Зеленський зазначив, що деталі переговорів лідерів Росії та США він прокоментує вже після своєї телефонної розмови з Байденом, запланованої на 9 грудня
…
U.S. President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he would not order the deployment of American troops to Ukraine to counter a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“That is not on the table,” Biden told reporters on the White House South Lawn. “The idea the United States is going to unilaterally use force to confront Russia invading Ukraine is not in the cards right now. But what will happen is there will be severe consequences that will happen.”
Biden’s remarks came one day after meeting virtually for two hours with Russian President Vladimir Putin, after which he said the United States and its European allies have “deep concerns” about Moscow massing troops near the border it shares with Ukraine and would respond with “strong” economic sanctions if Russia invades the country.
But even without the prospect of sending in U.S. troops, top White House and Pentagon officials insisted Wednesday there are still ways Washington could bolster Kyiv’s defense.
“There are options to expand security assistance to assist in Ukraine’s self-defense,” Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl told a virtual security summit, pointing to the ongoing provision of ammunition, javelin anti-tank systems, counter mortar radars and other capabilities.
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan further defended the administration’s assistance.
“What it means to be proactive is to set the table,” Sullivan told the summit. “We have gone above and beyond what any administration has done in terms of providing the kinds of defensive support to the Ukrainian military well in advance of any contingency that might happen.”
“We are working with them across the board and that does include the kinds of anti-armor, defensive weaponry that is central to their planning for how they would try to resist a substantial incursion,” he said.
The U.S. president also said Wednesday, before leaving for Kansas City to tout his new Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, he hoped to announce meetings “at a higher level” with Russia and other NATO countries by Friday.
According to the Kremlin, Putin emphasized to Biden the lack of progress by Ukraine in implementing the 2015 Minsk agreement, which was meant to stop the fighting in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, and he raised “serious concerns about the provocative actions of Kyiv in the Donbass.”
The Russian leader accused NATO “of making dangerous attempts to conquer Ukrainian territory” and of building up its military capabilities near the Russian border, according to the Kremlin.
The Washington Post reported last Friday that Russia is planning a multifront offensive into Ukraine involving up to 175,000 troops as early as next year, citing U.S. officials and an intelligence document obtained by the newspaper.
Biden said that same day he has been developing a set of initiatives that will make it “very, very difficult” for Russia to escalate the situation at the border.
In turn, Moscow has suggested the U.S. and Ukraine might launch their own offensive.
Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters.
…
Японський мільярдер та меценат Юсаку Маедзава та відеорежисер Йозо Хірано мають провести на МКС 12 днів
…
За оцінкою США, Росія розмістила майже 100 тисяч військових поблизу північних, східних і південних кордонів України, додала Нуланд
…
«Це рекордна сума неправдивих відомостей, яку НАЗК виявило під час повної перевірки декларацій посадовців у цьому році», – відзначили у відомстві
…
Рішення діє впродовж 6 місяців з дати ухвалення
…
Since the 1950s, the British army’s prestigious Sandhurst has often been the first choice for developing countries to send their best military officers for further training, and in the past 70 years around 5,000 international students from 120 countries have completed courses at the academy southwest of London.
Some Sandhurst graduates went on to command the armed forces of their own nations and to head governments.
But China is stepping up its foreign military training programs and appears to be targeting especially military officers from Commonwealth nations, formerly governed by the United Kingdom, who in record numbers are enrolling in China’s foreign training programs, according to a British research organization.
And several African nations, including Ghana, Uganda and Tanzania, have opened “politico-military schools” sponsored by China, says Civitas, a London-based policy research group.
In a report, titled China’s military education and Commonwealth countries, analysts Radomir Tylecote and Henri Rossano say China’s military training programs “should be understood in the context of Beijing’s growing efforts to train foreign elites generally,” part of a broad effort to gain influence over developing countries.
Spreading influence
The authors warn, “China increasingly uses its military training for foreigners as a method of promoting its models of governance; military training typically includes ideological education.” They say during the training China promotes its “Party-Army model,” in which the army is subordinate to a ruling party. Such a system is antithetical to multiparty democratic systems, they note.
Foreign students can attend regional academies, where courses are designed for cadets and junior officers. Most foreign students attend command and staff colleges, including the Army Command College and Command and Staff Colleges of the service branches of the People’s Liberation Army, PLA. Top officers undergo training at the National Defense University and National University of Defense Technology. More than 20 Chinese military academies accept foreign cadets and officers.
According to Civitas, China has trained thousands of officers at middle and senior levels from over 100 countries in recent decades, and the numbers are rising, especially when it comes to African nations of Britain’s Commonwealth. Beijing’s China-Africa Action Plan for 2018-2021 earmarked 5,000 training places for African soldiers, against 2,000 in 2015-2018. Sandhurst trains 1,500 foreign officers annually.
Many of the countries participating in the foreign military training programs are also recipients of loans and infrastructure investment funds from China’s Belt and Road Initiative, BRI, which has been criticized by the U.S. and the European Union. They argue the BRI is used for economic coercion and that the loans can be leveraged by Beijing for political purposes, known as debt-trap diplomacy.
Beijing denies this.
Nearly all of the Commonwealth nations have signed up for BRI loans. Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the British parliament’s defense committee, told Britain’s The Times newspaper last week, “China has ensnared dozens of countries, now equating to a quarter of the world’s GDP, into long-term economic programs they can ill afford while progressively reshaping the international landscape. It is no surprise to learn China’s increasing influence now extends to military training academies, with Sandhurst and Shrivenham [the U.K. Defense Academy] being replaced by elite military institutes in China.”
The Global Times, a daily tabloid newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, has said the military training programs help to change foreign officers’ preconceived notions about China, fueled by Western media.
But some Western politicians and analysts warn there is evidence that the relationship China is forging with some foreign military elites can have political ramifications and contribute to the shaping of the political systems of some developing countries. They cite Zimbabwe, once a member of the Commonwealth, whose late leader, Robert Mugabe, graduated from China’s International College of Defense Studies. He identified as a Marxist for much of his rule.
Also being cited is Barbados, which removed the British monarch as head of state last month. Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the House of Commons foreign affairs committee, has accused China of playing a hand in Barbados’ ditching of the queen, saying that Beijing has actively sought to undermine Britain’s status as a key partner of Caribbean nations. Barbados has signed up to the BRI and its armed forces have received a $3 million donation from the PLA while some of its officers have attended Chinese military academies.
Other Commonwealth countries receiving Chinese military training include Cameroon, Rwanda, Guyana, Kenya and Uganda, where it is sponsoring the Oliver Tambo Leadership Academy, a politico-military school. Beijing is also sponsoring politico-military schools in Ghana and Tanzania. And China has also funded Namibia’s Command and Staff College as well as developing training programs for the Sri Lankan military.
“Given China’s military training programs and their potentially serious consequences for the governance of Commonwealth countries, the U.K. should consider how best to rejuvenate shared Commonwealth military aid and education programs and to reinforce the Commonwealth’s liberal and democratic structures of government in the coming decades,” say the authors of the Civitas report.
Last year in testimony before the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission, an independent agency of the U.S. government, academic Paul Nantulya, compared U.S. training programs for foreign officers with China’s. “China approaches military training in fundamentally different ways from the U.S. where the concept of an apolitical military runs through the entire training experience,” he said.
…
Germany’s parliament has elected Olaf Scholz as the country’s ninth post-World War II chancellor, opening a new era for the European Union’s most populous nation after Angela Merkel’s 16-year tenure.
Scholz’s government takes office with high hopes of modernizing Germany and combating climate change, but faces the immediate challenge of handling the country’s toughest phase yet of the coronavirus pandemic.
Scholz won the support of 395 lawmakers on Wednesday. His three-party coalition holds 416 seats in the 736-seat lower house of parliament.
Scholz was to be formally named as chancellor by Germany’s president and sworn in by the speaker of parliament later Wednesday.
…
Повідомляється, що найближчим часом справу нададуть для ознайомлення
…
Людину року за версією редакції журналу оголосять 13 грудня
…
In a virtual summit on Tuesday, U.S. President Joe Biden laid out to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, the steps that the U.S. would take should Moscow decide to invade Ukraine. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
Produced by: Mary Cieslak
…
Про останні новини в Україні та світі у дайджесті Радіо Свобода
…
Заарештований – один із 26 саудитів, які розшукує Туреччина у справі про вбивство журналіста
…
The communist party in the Czech Republic lost all of its 15 seats in the country’s 200-member Chamber of Deputies following elections earlier this year, marking a new political low for the party that once ruled the former Soviet satellite state.
The incoming government is composed of a five-party coalition that bears no resemblance to an era when a single political party, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, was labeled – by the constitution – as the sole leading force of the state and society.
Czech voters, led by younger generations aged 18 to 30, “totally rejected the old post-communist parties and voted overwhelmingly for the five parties that promised to defend liberal democracy,” Jiri Pehe, a Prague-based political scientist, told VOA.
Elections in October essentially marked the end of the search for a “post-communist” identity that began with the party’s loss of power in 1989 following the fall of the Berlin Wall and then continued over three decades, according to Pehe.
The years immediately following the ousting of the communist party were marked by ardent support for democracy and freedom, but a questioning period followed.
“Back in the 1990s when Vaclav Havel was prominent, there was a lot of enthusiasm for change, but with time, a lot of the people who supported the change initially during the Havel years started doubting the transformation process and the value of liberal democracy, especially when the financial crisis and later the migration crisis hit,” Pehe said.
As recently as six years ago, leading figures of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, or KSCM, an offshoot of the former ruling party which disbanded after 1989, expressed confidence that history was still on their side and their political fortunes would improve. Although the KSCM has cast itself as a different entity and voiced criticism for the atrocities committed by the former ruling party, it still held on to notions of allying the country with China and Russia, calling into question the Czech Republic’s membership in both the European Union and NATO.
As it turns out, Czech communists found that message did not rally people to the party.
The head of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia resigned after the election. As the organization regroups, there are signs that some of its old habits could be changing. A party official recently acknowledged that there are different factions within the party itself, “contrary to the statute,” he said, which, to this day, prohibits factions and prohibits letting the outside world know of the existence of factions.
Milos Vystrcil takes pride in the fact that the Czech Senate, which he now leads, did away with remnants of the communist party quite a few years before the lower house of parliament. No candidate from the party has been elected to the 81-member Czech Senate since 2014.
Vystrcil told VOA of the deep impression the party’s rule made on his life when it was in power.
Now 61, Vystrcil recalled when the party weighed in on his application to grammar school.
“I had to pass entry exams. But whether I got admitted to the school did not only have to do with whether I did well in calculus, in mathematics, but it also was dependent upon what the party committee thought about me. The committee took into account how much my parents and myself were devoted to the ideals of the communist party,” Vystrcil recalled. He was 15 at the time.
Vystrcil recalled how that treatment meant many people “hated the system” even though most went along with the norms established by the party.
The disenchantment the general population felt toward communism at the height of the party’s power was echoed by others, including Andrej Babis, the outgoing prime minister.
“You all know that I was a communist party member, and I’m not proud of it,” Babis told the audience at an event marking the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution.
He said he knew he wasn’t as brave as people like Havel, but offered his “gratitude and humility” to Havel and others who were persecuted at the time but held on to their belief that the country could do better. It was thanks to them that he had the opportunity to run in elections, he said.
Political analyst Jiri Pehe, a former aid to Havel, said although he and others advocated for banning the communist party immediately after the Velvet Revolution, Havel favored letting the country’s emerging democratic process to determine its fate.
In October, soon after election results came in and it became clear that the ruling coalition lacked the votes to stay in power, Prime Minister Babis took to Twitter to announce that he led his entire Cabinet to resign as soon as the newly-elected parliament held its first assembly, in keeping with his earlier promise and “in keeping with the Czech constitution.”
A week ago, Petr Fiala was sworn in as the new prime minister, leading a coalition government with both conservative and progressives, to tackle the continuing pandemic and other challenges.
Meanwhile the newly installed leader of the communist party, Katerine Konecna, said her priority is trying to build support among young people.
…
A major outage disrupted Amazon’s cloud services on Tuesday, temporarily knocking out streaming platforms Netflix and Disney+, Robinhood, a wide range of apps, and Amazon.com Inc.’s e-commerce website as consumers shopped ahead of Christmas.
“Many services have already recovered; however, we are working towards full recovery across services,” Amazon said on its status dashboard.
Amazon’s Ring security cameras, mobile banking app Chime and robot vacuum cleaner maker iRobot, which use Amazon Web Services (AWS), reported issues, according to their social media pages.
Trading app Robinhood and Walt Disney’s streaming service Disney+ and Netflix were also down, according to Downdetector.com.
“Netflix, which runs nearly all of its infrastructure on AWS, appears to have lost 26% of its traffic,” said Doug Madory, head of internet analysis at analytics firm Kentik.
Amazon said the outage was related to network devices and linked to application programming interface, or API, which is a set of protocols for building and integrating application software.
Downdetector.com showed more than 24,000 incidents of people reporting issues with Amazon, including Prime Video and other services. The outage tracking website collates status reports from a number of sources, including user-submitted errors, on its platform.
Users began reporting issues around 10:40 a.m. ET on Tuesday, and the outage might have affected a larger number of users.
Amazon has experienced 27 outages over the past 12 months related to its services, according to web tool-reviewing website ToolTester.
In June, websites including Reddit, Amazon, CNN, PayPal, Spotify, Al Jazeera Media Network and The New York Times were hit by a widespread hourlong outage linked to U.S.-based content delivery network provider Fastly Inc., a smaller rival of AWS.
your ad hereНа тлі побоювань ймовірного нового російського вторгнення, українські офіційні особи заявляють про понад 90 000 російських військовослужбовців, розміщених вздовж кордону України та в окупованому Росією у 2014 році Криму
…
Раніше телекомпанія CNN повідомила, що адміністрація президента США Джо Байдена розглядає можливість та способи евакуації американських громадян з України у разі, якщо Росія розпочне масштабне вторгнення в Україну
…
Two computer scientists at the University of Maryland have developed a new artificial intelligence system that evolves to detect and evade internet censorship in repressive countries. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more.
…