In Georgia, some voters balanced EU hopes with the fear of war with Russia

In Georgia, some voters balanced EU hopes with the fear of war with Russia
The EU and the United States said there was not a level playing field but stopped short of saying the result was stolen by Georgian Dream. Russia accused the West of meddling. (REUTERS)
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Updated 30 October 2024
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In Georgia, some voters balanced EU hopes with the fear of war with Russia

In Georgia, some voters balanced EU hopes with the fear of war with Russia
  • For many voters, avoiding war with Russia a priority
  • Election result poses a challenge to EU ambitions

TBILISI: For some Georgians who supported the ruling Georgian Dream party in Saturday’s disputed parliamentary election, the aspiration to go West toward the European Union had to be balanced by the brutal reality of the need to keep the peace with Russia.
The opposition and foreign observers had cast the election as a watershed moment that would decide if Georgia moves closer to Europe or leans back toward Russia amid the war in Ukraine. The ruling party, which is seen as loyal to its billionaire founder Bidzina Ivanishvili, says it wants to one day join the EU but that it must also avoid confrontation with President Vladimir Putin’s Russia that could leave the South Caucasus republic devastated like Ukraine.
“We’ve had peace these 12 years in Georgia,” said Sergo, a resident of the capital Tbilisi who has voted for Georgian Dream in every election since the party rose to power in 2012. Georgian Dream clinched 54 percent of the vote on Saturday, the electoral commission said, while opposition parties and the president claimed the election had been stolen and the West called for investigations into reports of voting irregularities.
Observer groups, including the 57-nation Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), said alleged violations, including ballot-stuffing, bribery, voter intimidation and violence, could have affected the election’s outcome.
The EU and the United States said there was not a level playing field but stopped short of saying the result was stolen by Georgian Dream. Russia accused the West of meddling. Beyond the rhetoric, though, the result poses a challenge to Tbilisi’s ambitions to join the European Union, which polls show the overwhelming majority of Georgians support.
Brussels has effectively frozen Georgia’s EU accession application over concerns of democratic backsliding under Georgian Dream and what it casts is its pro-Russian rhetoric.
Georgian Dream backers say that while they want to join Europe, they don’t want to sacrifice Georgia’s traditional values of family and church.
EU ASPIRATIONS?
For them, Georgian Dream’s party slogan, “Only with peace, dignity, and prosperity to Europe,” appeals.
Official results, which the opposition says are fraudulent, showed the party securing huge margins of up to 90 percent in rural areas, even as it underperformed in Tbilisi and other cities.
Ghia Abashidze, a political analyst close to Georgian Dream, attributed the party’s showing to its emphasis on keeping the peace and preserving traditional values. The Georgian parliament passed a law this year curbing LGBT rights and Pride events have been attacked by violent mobs in years past. The topic remains sensitive in conservative Georgia, which is devoutly Orthodox Christian. Abashidze said that Georgian Dream was still committed to EU integration, but found more to like in some of the bloc’s Eastern European members such as Hungary, whose premier Viktor Orban flew to Tbilisi on Monday and hailed the election as free.
He said Orban’s Hungary, which has also been accused of democratic backsliding, shared the Georgian ruling party’s core values of “family, traditions, statehood, sovereignty, peace.”
In Isani, a working class Tbilisi neighborhood and one of the few in the capital where Georgian Dream received more votes than the four main opposition parties combined, Sergo, who did not want to give his last name, echoed the sentiment.
“We want to go to the European Union with our customs, our traditions, our mentality,” the 56-year-old said, passing freshly-baked bread to customers from his shop window. He said he believed LGBT people should receive medical treatment and go to church to become “normal people.”

RUSSIA OR EU?
By contrast, opposition supporters say the ruling party’s positions on foreign policy and social issues are incompatible with Europe’s, and keeping the peace with Russia depends on Georgia aligning with the West.
At a thousands-strong protest against the election results on Monday, Salome Gasviani said the opposition was fighting to preserve Georgia’s freedom and independence.
“We’re here to say out loud that Georgia is a very European country and our future is in the EU, in the West,” she said.
Russia, which ruled Georgia for about 200 years, won a brief war against the country in 2008, and memories of Russian tanks rolling toward Tbilisi are still fresh for many. During the campaign, Georgian Dream played on fears of war, with posters showing devastated Ukrainian cities beside picturesque Georgian ones to illustrate the threat.
“The main thing is that we don’t have a war,” 69-year-old Otar Shaverdashvili, another Isani resident, said before the vote. “I remember the last war very well. No one wants another one.”
Kornely Kakachia, head of Georgian Institute of Politics think tank, said the opposition had struggled to allay fears that a change of government could risk Georgia being sucked into the Ukraine war.
“If someone asks you to choose between war and the European Union and you have this kind of choice, then of course people will choose the status quo,” he said.


Drone hits IAEA vehicle on road to Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, agency says

Drone hits IAEA vehicle on road to Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, agency says
Updated 54 min 24 sec ago
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Drone hits IAEA vehicle on road to Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, agency says

Drone hits IAEA vehicle on road to Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, agency says
  • There were no casualties and the teams are safe, Rafael Grossi, director general of the UN nuclear watchdog, said
  • Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the strike was a deliberate Russian attack that showed Moscow had total disregard for international law and institutions

BERLIN: A drone hit and severely damaged an official vehicle of the International Atomic Energy Agency on the road to Ukraine’s Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on Tuesday, the agency’s head said.
There were no casualties and the teams are safe, Rafael Grossi, director general of the UN nuclear watchdog, said in a video posted on X.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the strike was a deliberate Russian attack that showed Moscow had total disregard for international law and institutions. Moscow made no immediate statement after the incident occurred.
“I condemn in the most firm terms this attack on the IAEA staff,” Grossi said, adding that the strike occurred during a rotation of IAEA staff monitoring the plant. “We call, once again, as we have done it before, for the utmost restraint.”


Grossi said attacking a nuclear power plant is a no-go and attacking those working to prevent a nuclear accident during the military conflict is “even more unacceptable.”
He made no suggestion of who might have been responsible.
A picture posted alongside his statement showed a vehicle with clear IAEA markings, its rear portion badly damaged.
Zelensky, also writing on X, said: “This attack clearly demonstrated how Russia treats anything related to international law, global institutions, and safety. The Russians could not have been unaware of their target; they knew exactly what they were doing and acted deliberately.”
He called for “a clear and decisive response” from the IAEA and other international bodies.
Russia seized the Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s biggest nuclear power station, soon after Moscow’s 2022 invasion of its neighbor. Each side in the 33-month-old war has since accused the other of shelling the plant and endangering nuclear safety.
Russia’s National Guard, writing on the Telegram messaging app, made no mention of the incident and said Russian forces had overseen the staff rotation. Forensic specialists had checked the site for unexploded ordnance it said might have been left over from Ukrainian shelling.


UK, Germany and France agree to cooperate on human smugglers

UK, Germany and France agree to cooperate on human smugglers
Updated 10 December 2024
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UK, Germany and France agree to cooperate on human smugglers

UK, Germany and France agree to cooperate on human smugglers
  • So far this year nearly 34,000 undocumented migrants have reached British shores
  • The toppling of president Bashar Assad threatens a period of instability in Syria that smuggling gangs could look to exploit

LONDON: Five European countries including the UK, France and Germany agreed on Tuesday to jointly step up the fight against people-trafficking, as London and Berlin signed a bilateral commitment to tackle the gangs.
France’s Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, Germany’s Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, the Netherlands’ migration minister Marjolein Faber, and Belgium’s migration minister Nicole de Moor and Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden, all joined UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and Britain’s border security commander Martin Hewitt for Tuesday’s meeting in London.
Ex-police chief Hewitt was appointed by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in September to help deliver on his pre-election pledge to “smash” the people smuggling gangs.
A growing issue among European nations, rising irregular migration was also one of the main themes that dominated the UK’s July election which swept Starmer’s Labour Party to power.
So far this year nearly 34,000 undocumented migrants have reached British shores across the English Channel, arriving on dangerous, flimsy vessels. At least 70 people have died, making 2024 the deadliest year on record.
Berlin’s interior ministry told AFP that under the bilateral agreement with the UK, signed on Monday, it will look at “clarifying” the law surrounding activities carried out in Germany in preparation for smuggling people across the Channel.
“This will give German prosecutors more tools to tackle the supply and storage of dangerous small boats equipment and allow the UK and Germany to better counter the continually evolving tactics of people smuggling gangs,” said the UK interior ministry.
Net legal migration to the UK is also running at historically high levels, estimated at 728,000 for the year to June 2024, while the toppling of president Bashar Assad threatens a period of instability in Syria that smuggling gangs could look to exploit.
Germany’s ambassador to London, Miguel Berger, said many of the people-smuggling networks bringing people from Belarus through Poland to Germany were also sending migrants across the Channel.
He said that as a result of Brexit, the UK had withdrawn from EU accords on third-country immigration and the London-Berlin agreement would “see how we can again strengthen our cooperation.”
Germany’s Faeser said the two countries were focused on ending “the inhumane activities of criminal migrant smuggling organizations.”
“By cramming people into inflatable boats under threats of violence and sending them across the Channel, these organizations put human lives at risk.”
Many of the crossings were “planned in Germany” and the deal would help to counter “this unscrupulous business with even more resolve,” she added.
The European ministers’ talks in London were part of the so-called Calais Group.
The ministers agreed to coordinate efforts to deter would-be migrants from paying smugglers, strengthen law enforcement cooperation and disrupt gangs from using illicit finance schemes, according to a list of priorities published by the UK government.
They also pledged to tackle gangs’ use of social media to advertise their services and to explore how information can be shared to “enhance operational and technical cooperation.”
Representatives of the European Commission and the Frontex and Europol agencies also participated in the talks.
Britain’s Starmer called in November for greater international cooperation against smuggling networks, which he described as a “global security threat similar to terrorism.”


Former UK lawyer sentenced for fraud relating to Iraq abuse claims

Former UK lawyer sentenced for fraud relating to Iraq abuse claims
Updated 10 December 2024
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Former UK lawyer sentenced for fraud relating to Iraq abuse claims

Former UK lawyer sentenced for fraud relating to Iraq abuse claims
  • Phil Shiner pleaded guilty in September to three counts of fraud
  • Britain launched a public inquiry into allegations of atrocities by British troops in 2004, after a battle at the Danny Boy checkpoint in southern Iraq.

LONDON: A former British lawyer who became known for bringing lawsuits on behalf of Iraqi civilians accusing British soldiers of ill-treatment was on Tuesday given a suspended sentence for fraud.
Phil Shiner pleaded guilty in September to three counts of fraud relating to applications made in 2007 for public funding for legal action against the Ministry of Defense.
Following the legal challenge led by Shiner, Britain launched a public inquiry into allegations of atrocities by British troops in 2004, after a battle at the Danny Boy checkpoint in southern Iraq.
Shiner and his firm Public Interest Lawyers, however, were widely criticized and the inquiry ultimately concluded in 2014 that allegations British soldiers executed captured Iraqi prisoners and tortured or seriously abused others were untrue.
Shiner pleaded guilty to failing to disclose, when applying for public funding, that he had asked an intermediary to approach potential claimants and had paid for referrals, which breached his firm’s contract.
He appeared on Tuesday at London’s Southwark Crown Court, where Judge Christopher Hehir imposed a sentence of two years in jail, suspended for two years.
Shiner was struck off as a lawyer in 2017 and Hehir said: “You have already suffered professional and personal ruin and I do not consider it is necessary to add to that by sending you straight to prison.”


Russia takes step toward recognizing Afghanistan’s Taliban government

Russia takes step toward recognizing Afghanistan’s Taliban government
Updated 10 December 2024
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Russia takes step toward recognizing Afghanistan’s Taliban government

Russia takes step toward recognizing Afghanistan’s Taliban government
  • Parliament votes for law to make it possible to remove Taliban from banned terror groups’ list
  • No country currently recognizes the Taliban government which seized power in August 2021

MOSCOW: Russia moved a step closer toward recognizing the Taliban government of Afghanistan on Tuesday as parliament voted in favor of a law that would make it possible to remove the Taliban from Moscow’s list of banned terrorist organizations.
Parliament’s lower house, the Duma, approved the bill in the first of three required readings, Interfax news agency said.
No country currently recognizes the Taliban government which seized power in August 2021 as US-led forces staged a chaotic withdrawal after 20 years of war. But Russia has been gradually building ties with the movement, which President Vladimir Putin said in July was now an ally in fighting terrorism.
Moscow sees a major security threat from Islamist militant groups based in a string of countries from Afghanistan to the Middle East, where Russia lost a major ally this week with the toppling of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
In March, gunmen killed 145 people at a concert hall outside Moscow in an attack claimed by Daesh. US officials said they had intelligence indicating it was the Afghan branch of the group, Daesh, that was responsible.
The Taliban says it is working to wipe out the presence of Daesh in Afghanistan.
Western diplomats say the movement’s path toward wider international recognition is stalled until it changes course on women’s rights. The Taliban has closed high schools and universities to girls and women and placed restrictions on their movement without a male guardian. It says it respects women’s rights in line with its strict interpretation of Islamic law.
Russia has its own complex and bloodstained history in Afghanistan. Soviet troops invaded the country in December 1979 to prop up a Communist government, but became bogged down in a long war against mujahideen fighters armed by the United States. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev pulled his army out in 1989, by which time some 15,000 Soviet soldiers had been killed.


France begins military withdrawal from Chad, army says

France begins military withdrawal from Chad, army says
Updated 10 December 2024
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France begins military withdrawal from Chad, army says

France begins military withdrawal from Chad, army says
  • “It marks the beginning of the return of French equipment stationed in N’Djamena,” Army spokesperson Col. Guillaume Vernet said
  • France has already pulled its soldiers out of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger

PARIS: France has started the withdrawal of its military from Chad with the departure of two warplanes that were based in the capital N’Djamena, the French army said, two weeks after Chad said it was ending its defense cooperation pact with Paris.
In a surprise move, the government of Chad — an ally of the West in the fight against Islamist militants in the region — ended the defense cooperation pact on Nov. 28.
Terms and conditions of the withdrawal and whether any French troops will remain in the central African country altogether have yet be to be agreed, but on Tuesday the first Mirage warplanes returned to their base in eastern France.
“It marks the beginning of the return of French equipment stationed in N’Djamena,” Army spokesperson Col. Guillaume Vernet said after two Mirage fighter jets left Chad.
France has already pulled its soldiers out of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger following military coups in those West African countries and spreading anti-French sentiment.
The departure from Chad will end decades of French military presence in the Sahel region and ends direct French military operations against Islamist militants there.
France still has about 1,000 troops in Chad. Vernet said a calendar to drawdown its operations would still take several weeks for the two countries to finalize.
There were no indications Paris received advance notice of Chad’s decision to end its defense cooperation although a French envoy to President Emmanuel Macron delivered a report last month containing proposals on how France could reduce its military presence in Chad, Gabon and Ivory Coast.