Putin Denies Russian Responsibility for Kremenchuk Strike
World
Asharq Al-Awsat
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a session of the VTB Capital Investment Forum "Russia Calling!" via a video conference call in Moscow, Russia November 30, 2021. (Reuters)
Russian President Vladimir Putin denied Moscow's forces were responsible for a strike on a crowded shopping center in the Ukrainian town of Kremenchuk earlier this week, in which 18 people were killed. "Our army does not attack any civilian infrastructure site. We have every capability of knowing what is situated where," Putin told a news conference in the Turkmenistan capital of Ashgabat, reported AFP. "Nobody among us shoots just like that, randomly. It is normally done based on intelligence data on targets" and with "high-precision weapons". "I am convinced that this time, everything was done in this exact manner," Putin said. Ukraine accuses Russia of hitting the center on Monday in Kremenchuk, 330 kilometers (205 miles) southeast of Kyiv. Russia denies the accusation and previously claimed its missile salvo was aimed at an arms depot and the center was not in operation at the time.
from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3732446/putin-denies-russian-responsibility-kremenchuk-strike
Asharq Al-Awsat
Ukrainian servicemen taking part in the armed conflict with Russia-backed separatists in Donetsk region of the country attend the handover ceremony of military heavy weapons and equipment in Kiev on November 15, 2018. Sergei Supinsky | AFP | Getty Images
The US Treasury Department announced Wednesday the transfer of $1.3 billion in economic aid to Ukraine as part of the initial $7.5 billion promised to Kyiv by the Biden administration in May. "With this delivery of economic assistance, we reaffirm our resolute commitment to the people of Ukraine as they defend themselves against Putin's war of aggression and work to sustain their economy," Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement. The payment, part of the $7.5 billion aid package signed by President Joe Biden in May, is set to be made through the World Bank, AFP said. According World Bank estimates, the war, which began with Russia's invasion of its former Soviet neighbor in February, could cause the Ukrainian economy to contract by up to 45 percent in 2022. The country is currently running a budget deficit that is growing by $5 billion every month, exacerbated by its inability to raise funds or to access financing on external markets. Allies have rushed to pump Ukraine with aid, with the G7 and the European Union also announcing commitments of $29.6 billion in further money for Kyiv, with $8.5 billion of that coming from the United States, according to the Treasury Department. Washington already disbursed two payments of $500 million of that through the World Bank in April and May to help cover Ukraine's immediate costs as it dealt with "Russia's unprovoked and unjustified invasion," the Treasury said. Washington has already supplied Kyiv with more than $6 billion in military equipment since Russia's invasion.
from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3732321/us-disburses-13-bn-promised-aid-ukraine
Hal Brands
Hal Brands - Hal Brands is the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies and a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. His latest book is "American Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump."
The leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries are in Madrid for the alliance’s most consequential summit in a generation. NATO appears to have overcome Turkish diplomatic blackmail to bring in two new members, Sweden and Finland. It must approve a new concept for transatlantic security amid Russia’s ongoing assault on Ukraine. Not least, the alliance — and the US — will confront an inconvenient reality: Even if the Ukraine war takes a heavy toll on Russia, NATO will need a stronger presence in Eastern Europe than it possessed before the conflict. Since Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014, NATO has had a tripwire strategy for defending its easternmost members. The alliance sprinkled a few thousand troops across Poland and the Baltic States. And it chose to rotate those forces in and out rather than stationing them there permanently, in part due to cost and in part out of respect for a 1997 agreement with Russia that Moscow had already egregiously violated. Such a modest force could not withstand a major Russian attack. It could, however, ensure that US and other NATO troops would be killed, thereby setting off a larger, decisive Western response. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February, the Pentagon has sent additional forces into Eastern Europe: It now has roughly 10,000 troops in Poland, 2,500 in Romania and 2,000 in the Baltic States. The larger US contingent in Germany has also been reinforced, now at roughly 40,000 personnel. The goal was to ensure that Russia, perhaps emboldened by what many analysts thought would be an easy subjugation of Ukraine, was not tempted to take its aggression into NATO territory. Yet Russia stumbled into a bloody mess, suffering massive losses of infantry, armor, special operations forces and other capabilities. The Kremlin’s bungling of the invasion also raised questions about how highly to rate those troops that remain. Russia’s blunders have led some NATO members, such as France and Italy, to argue that greater forward presence in the east is now unnecessary. And with European countries ramping up defense spending, one also hears arguments that the US should leave any additional security measures in Europe to the Europeans and consummate its perpetually postponed “pivot to Asia” instead. Those are bad ideas. The outcome in Ukraine is still in doubt, thanks to Moscow’s gains in the east and the south and to its severe attrition of Kyiv’s armed forces. Russia may still achieve a pared-down goal of seizing much of the Donbas and a “land bridge” to Crimea; one way or another, President Vladimir Putin has shown he can inflict terrible damage even with a terribly damaged military. Well-informed analysts have also cautioned that Russia might do better in a conflict with NATO — the war it has trained and motived its forces to fight — than it has done in Ukraine. The current conflict has reminded us, moreover, that we still really don’t know Putin’s mind. For years, his risk-taking has caught even the smartest Kremlin-watchers by surprise. Most important, Ukraine has shown why a tripwire defense of Eastern Europe isn’t enough: It requires frontline states to see key portions of their territory conquered and then wait patiently for liberation. That has always been a nasty scenario, because it could allow Russia to grab a chunk of land and then use nuclear threats to deter NATO from fighting back. It looks even uglier now that the world knows exactly what crimes Russian forces perpetrate — rape, murder, torture and other horrific abuses. The problem with a tripwire strategy, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said last week, is that being attacked by Russia means “complete destruction of countries and our culture.” All the talk about enhanced European defense notwithstanding, there’s no good alternative to the US taking the initiative. The Ukraine war has been an object lesson in the value of American leadership: In the months prior to February 24, Washington repeatedly warned, on the basis of its unmatched intelligence capabilities, that Putin was deadly serious about invading — yet many European leaders were skeptical. If the US were to decide that Europe can now look after itself, the result would be a weaker NATO riven by disputes between frontline states that rightly fear Putin and Western European states, such as France, that still hope for some diplomatic accommodation. We’re not talking about Cold War levels of US military commitment. It would involve permanently stationing perhaps 15,000 to 20,000 additional US troops in Eastern Europe and the Baltics, with commensurate additions from other NATO countries. Poland and other frontline states should cover the costs of permanent basing — and indeed, have already agreed to do so. NATO will also need, and has signaled it will develop, enhanced rapid-response capabilities, such as prepositioned equipment larger forces can quickly take up in a crisis. The key is to create a capability that has a serious chance of frustrating an initial Russian assault until the cavalry can arrive and beat the invaders back — the sort of effective defense that bolsters deterrence by making it hard to imagine that aggression can succeed. After 30 years of focusing on “out of area” operations such as Afghanistan and counterpiracy off Africa, NATO is rediscovering its identity as an alliance devoted to collective defense. The leaders meeting in Madrid need to make sure it has the strength deployed in Eastern Europe to get that crucial mission right. Bloomberg
from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3732236/hal-brands/west-must-move-east-nato-survive
Will China Overtake US on Mars Missions? It’s Up to NASA
Opinion
Adam Minter
Adam Minter -
In 2033, a US spacecraft will return to Earth carrying the second cache of rocks ever collected from the surface of Mars. The first cache? It will have been collected by China two years earlier, in 2031, according to plans released last week by one of China's top space scientists. Of course, there's no guarantee that either mission will succeed. But China's impressive recent successes operating on and above the Moon and Mars give the country a better chance at lapping NASA and its partners. The news may cause alarm among Americans accustomed to being first in space for more than a half-century. This is no Sputnik moment, however, and there is no reason to panic. A mission to bring back the samples is an impressive technological achievement. But the future of Mars exploration isn't sample returns; it's discovering past life on Mars. For now, the US is better positioned to accomplish that goal. In 1993, NASA initiated the Mars Exploration Program, or MEP, a long-term initiative to explore Martian geology, climate and the possibility of past life, while laying a foundation for human exploration. Over the next three decades, NASA launched orbiters and rovers revealing ancient river and lake beds, as well as mineral evidence of a wet and warm Martian past. These discoveries heightened interest in seeking out evidence for past Martian life, and launching additional probes to find it. Unfortunately, the scientific instruments necessary to prove that life once existed on Mars are simply too large and complex to transport to the planet’s surface. To make that kind of history-altering discovery, pieces of Mars must be brought back to Earth. That's a complex endeavor. For example, one early NASA concept had two rovers landing on Mars, collecting samples and then launching them into orbit, where a third vehicle would rendezvous with them and dispatch them back to Earth. That mission would've started launching in 2003 and returned samples in 2008. Instead it was canceled over cost and difficulty. Twenty years ago, there was little competition for the US in space. The Russian program was in terminal decline, and China was just starting to launch humans into space. But despite a late start, China's leadership was determined to catch up. It's an ambition inspired by the belief that the country's economic and military future will, in part, be determined by its space capabilities. During the early 2000s, the Chinese announced an ambitious program of lunar exploration, a future space station and, tentatively, a Mars program. In each case, they have followed through and achieved successes, including lunar rovers, a Mars orbiter and rover, and a small but functional space station that could have Earth orbit to itself if the US doesn't replace the aging International Space Station by the end of the decade. That would be a public-relations and technical triumph for the Chinese. But if it doesn't happen, China remains keen to find another high-profile way to surpass the US in space. Until recently, Mars was not an obvious place to do it. In 2012, after a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences, NASA began work on new concepts for sample-return missions. Like earlier ones, these required multiple spacecraft, starting with a rover to collect samples from a region of Mars that shows promise as a repository of past life. Rather than wait for the full mission to be designed and built, NASA landed the Mars Perseverance rover near a dried-up Martian river delta in 2021. The rover contains 43 tubes for soil and rock samples that — scientists hope — will eventually be returned to Earth after they're dropped somewhere on the Martian surface, to be picked up later by another rover. This retrieval rover, in turn, will deliver them to a rocket (which also needs to be landed on Mars) that will fly them to a spacecraft that will ferry them to Earth. For now, the only part of this return mission that exists is the Perseverance rover, which is currently seeking promising samples for eventual return to Earth. The other parts of the mission, estimated to cost around $5 billion, have yet to be funded or built. They're also delayed: In March, NASA postponed the return to 2033, from 2031, in part to provide time to simplify the complicated mission. That's China's opening. Its scientists believe they can beat the US back to Earth by leveraging technologies used on China's recent lunar sample return, and Mars rover and orbiter missions. As outlined in a presentation given last week by the chief designer of China's current Mars rover, it's a simpler mission than NASA's. Most notably, it doesn't include rovers that can sample different sites over a large geographic area. Instead, the mission appears to be designed to land, grab samples (potentially using a four-legged robot), and get them back to China. If China can pull it off, it's a tremendous technical accomplishment, and the samples will be of considerable scientific interest. With a little luck, they may even contain the evidence of life that US scientists hope to discover with their own samples. But the US samples, if they're returned, will be of far greater interest, in part because they will have been carefully chosen from a wide geographic area over a period of years. Odds that either country will find evidence of life remains slim, but the US mission is far more likely to achieve it. For competitive-minded Americans, that's not much consolation for finishing second. But in this case, at least, slightly slower may serve US interests. After all, there's little likelihood the US or China will launch many additional, costly sample-return missions after the first two. Obtaining the best and most diverse set of samples with the few opportunities available should be the top priority and a source of national pride. To ensure that happens, Congress should fully fund NASA's request for the infrastructure necessary to accomplish the sample-return mission by 2033. It also needs to pressure NASA and its contractors to improve the management and bureaucratic deficiencies that have slowed down mission development, as outlined in a 2020 independent review of NASA's Mars Sample Return program. For now, the US remains the world's preeminent space power and explorer. Coming in second in the race for Mars rocks won't change that status. But it should serve as a reminder that its great geopolitical rivals are improving in their ability to shoot for the stars. Bloomberg
from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3732231/adam-minter/will-china-overtake-us-mars-missions-it%E2%80%99s-nasa
Fuzzy Language Is Setting Back the Fight Against Covid
Opinion
Faye Flam
Faye Flam -
People no longer know what to do about the Covid pandemic. Part of the problem is the very language we use to talk about it. Words such as “breakthrough,” “booster” and even “sick” mean different things to different people — and to experts and the general public. The solution is for experts to be mindful of words that have various popular meanings, and to avoid others altogether. Public health officials who wonder why the public is ignoring them — or who blame scientific illiteracy for their own muddy communication — should consider adopting a new glossary for the pandemic’s third year. The language problem really hit me when Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said in a video talk that he wished experts had never used the term “breakthrough infection.” This descriptor makes it sound as if the Covid vaccines failed. But in other diseases, asymptomatic or mild infections often coexist with vaccination. Offit also suggested jettisoning the term “booster” and redefining fully vaccinated simply as two, three or four shots, depending on various risk factors and age. That might encourage people to get the additional shots they need. Last winter, the critical care physician Roger Seheult told me that most patients he was seeing in the intensive-care unit during the omicron surge had serious health conditions (one was a kidney transplant recipient) but had not gotten that third dose of vaccine. Thirty percent of Americans over 65 never got a booster, though they are vastly more likely to be hospitalized or die from Covid than younger people. Even very basic terms can highlight a disconnect between the public and public health. Take the word “sick.” “A recent CDC announcement regarding international travel advised travelers to ‘get tested for current infection … and not travel if they are sick,’” notes risk communication consultant Peter Sandman. But does “sick” mean having symptoms or just testing positive? When scientists estimate that a quarter or even half of Americans have been infected with omicron, do they mean tested positive or got symptoms? Does this include people who didn’t test but would have been positive if they had? “Airborne” is another term Sandman considers confusing. Most people think of airborne as any transmission via air, in contrast with transmission via infected surfaces. But the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention differentiate between airborne and droplets, which also travel through the air but are larger and less likely to travel more than six feet. The distinction is critical. With a droplet-borne disease, even cloth masks are likely to help, and staying six feet apart keeps people safer. If a virus is technically airborne, then being outside, having good ventilation and wearing respirator masks make more sense. Even the term “mask” has lost some meaning. Masks encompass everything from a bandana tied bank robber-style around the face to an N-95. The former hasn’t been shown to protect the wearer or others, while the latter does both. So when we talk about “wearing masks” or say “masking works,” people have wildly varying interpretations. “Long Covid” also encompasses too much, lumping together any lingering symptoms with a disabling neurological syndrome. This makes it hard to judge the risk of severe long Covid. To understand the difference, think about skin cancer. There are many kinds of skin cancer, and the common ones are the least deadly. There’s a good reason that most of us who’ve had something zapped off our skin don’t consider ourselves cancer survivors. The word “emergency” also highlights the growing gulf between the public and public health, since most people no longer see the pandemic as an emergency and haven’t for some time. “To qualify as an emergency, an event normally should be important, bad, sudden and short-term,” Sandman wrote to me. The pandemic is still an official public health emergency, which gives drug companies the ability to fast-track drugs and vaccines through emergency use authorizations. But the situation is no longer sudden or short-term. “It’s not surprising that much of the public is highly motivated to “get over” COVID and return to normal life, while many public health professionals are inclined to stay focused (and want the public to stay focused) on the biggest public health emergency of their careers,” Sandman wrote. Finally, the word “pandemic,” when contrasted with “endemic,” has unleashed a new wave of confusion. People think of a pandemic as something very serious and scary, and endemic as a problem that fades into the background. Oxford University biologist Aris Katzourakis has called “endemic” one of the most misused terms of the pandemic because many endemic diseases, such as malaria, can be extremely deadly and debilitating. To most of us, however, the idea of a permanent pandemic or a permanent emergency feel oxymoronic. When people say they think the pandemic is over, they’re describing the way things feel now. That might be subjective, but it’s no less real — and public health professionals would be wise to pay attention. Bloomberg
from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3732226/faye-flam/fuzzy-language-setting-back-fight-against-covid
Iran-US Nuclear Talks in Qatar End without Making Progress
Iran
Asharq Al-Awsat
This handout photo provided by the Iranian news agency IRNA on June 28, 2022 shows (R to L) Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani meeting with the European Union's nuclear talks coordinator Enrique Mora in Qatar's capital Doha. (AFP/IRNA/Akbar Tavakoli)
Indirect negotiations between Iran and the US over Tehran's tattered nuclear deal with world powers ended Wednesday in Qatar after failing to make significant progress amid a growing crisis over Tehran’s atomic program, diplomats said. The Doha talks broke up after two days without any sign of a breakthrough, months after talks in Vienna among all of the deal's parties went on "pause." In the time since, Iran shut off surveillance cameras of international inspectors and now has enough high-enriched uranium to potentially fashion into at least one nuclear bomb if it chose. And with Iran and the US blaming each other for the talks’ failure, it remains unclear when - or if - there will be another round of negotiations. European Union mediator Enrique Mora on Twitter described as "intense" the two days of talks in Doha. "Unfortunately, not yet the progress the EU team as coordinator had hoped-for," Mora wrote. "We will keep working with even greater urgency to bring back on track a key deal for non-proliferation and regional stability." Mora's comments came hours after the semiofficial Tasnim news agency, believed to be close to Iran’s hardline Revolutionary Guard, described the negotiations as finished hours before they ended and having "no effect on breaking the deadlock in the talks." Tasnim claimed that the American position did not include "a guarantee for Iran benefiting economically from the deal," quoting what it described as unnamed "informed sources." "Washington is seeking to revive the (deal) in order to limit Iran without economic achievement for our country," the Tasnim report claimed. A key sticking point has been American sanctions targeting the Guard. US Special Representative Rob Malley spoke to the Iranians through Mora during the talks. Mora then took messages to Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani. After the Tasnim report, Foreign Minister spokesman Nasser Kanaani issued a statement describing the talks as "being held in a professional and serious atmosphere." He later said that Iran and Mora "will be in touch regarding the continuation of the route and the next stage of the talks." However, it remains unclear if there will be another round of talks on the deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The State Department said that Iran "raised issues wholly unrelated to the JCPOA and apparently is not ready to make a fundamental decision on whether it wants to revive the deal or bury it." "Indirect discussions in Doha have concluded, and while we are very grateful to the EU for its efforts, we are disappointed that Iran has, yet again, failed to respond positively to the EU’s initiative and therefore that no progress was made," the State Department said. Iran and world powers agreed in 2015 to the nuclear deal, which saw Tehran drastically limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. In 2018, then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord, raising tensions across the wider Middle East and sparking a series of attacks and incidents. Talks in Vienna about reviving the deal have been on a "pause" since March. Since the deal’s collapse, Iran has been running advanced centrifuges and rapidly growing stockpiles of enriched uranium. However, Tehran continues to suffer under intense economic sanctions while the West hopes to again curtail Iran's nuclear program. "The incentive for Washington and Tehran to keep the prospect of a deal alive is strong, even as the actual likelihood of achieving a compromise diminishes," said Henry Rome, an analyst with the Eurasia Group tracking the negotiations. "For that reason, we would expect the sides to resume talks in Doha in the near future, although we are not optimistic about a breakthrough."
from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3732221/iran-us-nuclear-talks-qatar-end-without-making-progress
Saudi Railway Company (SAR) wants to localize expertise in operating the al-Mashaer Train, aiming to run it entirely with trained national units by 2026. The Mashaer Train is one of the most important transportation pillars in the Holy Sites, which is being developed continuously to promote the service provided to the pilgrims. The project seeks to achieve the goal of Vision 2030 by increasing its capacity to five million pilgrims. The Train was on hiatus for two years due to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. SAR disclosed that the Mashaer train project provided over 7,500 seasonal jobs in crowd control at the train stations. Saudi Railways began its first operation of the Mashaer Rail after signing an agreement with the Royal Commission for the Holy City of Makkah and the Holy Sites in March 2021. Under the agreement, SAR is required to operate and maintain the Mashaer Rail for five years. It must also manage and control the crowds and security guards and handle the assets, including stations, facilities, equipment, operating systems, and other related equipment. SAR identified the necessary needs for the project, prioritizing projects in preparation for the operation of the Hajj season. It implemented several projects to renew many systems, including signaling systems, wireless communication systems, visual communications, sidewalk doors, the waterproofing system for roofs, and the renewal of elevators and escalators. SAR indicated that it began preparing for this year’s Hajj season and completed all routine and maintenance work in addition to several improvement projects necessary before the start of operations. It explained that operations are divided into three primary stages: the pre-operational stage, the experimental operation stage, which includes four simulations of the Hajj, and the actual Hajj season. The Train has nine stations, including Arafat, Muzdalifa, and Mina. It connects the southeast of Arafat and the southwest of Mina via the Muzdalifah with a track of 20 km in high structures on poles in the middle islands of the roads. The Chinese Railway Construction Corporation implemented the project at a total cost of SR6.650 billion. It was launched in November 2010. The project consists of 17 trains, including 204 cars, each accommodating 300 passengers, and two vehicles, front and rear. The length of the track is about 18.1 km, with a capacity of 72,000 pilgrims per hour. The project includes nine stations elevated from the ground with a length of 300 meters for each station, and the train platforms are accessed by ramps, elevators, regular and electrical stairs, and automatic gates separating the Train from loading areas and waiting areas.
from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3730311/saudi-arabias-mashaer-train-operate-again
