World News Random, Random

[ti-amie]

Everyone is talking about France but this seems important too:

[mmmm8]

Are there any other news about this? Why would an entire airport be closed?
Has Vlad already denied any involvement, meaning he is involved? Has he said nothing, meaning he is involved?

In Russian Vladimir is rarely shortens to Vlad. "Vlad" usually means Vladislav. For Vladimir another short names exist - Vova/Volodya. Or was it a reference to Dracula?

Nope, it was a reference to Putin, so thanks for the clarification. As I have seem in other places that indeed he is called Vlad, I was simply following that path.
Thanks for the correction.
But: why would you shorten somebody's name from three syllables to... three syllables? Vladimir->Volodya? It makes no sense. I gather I will use Vova.
(By the way: internal joke here. In Spanish, BOBA would mean SILLY in female, so Vova sounds indeed silly).

Volodya is more of a nickname than a shortened name. Like Pancho for Francisco in Spanish, for example or Jack for John in English.

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

Mart Kuldkepp
@KuldkeppMart

Here is a thread on Swedish security policy traditions and the question of NATO membership.

Probably my last one on Nordic security and NATO, at least for a while. But it's a long one. (0/48)

Sweden holds the distinction of being the country that has longer than any other – ever since the Napoleonic wars, in fact – stood outside of international military conflicts. (1/48)

This experience of two centuries of peacefulness has conditioned Sweden’s foreign and defence policy in important ways that merit closer attention. This is true not least today when Russia is fighting its criminal war against Ukraine.

As one consequence of this war, (2/48)
Swedish foreign and defence policy has come under new scrutiny both in Sweden and elsewhere. Since late February, (3/48)

it has become an increasingly contested whether peacetime non-alignment (alliansfrihet) would indeed guarantee Sweden a freedom of choice between neutrality and belligerency (handlingsfrihet) in times of war. Rather, (4/48)

recent opinion polls tell us that the majority of Swedish voters already believe the country’s security would in fact be better served by outright membership in NATO. Furthermore, Sweden is not alone. (5/48)

Neighbouring Finland has moved very close to submitting its own membership application, and Sweden is likely to follow.

To understand Sweden’s approach to its security, it would be helpful to delve deep into its history going as far back as the 17th century. (6/48)
But if we don’t have the patience for that, it is helpful to revisit at least the Cold War period.

The collapse of its Scandinavian Defence Alliance initiative in 1949 left Sweden alone in the region to pursue a traditional neutrality course, (7/48)

just as it had done already since the 19th century. This policy meant military nonalignment in peacetime, with a view to remaining neutral in the event of war. (8/48)
It was furthermore supported by a relatively strong army for ‘neutrality defence’ and a domestic armaments industry. Sweden even had a nuclear weapons programme.

However, in the mid-1970s, as the growth of Swedish economy was slowing down, (9/48)
its defence expenditure began to decline.

The USSR took note of this, and a series of Soviet submarine incidents followed in the Swedish territorial waters in the early to mid-1980s. (10/48)

The most dramatic of these occurred when a Soviet submarine ran aground near the Karlskrona naval base in south-east Sweden. Since the type of submarine was called ‘Whiskey’ in NATO parlance, the incident became known as ‘whiskey on the rocks.’ However, (11/48)

although the USSR showed clearly that Sweden was quite exposed and vulnerable to Soviet aggression, there was no fundamental revision of Sweden’s neutrality policy.

At the same time, although Sweden officially pursued a policy of unswerving nonalignment, (12/48)

it also undertook covert preparations for military cooperation with NATO in the event of an attack from the Soviet Union. Although not all the details are known, this secret cooperation was ongoing already in the early 1950s. Indeed, (13/48)

it seems that NATO was willing to defend Sweden even with nuclear weapons, if necessary, since Sweden was strategically important for the defence of Norway and the northern Atlantic. (14/48)

Sweden’s two-faced attitude to its security in the Cold War era has sometimes been associated with the theory of ‘small-state realism’: the idea that deep down, small states cannot really afford to be idealistic about their security policy, because, in the end, (15/48)
they rely on stronger powers to protect them.

However, this does not mean that it was conscious policy choice officially adopted by the Swedish leadership. Instead, (16/48)
it has recently been suggested by Matti Roitto and Antero Holmila that Swedish security policy in this period could be described as ‘liquid neutrality’: a flexible and pragmatic set of policies that were adopted or changed to meet the obstacles that happened to arise, (17/48)

and to exploit the ‘cracks along the fault lines of superpower competition.’ This opportunistic stance was facilitated by the fact that the Swedish public – as most voters – neither understood well nor was particularly interested in foreign policy, (18/48)
so important changes could happen unnoticed.

The first significant turning point in Swedish security policy after 1949 occurred at the end of the Cold War. (19/48)
The disintegration of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the bipolar world system more generally meant significant changes in the security landscape for all the states in the region, and Sweden was no exception. (20/48)
The decline of traditional security concerns about the USSR seemed to open new and exciting perspectives to rethink Sweden’s approach to its foreign and defence policy. (21/48)
Both Finland and Sweden continued to define their security position in the early 1990s as one of ‘military nonalignment and a credible national defence’, but they also sought a relationship with NATO through membership in the Partnership for Peace programme. (22/48)
This was possible because the end of Cold War-era bipolarity also led to a change in the role of NATO and the EU as ‘security providers.’ Especially NATO acquired a new function in the Nordic security landscape. Now, (23/48)
rather than purely an article 5-based collective defence organisation, it turned into something more like a cross-national forum for dialogue on security matters. In the post-Cold War world, (24/48)
the ability to access such networks was an important asset that Sweden could not afford to forgo, even if its closeness to NATO undermined its rhetoric of non-alignment.
To compensate for their decision to still not seek membership in NATO, (25/48)
both Sweden and Finland turned into semi-independent security innovators in the 1990s. As new EU members, (26/48)
the two made an innovative joint proposal in 1996 for strengthening the Union’s crisis management capability and subsequently participated extensively in crisis management initiatives under both EU and NATO flags, using both military and non-military instruments. In 2008, (27/48)
a Nordic battle group was launched with Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Estonian, and Irish troops. The tasks of this and similar units was to provide humanitarian support, search, rescue, and evacuation duties.

The question of joining NATO outright did come up in Sweden. (28/48)
In 2003, the former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt and the former Danish Foreign Minister Uffe Elleman-Jensen issued a joint statement arguing that Finland and Sweden should join NATO or risk losing their influence in the discussion of European security. Nevertheless, (29/48)
the idea remained an anathema for the Swedish Social Democrats, the party that over the course of the Cold War had become heavily invested in the non-alignment policy. Rather than a form of calculated security policy, (30/48)
the Swedish left’s attachment to non-alignment can be best described as a form of identity politics, with NATO widely seen as incompatible with Swedish foreign policy traditions and ‘third way’ ethos.

In 2004, (31/48)
a new defence bill by the Swedish Social Democratic minority government stated that Sweden no longer perceived any serious threats to its national territory. Consequently, one third of Swedish military forces were disbanded, (32/48)
the size of defence staff reduced by one quarter and the number of submarines and fighter aircraft substantially cut. This effectively marked the end of the Cold War policy of armed neutrality. Instead, Sweden profiled itself by developing a small, (33/48)
highly trained rapid reaction force for crisis management purposes.
But even so, Swedish non-alignment came to be increasingly watered down over the years. As for other non- NATO member states like Finland (but also Austria and Ireland), the EU ‘solidarity clause’, (34/48)
as introduced by the Lisbon Treaty in 2009, raised questions about whether the security policies of these member states could be perceived as non-aligned anymore. Moreover, despite its continued official status as non-aligned, (35/48)
Sweden continued to take part in NATO exercises and operations and used NATO standards in its force transformation and capability development programmes, resulting in a high level of interoperability.

In October 2013 (five years after Finland), (36/48) Sweden joined the NATO Rapid Response Force, contributing a ‘fighter unit’ deployable under NATO command within 90 days, mainly providing Swedish Air Force fighter aircraft for NATO operations. From 2016, (37/48)
Sweden (and Finland) also provide Host Nation Support to NATO forces through the provision of logistical and operational support sites, essentially allowing allied forces to be stationed on their territory, including in times of peace. (38/48)
The question of NATO membership also became increasingly debated in the mid-2010s, as Russia’s aggressive behaviour increasingly highlighted Sweden’s limited territorial defence capability. Embarrassingly, in 2013, (39/48)
the Russian air force undertook an attack exercise in international airspace near the island of Gotland and the Swedish air force was not able to respond.
More decisively, (40/48)
public opinion on the matter shifted under the impression of Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014, showing a somewhat stronger degree of support for Swedish membership in NATO: 48 per cent in favour, (41/48)
compared to an average of 35 per cent in comparable surveys between 2007 and 2013.

After the renewed Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and repeated Russian threat, as well as violations of Swedish airspace by Russian planes, (42/48)

the support for joining NATO had risen to 60% by early April. At present, the incumbent Social Democratic government is undertaking consultations to reconsider its stance on the issue, (43/48)
but with the Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson having signalled her support for membership, the outcome of these consultations is not in doubt.

To summarise, it is fair to say that even before February 2022, (44/48)
Sweden had moved rather close to embracing the idea of NATO membership. Nevertheless, it was held back primarily by domestic left-wing opinion and the Social Democratic party, large sections of which have by now rethought their position. (45/48)
After decades of cuts to defence spending, there have already been many examples of Sweden’s renewed commitment to territorial security and military deterrence. Now, when Finnish and Swedish NATO membership applications are all but certain, (46/48)
the two Nordics are about to deal a significant symbolic and strategic blow to Russia and become full participants in regional and European security. (47/48)
I hope you found it interesting...

[ponchi101]

I was in Finland. We were visiting an island that faces Russia, and were lucky to hook up for a while with a Finnish family. Talking at random, we started talking about the military history of Finland. I asked if they had an army and was explained that indeed they did, and that service was compulsory. After a bit more talk, I don't remember why the father stated "well, we certainly don't have an army because of the Swedes".
The people in Scandinavia should understand that Russia will not invade them outright. But capturing positions is a different story.

[mmmm8]

I was in Finland. We were visiting an island that faces Russia, and were lucky to hook up for a while with a Finnish family. Talking at random, we started talking about the military history of Finland. I asked if they had an army and was explained that indeed they did, and that service was compulsory. After a bit more talk, I don't remember why the father stated "well, we certainly don't have an army because of the Swedes".
The people in Scandinavia should understand that Russia will not invade them outright. But capturing positions is a different story.

The summary above does not go back to the 17th century like the poster suggests it could, but it's not irrelevant that Russia and Sweden have fought a number of wars over the last thousand years, including a war that led to Finland becoming part of Russia. Pre-20th century, it was probably one of the biggest historical threats/adversaries of Russia. It's certainly debatable, but, on average, Sweden have been more of an aggressor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_w ... and_Sweden

[ponchi101]

We saw that in Sweden too. Both countries have a long history of going at each other. Sweden may be peaceful right now, but in the past it was as quarrelsome as all other European countries.

[ti-amie]

A Pot of U.N. Money. Risk-Taking Officials. A Sea of Questions.
A little-known United Nations agency decided to make an impact by doling out loans and grant money — all to a single family. It did not go well.


From left, Grete Faremo, the top official at the U.N. Office for Project Services; Vitaly Vanshelboim, the second-highest-ranking official at the agency; and Paolo Zampolli, a businessman and an ambassador for the Caribbean island of Dominica.Credit...Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images

The top official at the Office for Project Services, Grete Faremo of Norway, announced early Sunday that she was stepping down.

Ms. Faremo had previously planned to retire in September, but — in a letter to employees sent hours after this article was posted online — she said an interim replacement would be appointed “imminently.”

“Without knowing the full story, it happened on my watch,” Ms. Faremo wrote in a letter to the office’s staff, which was obtained by The New York Times. She said she had informed Mr. Guterres of her decision on Friday. “I acknowledge my responsibility and have decided to step down.”

The second-highest-ranking official at the agency, Vitaly Vanshelboim of Ukraine, was placed on administrative leave because of the investigation. He declined to comment.

A London law firm representing the British businessman, David Kendrick, and his daughter, Daisy Kendrick, released statements saying the pair had done nothing wrong. The law firm said Mr. Kendrick’s companies had been hampered by the pandemic and decisions by foreign governments.

“Our clients strongly believe in the projects they are running and in their ability to deliver these, and regret the fact that they appear to have become, through no fault of their own, the targets of a campaign seeking to harm their reputations,” wrote the law firm, Carter-Ruck.

The case has become the talk of the U.N. after a series of blog posts by Mukesh Kapila, a former U.N. official who is widely read by diplomats, and an article by the news outlet Devex. The Times reconstructed the story of the lost millions using documents from U.N. auditors, business records and interviews with dozens of people in eight countries.

A Party in Manhattan

The party that began it all was held in 2015 in the antique-filled 5,000-square-foot Upper East Side apartment of Gloria Starr Kins — the 95-year-old editor and publisher of a diplomatic society magazine that covers U.N. parties and events.

It was hosted by Ms. Faremo, a former justice minister and defense minister of Norway. She had taken over the Office for Project Services in 2014 — and later said she had made it faster and less risk-averse: “More than 1,200 pages of rules went into the trash.” Also in attendance was Mr. Vanshelboim, a U.N. veteran and financial whiz who describes himself on LinkedIn as a “SERIAL OVERACHIEVER.”

Their agency was one of the U.N.’s less glamorous: a kind of general contractor to the world. Other U.N. agencies hired it to build schools and roads, deliver medical equipment or perform other logistical tasks.

That job was huge and vital. But at the U.N., prestige came from standing at lecterns — giving grants and giving orders. Their office did neither.

But that was set to change.

“I wanted to move away from being the silent partner,” Ms. Faremo later wrote.

Her agency had stockpiled tens of millions of dollars in excess fees paid to it by other U.N. agencies, and now she and Mr. Vanshelboim wanted to lend out the money, like a bank, to fund profit-making projects in the developing world. Instead of a humdrum contracting hub, they would run a revolutionary in-house investment firm.

But they hadn’t found someone to lend to. That was the point of the party.

Then, through the door came Paolo Zampolli, a man who makes introductions.

One of the U.N.’s best-known characters, Mr. Zampolli is an Italian American businessman who also serves as an ambassador for the Caribbean island of Dominica. And he has long nurtured the dream of something bigger: having his own U.N.-approved conservation group called We Are the Oceans, or WATO.

...At the time of the party, he was making introductions for Mr. Kendrick, the British businessman, who was selling a system for building fast, cheap, sturdy homes in the developing world. And if making the introductions worked?

“Could that bring me money? Yes, of course,” Mr. Zampolli said. “That’s called real estate.”

At that party, it worked. Mr. Kendrick and his daughter met Ms. Faremo and Mr. Vanshelboim there, according to Mr. Zampolli and an employee of Mr. Kendrick’s at the time who was present, Ramy Azoury. Ms. Faremo said she did not recall whom she met at the party, but a photo from the event shows her holding a business card for Mr. Kendrick’s company.

Later, using the acronym for the Office for Project Services, Mr. Zampolli said: “David came to me and said, ‘Paolo, these UNOPS people are very interested. They can invest.’”

In 2017, the U.N. agency gave a $3 million grant to a conservation group run by Ms. Kendrick, who was a recent college graduate.

But Mr. Zampolli said he was never paid a finder’s fee. In fact, Mr. Zampolli said he now regretted making the introduction at all. Ms. Kendrick, it turned out, had named her group We Are the Oceans.

His name.

“I was truly used,” Mr. Zampolli said.

Singing About the Ocean

The U.N. agency declined to say how — out of all the world’s environmental groups — it had chosen Ms. Kendrick’s group for such a large grant. She had set up her New York-based group as a nonprofit a year earlier but never obtained approval from the Internal Revenue Service for a tax exemption as a charity.

Ms. Kendrick signed incorporation papers that seemed to give an inaccurate picture of the group’s leadership. Mr. Azoury and Ms. Starr Kins — two other people who were at the 2015 party — were both listed as directors, but both said in recent interviews that they had no connection to the group, did not know their names had been used and had known Ms. Kendrick only in passing.

“They stole my name,” Ms. Starr Kins said. “She knows I am well-known and she used me.”

Ms. Kendrick’s group produced events, a website, ocean-themed games by the makers of Angry Birds and a pop song about the ocean that was recorded by the British singer Joss Stone. The U.N. agency said its internal investigations group had started a review of the partnership with Ms. Kendrick’s group.

Her father also seemed to play a major role behind the scenes, according to people who dealt with the group. When Ms. Stone signed a recording agreement, the agreement assigned control of the song — and the right to sell it — to a for-profit company that Mr. Kendrick was a director of, according to a copy of the contract provided by Ms. Stone. The company paid for the band that accompanied Ms. Stone.

Ms. Stone said she had agreed to record the song for free, believing it was a fund-raiser for the U.N.

Ms. Kendrick’s lawyers said in a statement that We Are the Oceans delivered on all of its promises to the U.N. and that “the rates paid to all WATO’s participants were at all times legitimate and fair.”

Mr. Svensson, the former employee at the Office for Project Services, said his bosses were focused on arranging a performance of the song by Ms. Faremo. He said she wanted to sing it in the U.N.’s cavernous hall during a 2017 conference about the oceans. They flew in a backing band from Britain, he said.

“Whatever it takes,” he remembered a supervisor saying.

Ms. Faremo sang. But, Mr. Svensson said, an earlier speaker ran so far over time that the hall was largely empty. Mr. Svensson said he planned to include a video of the performance in a documentary he is making about the U.N.

“I agreed to sing this due to my background as a singer,” Ms. Faremo said in a written statement last week. Despite the delayed start, she said, “there was still a crowd in the hall.”

Loans Under Scrutiny

The next year, in 2018, the Office for Project Services announced it was making its first loans. Over the next two years, according to U.N. records, it lent $8.8 million to a company investing in a wind farm in Mexico and $15 million to another company for renewable energy projects. A further $35 million went to build housing in Antigua, Ghana, India, Kenya and Pakistan, projects overseen by a third company.

Business records show that all three companies appear to be connected to Mr. Kendrick. He owns two of them through a family office in the British territory of Gibraltar. The third, based in Spain, does not list an owner in its corporate records — but its directors are longtime associates of Mr. Kendrick, and its email address leads to a company that Mr. Kendrick appears to own half of. U.N. auditors and Mr. Kendrick’s lawyers both referred to the three companies as if they were a single entity.

Mr. Kendrick is a 58-year-old British native who has listed addresses in Spain, according to public records, and he is associated with more than a dozen interlocking companies in multiple countries, mostly in the world of construction. One video, from a project in Antigua in 2014, shows him saying: “I don’t build houses. I’m inspired to build communities.”

It is difficult to get a complete picture of his finances. But at least some of his businesses have struggled at times: U.N. auditors said one of Mr. Kendrick’s companies had lost $20.2 million in 2017 and $14.9 million in 2018.

The U.N. auditors said officials had chosen his companies because they believed his building technology “allowed for quickly built, high-quality and earthquake- and hurricane-resistant homes.” Ms. Faremo approved the loans herself, the auditors found.


Still, the auditors raised alarms that the Office for Project Services had concentrated all of its risk in one place. They wrote in July 2020 that they were “of the view that UNOPS did not follow a sound and transparent method in selecting a partner.”

Just a few months after that, the agency began trying to get its money back, without providing any public reason for doing so. In October 2020, according to U.N. reports, Mr. Kendrick’s companies agreed to return millions lent for the wind farm and the renewable energy projects. But they did not follow through on returning the money.

Months went by.

Finally, according to a U.N. audit report last year, one of Mr. Kendrick’s companies admitted it had used the U.N.’s loan to pay off other loans: “A large portion of the $15 million deposit had been used to discharge its pre-existing debts and liabilities,” the auditors’ report said. The U.N. auditors said last year that Mr. Kendrick’s companies had made some small payments, but the auditors expected the U.N. agency to lose $22 million.

The other loans, which were intended to fund affordable housing projects, are still officially pending. But the U.N. said that, so far, no houses had been completed.

“Not a single housing project has been built,” said P.K. Sarpong, a spokesman for the government of Ghana, where the U.N. loans were supposed to allow work to begin on 200,000 homes. Top officials in Ghana helped announce the deal, but after “the pomp and pageantry, they didn’t hear about the project again,” Mr. Sarpong said.

Mr. Kendrick’s lawyers said that his companies were in the process of restructuring their loans from the U.N. agency and that “no funds have been lost.”

The financial mess threatens to undermine the broader trust of the U.N.’s member countries in the institution at a time when the U.N. is seeking millions of dollars to deal with the war in Ukraine and surging food prices. Finland, for example, had pledged $20 million to support the Office for Project Services’ investments, which were run out of an office in Helsinki, the country’s capital. But Finland has since suspended its funding, according to diplomats and a statement from its foreign ministry.

“They are investing money that the United States and other countries have provided,” Christopher P. Lu, a senior official at the U.S. mission to the U.N., said of the agency. “So they need to be good stewards of our money.”

But the U.N. is a place where accountability often comes slowly and in secret. It was unclear when, if ever, the U.N. would release the results of the investigation that it said this past week had been completed.

If there are to be broader reforms at the Office for Project Services, they would come from its executive board — a group of diplomats from U.N. member states. In the wake of the losses, the board in February demanded an “independent comprehensive evaluation” of what had happened.

It is due in June. June 2024.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/07/worl ... vices.html

[ti-amie]

As Don Henley said, (paraphrasing): “A man with a briefcase can steal more money than a man with a gun.”

[ponchi101]

As Don Henley said, (paraphrasing): “A man with a briefcase can steal more money than a man with a gun.”

I did not know that Henley said that. So true.
We tried it in TAT1.0, so I will not ty it here again. But sometimes I feel like we need a "Good News" topic. When you read stuff like the one above, it puts you so down.

[ti-amie]

Sinn Féin set to be largest party in Northern Ireland assembly
Michelle O’Neill likely to be first minister after party tops first-preference votes with 29%
Rory Carroll and Lisa O'Carroll in Belfast
Fri 6 May 2022 17.02 BST


Sinn Féin’s leader in Northern Ireland, Michelle O'Neill (centre), celebrates with party members after being elected on the first count. Photograph: Paul Faith/AFP/Getty

Sinn Féin is on course to be the biggest party at Stormont after a symbolic breakthrough for Irish nationalism in Northern Ireland’s assembly election.

The party topped the first-preference vote with 29%, which will position its deputy leader, Michelle O’Neill, to become the region’s first minister, the first nationalist to hold the position in a historic turnaround and a severe blow to unionism.

With transfer votes still being counted on Friday night, it was clear the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) had dramatically lost its pre-eminence by slumping to 21.3% in the first preference vote. “A disaster for the DUP,” tweeted Tim Cairns, a former special adviser to the party.

The other big winner in Thursday’s election was the centrist Alliance, which surged to 13.5%, putting it in third place and showing the growing influence of voters who shun nationalist and unionist labels.

An expected DUP boycott could delay and conceivably derail the formation of a new power-sharing executive unless Boris Johnson’s government renegotiates the Northern Ireland protocol with the EU, as the DUP demands. That would put a question mark over O’Neill becoming first minister, but not alter the profound psychological impact of a Sinn Féin victory.

“This place was organised more than a century ago to ensure that a Michelle O’Neill would never occupy the position of first minister, so it’s a great moment for equality,” said Sinn Féin’s leader, Mary Lou McDonald, amid ecstatic supporters in Belfast.

The result was seismic given that Northern Ireland was an entity created on the basis of a unionist majority, said Jon Tonge, a University of Liverpool politics professor and authority on the region. “A party that does not want Northern Ireland to exist and refuses to even use the term Northern Ireland will become its biggest. It will not trigger a border poll, but it is an incremental step on the long road to Irish unity.”

(...)

Voters ranked the cost of living and health service as their chief concerns, but the campaign was dominated by unionist anger at the post-Brexit Northern Ireland protocol, which puts a trade border in the Irish Sea, and the contest between Sinn Féin and the DUP for the first minister post.

Unionists sought comfort in the fact that overall support for unionist parties marginally outweighed support for nationalist parties. Opinion polls show solid support for Northern Ireland remaining in the UK, but Sinn Féin hope to build momentum towards a referendum on Irish unity, a goal boosted by the party’s surging popularity in the Republic of Ireland, where, under McDonald, it leads the opposition in the Dublin parliament.

“It’s a great moment that says beyond a shadow of a doubt that life has changed in the North, that things have changed in Ireland and that we are only going forward, and we are never going back,” said McDonald.

Many unionists blame the DUP for the protocol, which they fear weakens Northern Ireland’s position in the UK, and some defected to a rightwing rival, the Traditional Unionist Voice. However, Jeffrey Donaldson, the MP and DUP leader, clawed back some support by casting his party as a bulwark against a Sinn Féin first minister.

Donaldson said he would not lead the DUP into the executive – which cannot be formed without his party – unless the protocol was replaced, putting pressure on Downing Street to amend the Brexit agreement to avert a prolonged crisis in Northern Ireland.

Naomi Long, Alliance’s leader, urged the DUP to “stop creating instability and start doing government” and accept the will of the electorate.

Since 2007 there has been a DUP first minister and Sinn Féin deputy first minister. Both posts have equal power, but the more prestigious title has become a proxy test of strength. There have been calls to change the titles to co-first minister and to overhaul the Good Friday agreement-era power-sharing rules, which did not anticipate the rise of a centrist political force.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... on-results

[ti-amie]

DUP to block formation of Northern Ireland power-sharing executive
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson tells Downing Street he will not nominate ministers without ‘decisive action’ on Brexit protocol

Rory Carroll Ireland correspondent
@rorycarroll72
Mon 9 May 2022 18.16 BST


Jeffrey Donaldson, centre, speaking to the media at Stormont before meeting the Northern Ireland secretary, Brandon Lewis. Photograph: Peter Morrison/AP

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the Democratic Unionist party leader, has rebuffed appeals by the British and Irish governments and said he will block the formation of a new power-sharing administration in Northern Ireland.

Donaldson told the Northern Ireland secretary, Brandon Lewis, on Monday that the DUP will not nominate ministers to the Stormont executive later this week unless Downing Street takes “decisive action” on the Brexit protocol.

Such a boycott would trigger a political crisis and paralyse devolved government in the region just a week after Sinn Féin triumphed in an assembly election, making its deputy leader, Michelle O’Neill, the putative first minister.

The DUP came second, winning 25 seats to Sinn Féin’s 27 in the 90-seat assembly. Under power-sharing rules, the executive cannot form unless the DUP nominates a deputy first minister and other ministers.

After meeting Lewis, Donaldson repeated an election campaign promise to disrupt Stormont unless there were changes to the protocol. “Until we get decisive action taken by the UK government on the protocol, we will not be nominating ministers to the executive,” he said.

On Monday night the Times reported that the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, had decided to ditch the protocol after giving up on talks with the EU. Officials working for Truss have reportedly drawn up draft legislation that would unilaterally remove the need for all checks on goods being sent from Britain for use in Northern Ireland. The legislation would also allow businesses in the province to disregard EU rules and regulations and take away the power of the European court of justice to rule on issues relating to Northern Ireland, the paper reported.

A Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office spokesperson told the Guardian that no decisions had yet been taken but “the situation is now very serious”. “We have always been clear that action will be taken to protect the Belfast agreement if solutions cannot be found to fix the protocol,” they said.

The DUP says the protocol, which puts trade checks on some goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain, harms the economy and undermines the region’s position within the UK. Only if those problems were resolved could it join an executive, said Donaldson. “We want to see stable political institutions, we want to be part of the executive, we want to play our part.”

Most unionists oppose the protocol but are divided on how to respond. Some favour working with London and Brussels to tweak the agreement. Others advocate obstruction and resistance, a radical strain that has pulled the DUP to a hardline position, leaving it isolated.

Lewis, who flew into Belfast from London, delivered a coded rebuke when he urged all the main parties at Stormont to deliver a “stable and accountable” devolved government.

Ireland’s taoiseach, Micheál Martin, said Northern Ireland’s party leaders had a duty to heed voters who wanted a functional government to tackle crises in the cost of living and health services: “All of us now have to have due regard to stability within the north, to the full workings of the institutions of the Good Friday agreement.” He told RTÉ there was a “landing zone” for compromise on the protocol between London and Brussels.

Downing Street has given mixed signals about possible unilateral action. All sides will monitor the Queen’s speech at the state opening of parliament on Tuesday for further signals. The EU vice-president, Maroš Šefčovič, urged pragmatism. “We need the UK government to dial down the rhetoric, be honest about the deal they signed and agree to find solutions within its framework,” he said in a statement.

O’Neill said the DUP should not try to “punish the public” for its mistakes on Brexit. “Brinkmanship will not be tolerated where the north of Ireland becomes collateral damage in a game of chicken with the European Commission. Make no mistake, we and our business community here will not be held to ransom.”

Other party leaders echoed the calls for the swift formation of an executive. “I want us to sit down, get the negotiations under way on the programme for government and the budget,” said Naomi Long, leader of Alliance, which won 17 seats, making it the third biggest party. “We need the DUP to step up to the plate. You know, with power comes responsibility, and people now need to take the responsibility seriously.”

Doug Beattie, leader of the Ulster Unionist’s nine assembly members, said problems with the protocol would be resolved only through talks between London and Brussels. “Northern Ireland has to have a say in that. We’ll only have a say if we have a government.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... -executive

[ti-amie]

The Etonians didn't even think about how Brexit would affect Ireland. And here we are.

[ti-amie]

Via Morning Briefing, Asia Pacific Edition NYTimes
May 11, 2022

By Amelia Nierenberg
Writer, Briefings

President Marcos, take two

Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son and namesake of a former dictator, clinched a landslide victory in one of the most divisive presidential elections in recent Philippines history.

On Tuesday, angry young voters who had rallied around his rival, Leni Robredo, gathered to voice their frustration with preliminary results showing her overwhelming defeat. Many raised questions about the election: Multiple observers have said they had received thousands of reports of anomalies since the vote on Monday.

Robredo, the current vice president, has yet to concede defeat, and Marcos has yet to claim victory. Robredo said her team was looking into reports of voter fraud, but opinion polls had suggested Marcos would win by a large margin.

What’s next: Marcos is expected to take office on June 30. Many of his policy proposals remain thin, and he has shunned most of the news media and avoided nearly all debates.

History: The Marcos family was driven from office and the country in 1986 over its deadly abuses and rampant corruption. Five years later, the younger Marcos and his mother were allowed to return to the Philippines. He began his rise by winning key state leadership roles, entering national politics as a senator in 2010.

Campaign: Hundreds of thousands of Robredo’s young supporters went door to door, fighting an online disinformation campaign that portrayed the violent Marcos regime as a “golden age.”