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More than three years since a devastating fire burned parts of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, reconstruction is underway, and organizations from the United States are helping. Karina Bafradzhian has the story.
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Russian lawmakers on Thursday gave their final approval to a bill that significantly expands restrictions on activities seen as promoting gay rights in the country, another step in a years-long crackdown on the country’s embattled LGBTQ community.

The new bill expands a ban on what authorities call “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” to minors, established by legislation dubbed the “gay propaganda” law. It was adopted by the Kremlin in 2013 in an effort to promote “traditional values” in Russia.

This year, the lawmakers moved to ban spreading such information to people aged 18 and older.

The bill was approved in the third and final reading on Thursday by the State Duma, the lower house of parliament. It will go next to the upper house, the Federation Council, and then to President Vladimir Putin, whose signature will give it legal force.

The new bill outlaws all advertising, media and online resources books, films and theater productions deemed to contain such “propaganda,” a concept loosely defined in the bill. The 2013 ban was often enacted against any depictions of same-sex unions and used as a tool to crack down on LGBTQ rights groups and activists.

Violations are punishable by fines. If committed by non-residents, they can lead to their expulsion from Russia. The fines range from 100,000 to 2 million rubles ($1,660-$33,000). For some violations, foreigners could face 15 days’ detention prior to expulsion.

The bill does not make violations a criminal offense. Russian law stipulates that the criminal code can be amended only through an independent bill. Some lawmakers have suggested they favor such a measure.

Russia explicitly outlawed same-sex marriages in 2020 by adopting amendments to the country’s Constitution that, among other things, stipulated that the “institution of marriage is a union between a man and a woman.”
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Ukrainian officials are pushing back against growing pressure to enter negotiations with Moscow even as relentless Russian airstrikes take a mounting toll on Ukrainian lives, wealth and infrastructure.

Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the Office of the President of Ukraine, dismissed Russian signals of a readiness for talks as simply part of an influence campaign to undermine support for Ukraine among its partners.

“We expect our partners to stop paying attention to Russia’s provocative statements regarding the negotiation process,” Podolyak said in an interview Friday with VOA, speaking from Kyiv.

So far, U.S. administration officials agree. At a November 11 press conference en route to Cambodia, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Russian overtures cannot be taken seriously as long as Moscow seeks to illegally annex Ukrainian territory.

Laying out what he described as “four core elements of consensus” in the U.S. government, Sullivan reiterated that only Ukraine could decide when and on what terms to negotiate. He added that any just peace must be based on the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity, and that the U.S. will do all it can to make sure that in any future talks, Ukraine will be able to negotiate from a position of strength.

Nevertheless, Moscow’s state representatives have been increasingly speaking about their openness to negotiations in the wake of Russia’s withdrawal from Kherson — their country’s third major reversal of the war.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said this month that his government is “open to dialogue, without preconditions,” Russian mass media reported. He was quoted as saying that Moscow had been ready to engage in negotiations earlier, but that Kyiv had interrupted the dialogue “at the command of its Western curators.”

Four days after Ryabkov’s remarks, Russian began its heaviest shelling of Ukrainian territory since its invasion in February. On November 15, up to 100 missiles and drones were launched, leaving almost half of Ukraine’s energy system disabled. Another massive attack on Wednesday further crippled the energy infrastructure in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities.

The shelling on November 15 came just hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy presented a 10-point “Ukrainian peace formula” to the G-20 summit in Bali, Indonesia. It included measures to ensure radiation and nuclear safety, food and energy security, an exchange of prisoners and the return of the deported Ukrainians from Russia, restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and prosecution of war crimes.

Dmitry Peskov, press secretary to Russian President Vladimir Putin, told Russian reporters that the shelling — which left millions of Ukrainians without heat, water or electricity, at least for hours at a time — was due to Ukrainian authorities’ refusal to negotiate.

“The unwillingness of the Ukrainian side to solve the problem, to enter into negotiations, moreover, the actions of the Ukrainian side to abandon the agreed understandings of the text, and so on, these are all the consequences,” Peskov said, according to a Russian news agency.

Podolyak told VOA that Peskov’s statement was “the type of ultimatum that terrorists would issue: Either I kill the hostages — the civilian population of Ukraine — or you do what we say.”

He believes Russia developed the negotiation narrative to improve its reputation worldwide.

“For them, the word ‘negotiations’ does not mean the same as for you and me — sitting down, presenting positions and looking for a compromise,” Podolyak said. “No. They say ‘negotiate,’ meaning ‘meeting their demands’ — for example, not joining European organizations, NATO or any other military alliances and giving away territories.”

He argued that Russia, losing on the battlefield, has resorted to attacks on the Ukrainian population to compel the leaders in Kyiv to comply with its demands.

“There cannot be a negotiation process that says: ‘Yes, you [Ukraine] win the war. Stop, give away the territory, and de facto capitulate to the Russian Federation,” Podolyak said.

He said negotiations can begin once Ukrainian territorial integrity is restored and Russia returns to the framework of international law. Such talks, he suggested, can focus on issues such as prosecuting war crimes and providing compensation for damages.

Media reports have suggested that some U.S. government officials would like to see Kyiv take advantage of its battlefield successes by moving to early negotiations. But Ambassador William Taylor, vice president for Russia and Europe at the U.S. Institute of Peace, said the position outlined by Sullivan is the official stance of the administration.

“Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, spoke for the president and the entire administration,” said Taylor, who served as chargé d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv in 2019. “It is in the U.S. national interest for Ukraine to win this war and for Russia to lose.”

Cease-fire: Who benefits?

Most experts who spoke to VOA believe that a cease-fire at this time would benefit the Kremlin and would not end the war.

Any negotiated cease-fire would allow Russian forces to regroup and rebuild, said Nataliya Bugayova, Russia fellow at the Institute for the Study of War.

“Ukraine has momentum on the ground. A cease-fire would freeze the front lines in the best possible configuration that Putin can hope for in this war. It is one of the few ways for Russia to break the momentum of Ukrainian forces,” she said in a written response to VOA.

David Kramer, executive director of the George W. Bush Institute, believes that Ukraine can prevail on the battlefield and that the only way to end the war is for Ukraine’s allies to help it to win.

“Nobody wants this war to end more than Ukrainians, who are fighting and dying to defend their country and freedom, but they have been remarkably successful so far and think they can prevail. Calling for negotiations now undercuts their momentum,” Kramer said in a written response to VOA.

Taylor said that any cease-fire reached while the Ukrainian military is succeeding in pushing the Russian forces out of the country “would allow the Russians to keep what they now illegally occupy.”

This would put the Russians in an advantageous position for future attacks, said Bugayova.

“Any Russian foothold, especially in the critically strategic south, would constitute a permanent threat to Ukrainian sovereignty because Putin’s maximalist goal of controlling Ukraine has not changed and will most likely outlast Putin — by design. The Kremlin will use any cease-fire to adjust, not scale back, its effort to establish control over Ukraine.”

A fiscal argument

A contrary view was expressed by columnist Katrina vanden Heuvel in an opinion piece for The Washington Post. She argued that it’s time for the U.S. to start setting conditions for a diplomatic solution to the war because of the growing costs for the warring parties, the U.S. and the other countries supporting Ukraine.

“The stakes are too high for us to sit idly by as the catastrophe spreads and the costs — and the risks — keep growing,” she wrote.

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden received congressional approval for $40 billion in aid for Ukraine for 2022; more than $19 billion has been spent on military defense since February 24.

Economist Timothy Ash acknowledged in an article for the Center for European Policy Analysis that assistance to Ukraine already represents 5.6% of total U.S. defense spending. But, he wrote,

“Russia is a primary adversary of the U.S., a top tier rival not too far behind China, its number one strategic challenger.”

The U.S. National Defense Strategy defines Russia as “an acute threat.”

No-go for any territorial concessions

Kramer said he worries that talk about the need for Ukraine to make concessions will be “deeply demoralizing to the incredibly brave Ukrainian forces fighting for their freedom.” He pointed out that most Ukrainians oppose any territorial concessions in exchange for a cease-fire.

According to the poll done by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in September, 87% of Ukrainians were not ready to support any territorial concessions for the sake of ending the war with Russia as soon as possible.

Bugayova added that an early cease-fire would leave those Ukrainians still living in the occupied territories subject “to continued Russian atrocities.”

U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice Beth Van Schaack pointed out that that nongovernmental organizations, the media and war crimes investigators have already collected extensive evidence of such atrocities.

“Everywhere Russia’s forces have been deployed, we’re seeing a whole range of different war crimes,” she told VOA Ukrainian.

“This includes everything from bombardments of the civilian infrastructure to interpersonal violence where there are individuals who seem to have been killed execution style, or their bodies show signs of torture.”

She added that there have been “credible reports of women and girls and even men and boys being subjected to sexual violence when they’re in the custody of Russia’s forces.”

Taylor said he believes Kyiv should consider talking to Moscow, but only after Russian troops have left Ukrainian territory. The ambassador said the territory itself should not be the subject of negotiations.

“The topics should include the total withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine; the return of prisoners of war and other Ukrainians, including Ukrainian children, held in or forced into Russia; reparations for war damage; accountability for war crimes and atrocities; and security guarantees for Ukraine,” Taylor said in a written response to VOA.

Kramer agrees but said he can find few topics for discussion with the current government in Moscow.

“It is hard to see what there is to negotiate with a regime in Moscow guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide,” he said in a written response.

Will Pomeranz, director of the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute, sees little likelihood of a diplomatic solution anytime soon.

“President Zelenskyy has outlined an ambitious peace plan that is unlikely to be accepted — or even considered — by the Russian Federation. Ukraine’s recent military successes make it even less likely that Zelenskyy would compromise on any of his demands,” he said to VOA.

He believes the Russians are also unlikely to admit to and compensate for the pain they inflicted on Ukraine.

“Indeed, there can be no peace until Russia confronts its human rights violations in Ukraine and pays considerable reparations for the damage that it has inflicted. Such a concession remains far off,” Pomerantz said in a written response.

At the same time, as Biden administration officials say repeatedly, the war could end at any moment if Putin decides to end it.

“Russia invaded Ukraine. If Russia chose to stop fighting in Ukraine and left, it would be the end of the war. If Ukraine chose to stop fighting and give up, it would be the end of Ukraine,” Sullivan said.

Oleksii Kovalenko, VOA Ukrainian, contributed to this report. Some information came from The Washington Post, CEPA, Kommersant.Ru, Ukrinform and Interfax.Ru.
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Chinese refugees in Italy, some of whom are dissidents, are increasingly wary of the presence of what appear to be four outposts of Beijing’s security apparatus operating without official diplomatic trappings, according to experts.

Beijing acknowledges the presence of the so-called “police stations” in Rome, Milan, Florence and Prato, which were first revealed by Safeguard Defenders, a human rights organization based in Spain, in September.

The 110 overseas offices, named after China’s emergency telephone line similar to 911 in the U.S., operate in cities with significant Chinese populations and are affiliated with civic associations in Chinese cities or provinces.

The Chinese government has denied the outposts are police stations, describing them more as service centers for Chinese citizens living overseas.

Italian police have conducted investigations into the offices but found no illegal activities, according to La Nazione, which reported on November 8 that the outposts in Italy were managed by civilians who provided Chinese expatriates with services such as drivers licenses or passport renewals.

The Italian government has not commented on the existence of the 110 offices overseas. In 2019, Italy signed a memorandum of understanding with China as part of its Belt and Road Initiative, a package of deals worth $2.8 billion at the time.

But for Chinese refugees carving out new lives in a country where they often don’t speak the language, the Chinese outposts are reminders of Beijing’s global reach.

“I know for sure that they are very scared about this,” said Marco Respinti, an Italian journalist who has written extensively on China’s human rights record. “There are two main reasons. One is some of them have families in China” who can be pressured by authorities there, so the outposts in Italy are “a very sensitive and dangerous development. Another thing is that technically they are illegal immigrants … so they are even more scared to speak out. They fled China for humanitarian reasons and don’t have all the documents. Many times (the refugees) don’t speak the language.”

The 110 overseas offices in Italy are among more than 50 such operations that China has established overseas in countries, including the U.S., according to Safeguard Defenders. On November 2, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian denied the outposts were “police stations” or “police service centers.” During a daily press briefing, he said the offices are to “assist overseas Chinese nationals who need help in accessing the online service platform to get their driver’s licenses renewed and receive physical check-ups for that purpose.”

Staff in the offices “are not police personnel from China. There is no need to make people nervous about this,” he added.

The 110 overseas offices represent “the latest iteration in [China’s] growing transnational repression, where it seeks to police and limit political expression far beyond its own borders,” said the Safeguard Defenders report.

Since the report’s release, at least 14 governments, including those of the U.S., Britain, Canada and Germany, have opened investigations into the operations, Safeguard Defenders research shows.

On October 26, Ireland ordered the closure of the 110 overseas office doing business in Dublin as the Fuzhou Police Service Overseas Station that opened earlier this year in an office building that had other Chinese organizations as tenants, according to the BBC. The Chinese embassy denied any wrongdoing in Dublin and the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs said no Chinese authority had sought its permission to set up the “police station,” according to the BBC report.

On November 1, the Dutch government ordered the 110 overseas offices in the Netherlands to be closed immediately. The outposts purported to offer diplomatic assistance, but they had not been declared to the Netherlands government, Dutch media reported last month.

On November 17, FBI Director Christopher Wray told a U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing that the FBI was investigating an unauthorized “police station” that China is running out of New York. The Chinese operation “violates sovereignty and circumvents standard judicial and law enforcement cooperation processes,” Wray said.

Jing-Jie Chen, a researcher at Safeguard Defenders, told VOA Mandarin that European countries have no clear concept of cross-border law enforcement by Chinese police.

Chen said, “Many countries in Europe have signed agreements on mutual criminal assistance or extradition with China, so they may begin to think that there is no big problem in this matter. Only after the report is published and the media follows up, do they feel that this matter involves the internal affairs” of any country with 110 overseas offices.

Daniele Brigadoi Cologna, associate professor of Chinese language and culture at the University of Insubria in Como, Italy, told VOA Mandarin these outposts have been helping Chinese expatriates maintain their Chinese residency renewals during the pandemic when people could not return home. The Chinese government issues to each citizen a permit that details their identity and address. It governs where they can live, attend school and work.

Cologna said, “I am confident that in the coming months, we will get to learn more about the outcome of such investigations, but I doubt that anything of interest will come of it, given that right now the media and the politicians are chasing nonexistent policemen and Chinese migrant spies that are unlikely to exist.”

Chen questioned why the ID renewal services are carried out by operations inside restaurants or grocery stores when the Chinese consulates should provide the same services.

“You don’t know whether the address (for the 110 office) is real, which is the weirdest thing. If you want to serve overseas expats, you should have an organization to run these businesses in an open and honest way. Why hide like this?” he said during a phone interview on November 16.

Respinti, the Italian journalist, said, “We know that bureaucracy and documents are one of the most important tools for controlling people and repressing people, because they have a partial recognition to prosecute people, to recognize them where they, when they move from one place to another.”

Members of the Italian Parliament have raised questions about the so-called police stations to the government.

La Nazione reported on October 29 that Italian Senator Mara Bizzotto wrote Matteo Piantedosi, Italy’s minister of the interior, to say, “Full light should be shed on the case of the Chinese police station in Prato known as Fuzhou Police Overseas Service Station, which turns out to be a real body of agents on duty for Beijing but hidden behind a façade of cultural association.”

According Bizzotto, “The affair presents dangerous profiles of a serious violation of our national sovereignty. And these overseas stations could hide a broader architecture of espionage and control located on Italian territory.”

According to Jiemian News, Chinese news media affiliated with the Chinese-government-owned Shanghai United Media Group, since 2016, China has sent several groups of police to Italy to conduct joint patrols with Italian police in major tourist cities.

A reciprocal arrangement had Italian police officers patrolling in four cities — Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing and Guangzhou — to help local officers address safety concerns of Italian tourists.

The project was suspended after the outbreak of COVID-19.

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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A Turkish airstrike launched as part of Ankara’s new offensive against Syrian Kurdish fighters came uncomfortably close to hitting U.S. forces in northeastern Syria, further escalating tensions in the region, two sources tell VOA.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees the approximately 900 U.S. troops in Syria tasked with countering the Islamic State terror group, first acknowledged the strike Tuesday, saying no U.S. personnel were at the base at the time.

But a U.S. defense official told VOA late Wednesday that U.S. troops were nearby, just 300 meters away from the base, located north of the city of Hasaka.

A source close to the leadership of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, further told VOA that the base is part of a larger compound and that U.S. forces were in a different building that is not part of the base itself.

“We have received additional information that there was a risk to U.S. troops and personnel,” CENTCOM spokesman Colonel Joe Buccino said in a statement shared with VOA. 

“These actions threaten our shared goals, including the continued fight against ISIS to ensure the group can never resurge and threaten the region,” he added, using another acronym for Islamic State. SDF officials said Tuesday’s airstrike killed two U.S.-trained members of its counterterrorism forces. 

An SDF spokesman told VOA Wednesday that U.S. troops had been at the base just five days earlier, doing some aerial surveillance of the area. 

The U.S. revelation that the Turkish airstrike might have directly endangered U.S. personnel follows repeated calls by U.S. officials for Turkey and the Syrian Kurds to pull back. 

“We continue to urge for de-escalation on all sides and in our conversations, and what we have said publicly is that these strikes from all sides risk our mission, which is to defeat ISIS,” Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said Tuesday, responding to a question from VOA. 

On Wednesday, the U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, spoke by phone with his Turkish counterpart, emphasizing the need to maintain communications. 

Turkey launched its most recent offensive, Operation Claw-Sword, against the Syrian Kurds this past week, blaming them for a November 13 bombing in Istanbul that killed at least eight people and injured dozens more. 

The U.S.-backed SDF and the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Syrian-based offshoot of the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorist group, have denied responsibility. 

While the U.S. views the Kurdish-led SDF as a key ally in the fight against IS and as separate from the YPG, Ankara views the SDF and YPG as a single organization, arguing many fighters belong to both groups. 

“Turkey does continue to suffer a legitimate terrorist threat, particularly to their south,” John Kirby, the National Security Council’s coordinator for strategic communications, told reporters Tuesday. ”They certainly have every right to defend themselves and their citizens.” 

But Kirby emphasized Washington’s concerns that the Turkish offensive, in the long run, will do more harm than good. 

“It might force a reaction by some of our SDF partners that would limit, constrain their ability to continue to fight against ISIS. … It’s still viable as a threat,” he said. 

The SDF told VOA Wednesday those fears are already starting to play out. 

“Due to our forces’ preoccupation with addressing the Turkish occupation, they cannot continue their mission of pursuing ISIS cells,” SDF Commander Mazloum Abdi said in a statement shared with VOA.

“Currently, we’re forced to be preoccupied with confronting Turkish aggression,” he added.

Other SDF officials speaking with VOA emphasized the change in posture should not be viewed as a policy decision or as a cessation of anti-IS operations, explaining they have no choice but to prioritize defending themselves against Turkish airstrikes and a possible Turkish ground assault.

The SDF also accused Turkey of boosting IS with its actions.

SDF spokesman Farhad Shami told VOA that Turkey launched five airstrikes against the security forces guarding IS families at the al-Hol displaced persons camp in northeast Syria Wednesday, allowing some of the families to escape. 

He said six individuals, including three women, have been recaptured.

The SDF additionally accused Turkey of targeting civilian infrastructure, including homes, hospitals and schools, and killing at least 15 civilians since the start of its offensive Saturday. 

Turkey rejected the SDF allegations Wednesday.

“It is the PKK/YPG terrorist organization that have long hampered civilian infrastructure across Syria as well as in Türkiye,” Turkish Embassy officials in Washington told VOA in a statement, accusing Syrian Kurdish forces of targeting civilians themselves.

“The PKK/YPG carried out from Syria another round of cross-border rocket and mortar attacks, indiscriminately targeting schools, kindergartens as well as residential areas, resulting in civilian casualties, including teachers and pupils,” the Turkish officials wrote, further accusing the group of collaborating with IS “to stage attacks in the west of Euphrates against Syrians.”

Turkey has said its offensive has so far killed 184 militants, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday signaled he was preparing to intensify efforts against the Syrian Kurds. 

“While we press ahead with air raids uninterrupted, we will crack down on terrorists also by land at the most convenient time for us,” Erdogan said during a speech to members of parliament.

“Turkey has the power to identify, catch and punish terrorists who are involved in attacks against our country and nation, and those helping them, inside and outside our borders,” he said. 

Mutlu Civiroglu, Patsy Widakuswara and VOA’s Turkish Service contributed to this report.
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Turkey’s president says his nation’s military will begin a land operation against Kurdish militants in northern Syria ‘at the most convenient time.’ Kurdish separatists have been fighting a decades-long insurgency. There have been global calls for restraint, as Henry Ridgwell reports.
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Renewed hostilities between Turkey and Syrian Kurdish fighters are not sitting well with the United States, which warned repeatedly Tuesday that the fighting will only serve to benefit the Islamic State terror group.

Senior U.S. officials acknowledge Turkey has the right to defend itself from terrorist attacks but cautioned that recent Turkish airstrikes, and rocket attacks by Syrian Kurdish forces, are undermining efforts by all sides to contain and degrade IS.

“We oppose any military action that destabilizes the situation in Syria,” Colonel Joe Buccino, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, told VOA by email.

“These actions threaten our shared goals, including the continued fight against ISIS to ensure the group can never resurge and threaten the region,” he added, using another acronym for the terror group.

The U.S.-led coalition to defeat IS also called for de-escalation, taking the message to social media.

“These strikes jeopardize the safety of civilians, fracture the hard-fought stability within the region and disrupt our common goal of defeating ISIS,” the coalition tweeted.

Defense officials in Washington tried to hammer home the message later in the day, adding U.S. officials have been in touch with both Turkey and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

“We continue to urge for de-escalation on all sides and in our conversations and what we have said publicly, is that these strikes from all sides risk our mission, which is to defeat ISIS,” Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said during a briefing Tuesday, responding to a question from VOA.

Though relations between Washington and Ankara have been strained in recent years, the U.S. and Turkey are longtime allies, with Turkey also a key member of NATO.

But officials in Ankara have bristled at Washington’s willingness to partner with the Kurdish-led SDF in its efforts to defeat IS.

Many of the SDF’s members come from the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Syrian-based offshoot of the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), labeled by both Ankara and Washington as a terrorist organization.

In Turkey’s view, the SDF and YPG are one and the same. And Turkish officials launched the recent offensive against both groups after blaming them for a November 13 bombing in Istanbul that killed at least eight people and injured dozens more.

Both the YPG and SDF have denied involvement in the bombing, but Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday suggested the search for justice was nowhere near done despite calls by the U.S. and others for restraint.

“We have been bearing down on terrorists for a few days with our planes, cannons and guns,” Erdogan said in a speech. “God willing, we will root out all of them as soon as possible, together with our tanks, our soldiers.”

Turkish officials claim to have killed or captured more than 180 Kurdish militants during the operation, while accusing the YPG and SDF of killing at least three civilians and wounding at least six more in cross-border mortar attacks.

Meanwhile, Syrian Kurdish officials accused Turkey of launching airstrikes specifically designed to weaken efforts to counter IS.

“The Turkish air attack is a clear message of hope for ISIS terrorist cells,” SDF spokesman Farhad Shami tweeted late Tuesday, referring to reported airstrikes in the village of al-Makman, 70 kilometers from the border with Turkey.

“That area is where the operations against ISIS cells going on, and our forces with the International Coalition often pursue ISIS cells there,” Shami added.

Earlier, Sinam Mohamad, U.S. representative for the SDF’s political wing, the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), tweeted that a separate Turkish airstrike hit a base used by both SDF counterterrorism units and by the U.S.

Two members of the counterterror unit were killed, she said.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces in the region, confirmed the strike in an email to VOA late Tuesday.

“While no U.S. Forces were on the base at the moment of this morning’s strike, these actions do place U.S. troops operating in Syria to defeat ISIS at risk,” the statement said.

The U.S. has about 900 troops in Syria and another 2,500 in Iraq as part of ongoing efforts to contain and defeat IS.

“We are going to continue to monitor what’s happening on the ground and make sure that our forces are safe,” the Pentagon’s Singh told reporters Tuesday, adding, “there has been no change to our force posture right now.”

Dorian Jones contributed to this report.
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Britain’s economy is forecast to shrink by 0.4% in 2023, more than any other in the Group of Seven richest nations, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Britain is the only G-7 member whose economy has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels.

In the Group of 20, or G-20, largest economies, only Russia’s is expected to fare worse than Britain’s in the coming two years.

The OECD said Tuesday that global growth would slow down significantly, including in the United States and Europe. Only the British and German economies are forecast to contract in 2023.

The forecast comes days after Paris overtook London as Europe’s biggest stock market. Analysts say global economic pressures have been compounded in Britain by recent political chaos.

Cost crisis

The British government’s Office for Budget Responsibility, which gives an independent analysis of the nation’s economy, warned that living standards over the next two years are set to fall by the biggest amount on record, as disposable income is squeezed by stagnating wages and rising prices.

Inflation is at a 41-year high of 11.1%, driven by soaring energy bills. Food costs have increased by 15% since this time a year ago.

Britons are cutting back on spending. Hayley Gray, who lives in Bradford, northern England with her seven children, says Christmas this year will be very different.

“Each week I’d normally buy a couple of things, but I’m not able to, because I’m having to make sure I’ve got money for gas and electric … [The children] are going to have hardly anything come Christmas,” Gray told ITN News. Like many families, Gray is taking on debt to pay for the festive period. She said she fears she may not be able to pay it off in the new year.

Charity food banks are seeing unprecedented demand.

“It used to be that those people on the margins of the society who couldn’t access a kitchen were homeless people, who needed that support. Now it’s people in work, it’s people who can’t afford to turn on their cookers, who are needing support,” said Charlotte Hill, CEO of the Felix Project charity in London.

Tax rises

Britain’s economic pain is likely to worsen. The country’s new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, announced new tax increases and spending cuts last week to try to reduce the deficit and reassure financial markets. He blamed the coronavirus – and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Global factors are the primary cause of current inflation,” Hunt told lawmakers November 17. “Most countries are still dealing with the fallout from a once in a century pandemic. The furlough scheme, the vaccine rollout and the response of the NHS [National Health Service] did our country proud. But they all have to be paid for.”

The furlough scheme refers to the government subsidizing millions of workers’ wages during the pandemic lockdown.

“The lasting impact on supply chains has made goods more expensive and fueled inflation. And this has been worsened by a made-in-Russia energy crisis,” Hunt said.

Ideology

Those crises are global but Britain has unique problems, said analyst John Kampfner of the London-based policy institute Chatham House.

“Britain’s politics and Britain’s economy are both in a state of somewhere between disarray and mayhem. Of course, all countries are facing considerable difficulties from inflation to energy insecurity shortages, price rises and other associated difficulties. But they are compounded in Britain by a series of ideologically driven governments whose competence was very much open to question, culminating in the disastrous 45 days of Liz Truss,” Kampfner told VOA.

Former Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss’s plans to slash taxes and boost spending – the reverse of her successor, Rishi Sunak – sent government borrowing costs soaring and the British pound plummeting, ultimately forcing her to resign

last month. The effects are still being felt.

London overtaken

For the first time since record-keeping began, Paris last week overtook London as Europe’s biggest stock market, according to figures from Bloomberg News, based on the combined market value of listings on the Paris bourse compared to the London Stock Exchange in U.S. dollars.

French luxury goods makers have seen significant share price increases in recent weeks, while the British pound has fallen more sharply than the euro, reducing the relative value of British shares.

Brexit

Analysts say Britain is suffering from another homemade problem: Brexit. Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the European Union meant new economic barriers with its biggest trading partner.

Simon Spurrell founded the Cheshire Cheese Company in 2010 and built a prosperous export business. When new Brexit trading rules took effect in 2021, the company lost $285,000 worth of European business. Last month, Spurrell decided to sell to a bigger local rival, Joseph Heler Cheese, which has a presence in the EU and so is able to trade freely.

“We no longer have access to the EU, (which) meant that we needed to try and find a solution,” Spurrell told Agence France-Presse. “We now have a majority shareholder owner in Joseph Heler, which means we not only have access to the EU again, due to their Netherlands hub, we also have the ability to grow again.”

It’s clear that Brexit is holding back growth, Kampfner said.

“It was camouflaged by the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, so the direct consequences of many of the Brexit decisions couldn’t be discerned,” he said. “They are now eventually, belatedly being seen. But the Conservatives are not going to touch a decision to go anywhere close to rejoining the (EU) customs union or the single market. And (the opposition) Labor is not going to do that either.”

The prime minister made that policy clear in a speech Monday at the Confederation of British Industry.

“I voted for Brexit, I believe in Brexit, and I know that Brexit can deliver, and is already delivering enormous benefits and opportunities for the country, migration being an immediate one, where we have proper control of our borders,” Sunak said.
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