TBILISI, GEORGIA — Former soccer player Mikheil Kavelashvili became president of Georgia on Saturday, as the ruling party tightened its grip in what the opposition calls a blow to the country’s EU aspirations and a victory for former imperial ruler Russia.

Kavelashvili, 53, easily won the vote given the Georgian Dream party’s control of a 300-seat electoral college that replaced direct presidential elections in 2017.

Georgian Dream retained control of parliament in the South Caucasus nation in an October 26 election that the opposition alleges was rigged with Moscow’s help. Georgia’s outgoing president and main pro-Western parties have since boycotted parliamentary sessions and demanded a rerun of the ballot.

Georgian Dream has vowed to continue pushing toward EU accession but also wants to “reset” ties with Russia.

In 2008 Russia fought a brief war with Georgia, which led to Moscow’s recognition of two breakaway regions as independent and an increase in the Russian military presence in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Critics have accused Georgian Dream — established by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a shadowy billionaire who made his fortune in Russia — of becoming increasingly authoritarian and tilted toward Moscow, accusations the ruling party has denied. The party recently pushed through laws like those used by the Kremlin to crack down on freedom of speech and LGBTQ+ rights.

Pro-Western Salome Zourabichvili has been president since 2018 and has vowed to stay on after her six-year term ends Monday, describing herself as the only legitimate leader until a new election is held.

Georgian Dream’s decision last month to suspend talks on their country’s bid to join the European Union added to the opposition’s outrage and galvanized protests.

 

Who is the outgoing president?

Zourabichvili, 72, was born in France to parents with Georgian roots and had a successful career with the French Foreign Ministry before President Mikheil Saakashvili named her Georgia’s top diplomat in 2004.

Constitutional changes made the president’s job largely ceremonial before Zourabichvili was elected by popular vote with Georgian Dream’s support in 2018. She became sharply critical of the ruling party, accusing it of pro-Russia policies, and Georgian Dream unsuccessfully tried to impeach her.

“I remain your president — there is no legitimate Parliament and thus no legitimate election or inauguration,” she has declared on the social network X. “My mandate continues.”

Speaking to The Associated Press, Zourabichvili rejected government claims that the opposition was fomenting violence.

“We are not demanding a revolution,” Zourabichvili said. “We are asking for new elections, but in conditions that will ensure that the will of the people will not be misrepresented or stolen again.

“Georgia has been always resisting Russian influence and will not accept having its vote stolen and its destiny stolen,” she said.

Zourabichvili called Saturday’s vote a “provocation” and “a parody” while a leader of one of Georgia’s main opposition parties said it was unconstitutional.

Giorgi Vashadze of the Unity National Movement Coalition said Zourabichvili is “the only legitimate source of power.”

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said that Kavelashvili’s election “will make a significant contribution to strengthening Georgia’s statehood and our sovereignty, as well as reducing radicalism and so-called polarization.”

“The main mission of the presidential institution is to care for the unity of the nation and society,” said Kobakhidze, a former university professor and later chairperson of Georgian Dream.

Who is Kavelashvili?

Georgian Dream nominated Kavelashvili — mocked by the opposition for lacking higher education. He was a striker in the Premier League for Manchester City and in several clubs in the Swiss Super League. He was elected to parliament in 2016 on the Georgian Dream ticket, and in 2022 co-founded the People’s Power political movement, which was allied with Georgian Dream and become known for its strong anti-Western rhetoric.

Kavelashvili was one of the authors of a controversial law requiring organizations that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “pursuing the interest of a foreign power,” similar to a Russian law used to discredit organizations critical of the government.

The European Union, which granted Georgia candidate status in December 2023 on condition that the country meets the bloc’s recommendations, put its accession on hold and cut financial support in June following approval of the “foreign influence” law.

 

How did opposition protests unfold?

Thousands of demonstrators converged on the parliament building every night after the government announced the suspension of EU accession talks on November 28.

Riot police used water cannons and tear gas almost daily to disperse and beat scores of protesters, some of whom threw fireworks at police officers and built barricades on the capital’s central boulevard.

Hundreds were detained and over 100 treated for injuries.

Several journalists were beaten by police, and media workers accused authorities of using thugs to deter people from attending antigovernment rallies, which Georgian Dream denies.

The crackdown has drawn strong condemnation from the United States and EU officials.

“[Kavelashvili] is not elected by us. He is controlled by a puppet government, by Bidzina Ivanishvili, by Putin,” protester Sandro Samkharadze said.

Another protester waved a sign saying “We are children of Europe.”

Demonstrators vowed the rallies would continue. “If [the government] wants to go to Russia, they can go to Russia, because we are not going anywhere. We are staying here,” said protester Kato Kalatozishvili.
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PARIS — Credit ratings agency Moody’s unexpectedly downgraded France’s rating on Friday, adding pressure on the country’s new prime minister to corral divided lawmakers into backing his efforts to rein in the strained public finances.

The downgrade, which came outside of Moody’s regular review schedule for France, brings its rating to “Aa3” from “Aa2” with a stable outlook for future moves and puts it in line with those from rival agencies Standard & Poor’s and Fitch.

It comes hours after President Emmanuel Macron named on Friday veteran centrist politician and early ally Francois Bayrou as his fourth prime minister this year.

His predecessor, Michel Barnier, failed to pass a 2025 budget and was toppled earlier this month by left-wing and far-right lawmakers opposed to his $63 billion (60 billion euro) belt-tightening push that he had hoped would rein in France’s spiraling fiscal deficit.

The political crisis forced the outgoing government to propose emergency legislation this week to temporarily roll over 2024 spending limits and tax thresholds into next year until a more permanent 2025 budget can be passed.

“Looking ahead, there is now very low probability that the next government will sustainably reduce the size of fiscal deficits beyond next year,” Moody’s said in a statement.

“As a result, we forecast that France’s public finances will be materially weaker over the next three years compared to our October 2024 baseline scenario,” it added.

Barnier had intended to cut the budget deficit next year to 5% of economic output from 6.1% this year with a $63 billion (60 billion euro) package of spending cuts and tax hikes.

But left-wing and far-right lawmakers were opposed to much of the belt-tightening drive and voted a no confidence measure against Barnier’s government, bringing it down.

Bayrou, who has long warned about France’s weak public finances, said on Friday shortly after taking office that he faced a “Himalaya” of a challenge reining in the deficit.

Outgoing Finance Minister Antoine Armand said he took note of Moody’s decision, adding there was a will to reduce the deficit as indicated by the nomination of Bayrou.

The political crisis put French stocks and debt under pressure, pushing the risk premium on French government bonds at one point to their highest level over 12 years.
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Ukrainian news outlets say Russian troops are closing in on Pokrovsk, an eastern city that is considered a key logistical hub for the Ukrainian military.

The Kyiv Post and Kyiv Independent newspapers reported Friday that Russian troops control areas 5 kilometers or less from Pokrovsk, a city of about 60,000 in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.

On the positive side for Ukraine, the Independent, citing the DeepState monitoring group that tracks the Russia-Ukraine war, reports that Ukrainian forces have resisted Russian assaults on several other Donetsk locales in recent days.

Earlier Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia had launched one of the largest assaults to date on his nation’s energy infrastructure, sending 93 missiles and nearly 200 attack drones against the nation.

In a report from his X social media account, Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s air defenses managed to shoot down 81 of the missiles, including 11 cruise missiles shot down by Ukraine’s F-16 fighter aircraft. The Ukrainian president said there was at least one North Korean missile used in the attack.

In his comments, Zelenskyy lashed out at Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying of the attack, “This is Putin’s ‘peaceful’ plan — to destroy everything. This is how he wants ‘negotiations’ — terrorizing millions of people.” Zelenskyy also called for a strong reaction from world leaders: “a massive strike — a massive reaction. This is the only way to stop terror,” he said.

Zelensky said if world leaders hesitate to react, “Putin takes it as permission to continue. Patriots are needed to shoot down these missiles and prove that terror will not achieve its goal.” He also called for stronger sanctions against Russia to hamper missile production.

The Ukrainian president said he discussed the attack later Friday in a telephone call with Finnish President Alexander Stubb.

He said Stubb expressed his readiness to help enhance Ukraine’s air defenses as well as Finland’s strong support for “Ukraine’s sovereign right to choose its own future without external interference, including our choice to join the EU and NATO.”

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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Tbilisi — Georgia’s political crisis deepened Friday after new pro-Europe protests were announced ahead of the controversial nomination of a far-right government loyalist as president.

The Black Sea nation has been in turmoil since the governing Georgian Dream party claimed victory in contested October parliamentary elections, with its decision last month to delay EU accession talks igniting a fresh wave of mass rallies.

More unrest is expected on Saturday when Georgian Dream will appoint far-right former footballer Mikheil Kavelashvili as president in a controversial election process.

The pro-Western incumbent, President Salome Zurabishvili, has refused to step down and is demanding new parliamentary elections, paving the way for a constitutional showdown.

Opposition groups accuse Georgian Dream of rigging the parliamentary vote, democratic backsliding in office and moving Tbilisi closer to Russia — all at the expensive of the Caucasus nation’s bid for EU membership.

A forceful police crackdown on the protestors has also triggered outrage at home and condemnation abroad.

Washington imposed fresh sanctions on Georgian officials overnight, barring visas for around 20 people accused of “undermining democracy in Georgia,” including sitting ministers and parliamentarians, the U.S. State Department said.

Police have used tear gas and water cannons to disperse the rallies, arresting more than 400 demonstrators, and the country’s rights ombudsman has accused security forces of “torturing” those detained.

‘Unprecedented constitutional crisis’

Pro-EU demonstrators have staged daily rallies across Georgia for the last two weeks, with more to take place across Tbilisi on Friday.

On Saturday, an electoral college controlled by Georgian Dream is expected to elect Kavelashvili as the country’s new figurehead president, in an indirect vote boycotted by the opposition.

Kavelashvili, 53, is known for his vehement anti-West diatribes and opposition to LGBTQ rights.

Georgian Dream scrapped direct presidential elections in 2017.

With Zurabishvili refusing to leave office, opposition lawmakers boycotting Parliament and protests showing no signs of abating, critics are questioning Kavelashvili’s legitimacy before he even takes up the role.

One author of Georgia’s constitution, Vakhtang Khmaladze, has argued that all decisions by the new Parliament are void because the body started work before awaiting the outcome of a lawsuit brought by Zurabishvili.

“Georgia is facing an unprecedented constitutional crisis,” Khmaladze told AFP.

It remains unclear how the government will react to Zurabishvili’s refusal to step down after her successor is inaugurated on December 29.

A former French diplomat, Zurabishvili is a hugely popular figure among protesters who view her as a beacon of Georgia’s European aspirations.

“Let them try to kick Salome out of the presidential palace — we will all stand up to defend her,” Otar Turnava, a 23-year-old protester, told AFP at a rally outside Parliament on Thursday.

“She is the only legitimate leader we have had since Georgian Dream stole the election, and she will lead us into the EU.”

‘Brutal violence’

In power for more than a decade, Georgian Dream has pushed increasingly conservative policies in recent years, including measures targeting civil society, independent media, opposition parties and the LGBTQ community.

Critics say the moves mirror repressive Russian-style legislation and Brussels has called them “incompatible” with EU membership.

Amid the latest crisis, police have raided the offices of opposition parties and the prime minister has repeatedly pledged to “eradicate liberal fascism.”

Announcing the latest visa bans on top Georgian figures, U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said: “The United States strongly condemns the Georgian Dream party’s ongoing, brutal, and unjustified violence against Georgian citizens, including protesters, members of the media, human rights activists, and opposition figures.”

Georgia’s Parliament speaker Shalva Papuashvili called the move “incomprehensible and meaningless,” accusing the outgoing U.S. administration of “deliberately worsening relations with Georgia.”

He struck back at critics of Kavelashvili, saying “it is vital to have a president who does not fall under the influence of a foreign power, as is the case with Ms. Salome Zurabishvili.”

French President Emmanuel Macron also condemned the ongoing repressions in a phone call to Georgian Dream’s honorary chairman and founder, Bidzina Ivanishvili.

The secretive billionaire, widely assumed to be Georgia’s real power broker, raged against the West on the campaign trail earlier this year.

 
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LONDON — Support for far-right parties in Europe continued to grow in 2024 amid voter concerns over immigration, inflation and the war in Ukraine.

Far-right parties gained nearly a quarter of votes from across the bloc in June’s European Union parliamentary elections, although centrist parties continue to hold the balance of power at the EU institutions in Brussels.

In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally Party won the highest share of French votes in the EU parliament election, with 31%.

French President Emmanuel Macron — whose Renaissance Party won 15% of the vote — made the shock decision to dissolve parliament and call a general election.

National Rally saw a path to government for the first time.

“We are ready to be in power if the French people give us their support in the forthcoming legislative elections,” Le Pen told supporters. “We are ready to turn the country around, ready to defend the interests of the French people, ready to put an end to mass immigration.”

Left and centrist parties, however, formed an alliance to block National Rally from power.

Macron appointed a new government under Prime Minister Michel Barnier, but France was plunged into turmoil again in early December after National Rally withdrew its support for government, forcing a no-confidence vote and prompting Barnier’s resignation.

Macron is struggling to appoint a new prime minister amid calls for his resignation.

Meanwhile, Le Pen faces troubles of her own, as an ongoing corruption trial could derail her political ambitions. A verdict is due in March.

German elections

In Germany, Europe’s biggest economic power, the far-right Alternative for Germany Party finished second in the EU parliament elections, putting the Social Democrats of Chancellor Olaf Scholz in third place.

Scholz appealed to voters to reject the right-wing party.

“We have to worry about the vote for right-wing populist parties here and in other European countries. We must never get used to this, and it must always be our mission to push them back,” Scholz said in the wake of the results.

His call went unheeded. In September, Alternative for Germany won a state election for the first time in Thuringia and came a close second in Saxony.

Immigration

Concerns over immigration were central to the far right’s success, said Guntram Wolff, senior fellow at the Bruegel economic think tank in Brussels.

“How do you respond to that dissatisfaction that relates to migration? I mean, perhaps also the topic of inflation and increases in prices in the last years play a role. But I think the migration topic really is sort of at the center of the dissatisfaction,” Wolff said.

Germany’s three-party ruling coalition under Scholz collapsed in November. The country is due to hold a general election in February.

Aid to Ukraine

Alternative for Germany, which is currently polling in second place behind the center-right Christian Democrats, is campaigning on a platform of slashing immigration and ending military support for Ukraine in its war against Russian invaders. Germany is Kyiv’s second-biggest donor, after the United States.

“We want peace in Ukraine. We don’t want any weapons deliveries. We don’t want any tanks. We don’t want any missiles,” AfD leader Alice Weidel said at a press conference on December 7.

In Austria, the far-right Freedom Party topped the vote in September’s election with more than 28%. However, all other parties ruled out forming a coalition with it, so the party has been excluded from power.

In 2025, analysts say, all eyes will be on the political turbulence in France and Germany as Europe prepares for the return of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency in January.
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French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said he cut short a visit to Poland Thursday to return home to name a new prime minister eight days after French lawmakers rejected Prime Minister Michel Barnier in a no-confidence vote.

Barnier, who had been prime minister for just three months, angered members of parliament on both the right and the left last week when he pushed through the 2025 budget without parliamentary approval, something Barnier said he did to maintain “stability” amid France’s deep political divisions.

Macron asked Barnier to stay on in a caretaker capacity until the president names a successor.

Following a meeting with Macron at his Elysee Palace office Tuesday, party leaders said the president had promised to name a replacement to lead the government within 48 hours.

The meeting did not include the far-right National Rally party led by Marine Le Pen or the far-left France Unbowed party of Jean-Luc Melenchon. The Associated Press reports Macron said he would only speak with more moderate political forces.

Following last week’s no-confidence vote, Macron, in a nationally televised speech, vowed to stay in office until the end of his term in 2027. He also promised to appoint a prime minister who would form a government “in the general interest, representing all the political parties who can participate in it, or at least who agree not to bring it down.”

A spokeswoman for Barnier’s caretaker government, Maud Bregeon, told reporters Wednesday Macron would either seek to bring parties from the center-left into his center/center-right coalition or make a deal with them not hold any no confidence votes against them.

Analysts suggest top candidates to be prime minister include centrist Democratic Movement party leader François Bayrou, Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu and center-left ex-Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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Rovaniemi, Finland — Shuffling across icy ground on a cold December afternoon, lots of tourist groups poured into Santa Claus Village, a winter-themed amusement park perched on the edge of the Arctic Circle.

They frolic in the snow, take a reindeer sleigh ride, sip a cocktail in an ice bar or even meet Saint Nick himself in the capital of Finnish Lapland, Rovaniemi, which happily calls itself the “official hometown of Santa Claus.”

The Santa Claus Village theme park, which attracts more than 600,000 people annually, is especially popular during the holiday season.

“This is like my dream came true,” beamed Polish visitor Elzbieta Nazaruk. “I’m really excited to be here.”

Tourism is booming in Rovaniemi — which has hotel and restaurant owners, as well as city officials, excited as it brings lots of money to the town. However, not everyone is happy about the onslaught of visitors, 10 times the town’s population, each year at Christmas time.

“We are worried about the overgrowth of tourism. Tourism has grown so rapidly, it’s not anymore in control,” said 43-year-old Antti Pakkanen, a photographer and member of a housing network that in September organized a rally through the city’s streets.

It’s a feeling that has been echoed in other popular European travel destinations, including Barcelona, Amsterdam, Malaga and Florence.

Across the continent, locals have protested against “over-tourism” — which generally describes the tipping point at which visitors and their cash stop benefiting residents and instead cause harm by degrading historic sites, overwhelming infrastructure and making life markedly more difficult for those who live there.

Now, it seems to have spread north, all the way to the edges of the Arctic Circle.

Rovaniemi counted a record 1.2 million overnight visitors in 2023, almost 30 percent growth on 2022, after rebounding from pandemic travel disruptions.

“Nordic is a trend,” Visit Rovaniemi CEO Sanna Karkkainen, said as she stood in an ice restaurant, where snow carvers were working nearby.

“People want to travel to cool countries to see the snow, to see the Northern Lights, and, of course, to see Santa Claus,” she added.

Thirteen new flight routes to Rovaniemi Airport opened this year, bringing passengers from Geneva, Berlin, Bordeaux and more. Most tourists come from European countries like France, Germany and the UK, but Rovaniemi’s appeal has also spread further.

Hotel availability is scarce this winter, and Tiina Maatta, general manager of the 159-room Original Sokos Hotel, expects 2024 to break more records.

Local critics of mass tourism say many apartment buildings in Rovaniemi’s city center are also used for accommodation services during peak season and are thus no longer available for residential use. They say the proliferation of short-term rentals has driven up prices, squeezed out long-term residents, and turned its city center into a “transient space for tourists.”

Finnish law prohibits professional accommodation services in buildings intended for residential use, so campaigners are calling on authorities to act.

“The rules must be enforced better,” said Pakkanen.

Not everyone agrees. Mayor Ulla-Kirsikka Vainio notes some make “good money” on short-term rentals.

Either way, stricter regulations likely won’t be in place to impact this winter season, and despite the unease expressed by locals, mass tourism to Rovaniemi is probably only going to grow in 2025 — as visitors want to experience the unique atmosphere up north, especially during the holiday season.

“It’s Christmas time and we would love to see the Northern Lights,” says Joy, a visitor from Bangkok. “Rovaniemi seems to be a good place.”
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The head of Russia’s Chechnya region said Thursday a Ukrainian drone attack hit a police barracks, injuring at least four people.

Ramzan Kadyrov said on Telegram the drone damaged the building’s roof and windows and also caused a small fire.

The attack was the second to hit a police facility in the region this month, according to Kadyrov.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Thursday it shot down a drone over Chechnya, as well as four drones over Kursk, three over North Ossetia and eight over Russia-occupied Crimea.

In Ukraine, the governor of the Kherson region said Russian drones attacked Thursday, with one injuring a man in the city of Kherson.

Missile warfare

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that Russia would respond to Ukraine’s use of U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles, which Russian defense officials said were used in a Wednesday strike on a Russian airfield in the city of Taganrog.

“The response will follow in a manner deemed appropriate. But it will definitely follow,” Peskov said.

A U.S. official said Wednesday that a U.S. intelligence assessment has concluded Russia could launch another of its experimental hypersonic ballistic missiles against Ukraine in the coming days, although Washington does not consider it to be decisive in the nearly three-year war.

Russia first fired the Oreshnik missile at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on November 21, in what President Vladimir Putin characterized as a response to Ukraine’s first use of long-range U.S. and British missiles to strike more deeply into Russian territory with Western permission. 

“We assess that the Oreshnik is not a game-changer on the battlefield, but rather just another attempt by Russia to terrorize Ukraine, which will fail,” the U.S. official told reporters. There was no immediate response from Russia.

Putin had said that Russia might fire the Oreshnik missile again, possibly to target “decision-making centers” in Kyiv, if Ukraine keeps attacking Russia with long-range Western weapons.

The Russian leader has claimed that the Oreshnik is impossible to intercept and that it has destructive power comparable to that of a nuclear weapon, even when fitted with a conventional warhead.

Some Western experts have said the novel feature of the Oreshnik is that it carries multiple warheads that can simultaneously strike different targets — a capability usually associated with longer-range intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Nonetheless, the U.S. official downplayed the usefulness of the missiles, calling them “experimental” in nature and saying that “Russia likely possesses only a handful” of them. The official also said the weapon has a smaller warhead than other missiles Russia has deployed in Ukraine. 

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
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Western nations and Russia engaged in a battle for influence in Eastern Europe in 2024, as elections were held in several states that had once been under Soviet rule. As Henry Ridgwell reports, Moscow has been widely accused of meddling in European democracy following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
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Rufat Safarov, a prominent human rights defender from Azerbaijan, was one of the recipients of the U.S. secretary of state’s 2024 Human Rights Defender Award. He did not attend Tuesday’s ceremony in Washington, because he’d been arrested December 3, hours after visiting the U.S. Embassy in Baku to receive his visa to travel to the United States.

During the ceremony, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, pointing to the empty chair reserved for Safarov, called for his immediate release.

“Now, one chair, as you will have noted, is empty on this stage. … It belongs to Rufat Safarov, the Azerbaijani human rights defender that I spoke of just a few moments ago,” he said. “The government of Azerbaijan should release Rufat — and release him immediately — as well as all the other journalists, human rights defenders, political opponents and others that are unjustly detained.”

At the end of the ceremony, Blinken presented awards to human rights defenders from Bolivia, Colombia, Eswatini, Ghana, Kuwait, Myanmar and Kyrgyzstan, and he posed for a photo with them. Later, Blinken approached the empty seat reserved for Safarov and took a commemorative photo with his award.

Blinken issued another statement Wednesday calling on the Azerbaijani government to release Safarov, as well as others unjustly detained for their work in the field of human rights.

“The United States is deeply concerned not only by these detentions, but by the increasing crackdown on civil society and media in Azerbaijan,” the statement read.

Safarov, a former prosecutor who heads the Defense Line human rights organization, issued a statement expressing his gratitude for the award.

“Unfortunately, Baku arrested me in order to prevent me from personally receiving that award and to punish me for my human rights advocacy,” he said in the statement sent to VOA from prison.

Safarov said he was proud of his work defending universal values as a human rights activist “despite all the slander and pressure” from the government.

“In fact, I have accepted my arrest as a reward from the government for human rights advocacy. Human rights are not an internal affair of any country. İt is a universal concept.

“Without human rights, not only the state, but even the society cannot exist. I call on everyone to stand in solidarity in the defense of human rights,” the statement read.

Last week, Safarov was charged with fraud and hooliganism and put on four months of pretrial detention.

Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs told VOA that Safarov’s detention was related to a conflict between him and an individual over a land purchase, an allegation he denied.

Safarov was previously sentenced to jail for bribery in 2016 and served three years before being pardoned by President Ilham Aliyev.

His arrest coincides with a new crackdown in Azerbaijan following a recent climate change conference held November 11-22 in Baku. The arrests prompted Western concerns about the state of human rights in the country.

In his statement Wednesday, Blinken called on Azerbaijani authorities to end the crackdown on civil society and the media.

“We urge the government of Azerbaijan to release those unjustly detained for their advocacy on behalf of human rights, cease its crackdown on civil society, respect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all, and fulfill the commitments it made when it joined the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe,” Blinken said.

This story originated in VOA’s Azerbaijani Service.
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VIENNA — Human trafficking has risen sharply due to conflicts, climate-induced disasters and global crises, according to a United Nations report published on Wednesday.

In 2022, the latest year for which data is widely available, the number of known victims worldwide rose to 25% above 2019’s pre-pandemic levels, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s Global Report on Trafficking in Persons said. A sharp fall in 2020 had largely disappeared by the following year.

“Criminals are increasingly trafficking people into forced labor, including to coerce them into running sophisticated online scams and cyberfraud, while women and girls face the risk of sexual exploitation and gender-based violence,” the report said, adding that organized crime was mainly responsible.

Children accounted for 38% of detected victims, compared to 35% for figures for 2020 which formed the basis of the previous report.

The latest report showed adult women remain the largest group of victims, representing 39% of cases, followed by men at 23%, girls at 22% and boys at 16%.

The most common reason by far for women and girls being trafficked was sexual exploitation at 60% or more, followed by forced labor. For men, it was forced labor and for boys, it was forced labor and “other purposes” in roughly equal measure.

Those other purposes include forced criminality and forced begging. The report said the growing number of boys identified as victims of trafficking could be linked to rising numbers of unaccompanied minors arriving in Europe and North America.

The region of origin that accounted for the largest number of victims was sub-Saharan Africa with 26%, though there are many different trafficking routes.

While improved detection could account for the growing numbers, the report said it was likely a combination of that and more trafficking in general.

The biggest increases in cases detected were in sub-Saharan Africa, North America and the ‘western and southern Europe’ region, according to the report, with migration influxes being a significant factor in the latter two.
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday said it transferred the $20 billion U.S. portion of a $50 billion G7 loan for Ukraine to a World Bank intermediary fund for economic and financial aid.

The Treasury Department said the disbursement makes good on its October commitment to match the European Union’s commitment to provide $20 billion in aid backed by frozen Russian sovereign assets alongside smaller loans from Britain, Canada and Japan to help the Eastern European nation fight Russia’s invasion.

The disbursement prior to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration in January is aimed at protecting the funds from being clawed back by his administration. Trump has complained that the United States is providing too much aid to Ukraine and said he will end the war quickly, without specifying how.

The $50 billion in credit for 30 years will be serviced with the interest proceeds from some $300 billion in frozen Russian sovereign assets that have been immobilized since Russia invaded in February 2022. The Group of Seven democracies have been discussing the plan for months and agreed on terms in October, prior to Trump’s election.

President Joe Biden’s administration initially sought to split the $20 billion loan in half, with $10 billion to be used for military aid and $10 billion for economic aid, but the military portion would have required approval by Congress, a task made more difficult by Republicans’ sweeping election victory. With Tuesday’s transfer, the full amount will be devoted to nonmilitary purposes.

The Treasury said the funds were transferred to a new World Bank fund called the Facilitation of Resources to Invest in Strengthening Ukraine Financial Intermediary Fund. The global lender’s board approved the creation of the fund in October with only one country, Russia, objecting.

The bank, whose charter prevents it from handling any military aid, has run a similar humanitarian and economic intermediary fund for Afghanistan.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen personally oversaw staff executing the wire transfer of the $20 billion to the World Bank fund, a department official said.

“These funds — paid for by the windfall proceeds earned from Russia’s own immobilized assets — will provide Ukraine a critical infusion of support as it defends its country against an unprovoked war of aggression,” Yellen said in a statement.

“The $50 billion collectively being provided by the G7 through this initiative will help ensure Ukraine has the resources it needs to sustain emergency services, hospitals and other foundations of its brave resistance,” she said.
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