Month: March 2024

CHISINAU, Moldova — The past two years have been the hardest and most tumultuous for European Union candidate Moldova in more than three decades as it faces threats from Russia in multiple spheres of public life, the country’s foreign minister says.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, its neighbor Moldova has faced a litany of crises that have at times raised fears the country is also in Russia’s crosshairs. These included errant missiles landing on its territory; a severe energy crisis after Moscow dramatically reduced gas supplies; rampant inflation; and protests by pro-Russia parties against the pro-Western government. Moldova has also taken in the highest number of Ukrainian refugees per capita of any country.

“This past two years without exaggeration have been by far the most difficult in the past 30 years,” Mihai Popsoi, appointed foreign minister in late January, told The Associated Press.

Moldova gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, but Russia continues to see the country — sandwiched between Ukraine and EU member Romania — as within its sphere of influence.

Moldovan officials have repeatedly accused Russia of conducting a “hybrid war” against the country — funding anti-government protests, meddling in local elections and running vast disinformation campaigns to try to topple the government and derail Moldova from its path toward full EU membership. Russia has denied the accusations.

Last week, Moldova’s national Intelligence and Security Services agency said it has gathered data indicating “unprecedented” plans by Moscow to launch a fresh destabilization campaign as Moldova gears up for a referendum on EU membership and a presidential election later in the year.

“We know that the Kremlin is going to invest a lot of energy and financial resources through their proxies to try to get their way,” said Popsoi.

“They’re trying to bribe voters and use citizens to bribe them,” he added. “The Russians are learning and adapting, and they’re trying to use the democratic process against us … to topple a democratic government in Moldova.”

Tensions have also periodically soared in Moldova’s Russia-backed breakaway region of Transnistria — a thin strip of land bordering Ukraine that isn’t recognized by any U.N. member countries but where Russia maintains about 1,500 troops as so-called peacekeepers, guarding huge Soviet-era weapons and ammunition stockpiles.

Shortly after the war started, a string of explosions struck the region; an opposition leader was found fatally shot in his home last July; and anxieties soared last month when some feared the region would ask to be annexed by Russia. Instead, the region appealed to Russia for diplomatic “protection” amid what it said was increasing pressure from Chisinau.

Popsoi acknowledged that the situation with Transnistria is tense, and he worries that the speculation could adversely impact investment. “The situation will remain tense as long as the front line is 200 miles away,” he said.

The 37-year-old minister noted the testing period Moldova has been through has nevertheless also been transformative for his country, which has a population of about 2.5 million people.

“When we look at the energy security of Moldova, two years ago there was very little,” he said. “Now Moldova is quite independent or has alternatives and can choose where to buy gas and electricity.”

The same can be said, he added, for his country’s defense capabilities, the resilience of key institutions such as intelligence, police force, and justice reform. “Moldova is moving in the right direction despite enormous challenges.”

Cristian Cantir, a Moldovan associate professor of international relations at Oakland

University, says Moldova has faced a “constant onslaught” of Russian tests to probe weaknesses that might undermine its EU trajectory.

“It feels like a geopolitical race in which Russia is trying to stop Moldova from moving toward the EU, while Moldova tries to fend off Russian influence until it joins the EU,” he said, adding that the authorities “have been much more open about acknowledging the danger Russia presents to the country’s democracy.”

In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Moldova applied to join the EU and was granted candidate status in June 2022. In December, Brussels said it would open accession negotiations for both Moldova and Ukraine.

Although militarily neutral, non-NATO Moldova has boosted defense spending over the past year and recently approved a new national security strategy that identified Russia as a main threat and aims to raise defense spending to 1% of GDP.

“A significant number of Moldovans still live under the spell of Russian propaganda which has made a boogeyman out of NATO,” Popsoi said. “But that doesn’t stop us from cooperating with our NATO partners and building resilience in our armed forces.”

Since the war started, Moldova has received critical financial and diplomatic support from its Western partners but needs long-term investments, Popsoi said.

The referendum later this year on EU membership aims to gauge where Moldovans see their future. Officials have an ambitious target of gaining full accession by 2030.

“We will do our utmost to make sure we get this message across that there is a better tomorrow and that is within the European Union,” Popsoi added. “No matter how hard Russian propaganda tries to convince our citizens of the opposite.”
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AMSTERDAM — The Netherlands’s National Holocaust Museum is opening on Sunday in a ceremony presided over by the Dutch king as well as Israeli President Isaac Herzog, whose presence is prompting protest because of Israel’s deadly offensive against Palestinians in Gaza.

The museum in Amsterdam tells the stories of some of the 102,000 Jews who were deported from the Netherlands and murdered in Nazi camps, as well as the history of their structural persecution under German World War II occupation before the deportations began.

Three-quarters of Dutch Jews were among the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis, the largest proportion of any country in Europe.

Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Herzog will visit a synagogue and open the museum against a backdrop of Israel’s devastating attacks on Gaza that followed the deadly incursions by Hamas in southern Israel on Oct. 7. Both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protests are planned outside the events.

Herzog was among Israeli leaders cited in an order issued in January by the top United Nations court for Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza. He accused the International Court of Justice of misrepresenting his comments in the ruling. Israel strongly rejected allegations leveled by South Africa in the court case that the military campaign in Gaza breaches the Genocide Convention.

“I was disgusted by the way they twisted my words, using very, very partial and fragmented quotes, with the intention of supporting an unfounded legal contention,” Herzog said, days after the ruling.

A pro-Palestinian Dutch organization, The Rights Forum, called Herzog’s presence “a slap in the face of the Palestinians who can only helplessly watch how Israel murders their loved ones and destroys their land.”

In a statement issued ahead of Sunday’s opening, the Jewish Cultural Quarter that runs the museum said it is “profoundly concerned by the war and the consequences this conflict has had, first and foremost for the citizens of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.”

It said that it is “all the more troubling that the National Holocaust Museum is opening while war continues to rage. It makes our mission all the more urgent.”

The museum is housed in a former teacher training college that was used as a covert escape route to help some 600 Jewish children to escape from the clutches of the Nazis.

Exhibits include a prominent photo of a boy walking past bodies in Bergen-Belsen after the liberation of the concentration camp, and mementos of lives lost: a doll, an orange dress made from parachute material and a collection of 10 buttons excavated from the grounds of the Sobibor camp.

The walls of one room are covered with the texts of hundreds of laws discriminating against Jews enacted by the German occupiers of the Netherlands, to show how the Nazi regime, assisted by Dutch civil servants, dehumanized Jews ahead of operations to round them up.
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istanbul — Muhterem Evcil was stabbed to death by her estranged husband at her workplace in Istanbul, where he had repeatedly harassed her in breach of a restraining order. The day before, authorities detained him for violating the order but let him go free after questioning. 

More than a decade later, her sister believes Evcil would still be alive if authorities had enforced laws on protecting women and jailed him. 

“As long as justice is not served and men are always put on the forefront, women in this country will always cry,” Cigdem Kuzey said. 

Evcil’s murder in 2013 became a rallying call for greater protection for women in Turkey, but activists say the country has made little progress in keeping women from being killed. They say laws to safeguard women are not sufficiently enforced and abusers are not prosecuted. 

At least 403 women were killed in Turkey last year, most of them by current or former spouses and other men close to them, according to the We Will Stop Femicides Platform, a group that tracks gender-related killings and provides support to victims of violence. 

So far this year, 71 women have been killed in Turkey, including seven on February 27 — the highest known number of such killings there on a single day. 

The WWSF secretary-general, Fidan Ataselim, attributed the killings to deeply patriarchal traditions in the majority Muslim country and to a greater number of women wishing to leave troubled relationships. Others want to work outside the home. 

“Women in Turkey want to live more freely and more equally. Women have changed and progressed a lot in a positive sense,” Ataselim said. “Men cannot accept this, and they are violently trying to suppress the progress of women.” 

Turkey was the first country to sign and ratify a European treaty on preventing violence against women — known as the Istanbul Convention — in 2011. But President Recep Tayyip Erdogan withdrew Turkey from it 10 years later, sparking protests. 

The president’s decision came after pressure from Islamic groups and some officials from Erdogan’s Islam-oriented party. They argued that the treaty was inconsistent with conservative values, eroded the traditional family unit and encouraged divorce. 

Erdogan has said he believes that men and women were not biologically created as equals and that a woman’s priority should be her family and motherhood. 

The president insists that Turkey does not need the Istanbul Convention, and he has vowed to “constantly raise the bar” in preventing violence against women. Last year, his government strengthened legislation by making persistent stalking a crime punishable by up to two years in prison. 

Mahinur Ozdemir Goktas, the minister for family affairs, says she has made protecting women a priority and personally follows trials. 

“Even if the victims have given up on their complaints, we continue to follow them,” she said. “Every case is one too many for us.” 

Ataselim said the Istanbul Convention was an additional layer of protection for women and is pressing for a return to the treaty. Her group is also calling for the establishment of a telephone hotline for women facing violence and for the opening of more women’s shelters, saying the current number is far from meeting demand. 

Most of all, existing measures should be adequately enforced, Ataselim said. 

Activists allege that courts are lenient toward male abusers who claim they were provoked, express remorse or show good behavior during trials. Activists say restraining orders are often too short and those who violate them are not detained, putting women at risk. 

“We believe that each of the femicide cases were preventable deaths,” Ataselim said. 

Each year, women’s activists in Turkey take to the streets on International Women’s Day on March 8 and on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on November 25, demanding greater protection for women and Turkey’s return to the treaty. 

Turkish authorities regularly ban such rallies on security and public order grounds. 

Demonstrators often carry signs that read, “I don’t want to die” – the last words uttered by Emine Bulut, who died in a cafe in Kirikkale in central Turkey after her husband slit her throat in front of her 10-year-old daughter. Her death in 2019 shocked the nation. 

Evcil, killed in a salon where she worked as a manicurist, suffered physical and mental abuse after eloping at 18 to marry her husband, who is currently serving a life sentence in prison, her sister Kuzey said. Evcil decided to leave him after 13 years of marriage. 

Kuzey described her sister as a kind woman who “smiled even when she was crying inside.” 

Authorities have named a park in Istanbul in Evcil’s memory. 

“My hope is that our daughters don’t experience what we have experienced and justice comes to this country,” Kuzey said.
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Brussels — Right-wingers pushing nationalist and Euroskeptic policies are rubbing their hands ahead of EU elections in June.

Voter surveys show growing support for their platforms, which will likely translate into bigger influence over the bloc’s political agenda.

However, a closer look reveals deep splits in the right-wing camp — especially over attitudes toward Russia — that would prevent a united front.

In the European Parliament, far-right forces are settled into two political groups which are mostly rivals and have failed at attempts to join together.

One is the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR). The other is the Identity and Democracy group (ID).

“ECR is pro-Ukraine, pro-enlargement, pro-NATO. ID is ambivalent about Russia, anti-Atlanticist, anti-enlargement,” explained Peggy Corlin, analyst at the Robert Schuman Foundation.

ECR counts Brothers of Italy, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s far-right party, in its ranks, along with Spain’s Vox, Poland’s populist Law and Justice (PiS), and France’s Reconquete!.

ID is made up of France’s National Rally (RN) whose face is Marine Le Pen, as well as Italy’s League party, Germany’s anti-immigrant AfD, Austria’s FPO and Geert Wilders’ PVV Freedom Party from the Netherlands.

“ECR is more integrated into the EU political game and in the institutional game,” Corlin said. It has two main figureheads: Meloni and Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala.

ID, in contrast, has up to now been treated as something of a political pariah by the other parliamentary groupings.

“The group will take on more importance, to such an extent that I think they can no longer cut us out as they have done since 2019,” predicted one of its EU lawmakers, Jean-Paul Garraud of France’s RN.

Political alliances

However, even within ID there are tensions between those wanting it to appeal more to mainstream voters, as the RN is striving to do, and the likes of AfD — which is suspected of harboring neo-Nazi sympathizers.

Those tensions were laid bare recently when Le Pen publicly distanced herself from the AfD after reports that several of its leaders held a meeting with extremists in which they discussed massively deporting immigrants or Germans of foreign backgrounds.

“We want clarification about what happened, and especially the policies held by the AfD,” Garraud said. “We want to be in agreement with our allies.”

The likely bigger ECR and ID footprints in the parliament could create difficulties for the legislature’s three main groups: the conservative European People’s Party (EPP), from which European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen hails; the leftist Socialists & Democrats (S&D); and the centrist Renew Europe.

The majority decisions those three managed to work out in the past could be upset on certain issues.

The EPP has not ruled out working with ECR — although von der Leyen recently warned she would never cooperate with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “friends” or enemies of “the rule of law.”

That is an allusion to Fidesz, the party of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who maintains close ties to the Kremlin and has put obstacles in the path of EU aid for Ukraine. Fidesz is in talks to join ECR.

“Let’s see what that brings,” said Akos Bence Gat, an expert at the think tank MCC Brussels that is backed by Hungary’s government.

“For me, what’s important is for the sovereignist right wing to be able to come together and form effective cooperation,” he said, adding that he saw scope for areas of agreement to defend “a Europe of nations” that upholds “traditional values” and battles “massive immigration.”

Internal rifts

But if Fidesz does join the ECR, that could prompt other parties in the group, such as Finland’s Finns Party, or the Sweden Democrats, “to reconsider their position,” noted Sanna Salo, a researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

But, beyond the internecine rifts, “if there is a shift to the right … they can influence the agenda in other ways,” she said, for instance by pushing governments toward their restrictive migration and climate policies.

Already on migration, the EPP seems ready to embrace the far right’s stance: its latest manifesto vows to have asylum-seekers sent to “safe” countries outside the EU.

That echoes what Britain is trying to do under a deal with Rwanda, which has already run afoul of the European Convention on Human Rights, on which EU law in this area is based.
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MUMBAI, India — Krystyna Pyszková of the Czech Republic was crowned Miss World at a glittering contest held in India on Saturday night.

Yasmina Zaytoun of Lebanon was the first runner-up among 112 contestants in the competition held in Mumbai, India’s financial and entertainment capital.

“Being crowned Miss World is a dream come true. I am deeply honored to represent my country and the values of ‘beauty with a purpose’ on a global platform,” Pyszkova said.

After the reigning Miss World, Karoline Bielawska of Poland, passed the crown to her, Pyszková waved to the large crowd at the Jio World Convention Center and hugged some of the other contestants.

The event showcased the rich tapestry of India’s culture, traditions, heritage, arts and crafts, and textiles to a massive global audience. The participants wore heavily embroidered skirts and blouses and danced to popular Bollywood songs.

The beauty competition returned to India for the first time in 28 years.

India’s Sini Shetty exited after making it to the final eight. Six Indian women have won the title, including Reita Faria (1966), Aishwarya Rai (1994), Diana Hayden (1997), Yukta Mookhey (1999), Priyanka Chopra (2000) and Manushi Chillar (2017).

The 71st Miss World beauty pageant was hosted by Bollywood filmmaker Karan Johar and Miss World 2013 Megan Young from the Philippines.
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BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS — Microsoft said Friday it’s still trying to evict the elite Russian government hackers who broke into the email accounts of senior company executives in November and who it said have been trying to breach customer networks with stolen access data.

The hackers from Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service used data obtained in the intrusion, which Microsoft disclosed in mid-January, to compromise some source-code repositories and internal systems, the software giant said in a blog and a regulatory filing.

A company spokesperson would not characterize what source code was accessed and what capability the hackers gained to further compromise customer and Microsoft systems. Microsoft said Friday that the hackers stole “secrets” from email communications between the company and unspecified customers — cryptographic secrets such as passwords, certificates and authentication keys — and that it was reaching out to them “to assist in taking mitigating measures.”

Cloud-computing company Hewlett Packard Enterprise disclosed on January 24 that it, too, was an SVR hacking victim and that it had been informed of the breach — by whom it would not say — two weeks earlier, coinciding with Microsoft’s discovery it had been hacked.

“The threat actor’s ongoing attack is characterized by a sustained, significant commitment of the threat actor’s resources, coordination and focus,” Microsoft said Friday, adding that it could be using obtained data “to accumulate a picture of areas to attack and enhance its ability to do so.”

Cybersecurity experts said Microsoft’s admission that the SVR hack had not been contained exposes the perils of the heavy reliance by government and business on the Redmond, Washington, company’s software monoculture — and the fact that so many of its customers are linked through its global cloud network.

“This has tremendous national security implications,” said Tom Kellermann of the cybersecurity firm Contrast Security. “The Russians can now leverage supply chain attacks against Microsoft’s customers.”

Amit Yoran, the CEO of Tenable, also issued a statement, expressing alarm and dismay. He is among security professionals who find Microsoft overly secretive about its vulnerabilities and how it handles hacks.

“We should all be furious that this keeps happening,” Yoran said. “These breaches aren’t isolated from each other, and Microsoft’s shady security practices and misleading statements purposely obfuscate the whole truth.”

Microsoft said it had not yet determined whether the incident is likely to materially affect its finances. It also said the intrusion’s stubbornness “reflects what has become more broadly an unprecedented global threat landscape, especially in terms of sophisticated nation-state attacks.”

The hackers, known as Cozy Bear, are the same hacking team behind the SolarWinds breach.

When it initially announced the hack, Microsoft said the SVR unit broke into its corporate email system and accessed accounts of some senior executives as well as employees on its cybersecurity and legal teams. It would not say how many accounts were compromised.

At the time, Microsoft said it was able to remove the hackers’ access from the compromised accounts on or about January 13. But by then, they clearly had a foothold.

It said they got in by compromising credentials on a “legacy” test account but never elaborated.

Microsoft’s latest disclosure comes three months after a new U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rule took effect that compels publicly traded companies to disclose breaches that could negatively affect their business.
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