EU launches ‘historic’ membership talks with Ukraine, Moldova

EU launches ‘historic’ membership talks with Ukraine, Moldova
Olga Stefanishyna, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine, talks to the press during a General Affairs council before an Intergovernmental Conference focus on the accession of Ukraine to the European Union at the EU Council building in Luxembourg on June 25, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 26 June 2024
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EU launches ‘historic’ membership talks with Ukraine, Moldova

EU launches ‘historic’ membership talks with Ukraine, Moldova
  • Ukraine’s lead negotiator, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishyna, vowed that Kyiv “will be able to complete everything before 2030” to join the bloc

LUXEMBOURG: The European Union on Tuesday kicked off accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova, setting the fragile ex-Soviet states on a long path toward membership that Russia has tried to block.
The landmark move signals in particular a vote of confidence in Kyiv’s future at a time when Moscow has momentum on the battlefield almost two and a half years into the Kremlin’s invasion.
“Dear friends, today marks the beginning of a new chapter in the relationship between Ukraine and the European Union,” Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said via videolink at the start of the talks.
President Volodymyr Zelensky called it a “historic day” as officials from Kyiv and the EU’s 27 member states met in Luxembourg.
“We will never be derailed from our path to a united Europe and to our common home of all European nations,” the Ukrainian leader wrote on social media.
Ukraine and later Moldova lodged their bids to join the EU in the aftermath of Russia’s assault in February 2022.
The opening of the talks marks just the beginning of a protracted process of reforms in Ukraine that is strewn with political obstacles and will likely take many years — and may never lead to membership.
Standing in the way along that journey will be not just Russia’s efforts at destabilization but reticence from doubters inside the EU, most notably Hungary.
But European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen called the opening of talks “very good news for the people of Ukraine, Moldova, and the entire European Union.”
“The path ahead will be challenging but full of opportunities,” she wrote on X on Tuesday.
So far, Ukraine has won plaudits for kickstarting a raft of reforms on curbing graft and political interference, even as war rages.
Ukraine’s lead negotiator, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishyna, vowed that Kyiv “will be able to complete everything before 2030” to join the bloc.
Russia’s war in Ukraine has reinvigorated a push in the EU to take on new members, after years in which countries particularly in the Western Balkans made little progress on their hopes to join.
The EU in December 2023 also granted candidate status to Georgia, another of Russia’s former Soviet neighbors.
It likewise approved accession negotiations with Bosnia and has talks ongoing with Serbia, Montenegro, Albania and North Macedonia.
The meetings with Ukraine and Moldova on Tuesday will set off a process of screening of how far laws in the countries already comply with EU standards and how much more work lies ahead.
Once that is done the EU then has to begin laying out conditions for negotiations on 35 subjects, ranging from taxation to environmental policy.
Stefanishyna said the next step should come in early 2025.
EU countries pushed to start the talks now before Hungary — the friendliest country to Russia in the bloc — takes over the EU’s rotating presidency next month.
Budapest has been opposed to pressing ahead with Kyiv’s membership bid, arguing that Ukraine was unfairly moving ahead for political reasons.
“From what I see here as we speak, they are very far from meeting the accession criteria,” Hungary’s Europe minister Janos Boka said on Tuesday.
Accepting Ukraine — a war-ravaged country of some 40 million people — would be a major step for the EU, and there are calls for the bloc to carry out reforms to streamline how it works before accepting new members.
The start of the talks resonates powerfully in Ukraine, as it was a desire for closer ties with the EU that sparked protests back in 2014 that eventually spiralled into the full-blown crisis with Russia.
The negotiations also come at a tense time in Moldova after the United States, Britain and Canada warned of a Russian “plot” to influence the country’s presidential elections in October.
Wedged between Ukraine and EU member Romania, Moldova’s pro-Western authorities frequently accuse the Kremlin of interfering in its internal affairs.
President Maia Sandu has accused Moscow, which has troops stationed in a breakaway region of the country, of aiming to destabilize Moldova ahead of the vote.
“Our future is within the European family,” Sandu wrote on X. “We are stronger together.”


Almost all nations miss UN deadline for new climate targets

Almost all nations miss UN deadline for new climate targets
Updated 15 sec ago
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Almost all nations miss UN deadline for new climate targets

Almost all nations miss UN deadline for new climate targets
  • Just 10 of nearly 200 countries required under the Paris Agreement to deliver fresh climate plans by February 10 did so on time
  • Under the climate accord, each country is supposed to provide a steeper headline figure for cutting heat-trapping emissions by 2035
PARIS: Nearly all nations missed a UN deadline Monday to submit new targets for slashing carbon emissions, including major economies under pressure to show leadership following the US retreat on climate change.
Just 10 of nearly 200 countries required under the Paris Agreement to deliver fresh climate plans by February 10 did so on time, according to a UN database tracking the submissions.
Under the climate accord, each country is supposed to provide a steeper headline figure for cutting heat-trapping emissions by 2035, and a detailed blueprint for how to achieve this.
Global emissions have been rising but need to almost halve by the end of the decade to limit global warming to levels agreed under the Paris deal.
UN climate chief Simon Stiell has called this latest round of national pledges “the most important policy documents of this century.”
Yet just a handful of major polluters handed in upgraded targets on time, with China, India and the European Union the biggest names on a lengthy absentee list.
Most G20 economies were missing in action with the United States, Britain and Brazil — which is hosting this year’s UN climate summit — the only exceptions.
The US pledge is largely symbolic, made before President Donald Trump ordered Washington out of the Paris deal.
There is no penalty for submitting late targets, formally titled nationally determined contributions (NDCs).
They are not legally binding but act as an accountability measure to ensure governments are taking the threat of climate change seriously.
Last week, Stiell said submissions would be needed by September so they could be properly assessed before the UN COP30 climate conference in November.
A spokeswoman for the EU said the 27-nation bloc intended to submit its revised targets “well ahead” of the summit in Belem.
Analysts say China, the world’s biggest polluter and also its largest investor in renewable energy, is also expected to unveil its much-anticipated climate plan in the second half of the year.
The UAE, Ecuador, Saint Lucia, New Zealand, Andorra, Switzerland and Uruguay rounded out the list of countries that made Monday’s cut-off.
The sluggish response will not ease fears of a possible backslide on climate action as leaders juggle Trump’s return and other competing priorities from budget and security crises to electoral pressure.
Ebony Holland from the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development said the US retreat was “clearly a setback” but there were many reasons for the tepid turnout.
“It’s clear there are some broad geopolitical shifts underway that are proving to be a challenge when it comes to international cooperation, especially on big issues like climate change,” she said.

Police in India pull the plug on British singer Ed Sheeran’s impromptu street concert

Police in India pull the plug on British singer Ed Sheeran’s impromptu street concert
Updated 10 February 2025
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Police in India pull the plug on British singer Ed Sheeran’s impromptu street concert

Police in India pull the plug on British singer Ed Sheeran’s impromptu street concert
  • Sheeran was singing and playing his guitar on pavement in center of Bengaluru ahead of Sunday concert
  • Police say event organizers had refused permission for street performance on one of city’s busiest streets

A street performance by Ed Sheeran in India’s tech capital of Bengaluru was stopped abruptly by police on Sunday, outraging fans and prompting the British singer to issue a clarification.

Sheeran, dressed in a white t-shirt and shorts was seen singing and playing his guitar on a pavement in the center of Bengaluru ahead of his concert on Sunday night.

Local channels showed a policeman walking up to Sheeran as he was singing the hit single “Shape of You” and unplugging the microphone, as onlookers jeered. Sheeran left soon after.

Police said event organizers had refused permission for the street performance, which was on one of the city’s busiest streets.

“I refused to give permission because Church Street gets very crowded. That is the reason he was asked to vacate the place,” Bengaluru police official Shekar T Tekkannanavar was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

Sheeran, who began his career as a busker in the UK, said later on his Instagram account that he did have permission to perform.

“It wasn’t just us randomly turning up. All good though,” he wrote.

Sheeran is in India for a series of concerts, and performed in front of thousands of people at an open ground in the city later that night, accompanied by Indian singer Shilpa Rao. 
 


China’s Xi accepts invitation to attend Moscow’s Victory Day in May, TASS reports

China’s Xi accepts invitation to attend Moscow’s Victory Day in May, TASS reports
Updated 10 February 2025
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China’s Xi accepts invitation to attend Moscow’s Victory Day in May, TASS reports

China’s Xi accepts invitation to attend Moscow’s Victory Day in May, TASS reports
  • Kremlin earlier said it had invited ‘many countries’ to attend the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two
  • The Soviet Union lost 27 million people in World War Two, including many millions in Ukraine

MOSCOW: Chinese President Xi Jinping has accepted Russia’s invitation to attend the commemorations of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two, TASS state news agency reported on Monday.
“Chinese President Xi Jinping has accepted an invitation to take part in the celebrations on May 9 in Moscow on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War,” TASS cited Russian ambassador to China, Igor Morgulov, as telling Russian state television.
The Kremlin said in December that it had invited “many countries” to attend the 80th anniversary of the end of the war, which Russians call the “Great Patriotic War.”
The Soviet Union lost 27 million people in World War Two, including many millions in Ukraine, but eventually pushed Nazi forces back to Berlin, where Adolf Hitler committed suicide and the red Soviet Victory Banner was raised over the Reichstag in 1945.
Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender came into force at 11:01 p.m. on May 8, 1945, marked as “Victory in Europe Day” by France, Britain and the United States. In Moscow it was already May 9, which became the Soviet Union’s “Victory Day” in what Russians call the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45.
Victory Day has become Russia’s most important secular holiday.
Morgulov said that Xi in return, invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to China for the country’s commemoration of the end of World War Two, which are planned for September.


In Super Bowl interview, Trump says he is serious about Canada becoming 51st state

In Super Bowl interview, Trump says he is serious about Canada becoming 51st state
Updated 10 February 2025
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In Super Bowl interview, Trump says he is serious about Canada becoming 51st state

In Super Bowl interview, Trump says he is serious about Canada becoming 51st state
  • “I think Canada would be much better off being the 51st state because we lose $200 billion a year with Canada,” Trump tells reporters
  • Adds that Canada is “not viable as a country” without US trade, and warned that Canada can no longer depend on the US for military protection

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said he is serious about wanting Canada to become the 51st state in an interview that aired Sunday during the Super Bowl preshow.
“Yeah it is,” Trump told Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier when asked whether his talk of annexing Canada is “a real thing” — as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently warned.
“I think Canada would be much better off being the 51st state because we lose $200 billion a year with Canada. And I’m not going to let that happen,” he said. “Why are we paying $200 billion a year, essentially a subsidy to Canada?”
The US is not subsidizing Canada. The US buys products from the natural resource-rich nation, including commodities like oil. While the trade gap in goods has ballooned in recent years to $72 billion in 2023, the deficit largely reflects America’s imports of Canadian energy.
Trump has repeatedly suggested that Canada would be better off if it agreed to become the 51st US state — a prospect that is deeply unpopular among Canadians.
Trudeau said Friday during a closed-door session with business and labor leaders that Trump’s talk of making Canada the 51st US state was “a real thing” and tied to desire for access to the country’s natural resources.
“Mr. Trump has it in mind that the easiest way to do it is absorbing our country and it is a real thing. In my conversations with him on ...,” Trudeau said, according to CBC, Canada’s public broadcaster. “They’re very aware of our resources of what we have, and they very much want to be able to benefit from those.”
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday as he traveled to the Super Bowl game in New Orleans, Trump continued to threaten a country that has long been one of the US’s closest allies. He claimed that Canada is “not viable as a country” without US trade, and warned that the founding NATO member can no longer depend on the US for military protection.
“You know, they don’t pay very much for military. And the reason they don’t pay much is they assume that we’re going to protect them,” he said. “That’s not an assumption they can make because — why are we protecting another country?“
In the Fox interview, which was pre-taped this weekend in Florida, Trump also said that he has not seen enough action from Canada and Mexico to stave off the tariffs he has threatened to impose on the country’s two largest trading partners once a 30-day extension is up.
“No, it’s not good enough,” he said. “Something has to happen. It’s not sustainable. And I’m changing it.”
Trump last week agreed to a 30-day pause on his plan to slap Mexico and Canada with a 25 percent tariff on all imports except for Canadian oil, natural gas and electricity, which would be taxed at 10 percent, after the countries took steps to appease his concerns about border security and drug trafficking.
Aboard Air Force One, Trump said that he would on Monday announce a 25 percent tariff on all steel and aluminum imports into the US, including from Canada and Mexico, and unveil a plan for reciprocal tariffs later in the week.
“Very simply it’s if they charge us, we charge them,” he said.
Trump’s participation in the Super Bowl interview marked a return to tradition. Presidents have typically granted a sit-down to the network broadcasting the game, the most-watched television event of the year. But both Trump and his predecessor, Joe Biden, were inconsistent in their participation.
Biden declined to participate last year — turning down a massive audience in an election year — and also skipped an appearance in 2023, when efforts by his team to have Biden speak with a Fox Corp. streaming service instead of the main network failed. During his first term, Trump participated three out of four years.
Trump was the first sitting president to attend the Super Bowl in person — something he told Baier he was surprised to learn.
“I thought it would be a good thing for the country to have the president at the game,” he said.
During his flight to New Orleans, Trump signed a proclamation declaring Feb. 9 “the first ever Gulf of America Day” as Air Force One flew over the body of water that he renamed by proclamation from the Gulf of Mexico.
Trump in the interview, also defended the work of billionaire Elon Musk, whose so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has been drawing deep concern from Democrats as he moves to shut down whole government agencies and fire large swaths of the federal workforce in the name of rooting out waste and inefficiency.
Musk, Trump said, has “been terrific,” and will target the Department of Education and the military next.
“We’re going to find billions, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse,” Trump predicted. “I campaigned on this.”
He was also asked about his dancing, which has become a popular meme on social media.
“I don’t know what it is,” he said. “I try and walk off sometimes without dancing and I can’t. I have to dance.”
 


US army takes Ukraine drone warfare notes in Bavaria

US army takes Ukraine drone warfare notes in Bavaria
Updated 10 February 2025
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US army takes Ukraine drone warfare notes in Bavaria

US army takes Ukraine drone warfare notes in Bavaria
  • The US military is changing as a result of what it sees in Ukraine and the way drone warfare is developing
  • Army official believes there is only one person in the US who could potentially produce drones at scale in the event of war: Elon Musk

HOHENFELS Germany: Deep in a Bavarian forest, a black reconnaissance drone buzzes overhead, piloted by US soldiers hoping to put lessons learnt from the war in Ukraine into practice.
Cheaper and more plentiful than in the past, drones are changing the face of modern warfare, particularly in Ukraine.
Both Moscow and Kyiv use them for armed attacks as well as surveillance, making it hard for combatants to hide.
“It’s a transparent battlefield. That’s why in Ukraine you see troops deep down in bunkers or consistently moving,” said Brig. Gen. Steve Carpenter, training with the army at a base in Hohenfels, in the southern German state of Bavaria.
“You stop, you die.”
Army Chief of Staff General Randy George said the US military is changing as a result of what it sees in Ukraine and the way drone warfare is developing.
That means making a unit’s footprint smaller and more mobile, making them harder to target.
During the exercise, involving soldiers from the US army’s 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, the battle headquarters changed position four times in nine days.
No more than about 20 personnel are usually there at any one time — far fewer than in past campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, when upwards of 100 may have been at a command post.
Of the lessons drawn from the Ukraine war, “I think the most important is the speed with which we need to change,” said George, urging the army to become more “flexible, nimble, adaptive.”

With new technology moving fast in Ukraine, the US military also wants to speed up its procurement processes.
There were tentative signs of this at Hohenfels.
New transport trucks were being tested just three months after the army asked General Motors to repurpose a civilian vehicle, a period that Alex Miller, George’s science and technology adviser, said “might be” record time for the army.

An Infantry Squad Vehicle  transports US soldiers at the Hohenfels Training Area in southern Germany on February 6, 2025. (AFP)

But building drones at scale could prove more challenging for the United States.
Russian and Ukranian forces often deploy cheap, off-the-shelf Chinese drones.
But the United States, amid rising tensions with Beijing, does not want to have to rely on a potential adversary for its supplies.
The US industrial base has meanwhile eroded in recent decades.
The number of people employed in defense industries in the country dropped by 1.9 million, or 63.5 percent, in 2023 compared to the level in 1985, according to the Department of Defense.
“American industry doesn’t have the ability to produce drones like the Chinese,” said Col. Dave Butler, George’s communications adviser.
And he believes there is only one person in the United States who could potentially produce drones at scale in the event of war.
That businessman is Elon Musk, since Tesla makes far more of its own components than other vehicle makers.
“If we had to suddenly flick on a switch and make 10,000 drones a month, only Elon could do it,” he said.
Musk, the multi-billionaire entrepreneur, has been a fixture on the American political scene since President Donald Trump made him one of his closest advisers.
For technology adviser Miller, the need is acute and the United States could use help.
“We are trying to incentivise... an American industrial base for things like flight controllers, things like cameras and antennas,” he said.
But he added that NATO allies must join in, saying that it “can’t just be us — it’s got to be Europe too.”