Month: January 2024

BEIJING — Trade between China and Russia hit a record high in 2023, official data from Beijing showed on Friday, as commerce with the United States fell for the first time in four years on the back of geopolitical tensions.

China-Russia trade reached more than $240 billion, customs figures showed, overshooting a goal of $200 billion set by the neighbors in bilateral meetings last year.

The figure is a record for the two countries, who have grown closer politically and economically since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Beijing has drawn criticism from Western countries for its stance on the Ukraine war, on which China insists it is neutral.

It has refused to criticize Moscow’s invasion.

The trade figures represented a year-on-year increase of 26.3%, according to the data.

In contrast, trade between the U.S. and China fell for the first time since 2019.

Commerce with the United States was valued at $664 billion last year, down 11.6% from 2022.

Wang Lingjun, vice minister of the General Administration of Customs, told a news conference that the country’s trade would face more hurdles in 2024.

“The complexity, severity and uncertainty of the external environment are on the rise, and we need to overcome the difficulties and make more efforts to further promote the growth of foreign trade,” he said.

The figures also showed China’s exports fell 4.6% over the year, the first retreat since 2016, while imports were down 5.5%.

Friday also saw gloomy economic figures on the domestic front, with data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showing deflation in China continued for the third straight month in December.

The consumer price index (CPI) fell 0.3% on-year.

China slipped into deflation in July for the first time since 2021 and following a brief rebound the following month, prices have been in constant decline since September.

Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg expected a drop of 0.4% last month, having sunk 0.5% in November.

While deflation suggests goods were cheaper, it poses a threat to the broader economy as consumers tend to postpone purchases, hoping for further reductions.

A lack of demand can then force companies to cut production, freeze hiring or lay off workers, while potentially also having to discount existing stocks — dampening profitability even as costs remain the same.

By way of comparison, inflation in the United States stood at 3.4% in December.

Inflation in China for the whole of 2023 rose by an average of 0.2%, in contrast to other major economies, which saw prices soar once again.

The NBS also said producer prices sank 2.7%, the 15th consecutive month of declines.

The PPI index, which measures the cost of goods leaving factories and provides an insight into the health of the economy, fell 3% in November.
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the pentagon — The United States, Britain and a handful of other allies answered dozens of Houthi attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden with a series of powerful airstrikes designed to severely degrade the Iranian-backed group’s capabilities.

U.S. Central Command late Thursday said the series of strikes hit more than 60 targets at 16 locations in Houthi-controlled parts of Yemen, including command and control nodes, munitions depots, launching systems, and production facilities.

“We hit them pretty hard, pretty good,” a U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of the operation, told VOA, adding the strikes also targeted Houthi radar installations and air defense systems which did not fire back.

The U.S. and British strikes, carried out with the help of Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and Bahrain, were launched from fighter jets, surface vessels and submarines, the defense official said.

The U.S. alone, dropped more than 100 precision guided munitions on the Houthi installations, officials said, with the naval vessels and submarines firing Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles to take out the intended targets.

The official also said the targets were chosen both because of their threat to shipping and the lack of a civilian presence.

In a statement from the White House late Thursday, U.S. President Joe Biden called the strikes a “direct response to unprecedented Houthi attacks” on international shipping, saying they were necessary after attempts at diplomacy were ignored.

“These targeted strikes are a clear message that the United States and our partners will not tolerate attacks on our personnel or allow hostile actors to imperil freedom of navigation in one of the world’s most critical commercial routes,” Biden said. “I will not hesitate to direct further measures to protect our people and the free flow of international commerce as necessary.”

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak likewise condemned the Houthi attacks as destabilizing, confirming the participation of British fighter jets in Thursday’s strikes.

“Their reckless actions are risking lives at sea and exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in Yemen,” Sunak said in a statement. “This cannot stand.”

It is the first time Houthi targets inside Yemen have been struck since the militants began attacking ships in the Red Sea following Hamas’ assault on Israel on October 7.

U.S. officials late Thursday were still studying the impact of the strikes against the Houthis, but an initial assessment suggested the damage to Houthi capabilities is “significant.”

“We were going after very specific capability in very specific locations with precision munitions,” said a senior U.S. military official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss the operation.

“This was a significant action,” added a senior U.S. administration official. “[We have] every expectation that it will degrade in a significant way, the Houthis, a capability to launch exactly the sorts of attacks that they have conducted over the period of recent weeks.”

There have been 27 attacks launched from Houthi-held areas of Yemen since mid-November, impacting citizens, cargo and vessels from more than 50 countries, according to the U.S.

U.S. officials said in one instance last month, U.S. defensive action prevented a Houthi attack from hitting and likely sinking a commercial ship full of jet fuel.

The most recent Houthi attack, involving the launch of an anti-ship ballistic missile, took place earlier Thursday. The missile landed in the Gulf of Aden near a commercial vessel, causing no injuries or damage.

On Tuesday, U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East and South Asia, said the Houthis launched a complex attack using 18 one-way attack drones, two cruise missiles and one ballistic missile from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen toward Red Sea shipping lanes where dozens of merchant vessels were transiting.

U.S. combat jets, along with U.S. and British military vessels, responded by shooting down the drones and missiles, averting any damage to ships or injuries to their crews in the area.

The senior U.S. administration official said it was Tuesday’s massive attack by the Houthis that prompted Biden to order Thursday strikes.

Before the U.S. and British-led strikes late Thursday, multiple U.S. officials warned both the Houthis and Iran against what they described as reckless and illegal behavior.

“There will be consequences,” Pentagon press secretary Major General Pat Ryder said Thursday in response to a question from VOA.

“The Houthis are funded, trained, equipped by Iran to a large degree. And, so, we know that Iran has a role to play in terms of helping to cease this reckless, dangerous and illegal activity,” he said.

Last week, the United States and 12 allies issued a statement warning the Houthis of unspecified consequences if their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea continued.

“Let our message now be clear: We call for the immediate end of these illegal attacks and release of unlawfully detained vessels and crews,” the statement said.

Signatories on the statement included Britain, Australia, Canada, Germany and Japan.

The statement followed the launch in mid-December of Operation Prosperity Guardian by the United States, Britain and nearly 20 other countries to protect ships from Houthi attacks.

Since the launch of Prosperity Guardian, at least 1,500 vessels have passed safely through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden.

The commander of U.S. Navy operations in the Middle East last week called it “the largest surface and air presence in the southern Red Sea in years.”

The U.N. Security Council issued its own resolution Wednesday, calling on the Houthis to stop the attacks immediately.

There are questions, however, as to whether the statements, backed now by the U.S. and British strikes against the Houthis, will do anything to deter Tehran.

“Iran has the luxury of really fighting a, what I would call, a hidden-hand operation with very few Iranians on the ground,” the former commander of U.S. Central Command, retired General Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, told a webinar on Wednesday.

“They’re choking world shipping in the Bab el-Mandeb [Strait] at a very low, very low price for Iran,” he said.

But McKenzie argued that even if Iran continues to encourage the Houthis, the risk of a wider regional escalation is slim.

“I do not believe the escalation ladder leads out of Yemen. I believe it stays in Yemen,” he said. “And I believe Iran will leave their partners down there, their proxies down there, to their fate.”

U.S. officials said while they were bracing for the Houthis to try to mount some sort of response to the strikes, a slew of initial claims of attacks late Thursday appeared to be nothing more than disinformation.

This is not the first time the U.S. military has targeted Houthi launch sites in Yemen in response to militant attacks against vessels in nearby waters. In October 2016, the American destroyer USS Nitze launched Tomahawk cruise missiles at three radar sites along Yemen’s Red Sea coast in order to degrade the Houthi’s ability to track and target ships.

Ostap Yarysh with VOA’s Ukrainian Service contributed to this report.
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ISTANBUL — Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania on Thursday signed an agreement to jointly tackle drifting sea mines that have threatened Black Sea shipping since the start of the Ukraine war.

Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler said the agreement establishes a Mine Countermeasures Task Group among the three NATO allies to deal with the mines.

“We jointly decided to sign a protocol between three countries in order to fight more effectively against the mine danger in the Black Sea by improving our existing close cooperation and coordination,” Guler said at a news conference in Istanbul with Romanian Defense Minister Angel Tilvar and Bulgarian Deputy Defense Minister Atanas Zapryanov.

Zapryanov said mines pose a “danger to ports, communication networks and key water infrastructure. It is in our interest and NATO’s interest to develop countermeasures against this danger.”

Tilvar added that Russia’s “disdain for the norms of international law and its aggression in the Black Sea is not only a regional problem but also a problem with global consequences.”

The deal comes after Ankara last week refused entry to the Black Sea for two minesweeping vessels donated to Ukraine by Britain.

At the start of the war in February 2022, Turkey enacted the 1936 Montreux Convention to block the passage of Russian or Ukrainian ships through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits. It also told non-Black Sea states not to send warships.

Guler said implementation of the Montreux Convention was important for regional security. He suggested that other countries could participate in mine-clearing at the end of the war.

Moscow and Kyiv have blamed each other for stray mines that have washed up near the Black Sea coast.

The initiative aims to make shipping safer, including for vessels transporting grain from Ukraine.

Turkey and the United Nations brokered a deal in July 2022 to ensure the free passage of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea but Russia abandoned the deal a year later. Since then, Ukraine has shipped grain along a corridor through the western Black Sea.
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pentagon — The United States and Britain have launched a massive attack against Iranian-backed Houthis inside Yemen in retaliation for more than two dozen recent attacks against vessels transiting international shipping lanes in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of a lack of authorization to talk to reporters, said American and British military assets struck more than a dozen Houthi targets Thursday, ranging from training sites and airfields to drone storage sites.

It was the first time Houthi targets inside Yemen had been struck since the militants began attacking ships in the Red Sea following Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7.

There have been 27 attacks launched from Houthi-held areas of Yemen since mid-November, including one earlier Thursday using an anti-ship ballistic missile. The missile landed in the Gulf of Aden near a commercial vessel, causing no injuries or damage.

On Tuesday, U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East and South Asia, said the Houthis launched a complex attack using 18 one-way attack drones, two cruise missiles and one ballistic missile from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen toward Red Sea shipping lanes where dozens of merchant vessels were transiting.

U.S. combat jets, along with U.S. and British military vessels, responded by shooting down the drones and missiles, averting any damage to ships or injuries to their crews in the area.

Before the U.S. and British strikes late Thursday, multiple U.S. officials warned both the Houthis and Iran against what they described as reckless and illegal behavior.

“There will be consequences,” Pentagon press secretary Major General Pat Ryder said Thursday in response to a question from VOA.

“The Houthis are funded, trained, equipped by Iran to a large degree. And so we know that Iran has a role to play in terms of helping to cease this reckless, dangerous and illegal activity,” he said.

Last week, the U.S. and 12 allies issued a statement warning the Houthis of unspecified consequences if their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea continued.

“Let our message now be clear: We call for the immediate end of these illegal attacks and release of unlawfully detained vessels and crews,” the statement said.

Signatories on the statement included Britain, Australia, Canada, Germany and Japan.

The statement followed the launch in mid-December of Operation Prosperity Guardian by the U.S., Britain and nearly 20 other countries to protect ships from Houthi attacks.

Since the launch of Prosperity Guardian, at least 1,500 vessels have passed safely through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden.

The commander of U.S. Navy operations in the Middle East last week called it “the largest surface and air presence in the southern Red Sea in years.”

The U.N. Security Council issued its own resolution Wednesday, calling on the Houthis to stop the attacks immediately.

There are questions, however, as to whether the statements, backed now by the U.S. and British strikes against the Houthis, will do anything to deter Tehran.

“Iran has the luxury of really fighting a, what I would call, a hidden-hand operation with very few Iranians on the ground,” the former commander of U.S. Central Command, retired General Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, told a webinar on Wednesday.

“They’re choking world shipping in the Bab el-Mandeb [Strait] at a very low, very low price for Iran,” he said.

But McKenzie argued that even if Iran continued to encourage the Houthis, the risk of a wider regional escalation was slim.

“I do not believe the escalation ladder leads out of Yemen. I believe it stays in Yemen,” he said. “And I believe Iran will leave their partners down there, their proxies down there, to their fate.”

This is not the first time the U.S. military has targeted Houthi launch sites in Yemen in response to militant attacks against vessels in nearby waters. In October 2016, the American destroyer USS Nitze launched Tomahawk cruise missiles at three radar sites along Yemen’s Red Sea coast in order to degrade the Houthis’ ability to track and target ships.

Ostap Yarysh of VOA’s Ukrainian Service contributed to this report.
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Istanbul / Washington — When it comes to gender equality in Turkish media, men are still dominating managerial roles, research by a journalist union has found.

The Journalists’ Union of Turkey, known as the TGS, released its latest findings on gender disparities in Turkish media to mark the country’s Working Journalists’ Day on Wednesday.

“Once again, we see that those who produce, go after and edit news stories are women, and those who manage media institutions are men in Turkish media,” Banu Tuna, the TGS secretary-general, told VOA.

The union analyzed 10 newspapers, 10 TV channels, four news agencies and six news websites.

Nearly half of the journalists in Turkey are women, but the survey showed that only four women hold senior positions such as editor in chief or managing editor among Turkey’s leading newspapers.

The research also showed that only a few women hold senior positions in the TV channels’ organizational structures, and those who do tend to work in advertising or public relations departments.

The gender imbalance in managerial positions was lower in Turkey’s digital media, where the report found websites doing “relatively better” than TV and print.

“While the presence of female journalists among the editor and reporter staff is undeniable, we saw once again that there is literally ‘no name of a woman’ in the mastheads and in the senior management staff,” the TGS wrote.

The union said that when female journalists cannot progress in their careers, they “move away from the profession due to the glass ceiling.”

A call for more inclusive media

The World Economic Forum’s 2023 Global Gender Gap Report ranks Turkey 129th among 146 countries for gender equality — where 1 shows the best environment — and 133rd out of 146 in economic participation and opportunity.

The gender imbalance adds to challenges for Turkish journalists, who watchdogs already say contend with censorship and political and legal pressure.

“We are in an increasingly authoritarian environment. There are very challenging conditions for both journalism and women’s struggle,” said Evin Baris Altintas. “There is a need to fight for a more inclusive media for both women and different groups, but the lack of awareness on this issue is obvious.”

A co-chair of the Istanbul-based Media and Law Studies Association, Altintas has worked in journalism since 2005.

Another issue is the cost of living, with most media outlets based in Istanbul, the largest and most expensive Turkish city.

Work/family life challenges women

Ceren Sozeri, an associate professor of communication at Galatasaray University in Istanbul, said that women often have to balance their journalism career with domestic roles.

“In Turkey, women are responsible for the care, domestic labor and raising children,” Sozeri told VOA. “Women journalists are forced to make choices in the dilemma of marriage and raising their children.”

He For She Turkey, a United Nations-initiated project, states that women do three times as much unpaid house and care work as men worldwide, while this discrepancy reaches almost five times more unpaid house and care work for women in Turkey.

Tuna, who has worked in journalism for 25 years, said that the media sector is male-dominated.

“I have heard many male executives say that the editorial desk is not for women. They again blamed women for the lack of women in managerial positions,” she told VOA.

“According to them, working in the editorial office is a very arduous job that requires long hours, and women do not want it,” Tuna added.

Cultural norms can also make it harder for women to progress.

“While a man can go to dinner or a tavern with his boss or manager after work, women have less room here, as a woman’s going out to dinner with her manager can also be interpreted as an affair,” Sozeri said.

“Therefore, when favoritism comes before merit, men again have room for career advancement,” Sozeri noted.

To close the gender gap in Turkish media management, Sozeri thinks that “working conditions, overtime working and domestic labor roles must change.”

Tuna of TGS said having more women in leadership in media would be a positive move.

“If there were more women in executive positions, if the few rising women were not expected to become masculinized, I’m sure a lot would change in the Turkish media,” Tuna told VOA.

“The biggest problems today are not getting equal pay for equal work, not being able to work in managerial positions, and all kinds of gendered violence. If the media were not a boys’ club, all these problems would be improved.”

This story originated in VOA’s Turkish Service.
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WARSAW, POLAND — Polish President Andrzej Duda announced Thursday that he plans to once again pardon two senior politicians who were arrested in his presidential palace earlier this week, in a case that is at the center of a standoff between Poland’s new government and its conservative predecessor. 

The development comes before a planned protest in Warsaw organized by the now opposition party Law and Justice, which held power for eight years until last month and is closely aligned with Duda. 

Law and Justice, frustrated over its recent loss of power, urged its supporters to protest moves by the new pro-European Union government to take control of state media. It also said it was protesting the arrests Tuesday of two senior members of Law and Justice, former Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski and his former deputy, Maciej Wasik. 

Kamiński and Wasik were convicted of abuse of power for actions taken in 2007, when they served in an earlier Law and Justice-led government. Duda pardoned them in 2015, although legal experts argued that the pardons weren’t legal because presidential pardons are reserved for cases that have gone through all appeals. 

In June, Poland’s Supreme Court overturned the pardons and ordered a retrial. Kaminski and Wasik were sentenced in December to two years in prison. Police on Tuesday arrested them while they were in Duda’s presidential palace, where they had received protection for much of the day. 

Duda had long maintained that his first contentious pardons in 2015 were legal, and that he didn’t need to pardon them again. But on Thursday, he said he was once again initiating clemency proceedings for the two men at the request of their wives. 

His announcement came shortly before a planned protest organized by Law and Justice, which governed for eight years before losing October’s parliamentary election. They called it a protest of “Free Poles” in defense of democracy and free media, although during the party’s time in power, Poland’s international media freedom ranking fell significantly. 

Emotions have been riding high over an escalating standoff between the current and the previous government. 

The protest was called for the same day that a contentious chamber of the Supreme Court, still controlled by Law and Justice, ruled that the October election was valid. The election had a record nationwide turnout of more than 74% and gave power to a coalition of parties opposed to Law and Justice. 

The new government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk is set on reversing some policies of its populist predecessor, including ones that brought conflict with the EU, such as changes that put Poland’s justice system under political control. 

In one of its first steps, Tusk’s government moved to take control of state television, radio and news agency PAP, which Law and Justice turned into tools of aggressive propaganda against its critics and against Tusk personally. 

Leaders of the former government maintain that Tusk’s moves were illegal and have staged occupations of the media premises, saying they are defending free media and democratic norms. Commentators say Law and Justice wants to keep control of the nationwide broadcasters before local administration elections this spring. 

The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights in Warsaw said that the manner in which the new government has taken control of state media “raises serious legal doubts.” 

While in power, Law and Justice was repeatedly accused by law experts of violating Poland’s legal order and the rule of law. 
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London — More than 60 world leaders will join hundreds of business executives and campaigners at the Swiss ski resort of Davos Monday for the five-day annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, where they will discuss some of the biggest global challenges.  

Critics say the summit is a meeting of the super-rich and that it fails to tackle growing global inequality. 

The issues on the Davos agenda appear daunting: in the immediate term, worsening conflicts in many parts of the world along with Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea; and wider threats including potentially catastrophic climate change, a weak global economy and fears over the adverse impacts of artificial intelligence. 

In its Global Risks Report 2024, published Wednesday, summit organizers highlighted misinformation and disinformation as the biggest short-term risk.

“The potential impact on elections worldwide over the next two years is significant, and that could lead to elected governments’ legitimacy being put in question. And this, in turn, could, of course, threaten democratic processes that lead to further social polarization, riots, strikes, or even intra-state violence,” report co-author Carolina Klint of the risk consultancy Marsh McLennan, told a London press conference Wednesday. 

The report labeled extreme weather events and climate change as the top long-term risks over a 10-year time frame.  

“Yes, it’s a very gloomy outlook, but by no means is it a hard, fast, set prediction of the future,” Saadia Zahidi, the economic forum’s managing director said. “The future is very much in our hands. Yes, there are structural shifts under way but most of these things are very much in the hands of decision-makers across different stakeholders and that’s where the effort really needs to be,” she told reporters. 

The Davos summit takes place against the backdrop of two major wars, in Ukraine and Gaza. 

Among those due at the Alpine ski resort are Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Chinese Premier Li Qiang and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.  

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres will attend, along with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron. 

Alongside the political leaders will be hundreds of the world’s most powerful chief executives, including the head of OpenAI, Sam Altman, and Microsoft’s chief executive officer, Satya Nadella.   

Critics say the wealth of the world’s super-rich has increased, while billions around the world have become poorer over the past decade – and Davos will do little to reverse that trend. 

“Across the world people are feeling extraordinary hardship. And at the same time there’s a few sprinting off at the very top into the distance. And some of them will be in Davos,” said Nabil Ahmed of aid agency Oxfam International. 

“It is, yes, a space for dialogue, for important discussions, even for holding political and business leaders to account. It’s why organizations like Oxfam take part. But it’s also not an international, democratic space in which transparent, accountable decisions are being made,” Ahmed told VOA. 

The summit organizers say it’s vital to bring together political and business leaders to find solutions to the world’s myriad challenges.
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