NATO seeks to narrow differences over Ukraine membership bid

NATO seeks to narrow differences over Ukraine membership bid
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg had made it clear that Ukraine will not be able to join the alliance as long as the war against Russia continues. Above, the NATO chief with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. (Reuters)
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Updated 30 May 2023
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NATO seeks to narrow differences over Ukraine membership bid

NATO seeks to narrow differences over Ukraine membership bid
  • NATO has not acceded to Ukraine’s request for fast-track membership
  • Western governments are wary of moves that could take the alliance closer to entering an active war with Russia

BRUSSELS: NATO foreign ministers will seek to narrow divisions over Ukraine’s membership bid at a meeting in Oslo this week, with allies at odds over calls to grant Kyiv a road map to accession at their July summit.
NATO has not acceded to Ukraine’s request for fast-track membership as Western governments such as the US and Germany are wary of moves that they fear could take the alliance closer to entering an active war with Russia.
However, both Kyiv and some of its closest allies in eastern Europe have been pushing for NATO to at least take concrete steps to bring Ukraine closer to membership at the alliance’s summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, on July 11-12.
“It would be very sad if in any way anyone could read the outcome of the Vilnius summit as a victory of Russia in precluding Ukraine to join NATO one day,” Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte said on Friday.
Last week, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg made it clear that Ukraine will not be able to join the alliance as long as the war against Russia continues.
“To become a member in the midst of a war is not on the agenda,” he said. “The issue is what happens when the war ends.”
NATO agreed at its 2008 summit in Bucharest that Ukraine will join eventually.
However, leaders have since stopped short of steps such as giving Kyiv a membership action plan that would lay out a timetable for bringing the country closer to NATO.
On the sidelines of their Oslo meeting on Wednesday and Thursday, foreign ministers are also expected to touch on the search for a new NATO chief, with Stoltenberg due to step down in September.
Meanwhile, President Tayyip Erdogan’s election victory in Turkiye has brought fresh momentum to efforts to break a deadlock over the ratification of Sweden’s NATO membership, held up by objections from Turkiye and Hungary.
Any progress in Oslo is unlikely, however, as Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu will not be there, Sweden said, although talks between him and Sweden’s Tobias Billstrom will nevertheless take place “soon.”


Three wounded in Bangkok mall shooting, attacker arrested: Thai PM

Three wounded in Bangkok mall shooting, attacker arrested: Thai PM
Updated 15 sec ago
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Three wounded in Bangkok mall shooting, attacker arrested: Thai PM

Three wounded in Bangkok mall shooting, attacker arrested: Thai PM
  • Premier Srettha Thavisin: ‘The attacker was arrested. In fact, he surrendered’
BANGKOK: Three people were wounded in a shooting at a Bangkok shopping mall on Tuesday, the Thai prime minister said, adding that the shooter had been arrested.
“The attacker was arrested. In fact, he surrendered. Three people have been wounded. Police are clearing the scene. The situation is easing,” premier Srettha Thavisin told reporters.

Two earthquakes strike Nepal, no damage reported

Two earthquakes strike Nepal, no damage reported
Updated 13 min 31 sec ago
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Two earthquakes strike Nepal, no damage reported

Two earthquakes strike Nepal, no damage reported
  • Tremors also felt in parts of northern India including New Delhi
  • People rushed out of houses and office blocks in parts of New Delhi

Two earthquakes measuring 6.3 and 5.3 were felt in Nepal’s Bajhang district on Tuesday, the country’s National Seismological Center said.

Tremors were also felt in parts of northern India including the capital New Delhi.

People rushed out of houses and office blocks in parts of New Delhi. There were no immediate reports of damage in India or Nepal.


Vladimir Putin may hint he will run in Russia’s 2024 election – Kommersant

Vladimir Putin may hint he will run in Russia’s 2024 election – Kommersant
Updated 03 October 2023
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Vladimir Putin may hint he will run in Russia’s 2024 election – Kommersant

Vladimir Putin may hint he will run in Russia’s 2024 election – Kommersant
  • Officials are expecting Putin may announce he is due to take part in the March presidential election

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin may soon indicate he will take part in a 2024 presidential election, Kommersant newspaper reported on Tuesday, paving the way for the Kremlin chief to stay in power until 2030.

As part of a conference in November, officials suspect that Putin may announce he will take part in the election in March next year, Kommersant reported, citing unidentified sources close to the presidential administration.

The newspaper, one of Russia’s most respected, said there were, however, other scenarios for what Putin might do at the conference and the final decision rested with him. The Kremlin did not immediately comment.

Putin, who was handed the presidency by Boris Yeltsin on the last day of 1999, has been leader for longer than any other Russian ruler since Josef Stalin, beating even Leonid Brezhnev’s 18-year tenure.

Putin turns 71 on October 7.

While many diplomats, spies and officials have said they expect Putin to stay in power for life, there has yet to be any confirmation of his plans to run in the 2024 presidential vote.

Putin said last month he would make an announcement on his plans only after parliament called the presidential election — due by law to be done in December.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last month that if Putin decided to run, then no one would be able to compete with him.

While Putin may face no competition for votes, the former KGB spy faces the most serious set of challenges any Kremlin chief has faced since Mikhail Gorbachev grappled with the crumbling Soviet Union nearly four decades ago.

The war in Ukraine has triggered the biggest confrontation with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and the biggest external shock to the Russian economy in decades. Putin faced a failed mutiny by Russia’s most powerful mercenary, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in June.

Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash two months later.

The West casts Putin as a war criminal and a dictator who has led Russia into an imperial-style conflict that has weakened the country and forged Ukrainian statehood while uniting the West and handing NATO a post-Soviet mission of opposing Russia.

Putin, though, presents the war as part of a much bigger struggle with the United States, which the Kremlin elite says aims to cleave Russia apart, grab its natural resources and then turn to settling scores with China.

The former Soviet spies who wield power in Moscow have repeatedly warned of the risk of a Russia-NATO conflict as the West’s post-Cold War dominance wanes, Russia lays to rest the humiliations of the Soviet collapse and China rises to superpower status.

The West says it does not want a NATO-Russia conflict but simply to help Ukraine defeat Russian forces. The Kremlin says the West will never achieve Russia’s defeat in Ukraine.


Death or glory? World Cup anchors changing game of one-day cricket

Death or glory? World Cup anchors changing game of one-day cricket
Updated 03 October 2023
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Death or glory? World Cup anchors changing game of one-day cricket

Death or glory? World Cup anchors changing game of one-day cricket
  • One of the criticisms of ODIs is they are too often reduced to ‘meaningless’ bilateral series
  • Format is also viewed as too pedestrian in the slipstream of high velocity, smash-and-grab T20 format

LONDON: The World Cup which gets underway on Thursday will provide a sharp focus for one-day international cricket and a chance to show how the 50-over game has evolved since India last staged the tournament in 2011.

One of the criticisms of ODIs, once the economic driving force of the global game, is that they are too often reduced to ‘meaningless’ bilateral series.

The format is also viewed as too pedestrian in the slipstream of the high velocity, smash-and-grab Twenty20 format.

“The ODI has been reduced to virtually depending on a World Cup year for its importance,” wrote former Australia captain Ian Chappell in a recent ESPNCricinfo column.

Indian cricket player Sachin Tendulkar during a news conference a day after his retirement in Mumbai, November 17, 2013. (REUTERS/File)

Meanwhile, India great Sachin Tendulkar, a 2011 World Cup winner, believes the format is now too formulaic.

“The game is becoming too predictable,” he said.

“From the 15th to the 40 over, it’s losing its momentum. It’s getting boring.”

And yet the ODI remains a key plank of the International Cricket Council’s schedule, with the 50-over format still capable of providing an entertaining spectacle.

Perhaps the biggest on-field development since 2011 has been the change in what constitutes a big total.

There have been 24 occasions on which 400 has been passed in ODI cricket and 15 of those have come since the 2011 World Cup

The 2011 final saw India reach a target of 275 with just 10 balls to spare.

But in an age where World Cup-holders England have lifted the world record for an ODI total to 444 in 2016, 481 in 2018 and 498, against the Netherlands, last year, 275 rarely represents a challenging target.

Yet for all the prevalence of shorter boundaries and the impact of the wider range of shot-making developed by T20 cricket on all other formats, ODIs are not always run-fests.

The very length of a 50-over game allows for the possibilities of both bowlers getting on top and teams recovering from a top-order collapse.

England were 55-5 in an ODI against New Zealand at Southampton last month but still managed to post a total of 226-7 in a match reduced by rain to 34 overs per side.

And they won by the large margin of 79 runs after dismissing New Zealand for 147, with left-arm quicks David Willey and Reece Topley taking three wickets apiece.

Even so the days when 300 was considered a significant ODI total do seem to belong to an earlier age, although the sheer pressure of a World Cup gives ODIs an edge lacking in bilateral series.

Indeed the greatest off-field change since 2011 is the number of people questioning whether the ODI has much of a future outside of a World Cup.

TV cricket commentator Mark Nicholas arrives at a memorial service for the South African born, former England cricket captain Tony Greig, at Saint Martin-in-the-fields church in central London on June 24, 2013. (AFP/File)

Incoming MCC president Mark Nicholas believes all other ODIs ought to be on the way out.

“We believe strongly that ODIs should be World Cups only,” Nicholas told ESPNcricinfo.

“We think it’s difficult bilaterally now to justify them. They’re not filling grounds in a lot of countries. And there is a power at the moment to T20 cricket that is almost supernatural.”

He added: “In a free market, the most money wins. And that’s just the end-game.

“The players can see that bubbling away and they want to be a part of it. So, it is an extraordinary power that T20 has, and I think scheduling 50-over cricket alongside it just continues the story of the death knell of the ODI game.”

ODIs, which date back to 1971, are not going anywhere anytime soon, however.

And the World Cup will feature at least one match between India and Pakistan — a fixture which is effectively being kept going by ICC tournaments while political interference prevents bilateral matches between the arch-rivals.


India tells Canada to withdraw 41 diplomats by Oct. 10

India tells Canada to withdraw 41 diplomats by Oct. 10
Updated 03 October 2023
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India tells Canada to withdraw 41 diplomats by Oct. 10

India tells Canada to withdraw 41 diplomats by Oct. 10
  • FT says India had threatened to revoke diplomatic immunity of those diplomats told to leave who remained after Oct. 10
  • Canada says Indian government agents had a role in June murder in Canada of a Sikh separatist leader

India has told Canada that it must repatriate 41 diplomats by Oct. 10, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.
Ties between India and Canada have become seriously strained over Canadian suspicion that Indian government agents had a role in the June murder in Canada of a Sikh separatist leader and Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who India had labeled a “terrorist.”
India has dismissed the allegation as absurd.
The Financial Times, citing people familiar with the Indian demand, said India had threatened to revoke the diplomatic immunity of those diplomats told to leave who remained after Oct. 10.
Canada has 62 diplomats in India and India had said that the total should be reduced by 41, the newspaper said.
The Indian and Canadian foreign ministries did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said earlier there was a “climate of violence” and an “atmosphere of intimidation” against Indian diplomats in Canada, where the presence of Sikh separatist groups has frustrated New Delhi.