The NATO defense alliance on Monday said it was dispatching additional fighter jets and ships to Eastern Europe amid tensions with Russia.The move could escalate tensions in the Ukraine-Russia crisis, after Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that any military buildup in the region by the trans-Atlantic military alliance would cross a "red line."
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said US President Joe Biden and European leaders stand united with the western military alliance in their warning to Moscow that a Russian attack on Ukraine will provoke a tough response.
"We agree that any further aggression by Russia against Ukraine will have severe costs," Stoltenberg said on Twitter after an online meeting with Biden, and the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Britain and the European Union.
i
Read more at:
Russia tensions: NATO bolsters deployments, angering Kremlin | News | DW | 24.01.2022
Showing posts with label Conflict. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Conflict. Show all posts
10/12/21
China - Taiwan conflict: Taiwan won′t ′bow′ to China, says President Tsai
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen took a strong stance against what Taipei sees as Chinese aggression on Sunday, saying in a speech that her country would "not bow to pressure" from Beijing.
Tsai said she hoped for an easing of tensions, but that "we will continue to bolster our national defense and demonstrate our determination to defend ourselves in order to ensure that nobody can force Taiwan to take the path China has laid out for us... as it offers neither a free and democratic way of life for Taiwan, nor sovereignty for our 23 million people."
Read more at: Taiwan won′t ′bow′ to China, says President Tsai | News | DW | 10.10.2021
Tsai said she hoped for an easing of tensions, but that "we will continue to bolster our national defense and demonstrate our determination to defend ourselves in order to ensure that nobody can force Taiwan to take the path China has laid out for us... as it offers neither a free and democratic way of life for Taiwan, nor sovereignty for our 23 million people."
Read more at: Taiwan won′t ′bow′ to China, says President Tsai | News | DW | 10.10.2021
5/19/21
Israel-Hamas conflict: Gaza Doctors Say Hospitals Overwhelmed With Casualties From Israeli Airstrikes
Palestinian public-health authorities say doctors are struggling to treat hundreds of people injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza as medical supplies run short in hospitals on the verge of collapse.
Public hospitals have canceled nonemergency surgeries and transferred Covid-19 patients to private clinics to free up resources to treat trauma cases. Even so, at Al-Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza, patients often endure long waits for treatment or must share scarce beds, doctors said.
Read more at: Gaza Doctors Say Hospitals Overwhelmed With Casualties From Israeli Airstrikes - WSJ
Public hospitals have canceled nonemergency surgeries and transferred Covid-19 patients to private clinics to free up resources to treat trauma cases. Even so, at Al-Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza, patients often endure long waits for treatment or must share scarce beds, doctors said.
Read more at: Gaza Doctors Say Hospitals Overwhelmed With Casualties From Israeli Airstrikes - WSJ
5/17/21
Israel: Opinion - Bernie Sanders: The Approach the Israel-Palestine Conflict Needs - by Bernie Sanders
Let’s be clear. No one is arguing that Israel, or any government, does not have the right to self-defense or to protect its people. So why are these words repeated year after year, war after war? And why is the question almost never asked: “What are the rights of the Palestinian people?”
And why do we seem to take notice of the violence in Israel and Palestine only when rockets are falling on Israel?
In this moment of crisis, the United States should be urging an immediate cease-fire. We should also understand that, while Hamas firing rockets into Israeli communities is absolutely unacceptable, today’s conflict did not begin with those rockets.
Further, we have seen Benjamin Netanyahu’s government work to marginalize and demonize Palestinian citizens of Israel, pursue settlement policies designed to foreclose the possibility of a two-state solution and pass laws that entrench systemic inequality between Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Over more than a decade of his right-wing rule in Israel, Mr. Netanyahu has cultivated an increasingly intolerant and authoritarian type of racist nationalism. In his frantic effort to stay in power and avoid prosecution for corruption, Mr. Netanyahu has legitimized these forces, including Itamar Ben Gvir and his extremist Jewish Power party, by bringing them into the government. It is shocking and saddening that racist mobs that attack Palestinians on the streets of Jerusalem now have representation in its Knesset.
Read more at: Opinion | Bernie Sanders: The Approach the Israel-Palestine Conflict Needs - The New York Times
And why do we seem to take notice of the violence in Israel and Palestine only when rockets are falling on Israel?
In this moment of crisis, the United States should be urging an immediate cease-fire. We should also understand that, while Hamas firing rockets into Israeli communities is absolutely unacceptable, today’s conflict did not begin with those rockets.
Further, we have seen Benjamin Netanyahu’s government work to marginalize and demonize Palestinian citizens of Israel, pursue settlement policies designed to foreclose the possibility of a two-state solution and pass laws that entrench systemic inequality between Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Over more than a decade of his right-wing rule in Israel, Mr. Netanyahu has cultivated an increasingly intolerant and authoritarian type of racist nationalism. In his frantic effort to stay in power and avoid prosecution for corruption, Mr. Netanyahu has legitimized these forces, including Itamar Ben Gvir and his extremist Jewish Power party, by bringing them into the government. It is shocking and saddening that racist mobs that attack Palestinians on the streets of Jerusalem now have representation in its Knesset.
Read more at: Opinion | Bernie Sanders: The Approach the Israel-Palestine Conflict Needs - The New York Times
US distances itself from demands for Israel-Hamas cease-fire - by E. Knickmeyer, M. Lee and E. M. Lederer
The Biden administration distanced itself Monday from growing calls by Democrats and others for an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers as fighting entered a second week, with more than 200 people dead, most of them Palestinians in Gaza.
The United States, Israel’s top ally, also blocked for the third time what would have been a unanimous statement by the 15-nation U.N. Security Council expressing “grave concern” over the intensifying Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the loss of civilian lives. The final U.S. rejection Monday killed the Security Council statement, at least for now.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki and national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the United States instead was focusing on “quiet, intensive diplomacy.” As missile and rocket exchanges between Israel and Hamas surged to their worst levels since 2014 and the international outcry grew, the Biden administration — determined to wrench U.S. foreign policy focus away from the Middle East and Afghanistan — has declined so far to criticize Israel’s part in the fighting, send a top-level envoy to the region or press Israel publicly to wind down its latest military operation in the thickly populated Gaza Strip, as some past U.S. administrations have done. Appeals by other countries so far show no sign of progress.
Read more at: US distances itself from demands for Israel-Hamas cease-fire
The United States, Israel’s top ally, also blocked for the third time what would have been a unanimous statement by the 15-nation U.N. Security Council expressing “grave concern” over the intensifying Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the loss of civilian lives. The final U.S. rejection Monday killed the Security Council statement, at least for now.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki and national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the United States instead was focusing on “quiet, intensive diplomacy.” As missile and rocket exchanges between Israel and Hamas surged to their worst levels since 2014 and the international outcry grew, the Biden administration — determined to wrench U.S. foreign policy focus away from the Middle East and Afghanistan — has declined so far to criticize Israel’s part in the fighting, send a top-level envoy to the region or press Israel publicly to wind down its latest military operation in the thickly populated Gaza Strip, as some past U.S. administrations have done. Appeals by other countries so far show no sign of progress.
Read more at: US distances itself from demands for Israel-Hamas cease-fire
5/16/21
Israel-Hamas conflict: China calls for UN council action, slams US
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has called on the U.N. Security Council to seek an early de-escalation of violence between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers. He also blamed the U.S. for the council’s lack of action so far.
“Regrettably, the council has so far failed to reach an agreement, with the United States standing on the opposite side of international justice,” the state-run Xinhua News Agency quoted Wang as saying in a phone conversation Saturday with Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi.
He expressed support for a two-state solution, just like the EU recently did, and said China, which holds the Security Council presidency this month, expects all parties to speak with a unified voice when the council discusses the conflict later Sunday.
Read more at: The Latest: China calls for UN council action, slams US
“Regrettably, the council has so far failed to reach an agreement, with the United States standing on the opposite side of international justice,” the state-run Xinhua News Agency quoted Wang as saying in a phone conversation Saturday with Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi.
He expressed support for a two-state solution, just like the EU recently did, and said China, which holds the Security Council presidency this month, expects all parties to speak with a unified voice when the council discusses the conflict later Sunday.
Read more at: The Latest: China calls for UN council action, slams US
5/14/21
Middle East Israeli-Palestine conflict: Can the EU help defuse tensions as Israeli-Palestinian violence escalates?
The EU has long been a staunch supporter of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: a position that Hugh Lovatt, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, expects to be maintained for the foreseeable future.
Josep Borel said: "The EU is unwavering in its support for not just two states but for [mid-1990s peace agreements] the Oslo Accords and the peace process,"
With regard to the latest flare-up, he added: "It's difficult to come up with a unified European Union-wide position - that has been the case for years - but the statement put out in Borrell's name, I think, was one of the better ones put out internationally." Nonetheless, Lovatt does not expect the EU to take an active role in mediation between Israel and the Palestinian Territories in the coming days or weeks, in keeping with its relatively restrained position in the past and during the war of 2014. "The EU has limited added value when it comes to escalation and de-escalation in Gaza," he said. "This is to an extent of the EU's own making because it refuses to have contact with Hamas.
"Those that play a mediating role are those that have contact: Egypt, Qatar and the UN
Read more at Can the EU help defuse tensions as Israeli-Palestinian violence escalates? | Euronews
Josep Borel said: "The EU is unwavering in its support for not just two states but for [mid-1990s peace agreements] the Oslo Accords and the peace process,"
With regard to the latest flare-up, he added: "It's difficult to come up with a unified European Union-wide position - that has been the case for years - but the statement put out in Borrell's name, I think, was one of the better ones put out internationally." Nonetheless, Lovatt does not expect the EU to take an active role in mediation between Israel and the Palestinian Territories in the coming days or weeks, in keeping with its relatively restrained position in the past and during the war of 2014. "The EU has limited added value when it comes to escalation and de-escalation in Gaza," he said. "This is to an extent of the EU's own making because it refuses to have contact with Hamas.
"Those that play a mediating role are those that have contact: Egypt, Qatar and the UN
Read more at Can the EU help defuse tensions as Israeli-Palestinian violence escalates? | Euronews
5/13/21
Israel-US Relations: Antony Blinken Tells Israel to 'Do Everything' it Can to Avoid Civilian Deaths in Conflict
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to de-escalate the violence in Gaza but reaffirmed U.S. support for Israel, the Associated Press reported.
Read more at: Antony Blinken Tells Israel to 'Do Everything' it Can to Avoid Civilian Deaths in Conflict
Read more at: Antony Blinken Tells Israel to 'Do Everything' it Can to Avoid Civilian Deaths in Conflict
3/24/21
Britain-EU relations: Europe's trust in Britain has gone. We're now a problem, not a partner - by Raphael Behr
The pandemic is landing well-aimed punches on the already bruised relationship between Britain and the European Union. A dispute over vaccine supplies threatens to bring blunt instruments of trade war down on delicate national feelings. Not in the darkest hours of Brexit negotiations did either side imagine that supply-chain management would so quickly become a matter of life and death.
At a summit later this week, European leaders will discuss a possible ban on exports to the UK from an AstraZeneca plant in the Netherlands. There is frustration in Brussels that millions of vaccine doses have gone overseas (mostly Pfizer ones) and none have come over in return. The UK responds that it cannot be blamed for moving earlier, signing better contracts and generally getting its immunising act together faster.
Tory MPs say Brussels is lashing out in jealousy. Vaccination is something Boris Johnson’s government is doing well, and the EU is floundering. That has less to do with Brexit than is claimed by triumphant ministers, but as propaganda the point is irresistible: there is nothing else to trumpet as a benefit of detachment from the continent, and winning the vaccination race resonates with voters grateful for jabs.
Read more at: Europe's trust in Britain has gone. We're now a problem, not a partner | Brexit | The Guardian
At a summit later this week, European leaders will discuss a possible ban on exports to the UK from an AstraZeneca plant in the Netherlands. There is frustration in Brussels that millions of vaccine doses have gone overseas (mostly Pfizer ones) and none have come over in return. The UK responds that it cannot be blamed for moving earlier, signing better contracts and generally getting its immunising act together faster.
Tory MPs say Brussels is lashing out in jealousy. Vaccination is something Boris Johnson’s government is doing well, and the EU is floundering. That has less to do with Brexit than is claimed by triumphant ministers, but as propaganda the point is irresistible: there is nothing else to trumpet as a benefit of detachment from the continent, and winning the vaccination race resonates with voters grateful for jabs.
Read more at: Europe's trust in Britain has gone. We're now a problem, not a partner | Brexit | The Guardian
1/17/21
EU: Commission at odds with Parliament over GM crop authorisations – by Natasha Foote
The EU executive looks set to press ahead with a “new approach” to genetically modified (GM) crop authorisations in the wake of persistent lack of political support for the technology in the European Parliament.
In December, MEPs voted for a further five objections against authorisations of GM crops for use as food and feed in the EU, including one GM soybean and four GM maize varieties. This has brought the overall number of objections to GM crop authorisations to 51 in five years.
Read more at: Commission at odds with Parliament over GM crop authorisations – EURACTIV.com
In December, MEPs voted for a further five objections against authorisations of GM crops for use as food and feed in the EU, including one GM soybean and four GM maize varieties. This has brought the overall number of objections to GM crop authorisations to 51 in five years.
Read more at: Commission at odds with Parliament over GM crop authorisations – EURACTIV.com
11/29/20
EU: Poland could be expelled (exit) from EU over judicial reform clash: top Polish court
Poland could end up leaving the European Union because of plans by the ruling nationalists that would allow judges to be fired if they question the legitimacy of the government’s judicial reforms, the Supreme Court said on Tuesday.
The court said the plans could contravene European law and exacerbate existing tensions between Brussels and Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party (PiS).
“Contradictions between Polish law and EU law ... will in all likelihood lead to an intervention by the EU institutions regarding an infringement of the EU treaties, and in the longer perspective (will lead to) the need to leave the European Union,” Poland’s Supreme Court said in a statement.
Read more at: Poland could exit EU over judicial reform clash: top Polish court | Reuters
The court said the plans could contravene European law and exacerbate existing tensions between Brussels and Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party (PiS).
“Contradictions between Polish law and EU law ... will in all likelihood lead to an intervention by the EU institutions regarding an infringement of the EU treaties, and in the longer perspective (will lead to) the need to leave the European Union,” Poland’s Supreme Court said in a statement.
Read more at: Poland could exit EU over judicial reform clash: top Polish court | Reuters
8/28/20
Turkey: Erdoğan on Mediterranean dispute: 'We will not compromise' - by Koert Debeuf
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is not giving up Turkish claims in the eastern Mediterranean, he said in a fiery speech.
"We will not compromise over what belongs to us ...
We are determined to do whatever is necessary," Erdoğan said on Wednesday (26 August) in a speech on the commemoration of an 11th century military victory by Seljuk Turks over the Byzantine empire at Malazgirt.
Read more at:
Erdoğan on Mediterranean dispute: 'We will not compromise'
We are determined to do whatever is necessary," Erdoğan said on Wednesday (26 August) in a speech on the commemoration of an 11th century military victory by Seljuk Turks over the Byzantine empire at Malazgirt.
Read more at:
Erdoğan on Mediterranean dispute: 'We will not compromise'
8/11/20
China- USA relations: US treasury secretary threatens stock market ban for Chinese companies
US treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin singled out Chinese firms on
Monday while warning companies to either comply with US audit
requirements or be delisted from the US stock exchange as of the end of
2021.
"As of the end of next year, if they do not fully comply, and that's Chinese companies, any other companies, because they all have to comply with the same exact accounting... they will be delisted on the exchanges," he said.
Read more at:
US treasury secretary threatens stock market ban for Chinese companies | News | DW | 11.08.2020
"As of the end of next year, if they do not fully comply, and that's Chinese companies, any other companies, because they all have to comply with the same exact accounting... they will be delisted on the exchanges," he said.
Read more at:
US treasury secretary threatens stock market ban for Chinese companies | News | DW | 11.08.2020
7/23/20
Middle East: France's Macron slams Turkey's 'criminal' role in Libya
France's president has accused Turkey of importing
large numbers of fighters into Libya, labelling Ankara's intervention
"criminal".
Emmanuel Macron also lambasted Russian President
Vladimir Putin's ambivalence towards his country's mercenaries operating
in the oil-rich North African state.
Turkey has recently intervened decisively in Libya,
providing air support, weapons, and allied fighters from Syria to help
the internationally recognised government based in Tripoli repel a
14-month assault by renegade eastern commander Khalifa Haftar.
Read more at:
France's Macron slams Turkey's 'criminal' role in Libya | News | Al Jazeera
6/22/20
NATO: France and Turkey fracture Nato on Libya - "as Erdogan plays a dangerous game he could lose"- by Andrew Rettman
 |
| "Who cares about the EU or NATO ? Trump agrees with me !" |
"The incident in the Mediterranean [Sea] was addressed in the meeting by several allies", Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said after Nato defence ministers held video-talks on Thursday (18 June).
"We have made sure that Nato military authorities are investigating the incident to bring full clarity to what happened," he said.
Turkish warships locked their weapons systems on to a French frigate called the Courbet, which was part of a Nato monitoring mission called Sea Guardian, on 10 June, according to France.
And they did it in order to slip through yet another illegal shipment of arms to Turkey's ally in the Libya civil war, the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA), France said.
Note EU-Digest: Curious - Whenever, or each time we put the President of Turkey's name ,Erdogan into the "Labels" column of our blog (EU-Digest), we were posting, the blog reported an error, and we had to go back and re-post the entire content of the blog, and rewrite the "labels" removing Erdogan's name for it to work. Does this mean censorship by either some internal or external "source", or is it a real technical error? This is not the first time it happened when other sensitive issues were published.
France and Turkey fracture Nato on Libya
4/3/20
USA: Putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank: Trump gets help from Kushner and rails against new 'witch-hunt' at coronavirus briefing
Donald Trump sparked fresh criticism on Thursday by deploying his son-in-law Jared Kushner at a White House coronavirus taskforce briefing and accusing Democrats of launching a fresh “witch-hunt”.
Kushner, a senior adviser to the US president who is married to his daughter Ivanka, made a surprise appearance on the podium and said Trump had instructed him to “break down every barrier needed to make sure the teams can succeed”.
Kushner added: “The president also wanted us to make sure that we think outside the box, make sure we’re finding all the best thinkers in the country, making sure we’re getting all the best ideas.”
But by way of example, Kushner said Trump became concerned about supply shortages after hearing about them “just this morning” from “friends of his in New York” – implying the president responds to anecdotes rather than the state governor or public health officials.
“We went to the president today,” Kushner continued. “And earlier today, the president called Mayor [Bill] de Blasio to inform him that we are going to send a month of supply to New York public hospital system.”
The vice-president, Mike Pence, later said there would be 200,000 masks sent to New York.
Kushner said: “We’ll be doing similar things with all the different public hospitals that are in the hotspot zones and making sure that we’re constantly in communications with the local communities.”
Media reports have suggested that Kushner, a property developer with no medical expertise, is running a “shadow taskforce” – a rival power base that conflicts with the official task force led by Pence.
Read more at: Trump gets help from Kushner and rails against new 'witch-hunt' at coronavirus briefing | World news | The Guardian
Kushner, a senior adviser to the US president who is married to his daughter Ivanka, made a surprise appearance on the podium and said Trump had instructed him to “break down every barrier needed to make sure the teams can succeed”.
Kushner added: “The president also wanted us to make sure that we think outside the box, make sure we’re finding all the best thinkers in the country, making sure we’re getting all the best ideas.”
But by way of example, Kushner said Trump became concerned about supply shortages after hearing about them “just this morning” from “friends of his in New York” – implying the president responds to anecdotes rather than the state governor or public health officials.
“We went to the president today,” Kushner continued. “And earlier today, the president called Mayor [Bill] de Blasio to inform him that we are going to send a month of supply to New York public hospital system.”
The vice-president, Mike Pence, later said there would be 200,000 masks sent to New York.
Kushner said: “We’ll be doing similar things with all the different public hospitals that are in the hotspot zones and making sure that we’re constantly in communications with the local communities.”
Media reports have suggested that Kushner, a property developer with no medical expertise, is running a “shadow taskforce” – a rival power base that conflicts with the official task force led by Pence.
Read more at: Trump gets help from Kushner and rails against new 'witch-hunt' at coronavirus briefing | World news | The Guardian
1/4/20
Germany seeks talks with Iran to ease tensions
European leaders have called for calm after the US airstrike that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. Despite heightened anxiety in the region, there are no plans to increase Germany's troop deployment in Iraq.
Read more at:
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-seeks-talks-with-iran-to-ease-tensions/a-51889391
Read more at:
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-seeks-talks-with-iran-to-ease-tensions/a-51889391
12/15/19
Turkey′s Erdogan threatens to close strategic bases to US military
Turkey is upping the ante with threats to retaliate against the US if it imposes sanctions on Ankara for its purchase of a Russian missile system.
Read more at:
https://www.dw.com/en/turkeys-erdogan-threatens-to-close-strategic-bases-to-us-military/a-51686229
Read more at:
https://www.dw.com/en/turkeys-erdogan-threatens-to-close-strategic-bases-to-us-military/a-51686229
12/3/19
French-Turkish Relations: France’s Macron accuses Turkey of ‘sometimes working with IS group proxies’
French President Emmanuel Macron accused Turkey on Tuesday of working with Islamic State proxies and said Ankara’s ambiguity towards the group was detrimental to its NATO allies fighting in Syria and…
Read more at: https://www.france24.com/en/20191203-france-s-macron-accuses-turkey-of-sometimes-working-with-is-group-proxies-at-nato-summit
Read more at: https://www.france24.com/en/20191203-france-s-macron-accuses-turkey-of-sometimes-working-with-is-group-proxies-at-nato-summit
10/8/19
TURKEY - Kurdish - US Relations - Explained: Why Turkey wants a military assault on Syrian Kurds
Explained: Why Turkey wants a military assault on Syrian Kurds
Read more at:
https://p.dw.com/p/3QrfO
https://p.dw.com/p/3QrfO
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