Russian President Vladimir Putin's surprise visit to the Donbass region was largely “spontaneous” and effectively turned into a full-fledged “working trip,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov revealed on Sunday.
The overnight trip was the first time Putin has visited Donbass since it broke away from Ukraine in 2014. it was eventually incorporated into Russia following referendums last year.
During Putin's stay in the city of Mariupol, he met locals and visited flats in a newly constructed residential building. The city was the scene of intense fighting early in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and ended up being heavily damaged in the process.
“Initially, the plan was only to visit this residential complex, and, of course, neither meeting the citizens, nor paying them a visit [in their homes] was planned. It was all entirely spontaneous,” Peskov told reporters.
The visit turned into a “full-fledged working trip” for the president, Peskov continued, as Putin was briefed by Deputy PM Marat Khusnullin, who accompanied him during the visit, on the restoration process ongoing in the city. In particular, the Russian leader was told about “the development of the urban economy, roads, the restoration of destroyed buildings, how many people are working, how working conditions are provided, how building materials are delivered,” the spokesman explained.
After his Mariupol visit, Putin proceeded to the city of Rostov-on-Don, where he met with Russia’s top military brass at a command-and-control center in charge of the military operation in Ukraine.
The visit to the command post had not been planned in advance either, Peskov said, adding that the president’s arrival was not an issue given that the facility operates around the clock.
“Neither the presidential administration, nor the Ministry of Defense planned it in advance,” the spokesman stated. During the trip, Putin “heard reports” from a number of top military commanders, including from the chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov and also gave his own “assessments of the situation,” Peskov added.
Putin on Ukrainian troops’ actions in Mariupol: "That's not the way normal people do it"
Russian President Vladimir Putin commented on the actions of the Ukrainian troops, which mined medical facilities in Mariupol, saying that it is "not the way normal people do it."
Russian President visited the city together with Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, inspecting new residential quarters among other things. Deputy PM said that he visited the hospital right after the city’s liberation and witnessed with his own eyes that refugees lived, patients remained and surgeries were performed in adjacent buildings. "All medical equipment was mined," he noted.
"That's not the way normal people do it," Putin said.
Considerable efforts on the city’s reconstruction are underway now. Presenting new residential quarters to Putin, Khusnullin stressed that people already live in new finished flats, with social infrastructure being developed, roads being constructed and repaired.
Ilustrasi deretan mobil yang sedang di jejerkan di sebuah pabrik (Antara News/Reuters)
Korea Selatan kembali mendapat musibah dengan banyaknya produsen yang melakukan penarikan kembali line up dagang mereka, mulai dari Hyundai Motor Co., BMW, dan lima perusahaan lainnya di Korea Selatan akan secara sukarela menarik lebih dari 8.800 kendaraan untuk memperbaiki komponen yang rusak.
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The relationship between both countries has grown as Russia and China have both found themselves at odds with the United States and NATO over Ukraine and Taiwan, respectively. The articles discussed Ukraine, NATO and global security and peace.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia is open to a diplomatic resolution in Ukraine and praised China’s 12-point document laying out a path to peace in an article written by Putin and published in the Chinese newspaper People's Daily on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping penned an article for Russia’s RIA Novosti and Rossiyskaya Gazeta papers, praising the relationship between Russia and China and saying that his country is ready to play an “unbiased” role in ending the crisis in Ukraine.
Both articles were published one day before Xi travels to Moscow to visit Russia, marking his first foreign trip since being reelected the leader of the country for a third five-year term earlier this month. Xi is expected to stay in Russia from March 20 to March 22.
The Ukraine Crisis
“Russia is open to the political and diplomatic resolution of the Ukraine crisis... The future of the peace process depends solely on the will to engage in a meaningful discussion taking into account current geopolitical realities,” said Putin in the article.
In February, China released a 12-point document titled “China Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis.” The document was vehemently rejected by NATO countries and the Ukrainian government.
“China has an objective and unbiased stance based on what is actually happening,” Xi wrote, “and it is making active efforts to contribute to reconciliation and peace talks.”
Putin said that he welcomes China’s attempts to restore peace in the region.
“We appreciate the well-balanced stance on the events in Ukraine adopted by the PRC (People's Republic of China), as well as its understanding of their historical background and root causes. We welcome China's readiness to make a meaningful contribution to the settlement of the crisis.”
Xi reiterated his country’s stance on the best course of action to achieve peace in the region:
“It involves the necessity to follow goals and principles of the UN Charter, respect reasonable security concerns of all countries, support all the efforts aimed at peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian crisis and ensure stability of supply chains,” Xi wrote.
Friendship Between Russia and China
In his article, Putin expressed admiration for China and Xi, calling the Chinese President his “good old friend” and said that the two enjoy a “warm relationship.”
“I am convinced that our friendship and partnership based on the strategic choice of the peoples of the two countries will further grow and gain strength for the well-being and prosperity of Russia and China,” Putin wrote. “This visit of the President of the PRC to Russia will undoubtedly contribute to that.”
Putin also noted that trade between the two countries doubled in 2022, reaching a record $185 billion and that he has “every reason to believe” they will reach $200 billion this year instead of in 2024 as originally predicted. Putin said the relationship between China and Russia is stronger than it has ever been, including during the Cold War.
“The progress made in the development of bilateral ties is impressive. The Russia-China relations have reached the highest level in their history and are gaining even more strength,” Putin wrote. “[T]hey surpass Cold War-time military-political alliances in their quality, with no one to constantly order and no one to constantly obey, without limitations or taboos. We have reached an unprecedented level of trust in our political dialogue, our strategic cooperation has become truly comprehensive in nature and is standing on the brink of a new era. President Xi Jinping and I have met about 40 times and have always found time and opportunity to talk in a variety of official formats as well as at no‑tie events,”
In his article, Xi agreed with the Russian President’s assessment of where the two countries stand.
“The parties are continuously bolstering political trust, creating a new paradigm for relations between the major powers," Xi wrote ahead of his visit to Moscow, adding that "China and Russia abide by the concept of eternal friendship and mutually beneficial cooperation."
“My first foreign trip after I was appointed the Chinese president took place in Russia 10 years ago. I have traveled to Russia eight times over the past 10 years. Thanks to these trips that always bring pleasure and results, President Putin and I have opened a new chapter in the annals of the Russian-Chinese relations," Xi stated.
NATO and the Multipolar World
The Russian President also said that the West’s stance against Russia and China has become “more fierce and aggressive,” saying that the leaders of those countries are “gambling on the fates of entire states and peoples” to preserve its “vanishing dominance.”
“We are committed to the principle of the indivisibility of security, which is being grossly violated by the NATO bloc. We are deeply concerned over the irresponsible and outright dangerous actions that jeopardize nuclear security. We reject illegitimate unilateral sanctions, which must be lifted,” wrote Putin.
Russia has been under unilateral sanctions from NATO countries and the West, and China has also been threatened with sanctions stemming from unproven allegations that China is providing military support to Russia for the country’s special operation in Ukraine.
Both Russia and China have been developing their relationships with other countries, and Putin specifically pointed towards BRICS, a coalition of emerging economies Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) which includes India, Tajikistan, Russia, Pakistan, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan as evidence that the two countries “serve as the cornerstone of regional and global stability.”
Putin compared the organizations to NATO which he says is “persistently working to split the common Eurasian space into a network of ‘exclusive clubs’ and military blocs that would serve to contain our countries' development and harm their interests,” noting that the plan “won’t work.”
President Putin also praised China’s Global Security Initiative, which he says is “in line with the Russian approaches in this area.”
Putin noted that both China and Russia are building literal and figurative “bridges” with other countries through the promotion of BRICS and the SCO.
On Saturday, the People's Daily called Xi's trip to Moscow the "Trip for peace" and noted that it would bolster ties to Russia.
Mexico’s president said Friday that U.S. families were to blame for the fentanyl overdose crisis because they don’t hug their kids enough.
The comment by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador caps a week of provocative statements from him about the crisis caused by the fentanyl, a synthetic opioid trafficked by Mexican cartels that has been blamed for about 70,000 overdose deaths per year in the United States.
López Obrador said family values have broken down in the United States, because parents don’t let their children live at home long enough. He has also denied that Mexico produces fentanyl.
On Friday, the Mexican president told a morning news briefing that the problem was caused by “a lack of hugs, of embraces.”
“There is a lot of disintegration of families, there is a lot of individualism, there is a lack of love, of brotherhood, of hugs and embraces,” López Obrador said of the U.S. crisis. “That is why they (U.S. officials) should be dedicating funds to address the causes.”
López Obrador has repeatedly said that Mexico’s close-knit family values are what have saved it from the wave of fentanyl overdoses. Experts say that Mexican cartels are making so much money now from the U.S. market that they see no need to sell fentanyl in their home market.
Cartels frequently sell methamphetamines in Mexico, where the drug is more popular because it purportedly helps people work harder.
López Obrador has been stung by calls in the United States to designate Mexican drug gangs as terrorist organizations. Some Republicans have said they favor using the U.S. military to crack down on the Mexican cartels.
On Wednesday, López Obrador called anti-drug policies in the U.S. a failure Wednesday and proposed a ban in both countries on using fentanyl in medicine — even though little of the drug crosses from hospitals into the illegal market.
U.S. authorities estimate that most illegal fentanyl is produced in clandestine Mexican labs using Chinese precursor chemicals. Relatively little of the illegal market comes from diverting medicinal fentanyl used as anesthesia in surgeries and other procedures.
There have been only scattered and isolated reports of glass flasks of medicinal fentanyl making it to the illegal market. Most illegal fentanyl is pressed by Mexican cartels into counterfeit pills made to look like other medications like Xanax, oxycodone or Percocet.
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad meets UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed during an official visit to the UAE. (WAM)
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad arrived in the UAE on Sunday for an official visit, accompanied by his wife Asma Al-Assad, the Emirates News Agency (WAM) said.
They were received by the UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan upon their arrival at the presidential airport in Abu Dhabi.
Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed said he held “constructive talks” with his Syrian counterpart “aimed at developing relations between our two countries.”
“Our discussions also explored ways of enhancing cooperation to accelerate stability and progress in Syria and the region,” Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed tweeted.
أرحب بالرئيس بشار الأسد في الإمارات، أجرينا مباحثات إيجابية وبناءة لدعم العلاقات الأخوية وتنميتها لمصلحة البلدين والشعبين الشقيقين، وتعزيز التعاون والتنسيق في القضايا التي تخدم الاستقرار والتنمية في سوريا والمنطقة. pic.twitter.com/YmFywsG83X
Al-Assad was welcomed in an official ceremony where the Syrian national anthem was played and received a canon salute as his convoy entered Qasr Al Watan. Assad’s plane was greeted by Emirati fighter jets
“I welcomed President Bashar Al Assad of Syria to the UAE today, and we held constructive talks aimed at developing relations between our two countries,” Sheikh Mohamed said on Twitter.
“Our discussions also explored ways of enhancing co-operation to accelerate stability and progress in Syria and the region.”
Mr Al Assad last visited the UAE last March, marking his first trip to an Arab country since the Syrian civil war began in 2011.
Dr Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the President, said there is a need to bring Syria and its government back into the fold.
“A decade and a half of war, violence and destruction is enough, and the time has come to enhance co-operation and collaboration among our Arab countries to ensure stability and prosperity in the region.
“The UAE's approach and efforts towards brotherly Syria are part of a deeper vision and a broader approach aimed at strengthening Arab and regional stability, overcoming difficult years of confrontation.
“The events associated with the decade of chaos and their repercussions have proven that our Arab world is more deserving of addressing its issues and crises, away from regional and international interference.”
In January, Mr Al Assad welcomed Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation, to Damascus.
Joe Biden led the charge to push the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, according to Scott Ritter, who served as the United Nations chief weapons inspector in the country from 1991 to 1998.
In the lead up to the war, then-Senator Biden used his position as chair of the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee to help sell the George W. Bush Administration’s plans to a skeptical American public. He gave speeches and organized Senate hearings that promoted the administration’s false claims about Saddam Hussein’s WMD program. In October 2002, Biden spearheaded a joint resolution that gave Bush sweeping powers to use military force against Iraq.
According to Ritter, Biden brushed moral and geopolitical concerns about invading Iraq aside because he did not want to face accusations that he was taking a “pro-Saddam” stance. Biden’s failure to speak out against the war, he added, helped result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, tens of millions displaced, and broader chaos in the Middle East.
“Joe Biden is one of the main reasons why the United States went to war in Iraq. He likes to pretend that he didn't play such an important role, but I'll say it now and I'll say it forever: Joe Biden's a liar.” he said. “Joe Biden's a man who allowed thousands of Americans to be sacrificed for his pride, for his arrogance, for his narcissism, because he knew that one day he was going to be President of the United States.”
The conflict was not cost-free for the United States either, resulting in thousands of American troops dead and tens of thousands maimed.
Sputnik News spoke with Ritter ahead of the twentieth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. Over the course of a 50-minute long video interview, the former UN inspector explained how the US government created a false pretext for the war, sought to intimidate dissidents into silence, and why Washington failed to learn anything from its costly debacle.
Road to War
In August 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded neighboring Kuwait over the oil-rich monarchy’s refusal to forgive Baghdad’s debts from the Iran-Iraq War. Less than six months later, in mid-January 1991, the United States and its allies launched a massive aerial bombing campaign followed by a land offensive to dislodge Iraqi forces from Kuwait.
Ritter told Sputnik that the main reason why the George H.W. Bush administration decided to militarily intervene because it feared that control of Kuwait combined with Iraq’s existing oil wealth would provide Hussein with disproportionate influence over global oil markets. The problem with this rationale, however, was that few Americans viewed it as a compelling enough reason to go to send troops abroad. The most popular anti-war chant of the era was “No American blood for oil.”
“We had to reshape this conflict by focusing not on the geopolitical reality, but on creating a cartoon-like enemy out of Saddam Hussein,” he said. “When Bush addressed a fundraising crowd in Dallas, he said that Saddam Hussein was the Middle East equivalent of Adolf Hitler, and that for his crimes against Kuwait, there would have to be a Nuremberg-like retribution. This was a decisive statement because now the United States was at war against evil.”
Although Iraqi forces fully withdrew from Kuwait in February 1991, the American propaganda campaign against Hussein continued moving ahead at full speed. The new focus was on Baghdad’s alleged weapons of mass destruction program, which Washington claimed posed a danger to the United States and the Middle East at large.
Although Iraq had indeed at one point sought to develop WMDs, there were two problems with this narrative, according to Ritter. The first was that even if Iraq possessed WMDs, they were not much of a threat since the US military had spent decades preparing to fight against potential adversaries who used chemical or biological weapons. Even more significantly, however, the US did not actually want to disarm Iraq.
“We UN inspectors were going into Iraq thinking that we had a job from the highest legal authority in the world to disarm Iraq, but then as we're doing this job, we have [US] Secretary of State James Baker saying in public that even if Iraq complies with its obligation to disarm, sanctions will never be lifted until Saddam Hussein is removed from power,” he said.
Scott Ritter worked as a weapons inspector for the United Nations Special Commission in Iraq
Ritter explained that US policymakers pushed the WMD narrative because they were embarrassed about Hussein’s continued political survival despite sweeping sanctions against Iraq. They needed a pretext to keep the pressure up on Baghdad and push for regime change. After all, how could they allow a man that they had openly compared to Hitler remain in power?
“We [inspectors] were just there as a placeholder to create a political situation that allowed the continuation of sanctions,” he said. “It was never about disarmament, always about getting rid of Saddam Hussein. The problem is, after six months, Saddam was still there. Now, what do you do? What's the next step?”
Ritter revealed that although there were back-channel communications between the transition teams of President-elect Bill Clinton and Baghdad about resuming relations, these negotiations were cut off after US intelligence agencies faked an Iraqi assassination attempt on George HW Bush, who had just left the White House, during a visit to Kuwait in April 1993. Clinton retaliated by firing missiles at Iraq and maintaining the sanctions regime against the country. In 1998, he signed the “Iraq Liberation Act,” which stated regime change was the official objective of US policy in Iraq.
Silencing Dissent
Despite this political background, Ritter’s team of UN inspectors worked to avert war by dismantling Iraq’s remaining WMDs. “We accounted for 95-97 percent of their weapons of mass destruction,” he said. “We were monitoring the totality of their industrial infrastructure so they couldn't rebuild these weapons. Anything that wasn’t unaccounted for would have aged out, same goes for precursor chemicals.”
Yet the US government constantly tried to move the goal posts for the inspectors, demanding that they prove with 100 percent certainty that Iraq had no WMDs (an objective that was effectively impossible to achieve). Ritter sought to raise his concerns with senior US officials, including the director of the CIA, but was repeatedly brushed aside.
Things took a decided turn for the worse in 1996, when the FBI began harassing Ritter and his family, even threatening him with arrest. This persecution only intensified after Ritter resigned from his UN inspector role in 1998. On the very same day as his resignation, the FBI leaked a false allegation to CBS Evening News that Ritter had been passing on state secrets to Israel. In reality, Ritter had been engaged in an intelligence liaison activity that was approved by none other than the CIA itself.
Although the accusations against Ritter were obviously false, the CBS News report led to the Southern District of New York opening a three-year long investigation into him.
“So here I was, an American citizen trying to do the right thing and the FBI was investigating me for falsified crimes that carried the death penalty. That investigation went on for three years. I ended up winning and they dropped the charges, but I couldn't get employment during that time,” he said. “Every opportunity that was provided to me was shut down because the FBI said, ‘He's a spy, he's a criminal, You can't do business with him.’ That's what the FBI, the U.S. government does to people who have the audacity to try and speak truth to power.”
Lessons Learned?
Twenty years after the Iraq Invasion, Ritter sees little evidence that the American foreign policy establishment has learned from its mistakes. He explained that US policymakers have absolutely no incentive to embrace realism and restraint since most of the major political donors support military interventionism abroad. This problem is compounded by the fact that there is no meaningful anti-war movement in America. Criticism of US foreign policy is usually driven not by principle, but by opportunistic party politics.
However, Ritter suggested that America’s era of political complacency may be coming to an end. He noted that the main reason why many Americans turned a blind eye to their government’s reckless foreign policy adventures was because they were able to isolate themselves in a “cocoon of consumer-driven comfort.” Yet this sort of escapism is becoming less and less viable. In the face of rapidly mounting political, social, and economic problems, Americans will be confronted with the choice between reforming their country or perishing.
“The nation that emerges [from this crisis] won't look anything like the nation that exists today. It can't because this nation is fundamentally broken, sick, diseased,” he said. “We have to cure the disease, heal the wounds, and recast ourselves as a nation of one of equals, one that can sit down at a table with the rest of the world and not try to dictate outcomes, but instead talk with people and negotiate outcomes that are mutually beneficial to all, but more importantly, that are beneficial to the American people instead of just the American political elite.”
Fajar Alfian/Muhammad Rian Ardianto menjuarai All England Open 2023 usai menang atas Mohammad Ahsan/Hendra Setiawan, di final yang berlangsung di Utilita Arena Birmingham, Inggris, hari Minggu, 19/03/2023. (SPOTV)
Partai ganda putra All England 2023, gelar juara diraih Fajar Alfian/Muhammad Rian Ardianto usai mengalahkan Mohammad Ahsan/Hendra Setiawan pada laga All Indonesian Final di Utilita Arena Birmingham, hari Minggu malam WIB, 19/03/2023.
Ganda putra nomor satu dunia, Fajar/Rian memenangkan laga derbi Merah Putih melawan Ahsan/Hendra yang tersaji di laga puncak turnamen prestisius berlevel BWF World Tour Super 1000 itu dengan dominan.
Berlaga di Utilita Arena Birmingham, Inggris, Fajar/Rian membukukan kemenangan cepat straight set langsung, 21-17, 21-14.
Sayangnya, kemenangan itu harus diakhiri dengan insiden cedera yang dialami Mohammad Ahsan. Ahsan mengalami cedera betis kirinya karena kehilangan keseimbangan hingga salah bertumpu saat mengangtisipasi pukulan, dalam kedudukan skor 20-14 untuk keunggulan Fajar/Rian.
Cedera Ahsan terjadi di poin terakhir set kedua, saat itu The Daddies tertinggal satu poin. Ahsan mengalami kesakitan. Semua pemain mengelilinginya dipinggir lapangan mengkhawatirkan kondisinya.
Wasit sempat meminta retired, namun Mohammad Ahsan memaksa tetap main demi berikan kemenangan kepada Fajar Alfian/Rian Ardianto. Final ganda putra All England 2023 berakhir dengan dramatis di antara kedua wakil Indonesia.
Seusai laga, Fajar dan Rian mengungkap perasaan campur aduk mereka.
"Ada senang dan sedihnya," kata Fajar.
"Senang karena kami bisa juara, tetapi sedih karena Bang Ahsan, senior kami, mengalami cedera. Kami berharap cederanya tidak parah," ucap pemain besutan SGS PLN Bandung itu.
Di sisi lain, Rian bersyukur karena pencapaian juara di edisi All England Open 2023 mengobat kekalahan prematur mereka di edisi tahun lalu, saat dikalahkan juniornya sendiri Muhammad Shohibul Fikri/Bagas Maulana.
"Pastinya sangat bangga dan terharu bisa menjadi juara di All England, turnamen yang sangat bergengsi," ucap Rian.
"Tahun lalu kami kalah di babak pertama, tapi Alhamdulillah sekarang tahun ini kami bisa menjadi juara," imbuhnya.
Kemenangan Fajar/Rian menjadikan mereka sebagai pemenang ke-11 laga All Indonesia Final di nomor ganda putra, sepanjang sejarah All England bergulir.
