Foreign News
Little chance of change as Vladimir Putin is sworn in again
For the fifth time Vladimir Putin will be taking the long walk through the Grand Kremlin Palace to the St Andrew’s Throne Hall. There he will take the oath of office and be sworn in as Russia’s president for a new six-year term
The route may be familiar, but much has changed since Putin’s first inauguration ceremony in May 2000. Back then, President Putin pledged to “preserve and develop democracy” and to “take care of Russia.”
Twenty-four years on, the Kremlin leader is waging war against Ukraine; a war in which Russia has suffered heavy losses. At home, instead of developing democracy, President Putin has been curtailing it: jailing critics, removing all checks and balances on his power.
“Putin thinks of himself now as Vladimir the Great, as a Russian tsar,” believes Fiona Hill, a former White House national security advisor. “If we took ourselves back to his first two presidential terms, I think we’d have a fairly favourable assessment of Putin. He stabilised the country politically and made it solvent again. The Russian economy and system were performing better than at any other previous time in its history. “The war in Ukraine, going back to the annexation of Crimea 10 years ago, has dramatically changed that trajectory. He’s turned himself into an imperialist instead of a pragmatist.”
It’s remarkable to think that since Vladimir Putin first came to power, America has been through five different presidents and Britain has had seven prime ministers.
After nearly a quarter of a century running Russia, Mr Putin has certainly made his mark. In the past, people rarely spoke of “Brezhnevism”, “Gorbachevisim” or “Yeltsinism”. But Putinism: that’s a thing.
Most people have grown used to one man running Russia and no imminent prospect of change in the Kremlin (BBC)
“We have one more -ism in our history: Stalinism,” says Andrei Kolesnikov, senior fellow at the Carnegie Eurasia Russia Centre.
“I would say that Putinism is one more incarnation of Stalinism. He behaves like [former Soviet dictator] Stalin. His power is personalised like in Stalin’s time. He prefers to use a lot of political repressions. And like Stalin he is ready to keep himself in power until the physical end.”
The challenge, for the West, is how to deal with an increasingly authoritarian Russian leader determined to restore what he sees as Russia’s greatness; a modern-day tsar… with nuclear weapons.
“On the issue of nuclear weapons, there’s an awful lot that we can do,” believes Fiona Hill. “Some countries, like China, India, Japan, have been extraordinarily nervous when Putin has engaged in nuclear sabre-rattling in Ukraine and have pushed back against that. We can enforce restraint on Russia by creating an international framework for pushing back on this wild and speculative talk about using nuclear weapons.
“Perhaps that is something of a model for how we can deal with Vladimir Putin, who in many respects is something of a rogue leader. We need to create a more constraining environment, less permissive for the kinds of actions that he wants to undertake.”
Officially Vladimir Putin won more than 87% of the vote in the March presidential election. However, he’d faced no serious challenger in a contest widely seen as neither free not fair.
So how do Russians view the longest-serving Kremlin leader since Joseph Stalin?
“We don’t know who would come next if Putin goes,” says Valentina
To find out I drive to the town of Kashira, 70 miles from Moscow. Here a gigantic Putin portrait, a massive mural, takes up one whole side of an apartment block.
In Kashira Big Vladimir is watching you. “I like him,” says pensioner Valentina who is selling flowers by the roadside. “Putin has good ideas and does a lot for people. True, our pensions aren’t big. But he can’t fix everything in one go.”
“He’s had nearly 25 years,” I point out.
“But we don’t know who’d come next [if Putin goes],” Valentina replies.
“In Russia we’re all expected to think the same way,” says Victoria, who is walking past the Putin mural. “If I say anything against Putin my husband says: ‘You criticise Putin again and I’ll divorce you!’ He’s mad about him. He says that if it wasn’t for Putin life here would be as tough as in the 1990s.”
When I ask another passer-by, Alexander, what he thinks of the president, he replies: “It can be dangerous now to express an opinion. No comment.”
Most of the people I talk to say that they walk past Putin’s portrait without even noticing it now. They’re used to it.
Just like they’ve grown used to one man running Russia and no imminent prospect of change in the Kremlin.
(BBC)
Thousands of prisoners in Myanmar have been granted amnesty or had their sentences reduced. The pardon order by Min Aung Hlaing is one of his first official acts since the coup leader became president this month.
The move comes as the lawyer for jailed former leader Aung San Suu Kyi told the Reuters news agency that her sentence has been reduced. Former president Win Myint, detained since the 2021 coup, was also pardoned of his convictions, a statement from the presidency said.
Min Aung Hlaing approved an amnesty for 4,335 prisoners, Myanmar’s state television MRTV reported.
A communique on behalf of Min Aung Hlaing said “those serving death sentences shall have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment”, without naming specific prisoners.
“The President has pardoned Win Myint,” said another statement from Min Aung Hlaing’s office. Win Myint was “granted a pardon and the reduction of his remaining sentences under specified conditions”, MRTV said.
Suu Kyi, 80, is serving a 27-year sentence on charges her allies describe as politically motivated. Her sentence was cut by one-sixth, her lawyer told Reuters, but it remains unclear whether the Nobel Peace Prize winner will be allowed to serve the rest of her sentence under house arrest. Min Aung Hlaing placed Suu Kyi under arrest after the coup.
Amnesties typically happen as Myanmar marks Independence Day in January and its New Year in April.
Among those to be released are 179 foreign nationals, who will be deported. The amnesty also includes the commutation of all death sentences to life imprisonment, life sentences reduced to 40 years, and a one-sixth reduction in term lengths for all other prisoners.
[Aljazeera]
Several armed men robbed a bank in broad daylight in Naples, holding 25 people hostage before making their escape via a tunnel.
Police surrounded a branch of Crédit Agricole in the southern Italian city shortly after the robbery began around midday local time (10:00 GMT).
Local outlets reported that they negotiated with the robbers before the hostages could be released, about two hours into the robbery.
Firemen could be seen smashing in a window with battering rams and helping people climb out from inside in videos shared on social media.
Some hostages simply shook off the shards of glass and walked on.
But others looked visibly shaken, crying and hugging their relatives. Six people, who were in a state of shock, were offered medical assistance.
One man later told local news site Fanpage.it that the robbers had locked them into a room and that, while they were armed, “they did not use violence”.
Nobody was seriously injured. “Thanks to the swift response… all the hostages were freed shortly after 13:30 without serious injuries,” regional official Michele di Bari said in a statement.
A large crowd of bystanders, local residents and firefighters gathered in the square waiting for developments, while ten of thousands of people tuned into a livestream from the scene of the crime.
Members of the special forces of the carabinieri armed police were urgently flown in from Tuscany.
It was not until several hours later that they stormed the bank by breaking a window.
Several shots and the loud noises of stun grenades could be heard on the live feed shortly after.
But by then, the robbers had reportedly escaped through a tunnel, local media reported. It was thought they could have vanished into the sewer system.
The video feed later showed a number of carabinieri and firefighters peering into a manhole nearby as a crowd continued to mill about the square.
Fanpage.it reported that it was not yet possibly to quantify the value of the loot taken because the robbers had seized personal safety deposit boxes rather than cash.
(BBC)
Iran has demanded that it receive compensation for the destruction caused by the United States and Israel’s attacks, as the country remains defiant and regional powers continue their attempts to mediate an end to the conflict.
Tehran’s envoy to the United Nations said on Tuesday that five regional countries must pay compensation, based on his accusation that their territories were used for launching attacks on Iran.
Iran has also raised the idea of compensation for damages to come through a Strait of Hormuz protocol, which would include a tax on ships passing through the waterway.
An early estimate indicates that Iran has suffered about $270bn in direct and indirect damages since the start of the US-Israel war on February 28, Iranian government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani said during an interview with Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency, published on Tuesday.
She did not provide further information, such as a breakdown of the damages, but said the issue of compensation was discussed in last week’s negotiations between Tehran and Washington in Pakistan, and will be raised in any potential future talks with the US and mediators.
The government has said it is still assessing the extensive damage dealt to Iran’s critical infrastructure, after oil and gas facilities, petrochemical companies, steel plants, and aluminium factories were repeatedly targeted, in addition to military complexes. These will take years to fully rebuild.
Bridges, ports and railway networks, universities and research centres, and several power plants and water desalination plants were also directly hit, while a large number of hospitals, schools and civilian homes were damaged or destroyed.
(Aljazeera)
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