The reason given by Gazprom is PGNiG’s rejection of the payment in rubles, according to the Polish Press Agency.
Russia is to halt natural gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria from Wednesday, according to energy companies and authorities.
Poland’s state oil and gas company PGNiG said on Tuesday that Russia’s energy corporation Gazprom will suspend its gas supplies to Poland from Wednesday evening.
“PGNiG has received a letter from Gazprom announcing the complete suspension of supplies under the Yamal contract,” PGNiG said in a statement.
PGNiG also ensured the customers that gas supplies to Poland are secured as it has pipeline connections with neighboring countries and a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in the northwest of the country, according to the statement.
The reason given by Gazprom is PGNiG’s rejection of the payment in rubles, according to the Polish Press Agency.
Photo taken on March 24, 2022 shows ruble banknotes and coins in Moscow, capital of Russia. (Xinhua/Bai Xueqi)
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki confirmed the notice from Gazprom to suspend gas supplies, and said Poland is energy safe.
Russia, which currently covers almost all of Bulgaria’s gas needs, will also suspend gas supplies to the Balkan country as of Wednesday, the Bulgarian Energy Ministry said on Tuesday evening.
Russia had informed Bulgaria about this earlier on Tuesday, the ministry said in a statement.
Bulgarian authorities have taken steps to make alternative arrangements for the supply of natural gas and to deal with the situation. At present, no restrictive measures are required for gas consumption in Bulgaria, it added.
The two gas storage towers of the Warsaw Gasworks Musuem are seen in Warsaw, Poland on Sept. 22, 2020. (Photo by Jaap Arriens/Xinhua)
“Despite the ongoing military operation, we still hope that we will be able to reach agreements on the diplomatic track,” Putin said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin met with visiting United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in the Kremlin on Tuesday to discuss the situation in Ukraine.
Putin told Guterres that the Ukrainian issue arose after the 2014 “unconstitutional coup” in Kiev and people in Donbass remained under blockade and military pressure even after the Minsk agreements on a peaceful settlement were reached.
According to Putin, the Donbass “republics” have the right to declare their sovereignty and Russia has the right to recognize their independence and provide them with military assistance in full accordance with the UN Charter.
“Despite the ongoing military operation, we still hope that we will be able to reach agreements on the diplomatic track. We are negotiating and we do not refuse them,” he said.
Guterres proposed creating a contact group where the UN, Russia and Ukraine can discuss the situation together so that the humanitarian corridors are truly effective.
He said that to resolve the situation in Ukraine’s Mariupol, the UN is ready to fully mobilize its logistical capabilities and human resources, working together with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as well as the Russian and Ukrainian armed forces.
Guterres also said that the UN is ready in two or three days, together with the ICRC, to assess the situation at the Azovstal plant in order to evacuate civilians from there.
In response, Putin denied reports that Russian humanitarian corridors are not working and stressed that 130,000 to 140,000 people have left Mariupol with the assistance of Russia and they are free to go anywhere.
Putin also offered an opportunity to UN and ICRC representatives to have a look at how Russia treats Ukrainian war prisoners.
Before his trip to Moscow, Guterres met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday in the capital Ankara. The UN chief will travel to Ukraine following talks with Putin.
The geopolitical fallout of the war between Russia and Ukraine has shaken up the world, created anxiety and heightened security concerns, a group of experts told a recent webinar organised by Asia News Network, a grouping of 23 media members throughout Asia. Boom Buchanan Special to The Nation
Mahfuz Anam, editor-in-chief of The Daily Star published in Bangladesh and the current chairman of ANN, said in his introductory note at the webinar titled “Europe’s Geopolitical Seismic Shift: What does it mean for Asia?” that the situation in Ukraine has shaken up the whole world. “We all need to clarify our thoughts from the opinions of experts. There are great concerns and that’s why we have guest speakers from Asian and European countries to speak on the topic.”
DR Julian Boucher, head of policy at Munich Security Conference, told the webinar that the tensions had been going on for a number of years and that he would not call it a geopolitical seismic shift.
“It’s not that bad even though it is there. It’s not the West against Russia. Nato members in the European Union seem to be united even more and EU members need to work together to look at the way forward,” he said.
He said there was no sudden geopolitical shift in Europe, “as we have seen the possibility of this event taking place for the last decade. This situation is just the tip of the iceberg”. Regarding the role of Germany, he said, “We must step up and become the leader in the EU. Germany needs to rely on a secure and wealthy EU continent. A complete invasion is only the main driver of change.”
Regarding German reaction to the current war, Boucher said the invasion was seen as a possibility. “It is not only geopolitical in scope but there is concern over economic presence. The concern is about the wealth and security of Europe, as 75 per cent of the German population expected the crisis. However, the German government did make a unity call after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”
“We need to look at the way forward as there are also many other topics where we need to work together, such as arms treaty, space debris, climate change etc. All members of Nato need to talk about cooperation and not competition.”
Ashok Sajjanhar, India’s former ambassador to Kazakhstan, Sweden and Latvia, who has also had diplomatic postings to Washington DC, Brussels, Moscow, Geneva, Tehran, Dhaka, and Bangkok, showed his understanding of Baltic politics. In the webinar, he stressed that his opinion did not represent the government’s viewpoint.
He said India is very much in touch with the world and New Delhi has become an important stopover for world leaders. He pointed to the number of visits made by international delegations and leaders in recent months.
Sajjanhar said he does not think many people in India or the rest of the world expected the war to break out. Although tensions were imminent, people did not expect it to happen at this scale.
He said the situation came as a surprise. In his opinion, Russia could have stayed neutral and to not expect Ukraine to join Nato was a negative approach.
“Other countries such as Hungary, which is very sympathetic to Russia, have also expressed surprise at the attack. Military attacks from all sides were a surprise to everyone,” said Sajjanhar.
He said India has taken an evenhanded approach. It maintains its key global partnerships — with the United States and Europe — where there is a sense of congruence and similarity in shared values, and continues its strategic partnership with Russia on defence equipment. In addition to importing the S-400 missile launcher, the two countries also have cooperation on space exploration.
“We, however, have been watching with anxiety when Russia leaned toward China since the annexation of Crimea, by supplying oil to China, which reduced trust in Russia.
As a member of the UN Security Council, India discussed many issues with both Russia and Ukraine. The major issue earlier was to evacuate some population and students back to India. Poland, Slovak, and Hungary helped with the repatriation mission.
He said that we all need to look at the explanation Russia has offered that the expansion of Nato affected Russia’s security interests. The sovereignty of all countries needs to be respected and the UN charter needs to be respected. India is not in the habit of coming out and openly condemning or criticising, but prefers a one on one conversation. The issue needs to be resolved through bilateral dialogue, he said.
However, the former diplomat agrees that the global architecture will undergo a drastic shake-up. He said India’s position regarding the conflict is well-recognised.
Thailand’s Panitan Wattanayagorn, a political scientist and Assoc Prof at the Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, said at the introduction to the webinar that he was speaking in his private capacity and his views did not represent those of the Thai government. Panitan, who is chairman of the Prime Minister’s Security Advisory Committee, raised two points.
One, he said the consequences of the Russia-Ukraine conflict are real and no one seems to know the final outcome.
Two, in terms of Thailand’s geopolitical position, it is very controversial as “we do have bamboo diplomacy and as a small country far away from the battleground, we see uncertainty and uncertainty about the conflict is concerning”.
Panitan said that even though all countries are considered outsiders in this war, all countries are affected as outsiders. We see a sharper conflict in relations with China ; it could be the move towards a new war, he said
“We can see increases in defence budgets, concerns over regional borders, and concerns over national security.
Just overnight, we are seeing huge numbers of refugees leaving Ukraine on a big scale and they are many more than the 100,000 refugees that fled to Thailand from the neighbouring country” some years ago, Panitan said.
He said that if it were not a seismic shift as mentioned by some experts, then it was certainly a kind of tectonic shift. He said that Asia will respond to the emerging scenario. In particular, Japan and South Korea will react or review their national security.
Panitan said that the recovery of the global economy from Covid is one thing, but the war between Russia and Ukraine is another thing and that creates worries and concerns in Asia, and the region seems to have lost the ability to forecast the outcome of this war. He said the impact on the East Asian Security environment will certainly change. “This war will increase North Korea’s nuclear ambition. It will believe even more in its need for nuclear arms. There will be a potential shift in the US position on the Taiwan strait. He believes no country could defend its sovereignty by itself but will depend on a nuclear strategy.
A New York judge on Monday (April 25) held former President Donald Trump in contempt of court for not producing documents subpoenaed in the state attorney general’s civil probe of his business practices and ordered Trump to be fined $10,000 per day until he complies.
Trump lost a bid to quash a subpoena from state Attorney General Letitia James and then failed to produce all the documents by a court-ordered March 3 deadline, later extended to March 31 at his lawyers’ request.
Justice Arthur Engoron ruled that a contempt finding was appropriate because of what the judge called “repeated failures” to hand over materials and because it was not clear Trump had conducted a complete search for responsive documents.
“Mr Trump … I know you take your business seriously, and I take mine seriously. I hereby hold you in civil contempt,” the judge said, although Trump himself was not in the courtroom.
Trump intends to appeal the contempt ruling, said his attorney Alina Habba. “We respectfully disagree with the court’s decision,” Habba said in a statement.
Habba said at the hearing that James’ investigation was a “fishing expedition” and that the Trump Organization was “right on schedule” with its production of documents.
“This is a political crusade,” Habba said. “The attorney general’s investigation has seemingly become aimless.”
James is investigating whether the Trump Organization, the former president’s New York City-based family company, misstated the values of its real estate properties to obtain favourable loans and tax deductions.
She has said the more than three-year-old probe found “significant evidence” that the company included misleading asset valuations in its financial statements for more than a decade.
“Today’s ruling makes clear: No one is above the law,” James said in a statement on Monday.
Trump, a Republican, denies wrongdoing and has called the investigation politically motivated. James is a Democrat.
The attorney general has questioned how the Trump Organization valued the Trump brand, as well as properties including golf clubs in New York and Scotland and Trump’s penthouse apartment in Midtown Manhattan’s Trump Tower.
Also on Monday, Engoron granted a motion by James’ office to compel real estate firm, Cushman & Wakefield, to comply with certain subpoenas. Cushman conducted appraisals for several Trump Organization properties.
Trump and two of his adult children, Ivanka and Donald Jr., also were subpoenaed and ordered to provide testimony to the attorney general. An appeal is pending for the testimony.
Andrew Amer, special litigation counsel with the attorney general’s office, said during the hearing that the $10,000-a-day fine was meant to coerce Trump into complying with the subpoena, not punish him.
Habba told the judge that Trump did indeed comply with the subpoena, but that he did not have any documents responsive to James’ request. Engoron said she would have to submit a detailed affidavit about her search of Trump’s records to comply with the subpoena.
“Subpoenas are not optional,” said Daniel R. Alonso, a partner in the New York office of Buckley LLP. “Court orders are not optional. People comply with them every single day. It is very unusual for somebody to just sort of say, ‘Look, I’m just not going to comply with this,’ or to just keep arguing even after they’ve been ordered and the government, in this case, the attorney general, just got fed up. So he’s got to comply. Everyone else has to do it. There’s no loophole for former presidents.”
The Trump Organization’s property valuations are also the subject of a criminal probe in Manhattan, which last year led to the indictment of the company’s chief financial officer.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said this month that the probe is ongoing despite the departure of its two top lawyers.
The funding for military research and development of the United States, the world’s largest military spender, rose by 24 per cent over the past decade, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said on Monday.
The U.S. funding for military R and D rose by 24 per cent between 2012 and 2021, while arms procurement funding fell by 6.4 per cent over the same period, the SIPRI said in a report.
“The increase in R and D spending over the decade 2012-2021 suggests that the United States is focusing more on next-generation technologies,” said Alexandra Marksteiner, a researcher with SIPRI’s military expenditure and arms production program.
The U.S. government has repeatedly stressed the need to preserve its military’s technological edge over strategic competitors, Marksteiner added.
According to the report, world military spending continued to grow for the seventh consecutive year in 2021, reaching an all-time high of 2.1 trillion U.S. dollars, of which the United States accounted for 38 per cent, the world’s largest.
The country’s “continued heavy investment in R and D (combined with the cut in procurement funding) seems to indicate that it is currently prioritizing the development of new technologies over large-scale spending on legacy systems,” the report said.
Nuclear-related spending was among the military budget items that saw the largest increase in 2021, reflecting the United States’ planned overhaul and modernization of its nuclear arsenal, it added.
Twitter is poised to agree on a sale to Elon Musk for around $43 billion in cash, the price the chief executive of Tesla has called his “best and final” offer for the social media company, people familiar with the matter said.
Twitter may announce the $54.20-per-share deal later on Monday (April 25) once its board has met to recommend the transaction to Twitter shareholders, the sources said.
It is always possible that the deal collapses at the last minute, the sources added.
Musk, the world’s richest person according to a tally by Forbes, is negotiating to buy Twitter in a personal capacity and Tesla is not involved in the deal.
Twitter has not been able to secure so far a ‘go-shop’ provision under its agreement with Musk that would allow it to solicit other bids once the deal is signed, the sources said. Still, Twitter would be allowed to accept an offer from another party by paying Musk a break-up fee, the sources added.
The sources requested anonymity because the matter is confidential. Twitter and Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Twitter shares were up almost 4% in early market trading in New York on Monday at $50.62.
Musk has said Twitter needs to be taken private to grow and become a genuine platform for free speech.
The deal would come just four days after Musk unveiled a financing package to back the acquisition.
This led Twitter’s board to make the deal more seriously and many shareholders to ask the company not to let the opportunity for a deal to slip away, Reuters reported on Sunday (April 24).
The sale would represent an admission by Twitter that its new chief executive Parag Agrawal, who took the helm in November, is not making enough traction in making the company more profitable, despite being on track to meet ambitious financial goals the company set for 2023.
Twitter’s shares were trading higher than Musk’s offer price as recently as November.
Musk’s negotiating tactics – making one offer and sticking with it – resembles how another billionaire, Warren Buffett, negotiates acquisitions.
Musk did not provide any financing details when he first disclosed his offer for Twitter, making the market sceptical about its prospects.
Twelve countries have reported acute hepatitis for unknown reasons among children, with at least one death, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Saturday.
At least 169 cases of acute hepatitis among children had been reported, 114 of whom in Britain, the WHO said in a statement. It said cases have also been reported in the United States, Spain, Israel, Denmark and other countries.
The patients ranged from one month to 16 years old, and 17 of them require a liver transplant.
The WHO did not provide details about the countries where the death occurred.
The symptoms of many reported cases include diarrhoea and vomiting, and most cases do not have a fever.
None of the reported cases has detected the five common hepatitis viruses.
The WHO also said adenoviruses had been detected in 74 cases, of which 20 were infected with novel coronavirus and 19 with both coronavirus and adenoviruses.
As the vast majority of the patients had not been vaccinated against COVID-19, it is now considered that their hepatitis is not a side effect of COVID-19 vaccination.
The WHO is monitoring the situation closely and working in cooperation with the UK Health department and other partners.
A child-sized doll screams and rolls its eyes while lying on a table, as engineer Hiroki Takimoto looks on calmly. But instead of being a child’s toy, the doll is a humanoid robot that can mimic critical medical symptoms designed to train dental workers.
Co-developed by Japanese robotics startup Tmsuk and a local dental school, the robot, named the Pedia_Roid, was designed to simulate a child’s response when receiving dental treatment, including changes to its medical condition.
Using a tablet programmed with different medical conditions, the user is able to send signals to air cylinders installed within the robot’s joints to move its entire body, mouth, and tongue to display physical reactions and facial expressions. More importantly, the robot is able to simulate signs of it undergoing medical emergencies such as convulsion and heart failure, allowing trainees to gain experience in knowing how to handle similar critical situations, a Tmsuk engineer said.
Director of Tmsuk’s engineering division Yusuke Ishii said the robot was developed due to the lack of clinical dental training to treat children.
“It is difficult to get experience in pediatric dentistry because there are no opportunities to practise. In addition, there is the risk that children will move wildly because with children when their medical condition suddenly worsens, it’s hard for them to express that situation. So it is necessary to have the experience and knowledge to monitor and treat the patients,” Ishii told Reuters.
Currently, at a hefty price tag of about 25 million Japanese yen ($195,000), Tmsuk hopes to develop the hyper-realistic robot further such that people from other childcare industries such as paediatricians and elementary school teachers would be able to use it for other emergency situation training.
French President Emmanuel Macron has seen off his far-right rival Marine Le Pen to secure five years more years at the helm of Europe’s second economy. But the narrowing margin of victory and an increasingly polarised nation herald another rocky term for the incumbent.
Macron, 44, is the first president to secure re-election since Jacques Chirac 20 years ago. His back-to-back wins are no small feat in a country that has recently developed a taste for kicking out the incumbent at the first opportunity. It helped that on both occasions he faced a political force that a (shrinking) majority of the French still considers unfit for government.
At 58.8 per cent to Le Pen’s 41.2 per cent, Macron’s projected margin of victory ultimately exceeded most pollsters’ forecasts. Still, Sunday’s rematch produced a much closer outcome than in 2017, when the political upstart carried the day with 66 per cent of the vote. On her third attempt, Le Pen moved several steps closer to the Élysée Palace. Not since World War II has the nationalist far-right come this close to power in France.
“The ideas we represent have reached new heights,” Le Pen told supporters in a defiant speech, hailing a “shining victory” even as she conceded defeat. The 53-year-old vowed to “keep up the fight” and lead the battle against Macron in parliamentary elections in June.
After a turbulent five years in office marked by violent protests and a succession of Covid lockdowns and curfews, Macron relied on an uncertain coalition of ardent supporters and reluctant “tactical” voters determined to keep Le Pen out of power. In the end, it proved more than enough to hold off the “anti-Macron front” summoned by his challenger.
Le Pen had sought to frame the election as a referendum on the incumbent. She urged voters to “choose between Macron and France”. Some did see the contest that way. But more chose between Le Pen and the Republic.
“Many of our compatriots voted for me not out of support for my ideas but to block those of the far-right,” Macron told supporters at the Eiffel Tower, striking a more humble tone than he had on the campaign trail. “I want to thank them and I know that I have a duty towards them in the years to come,” he added, hinting at a more grounded style for the years to come.
Shortly after his re-election Macron said that the concerns of those who had abstained from voting or picked opposition candidate Marine Le Pen needed to be addressed.
“I also think of all our compatriots who abstained from voting. Their silence signified a refusal to choose, to which we must also respond,” he said.
French far-right leader Le Pen said that she would keep up the political fight against President Emmanuel Macron in the run-up to June parliamentary elections, as she conceded defeat to the incumbent in France’s presidential election.
“The French are showing tonight a wish for a strong counter-power against that of Emmanuel Macron, for an opposition that will continue to defend and protect them,” she told supporters after early projections indicated she had lost the election.
Against a backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing Western sanctions that have exacerbated a surge in fuel prices, Le Pen’s campaign homed in on the rising cost of living as Macron’s weak point.
In the end, as viewer surveys after last week’s fractious televised debate between the two testified, Le Pen’s policies – which included a proposal to ban people from wearing Muslim headscarves in public – remained too extreme for many French.
Le Pen vowed to keep up the fight, with the June parliamentary elections in mind.
“I will never abandon the French,” she said;
European Union leaders were quick to congratulate French President Emmanuel Macron on his election victory over his far-right rival, reflecting relief that one of the bloc’s most pivotal countries had avoided a political shock.
European Council President Charles Michel, as well as European Union President, Ursula von der Leyen, were among the first to congratulate Macron, after his win over Marine Le Pen by a comfortable margin.
“Bravo Emmanuel,” Michel wrote on Twitter. “In this turbulent period, we need a solid Europe and a France committed to a more sovereign and more strategic European Union.”
Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the public face of Brexit for many Europeans, applauded the result, pledging cooperation with Macron and saying that “France is one of our closest and most important allies.”
French left-wing newspaper Liberation was far from celebratory on Emmanuel Macron’s comfortable win over far-right rival Marine Le Pen on Sunday (April 24), despite heading off a political earthquake for Europe with his election win.
“Macron re-elected, thanks to who?,” declared the daily newspaper on its front cover, referring to those who may have voted for him only to keep Le Pen out.
The first all-private astronaut team ever to fly aboard the International Space Station (ISS) departed the orbiting outpost on Sunday (April 24) to begin a descent back to Earth, capping a two-week science mission hailed as a milestone in commercial spaceflight.
ASpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying the four-man team from the Houston-based startup company Axiom Space undocked from the ISS at about 9:10 p.m. EDT (0110 GMT Monday) to embark on a 16-hour return flight, a live NASA webcast showed.
The Axiom astronauts, garbed in their helmeted white-and-black spacesuits, were seen strapped into the crew cabin shortly before the spacecraft separated from the station, orbiting some 250 miles (420 km) above Earth. A couple of brief rocket thrusts then pushed the capsule safely clear of the ISS.
If all goes smoothly, the Dragon capsule, dubbed Endeavour, will parachute into the Atlantic off the coast of Florida on Monday around 1 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT).
The flight home was postponed for several days due to unfavourable weather at the splashdown zone, extending the Axiom crew’s stay in orbit well beyond its original departure date early last week.
The multinational team was led by Spanish-born retired NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, 63, Axiom’s vice president for business development. Larry Connor, 72, a real estate-technology entrepreneur and aerobatics aviator from Ohio, was the second in command.
Rounding out the Ax-1 crew were investor-philanthropist and former Israeli fighter pilot Eytan Stibbe, 64, and Canadian businessman and philanthropist Mark Pathy, 52, both serving as mission specialists.
Launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on April 8, they spent two weeks aboard ISS with the seven regular, government-paid crew of the space station: three American astronauts, a German astronaut and three Russian cosmonauts.
The Axiom Quartet became the first all-commercial astronaut team ever launched to the space station, taking with them equipment for two dozen science experiments, biomedical research and technology demonstrations conducted in orbit.
Photo taken on March 24, 2022 shows ruble banknotes and coins in Moscow, capital of Russia. (Xinhua/Bai Xueqi)
The two gas storage towers of the Warsaw Gasworks Musuem are seen in Warsaw, Poland on Sept. 22, 2020. (Photo by Jaap Arriens/Xinhua)
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