Category: Nation

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has created one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times. A month into the war, more than 3.7 million Ukrainians have fled to neighboring countries – the sixth-largest refugee outflow over the past 60-plus years, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of United Nations data.

There are now almost as many Ukrainian refugees as there were Afghan refugees fleeing the (first) Taliban regime in 2001, according to figures compiled by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). They represent about 9.1% of Ukraine’s pre-invasion population of about 41.1 million – ranking the current crisis 16th among 28 major refugee crises by share of population.

The Center examined all cases in the UNHCR’s database since 1960 where there were at least 500,000 refugees and similarly displaced people from a given country in a given year. The analysis doesn’t include “internally displaced persons” – those who have fled or been forced from their usual homes but haven’t yet crossed an international border. (Earlier this week, UNHCR head Filippo Grandi estimated that, all told, 10 million Ukrainians – nearly a quarter of the population – had been displaced either internally or externally by the war.)

How we did this

Syria’s civil war, which began in 2011, has created more refugees than any other crisis since the early 1960s, when UNHCR began keeping data on individual countries. Nearly 6.9 million Syrians – about a third of the country’s prewar population – are living as refugees or asylum-seekers outside their home country, with almost 3.7 million now in Turkey. An additional 6.8 million Syrians have been displaced from their homes but are living elsewhere in the country – meaning the civil war has uprooted about two-thirds of Syria’s entire population.

Afghanistan, which has been at war either with itself or with outside forces for more than four decades, has had more than 2 million refugees every year since 1981. The peak year was 1990, after Soviet troops had withdrawn from the country and the USSR-backed government was battling to hang onto power against a coalition of mujahedeen groups. That year, more than half the country’s total estimated population – 6.3 million people – were listed as refugees.

Venezuela has also seen massive population outflows over the past several years as the country’s economy has all but collapsed, its government has cracked down on dissent, and opposition efforts to unseat President Nicolas Maduro’s government have stalled. According to the UNHCR, more than 5 million Venezuelans are refugees in other countries, are seeking asylum, or have been otherwise displaced abroad – all told, about 15% of the current estimated population.

Members of the Pakistan Parliament are set to choose Opposition Leader Shehbaz Sharif as the next prime minister of Pakistan after former cricket star Imran Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote that ended his four-year run. According to media reports, Opposition parties were able to secure 174 votes in the 342-member house for the no-confidence motion, giving them the majority they needed to vote against Khan after Sunday midnight in Islamabad, two more than required to remove him from office.

PML-N chief Shehbaz Sharif has been nominated as the joint opposition candidate for the prime minister’s election. The 70-year-old is the younger brother of former Pak PM Nawaz Sharif. Reuters reported that Shehbaz Sharif has submitted his nomination to be Pakistan’s next prime minister to the legislature, after incumbent Imran Khan lost a no-confidence vote in parliament.

Khan’s party also submitted papers nominating the former foreign minister as a candidate, saying their members of parliament would resign en masse should he lose, potentially creating the need for urgent by-elections for their seats. Khan, the first Pakistani prime minister to be ousted by a no confidence vote, had clung on for almost a week after a united opposition first tried to remove him.

Khan’s ouster came after a fallout with Pakistan’s army over a range of issues, including interference in military promotions, his rocky relationship with the U.S. and management of the economy that saw inflation rise at the second fastest pace in Asia. Pakistan’s military has ruled the country for almost half of its 75-year history, and no prime minister has completed a full term in that time.

On Sunday, he repeated allegations that a foreign conspiracy was behind the regime change.  “The freedom struggle begins again today,” he said via his Twitter account, which is followed by more than 15 million and still describes him as Prime Minister of Pakistan in his biography section.

Parliament members will convene on Monday to pick his replacement, after Khan rallied supporters in cities across the nation on Sunday night against what he called “U.S.-backed regime change.”

Media reports stated, the vote that ousted Khan went ahead after the powerful army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, met Khan, as criticism mounted over the delay to the parliamentary process. The Supreme Court has also ordered parliament to convene and hold the vote. The military has ruled the country of 220 million people for almost half its nearly 75-year history.

The military had viewed Khan and his conservative agenda favorably when he won the election in 2018, but that support waned after a falling-out over the appointment of the influential military intelligence chief and economic troubles that led to the largest interest rate rise in decades this week.

Khan had antagonized the United States throughout his tenure, welcoming the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan last year and more recently accusing the United States of being behind the attempt to oust him. Washington dismissed the accusation.

He thanked all the opposition leaders after the vote and promised that his new administration, if confirmed, would look forward. “This alliance will rebuild Pakistan and we will not indulge in the political victimization of the opponents,” he said.

“I don’t want to discuss the bitterness of the past. We want to forget them and move forward. We will not take revenge or do an injustice; we will not send people to jail for no reason. Law and justice will take their own course,” Sharif added. Shehbaz Sharif said Khan’s departure was a chance for a new beginning.

The first round of the French Presidential election is scheduled for Sunday, April 10 and the race between Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron is growing tighter. 

Mabel Berezin is a comparative sociologist at Cornell University whose work explores fascist, nationalist and populist movements in Europe and associated threats to democracy. Berezin says:  “In this year of major European elections, France was supposed to be the predictable election. For the second time, Emmanuel Macron is likely to run against Marine Le Pen, leader of the Rassemblement National, formerly extreme-right Front. When Russian President Vladimir Putin marched into Ukraine, the standard election media narrative was that Macron, the sitting French President, despite being widely unpopular, would be re-elected easily. 

“However, analysts of all stripes are not as confident in a Macron victory as they were merely a week ago. In 2017, Le Pen lost to Macron by 34 percentage points. Now, polls on the second-round place her at 46% versus Macron at 54%. This is close enough to elicit worry. 

“Le Pen is on her third try for the French Presidency. She had more competitors this time than she had in 2017. Eric Zemmour tried to outflank her on the right; Jean-Luc Mélenchon on the left. Why is she moving ahead of her competitors? She has chosen to run on economic issues and to downplay her usual line on immigration and security.

“In 2017, when she conceded the election to Macron, she argued that the future political debate in France would be between the ‘globalists’ and the ‘patriots’ – the latter referring to citizens rooted in place and dependent on national institutions. This is not only a French debate. It is increasingly a transnational debate as evidenced by its salience in recent elections across the globe. Marine Le Pen has identified and owns the conceptual frame of a new political moment. Whatever happens on April 24, she wins.”

Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Bajwa on Saturday said that all disputes with India should be settled peacefully through dialogue, saying Islamabad continues to believe in using diplomacy to resolve all outstanding issues, including Kashmir, to keep the “flames of fire away from our region.” Gen. Bajwa said this at the last day of the two-day ‘Islamabad Security Dialogue’ conference that brought together Pakistani and international policy experts to discuss emerging challenges in international security under the theme “Comprehensive Security: Reimagining International Cooperation”.

The Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) said that with one-third of the world in the Gulf region and elsewhere involved in some sort of conflict and war, “it is important that we keep the flames of fire away from our region.”

The Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) said that with one-third of the world in the Gulf region and elsewhere involved in some sort of conflict and war, “it is important that we keep the flames of fire away from our region”.

“Pakistan continues to believe in using dialogue and diplomacy to resolve all outstanding issues including the Kashmir dispute and is ready to move forward on this front if India agrees to do so,” Gen. Bajwa said.

“Pakistan continues to believe in using dialogue and diplomacy to resolve all outstanding issues including the Kashmir dispute and is ready to move forward on this front if India agrees to do so,” Gen. Bajwa said.

His proposal for peace with India had a wider meaning as he indirectly suggested to have some sort of trilateral dialogue involving India, Pakistan and China to create an inclusive peace, as he said that apart from the Kashmir dispute, the India-China border dispute is also a matter of great concern for Pakistan and “we want it to be settled quickly through dialogue and diplomacy.” “I believe it is time for the political leadership of the region to rise above their emotional and perceptual biases and break the shackles of history to bring peace and prosperity to almost three billion people of the region,” Gen. Bajwa said.

He, however, said that the adamant behaviour of the Indian leaders was a hurdle.

Bilateral ties with Pakistan deteriorated further after India announced withdrawing the special powers of Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcation of the state into two union territories in August, 2019.

India has repeatedly told Pakistan that Jammu and Kashmir “was, is and shall forever” remain an integral part of the country. India has told Pakistan that it desires normal neighbourly relations with Islamabad in an environment free of terror, hostility and violence.

In Opinion |India can act today to shape tomorrow’s terms of connectivity with Pakistan

Talking about last month’s missile incident, he said that India’s “accidental missile firing” created doubts regarding its ability to handle high-end weapon-systems, which was compounded by its unwillingness to share details with Pakistan.

The missile fired on March 9 fell in the Mian Channu area of Khanewal district and it came to light a day later when the Army shared details of the Indian “high-speed flying object”.

India, in a statement on March 11, termed it an accident.

Gen. Bajwa said it was a matter of “serious concern” and “we expect India to provide evidence to assure Pakistan and the world that their weapons are safe and secure.” “Unlike other incidents involving strategic weapons systems, this is the first time in history that a supersonic cruise missile from one nuclear-armed nation has landed in another,” he said.

He also said that a “peaceful and prosperous West and South Asia is our goal” and Pakistan’s National Security Policy focuses on the promotion of national security cohesion and harmony through the precepts of unity and diversity.

Recognizing that it is the regions and not countries that grow, the COAS said: “We believe that peace and stability in our wider region are prerequisites for achieving shared regional prosperity and development.” “Our doors are open for all our neighbours,” he said.

Gen. Bajwa termed the situation on the Line of Control (LoC) as “satisfactory and fairly peaceful”, saying mercifully no incident had taken place along the LoC in the last year to the relief of the people living on both sides. He said that Pakistan believes in peace and using dialogue for resolving issues.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has created one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times. A month into the war, more than 3.7 million Ukrainians have fled to neighboring countries – the sixth-largest refugee outflow over the past 60-plus years, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of United Nations data.

There are now almost as many Ukrainian refugees as there were Afghan refugees fleeing the (first) Taliban regime in 2001, according to figures compiled by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). They represent about 9.1% of Ukraine’s pre-invasion population of about 41.1 million – ranking the current crisis 16th among 28 major refugee crises by share of population.

The Center examined all cases in the UNHCR’s database since 1960 where there were at least 500,000 refugees and similarly displaced people from a given country in a given year. The analysis doesn’t include “internally displaced persons” – those who have fled or been forced from their usual homes but haven’t yet crossed an international border. (Earlier this week, UNHCR head Filippo Grandi estimated that, all told, 10 million Ukrainians – nearly a quarter of the population – had been displaced either internally or externally by the war.)

How we did this

Syria’s civil war, which began in 2011, has created more refugees than any other crisis since the early 1960s, when UNHCR began keeping data on individual countries. Nearly 6.9 million Syrians – about a third of the country’s prewar population – are living as refugees or asylum-seekers outside their home country, with almost 3.7 million now in Turkey. An additional 6.8 million Syrians have been displaced from their homes but are living elsewhere in the country – meaning the civil war has uprooted about two-thirds of Syria’s entire population.

Afghanistan, which has been at war either with itself or with outside forces for more than four decades, has had more than 2 million refugees every year since 1981. The peak year was 1990, after Soviet troops had withdrawn from the country and the USSR-backed government was battling to hang onto power against a coalition of mujahedeen groups. That year, more than half the country’s total estimated population – 6.3 million people – were listed as refugees.

Venezuela has also seen massive population outflows over the past several years as the country’s economy has all but collapsed, its government has cracked down on dissent, and opposition efforts to unseat President Nicolas Maduro’s government have stalled. According to the UNHCR, more than 5 million Venezuelans are refugees in other countries, are seeking asylum, or have been otherwise displaced abroad – all told, about 15% of the current estimated population.

Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations: Addressing the Press on the war in Ukraine

Ukraine is on fire. The country is being decimated before the eyes of the world. The impact on civilians is reaching terrifying proportions.

Countless innocent people – including women and children – have been killed. After being hit by Russian forces, roads, airports and schools lie in ruins.

According to the World Health Organization, at least 24 health facilities have suffered attacks. Hundreds of thousands of people are without water or electricity. With each passing hour, two things are increasingly clear:

First — it keeps getting worse. Second — whatever the outcome, this war will have no winners, only losers.

The United Nations and humanitarian partners are working to ensure safe passage from besieged areas and to provide aid where security permits. More than 600,000 people have received some form of aid.

As millions of people in Ukraine face hunger and dwindling supplies of water and medicine, I am announcing today that the United Nations will allocate a further $40 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund to ramp up vital assistance to reach the most vulnerable, as we wait for the nations to come.

This funding will help get critical supplies of food, water, medicines, and other lifesaving aid into the country, as well as provide cash assistance to the needy.

But the avenues in and out of encircled cities are more precarious by the day. I underscore the crucial importance of respecting international humanitarian law. At least 1.9 million people are displaced inside the country, and growing numbers are escaping across borders.

I am deeply grateful for the solidarity of Ukraine’s neighbours and other host countries, who have taken in more than 2.8 million refugees in the past two weeks. The vast majority of those making the treacherous journey are women and children who are increasingly vulnerable.

For predators and human traffickers, war is not a tragedy. It is an opportunity. And women and children are the targets. They need safety and support every step of the way.

I will continue to highlight the desperate plight of the people of Ukraine as I am doing again today.

Yet there is another dimension of this conflict that gets obscured. This war goes far beyond Ukraine.
It is also an assault on the world’s most vulnerable people and countries.

While war rains over Ukraine, a sword of Damocles hangs over the global economy – especially in the developing world. Even before the conflict, developing countries were struggling to recover from the pandemic – with record inflation, rising interest rates and looming debt burdens.

Their ability to respond has been erased by exponential increases in the cost of financing. Now their breadbasket is being bombed.

Russia and Ukraine represent more than half of the world’s supply of sunflower oil and about 30 percent of the world’s wheat. Ukraine alone provides more than half of the World Food Programme’s wheat supply.

Food, fuel and fertilizer prices are skyrocketing. Supply chains are being disrupted. And the costs and delays of transportation of imported goods – when available – are at record levels. All of this is hitting the poorest the hardest and planting the seeds for political instability and unrest around the globe.

Grain prices have already exceeded those at the start of the Arab Spring and the food riots of 2007-2008. The FAO’s global food prices index is at its highest level ever.

Forty-five African and least developed countries import at least one-third of their wheat from Ukraine [or] Russia – 18 of those countries import at least 50 percent. This includes countries like Burkina Faso, Egypt, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

We must do everything possible to avert a hurricane of hunger and a meltdown of the global food system. In addition, we are seeing clear evidence of this war draining resources and attention from other trouble-spots in desperate need.

I renew my appeal for countries to find creative ways to finance increased humanitarian and development recovery needs worldwide, and to give generously and to immediately release pledged funds. My plea to leaders is to resist the temptation of increasing military budgets at the expense of Official Development Assistance and climate action.

In a word, developing countries are getting pummeled. They face a cascade of crises – beyond the Ukraine war, we cannot forget COVID and the impacts of climate change – in particular, drought.

Against the backdrop of these immense inter-connected challenges, I am announcing today the establishment of a Global Crisis Response Group on Food, Energy and Finance in the UN Secretariat.

I have also asked the Deputy Secretary-General to lead an inter-agency steering committee with partners to oversee this effort. In the coming days, we will be consulting with Member States willing to champion the actions needed to carry forward the global emergency response that will be required for these looming crises.

Make no mistake: everyday people, especially women and children, will bear the brunt of this unfolding tragedy. The war also shows how the global addiction to fossil fuels is placing energy security, climate action and the entire global economy at the mercy of geopolitics.

Finally, further escalation of the war, whether by accident or design, threatens all of humanity. Raising the alert of Russian nuclear forces is a bone-chilling development.

The prospect of nuclear conflict, once unthinkable, is now back within the realm of possibility. The security and safety of nuclear facilities must also be preserved.

It’s time to stop the horror unleashed on the people of Ukraine and get on the path of diplomacy and peace. I have been in close contact with a number of countries – including China, France, Germany, India, Israel and Turkey – on mediation efforts to bring an end to this war.

The appeals for peace must be heard. This tragedy must stop. It is never too late for diplomacy and dialogue.

We need an immediate cessation of hostilities and serious negotiations based on the principles of the UN Charter and international law.

We need peace. Peace for the people of Ukraine. Peace for the world.

We need peace now.

People with loved ones trapped inside the besieged city of Mariupol in Ukrainewere trying desperately to connect to phones inside the city, which has been virtually cut off from the outside world by an escalating and indiscriminate bombing campaign by Russian forces.

As the Putin sent forces invade and destroy Ukraine, there is a loud and growing chorus of calls for the International Criminal Court to pursue Vladimir Putin. On March 2, the court said it would immediately proceed with an active investigation of possible war crimes following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The US Embassy in Kyiv said two days later that Russia committed a war crime by attacking a nuclear power plant in Ukraine. “It is a war crime to attack a nuclear power plant,” the embassy said on its official Twitter feed. “Putin’s shelling of Europe’s largest nuclear plant takes his reign of terror one step further.”

Russia’s suspected use of cluster bombs and so-called vacuum bombs in dense areas with many civilians has also been described as a war crime. Mariupol, a city of about 400,000, is a key strategic target for Russia because seizing it would allow Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine to join forces with troops in Crimea, the southern peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.

The city has now been subjected to nine days of heavy bombardment by Russian forces, destroying apartment buildings and flattening residential areas. Footage verified by the BBC showed shelling on Thursday, confirming a statement by the city council that the bombardment was ongoing.

Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said that the situation in Mariupol was the most difficult in the country. Municipal authorities have finally been able to begin collecting and burying bodies which had been in the streets, the deputy mayor Serhiy Orlov told the BBC on Thursday. City officials estimated 1,300 civilians had been killed so far, Mr Orlov said.

“There is no possibility of private graves, because of the high numbers and because of the continuous shelling. They are being put into mass graves,” he said. Ms Berg said the news of the mass graves had spread through the Telegram chat groups people are using to monitor the situation inside the city. “We have no news from our friends, all we know is they could be buried in those mass graves,” she said.

Numerous planned evacuation attempts for Mariupol residents have collapsed over the past five days after Russian forces have resumed shelling the city, despite ceasefire agreements. Mr Orlov said city officials were ready at any moment to put evacuation plans into place but no agreement could be reached with Russia on establishing a humanitarian corridor. There are growing fears now of a serious humanitarian crisis inside Mariupol, following widespread reports that people were trying to take water from snow and had no access to food or medicines.

Russia claimed on Thursday that the maternity ward destroyed in the attack had been taken over by Ukrainian troops long before it was hit, but images from the scene captured by the Associated Press news agency showed medical staff outside after the blast and a pregnant woman being carried out of the building in a stretcher. “Thank god most of the people there were in the bomb shelter already,” Mr Orlov, the deputy mayor said. “Otherwise it would have been much worse.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the strike an “atrocity” and reiterated his call for world powers to enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine – a request that has so far been denied. The foreign minister, Mr Kuleba said on Thursday that his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov had told Ukrainian officials Russia would continue its aggression until Ukraine met all its demands, including surrender.

The US Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told the UN General Assembly on March 2 that Russia was preparing to use these weapons.  The US is concerned Putin and the Russian military will become more brutal since the invasion is not going as smoothly as they had planned.

“One thing is certain, that intentionally directing shelling or targeting civilians or civilian objects is a crime within the jurisdiction of the court,” the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on March 3. “And even if there’s military necessity, there’s a clear obligation upon parties to a conflict to not use disproportionate force, to make sure the ordnance used and the weapons don’t have a very wide footprint in heavy civilian areas,” said Khan.

“Whether it’s cluster bombs or thermobaric weapons, commanders in the battlefield need to use great discretion and with great diligence decide how they wish to wage conflict now that it started,” Khan told the media. “And the law is here and the court is watching, and we have experts that will try to get to the bottom of it,” he said.

“I want to be very clear about this, that Mr. Putin is a war criminal,” former Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told the Council on Foreign Relations recently. “He has to sit behind the bars in International Criminal Court.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine has been a clarifying moment. Since he came to power in 2000, various Western leaders have tried to cooperate, accommodate, or negotiate with him. But by embarking on a war of choice against a country he claims doesn’t have a right to exist, Putin has forced the international community to see him for what he is: a belligerent leader with a remarkable capacity for destruction. The result has been sweeping new measures designed to constrict and constrain him—punishing sanctions against Russia’s financial institutions, bans on Russian planes over EU airspace, and increased weapons shipments to Ukraine. Even Germany, long reluctant to confront Putin, agreed to exclude Russian banks from the SWIFT financial messaging system, reversed its long-standing prohibition on providing arms to conflict zones, and substantially increased its military spending. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sparked nothing less than a sea change in international perceptions of Putin and what must be done to confront him.

Such a sea change could well be underway inside Russia, too. Throughout his tenure, Putin has maintained relatively high levels of public support thanks in large part to his ability to restore economic growth and stability after the turmoil of the 1990s. While most Russians have few illusions about their leader, recognizing the corruption that benefits him and the elite around him, it remained all but unfathomable to most Russians that Putin would launch a major conventional war against their Ukrainian neighbors. For months, many Russian analysts, commentators, and citizens alike were convinced that Putin would not engage in such an act of aggression. The news of the war and the economic ramifications that followed have led Russians to see both Putin and Russia differently; Russia is not the same today as it was last week.

The prevailing wisdom holds that Putin will be able to survive any domestic backlash. That is most likely true. In personalist authoritarian regimes—where power is concentrated in the hands of an individual rather than shared by a party, military junta, or royal family—the leader is rarely driven from office by wars, even when they experience defeat. That’s both because other elites are not strong enough to hold the dictator to account and because domestic audiences have few opportunities to punish leaders for their actions. But the thing about repressive regimes like Putin’s Russia is that they often look stable right up to the point that they are not. Putin has taken a major risk in attacking Ukraine, and there is a chance—one that seems to be growing—that it could mark the beginning of his end.

There are good reasons to believe that Putin can withstand the backlash from his war. He has gone to great lengths in the last year to crack down on Russian civil society, political opposition, journalists, and the information environment. The regime’s brazen poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and banning of Memorial, the country’s most important post-Soviet human rights civic institution underscore the regime’s commitment to using repression to maintain control. Russians have gotten the message. According to polling by the Levada Center in 2021, 52 percent of Russians fear mass repression, and 58 percent are scared they will be arbitrarily arrested or otherwise harmed by the authorities—the highest these indicators have been since 1994. Such an uptick in repression is common late in the tenures of longtime autocrats. The longer these authoritarians remain in power, the more they lose touch with their societies and the less they have to offer their citizens. As a result, they have few other ways to sustain their rule.

Along with repression, Putin can manipulate Russia’s information environment, shaping the way many Russians understand events in Ukraine. Already, Russia’s security actors are harassing individuals who post antiwar messages on social media and censoring facts and details about the war. The authorities also moved to shut down Echo Moskvy, an independent radio station broadcasting in Russia since 1990. Although younger generations get more information from non-state-controlled outlets, the regime remains dominant in the information space. Before Russia invaded Ukraine, polls show that large majorities of Russians supported recognizing the Russian-backed breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine as independent countries and that they blamed Ukraine and NATO for the conflict.

Together, repression and information control could help prevent Russia’s antiwar protests from catching on. So far, the regime has arrested more than 5,000 people for actively demonstrating against Russia’s invasion, which may deter others from joining. While other Russians may be willing to risk arrest if they think the demonstrations will snowball, censorship makes it difficult for potential protesters to know how many citizens are upset with the war. Most likely, the Putin regime will only further ratchet up repression to deal with a more restive Russian public. Personalist regimes are more likely to use repression in response to protests than are other autocracies, and they are especially likely to do so when engaging in expansionist territorial conflicts (as Putin has with Ukraine). Moreover, many of the Russians fed up with Putin will opt to leave Russia, as some already have, reducing the pressure mounting against the regime.

Putin has also gone to great lengths to inoculate himself against another threat: elite defection. In a highly choreographed meeting of his national security council, Russia’s president forced each member of his team to publicly pledge their support for his decision to recognize the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk, the two separatist regions in eastern Ukraine. This reduced the council members’ ability to credibly defect and claim that Putin is taking Russia in the wrong direction. Likewise, Putin convened his country’s most powerful businessmen the day after the campaign against Ukraine began to discuss the economic shocks that would follow. Putin’s goal was clear—remind them that their fates are tied to his continuation in power.

ALL FALLS DOWN

But there are also good reasons that the tides might turn. Despite the repression, protests have taken place in more than 58 cities across Russia. The early demonstrations are remarkable not just for the bravery that they reflect, but also for the potential that they hold—protests in highly repressive regimes are more likely to be successful than protests in less repressive environments. That is because when people take to the streets even when the costs of doing so are high, it sends a powerful signal to other citizens that their dissent is shared. In this way, these early antiwar protests have the potential to trigger cascading opposition. The fact that Russians view Putin’s war as being unjust and egregious makes it especially likely to prompt widespread backlash. It is moments of acute injustice that have the greatest ability to mobilize people—as when Tunisian fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire after local officials humiliated him and confiscated his wares, launching the Arab Spring in 2011.

The war also has famous and influential domestic opponents—and they are not just known dissidents. Several Russian celebrities have signed letters opposing the war. Russian tennis star Andrei Rublev wrote “no war please” on a TV camera. The Russian head of a delegation at a major UN climate conference apologized for his country’s invasion of Ukraine, and the daughter of Putin’s press secretary reportedly posted “no war” on her Instagram account. (She deleted it hours later.) There are even signs that Putin’s cozy oligarchs are getting uncomfortable. Former energy magnate Anatoly Chubais posted a picture of Boris Nemtsov, a Russian opposition leader murdered in front of the Kremlin, on his Facebook page. Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska called for peace and negotiations.

Even if Putin’s actions don’t immediately push him from power, the war in Ukraine creates long-term vulnerabilities. Punishing economic sanctions are already shredding the value of the ruble, and the economic damage is expected to intensify. Over time, this could weaken Putin domestically. Personalist dictatorships generally cut government spending when faced with sanctions, making life even harder for average citizens and increasing the odds of growing unrest. Sanctions also tend to be more effective when targeted at personalist authoritarian regimes than when aimed at other types of autocracies because personalist dictators are the most dependent on patronage to keep power. So far, Russia’s elite have never had to choose between the life they wanted and Putin. But Chubais’s and Deripaska’s comments hint that could change as the effect of the sanctions sets in, especially if they are coupled with stepped-up anticorruption efforts by the United States and Europe. If they are squeezed tight enough, Russia’s elites may come to decide that Putin can no longer guarantee their future interests and try to replace him with a leader who would withdraw from Ukraine and prompt the West to unfreeze their assets.

Finally, the conflict in Ukraine may well evolve into a drawn-out insurgency that slowly saps the patience of the Russian public. Research shows that personalist dictators are more willing than other authoritarians to tolerate military disputes with high casualties, but that doesn’t mean their citizens are. In Libya, for example, former leader Muammar al-Qaddafi engaged in heavy-handed repression to maintain control of the country as the costs of his wars increased. But eventually, when faced with dire economic conditions, ordinary citizens violently overthrew his government. In the Soviet Union, a lengthy and expensive invasion of Afghanistan helped drain faith in the Communist Party’s regime. It is not inconceivable that Putin’s grip on Russia will slip if Ukraine becomes a morass.

LOSING TOUCH

Predicting the downfall of an authoritarian leader is a fool’s errand. Weak and embattled autocrats can limp along far longer than analysts expect. Former Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe survived hyperinflation and electoral defeat, staying in power until just two years before his death. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro remains in office, even though Venezuela’s economy has utterly collapsed. Similarly, leaders that appear strong can be suddenly ousted, as happened to former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in 2011 and Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali that same year.

But analysts do know that personalist leaders such as Putin are more likely to make foreign policy mistakes than are other autocrats. They surround themselves with yes men who only tell them what they want to hear and withhold bad news, making it difficult for these dictators to make well-informed decisions. Whether or not Putin’s war of choice becomes the mistake that unseats him from power is an open question. But Russia is experiencing rising dissatisfaction from the public, fissures among its elite, and broad-based international punishment. Putin’s downfall may not come tomorrow or the day after, but his grip on power is certainly more tenuous than it was before he invaded Ukraine.

US President Joe Biden has said that he had a “constructive conversation” with the Quad leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on the Ukraine crisis as he reiterated the four-nation grouping’s commitment to sovereignty and territorial integrity around the world, including in the Indo-Pacific.

Psaki added that Biden suggested that members of their national security team should follow up going forward. The Quad leaders convened a virtual meeting on Mar.2 where they discussed the ongoing conflict and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and assessed its broader implications also reaffirmed their commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.

Besides PM Modi, the meeting hosted by President Biden on Wednesday was attended by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

“I met with my fellow Quad leaders Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Prime Minister Kishida Fumio about Russia’s ongoing attack on Ukraine and our commitment to sovereignty and territorial integrity around the world, including in the Indo-Pacific,” Biden tweeted after the meeting.

During the virtual meeting, the Quad leaders prominently discussed Russia’s military operation in Ukraine and the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the eastern European nation.

“The President felt it was a constructive conversation,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters at her daily news conference.

“The Quad leaders reaffirmed their commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific region, and agreed to meet in person in Tokyo later this year,” the White House said in a press release, indicating that China’s growing assertiveness in the region came up for discussion.

President Biden suggested that members of the respective national security teams should also follow up after the meeting of the four heads of state, Psaki said.

“He (Biden) asked members of their national security team to follow up from there,” Psaki told reporters.

“But I’m not going to get into more details about the conversation beyond that,” she said in response to a question whether India’s defence ties with Russia were discussed.

The Quad meeting took place a day after the US, Australia and Japan supported a resolution at the UN General Assembly to demand an immediate halt to Russia’s attack on Ukraine and the withdrawal of all Russian troops. India abstained from Wednesday’s vote.

In November 2017, the US, India, Australia and Japan gave shape to the long-pending proposal of setting up the four-nation Quad grouping to develop a new strategy to keep the critical sea routes in the Indo-Pacific free of any influence, amid China’s growing military presence in the strategic region.

In March last year, Biden hosted the first-ever summit of the Quad leaders in the virtual format that was followed by an in-person summit in Washington in September for which Prime Minister Modi had travelled to the US.

The Quad has been focusing on cooperation in areas such as producing vaccines, connectivity projects, facilitating the mobility of students, and looking at promoting startups and technology collaboration.

On the question of whether India-Russia military ties were discussed during the Quad meet, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Mar.4, “US President Joe Biden felt it was a constructive conversation.”

Quad leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed their commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific, in which the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states is respected, and countries are free from military, economic, and political coercion, the White House said.

The White House said that the Quad leaders reaffirmed their dedication to the Quad as a mechanism to promote regional stability and prosperity.

“They agreed to set up a new humanitarian assistance and disaster relief mechanism which will enable the Quad to meet future humanitarian challenges in the Indo-Pacific and provide a channel for communication as they each address and respond to the crisis in Ukraine,” said the White House.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian troops Friday seized the biggest nuclear power plant in Europe after a middle-of-the-night attack that set it on fire and briefly raised worldwide fears of a catastrophe in the most chilling turn yet in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Firefighters put out the blaze, and no radiation was released, U.N. and Ukrainian officials said, as Russian forces pressed on with their week-old offensive on multiple fronts and the number of refugees fleeing the country eclipsed 1.2 million.

With world condemnation mounting, the Kremlin cracked down on the flow of information at home, blocking Facebook, Twitter, the BBC and the U.S. government-funded Voice of America. And President Vladimir Putin signed a law making it a crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison to spread so-called fake news, including anything that goes against the official government line on the war.

While the vast Russian armored column threatening Kyiv remained stalled outside the capital, Putin’s military has launched hundreds of missiles and artillery attacks on cities and other sites across the country, and made significant gains on the ground in the south in an apparent bid to cut off Ukraine’s access to the sea.

In the attack on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in the southeastern city of Enerhodar, the chief of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, said a Russian “projectile” hit a training center, not any of the six reactors.

The attack triggered global alarm and fear of a catastrophe that could dwarf the world’s worst nuclear disaster, at Ukraine’s Chernobyl in 1986. In an emotional nighttime speech, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he feared an explosion that would be “the end for everyone. The end for Europe. The evacuation of Europe.”

But nuclear officials from Sweden to China said no radiation spikes had been reported, as did Grossi.

Authorities said Russian troops had taken control of the overall site but plant staff continued to run it. Only one reactor was operating, at 60% of capacity, Grossi said in the aftermath of the attack.

Two people were injured in the fire, Grossi said. Ukraine’s state nuclear plant operator Enerhoatom said three Ukrainian soldiers were killed and two wounded.

In the U.S., Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the episode “underscores the recklessness with which the Russians have been perpetrating this unprovoked invasion.” At an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council, Ukraine’s U.N. ambassador, Sergiy Kyslytsya, said the fire broke out as a result of Russian shelling of the plant and accused Moscow of committing “an act of nuclear terrorism.”

Without producing evidence, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov claimed that a Ukrainian “sabotage group” had set the fire at Zaporizhzhia.

The crisis unfolded after Grossi earlier in the week expressed grave concern that the fighting could cause accidental damage to Ukraine’s 15 nuclear reactors at four plants around the country.

Atomic safety experts said a war fought amid nuclear reactors represents an unprecedented and highly dangerous situation.

“These plants are now in a situation that few people ever seriously contemplated when they were originally built,” said Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington. “No nuclear plant has been designed to withstand a potential threat of a full-scale military attack.”

Dr. Alex Rosen of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War said the incident was probably the result of military units overestimating the precision of their weapons, given that the prevailing winds would have carried any radioactive fallout straight toward Russia.

“Russia cannot have any interest in contaminating its own territory,” he said. He said the danger comes not just from the reactors but from the risk of enemy fire hitting storage facilities that hold spent fuel rods.

In the wake of the attack, Zelenskyy appealed again to the West to enforce a no-fly zone over his country. But NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg ruled out that possibility, citing the risk of a much wider war in Europe. He said that to enforce a no-fly zone, NATO planes would have to shoot down Russian aircraft.

“We understand the desperation, but we also believe that if we did that, we would end up with something that could end in a full-fledged war in Europe,” Stoltenberg said.

The plant fire was the second time since the invasion began that concerns about a potential nuclear accident arose, after a battle at the heavily contaminated site of the now-decommissioned Chernobyl plant.

Russian forces, meanwhile, pressed their offensive in the southern part of the country. Severing Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov would deal a severe blow to its economy and could worsen an already dire humanitarian situation.

A round of talks between Russia and Ukraine yielded a tentative agreement Thursday to set up safe corridors to evacuate citizens and deliver food and medicine. But the necessary details still had to be worked out.

The U.N. human rights office said 331 civilians had been confirmed killed in the invasion but the true number is probably much higher.

In Romania, one newly arrived refugee, Anton Kostyuchyk, struggled to hold back tears as he recounted leaving everything behind in Kyiv and sleeping in churches with his wife and three children during their journey out.

“I’m leaving my home, my country. I was born there, and I lived there,” he said. “And what now?”

Appearing on video in a message to antiwar protesters in several European cities, Zelenskyy continued to appeal for help.

“If we fall, you will fall,” he said. “And if we win, and I’m sure we’ll win, this will be the victory of the whole democratic world. This will be the victory of our freedom. This will be the victory of light over darkness, of freedom over slavery.”

Inside Ukraine, frequent shelling could be heard in the center of Kyiv, though more distant than in recent days, with loud thudding every 10 minutes resonating over the rooftops.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovich said battles involving airstrikes and artillery continued northwest of Kyiv, and the northeastern cities of Kharkiv and Okhtyrka came under heavy fire.

He said Ukrainian forces were still holding the northern city of Chernihiv and had prevented Russian efforts to take the important southern city of Mykolaiv. Ukrainian artillery also defended Odesa from repeated attempts by Russian ships to fire on the Black Sea port, Arestovich said. Odesa is Ukraine’s biggest port city and home to a large naval base.

The Ukrainian Navy scuttled its flagship at the shipyard where it was undergoing repairs to keep the frigate from being seized by the Russians, authorities said.

Another strategic port, Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov, was “partially under siege,” and Ukrainian forces were pushing back efforts to surround the city, Arestovich said. The fighting has knocked out the city’s electricity, heat and water systems, as well as most phone service, officials said.

“The humanitarian situation is tense,” he said. Amid the warfare, there were occasional signs of hope.

As explosions sounded on the fringes of Kyiv, Dmytro Shybalov and Anna Panasyk smiled and blushed at the civil registry office where they married Friday. They fell in love in 2015 in Donetsk amid the fighting between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces that was a precursor to the countrywide war.

“It’s 2022 and the situation hasn’t changed,” Shybalov said. “It’s scary to think what will happen when our children will be born.”

The U.N. General Assembly has voted to demand that Russia stop its offensive in Ukraine and withdraw all troops, with nations from world powers to tiny island states condemning Moscow’s actions

The U.N. General Assembly voted at an emergency session Wednesday to demand an immediate halt to Moscow’s attack on Ukraine and the withdrawal of all Russian troops, with sustained applause breaking out after a formidable show of support among the 193 member nations against the invasion.

The vote on the “Aggression against Ukraine” resolution was 141-5, with 35 abstentions. It came as Russia bombarded Ukraine’s second-largest city and besieged two important ports, and a huge convoy of Russian military vehicles was poised outside the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.

Only Belarus, Syria, North Korea and Eritrea joined Russia in opposing the measure, a powerful indication of the international isolation that Russian President Vladimir Putin faces for invading his country’s smaller neighbor — and that the resolution’s supporters sought to emphasize.

The abstentions included China and India, as expected, but also some surprises from usual Russian allies Cuba and Nicaragua. And the United Arab Emirates, which abstained on Friday’s similar Security Council resolution, voted “yes.”

Cuba had spoken in Russia’s defense on Tuesday, with Ambassador Pedro Luis Cuesta blaming the crisis on what he said is the U.S. determination to keep expanding NATO toward Russia’s borders and on the delivery of modern weapons to Ukraine, ignoring Russia’s concerns for its own security. He told the assembly the resolution “suffers from lack of balance” and doesn’t begin to address the concerns of both parties, or “the responsibility of those who took aggressive actions which precipitated the escalation of this conflict.”

Unlike Security Council resolutions, General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding, but they do have clout in reflecting international opinion. Under special emergency session rules, a resolution needs approval of two-thirds of those countries voting, and abstentions don’t count.

From Washington, U.S. President Joe Biden called the special session historic and a demonstration of “unprecedented global unity.”

“An overwhelming majority of the world recognizes that if we do not stand up to Putin’s Russia, it will only inflict further chaos and aggression on the world,” Biden said in a statement.

After Russia vetoed a similar Security Council resolution Friday, Ukraine and its supporters won approval for the assembly to hold an emergency special session — the first since 1997 — to try to spotlight opposition to Russia’s invasion.

Deploring Russia’s “aggression” against Ukraine “in the strongest terms,” the measure demands an immediate halt to Moscow’s use of force and the immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of all Russian forces.

The resolution says that Russia’s military operations in Ukraine “are on a scale that the international community has not seen in Europe in decades and that urgent action is needed to save this generation from the scourge of war.” It “urges the immediate peaceful resolution of the conflict” and reaffirms the assembly’s commitment “to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders.”

The measure also condemns “the Russian Federation’s decision to increase the readiness of its nuclear forces” — an issue raised by many U.N. members concerned about that prospect.

Before the vote, Ukraine’s U.N. ambassador, Sergiy Kyslytsya, told the assembly, “They have come to the Ukrainian soil, not only to kill some of us … they have come to deprive Ukraine of the very right to exist.” He said that “the crimes are so barbaric that it is difficult to comprehend.”

Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia urged U.N. members to vote against the resolution, contending Western nations exerted “unprecedented pressure” with “open and cynical threats” to get support for the measure.

“This document will not allow us to end military activities. On the contrary, it could embolden Kyiv radicals and nationalists to continue to determine the policy of their country at any price,” Nebenzia warned.

“Your refusal to support today’s draft resolution is a vote for a peaceful Ukraine” that would not “be managed from the outside,” he said. “This was the aim of our special military operation, which the sponsors of this resolution tried to present as aggression.”

The resolution also calls on Russia to reverse a decision to recognize two separatist parts of eastern Ukraine as independent. The measure further deplores “the involvement of Belarus in this unlawful use of force against Ukraine,” a characterization that Belarussian Ambassador Valentin Rybakov flatly rejected in his speech to the assembly shortly before the vote.

He said Belarus’ only involvement in the conflict was organizing talks, due to continue Thursday, between Russia and Ukraine. Belarus has taken Russia’s side, with Rybakov saying the resolution reflected “double standards” toward Russia and the West.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters immediately after the vote: “The message of the General Assembly is loud and clear: End hostilities in Ukraine — now. Silence the guns — now. Open the door to dialogue and diplomacy — now.”

“We don’t have a moment to lose,” he said. “The brutal effects of the conflict are plain to see … It threatens to get much, much worse.”

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield urged all countries to “keep the momentum going,” do everything possible to help the Ukrainian people, hold Russia accountable and “match our strong words with strong actions.”

Explaining China’s abstention, Ambassador Zhang Jun used more emotional language than at previous U.N. meetings, citing “dramatic changes of the situation in Ukraine” and calling what is unfolding “heart wrenching.” He reiterated Beijing’s support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, and for the peaceful settlements of all disputes in line with the U.N. Charter.

“The top priority right now is to ease the situation on the ground as much as possible, and prevent the situation from escalating or even getting out of control,” Zhang said.

During more than two days of meetings preceding the vote, there were speeches from about 120 countries.

From the tiny Pacific island nation of Palau to Europe’s economic powerhouse Germany, country after country lashed out at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and urged support for the U.N. resolution.

There were only a few that supported Russia and some that took no position, such as South Africa. Urging compromise and diplomacy to find a lasting resolution to the crisis, South Africa abstained.

The resolution’s co-sponsors included Afghanistan, where the Taliban ousted the elected government last August, and Myanmar, where the military overthrew the elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 1, 2021. But neither the Taliban nor Myanmar’s military government have gained U.N. recognition, so that support came from representatives of their previous governments.

During the meeting, some supporters of the resolution had signs under the nameplates of their countries in Ukraine’s blue and yellow colors reading: ”#TodayWeAreAllUkraine.”

British Ambassador Barbara Woodward said the vote sent a clear message that the assembly condemns Putin and supports Ukraine.

“We have stood up against those who seek to redraw the world’s borders by threat or use of force,” she said. “For if President Putin’s aggression against Ukraine goes unchecked, which country could be next?”

Israeli and Palestinian public figures have drawn up a new proposal for a two-state confederation that they hope will offer a way forward after a decade-long stalemate in Mideast peace efforts.

The plan includes several controversial proposals, and it’s unclear if it has any support among leaders on either side. But it could help shape the debate over the conflict and will be presented to a senior U.S. official and the U.N. secretary-general this week.

The plan calls for an independent state of Palestine in most of the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, territories Israel seized in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel and Palestine would have separate governments but coordinate at a very high level on security, infrastructure and other issues that affect both populations.

The plan would allow the nearly 500,000 Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank to remain there, with large settlements near the border annexed to Israel in a one-to-one land swap.

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Settlers living deep inside the West Bank would be given the option of relocating or becoming permanent residents in the state of Palestine. The same number of Palestinians — likely refugees from the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation — would be allowed to relocate to Israel as citizens of Palestine with permanent residency in Israel.

The initiative is largely based on the Geneva Accord, a detailed, comprehensive peace plan drawn up in 2003 by prominent Israelis and Palestinians, including former officials. The nearly 100-page confederation plan includes new, detailed recommendations for how to address core issues.

Yossi Beilin, a former senior Israeli official and peace negotiator who co-founded the Geneva Initiative, said that by taking the mass evacuation of settlers off the table, the plan could be more amenable to them.

Israel’s political system is dominated by the settlers and their supporters, who view the West Bank as the biblical and historical heartland of the Jewish people and an integral part of Israel.

The Palestinians view the settlements as the main obstacle to peace, and most of the international community considers them illegal. The settlers living deep inside the West Bank — who would likely end up within the borders of a future Palestinian state — are among the most radical and tend to oppose any territorial partition.

“We believe that if there is no threat of confrontations with the settlers it would be much easier for those who want to have a two-state solution,” Beilin said. The idea has been discussed before, but he said a confederation would make it more “feasible.”

Numerous other sticking points remain, including security, freedom of movement and perhaps most critically after years of violence and failed negotiations, lack of trust.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry and the Palestinian Authority declined to comment.

The main Palestinian figure behind the initiative is Hiba Husseini, a former legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team going back to 1994 who hails from a prominent Jerusalem family. Other contributors include Israeli and Palestinian professors and two retired Israeli generals.

Husseini acknowledged that the proposal regarding the settlers is “very controversial” but said the overall plan would fulfill the Palestinians’ core aspiration for a state of their own.

“It’s not going to be easy,” she added. “To achieve statehood and to achieve the desired right of self-determination that we have been working on — since 1948, really — we have to make some compromises.”

Thorny issues like the conflicting claims to Jerusalem, final borders and the fate of Palestinian refugees could be easier to address by two states in the context of a confederation, rather than the traditional approach of trying to work out all the details ahead of a final agreement.

“We’re reversing the process and starting with recognition,” Husseini said.

It’s been nearly three decades since Israeli and Palestinian leaders gathered on the White House lawn to sign the Oslo accords, launching the peace process.

Several rounds of talks over the years, punctuated by outbursts of violence, failed to yield a final agreement, and there have been no serious or substantive negotiations in more than a decade.

Israel’s current prime minister, Naftali Bennett, is a former settler leader opposed to Palestinian statehood. Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, who is set to take over as prime minister in 2023 under a rotation agreement, supports an eventual two-state solution.

But neither is likely to be able to launch any major initiatives because they head a narrow coalition spanning the political spectrum from hard-line nationalist factions to a small Arab party.

On the Palestinian side, President Mahmoud Abbas’ authority is confined to parts of the occupied West Bank, with the Islamic militant group Hamas — which doesn’t accept Israel’s existence — ruling Gaza. Abbas’ presidential term expired in 2009 and his popularity has plummeted in recent years, meaning he is unlikely to be able to make any historic compromises.

The idea of the two-state solution was to give the Palestinians an independent state, while allowing Israel to exist as a democracy with a strong Jewish majority. Israel’s continued expansion of settlements, the absence of any peace process and repeated rounds of violence, however, have greatly complicated hopes of partitioning the land.

The international community still views a two-state solution as the only realistic way to resolve the conflict.

But the ground is shifting, particularly among young Palestinians, who increasingly view the conflict as a struggle for equal rights under what they — and three prominent human rights groups — say is an apartheid regime.

Israel vehemently rejects those allegations, viewing them as an antisemitic attack on its right to exist. Lapid has suggested that reviving a political process with the Palestinians would help Israel resist any efforts to brand it an apartheid state in world bodies.

Next week, Beilin and Husseini will present their plan to U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Beilin says they have already shared drafts with Israeli and Palestinian officials.

Beilin said he sent it to people who he knew would not reject it out of hand. “Nobody rejected it. It doesn’t mean that they embrace it.”

“I didn’t send it to Hamas,” he added, joking. “I don’t know their address.”

The Hindu Policy Research and Advocacy Collective (HinduPACT) urges President Joe Biden to reject Pakistan’s Ambassador-Designate to the United States – a known terrorist sympathizer – Masood Khan and to appoint a religious minority in his place. This will reflect that Pakistan is taking a tangible first step towards ending the state sponsored violence against religious minorities within their borders.

Masood Khan has been open and vocal about his support for convicted terrorist Aafia Siddiqui, who is known colloquially as “Lady al-Qaeda.” He has also supported UN designated terrorist organizations like Hizbul Mujahideen – which he praised as “a role model for freedom fighters across the globe” –, Jamaat-e-Islami – which was directly involved with helping the Pakistani military commit the egregious genocide against hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshi religious minorities in 1971 –, and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen – which has ties to the late Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Khan even attended at least one event with promoters of Hizbul Mujahideen during which convicted spy Ghulam Nabi Fai was a speaker.

Khan openly praised convicted terrorist, ISIS supporter and commander of Hizbul Mujahideen Burhan Wani; a machine gun touting jihadist. On the fifth anniversary of his death, in July 2021, Khan stated: “Don’t think for a minute that Burhan Wani is dead or gone. Burhani Wani lives in our hearts and stands tall. He sacrificed his life for a cause. His legacy continues. We, the people of Jammu and Kashmir complete his mission of freedom.”

Further, Khan’s appointment undermines both America’s and India’s national security interests; a key US ally.

The percentage of religious minorities in Pakistan has decreased exponentially over the past seven decades, and the appointment of Khan only further emboldens the perpetrators of crimes against these minorities to continue unchecked. We are calling upon the administration and State Department to reject Masood Khan’s appointment for the aforementioned reasons and for the sake of upholding the true tenants of democracy which includes the right to religious freedom and the ability to practice without fear of reprisal.

We hope that by appointing a member of the Hindu, Sikh or any other religious minority as their representative to the US, the government of Pakistan will be able to take a long overdue step in sending a message to the global community and to the people of Pakistan, that it intends to secure the rights of all its citizens irrespective of their faith.

On February 6^th, on the sidelines of the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping reportedly issued a call to halt NATO’s expansion according to a statement issued by the Kremlin.

“This is highly significant. It is the first time since the Sino-Soviet split that China has taken a definitive position on European security in support of Russia on something as fundamental as NATO. It’s also notably on a matter not immediately germane to China’s core security interests. It puts at risk China’s wider relationship with the Europeans. But Xi believes he is now powerful enough and has sufficient economic leverage with Europe to get away with it.

This is a big shift in the Chinese foreign policy mainstream. The world should get ready for a further significant deepening of the China-Russia security and economic relationship — one that as recently as 2014 (at the time of the first Russian military action in Ukraine) was remote. It also signifies that China now sees itself as a global, not just a regional, security actor.”

— Kevin Rudd, President of the Asia Society and former Prime Minister of Australia

The Asia Society navigates shared futures for Asia and the world across policy, arts and culture, education, sustainability, business, and technology.

Founded in 1956 by John D. Rockefeller 3rd, the Asia Society is a nonpartisan, nonprofit institution with major centers and public buildings in New York, Hong Kong, and Houston, and additional locations in Los Angeles, Manila, Melbourne, Mumbai, Paris, San Francisco, Seoul, Sydney, Tokyo, Washington, D.C., and Zurich.

North Korea confirmed on January 31^st that it test-launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile capable of reaching the U.S. territory of Guam, the North’s most significant weapon launch in years, as Washington plans steps to show its commitment to its Asian allies.

Sunday’s launch could be a prelude to bigger provocations by North Korea such as nuclear and long-range missile tests that pose a direct threat to the U.S. mainland, as the North tries to further pressure the Biden administration to win sanction relief or international recognition as a legitimate nuclear state.

The official Korean Central News Agency said the purpose of the test was verifying the overall accuracy of the Hwasong-12 missile that is being deployed in its military.

KCNA published two sets of combination photos — one showing the missile rising from a launcher and soaring into space and the other showing North Korea and nearby areas that it said were photographed from space by a camera installed at the missile’s warhead. The Associated Press decided not to use the images because the authenticity of the photos couldn’t be verified.

Lee Choon Geun, a missile expert and honorary research fellow at South Korea’s Science and Technology Policy Institute, said he thinks the photos were taken from space — especially when the missile was soaring to its apogee, though he cannot independently prove there was no adjustment on the images. While it’s rare to place a camera on a weapon, Lee said North Korea likely wanted to demonstrate its technological advancement to both foreign and domestic audiences.

North Korea said the missile was launched toward waters off its east coast on a high angle to prevent flying over other countries. It gave no further details.

According to South Korean and Japanese assessments, the missile flew about 800 kilometers (497 miles) and reached a maximum altitude of 2,000 kilometers (1,242 miles) before landing between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.

The reported flight details make it the most powerful missile North Korea has tested since 2017, when the country launched Hwasong-12 and longer-range missiles in a torrid run of weapons firings to acquire an ability to launch nuclear strikes on U.S. military bases in Northeast Asia and the Pacific and even the American homeland.

The Hwasong-12 missile is a nuclear-capable ground-to-ground weapon with a maximum range of 4,500 kilometers (2,800 miles) when it’s fired on a standard trajectory. It’s a distance sufficient to reach Guam, home to U.S. military bases that in past times of tensions sent advanced warplanes to the Korean Peninsula in shows of force. In August 2017, at the height of animosities with the then-Trump administration, North Korea threatened to make “an enveloping fire” near Gaum with Hwasong-12 missiles.

In 2017, North Korea also test-fired intercontinental ballistic missiles called Hwasong-14 and Hwasong-15 that experts say demonstrated their potential capacity to reach the mainland U.S. Some analysts say North Korea still needs to conduct additional ICBM test-flights to prove it has overcome the last remaining technological hurdles, such as protecting a warhead from the extreme heat and pressure of reentering the Earth’s atmosphere.

In recent months, North Korea has launched a variety of weapons systems and threatened to lift a four-year moratorium on more serious weapons tests such as nuclear explosions and ICBM launches. Sunday’s launch was the North’s seventh round of missile launches in January alone, and other weapons tested recently include a developmental hypersonic missile and a submarine-launched missile.

Analyst Cheong Seong-Chang at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea said the Hwasong-12 launch was seen as partially breaking North Korea’s weapons test moratorium. In April 2018, when North Korea suspended nuclear and ICBM tests ahead of now-dormant diplomacy with the Trump administration, Kim said North Korea didn’t need to test intermediate-range missiles any longer as well.

Cheong said North Korea will likely test-launch its existing long-range missile if the United States spearheads fresh sanctions on it. Other experts said North Korea could conduct a nuclear test as well.

North Korea has publicly vowed to add more powerful ICBMs and nuclear warheads in its arsenal. They include a longer-range ICBM with precision strike capability, a solid-fuel ICBM that improves a weapon’s mobility, a multi-warhead missile, a spy satellite and a super-sized warhead.

After Sunday’s launch, White House officials said they saw the latest missile test as part of an escalating series of provocations over the last several months that have become increasingly concerning.

The Biden administration plans to respond to the latest missile test in the coming days with an unspecified move meant to demonstrate to the North that the U.S. government is committed to allies’ security in the region, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity.

The official said the administration viewed Sunday’s missile test as the latest in a series of provocations to try to win sanctions relief from the U.S. The Biden administration again called on North Korea to return to talks but made clear it doesn’t see the sort of leader-to-leader summits Donald Trump held with Kim as constructive at this time.

South Korean and Japanese officials also condemned Sunday’s launch, which violated U.N. Security Council resolutions that bans the country from testing ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons.

U.S.-led diplomacy aimed at convincing North Korea to abandon its nuclear program largely remains stalled. “Even if Washington had the bandwidth to pay more attention to the North Korean nuclear issue, Pyongyang would likely continue to refuse direct talks because of the pandemic, keep perfecting its weapons technology, and maintain its high price tag for talks,” said Duyeon Kim, an analyst at Washington’s Center for a New American Security.

Observers say North Korea could suspend weapons tests during the Beijing Winter Olympics because China is its most important ally. But they say North Korea could test bigger weapons when the Olympics end and the U.S. and South Korean militaries begin their springtime military exercises.

The Christian community in Peshawar has shut down all educational institutions and churches after a pastor was shot dead by armed assailants.

As per details shared by police authorities, William Siraj, who was a pastor at a church within the Chamkani police station limits, was with his fellow priest at the Ring Road area on Sunday, when the unknown assailants opened fire.

Siraj died on the spot, while the accompanying priestwas later taken to the Lady Reading hospital.

“The incident occurred near Ring Road within Gulbahar police station limits. A heavy police contingent had reached the scene and a search operation was carried out. Evidence was collected from the crime scene and CCTV cameras are also being checked,” a statement issued by the police authorities said.

“The body had been shifted to the hospital for conducting an autopsy while further investigation was underway.”

As per initial details of the investigation, at least two assailants were involved in the incident, which the police have termed it as a terrorist attack.

“Attack on the Christian community was tragic. A comprehensive investigation has been launched. It can be said that members of the minority community were targeted. So, it was a terrorist act,” said Abbas Ahsan, Capital City Police Officer (CCPO).

“We are determined to protect minorities. A team consisting of officials from the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) and Peshawar police had been formed to probe the case,” he added.

The attack carries sensitive importance, as the Christian community, which has been living in various parts of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has not faced any major threat in the past.

“Terrorism that targets anyone, especially for their faith, is heinous and must be fought against with the full force of a clear, concerted policy and state power. No compromise, no equivocation,” said Senator Sherry Rehman, a leader from the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

The attack has raised several questions on the increasing intolerance against religious minorities in Pakistan.

Recent reports have indicated that the level of intolerance by religious extremist groups have increased in the country, raising serious concerns over the Imran Khan government’s competence and capabilities to ensure security and safety of minorities in the country. (IANS)

In a surprise move, Pakistan, one of the 110 countries invited to U.S. President Joe Biden’s Summit for Democracy, skipped the event. Its Ministry of Foreign Affairs offered an oblique statement, thanking the administration for the invitation, and saying that it looked forward to engaging with the U.S. on democracy “at an opportune time in the future.”

Pakistan is the fifth largest country in the world — and has a functioning, albeit flawed democracy. The shortcomings primarily stem from the dominance of its military, which exercises influence over key elements of the country’s security and foreign policy.

But in a break from periods of military rule in the past, since its 2008 election Pakistan has had successful transitions of power from one civilian government to another via elections. It also has a robust political opposition.

To be sure, Pakistan has a troubled human rights record, including suppression of dissidents from its Baluch and Pashtun ethnic minorities, and cases of mob vigilante violence against those accused of blasphemy, including the horrific killing of a Sri Lankan factory manager on December 3. Given these failings, some considered Pakistan’s invitation contentious, and argued it was inconsistent given the other countries in the region that were left out, such as Bangladesh (albeit itself a flawed democracy).

But the invitations went out to a range of countries with questionable records on human rights. More importantly, for America — which has all too often bolstered Pakistan’s military at the expense of its civilian leaders, especially in dealings involving Afghanistan for the last four decades — the invitation was an important signal of support for Pakistan’s democracy. It also balanced India’s invitation with one to a regional rival. It is an invitation Pakistan should have accepted.

Pakistan’s reasons for skipping the summit

Last November, in a statement congratulating Biden for his election win, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan specifically mentioned that he looked forward to the Summit for Democracy and to working with the White House to counter corruption.

But the intervening year has brought a cold shoulder from the Biden administration toward Pakistan and specifically toward Khan, who is yet to receive a phone call from Biden (the issue of the phone call has been the subject of considerable attention in Pakistan).

For Pakistan, which had enjoyed a good relationship with the Trump administration, especially during its latter half, with Khan and Trump having personally hit it off — hopes for a broadening of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship with Biden have not materialized.

Given the Taliban’s swift takeover of Afghanistan this year (and Pakistan’s long-standing support for the group), the mood in Washington has been dour — though two congressional delegations have visited Pakistan in recent weeks, including a four-member Senate delegation over the weekend, ostensibly to discuss Afghanistan.

The Biden administration has narrowed the scope of the relationship to limited engagement on Afghanistan — and given the lack of a phone call, made clear that high-level engagement is not a priority. Khan and his government have perceived that as a snub, and that is part of the subtext for the declined invitation. Khan, who has made clear that he wants a relationship with the U.S. that values Pakistan’s sovereignty, is likely to find support for the decision at home.

The second and perhaps larger factor is China. Pakistan and China are exceedingly close partners, and Pakistan is the flagship venue for Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative — the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor promises $62 billion worth of Chinese economic investments in Pakistan. The two countries also have a long-standing military and strategic partnership that dates back to the 1960s.

In a speech last week, Khan said that Pakistan did not want to be part of any “bloc” and wanted instead to bridge gaps between the U.S. and China. Lijiang Zhao, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, tweeted that Pakistan had declined to attend the summit and was a “real iron brother.”

The underlying message is that Pakistan declined the invitation in support of China, which has shown displeasure over Taiwan’s inclusion. In fact, a source at Pakistan’s foreign ministry directly told The Guardian that Pakistan was not attending as China was not invited.

(This may also say something about the summit more broadly — that some countries perceived it as an event that required them to make a choice between the U.S. and China, rather than a meeting to advance the cause of democracy — that the Biden administration should note.)

Why skipping the summit is a mistake on Pakistan’s part

The invitation was in effect an opening offered by the Biden administration to Pakistan. It provided a chance for Pakistan to present its perspective to a global audience that is not always inclined to view it kindly — including regarding its democratic progress and aspirations.

But Islamabad gave up the platform the summit offered, and spurned the chance to be at the table when discussing key issues on which many question its commitments: those of human rights and democracy. That is a mistake.

Pakistan has also repeatedly said that it doesn’t want its relationships with the U.S. and with China to be seen as zero-sum, and that it wants good relationships with both countries. But if Pakistan chose not to attend a global summit held by the U.S. to show its support for China, Pakistan has effectively chosen a side: China’s.

If skipping the summit was a response to Biden’s cold shoulder to Khan, Pakistan could have sent the foreign minister as a delegate. Skipping the summit altogether is a move that will clearly be noted by the Biden administration — and if Pakistan wants to improve ties with it, it’s a puzzling decision that will almost certainly have left a sour taste.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban didn’t take the Afghan capital — they were invited, says the man who issued the invitation. In an Associated Press interview, former Afghan President Hamid Karzai offered some of the first insights into the secret and sudden departure of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani — and how he came to invite the Taliban into the city “to protect the population so that the country, the city doesn’t fall into chaos and the unwanted elements who would probably loot the country, loot shops.”

When Ghani left, his security officials also left. Defense minister Bismillah Khan even asked Karzai if he wanted to leave Kabul when Karzai contacted him to know what remnants of the government still remained. It turned out there were none. Not even the Kabul police chief had remained.

Karzai, who was the country’s president for 13 years after the Taliban were first ousted in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, refused to leave.

In a wide-ranging interview at his tree-lined compound in the center of the city where he lives with his wife and young children, Karzai was adamant that Ghani’s flight scuttled a last-minute plan focused on the Taliban’s entry. He and Abdullah Abdullah, the government’s chief negotiator, had been working with the Taliban leadership in Doha on a negotiated agreement to allow the militia to enter the capital under controlled conditions.

The countdown to a possible deal began Aug. 14, the day before the Taliban came to power.

Karzai and Abdullah met Ghani, and they agreed that they would leave for Doha the next day with a list of 15 others to negotiate a power-sharing agreement. The Taliban were already on the outskirts of Kabul, but Karzai said the leadership in Qatar promised the insurgent force would remain outside the city until the deal was struck.

Early on the morning of Aug. 15, Karzai said, he waited to draw up the list. The capital was fidgety, on edge. Rumors were swirling about a Taliban takeover. Karzai called Doha. He was told the Taliban would not enter the city.

At noon, the Taliban called to say that “the government should stay in its positions and should not move that they have no intention to (go) into the city,” Karzai said. “I and others spoke to various officials and assurances were given to us that, yes, that was the case, that the Americans and the government forces were holding firm to the places (and) that Kabul would would not fall.”

By about 2:45 p.m., though, it became apparent Ghani had fled the city. Karzai called the defense minister, called the interior minister, searched for the Kabul police chief. Everyone was gone. “There was no official present at all in the capital, no police chief, no corps commander, no other units. They had all left.”

Ghani’s own protection unit’s deputy chief called Karzai to come to the palace and take over the presidency. He declined, saying legally he had no right to the job. Instead the former president decided to make a public, televised message, with his children at his side “so that the Afghan people know that we are all here.”

Karzai was adamant that there would have been an agreement for a peaceful transition had Ghani remained in Kabul. “Absolutely. Absolutely. That is what we were preparing for, what we were hoping (along) with the chairman of the peace council to go to Doha that evening, or the next morning, and to finalize the agreement,” he said. “And I believe the Taliban leaders were also waiting for us in Doha for the same … objective, for the same purpose.”

Today, Karzai meets regularly with the Taliban leadership and says the world must engage with them. Equally important, he said, is that Afghans have to come together. War has dominated Afghanistan for more than 40 years, and in the last 20 years “Afghans have suffered on all sides,” he said. “Afghans have lost lives on all sides. . . . The Afghan army has suffered. Afghan police have suffered, the Taliban soldiers have suffered.”

He added: “An end to that can only come when Afghans get together, find their own way out.”

The former president has a plan. In his talks with the Taliban, he is advocating the temporary resurrection of the constitution that governed when Afghanistan was a monarchy. The idea was also floated during earlier Doha talks.

At the same time, a traditional Loya Jirga — a grand council of all Afghans, including women — would be convened. It would decide the country’s future, including a representative government, a constitution, a national flag.

There’s no indication the Taliban will accept his formula, though he says they have not rejected it in discussions. A jirga is a centuries-old Afghan tradition for decision-making and is particularly popular among ethnic Pashtuns, which make up the backbone of the Taliban.

Karzai said a future Afghanistan has to have universal education rights for boys and girls, and women “must find their place in the Afghan polity, in the administration, in economic activity and social activity, the political activity in all ways of life. … That’s an issue on which there cannot be any compromise.”

But until it happens, Karzai says, the world has to engage with the Taliban. Afghanistan needs to operate. Government servants have to be paid. Health care facilities need to function.

“Right now, they need to cooperate with the government in any form they can,” said Karzai. who also bemoaned the unchallenged and sometimes wrong international perceptions of the Taliban. He cited claims that women and girls are not allowed outside their homes or require a male companion. “That’s not true. There are girls on the streets — women by themselves.” The situation on the ground in Kabul bears this out.

Asked to describe the Taliban, Karzai said: “I would describe them as Afghans, but Afghans who have gone through a very difficult period in their lives as all other Afghans have done for the past 40 years.”

We “have been through an extremely difficult period of our history in which we, the Afghans, have made mistakes on all sides, in which the international community and those who interacted with us have made tremendous mistakes,” Karzai said. “It’s time for all of us to realize that, and to look back at the mistakes that we have all made and to make it better.”