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Category: Al Jazeera

Ukraine hails unwanted first Oscar for ‘Russian terror’ documentary

Ukraine hails unwanted first Oscar for ‘Russian terror’ documentary

Mstyslav Chernov’s 20 Days in Mariupol won best documentary for journalist’s first-person account of Russian invasion. Ukrainian officials have hailed the country’s first Oscar-winning film for “showing the truth about Russia’s crimes”. Mstyslav Chernov’s 20 Days in Mariupol won best documentary at the Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday for its harrowing first-person account of the early days of Russia’s invasion in 2022. The Associated Press (AP) journalist’s film focuses on the attack on the southern city, which began in February two years ago. “This is the first Oscar in Ukrainian history, and I’m honoured,” an emotional Chernov said as he accepted the award in Los Angeles. “Probably I will be the first director on this stage to say I wish I’d never made this film. I wish to be able to exchange this to Russia never attacking Ukraine.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was reportedly blocked from appearing at the ceremony by organisers, said in a post on his Telegram channel on Monday that the movie “shows the truth about Russian terrorism”. Other officials joined in praising the film, applauding it for exposing the brutal devastation of the war and the message Chernov sent to the world from one of the world’s biggest stages. “The first Oscar in [Ukrainian] history. And how important it is now,” Andriy Yermak, head of the Presidential Office, said on Telegram. “The world has seen the truth about Russia’s crimes. Justice always prevails.” Chernov, alongside AP colleagues Evgeniy Maloletka and Vasilisa Stepanenko, arrived an hour before Russia began bombing the port city of Mariupol. Two weeks later, they were the last journalists working for an international outlet in the city, sending crucial dispatches to the outside world showing civilian casualties of all ages, the digging of mass graves, the bombing of a maternity hospital and the sheer extent of the devastation. Statuettes were awarded to Chernov, producer and editor Michelle Mizner and producer Raney Aronson-Rath for a film that was a joint production of AP and the show Frontline on the US television network PBS. The Oscar – and nomination – was a first for both Chernov, an AP video journalist, and the 178-year-old news organisation. Yermak thanked the team who made the film “for reminding the whole world that the war continues and evil still lives”. Ukraine’s human rights chief, Dmytro Lubinets, praised the documentary for showing “the truth to the whole world”. “This awards ceremony is an opportunity to address millions of people. This is what the film director did by mentioning the occupation, prisoners of war, killing of Ukrainians by Russia, and illegal abduction of civilians,” he wrote on Telegram. Adblock test (Why?)

Flag of NATO’s 32nd member, Sweden, raised at alliance’s headquarters

Flag of NATO’s 32nd member, Sweden, raised at alliance’s headquarters

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson preside over flag-raising ceremony in Brussels. Sweden’s flag has been raised at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, marking the country’s entry into the military alliance two years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg looked on as two soldiers on Monday raised the blue banner emblazoned with a yellow cross among the official circle of national flags at the transatlantic grouping’s offices in the Belgian capital. Ahead of the flag-hoisting ceremony held in the rain, Kristersson said expectations were “high”. “We have chosen you, and you have chosen us. All for one, and one for all,” the prime minister said, adding that his country was a “proud” member and pledging that it would uphold the values enshrined in NATO’s founding Washington Treaty. “The security situation in our region has not been this serious since the Second World War, and Russia will stay a threat to Euro-Atlantic security for a foreseeable future,” Kristersson said. For his part, Stoltenberg said Sweden becoming the alliance’s 32nd member shows Russian President Vladimir Putin “failed” in his Ukrainian war strategy of weakening it. “When President Putin launched his full-scale invasion two years ago, he wanted less NATO and more control over his neighbours. He wanted to destroy Ukraine as a sovereign state, but he failed,” Stoltenberg said, adding that Ukraine is “closer to NATO than ever before”. The ceremony came as 20,000 troops from 13 countries began NATO drills in the high north of Sweden as well as its neighbours Finland and Norway. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 prompted Sweden and Finland, which shares a 1,340km (832-mile) border with Russia, to end years of military nonalignment and apply to join the United States-led alliance. While Finland joined in April 2023, Sweden’s adhesion to NATO took close to two years as Turkey and Hungary held up the process that requires the unanimous support of all members. The Turkish parliament gave its formal consent in January and Hungary’s came last week. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday labelled the accession a “historic moment for Sweden, for our alliance and for the transatlantic relationship”. “Good things come to those who wait,” Blinken said as he received Sweden’s accession documents in Washington, DC. The members of NATO have lent their military and financial support to Ukraine in its fightback against Russian forces, but momentum is slowing as US political will fractures and Europe struggles to meet the Ukrainian ammunition needs. Sweden brings to the table well-trained and equipped armed forces. It also adds cutting-edge submarines and a sizeable fleet of domestically produced Gripen fighter jets to NATO forces and would be a crucial link between the Atlantic and Baltic. Adblock test (Why?)

Russia tightlipped on reports Navy commander sunk by Black Sea losses

Russia tightlipped on reports Navy commander sunk by Black Sea losses

Kremlin refuses comment on report it replaced navy commander after losing warships to Ukrainian attacks in Black Sea. The Kremlin has declined to comment on reports that the commander-in-chief of the Russian navy has been sacked. A spokesperson in Moscow said on Monday that “no public decrees” have been made on the fate of Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov. Reports over the weekend asserted that he had been replaced following the loss of a string of warships to Ukrainian attacks in the Black Sea. Several news outlets, including the pro-Kremlin Izvestia newspaper, claimed that Yevmenov, 61, had been replaced by Northern Fleet commander Alexander Moiseyev. Any such appointment would typically be announced by presidential decree. “There are decrees labelled secret, I cannot comment on them. There were no public decrees on this matter,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. If confirmed, the removal of Yevmenov – who was appointed head of the navy in May 2019 – would be the biggest shake-up in Russia’s military top brass since the sacking of aerospace force chief Sergei Surovikin last year. Ukrainian forces claim to have destroyed more than two dozen Russian ships since the conflict began in February 2022, including a military patrol boat last week. The losses are an embarrassment for Moscow, which has been forced to move ships from its historic Sevastopol naval base in Crimea to Novorossiysk, further east. Russia’s Black Sea woes come in stark contrast to its land offensive in east Ukraine, where its forces have advanced in recent months after over a year of deadlocked fighting. ‘Understandable’ The Kremlin spokesman also refused to comment on a recent CNN report that claimed that in late 2022 the US had been primed for a potential nuclear strike by Russia in Ukraine. “This is the type of speculation that is published in various newspapers,” Peskov told reporters, without confirming or denying the report that Russian military commanders had discussed such a scenario at the time. Peskov was, however, more enthusiastic to discuss the call by Pope Francis for Ukraine to sue for peace. President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly spoken of Russia’s willingness and openness to negotiations, but Kyiv had rejected such proposals, the Kremlin spokesman said. Ukraine has rebuffed the pope’s call for it to show what he called the courage of the “white flag” and negotiate an end to the two-year war. “It is quite understandable that he [the pope] spoke in favour of negotiations,” Peskov told reporters. “Unfortunately, both the statements of the Pope and the repeated statements of other parties, including ours, have recently received absolutely harsh refusals.” Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also leapt upon the pope’s comments. “The way I see it, the pope is asking the West to put aside its ambitions and admit that it was wrong,” she said, claiming that the West is using Ukraine to try to weaken Russia. Peskov said that the battlefield situation showed that Western hopes of inflicting a “strategic defeat” on Russia were mistaken. “This is the deepest misconception, the deepest mistake, and the course of events, primarily on the battlefield, is the clearest evidence of this,” he said. Adblock test (Why?)

Pakistan police crack down on PTI protests over alleged rigging in election

Pakistan police crack down on PTI protests over alleged rigging in election

There were allegations of large-scale rigging in last month’s vote, which the PTI blames on authorities to stop it from coming to power. Islamabad, Pakistan – The police in Pakistan have been accused of launching a brutal attack on the supporters of the main opposition party and arresting more than 100 of its members during countrywide protests over alleged rigging in last month’s general election. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) had called for the protests on Sunday to demand the restoration of their “stolen mandate” in the February 8 election as well as the immediate release of its leaders, including party founder and former Prime Minister Imran Khan. Last month’s vote saw large-scale allegations of rigging which the PTI says was carried out by the authorities to stop it from coming to power. Since Khan’s government was removed from power in 2022, PTI has seen an unprecedented crackdown. Khan himself has been in prison since August last year following his conviction in cases related to the leaking of state secrets, corruption and even “unlawful” wedding. He denies the charges, calling them politically motivated and intended to keep him out of active politics. Meanwhile, the crackdown on his party saw the PTI losing its election symbol days ahead of the polls it was widely favoured to win. The action forced its candidates to contest the polls as independents. The election day was marred by violence, followed by unusually delayed results, raising fears that the votes were manipulated by the Election Commission of Pakistan. Yet, the PTI-backed candidates emerged as the largest political group in parliament, winning 93 seats. But its rivals – the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) with 75 seats and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) with 54 – entered into an alliance and formed the government earlier this month. The PTI says it is opposed to the new government since the votes were rigged and has demanded action against election authorities and the interim government that oversaw the polls. To push for its demands, the PTI called on its supporters across the country to hit the streets on Sunday. As PTI members and supporters rallied, raising slogans against the government and calling for its dismissal, the demonstration in the eastern city of Lahore turned violent. Multiple videos on social media showed police officers attacking the protesters with sticks and shoving people inside police vehicles. One video showed a bearded man holding a PTI flag being dragged out of his car. A large crowd gathered around his vehicle forcing the police to let the man go. Another video showed a PTI leader being pulled inside a police vehicle as he continued to raise slogans. In a statement, the PTI said all its arrested leaders should be immediately released and “the shameful series of state repression, brutality and fascism should be abandoned”. The party said it will hold weekly protests until its demands are met. “A majority of those arrested [on Sunday] have now been released, but the point is the police cannot arrest people carrying out peaceful protests,” PTI leader Shayan Bashir told Al Jazeera. Adblock test (Why?)

Climate change threatens EU with mass deaths and huge costs: Report

Climate change threatens EU with mass deaths and huge costs: Report

Hundreds of thousands of lives and more than $1 trillion in losses are threatened unless urgent action is taken. Europe urgently needs stronger measures to respond to climate change risks, a new report has warned. The 32-paged assessment, published on Monday by the European Environment Agency (EEA), asserted that the bloc is not prepared to respond to the increasingly severe risks that climate change poses. The policy adviser’s first-ever report on the threats faced by the world’s fastest-warming continent warns of “catastrophic” consequences. “Hundreds of thousands of people would die from heat waves, and economic losses from coastal floods alone could exceed 1 trillion euros ($1.1 trillion) per year,” the report read. Urgent policies targeting healthcare systems, farming and critical infrastructure are needed, it continued, noting that extreme heat and drought events, once rare, are becoming more common. “If decisive action is not taken now, most climate risks identified [in the report] could reach critical or catastrophic levels by the end of this century,” the analysis said, urging the EU to integrate climate risk into budgets and policies across sectors. 🆕The EEA’s first #EUCRA – European #ClimateRisk assessment is out. It identifies 36 major climate risks for Europe within 5 broad clusters: ecosystems, food, health, infrastructure, and economy & finance.Find out more:https://t.co/m4CJoLBOb0 pic.twitter.com/rPCfSKhbiD — EU EnvironmentAgency (@EUEnvironment) March 11, 2024 Those risks likely will not diminish even if the world meets the 2015 Paris Agreement goal of keeping average temperatures no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, the researchers, who analysed five sectors ranging from business to health, noted. An EU monitor recently noted that the world had crossed the 1.5C warming threshold last year, as 2023 broke records. However, the target has not been permanently breached because it depends on measurements taken over decades. Climate-related hazards on food production are especially set to hit southern Europe hard, the report said, noting that less than 2 percent of EU farming subsidies are spent on helping farmers manage risks. The report also recommended that the EU set requirements to protect outdoor workers in agriculture, construction and other industries from extreme heat or floods. New “Eurocodes” for building infrastructure are also needed, because of mounting risks to critical infrastructure, such as floods damaging roads or extreme heat warping train tracks. The report also called for the EU to design funding instruments to help countries prepare their healthcare systems to cope with climate change, which hits vulnerable and elderly people particularly hard. Climate-related events accounted for 85,000 to 145,000 human fatalities across Europe over the past 40 years, according to the EEA. Extreme heatwaves in 2022 caused more than 60,000 deaths on the continent, researchers found separately. Europe has faced a wave of severe climate events in recent years. In 2021, unprecedented floods swept across Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, leading to costs of 44 billion euros ($48bn). The same year, Italy saw more than 150,000 acres (60,700 hectares) of forest burned in severe wildfires, the largest number in at least a decade. In 2023, flash floods in Slovenia caused damage estimated at more than 10 percent of the country’s GDP. Combined, economic losses from weather and climate-related extremes in EU countries exceeded 650 billion euros ($711bn) from 1980 to 2022. Adblock test (Why?)

Fear of China, Russia and Iran is driving weapons sales: Report

Fear of China, Russia and Iran is driving weapons sales: Report

The aggressive postures of disruptive states drove arms sales in Europe, the Middle East and Asia during the past five years, according to a new report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Russia’s war in Ukraine contributed to a doubling of arms purchases in Europe in 2019-23 relative to 2014-18, the think tank said on Monday, with Ukraine becoming the largest regional importer and fourth-largest in the world. Arms exports to Asia made up the largest single chunk globally – 37 percent – with United States allies Japan, Australia and India leading the buying spree. These were “largely driven by one key factor: concern over China’s ambitions”, said Pieter Wezeman, a senior researcher at SIPRI’s arms transfers programme. Japan, for example, raised its imports two-and-a-half times over, ordering, among other things, 400 long-range missiles capable of reaching North Korea and China. US allies Qatar, Egypt and Saudi Arabia also led purchases in the Middle East, which accounted for 30 percent of global imports. “It is not just a fear of Iran. It is actually warfare,” Wezeman told Al Jazeera. “In the past 10 years, Saudi Arabia has actually used those arms in operations which it is leading by itself, including in Yemen. That is considered in Saudi Arabia a direct confrontation with Iran through proxies.” Regional rivalry also played a role. Qatar, for instance, quadrupled its arms imports after Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates imposed a blockade on the Gulf country in 2017, ordering combat aircraft from the US, France and the United Kingdom. “We live in a transitional world. It is fluid and unstable. The UN has a decorative role. There is a whole class of revisionist powers,” professor of history at the American College of Greece Konstantinos Filis told Al Jazeera. “There is insecurity from Western-friendly states about whether US power can deter an attack on them,” Filis said. “They’re saying, ‘If I don’t rearm, there is no one to protect me, there aren’t multilateral strong mechanisms as in previous years, so I have to prepare for a future attack’.” US widens lead as top exporter Western allies are the biggest exporters, too. The surge in spending by allies helped the US widen its lead as a top arms exporter, reaching 42 percent of the global market, up from 34 percent in 2013-18. That is partly because the US is the only country with an exportable fifth-generation combat aircraft, the F-35 Lightning II, and many of its allies are now transitioning their air forces to adopt the aircraft’s stealth technology. Europe has almost 800 next-generation fighter planes on order, including the F-35, the Eurofighter Typhoon and France’s Rafale. But the pattern of upticks in sales to key Western allies, comprising eight of the top 10 arms importers, suggests the bigger reasons are political. Other Western arms producers have also benefitted. France raised exports almost by half to beat Russia to second place, and Italy nearly doubled them. Fighter planes have swollen France’s orderbook, with Dassault going from selling 23 Rafale 4.5th generation aircraft in the 2013-18 period to 94 in the past five years. It currently has 193 on order. In fact, Europe, including the UK and Switzerland, exported 31 percent of the world’s weapons in 2019-23. South Korea has emerged as a major exporter too, signing big deals with Poland for tanks, artillery, aircraft, and rocket artillery. China, in contrast, sold 5.8 percent, with 60 percent of its exports going to Pakistan, and most of the rest to Bangladesh and Thailand. Russia, once the US’s great rival in arms sales, halved its exports to 11 percent of the global share – partly due to husbanding its resources to fight Ukraine, but also due to a longer decline predating its full-scale invasion. Russian exports have been falling partly because China, a major client since the 1990s, has increasingly been building its own weapons, and India, a long-term buyer of Russian weapons, is beginning to question Russia’s technologies and ability to deliver. “India seems to be moving away from Russian equipment,” said Wezeman. “There have been some orders that haven’t led to deliveries yet, for example, the nuclear powered submarine which Russia is supposed to deliver this year or next, some frigates, a few aircraft.” “We also see what seems to be a disappointment on the Indian side about the technical level of the Russian equipment which they have acquired, and therefore a shift to other suppliers such as France and Israel in the past 20 years, and the US.” A hopeful sign for Europe It is a hopeful sign, say experts, that Europe has begun to rekindle the forges of its own defence industry, giving it greater agency to supply Ukraine – especially given delays in US military aid. “It is very clear that Europe is putting in an enormous effort to scale up its production of ammunition and a whole range of other products,” said Wezeman. “It turns out, there is capacity, but of course it is scattered throughout Europe. Much of it has been standing still. There is expertise, there are production lines lying dormant,” he said. “It’s only when things get really bad that people mobilise,” Suzanne Raine, a former UK diplomat and lecturer at Cambridge University’s Centre for Geopolitics, told Al Jazeera. “There was a moment at the beginning when Russia invaded and it looked terrible and there was an immediate response,” she said, referring to the first rush of weapons pledges for Ukraine in early 2022. She believed that Ukrainian success was misinterpreted in the West. “That moment when it became clear that Ukraine was actually going to be able to hold the Russians back was a dangerous turning point, because it allowed for the first little bit of complacency,” she said. French President Emmanuel Macron last May called for greater European defence autonomy. Not everyone agrees with that framing of the debate. “The defence industrial partnerships that protect European nations and support Ukraine cross European boundaries,” Cambridge University