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☆ Explainer-What Turkey Gained in Delaying Sweden's NATO Bid
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-23 | by ( Jan. | At P.M. | ) www.usnews.com time to read: +4 min

Turkey ratified Finland's bid in April 2023 but, along with NATO member Hungary, has kept Sweden waiting. While Erdogan sent Sweden's NATO bid to Turkey's parliament for consideration last October, he openly linked the F-16s with its ultimate ratification. WHAT IS THE CURRENT STATE OF SWEDEN'S BID? Though Turkey was seen as the main hurdle, Hungary has also not ratified Sweden's bid. Hungary pledged not to be the last to ratify the bid, but its parliament is in recess until around mid-February.

Persons: Huseyin Hayatsever, Jonathan Spicer ANKARA, Tayyip Erdogan, Erdogan, Gunnar Strommer, Jens Stoltenberg, Thomas Goffus, Viktor Orban, Timothy Heritage Organizations: NATO, Ankara, Kurdistan Workers ' Party, European Union, Canada, U.S . Congress, Eurofighter Locations: Sweden, Finland, Ukraine, Turkey, Hungary, Stockholm, Helsinki, Washington, SWEDEN, FINLAND, Madrid, Kurdistan, Ankara, United States, Netherlands, SWEDEN'S

☆ Explainer: What Turkey gained in delaying Sweden's NATO bid
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-16 | by ( Huseyin Hayatsever | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

NATO, Turkish, Swedish and Finnish flags are seen in this illustration taken May 18, 2022. Last year, Stockholm reversed a ban on exporting military equipment to Turkey, without revealing details of companies or products. WHAT HAVE OTHER NATO MEMBERS DONE? In October, Erdogan sent Sweden's NATO bid to Turkey's parliament for consideration. But it has faced objections in the U.S. Congress over Turkey's delaying NATO enlargement and its human rights record.

Persons: Dado Ruvic, Tayyip Erdogan, Erdogan, Gunnar Strommer, Jens Stoltenberg, Thomas Goffus, Huseyin Hayatsever, Jonathan Spicer, Alex Richardson Organizations: REUTERS, Rights, Turkish, NATO, Stockholm, Kurdistan Workers ' Party, European Union, Canada, SWEDEN GO, U.S . Congress, Kurdish, Hamas, U.S, Thomson Locations: Rights ANKARA, Ukraine, Turkey, Hungary, Sweden, Stockholm, Helsinki, Washington, SWEDEN, FINLAND, Madrid, Finland, Kurdistan, Ankara, United States, Netherlands, Brussels, Gaza

☆ Live updates: Israel-Hamas war rages as crisis in Gaza deepens
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-17 | by ( Tara Subramaniam | Seán Federico O'Murchú | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

"By failing to condemn Hamas, Russia is giving cover to a terrorist group that brutalizes innocent civilians. It is outrageous, it is hypocritical, and it is indefensible," US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in justification to the US' vote. She previously compared the attacks executed by Hamas to the "most heinous atrocities committed by ISIS." "We cannot support a resolution which fails to condemn Hamas’ terror attacks," Ambassador Barbara Woodward, the UK's Permanent Representative to the UN, said in her explanation of vote. Russia’s Ambassador to the UN Vasily Nebenzya claimed the resolution failed to get adopted because of the western bloc's selfish intentions.

Persons: Linda Thomas, Greenfield, Barbara Woodward, Nicolas de Rivière, UN Vasily Nebenzya, Nebenzya Organizations: United Nations Security, ISIS, UN, France's, UN Security Council, Russian, Novosti Locations: Israel, United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, Gaza, Moscow

That means the two-day summit from September 9 will be dominated by the West and its allies. The G20 leaders who will attend include U.S. President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Saudi Arabia's Mohammed Bin Salman and Japan's Fumio Kishida. "If the leaders' summit is a flop, New Delhi and especially Modi will have suffered a major diplomatic, and political, setback," Kugelman said. "The positions have hardened since the Bali Summit," a senior Indian government official told Reuters, referring to the 2022 summit held in Indonesia. Lavrov said last week Russia will block the final declaration of the G20 summit unless it reflects Moscow's position on Kyiv and other crises.

Persons: Adnan Abidi, Li Qiang, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin's, Joe Biden, Olaf Scholz, Emmanuel Macron, Saudi Arabia's Mohammed Bin Salman, Japan's, Michael Kugelman, Narendra Modi, Modi, Kugelman, Joko Widodo, Justin Trudeau, Sergei Lavrov, Putin, battlelines, Trudeau, Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Zelenskiy, Lavrov, David Boling, N.K, Singh, Larry Summers, Katya Golubkova, Kentaro Sugiyama, Sakura Murakami Organizations: REUTERS, West, South Asia Institute, Wilson Center, Indian, New, Reuters, Bali, Canada's, Russian, Diplomats, Eurasia Group, Thomson Locations: New Delhi, India, DELHI, Ukraine, China, Russia, Saudi, Washington, Bali, Indonesia, Indonesian, CHINA, Brazil, South Africa, Johannesburg, U.S, Tokyo

CNN —Oil powers Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been invited to become members of the BRICS group of developing nations in its first expansion in over a decade. Total bilateral trade between Saudi Arabia and BRICS nations exceeded $160 billion in 2022, the Saudi foreign minister said. It also means Russia and Saudi Arabia — both members of OPEC+, a group of major oil producers — will join each other in a new economic bloc. The BRICS countries have also been talking about a common currency, an idea analysts have described as unworkable and “unlikely” in the near future. Existing BRICS members have “had enough difficulty trying to agree just between the five of them,” he added.

Persons: Cyril Ramaphosa, ” Ramaphosa, Vladimir Putin, ” Putin, Xi Jinping, ” Jinping, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, Narendra Modi, Saudi Arabia —, —, Putin, Goldman Sachs, Jim O’Neill, ” O’Neill, “, ”, I’m, ” BRICS, Mohamed bin Zayed al Nahyan, Abdel Fattah el, Sisi, — Manveena Suri, Mostafa Salem, Lizzy Yee, Mengchen Zhang, Nadeen Ebrahim Organizations: CNN, Oil, United Arab, Saudi Foreign, Indian, OPEC, West, Western, Bloomberg, New Development Bank, United Arab Emirates, BRICS Locations: Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, Argentina, South, Johannesburg, Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Russian, BRICS, Saudi, United States, UAE

☆ BRICS Summit: Who stands to benefit from Russia-friendly bloc's expansion?
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-21 | by ( Simone Mccarthy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

The group of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa has never been more prominent on the world stage. Russia’s leader can’t attend the summit because host country South Africa would be obliged to arrest him for alleged war crimes. But nonetheless that family is now entertaining formal bids from nearly two dozen countries to join their bloc of major emerging economies. It held its first summit in 2009 with four members and then added South Africa the following year. An expansion, instead of making the group more potent, could also make it “more unwieldy and ineffective” with more contrasting positions between members, he added.

Persons: can’t, It’s, Russia’s Vladimir Putin –, Putin, Cyril Ramaphosa, BRICS, ” “, Chen Xiaodong, Bhaso, “, China’s Xi, India’s Narendra Modi, Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, –, Goldman Sachs, Jim O’Neill, BRICS Anil Sooklal, Mihaela Papa, ”, Xi, Yun Sun, Putin –, Manoj Kewalramani, Kewalramani, Modi, Lula, Ramaphosa, Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner, Rubens Duarte Organizations: CNN, West, Washington, Sunday, University of Johannesburg, New Development Bank, United Arab, Tufts University, Western, China Program, Stimson, NATO, Takshashila, United Nations Locations: South Africa, Brazil, Russia, India, China, Beijing, United States, New Delhi, Ukraine, African, Argentina, Mexico, Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Nigeria, Bangladesh, South, Washington, BRICS, Bangalore, Johannesburg, Russian, – China, Africa, Europe

☆ China assures Russia it remains ‘impartial’ on Ukraine war after attending Saudi peace talks
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-08 | by ( Simone Mccarthy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

Lavrov “appreciates and welcomes the constructive role played by China” toward a political resolution of the “Ukraine crisis,” China’s Foreign Ministry said in their readout of Monday’s call. China has continued to bolster its economic, diplomatic, and security ties with Russia, despite Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which Beijing has never condemned. It did not send a delegation to previous international talks in Denmark in June, despite attempting to position itself as a potential peace broker on the conflict in recent months. That proposal, which Beijing put forward earlier this year, calls for peace talks to end the conflict. Ukraine and Russia remain publicly committed to prerequisites for direct negotiations that the other side finds unacceptable.

Persons: Hong Kong CNN —, Wang Yi, Wang, Sergei Lavrov, ”, ” Wang, Lavrov “, Dmytro Kuleba, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Xi, Putin, China’s, Affairs Li Hui, “, …, Lavrov, Russia “, ” “, Qin Gang Organizations: Hong Kong CNN, Russian, China’s Foreign Ministry, Saudi, Ukraine’s, ”, Affairs, Reuters, CNN, Tass, Communist Locations: Hong Kong, Beijing, Ukraine, Kyiv, Moscow, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, United States, Britain, Germany, India, Jeddah, ” Ukraine, American, Denmark, Europe, Washington

Lithuania is the only one of the three states to have a land link to a fellow NATO ally, Poland. The three Baltic states have also attracted journalists who have fled Russia. DEFENCESpurred by Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, the three Baltic states sharply increased military spending. According to NATO estimates for 2022, all three exceeded the NATO agreement to spend 2% of gross domestic product on defence. Since the invasion of Ukraine, the Baltic states have requested the forces deployed are beefed up to 3,000-5,000 troops in each state.

Persons: Alexei Navalny, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Boris Pistorius, Andrius Sytas, Edmund Blair Organizations: NATO, RAND Corporation, European Union, Corruption, German, Thomson Locations: VILNIUS, Lithuania, Baltic, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Soviet Union, Siberia, Soviet, Russia, Belarus, NATO, Poland, Russia's Kaliningrad, Estonian, U.S, RUSSIA, UKRAINE, United States, West, Moscow, Vilnius, Russian, Crimea, Germany, Britain, Canada, British

☆ The Vietnamese American Artists Searching for Identity
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-23 | by ( Joshua Glass | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

An-My Lê can barely recall the Hawaiian shirt that the blond American wore when he put her into a black cargo van. When dawn broke, she took one last glance at the landscape through the windows of the American C-130 aircraft as it disappeared into the clouds. Complicated emotions of uncertainty and anger, guilt and abandonment all intersect for artists from Lê’s generation; those who are not fully Vietnamese in Vietnam nor American in America. Shrouded in war, these Vietnam-born American artists use their memories not so much as a political protest as an emotional inquiry, through the generational traumas that have plagued their families since the day they left home. And only now are Western institutions finally giving these displaced artists room to engage with these traumas.

Persons: Nam, Lê Organizations: Communist, Western Bloc, Air Base Locations: Saigon, South Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Việt Nam, United States, Republic of Vietnam, Vietnam, America

☆ With Zelensky call, Xi Jinping steps up bid to broker peace – but does he have a plan?
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Simone Mccarthy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands after signing a joint statement in Moscow on March 21, 2023. But another set of optics, Beijing’s close rapport with Moscow, has already embedded a deep skepticism in the West over China’s potential role as mediator. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Xi has claimed China’s neutrality, but has spoken with Putin five times – including twice in person – without picking up the phone to call Zelensky, despite a years-long strategic-level partnership between their countries. It calls for a ceasefire but includes no provision that Moscow first withdraw its troops from Ukrainian land. But this rapport has also been the reason that some leaders, including Zelensky and Macron, have expressed hope that Xi could leverage his clout to influence Russia to respect international law.

☆ How Russia could spot Ukrainian F-16s before they even got off the ground, according to an air-warfare expert
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Michael Peck | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Those calls center on the US-made F-16, which proponents say will boost Ukraine's air force. But Russia would notice if Ukraine began modifying its airbases to support F-16s, one expert says. Despite being numerically and technologically outmatched by Russian aircraft and air-to-air missiles, Ukraine's air force has proven remarkably resilient and resourceful. But so far, Russia has chosen to not to use its limited stockpile of long-range missiles against Ukrainian airbases because Ukrainian airpower "doesn't pose a massive threat," Bronk said. US Air National Guard crews replace a part on an F-16 at Ukraine's Mirgorod Air Base in July 2011.

☆ The F-35 is becoming the most popular fighter jet among NATO militaries — with one 'baffling' exception
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Michael Peck | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Romania is the latest NATO member to say it will buy the F-35 stealth fighter jet. To some in the West, Turkey's decision to choose the S-400 over the F-35 just does not compute. As one of the original partners in the US-led F-35 program, Turkey should have been among the first to get the cutting-edge stealth fighter. The F-35/S-400 controversy illustrates Turkey's position as the odd man in NATO since it joined in 1952. Putin and Erdogan inspect a Russian Su-57 fighter jet at the MAKS air show in Russia in August 2019.

☆ Air raid sirens sound across Ukraine as EU summit begins
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

KYIV, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Air raid alerts sounded in Kyiv and across Ukraine on Friday as a summit of European Union and Ukrainian leaders was due to begin in the country's capital. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was hosting top European Union officials, who were visiting Kyiv with promises to support Ukraine "as long as it takes" but denying the country at war with Russia a quick path to joining the Western bloc. Zelenskiy was hosting EU chairman Charles Michel and the bloc's chief executive, Ursula von der Leyen, ahead of the one-year anniversary of Moscow's invasion that has devastated cities, killed tens of thousands of people, forced millions from their homes and shaken global food and energy supplies. "The EU will support Ukraine and the Ukrainian people against Russia's ongoing war of aggression for as long as it takes," the three leaders will say in a joint statement, a draft of which was seen by Reuters in advance. Reporting by Max Hunder and Gabriela Baczynska, Editing by Timothy Heritage and Alex RichardsonOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Russia's war in Ukraine backfired by uniting NATO, even as cracks emerged over nearly a year of fighting
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Jake Epstein | John Haltiwanger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

When Putin invaded Ukraine, he miscalculated the response from Western countries. NATO has been largely united in its response to Russia's war, consistently providing Kyiv with military aid. Russian President Vladimir Putin has effectively succeeded in remaking the Western bloc, Araud said, adding that "the Western alliance is back." After the Soviet Union collapsed, both Finland and Sweden became NATO partner countries but stopped short of pursuing full membership. Even under the intense pressure of war, the alliance is "holding the way that they have in the past," he said.

☆ Putin says Russia ready to negotiate over Ukraine
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-25 | by ( Guy Faulconbridge | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

And we have no other choice but to protect our citizens," Putin said. Soon after that revolution, Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine and Russian-backed separatist forces began fighting Ukraine's armed forces in eastern Ukraine. "Actually, the fundamental thing here is the policy of our geopolitical opponents which is aimed at pulling apart Russia, historical Russia," Putin said. Ukraine and the West say Putin has no justification for what they cast as an imperial-style war of occupation which has sown suffering and death across Ukraine. Putin described Russia as a "unique country" and said the vast majority of its people were united in wanting to defend it.

☆ UAE will look to a world beyond OPEC
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( George Hay | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The UAE has chafed at OPEC restrictions before, in 2020 and 2021. OPEC’s alliance with Russia, as part of the wider OPEC+ group, similarly risks lumping its members in with a wider anti-Western bloc. But ADNOC’s accelerated oil production timetable is arguably more in keeping with a different outlook, preferred by the International Energy Agency, whereby oil demand peaks much sooner. If MbZ were to use the COP28 conference to make that more explicit, it could push the UAE further away from OPEC. And quitting OPEC to pump more oil would be awkward while hosting a climate conference.

☆ It's time for a negotiated peace in Ukraine, Kissinger says
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-18 | by ( Guy Faulconbridge | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

MOSCOW, Dec 18 (Reuters) - The time is approaching for a negotiated peace in Ukraine to reduce the risk of another devastating world war, but dreams of breaking up Russia could unleash nuclear chaos, veteran U.S. diplomat Henry Kissinger said. Ukraine says every Russian soldier must leave its territory, including Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. "The time is approaching to build on the strategic changes which have already been accomplished and to integrate them into a new structure towards achieving peace through negotiation," Kissinger wrote in The Spectator magazine. "A peace process should link Ukraine to NATO, however expressed. The conflict in eastern Ukraine began in 2014 after a pro-Russian president was toppled in Ukraine's Maidan Revolution and Russia annexed Crimea, with Russian-backed separatist forces fighting Ukraine's armed forces in eastern Ukraine.

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