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    The Prisoner Exchange That Freed Brittney Griner

    More from our inbox:Selective Prosecution of TrumpTwo Views of BidenDiversity in Tech JobsA ‘Friend’ for Solo EldersA still from a video distributed by Russian state media shows Brittney Griner, in red, and Viktor Bout, holding a yellow envelope, on the tarmac at the Abu Dhabi International Airport on Thursday.To the Editor: Re “Griner Is Freed; Leaves Russia After a Trade” (front page, Dec. 9):On Thursday, the American basketball star Brittney Griner was freed from a Russian prison. This is indisputably joyous news, but it is bittersweet. To secure her release, President Biden had to agree to release a notorious Russian arms dealer whose weapon sales have supported death and misery around the world.It is great news, of course, for Ms. Griner and her family. Sadly, Paul Whelan, another American, remains in Russian custody, where he has been illegitimately detained for the past four years. The great news about Ms. Griner is blemished by the continued imprisonment of Mr. Whelan.President Biden has shown perseverance and dedication to securing the freedom of unjustly imprisoned Americans. But let us not forget that these deals come at a cost. Freeing Brittney Griner required that the U.S. release a soulless man who might now resume his arms dealing.Geopolitics sometimes requires painful compromise, and this moment clearly illustrates this point.Ken DerowSwarthmore, Pa.To the Editor:The exchange of a basketball player for a convicted arms dealer, leaving a former U.S. Marine in Russian custody, is a disgrace, patently wrong, unbalanced by any sense of equity and an affront to American values. President Biden should be ashamed.Richard M. FrauenglassHuntington, N.Y.To the Editor:While it is to be celebrated that Brittney Griner is coming home, my heart breaks for the family of Paul Whelan and for the families of other unjustly detained Americans all over the world.Ms. Griner’s release underscores the power of celebrity to drive more vigorous action. No doubt the advocacy of LeBron James and Stephen Curry, for example, on behalf of Ms. Griner played a significant role in pressuring the White House to get a deal done to bring her home, while Mr. Whelan and countless others continue to languish behind bars.Mark GodesChelsea, Mass.To the Editor:Viktor Bout, the Russian arms dealer, would have been out in seven years, back in business (maybe). So should we have let Brittney Griner stay in prison?Good for President Biden and our persistent officials. I travel internationally to dangerous places, and it’s good to know the U.S. has my back.Norbert HirschhornMinneapolisSelective Prosecution of TrumpProsecutors told jurors that Donald J. Trump personally paid for some perks and approved a crucial aspect of the scheme. Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesTo the Editor: Re “In a Blow to Trump, a Jury Finds His Business Guilty of Tax Fraud” (front page, Dec. 7):It is possible to view Donald Trump as deserving of accountability, retribution, even loathing, while recognizing that this tax fraud prosecution was selective.The money at stake is not worth the costs to pursue the case, and the nature of the crime seems unexceptional, especially in a private business. It is not a case prosecutors would ordinarily pursue.It may be noble in a larger or proportionate sense, but that can be respected while questioning the claims of prosecutors that it shows how everyone is equally subject to the law.Edward AbahoonieSparkill, N.Y.Two Views of Biden Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor: The other day I discovered a book by Joe Biden from 2017, “Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship and Purpose,” which focuses on his late son Beau’s battle with brain cancer. I was moved to discover that the book reveals not just his memories of his beloved son, but also his role as a husband, devoted father and seasoned politician familiar with the vicissitudes of dealing with bigwigs, foreign and domestic.What strikes one in reading Mr. Biden’s own heartfelt words is the sheer faith he has in the human ties he cherishes. Despite the tragedies he has suffered, he has held fast to his best qualities — compassion and faith.In short, he is a man of great trustworthiness, patience and forbearance, whose comparison to any probable rival in 2024 of either party clearly renders him, yet again, the best candidate for president.Richard OrlandoWestmount, QuebecTo the Editor:Re “America Deserves Better Than Donald Trump” (editorial, Nov. 20):Your editorial should have been titled “America Deserves Better Than Joe Biden.”The Biden administration has wrecked our economy with out-of-control inflation and government spending, has allowed undocumented immigrants to flood our southern border, and has destroyed our credibility as an international leader with our disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.There has been a large rise in crime and lawlessness, and many of us feel that the current administration is using the Justice Department, the F.B.I. and intelligence agencies against its political enemies and those who do not support its far-left and green agenda.Yes, we deserve better! Because we are a country where the words “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” have real meaning to our citizens.Sam TaylorColorado SpringsDiversity in Tech JobsAnnalice Ni, 22, was disappointed when Meta laid her off from her job as a software engineer last month. Now she is using the opportunity to expand her career horizons.Jason Henry for The New York TimesTo the Editor: Re “Future in Big Tech Dims for Computing Students” (Business, Dec. 8):The article makes an important argument for students to seek jobs outside Big Tech, and look to start-ups and nontechnical industries that are hungry for fresh talent. However, it’s imperative for us to also address ways to support the most marginalized students, who are often left behind when the job market makes a significant shift.Today, only 26 percent of computer scientists are women, and only 8 percent are Black. Organizations like mine are working to correct this imbalance, but the onus remains on hiring managers to consider a wider range of qualified talent for technical roles.This could mean looking beyond Ivy League institutions and four-year universities, or placing less importance on technical interviews — which disproportionately benefit those with industry connections. Standards for computer science jobs should remain high, but we must be more nimble in how we measure a strong candidate.In moments of economic strain, we can’t forget that a diverse work force is critical for both equity and long-term success. All students, no matter their background, deserve access to the tech jobs they’ve worked so hard to secure.Tarika BarrettNew YorkThe writer is C.E.O. of Girls Who Code.A ‘Friend’ for Solo EldersJoan DelFattore, a retired English professor, objects to the perception that older people without immediate family are somehow needy.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesTo the Editor:A critical issue that wasn’t addressed in “Who Will Care for the Kinless Seniors?,” by Paula Span (The New Old Age, Dec. 6), is the absence of someone who could serve as a health care proxy in the event that a senior is not capable of making their own medical decision.There has been some research over the last several years about the increasing number of older people in that situation (sometimes called the “unbefriended”) and the programs that might provide a way to identify existing proxies or to develop new relationships in part to serve that function.Community organizations, together with the medical community, need to create joint initiatives, funded by the public and private sectors, to enable these seniors to have a “friend.”Alice YakerNew YorkThe writer served as a health care consultant on this issue with the New York Legal Assistance Group. 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    The week where decades happened: how the west finally woke up to Putin

    The week where decades happened: how the west finally woke up to Putin From Germany’s shock military spending rise to sanctions unity, leaders have come together over the war in Ukraine

    Russia-Ukraine war: live news
    Lenin, a Russian leader as obsessed with history as Vladimir Putin, famously said: “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” This has been the latter. The little more than a week since Russian troops invaded Ukraine has indeed shaken the world. Change has been telescoped, national taboos broken, moribund institutions given purpose and the spectre of a nuclear war in Europe has been raised for the first time since the 1980s. Germany has called it Zeitenwende, the turning point. It will not just be Ukraine that is changed for ever by this war.But there is something specific about how war accelerates change. In The Deluge, his classic work on how society is changed by war, the British historian Arthur Marwick wrote: “War acts as a supreme challenge to, and test of, a country’s social and political institutions. War results not only in the destruction of inefficient institutions (such as the Tsarist regime in Russia), but also in the transformation of less efficient mechanisms into more efficient ones”.The west has surprised itself with its ability to respond to the misery inflicted on the people of Ukraine. All kinds of unimaginable images emerge. The German Bundestag cheered an extra €100bn (£82.4bn) on defence spending, followed by 100,000 people on the streets in protest at Putin. Matteo Salvini, the great Italian defender of Putin, bringing white tulips to the Ukrainian embassy. Liz Truss, the UK foreign secretary, attending a meeting of the EU foreign affairs ministers meeting. The Hungarian leader, Viktor Orbán, sharply criticised by human-rights groups and others over the years for his hardline border policies, sitting on a school bench opening his arms to refugees.It was just a fortnight ago that the German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, had appeared at the Munich security conference to caution the crisis was not the moment to try to execute an 180-degree turn on the decades-old German policy banning the sale of arms into conflict zones. Josep Borrell, the EU external affairs chief, batted away calls for Ukraine to join the EU, saying they already had an exceptional trade deal. He spoke about the “power of the EU’s language”, distancing himself from his own one-time claim that the EU must learn “the language of power”.The next day – Sunday – all the talk was of Emmanuel Macron’s diplomatic initiative, and the concessions the French president had extracted from Vladimir Putin. Even on Wednesday, on the eve of the invasion, Baerbock gave an interview saying it was impossible for Germany to impose the strongest sanctions because of “the massive collateral damage” to Germany’s own economy. Putin could end up laughing at us, she warned.Yet by the following weekend, two days after the invasion began on Thursday, Germany’s coalition government had started that 180-degree course correction. Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his cabinet agreed to send Ukraine 1,000 anti-tank weapons and 500 anti-aircraft Stinger missiles, lifting restrictions on German weapons being sent to conflict zones by third parties in the process. The next day, Scholz told the Bundestag in his trademark matter-of-fact manner that he was injecting €100bn into German defence, but protecting other budgets, and defence spending would rise above 2% of German GDP. The MPs from government and the CDU gasped and cheered in equal measure. David McAllister, a leading figure in the German CDU and chair of the European parliament’s foreign affairs select committee, admits he nearly fell off his chair when he heard the plans.Russian forces attacked multiple targets in southern UkraineThe promised growth catapults Germany into becoming the third largest spender on defence globally, behind only the US and China. GlobalData forecasts an annual German defence budget of $83.5bn in 2024, equating to a 45% increase on 2021’s budget of $57.5bn. That is bigger than France and the UK. Overnight Germany became not just an economic but also a geopolitical powerhouse. Polls said 78% of Germans backed the decision.Matthias Matthijs, Europe senior fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations, said: “It is quite astonishing how fast this government broke pretty well every taboo in postwar German foreign policy.”He attributes the scale of the change to a visit to Berlin on Sunday by the Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki. “I came to Berlin to shake the conscience of Germany,” Morawiecki said.Sophia Besch, from the Centre for European Reform, points out Scholz himself insisted he had not acted due to pressure from allies, but due to Germany changing its view of the threat posed by Putin. “The truth is the world did not change last Thursday,” she said. “Berlin for years has ignored the warnings that came from many of our allies and from Putin. We need to learn the lessons of how this could have happened and how we could have been so blind. We are leaving behind some of our old beliefs – that economic interdependence prevents conflict, but I am not sure we know yet with what we are replacing this belief.”Sergey Lagodinsky, a German Green MEP, argued Germany needs not only to spend more money, but to shift its mindset without becoming militaristic or interventionist. It needs to discuss how to adopt escalation, including military escalation, as leverage as part of its foreign policy toolbox. Foreign policy is not just a peace policy, Friedenspolitik in German, but also the ability to deal, manage and face conflict.But the new German coalition, faced by the need to extricate itself from Russian energy, may have to challenge other orthodoxies. The Green economics minister, Robert Habeck, does not rule out extending the use of coal-fired power plants. “This blind, naive, one-sided relationship of dependency on Russia for energy for decades is one of the biggest strategic mistakes of the past 20 years,” Lagodinsky said. “Now we are stuck. It represents a medium- and long-term problem”.But Putin’s recklessness is not just causing a revolution in Germany, but across Europe.Sweden abandoned its policy of not sending weapons to conflict zones, agreeing to send Bofors AT-4, a single-use anti-tank launcher, to Ukraine, plus medical supplies. In Finland, a bombshell poll showed 53% want Finland to join Nato. “This poll flipped everything on its head,” said Charly Salonius-Pasternak, of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. Moreover the poll showed that if voters were told that politicians said they backed the plan the support went up to two-thirds. “You could sense the president, Sauli Niinisto, realised the whole defence dynamic was changed.” Niinisto, seen as one of the best readers of what Putin is thinking is now rushing to hold urgent talks with Joe Biden in the White House.Ukraine war prompts European reappraisal of its energy supplies Read moreEven in Switzerland, leaders had to catch up with the public mood in the space of a weekend, and by the Monday an emergency cabinet promised to implement the entire EU sanctions package. The decision does not formally end a policy of neutrality that has survived two world wars, but there is now pressure to track down the many oligarchs that live in the country. There are also calls for an increase in the defence budgetThere has been a mini-revolution in Italy, too, where the prime minister, Mario Draghi, accused last week of seeking sanctions carve-outs to protect Italy’s dependence on Russian gas, has also found some mettle. He told parliament on Tuesday: “Yes, we want peace, but it is obvious that whoever amassed more than 60km of tanks near Kyiv does not want peace. We cannot turn our backs on Ukraine. Italy does not intend to look away.” He proposed an international public register of those with assets of more than €10m. In France, Macron looks likely to be re-elected comfortably next month as the rightwing candidates find themselves compromised by links to Putin they cannot deny.Eastern European countries, sometimes hostile to refugees, have instead had the most open arms. Poland has taken an unprecedented 600,000 people. Orbán the Hungarian leader photographed smiling at child refugees, vows “No one will be left uncared for.”The UK too has been experiencing unusually heavy traffic on the Road to Damascus. The Conservative government promises there will be no hiding place for oligarchs, publishing the delayed economic crime bill and seemingly unnerving Roman Abramovich into selling his stake in Chelsea football club. The endless denigration of Brussels has stopped. “The quality and intensity of the contacts between the EU and UK has been different to anything since before Brexit,” one EU official said. “We have restored a level of trust”.But it has been at the level of the European Union that the action has been quickest and most surprising, revealing Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the EU Commission and former German defence minister, as a powerful advocate for action. For the EU to release €500m from the European Peace Facility to provide equipment and supplies to the Ukrainian armed forces, including – for the first time – lethal equipment, was a first. EU military staff based in Poland are now coordinating military supplies into Ukraine. The EU as a military player is no longer just the stuff of seminars.Equally, the Commission in discussing its EU sanctions package acted with an unparalleled speed, and by consensus among the member states. Some EU sanctions packages take months to be agreed as one country or other exploiting the requirement for unanimity uses their veto power to pursue a national interest.That the UK, US and EU were able to coordinate an attack on the Russian central bank, freezing out some Russian banks from the global Swift bank payment system and implementing measures to prevent Russian banks and firms raising capital, showed a wholly unexpected level of resolve. This was a financial declaration of war – an attempt to turn Russia into a pariah economy – something never tried before, using methods never deployed before. It involved, for instance, some G20 central banks freezing the Russian central bank reserves held in their own jurisdiction, so depleting the war chest of reserves that Putin had accumulated to defend his economy if it came under western attack.All this is remarkable, indeed epoch-making, but not a cause for celebration. The institutions of liberal democracy may have belatedly shown resolve and unity, but in the here and now they are still losing. Keir Giles, from the Chatham House thinktank, is blunt: “Russia will want to present Zelenskiy with an appalling choice – whether to fight on at immense human cost and to the destruction of his country, infrastructure and economy or to submit to his terms in order that life can go on.“The decision to abandon Ukraine to that fate was made by the west when it gave the green light to Putin by reassuring him that no one would intervene. Nato does not have a strategy to win the war in Ukraine because Nato does not want to be in the war in Ukraine.”European politicians will also be worrying as the price of bread and energy soars in the months ahead whether voters are willing to make the sacrifice.the Lithuanian foreign minister told the UK foreign affairs select committee that half-measures would not do. “Putin has no boundaries to what instruments he is going to use and unleash against the Ukrainians”, Gabrielius Landsbergis, said, adding the west “had to go all-in”.He wants humanitarian corridors supported by no-fly zones. But the UK and the US have firmly rejected this since it would pit Nato pilots against Russian pilots. A Polish plan, backed by Borrell for Nato to provide Ukraine with Nato jets, training and bombs, got shot down in less than a day.The other remaining option is to end the final carve-outs in the sanctions regime. “The push is now for carpet sanctions to match the carpet bombing,” said Orysia Lutsevych from the Ukraine Forum, adding the UK, EU and the US are still buying more than €700m of oil, gas and other commodities that is the equivalent of 150 tanks a day that Russia can finance.That could be stopped either through an energy trade embargo, or by reversing the EU decision to let Gazprombank and Sberbank, the vehicles through which Europe pays for Russian oil and gas, stay in the Swift payment system. UK officials briefed on Wednesday they want to abolish the carve out given by the EU. If these two banks are thrown out of Swift that might immobilise Russian oil and gas exports, or lead to unspecified retaliation by Putin.The breadth and range of economic and financial measures taken against Moscow, not to mention growing sporting and cultural isolation, has been a humiliation for Putin, but it is also a risk for the west if the Russian leader sees no answer but total victory. “He is in a corner, but unfortunately with nuclear weapons, says Giles.The west has been transformed in a week, but the question this weekend is if it would be willing, forced by the chaos of events, to go even further. The charge facing the west after a week of war is the one made by George Orwell of Neville Chamberlain in 1938. Like almost everyone at the time, he “neither wanted to pay the price of peace nor that of war”.TopicsUkraineEuropeRussiaGermanyMilitaryArms tradeSwedenfeaturesReuse this content More

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    Biden's announcement on Yemen is a hopeful sign – now the UK must follow suit | Anna Stavrianakis

    In a speech at the US state department last week, President Biden turned the war in Yemen from a forgotten crisis to front-page news. Since March 2015, a Saudi-led coalition, militarily and diplomatically backed by the US and UK in particular, has been involved in the conflict, which grew out of a failed political transition following the 2011 revolution.The war has killed more than 100,000 people, destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure, subjected large swathes of the population to famine and generated the worst cholera outbreak since modern records began. All parties to the war have likely committed violations of international law.Biden’s announcement of an end to “all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales” has been widely welcomed as part of a US return to multilateralism and an active step to end the conflict. The news should be greeted with cautious optimism: the sense of relief that the US administration seems to be taking the humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen seriously is tempered by concerns about the policy detail and the memory that Joe Biden was vice-president under Barack Obama, who initiated US involvement in the war.Changes in US policy will have significant ramifications for the UK, not least in the area of arms sales, which is one of the main ways the UK is involved in the war. First, the UK risks being isolated diplomatically as US policy becomes more focused on preventing the Saudi-led coalition from violating international law and as EU states continue to operate more restrictive arms export policies, most recently in Italy.For a country so invested in its reputation as a leader in the rule of law, this is dangerous territory. The UK can continue on the path of supplying weapons, be castigated as an outlier and risk even greater criticism for putting the arms industry and relationships with the Saudi royal family above human rights and humanitarian law; or change course, restrict or halt arms transfers, and face further censure about the integrity of its policy up to this point.Second, the US decision indicates that the sale of precision-guided munitions will be halted, which will have implications for UK industry. The CEO of Raytheon, one of the world’s largest arms producers, has stated that the company has removed a $500m deal from its books – widely understood to refer to the planned sale of Paveway bombs. Paveway IV bombs are produced in the UK by the British subsidiary of Raytheon, so any cancellation of US deals would probably mean a halt to UK exports. Ministers are no doubt involved in frantic attempts to figure out the implications of this for the UK arms industry.Third, the US developments may well affect the course of justice in the UK. The Campaign Against Arms Trade has launched a second judicial review of UK arms export policy, challenging the government’s position that violations of international humanitarian law in Yemen are only “isolated incidents” and do not constitute a pattern. Depending on the reasoning behind and scope of changes to US policy, the UK government’s position may become even harder to sustain.For these reasons, I think there are grounds to be somewhat hopeful that something will have to change in UK arms export policy, to restrict, suspend or halt transfers – including actual deliveries, not just licences – to the Saudi-led coalition. However, there are no guarantees in terms of the details and practical implementation of Biden’s announcement, and there is room for manoeuvre afforded by the qualifiers around what constitutes “offensive” operations and what the “relevant” arms sales are that will be cancelled.The UK has its own record of playing with words while Yemen burns: take the corrections to the parliamentary record to amend what the government says it knew about the Saudis’ conduct in the war; the narrowing down of all potential breaches of international law in Yemen to only a “small number” and the implausible claim that they are only “isolated incidents”; or the endless repetition of the mantra that the UK operates a “robust” control regime. What we can expect is the government to come out robustly in defence of its own actions.This behaviour is part of what has allowed the war in Yemen to continue for so long and so horrifically. UK policy is to assess whether there is a clear risk that arms transfers might be used in violations of human rights and humanitarian law: risk assessment is supposed to prevent the use of UK-supplied weapons in such violations. But the UK has applied its risk assessment in such a way as to facilitate rather than restrict arms exports. The government also points to the very fact that it conducts risk assessments as a way of legitimising and justifying further arms sales.An end to US/UK arms sales to the Saudi-led coalition won’t end the war in Yemen by itself. But it could force a change by pushing the warring parties back to the negotiating table. As Radhya Almutawakel, the chair of the Yemeni organisation Mwatana for Human Rights, put it, all the parties to the conflict are weak in different ways such that none can “win” outright. In this context, the Biden announcement could be a catalyst for change.The current strategy of the Saudi-led coalition and its western backers has not been working for a long time: the war has not made the Houthi rebel movement any weaker. The conflict won’t end overnight, but the principles of justice and accountability demand an end to arms sales now. More