Month: July 2022

WNBA Star Griner’s Court Case to Begin in Russia

Posted on by SeeUS

The trial of professional women’s basketball player Brittney Griner is set to begin Friday in a Russian courtroom.

The WNBA star has been detained in Russia for more than four months and is facing 10 years in prison on drug smuggling charges.

At the time of her arrest in February, customs officials say the Olympic gold medalist was in possession of vape cartridges that contained hashish oil, an illegal substance in Russia.

Political analysts say Griner’s arrest and trial could not have happened at a worse time. Arrested just a few days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, many people believe that Griner has become a political pawn between the United States and Russia.
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Mattis: Putin Goes to Bed at Night ‘Fearful’

Posted on by SeeEU

Former U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Friday lobbed insults at Russian President Vladimir Putin and slammed his invasion of Ukraine as “incompetent” and “foolish.”

At a speech in Seoul, Mattis compared Putin to the kind of paranoid characters created by Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky.

“Putin is a creature straight out of Dostoevsky. He goes to bed at night angry, he goes to bed at night fearful, he goes to bed at night thinking Russia is surrounded by nightmares,” Mattis said.

Mattis has made relatively few public comments since resigning as Pentagon chief in 2018 over a foreign policy disagreement with former U.S. President Donald Trump.

In his speech, Mattis did not address those disagreements in a direct way, saying only Trump had overseen a nontraditional foreign policy that had challenged U.S. relations with its allies.

Mattis’ most pointed comments focused on Putin, whom he portrayed as unhinged and unable to make smart decisions due to the lack of people giving him sound advice.

Asked about the biggest lesson that could be drawn from Russia’s war in Ukraine, Mattis replied, “Don’t have incompetent generals in charge of your operations.”

He also said the Russian invasion was “tactically incompetent” and “strategically foolish.”

“War is enough of a tragedy without adding stupidity on top,” he said.

Mattis also criticized China’s growing relations with Russia and its unwillingness to oppose the war in Ukraine.

A country “cannot be great if they support Russia’s criminal invasion of Ukraine,” he said.

Addressing his tenure under Trump, Mattis spoke of “raucous times” and called Trump an “unusual leader” but did not directly criticize the former president.

“Democracies will at times go popularist and will at times break with tradition,” he said. “It’s the nature of democracies at times to be testing ideas and all.”

Americans, Mattis said, should respond by “keep[ing] faith in the institutions” and “in those that disagree with you.”

Mattis’ speech was in South Korea, a U.S. ally that dramatically felt the effects of Trump’s nontraditional foreign policy.

Asked how he felt about Trump’s summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Mattis said he was never optimistic about the talks, but that the diplomatic effort was the “right thing to do.”

“As far as what came out of it, nothing. I saw nothing that came out of it,” he said.

Mattis also praised South Korea’s new president, former chief prosecutor Yoon Suk Yeol, for wanting South Korea to play a bigger role in the world.

Yoon, a conservative who has explicitly embraced the United States, has said he wants South Korea to become a “global pivotal state.” This week, Yoon attended the NATO summit in Madrid,  the first time a South Korean leader had attended such a meeting.

Mattis praised Yoon’s presence at the NATO summit, saying “a globally pivotal state in South Korea is in all our best interests.”

He warned, however, against voices in Seoul who have recently called for South Korea to acquire its own nuclear weapons.

“You don’t need nuclear weapons on the peninsula to ensure an extended deterrence so long as there is trust between the ROK and the United States,” he said, referring to an abbreviation of South Korea’s official name, the Republic of Korea.

Opinion polls consistently show that most South Koreans support their country acquiring their own nuclear weapons, especially as North Korea continues developing its own arsenal.

As a candidate, Yoon said he would ask the United States to agree to a nuclear weapons sharing arrangement, or to redeploy tactical nuclear weapons that Washington withdrew from South Korea in the early 1990s — notions quickly rejected by the U.S. State Department.

To avoid such an outcome, the United States and South Korea should continue to build trust, including by demonstrating “extended deterrence” against North Korea’s nuclear weapons, Mattis said.

“I think anything you can do to avoid having these weapons yourselves, you should do. They are horrible weapons,” he said.
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Explainer: Why Indonesia’s Leader is Visiting Kyiv, Moscow

Posted on by SeeEU

Indonesian President Joko Widodo, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the Group of 20 leading rich and developing nations, is visiting Ukraine and Russia for meetings with the leaders of the two warring nations after attending the Group of Seven summit in Germany.

Widodo has sought to maintain a neutral position since the start of the war, and he hopes his efforts will lead to a cease-fire and eventual direct talks between the two leaders.

What does Widodo hope to achieve?

Widodo said he wants to encourage Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to start a dialogue on ending the war, which has caused global food shortages and surges in commodity prices.

“My mission is to build peace, because the war must be stopped and (its effects) on the food supply chain must be lifted,” Widodo said, “I will invite President Putin to open a dialogue and, as soon as possible, to carry out a cease-fire and stop the war.”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has choked global markets and contributed to higher prices of meat, dairy products, cereals, sugar and vegetable oils.

“These visits are not only important for Indonesians but also for other developing countries in order to prevent the people of developing and low-income countries from falling into extreme poverty and hunger,” Widodo said.

Why does the war in Ukraine matter to Widodo?

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said it’s important to achieve a resumption of grain exports from Ukraine and food and fertilizer exports from Russia to end shortages and reduce prices.

Rising costs of cooking oil prompted the Indonesian government to temporarily ban exports of palm oil products amid a series of student protests against skyrocketing food prices. Indonesia resumed exports of crude palm oil a month later.

Indonesia and Malaysia are the world’s largest exporters of palm oil, accounting for 85% of global production.

Why might Putin and Zelenskyy listen to Widodo?

As this year’s G-20 president, Indonesia has sought to remain neutral in dealing with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and has been guarded in its comments.

Widodo has said he offered Indonesian support in peace efforts to both Putin and Zelenskyy, a move seen as an attempt to unite the G-20 forum divided by the ongoing conflict.

The United States and its allies in the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations — a subset of the G-20 — have sought to punish Putin in as many ways as possible, including by threatening a boycott of the G-20 summit to be held later this year in Bali unless Putin is removed from the forum.

Widodo has invited Zelenskyy to the summit along with Putin in hopes it will appease proponents of both Ukraine and Russia and limit any distraction from the forum’s other agenda items. Ukraine is not a member of the forum, but Russia is.

What are his chances of success?

Widodo will be the first Asian leader to visit the warring countries.

His efforts come weeks after Russia said it was looking over an Italian proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Talks between Russia and Ukraine to end the hostilities have essentially ground to a halt.

The Ukrainian and Russian foreign ministers met for inconclusive talks in Turkey in March, followed by a meeting of the delegations in Istanbul, which also failed to bring about concrete results.

Gilang Kembara, an international politics researcher at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, an Indonesian think tank, is pessimistic that Putin will listen to Widodo to find a peaceful solution to the Russo-Ukrainian conflict.

“The chance for that is very slim,” said Kembara, “Indonesia does not have great experience as a peace broker outside the Southeast Asia region.”
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Following Indonesia’s Diplomatic Blitz, Western Leaders Say They’ll Attend G-20 Bali Summit

Posted on by SeeUS

Western leaders signaled confirmation of their attendance at the November summit of the Group of 20 in Bali, despite initial boycott threats, and the Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin could possibly participate virtually at the gathering.

In a call with reporters Thursday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said they would decide “at the necessary time” on whether Putin would attend in person.

Putin’s potential remote participation at the summit could solve a diplomatic headache for host country Indonesia, which has been under Western pressure to kick Moscow out of the gathering of the world’s 20 largest economies, with U.S. President Joe Biden and other Group of Seven leaders previously stating they would not attend unless Putin was excluded.

As this year’s G-20 chair, Indonesian President Joko Widodo has been on a diplomatic blitz trying to salvage the summit. He met Putin in Moscow on Thursday following his Wednesday meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, and with G-7 leaders in Germany earlier this week.

Jakarta announced in April that it had invited Russia, a G-20 member. It has since sought to bridge the gap between the West’s effort to isolate Putin at various global forums as punishment for the invasion of Ukraine, and the interest of middle-power members, including India, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico and Saudi Arabia, who want the summit’s agenda to center on post-pandemic recovery.

Zelenskyy to attend

Zelenskyy told Widodo on Wednesday that he would be attending the summit, depending on the status of the Russian invasion and the “composition of participants in the event.”

In April, Widodo invited Zelenskyy, despite Ukraine’s not being a member. Biden had pressed for Zelenskyy to be invited to the G-20 if other members chose not to expel Moscow.

 

No boycott

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau became the latest G-7 leader to say his country would take part in the gathering in November.

“It’s too important that we be there to counteract the voice and the lies that Russia will perhaps be putting forward,” he said Thursday.

Trudeau said he expected the other G-7 countries – the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Japan — to take part even if Russia remained a member of the G-20 group.

The White House has not responded to VOA’s request for confirmation on whether Biden will be attending.

Earlier this week, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged Western leaders not to boycott. He questioned the wisdom of Western leaders’ vacating their seats at the meeting and leaving “the whole argument to China, to Russia.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and G-7 host German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also indicated that they would attend. Scholz said Tuesday that there had been “great unity” at the G-7 leaders’ meeting and that “we do not want to drive the G-20 apart.”

 

Italian view

Meanwhile, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi indicated that Jakarta had assured Western leaders they would not be seated at the same table as Putin.

“President Widodo rules it out,” Draghi told reporters at the end of the G-7 summit. “He was categorical, he [Putin] will not come.” Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov fired back, “Draghi does not decide this.”

Jakarta has not responded to VOA’s request to confirm Widodo’s statement on Putin’s plans.

Lucas Myers, Southeast Asia analyst at the Wilson Center, said Widodo has a chance to enhance his international prestige if he pulls off the balancing act.

“If successful in achieving a productive summit that manages to placate both Russia and the G-7, it will demonstrate Indonesia’s growing role internationally and Jakarta’s ability to balance the complex rivalries of an increasingly multipolar and tense world,” Myers told VOA.

Messenger

In a joint press conference with Putin after their meeting at the Kremlin Thursday, Widodo said via an interpreter that he had conveyed a message from Zelenskyy to Putin and had offered to play peace broker between the two.

 

Widodo did not provide details, and neither side said what the message entailed.

The Indonesian leader said Russia had agreed to open a sea route for Ukrainian wheat exports amid escalating concerns about global food shortages.

“I really appreciate President Putin, who has said he’ll provide security guarantees for food and fertilizer supplies from both Ukraine and Russia — this is good news,” Widodo said.

Widodo said he supported the U.N. proposal to open a Black Sea route for Ukrainian grain exports as well as Russian food and fertilizer exports. The U.N. has been in talks with both countries and Turkey, which has suggested that ships could be guided around sea mines by establishing safe corridors in the Black Sea.

Tens of millions of people across the world, including in Indonesia and other developing nations, are at risk of hunger as the conflict disrupted shipments of grain from Ukraine and fertilizer from Russia, both key producers.
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Erdogan Warns Turkey May Still Block Nordic NATO Drive

Posted on by SeeEU

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday told Sweden and Finland that he could still block their drives to join NATO if they fail to implement a new accession deal with Ankara.

Erdogan issued his blunt warning at the end of a NATO summit at which the U.S.-led alliance formally invited the Nordic countries to join the 30-nation bloc.

The two nations dropped their history of military nonalignment and announced plans to join NATO in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Their bids were headed for swift approval until Erdogan voiced concerns in May.

He accused the two of providing a haven for outlawed Kurdish militants and promoting “terrorism.”

Erdogan also demanded they lift arms embargoes imposed in response to Turkey’s 2019 military incursion into Syria.

A 10-point memorandum signed by the three sides on the sidelines of the NATO summit on Tuesday appeared to address many of Erdogan’s concerns.

Erdogan lifted his objections and then held a warm meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden that was followed by a promise of new warplane sales to Turkey.

Yet Erdogan told reporters at an impromptu press conference held as the summit ended that the memorandum did not mean Turkey would automatically approve the two countries’ membership.

New countries’ applications must be approved by all members and ratified by their respective parliaments.

Erdogan warned that Sweden’s and Finland’s future behavior would decide whether he forwarded their application to the Turkish parliament.

“If they fulfil their duties, we will send it to the parliament. If they are not fulfilled, it is out of the question,” he said.

A senior Turkish diplomat in Washington said the ratification process could come at the earliest in late September and may wait until 2023, with parliament going into recess from Friday.

One Western diplomatic source in the hallways of the NATO summit accused Erdogan of engaging in “blackmail.”

’73 terrorists’

Erdogan delivered his message one day after Turkey said it would seek the extradition of 12 suspects from Finland and 21 from Sweden.

The 33 were accused of being either outlawed Kurdish militants or members of a group led by a U.S.-based preacher Turkey blames for a failed 2016 coup.

But Erdogan appeared to up the ante on Thursday by noting that Sweden had “promised” Turkey to extradite “73 terrorists.”

He did not explain when Sweden issued this promise or provide other details.

Officials in Stockholm said they did not understand Erdogan’s reference but said that Sweden strictly adhered to the rule of law.

“In Sweden, Swedish law is applied by independent courts,” Justice Minister Morgan Johansson said in a statement to AFP.

“Swedish citizens are not extradited. Non-Swedish citizens can be extradited at the request of other countries, but only if it is compatible with Swedish law and the European Convention,” Johansson said.

Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said Wednesday that Erdogan appeared to be referring to cases that had already been processed by officials and the courts.

“I would guess that all of these cases have been solved in Finland. There are decisions made, and those decisions are partly made by our courts,” Niinisto told reporters in Madrid.

“I see no reason to take them up again.”

Most of Turkey’s demands and past negotiations have involved Sweden because of its more robust ties with the Kurdish diaspora.

Sweden keeps no official ethnicity statistics but is believed to have 100,000 Kurds living in the nation of 10 million people.

The Brookings Institution warned that Turkey’s “loose and often aggressive framing” of the term “terrorist” could lead to problems in the months to come.

“The complication arises from a definition of terrorism in Turkish law that goes beyond criminalizing participation in violent acts and infringes on basic freedom of speech,” the U.S.-based institute said in a report.
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Turkey Blocks Access to VOA Turkish Language Content

Posted on by SeeEU

Turkey’s media regulator blocked access Thursday to the Turkish language services of Voice of America and Deutsche Welle after the international public broadcasters did not apply for licenses the regulator had requested.

In February, the Radio and Television Supreme Council, known as RTUK, gave three international broadcasters, including Voice of America’s Turkish Service, short notice to obtain broadcast licenses or have their content blocked. That order also included Germany’s Deutsche Welle.

Ilhan Tasci, an RTUK board member from the main opposition Republican People’s Party and vocal critic of the licensing demand, announced Thursday on Twitter that access to Deutsche Welle’s Turkish-language service, DW Turkce, and VOA had been blocked by a court decision.

“Access to DW Turkce and Voice of America, which did not apply for licenses, has been blocked by the Ankara Criminal Court of Peace, upon the request of the RTUK board,” Tasci said Thursday. “Here is your freedom of press and advanced democracy!” he added sarcastically. 

 

The February licensing decision was based on a regulation that went into effect in August 2019. At that time, several media freedom advocates raised concerns about possible censorship because the regulation granted RTUK the authority to control all online content.

RTUK’s deputy head, Ibrahim Uslu, dismissed the censorship criticisms, saying the decision “has nothing to do with censorship but is part of technical measures.”

Under the regulation, RTUK has been authorized to request broadcast licenses from “media service providers” in order for their radio, TV broadcasting and on-demand audiovisual media services to continue their online presence.

The regulation allows RTUK to impose fines, suspend broadcasting for three months or cancel broadcast licenses if the licensees do not follow RTUK’s principles.

With this decision, the authority of RTUK over news websites was used for the first time, said Can Guleryuzlu, president of the Progressive Journalists Association.

VOA and Deutsche Welle “reported on many issues that were followed by millions and that the national press could not bring to the agenda,” and “with the last decision of the judiciary, [that] has been blocked. The judiciary turned its face not to justice but to the government in Turkey,” Guleryuzlu added.

Yaman Akdeniz, a cyberlaw professor at Istanbul Bilgi University, told VOA Turkish “complete access blocking to these news websites can only be described as censorship.”

The court’s decision to block access to VOA Turkish came on the heels of the meeting between President Joe Biden and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Madrid.

The U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for VOA in February confirmed the network was aware of the RTUK demand.

“VOA believes any governmental efforts to silence news outlets is a violation of press freedom, a core value of all democratic societies,” the spokesperson, Bridget Serchak, said.

“Should the Turkish government formally block our websites, VOA will make every effort to ensure that its Turkish-speaking audience retains access to a free and open internet using all available methods,” she added.

DW’s director-general, Peter Limbourg, said in February that the broadcaster would appeal the decision.

In a statement published by DW, he said the request would give “Turkish authorities the option to block the entire service based on individual, critical reports unless these reports are deleted.”

Turkey has a poor record for press freedom, ranking 149th out of 180 countries, where 1 is freest, on the World Press Freedom Index.

Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, which compiles the annual index, says that discriminatory practices against media in Turkey are commonplace and that the RTUK “helps to weaken critical TV channels economically, by giving them heavy fines.”

Ezel Sahinkaya and Begum Ersoz of VOA’s Turkish Service contributed to this report. Some information came from Reuters. 
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US Distributes $92 Million to Soccer Corruption Victims

Posted on by SeeUS

The U.S. Justice Department has distributed about $92 million in additional compensation from money forfeited by convicted officials and associated companies resulting from the government’s prosecution of corruption in soccer.

The money is for compensation for losses sustained by FIFA, the Confederation of North and Central American and Caribbean Football, the South American governing body CONMEBOL and various national soccer federations.

The Justice Department last August recognized losses of more than $201 million in the cases, which began with indictments in May 2015, and it announced then an initial $32.2 million payment to a “World Football Remission Fund” overseen by the FIFA Foundation charity.

FIFA’s charity supports school projects, helps the sport recover after natural disasters, develops women’s and girls’ soccer and a FIFA Legends program that uses former players as ambassadors. The money was obtained in forfeitures to federal court in Brooklyn.

More than 50 people and corporate entities have been charged, mostly for giving and receiving bribes and kickbacks and laundering payments in arrangements between sports marketing companies and soccer officials for media and marketing rights to soccer events.

Twenty-seven individuals and four corporate entities have pleaded guilty, Former CONMEBOL President Juan Angel Napout and former Brazilian Football Confederation President Jose Maria Marin, who was the head of Brazil’s organizing committee for the 2014 World Cup, were convicted in December 2017 and banks have acknowledged roles in criminal conduct through deferred prosecution and nonprosecution agreements.

“Over much of the past decade, this investigation and prosecution has concentrated on bringing wrongdoers to justice and recovering ill-gotten gains,” Breon Peace, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement Thursday.

“Our office, working in collaboration with our law enforcement partners and colleagues in the Department of Justice, will continue our work to compensate victims of crime.”
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