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Stoltenberg assures that NATO countries are willing to give more Patriots to Ukraine

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday that the allies are willing to strengthen Ukraine’s air defenses, especially Patriot anti-missile batteries, after the specific request made today by the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Dmitro Kuleba.

“The allies understand the urgency of accelerating when it comes to air defense, so they will now look in their inventories or if there is a way they can provide more systems, in particular Patriots,” Stoltenberg said at a press conference at the end of a two-day meeting of the Alliance’s Foreign Affairs heads.

At the same time, he said that it is necessary to make sure that the air defense systems that are already deployed in Ukraine “have the ammunition and spare parts to work as they should.”

“In part it is a question of battery systems, but it depends a lot on the delivery of the interceptors of the systems that are already there,” he explained.

Stoltenberg assured that several allies promised that they will make “a new effort to find what they can, see what else they can provide.”

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The 32 allied ministers participated today in a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council after attending a ceremony to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Atlantic Alliance.

“I don’t want to water the anniversary party, but my main message today will be Patriots, because saving Ukrainian lives, saving the Ukrainian economy, saving Ukrainian cities, depends on the capacity of the Patriots and other air defense systems,” Kuleba told the press upon his arrival at the meeting.

“The situation on the battlefield is still serious. Ukraine needs more air defenses, more ammunition and more help,” Stoltenberg stressed.

The Allied Secretary General listed that, in recent days, Germany has announced about 600 million euros for the Czech initiative to acquire artillery ammunition, the United Kingdom has announced the shipment of 10,000 drones to Kiev, France will give more missiles and armored vehicles and Finland will provide a new aid package worth 188 million euros.

“But we have to do even more. And we need to establish our support on an even firmer and more lasting basis,” he said.
Therefore, yesterday, Wednesday, the allied ministers agreed to move forward in the planning of a greater role of NATO in the coordination of aid and security training for Ukraine, a work that will continue in the coming weeks.

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Stoltenberg indicated that the allies must move forward on these two aspects: the mobilization of urgent aid in the coming days and weeks and the establishment of “a more predictable framework for long-term support” that “does not depend on voluntary ‘ad hoc’ announcements, but on more predictable commitments.”

In this way, the allies have entrusted the supreme commander of the Alliance for Europe (SACEUR), American General Christopher G. Cavoli, start the planning of that framework, which “could be underpinned by financial commitments.”

Stoltenberg has proposed to create a fund of 100 billion euros for five years for Ukraine so that the support has a long-term journey, at a time when it is possible to return in November to the White House of Republican Donald Trump, who has already said that he would cut off attendance to Kiev.

“Russia is mobilizing more troops, but it is also willing to sacrifice men and material for marginal profits. This is serious, and that is exactly why it is urgent to mobilize more support for Ukraine,” argued the Norwegian politician.

He warned that there are fundamentally two possible scenarios: that the allies are able to mobilize more support and that Ukraine can recover more territory, or “that we are not able to do so.”

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“And then there is a real risk that Russia will capture even more territory and that we will find ourselves in an even more dangerous position,” he said.

In his opinion, if NATO allies comply, he was convinced that Ukraine will be able to make new advances, and therefore “we must thoroughly seek and provide more military support” and put in place “stronger and more solid structures in the long term.”

Stoltenberg also insisted again that they have “no plan to have combat troops within Ukraine, there has been no request for it.”

The fact that the allies are providing him with weapons to defend himself “does not make us part of the conflict,” he said.

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International

Armed clashes in northwestern Pakistan leave at least 35 dead and 50 injured

Armed clashes between Sunni and Shii groups in the Kurram tribal district, in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), in northwestern Pakistan, left at least 35 dead and 50 injured, the police confirmed to EFE on Saturday.

The violence that broke out last night comes two days after an ambush by an unidentified armed group to a passenger convoy in this same district, which killed 42 people, most of them Shiites, when they were traveling on a road escorted by security forces.

“Armed Shiites attacked Sunni houses and shops in the towns of Bagan and Bacha Kot, in which 35 people on both sides died and more than 50 were injured,” Mujahid Ullah, a Kurram police control officer, told EFE.

In the attack, “1,036 houses and 315 stores, mostly Sunnis, have been set on fire since the assault began around 6:00 p.m.” on Friday, he added.

Sectarian violence

Pakistan has a history of sectarian violence, but the latest clashes are claiming the highest number of victims in recent years. The Shiite Muslim minority represents about 15% of Pakistan’s 240 million inhabitants, a Sunni majority.

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“In this situation it is difficult for the police to arrest someone involved in the violence,” said today the police officer who estimates that the death toll could increase, since shootings continue in some areas.

Verified images shared on social media show markets, houses and government buildings destroyed by fire.

The attack is apparently a reaction to the one recorded on Thursday to passenger vans that resulted in 42 deaths, including women and children.

The Thall-Sada-Parachinar highway, where Thursday’s ambush took place, has remained closed as authorities struggle to reinforce an unstable peace. Both sides attack each other with heavy and automatic weapons.

“The elderly and government officials have gathered at Kurram’s headquarters, to calm the situation,” Ullah revealed, adding that educational institutions in the district are closed due to growing tension.

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No Internet or telephony

Internet and mobile phone services are also suspended throughout the district.

The Kurram district of KP is located on the border with Afghanistan, where a major land dispute that began in 2007 continued for several years and ended in 2011 with the help of a jirga of tribal elders.

According to the KP Department of the Interior, there are land disputes in eight places in the district that date back to the partition of Pakistan and India in 1947. Land disputes often turn into deadly sectarian violence.

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International

Cristina Fernández demands the restitution of the pensions that the Milei Government took away from her

Former Argentine president Cristina Fernández (2007-2015) demanded that the National Administration of Social Security (Anses) return the pensions she received for having occupied the Head of State and for being the widow of the former president Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007) and that were taken away by decision of the Government of Javier Milei.

Official sources consulted by EFE indicated this Saturday that the administrative claim presented by the former president will be answered “according to the procedural deadlines,” something that will be done by the Legal Affairs area of ANSES, the state agency that administers the pension system in Argentina.

Through a resolution published on November 15 in the Official Gazette, ANSES revoked the lifetime pension benefits that Fernández received for having been head of state and as a widow of another former president, a measure that on the day before had been announced by the Government of Milei itself.

Why did they withdraw Cristina Fernández’s pensions?

The resolution recalls that on November 13, an impeachment court confirmed a sentence for Fernández to six years in prison and perpetual disqualification from holding public office in a trial for irregularities in the concession of road works during his government and that of Kirchner.

ANSES alleged that lifetime pensions for former presidents “become legally incompatible for those who have committed a crime in the exercise of the same public function for which they have acceded to said allocation of privilege and to the detriment of the National State.”

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After this measure became effective, Cristina Fernández questioned it on the grounds that pensions for former presidents are not granted for good performance, but for the “merit” of having obtained the election as heads of state by the popular vote.

He also claimed that the alleged “bad performance” of a president can only be judged by the Argentine Parliament through the constitutional process of impeachment during the exercise of the mandate.

In statements to radio La Red, Facundo Fernández Pastor, the former president’s lawyer, pointed out that if the administrative claim before the ANSES does not succeed, Fernández will go to court.

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International

Possible lack of final agreement overspeaks Baku summit negotiations

Baku can go down in history as another failed climate summit, adding to the list of COPs that ended in failure; with a bad agreement, as in Copenhagen (2009) or without agreement, as in the summit in The Hague (2000).

This is raised in the conversations that negotiators, observers and journalists have this Saturday in the corridors of COP29, after the 24 hours of extension of a summit that was supposed to end on Friday afternoon and in full “chaos” after dozens of countries left the room where the draft of the potential agreement was being negotiated.

The analysts and observers consulted, as well as the negotiating teams, agree to underline the “especially chaotic” end of this summit, from which a not too encouraging outcome is expected: either a “bad agreement” – that does not meet the needs of the Global South to face the climate challenge – or, directly, without agreement.

Pessimism invaded the spaces of the summit that hosts these days the capital of Azerbaijan, and in which about 200 states have been negotiating for two weeks how to finance climate action, especially in those low-income countries and vulnerable to the impacts of global warming.

Everyone mentions the ghost of the failed summits in The Hague and Copenhagen, cases that they would like to avoid, because they fear that going through another failure like this would further undermine the already weaken confidence in multilateralism.

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Some developing countries leave the trading room

In addition, small island states and some Africans left the negotiation room where they met the presidency’s latest proposal for the agreement on climate financing that finalizes COP29, where they said they did not feel heard.

Political representatives of the negotiating group that brings together the least developed countries, as well as that of the small island states claimed to have come to the climate summit in Baku to close “a fair agreement” on climate financing, but they have felt “hurt” by not being consulted.

“There is an agreement to be closed and we are not being consulted. We are here to negotiate, but we are leaving because at the moment we do not feel that we are being heard,” said the head of the negotiating group of the island countries, Cedric Schuste, in statements to the media.

“We do everything we can to build bridges with literally everyone. It is not easy, neither in financing nor in mitigation,” stressed the European Commissioner for Climate Action, Wopke Hoekstra, to emphasize that “it is fair to ask that we be constructive.”

Some Latin American and Caribbean states, which are trying to build bridges between the least developed and rich countries, expressed their refusal to admit that this Baku summit is closed without an agreement.

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“We cannot leave Baku or Copenhagen,” said Panama’s special climate envoy, Juan Carlos Monterrey, in reference to the climate summit held in the Danish capital in 2009, a meeting that the international climate community considered a failure, by not reaching any agreement.

“We are already at a point of not only building bridges, but walking on those bridges,” Monterrey said, after detailing that the countries had left the consultation mainly because of their discrepancies regarding the total amount that rich countries suggest mobilizing to pay for the climate transition and adaptation to the inevitable impacts of global warming.

“The great struggle is the figure,” said Monterrey, since developing countries at this point support that the goal is 300 billion dollars per year by 2035, and developing and emerging economies ask for 500 billion dollars annually and by 2030.

Lack of transparency in the process

Panama’s main negotiator, Ana Aguilar, also criticized the lack of transparency in the process, something she blamed on the Azerbaijani presidency of the summit, which according to her has had more meetings with some parties than with others, and has been three days without favoring negotiations more than bilaterally.

“We have a problem,” said Colombian Minister Susana Muhamad, who claimed that there is still a long distance between the amount that rich countries propose to mobilize and that requested by those that developing countries.

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The proposal of the presidency of the COP29, as reflected in a negotiating text made public on Friday, was that the awealing countries pay 250 billion dollars a year by 2035 to the states of the Global South, to help them pay for action against climate change, a phenomenon to which they hardly contribute but of which they are the main victims.

Now there is talk of 300 billion dollars, while the largest group of developing countries demands at least 500 billion.

The dispute is especially in the quantum, Muhamad said, but also “in some of the requirements that I think we can achieve through negotiation,” he said.

“The problem is that it has been published very late, it was published yesterday. The deadline is very short, so we have some countries, those that have less financial capacity, that do not feel satisfied,” explained Muhamad, who added that “we need them to be able to move and deliberate.”

The Colombian minister said that she will encourage rich countries “to take a step forward” and, she added, “it is very important that they do so so that we can move forward and carry out this negotiation.”

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