Serbia announces $3 billion deal to buy 12 French warplanes, in a shift away from Russia

Serbia announces $3 billion deal to buy 12 French warplanes, in a shift away from Russia
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French President Emmanuel Macron clasps hands with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic after a joint press conference in Belgrade on Aug. 29, 2024. (AP)
Serbia announces $3 billion deal to buy 12 French warplanes, in a shift away from Russia
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French President Emmanuel Macron, left, meeting with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in Belgrade on Aug. 29, 2024. (AP)
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Updated 30 August 2024
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Serbia announces $3 billion deal to buy 12 French warplanes, in a shift away from Russia

Serbia announces $3 billion deal to buy 12 French warplanes, in a shift away from Russia
  • Macron hails deal as “historic and important” and part of a strategy to bring Serbia closer to the European Union
  • Russia has been a traditional supplier of military aircraft to Serbia, which has refused to join international sanctions against Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine

BELGRADE, Serbia: Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic on Thursday announced a $3 billion deal to buy 12 French warplanes, in a move that shifts his country away from its dependence on Russian arms.
The announcement about the Rafale multi-purpose fighter jets was made during a joint news conference in Belgrade with French President Emmanuel Macron during a two-day visit to Serbia as part of what French officials have called a strategy of bringing Serbia closer to the European Union.
Macron called called the deal “historic and important,” and said it demonstrated Serbia’s “strategic courage.”
“The European Union needs a strong and democratic Serbia at its side and Serbia needs a strong, sovereign Europe to defend its interests,” Macron said. ″Serbia’s place is in the EU, and it has a role to play to be an example for all the region.”




French President Emmanuel Macron, left, reviews the honor guard along with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic during a welcoming ceremony in Belgrade, Serbia, on Aug. 29, 2024. (AP)

Serbia is formally seeking European Union membership, but under Vucic’s increasingly autocratic rule it has made little progress in the fields of rule of law and democratic reforms, which are the main preconditions for membership in the 27-nation bloc.
Selling Rafales to Russian ally Serbia, which has occasionally expressed an aggressive stance toward its Balkan neighbors, has raised some concerns, one of which is how France plans to prevent sophisticated Rafale technology from being shared with Russia.
Asked about whether the warplane deal includes restrictions on Serbia’s sharing of Rafale technology to its ally Russia, or the use of the military hardware in the Balkan region, Macron said the deal included ″full guarantees like any defense agreement,” without elaborating.
Russia has been a traditional supplier of military aircraft to Serbia, which has refused to join international sanctions against Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.
Vucic described the purchase of the Rafale jets as a “big” development. “It will contribute considerably to improving operational capabilities of our army, a completely different approach and we are happy to become part of the Rafale club,” Vucic said.




File photo showing a French Air Force Dassault Rafale fighter jet on flight.  (Shutterstock)

Vucic dismissed any concerns among Western nations of the possibility that Serbia would transfer technology to Russia because of the Balkan country’s traditional close ties with Moscow.
“For the first time in history Serbia has Western jets,” Vucic said. “You wish to have Serbia as a partner and then you voice suspicions?”
The French maker of Rafale, Dassault Aviation, said in a statement that Serbia’s decision to buy the warplanes confirms “Rafale’s operational superiority and its proven excellence in serving the sovereign interests of a nation.”
Serbia had been considering the purchase of the new Rafale jets for more than two years, since neighboring Balkan rival Croatia purchased 12 used fighter jets of the same type for about 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion).
The acquisition allows Serbia to modernize its air force, which consists mainly of Soviet-made MiG-29 fighters and aging Yugoslav combat aircraft.

 

 


Trump set to name Marco Rubio secretary of state: NYT

Trump set to name Marco Rubio secretary of state: NYT
Updated 42 min 20 sec ago
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Trump set to name Marco Rubio secretary of state: NYT

Trump set to name Marco Rubio secretary of state: NYT
  • In 2016, when they were competing for the Republican presidential nomination, Rubio called Trump a “con artist” and the “most vulgar person to ever aspire to the presidency”

WASHINGTON: President-elect Donald Trump is expected to name Florida Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state, The New York Times reported Monday night.
It quoted three people as saying that the decision is not final, but that Trump appears to have settled on Rubio, a loyalist whom Trump passed over as his vice presidential running mate.
Rubio has been consistently named over the last week as one of the frontrunners to head US diplomacy, along with the abrasive former ambassador to Germany, Ric Grenell.
Asked if he was destined for a senior cabinet job, Rubio told CNN last week, “I always am interested in serving this country.”
The nomination of the hawkish congressman, who has Cuban heritage, would cap a remarkable turnaround in his relations with Trump.
In 2016, when they were competing for the Republican presidential nomination, Rubio called Trump a “con artist” and the “most vulgar person to ever aspire to the presidency.”
Born to Cuban immigrants in Miami, he graduated with a political science degree from the University of Florida in 1993.
He was elected to the US Senate in 2010 with his campaign buoyed by the Tea Party, a far-right contingent of Republicans that coalesced in the aftermath of Barack Obama’s election as president.
 


Trump selects Mike Waltz as national security adviser, sources say

Trump selects Mike Waltz as national security adviser, sources say
Updated 12 November 2024
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Trump selects Mike Waltz as national security adviser, sources say

Trump selects Mike Waltz as national security adviser, sources say

WASHINGTON: President-elect Donald Trump has picked Republican Representative Mike Waltz to be his national security adviser, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Monday, tapping a retired Army Green Beret who has been a leading critic of China.
Waltz, a Trump loyalist who also served in the National Guard as a colonel, has criticized Chinese activity in the Asia-Pacific and has voiced the need for the United States to be ready for a potential conflict in the region.
The national security adviser is a powerful role, which does not require Senate confirmation. Waltz will be responsible for briefing Trump on key national security issues and coordinating with different agencies.
While slamming the Biden administration for a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, Waltz has publicly praised Trump’s foreign policy views.
“Disruptors are often not nice ... frankly our national security establishment and certainly a lot of people that are dug into bad old habits in the Pentagon need that disruption,” Waltz said during an event earlier this year.
“Donald Trump is that disruptor,” he said.
Waltz has a long history in Washington’s political circles.
He was a defense policy director for defense secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates and was elected to Congress in 2018. He is the chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee overseeing military logistics and also on the select committee on intelligence.
Waltz is also on the Republican’s China Task Force and has argued the US military is not as prepared as it needs to be if there is conflict in the Indo-Pacific region.
In a book published earlier this year titled “Hard Truths: Think and Lead Like a Green Beret,” Waltz laid out a five part strategy to preventing war with China, including arming Taiwan faster, re-assuring allies in the Pacific, and modernizing planes and ships.
On Ukraine, Waltz has said his views have evolved. After Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, he called for the Biden administration to provide more weapons to Kyiv to help them push back Russian forces.
But during an event last month, Waltz said there had to be a reassessment of the United States’ aims in Ukraine.
“Is it in America’s interest, are we going to put in the time, the treasure, the resources that we need in the Pacific right now badly?” Waltz asked.
Waltz has praised Trump for pushing NATO allies to spend more on defense, but unlike the president-elect has not suggested the United States pull out of the alliance.
“Look we can be allies and friends and have tough conversations,” Waltz said last month.


UN Security Council considers action on Sudan war

UN Security Council considers action on Sudan war
Updated 12 November 2024
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UN Security Council considers action on Sudan war

UN Security Council considers action on Sudan war
  • The UN says nearly 25 million people — half of Sudan’s population — need aid as famine has taken hold in displacement camps and 11 million people have fled their homes

UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations Security Council is discussing a British-drafted resolution that demands Sudan’s warring parties cease hostilities and calls on them to allow safe, rapid and unhindered deliveries of aid across front lines and borders. War erupted in April 2023 from a power struggle between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces ahead of a planned transition to civilian rule, and triggered the world’s largest displacement crisis. It has produced waves of ethnically driven violence blamed largely on the RSF. The RSF has denied harming civilians in Sudan and attributed the activity to rogue actors. In the first UN sanctions imposed during the current conflict, a Security Council committee designated two RSF generals last week.
“Nineteen months in to the war, both sides are committing egregious human rights violations, including the widespread rape of women and girls,” Britain’s UN ambassador, Barbara Woodward, told reporters at the start of this month as Britain assumed the Security Council’s presidency for November.
“More than half the Sudanese population are experiencing severe food insecurity,” she said. “Despite this, the SAF and the RSF remain focussed on fighting each other and not the famine and suffering facing their country.”
Britain wanted to put the draft resolution to a vote as quickly as possible, diplomats said. To be adopted, a resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the US, France, Britain, Russia or China.

AID ACROSS BORDERS
The UN says nearly 25 million people — half of Sudan’s population — need aid as famine has taken hold in displacement camps and 11 million people have fled their homes. Nearly 3 million of those people have left for other countries.
Britain’s draft text “demands that the Rapid Support Forces immediately halt its offensives” throughout Sudan, “and demands that the warring parties immediately cease hostilities.”
It also “calls on the parties to the conflict to allow and facilitate the full, safe, rapid, and unhindered crossline and cross-border humanitarian access into and throughout Sudan.” The draft also calls for the Adre border crossing with Chad to remain open for aid deliveries “and stresses the need to sustain humanitarian access through all border crossings, while humanitarian needs persist, and without impediments.”
A three-month approval given by Sudanese authorities for the UN and aid groups to use the Adre border crossing to reach Darfur is due to expire in mid-November. The Security Council has adopted two previous resolutions on Sudan: in March it called for an immediate cessation of hostilities for the holy month of Ramadan, then in June it specifically demanded a halt to a siege of a city of 1.8 million people in Sudan’s North Darfur region by the RSF.
Both resolutions — adopted with 14 votes in favor and a Russian abstention — also called for full, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access.


US climate action won’t end with Trump, envoy tells COP29

US climate action won’t end with Trump, envoy tells COP29
Updated 12 November 2024
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US climate action won’t end with Trump, envoy tells COP29

US climate action won’t end with Trump, envoy tells COP29

BAKU: Washington’s top climate envoy sought to reassure countries at the COP29 talks Monday that Donald Trump’s re-election would not end US efforts to tackle global warming.
Trump’s sweep of the presidential vote has cast a long shadow over the crunch talks in Baku, with the incoming US leader pledging to withdraw Washington from the landmark Paris climate agreement.
The vote has left the US delegation somewhat hamstrung and stoked fears other countries could be less ambitious in a fractious debate on increasing climate funding for developing nations.
US envoy John Podesta acknowledged the next US administration would “try and take a U-turn” on climate action, but said that US cities, states and individual citizens would pick up the slack.
“While the United States federal government under Donald Trump may put climate change action on the back burner, the work to contain climate change is going to continue in the United States with commitment and passion and belief,” he said.
“The fight is bigger than one election, one political cycle in one country.”
The Baku talks opened earlier Monday with UN climate chief Simon Stiell urging countries to “show that global cooperation is not down for the count.”
Things got off to a rocky start, with feuds over the official agenda delaying by hours the start of formal proceedings in the stadium venue near the Caspian Sea.
But in the evening, governments approved new UN standards for a global carbon market in a key step toward allowing countries to trade credits to meet their climate targets.
COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev hailed a “breakthrough” after years of complex discussions but more work is needed before a long-sought UN-backed market can be fully realized.
The main agenda item at COP29 is increasing a $100 billion-a-year target to help developing nations prepare for worsening climate impacts and wean their economies off fossil fuels.
How much will be on offer, who will pay, and who can access the funds are some of the major points of contention.
Babayev acknowledged the need was “in the trillions” but said a more “realistic goal” was somewhere in the hundreds of billions.
“These negotiations are complex and difficult,” the former executive of Azerbaijan’s national oil company said at the opening of the summit.
Developing countries warn that without adequate finance, they will struggle to offer ambitious updates to their climate goals, which countries are required to submit by early next year.
“The global North owes the global South a climate debt,” said Tasneem Essop, executive director of Climate Action Network.
“We will not leave this COP if the ambition level on the finance... doesn’t match the scale at which finance must be delivered.”
Stiell warned rich countries to “dispense with any idea that climate finance is charity.”
“An ambitious new climate finance goal is entirely in the self-interest of every nation, including the largest and wealthiest,” he said.
The small group of developed countries that currently contributes the money wants the donor pool expanded to include other rich nations and top emitters.
Just a handful of leaders from the Group of 20, whose countries account for nearly 80 percent of global emissions, are attending. US President Joe Biden is staying away.
Afghanistan is however present for the first time since the Taliban took power, as guests of the host Azerbaijan but not party to the talks.
The meeting comes after fresh warnings that the world is far off track to meet the goals of the Paris agreement.
The UN said Monday that 2024 is likely to break new temperature records, and the Paris climate agreement’s goals were now “in great peril.”
The period from 2015 to 2024 will also be the warmest decade ever recorded, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization said in a new report.
The climate deal commits to keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels, preferably below 1.5C.
If the world tops that level this year, it would not be an immediate breach of the Paris deal, which measures temperatures over decades.
But it suggests much greater climate action is needed.
Last month, the UN warned the world is on a path toward a catastrophic 3.1C of warming this century based on current actions.
More than 51,000 people are expected at COP29 talks, which run from November 11 to 22.


New Haiti PM sworn in, promising to ‘restore security’

New Haiti PM sworn in, promising to ‘restore security’
Updated 12 November 2024
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New Haiti PM sworn in, promising to ‘restore security’

New Haiti PM sworn in, promising to ‘restore security’

PORT-AU-PRINCE: Businessman Alix Didier Fils-Aime was sworn in as Haiti’s new prime minister on Monday, promising to restore security in the crisis-wracked country after his predecessor was ousted after just five months in office.
Fils-Aime replaces Garry Conille, who was appointed in late May, but has spent recent weeks locked in a power struggle with the country’s transitional council over ministerial appointments.
“We have a transition with lots of work to do: the first essential job, which is a condition for success, is restoring security,” he said in French.
He said he was aware of Haiti’s “difficult circumstances” but promised to put “all of my energy, my skills and my patriotism at the service of the national cause.”
The unelected prime minister and the nine-member transitional council are faced with rampant gang violence and tasked with preparing the path for presidential elections next year.
Outgoing premier Conille has questioned the authority of the council to sack him, and the row looks set to deepen a political crisis in Haiti, whose presidency has remained vacant since the assassination of Jovenel Moise in 2021.
There is no sitting parliament, either, and the last elections were held in 2016.
The Caribbean nation has long been saddled with political instability, grinding poverty, natural disasters and gang violence. But conditions sharply worsened at the end of February when armed groups launched coordinated attacks in the capital Port-au-Prince, saying they wanted to overthrow then-prime minister Ariel Henry.
Unelected and unpopular, Henry stepped down amid the turmoil, handing power to the transitional council, which has US and regional backing.
Despite the arrival of a Kenyan-led police support mission, violence has continued to soar.
A recent United Nations report said more than 1,200 people were killed from July through September, with persistent kidnappings and sexual violence against women and girls.
Low-cost American carrier Spirit Airlines said one of its flights was hit by gunfire while trying to land at Port-au-Prince on Monday and had to be diverted to the Dominican Republic.
One flight attendant suffered minor injuries and was being evaluated by medical staff, the airline said in a statement. No passengers were injured.
Responding to the latest political instability, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged all sides in Haiti to “work constructively” together to ensure the integrity of the transition process, his spokesman said Monday.
“It’s not for the Secretary General to choose who will be the prime minister of Haiti,” said spokesman Stephane Dujarric. “What is important is that Haitian political leaders put the interests of Haiti first and foremost.”
Gangs in recent years have taken over about 80 percent of the capital Port-au-Prince as any semblance of governance evaporated.
The UN report said the gangs were digging trenches, using drones and stockpiling weapons as they change tactics to confront the Kenyan-led police force.
Gang leaders have strengthened defenses for the zones they control and placed gas cylinders and Molotov cocktail bombs ready to use against police operations.
More than 700,000 people — half of them children — have fled their homes because of the gang violence, according to the International Organization for Migration.