ЗМІ раніше повідомляли, що вони потрапили у керівні органи після того, як взяли шлюб з доньками Назарбаєва
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Kyiv believes a hacker group linked to Belarusian intelligence carried out a cyberattack that hit Ukrainian government websites this week and used malware similar to that used by a group tied to Russian intelligence, a senior Ukrainian security official said.
Serhiy Demedyuk, deputy secretary of the national security and defense council, told Reuters that Ukraine blamed Friday’s attack – which defaced government websites with threatening messages – on a group known as UNC1151, and that it was cover for more destructive actions behind the scenes.
His comments offer the first detailed analysis by Kyiv on the suspected culprits behind the cyberattack on dozens of websites. Officials on Friday said Russia was probably involved but gave no details. Belarus is a close ally of Russia.
The cyberattack splashed websites with a warning to “be afraid and expect the worst” at a time when Russia has massed troops near Ukraine’s borders, and Kyiv and Washington fear Moscow is planning a new military assault on Ukraine.
Russia has dismissed such fears as “unfounded.”
The office of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Demedyuk’s remarks.
Russia’s foreign ministry also did not immediately respond to a request for comment on his remarks. It has previously denied involvement in cyberattacks, including against Ukraine.
“The defacement of the sites was just a cover for more destructive actions that were taking place behind the scenes and the consequences of which we will feel in the near future,” Demedyuk said in written comments.
In a reference to UNC1151, he said: “This is a cyber-espionage group affiliated with the special services of the Republic of Belarus.”
‘Track Record’
Demedyuk, who used to be the head of Ukraine’s cyber police, said the group had a track record of targeting Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Ukraine and had spread narratives decrying the NATO alliance’s presence in Europe.
“The malicious software used to encrypt some government servers is very similar in its characteristics to that used by the ATP-29 group,” he said, referring to a group suspected of involvement in hacking the Democratic National Committee before the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
“The group specializes in cyber espionage, which is associated with the Russian special services [Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation] and which, for its attacks, resorts to recruiting or undercover work of its insiders in the right company,” Demedyuk said.
The messages left on the Ukrainian websites Friday were in three languages: Ukrainian, Russian and Polish. They referred to Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, where mass killings were carried out in Nazi German-occupied Poland by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). The episode remains a point of contention between Poland and Ukraine.
Demedyuk suggested the hackers had used Google Translate for the Polish translation.
“It is obvious that they did not succeed in misleading anyone with this primitive method, but still this is evidence that the attackers ‘played’ on the Polish-Ukrainian relations [which are only getting stronger every day],” he said.
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Дипломат не виключає, що частина російських військ залишиться в Казахстані для охорони державних об’єктів
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Kosovo’s parliament on Saturday passed a resolution banning ethnic Serbs from voting on Kosovan soil in Serbia’s national referendum on constitutional amendments.
Serbia will hold a referendum on Sunday on amendments to the constitution that would change how judges and prosecutors are elected, a move the government says is aimed at securing an independent judiciary, a condition for EU membership.
Kosovo’s independence backers—the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and the EU mission—urged Prime Minister Albin Kurti to allow Serbs in Kosovo to vote in the referendum.
But in an extraordinary session on Saturday afternoon, 76 out of 120 deputies voted in favor of a declaration banning Serbia from opening polling centers in Kosovo.
Kurti told parliament that establishing polling stations in majority Serb areas of Kosovo would be against the constitution, and that ethnic Serbs could vote by mail or in Belgrade’s government liaison office in Pristina.
“Kosovo is an independent and sovereign state and should be treated as such,” Kurti said.
Serbia, which still considers Kosovo part of its territory, has been organizing elections for its ethnic kin since the Kosovo War ended in 1999.
Serbia refuses to recognize Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence but has pledged to normalize relations with its former breakaway province before joining the EU.
The head of Serbian Office for Cooperation with Kosovo said the ban was aimed at “annulling political and civic rights of Serbs [in Kosovo].”
“Kurti and his extremists should not think that in the future they will succeed in banning Serbs in Kosovo from voting, notably in April 3 elections,” Petar Petkovic said in a statement.
Serbia is holding presidential and parliamentary elections on April 3. Early on Saturday, Kosovo police confiscated two trucks of the Serbian election commission transporting ballot papers as they crossed the border at Merdare to head towards Serb-majority areas.
“We call on the Kosovo government to allow Serbs in Kosovo to exercise their right to vote in elections and electoral processes in accordance with this established practice,” Germany, France, Italy, United Kingdom, United States and the EU said in their joint statement Friday.
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Санкції, які пропонує сенатор Рубіо, мають бути оголошені і проти секторів російської економіки, «від яких залежить особисте збагачення [путінського] режиму»
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Військові та поліція застосовували вогнепальну зброю лише проти «терористів», заявив на брифінгу представник генеральної прокуратури Казахстану
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«Позиція Євросоюзу одностайна: безпека України — це безпека всієї Європи», – заявив керівник МЗС
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Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly will visit Kyiv next week to reaffirm support for Ukrainian sovereignty and reinforce efforts to deter “aggressive actions” by Russia, Ottawa said Saturday.
Moscow has stationed more than 100,000 troops near the border with Ukraine and the United States said on Friday it feared Russia was preparing a pretext to invade if diplomacy failed to meet its objectives.
Canada, with a sizeable and politically influential population of Ukrainian ethnic descent, has taken a hard line with Moscow since the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
“The amassing of Russian troops and equipment in and around Ukraine jeopardizes security in the entire region. These aggressive actions must be deterred,” Joly said in a statement.
“Canada will work with its international partners to uphold the rules-based international order.”
Joly will meet Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal and travel to the west of the country to speak to a 200-strong Canadian training mission that has been there since 2015.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Tuesday and “emphasized that any military incursion into Ukraine would have serious consequences, including coordinated sanctions,” Trudeau’s office said.
Canada has imposed punitive measures on more than 440 individuals and entities over the annexation of Crimea.
Joly, who starts a weeklong trip to Europe on Sunday, will visit Brussels to see NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
She will also go to Paris for talks with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, the statement said.
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Серед підозрюваних – колишній командувач Повітряних сил ЗСУ
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The government of Ethiopia has sent a letter to the World Health Organization, accusing its Ethiopian director-general of “misconduct” after his sharp criticism of the war and humanitarian crisis in the country.
Ethiopia nominated Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to be the head of the U.N. health agency four years ago, but says he has “not lived up to the integrity and professional expectations required from his office,” accusing him of interfering in Ethiopia’s internal affairs, according to a press release issued late Thursday.
“Through his acts, (Tedros) spread harmful misinformation and compromised WHO’s reputation, independence and credibility,” Ethiopia’s ministry of foreign affairs said.
WHO had no immediate response to the claims.
Tedros, an ethnic Tigrayan, has repeatedly deplored the situation in his home country and called for humanitarian access to the conflict-ridden region of Ethiopia.
“Nowhere in the world are we witnessing hell like Tigray,” said Tedros at a media briefing Wednesday. He cited a missive WHO had received recently from a physician in the region, who said health authorities had run out of basic medicines for diseases including diabetes in June and were now using expired stocks and intravenous fluids.
Health officials in the Tigray capital have described the same to The Associated Press.
Tedros condemned Ethiopia’s blockade of international access to Tigray, saying that WHO had not been allowed to send any supplies to the region since July, noting the U.N. agency had access to Syria and Yemen even during their worst conflicts.
He said there should be “unfettered” humanitarian access to Tigray and said that “just respecting the constitutional order would bring this problem into a peaceful conclusion.”
He continued: “Of course, I am from that region and from the northern part of Ethiopia. But I am saying this without any bias.”
The Ethiopian government said Tedros was using his office “to advance his political interest at the expense of Ethiopia” and said he continues to be an active member of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front; Tedros was foreign minister and health minister when the TPLF dominated the country’s ruling coalition.
The TPLF, the political party that runs the Tigray region, has been clashing with Ethiopian federal forces since the country’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning prime minister accused the heavily armed regional government of attacking a military base. Each government regards the other as illegitimate after a months-long falling-out amid political reforms.
On Friday, the U.N. World Food Program warned its food assistance in northern Ethiopia is “about to grind to a halt because intense fighting has blocked the passage of fuel and food.” No WFP convoys have reached the Tigray capital since mid-December, it said in a statement, “and the last of WFP’s cereals, pulses and oil will be distributed next week.” Stocks of nutritionally fortified food to treat malnourished children and women are depleted, it said.
“We’re now having to choose who goes hungry to prevent another from starving,” said Michael Dunford, WFP’s regional director for Eastern Africa, calling for safe humanitarian corridors on all routes across northern Ethiopia. The WFP says nearly 10 million people need food assistance.
In a separate statement on the war, the U.N human rights office said at least 108 civilians have reportedly been killed in Tigray this year by airstrikes “allegedly carried out by the Ethiopian air force.” It warned of possible war crimes.
The airstrikes have continued despite a shift in the war in recent weeks, with the Tigray forces retreating into their region and Ethiopian forces saying they wouldn’t pursue them further there. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has spoken of reconciliation and national dialogue.
In September, France, Germany and other European countries nominated Tedros for a second term as WHO’s director-general, the first time any candidate was not supported by his or her home country. Tedros is expected to be confirmed for another five-year term in May, as he is running unopposed.
Under Tedros, WHO came under withering criticism from the U.S. Trump administration over allegations of grievous missteps in responding to COVID-19 and for allegedly “colluding” with China in the early phases of the outbreak.
Tedros has been a leading voice urging rich countries and vaccine makers to do more to improve access to COVID shots in the developing world — a call that has largely gone unheeded.
Last year, WHO faced mounting pressure over revelations from an AP investigation and an independent panel that found senior management were informed of sexual abuse allegations during the agency’s response to an Ebola outbreak in Congo.
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«Ми готові незалежно від того, що вони вирішать»
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Столиця Тонґа розташована всього за 65 кілометрів на північ від вулкана
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The mayor’s office in Lisbon has been fined $1.4 million for sharing the personal data of protest organizers with embassies of countries targeted by the protests, Portugal’s data protection commission said on Friday.
The mayor’s office came under fire in June 2021 when Ksenia Ashrafullina, a Russian-Portuguese organizer of a protest rally in Lisbon, said she had received an email showing the city hall had shared data on her and fellow organizers with the Russian Embassy.
After an internal investigation, it was revealed that data on organizers of 180 protests has been shared with embassies since 2012, 52 of which occurred after the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation — which bans such data sharing — came into force in 2018.
The city hall, then led by Socialist mayor Fernando Medina, shared data of protesters in front of the Cuban, Angolan, Venezuelan, Israeli embassies with the targeted institutions.
The decision by the data protection commission (CNPD), published on its website, said that between 2018 and 2021 there were a total of 225 data breaches committed by the mayor’s office related to sharing protesters’ personal information with embassies and other entities.
In a statement, the mayor’s office, now headed by Social Democrat Carlos Moedas, said the decision was a “heavy legacy the previous leadership … left to the people of Lisbon,” adding the fine now posed a challenge for the budget.
“We will evaluate this fine in detail and how best to protect the interests of citizens and the institution,” it said.
Medina did not immediately respond to a request for comment Ashrafullina, who organized the rally in support of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, told Reuters she was satisfied with the CNPD’s decision: “We have been waiting for it, and it finally came.”
But Ashrafullina is still scared about the consequences of the data-sharing.
“I’m worried about what would happen if I ever needed to go back to Russia,” she said.
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Голова Офісу президента Андрій Єрмак 14 січня заявив, що Володимир Зеленський запропонував Джо Байдену тристоронню розмову в режимі відеоконференції за участі Володимира Путіна
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With Russian troops massing and the specter of war looming over the trenches of eastern Ukraine, soldiers in the dugouts have found solace in the unlikely companionship of stray cats and dogs.
In a muddy and freezing trench near the town of Avdiivka, 21-year-old Ukrainian soldier Mykyta was petting a dog adopted by the troops as he explained how she had become a valued asset on the frontline.
“She immediately barks or growls if the enemy is planning an attack. It’s safer and calmer with her — no wonder they say that a dog is man’s best friend,” he told AFP, declining to give his last name over security concerns.
More than two million Ukrainians were displaced from their homes and many pets were abandoned after fighting broke out in 2014 between pro-Moscow separatists and Kyiv’s army.
The conflict, which has claimed 13,000 lives, has simmered in recent years with only sporadic reports of escalations and military deaths in eastern Ukraine.
But that has changed recently with Kyiv’s Western allies accusing Russia of building up tens of thousands of troops around Ukraine’s borders in preparation for a possible invasion.
Those tensions are at the center of intensive negotiations this week between the United States, NATO and Russia in Geneva and Brussels, with both sides accusing the other of ratcheting up tensions.
“The animals aren’t to blame — the war is,” said 49-year-old soldier Volodymyr, who also declined to give his last name citing security concerns.
An AFP journalist said around 15 cats and several dogs had taken up residence together with the soldiers in Volodymyr’s section of the trenches.
“They were abandoned. They had to fend for themselves. We have to feed them,” Volodymyr said, pouring leftover soup for the cats.
‘Talisman’ puppy
After spending months on the frontline with their adopted strays, some soldiers have ended up taking their new comrades home, away from the fighting.
In the basement of a bombed-damaged house where he sleeps while at the front, 29-year-old soldier Dmytro, meanwhile, is full of praise for his black hunting cat, Chernukha.
“When winter came, field mice were running around the dugouts,” Dmytro said.
“She caught them all,” within two months, the young soldier with a shaved head told AFP proudly.
But it wasn’t the first time a pet had intervened during the war, he said.
Dmytro told AFP that in 2014 he befriended a one-month-old puppy near the then-flashpoint town of Slavyansk. He said the dog soon became a “mini-talisman” among his fellow soldiers.
Minutes before one bout of shelling began, he remembered, the dog hid. “We very quickly took the same measure as the dog,” Dmytro said with a smile on his face.
We “grabbed bulletproof vests, helmets” and “ran.”
With tensions higher now over fears Russia could invade, soldiers say the animals have been a particular boon, helping them relax and bringing respite to their daily routine.
“You come back to the post, lie down on the bed, and here comes Chernukha,” Dmytro said.
The cat “lies on your stomach and looks at you as if she wants to be petted.”
“It’s a sedative,” he said.
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Chinese technology and expertise is making it possible for Venezuela and Cuba to exercise suffocating control over digital communications in the two countries, according to insider accounts and several international investigations.
Venezuela and Cuba do more to block internet access than any other governments in Latin America, according to the U.S.-based advocacy group Freedom House, which has documented what it describes as “digital authoritarianism” in the region since 2018.
“Whoever believes that privacy exists in Venezuela through email communications, Twitter, WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram is wrong. All these tools” are totally subject to government intervention, said Anthony Daquin, former adviser on computer security matters to the Ministry of Justice of Venezuela.
Daquin participated between 2002 and 2008 in delegations sent by former President Hugo Chávez to China to learn how Beijing uses software to identify Chinese citizens, and to implement a similar system in Venezuela.
Key to those efforts was the introduction in 2016 of the “carnet de la patria” or homeland card, developed by the Chinese company ZTE. While theoretically voluntary, possession of the cards is required to access a vast range of goods and services, ranging from doctor’s appointments to government pensions.
The cards were presented as a way to make public services and supply chains more efficient, but critics denounced them as a form of “citizen control.”
Daquin said China’s role in recent years has been to provide technology and technical assistance to help the Venezuelan government process large amounts of data and monitor people whom the government considers enemies of the state.
“They have television camera systems, fingerprints, facial recognition, word algorithm systems for the internet and conversations,” he said.
Daquin said one of the few means that Venezuelans have to communicate electronically free from government monitoring is the encrypted messaging platform Signal, which the government has found it very costly to control.
The former adviser said Venezuela’s digital surveillance structure is divided into five “rings,” with “Ring 5 being the most trusted, 100 percent Chinese personnel supervising.”
According to Daquin, the government receives daily reports from the monitors that become the basis for decisions on media censorship, internet shutdowns and arbitrary arrests.
US accusations against Chinese companies
Several Chinese technology companies are active in Venezuela, including ZTE, Huawei and the China National Electronics Import & Export Corp. (CEIEC). The latter was sanctioned in 2020 by the U.S. Treasury Department on the grounds that its work in Venezuela had helped the government of President Nicolas Maduro “restrict internet service” and “conduct digital surveillance and cyber operations against political opponents.”
The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee also issued an alert in 2020. In a report, Big Brother, China Digital Authoritarianism, it accused Chinese telecommunications companies of facilitating “digital authoritarianism” around the world and cited Venezuela as a case study.
Specifically, the committee mentions the existence of a team of ZTE employees working within the facilities of the state telecommunications company CANTV, which manages the homeland card database.
The document cites an investigation by the Reuters news agency, which reported it was told by CANTV employees that the card system allows them to monitor a vast range of information about individuals, including “birthdays, family information, employment and income, property owned, medical history, state benefits received, presence on social media, membership of a political party and whether a person voted.”
“Maduro takes full advantage of Chinese hardware and services in his effort to control Venezuelan citizens,” the report says.
Sophisticated and simple internet blockades
The Maduro government’s efforts to block access to the internet by domestic opponents are “very crude,” according to Luis Carlos Díaz, president of the Venezuelan chapter of the Internet Society, a U.S.-based nonprofit that advocates for open development of the internet.
He said it takes nothing more than a phone call from a government official to the operator of a web portal to have a website or social media outlet blocked for a time.
However, in 2019, Venezuela blocked The Onion Router, or TOR, one of the most sophisticated systems used globally to allow internet users to remain anonymous and bypass censorship. The platform directs messages through a worldwide network of servers so the origin of a message cannot be identified.
Diaz said that, unlike other recurrent blockades in Venezuela, the TOR hack did require a higher level of knowledge.
“There, we raised alerts because it was excessively serious,” he told VOA. “It meant that the Venezuelan government was using technology like the one used in China to block users who had TOR, a tool used to circumvent censorship.”
The TOR blockade lasted a week, and Díaz said he doubts that the Venezuelan government did it by itself, because it lacks the highly trained people needed for such a complex operation.
China’s role in Cuba
The internet infrastructure in Cuba was also built with equipment acquired from Chinese companies. The Swedish organization Qurium, in a report published at the beginning of 2020, said it had detected Huawei eSight network management software on the Cuban internet. The purpose of the software is to help filter web searches, according to this organization.
Cuban dissidents say the only way to access pages censored by the government on the island is through a virtual private network or VPN, which tricks the system into believing that the user is in another country.
This “is the only way to enter any controlled website,” said journalist Luz Escobar, who converts web content into PDF format or newsletters and sends those by email to users of 14yMedio, an independent digital news outlet that is blocked from uploading its content to the internet. In Cuba, however, “few people master this technique,” she said.
Internet censorship in Cuba was investigated in 2017 by the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI), a volunteer-based organization that monitors internet censorship around the world. The group said it was able to determine that a Chinese company had developed software for public Wi-Fi portals on the island “because they left comments in the source code in Chinese.”
“We also found a wide use of Huawei equipment,” said Arturo Filastó, a project leader at OONI who had traveled to Cuba and tested various Wi-Fi connection points provided by the government.
Voice of America asked for comments from the three government entities in question — Cuba, Venezuela and China — but did not receive responses from any of them before publication.
China continues to tutor countries with an “authoritarian tendency”
In a 2021 report on internet censorship, Freedom House said Venezuelan officials, along with representatives from 36 other countries including Saudi Arabia and Syria, participated in Chinese government training and seminars on new media and information management.
China has organized forums such as the World Internet Conference in 2017 “where it imparts its norms to authoritarian-leaning governments,” the report concluded.
Justin Sherman, an information security expert at the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative, told VOA that Chinese companies like Huawei and ZTE have “been involved all over the world, not just in Venezuela, in creating programs of internet censorship surveillance for governments, intelligence services and police agencies.”
Sherman said it is not clear whether Chinese companies sell their surveillance technology to authoritarian governments solely for profit. The thesis of the 2020 Senate Relations Committee report is that there is an interest in China to go beyond the sale of its technology services to extend its policy of “digital authoritarianism in the world.”
This article originated in VOA’s Latin America Division.
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A key European diplomat believes there is still a chance to defuse the growing political crisis in Mali that has seen the country’s interim military government clash repeatedly in recent days with both its neighbors and members of the international community.
Emanuela Del Re, the European Union’s special representative for the Sahel, criticized Mali’s current rulers for provoking countries in the region and Europe by postponing elections for five years and for bringing in Russian mercenaries to help with security.
But in an interview Friday with VOA, Del Re said she thinks the coup leaders will eventually have no choice but to relent.
“I think that despite, of course, the fact that the government is so firm in saying that they want this long transition because probably they want to stay in power for a long time, the pressure will be so strong that at one point they will have to come to a compromise,” she said.
Del Re praised sanctions targeting Mali adopted earlier this week by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the EU, describing them as coherent and consequential, and called on the international community to maintain the pressure on the interim government.
Brussels meeting
At the same time, though, she and other European officials are continuing to talk to Malian officials and expect Mali to take part in a meeting scheduled for later this month in Brussels.
“The European Union wants to be coherent with this approach of the sanctions … it wants to be firm in this sense,” Del Re told VOA. “At the same time, it wants to also keep the doors open for negotiation.”
“I am sure that there will negotiations. There will be a dialogue,” she added.
Thousands of supporters of Mali’s military government took to the streets Friday in the capital, Bamako, railing against the ECOWAS sanctions as unjust.
“These illegal and illegitimate measures have three objectives: to destabilize the institutions, to destabilize the Malian army and to destabilize Mali,” Prime Minister Choguel Maiga told the crowd.
“But what they must not forget is that Mali is a lock, Mali is a dam. If Mali blows, and God help us, it will not blow, but if that happens, no one will have peace in ECOWAS,” he added.
Many of the protesters praised the military government for standing up to France, while others waived Malian flags and some even waived Russian flags.
The presence of Russian flags is likely to increase concern in the West, with European countries and the United States repeatedly warning the military government against bringing in mercenaries from the Wagner Group, a paramilitary company with ties to the Kremlin.
“We have seen what they have done in the Central African Republic, the predatory behavior and the violations of human rights, so we have made clear that we are completely against their intervention in Mali,” a European official told reporters Friday, requesting anonymity to discuss the sensitive subject when asked about reports that several hundred mercenaries are now in Mali.
According to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, Mali’s military government has committed to paying Wagner $11 million per month – $132 million a year – for the services of 1,000 mercenaries, an amount equal to more than 20% of Mali’s yearly defense expenditures.
Mali’s government has denied reports it is using Russian mercenaries, but the move appears to be having an impact on other international forces sent to the country to help fight against terrorists linked to Islamic State and al-Qaida.
Sweden to withdraw
Sweden’s foreign minister said Friday that her country will withdraw from the Takuba Task Force, a European special forces mission to Mali, and that it may withdraw a couple hundred troops serving in Mali under the United Nations.
“We now know that there is Wagner Group,” Sweden’s Ann Linde told reporters in Brest, France, following a meeting of EU foreign ministers. “If they have a stronger and stronger impact, then it will be not possible to continue with those large number of troops from us.”
Other European officials cautioned that additional troops could be pulled if the situation worsens and warned there could be regional implications.
“It cannot be accepted for its part for the risk of having a domino effect,” Del Re told VOA. “The countries of the region, the countries of the G-5, for instance, they fear that this could be an example that might somehow give the idea of copying the situation to other countries.”
Despite these complications, Del Re and other European officials insist they have no intention of abandoning Mali or its neighbors in the Sahel.
“What we are worried about very much is the population of Mali, because they are already in such a condition,” Del Re told VOA. They don’t deserve this situation.”
Annie Risemberg contributed to this report from Bamako.
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office apologized to Queen Elizabeth on Friday after it emerged that staff members partied late into the night in Downing Street on the eve of Prince Philip’s funeral, when indoor gatherings were banned.
Johnson is facing the gravest crisis of his premiership after almost daily revelations of social gatherings during COVID-19 lockdowns, some held when ordinary people could not bid farewell in person to dying relatives.
As an opinion poll showed the opposition Labour Party pulling into a 10-point lead over Johnson’s Conservatives, a report said he had encouraged staff to “let off steam” during regular “wine-time Friday” gatherings.
Johnson, who built a political career out of flouting accepted norms, finds himself now under growing pressure from some of his own lawmakers to quit. Opponents say he is unfit to rule and has misled parliament by denying COVID-19 guidance was breached.
In an extraordinary twist to a saga that has been widely lampooned by comedians and cartoonists, the Daily Telegraph said drinking parties were held inside Downing Street on April 16, 2021, the day before Prince Philip’s funeral.
“It is deeply regrettable this took place at a time of national mourning and No. 10 (Downing Street) has apologized to the palace,” Johnson’s spokesperson told reporters.
Johnson was at his country residence that day and was not invited to any gathering, his spokesperson said.
Such was the revelry in Downing Street, the Telegraph said, that staff went to a nearby supermarket to buy a suitcase of alcohol, spilled wine on carpets, and broke a swing used by the prime minister’s son.
The next day, Queen Elizabeth bade farewell to Philip, her husband of 73 years, following his death at 99.
Dressed in black and in a white-trimmed black face mask, the 95-year-old Elizabeth cut a poignant figure as she sat alone, in strict compliance with coronavirus rules, during his funeral service at Windsor Castle.
Leave the stage
Opponents have called for Johnson, 57, to resign, casting him as a charlatan who demanded the British people follow some of the most onerous rules in peacetime history while his staff partied at the heart of government.
A small but growing number in Johnson’s Conservative Party have echoed those calls, fearing it will do lasting damage to its electoral prospects.
“Sadly, the prime minister’s position has become untenable,” said Conservative lawmaker Andrew Bridgen, a former Johnson supporter. “The time is right to leave the stage.”
In the latest report of rule-breaking, the Mirror newspaper said staff had bought a large wine fridge for Friday gatherings, events that were regularly observed by Johnson as he walked to his apartment in the building.
“If the PM tells you to ‘let off steam,’ he’s basically saying this is fine,” it quoted one source as saying.
Separately, the former head of the government unit behind COVID restrictions, Kate Josephs, apologized for holding her own party when she left the job in December 2020.
Johnson has given a variety of explanations of the parties, ranging from denials that any rules were broken to expressing understanding for the public anger at apparent hypocrisy at the heart of the British state.
The Independent newspaper said Johnson had dubbed a plan to salvage his premiership as “Operation Save Big Dog.”
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, seen as a possible successor, said “real mistakes” had been made.
“We need to look at the overall position we’re in as a country, the fact that he (Johnson) has delivered Brexit, that we are recovering from COVID. … He has apologized.”
“I think we now need to move on,” she said.
To trigger a leadership challenge, 54 of the 360 Conservative members of parliament must write letters of no confidence to the chairman of the party’s 1922 Committee.
The Telegraph said as many as 30 such letters had been submitted.
Johnson faces a tough year ahead: beyond COVID-19, inflation is soaring, energy bills are spiking, taxation will rise in April and his party faces local elections in May.
British police said Thursday they would not investigate gatherings held in Johnson’s residence during a coronavirus lockdown unless an internal government inquiry finds evidence of potential criminal offenses.
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МЗС Вірменії заявило, що очікує внаслідок переговорів встановлення дипломатичних відносин з Туреччиною
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Петро Бешта наразі є генеральним директором Політичного директорату МЗС
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The White House Friday reached out to Ukraine to offer its support after several of its government agencies suffered a cyberattack overnight.
A White House National Security Council ((NSC)) spokesman tells VOA that U.S. President Joe Biden was briefed on the attack, which shut down as many as 15 Ukraine’s government websites. The spokesman said the NSC has offered whatever support it can provide as it continues to access the impact of the attack.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry reported Friday the ministries affected included the treasury, the national emergency service and the state services, where Ukrainians’ electronic passports and vaccination certificates are stored.
The websites contained a message from the hackers in Ukrainian, Russian and Polish, saying Ukrainians’ personal data has been leaked into the public domain, though Ukraine’s State Service of Communication and Information Protection told the Associated Press there was no evidence personal data has been leaked.
Oleksiy Danilov, Ukraine’s National Defense and Security Council secretary, told VOA Friday the hackers did not reach their goal, which he said was to shut key parts of Ukraine’s government. He said the attack came around 2 a.m., and many of the sites were brought back up immediately, while others were still down hours later.
While it is difficult to determine exactly who was behind the attack, Danilov told VOA Russia is the only country that can perform a cyberattack on such a scale.
Meanwhile, European Union officials also condemned Friday’s cyberattack and pledged to use EU resources to assist the nation.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance’s cyber experts have been exchanging information with their Ukrainian counterparts on “the current malicious cyber activities.” He said NATO-allied experts in the country are also supporting Ukrainian authorities.
Stoltenberg also announced NATO and Ukraine will sign an agreement on enhanced cyber cooperation, which would include giving Ukraine access to NATO’s malware information-sharing platform.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an EU foreign ministers meeting in Brest, France, EU Foreign Affairs chief Josep Borrell issued the “strongest condemnation” of the attack and said an emergency meeting of the EU political committee would be held to discuss how to react. He pledged to “mobilize all our resources to help Ukraine” increase its cyberattack-resistance capability.
The incident follows a week of largely fruitless diplomatic efforts to de-escalate tensions along Russian-Ukrainian border, where Moscow has amassed an estimated 100,000 troops and equipment, raising fears of an imminent invasion.
Russia insists the troops are there for its own protection but is demanding NATO provide guarantees it will stop its eastward expansion, beginning with not allowing Ukraine to join the alliance, a move Moscow perceives as a threat. NATO has repeatedly rejected that request, saying Russia has no veto over NATO membership for other countries.
VOA Eastern Europe Chief Myroslava Gongadze and VOA National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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