Month: February 2022

As Support for NATO Grows, Has Putin Miscalculated Over Ukraine?

Visiting NATO headquarters Thursday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned that Europe is facing its biggest security crisis in decades and pledged more military deployments in eastern Europe, in response to Russia’s troop buildup on the border with Ukraine. “The stakes are very high, and this is a very dangerous moment. And at stake are the rules that protect every nation, every nation big and small,” Johnson said after talks with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. Britain is strengthening its deployments in Estonia and Poland and is considering further deployments in southeastern Europe in the event of a Russian invasion of …

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Commissioner of London Police Resigns After Multiple Scandals

The commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service in London, Cressida Dick, announced her resignation Thursday following multiple accusations of misogyny, racism and sexism in the capital force’s ranks.   Mayor Sadiq Khan said Thursday that he was dissatisfied with Dick’s response when he told her last week that the force needed to change to “root out the racism, sexism, homophobia, bullying, discrimination, and misogyny.”   “It’s clear that the only way to start to deliver the scale of the change required is to have new leadership right at the top of the Metropolitan Police” the mayor said, as quoted in …

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French Discoverer of HIV, Luc Montagnier, Dies at 89

French researcher Luc Montagnier, who won a Nobel Prize in 2008 for discovering HIV and more recently spread false claims about the coronavirus, has died at age 89, local government officials in France said.  Montagnier died Tuesday at the American Hospital of Paris in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a western suburb of the capital, the area’s city hall said. No other details were released.  Montagnier, a virologist, led the team that in 1983 identified the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS, leading him to share the 2008 Nobel Prize in medicine with colleague Francoise Barré-Sinoussi. The French minister for higher education and …

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Russian Star Practices Despite Report of Positive Drug Test 

Kamila Valieva, the 15-year-old Russian superstar who was expected to deliver her nation its third straight Olympic gold medal in women’s figure skating, practiced as usual on Thursday, hours after reports surfaced that she had tested positive for a banned substance.    Valieva tested positive for the heart medication before the Beijing Games, the Russian newspaper RBC reported.    The sample was reportedly obtained before Valieva won the European championship last month in Estonia, a performance that solidified her status as the leader of Russia’s “quad squad” of elite women’s figure skaters.    It’s unclear if Russia is appealing or fighting the result, …

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Macron Bets on Nuclear in Carbon-Neutrality Push, Announces New Reactors

France will build at least six new nuclear reactors in the decades to come, President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday, placing nuclear power at the heart of his country’s drive for carbon neutrality by 2050. Macron said the new plants would be built and operated by state-controlled energy provider EDF and that tens of billions of euros in public financing would be mobilized to finance the projects and safeguard EDF’s finances. “What our country needs, and the conditions are there, is the rebirth of France’s nuclear industry,” Macron said, unveiling his new nuclear strategy in the eastern industrial town of …

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Turkey’s Media Regulator Forces VOA and Others to Obtain Licenses

Turkey’s media regulator on Wednesday gave three international broadcasters, including Voice of America’s Turkish Service, short notice to obtain broadcast licenses or have their content blocked. The order from the Radio and Television Supreme Council, known as RTUK, also affects German broadcaster Deutsche Welle and Euronews, the regulator’s opposition board member said. “A decision was taken with a majority of votes that 72 hours be granted to the websites of amerikaninsesi.com, dw.com/tr, and tr.euronews.com to get licenses,” Ilhan Tasci, a member of RTUK’s board, said in a tweet. Tasci, who was appointed to the board by the opposition Republican People’s …

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Britain’s Johnson Calls for Solidarity Against ‘Russian Aggression’  

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is meeting Thursday with leaders of Poland and NATO as he urges what his office called “solidarity with NATO allies who bear the brunt of Russian aggression.” Johnson has ordered 1,000 British troops be ready to respond to a potential humanitarian crisis resulting from a Russian invasion of neighboring Ukraine. “What we need to see is real diplomacy, not coercive diplomacy,” Johnson said in a statement. “As an alliance we must draw lines in the snow and be clear there are principles upon which we will not compromise. That includes the security of every NATO …

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UK Readies 1,000 Troops for Humanitarian Support Over Ukraine Tensions

Britain ordered 1,000 troops to be on a state of readiness to provide support in the event of a humanitarian crisis caused by any Russian aggression, ahead of a visit by Prime Minister Boris Johnson to the leaders of NATO and Poland on Thursday.  Johnson will go to Brussels and Warsaw to stress the need to hold firm on NATO’s principles and discuss ways that Britain can provide military support while Russia amasses its troops near Ukraine’s border.  Johnson’s trip is one among a wave of international diplomatic efforts. French President Emmanuel Macron met Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this …

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What Are the Minsk Accords?

The so-called Minsk accords of 2014 and 2015 attempted to end the war in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine between Ukraine and Russian-speaking separatists in the disputed areas of Donetsk and Luhansk. In 2014, representatives of Ukraine and Russian separatists agreed to a 12-part cease-fire deal in the Belarus capital of Minsk. The deal included a prisoner exchange, humanitarian assistance and the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the disputed area. But the agreement quickly broke down after both sides violated the terms. The two sides tried again in 2015, this time with representatives of the Organization for Security and …

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Backlash to Macron’s Ukraine Proposals Builds

French President Emmanuel Macron is pursuing a poisoned peace plan, say critics in Europe, who fear the outcome of his talks this week with Russian President Vladimir Putin could be to strengthen Moscow’s hand in the crisis over Ukraine.    A backlash is building to Macron’s visits this week to Moscow and Kyiv among fellow European leaders. They worry the French leader strayed from an agreed script and that his mooting of new security guarantees for Russia risks encouraging Putin in what they see as a Kremlin effort to reestablish a Russian sphere of influence over neighboring European nations.  The …

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War in Ukraine Could Spark a Regional Conflict  

An international humanitarian official warns a war in Ukraine would be cataclysmic, potentially engulfing neighboring countries and turning into a regional conflict. Secretary-General of the Norwegian Refugee Council Jan Egeland just spent a week along the government side of the frontline that separates Ukrainian armed forces from the Russian-backed rebel-held regions of eastern Ukraine. He went there to gauge peoples’ views on a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine. He says people overwhelmingly agree it would be utterly insane to launch another cataclysmic war. He says they told him it would be senseless beyond belief. “They said, ‘Listen, this is … …

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