Raphael Stevens

Russia’s foreign ministry has put the US on notice ahead of a meeting between American president Joe Biden and and his Russian counterpart.Sergei Rybakov, the Russian deputy foreign minister, warned president Vladimir Putin’s government would send “unpleasant” messages to the US if they did not discuss a range of issues at their upcoming meeting.“The Americans must assume that a number of signals from Moscow … will be uncomfortable for them, including in the coming days,” he said, according to reporting from Russian news agency RIA.Biden and Putin are expected to meet on 16 June in Geneva. Biden has publicly said he press Mr Putin on the importance of human rights. This will be their first meeting of Biden’s presidency. Mr Rybakov said Russia could be willing to discuss human rights, in exchange for discussing the increase of NATO and American forces in the western regions of Russia, bordering Ukraine. “The actions of our Western colleagues are destroying the world’s security system and force us to take adequate countermeasures,” said Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defence minister, according to the Interfax news agency.Biden made reference to his upcoming talks with Putin on Sunday. “I’m meeting with President Putin in a couple weeks in Geneva, making it clear we will not stand by and let him abuse those rights,” Mr Biden said in a Memorial Day weekend address in Delaware.A Human Rights Watch report in 2020 on Russia found numerous human rights infringements. In 2019, the human rights situation was “deteriorating”. They cited torture and degrading treatment, election protest crackdowns and issues when it comes to freedom of expression. An additional complication to better relations between the two countries is Biden announcing sanctions on Belarus after they arrested Raman Protasevich, a 26-year-old dissident journalist and his girlfriend Sofia Sapagea, a fellow journalist. More

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad voted on Wednesday in an election set to tighten his grip over a country mired in more than a decade-long conflict.Al-Assad cast his ballot in the former rebel stronghold of Douma, the site of a suspected chemical weapons attack in 2018, which, in retaliation, saw heavy military strikes by the US, UK and France.After voting, Assad said, “Syria is not what they were trying to market, one city against the other and sect against the other or civil war. Today we are proving from Douma that the Syrian people are one.”Since March 2011, scores have died, forcibly disappeared, and tortured. More than 11 million people – about half the country’s population – fled from their homes.While Syrians at home and some scattered internationally believe the presidential election is a sham, others say the polls will cement Assad’s fourth seven-year term and extend his family’s rule to nearly six decades. His father, Hafez al-Assad, ruled Syria for 30 years until his death in 2000.For Monther Etaky, a Syrian who fled Aleppo in 2017, now living in Gaziantep in southeastern Turkey, the elections are no different from those in 2014. “This criminal regime and its allies are trying to act like they didn’t kill one Syrian citizen,” he said, adding that these elections cannot reliably define the future of Assad or Syria. Etaky fled the airstrikes, hunger and fear of torture with his two young children after the Assad regime brutally seized his properties. Meanwhile, the opposition is boycotting the vote. Assad’s presidential rivals are deliberately low-key: former deputy cabinet minister Abdallah Saloum Abdallah and Mahmoud Ahmed Marei, head of a small, officially sanctioned opposition party.Addressing his critics, including the West, Assad said Syrians had made their feelings clear by coming out in large numbers. “The value of your opinions is zero,” he said.Assad’s choice of Douma for voting, northeast of the centre of Damascus, is of great significance, says Taleb, a Syrian living in Germany, who only shared his first name. A Sunni Muslim town in eastern Ghouta, Douma was for long beseiged by the Assad regime. “He is trying to send a strong political message of victory to the radical Islamic militant groups, including the Al Nusra Front who once controlled Douma,” said Taleb.Douma was the main base for the groups and of vital strategic importance in the East of Damascus with a road linking Damascus and Homs. “The elections are rigged and it is a show for the international media to show that they are holding elections,” Taleb said.In the southern city of Deraa, cradle of the uprising against Assad in 2011 and an opposition bastion until rebels there surrendered three years ago, local leaders called for a strike.The election went ahead despite a U.N.-led peace process to call for a new constitution and a political settlement.At Damascus University’s Faculty of Arts and Economics, hundreds of students lined up to vote, with several buses parked outside.”With our blood and soul we sacrifice our lives for you Bashar,” groups of them chanted before the polls opened, in scenes repeated across the 70% of Syria now under government control.Zainab Hammoud, a freelance photographer and journalist in Damascus said Assad after all these years in the war has proved he is still there and infact has emerged much stronger. “He has carried out several military operations against the Islamic groups and has made progress against corruption, ” she said. By choosing Douma, Hammoud said Assad is sending a strong message, not an aggressive message but a love message to its people. “This is the time is to fix everything inside Syria. The entire world had closed its doors to Syria, but now they are opening their doors to the country economically. It is important to re-energise Syria’s economy and with Assad it is possible,” she said. “Yesterday Syria’s Tourism minister was in Saudi to attend a tourism exhibition and that is a good starting point for Assad,” Hammoud added. Gauging from the number of people donning t-shirts carrying his name and photograph, Hammoud is certain of his win. His campaign promise read “Al Amal Amal”, which translates to “Hope with work“. Even the elderly were out in force to show their support, Hammoud said. Officials said privately that authorities had organised large rallies in recent days to encourage voting and the security apparatus that underpins Assad’s Alawite minority-dominated rule had instructed state employees to vote.”We have been told we have to go to the polls or bear responsibility for not voting,” said Jafaar, a government employee in Latakia who gave his first name only, also fearing reprisals.In parts of the southern city of Deraa, local figures opposed the election and called for a general strike. Former rebels in the area said there were several incidents of gunfire on vehicles carrying ballot boxes, and shops in many towns were closed.Graffiti scribbled across several towns in the south read, “All people reject the rule of the son of Hafez.”In the northwestern Idlib region, the last rebel enclave where at least three million of those who fled Assad’s bombing campaign are sheltering, people took to the streets to denounce the election “theatre”.In northeast Syria, where U.S. backed Kurdish-led forces administer an autonomous oil-rich region, officials closed border crossings with government-held areas to prevent people from heading to polling stations.They said the election was a setback to reconciliation with a Kurdish minority that has faced decades of discrimination from one-party rule and Arab nationalist ideology. More

The G7 group of democratic states ended its foreign ministers summit in London calling on China to “respect human rights and fundamental freedoms”, but drawing back from any decisive action if that fails to take place. Economic considerations, as well as apprehension that even strong language could trigger retaliation by Beijing, led to some member states of the Group successfully limiting the scope of censure. One of the key points of the summit had been a projected alliance of democracies to counter autocratic regimes with China and Russia seen as the main adversaries. But a number of European states are said to have refused calls for a more robust stance by the US, Support for Taiwan, a country facing aggressive Chinese military exercises and threats of invasion, was also muted. The G7said it supported Taiwan’s participation in World Health Organisation (WHO) forums and the World Health Assembly, but there was no criticism of Beijing’s actions. The Group did, however, condemn the Chinese government for “human rights violations” in Xinjiang and Tibet as well as China’s pursuit of an expansionist strategy through “arbitrary, coercive economic policies”. The Chinese government has been accused of promoting debt dependency in the developing world through its ‘belt and road’ construction scheme, taking over territories at times when the borrowing countries fail to pay back loans. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said: “I think China is more likely to need to, rather than react in anger, it is more likely going to need to take a look in the mirror and understand that it needs to take into account this growing body of opinion, that thinks these basic international rules have got to be adhered to.” The UK, as the host, had invited Japan, India, Australia and South Korea, all countries involved in varying degrees of confrontation with China, to take part in the summit. In the event the Indian foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar had to participated virtually after coming into contact with the suspected cases of covid in his country’s delegation, although he has not tested positive himself. A number of those taking part spoke of how refreshing this summit had been after the acrimony and unpleasantness introduced in previous years by Donald Trump. There was also widespread approval of Britain’s decision to hold an ‘in person’ conference rather than a virtual one.  More

A live debate across nine countries is taking place today by leading women across business and politics on whether more women leadership would help the world move faster out of the pandemic crisis.The founder and CEO of Athena40’s global conversation Elizabeth Filippouli leads the discussion by saying “we cannot ignore the fact that women have been affected disproportionately and in multiple ways:  financially, mentally, physically, professionally”.The former television journalist told those joining the debates today: “Paving the way for more women into leadership positions is our only chance to recover fast from social and financial setbacks and it is also critically important for the emotional and psychological balance of our societies.”HRH Princess Sumaya Bint El Hassan, president of the Royal Scientific Society, will open the global conversation.The speakers covering five continents include: Margery Kraus, Founder & Executive Chairman of APCO Worldwide; Mary Carlin Yates, former ambassador of the US Department of State; Ivana Gažić, President of the Management Board of Zagreb Stock Exchange; Tsitsi Mutendi, Co-founder of African Family Firms, May Chidiac Former Minister & President of May Chidiac Foundation; Tram Anh Nguyen, Co-founder of the Centre for Finance, Technology & Entrepreneurship (CFTE); Leonor Stjepic, CEO of the Montessori Group; Diana Moukalled, Editor of Daraj Media, Hajara Kabeer, Founder of the Girl in STEM Initiative.BBC’s news journalist and presenter Tim Wilcox will introduce and compere the global conversation.Mary Carlin Yates, Ambassador (ret.) of the US Department of State, said:“During my experience of 30 plus years as a diplomat, I witnessed civil wars and crises from Burundi to Liberia, Sudan to Somalia just to name a few. I can unequivocally testify that the contributions and leadership of women during such times was undeniably critical.”Catherine Bolzendahl, Director of the School of Public Policy, Oregon State University, said:“Women’s empowerment benefits everyone in society and continuing progress on gender equality cannot be abandoned in times of crisis.” More