Month: December 2021

Britain recognized the scientists and medical chiefs at the forefront of the battle against COVID-19 in Queen Elizabeth’s annual New Year’s honors list, while James Bond actor Daniel Craig was given the same award as his famous onscreen character. 

Craig, who bowed out from playing the fictional British spy after five outings following the release of “No Time to Die” this year, was made a Companion in The Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG) in recognition of his outstanding contribution to film. 

Bond was also a CMG, so the honor means Craig has now matched all his titles, having been made an honorary Commander in the Royal Navy in September. 

There were also major honors for the high-profile officials and others involved in tackling the coronavirus pandemic. 

The chief medical officers for England, Scotland and Wales – Chris Whitty, Gregor Smith and Frank Atherton – were given knighthoods. There were also honors for the deputy medical officers for England, with Jonathan Van-Tam knighted and Jenny Harries made a dame. 

The government’s chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance, who had previously been knighted, was made a Knight Commander of The Order of The Bath. 

There were also awards for those involved in producing vaccines including Pfizer Chief Development Officer Rod MacKenzie, Sean Marett, the chief business and commercial officer at BioNTech, and Melanie Ivarsson, the chief development officer at Moderna. 

Cyclist Jason Kenny, who achieved his seventh gold medal at the Tokyo Olympic Games, more than any other Briton has won, was also knighted. His wife, Laura, who is the nation’s most successful female Olympic athlete and became the first to win gold at three successive Games, received a damehood. 

Among the 78 Olympian and Paralympians to be included in the list were gold medal winners swimmer Adam Peaty and diver Tom Daley, who received OBEs. 

Emma Raducanu, who stunned the tennis world by becoming the first qualifier to win a Grand Slam title with victory in the U.S. Open, was another sporting figure to be honored with an MBE. 

Songwriter Bernie Taupin, best known for his collaborations with Elton John including his 1997 reworking of “Candle in the Wind” that John sang at the funeral of Princess Diana, was awarded a CBE. 

There were also damehoods for veteran actresses Joanna Lumley and Vanessa Redgrave for their services to drama, entertainment and charity. 

The New Year’s honors have been awarded since Queen Victoria’s reign in the 19th century and aim to recognize not just well-known figures but people who have contributed to national life through often unsung work over many years. 

“These recipients have inspired and entertained us and given so much to their communities in the UK or in many cases around the world,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.

 
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President Joe Biden plans to speak Sunday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a White house official said Friday, a day after Biden spoke with Russian leader Vladimir Putin on how to reduce tensions on the Ukraine-Russia border. 

Biden will reaffirm support for Ukraine, discuss Russia’s military build-up on its borders and review preparations for diplomatic efforts to calm the situation in the region, the official said Friday. 

The U.S. and Russian leaders exchanged warnings over Ukraine in Thursday’s call, but their countries voiced some optimism afterwards about planned security talks in January to address Russian military actions that drew the threat of sanctions from Washington and its allies. 

The leaders’ exchange set the stage for lower-level engagement between the countries that includes the U.S.-Russia security meeting on January 9-10, followed by a Russia-NATO session on January 12, and a broader conference including Moscow, Washington and other European countries on January 13. 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken sought to lay the groundwork for the talks Friday in calls with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and others, the State Department said. 

In conversations with the foreign ministers of Canada and Italy, Blinken discussed a united response to deter further Russian aggression against Ukraine and their consensus to impose “severe costs” on Moscow for any such actions. 

 
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For the second time in a month, US President Joe Biden has spoken directly to his Russian counterpart and urged him to de-escalate, as President Vladimir Putin continues to amass soldiers near the border with Ukraine. But administration officials said Putin provided no assurances of his intentions. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Washington.
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Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin spoke frankly for nearly an hour late Thursday amid growing alarm over Russia’s troop buildup near Ukraine, a simmering crisis that’s recently deepened as the Kremlin has stiffened its demands for increased security guarantees and test-fired hypersonic missiles to underscore its demands. 

Putin’s foreign affairs adviser said Biden reaffirmed the U.S. threat of new sanctions against Russia in case of an escalation or invasion, to which Putin responded with a warning of his own: that such a U.S. move could lead to a complete rupture of ties. 

“It would be a colossal mistake that would entail grave consequences,” said Yuri Ushakov. He added that Putin told Biden that Russia would act as the U.S. would if offensive weapons were deployed near American borders. 

Putin requested the call, the second between the leaders this month, ahead of scheduled talks between senior U.S. and Russian officials set for January 10 in Geneva.

White House officials said that the call began at 3:35 p.m. EST and concluded 50 minutes later, after midnight in Moscow.

What Russia wants 

Russia has made clear it wants a written commitment that Ukraine will never be allowed to join NATO and that the alliance’s military equipment will not be positioned in former Soviet states, demands that the Biden administration has made clear are nonstarters. 

The White House said ahead of the call that Biden would tell Putin that a diplomatic path remained open even as the Russians have moved an estimated 100,000 troops toward Ukraine and Kremlin officials have turned up the volume on demands for new guarantees from the U.S. and NATO. 

Those demands are to be discussed during the talks in Geneva, but it remains unclear what, if anything, Biden would be willing to offer Putin in exchange for defusing the crisis. 

Draft security documents Moscow submitted demand that NATO deny membership to Ukraine and other former Soviet countries and roll back its military deployments in Central and Eastern Europe. 

The U.S. and its allies have refused to offer Russia the kind of guarantees on Ukraine that Putin wants, citing NATO’s principle that membership is open to any qualifying country. They agreed, however, to hold talks with Russia to discuss its concerns. 

Pretext to invade? 

The security proposal by Moscow has raised the question of whether Putin is making unrealistic demands in the expectation of a Western rejection that would give him a pretext to invade.

Steven Pifer, a career foreign service officer who served as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in the Clinton administration, said the Biden administration could engage on some elements of Russia’s draft document if Moscow was serious about talks.

Key NATO members have made clear there is no appetite for expanding the alliance soon. The U.S. and allies could also be receptive to language in the Russians’ draft document calling for establishing new consultative mechanisms, such as the NATO-Russia Council and a hotline between NATO and Russia. 

“The draft treaty’s proposed bar on any NATO military activity in Ukraine, eastern Europe, the Caucasus or Central Asia is an overreach, but some measures to limit military exercises and activities on a reciprocal basis might be possible,” Pifer, who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, wrote in an analysis for the Washington think tank.

Biden planned to tell Putin that for there to be “real progress” in the talks they must be conducted in “a context of de-escalation rather than escalation,” according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters before the call. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity. 

Biden and Putin, who met in Geneva in June to discuss an array of tensions in the U.S.-Russia relationship, are not expected to take part in the January talks. 

In the December 7 video call, the White House said, Biden put Moscow on notice that an invasion of Ukraine would bring sanctions and enormous harm to the Russian economy. Russian officials have dismissed the sanction threats. 

Last week, Russia test-fired Zircon hypersonic missiles, a provocative move that Peskov said was meant to help make Russia’s push for security guarantees “more convincing.” The test was the first time Zircon missiles were launched in a salvo, indicating the completion of tests before the new missile enters service with the Russian navy next year and arms its cruisers, frigates and submarines. 

U.S. intelligence earlier this month determined that Russian planning was underway for a possible military offensive that could begin as soon as early 2022, but that Putin had yet to determine whether to move forward with it. 

No immediate threat seen

Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s Security and Defense Council, said Thursday that his country believed there was no immediate threat of a major Russian invasion. 

“Our experts say that the Russian Federation just physically can’t mount a big invasion of our territory,” Danilov said. “There is a time period needed for preparations.” 

The U.S. military has flown surveillance flights in Ukrainian airspace this week, including a flight Thursday by an Air Force E-8C JSTARS aircraft, according to Chuck Pritchard, a spokesman for U.S. European Command. That plane is equipped to provide intelligence on ground forces. 

Pritchard said such flights are conducted with European allies routinely and the missions this week were “not in response to any specific event.” 

Moscow and NATO representatives are expected to meet in the days after the Geneva talks, as are Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which includes the United States. 

Russia has denied an intention of launching an invasion and, in turn, accused Ukraine of hatching plans to try to reclaim control of the territories held by Moscow-backed rebels by force. Ukraine has rejected the claim. 

‘Aggressive’ course by West seen

At the same time, Putin has urged the West to move quickly to meet his demands, warning that Moscow will have to take “adequate military-technical measures” if the West continues its “aggressive” course “on the threshold of our home.” 

As Biden prepared for the talks with Putin, the administration also sought to highlight the commitment to Ukraine and drive home that Washington is committed to the “principle of nothing about you without you” in shaping policy that affects European allies. 

Biden, who is spending the week in his home state of Delaware, spoke to Putin from his home near Wilmington. The White House distributed a photo of the president speaking to the Russian leader from a desk lined with family photos. 

Ahead of the call, Putin sent a telegram to Biden with New Year’s and Christmas wishes, which was posted on the Kremlin site on Thursday, along with other holiday messages to world leaders. 

“I am convinced that in the development of our agreements reached during the June summit in Geneva and subsequent contacts that we can move forward and establish an effective Russian-American dialogue based on mutual respect and in consideration of each other’s national interests,” Putin wrote. 
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Azerbaijan’s parliament on Thursday adopted a new media law despite concerns from journalists who said it could further limit independent journalism. 

The law, which is due to go into effect on January 1 after being signed by the president, includes a registry for journalists and will apply to media outlets in the country as well as those who broadcast or publish to an Azerbaijani audience. 

Dozens of journalists gathered in the capital Baku this week to protest the law. At least one reporter was injured during the rally, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF). 

Local media and rights groups have said that the law could allow the government to determine who is officially recognized as a journalist, and raised concerns that the registry will include details about reporters and their work contacts. 

The law will also make it harder for media outlets that work in exile to continue to report without registering in the country, and includes provisions that ban disseminating information from unofficial sources, rights groups including RSF said.  

Alasgar Mammadli, a media law expert based in Baku, told VOA that despite serious objections from the media, the law was adopted unchanged, except for two minor details. 

“We said the document had many problems and we proposed that parliament amend up to 40 articles based on those issues. Unfortunately, those suggestions were not taken into account,” Mammadli said. “I think this step by the government will not improve the situation for journalism and media freedom in Azerbaijan, it will make it worse.” 

Mammadli believes that journalists will have to raise problems related to the new law in the courts as soon as possible and may have to seek support from the European Court of Human Rights. 

Mehman Aliyev, director of the independent news agency Turan, also said he believes the law will be used to restrict the media. 

“[The law] testifies to the strengthening of state control over the information community. The new law means toughening of information relations between the Azerbaijani government and society,” Aliyev said. 

Lawmaker Aydin Mirzazade, a member of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party, dismissed the media’s concerns, saying that the bill was widely discussed and that media representatives contributed to it. 

“I think that the law will regulate relations between the media and state and media and society as a whole. In other words, the law protects media independence, freedom of speech and does not impose any sanctions or restrictions on it, especially on social networks,” he said. 

He also dismissed claims by some analysts who said the law contradicts Azerbaijan’s constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights. 

“If they consider the law unconstitutional, they have the right to indicate to the court which articles of the law are contrary to the constitution. There is a very simple solution to the problem, ”Mirzazade said. “On the one hand, they say that the law is reactionary; on the other hand, they can openly express their views. That is, their actions contradict what they say.” 

One of the biggest concerns cited by journalists and rights groups is that the law will give authorities power to decide who can work in journalism. 

Those with a previous criminal record will not be eligible for accreditation, and publishers have to be citizens and full-time residents, Eurasianet reported. 

While the accreditation process is voluntary, the new regulations would exclude journalists like investigative reporter Khadija Ismayilova, who spent over 500 days in prison on what rights groups say were bogus charges in retaliation for her reporting on corruption.

Without the official press pass, reporters could find it harder to gain access to officials and some events. 

“I can probably do my research. But they [officials] will not answer my journalistic questions,” said Ismayilova. 

Another regulation that troubled media was the requirement that publishers live in Azerbaijan. That could impact independent news outlets that were set up outside the country because of an already repressive environment, according to reports. 

“Peppered with imprecise wording and contradictions, this law aims to step up control over the media and legalize censorship,” said RSF’s Jeanne Cavelier in a statement. 

“The state is overstepping its powers by interfering in the professional activities of journalists, without any consultation with independent media or experts specializing in freedom of expression.” 

RSF and others believe the law will add to an already repressive environment. Azerbaijan ranks 167 out of 180 countries, where 1 is freest on the world press freedom index. 

This article originated in VOA’s Azeri Service. 
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