Zelensky eyes ‘history being made’ at Swiss-hosted Ukraine peace conference, but Russia’s absent

Zelensky eyes ‘history being made’ at Swiss-hosted Ukraine peace conference, but Russia’s absent
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Swiss Federal President Viola Amherd shake hands during the Summit on peace in Ukraine, in Stansstad near Lucerne, Switzerland on Jun. 15, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 15 June 2024
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Zelensky eyes ‘history being made’ at Swiss-hosted Ukraine peace conference, but Russia’s absent

Zelensky eyes ‘history being made’ at Swiss-hosted Ukraine peace conference, but Russia’s absent
  • Zelensky said: “I believe that we will witness history being made here at the summit”
  • Swiss officials hosting the conference say more than 50 heads of state and government will join the gathering

OBBÜRGEN, Switzerland: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday predicted “history being made” at the Swiss-hosted conference which aims to plot out the first steps toward peace in Ukraine even though experts and critics say little substance or few big breakthroughs are expected because Russia is not attending.
The presidents of Ecuador, Ivory Coast, Kenya and Somalia joined dozens of Western heads of state and government and other leaders and high-level envoys at the meeting, in hopes that Russia — which is waging war on Ukraine — could join in one day.
In a brief statement to reporters alongside Swiss President Viola Amherd, Zelensky already sought to cast the gathering as a success, saying: “We have succeeded in bringing back to the world the idea that joint efforts can stop war and establish a just peace.”
“I believe that we will witness history being made here at the summit,” he said.
Swiss officials hosting the conference say more than 50 heads of state and government will join the gathering at the Bürgenstock resort overlooking Lake Lucerne. Some 100 delegations including European bodies and the United Nations will be on hand.
Who will show up – and who will not – has become one of the key stakes of a meeting that critics say will be useless without the presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government, which invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and is pushing ahead with the war.
As US Vice President Kamala Harris arrived at the venue, shuttle buses rumbled up a mountain road that snaked up to the site — at times with traffic jams — with police along the route checking journalists’ IDs and helicopters ferrying in VIPs buzzed overhead.
Meanwhile, Türkiye and Saudi Arabia have dispatched their foreign ministers while key developing countries like Brazil, an observer at the event, India and South Africa will be represented at lower levels.
China, which backs Russia, is joining scores of countries that are sitting out the conference, many of whom have more pressing issues than the bloodiest conflict in far-away Europe since World War II. Beijing says any peace process needs to have the participation of both Russia and Ukraine, and has floated its own ideas for peace.
Last month, China and Brazil agreed to six “common understandings” on a political settlement of the Ukraine crisis, asking other countries to endorse them and play a role in promoting peace talks.
The six points include an agreement to “support an international peace conference held at a proper time that is recognized by both Russia and Ukraine, with equal participation of all parties as well as fair discussion of all peace plans.”
Zelensky has recently led a diplomatic push to draw in participants to the Swiss summit.
Russian troops who now control nearly a quarter of Ukrainian land in the east and south have made some territorial gains in recent months. When talk of a Swiss-hosted peace initiative began last summer, Ukrainian forces had recently regained large swaths of territory, notably near the cities of southern Kherson and northern Kharkiv.
Against the battlefield backdrop and diplomatic strategizing, summit organizers have presented three agenda items: nuclear safety, such as at the Russia-controlled Zaporizhzhia power plant; humanitarian assistance and exchange of prisoners of war; and global food security — which has been disrupted at times due to impeded shipments through the Black Sea.
That to-do list, encapsulating some of the least controversial issues, is well short of proposals and hopes laid out by Zelensky in a 10-point peace formula in late 2022.
The plan includes ambitious calls, including the withdrawal of Russian troops from occupied Ukrainian territory, the cessation of hostilities and restoring Ukraine’s state borders with Russia, including Crimea.
Putin’s government, meanwhile, wants any peace deal to be built around a draft agreement negotiated in the early phases of the war that included provisions for Ukraine’s neutral status and limits on its armed forces, while delaying talks about Russia-occupied areas. Ukraine’s push over the years to join the NATO military alliance has rankled Moscow.
Ukraine is unable to negotiate from a position of strength, analysts say.
“The situation on the battlefield has changed dramatically,” said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, saying that although Russia “can’t achieve its maximalist objectives quickly through military means, but it’s gaining momentum and pushing Ukraine really hard.”
“So, a lot of countries that are coming to the summit would question whether the Zelensky peace formula still has legs,” he told reporters in a call Wednesday.
With much of the world’s focus recently on the war in Gaza and national elections in 2024, Ukraine’s backers want to return focus to Russia’s breach of international law and a restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
On Friday, Putin called the conference “just another ploy to divert everyone’s attention.”
The International Crisis Group, an advisory firm that works to end conflict, wrote this week that “absent a major surprise on the Bürgenstock,” the event is “unlikely to deliver much of consequence.”
“Nonetheless, the Swiss summit is a chance for Ukraine and its allies to underline what the UN General Assembly recognized in 2022 and repeated in its February 2023 resolution on a just peace in Ukraine: Russia’s all-out aggression is a blatant violation of international law,” it said.
Experts say they’ll be looking at the wording of any outcome document, and plans for the way forward. Swiss officials, aware of Russia’s reticence about the conference, have repeatedly said they hope Russia can join the process one day, as do Ukrainian officials.
“Most likely, the three items under review will be endorsed by the participants. But then the big question is ‘OK, what comes next?’” Gabuev said. “And I don’t think we have a very clear answer to that question yet.”
As leaders headed to the conference venue, the war raged on.
Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov of Russia’s southern Belgorod region, writing on social media, blamed Ukraine for shelling Friday that struck a five-story apartment building in the town of Shebekino, killing five people. There was no immediate comment from Kyiv.
In Ukraine, shelling killed at least three civilians and wounded 15 others on Friday and overnight, regional officials said. Gov. Oleh Syniehubov of the Kharkiv region, which has been the focus of a recent Russian offensive.


A tiny village in India where Kamala Harris has ancestral roots is praying for her victory

A tiny village in India where Kamala Harris has ancestral roots is praying for her victory
Updated 9 sec ago
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A tiny village in India where Kamala Harris has ancestral roots is praying for her victory

A tiny village in India where Kamala Harris has ancestral roots is praying for her victory
THULASENDRAPURAM: The temple reverberated with rhythmic Sanskrit and Tamil hymns, as a Hindu priest held a flame before the god. As this tiny South Indian village gathered to pray for Kamala Harris, a gaggle of reporters jostled for space and camera angles.
There's little to distinguish the village of Thulasendrapuram from any other rural community in Tamil Nadu, except its connection to a woman who could become America's first leader with South Asian roots.
As millions of Americans vote, Harris has people rooting for her from thousands of miles away in a village surrounded by rice paddies and coconut trees, where her mother's family has ancestral ties. They talk about her at the local tea shop. Banners and billboards bearing her face are seen throughout the community.
“Our deity is a very powerful God. If we pray well to him, he will make her victorious,” said M. Natarajan, the temple priest that led the prayers in front of the image of Hindu deity Ayyanar, a form of Lord Shiva.
Harris’ maternal grandfather was born in the village, about 350 kilometers (215 miles) from the southern coastal city of Chennai, more than 100 years ago. As an adult, he moved to Chennai, where he worked as a high-ranking government official until his retirement.
Harris has never visited Thulasendrapuram and she has no living relatives in the village, but people here still venerate the family that made it big in the U.S.
“Our village ancestors' granddaughter is running as a U.S. presidential candidate. Her victory will be happy news for every one of us,” Natarajan said.
The village's sudden fame has helped bring money into the village. Recently, construction began on a water storage tank with funds donated by a local bank. Village residents say it will carry a plaque with Harris’ name.
Harris’ late mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was born in India. After moving to the U.S. to study, she married a Jamaican man, and they named their daughter Kamala, a Sanskrit word for “lotus flower.”
Other than trips during her childhood, Harris hasn’t visited India much — particularly not since becoming vice president — but she has often spoken emotionally about her ties to her late mother’s country of birth. On Tuesday, she released a campaign video highlighting her mother, who arrived in the U.S. at age 19 and became a cancer researcher.
Titled “Mother,” the video ends with a narrator saying: “This daughter of Shyamala, this daughter of the American story, is ready to lead us forward.”
Harris has often talked about how she was guided by the values of her Indian-born grandfather and mother. She has also spoken of her love of south Indian food, especially a type of steamed rice cake called idli.
Harris’ name is engraved in a list of donors — her aunt Sarala Gopalan gave money to the temple in her name — along with that of her grandfather. Outside, a large banner wishes “the daughter of the land” success in the election.
On Tuesday, the village temple also received rare international visitors: two American tourists and one from the U.K., all wearing black t-shirts that said “Kamala Freakin Harris.”
Manikandan Ganesan, a villager who runs a small store near the temple, said Harris’ bid for the presidency has made the village famous. He hopes Harris will eventually visit them.
“Even if she mentioned that she would visit our village, it would make us very happy,” Ganesan said. “Her victory itself will be a big source of happiness for us.”
Village residents also prayed for Harris’ victory in 2020, and set off firecrackers when she became the U.S. Vice President.
For women of the village, the candidate's journey is a source of inspiration.
Local politician Arulmozhi Sudhakar said Harris embodies a significant step toward female empowerment in places like Thulasendrapuram, where a majority of women continue to face discrimination and gender inequality.
“From the time when women were not even allowed to step out of their house, to now a woman from our village contesting in the U.S. presidential election — this brings happiness for us,” Sudhakar said. “The coming generations will see her as a role model to succeed in life.”

Ukraine’s military says it shot down 48 drones and two missiles overnight

Ukraine’s military says it shot down 48 drones and two missiles overnight
Updated 15 min 24 sec ago
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Ukraine’s military says it shot down 48 drones and two missiles overnight

Ukraine’s military says it shot down 48 drones and two missiles overnight

KYIV: The Ukrainian military said on Tuesday it shot down 48 out of 79 drones and two missiles launched by Russia overnight.
The air force said the location of 30 other drones had been lost, while another had returned to Russia.


India foreign minister says vandalism of Hindu temples deeply concerning

India foreign minister says vandalism of Hindu temples deeply concerning
Updated 05 November 2024
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India foreign minister says vandalism of Hindu temples deeply concerning

India foreign minister says vandalism of Hindu temples deeply concerning
  • Vandalism incident happened weeks after Ottawa expelled six Indian diplomats, linking them to killing of Sikh separatist leader in 2023 
  • Canada has accused India of conducting a broad campaign against South Asian dissidents in Canada, which New Delhi denies 

SYDNEY: India foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Tuesday the vandalism of a Hindu temple in Canada on Monday was deeply concerning.
“What happened yesterday at the Hindu temple in Canada was obviously deeply concerning,” he told reporters in the Australian capital Canberra while on an official visit.
The incident happened weeks after Ottawa expelled six Indian diplomats, linking them to the killing of a Sikh separatist leader in 2023 in Canada. Canada has accused the Indian government of conducting a broad campaign against South Asian dissidents in Canada, which New Delhi denies.
The incident has increased tensions between Canada and India, and between Sikh separatists and Indian diplomats.
Two Hindu temples were also vandalized in Canberra last month, which Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said was upsetting for members of the Indian community.
“People across Australia have a right to be safe and respected, people also have a right to peaceful protest, people have a right to express their views peacefully,” she told reporters.
“We draw a line between that and violence, incitement of hatred or vandalism,” she added.
Wong said Australia had expressed its views to India about Canada’s allegations over the targeting of Sikh separatists, and Canberra respected Canada’s judicial process. Jaishankar said it was unacceptable that Indian diplomats had been placed under surveillance by Canada.
“Canada has developed a pattern of making allegations without providing specifics,” he said.


India foreign minister says vandalism of Hindu temples deeply concerning

India foreign minister says vandalism of Hindu temples deeply concerning
Updated 05 November 2024
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India foreign minister says vandalism of Hindu temples deeply concerning

India foreign minister says vandalism of Hindu temples deeply concerning
  • Canada has accused the Indian government of conducting a broad campaign against South Asian dissidents in Canada, which New Delhi denies

SYDNEY: India foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Tuesday the vandalism of a Hindu temple in Canada on Monday was deeply concerning.
“What happened yesterday at the Hindu temple in Canada was obviously deeply concerning,” he told reporters in the Australian capital Canberra while on an official visit.
The incident happened weeks after Ottawa expelled six Indian diplomats, linking them to the killing of a Sikh separatist leader in 2023 in Canada. Canada has accused the Indian government of conducting a broad campaign against South Asian dissidents in Canada, which New Delhi denies.
The incident has increased tensions between Canada and India, and between Sikh separatists and Indian diplomats.
Two Hindu temples were also vandalized in Canberra last month, which Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said was upsetting for members of the Indian community.
“People across Australia have a right to be safe and respected, people also have a right to peaceful protest, people have a right to express their views peacefully,” she told reporters.
“We draw a line between that and violence, incitement of hatred or vandalism,” she added.
Wong said Australia had expressed its views to India about Canada’s allegations over the targeting of Sikh separatists, and Canberra respected Canada’s judicial process. Jaishankar said it was unacceptable that Indian diplomats had been placed under surveillance by Canada.
“Canada has developed a pattern of making allegations without providing specifics,” he said.


Trump wants the presidential winner to be declared on election night. Why that’s unlikely

Trump wants the presidential winner to be declared on election night. Why that’s unlikely
Updated 05 November 2024
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Trump wants the presidential winner to be declared on election night. Why that’s unlikely

Trump wants the presidential winner to be declared on election night. Why that’s unlikely

Former President Donald Trump is stepping up his demands that the winner of the presidential race be declared shortly after polls close Tuesday, well before all the votes are counted.
Trump set the pattern in 2020, when he declared that he had won during the early morning hours after Election Day. That led his allies to demand that officials “stop the count!” He and many other conservatives have spent the past four years falsely claiming that fraud cost him that election and bemoaning how long it takes to count ballots in the US
But one of many reasons we are unlikely to know the winner quickly on election night is that Republican lawmakers in two key swing states have refused to change laws that delay the count. Another is that most indications are this will be a very close election, and it takes longer to determine who won close elections than blowouts.
In the end, election experts note, the priority in vote-counting is to make sure it’s an accurate and secure tally, not to end the suspense moments after polls close.
“There’s nothing nefarious about it,” said Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. “The time delay is to protect the integrity of the process.”
Trump’s demand also doesn’t seem to account for the six time zones from the East Coast to Hawaii.
David Becker, an elections expert and co-author of “The Big Truth,” debunking Trump’s 2020 election lies, said it’s not realistic for election officials in thousands of jurisdictions to “instantly snap their fingers and count 160 million multi-page ballots with dozens of races on them.”
Trump wants the race decided Tuesday night
During a Sunday rally in Pennsylvania, Trump demanded that the race be decided soon after some polls begin closing.
“They have to be decided by 9 o’clock, 10 o’clock, 11 o’clock on Tuesday night,” Trump said. “Bunch of crooked people. These are crooked people.”
It was not clear who he was targeting with the “crooked people” remark.
Timing is one example of why Trump’s demands don’t match the reality of conducting elections in the US By 11 p.m. Eastern time, polls will just be closing in the two Western swing states of Arizona and Nevada.
Trump has led conservatives to bemoan that the US doesn’t count elections as swiftly as France or Argentina, where results for recent races have been announced within hours of polls closing. But that’s because those countries tabulate only a single election at a time. The decentralized US system prevents the federal government from controlling elections.
Instead, votes are counted in nearly 10,000 separate jurisdictions, each of which has its own races for the state legislature, city council, school boards and ballot measures to tabulate at the same time. That’s why it takes longer for the US to count votes.
Declaring a winner can take time
The Associated Press calls races when there is no possibility that the trailing candidate can make up the gap. Sometimes, if one candidate is significantly behind, a winner can be called quickly. But if the margin is narrow, then every last vote could matter. It takes a while before every vote is counted even in the most efficient jurisdictions in the country.
In 2018, for example, Republican Rick Scott won the US Senate race in Florida, a state conservatives regularly praise for its quick tally. But the AP didn’t call Scott’s victory until after the conclusion of a recount on Nov. 20 because Scott’s margin was so slim.
It also takes time to count every one of the millions of votes because election officials have to process disputed, or “provisional,” ballots, and to see if they were legitimately cast. Overseas ballots from military members or other US citizens abroad can trickle in at the last minute. Mail ballots usually land early, but there’s a lengthy process to make sure they’re not cast fraudulently. If that process doesn’t start before Election Day, it can back up the count.
Some states, such as Arizona, also give voters whose mail ballots were rejected because the signatures didn’t match up to five days to prove they actually cast the ballot. That means final numbers simply cannot be available Tuesday night.
Election rules are to blame in some states
Some of the sluggishness is due to state-specific election rules. In Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, two of the most important swing states, election officials for years have pleaded with Republican lawmakers to change the law that prevents them from processing their mail ballots before Election Day. That means mail ballots get tallied late, and frequently the results don’t start to get reported until after Election Day.
Democrats have traditionally dominated mail voting, which has made it seem like Republicans are in the lead until the early hours of the next morning, when Democratic mail votes finally get added to the tally. Experts even have names for this from past elections — the “red mirage” or the “blue shift.” Trump exploited that dynamic in 2020 when he had his supporters demand an abrupt end to vote counts — the ballots that remained untallied were largely mail ones that were for Joe Biden. It’s not clear how that will play out this year, since Republicans have shifted and voted in big numbers during early voting.
Michigan used to have similar restrictions, but after Democrats won control of the state Legislature in 2022 they removed the prohibition on early processing of mail ballots. That state’s Democratic Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson, said she hopes to have most results available by Wednesday.
“At the end of the day, chief election officials are the folks who have the ability to provide those accurate results. Americans should focus on what they say and not what any specific candidate or folks who are part of the campaign say,” said Jen Easterly, director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Trump allies urge him to declare victory swiftly
Some of Trump’s allies say he should be even more aggressive about declaring victory this time around.
Longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon, who in 2020 predicted the then-president would declare victory before the race was called, advocated for a similar strategy during a recent press conference after he was released from federal prison, where he was serving time for a contempt of Congress conviction related to the investigation into Trump’s effort to overturn his loss in 2020.
“President Trump came up at 2:30 in the morning and talked,” Bannon said. “He should have done it at 11 o’clock in 2020.”
Other Trump supporters have taken a darker tone. His former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, suggested during a recent interview on the right-wing American Truth Project podcast that violence could erupt in states still counting ballots the day after Election Day because people “are just not going to put up with it.”
Trying to project a sense of inevitability about a Trump win, the former president and his supporters have been touting early vote data and favorable polls to contend the election is all but over. Republicans have returned to voting early after largely staying away at Trump’s direction in 2020 and 2022. In some swing states that track party registration, registered Republicans are outvoting Democrats in early voting.
But that doesn’t mean Republicans are ahead in any meaningful sense. Early voting data does not tell you who will win an election because it only records who voted, not how they voted.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has been explicitly targeting Republicans disillusioned by Trump. In each of those states where more Republicans have voted, there also are huge numbers of voters casting early ballots who are not registered with either of the two major political parties. If Harris won just a tiny fraction more of those votes than Trump, it would erase the small leads Republicans have.
There’s only one way to find out who won the presidential election: Wait until enough votes are tallied, whenever that is.