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Tag: state departments and diplomatic services

  • Grand test for Indian diplomacy as American, Chinese and Russian ministers meet in Delhi | CNN

    Grand test for Indian diplomacy as American, Chinese and Russian ministers meet in Delhi | CNN


    New Delhi
    CNN
     — 

    Foreign ministers from the world’s biggest economies convened in New Delhi Thursday in what was seen as a grand test for Indian diplomacy, which ultimately didn’t succeed in reaching a consensus because of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

    In the second high-level ministerial meeting under India’s Group of 20 (G20) presidency this year, foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, met his American, Chinese and Russian counterparts, hoping to find enough common ground to deliver a joint statement at the end of the summit.

    But amid festering divisions over Moscow’s war, New Delhi was unable to convince the leaders to put their differences aside, with Jaishankar admitting the conflict had struggled to unite the group.

    India, the world’s largest democracy with a population of more than 1.3 billion, has been keen to position itself as a leader of emerging and developing nations – often referred to as the Global South – at a time when soaring food and energy prices as a result of the war are hammering consumers already grappling with rising costs and inflation.

    Those sentiments were front and center during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s opening remarks earlier Thursday, when he spoke of multiples crises the world faces, with less wealthy nations hit especially hard.

    “The experience of the last few years, the financial crisis, climate change, the pandemic, terrorism and wars clearly shows that global governance has failed,” Modi said.

    “We must also admit that the tragic consequences of this failure are being faced most over by the developing countries,” who he says are most affected by global warming “caused by richer countries”.

    Eluding to the war in Ukraine, Modi acknowledged the conflict was causing “deep global divisions.” But he encouraged the foreign ministers to put differences aside during their meeting Thursday.

    “We should not allow issues that we cannot resolve together to come in the way of those we can,” he said.

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the summit, according to a State Department official traveling with Blinken.

    Blinken and Lavrov spoke for roughly 10 minutes, the same official said.

    Russian Ministry of Foreign affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova confirmed to CNN that the meeting took place but played down its significance.

    “Blinken asked for contact with Lavrov. On the go, as part of the second session of the twenty, Sergey Viktorovich (Lavrov) talked. There were no negotiations, meetings, etc,” she said.

    Deep disagreements over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine played out in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru last month as well, when G20 finance chiefs failed to agree on a statement after their meeting.

    Both Russia and China declined to sign the joint statement, which criticized Moscow’s invasion. That left India to issue a “chair’s summary and outcome document” in which it summed up the two days of talks and acknowledged disagreements.

    Analysts say that throughout the war New Delhi has deftly balanced its ties to Russia and the West, with Modi emerging as a leader who has been courted by all sides.

    But as the war enters its second year, and tensions continue to rise, pressure could mount on countries, including India, to take a firmer stand against Russia – putting Modi’s statecraft to the test.

    Arguably India’s most celebrated event of the year, the G20 summit has been heavily promoted domestically, with sprawling billboards featuring Modi’s face plastered across the country. Roads have been cleaned and buildings freshly painted ahead of the dignitaries’ visit.

    Taking place in the “mother of democracies” under Modi’s leadership, his political allies have been keen to push his international credentials, portraying him as a key player in the global order.

    Last year’s G20 leaders’ summit in Bali, Indonesia, issued a joint declaration that echoed what Modi had told Russian President Vladimir Putin weeks earlier on the sidelines of a regional summit in Uzbekistan.

    “Today’s era must not be of war,” it said, prompting media and officials in India to claim India had played a vital role in bridging differences between an isolated Russia and the United States and its allies.

    A board decorated with flowers welcomes foreign ministers to New Delhi, India, on February 28, 2023.

    India, analysts say, prides itself on its ability to balance relations. The country, like China, has refused to condemn Moscow’s brutal assault on Ukraine in various United Nations resolutions. Rather than cutting economic ties with the Kremlin, India has undermined Western sanctions by increasing its purchases of Russian oil, coal and fertilizer.

    But unlike China, India has grown closer to the West – particularly the US – despite ties with Russia.

    New Delhi’s ties with Moscow date back to the Cold War, and the country remains heavily reliant on the Kremlin for military equipment – a vital link given India’s ongoing tensions with China at its shared Himalayan border.

    The US and India have taken steps in recent months to strengthen their defense partnership, as the two sides attempt to counter the rise of an increasingly assertive China.

    Daniel Markey, senior adviser, South Asia, for the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), said while India’s leaders “would like to facilitate an end to this conflict that preserves New Delhi’s relations with both Washington and Moscow and ends the disruption of the global economy,” India did not have “any particular leverage” with Russia or Ukraine that would make a settlement likely.

    “I believe that other world leaders are equally interested in playing a peace-making diplomatic role. So when and if Putin wishes to come to the table to negotiate, he will have no shortage of diplomats hoping to help,” he said.

    Still, as Putin’s aggression continues to throw the global economy into chaos, India has signaled an intention to raise the many concerns faced by the global South, including climate challenges and food and energy security, according to Modi’s opening speech earlier Thursday.

    “The world looks upon the G20 to ease the challenges of growth, development, economic resilience, disaster resilience, financial stability, transnational crime, corruption, terrorism, and food and energy security,” Modi said.

    While Modi’s government appears keen to prioritize domestic challenges, experts say these issues could be sidelined by the tensions between the US, Russia and China, which have increased recently over concerns from Washington that Beijing is considering sending lethal aid to the Kremlin’s struggling war effort.

    Speaking to reporters last week, Ramin Toloui, the US assistant secretary of state for economic and business affairs, said while Secretary of State Antony Blinken would highlight its efforts to address food and energy security issues, he would also “underscore the damage that Russia’s war of aggression has caused.”

    Blinken will “encourage all G20 partners to redouble their calls for a just, peaceful, and lasting end to the Kremlin’s war consistent with UN Charter principles,” Toloui said.

    At the same time, Russia in a statement Wednesday accused the US and the European Union of “terrorism,” stating it was “set to clearly state Russia’s assessments” of the current food and energy crisis.

    “We will draw attention to the destructive barriers that the West is multiplying exponentially to block the export of goods that are of critical importance to the global economy, including energy sources and agricultural products,” Russia said, hinting at the difficulties New Delhi might face during the meeting.

    India has “worked very hard not to be boxed into one side or the other,” Markey said. The country could not “afford to alienate Russia or the US and Modi doesn’t want discussion of the war to force any difficult decisions or to distract from other issues, like green, sustainable economic development,” he added.

    But with plummeting ties between Washington and Beijing after the US military shot down what it says was a Chinese spy balloon that flew over American territory, New Delhi will have to carefully drive difficult negotiations between conflicting viewpoints.

    China maintains the balloon, which US forces downed in February, was a civilian research aircraft accidentally blown off course, and the fallout led Blinken to postpone a planned visit to Beijing.

    As differences played out during the ministerial meeting Thursday, analysts say while India will be disappointed at the outcome, they were in a very difficult position to begin with.

    “It will be a disappointment for Modi, but not one that cannot be managed,” Markey said. “Nor would it be India’s fault, as it would primarily be a reflection of the underlying differences over which Modi has very little control.”

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  • South Korean diplomats dance into Indian hearts in ‘Naatu Naatu’ viral video | CNN

    South Korean diplomats dance into Indian hearts in ‘Naatu Naatu’ viral video | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Dancing South Korean diplomats have won the hearts of millions of Indians with their viral video performance of Oscar-nominated song “Naatu Naatu,” reinforcing Seoul’s soft power diplomacy and even earning a nod of approval from India’s leader.

    In a video clip posted to Twitter on Sunday, staff from South Korea’s embassy in India’s capital New Delhi – many wearing traditional clothing from both countries – dance to the popular song from Telugu-language movie “RRR.”

    The 53-second clip, which features South Korean Ambassador Chang Jae-bok, has gone viral on social media, garnering more than 4 million views on Twitter as of Tuesday – and much praise in India.

    “Lively and adorable team effort,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote on Twitter on Sunday.

    “Love you for this!” author Kulpreet Yadav wrote, while another fan of the clip, Bhargav Mitra, called it “an excellent initiative.”

    “A fitting tribute to bilateral relations. How well can a song & dance sequence unite,” he wrote on Twitter.

    India’s positive response to the video reflects the growing popularity of South Korean culture in the country, where millions have embraced K-pop and K-dramas in recent years.

    Indians are also making inroads in South Korea’s entertainment industry. Singer Shreya Lenka became India’s first homegrown K-pop star when she joined girl group Blackswan last year, while Indian actor Anupam Tripathy starred in award-winning South Korean Netflix show, “Squid Game.”

    “Naatu Naatu,” which translates to “dance dance,” is composed by M.M. Keeravani, with lyrics from Chandrabose.

    Praised for its buoyant choreography and catchy tune, “Naatu Naatu” won India’s first ever Golden Globe in the best original song category last month and is favorite to win best original song at the 95th Academy Awards on March 12.

    The original song features Telugu superstars Ram Charan and N. T. Rama Rao Jr., known as Jr NTR, who dance in perfect synchronization to the lyrics. The video has more than 122 million views on YouTube.

    The Indian film industry produces tens of thousands of movies every year in multiple languages, and “RRR,” which stands for Rise Roar Revolt, is the country’s fourth-highest grossing picture, according to IMDb, earning nearly $155 million worldwide.

    It is set during India’s struggle for independence from British colonial rule and became Netflix’s most watched non-English movie last June.

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  • US ambassador to the UN says China would cross ‘red line’ by providing lethal aid to Russia | CNN Politics

    US ambassador to the UN says China would cross ‘red line’ by providing lethal aid to Russia | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    The US ambassador to the United Nations said Sunday that China would cross a “red line” if the country decided to provide lethal military aid to Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

    “We welcome the Chinese announcement that they want peace because that’s what we always want to pursue in situations like this. But we also have to be clear that if there are any thoughts and efforts by the Chinese and others to provide lethal support to the Russians in their brutal attack against Ukraine, that that is unacceptable,” Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told CNN’s Pamela Brown on “State of the Union.”

    “That would be a red line,” she said.

    As CNN previously reported, the US has begun seeing “disturbing” trendlines in China’s support for Russia’s military, and there are signs that Beijing wants to “creep up to the line” of providing lethal military aid to Russia without getting caught, US officials familiar with the intelligence told CNN.

    The officials would not describe in detail what intelligence the US has seen suggesting a recent shift in China’s posture but said US officials have been concerned enough that they have shared the intelligence with allies and partners at the Munich Security Conference over the past several days.

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised the issue when he met with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on Saturday on the sidelines of the conference, officials said.

    “The secretary was quite blunt in warning about the implications and consequences of China providing material support to Russia or assisting Russia with systematic sanctions evasion,” a senior State Department official told reporters.

    Thomas-Greenfield also reiterated Sunday that the US is prepared to “compete” with China.

    “The president has said we see China as the adversary it is. We are prepared to compete with the Chinese, and we are [prepared], when necessary, to confront the Chinese. And that’s what we’re doing. And that’s what we will continue to do to ensure that our national interests are always at the forefront,” she said.

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  • Blinken and Chinese counterpart meet in first face-to-face since spy balloon shot down | CNN

    Blinken and Chinese counterpart meet in first face-to-face since spy balloon shot down | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi on Saturday, in the first face-to-face between senior US and Chinese officials since the US military shot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon earlier this month.

    In a meeting on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, Blinken “directly spoke to the unacceptable violation of US sovereignty and international law” and said incidents like the surveillance balloon, which hovered over US airspace for days before the US shot it down off the coast of South Carolina, “must never occur again,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said statement.

    Blinken, who a senior State Department official characterized as “very direct and candid throughout,” began the hourlong meeting by stating “how unacceptable and irresponsible” it was that China had flown the balloon into US airspace. The secretary later expressed disappointment that Beijing had not engaged in military-to-military dialogue when the Chinese balloon incident occurred, the senior official told reporters.

    “He stated, candidly stated, our disappointment that in this recent period that our Chinese military counterparts had refused to pick up the phone. We think that’s unfortunate. And that is not the way that our two sides ought to be conducting business,” the official said.

    There was “no formal agreement” reached, however, on any kind of mechanism to increase dialogue between the two countries.

    The diplomatic fallout from the balloon has been swift, with Washington accusing China of overseeing an extensive international surveillance program. Beijing, meanwhile, has denied those claims, and in turn accused the US, without providing evidence, of flying balloons over its airspace without permission. China maintains that its balloon, which US forces identified and then downed earlier this month, was a civilian research aircraft accidentally blown off course.

    Wang confirmed what he called an “informal” meeting with Blinken on Saturday and called on the US to repair the “damage” to the countries’ relations, according to a press release broadcast by CGTN, which is a Chinese state media outlet. Earlier, Wang had criticized the United States’ handling of the incident, calling the response “absurd and hysterical” and “100% an abuse of the use of force.”

    The incident had an immediate impact on what had been seen as an opportunity for the US and China to stabilize relations. In early February, Blinken postponed an expected visit to Beijing, after the balloon – floating over the US in plain sight – dominated media headlines and public attention.

    The visit would have been the first to China by a US secretary of state since 2018, on the heels of a relatively amicable face-to-face between US President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 summit in November.

    Biden said Thursday that he expects to speak with Xi about the balloon but that he will not apologize for shooting it down. “I hope we are going to get to the bottom of this, but I make no apologies for taking down that balloon,” he said.

    Blinken raised a possible conversation between Biden and Xi, according to the State Department official, who said US officials have not heard anything in recent days that would change the US assessment that the balloon was for Chinese surveillance.

    “We haven’t heard anything that provides any kind of a credible explanation for what this balloon was. The US stands firmly behind our assessment,” the official said.

    Some analysts believed that Beijing, economically drained by its now-abandoned zero-Covid strategy, had been softening its tone on foreign affairs and upping its diplomacy with Western governments in a bid to win back lost ground.

    While expectations for substantial breakthroughs were low, Blinken’s trip was supposed to build a floor for fraught US-China relations and prevent tensions from veering into open conflict – guardrails intended to keep incidents like the suspected surveillance balloon from escalating into a full-blown diplomatic crisis.

    CNN reported Wednesday that US intelligence officials are assessing the possibility that the balloon was not deliberately maneuvered into the continental US by the Chinese government and are examining whether it was diverted off course by strong winds, according to multiple people briefed on the intelligence.

    Any intelligence suggesting that the balloon’s path into the US may have been unintentional could potentially ease tensions between the two nations.

    Wang, who was named Xi’s top foreign policy adviser last month, has already visited France and Italy this week and is expected to visit Russia after the Munich conference.

    The trip will be a test of Beijing’s attempt to strike a diplomatic balancing act between boosting relations with the West and maintaining close ties with Moscow.

    Blinken and Wang on Saturday discussed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with the US secretary of state warning “about the implications and consequences” if China increases its support for Russia’s war effort, according to Price’s readout of the meeting.

    US officials familiar with the intelligence told CNN earlier Saturday that the US has recently begun seeing “disturbing” trendlines in China’s support for Russia’s military and there are signs that Beijing wants to “creep up to the line” of providing lethal military aid to Russia without getting caught.

    Those officials would not describe in detail what intelligence the US has seen suggesting a recent shift in China’s posture, but said US officials have been concerned enough that they have shared the intelligence with allies and partners in Munich over the last several days.

    China’s relationship with Europe has come under significant stress in the wake of the Ukraine war. Beijing has refused to condemn the invasion outright or support numerous measures against it at the United Nations. China has also continued to partner with the Russian military during large-scale exercises, while boosting its trade and fuel purchases from Moscow.

    According to China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Wang’s visit to Moscow will provide an opportunity for China and Russia to continue to develop their strategic partnership and “exchange views” on “international and regional hotspot issues of shared interest” – a catch-all phrase often used to allude to topics, including the war in Ukraine.

    The Foreign Ministry did not specify whether Wang would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    “China is ready to take this visit as an opportunity and work with Russia to promote steady growth of bilateral relations in the direction identified by the two heads of state, defend the legitimate rights and interests of both sides, and play an active role for world peace,” spokesman Wang Wenbin said.

    Wang’s visit may also foreshadow a state visit by Xi to Moscow later this year. Putin extended an invitation to Xi during a customary end-of-year call between the two leaders, but China’s Foreign Ministry has yet to confirm any plans.

    Blinken, who reiterated Saturday the US’ unchanging policy regarding Taiwan and “underscored the importance of maintaining peace and stability” with the democratically ruled island, reinforced statements from Biden that the US does not seek a conflict with China but will continue to “stand up for our values.”

    “The Secretary reiterated President Biden’s statements that the United States will compete and will unapologetically stand up for our values and interests, but that we do not want conflict with the PRC and are not looking for a new Cold War,” Price said in the statement. “The Secretary underscored the importance of maintaining diplomatic dialogue and open lines of communication at all times.”

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Voice of Democracy, one of Cambodia’s last independent media outlets, has been shut down | CNN Business

    Voice of Democracy, one of Cambodia’s last independent media outlets, has been shut down | CNN Business



    CNN
     — 

    One of Cambodia’s last remaining independent media outlets has been shut down by Prime Minister Hun Sen ahead of national elections in July, in a move condemned by rights groups as a blow to press freedom.

    Based in the capital Phnom Penh, Voice of Democracy (VOD), a local outlet run by the Cambodian Center for Independent Media, published radio and online reports about labor and rights issues, environmental crime and political corruption.

    It reported last week that Hun Manet, son of the prime minister, allegedly signed an agreement to donate aid to Turkey, which was struck by a catastrophic earthquake last week. The report alluded to an apparent overstep of his authority.

    Hun Sen refuted the report and issued statements on Facebook accusing the outlet of attacking his son and hurting the “dignity and reputation” of the Cambodian government.

    He also refused to accept an official apology from VOD and added that its newsroom staff “should look for jobs elsewhere.”

    Government officials revoked VOD’s operating license on Monday and blocked its websites in English and Khmer.

    Several VOD staff took to social media to share news of the company’s sudden closure.

    “It has reached the end point,” wrote Mech Dara, one of its reporters, on Twitter. “I (thought) we might have survived longer.”

    He told CNN that many journalists were “still in shock” after Monday’s events.

    “We were expecting it to happen but not so quickly,” he said. “We fought for the truth. We always have but clearly some people could not handle it.”

    “There are so many stories to be told about Cambodia from Cambodia and this extends to the wider region – countries like Myanmar and Vietnam,” he added. “It’s a space that’s getting narrower and narrower and voices are stifled so that the outside world can’t see in.”

    “We have to face the reality and the challenges that come along with it but we will take it one day at a time.”

    The prime minister’s office hasn’t yet responded to a CNN request for further comment about the VOD closure.

    Hun Sen has served as the country’s prime minister since 1985, making him one of the world’s longest serving leaders.

    During his tenure, several independent newspapers and websites have been shut down and dozens of opposition figures jailed or forced into exile.

    “Voice of Democracy has served as an important mainstay of independent investigative reporting and objective criticism for years,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Hun Sen’s closure of VOD is a devastating blow to media freedom in the country and will have an impact across Cambodian society.”

    “The Cambodian people are the ultimate losers because they have lost one of the last remaining sources of independent news on issues affecting their lives, livelihoods and human rights.”

    Amnesty International said the closure served as “a clear warning to other critical voices” months before national elections in July.

    “The Prime Minister should immediately withdraw this heavy handed and disproportionate order,” it said.

    Exiled former Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy said VOD’s closure was “obviously politically motivated.”

    “Substantially all of Cambodia’s media is now government controlled,” he told CNN. “It also occurs in the context of [the] ongoing wrongful imprisonment of opposition supporters and routine intimidation of those who continue to operate.”

    “Governments [around the world] must educate citizens about the dangers of [those in power in] Cambodia because the Cambodian government won’t play its part in doing so.”

    Western ambassadors in the country expressed their concerns about the closure of VOD.

    “We are deeply troubled by the abrupt decision to revoke VOD’s media license,” according to a statement from the US embassy in Phnom Penh. “A free and independent press is the cornerstone of any functioning democracy, providing the public and decision makers with facts and holding governments to account,” it added.

    “We urge the Cambodian authorities to revisit this decision.”

    “Germany believes in the free access of information as the basis for free and fair elections,” said the German embassy. “The freedom of press in Cambodia has lost one of its last remaining independent media outlets.”

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  • America’s top cyber diplomat says his Twitter account was hacked | CNN Politics

    America’s top cyber diplomat says his Twitter account was hacked | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    America’s top cybersecurity diplomat Nate Fick said his personal Twitter account was hacked, calling it part of the “perils of the job.”

    Fick tweeted the news from his personal account Saturday evening.

    It was not clear who was responsible for the hack or if they had made any unauthorized posts on Fick’s account. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday.

    There did not appear to any broader fallout from the hack. Fick uses the account sparingly and instead promotes his work through an official State Department account.

    President Joe Biden announced in June his intent to nominate Fick, a Marine Corps veteran and former chief executive of a cybersecurity firm, to lead the newly formed Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy.

    The new bureau is an effort to make digital rights issues an intrinsic part of US foreign policy at a time when Russia and China are increasingly trying to put their own authoritarian stamp on the internet.

    Fick was sworn into office in September as the country’s first “ambassador-at-large” for cyberspace and digital policy. His charge includes helping build US allies’ ability to respond to cyberattacks and promoting secure 5G communications technology.

    Fick is scheduled to travel to Seoul this week to discuss cybersecurity cooperation with the South Korean government, according to the State Department. Washington and Seoul share a common cyberspace foe in North Korea, which has robust hacking capabilities despite its reputation as a digital backwater.

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  • Opinion: Biden doesn’t throw away his shot | CNN

    Opinion: Biden doesn’t throw away his shot | CNN

    Editor’s Note: Sign up to get this weekly column as a newsletter. We’re looking back at the strongest, smartest opinion takes of the week from CNN and other outlets.



    CNN
     — 

    In Lord Byron’s satirical epic poem, “Don Juan,” the main character marvels at “the whole earth, of man the wonderful, and of the stars … of air-balloons, and of the many bars to perfect knowledge of the boundless skies — and then he thought of Donna Julia’s eyes.”

    The balloon from China floating eastward over the United States last week riveted the nation’s attention for a lot longer.

    At first, the enormous balloon, carrying a smaller substructure roughly the length of three city buses, seemed to symbolize America’s wide-open vulnerability to what the Pentagon described as surveillance from a rising power.

    But the downing of the balloon off the Carolinas Saturday gave President Joe Biden’s administration a way to unleash its fighter jets without any loss of life.

    “I told them to shoot it down,” said Biden, peering at reporters through his Ray-Ban aviators at a Maryland airport. Referring to his national security team, Biden added, “They said to me let’s wait till the safest place to do it.”

    The incident led to the abrupt postponement of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to China and an apologetic statement from Beijing calling it a “civilian airship” that had “deviated far from its planned course.” The US Navy and Coast Guard are taking part in an effort to recover the aircraft. which may yield evidence of its true purpose.

    Some Republicans criticized the President for not shooting it down sooner. China called the downing of the balloon an “obvious overreaction” and said it “reserves the right” to act on “similar situations.”

    In May 1937, the golden age of transcontinental passenger airships came to a catastrophic end in roughly 30 seconds after a spark set the hydrogen fuel on the Hindenburg ablaze, killing 36. But balloons for other uses survived, and they remain a tool of surveillance, even in the era of spy satellites.

    “The question is whether China carefully considered the consequences of its actions,” wrote David A. Andelman. “Intentional or otherwise, if it was indeed monitoring air flows, their engineers might have suspected these weather phenomena would eventually take these balloons over the United States.”

    He pointed out that China has an enormous fleet of satellites which can surveil other nations. “Between 2019 and 2021, China doubled the number of its satellites in orbit from 250 to 499.”

    In the Washington Post, Sebastian Mallaby observed, “To understand how a balloon — at once menacing and farcically Zeppelin-retro — might become a defining image of the new cold war, consider how this alleged Chinese spy contraption captures both sides of the present moment. It is provocative enough to cause Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone a much-anticipated trip to Beijing. It is clumsy enough to symbolize China’s immense capacity to blunder — a tendency that President Biden’s team has lately exploited, to devastating effect.”

    05 opinion cartoons 020423

    02 Marie Kondo tidying

    “It is not hard to tidy up perfectly and completely in one fell swoop,” Marie Kondo wrote in the 2011 book that sold more than 13 million copies worldwide and launched her career as a Netflix star and curator of “joy.”

    “In fact, anyone can do it.”

    It was an apt sentiment at a time when striving for perfection at home and at work was the norm, despite it being a sometimes soul-crushing aspiration — and one that began to vanish with the arrival of the pandemic in 2020.

    So it was understandable that people took notice when Kondo, who gave birth to her third child in 2021, recently said, “My home is messy, but the way I am spending my time is the right way for me at this time at this stage of my life.”

    As Holly Thomas wrote, “Her benign comment, while welcomed with relief in some circles, prompted a surprisingly febrile reaction in others. … Kondo’s success was built on tidying, and encouraging us to tidy in turn. Where was her loyalty to tidying? How dare she pivot out of her well-ordered lane after selling us a way to live?”

    But that’s the wrong way to look at it, Thomas added. “The discomfort … with Kondo’s personal rebrand demonstrates a rigidity that’s reflected across many areas of life. … On a more sinister level, there can be an implicit sense that once you’ve established a particular trait or activity as inherent to your identity, it is somehow greedy or unfaithful to try your hand at something new.”

    Jura Koncius wrote in the Washington Post, “Kondo, 38, has caught up with the rest of us, trying to corral the doom piles on our kitchen counters while on hold with the plumber and trying not to burn dinner. The multitasker seems somewhat humbled by her growing family and her business success, maybe realizing that you can find peace in some matcha even if you drink it in a favorite cracked mug rather than a porcelain cup.”

    The new Kondo might welcome a bill in Maryland that would provide tax breaks to companies that switch to four-day work weeks as a pilot project. “We are three years into a pandemic that upended work life (and life-life) as many of us knew it,” wrote Jill Filipovic. “We are living in an era in which out-of-work demands, most especially parenting and other forms of caregiving, are more extreme than ever. And we are living in a country that, unlike other nations, provides meager support as its people strive to balance it all…”

    “No wonder so many workers report being fed up and burned out. No wonder so many women, who continue to do the lion’s share of the nation’s parenting, drop out of the workforce.”

    03 opinion cartoons 020423

    The 2024 presidential campaign is just starting to come into focus. Former President Donald Trump has locked on to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as the biggest threat to his campaign for the GOP nomination.

    Trump “mercilessly slammed DeSantis again … first at a South Carolina campaign rally and then in remarks to the media,” Dean Obeidallah noted. “On his campaign plane, Trump berated DeSantis as ‘very disloyal’ and accused him of ‘trying to rewrite history’ in recent pronouncements about Covid-19 policy in Florida.”

    If DeSantis enters the race, Obeidallah observed, “he’ll need to show the red meat-loving GOP base that he can punch back against Trump.”

    Yet Trump’s derisive nicknames for DeSantis haven’t stuck, as SE Cupp said. “I know we’re just getting started, but this Trump doesn’t seem to pack the punch that 2016 Trump did. … Maybe he’s lost his touch as he’s faced one political storm after the other.”

    Some other potential rivals are queueing up, with Nikki Haley, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, planning to announce her candidacy on February 15 and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo mulling a possible run.

    “Haley is a formidable candidate who brings the executive experience from her days as governor as well as the foreign policy experience from her time as ambassador,” wrote Gavin J. Smith, who worked in both the Trump administration and Haley’s executive office in South Carolina. “This experience, paired with her ability to bring people together, her background as a mom and a military spouse, and her track record of fighting the uphill battle of running against old White men — is exactly why she is the right candidate, at the right moment, for Republicans to rally behind as we look to win back the White House in 2024.”

    Mike Pompeo has lost 90 pounds on a diet and exercise regimen. He has a new book out that attacks the media and lambastes some of his Trump administration colleagues. “Based on a close reading of his book,” Peter Bergen wrote, “I bet he will take the plunge. Pompeo could be looking to benefit as Trump loses altitude among some Republicans, and at 59, Pompeo is a spring chicken compared with President Joe Biden and Trump, so if it doesn’t work out well this time around, he sets himself up for other runs down the road.”

    When Biden sums up the State of the Union Tuesday evening, the camera will reveal one change from last year, reflecting divided party control of Congress: Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy — rather than Nancy Pelosi — will be in the backdrop, alongside Vice President Kamala Harris, as Biden speaks from the House podium.

    David Axelrod, who served as a strategist and adviser to former President Barack Obama, has some advice for Biden: “Acknowledge the stress people feel, explain how you’ve tried to help but don’t tell them how great things are. Or worse, how great YOU are. You can’t persuade people of what they don’t feel — and will lose them if you try.”

    “Rather than claim his place in history, the President should paint the picture of where we’ve been and, even more important, where we’re going…”

    Biden met with McCarthy last week, as each staked out their positions on the coming battle over America’s debt limit.

    In 2011, Obama and GOP leaders in Congress narrowly averted a default in US debt payments. Republican Lanhee J. Chen pointed out that one of the people “who facilitated the 2011 deal was none other than Joe Biden. Now, many in Washington are trying to predict what might unfold over the next several months as the once-and-future dealmaker approaches yet another debt ceiling crisis — but this time as commander in chief.”

    “The current crisis presents an opportunity for moderates in both parties to unite around the need both to raise the debt ceiling but also to put in place lasting changes that will fundamentally improve America’s fiscal trajectory.”

    01 opinion cartoons 020423

    For CNN Politics, Zachary B. Wolf spoke with Robert Hockett, a Cornell University law professor, who argues that the President would have legal grounds to ignore the debt ceiling entirely. Moreover, Hockett disputed the notion that US government debt is on an unsustainable path: “When we measure a national debt, we look at it as a percentage of GDP. It’s much, much lower than the Japanese national debt is, for example, relative to Japanese GDP. And you don’t see anybody worrying about the integrity or the worthiness of the Japanese national debt or whether Japan’s economy can sustain its debt.”

    Following Biden’s speech on Tuesday, the new Arkansas governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, will give the GOP response. “The 40-year-old certainly provides a contrast to the 76-year-old former President Donald Trump by virtue of her age and gender,” wrote Julian Zelizer.

    But the Trump approach is still in the background, he added. “Sanders represents a new generation of Republicans eager to weaponize the same outrage machine with familiar talking points about the threats of immigration, the so-called radical left’s attacks on education, and an economy in shambles under Biden — while showing that they can govern without the self-defeating chaos and tumult that rocked the nation from 2017 to 2021.”

    For more on politics:

    Elliot Williams: I had a security clearance. It’s easier to lose classified documents than you think

    Frida Ghitis: The most important of George Santos’ secrets

    06 opinion cartoons 020423

    The death of a young man after a traffic stop and brutal police beating in Memphis cries out for a response to a national problem, wrote Maya Wiley, CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “Tyre Nichols, who was laid to rest on Wednesday, was killed for driving while Black,” she wrote. “The former Memphis police officers fired for his killing will get an opportunity to defend themselves in court against the criminal charges, as they should. Nichols got no such opportunity…”

    “The question we should be asking now is, why are Black people stopped so often for traffic violations? Why are so many across the United States dying at the hands, or tasers or guns of police officers during these stops? And what can be done to change this horrific situation?”

    “Here’s one thing we know: Body cameras are not the answer. Body camera footage is not prevention; there was body camera footage of Nichols’ killing. It is evidence, not a prophylactic.”

    In the summer of 1966, when the young civil rights leader Stokely Carmichael “climbed onto the back of a truck with generator-powered lights below, he looked as though he had stepped onto a floodlit stage.” Carmichael lamented that after six years of shouting for freedom, “We ain’t got nothing. What we’re going to start saying now is ‘Black Power!’”

    Mark Whitaker, who wrote about that moment for CNN Opinion, is the author of a forthcoming book, “Saying It Loud: 1966 – The Year Black Power Challenged the Civil Rights Movement.”

    The day after Carmichael spoke, “a short Associated Press story describing the scene was picked up by more than 200 newspapers across America. Overnight, the Black Power Movement was born. … In 1966, the Black Power pioneers established the principle that all Black lives deserve to matter.”

    Florida’s governor is engaging in a bad faith attack on the College Board’s “proposed Advanced Placement African American Studies course, citing concerns about six topics of study, including the Movement for Black Lives, Black feminism and reparations,” wrote Leslie Kay Jones, assistant professor in the sociology department at Rutgers University. “Gov. Ron DeSantis said the course violates the so-called Stop WOKE Act, which he signed last year, and the state criticized the inclusion in the course of work by a number of scholars, including me.”

    “By villainizing CRT (critical race theory) and then representing African American Studies as synonymous with CRT, the DeSantis administration paved the way to convince the public that the accurate teaching of African American Studies as a field of research was a Trojan horse for teaching students ‘to hate.’ … I must ask where ‘hate’ is being stoked in African American Studies? Is it in the factual teaching that enslaved Black people were considered 3/5ths of a human being?”

    04 opinion cartoons 020423

    Manish Khanduri: ‘Blisters inside my blisters.’ Why we walked the entire length of India

    Lev Golinkin: Germany’s quiet betrayal of victims of the Holocaust

    Darren Foster: After 15 years of reporting on opioids, I know this to be true

    Joyce Davis: How Russia outmaneuvered the US in Africa

    AND…

    Judy Blume

    Young adult author Judy Blume is the subject of a new documentary, set to air in April on Amazon Prime. One of her books, “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” is the basis for a new film, also aimed for an April release.

    “To say Blume is widely loved would be an understatement, as the documentary shows,” wrote Sara Stewart. “It features interviews with some of the author’s more famous adoring fans, including Molly Ringwald, Samantha Bee and Lena Dunham. It also showcases her correspondence with now-adult women who wrote to Blume, initially, as teenagers — and she wrote back, beginning friendships that would last decades.”

    “All of these women speak about the ways Blume’s books changed them, made them feel seen and understood in a way that their parents often did not.” At a time when books touching the topics she covers are increasingly being banned in schools, Blume’s voice rings out.

    At 84, she “is still fighting the good fight,” wrote Stewart. At the Key West, Florida, bookstore Blume co-founded, “the shelves bear signs proclaiming, ‘We Sell Banned Books.’”

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  • Balloon drama comes at precarious time in US-China relations | CNN Politics

    Balloon drama comes at precarious time in US-China relations | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken had no choice.

    Diplomatically and for domestic political reasons, it would have been impossible to go ahead with a planned visit to China in the coming days as what US officials have described as a Chinese surveillance balloon floated across the US.

    The drama dashed an attempt by the Biden administration to take some of the heat out of tense US-China relations. And it is yet another incident that will fuel a sense in Washington and Beijing that the world’s strongest superpower and its rising rival are heading toward an inevitable confrontation.

    China took the rare step of expressing regret for the “unintended entry” of what it called a meteorological civilian airship into US airspace.

    “The Chinese side will continue communicating with the US side and properly handle this unexpected situation caused by force majeure,” the Foreign Ministry in Beijing said in a statement.

    Had Blinken gone to Beijing, his visit would have been dominated by the balloon incident to the detriment of other key issues in the relationship, including Taiwan and economic clashes. But politically, with Republicans up in arms over the incident, going ahead with the visit would have made President Joe Biden’s administration look like it wasn’t being sufficiently tough on China. Domestic politics in both Washington and Beijing play an important role in defining what is often described as the world’s most crucial diplomatic relationship.

    The Pentagon says it’s been tracking the balloon – the size of three buses, according to a defense official – for several days but made the decision not to shoot it down. It reasoned that the balloon was wafting well above commercial and military air lanes – and that it was not a huge intelligence threat.

    This seems a reasonable position since Chinese surveillance satellites with a far greater capacity for espionage are known to hover in space over the US. And officials said it’s not the first time the US has tracked one of Beijing’s balloons during this and previous administrations.

    This is hardly a DEFCON-1 situation. But the balloon offers a perfect glimpse into one of the most destructive factors driving the US and China toward confrontation. The politics of the world’s most critical geopolitical relationship are so torqued in both countries that any incident can set off a new round of recriminations. That’s what Blinken was traveling to Beijing to address.

    Washington is already in an uproar.

    Republicans – always keen to portray Biden as soft on China, even though he’s actually been at least as tough as ex-President Donald Trump – are up in arms over what they are portraying as a violation of US sovereignty.

    Retired colonel has a theory about why suspected Chinese spy balloon is over Montana

    “Information strongly suggests the (Defense) Department failed to act with urgency in responding to this airspace incursion by a high-altitude surveillance balloon. No incursion should be ignored, and should be dealt with appropriately,” said Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

    House Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy – who has already warned China this week it can’t stop him visiting Taiwan if he wants – demanded a briefing about the balloon for the Gang of Eight congressional leaders.

    “China’s brazen disregard for US sovereignty is a destabilizing action that must be addressed and President Biden cannot be silent,” the California Republican said.

    It is fair to wonder why China sent a surveillance balloon over the US before Blinken’s critical visit, with both sides apparently keen to arrest the dangerous plummet in their relations. It seems far less likely this is a deliberate provocation since there’s reason to think China wants to turn down the heat too. Perhaps Beijing lost control of its balloon. Still, if a US balloon was being blown across the Chinese mainland right now, it’s likely President Xi Jinping’s government would wring maximum propaganda value out of the incident.

    China’s Foreign Ministry said Friday it was aware of reports of the incident but warned against “deliberate speculation.”

    “China is a responsible country. We act in accordance with international law. We have no intention in violating other countries’ airspace. We hope relevant parties would handle the matter in a cool-headed way,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said.

    Meanwhile, Canada said on Thursday evening it is also tracking the balloon’s movements and working with their American partners, including the monitoring of a potential second incident.

    Going into the Blinken talks, there had seemed to be a small window to improve relations between the long, tense period that led up to Xi’s norm-busting securing of a third term in office, which may have contributed to a nationalistic Chinese attitude that worsened tensions with the US, and the next American presidential election. (White House races almost always degenerate into China bashing that angers Beijing.)

    But the atmosphere around the talks had already been soured by a memo by US Air Force Gen. Michael Minihan first reported by NBC last week, which warned that his “gut” tells him to be ready for war with China – and not just in theory, but in two years. That prediction doesn’t track with US government assessments of the geopolitical tussle in the Pacific or necessarily with events in the region. But it showed how isolated events can send Sino-US tensions soaring.

    Now, floating over that inflammatory atmosphere, we have a Chinese surveillance balloon. This incident may well turn out to be innocuous, but it’s another small drama that has not only ruined Blinken’s trip but will further fan the political flames that elevate hawks in Washington and Beijing who see what they want to see – an inevitable march toward conflict – and make that dangerous scenario more likely.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • Western allies to deliver 321 tanks to Ukraine: senior diplomat | CNN

    Western allies to deliver 321 tanks to Ukraine: senior diplomat | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Western countries will deliver 321 tanks to Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s ambassador to France.

    “As of today, numerous countries have officially confirmed their agreement to deliver 321 heavy tanks to Ukraine,” Vadym Omelchenko said in an interview with French TV station and CNN affiliate BFM television on Friday.

    He did not specify which countries would provide the tanks or provide a breakdown of which models.

    The figure from Omelchenko comes after the US this week pledged to provide 31 M1 Abrams tanks and Germany agreed to send 14 Leopard 2 A6s. Previously the United Kingdom has pledged 14 Challenger 2 tanks, while Poland has asked for approval from Germany to transfer some of its own German-made Leopard 2s to Ukraine.

    Echoing the words of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has urged the West to provide what some experts see as game-changing military hardware, Omelchenko said that Ukraine needed assistance “as fast as possible”.

    “If it had to wait until the month of August or September, it would be too late,” he said.

    Delivery dates will vary depending on the type of tank and the country of origin, the ambassador said, and the timing would be adjusted during the next consultations between Ukraine and Western countries, he said.

    Ukrainians forces have warned they are in a race against time. The country fears that a second Russian offensive may begin within two months and is bracing for the coming weeks.

    Previous military aid, like the American HIMARS rocket system, has been vital in helping Ukraine disrupt Russian advances and make a series of successful counter-offensives in recent months.

    But tanks represent the most powerful direct offensive weapon provided to Ukraine so far, military experts said.

    This week, several Western nations led by Germany and the United States said they would send contingents of tanks to Ukraine.

    US President Joe Biden said he would be providing 31 M1 Abrams tanks to “enhance Ukraine’s capacity to defend its territory and achieve its strategic objectives” in both the near and long terms.

    German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in parliament on Wednesday said that his government would send 14 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, wrapping up months of deliberation and several days of tense negotiations with NATO partners.

    “This is the result of intensive consultations that took place with Germany’s closest European and international partners,” a German government statement read.

    Ukraine hopes that Berlin’s announcement will encourage other European nations who own Leopards to re-export some of their vehicles.

    A Leopard 2 A7 main battle tank of the German armed forces Bundeswehr drives through the mud in the context of an informative educational practice

    Hear what Kremlin threatens after Germans announce tanks

    Poland on Tuesday formally asked for approval from Germany to transfer some of its German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.

    Military experts previously told CNN that the extra tanks could make a difference in the war. But some analysts said that the new tanks wouldn’t be the instant game-changer that some would expect.

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  • Russian intelligence agents believed to have directed White supremacists to carry out bombing campaign in Spain, US officials say | CNN Politics

    Russian intelligence agents believed to have directed White supremacists to carry out bombing campaign in Spain, US officials say | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    US officials believe that Russian intelligence officers directed a Russian White supremacist group to carry out a letter-bombing campaign that rocked Madrid late last year, targeting the prime minister, the American and Ukrainian Embassies as well as the Spanish defense ministry, according to current and former US officials.

    Spanish authorities have yet to make any arrests in connection with the attacks, which wounded one Ukrainian Embassy employee, but they were widely suspected at the time to be linked to Spain’s support for Kyiv.

    Some details of how, exactly, the campaign was directed and carried out remain fuzzy, two US officials said. It’s not clear how much knowledge – if any – the Kremlin or Russian President Vladimir Putin himself had.

    Still, US officials now believe that the attack was likely a warning shot to European governments which have rallied around Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February of last year.

    The New York Times first reported on the alleged involvement of Russian intelligence in the attacks.

    A State Department spokesperson declined to comment “on matters involving leaked intelligence or active law enforcement investigations,” and referred to the Spanish government “for information related to their ongoing investigation.”

    “We condemn all attempts by entities to harm and intimidate government officials and foreign embassies,” the spokesperson added.

    As the war rages on – and particularly if Russia’s battlefield position deteriorates – US officials expect Russia to try to look for proxy groups it can work with to drive up fear of possible terrorist attacks carried out by Russian-backed groups in Europe and the Middle East, one US official explained.

    The State Department designated the White supremacist group, the Russian Imperial Movement, as a global terror organization in 2020. The group is believed to have connections to Russian intelligence agencies and has been used as a proxy force before, current and former officials familiar with US intelligence told CNN. But those connections are murky, these people emphasized, in part because the US lacks good visibility inside RIM.

    But the possibility that an organ of the Russian government – the military intelligence agency, the GRU – appears to have been involved in the attacks is likely to drive up pressure on the Biden administration to name Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, according to one current and one former US official. The administration has so far been loathe to take such a step, despite pressure from key congressional officials, including former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

    There are drawbacks to taking that step, one US official noted, in particular that it limits the administration’s ability to engage with Russia in areas where it might want to.

    The White supremacist group, RIM, has associates across Europe and operates military-style training centers within Russia but is not formally affiliated with the Russian government. But, one former US official said, “There’s no question that RIM operates in Russia because it’s allowed to operate in Russia.”

    The GRU, meanwhile, has carried out increasingly bold operations across Europe and beyond, including assassination attempts. It is also believed to have offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing US troops in Afghanistan, although in that instance, too, the intelligence reporting remained murky, and the Kremlin’s involvement was unclear.

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  • German indecision on Leopard 2 tanks a ‘disappointment,’ Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister says | CNN

    German indecision on Leopard 2 tanks a ‘disappointment,’ Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister says | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister Andriy Melnyk has expressed frustration in an interview with CNN over Germany’s indecision over whether to send its Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.

    Speaking to CNN’s Isa Soares on Friday, Melnyk called Germany’s lack of action a “disappointment,” after first praising the United Kingdom for moving forward with a pledge of Challenger 2 tanks, adding he hoped the move might prompt other countries to follow suit.

    The UK is the “first nation to deliver Challenger 2 main battle tanks and that might be a trigger, hopefully, for other countries but unfortunately not for Germany yet,” said Melnyk, who went on to describe Germany’s inaction as a “huge disappointment for all Ukrainians.”

    Germany has so far failed to reach an agreement with its key Western allies on sending Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, despite growing pressure from NATO and Kyiv to step up its military aid ahead of a potential Russian spring offensive.

    The newly-appointed German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters on the sidelines of a high-stakes defense meeting at Ramstein Air Base in Germany on Friday that no decision has been made yet regarding sending Leopard tanks to Ukraine.

    In his interview with Soares, Melnyk further expressed Ukraine’s disappointment with Germany’s announcement while holding out hope that Germany would weigh Ukraine’s concerns and could still decide to send the Leopard tanks.

    “The government in Germany has not taken this important decision, not just to first allow other nations like Poland, Finland or Spain or Greece, which do have German battle tanks, to do the same, but also strengthen and create this, as we call it ‘Global Tanks Coalition’ to help Ukrainian forces to push out the Russians and to start the counteroffensive which will allow us to liberate the occupied territories,” Melnyk said.

    “We are disappointed, but still the decision has not been taken yet so we hope that the government in Berlin will take seriously all of the concerns they heard (on Friday) in Ramstein,” Melnyk added.

    “After 331 days of brutal war which Russia has been waging against Ukraine, they are still making an inventory of stocks, of (the) Bundeswehr (the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany) and in the industry, to check whether they have something to send to Ukraine! It is ridiculous,” Melnyk told CNN.

    CNN reported Friday that German officials indicated they wouldn’t send their Leopard tanks to Ukraine or allow any other country with the German-made tanks in their inventory to do so unless the US also agreed to send its M1 Abrams tanks to Kyiv.

    While Germany has denied claims it is dragging its feet, Ukrainian diplomats are stressing the urgency of the situation.

    “Time is of the essence” in getting Western tanks into Ukraine before Russia launches an anticipated spring offensive, Oksana Markarova, the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Friday.

    “We need these tanks now,” Markarova said.

    The tanks are “very much needed now, so that our brave defenders can be protected. So we can maneuver, we can fire and actually we can go back on the counteroffensive and we can preempt the future attacks Russia is actually planning to expand during the spring,” Markarova said.

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  • Former Afghan lawmaker Mursal Nabizada shot dead at her home in Kabul | CNN

    Former Afghan lawmaker Mursal Nabizada shot dead at her home in Kabul | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Former Afghan lawmaker Mursal Nabizada and her security guard were shot dead her home in Kabul early Sunday morning, according to Kabul police.

    Nabizada represented Kabul in Afghanistan’s parliament from 2019 until the government was deposed by the Taliban in August 2021. She was one of the few female former lawmakers who remained in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover.

    Nabizada’s brother was also wounded in the attack, said Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran, who added that an investigation to determine who carried out the attack is underway.

    The shooting took place around 3 a.m., local time on Sunday, according to local police chief Molvi Hamidullah Khalid.

    Sunday’s shooting is the first time a lawmaker from the previous administration has been killed in the city since the Taliban seized power, but there have been signs of a deteriorating security situation in the country’s capital.

    Last week, at least five people were killed in an explosion near the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday, according to police in Kabul.

    “Rising insecurity is of grave concern,” the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan wrote in a statement condemning the attack. “Violence is not part of any solution to bring lasting peace to Afghanistan.”

    Since the Taliban took control of the country, multiple attacks have claimed dozens of lives in the capital.

    In September last year, a suicide bomber killed at least 25 people, mostly young women, at an education center in Kabul.

    Earlier that month, six people including two Russian Embassy employees were killed in a suicide blast near the Russian Embassy.

    In August, an explosion at a mosque during evening prayers killed 21 people and injured 33.

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  • Israel’s rightward shift leaves its new Arab allies in an awkward spot | CNN

    Israel’s rightward shift leaves its new Arab allies in an awkward spot | CNN

    Editor’s Note: A version of this story appears in today’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, CNN’s three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.


    Abu Dhabi, UAE
    CNN
     — 

    It was a rare embrace between one of Israel’s most controversial politicians and an Arab ambassador. Itamar Ben Gvir and the United Arab Emirates’ Ambassador to Israel Mohamed Al Khaja clutched each other’s hands in a warm greeting in Tel Aviv in early December.

    “Birds of a feather flock together,” wrote a columnist in Israel’s left-leaning Haaretz newspaper, arguing that the Abraham Accords, which saw Israel gain recognition from four Arab states including the UAE in 2020, did little to moderate Israel’s position on the Palestinians. Ben Gvir, he said, was “a superstar in the UAE.”

    Israel on Thursday swore in what is likely to be the most right-wing government in its history, led by six-time Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Ben Gvir, an extremist who has been convicted for supporting terrorism and inciting anti-Arab racism, became national security minister. Bezalel Smotrich, who supports abolishing the Palestinian Authority and annexing the West Bank, became finance minister.

    Both politicians were invited to national day celebrations in December hosted by the UAE and Bahrain, which were among the nations that normalized relations with Israel, along with Morocco and Sudan in 2020.

    “The Emirates are here to show that unity equals prosperity,” Al Khaja was cited by the Times of Israel as saying at his country’s national day celebration, where he was photographed with Ben Gvir. “We will continue to use diplomacy to deepen connections through friendship and mutual respect.”

    The public embrace of figures that are hated in the Arab world – and are divisive within Israel itself – is a rare gesture on the part of Arab states that have normalized relations with Israel.

    Egypt and Jordan, who recognized Israel in 1979 and 1994 respectively, have had what observers have called a “cold peace” with Israel.

    In his phone call to congratulate Netanyahu on returning as prime minister, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi “emphasized the need to avoid any measures that would lead to tension and complicate the regional situation.” Jordan’s King Abdullah II warned in a CNN interview last month that his nation was “prepared” for conflict should the situation change at Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque, of which he is the custodian.

    The rightward direction of Israeli politics puts Israel’s new Arab partners in an awkward position regarding the Palestinian cause, which remains a central issue among Arab publics.

    “It is awkward not just for us (in the UAE), but for everybody, in America, and all over the place,” Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a political science professor in the UAE, told CNN. “It is a dilemma, but the way to deal with it is just to wait and see.”

    An opinion poll by The Washington Institute for Near East Policy in July 2022 showed that support for the Abraham Accords had dropped in Gulf countries to a minority view, including the UAE and Bahrain, where more than 70% of the public views the agreement negatively. The data however also showed that around 40% of people in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain support maintaining business and sporting ties with Israel.

    The normalizing states appear to be cognizant of that. On Friday, all four Arab states continued the tradition of supporting the Palestinians at the United Nations by voting at the General Assembly to seek the International Criminal Court’s opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories. Netanyahu called the vote “despicable.”

    But Israeli media has reported that behind the scenes, the Emiratis have also been sending messages of concern to Netanyahu about the inclusion of extremists in his government. Ahead of the Israeli elections, UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah Bin Zayed warned Netanyahu against including Ben Gvir and Smotrich in his government, the Times of Israel reported, citing a senior official. Axios, which first reported the news, said Netanyahu didn’t respond.

    The move would be a rare case of one of Israel’s Arab partners showing a preference for the country’s domestic politics.

    The UAE foreign ministry didn’t respond to CNN’s request for comment.

    Israeli analyst Zvi Bar’el wrote in Haaretz that the December move to embrace Ben Gvir may have been linked to Abu Dhabi’s desire to steer Israeli policy, adding that it made the UAE “the Arab country with the greatest influence on the new Israeli government.”

    The effectiveness of the UAE’s diplomacy within Israel remains to be seen. So far, Israel’s extremist minister seems unrestrained.

    Less than a week since he was sworn in, Ben Gvir made a controversial visit to the al-Aqsa mosque compound escorted by Israeli police on Tuesday. The mosque, which lies in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, is in an area known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif. It is the third holiest site for Muslims and the holiest for Jews, who know it as the Temple Mount. Under current arrangements, non-Muslims aren’t allowed to pray there and Ben Gvir wants to change that.

    The UAE “strongly” condemned Ben Gvir’s visit without naming the minister, and called for the need to respect Jordan’s custodianship of the holy site. It later joined China in calling for an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council on the matter.

    “However unhappy they (Bahrain and the UAE) might be towards the emergence of Israel’s most right-wing government, it’s clear that they’ve chosen to air these concerns privately, and have stopped short of letting them stand in the way of what they see as an important strategic relationship,” Elham Fakhro, a research fellow at the Centre for Gulf Studies at the University of Exeter, England, told CNN.

    But the UAE has said earlier that the more friendly ties with the Arab world weren’t a green light for Israel to expand its territory. In June 2020, Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE ambassador to the United States, warned Israel that its relations with Arab nations would suffer if there is any “illegal seizure of Palestinian land.”

    Abdullah, the professor from the UAE, said that Abu Dhabi may have some leverage over Israel that it may use privately at times, but added that ultimately “everybody knows that nobody today has any leverage over Israel. Even America.”

    Still, the UAE-Israel relationship is not everlasting, he said. “This relationship is going to be dictated by the UAE… When it doesn’t serve the interest of the UAE… it can collapse at any time.”

    With additional reporting by Nadeen Ebrahim

    Turkey’s ruling party mulls bringing elections ‘slightly’ forward

    Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AK Party is considering a “slight change” on the date of elections scheduled for mid-June, Reuters cited AK Party spokesman Omer Celik as saying on Monday. Since the date of the elections corresponds with the summer holiday season, the party is evaluating bringing it “slightly forward,” he said.

    • Background: Turkey’s parliamentary and presidential elections are scheduled to be held on June 18, and Erdogan previously said elections would be held in June. The date change would not amount to snap elections, Celik said.
    • Why it matters: The elections are set to take place as Turkey faces soaring inflation and an economic downturn that could hurt Erdogan’s prospects for re-election. But the government has of late tried to win back voter support through populist moves including wage hikes, retirement benefits, social aid, energy and agriculture support.

    Amnesty condemns Iran for upholding protester death sentence

    Amnesty International on Monday condemned the Iranian supreme court’s decision to uphold the death sentence of protester Mohammad Boroughani, who according to Iranian state media is accused of stabbing a security guard during a protest.

    • Background: Boroughani will be executed under the “moharebeh law,” or waging war against God, the state-aligned Tasnim news agency said. Prior to the supreme court’s confirmation of the sentence, he was sentenced to death by a revolutionary court during a group trial in Tehran presided by notorious judge Abolghasem Salavati, Amnesty said.
    • Why it matters: The protester is among 26 others identified by Amnesty last month as being at risk of execution in connection to the country’s nationwide protests. Iran has already carried out two protest-related executions over the past months of unrest. CNN has verified that at least 43 detainees are facing execution. The situation has drawn strong criticism from several European countries, including Germany, France and Britain.

    Iran’s judiciary indicts two French nationals and a Belgian for espionage

    Iran has indicted two French nationals and a Belgian for espionage and working against the country’s national security, Reuters reported, citing the semi-official Student News Network on Tuesday. The agency did not give the names of the three or say where or when they were indicted.

    • Background: Belgium’s justice minister said last month that Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele had been sentenced to 28 years in prison in Iran for what he called a “fabricated series of crimes.” Iranian media aired a video in October in which two French citizens appeared to confess to spying. The video sparked outrage in France, which said the detainees were “state hostages.”
    • Why it matters: A total of seven French citizens are being held in Iran, France’s foreign minister said in November. Iran has accused foreign adversaries of fomenting the wave of unrest that erupted three months ago. The protests mark one of the boldest challenges to the country’s leadership since its 1979 Islamic Revolution and have drawn in Iranians from all walks of life.

    Regional: #HalaRonaldo (Hello, Ronaldo)

    Soccer fans in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states are celebrating the arrival of famed Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo in Riyadh, who touched down in the kingdom on Tuesday ahead of his unveiling ceremony with the Al Nassr Football Club.

    Twitter was flooded with images of Ronaldo wearing the club’s yellow and blue colors, smiling on large billboards in the Saudi capital. Memes showed “sheikh Ronaldo” dressed in Arab attire, and another showed him wearing a jersey with the “Just do it” slogan for his sponsor Nike crossed out and replaced with “inshallah” – God-willing in Arabic.

    A magazine in Saudi Arabia even put out ads for a full-time “Ronaldo correspondent,” Esquire magazine reported.

    “Welcome to the greatest player in the world,” tweeted one Saudi user, sharing a video of a framed photograph of Ronaldo holding his Al Nassr jersey.

    “The streets of Riyadh welcome Ronaldo,” tweeted one Kuwaiti social media influencer, saying Saudis are lucky their country has become home to such a high-status player.

    The celebrations quickly faded for some, however, when a video showing Ronaldo mistakenly refer to his new home as “South Africa” on Tuesday went viral. “So, for me it’s not the end of my career to come in South Africa. This is why I wanna change. And to be honest I don’t really worry about what the people say,” the soccer star said at a press conference in Riyadh on Tuesday.

    Some joked that Ronaldo accepted a large sum to play in Saudi Arabia only to get the country’s name wrong.

    Al Nassr FC announced on December 30 that the footballer was joining their team, tweeting a photo of Ronaldo in its jersey. The 37-year-old was a free agent and immediately available due to his high-profile break-up with Manchester United last month.

    By Nadeen Ebrahim

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  • Poland says Germany refused talks on World War II reparations | CNN

    Poland says Germany refused talks on World War II reparations | CNN



    Reuters
     — 

    Germany has rebuffed the latest push by Poland’s nationalist government for vast reparations over World War II, saying in response to a diplomatic note that the issue was closed, the foreign ministry in Warsaw said on Tuesday.

    A spokesperson for the German foreign ministry said it had responded to a letter sent by Poland on the subject in October and did not comment on the contents of diplomatic correspondence.

    Poland estimates its World War II losses caused by Germany at $1.4 trillion and has demanded reparations, but Berlin has repeatedly said all financial claims related to the war have been settled.

    “This answer, to sum it up, shows an absolutely disrespectful attitude towards Poland and Poles,” Arkadiusz Mularczyk, Poland’s deputy foreign minister, said in an interview with the Polish Press Agency.

    “Germany does not pursue a friendly policy towards Poland, they want to build their sphere of influence here and treat Poland as a vassal state.”

    When asked about further dialog with Germany regarding compensation, Mularczyk said it would continue “through international organizations.”

    Some six million Poles, including three million Polish Jews, were killed during the war and Warsaw was razed to the ground following a 1944 uprising in which about 200,000 civilians died.

    In 1953, Poland’s then-communist rulers relinquished all claims to war reparations under pressure from the Soviet Union, which wanted to free East Germany, also a Soviet satellite, from any liabilities.

    Poland’s ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party says that agreement is invalid because Poland was unable to negotiate fair compensation. It has revived calls for compensation since it took power in 2015 and has made the promotion of Poland’s wartime victimhood a central plank of its appeal to nationalism.

    The combative stance toward Germany, often used by PiS to mobilize its constituency, has strained relations with Berlin.

    In a joint press conference with Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau last October, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said the pain caused by Germany during World War II was “passed on through generations” in Poland but that the issue of reparations was closed.

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  • Benjamin Netanyahu sworn in as leader of Israel’s likely most right-wing government ever | CNN

    Benjamin Netanyahu sworn in as leader of Israel’s likely most right-wing government ever | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday completed a dramatic return as Israel’s prime minister, after being sworn in as the leader of what is likely to be the country’s most right-wing government in history.

    Netanyahu and his government were sworn in on Thursday for his sixth term as prime minister, 18 months after he was ousted from power.

    He returns with the support of several far-right figures once consigned to the fringes of Israeli politics, after cobbling together a coalition shortly before last week’s deadline.

    Members of Netanyahu’s Likud party will fill some of the most important cabinet positions, including foreign minister, defense minister and justice minister.

    But a number of politicians from the far right of Israel’s political spectrum were set to be appointed to ministerial posts, despite controversy over their positions during the run-up to November’s election, which was won by a Netanyahu-led bloc of ultra-nationalist and ultra-religious parties.

    Itamar Ben Gvir, an extremist who has been convicted for supporting terrorism and inciting anti-Arab racism, will take on a newly expanded public security role, renamed national security minister, overseeing police in Israel plus some police activity in the occupied West Bank.

    Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionism party, has been named minister of finance, and has also been given power to appoint the head of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), an Israeli military unit which among its duties handles border crossings and permits for Palestinians.

    During his campaign, Smotrich had proposed a series of drastic legal reforms, seen by many critics as a clear way to undercut judicial independence. This includes dropping the ability to charge a public servant with fraud and breach of trust – a charge Netanyahu faces in his ongoing corruption trial.

    Netanyahu has pleaded not guilty and called that trial a “witch hunt” and an “attempted coup,” and has called for changes to Israel’s judiciary system.

    Aryeh Deri, leader of the ultra-Orthodox Sephardi party Shas, will serve as interior minister and minister of health.

    As the new ministers were preparing to be sworn in at the Knesset, the country’s parliament, around 2,000 demonstrators gathered outside to protest Netanyahu’s return to office, the Jerusalem Police spokesperson said.

    The rightward shift in the Israeli government has raised eyebrows abroad and at home. On Wednesday, over 100 retired Israeli ambassadors and foreign ministry officials expressed concerns about Israel’s incoming government in a signed letter to Netanyahu.

    The ex-diplomats, including former ambassadors to France, India, and Turkey, expressed “profound concern at the serious damage to Israel’s foreign relations, its international standing and its core interests abroad emanating from what will apparently be the policy of the incoming Government.”

    The letter pointed to “statements made by potential senior office-holders in the Government and the Knesset,” reports of policy changes in the West Bank, and “some possible extreme and discriminatory laws” as a point of concern.

    US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides congratulated Netanyahu on Thursday, writing on Twitter: “Here’s to the rock solid US-Israel relationship and unbreakable ties.” Nides is married to Virginia Moseley, CNN US Executive Vice President for Editorial.

    A National Security Council spokesperson noted Netanyahu has “repeatedly said he will set the policy of his government” as he enters a coalition with far-right parties.

    “As we have made clear, we do not support policies that endanger the viability of a two-state solution or contradict our mutual interests and values,” the spokesperson said.

    Biden administration officials have largely avoided addressing the ultra-right components of the new Israeli government. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week that the US “will engage with and judge our partners in Israel on the basis of the policies they pursue, not the personalities that happen to form the government.”

    Netanyahu’s slim November victory came in the fifth Israeli election in less than four years, amid a period of protracted political chaos during which he has remained a dominant figure.

    In his address to the Knesset on Thursday, Netanyahu said that of the three major tasks assigned to his government, the first will be to “thwart Iran’s efforts to obtain nuclear weapons.” The second priority would be to develop the country’s infrastructure, including the launching of a bullet train and the third would be to sign more peace agreements with Arab nations “in order to end the Israeli-Arab conflict.”

    Netanyahu was already Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, having previously held the post from 2009 to 2021 and before that for one term in the late 1990s.

    Israel also got its first openly gay speaker of parliament on Thursday. Amir Ohana, a former minister of justice and public security, is a member of the Knesset representing Netanyahu’s Likud party.

    Some ultra-Orthodox lawmakers who had refused to attend his swearing-in at the Knesset seven years ago were among those who voted for him on Thursday.

    Ahead of the parliamentary vote on the new government, outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid tweeted: “We pass on to you a state in excellent condition. Try not to ruin it, we’ll be right back. The handover files are ready.”

    With additional reporting by Kareem El Damanhoury

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  • Wealthy Russian businessman arrested in London on suspicion of multiple offenses, including money laundering | CNN

    Wealthy Russian businessman arrested in London on suspicion of multiple offenses, including money laundering | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    A wealthy Russian businessman has been arrested as part of a “major operation” on suspicion of multiple offenses, the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency said in a statement Saturday.

    The 58-year-old man was arrested Thursday at his “multi-million-pound residence in London by officers from the NCA’s Combatting Kleptocracy Cell” on suspicion of committing offenses including money laundering, conspiracy to defraud the Home Office – the UK government department for immigration and passports – and conspiracy to commit perjury, the agency said.

    A 35-year-old man, employed at the premises, was also arrested “nearby” on suspicion of money laundering and obstruction of an officer “after he was seen leaving the address with a bag found to contain thousands of pounds in cash,” according to the statement.

    A third man, aged 39, who the agency said is the former boyfriend of the businessman’s current partner, was arrested at his home in Pimlico, London, for offenses including money laundering and conspiracy to defraud, according to the statement.

    A person close to the investigation has given CNN more detail on two of the men arrested, saying the 39-year-old man was a national of Russia, Israel, and the UK and the 35-year-old man was a Polish national. The source told CNN the bank notes the 35-year-old was carrying have not yet been counted but were suspected to be in the tens of thousands and in British currency.

    The three individuals have been interviewed by authorities and have been released on bail, according to the statement.

    The Russian Embassy in London has sent a note to British authorities regarding the detention of a Russian citizen, according to a statement from the embassy made available to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

    “The Russian Embassy in London has asked the British authorities for clarification in connection with the information from the National Crime Agency about the alleged detention of a Russian citizen in London,” reads the note, according to RIA Novosti.

    “The NCA’s Combatting Kleptocracy Cell, only established this year, is having significant success investigating potential criminal activity by oligarchs, the professional service providers that support and enable them and those linked to the Russian regime,” said the agency’s director general Graeme Biggar.

    “We will continue to use all the powers and tactics available to us to disrupt this threat,” he added.

    More than 50 officers were involved in the operation at the businessman’s London property, the statement said. “A number of digital devices and a significant quantity of cash was recovered following extensive searches by NCA investigators,” according to the statement.

    So far, the agency says it has secured nearly 100 disruptions “against Putin-linked elites and their enablers” and has taken direct action against “a significant number of elites who impact directly on the UK.”

    The agency is also targeting “less conventional routes used to disguise movements of significant wealth, such as high value asset sales via auction houses,” according to the statement.

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  • Rural Arizona county delays certifying midterm results as election disputes persist | CNN Politics

    Rural Arizona county delays certifying midterm results as election disputes persist | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Officials in a rural Arizona county Monday delayed the certification of November’s midterm elections, missing the legal deadline and leading the Arizona secretary of state’s office to sue over the county’s failure to sign off on the results.

    By a 2-1 vote Monday morning, the Republican majority on the Cochise County Board of Supervisors pushed back certification until Friday, citing concerns about voting machines. Because Monday was the deadline for all 15 Arizona counties to certify their results, Cochise’s action could put at risk the votes of some 47,000 county residents and could inject chaos into the election if those votes go uncounted.

    In the lawsuit filed by the office of Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs – a Democrat who will be the state’s next governor – officials said failing to certify the election results violates state law and could “potentially disenfranchise” the county’s voters.

    CNN has reached out to the supervisors for comment.

    The standoff between officials in Cochise County and the Arizona secretary of state’s office illustrates how election misinformation is continuing to stoke controversy about the 2022 results in some corners of the country even though many of the candidates who echoed former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election were defeated in November.

    A crowd of grassroots activists turned up at a special meeting of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to loudly protest that county’s election administration procedures during a public comment portion of the meeting after problems with printers at voting locations on Election Day led to long lines at about a third of the county’s voting locations. In a new letter to the state attorney general’s office – which had demanded an explanation of the problems – the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office said that “no voter was disenfranchised because of the difficulty the county experienced with some of its printers.”

    Disputes over the results have erupted elsewhere.

    In Pennsylvania, where counties also faced a Monday deadline to certify their general election balloting, local officials have faced an onslaught of petitions demanding recounts. And officials in Luzerne County, in northeastern Pennsylvania, deadlocked Monday on whether to certify the results, according to multiple media reports. Election officials there did not respond to inquiries from CNN on Monday afternoon.

    In a statement to CNN, officials with the Pennsylvania Department of State said they have reached out to Luzerne officials “to inquire about the board’s decision and their intended next steps.”

    On Election Day, a paper shortage in Luzerne County prompted a court-ordered extension of in-person voting.

    Arizona, another key battleground state, has long been a cauldron of election conspiracies. GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and GOP secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem, both of whom pushed Trump’s lies about 2020, have refused to concede their races, as they continue to sow doubts about this year’s election results.

    Lake’s campaign filed a lawsuit last week demanding more information from Maricopa County’s elections department about the number of voters who checked in to polling places compared to the ballots cast. And Arizona’s GOP attorney general candidate Abe Hamadeh – who, like Lake and Finchem, was backed by Trump – filed a lawsuit in the state superior court in Maricopa County last week challenging the election results based on what the suit describes as errors in the management of the election.

    Hamadeh is trailing his opponent Democrat Kris Mayes by 510 votes as their race heads toward a recount. But the lawsuit asks the court to issue an injunction prohibiting the Arizona secretary of state from certifying Mayes as the winner and asks the court to declare Hamadeh as the winner. A recount cannot begin until the state’s votes are certified.

    Alex Gulotta, Arizona state director of All Voting is Local, said the drama over certification of the votes and the refusal by losing candidates to back down is part of an “infrastructure of election denial” that has been building since the 2020 election in Arizona.

    “Those folks are going to continue to try and find fertile ground for their efforts to undermine our elections. They are not going to give up,” Gulotta said. “We had a whole slate of election deniers, many of whom were not elected.”

    But their refusal to concede “was inevitable in Arizona, at least in this cycle, given the candidates. These aren’t good losers,” he added. “They said from the beginning that they would be bad losers.”

    In Cochise County, the Republican officials on the county Board of Supervisors advocated for the delay, citing concerns about voting machines.

    Ann English, the Democratic chairwoman, argued that there was “no reason for us to delay.”

    But Republican commissioners Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd, who have cited claims that the machines were not properly certified, voted to delay signing off on the results. Monday’s action marked the second time the Republican-controlled board has delayed certification. And it marked the latest effort by Republicans on the board to register their disapproval of vote-tallying machines. Earlier this month, they attempted to mount an expansive hand count audit of the midterm results, pitting them against Cochise’s election director and the county attorney, who warned that the gambit might break the law.

    State election officials said the concerns cited by the Republican majority about the vote-tallying machines are rooted in debunked conspiracy theories.

    The state’s election director Kori Lorick has confirmed in writing that the voting machines had been tested and certified – a point Hobbs reiterated in Monday’s lawsuit. She is asking the court to force the board to certify the results by Thursday.

    An initial deadline of December 5 had been set for statewide certification. In the lawsuit, Hobbs’ lawyers said state law does allow for a slight delay if her office has not received a county’s results, but not past December 8 – or 30 days after the election.

    “Absent this Court’s intervention, the Secretary will have no choice but to complete statewide canvass by December 8 without Cochise County’s votes included,” her lawyers added.

    If votes from this Republican stronghold somehow went uncounted, it could flip two races to Democrats: the contest for state superintendent and a congressional race in which Republican Juan Ciscomani already has been projected as the winner by CNN and other outlets.

    In a recent opinion piece published in The Arizona Republic, two former election officials in Maricopa County – said the courts were likely to step in and force Cochise to certify the results.

    But Republican Helen Purcell, a former Maricopa County recorder, and Tammy Patrick, a Democrat and the county’s former federal compliance officer, warned that “a Republican-controlled board of supervisors could end up disenfranchising their own voters and hand Democrats even more victories in the midterms.”

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Election deniers faced defeat but election denialism is still swirling in Arizona | CNN Politics

    Election deniers faced defeat but election denialism is still swirling in Arizona | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Many of the candidates who promoted former President Donald Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was “rigged” and “stolen” were defeated in November, a pattern heralded by Democrats that is already reshaping the contours of the 2024 election – leading the former president to modulate his tone when he recently launched another bid for the White House.

    But the efforts to cast doubts about the management and operation of the 2022 election are still festering in Arizona, long a hotbed of election conspiracies that spawned the sham audit of the 2020 Maricopa County results by the now-defunct firm Cyber Ninjas after Trump questioned Joe Biden’s victory there. The continuing election denialism underscores that although the highest profile promoters of Trump’s election lies were defeated, the efforts to undermine democracy will carry on.

    Several Trump-backed Republican candidates at the top of Arizona’s ticket, including defeated GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake, defeated Secretary of State candidate Mark Finchem, as well as GOP Attorney General candidate Abe Hamadeh – who is trailing his opponent Democrat Kris Mayes by 510 votes as their race heads toward a recount – have seized on a problem with Maricopa County’s printers on Election Day to make exaggerated claims about the election.

    Maricopa officials have said that printer problems affected about 70 vote centers, preventing some ballots from being read by tabulator machines on Election Day, but that the problems were fixed and that those ballots were set aside in a secure ballot box and counted separately. Bill Gates, the Republican Chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, called the inconvenience and the long lines that resulted “unfortunate” in one Twitter video but said “every voter had an opportunity to cast a vote on Election Day.”

    But that has not stopped the issue from spiraling into a swirl of misinformation and conspiracy theories about the overall management of the election within the hard-right faction of Arizona’s Republican Party, despite the best efforts by other Republican election officials to squelch conspiracy theories and fact-check them in real time.

    Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican who rebuffed Trump’s efforts to overturn Arizona’s 2020 election results, is once again among the officials signaling that it is time to move on.

    Though Lake has not conceded in her race against Democrat Katie Hobbs, who is the current secretary of state, Ducey posted pictures Wednesday of his meeting with Hobbs on Twitter, noting that he had congratulated the governor-elect on “her victory in a hard-fought race and offered my full cooperation as she prepares to assume the leadership of the State of Arizona.”

    The issues could come to a head next week. Monday is the deadline for counties in the Grand Canyon State to certify their general election results – with statewide certification slated to follow on December 5. Any recounts cannot begin until after certification. In the leadup to those events, Lake has posted videos and missives on Twitter insisting that she is “still in the fight.”

    Because some voters were forced to stand in long lines – a unremarkable occurrence on Election Day in many states – Lake charged during a recent appearance on Steve Bannon’s program “War Room” that her opponents “discriminated against people who chose to vote on Election Day.”

    Rather than using Trump’s 2020 buzzwords like ‘rigged,’ Lake has generally used more narrow language, describing the management of the election as “botched” and “the shoddiest ever” while accusing Maricopa County of “dragging its feet” in providing information about the election to her campaign.

    Marc Elias, an attorney specializing in election litigation who has taken a central role in pushing back against GOP efforts to restrict ballot access, noted in a post on his Democracy Docket website that Lake’s complaints about “voter suppression” were ironic given Republican’s efforts to limit voting access in recent years. He noted that there are videos on Lake’s Twitter feed of voters who “claimed that they waited in long lines to vote, were sent from one polling place to another by overworked election officials and had their provisional ballots rejected because they failed to register in time for the election.”

    “If you didn’t know better, you might think Lake was a champion of access to voting, supporter of funding for election officials and advocate for same day voter registration. She is none of those,” Elias wrote.

    Elias pointed out that the circumstance of voters being forced to wait in long lines due to equipment failures is not out of the ordinary.

    “Long lines caused by insufficient or broken voting equipment is a tax usually paid by Black, brown and young voters. At the same time that voters in Maricopa County were waiting in two-hour lines, students at the University of Michigan were enduring near freezing temperatures during their six-hour long wait to cast their ballots,” Elias said.

    But Lake’s arguments about problems with the election were bolstered by a letter from Arizona’s Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Wright last week to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office seeking information about what Wright described as “myriad problems that occurred in relation to Maricopa County’s administration of the 2022 General Election.” (Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich is a Republican).

    The letter requested information about ballot-on-demand printer configuration settings that contributed to problems getting ballots read by on-site ballot tabulators; as well as the procedures for handling ballots that were supposed to be segregated and placed in the secure ballot box; and information about the handling of voters who checked in at one polling place but wanted to check out to vote in a second voting location, either because of wait times or other issues.

    Gates said the county would respond to the questions from the attorney general’s office “with transparency as we have done throughout this election” before it holds its public meeting on Monday to canvass the election. The canvass, Gates said, is “meant to provide a record of the votes counted and those that were not legally cast.”

    “There will be no delays or games; we will canvass in accordance with state law,” he said in the statement.

    But in Cochise County, a community of roughly 125,000 people in southeastern Arizona, the two Republicans on the three-person Board of Supervisors recently opted to delay a vote on certification until Monday’s deadline, citing their concerns about vote-tallying machines.

    That prompted the Secretary of State’s office to threaten legal action if county did not complete certification by the deadline. Peggy Judd, one of the Republican supervisors who initially voted to delay action, told The Arizona Republic this week that she has decided to certify the results when the board meets.

    CNN has reached out to Judd for comment.

    Still, the 11th-hour drama in the Republican stronghold underscores the mistrust of standard election procedures that has taken hold in parts of this battleground state ever since Biden won the state in 2020, the first Democrat presidential nominee to do so in nearly a quarter century.

    Officials in a second county – Mohave, in the northwest corner of the state – also voted to delay their certification until Monday’s deadline. But officials there described their move as a political statement to register displeasure with issues that arose on Election Day in Maricopa County.

    Like Lake, Finchem has refused to concede his race to Democrat Adrian Fontes while he has sent out fundraising solicitations to his supporters claiming that he is trying to get to the bottom of “myriad issues” with the election. He has repeatedly called for a new election.

    Hamadeh, the GOP attorney general candidate, filed a lawsuit in state superior court in Maricopa County this week challenging the election results based on what the suit describes as errors in the management of the election. Hamadeh’s lawsuit notes that plaintiffs are not “alleging any fraud, manipulation or other intentional wrongdoing that would impugn the outcomes of the November 8, 2022 general election.”

    But the lawsuit asks the court to issue an injunction prohibiting the Arizona secretary of state from certifying Mayes as the winner and asking the court to declare Hamadeh as the winner – while alleging that there was an “erroneous count of votes,” “wrongful disqualification of provisional and early ballots” and “wrongful exclusion of provisional voters.” The Republican National Committee has joined the lawsuit.

    Hamadeh trails Mayes by just 510 votes and the race is heading toward an automatic recount.

    “Legal counsel for the Secretary of State’s Office is reviewing the election contest and preparing a response but believes the lawsuit is legally baseless and factually speculative,” a spokesperson for the office said Friday, adding that “none of the claims raised warrant the extraordinary remedy of changing the election results and overturning the will of Arizona voters.”

    Lake has promised that her campaign’s attempt to get more information from election officials this week is only the beginning of her efforts. It remains to be seen whether she will have any more success than Trump did in his many failed lawsuits – and whether following a course that has now been resoundingly rejected by voters will be politically prudent as she lays the groundwork for her next act.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Belarus Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei dies at 64, officials say | CNN

    Belarus Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei dies at 64, officials say | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    The Foreign Minister of Belarus Vladimir Makei has died at the age of 64, the country’s foreign ministry said Saturday.

    “Vladimir Makei, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus, has suddenly passed away today,” the Foreign Ministry said in its official Facebook account, without providing more details about the circumstances surrounding the foreign minister’s death.

    Makei was born in 1958 in the Belarusian region of Grodno. He had been in the post since August 2012, according to his official bio on the foreign ministry’s website.

    Makei was scheduled to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday, according to Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti.

    President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko on Saturday expressed his condolences to the family and friends of Makei, according to a statement published on the presidential website.

    The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs added in a statement that it was “deeply shocked” by the news of his death.

    “As head of the Foreign Ministry, he made a great contribution to the further strengthening of Russian-Belarusian relations,” it said.

    “Being an established professional and a sincere patriot of his country, he firmly and effectively defended the interests of the Republic of Belarus on international platforms,” the ministry continued, adding that “this is a heavy, irreparable loss.”

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  • The US-China chip war is spilling over to Europe | CNN Business

    The US-China chip war is spilling over to Europe | CNN Business


    Hong Kong
    CNN Business
     — 

    Two European chip deals have run into trouble over their links with China, a sign of concern spreading in the West over potential Chinese control of critical infrastructure.

    Last week, the new owner of Britain’s biggest chipmaker was ordered to unwind its takeover, just days after another chip factory sale was blocked in Germany. Both transactions were hit by national security concerns, and had involved acquisitions by Chinese-owned companies.

    In the United Kingdom, Nexperia, a Dutch subsidiary of Shanghai-listed semiconductor maker Wingtech, was told by the government to sell at least 86% of its stake in Newport Wafer Fab, more than a year after taking control of the factory. Staffers have since been protesting the decision, saying it puts nearly 600 jobs at risk.

    In Germany, the economic ministry barred Elmos Semiconductor, an automotive chipmaker, from selling its factory in the city of Dortmund to Silex, a Swedish subsidiary of China’s Sai Microelectronics.

    Chipmaking was already emerging as a new front in US-China tensions. Now the two troubled deals illustrate how the pressure is also rising in Europe, particularly as Western officials face calls for key sectors to be kept out of Chinese control.

    “These decisions mark a shift towards tougher stances regarding Chinese investment in critical industries in Europe,” said Xiaomeng Lu, director of geo‑technology at Eurasia Group.

    “US pressure definitely contributed to these decisions. [A] growing sense of technology sovereignty also likely prompted these moves — governments around the world are increasingly [viewing the] semiconductors industry as a strategic resource and seek to protect them from foreign takeovers.”

    Legal experts said the two decisions were notable because each deal was initially thought to have been cleared.

    The Newport Wafer case is “the first completed acquisition” that needs to be unwound under a UK national security and investment (NSI) act, which took full effect in January, according to Ian Giles, head of antitrust and competition for Europe, the Middle East and Asia for Norton Rose.

    Nexperia said last week that it was “shocked” by the decision, and that “the UK government chose not to enter into a meaningful dialogue with Nexperia or even visit the Newport site.”

    The company added that it had offered to avoid “activities of potential concern, and to provide the UK government with direct control and participation in the management of Newport,” a 28-acre site in south Wales.

    The factory makes silicon wafers, the basis for making computer chips. Many of its products eventually power cars and medical equipment. Nexperia has indicated that workers at the facility now face an uncertain future.

    In an open letter to the UK government last Thursday, the Nexperia Newport Staff Association said that it was “in disbelief” that employees’ livelihoods had been “put in jeopardy in the run-up to Christmas.”

    “This is clearly a deeply political decision,” the group wrote, rejecting the idea that the deal would undermine British security. “You must see sense and protect our jobs by allowing Nexperia to keep their Newport factory.”

    For Elmos, German authorities had initially indicated that they would issue a conditional approval, and even shared a draft approval after an intense review process lasting about 10 months, the company said in a statement following the injunction.

    Tim Schaper, head of antitrust and competition for Germany at Norton Rose, said government intervention was also significant given that “Elmos’ technology is said to be quite old, state of the art in the 1990s, and allegedly not of great industrial importance.”

    “The transaction became the plaything of a public debate about Chinese investors’ acquiring stakes in key German technologies,” he said.

    A company sign of Elmos Semiconductor, seen on Nov. 9 in the German city of Dortmund.

    It’s possible that regulators were concerned about an outflow of technical know how, according to Alexander Rinne, the Munich-based head of international law firm Milbank’s European antitrust practice.

    “Elmos is known for making chips for the automotive sector, which is Germany’s core industry and the pride of the country,” he said in an interview.

    Elmos and Nexperia both declined interview requests. A Nexperia spokesperson told CNN Business on Tuesday that it was “considering its options regarding the UK government’s decision.”

    Chips are a growing source of tension between the United States and China. Washington has declared a shortage of the materials a national security issue, and highlighted the importance of remaining competitive in advanced technology capabilities.

    This year, the United States ramped up its own restrictions and pressed allies to enact their own, according to Lu. In August, the US government ordered two top chipmakers, Nvidia

    (NVDA)     and AMD

    (AMD)    , to halt exports of certain high-performance chips to China.

    Two months later, the Biden administration unveiled sweeping export controls that banned Chinese companies from buying advanced chips and chip-making equipment without a license. The rules also restricted the ability of American citizens or US green card holders to provide support for the development or production of chips at certain manufacturing facilities in China.

    The pressure is mounting. On Monday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg urged the West to “be careful not to create new dependencies” on China. Speaking at a NATO parliamentary assembly in Madrid, Stoltenberg said he was seeing “growing Chinese efforts” to control Western critical infrastructure, supply chains, and key industrial sectors.

    “We cannot give authoritarian regimes any chance to exploit our vulnerabilities and undermine us,” he said.

    China has pushed back on the handling of the two European semiconductor cases.

    “We firmly oppose the UK’s move, and call on the UK to respect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies and provide a fair, just, and (a) non-discriminatory business environment,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning told a press briefing last Friday when asked about the Newport Wafer order. “The UK has overstretched the concept of national security and abused state power.”

    Zhao Lijian, another Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, called on Germany and other countries to “refrain from politicizing normal economic and trade cooperation” at a press conference earlier this month, without addressing Elmos specifically.

    Germany has shown greater scrutiny of Chinese buyers this year. Last month, a bid by Chinese state shipping giant Cosco for a stake in a Hamburg port terminal operator sparked similar controversy. Under pressure from some members of the government, the size of the investment was later limited.

    Attorneys say if the chipmakers appeal, they could face an uncertain battle that may drag on for years.

    In each case, they would need to file a challenge in court within roughly a month of regulators’ decisions, barring exceptional circumstances, according to Norton Rose.

    Both Britain and Germany have recently added rules that expand government oversight over such decisions, making outcomes harder to predict. In Germany, a change to foreign direct investment rules in 2020 meant the government can intervene in prospective deals “if there is a ‘probable impairment of public order and security,’” said Schaper.

    Previously, by contrast, it could only impose restrictions “if there was an ‘actual, sufficiently serious threat to public order and security,’” he told CNN Business.

    In the UK, the ability of the government to retroactively review deals under the NSI Act “was really something that was considered surprising and far-reaching,” said Andrea Hamilton, a London-based partner at Milbank.

    “If challenged, as Nexperia apparently intends, it will also become a test case as to [the] extent of the NSI Act’s limits,” she said.

    Elsewhere, attention is shifting to the Netherlands. The Dutch government is currently facing pressure from the United States to limit exports to China, particularly from ASML

    (ASML)    , a semiconductor equipment maker that holds a dominant position in the lithography machine market, according to Lu at Eurasia Group.

    “It will become the next case study,” she told CNN Business.

    The Netherlands has made clear it will form its own position.

    Asked about the issue this month, Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade Liesje Schreinemacher said the country would “not copy the US export restrictions for China one-to-one.”

    “We make our own assessment,” she said in an interview with Dutch newspaper NRC.

    — CNN’s Zahid Mahmood, Rose Roobeek-Coppack and Laura He contributed to this report.

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