Spanish star Hermoso testifies about Rubiales's World Cup kiss

Madrid (AFP) – Spanish World Cup-winning star Jenni Hermoso told a judge on Tuesday that the kiss forced on her by disgraced former Spanish football chief Luis Rubiales was "at no point consensual" and that she had come under pressure to defend his actions.

Issued on: 02/01/2024 

In her testimony, Spanish football star Jenni Hermoso said the kiss was 'completely unexpected and at no point was it consensual' 

© Pierre-Philippe MARCOU / AFP

Arriving at the Audiencia Nacional in Madrid just before 10:00 am (0900 GMT), the 33-year-old went to testify before Judge Francisco de Jorge, who is investigating Rubiales on allegations of sexual assault and coercion.

"Now everything is in the hands of the justice system and that's all I can say," she told reporters on leaving court several hours later.

A judicial source told AFP that she had "ratified the statement made at the public prosecutor's office that the kiss was completely unexpected and at no point was it consensual".

During the incident on August 20, the then head of Spain's RFEF football federation held her head in both hands and forcibly kissed her on the lips after Spain won the World Cup in Australia.

He has said the act was "a consensual peck" but Hermoso has insisted it was not.

She filed a lawsuit against him in September and told the judge she had come under pressure to defend Rubiales, both on the flight back from Australia and on a subsequent team holiday to Ibiza in the Balearic Islands.

"After the event, the situation experienced by the victim, both on the flight back to Spain and during her stay in Ibiza was one of constant harassment by the parties under investigation, which disrupted her normal life, causing her anxiety and distress," the source said, quoting Hermoso's testimony.

Fine or up to 4 years prison

Under Spanish law, a non-consensual kiss can be considered sexual assault -- a criminal category that groups all types of sexual violence.

Penalties for such a kiss range from a fine to four years in prison.

The 46-year-old Rubiales, who is subject to a restraining order banning him from being within 200 metres (yards) of Hermoso, is also accused of "coercion" for allegedly pressuring her to justify his actions, which were broadcast live round the world.

The kiss provoked widespread outrage and prompted his suspension by world football governing body FIFA.

Rubiales appeared in court on September 15.

In October, the judge quizzed three others over allegations they also pressured Hermoso -- former women's coach Jorge Vilda, men's team director Albert Luque and RFEF marketing boss Ruben Rivera.

Numerous other witnesses have testified in court over the pressure faced by Hermoso, among them two-time Ballon d'Or winner Alexia Putellas and two other Spanish teammates.

© 2024 AFP

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

BNP Paribas faces €600 million hit over Swiss franc loans

Paris, (AFP) – French bank BNP Paribas could pay out 600 million euros after reaching a deal to compensate clients judged to have been deceived over mortgages issued in Swiss francs in 2008 and 2009.

Issued on: 02/01/2024 -

A BNP bank sign is seen in Paris. © AP - Jacques Brinon

By: RFI

Both BNP Paribas and the CLCV consumer organisation confirmed Tuesday that a deal had been reached to compensate the approximately 4,400 clients who had contracted the mortgages which carried low interest rates.

The mortgages, issued in 2008 and 2009, were denominated in Swiss francs, and reimbursement was made in euros at current market rates.

The Swiss franc is widely considered a safe haven investment, and during the global financial crisis it strongly appreciated against other currencies as investors sought refuge from the market carnage.

As a result, BNP Paribas customers with those mortgages faced sharply higher costs to reimburse their mortgages.

The deal between BNP Paribas and the CLCV was reached after an appeals court in late November ruled that the BNP Paribas subsidiary that issued the mortgages had not properly warned investors of the currency risks involved.

CLCV was separately pursuing legal action to get the abusive clauses of the mortgage contracts nullified.

The consumer organisation said in a statement that BNP Paribas would offer all the affected borrowers a settlement.


According to a source, most borrowers would receive between 120,000 and 150,000 euros, which would put the total cost to BNP Paribas at between 400 and 600 million euros.

The agreement also provides for the cancellation of all loan contracts.

CLCV welcomed the deal, which it said was in the interest of the consumers and would not force them to wait for all legal proceedings to be exhausted before receiving financial compensation.

Such a scandal could not happen today, since a French law has prohibited taking out a loan in a foreign currency since July 2013.

Lenders in a number of countries issued mortgages in Swiss francs in the run-up to the global financial crisis as interest rates in Switzerland were lower.

Polish borrowers won an important ruling from the EU's top court last year in their legal fight against local banks that had issued Swiss-franc mortgage loans.

French celebrities distance themselves from Depardieu, accused of rape

IT'S ABOUT TIME 

ce n’est pas trop tôt !

Several of the 60 personalities who signed a petition in support of French actor Gerard Depardieu, accused of rape and sexual harassment, have now distanced themselves from the move. Since then, three anti-Depardieu petitions signed by thousands of artists and celebrities have emerged.

Issued on: 02/01/2024 - 

Gerard Depardieu at the 74th Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, September 5, 2017. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi/File Photo

By: RFI

On Monday, actor and director Jacques Weber became the latest French celebrity to distance himself from an open letter entitled "Don't erase Gerard Depardieu," published on Christmas Day in daily newspaper Le Figaro.

Weber said he regretted his "blindness", after having signed the petition in support of the disgraced film legend, who is charged with rape and is facing a litany of other sexual assault claims.

"As a reflex of friendship, I signed in haste, without inquiring ... Yes I signed, forgetting the victims and the fate of thousands of women in the world who suffer from a state of affairs that has been accepted for too long," Weber wrote in a fresh opinion piece, published by the investigative website Mediapart on New Year's Day.

"Despite the love or admiration that his friends, his family and the cinema family have for [Depardieu], we must not prevent the truth from emerging."

"If we were guilty of accepting behaviour that is now unacceptable on film and theatre sets, then yes I was guilty," Weber admitted.

Other personalities have since distanced themselves, including Depardieu's former partner Carole Bouquet, Nadine Trintignant and Gérard Darmon.

Jacques Weber pictured on 15 December 2020 at the Théatre de l'Atelier where he was supposed to perform, before the government cancelled the reopening of theatres due to the Covid-19 pandemic. © RFI/Hird
Right-wing connections

The unease stems, in part, from the revelation that the author of the petition, Yannis Ezziadi – who is reputedly close to Julie Depardieu, Gerard's daughter – writes for the ultraconservative magazine Causeur, known for its links to far right-wing circles.

Meanwhile Trintignant, whose daughter Marie was killed by singer Bertrand Cantat in 2003, told Le Point that she did not know who had written the column and admitted she'd signed it because she did not agree with the media's poor treatment of Depardieu – something she had suffered from herself.

French museum removes Depardieu wax sculpture as family denounces 'conspiracy'

"I ask the people I shocked not to blame me for my grave error. I am against the media lynching – that I experienced with violence in the press – which spoke of a crime of passion regarding my daughter. Today, we talk about it like a murder and that’s good," the actress and director insisted.

On Sunday, actor Pierre Richard also dissociated himself from the letter. "I signed without knowing the ideological movement to which the author of the petition belongs," he said.

Also on Sunday, actor Charles Berling also posted a message with an apology to victims.

"My position has obviously hurt many people. I am deeply saddened and I apologise. My commitment against violence against women is unwavering and will always remain so."

'Spitting in the face' of victims

Meanwhile, since 29 December, over 8,000 artists have signed a counter-petition, including singers Angèle, Louane and rapper Médine.

Organised by the collective "Cerveaux non disponible" (Brains not available), the petition is particularly critical of President Emmanuel Macron's response to the scandal.

Macron came to Depardieu's defence on 20 December, claiming the "immense" actor was the target of "a manhunt".

However, the collective said an artist, no matter how good their talent, should not benefit from special treatment.Anger over Macron's defence of French actor Depardieu, accused of rape

France targets public transport in campaign to stamp out violence against women

"This forum and the defence of Macron are spitting in the face of the victims of Gérard Depardieu but also of all the victims of sexist and sexual violence," the signatories wrote.

Another petition, entitled "Address to the old world", was published on Sunday on the Mediapart website with some 70 signatures from cinema personalities including Laure Calamy and Anouk Grinberg.

The latest petition was published Monday by French left-wing daily Libération, proclaiming that "art is not a totem of impunity."

"Sacred monsters do not exist. There are only ordinary men to whom we have given all the rights," the text reads.

The column was signed by 150 personalities from the world of culture, including actresses Muriel Robin, Alexandra Lamy and director Thomas Jolly.

French bishop denies promoting banned gay conversion therapies

The anti-discrimination non-profit SOS Homophobie has accused the bishop of Bayonne-Lescar-Oloron, in southwestern France, of "legitimising" the implementation of banned conversion therapies – a charge he denies. This comes on the heels of a decision by the Vatican to authorise blessings for homosexual couples.


Issued on: 02/01/2024 -

Bishop of Bayonne, Marc Aillet, outside Notre Dame Cathedral in Bayonne, southwestern France. 

AFP - IROZ GAIZKA

By:RFI

SOS homophobie says it is angry over a note, published on the Bayonne-Lescar-Oloron diocese website on 29 December, written by bishop Marc Aillet.

The Catholic leader invited the priests of the diocese to give their blessing to homosexual couples if requested, but with certain conditions.

"If people ask, give them a blessing provided that it is to each person individually – calling them to conversion and inviting them to ask for the help of grace that the Lord grants to all those who ask him to conform their lives to the Will of God," the message reads.

SOS homophobie says these conditions are discriminatory for homosexual couples and akin to "legitimising" conversion therapies.

Sometimes called sexual reorientation therapies, conversion refers to a set of pseudo-scientific treatments with the controversial goal of attempting to change one's sexual orientation.

This practice is prohibited in France.

Gay conversion therapy victims push France towards banning 'medieval' practice

Denial of existence

"It’s a form of injunction to change one’s sexual orientation as if it were a choice," Véronique Godet, co-president of SOS homophobie told FranceInfo on Monday.

According to her, bishop Aillet's directions concerning homosexual people were "both hurtful and reductive".

She is particularly critical of the fact that "each person should be received "individually," rather than as a couple.

Separating the couple is a "denial of its existence", Godet says, adding it was designed to "weaken" either partner.

The bishop's office told FranceInfo that Aillet’s note had been misinterpreted.

"It is not a question of conversion therapy, but of a reference to the Gospel which invites all believers to change direction to take the right path," Aillet's office said.

In a historic move, the Vatican announced on 18 December that it now authorises the blessing of "unmarried, divorced and homosexual couples".

Kazakhstan: Hundreds of wild swans die with avian flu

Activists are concerned the die-off may number into the thousands.

Jan 2, 2024

Screengrab of footage of dead swans as filmed by activist Azamat Sarsenbayev.

Environmental officials in Kazakhstan say at least 227 wild swans have died in the western Mangystau region as a result of the spread of the avian influenza.

The Mangystau regional government’s ecology department said on January 2 that the bodies of the birds were found around the Karakol Lake, which lies some 30 kilometers south of the city of Aktau.

Azamat Sarsenbayev, a local activist who has been monitoring the unfolding situation, has said he believes the die-off is much greater than what the authorities are stating.

“I don’t understand why they are underestimating the scale of the tragedy that is currently unfolding on Lake Karakol,” Sarsenbayev wrote on January 1.

The looming specter of widespread bird flu in Kazakhstan mirrors trends that have been recorded further west.

A number of scientific groups in Europe have reported on outbreaks of avian influenza across 23 countries on the continent in the period running from September 2 to December 1. Researchers have said the broad spread of the virus may have occurred later than anticipated because the delayed arrival of the fall pushed back the migratory season.

Georgia's billionaire boss re-enters politics … again

Ivanishvili says he's coming out of retirement for a second time because the opposition is too weak to hold his team to account.

John Horan Dec 31, 2023

Ivanishvili said the decision to re-enter politics was "unpleasant" for him (Facebook; Georgian Dream)

The billionaire founder of Georgia's ruling party is once again, reluctantly, emerging from the shadows to take an active role in politics.

Bidzina Ivanishvili announced at an unscheduled congress of the ruling Georgian Dream party on December 30 that he had decided to become the party's "honorary chairman."

He said that he took the "unpleasant" decision because the country was facing challenges arising from the "complicated geopolitical situation."

He lamented that the ruling team once again needed his steadying hand because the opposition has become so marginalized that it's unable to keep the country's rulers honest.

He also spoke cryptically about the risk of internal discord and "corruption" in the party ranks.

Ivanishvili said that he would be Georgian Dream's "main advisor" and that Irakli Kobakhidze will stay on as chairman, a role he's been performing "brilliantly" for the past three years. The billionaire also said he has no ambition to become prime minister. "Political activity is not in my nature," he pleaded.

Ivanishvili's reappearance is being christened in social media as his "third coming."

In 2011 he emerged from a life of reclusive luxury and philanthropy to assemble a coalition of politicians that took down the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili in the parliamentary election the following year. After serving as prime minister for just over a year and handing over the reins of power to his then-31-year-old protege Irakli Garibashvili in 2013, he declared his mission accomplished and retired from public life.

He came back in 2018, then too with great reluctance, and made himself Georgian Dream's chairman ahead of a presidential election that was seen as a key test of strength for the party.

He retired again in early 2021, a few months after the party secured a majority in the last parliamentary election. Among the reasons he cited was that he was about to reach pension age, 65.

Analysts and politicians have speculated broadly about Ivanishvili's intentions in re-entering the fray now.

Among them are the challenges associated with Georgia's quest to join the European Union, which Ivanishvili identified in his speech as the country's "main foreign policy task."

One of the EU's main requirements for Georgia is "deoligarchization." This has largely been understood as referring to Ivanishvili's informal role in the country's governance. (He acknowledged in his speech yesterday that over the past three years he "was in communication with two or three party leaders," which he said was an "ordinary phenomenon.")

By formalizing his role in politics now, he's seeking to remove this criticism and gain a certain "immunity" from possible EU sanctions, according to pundit Gia Khukhashvili, a former advisor to and current critic of Ivanishvili.

Others have attributed the decision to the billionaire's insecurity about the fall 2024 election in which Georgian Dream will seek a fourth straight four-year term in power.

As things stand now, the party appears to be in a solid position, particularly after the country was granted the long-coveted EU membership candidate status earlier this month. Recent polls show Georgian Dream with 25 percent support, which is nearly double that of its nearest competitor.

In his speech, Ivanishvili was insistent, perhaps a little too insistent, that the party would prevail comfortably in next year's poll. If the election were held today, Georgian Dream would win between 90 and 100 seats in the 150-seat parliament, he asserted. He said that the opposition had been "completely destroyed" and that critical media's "torrent of lies" against the ruling party was having no effect whatsoever.

Which brings us to one of Ivanishvili's main arguments for resurfacing: Georgian Dream is too strong and too well positioned for its own good.

"With the destruction of the opposition, risks in the ruling team grow. The absence of an opposition can indeed daze and slacken the ruling team. In addition, when there's no one opposing us from the outside, there emerges a temptation of concocting discord within the team. Given the current non-existence of an opposition, corruption risks rise, and need to be urgently insured against. All of this has led me to make the unpleasant decision to return to politics," he said.

His own reasoning aside, it can be argued that Ivanishvili's return to the public sphere will make Georgia's political discourse more honest.

"This step of his should be welcomed by society and by the opposition," said Gia Khukhashvili, the analyst. "One of the trump cards of the Georgian Dream's system has always been the untouchability of the decision-maker. Effectively, decisions were taken by Bidzina, policy was determined by Bidzina and then people would go and attack the messenger, [current Prime Minister Irakli] Garibashvili. So the decision-maker was effectively not held accountable for anything. … [Now] The players are on the stage, there's no one left behind the scenes. The main protagonist has come out."


John Horan is Eurasianet's Caucasus editor.

The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic: The life and death of an unrecognized state

For years to come, its violent dissolution will loom large in the Armenian consciousness and reverberate across other majority-minority conflicts around the globe

by Laurence Broers Jan 2, 2024

The wall of a school in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2015 showing the entity's flag and seal, and photos of NKR President Bako Sahakyan (2007-20) on the left and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan (2008-18) on the right 

(photo by Laurence Broers)

On January 1, 2024, the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), the entity at the heart of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, ceased - officially - to exist. The self-proclaimed republic's last leader, Samvel Shahramanyan, mandated its dissolution in a decree of September 28, 2023 that was a condition of the ceasefire ending Azerbaijan's lightning military operation to crush the NKR on September 19-20.

The existence of a second Armenian republic in Karabakh, which to the end remained unrecognized by any United Nations member state including Armenia, had been the single most divisive issue between Armenians and Azerbaijanis since it first appeared. Its very existence went straight to the heart of the "meta-conflict": the conflict over what the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict is really about.

In ways that echo Zionism's subsuming of conflict in Palestine into a wider conflict with Arabs, Azerbaijan has consistently sought to fold its conflict with the Armenian population in Karabakh into a wider irredentist framework with Armenia. In this reading there is, and has never been, a real conflict in Karabakh, only external interference. In Azerbaijani perspectives, the NKR was nothing more than a puppet regime, a stalking horse for annexation and no different from the Russian-created "people's republics" in eastern Ukraine.

Conversely, Armenia consistently sought to downplay its role in the conflict and to depict the NKR as one of its principals. For years visitors to the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs would be shown a facsimile of the May 12, 1994 ceasefire agreement featuring three signatories - Armenia, Azerbaijan and the NKR - thereby asserting the latter's agency. Armenian sources frequently referred to the "Artsakh-Azerbaijan conflict," evoking an Armenian name for the area dating back to antiquity that underlined the longevity of the Armenian claim independent of modern state-territorial arrangements.

Between these opposed visions, a tradition of scholarship sought to understand the NKR as an example of a "de facto state": a secessionist entity with a permanent population and fixed borders that is nevertheless not recognized as a state by other states. De facto states can be understood as a product of the very system that excludes the possibility of their existence: the post-Second World War and post-colonial system of sovereign and equal states covering every centimeter of the globe.

The hegemony of this system, at least until recent years, is what created the possibility of a de facto state as an anomaly existing outside of it - or in Alexander Iskandaryan's memorable phrase, as "temporary technical errors within the system of international law." The Soviet and Yugoslav collapses resulted in the emergence of numerous such entities, several of which, including Abkhazia, Transdniester, South Ossetia and the NKR, survived in the margins of international relations for decades despite non-recognition.

A historical tradition

The independence of the NKR was proclaimed by a joint meeting of the regional soviets (councils) from the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) and Shahumyan region to its north on September 2, 1991. It followed Azerbaijan's declaration of independence two days earlier, itself a response to the failed putsch in Moscow and the now universal realization that the Soviet Union would soon be no more.

Sovereignty as a separate entity, however, was never the goal of the Karabakh movement, whose aim was instead unification with Armenia - miatsum in Armenian. This was not a new phenomenon in the late 1980s, but a long-standing aspiration going back to the First World War era and the formation of new Armenian and Azerbaijani republics in the aftermath of the collapse of the Russian Empire.

Following large-scale violence in 1920 contesting Azerbaijani control over Karabakh, the incoming Bolsheviks established the NKAO in 1923 within Soviet Azerbaijan essentially as a conflict resolution mechanism. The NKAO recognized the state of play (Azerbaijani control) but sought to balance that with a compensatory autonomy for the Karabakh Armenian population.

It did not work out that way in practice. Azerbaijan came to see the autonomous region as a Soviet intrusion on its body politic and consequently as recent, colonial and illegitimate. A few months after the NKR's proclamation of independence, Azerbaijan abolished the NKAO on November 26, 1991. In Azerbaijan today the very notion of a separate highland space - a mountainous Karabakh - is rejected as geopolitical artifice fragmenting a wider, pre-twentieth-century understanding of Karabakh encompassing mountains and lowlands between the Kura and Aras rivers.

Apparent hesitation in the Soviet territorial delimitation process in July 1921 meanwhile left Karabakh Armenians with the perception that incorporation into Armenia had been a real possibility. Whenever the Soviet Union subsequently went through more liberal phases, letter-writing campaigns calling for unification with Armenia followed, citing concerns over discrimination, Azerbaijani migration into the NKAO and cultural rights in Soviet Azerbaijan. Days before the Soviet Union formally dissolved, local Armenian authorities ran a referendum in the territory on 10 December 1991, in which the former NKAO's ethnic Azerbaijani minority did not take part, and which returned a 99 percent vote in favor of independence.

The ambiguity of unification

The Soviet collapse, however, transformed the meaning of unification, for miatsum implied the unification of two geopolitical bodies - the Republic of Armenia and the NKR - that were not territorially contiguous. Although the NKAO was never an enclave strictly understood, it did have an enclave geography being entirely surrounded by undisputed Azerbaijani territory.

This geography may not have been as insurmountable as it might seem in the context of the Soviet Union, where the state's hyper-centralization of power meant that linkages to the center mattered more than horizontal ties between units in the periphery (Crimea had existed non-contiguously as an oblast of Russia until 1954).

The Soviet collapse meant, however, that the Soviet framework for the organization of borders and sovereignty was replaced by the international system that was (even) less tolerant of changes in borders and the formation of new states outside of narrowly defined parameters (decolonization of European colonies).

In the context of independent Armenian and Azerbaijani republics, territorial non-contiguity implicated the Karabakh Armenians, like no other post-Soviet de facto state, in a long-term struggle against geography and in particular to strategies of encirclement, blockade and siege. Breaking out of an Azerbaijani siege constituted an initial war goal of the Karabakh Armenian leadership in the First Karabakh War that immediately followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991.

Consequently, the NKR was confronted at its birth with a geo-strategic conundrum that made it in many ways an impossible republic. In the face of international disapproval of irredentism, Karabakh Armenians opted for a second-best outcome: sovereignty as an entity separate from Armenia, rather than unification. Yet unification in the direct spatial sense was the only way to address the problem of non-contiguousness, which could only be overcome by the unlikely outcome of Azerbaijani acquiescence or an ethically corrosive strategy of military conquest of interceding areas.

It was through the latter pathway that the problem of territorial non-contiguity was "resolved." Armenian forces conquered the seven regions of Lachin, Kelbajar, Qubatly, Zangilan, Jebrayil, Agdam and Fizuli, in whole or in part, between May 1992 and May 1994, carving out a wide belt of territories surrounding, and in area exceeding, the former NKAO.

These regions had been almost entirely populated by ethnic Azerbaijanis prior to the conflict; more than half a million were ethnically cleansed during the conquest. This reflected a reality still true today: territorial control in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict is synonymous with ethnic cleansing. Azerbaijani advances into northern Karabakh in summer 1992 had similarly resulted in the mass forced displacement of ethnic Armenians, while Armenians ethnically cleansed from other parts of Azerbaijan in 1988-90 and from Shahumyan in 1991-92 also made new homes in the NKR. The NKR was thereby doubly constituted by the ethnic cleansing of both nationalities.

The extent of territorial overspill beyond the boundaries of the original dispute made the NKR a stark exception amongst its cohort of de facto states, and implicated the NKR - and by extension, Armenia - in the politically fraught imperative of justifying its control over the territories.

If strategic framing of the territories as a buffer zone prevailed in the early years, this was subsequently overtaken by the term "liberated territories," a description that was a gift to arguments that the conflict was driven by Armenian land hunger, not the human rights of Karabakh Armenians. Maps increasingly depicted a unified ethno-territorial entity, which in my work I have described as "augmented Armenia," submerging the differences between the Republic of Armenia, the NKAO and the occupied territories, and consequently the differences between recognized statehood, a self-determination claim and a military-occupational regime.

Governance and survival

The ambiguity of unification as a strategic necessity but political impracticality resulted in an associated ambiguity between the NKR’s tactical performance of a sovereignty separate from Armenia, combined with strategic integration with it at other levels. The NKR featured all of the symbolic and bureaucratic architecture of a state: flag, anthem, executive, legislative and judicial branches of power, a full set of line ministries and political parties that, with the exception of the Dashnaktsutyun (a pan-Armenian nationalist party that had led the First Republic in Armenia in 1918-20), did not operate in Armenia.

At the strategic level, however, the NKR's dependence on Armenia was evident in financial subsidies, military transfers and deep intersection between ostensibly separate armies. Deep integration was underlined by the fact that from 1998 until Armenia's Velvet Revolution in 2018, Armenia and the NKR were governed by a single networked elite originating in Karabakh. Armenia's second and third presidents, Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan, were Karabakh natives and comprised the NKR's wartime leadership during the First Karabakh War. Lacking democratic legitimacy in an increasingly corrupt and oligarchic Armenia, preserving the NKR in the expansive form inherited from the 1992-4 war became this elite's talisman and claim to legitimacy.

In the NKR, tactical sovereignty underpinned a carefully choreographed politics of democratization that both acknowledged the Karabakh movement's self-perception as a popular, participatory movement (the NKR was originally established as a parliamentary republic) and was designed to appeal to Euro-Atlantic understandings of the "freedom agenda" through the 2000s.

What emerged was a variety of performative pluralism that would substantiate the NKR's claims to be a democracy but which would not risk destabilization or internal unrest. Through much of its existence, elections in the NKR were characterized by multiple candidates, sometimes high vote shares for alternative candidates (such as Vitaly Balasanyan's 31.5 percent in the 2012 presidential election) and relatively free campaigns although the end result was rarely in doubt. The high point of oppositional electoral success was a mayoral election in Stepanakert (Khankendi) in 2004, won by Eduard Agabekyan.

Pluralistic and relatively free elections nevertheless secured the republic's coveted rating as "partly free" in Freedom House's "Freedom in the World Index," serving as the critical comparison with Azerbaijan's consistently "unfree" rating. This strategy reflected calculations that in the light of many states' recognition of Kosovo after 2008, "standards before status" was the best front on which to campaign for recognition.

But while the internal politics of the NKR continued to matter for its legitimacy amongst its own population, it would be overtaken by international developments from 2014. The first was the decline in the security situation along the Line of Contact with Azerbaijan, which from the summer of 2014 was characterized by increasingly frequent and large-scale skirmishes and escalations. These included April 2016's "four-day war" that saw Azerbaijani forces retake small pockets of territory along the Line of Contact for the first time.

The second was Russia's support of new de facto states - the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics - in eastern Ukraine to widespread international condemnation. Russia's actions recast the de facto state phenomenon as the installation of puppet regimes with no previous history of popular mobilization in support of sovereignty. This implicated the NKR and other surviving de facto states in a constant justification of why their case was different.

The NKR's democratization trajectory unsurprisingly declined in parallel with these developments. Opposition representation was limited to a few seats in parliament. Civil society, isolated from international programming, remained marginal and declined over time as key individuals migrated to Yerevan. In 2017 the NKR introduced a new constitution with a fully presidential system that also enabled former security service chief Bako Sahakyan to stay in office for a total of 13 years.

A European Court of Human Rights judgment (Chiragov and Others v. Armenia, Application no. 13216/05) in 2015 acknowledged the ambivalence of the NKR's claim to a separate sovereignty. The Court found that Armenia effectively exercised extra-territorial jurisdiction sustaining the situation in Karabakh, overturning Armenia's arguments to the contrary and effectively affirming Azerbaijan's narrative of Armenia as an occupying power.

Multipolarity and eclipse

The post-Cold War unipolar moment may likely be seen as a high tide for unrecognized entities in Eurasia. It was a particular conjuncture defined by imperial collapse, territorial re-ordering and the weakness of newly independent states, combined with the hegemony of liberal-democratic values that - if inconsistently and hypocritically - imposed higher costs on state violence.

Multipolarity instead bodes a context of strategic competition among major powers in a context of declining restraints on the use of force. This emerging environment presented specific threats to the NKR as a de facto state supported not by a regional hegemon (those that were faced a different threat - annexation) but by Armenia, a small state with limited resources and capacity to sustain a strategic rivalry with Azerbaijan that was bigger, wealthier, better armed and could count on allies supportive of a military resolution in its favor.

The Second Karabakh War in 2020 was a partial Azerbaijani victory resulting in the partition, rather than total destruction, of the NKR. Alongside the recovery of occupied territories, the war successfully eliminated Armenia's capacity to act as a patron state. The war outcomes presented a stark reckoning with geography as the two Armenian geopolitical bodies were once again separated and the only connecting link - the Lachin Corridor - placed under Russian control.

The new status quo appeared to present a convergence with other post-Soviet de facto states as the NKR effectively became a Russian protectorate surviving solely on account of Russian commitments to a military presence in the territory. Only a Russian approach - freezing the conflict and postponing status decisions to a distant future - offered a future trajectory for the NKR, as compared to the Euro-Atlantic approach that sought a negotiated re-incorporation into the Azerbaijani state with guarantees for the rights and security of the Armenian population. Demonstrations of loyalty to Russia included the NKR leadership's welcoming of Russia's recognition of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics and the dispatch of aid to the Donbas.

Ultimately, however, the NKR's fate was sealed by Russia's decision to invade Ukraine and the subsequent course of the war in that country. Russia's invasion forced a re-evaluation of the Kremlin's relationships and interests in ways that favored Azerbaijan, as a critical node in new connectivity schemes that acquired a new importance for a sanctioned Russia, as a partner in a wider axis of cooperation with Turkey and Iran, and as an ideologically like-minded power skeptical of the liberal international order.

As a result, many Armenians' worst fears were realized: as one former Armenian official puts it, the NKR became small change in a larger geopolitical transaction. Russia acquiesced in the blocking of the Lachin Corridor for 10 months from December 2022 and stood down in the face of Azerbaijan's military operation on September 19. The NKR ended in days of disarray, despair and tragedy as some 220 Armenians were killed and hundreds more injured in a fuel depot explosion amid chaotic preparations for the mass exodus of the population. Over the week following September 24, with the exception of a few dozen infirm and elderly, the entire population of more than 102,000 fled the territory to become refugees in Armenia.

The mass displacement has resulted in new tensions in the ambiguities of unification between the two Armenian communities. At one level, despite holding Armenian passports, Karabakh Armenians displaced to Armenia have discovered that they are less than Armenian citizens with a full set of rights. They must apply for citizenship, with uncertain implications for their right of return - an unlikely prospect today - or to restitution.

At another level, debates have revolved around the question of leadership. Should the NKR be succeeded by a government-in-exile? Such an entity would be less than welcome in Yerevan and doubtless seen as a provocation in Baku. It would, presumably, still be a de facto government with no greater hope of recognition than when it was based in the homeland. Beyond these considerations, any such project must confront the visceral anger of its presumed constituents. Many Karabakh Armenians feel that despite the decades-long performance of statehood, their leadership failed them in the anarchy following the September 20 ceasefire leaving the community to flee in chaos.

As a project in aspirant statehood, the NKR is no more. Key figures of its leadership - former presidents and prominent ministers - await trial in Baku, framed as prisoners of war in Armenia and war criminals in Azerbaijan. The echoes of its violent dissolution will reverberate across other majority-minority conflicts around the globe for years to come. What remains doubtful, however, is whether a cause that anchored Armenian nationalism for so long, that overturned received narratives of historical Armenian victimhood to capture the imaginations of millions living in Armenia and in diaspora for decades, and whose own narrative of existential threat was vindicated by its violent dissolution in a new crucible of collective trauma, will simply disappear. Reports that Shahramanyan subsequently annulled the decree dissolving the NKR are an early indication that the republic will not go quietly.

What seems certain is that as it was in life, the NKR's legacy will be contested.

Laurence Broers is an associate fellow with the Russia & Eurasia Programme at Chatham House and the author of Armenia and Azerbaijan: Anatomy of a Rivalry.

Finland and Sweden set this winter’s cold records as temperature plummets below minus 40


A man climbs out from the icy sea to the pier, in southern Helsinki, Finland, Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2024. Finland and Sweden have recorded this winter’s cold records on Tuesday as a temperatures plummeted to over minus 40 degrees as a result of a cold spell prevailing in the Nordic region. (Vesa Moilanen/Lehtikuva via AP)

A man walks by the Allas Sea Pool, in Southern Helsinki, Finland, Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2024. Finland and Sweden have recorded this winter’s cold records on Tuesday as a temperatures plummeted to over minus 40 degrees as a result of a cold spell prevailing in the Nordic region. (Vesa Moilanen/Lehtikuva via AP)

A man walks on the frozen sea in southern Helsinki, Finland, Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2024. Finland and Sweden have recorded this winter’s cold records on Tuesday as a temperatures plummeted to over minus 40 degrees as a result of a cold spell prevailing in the Nordic region. (Vesa Moilanen/Lehtikuva via AP)


People attempt to clear the snow off a vehicle, in Kristiansand, Norway, Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2024. Finland and Sweden have recorded this winter’s cold records on Tuesday as a temperatures plummeted to over minus 40 degrees as a result of a cold spell prevailing in the Nordic region.

 (Tor Erik Schrøder/NTB Scanpix via AP)

BY JARI TANNER
 January 2, 2024

HELSINKI (AP) — Finland and Sweden recorded the coldest temperatures of the winter Tuesday as thermometers plummeted to minus 40 degrees Celsius (minus 40 Fahrenheit) as a result of a cold spell prevailing in the Nordic region.

In Nikkaluokta, a small village inhabited by the indigenous Sami people in northern Sweden, thermometer showed minus 41.6 degrees (minus 42.8 Fahrenheit) early Tuesday, Swedish public broadcaster SVT reported.

“It’s the coldest temperature we have had so far this winter, and it will continue to be quite cold weather in the north,” said SVT meteorologist Nils Holmqvist.

Train operators in Sweden said the cold snap has caused substantial problems for rail traffic in the north, among other issues. The Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute has reported temperatures of minus 30 degrees (minus 22 Fahrenheit) in several locations in northern Sweden.




South Korea’s capital records heaviest single-day snowfall in December for 40 years

Beijing sees most hours of sub-freezing temperatures in December since 1951

It also issued a warning for snow and wind for central and southern Sweden, saying snowfall on Wednesday in combination with wind can cause problems. Its second-highest warning applies from midnight into Wednesday.

In neighboring Finland, this winter’s cold record was recorded in the northwestern town of Ylivieska where temperatures fell to minus 37.8 (minus 36) early Tuesday.

Temperatures of below minus 30 degrees were recorded at several locations in the Arctic Lapland region. The Finnish capital, Helsinki, was also under a cold spell with temperature expected to hover between minus 15 and minus 20 degrees throughout this week.

The Finnish Meteorological Institute has issued a warning of substantially cold weather prevailing in the country this week, and forecast temperatures were likely to exceed minus 40 degrees in parts of the nation.

A section of the E18 highway in southern Norway was closed due to a weather-related situation, police said on X.

In Denmark, a key bridge was closed to vehicles with light trailers because of strong winds that can affect driving, the Danish Road Directorate said. ___

Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, contributed to this report.

COP28 offered important outcomes, but not enough to meet Paris goals

Funds collected for Loss and Damage are too little to compensate for impact of climate disasters


By Gurinder Kaur
Published: Tuesday 02 January 2024

Photo: UNclimatechange / Flickr

The 28th Conference of Parties (COP28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change concluded on December 13, 2023 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). The conference is the largest climate summit globally and has been held every year since 1995. 

The main purpose of the COP28 was to limit the increase in the average temperature of the earth to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the temperature of the pre-industrial revolution period by the end of the century. 

It took into account the efforts of all countries, reducing dependence on coal and other fossil fuels, generating energy from renewable sources, reducing emissions of methane and other greenhouse gases, reducing the losses of developing countries from natural disasters caused by temperature rise, and planning for the future after considering issues such as the establishment of a Loss and Damage fund for compensation.

Some important outcomes of this conference are to be welcomed. The Loss and Damage Fund became operational on the first day of COP28, which had been in the works for the past three decades. Fund collection started on the first day of the COP28 and $792 million has been accumulated so far. 

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Read more: Mixed reactions: COP28 focuses on fossil fuel role in climate change but disregards equity, says CSE

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Second was the decision to transition from fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner with renewable energy generation to reduce carbon emissions by 2050 in order to control the increase in average global temperature. 

This decision sounds historic and admirable in language, but it deserves some special discussion. Another important achievement was the decision to generate 11,000 gigawatts of energy from renewable energy sources globally by 2030. Nuclear energy has also been brought under the category of clean energy at this conference. 

At the same time, 160 countries have agreed to make necessary changes to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in food and agriculture-related systems, as these two systems account for one-third of total GHG emissions. The decision was voluntary and not under any international agreements.

The President of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group and the former chief adviser of the United Kingdom said the wording of the agreement on fossil fuels was too weak. Many scientists have also called the agreement flawed.

The Editor-in-Chief of the journal Nature, Magdalena Skipper said, “Fossil fuels should be stopped in all cases because, according to science, these fuels are increasing the temperature of the earth. Leaders around the world must accept this reality.”

An editorial in the journal also brought out that the conference had missed an opportunity to tackle global warming. Climate doesn’t care who emits greenhouse gases, the editorial continued. The scientists said that loopholes included the call to “accelerate” carbon capture and storage to trap emissions from burning fossil fuels, an option that can play a minor role at best.

The COP28 has taken place at a time when the earth’s average temperature is repeatedly breaking old records and setting new records relating to temperature rise. To limit the earth’s average temperature rise to 1.5°C by 2050, greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced by 43 per cent by 2030 and 60 per cent by 2030 after they peak in 2025. 

Achieving this goal seems unlikely with an agreement to continue producing energy from fossil fuels. So far, the average temperature of the earth has increased by 1.1°C compared to the pre-industrial era. 

Agreements to gradually reduce the use of fossil fuels instead of completely phasing them out revealed the hidden stakes of oil-producing countries, multinational companies and countries like the United States, China and others with huge oil and coal reserves, along with major use of these fuels.

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Read more: COP28 diary (December 2): G7 countries agree to phase out coal by 2030, announces French President Emmanuel Macron

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The Dubai conference was also attended by a large number of industry representatives, including around 2,500 from the oil and natural gas sector, 475 from the carbon capture and storage sector and over 100 from commercial agriculture.

According to a report by the World Economic Forum, GHG emissions are continuously increasing by 1.5 per cent per year, while according to the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015, they should be reduced by 7 per cent every year from 2019 to 2030. According to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, if all countries in the world cut greenhouse gas emissions under the Nationally Determined Contributions as promised, there would be only a 2 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030 compared to 2019.

In the Paris Agreement, countries had agreed that by 2050, the increase in the average temperature of the earth should be limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures. According to the latest estimates, all  countries in the world are falling far short of their pledges made under the agreement. The year 2023 may be the hottest year on record so far, according to temperature records. This year's average temperature may also register an increase of 1.5°C.

Initiating a Loss and Damage Fund is a laudable initiative, but the amount collected is too little to compensate for the losses caused by natural disasters in developing countries. In 2022, a flood in Pakistan caused a loss of $16 billion. According to United Nations estimates, developing countries will need $300 billion every year by 2030 to cope with natural disasters caused by climate change. 

Developing countries are also demanding that these funds be given in the form of grants instead of loans. The US, the largest emitter of GHG in history, contributed only $17.5 million to the Loss and Damage Fund.

The COP28 was chaired by Sultan Al-Jaber, who is the head of a major oil company. The agreements to ‘transition away’ from fossil fuels suit the interests of a few but may be harmful for people and the planet. It is also important that out of the 198 countries, 130 countries had demanded a complete phase out of energy from fossil fuels.

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Read more: DTE Diary: Our daily account of what happened at COP28

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In 2009, developed countries pledged $100 billion annually to the Climate Fund to help developing countries, but this amount has never been fully collected and distributed to developing countries.  A lot of promises are made at every conference, but they are rarely fulfilled. Since 1995, the Parties to the COP have continued to hold summits on increasing natural disasters, but there is no sign of a reduction in GHG emissions.

Developing countries had high hopes from COP28 like agreements on drastic reductions in GHG emissions and restrictions on energy production from fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas). However, with the continued use of fossil fuels, the average temperature of the earth may increase even more in the future. The conference has made the use of fossil fuels too flexible and soft at a cost to every country in the world in the form of lives, property, and growing disasters. 

Head of the Marshall Islands, John Silk, who was disappointed with the performance of the conference, said he came to the conference to address the greatest challenge of our generation, but we have all come to an agreement that is full of problems.

Gurinder Kaur is Former Professor, Department of Geography, Punjabi University, Patiala

Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth

Saudi Arabia executed at least 172 people in 2023

January 2, 2024
by Andrew Purcell
Head of Communications
End The Death Penalty

Press release

Saudi Arabia carried out at least 172 executions in 2023, despite renewed promises from the Kingdom’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to limit the scope of capital punishment.

Since the Crown Prince and his father, King Salman, assumed power in 2015, Saudi Arabia has executed at least 1,257 people, at an average of 140 people per year. The seven bloodiest years in the Kingdom’s modern history have occurred under their leadership and the rate of executions has almost doubled.

Reprieve Director Maya Foa said: “It is terrifying to think that this is business as usual in Mohammed bin Salman’s Saudi Arabia. Behind the mega-investments in sport and the facade of reform, the Kingdom remains one of the world’s top executioners. Owning the wrong books, posting a critical tweet, speaking to a journalist or disagreeing with the Crown Prince can earn you a death sentence. And while world leaders stare at their shoes and agree to believe the regime’s lies, the killing continues relentlessly.”

European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR) legal director Taha al-Hajji said: “The Crown Prince has blamed ‘bad laws’ and rogue judges for Saudi Arabia’s continued execution crisis, but nothing gets done in the Kingdom without his approval. His endless empty promises of reform are contradicted by the facts: it has been yet another year of bloodshed in Saudi Arabia. Protesters and child defendants remain at imminent risk of execution with a stroke of the ruler’s pen.”

The true number of executions cannot be ascertained with confidence. ESOHR monitors multiple public sources of execution data. In 2022, the authorities announced 147 executions, but the Saudi Human Rights Commission later confirmed to Amnesty International that 196 executions had been carried out – a modern record. For instance, in January 2023, ESOHR was made aware of the executions of two Yemeni nationals the previous month that were not reported in official accounts.

There is also no way of knowing how many hundreds or even thousands of people are on death row as the Kingdom’s capital justice system is almost entirely opaque.

One notable development in 2023 is a significant increase in the number of women executed: six, including three Saudi nationals, one Yemeni, one Ghanaian and one Bangladeshi. Another is the execution of two Saudi men convicted in military courts – these rulings are rarely issued in Saudi Arabia and it is not possible to trace them or know the details of the trials there.

United Nations legal experts had written to the Saudi authorities about three of the men killed, in a bid to prevent their execution: Bahraini nationals Sadiq Thamer and Jaafar Sultan, and Reprieve client Hussein abo al-Kheir, a Jordanian taxi driver tortured into making a false confession to drug charges. The latter’s case was also raised in the UK and European parliaments.