1UA TV

A Vatican spokesman said Pope Francis is continuing to recover from intestinal surgery performed earlier this week and will deliver his Sunday noon blessing from the hospital.  
In a statement, Vatican Press Office Director Matteo Bruni said the 84-year-old pope walked in the corridor of Rome’s Gemelli Hospital Thursday and “resumed his work, alternating it with moments of reading texts.”  He said the pope “celebrated Holy Mass in the chapel of his private apartment” in the hospital, “attended by all those assisting him during his hospitalization.”
Bruni said the pope had fully recovered from a slight fever he had Wednesday.
Francis underwent three hours of planned surgery Sunday to treat “severe diverticular stenosis with signs of sclerosing diverticulitis,” or a hardening of the sacs that can sometimes form in the lining of the intestine.
The Vatican spokesman went on to say the pope would recite the Angelus prayer from the 10th floor of the hospital Sunday, indicating he was not quite well enough to leave the hospital yet. Bruni added, “The Holy Father gives thanks for the many messages of affection and closeness that he receives daily and asks that we continue to pray for him.”  
Francis had been considered healthy overall and this is the first time he has been admitted to the hospital since he became pope in 2013, though he lost the upper part of one lung in his youth because of an infection. He also suffers from sciatica, or nerve pain, that makes him walk with a pronounced limp.
The Vatican has continued normal operations in his absence, though July is traditionally a month when the pope cancels public and private audiences. 
…

Moldovan voters go to the polls this weekend in a snap parliamentary election that could decide whether the former Soviet republic fully embraces pro-Western reforms or prolongs a political impasse under strong Russian influence.
 
The landlocked country of 3.5 million — Europe’s poorest, sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine — has in recent years lurched from one political crisis to another, dogged by instability and stuck in geopolitical limbo between pro-Western and pro-Russia forces.
 
Although Moldova signed a deal with the European Union in 2014 on forging closer political and economic ties, rampant corruption and lack of reform have hindered development and at times drawn strong criticism from Brussels.
 
Analysts say Sunday’s election could prove decisive for the future of the country, which gained independence in 1992 but has seen widespread disillusionment with post-Soviet politics, and an exodus of hundreds of thousands of citizens seeking a better future abroad.
 
“These elections are crucial for Moldova’s future development,” Iulian Groza, executive director of the Chisinau-based Institute for European Policies and Reforms think tank, told The Associated Press. “It is basically a struggle between the incumbent kleptocrats, and new pro-reform elites willing and ready to clean the system from corrupt practices.”
 
Over three million registered voters will choose Sunday among more than 20 parties, but only four are expected to make it to the 101-seat legislature. The main battle will be between the pro-Reform Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) and a Moscow-friendly bloc made up of the Communists and Socialists, headed by two former presidents.
 
Current Moldovan President Maia Sandu, who used to lead the pro-reform bloc, told voters that “this is our chance to cleanse the political class.” She forced the election in April by dissolving parliament shortly after Moldova’s highest court abolished a state of emergency imposed to fight the coronavirus pandemic.
 
“You decide who will be part of the next parliament and government,” the 49-year-old former World Bank official said in an online post. “It is up to you how quickly we can save the country from corruption and poverty.”
 
Moldova’s last parliamentary elections in 2019 led to a series of awkward coalitions and occasional deadlock in parliament. Sandu forced the snap polls by twice nominating prime ministerial candidates that were unlikely to be approved by parliament, which then had to be dissolved according to the Constitution.  
 
She now aims to build on her presidential victory last November by securing a clear pro-reform government that she can work with.  
 
Igor Dodon, a former president with close links to Russia, beat Sandu beat in a presidential runoff last year. He warned of instability if reformists take power in a country still mistrustful of changes aligned with Western values.
 
“Only our team is able to end the chaos in the country, ensure social protection of people, restore the economy, strengthen statehood,” Dodon, whose party campaigns on high social spending and traditional family values, said earlier this week.
 
Recent opinion polls have given a lead to the pro-Sandu PAS party, but the result could largely depend on turnout among Moldova’s more than 200,000 diaspora voters. Radu Magdin, an analyst at Smartlink Communications, said a strong turnout likely would mean strong support for the reformists.
 
“The main question, which could turn everything around, is mobilization,” he said.
Svetlana Eremka, a 40-year-old design manager who lives in Essex, U.K., hopes this election brings a “new beginning.”
 
“Our nation been struggling for the last 30 years or so, with little success … it is a lot of work and requires each of us to participate and help to build a new system,” she said, adding that she hopes many Moldovan students living abroad can move back and “believe there is bright future … not just for a few elites but the vast majority of the population.”  
 
The EU has earmarked a 600-million-euro ($710 million) recovery package for Moldova to help the economy recover from the pandemic and boost investment. But Brussels has warned the money is conditioned on judicial and anti-corruption reform.
 
In Transparency International’s 2020 Corruptions Perception Index, Moldova ranked 115th out of 180 countries, with the first place being the least corrupt.
 
Sabin Rufa, a 20-year-old student at Warwick University in the U.K., believes this election comes at a “crucial moment” in his country’s democratic history.
 
“I feel this election is perhaps the most important milestone in the last 10 years, especially for the progressive people that wish Moldova to develop in line with democratic standards and institutions,” he said. “I hope that in another 10 years, I will look back to this election knowing that it was a turning point.”
 
“With all its imperfections, Moldova is where I want to build a future for myself, for my family, and for my compatriots.”
…

A Taliban delegation in Moscow said on Friday that the group controlled over 85% of territory in Afghanistan and reassured Russia it would not allow the country to be used as a platform to attack others.
 
The Taliban’s claim of control of much of the country, disputed by the Afghan government, is impossible to independently verify.
 
Foreign forces, including the United States, are withdrawing after almost 20 years of fighting, a move that has emboldened Taliban insurgents to try to gain fresh territory in Afghanistan.
 
That has prompted hundreds of Afghan security personnel and refugees to flee across the border into neighboring Tajikistan and raised fears in Moscow and other capitals that Islamist extremists could infiltrate Central Asia, a region Russia views as its backyard.
 
At a news conference in Moscow on Friday, three Taliban officials sought to signal that they did not pose a threat to the wider region, however.
 
The officials said the Taliban would do all it could to prevent Islamic State operating on Afghan territory and that it would also seek to wipe out drug production.
 
“We will take all measures so that Islamic State will not operate on Afghan territory… and our territory will never be used against our neighbors,” Taliban official Shahabuddin Delawar said through a translator.
 
The same delegation said a day earlier that the group would not attack the Tajik-Afghan border, the fate of which is in focus in Russia and Central Asia.
 
Moscow has noted a sharp increase in tensions on the same border, two-thirds of which the Taliban currently controls, the Interfax news agency cited Russia’s foreign ministry as saying on Friday.
 
Russia’s foreign ministry called on all sides of the Afghanistan conflict to show restraint and said that Russia and the Moscow-led CSTO military bloc would act decisively to prevent aggression on the border if necessary, RIA reported.
 
The Taliban delegation told the same news conference that the group would respect the rights of ethnic minorities and all Afghan citizens should have the right to a decent education in the framework of Islamic law and Afghan traditions.
 
“We want all representatives of Afghan society … to take part in creating an Afghan state,” Delawar said.
…

Finance ministers and central bankers from the group of 20 rich countries will meet face to face on Friday for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic at a gathering in Venice where corporate tax reform will top the agenda.The G-20 is expected to give its political endorsement to plans for new rules on where and how much companies are taxed which were backed last week by 130 countries at the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.The deal envisages a global minimum corporate income tax of at least 15%, a level which the OECD estimates could yield around $150 billion in additional global tax revenues but leaves much of the details to be hammered out.Officials say the two-day gathering in Italy’s historic lagoon city will open a discussion on how to put the OECD proposals into practice, with the aim of reaching a final agreement at a Rome G-20 leaders’ summit in October.The G-20 members account for more than 80% of world gross domestic product, 75% of global trade and 60% of the population of the planet, including big-hitters United States, Japan, Britain, France, Germany and India.If all goes to plan, the new tax rules should be translated into binding legislation worldwide before the end of 2023.Ministers may seek assurances from the U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen that she can win legislative approval for the proposals in a divided U.S. Congress where Republicans and business groups are fighting Joe Biden’s proposed tax increases on corporations and wealthy Americans.Aside from tax, ministers will discuss a global economic recovery which officials from G-20 president Italy told reporters was hugely uneven, with wealthy Western countries picking up strongly while developing nations are left behind.International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva delivered the same message this week, saying there was a “dangerous divergence” between wealthy and developing countries as they seek to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.The G-20 will ask the IMF to allocate $650 billion of its reserve asset known as Special Drawing Rights by the end of August, with a recommendation that ways are found to ensure a significant part of the money goes to countries most in need.Some delegations at the meeting may express concerns that rising inflation and interest rates in the United States could unbalance the global economy, G-20 officials said, though this is unlikely to appear in the final communique.The G-20 ministers and central bankers will meet from 1:15 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. (1115-1530 GMT) on Friday and from 9:45 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. (0745-1515 GMT) on Saturday, followed by a closing news conference by the Italian presidency.Side events include a tax symposium on Friday and a climate change conference on Sunday.  
…

During a grueling, weekslong mission in northern Mali, French soldiers were confronted by a familiar threat: Extremists trying to impose the same strict Islamic rule that preceded France’s military intervention here more than eight years ago.Traumatized residents showed scars on their shoulders and backs from whippings they endured after failing to submit to the jihadis’ authority.”We were witness to the presence of the enemy trying to impose Shariah law, banning young children from playing soccer and imposing a dress code,” said Col. Stephane Gouvernet, battalion commander for the recent French mission dubbed Equinoxe.France is preparing to reduce its military presence here in West Africa’s Sahel region — the vast area south of the Sahara Desert where extremist groups are fighting for control. In June, French President Emmanuel Macron announced the end of Operation Barkhane, France’s seven-year effort fighting extremists linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State in Africa’s Sahel region. France’s more than 5,000 troops will be reduced in the coming months, although no timeframe has been given.Instead, France will participate in a special forces unit with other European countries and African countries will be responsible for patrolling the Sahel.The move comes after years of criticism that France’s military operation is simply another reiteration of colonial rule. But the shift also takes place amid a worsening political and security crisis in the region. In May, Mali had its second coup in nine months.Although officials of Mali’s government have been able to return to some towns once overrun by jihadis, for the first time since 2012, there are reports of extremists amputating hands to punish suspected thieves — a throwback to the Shariah law imposed in northern Mali prior to the French military intervention.There have been spikes, too, in extremist attacks in Burkina Faso and Niger, sparking concern that the reduction of the French force will create a security void in the Sahel region that will be quickly filled by the jihadis.”If an adequate plan is not finalized and in place, the tempo of attacks on local forces could rise across the region over the coming weeks, as jihadists attempt to benefit from a security vacuum,” said Liam Morrissey, chief executive officer for MS Risk Limited, a British security consultancy operating in the Sahel for 12 years.The Sahel RegionWhile France has spent billions on its anti-jihadi campaign, called Operation Barkhane, Sahel experts say that it never dedicated the necessary resources to defeat the extremists, said Michael Shurkin, director of global programs at 14 North Strategies, a consultancy based in Dakar, Senegal.”They have always been aware that their force in the Sahel is far too undersized to accomplish anything like a counterinsurgency campaign,” he said.France has several thousand troops covering more than 1,000 kilometers of terrain in the volatile region where the borders of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso meet. Alerts about attacks are often missed or responded to hours later, especially in remote villages. Operations rely heavily on the French air force, which conduct airstrikes, transport troops and deliver equipment. The desert is harsh with temperatures reaching near 50 degrees Celsius, exhausting troops and requiring additional maintenance for equipment.The Associated Press spent the days before Macron’s announcement accompanying the French military in the field, where pilots navigated hostile terrain in the pitch dark to retrieve troops after a long operation.FILE- In this June 9, 2021 file photo, French Barkhane force soldiers who wrapped up a four-month tour of duty in the Sahel leave their base in Gao, Mali.Some soldiers questioned if the fight was worth it. “What are we doing here anyway?” asked one soldier after Macron’s announcement. The AP is not using his name because he was not authorized to speak to the media.Others acknowledged the jihadis are a long-term threat. “We are facing something that is going to be for years. For the next 10 years you will have terrorists in the area,” Col. Yann Malard, airbase commander and Operation Barkhane’s representative in Niger, told the AP.The French strategy has been to weaken the jihadis and train local forces to secure their own countries. Since arriving, it has trained some 18,000 soldiers, mostly Malians, according to a Barkhane spokesperson, but progress is slow. Most Sahelian states are still too poor and understaffed to deliver the security and services that communities desperately need, analysts and activists say.State forces have also been accused of committing human rights abuses against civilians, deepening the mistrust, said Alex Thurston, assistant professor of political science at the University of Cincinnati.Since 2019 there have been more than 600 unlawful killings by security forces in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger during counterterrorism operations, according to Human Rights Watch. France’s Barkhane, too, has been accused of possible violations of international humanitarian law and human rights, after an airstrike in Mali in January killed 22 people, 19 of whom were civilians, according to a report by the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali.Soldiers agree that there are limits to what can be achieved militarily and without political stability in the Sahel, jihadis have the edge.”We don’t have an example of a big win in counterinsurgency, and it’s difficult to achieve that in the current environment because for an insurgency to win they just need to stay alive,” said Vjatseslav Senin, senior national representative for the 70 Estonian troops who are fighting alongside the French in Barkhane.Some of those living in the Sahel fear what hard-fought gains have been made will unravel all too quickly.Ali Toure, a Malian working in the French military base in Gao warned that “if the French army leaves Mali, jihadis will enter within two weeks and destroy the country.” 
…

Anti-poverty organization Oxfam said Thursday that 11 people die of hunger each minute and that the number facing faminelike conditions around the globe has increased six times over the last year.In a report titled The Hunger Virus Multiplies, Oxfam said that the death toll from famine outpaces that of COVID-19, which kills around seven people per minute.”The statistics are staggering, but we must remember that these figures are made up of individual people facing unimaginable suffering. Even one person is too many,” said Oxfam America’s president and CEO, Abby Maxman.The humanitarian group also said that 155 million people around the world are now living in crisis levels of food insecurity or worse — some 20 million more than last year. Around two-thirds of them face hunger because their country is in military conflict.”Today, unrelenting conflict on top of the COVID-19 economic fallout, and a worsening climate crisis, has pushed more than 520,000 people to the brink of starvation,” Maxman said. “Instead of battling the pandemic, warring parties fought each other, too often landing the last blow to millions already battered by weather disasters and economic shocks.”Despite the pandemic, Oxfam said that global military spending increased by $51 billion during the pandemic — an amount that exceeds by at least six times what the U.N. needs to stop hunger.The report listed a number of countries as “the worst hunger hotspots,” including Afghanistan, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen — all embroiled in conflict.”Starvation continues to be used as a weapon of war, depriving civilians of food and water and impeding humanitarian relief. People can’t live safely or find food when their markets are being bombed and crops and livestock are destroyed,” Maxman said.The organization urged governments to stop conflicts from continuing to spawn “catastrophic hunger” and to ensure that relief agencies could operate in conflict zones and reach those in need. It also called on donor countries to “immediately and fully” fund the U.N.’s efforts to alleviate hunger.”We work together with more than 694 partners across 68 countries. Oxfam aims to reach millions of people over the coming months and is urgently seeking funding to support its programs across the world,” the report’s press release said.Meanwhile, global warming and the economic repercussions of the pandemic have caused a 40% increase in global food prices, the highest in over a decade. This surge has contributed significantly to pushing tens of millions more people into hunger, said the report.
…

Montenegro is weeks away from securing a deal to either swap or refinance with European and U.S. banks nearly $1 billion in debt owed to China, and it hopes to reduce the interest rate on the debt to below 1%, Economy Minister Jakov Milatovic told Reuters.
 
Montenegro borrowed $944 million from China in 2014 to fund a 41-km (25-mile) stretch of road, which foes of then-Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic dubbed the “Road to Nowhere,” saying it typified waste under his rule, an accusation he denied.  
 
Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokapic, who came to power in December, is seeking to reduce the cost of the Chinese debt, which has a 2% interest rate and reduce currency risk as the loan is denominated in U.S. dollars, Milatovic said.
 
“We are negotiating with a number of Western banks from Europe and the United States. We are for sure going to do it with the Western banks,” Milatovic, 35, said, adding that he was seeking an interest rate of “less than 1%” for the debt.
 
“There are two options: the first is to refinance, the second is to swap the loan, or the third option is to do part of the first one and part of the second one,” he said. “We believe we can get much better terms – I am very optimistic about it.”
 
Milatovic declined to name the European or U.S. banks but when asked how soon there could be a resolution, he said: “Soon – I think weeks.”
 
Reuters reported on June 11 that Montenegro was counting on European Union aid to ease its Chinese debt burden.
 
The Chinese loan was taken out in 2014 from the state-owned Export Import Bank of China with a six-year grace period and a 14-year additional maturity. The principal is already starting to be paid off.
 
A source with knowledge of the negotiations told Reuters that Montenegro was likely to swap the debt and continue refinancing negotiations and then terminate the swap when the refinancing talks were successful.
 ‘Captured state’
 
Nestled on the shore of the Adriatic, Montenegro has for centuries tumbled with the vicissitudes of great powers, though after seceding from a state union with Serbia in 2006, Montenegro joined NATO in 2017 and hopes to be an EU member this decade.
 
Prime Minister Krivokapic, a 62-year-old former engineering professor, said Montenegro was for the first time in decades entering into a democratic transition toward what he cast as a Euro-Atlantic future along the lines of Luxembourg.
 
Krivokapic said his biggest challenge was to establish rule of law in Montenegro which he said had in essence been “captured” by criminals and ensnared in corruption for years. “International organized crime has been present in Montenegro and as a small country we cannot tackle this problem on our own,” Krivokapic said. “Zero corruption is the formula for the work of this government.”
 Tourism
 
Montenegro’s economy collapsed 15% in 2020, one of the biggest drops in Europe, as the COVID-19 pandemic cut off tourism.
 
“We are now seeing a strong recovery of our tourism sector,” Milatovic said. Tourism activity is around 70-80% of the 2019 level, with a full recovery of the sector expected by the end of 2022.
 
The government is forecasting the economy will grow 10.5% in 2021, with inflation of about 2%, and 2022 economic growth of 6-7%.
 
Krivokapic’s government inherited badly run state enterprises, so ministers are looking at the possibility of creating a professionally run national holding company to manage the assets, Milatovic said.
 
“This is something Greece did in its recovery period – this is the right way to go in order to privatize some of the assets and make some of the state-owned enterprises more efficient and at the end of the day provide a return on the assets for taxpayers.
 
“Some of the assets would be sold, some of them would be run by the holding,” he said. 
…

The UK says most of its troops have left Afghanistan. 
 
Prime Minister Boris Johnson confirmed the news Thursday, saying the threat from al-Qaida had lessened.  
 
“All British troops assigned to NATO’s mission in Afghanistan are now returning home,” he said, adding that “most of our personnel have already left.” 
 
He appeared to sidestep questions about whether the troop withdrawal would leave Afghanistan open to another takeover by the Taliban. 
 
“We must be realistic about our ability alone to influence the course of events. It will take combined efforts of many nations, including Afghanistan’s neighbors, to help the Afghan people to build their future,” Johnson said. “But the threat that brought us to Afghanistan in the first place has been greatly diminished by the valor and by the sacrifice of the armed forces of Britain and many other countries.” 
 
Johnson reiterated that Britain will still be involved in trying to achieve peace in Afghanistan, albeit through diplomacy. 
 
“We are not walking away. We are keeping our embassy in Kabul, and we will continue to work with our friends and allies, particularly our friends in Pakistan, to work towards a settlement,” Johnson said. Some 457 British service members lost their lives in Afghanistan during Britain’s nearly 20-year involvement. The withdrawal of the remaining troops was expected to be done “within a few months,” according to the British Defense Ministry. 
 
The U.S. was expected to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan by Sept 11. Some Information from the Associated Press was used in this report. 
…

A news conference with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez at a NATO airbase in Lithuania was interrupted Thursday when fighter jets were scrambled to intercept two Russian jets.
 
The two leaders were three minutes into a news conference, televised live from the Siauliai airbase in northern Lithuanian, when flight crews responded to an alarm and scrambled their jets. The leaders and the media were led away.  
 
Military officials later confirmed the Spanish jets, based in Lithuania on a NATO mission to police Baltic airspace, were activated after reports two Russian Su-24 combat jets had taken off from Russia’s Kaliningrad region without filing flight plans, without their transponders on, and without responding to regional air traffic control.
 
After the Spanish jets took off, the news conference resumed. Spanish Prime Minister Sanchez told reporters, “We have seen a real-life case of what happens and precisely it justifies the presence of Spanish troops with the seven Eurofighters in Lithuania.”  
 
Seven Spanish Eurofighter jets have been based at the Siauliai airbase since April 30 for the Baltic air-policing mission, which also includes four Italian F-35 aircraft at Estonia’s Amari airbase.
 
The three Baltic nations – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – joined NATO in 2004 and have no fighter jets of their own. NATO has the responsibility of policing their airspace on a rotational four-month basis from the Siauliai base and in Amari, Estonia.
 
In a statement, the Russian Defense Ministry said the two Su-24 bombers were flying a regular training mission Thursday over neutral waters of the Baltic Sea. The statement claimed the flight was performed in strict accordance with international rules of using airspace and without violation of any country’s borders.
 
Sánchez was visiting Lithuania as part of a three-day trip to the Baltic region, and he earlier met with officials in Estonia and Latvia.
 
…

Ethnic minorities, the self-employed and low-income families in Britain suffered greater deprivation levels during the coronavirus pandemic despite “surprisingly positive” living standards figures, a report published Thursday found.The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank’s annual report on living standards, poverty and inequality identified these groups as the hardest hit, even as unprecedented state support mitigated the worst effects of the crisis.The research follows other studies showing that Britain’s ethnic minorities were more likely to suffer worse health and economic outcomes during the pandemic and less likely to accept vaccines.”How fast and to what extent these groups recover as the economy reopens will be a key determinant of the pandemic’s legacy,” said report co-author Tom Wernham.Some 15% of Britons from minority ethnic backgrounds were behind their household bills at the start of 2021, compared with 12% before the pandemic.The proportion of adults of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin living in households where all adults were unemployed or furloughed remained 10 percentage points higher at the beginning of 2021 than pre-pandemic levels, as many of these households relied on one income earner.Household worklessness for black adults rose 2.4 percentage points, higher than the national average of 1.9, the report added.The share of self-employed workers who lost all work in the first lockdown in March 2020 and fell behind household bills is now 15%, up from 2% before the pandemic.Despite the government’s flagship furlough scheme, which has paid millions of workers’ wages since March 2020, 36% of self-employed workers — many of whom work in the hard-hit events, arts and culture sectors — were ineligible for the government self-employed income support scheme.Researchers also found that more families suffering from in-work poverty fell behind on bills during Britain’s first nationwide lockdown from last March, with the share jumping from 9 to 21%.The figure receded to 10% in the first quarter of 2021, but 13% of such families expect their financial situation to deteriorate in the near future.One of the report’s authors, Tom Waters, said the furlough scheme’s success largely explained Britain’s “surprisingly positive” deprivation and labor market statistics.But he added that people’s ability to return to their old jobs or find new ones would be the key factor for living standards as support was withdrawn.The government’s furlough scheme initially paid 80% of employees’ wages to prevent mass job losses but is to be phased out by the end of September.An increase of $28 per week to its main social security payment, Universal Credit, is also due to end at that time. 
…