SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — Government ministers are returning to Egypt to take over negotiations at this year’s U.N. climate talks, providing diplomats with the political backing they need to clinch credible agreements that would help prevent disastrous levels of warming in the coming decades.
Talks in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh got off to a plodding start and are behind the pace of previous meetings with three days left before the scheduled close Friday. But a small thaw in relations between the United States and China at the Group of 20 meeting in Bali has boosted hopes that the world’s top two polluters can help get a deal over the line in Egypt.
U.S. climate envoy John Kerry confirmed Wednesday that he and his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua had resumed formal talks after they were frozen three months ago by China in retaliation for U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan.
Asked what his goal for the outcome of the meeting was, Kerry was cautious, however.
“We’ll have to see, it’s a late start,” he said.
Delegates have been haggling over whether to restate the 2015 Paris accord’s headline goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) and the rules countries set themselves for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Officials from developing nations, meanwhile, are pushing for rich countries to make good on pledges of further financial aid for those struggling to cope with global warming. One significant aspect of that could be payments for ‘loss and damage’ resulting from climate change, which developed countries have long resisted for fear of being held financially liable for the carbon dioxide they’ve pumped into the atmosphere for decades.
But there has been a softening of positions among some rich nations that now acknowledge some form of payment will be needed, just not what.
“Countries that are particularly affected, who themselves bear no blame for the CO2 emissions of industrial nations such as Germany, rightly expect protection against loss and damage from climate change,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said as she departed for Egypt.
She acknowledged that negotiators have “a difficult path” ahead of them for a substantial agreement.
Geopolitical tensions have been reflected at this year’s talks, with European Union delegates walking out of a speech Tuesday by Russia’s special climate representative, and a small group of Ukrainian and Polish activists briefly disrupting a Russian side event.
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UNITED NATIONS — The new U.N. special envoy for Libya warned Tuesday that the first anniversary of Libya’s postponed elections is quickly approaching and that further delaying a vote could lead the troubled north African nation to even greater instability, putting it “at risk of partition.”
Abdoulaye Bathily told the U.N. Security Council that the October 2020 cease-fire continues to hold despite escalating rhetoric and a buildup of forces by rival governments in the country’s east and west.
Oil-rich Libya plunged into chaos after a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. In the chaos that followed, the county split with the rival administrations backed by rogue militias and foreign governments.
The country’s current political crisis stems from the failure to hold elections on Dec. 24, 2021, and the refusal of Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah — who led a transitional government in the capital of Tripoli — to step down. In response, the country’s east-based parliament appointed a rival prime minister, Fathy Bashagha, who has for months sought to install his government in Tripoli.
Bathily, a former Senegalese minister and diplomat who arrived in Libya in mid-October and has been traveling to all parts of the country, told the council that he has found Libyans hope “for peace, stability and legitimate institutions.”
“However, there is an increasing recognition that some institutional players are actively hindering progress towards elections,” he said.
He warned that further prolonging elections “will make the country even more vulnerable to political, economic and security instability” and could risk partition. And he urged Security Council members to “join hands in encouraging Libyan leaders to work with resolve towards the holding of elections as soon as possible.”
Bathily urged the council “to send an unequivocal message to obstructionists that their actions will not remain without consequences.”
He said the council make clear that ending the cease-fire and resorting to violence and intimidation “will not be accepted and that there is no military solution to the Libyan crisis.”
Russia called for the briefing, and its deputy ambassador, Dmitry Polyansky, described the situation in the country as “very tense” and “rather unstable,” with no sign of an end to the rival governments anytime soon.
That “means no inclusive nationwide elections or unification of Libyan state organs in the short term,” he said.
Polyansky warned that “the situation risks spiraling out of control under the influence of divergent interests of external stakeholders.”
He accused Western nations, singling out the United States, of prolonging the Libyan crisis by using the turbulent situation in the country to pursue their own interests — namely unhindered access to Libyan oil.
Polyansky claimed Western governments set a goal “to turn Libya into a `gas station’ to meet their energy needs.” And he claimed the U.S. administration “still considers the Libyan political process only through the lens of American economic interest … with a view to preventing the growth of prices for the `black gold.’”
U.S. Deputy Ambassador Richard Mills shot back saying: “The United States rejects accusations that somehow access to Libyan oil reserves is the cause of the political impasse in Libya today.”
Referring to Russia, he said the U.S. is dismayed that a council member that violated the U.N. Charter by invading and occupying its neighbor continues “to shift the focus of this council with unfounded conspiracy theories.”
“It is simply a failed attempt to shield themselves from legitimate criticism,” Mills said. “Libya’s leaders must shoulder the responsibility of achieving sustainable peace, good governance, and ultimately prosperity for the people of Libya. And the United States stands to support them.”
BUDAPEST — On an early morning drive from his residence to the U.S. Embassy, David Pressman kept a close eye on his surroundings.
Look, the new U.S. ambassador to Hungary said, pointing out the government-funded billboards dotting Budapest’s streets.
“The Brussels sanctions are ruining us!” they declared, the word “sanctions” emblazoned across a flying bomb.
One by one, the posters whizzed by, blaring the same ominous warning.
These types of signs have been a feature of the Budapest landscape for years, spinning up a conspiratorial gallery of foreign enemies Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has used to instill fear and anger in the Hungarian population as he vies to keep his grip on power.
But historically, the U.S. — like many of its Western partners — has stayed relatively quiet in public about these targeted messaging campaigns and the rise of anti-Western government rhetoric, which often reflected the country’s democratic backsliding and the local influence of Russian propaganda.
With Pressman, that has changed. Pressman’s presence alone is an implicit rebuke of Orbán’s strongman, culture wars agenda. Pressman is a human rights lawyer, has a male partner and has worked closely with George Clooney, a totem of the Fox News-caricatured “Hollywood liberal elite.”
And in just two months on the job, the new American ambassador has become a household name in Budapest for his willingness to call out — and even troll — the Orbán government’s overtly propagandistic and conspiratorial bombast.
There is, Pressman said in his first interview since taking his post, a “need to be both respectful and more candid about what we’re seeing.”
Recently, the U.S. embassy posted a once-unthinkable video quiz challenging people to guess whether quotes came from Hungarian public figures or Russian President Vladimir Putin. The answer, of course, was never Putin.
“I’m concerned when I see missiles flying from Moscow into children’s playgrounds in Kyiv — and see the foreign minister of Hungary flying into Moscow to do Facebook Live conferences from Gazprom headquarters,” the ambassador told POLITICO.
For this approach, Pressman has become the latest foreign enemy in Budapest.
In a country that recently banned the portrayal of LGBTQ+ content to minors, Pressman has put his personal life on display | Janka Szitas/U.S. Embassy Budapest
The newspapers cover him regularly — “Clown diplomacy,” one declared. State-owned and Orbán-friendly TV channels are similarly obsessed, portraying the American ambassador as a secretive colonial overlord sent to meddle in Hungary’s internal affairs.
And in a country that recently banned the portrayal of LGBTQ+ content to minors, Pressman has put his personal life on display, posting photos of his partner and their two kids as they arrived to present his diplomatic credentials.
“I think it speaks for itself,” Pressman said. “Sometimes the power of example,” he added, “is the most powerful way we can communicate about shared values and concerns.”
In many ways, Pressman’s story is emblematic of the evolution of the broader relationship between the U.S. and Hungary. For years, an ambassador posting in Budapest was primarily considered a symbolic role, reserved for wealthy political donors with no foreign policy expertise.
Hungary, the thinking went, was a reliable European Union and NATO member that required little extra attention in Washington. But the erosion of democratic norms — combined with Moscow’s influence in Budapest and Russia’s bombardment of Ukraine — has changed the calculus.
“The stakes right now are huge,” the ambassador said. “The politicization and partisanization of the relationship,” he added, “is not sustainable.”
A pragmatic idealist
Pressman, unlike many of his predecessors, is no novice to U.S. foreign policy.
As a young lawyer, he teamed up with Clooney on a campaign to get those in power to pay attention to atrocities in Darfur — later earning the nickname “Cuz” from Clooney. He also made stops as an aide to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, as a Homeland Security Department official and a White House staffer during the Obama years. In 2014, he landed in New York as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations for special political affairs.
Those experiences — and his resulting relationships across government — have given Pressman the backing to make significant changes to how the U.S. approaches Orbán’s government.
Samantha Power, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author-turned-diplomat, was the one who brought the then-32-year-old Pressman to the White House before working closely together in New York when she became U.N. ambassador. Pressman, she said, was her go-to person for tough assignments.
Once, she recalled, her staff needed to convince China to join sanctions against North Korea after a nuclear test.
“David,” she told POLITICO, “is a person that I entrusted in the day-to-day to work with the Chinese ambassador to extract as robust a set of sanctions as possible.”
“When we see insane Kremlin stories being re-propagated in the Hungarian media, we’re gonna call that out, because we have to”, David Pressman said | Attila Kisbenedek/AFP via Getty images
Pressman, Power recounted, was so well-prepared that it was as if he “got a PhD in iron ore trafficking.” His prep work also paid off. “No one had invested more in advance of the nuclear tests in a relationship with his Chinese counterpart that he could then call upon when it mattered for the United States,” she added.
Now, Hungary matters for the United States. In the last 12 years, Orbán’s ruling Fidesz party has taken control of much of the media landscape, placed allies at the helm of independent state institutions, channeled government resources into political campaigning and nurtured ties to Moscow and Beijing. The development has strained the bedrock of the global democratic order.
On a recent fall day, the ambassador invited POLITICO to visit his home at 7:30 in the morning, as his sons were getting ready to leave for school. He then spent the day racing between meetings with anti-corruption experts, a founding member of Orbán’s ruling Fidesz party, Hungarian students and a fellow ambassador.
At the discussion with anti-corruption campaigners, Pressman placed a large notebook on the table and began scribbling as he tossed out a flurry of questions: Who is involved? How does this work? How do you know that?
Later, Pressman popped into a graffiti-decorated pub and took his seat among a cluster of high school and university students. Again, the questions came quickly: How do your peers see the U.S.? Is there anyone in the government you trust? What comes to mind on Russia?
Pressman is known as an idealist. As the White House National Security Council’s director for war crimes and atrocities, he decorated his office — no bigger than two large filing cabinets — with photos of indicted war criminals the U.S. was trying to apprehend, Power recalled.
But he still professes a pragmatic approach. His goal, he insists, is to build relationships with the Hungarian government — even as he needles it over anti-democratic behavior. The two sides can work together, he noted.
“When we see insane Kremlin stories being re-propagated in the Hungarian media, we’re gonna call that out, because we have to,” he said.
But, Pressman added, “all of that is with the intent to pull us closer together — not to push us apart.”
A troubled relationship
Even before the ambassador’s arrival, anti-American rhetoric had been on the rise in Hungary.
In the government-controlled press, the U.S. is both the boogeyman behind the invasion of Ukraine and the puppet master of Hungary’s opposition parties. Fidesz-linked outlets even spread paranoid conspiracy theories about a U.S. diplomat who died in a traffic accident.
But in recent weeks, the vitriol — and the personal attacks on Pressman — has reached a fever pitch.
As Orbán’s allies have tightened their judicial system vice grip, the EU and others have made strengthening the council a priority | John Thys/AFP via Getty images
One sharp escalation occurred after Pressman posted a photo of himself meeting with two judges from the National Judicial Council.
The group’s bureaucratic name belies its heated symbolic and political importance in Hungary.
The council is meant to help oversee Hungary’s judiciary. So as Orbán’s allies have tightened their judicial system vice grip, the EU and others have made strengthening the council a priority.
Pressman’s decision, just weeks into his job, to sit down with the council’s representatives sparked dozens of articles attacking him and breathless TV coverage.
“Unprecedented serious interference in the judiciary,” blared a headline in the government-linked Origo news portal. “Today what comes to mind is that if we have such friends, then we don’t need enemies,” the Orbán-adjacent Magyar Nemzet newspaper pronounced.
Even in private, Hungarian officials stewed. “His meeting with two infamous judges,” said one senior Hungarian official, ”was a pretty unfortunate beginning.” A spokesperson for the Hungarian government did not respond to questions about Pressman.
Judge Csaba Vasvári — the council’s spokesperson and one of the figures who met with the ambassador — told POLITICO the public pillorying is fueling a “strong chilling effect” within the judiciary.
Instead of letting it pass, Pressman pushed back — in his own style.
The U.S. embassy posted a host of photos of politicians and senior diplomats meeting with judges — including, cheekily, a smiling younger Orbán standing beside former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.
“What is inconsistent with normal diplomatic practice between allies,” the embassy said in a public statement, “is the recent coordinated media attack on the spokesperson and international liaison of the National Judicial Council in what appears to be an effort to instill fear in those who wish to engage with representatives of the United States.”
A politicized alliance
Orbán and his government have made no secret of their disdain for Democrats.
Democrats, they say, want to impose their liberal ideology on Hungary. They are the ones who ruined the relationship with Hungary. They lack family values. They are not a Christian government.
“Always great to hear from our good friend @realDonaldTrump. Let’s make US-HU relations great again!” Orbán tweeted recently at the Twitter-banished ex-president | Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty images
Republicans are the exact opposite, in the government’s narrative. Orbán himself has personally courted MAGA-ites at their own super bowl — CPAC. He hosted Tucker Carlson in Budapest. He pines on Twitter for Donald Trump’s return.
“Always great to hear from our good friend @realDonaldTrump. Let’s make US-HU relations great again!” Orbán tweeted recently at the Twitter-banished ex-president.
It’s these types of tossed-off comments that no longer pass without a response.
“With Hungary facing economic challenges and Vladimir Putin’s war on its doorstep, the time for a great US-HU relationship? Right now,” Pressman quipped back.
It wasn’t the pair’s first sarcastic Twitter repartee, either. When the Hungarian leader first joined the platform in October and rhetorically asked where Trump was, Pressman also jumped in.
“While you look around for your friend, perhaps another friend to follow: the President of the United States,” he shot back, before offering a sly nod to his critics: “But as the Hungarian media might say: no pressure.”
Such cutting Twitter missives are not to everyone’s liking. Some even insist they are having a boomerang effect, cheapening diplomacy and further deteriorating the U.S.-Hungarian relationship.
Two former Trump-era intelligence officials recently blasted Pressman’s approach in the Wall Street Journal, calling the playful video quiz a “cringe-worthy example of the State Department’s woke virtue signaling.”
“When the U.S. has issues with foreign leaders, it should deal with them through adult diplomacy,” they added. “Instead, our diplomatic efforts under President Biden, a self-styled foreign-policy expert, could be summed up as ‘anyone I don’t like is Putin.’”
The Biden administration batted away any concerns.
When POLITICO asked for comment on the ambassador’s work, the State Department was quick to both express the administration’s “full confidence” in Pressman and to pass along a bipartisan endorsement from Cindy McCain, the widow of Republican stalwart and foreign policy maven John McCain.
McCain, now in Rome as a U.S. diplomat, talked of knowing Pressman for “nearly two decades,” and said he had “earned the deep respect of national security and foreign policy leaders in both the Republican and Democratic parties.”
If there is any overarching goal, it is to call out Russian propaganda, while still paying attention to how Hungary’s government treats minorities at home | Yuri Kadobnov/AFP via Getty images
For his part, Pressman insisted the embassy has no partisan goals and simply wants a better relationship with the Hungarian authorities.
“Our work is not about liberal policies. It’s not about conservative policies,” he said. “But it’s fundamentally about shared core values that are premised upon small ‘d’ democracy, and ensuring that we are able to collaborate together.”
If there is any overarching goal, it is to call out Russian propaganda — while still paying attention to how Hungary’s government treats minorities at home.
“The United States will always engage on behalf of communities that are vulnerable or marginalized, and that are under pressure — and here in Hungary, there are a few of those,” the ambassador said, noting that groups have Washington’s support as “they seek to engage in their own democratic process.”
Principled stances aside, the situation is undeniably strange: A diplomat from an allied country becoming public enemy No. 1 — and the top news story. On a recent Sunday evening, the Fidesz-linked HírTV station spent nearly half an hour on Pressman.
Pressman insisted he doesn’t take it personally. But “do we take it seriously? Absolutely,” he said.
“I’m the representative of the United States of America,” he added. “It’s unusual to find yourself,” he observed with understatement, in “an environment quite like this.”
ROME — Lines formed Sunday at Italy’s northern border crossings with France following Paris’ decision to reinforce border controls over a diplomatic row with Italy about migration policy and humanitarian rescue ships that shows no end in sight.
The Ventimiglia-Menton crossing along the picturesque Mediterranean coast has often been a flashpoint of the migrant debate, with makeshift camps giving shelter to migrants who try to cross into France after arriving in Italy. On Sunday morning, several dozen migrants were sleeping on mattresses under a highway overpass — numbers that could swell as France cracks down on crossings.
France announced this week it was sending 500 extra officers to beef up its frontiers with Italy in retaliation for Italy’s delays in helping humanitarian ships that rescue migrants in the Mediterranean.
Police patrolled trains and roads across the border Sunday, stopping migrants. Along the winding coastal road that connects the two neighbors, traffic flowed freely from France to Italy but barely crawled in the other direction. An Associated Press reporter saw French border police stopping nearly every car, making drivers open their trunks and boarding large vehicles like camper vans.
Behind them stood a border sign with the word “ITALY” on a blue background and surrounded by the gold stars of the EU flag, symbol of a bloc whose principles of cross-border cooperation are being put to the test by the current France-Italy tensions.
After a weekslong-standoff, Italy allowed three aid groups to disembark their passengers in Italian ports because doctors determined they were all vulnerable, but refused entry to a fourth. The Ocean Viking charity rescue ship, which had been at sea for nearly three weeks, eventually docked in Toulon, France after Paris reluctantly took it in.
Italy’s new far-right-led government headed by Premier Giorgia Meloni has vowed that Italy will no longer be the primary port of entry for migrants leaving on smugglers’ boats from Libya and is demanding Europe do more to shoulder the burden and regulate the aid groups that operate rescue ships in the Mediterranean.
France strongly criticized Italy’s handling of the Ocean Viking, which was accompanied by triumphant social media posts by right-wing League party leader Matteo Salvini that “the air has changed” before France had publicly agreed to take it in.
In retaliation, France announced it was withdrawing from a European Union “solidarity” mechanism approved in June to relocate 3,000 migrants from Italy.
Italy called France’s response “disproportionate” and “aggressive” and won the support of other front-line Mediterranean countries, including Greece, Malta and Cyprus. The four countries penned a joint statement Saturday calling for a new, obligatory solidarity mechanism to take in migrants.
In addition, the four countries called on the European Commission to initiate talks on better regulating private rescue ships.
“Fines, seizures and more controls in sight,” Salvini tweeted Sunday about threatened new measures against charity rescue ships. “The government is ready to get tough.”
On Sunday, Germany’s ambassador to Italy, Viktor Elbling, defended the aid groups, saying they help save lives and that “their humanitarian commitment warrants our recognition and our support.”
“In 2022, 1,300 people have already died or gone missing in the Mediterranean. NGOs have saved 12% of the survivors,” he tweeted.
The German groups Mission Lifeline and SOS Humanity were able to disembark all their passengers in Italy last week, and the budget committee of the Bundestag decided to provide another group, United4Rescue, with 2 million euros for civil sea rescue in 2023, with similar funding through 2026.
Italy has justified its hard line by noting that it has already welcomed nearly 90,000 migrants this year, far more than any other European country. However, only a fraction of them stay in Italy and apply for asylum, with most continuing their journeys north in hopes of reaching relatives and better established migrant communities in France, Germany, Sweden and elsewhere.
France far outranks Italy in terms of processing asylum applications. Data from January to August shows that Germany received the most applications this year, topping 100,000, followed by France with 82,535. Italy trailed Spain and Austria in fifth place with 43,750 applications.
French government spokesman Olivier Veran reaffirmed Sunday that France would no longer welcome the “just over 3,000 people from Italy, including 500 by the end of the year” as part of the European solidarity mechanism. He called Italy the “loser” in the scenario.
“We will not maintain the proposal that was planned,” Veran said on BFM TV.
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Daniel Cole contributed from Menton and Thomas Adamson contributed from Paris.
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Follow all AP stories on global migration at https://apnews.com/hub/migration.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says the world has failed Myanmar, and is expressing hope the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will be able to pressure the member state to comply with its plan for peace over the next year
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Saturday that the world had failed Myanmar, and expressed hope the Association of Southeast Asian Nations would be able to pressure the member state to comply with its plan for peace over the next year.
ASEAN leaders at the group’s ongoing summit in Phnom Penh agreed on a plan Friday that largely puts the onus on Indonesia when it takes over the group’s rotating chair in 2023 to develop measurable indicators and a timeline for Myanmar to implement the so-called five-point consensus for peace.
Indonesia has been one of the ASEAN countries most outspoken about the need to do more to address the situation in Myanmar, and Guterres told reporters he felt “the Indonesian government will be able to push forward the agenda in a positive way.”
The ASEAN decision announced Friday includes asking the U.N. and other “external partners” for assistance in supporting the group’s efforts. Guterres said he hoped the U.N. special envoy for Myanmar, Noeleen Heyzer, would cooperate closely with her ASEAN counterpart to bring about an end to the “dramatic violations of human rights” in the country.
“Everybody has failed in relation to Myanmar,” Guterres said. “The international community as a whole has failed, and the U.N. is part of the international community.”
ASEAN’s peace plan calls for the immediate cessation of violence, a dialogue among all parties, mediation by an ASEAN special envoy, provision of humanitarian aid and a visit to Myanmar by the special envoy to meet all sides.
Myanmar’s government initially agreed to the plan but has made little effort to implement it.
The U.N.’s top human rights body will hold a special session on Iran in the wake of the government’s violent and deadly crackdowns on protesters, threats against journalists and other alleged human rights violations in the Islamic republic
GENEVA — The U.N.’s top human rights body is poised to hold a special session on Iran in the wake of the government’s deadly crackdowns on protesters, threats against journalists and other alleged human rights violations in the Islamic republic.
The Human Rights Council will hold the session in the week of Nov. 21 “if possible on Nov. 24,” following a diplomatic request by Germany and Iceland.
Germany sent a letter to the council offices Friday announcing the call for a special session “to address the deteriorating human rights situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran, especially with respect to women and children.”
At least one-third of the council’s 47 member states need to support such a request and the move by Germany suggests it has lined up enough backing.
The protests in Iran, sparked by the Sept. 16 death of a 22-year-old woman after her detention by the country’s morality police, have grown into one of the largest sustained challenges to the nation’s theocracy since the chaotic months after its 1979 Islamic Revolution. Security forces have sought to quash dissent.
After the protests erupted, the United States and European Union imposed additional sanctions on Iran for its brutal treatment of demonstrators and its decision to send hundreds of drones to Russia for use in its war in Ukraine. EU foreign ministers are expected to agree on additional sanctions Monday.
At least 328 people have been killed in the Iran protests and 14,825 others arrested, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a monitoring group.
Iran’s government for weeks has remained silent on casualty figures.
Top U.S. diplomat Antony Blinken will attend the World Cup in Qatar, a U.S. official confirmed to POLITICO Monday.
Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, will be in Al-Rayyan for the U.S. vs. Wales match on November 21, on day two of the most controversial World Cup in decades. He is also expected to hold talks with Qatari leaders.
Qatar has faced blowback ever since it was awarded the tournament in 2010. Bribery and corruption allegations dogged the bidding process, and the country’s human rights record and its treatment of migrant workers have been slammed by activists, politicians and football associations.
Blinken’s attendance is a signal that, despite the criticism that has plagued the tournament, senior diplomatic figures have not been put off attending. Qatar has emerged as a key strategic ally for the West on energy security, as Russia’s war on Ukraine wreaks havoc on Europe’s gas supply.
On the same day as the U.S. takes on Wales, Blinken will also hold talks with Qatari leaders as part of an ongoing strategic dialogue with the Middle Eastern country, a former U.S. official told POLITICO.
U.K. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly announced Monday that he also would be attending the tournament. He told the British parliament’s foreign affairs committee that fans traveling to Qatar should “respect the law” while they’re in the country, a comment that drew a sharp rebuke from an LGBTQ+ member of the committee.
A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said it had no travel plans to announce.
U.S. President Joe Biden is not expected to attend any of the events, even though the U.S. is — along with Canada and Mexico — hosting the next men’s World Cup in 2026.
The U.S. will also play England on November 25, and face off against Iran on November 29, in what is certain to be a politically charged encounter.
NAIROBI, Kenya — The latest round of peace talks between Ethiopia’s government and representatives of the country’s Tigray region has been extended as military commanders work out details on disarmament of Tigray forces after two years of conflict.
An official familiar with the talks confirmed the extension into Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The talks that began Monday in Kenya had been set to end Wednesday.
The African Union-led talks follow last week’s signing of a “permanent cessation of hostilities” in the conflict that is estimated to have killed hundreds of thousands of people.
The agreement calls for the disarmament of Tigray forces within weeks, but there is concern about when other combatants who aren’t part of the deal will withdraw from Tigray. They include forces from Eritrea, which neighbors the region, and Ethiopia’s Amhara region.
Other issues discussed at this round of talks include the restoration of basic services like internet, telecommunications and banking to the region of more than 5 million people, as well as the resumption of deliveries of humanitarian aid.
The United Nations on Wednesday said they and partners were still waiting on access to a region where even some basic medical supplies have run out. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is from Ethiopia, told reporters he had expected aid to resume “immediately” after the peace deal’s signing.
The lead negotiator for Ethiopia’s government, Redwan Hussein, has said that “maybe by the end of this week or the middle of next week” humanitarian aid will be allowed to go in.
United Nations-backed investigators have said Ethiopian forces resorted to “starvation of civilians” as a weapon in the conflict marked by abuses on all sides.
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s president has suggested he’s open to peace talks with Russia, softening his refusal to negotiate with Moscow as long as President Vladimir Putin is in power while sticking to Kyiv’s core demands.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s appeal to the international community to “force Russia into real peace talks” reflected a change in rhetoric. In late September, after Russia illegally annexed four Ukrainian regions, he signed a decree stating “the impossibility of holding talks” with Putin.
But the preconditions the Ukrainian leader listed late Monday appear to be non-starters for Moscow, so it’s hard to see how Zelenskyy’s latest comments would advance any talks.
Zelenskyy reiterated that his conditions for dialogue were the return of all of Ukraine‘s occupied lands, compensation for war damage and the prosecution of war crimes. He didn’t specify how world leaders should coerce Russia into talks.
Western weapons and aid have been key to Ukraine’s ability to fight off Russia’s invasion, which some initially expected would tear through the country with relative ease. That means Kyiv cannot ignore how the war is seen in the U.S. and the European Union, according to political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko.
“Zelenskyy is trying to maneuver because the promise of negotiations does not oblige Kyiv to anything, but it makes it possible to maintain the support of Western partners,” Fesenko, head of the Kyiv-based Penta Center independent think tank, said.
“A categorical refusal to hold talks plays into the Kremlin’s hands, so Zelenskyy is changing the tactics and talks about the possibility of a dialogue, but on conditions that make it all very clear,” he added.
While support for Ukraine has garnered strong bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress, a growing conservative opposition could complicate that next year if Republicans take control of the House in Tuesday’s elections.
Recent comments by Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy that lawmakers would not cut a “blank check” to Ukraine reflect the party’s growing skepticism about the cost of support.
In private, Republican lawmakers who support aid to Ukraine see an opportunity to pass one more tranche of assistance this year with the current Congress.
Russia and Ukraine held several rounds of talks in Belarus and Turkey early in the war, which is now nearing its nine-month mark, and Zelenskyy repeatedly called for a personal meeting with Putin — which the Kremlin brushed off.
The talks stalled after the last meeting of the delegations, held in Istanbul in March, yielded no results.
Zelenskyy said Monday that Kyiv has “repeatedly proposed (talks) and to which we always received crazy Russian responses with new terrorist attacks, shelling or blackmail.”
Russia resumed calls for talks after it started losing ground to a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the east and the south in September. Zelenskyy rejected the possibility of negotiating with Putin later that month after the Russian leader illegally claimed four regions of Ukraine as Russian territory.
Zelenskyy said Monday that Ukraine’s conditions for dialogue included the “restoration of (Ukraine’s) territorial integrity … compensation for all war damage, punishment for every war criminal and guarantees that it will not happen again.”
Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Andrei Rudenko, said Tuesday that Moscow was not setting any conditions for the resumption of talks. He accused Kyiv of lacking “good will.”
“This is their choice. We have always declared our readiness for such negotiations,” Rudenko said.
Putin and other Russian officials have repeatedly claimed that the United States is preventing Ukraine from engaging in peace talks, which several countries have offered to mediate.
In an interview released Tuesday, Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said Western countries wouldn’t push Kyiv to negotiate on Moscow’s terms.
“Ukraine is receiving rather effective weapons from its partners, first and foremost the U.S.,” Podolyak said. “We’re pushing the Russian army out of our territory. And given that, it’s nonsense to force us to negotiate, and de facto to concede to Russia’s ultimatum! No one will do that.”
In other developments:
— In the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine, which the Russians are struggling to take full control of, Moscow’s shelling killed three civilians and wounded seven others over the past 24 hours, according to Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko.
Kyrylenko said the fatalities occurred in the city of Bakhmut, a key target of Russia’s grinding offensive in Donetsk, and the town of Krasnohorivka. Ukraine’s deputy defense minister last week described the Bakhmut area as “the epicenter” of fighting in eastern Ukraine.
— Elsewhere, two civilians were seriously wounded by unexploded mines in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, where Kyiv’s forces retook broad swaths of territory in September, Kharkiv Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said.
— In the partially occupied Kherson region in the south, where Ukraine’s troops are conducting a successful counteroffensive, Russian-installed authorities said they have completed the evacuation of residents ahead of anticipated Ukrainian advances. The Kremlin-appointed administration has sought to relocate tens of thousands.
— Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press show a rapid expansion of a cemetery in southern Ukraine in the months after Russian forces seized the port city of Mariupol. It’s unclear how many people were buried there.
— The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations reassured Ukrainian farmers that extending a wartime deal that allowed Ukrainian grain and other commodities to be shipped on the Black Sea was a priority for the U.N.
The agreement brokered by the U.N. and Turkey has allowed more than 10 million tons of grain to leave Ukrainian ports and travel along a designated corridor. It is set to expire on Nov. 19. A Russian diplomat on Tuesday cited Moscow’s dissatisfaction with its implementation and said the Kremlin had not decided whether to extend it.
During a visit to Kyiv, U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield was asked whether she was telling the Ukrainians about American ideas to end the war. She replied: “Russia started this and Russia can end this, and they can end it by pulling their troops out and stopping committing the atrocities that they are committing against the Ukrainian people.”
She announced $25 million in additional U.S. assistance to help Ukrainians get through the winter.
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Karmanau reported from Tallinn, Estonia. Associated Press writer Farnoush Amiri contributed from Washington.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Diplomacy isn’t just important in politics – it’s also a fundamental set of skills in the workplace.
Good diplomacy skills enable leaders to handle sensitive issues, navigate tricky conflicts and look at the facts objectively, without biased interpretation.
A diplomatic leader will therefore create a healthy culture where people can work well together, even in stressful environments.
So, what is diplomacy?
Diplomacy is best described as the art of tactfully engaging with people to achieve a desired outcome or goal. Armed with this skill set, leaders can approach challenges and conflicts with empathy, a sense of fairness and solid analytical skills.
Leaders with strong diplomacy skills are conscious of the power of their words and behavior and so intentionally communicate with empathy and transparency. They then listen carefully and consider multiple sides of a situation before making a decision, which encourages transparency, creativity and collaboration between team members.
Diplomatic skills encompass a range of abilities that can have an extremely positive impact on leadership success. A considerable advantage of these skills is that they help to improve workplace culture, thereby increasing employee engagement and productivity.
Effective communication, empathy and creative problem-solving are just three of the important skills a leader could focus on if they want to be more diplomatic.
1. Effective communication is an essential skill in diplomacy
Often at work, we communicate with other people in our own natural communication style without consideration of the communication style of our colleagues. This is often the key to lots of misunderstandings. For employees to work together better, it is helpful to actively listen carefully to what is said, appreciate where the other person is coming from and ask clarifying questions. In a Harvard Business Review study, 69% of leaders reported that they aren’t comfortable communicating with their employees, demonstrating the necessity of ongoing training and coaching.
2. Understanding the perspectives of others through empathy
Having empathy for another person’s situation can play a significant part in navigating complex situations. A diplomatic leader considers multiple points of view, understands how emotions factor into the equation and can use these understandings to help diffuse tense situations. A study of nearly 1,000 employees by Catalyst found that leaders who demonstrate empathy benefit workplaces through increased innovation, employee engagement and retention of employees.
Finding fair outcomes to complex problems isn’t always easy, but this is precisely what a diplomatic leader does — focuses on discovering outcomes that work for all. To do this, they’ll focus on gathering information from multiple sources and getting their team involved. Hence, team members benefit from providing their perspectives and contributions to solving the issue and have some buy-in to the result.
How do you improve these skills?
1. Focus on listening to understand
When we listen to understand, instead of listening to respond, we stay more present to what is being said in the moment. Listen to the speaker without interrupting with your own point of view. As you listen, focus on both verbal and nonverbal communication. What is really being said? The goal of your listening is to understand the meaning and intention of the speaker correctly, as this will give you a good foundation for your diplomacy skills.
Another idea to improve listening skills is to meet with staff individually so you can listen with fewer distractions and better understand what drives them. Be curious about who they are and ask open-ended exploratory questions. For example: How are they finding work? How is their workload? What are they hoping to do more or less of? With this knowledge, you’ll be better able to support them and manage expectations.
When you’re in a challenging meeting at work, think about how you can be open to innovative ideas and solutions from staff. Focus more on the various options for resolving the issues at hand. Allow for ideas that might be outside of the box. By doing this, you’ll build the knowledge that there are multiple ways to look at a situation. Your team’s insights might expand your viewpoint to something you’d never considered and having diverse input makes for a stronger team.
3. Practice effective communication
A large part of diplomacy is clear and effective communication. Build an environment of trust where your team feels they can converse with leaders without fearing retribution. Implement an “open door policy,” as this will spread the message that people can come to you with new ideas or to share their concerns. Be as transparent as possible with your team with information about how things are going. Share the highs and the lows of the week/month/quarter. Give shout-outs to celebrate accomplishments. If something is going wrong that you can share with them, let your team know. If there is a big project coming up that might impact your availability. Be sure they’re aware. An email to your team can go a long way.
Ultimately, being a leader is about empowering your staff to do their best work and encouraging people to work well together to increase engagement and productivity. And this really is what diplomacy is all about. It can be a fine line, sometimes, between balancing the needs of a business with the needs of the team. However, having staff who are happy, engaged and productive will always lead to continued success.
UNITED NATIONS — The United States and its allies clashed with China and Russia on Friday over North Korea’s escalating ballistic missile launches and American-led military exercises in South Korea, again preventing any action by the deeply divided U.N. Security Council.
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said North Korea’s “staggering 59 ballistic missile launches this year,” including 13 since Oct. 27 and one that made an “unprecedented impact” about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from South Korea’s shore, are about more than advancing Pyongyang’s military capabilities and seek to raise tensions and stoke fear in its neighbors.
She said 13 of the 15 Security Council members have condemned North Korea’s actions since the beginning of the year, but Pyongyang has been protected by Russia and China who have “bent over backwards” to justify repeated violations of U.N. sanctions by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK, the country’s official name.
“And, in turn, they have enabled the DPRK and made a mockery of this council,” she said.
China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun countered that the DPRK missile launches are directly linked to the re-launch of large-scale U.S.-South Korean military exercises after a five-year break, with hundreds of warplanes involved. He also pointed to the U.S. Defense Department’s 2022 Nuclear Posture Review which he said envisages the DPRK’s use of nuclear weapons and claims that ending the DPRK regime is one of the strategy’s main goals.
Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador Anna Evstigneeva blamed the significantly worsening situation on the Korean peninsula on “the desire of Washington to force Pyongyang to unilaterally disarm by using sanctions and exerting pressure and force.”
She called the U.S.-South Korean exercises that began on Oct. 31 unprecedented in size, with about 240 military aircraft, and claimed they are “essentially a rehearsal for conducting massive strikes on the territory of the DPRK.”
America’s Thomas-Greenfield responded to claims by China and Russia that the military drills were stoking tensions on the Korean peninsula saying: “This is nothing but a regurgitation of DPRK propaganda.” She said the longstanding defensive military exercises “pose no threat to anyone, let alone the DPRK.”
“In contrast, just last month, the DPRK said its flurry of recent launches were the simulated use of tactical battlefield nuclear weapons to `hit and wipe out’ potential U.S. and Republic of Korea targets,” she said. “The DPRK is simply using this as an excuse to continue to advance its unlawful programs.”
The Security Council imposed sanctions after North Korea’s first nuclear test explosion in 2006 and tightened them over the years seeking to rein in its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and cut off funding. In May, however, China and Russia blocked a Security Council resolution that would have toughened sanctions over the missile launches, in the first serious rift on the council over the sanctions against North Korea.
That rift remains and appears to have grown deeper, but Russia, China and the United States did agree on one thing: the need for renewed talks and a diplomatic solution to the crisis on the Korean peninsula.
China’s Zun called on the U.S. “to stop unilaterally playing up tensions and confrontation” and respond “to the legitimate and reasonable concerns of the DPRK to create conditions for the resumption of meaningful dialogue.” And he said the Security Council, rather than seeking additional pressure on the DPRK, should contribute “to the restart of dialogue and negotiation and resolving the humanitarian and livelihood difficulties faced by the DPRK.”
Russia’s Evstigneeva said further sanctions would threaten North Korean citizens “with unacceptable social, economic and humanitarian upheavals,” and reiterated the need “for preventive diplomacy and the importance of finding a political diplomatic solution and real steps by Washington, more than just promises to establish substantive dialogue.”
Thomas-Greenfield said even in the face of the DPRK’s escalating missile launches, “the United States remains committed to a diplomatic solution” and has conveyed its request to the DPRK for talks at all levels of the U.S. government.
After the meeting, the 10 elected council members joined in a statement condemning the launches, calling on the DPRK to halt its nuclear and missile programs, and reiterating their commitment to diplomacy and dialogue.
The U.S., Britain, France, South Korea, Japan and others then read a statement calling on all countries to join in condemning North Korea’s “destabilizing behavior and urging the DPRK to abandon its unlawful weapons programs and engage in diplomacy toward denuclearization.”
Before the council meeting, former U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon told a meeting of Associated Press executives that he is deeply concerned at North Korea’s “unacceptable behavior” and expressed hope that the Security Council would take “very decisive and strong measures.”
North Korea is the only country since the end of World War II that has declared it will use nuclear weapons in a first strike “when they feel that any crisis may be imminent to them,” he said, calling this “arbitrary” and “irresponsible.”
UNITED NATIONS — Only dialogue and diplomacy can end the devastating war in Ukraine, with total victory on the battlefield impossible for either warring party, members of a group of prominent former world leaders founded by Nelson Mandela said Friday.
The group, known as The Elders, delivered that message to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, telling him on a visit to Kyiv this summer that he must start considering a way out of the conflict, former Irish president Mary Robinson who chairs the group know as The Elders said in a meeting with Associated Press executives.
“We need to encourage more thinking about how it will end in order to get the idea that this needs to end, as opposed to increasing the military arsenal on both sides and the devastation to the population in Ukraine,” said Robinson, who also served as U.N. high commissioner for human rights.
The Elders have condemned Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine as “a flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter and a reckless, unjustifiable act of aggression that threatens to destabilize world peace and security.” In late September, The Elders also condemned Russia’s illegal annexation of four Ukrainian regions and defended Ukraine’s right to defend its territory and sovereignty.
Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, a previous U.N. human rights commissioner, agreed that diplomacy and negotiation were the only way out of the war, but he stressed that did not mean asking Ukraine to cede its sovereignty, since it was the victim of unprovoked Russian aggression.
He hinted that a settlement of the conflict could instead involve Russia receiving a concession “from another direction,” a possible reference to NATO, or one of its key members. Russian President Vladimir Putin has long complained the Western alliance has been pushing closer to its borders, a reality he has cited in justifying the invasion.
Former Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo said that despite economic sanctions imposed by the European Union and the United States “the flow of resources to finance this war has continued,” including the huge influx of oil revenue to Russia.
“I think there should be less hypocrisy about the way in which this bellicose economic war is being fought,” he said.
Zedillo also accused Russia of committing crimes that the International Criminal Court is charged with addressing — genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity — and that have to be decided by “due process.”
WASHINGTON — Two Haitian politicians are facing U.S. sanctions over allegations they abused their positions to traffic drugs in collaboration with gang networks and directed others to engage in violence.
The Treasury Department said Friday it was imposing sanctions on Haitian Senate President Joseph Lambert and former Sen. Youri Latortue. The two are accused of using their official roles to engage in the drug trade for decades. Lambert was also designated by the State Department for diplomatic sanctions and visa restrictions.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that “there is credible information of Lambert’s involvement in a gross violation of human rights, namely an extrajudicial killing, during his government tenure.”
He said the State Department is also designating Lambert’s spouse, Jesula Lambert Domond.
The sanctions mean their U.S. property is blocked and American people and companies that do business with them could face penalties as well.
Spokespeople for Lambert and Latortue did not immediately return WhatsApp messages seeking comment on Friday.
The sanctions against Lambert and Latortue come as Haiti is embroiled in political violence and economic crisis.
Last month, Eric Jean Baptiste, a former presidential candidate and leader of a political party in Haiti, was shot to death in the capital, Port-au-Prince, along with his bodyguard. Baptiste’s death stunned many in the destabilized island nation.
Brian Nelson, Treasury’s under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said Lambert and Latortue “abused their official positions to traffic drugs and collaborated with criminal and gang networks to undermine the rule of law in Haiti.”
“The United States and our international partners,” Nelson said, “will continue to take action against those who facilitate drug trafficking, enable corruption and seek to profit from instability in Haiti.”
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Associated Press writer Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, contributed to this story.
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Follow the AP’s coverage of Haiti at https://apnews.com/hub/haiti.
MANAMA, Bahrain — With Russia’s war in Ukraine raging, Pope Francis joined Muslim, Christian and Jewish leaders Friday in calling for the world’s great religions work together for peace, telling an interfaith summit that religion must never be used to justify violence and that faith leaders must counter the “childlike” whims of the powerful to make war.
On his second day in the Gulf kingdom of Bahrain, Francis closed out a conference on East-West dialogue sponsored by King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. It was his second such conference in as many months, following one in Kazakhstan, evidence of Francis’ core belief that moments of encounter among people of different faiths can help heal today’s conflicts and promote a more just and sustainable world.
Sitting around him in the Sakhir royal palace grounds were leading Muslim imams, the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, and U.S. rabbis who have long engaged in interfaith dialogue, as well as the king. Speaker after speaker called for an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine and the start of peace negotiations. The Russian Orthodox Church, which sent an envoy to the conference, has strongly supported the Kremlin in its war and justified it on religious grounds.
Francis told the gathering that, while the world seems to be heading apart like two opposing seas, the mere presence of religious leaders together was evidence that they “intend to set sail on the same waters, choosing the route of encounter rather than that of confrontation.”
“It is a striking paradox that, while the majority of the world’s population is united in facing the same difficulties, suffering from grave food, ecological and pandemic crises, as well as an increasingly scandalous global injustice, a few potentates are caught up in a resolute struggle for partisan interests,” he said.
“We appear to be witnessing a dramatic and childlike scenario: in the garden of humanity, instead of cultivating our surroundings, we are playing instead with fire, missiles and bombs, weapons that bring sorrow and death, covering our common home with ashes and hatred,” he said.
King Hamad, for his part, urged a coherent effort to stop Russia’s war in Ukraine and promote peace negotiations, “for the good of all of humanity.”
The visit is Francis’ second to a Gulf Arab country, following his 2019 landmark trip to Abu Dhabi, where he signed a document promoting Catholic-Muslim fraternity with a leading Sunni cleric, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb. Al-Tayeb is the grand imam of Al-Azhar, the seat of Sunni learning in Cairo, and has become Francis’ key partner in promoting greater Christian-Muslim understanding.
Al-Tayeb joined Francis in Bahrain and was on hand last month in Kazakhstan too. In his prepared remarks, called Friday for an end to Russia’s war “to spare the lives of innocents who have no hand in this violent tragedy.”
Al-Tayeb also called for Sunni and Shiite Muslims to engage in a similar process of dialogue and try to heal their centuries of divisions, saying Al-Azhar was prepared to host such an encounter.
“Let us together chase away any talk of hate, provocation and excommunication and set aside ancient and modern conflict in all its forms and with all its negative offshoots,” he said. Bahrain is ruled by a Sunni monarchy that has been accused by human rights groups of systematic discrimination against its Shiite majority, charges the government rejects.
Later Friday, al-Tayeb was to meet privately with Francis and participate in a larger encounter at the mosque in the royal palace with the Muslim Council of Elders, which he heads.
Francis was also bringing his message of dialogue to Bahrain’s Christian leaders by presiding over an ecumenical meeting and peace prayer at the Our Lady of Arabia Cathedral, the largest Catholic Church in the Gulf, which was inaugurated last year on land gifted to the church by Al Khalifa.
Francis opened his visit to Bahrain on Thursday by urging Bahrain authorities renounce the death penalty and ensure basic human rights are guaranteed for all citizens — a nod to Bahraini Shiite dissidents who say they have been harassed and detained, subject to torture and “sham trials,” with some sentenced to death for their political activities. The government denies discriminating against Shiites.
Francis also aimed to highlight Bahrain’ tradition of religious tolerance: Unlike neighboring Saudi Arabia, where Christians cannot openly practice their faith, Bahrain is home to several Christian communities as well as a small Jewish community.
In his prepared remarks to the forum, U.S. Rabbi Marc Schneier, who has long worked to promote Jewish-Muslim understanding and serves as Al Khalifa’s special advisor on interfaith matters, praised Bahrain as a “role model in the Arab world for coexistence and tolerance of different faith communities.”
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
RAMALLAH, West Bank — The apparent comeback of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the dramatic rise of his far-right and ultra-Orthodox allies in Israel’s general election this week have prompted little more than shrugs from many Palestinians.
“It’s all the same to me,” Said Issawiy, a vendor hawking nectarines in the main al-Manara Square of Ramallah, said of Netanyahu replacing centrist Yair Lapid and poised to head the most right-wing government in Israel’s history.
Over the past month, Issawiy had struggled to get to work in Ramallah from his home in the city of Nablus after the Israeli army blocked several roads in response to a wave of violence in the northern West Bank. “I’m just trying to eat and work and bring something back to my kids,” he said.
Some view the likely victory for Netanyahu and his openly anti-Palestinian allies, including ultranationalist lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir who wants to end Palestinian autonomy in parts of the occupied West Bank, as a new blow to the Palestinian national project.
The sharp rightward shift of Israel’s political establishment pushes long-dormant peace negotiations even further out of reach and deepens the challenges facing 87-year-old President Mahmoud Abbas, whose autocratic Palestinian Authority already seemed to many Palestinians as little more than an arm of the Israeli security forces.
“If you want to use the metaphor of a ‘nail in the coffin of the Palestinian Authority,’ that was done earlier,” said Ghassan Khatib, a former Palestinian peace negotiator and Cabinet minister. “This election is another step in that same direction.”
During his 12 years in power, before being voted out in 2021, Netanyahu showed scant interest in engaging with the Palestinians. Under his leadership, Israel vastly expanded its population of West Bank settlers — now some 500,000 — and retroactively legalized settler outposts built on private Palestinian land. The measures have entrenched Israel’s occupation, now in its 56th year since Israel captured the territory during the 1967 Mideast war.
Palestinians see successive Israeli governments as seeking to solidify a bleak status quo in the West Bank: Palestinian enclaves divided by growing Israeli settlements and surrounded by Israeli forces.
“We had no illusion that this next government would be a partner for peace,” said Ahmad Majdalani, a minister in the Palestinian Authority. “It’s the opposite, we see a campaign of incitement that began more than 15 years ago as Israel drifted toward extremism.”
The Gaza Strip’s militant Hamas rulers said the election outcome would “not change the nature of the conflict.”
But for the first time, surging support for Israel’s far right has made the Jewish supremacist party of Ben-Gvir the third-largest in the Israeli parliament.
Ben-Gvir and his allies hope to grant immunity to Israeli soldiers who shoot at Palestinians, deport rival lawmakers and impose the death penalty on Palestinians convicted of attacks on Jews. Ben-Gvir is the disciple of a racist rabbi, Meir Kahane, who was banned from parliament and whose Kach party was branded a terrorist group by the United States before he was assassinated in New York in 1990.
On the campaign trail, Ben-Gvir grabbed headlines for his anti-Palestinian speeches and stunts — recently brandishing a shotgun and encouraging police to open fire on Palestinian stone-throwers in a tense Jerusalem neighborhood.
Some Palestinians have found reason for optimism. After Tuesday’s elections, they say, Israel will no longer present to the world the telegenic face of Lapid. A win for extremism in Israel, some say, could bolster the moral case for efforts to isolate Israel, vindicating activism outside the moribund peace process.
“It will lead to some international pressure,” said Mahmoud Nawajaa, an activist with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS, which calls for an economic boycott of Israel as happened to apartheid-era South Africa in the 1980s.
“Netanyahu is more honest and clear about his intentions to expand settlements. The others didn’t say it, even if it was happening,” Nawajaa added.
Lapid and his predecessor, Naftali Bennett, a former settler leader who rebranded himself as a national unifier, had presided over a wobbly coalition of right-wing, centrist and dovish left-wing parties, including the first Arab party to ever join a government.
Foreign leaders who shunned the divisive Netanyahu embraced what appeared to be a less ideological government. Bennett became the first Israeli leader to visit the United Arab Emirates after the countries normalized ties — an honor repeatedly denied to Netanyahu. President Joe Biden, who had a rocky relationship with Netanyahu, basked in Lapid’s warm welcome during his visit to Israel last summer.
But even as Lapid voiced support for the two-state solution during his address to the U.N. General Assembly in September, Palestinians saw no sign he could turn words into action. They watched Israel approve thousands of new settler homes on lands they want for a future state.
Israeli military raids in the West Bank have also surged after a series of Palestinian attacks in the spring killed 19 people in Israel. More than 130 Palestinians have been killed, making 2022 the deadliest since the U.N. started tracking fatalities in 2005. The Israeli army says most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.
“In terms of violence, the Lapid government has outdone itself,” said Nour Odeh, a Palestinian political analyst and former PA spokeswoman. “As far as new settlements and de facto annexation, Lapid is Netanyahu.”
Many young Palestinians have given up on the two-state solution and grown disillusioned with the aging Palestinian leadership, which they see as a vehicle for corruption and collaboration with Israel. Hamas and Fatah, the Palestinian party that controls the West Bank, have remained bitterly divided for 15 years.
A mere 37% of Palestinians support the two-state solution, according to the most recent report from Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki. In Israel the figures are roughly the same — 32% of Jewish Israelis support the idea, according to the Israel Democracy Institute.
“There is no horizon for a political track with the Israelis,” Odeh said. “We need to look inward … to re-legitimize our institutions through elections, and stand together on a united political platform.”
But on the crowded, chaotic streets of Ramallah on Wednesday, there was only misery and anger over the daily humiliations of the occupation.
“I hate this place,” said Lynn Anwar Hafi, a 19-year-old majoring in literature at a local university. “It’s like the occupation lives inside me. I can’t think what I want to. I can’t go where I want to. I won’t be free until I leave.”
BOGOTA, Colombia — The presidents of Colombia and Venezuela met on Tuesday and said they would improve trade and security cooperation, as both countries seek to normalize relations following the election of Colombia’s first leftist leader.
After the meeting in Venezuela’s presidential palace, Colombian President Gustavo Petro said it was “suicidal” for the governments of Venezuela and Colombia to have become estranged from each other recently, adding that the border between the countries had been forgotten and “turned over” to criminal mafias.
Colombia’s president said both countries would now look for ways to share intelligence on drug trafficking groups, and added that he would lobby for Venezuela’s re-entry into the Andean Community of Nations, a regional trade and investment group that Venezuela withdrew from in 2006. Petro has asked for Venezuela’s support in peace talks with the National Liberation Army, or ELN, a Colombian rebel group that operates on both sides of the border.
Petro’s efforts to engage with Venezuela’s socialist government mark a radical departure from Colombia’s recent policy: Before Petro was elected in June, Colombia backed U.S. efforts to isolate Maduro’s government, sanction its oil exports and force Maduro into holding free and fair elections.
The United States, Colombia and dozens of other countries stopped recognizing Maduro as Venezuela’s legitimate leader in 2019, after he won an election that was widely seen as undemocratic and backed a claim to Venezuela’s presidency by the former National Assembly leader Juan Guaidó.
Petro changed course as soon as he was sworn into office and re-established diplomatic ties with the Maduro government. On Tuesday opposition leaders in Venezuela criticized Petro’s meeting with Maduro, with Guaidó tweeting that Petro was helping to “normalize” the violation of human rights in Venezuela by “visiting dictator Maduro and calling him a president.”
The International Criminal Court is currently investigating Maduro’s government for human rights violations that include the torture and arbitrary detention of protesters in 2017. In a recent letter addressed to Petro, Human Rights Watch pointed out that there are still more than 240 political prisoners in Venezuela and asked Petro to seek concrete human rights commitments from the Maduro administration as both nations re-establish diplomatic and military ties.
The watchdog group added that military cooperation with Venezuela should be banned until Venezuela security forces stop backing drug traffickers and rebels. Evidence collected by Human Rights Watch and a U.N. Fact Finding Mission suggests that Venezuela’s military conducted joint operations with the ELN last year to root out another rebel group and allowed them to take over gold mines in eastern Venezuela.
Following the meeting Maduro said that he had listened to Petro’s proposals and was also interested in developing a deal between both countries to produce fertilizer, which has become more expensive for many countries in Latin America, due to the war in Ukraine.
“It was an intense, fruitful and extensive meeting” Maduro said.
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea’s Foreign Ministry criticized the United States for expanding joint military exercises with South Korea that it claims are practice for a potential invasion, and it warned Tuesday of “more powerful follow-up measures” in response.
The statement from the ministry came as the U.S. and South Korea conduct aerial drills involving more than 200 warplanes, including their advanced F-35 fighter jets, as they step up their defense posture in the face of North Korea’s increased weapons testing and growing nuclear threat.
North Korea has ramped up its weapons demonstrations to a record pace this year, launching more than 40 ballistic missiles, including developmental intercontinental ballistic missiles and an intermediate-range missile fired over Japan. The North has punctuated those tests with an escalatory nuclear doctrine that authorizes preemptive nuclear attacks in loosely defined crisis situations.
The U.S. and South Korea have resumed large-scale military drills this year after downsizing or suspending them in past years as part of efforts to create diplomatic space with Pyongyang and because of the pandemic.
The United States and South Korea’s “Vigilant Storm” air force drills, which are to continue through Friday, came after South Korea completed its annual 12-day “Hoguk” field exercises that officials say also involved an unspecified number of American troops.
North Korea’s latest statement came just days after the country fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea, extending a barrage of launches since late September. Some of those launches have been described by the North as simulated nuclear attacks on South Korean and U.S. targets.
North Korea has said its testing activities are meant as a warning amid the joint military drills. But some experts say Pyongyang has also used the drills as a chance to test new weapons systems, boost its nuclear capability and increase its leverage in future dealings with Washington and Seoul.
In comments attributed to an unidentified spokesperson, the North Korean Foreign Ministry statement said the military drills exposed the United States as the “chief culprit in destroying peace and security.” It said the North was ready to take “all necessary measures” to defend against outside military threats.
“If the U.S. continuously persists in the grave military provocations, the DPRK will take into account more powerful follow-up measures,” the spokesperson said, using North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The statement did not specify what those measures could be.
South Korean officials have said North Korea could up the ante in coming weeks by detonating its first nuclear test device since September 2017, which could possibly take the country a step closer to its goals of building a full-fledged nuclear arsenal capable of threatening regional U.S. allies and the American mainland.
In recent weeks, North Korea has also fired hundreds of shells in inter-Korean maritime buffer zones that the two Koreas established in 2018 to reduce frontline military tensions. North Korea has said that firing was in reaction to South Korean live-fire exercises at land border areas. The rival Koreas exchanged warning shots Oct. 24 along their disputed western sea boundary, a scene of past bloodshed and naval battles, as they accused each other of violating the boundary.
MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan on Monday to try to broker a settlement to a longstanding conflict between the two ex-Soviet neighbors, but announced no breakthrough.
The peace talks took place as Putin’s military delivered a new missile barrage targeting Ukraine’s critical infrastructure in the conflict that has entered its ninth month.
After meetings with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, Putin said they had to remove continuing points of disagreement from a prepared statement that was to have formed the basis of a peace deal. He called the meetings “very useful” but declined to answer a reporter’s question about the remaining sticking points, saying they were too delicate to discuss publicly.
Before the meeting with Pashinyan, Putin had said the goals would be to ensure peace and stability, and unblock transportation infrastructure to help Armenia’s economic and social development.
A joint statement released after the talks said the two sides pledged to refrain from the use of force, to negotiate issues based on respect for each other’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of borders. It said Armenia and Azerbaijan would work to normalize relations, foster peace and stability, as well as the security and economic development of their region.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a decades-old conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, which is part of Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994.
“We see the approaches of our colleagues to what is happening on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and around Karabakh,” Putin said Monday. “This conflict has been going on for a decade, so we still need to end it.”
The meetings concern implementation of a 2020 peace deal that Russia brokered. During a six-week war in 2020, Azerbaijan reclaimed broad swaths of Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent territories that Armenian forces held for decades. More than 6,700 people died in the fighting. Moscow deployed about 2,000 troops to the region to serve as peacekeepers.
Pashinyan said Monday that he would press for Azerbaijan to withdraw its troops from the Russian peacekeeping zone in Nagorno-Karabakh, and seek freedom for Armenian prisoners of war. An extension of the Russian peacekeeping mandate was also under discussion, Russian state news agencies reported. Putin told reporters afterward that extension of Russia’s peacekeeping mission would depend on resolution of other issues.
A new round of hostilities erupted in September, when more than 200 troops were killed on both sides. Armenia and Azerbaijan traded blame for triggering the fighting.
Russia is Armenia’s top ally and sponsor. In a delicate balancing act, it maintains a military base in Armenia but also has developed warm ties with Azerbaijan.
In an apparent reflection of tensions with Armenia’s leadership, Putin noted last Thursday that the Kremlin had advised Pashinyan’s government before the 2020 hostilities to agree to a compromise in which Armenian forces would give up Azerbaijani lands outside Nagorno-Karabakh that they seized in the early 1990s. Putin lamented that “the Armenian leadership has taken a different path.”
During the 2020 fighting, Azerbaijan reclaimed not only those territories but significant chunks of Nagorno-Karabakh proper.
NAIROBI, Kenya — Peace talks between warring sides on Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict have been extended into this week, while the country’s prime minister complained in comments broadcast Monday about “lots of intervention from left and right” in the process.
An official familiar with the arrangements for the talks confirmed that discussions continued in South Africa between Ethiopia’s federal government and representatives from the northern Tigray region. The first formal peace talks began last week.
The African Union-led talks seek a cessation of hostilities in a war that the United States asserts has killed up to hundreds of thousands of people, an estimate made by some academics and health workers.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, speaking to the China Global Television Network, said “we’re working towards peace” and asserted that Ethiopians can solve matters by themselves. “Of course, if there are lots of intervention from left and right, it’s very difficult,” he added. He also said Ethiopian forces were in control of the Tigray towns of Shire, Axum and Adwa.
Neighboring Eritrea, whose forces are fighting alongside Ethiopian ones, is not a party to the peace talks, and it is not clear whether the deeply repressive country will respect any agreement reached. Witnesses have told the AP that Eritreans were killing civilians even after the talks began.
The fighting, which resumed in August after a monthslong lull, has been marked by guerrilla-style warfare by Tigray forces and drone strikes by Ethiopian ones that witnesses have said have killed civilians.
According to analysis of satellite imagery taken by Planet Labs PBC of Ethiopia’s Bahir Dar airport south of the Tigray region on Oct. 21, by armaments expert Wim Zwijnenburg of the Dutch peace organization PAX and by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the wingspan, length, shape and other identifying details of two smaller aircraft visible are consistent with those of the Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drone.
The United Nations-backed International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia has found evidence of the government using drones in the conflict “in an arbitrary and indiscriminate manner,” commission members told journalists last week.
The commissioners said they have not done a comprehensive analysis of where Ethiopia is obtaining the drones, but they said they had confirmed the drone used in a strike that killed people in a displacement camp early this year came from Turkey.
The commissioners also warned that “atrocity crimes are imminent” if there is no cessation of hostilities in a conflict with abuses documented on all sides.
KYIV, Ukraine — Russia resumed its blockade of Ukrainian ports on Sunday, cutting off urgently needed grain exports to hungry parts of the world in what U.S. President Joe Biden called a “really outrageous” act.
Biden warned that global hunger could increase because of Russia’s suspension of a U.N.-brokered deal to allow safe passage of ships carrying grain from Ukraine, one of the world’s breadbaskets.
“It’s really outrageous,” Biden said Saturday in Wilmington, Delaware. “There’s no merit to what they’re doing. The U.N. negotiated that deal and that should be the end of it.”
Biden spoke hours after Russia announced it would immediately halt participation in the grain deal, alleging that Ukraine staged a drone attack Saturday against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet off the coast of occupied Crimea. Ukraine has denied the attack, saying that Russia mishandled its own weapons.
Ukraine’s Infrastructure Ministry reported Sunday that 218 ships involved in grain exports have been blocked — 22 loaded and stuck at ports, 95 loaded and departed from ports, and 101 awaiting inspections.
One of the blocked ships, carrying 40,000 tons of wheat for Ethiopia under a U.N. aid program, could not leave Ukraine on Sunday as a result of Russia’s “blockage of the grain corridor,” Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s minister of infrastructure, said on Twitter. The ship, Ikaria Angel, was stuck in the Black Sea port of Chornomorsk.
The Istanbul-based UN center coordinating the ship passages later said the Ikaria Angel was among six vessels that began moving out but hadn’t yet entered a humanitarian corridor. The center reported on plans to move and inspect other ships on Monday but it wasn’t clear whether Russia would agree.
The grain initiative — an example of rare wartime cooperation between Ukraine and Russia — has allowed more than 9 million tons of grain in 397 ships to safely leave Ukrainian ports since it was signed in July. U.N. chief António Guterres had urged Russia and Ukraine on Friday to renew the deal when it expires Nov. 19. The grain agreement has brought down global food prices about 15% from their peak in March, according to the U.N.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskky expressed outrage at Russia’s decision. Referring to the Ikaria Angel, he said in his nightly video address Sunday, “This bulk ship with wheat for the U.N. food program and other vessels with agricultural products are forced to wait, because Russia is blackmailing the world with hunger.”
Two initiatives to revive the grain deal were reported Sunday.
Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar was in talks with his counterparts to “solve the problem and to continue the grain initiative,” his agency said, adding that no more grain ships would leave Ukraine but those already waiting near Istanbul would be inspected on Sunday or Monday.
At the United Nations in New York, Guterres delayed a trip by a day to engage in talks aimed at ending Russia’s suspension of the grain export deal. Russia also requested a meeting Monday of the U.N. Security Council to discuss the topic.
Analysts say Russia’s withdrawal shows that it sees the grain deal as another way to pressure Ukraine.
“By leaving the deal now and putting the blame on Ukraine, it aims to slow Ukrainian attacks around the Black Sea,” said Mario Bikarski, a Economist Intelligence Unit analyst. Russia could be hoping that Ukraine’s Western allies might ask it to focus its forces elsewhere to save the grain deal, he said.
More conflicting details emerged Sunday about the alleged attack on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
The city council of Mariupol, a Ukrainian port now controlled by Russia, claimed on Telegram that Ukrainian special services had destroyed at least three Russian warships near the city of Sevastopol on the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
But an adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry claimed that the Russians’ “careless handling of explosives” had caused blasts on four Russian warships. Anton Gerashchenko wrote on Telegram that the vessels included a frigate, a landing ship and a ship that carried cruise missiles.
Reports have surfaced for months of Ukrainian sabotage of Russian warplanes and ammunition depots on Crimea and Zelenskky has vowed repeatedly to recapture the strategic Black Sea peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014.
Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed Sunday that one Ukrainian drone that reportedly attacked Sevastopol appeared to emanate from a civilian ship carrying agricultural products from Ukraine. The ministry claimed an inspection of the wreckage showed the drones used Canadian-made navigation and their launch point was the Ukrainian coast near the port of Odesa.
Independent verification of each side’s claims was not possible.
Ukraine appears to have targeted the Black Sea Fleet and other Russian military infrastructure on Crimea — far from the front lines but a critical launching pad for attacks against Ukraine — since the spring, although it often doesn’t confirm its responsibility.
On the battlefront, Russian missile attacks kept pounding key front-line hot spots in Ukraine. The Russians shelled seven Ukrainian regions over the past 24 hours, killing at least five civilians and wounding nine more, Ukraine’s presidential office said.
In the eastern Donetsk region, where the fighting is ongoing near the cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, eight cities and villages were shelled.
In areas that Ukraine has recaptured, residents are still recovering bodies of killed civilians, Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said.
“Over the past 24 hours alone, in three de-occupied towns and villages, we found abandoned bodies of Ukrainian civilians,” Kyrylenko said.
Ukraine’s Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskiy said Sunday that Russian forces were mining territories they leave behind twice as densely as during the first months of the war.
Power outages were reported Sunday in the occupied Ukrainian city of Enerhodar, home to the closed Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Europe’s largest. Ukrainian and Russian officials traded blame for the shelling that caused the blackout.
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