s energy system disabled. Another massive attack on Wednesday further crippled the energy infrastructure in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities.

The shelling on November 15 came just hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy presented a 10-point “Ukrainian peace formula” to the G-20 summit in Bali, Indonesia. It included measures to ensure radiation and nuclear safety, food and energy security, an exchange of prisoners and the return of the deported Ukrainians from Russia, restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and prosecution of war crimes.

Dmitry Peskov, press secretary to Russian President Vladimir Putin, told Russian reporters that the shelling — which left millions of Ukrainians without heat, water or electricity, at least for hours at a time — was due to Ukrainian authorities’ refusal to negotiate.

“The unwillingness of the Ukrainian side to solve the problem, to enter into negotiations, moreover, the actions of the Ukrainian side to abandon the agreed understandings of the text, and so on, these are all the consequences,” Peskov said, according to a Russian news agency.

Podolyak told VOA that Peskov’s statement was “the type of ultimatum that terrorists would issue: Either I kill the hostages — the civilian population of Ukraine — or you do what we say.”

He believes Russia developed the negotiation narrative to improve its reputation worldwide.

“For them, the word ‘negotiations’ does not mean the same as for you and me — sitting down, presenting positions and looking for a compromise,” Podolyak said. “No. They say ‘negotiate,’ meaning ‘meeting their demands’ — for example, not joining European organizations, NATO or any other military alliances and giving away territories.”

He argued that Russia, losing on the battlefield, has resorted to attacks on the Ukrainian population to compel the leaders in Kyiv to comply with its demands.

“There cannot be a negotiation process that says: ‘Yes, you [Ukraine] win the war. Stop, give away the territory, and de facto capitulate to the Russian Federation,” Podolyak said.

He said negotiations can begin once Ukrainian territorial integrity is restored and Russia returns to the framework of international law. Such talks, he suggested, can focus on issues such as prosecuting war crimes and providing compensation for damages.

Media reports have suggested that some U.S. government officials would like to see Kyiv take advantage of its battlefield successes by moving to early negotiations. But Ambassador William Taylor, vice president for Russia and Europe at the U.S. Institute of Peace, said the position outlined by Sullivan is the official stance of the administration.

“Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, spoke for the president and the entire administration,” said Taylor, who served as chargé d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv in 2019. “It is in the U.S. national interest for Ukraine to win this war and for Russia to lose.”

Cease-fire: Who benefits?

Most experts who spoke to VOA believe that a cease-fire at this time would benefit the Kremlin and would not end the war.

Any negotiated cease-fire would allow Russian forces to regroup and rebuild, said Nataliya Bugayova, Russia fellow at the Institute for the Study of War.

“Ukraine has momentum on the ground. A cease-fire would freeze the front lines in the best possible configuration that Putin can hope for in this war. It is one of the few ways for Russia to break the momentum of Ukrainian forces,” she said in a written response to VOA.

David Kramer, executive director of the George W. Bush Institute, believes that Ukraine can prevail on the battlefield and that the only way to end the war is for Ukraine’s allies to help it to win.

“Nobody wants this war to end more than Ukrainians, who are fighting and dying to defend their country and freedom, but they have been remarkably successful so far and think they can prevail. Calling for negotiations now undercuts their momentum,” Kramer said in a written response to VOA.

Taylor said that any cease-fire reached while the Ukrainian military is succeeding in pushing the Russian forces out of the country “would allow the Russians to keep what they now illegally occupy.”

This would put the Russians in an advantageous position for future attacks, said Bugayova.

“Any Russian foothold, especially in the critically strategic south, would constitute a permanent threat to Ukrainian sovereignty because Putin’s maximalist goal of controlling Ukraine has not changed and will most likely outlast Putin — by design. The Kremlin will use any cease-fire to adjust, not scale back, its effort to establish control over Ukraine.”

A fiscal argument

A contrary view was expressed by columnist Katrina vanden Heuvel in an opinion piece for The Washington Post. She argued that it’s time for the U.S. to start setting conditions for a diplomatic solution to the war because of the growing costs for the warring parties, the U.S. and the other countries supporting Ukraine.

“The stakes are too high for us to sit idly by as the catastrophe spreads and the costs — and the risks — keep growing,” she wrote.

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden received congressional approval for $40 billion in aid for Ukraine for 2022; more than $19 billion has been spent on military defense since February 24.

Economist Timothy Ash acknowledged in an article for the Center for European Policy Analysis that assistance to Ukraine already represents 5.6% of total U.S. defense spending. But, he wrote,

“Russia is a primary adversary of the U.S., a top tier rival not too far behind China, its number one strategic challenger.”

The U.S. National Defense Strategy defines Russia as “an acute threat.”

No-go for any territorial concessions

Kramer said he worries that talk about the need for Ukraine to make concessions will be “deeply demoralizing to the incredibly brave Ukrainian forces fighting for their freedom.” He pointed out that most Ukrainians oppose any territorial concessions in exchange for a cease-fire.

According to the poll done by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in September, 87% of Ukrainians were not ready to support any territorial concessions for the sake of ending the war with Russia as soon as possible.

Bugayova added that an early cease-fire would leave those Ukrainians still living in the occupied territories subject “to continued Russian atrocities.”

U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice Beth Van Schaack pointed out that that nongovernmental organizations, the media and war crimes investigators have already collected extensive evidence of such atrocities.

“Everywhere Russia’s forces have been deployed, we’re seeing a whole range of different war crimes,” she told VOA Ukrainian.

“This includes everything from bombardments of the civilian infrastructure to interpersonal violence where there are individuals who seem to have been killed execution style, or their bodies show signs of torture.”

She added that there have been “credible reports of women and girls and even men and boys being subjected to sexual violence when they’re in the custody of Russia’s forces.”

Taylor said he believes Kyiv should consider talking to Moscow, but only after Russian troops have left Ukrainian territory. The ambassador said the territory itself should not be the subject of negotiations.

“The topics should include the total withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine; the return of prisoners of war and other Ukrainians, including Ukrainian children, held in or forced into Russia; reparations for war damage; accountability for war crimes and atrocities; and security guarantees for Ukraine,” Taylor said in a written response to VOA.

Kramer agrees but said he can find few topics for discussion with the current government in Moscow.

“It is hard to see what there is to negotiate with a regime in Moscow guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide,” he said in a written response.

Will Pomeranz, director of the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute, sees little likelihood of a diplomatic solution anytime soon.

“President Zelenskyy has outlined an ambitious peace plan that is unlikely to be accepted — or even considered — by the Russian Federation. Ukraine’s recent military successes make it even less likely that Zelenskyy would compromise on any of his demands,” he said to VOA.

He believes the Russians are also unlikely to admit to and compensate for the pain they inflicted on Ukraine.

“Indeed, there can be no peace until Russia confronts its human rights violations in Ukraine and pays considerable reparations for the damage that it has inflicted. Such a concession remains far off,” Pomerantz said in a written response.

At the same time, as Biden administration officials say repeatedly, the war could end at any moment if Putin decides to end it.

“Russia invaded Ukraine. If Russia chose to stop fighting in Ukraine and left, it would be the end of the war. If Ukraine chose to stop fighting and give up, it would be the end of Ukraine,” Sullivan said.

Oleksii Kovalenko, VOA Ukrainian, contributed to this report. Some information came from The Washington Post, CEPA, Kommersant.Ru, Ukrinform and Interfax.Ru.
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Turkey’s president says his nation’s military will begin a land operation against Kurdish militants in northern Syria ‘at the most convenient time.’ Kurdish separatists have been fighting a decades-long insurgency. There have been global calls for restraint, as Henry Ridgwell reports.
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Turkey’s offensive against Syrian Kurdish fighters is quickly ratcheting up tensions with Washington, with new information suggesting some Turkish airstrikes have put U.S. personnel in harm’s way.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees the approximately 900 U.S. troops in Syria tasked with countering the Islamic State terror group, said Wednesday that at least one of the airstrikes, against a counterterrorism base in the country’s northeast, did endanger U.S. forces.

“We have received additional information that there was a risk to U.S. troops and personnel,” CENTCOM spokesman Colonel Joe Buccino said in a statement shared with VOA.

“These actions threaten our shared goals, including the continued fight against ISIS to ensure the group can never resurge and threaten the region,” he added, using another acronym for IS.

CENTCOM officials have so far declined to provide additional information about the incident Tuesday, which targeted a base near Hasakah used both by the U.S. and by U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.

SDF reports two casualties

In its initial assessment on Tuesday, CENTCOM had said no U.S. forces were at the base at the time of the airstrike, although it criticized the Turkish airstrikes in general, saying such actions “do place U.S. troops operating in Syria to defeat ISIS at risk.”

SDF officials said Tuesday’s airstrike killed two U.S.-trained members of its counterterrorism forces.

An SDF spokesman told VOA on Wednesday that U.S. troops had been at the base just five days earlier, doing some aerial surveillance of the area.

The U.S. revelation that the Turkish airstrike might have directly endangered U.S. personnel followed repeated calls by U.S. officials for Turkey and the Syrian Kurds to pull back.

“We continue to urge for de-escalation on all sides. … (T)hese strikes from all sides risk our mission, which is to defeat ISIS,” Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said Tuesday, responding to a question from VOA.

On Wednesday, the U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, spoke by phone with his Turkish counterpart, emphasizing the need to maintain communications.

 

Turkey launched its most recent offensive against the Syrian Kurds this past week, blaming them for a November 13 bombing in Istanbul that killed at least eight people and injured dozens more.

The U.S.-backed SDF and the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Syrian-based offshoot of the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorist group, have denied responsibility.

While the U.S. views the Kurdish-led SDF as a key ally in the fight against IS and as separate from the YPG, Ankara views the SDF and YPG as a single organization, arguing many fighters belong to both groups.

“Turkey does continue to suffer a legitimate terrorist threat, particularly to their south,” John Kirby, the National Security Council’s coordinator for strategic communications, told reporters Tuesday. “They certainly have every right to defend themselves and their citizens.”

But Kirby emphasized Washington’s concerns that Turkish offensive, in the long run, will do more harm than good.

“It might force a reaction by some of our SDF partners that would limit, constrain their ability to continue to fight against ISIS … it’s still viable as a threat,” he said.

The SDF told VOA on Wednesday that those fears were already starting to play out.

SDF spokesman Farhad Shami said Turkey launched five airstrikes against security forces guarding IS families at the al-Hol displaced-persons camp in northeast Syria, allowing some of the families to escape.

The SDF also accused Turkey on Wednesday of targeting civilian infrastructure, including homes, hospitals and schools, killing at least 15 civilians, since the start of its offensive on November 19.

Turkey pledges more

Turkish officials have said the offensive has killed 184 militants, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signaled Wednesday that he was preparing to intensify efforts against the Syrian Kurds.

“While we press ahead with air raids uninterrupted, we will crack down on terrorists also by land at the most convenient time for us,” Erdogan said during a speech to members of parliament.

“Turkey has the power to identify, catch and punish terrorists who are involved in attacks against our country and nation, and those helping them, inside and outside our borders,” he said.

Mutlu Civiroglu and Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.
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Renewed hostilities between Turkey and Syrian Kurdish fighters are not sitting well with the United States, which warned repeatedly Tuesday that the fighting will only serve to benefit the Islamic State terror group.

Senior U.S. officials acknowledge Turkey has the right to defend itself from terrorist attacks but cautioned that recent Turkish airstrikes, and rocket attacks by Syrian Kurdish forces, are undermining efforts by all sides to contain and degrade IS.

“We oppose any military action that destabilizes the situation in Syria,” Colonel Joe Buccino, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, told VOA by email.

“These actions threaten our shared goals, including the continued fight against ISIS to ensure the group can never resurge and threaten the region,” he added, using another acronym for the terror group.

The U.S.-led coalition to defeat IS also called for de-escalation, taking the message to social media.

“These strikes jeopardize the safety of civilians, fracture the hard-fought stability within the region and disrupt our common goal of defeating ISIS,” the coalition tweeted.

Defense officials in Washington tried to hammer home the message later in the day, adding U.S. officials have been in touch with both Turkey and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

“We continue to urge for de-escalation on all sides and in our conversations and what we have said publicly, is that these strikes from all sides risk our mission, which is to defeat ISIS,” Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said during a briefing Tuesday, responding to a question from VOA.

Though relations between Washington and Ankara have been strained in recent years, the U.S. and Turkey are longtime allies, with Turkey also a key member of NATO.

But officials in Ankara have bristled at Washington’s willingness to partner with the Kurdish-led SDF in its efforts to defeat IS.

Many of the SDF’s members come from the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Syrian-based offshoot of the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), labeled by both Ankara and Washington as a terrorist organization.

In Turkey’s view, the SDF and YPG are one and the same. And Turkish officials launched the recent offensive against both groups after blaming them for a November 13 bombing in Istanbul that killed at least eight people and injured dozens more.

Both the YPG and SDF have denied involvement in the bombing, but Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday suggested the search for justice was nowhere near done despite calls by the U.S. and others for restraint.

“We have been bearing down on terrorists for a few days with our planes, cannons and guns,” Erdogan said in a speech. “God willing, we will root out all of them as soon as possible, together with our tanks, our soldiers.”

Turkish officials claim to have killed or captured more than 180 Kurdish militants during the operation, while accusing the YPG and SDF of killing at least three civilians and wounding at least six more in cross-border mortar attacks.

Meanwhile, Syrian Kurdish officials accused Turkey of launching airstrikes specifically designed to weaken efforts to counter IS.

“The Turkish air attack is a clear message of hope for ISIS terrorist cells,” SDF spokesman Farhad Shami tweeted late Tuesday, referring to reported airstrikes in the village of al-Makman, 70 kilometers from the border with Turkey.

“That area is where the operations against ISIS cells going on, and our forces with the International Coalition often pursue ISIS cells there,” Shami added.

Earlier, Sinam Mohamad, U.S. representative for the SDF’s political wing, the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), tweeted that a separate Turkish airstrike hit a base used by both SDF counterterrorism units and by the U.S.

Two members of the counterterror unit were killed, she said.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces in the region, confirmed the strike in an email to VOA late Tuesday.

“While no U.S. Forces were on the base at the moment of this morning’s strike, these actions do place U.S. troops operating in Syria to defeat ISIS at risk,” the statement said.

The U.S. has about 900 troops in Syria and another 2,500 in Iraq as part of ongoing efforts to contain and defeat IS.

“We are going to continue to monitor what’s happening on the ground and make sure that our forces are safe,” the Pentagon’s Singh told reporters Tuesday, adding, “there has been no change to our force posture right now.”

Dorian Jones contributed to this report.
…

Britain’s economy is forecast to shrink by 0.4% in 2023, more than any other in the Group of Seven richest nations, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Britain is the only G-7 member whose economy has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels.

In the Group of 20, or G-20, largest economies, only Russia’s is expected to fare worse than Britain’s in the coming two years.

The OECD said Tuesday that global growth would slow down significantly, including in the United States and Europe. Only the British and German economies are forecast to contract in 2023.

The forecast comes days after Paris overtook London as Europe’s biggest stock market. Analysts say global economic pressures have been compounded in Britain by recent political chaos.

Cost crisis

The British government’s Office for Budget Responsibility, which gives an independent analysis of the nation’s economy, warned that living standards over the next two years are set to fall by the biggest amount on record, as disposable income is squeezed by stagnating wages and rising prices.

Inflation is at a 41-year high of 11.1%, driven by soaring energy bills. Food costs have increased by 15% since this time a year ago.

Britons are cutting back on spending. Hayley Gray, who lives in Bradford, northern England with her seven children, says Christmas this year will be very different.

“Each week I’d normally buy a couple of things, but I’m not able to, because I’m having to make sure I’ve got money for gas and electric … [The children] are going to have hardly anything come Christmas,” Gray told ITN News. Like many families, Gray is taking on debt to pay for the festive period. She said she fears she may not be able to pay it off in the new year.

Charity food banks are seeing unprecedented demand.

“It used to be that those people on the margins of the society who couldn’t access a kitchen were homeless people, who needed that support. Now it’s people in work, it’s people who can’t afford to turn on their cookers, who are needing support,” said Charlotte Hill, CEO of the Felix Project charity in London.

Tax rises

Britain’s economic pain is likely to worsen. The country’s new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, announced new tax increases and spending cuts last week to try to reduce the deficit and reassure financial markets. He blamed the coronavirus – and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Global factors are the primary cause of current inflation,” Hunt told lawmakers November 17. “Most countries are still dealing with the fallout from a once in a century pandemic. The furlough scheme, the vaccine rollout and the response of the NHS [National Health Service] did our country proud. But they all have to be paid for.”

The furlough scheme refers to the government subsidizing millions of workers’ wages during the pandemic lockdown.

“The lasting impact on supply chains has made goods more expensive and fueled inflation. And this has been worsened by a made-in-Russia energy crisis,” Hunt said.

Ideology

Those crises are global but Britain has unique problems, said analyst John Kampfner of the London-based policy institute Chatham House.

“Britain’s politics and Britain’s economy are both in a state of somewhere between disarray and mayhem. Of course, all countries are facing considerable difficulties from inflation to energy insecurity shortages, price rises and other associated difficulties. But they are compounded in Britain by a series of ideologically driven governments whose competence was very much open to question, culminating in the disastrous 45 days of Liz Truss,” Kampfner told VOA.

Former Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss’s plans to slash taxes and boost spending – the reverse of her successor, Rishi Sunak – sent government borrowing costs soaring and the British pound plummeting, ultimately forcing her to resign

last month. The effects are still being felt.

London overtaken

For the first time since record-keeping began, Paris last week overtook London as Europe’s biggest stock market, according to figures from Bloomberg News, based on the combined market value of listings on the Paris bourse compared to the London Stock Exchange in U.S. dollars.

French luxury goods makers have seen significant share price increases in recent weeks, while the British pound has fallen more sharply than the euro, reducing the relative value of British shares.

Brexit

Analysts say Britain is suffering from another homemade problem: Brexit. Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the European Union meant new economic barriers with its biggest trading partner.

Simon Spurrell founded the Cheshire Cheese Company in 2010 and built a prosperous export business. When new Brexit trading rules took effect in 2021, the company lost $285,000 worth of European business. Last month, Spurrell decided to sell to a bigger local rival, Joseph Heler Cheese, which has a presence in the EU and so is able to trade freely.

“We no longer have access to the EU, (which) meant that we needed to try and find a solution,” Spurrell told Agence France-Presse. “We now have a majority shareholder owner in Joseph Heler, which means we not only have access to the EU again, due to their Netherlands hub, we also have the ability to grow again.”

It’s clear that Brexit is holding back growth, Kampfner said.

“It was camouflaged by the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, so the direct consequences of many of the Brexit decisions couldn’t be discerned,” he said. “They are now eventually, belatedly being seen. But the Conservatives are not going to touch a decision to go anywhere close to rejoining the (EU) customs union or the single market. And (the opposition) Labor is not going to do that either.”

The prime minister made that policy clear in a speech Monday at the Confederation of British Industry.

“I voted for Brexit, I believe in Brexit, and I know that Brexit can deliver, and is already delivering enormous benefits and opportunities for the country, migration being an immediate one, where we have proper control of our borders,” Sunak said.
…

A senior U.S. diplomat this week accused the Russian forces invading Ukraine of “systemic” war crimes, saying that abuses are taking place at a scale that suggests leaders in the highest levels of the Kremlin know about and support them.

Russia claimed the allegation was not supported with evidence and that reports of Ukrainian atrocities were being ignored.

In a briefing at the State Department on Monday, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice Beth Van Schaack said evidence of Russian war crimes collected by nongovernmental organizations, the media and dedicated war crimes investigators is extensive.

Van Schaack signaled strong U.S. support for the various efforts currently underway to document war crimes and to eventually present formal charges at the International Criminal Court or other suitable venues.

“The aggression against Ukraine is a manifest violation of the U.N. Charter, and we have mounting evidence that this aggression has been accompanied by systemic war crimes committed in every region where Russia’s forces have been deployed,” Van Schaack said. “This includes deliberate, indiscriminate, and disproportionate attacks against the civilian population and elements of the civilian infrastructure. We’re seeing custodial abuses of civilians and POWs and also efforts to cover up these crimes.”

‘All the way up the chain of command’

She said the evidence suggests that “these atrocities are not the acts of rogue units or individuals. Rather, they are part of a deeply disturbing pattern of reports of abuse across all areas where we’re seeing Russia’s forces engage.”

Pointing specifically to “filtration” camps, through which an untold number of Ukrainian civilians, including many children, have been processed and deported to Russia, she said that the scale of the operation suggests the Kremlin’s direct support.

“Prosecutors will follow the evidence where it leads, but when we’re seeing such systemic acts, including the creation of a vast filtration network, it’s very hard to imagine how these crimes could be committed without responsibility going all the way up the chain of command,” she said.

Implicating Putin

Monday’s remarks from Van Schaack were not the first time a senior U.S. official has accused Russia of war crimes, but experts said that her comments seemed to mark a shift in the administration’s attitude toward future prosecutions.

David J. Scheffer, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, told VOA that Van Schaack’s emphasis on the “systemic” nature of the alleged war crimes was important.

“She is, rather formally, acknowledging that the commission of war crimes by the Russian military is not an isolated string of crimes, but rather, is part of an overall plan and executed on a large scale basis,” Scheffer said.

“That is not stated lightly, because once there is a determination that war crimes are being committed systemically, that involves sophisticated planning, organization and execution, which can only take place, normally, from the leadership level.”

In that case, he added, “the investigation takes on a much broader and significant character, because there you’re going to the top. You’re trying to establish superior responsibility with respect to civilian leaders like [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, or command responsibility with respect to military commanders in the Ministry of Defense.”

New tone from US

The United States has not always been broadly supportive of efforts to establish standards for international criminal law, but in this case, the Biden administration has been actively supporting a variety of ongoing inquiries, including direct cooperation with the International Criminal Court.

“It’s a really remarkable shift in the U.S. stance on international criminal law, from multiple previous administrations, to see this level of involvement,” Marti Flacks, director of the Human Rights Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told VOA. “It’s a sign of, in part, just how serious and widespread and systematic the crimes in Ukraine are at this point.”

In past conflicts, including the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s, prosecution of war criminals has been a slow-moving process. However, Flacks said, the combination of surveillance technology and a seeming willingness by Russia to flagrantly violate international law may result in a more rapid pace of indictments.

“I would expect that we’ll see some of those charges come out in a matter of months and not a matter of years,” she said. “The question is how long it’s going to take to actually get to a prosecution, which, of course, requires a defendant. And that’s where we may be playing a very long game, in terms of maintaining that evidence and, and having those procedures ready to go when … we’re able to take someone into custody.”

Indictments may be sealed

In the event that cases made against Russian individuals are complicated by the accused person remaining in Russia, Van Schaack said prosecutors have the ability to issue indictments “in absentia” in order to establish evidence and issue arrest warrants.

Flacks, of CSIS, said that she would also expect some indictments to be issued under seal, so as not to alert individuals that there are active arrest warrants naming them.

“It’s actually very practical,” she said. “You don’t want to announce that somebody’s wanted and deter them from traveling to a place where they might actually be arrested.”

Russian accusations

The comments from Van Schaack come at the same time that Russian sources have been making claims that they have evidence of a war crime committed by Ukrainian forces.

A snippet of video being widely shared on Russian social media shows a group of Russian soldiers emerging from a building, appearing to surrender to Ukrainian forces and being instructed to lie on the ground. With several Russian soldiers already on the ground, another person follows them out of the building and appears to fire a weapon toward Ukrainian troops. The video cuts away, but another scene, apparently shot later, appears to show the Russians who had been lying on the ground still in similar positions, but now dead in pools of blood.

Asked to address the video, Van Schaack said that U.S. officials are monitoring the situation closely, and stressed that the laws of war must be observed by both sides in the conflict.

However, she added, “When we’re looking at the sheer scale of criminality exhibited by Russian forces, it’s enormous compared to the allegations that we have seen against Ukrainian forces. And likewise we’re seeing a really vast difference when it comes to the reaction to such allegations. Russia inevitably responds with propaganda, denial, mis- and disinformation, whereas the Ukrainian authorities have generally acknowledged abuses and have denounced them and have pledged to investigate them.”

Russia responds

The Russian embassy in Washington responded to Van Schaack’s statements with a post on Facebook.

“We noted the statements of Ambassador-at-Large on International Criminal Justice Beth [Van Schaack] on the murder of captured Russian military personnel by Ukrainian neo-Nazis,” the statement said. “The official refused to directly condemn the massacre of our unarmed soldiers, despite the confirmation of the authenticity of the relevant video materials by American journalists, who did not hush up the tragedy.”

It continued, “The diplomat cynically referred to the fact that the ‘war crimes’ of the Russian Army are recorded ‘many times more often’ than those by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. At the same time the State Department yet again failed to provide any evidence of violent acts allegedly committed by our servicemen.”
…

Russian energy giant Gazprom has threatened to reduce natural gas supplies through the last pipeline heading to Europe via Ukraine, saying the amount it’s supplying for Moldova is not ending up in the former Soviet republic.

Gazprom says the gas company of Europe’s poorest country, Moldovagaz, paid for part of its November flows of gas under its contract. It added that nearly 25 million cubic meters have been supplied this month but not paid for.

The Russian state-owned company tweeted that if “the imbalance observed during the transit of gas to the Moldovan consumers across Ukraine continues,” Gazprom “will start reducing its gas supplies” through Ukraine starting Monday.

Both Moldova and Ukraine hit back at Gazprom, with Ukraine saying all supplies that Russia sent through the country were “fully transferred” to Moldova.

“This is not the first time that Russia resorts to using gas as a tool of political pressure. This is a gross manipulation of facts in order to justify the decision to further limit the volume of gas supplies to European countries,” said Olha Belkova of the Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine.

It’s the latest escalation after Russia has cut off most natural gas flows to Europe amid the war in Ukraine, which European leaders have called energy blackmail and Gazprom has blamed on maintenance and payment issues. Besides the pipeline through Ukraine, one other pipeline is still bringing Russian gas beneath the Black Sea to Turkey.

Heading into winter, when natural gas is needed to heat homes as well as generate electricity and power factories, any reductions in supplies could mean higher prices, which have been fueling inflation and squeezing households and businesses. Natural gas prices have fallen since August peaks, and European nations have been able to fill their storage capacity for winter, but the crunch could worsen if the weather turns out to be colder than normal.

Moldovan energy crisis

The energy crisis has hit Moldova especially hard, with Russia halving its natural gas supply and Moscow’s attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure triggering massive blackouts in several cities in the former Soviet republic.

Moldova relied heavily on Russian energy before the war, and its Soviet-era energy systems remain interconnected with Ukraine, which is why the missile barrages set off the automatic shutdown of a supply line and caused the lights to go out temporarily.

With energy prices and inflation already high, the threat of a loss of further energy supplies to Moldova could leave consumers scrambling to pay their bills in the country of about 2.6 million.

Simone Tagliapietra, an energy policy expert at the Bruegel think tank in Brussels, pointed to a recent meeting between Moldovan President Maia Sandu and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen about energy assistance, noting that leaders who visited Kyiv earlier in the war to show their support had their gas cut off subsequently.

“Maybe they are following the same plot,” Tagliapietra said of Russia. “It looks like an act of despair for them. They are running out of energy weapons.”

He said one motive could be to pressure the EU by forcing it to drum up financial support for Moldova.

An international aid conference in Paris co-chaired by France, Germany and Romania raised more than 100 million euros ($102 million) on Monday to support Moldova. Earlier this month, the EU also pledged the country 250 million euros (nearly $256 million) in aid.

Moldova’s office of reintegration policies said in a statement that the energy crisis in the country — including Transnistria, a Russia-backed breakaway region — “was not caused by Chisinau, but by the unjustified decisions of the Russian company Gazprom.”

Moldova’s statement was a response to accusations Tuesday by Transnistria, in which de facto authorities alleged in a letter addressed to the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe that Moldova’s pro-Western leaders are responsible for energy shortages in the breakaway state.

“The only solution for overcoming the crisis is the resumption of the supply of natural gas by Gazprom in the quantities provided by the contract in force,” Moldova’s statement read, adding that Transnistria’s accusations were designed “to mislead public opinion and external partners.”

“Possibly preparing the ground for a new challenge, which could endanger the fragile stability which we have managed to maintain until now.”

Moldova became a candidate for EU membership in June, the same day as Ukraine.
…

Turkey says it will continue its military operations against U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish forces, after blaming Kurdish separatists for a recent bombing in Istanbul. Ankara says it’s ready to launch a Syrian cross-border operation but faces growing international calls for restraint

International pressure is growing on Ankara as Moscow joins calls for restraint as Turkish forces continue their military operations against the YPG, a Syrian Kurdish militia. But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Tuesday a land operation could be imminent.

“We have been bearing down on terrorists for a few days with our planes, cannons, and guns,” Erdogan said in a speech. “God willing, we will root out all of them as soon as possible, together with our tanks, our soldiers.”

Ankara claims the YPG facilitated this month’s fatal bombing in Istanbul, a charge the group denies. Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, speaking Monday, warned there would be no letup in its attacks.

He said Turkey would make them pay for all the crimes they have committed today and before. “They will pay for them,” the defense minister said.

Akar said 184 militants had been neutralized in its ongoing assault. Monday, tensions escalated further, with Ankara claiming three civilians were killed in cross-border rocket attacks from Syrian Kurdish militants. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Monday said a ground assault into Syria was possible.

Asli Aydintasbas of the Brookings Institution in Washington says such displays are not unexpected, with elections approaching in June.

“It’s not uncommon to see a cross-border operation in election years. But also Turkey has long wanted to do this and I think elections is introducing a timeline that works for the government and also Turkey feels its hand is strong.”

Washington has warned Ankara against any cross-border operation. The United States backs the YPG in its war against the Islamic State group.

However, Defense Minister Akar dismissed Washington’s concerns, calling for an end to U.S. support of the YPG, saying it is affiliated with the PKK, which is fighting the Turkish state for greater minority rights.

Aydin Selcen is a former senior Turkish diplomat, who served in the region and is now a regional analyst for Medyascope, a news portal.

“Time and again, Ankara, Erdogan, and other actors like defense minister Akar made clear Turkey is not happy with the US equipping and training the YPG, which is a direct extension of the PKK in Syria, and Ankara considers that as the main problem.”

But in rare common ground with Washington, Kremlin spokesman Dimitri Peskov Tuesday called on Turkey for restraint.

The Iranian-backed militia in Syria has also warned Ankara against any military operations into Syria.

With Turkish forces already controlling a large swathe of northern Syria from previous operations against Syrian Kurdish militants, analysts say Tehran is concerned with growing Turkish influence in Syria.

But Turkish Analyst Ilhan Uzgel of the Kisa Dalga news portal says Erdogan could see the current tensions as a bargaining opportunity.

“He tries to use this bargaining chip to get something from the West. I mean, it can be the purchase of F-16 fighter jets from the United States. He knows how to make bargains. He knows to what extent (he) can push the issue.”

Turkey’s purchase of F-16 fighter jets remains stalled in the U.S. Congress.

Whatever Turkey’s intentions, analysts predict Ankara is likely to keep tensions and rhetoric high as it seeks to keep enemies and allies guessing on what its real intentions are.
…

Istanbul’s historic and popular Istiklal Avenue is still recovering from a bomb attack on November 13. VOA’s Turkish service reports from Istanbul in this story narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.
…

The European Union on Monday warned of “escalation and violence” after emergency talks between Kosovo and Serbia failed to resolve their long-running dispute over car license plates used by the ethnic Serb minority in Kosovo.

“After many hours of discussion … the two parties did not agree to a solution today,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement to the media.

“I think that there is an important responsibility on the sides of both leaders for the failure of the talks today and for any escalation and violence that might occur on the ground in the following days.”

Borrell later discussed the matter with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, who said in a tweet that the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo was “vigilant.”

“Now is the time for responsibility & pragmatic solutions. Escalation must be avoided,” he said.

Kosovo has attempted this year to require its Serb minority to change their old car plates that date before 1999 when Kosovo was still part of Serbia.

This move has been met with strong and sometimes violent resistance by Serbs living in the northern part of the country, but Kosovo has said it will start issuing fines beginning Tuesday.

Borrell said an EU proposal could have avoided increased tensions, but the proposal, which was accepted by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, was not accepted by Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti.

Borrell said he would inform the EU member states of the two countries’ “lack of respect for their international legal obligations” and warned that, given their commitment to joining the bloc, they should act accordingly.

“The Serbian side was completely constructive, and we were accepting the texts that were changed 10 times, but the Albanian side did not want to accept anything, not for a second, they would always add something that was clearly not possible,” Vucic told reporters after the meeting.

Kurti said he was ready to hold further meetings to normalize relations between Belgrade and Pristina, not just to deal with one issue.

“We cannot be irresponsible and not treat the actual issues. … We cannot turn ourselves into state leaders that are dealing only with car plates and are not talking [about] how to normalize their relations,” he told reporters in Brussels.

Speaking in Belgrade after the meeting in Brussels, Vucic said he would meet Kosovo Serbs late on Monday to ask them to remain calm.

“We received the latest intelligence a little while ago, the situation is very difficult and it is on the verge of conflict,” Vucic told reporters. “We will do everything to preserve peace.”

He also said Serbia would stop issuing and renewing its own car number plates for Northern Kosovo.

The dispute over license plates has stoked tensions for almost two years between Serbia and its former breakaway province, which declared independence in 2008 and is home to a Serb minority in the north backed by Belgrade.

Around 50,000 ethnic Serbs who live there refuse to recognize Pristina’s authority and still consider themselves a part of Serbia.

Hundreds of police officers, judges, prosecutors and other state workers from the Serb minority quit their jobs this month after the government in Pristina ruled that local Serbs must finally replace car plates issued by Northern Kosovo Serb municipal authorities loyal to Belgrade, with Kosovo state ones.

Borrell called on Kosovo to immediately suspend the re-registration of vehicles in north Kosovo, and asked Serbia to suspend issuing new number plates, allowing both parties “space and time” to find a resolution.
…

Turkey said a Kurdish militia killed two people in mortar attacks from northern Syria on Monday, in an escalation of cross-border retaliation following Turkish air operations over the weekend and a deadly bomb attack in Istanbul a week ago.

Turkey’s armed forces said it was responding, and a senior security official told Reuters that Turkish jets had again started hitting targets in northern Syria.

In the latest in a series of tit-for-tat attacks, several mortar shells hit a border district in Turkey’s Gaziantep province, leaving a child and a teacher among the dead and at least six wounded, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said.

A pregnant woman initially reported as killed was badly wounded and is under treatment in a hospital, Soylu said later.

Local governor Davut Gul said five rockets had hit a school, two houses and a truck near the Karkamis border area. Broadcaster CNN Turk said the attack was launched from Syria’s Kobani area, controlled by the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia.

Turkish warplanes had carried out strikes in Syria and Iraq on Sunday, destroying 89 targets linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the YPG, which Ankara says is a wing of the PKK.

In a statement, the Turkish defense ministry said 184 militants were killed in operations on Sunday and Monday. It said the operations had included air strikes and land-fired weapons.

Turkey said its weekend operation was in retaliation for the bomb attack in Istanbul last week that killed six people, and which authorities blamed on Kurdish militants. The PKK and YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have denied involvement in the November 13 bombing on a busy pedestrian avenue.

Washington has allied with the SDF in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria, causing a deep and lasting rift with NATO ally Turkey.

An SDF spokesman had said the weekend Turkish strikes destroyed grain silos, a power station and a hospital, killing 11 civilians, an SDF fighter and two guards. It also said it would retaliate.

Ground forces possible

During the weekend violence, eight Turkish security personnel were wounded in YPG rocket attacks from Syria’s Tal Rifat on a police post near a border gate in Kilis province, Ankara said.

On Monday, Turkey struck a Syrian army outpost west of Kobani where a YPG army barrack is located, an SDF source said. The outpost is one of several where the Syrian army was brought in to prevent the Turks from attacking the SDF.

Turkey has backed rebels fighting to topple Syria’s President Bashar Assad and cut diplomatic relations with Damascus early in the 11-year conflict.

Turkey’s armed forces have conducted several large-scale military operations in recent years in northern Iraq and northern Syria against the YPG, PKK and Islamic State.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey’s operations would not be limited to an air campaign and could involve ground forces.

“Our defense ministry and our general staff decide together how much of the land forces should take part. We make our consultations, and then we take our steps accordingly,” he was quoted by Turkish media as saying on a flight from Qatar.

The PKK launched an insurgency against the Turkish state in 1984 and more than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict. It is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
…

A British-born woman who went to Syria as a schoolgirl to join Islamic State (IS) is challenging the U.K. government’s decision to take away her citizenship, with her lawyers telling a London court that she was likely “a child victim of trafficking.”

Shamima Begum left London in 2015 aged 15 and traveled with two school friends to Syria, where she married an IS fighter and gave birth to three children, all of whom died as infants.

She was stripped of her British citizenship on national security grounds in 2019, shortly after she was found in a detention camp in Syria.

Begum, now 23, is appealing that decision at a five-day hearing at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, a specialist tribunal that hears appeals of decisions to remove citizenship on national security grounds.

Samantha Knights, representing Begum, said on Monday that the decision to remove her citizenship made Begum “effectively an exile for life.”

“This case concerns a British child aged 15 who was persuaded, influenced and affected with her friends by a determined and effective ISIS propaganda machine,” she said, using another acronym for the militant Islamist group.

Begum’s lawyers said in written arguments that the British Home Office (interior ministry) had revoked her citizenship “without seeking to investigate and determine, still less consider, whether she was a child victim of trafficking.”

They also argued there was overwhelming evidence that Begum was “recruited, transported, transferred, harbored and received in Syria for the purposes of sexual exploitation.”

Her lawyers also said that Begum and her friends’ entry into Syria was “facilitated by a Canadian agent working for ISIS.”

But lawyers representing the Home Office said Begum’s case was about national security rather than trafficking. 

James Eadie, representing the British government, said in written arguments that Begum had aligned with IS and stayed in Syria for four years until 2019.

Eadie said Begum left IS territory “only as the caliphate collapsed,” adding: “Even at that stage, the evidence demonstrates that she left only for safety and not because of a genuine disengagement from the group.”

A British intelligence officer known only as Witness E, who gave evidence from behind a screen, said it was “inconceivable” that someone traveling to Syria to join IS in 2015 “would not know what [IS] was doing as a terrorist organization.”

“In some respects, she would have known what she was doing and had agency in doing so,” Witness E said.
…

Spain has decided to repatriate several Spanish wives and children of Islamic State fighters from jihadist detention camps in Syria, the government said Monday. 

The return of relatives of captured or killed jihadist fighters from Syria and Iraq has been a thorny issue for European countries since the fall of the Islamic State group’s so-called “caliphate” in 2019. 

Thousands of extremists in Europe decided to join the group as fighters, often taking their wives and children to live in the “caliphate” declared in territory conquered in Iraq and Syria. 

Spain plans to repatriate three women and 13 children before the end of the year, a government source told AFP, confirming a report in top-selling Spanish daily El Pais. 

One of the women is married to an Islamic State fighter and the other two are widows of jihadist fighters.  

Previously, Spain has refused to repatriate such family members of jihadist fighters. 

The women face charges of cooperating with a terrorist organization for allegedly aiding the Islamic State group. If convicted, they face jail terms of up to five years. 

The women have been in the detention camps since 2019. They say they were tricked by their husbands to go to Syria and did not take part in any jihadist activities, according to El Pais. 

Spain has also agreed to repatriate a Moroccan woman who is the widow of a Spanish fighter and the couple’s three children, but they fled from a detention camp near Iraq in 2020 and their whereabouts is unknown. 

France, Germany and the Netherlands are among the other European nations which have repatriated relatives of jihadist fighters this year or announced plans to do so. 

 
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The European Commission set out a 20-point action plan on Monday designed to address surging migration in the central Mediterranean ahead of an emergency meeting of interior ministers.

Over 90,000 migrants and refugees have arrived in the European Union this year via the central Mediterranean route, such as across the sea from North Africa to Italy or Malta, a 50% increase from 2021. Interior ministers will hold talks on Friday.

European Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson told a news conference that one focus of the EU plan was to strengthen cooperation with third countries, including actions to prevent departures from North Africa.

The Commission says the majority of migrants depart from Libya and Tunisia and come primarily from Egypt, Tunisia and Bangladesh. The EU aims to have spent 580 million euros ($594 million) between 2021 and 2023 to support North African countries and help foster economic growth and jobs in the region.

The issue came to a head earlier this month as Paris and Rome clashed over France’s acceptance of a boat carrying 234 rescued migrants that Italy had turned away.

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi called the proposal a “solid start”, welcoming the focus on more cooperation with countries of origin and transit and more coordination of sea rescue activities.

Johansson said there needed to be greater EU coordination of search and rescue, including among coastal and flag states, and stressed that providing assistance to people found in distress at sea was a legal obligation.

She also highlighted an EU deal reached in June on voluntary relocation of migrants and financial contributions from EU countries not in the front line.
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A landmark new Spanish law on sexual violence is the target of protests after at least 15 convicted offenders used the legislation to secure reductions to their jail terms while others were released.

Known as the “only yes means yes” law in Spain, it reformed the criminal code to define all non-consensual sex as rape.

Before this, rape convictions could only be secured if prosecutors could prove that violence or intimidation had been used. Often, a lesser charge of sexual abuse was alleged if these factors could not be proved.

The new law, enacted in October, also made wolf-whistling at women an offense and ordered sex offenders to take re-education courses.

Ana I. Bernal, a journalist who specializes in writing about feminism, told VOA: “This law has left a legal loophole. There are many victims who are scared about what could happen because the people who abused them could be let out of prison earlier. They are worried about their safety.”  

The law raises the sentences for gang rape or chemical submission, but it reduces both the maximum and minimum sentences in cases where there are no aggravating circumstances like violence or intimidation.

In Spain, a jail term can be retroactively modified if changes to the penal code benefits the convicted offender.

Hundreds of convicted offenders have applied to have their sentences revised since the law came into effect.

The legislation was brought in after a group of five men, known as the Wolf Pack, raped an 18-year-old woman at Pamplona at the world-famous bull running festival in 2016.

In a politically embarrassing reverse for Spain’s leftist government, which has made feminism a central part of its policies, the offenders whose crimes inspired the new rape law could benefit from the legislation.

Augustín Martínez, a lawyer for one member of the Wolf Pack, whose name came from the WhatsApp social media group which the attackers used, said he intends to use the law to try to reduce the offender’s sentence.

The ‘Wolf Pack’ are not the only ones who could benefit.

One man who sexually assaulted his 13-year-old stepdaughter had his sentence reduced from eight years to six years.

In another case, a teacher who paid for sex with his pupils was released after his sentence was reduced.

Victims have gone public to express their anger that they may come face to face with the men who abused them sooner than they believed.

Antonia’s former partner was jailed for 13 years for raping her, but he has had his sentence cut to 11 years.

“It is like a bucket of cold water thrown in my face. This makes me very scared and angry,” she told RTVE, the Spanish state television network. She consented to appear on television but did not give her full name.

With the lesser charge of ‘sexual abuse’ dropped from the criminal code and wider range of offences grouped under ‘sexual assault’, a broader range of penalties was required to ensure proportionality.

This means anyone who was previously convicted of sexual assault who was jailed for the minimum sentence of eight years, can now benefit from the minimum being reduced to six.

Accusations of chauvinism

Spain’s Equality Minister, Irene Montero of the far-left Unidas Podemos party, which is the junior partner in Spain’s coalition government, accused judges who have cut sentences of “breaking the law” on the grounds of “male chauvinism” – remarks which angered the judges’ organizations.

The General Council of the Judiciary, the body responsible for ensuring the judiciary’s independence, hit back in a statement, saying these were “intolerable attacks.”

A female judge, who did not want to disclose her name, told VOA: “Clearly, we are not all machos! This is nonsense.”

Carlos Flores, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Valencia, told VOA that the minister’s claims about judges ‘male chauvinism’ did not make sense.

“At least 55% of Spanish judges are women so you cannot accuse them of machismo. Also, all the judges sitting today trained in the period after the death of (the dictator) General Franco (in 1975) and most receive education in gender politics,” he said.

Flores said that the row over the law which was designed to give more protection to victims has proved embarrassing for the Spanish government.

“All this is happening in an area which this government has made one of its dearest concerns – feminism. This is the most feminist government in Spanish history with the largest number of women ministers. It is a major failure in a major area of interest for this government,” he noted.

Amid calls for Montero to resign, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has come under pressure to act.

Political Cornerstone

“It is unlikely that Sanchez will sack Montero over this. It would be the end of the coalition,” Pablo Simón, a political expert from the University Carlos III in Madrid, told VOA.

This week, the Supreme Court will review a number of cases.

“Let’s wait to see what the courts and prosecutors say about this,” Sanchez said last week.

Opposition parties have exploited the political crisis.

Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the opposition conservative People’s Party, said: “The effect is that there are rapists who have committed sexual abuse who, thanks to this law, are now more protected because of the president of the government.”

Flores said it was unlikely that the new law would be modified.

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse.
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The International Atomic Energy Agency said it planned to carry out inspections Monday at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after two days of shelling in the area renewed concerns about the potential disaster at the site.

The latest round of attacks near Europe’s largest nuclear power plant included what the IAEA said were more than a dozen blasts Sunday.

“Even though there was no direct impact on key nuclear safety and security systems at the plant, the shelling came dangerously close to them. We are talking meters, not kilometers,” IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said. “Whoever is shelling at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, is taking huge risks and gambling with many people’s lives.”

Ukraine and Russia have repeatedly blamed each other for shelling near the power plant amid the war Russia launched in late February with its invasion of Ukraine.

A Kremlin spokesman told reporters Monday other countries need to use their influence to help end attacks at the site.

As bitter winter weather hits Ukraine, Russia has been attacking the Ukrainian power grid and other key infrastructure from the air, causing widespread blackouts for millions of Ukrainians. In the Zaporizhzhia region alone, the Ukrainian presidency said, Russian forces shelled civilian infrastructure in about a dozen communities, destroying 30 homes.

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