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Europe
Hungary
24/09/2024 - 18:50 GMT+2 European Affairs Minister Bóka insists 'he' won't pay a €200m fine imposed by EU courts for restricting asylum rights, though Brussels has triggered a special procedure to deduct the sum from EU funds. But the government is willing to engage in a "constructive way" with Brussels to ensure compliance with the ECJ ruling, Bóka said after a ministerial meeting in Brussels, which he had chaired as EU Council Presidency. The minister said Budapest was looking into "legal possibilities on how certain expenses that we have incurred in the protection of the border could be offset" against the penalty. Hungarian officials say they have spent €2 billion since 2015 to curb migration, but Brussels has denied their claim that Budapest is now owed that sum back. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has called the fine "outrageous and acceptable’ and ratcheted up his eurosceptic rhetoric, while his ministers have sparked a further row by threatening to bus migrants to Brussels. (Source: euronews *)
* Euronews, a European television news network, headquartered in Lyon, France.
by Liboreiro
Note: False quotation of Hungarian PM in the original text. Mr Orbán has called the fine 'outrageous and unacceptable'
Germany
Sep 24, 2024 At the NATO anniversary summit in July, for the first time since the 1980s, Germany agreed to the stationing of three types of U.S. missiles (under U.S. command) on its territory, starting in 2026: The Tomahawk Block 4 cruise missile, with a range of just over 1,000 miles; the Standard Missile-6 (SM-6), with a range of 230 miles, and intended chiefly for an air-defense role; and a Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHP) which is still under development, and will have a range of more than 1,800 miles. They are conventionally armed, but nuclear-capable, though to convert them to this role would require a new agreement. This agreement said nothing about whether Germany will have any control over the missiles on its soil. Two of these missiles will be able to strike deep into Russia, and both will be able to hit Moscow. The stationing of the Tomahawks and LRHPs is in violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear (INF) Treaty of 1987, which bans the stationing of ground-based missiles with a range of between 500 and 5,000 kilometers (310-3 400 miles). The Trump administration withdrew from the INF in 2019, and Russia then suspended its own compliance. The Biden administration has made no attempt to negotiate a return to the treaty. Both the Trump and Obama administrations alleged that the Russian SRBM Iskander ballistic missile (nuclear-capable but not nuclear-armed), with a declared range of under 500 km (within the INF treaty limit) and stationed in Kaliningrad in fact had a longer range and thus violated the treaty. This allegation was never independently confirmed. After the Russian seizure of Crimea in 2014, the deterioration of U.S.-Russian relations made it impossible to resolve this question through negotiations. Rather strangely (in a democracy), the latest German government agreement to station the new missiles was made without any prior discussion in the German parliament, the Bundestag, or any prior national debate. Today, the Russian government has neither the intention nor the capability to launch the sort of premeditated conventional attack on NATO that the new missiles are supposed to counter. Russian nuclear “saber-rattling” is intended to deter NATO from intervening directly in Ukraine, and thereby starting a NATO-Russia war. There remains however an acute risk that an unplanned mutual escalation could lead to war. In this case, U.S. missiles firing into Russia from Germany could easily be the tripwire for nuclear catastrophe. This issue is contributing to regional tensions in Germany, and it can be expected that it will play a major role in next year’s national elections. According to the latest poll, 49 percent of German public are opposed to the missiles and 45 percent in favor. In eastern Germany the percentage opposed to the treaty rises to 74 percent, with only 23 percent in favor. The foreign and security establishment, and most of the political establishment, are firmly in favor. The Social Democratic Party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz is split on the issue and opposed the stationing of the Pershings.. The right-wing Alternative fuer Deutchland (AfD) and left-wing Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) are strongly opposed. In the 1980s opposition (sometimes violent) over the stationing of U.S. Pershing II medium-range nuclear ballistic missile contributed greatly to the rise of the anti-nuclear German Green Party. 40 years later, it is now among the ’strongest’ advocates for the stationing of the Tomahawks. The Greens suffered crushing defeats in the latest eastern German elections. The only sensible purpose of allowing the deployment of Tomahawks and hypersonic missiles in Germany is to offer to give them up again, as part of a new nuclear arms reduction agreement with Russia. That after all was the only positive result of the deployment of Pershing II missiles in West Germany in the 1980s. The decision to deploy the Pershings in 1979 was accompanied by a declaration of a desire to negotiate an agreement. No such declaration has accompanied the latest decision. After former Soviet President Gorbachev came to power, Washington and Moscow in 1989 signed the INF Treaty, under which the Pershings were withdrawn and scrapped in return for Moscow doing the same with its intermediate nuclear missiles. A similar agreement today, in which the U.S. cancels the planned new missile deployment in Germany in return for Russia withdrawing its missiles based in Kaliningrad and Belarus would be of immense benefit to Germany, Europe and the world. Unfortunately, for the past generation, the entire trajectory of arms control agreements has been in the opposite direction, towards an uncontrolled arms race. The process of the disintegration of arms control agreements began in 2002, with the Bush administration’s withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Berlin did not state its objections forcefully in public, or make any public attempt to create a bloc of European states to defend the treaty. This marked one important step in the establishment of a belief in Moscow that Germany never would make any serious move to defend European security interests if it required a public confrontation with Washington. The U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty was followed by the deployment of U.S. ABM systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, with the blatantly mendacious claim - in which the German government once again acquiesced - that this was directed not against Russia, but rather a hypothetical threat from Iran. Moscow threatened to respond with the deployment of new intermediate missiles, and did so, while claiming to remain (just) within the terms of the INF. According to Russian sources, Moscow was willing to compromise on intermediate missiles as part of wider talks on NATO limitations demanded by Russia in the run-up to the invasion of Ukraine, but Washington refused to consider seriously negotiating on this basis. The result is that Europe is now altogether without missile limitation agreements at a time when not merely is war raging in Ukraine, but Washington is considering acceding to Ukrainian and British pressure to allow British Storm Shadow cruise missiles (guided by U.S. targeting) to be fired into Russia. The deployment of U.S. missiles in Germany therefore involves the following propositions: Washington is actively considering helping to fire U.S.-manufactured Ukrainian missiles into Russia; U.S. intermediate missiles in Germany will be able to strike deep into Russia; Russian intermediate missiles can strike Germany but not the U.S.; Germany will have no control over the U.S. missiles on its soil. This combination makes many Germans extremely nervous. (Source: responsiblestatecraft *)
Responsible Statecraft, the online American magazine of the Quincy Institute
by Lieven, Director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He was formerly a professor at Georgetown University in Qatar and in the War Studies Department of King’s College London.
European Union
24 Sep 2024 With a budget of €12 million, the European Commission has announced a new EU-funded project, called Supporting at-risk researchers with fellowships in Europe (Safe), to provide support for researchers facing threats to their safety. The project will offer two-year fellowships to 60 researchers with or without refugee status, allowing them to continue their academic work within the EU. The project aims to develop and test processes for assessing the risks researchers face and establish mechanisms to match them with EU-based host institutions. It will also offer training and career development opportunities to the researchers through their hosts. Applications, which must be submitted by the hosts rather than the researchers, will open on 18 November and close on 20 January next year. A matchmaking system will be available from October to help at-risk scholars find hosts, with placements expected to begin in spring next year. The Safe project is being implemented by a coalition of academic organisations, led by the German Academic Exchange Service, in partnership with institutions including Campus France and the Mediterranean Universities Union. (Source: researchprofessionalnews *)
* The Research Professional News is an editorially independent part of Clarivate - Headquartered Philadelphia, United States and London, United Kingdom - American-British analytics company that operates a collection of subscription-based services.
Africa
Mali
(24 September 2024 13:08) Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso have announced a new partnership with Russia to acquire telecoms and remote-sensing satellites. The three West African countries, run by military juntas, have been struggling to defeat Islamist insurgencies for years and have turned to Russia for military support. Ministers from the three countries met officials from Russia’s aerospace agency Roscosmos in Mali’s capital, Bamako, on Monday, to discuss implementation plans. The technology will boost border surveillance and national security in all three countries, says Mali’s Finance Minister, Sanou. He also said it would help them to monitor and respond to floods, droughts, fires and other emergencies. Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso last year formed the Alliance of Sahel States. Russia has been seeking to expand its footprint in Africa, especially in the Sahel, since relations between these countries and their Western allies broke down. (Source: bbc)
Asia
Lebanon
24 September 2024 (15:22) Israeli strikes force tens of thousands to flee their homes yesterday and overnight in southern Lebanon, UN agencies have said. They were ramping up their aid in Lebanon to address a situation that was already dire before the escalation. Some 100,000 people living near the border with Israel had already been displaced since October last year.Some 500 people have crossed from Lebanon to war-torn Syria. Israeli air strikes killed at least 558 people, including 50 children and 94 women, since early yesterday, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry. At least four healthcare workers were killed and 16 paramedics injured, World Health Organization said. The hospitals have been crazy challenged in managing the number of injuries since last week," WHO's representative in Lebanon, Abubakar, told. More than 90 percent of the wounds suffered last week when pagers used by Hezbollah exploded across Lebanon ’are on the face and limbs, especially hands’ (Source: trtworld)
Japan
(24 September 2024 14:45) A Russian Il-38 military patrol plane entered Japanese airspace for up to a minute over three instances near the northernmost main island of Hokkaido, above Rebun Island, the defence ministry said. Russia and Japan have been locked in a territorial dispute over islands near Hokkaido that were seized by the Soviet Union during the final days of World War II. An undisclosed number of F-15 and F-35 fighter jets fired warning flares at the Russian aircraft after it apparently ignored their warnings, defence minister Kihara said, calling the use of flares a legitimate response to the alleged airspace violation. Earlier in September, another Russian military aircraft flew around southern Japanese airspace. It was after a Chinese Y-9 reconnaissance aircraft briefly violated Japan’s southern airspace in late August. Japanese defence officials have voiced concerns over Russia and China stepping up military cooperation in the region, with Chinese warplanes engaging in assertive activity around Japanese waters. These concerns have prompted Tokyo to significantly reinforce the defences of southwestern Japan, including remote islands that are considered key to Japan’s defence strategy in the region. (Source: independent)
