Політика

Лубінець зазначив, що зустрівся з російською уповноваженою з прав людини Тетяною Москальковою.
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The United States last month formally opened a permanent military base in Poland, part of NATO’s missile defense system amid rising tensions with Russia. The Polish defense minister says the base is a testament to Polish-American cooperation. VOA Eastern Europe Bureau Chief Myroslava Gongadze reports from Redzikowo, Poland.
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LONDON — It’s a photo that sent a tremor through British politics: Elon Musk flanked by British politician Nigel Farage and a wealthy backer, in front of a gilt-framed painting of a young Donald Trump.

Taken this week at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, the image suggested that Musk, a key player in the incoming U.S. administration, could soon turn his disruptive attention to the U.K.

Farage, Trump’s highest-profile British champion, confirmed talks are under way about Musk making a hefty donation to Farage’s party, Reform U.K. The Times of London reported it could be as much as $100 million, which would be far and away the largest political donation in U.K. history. The reports have sparked calls for Britain’s rules on political donations to be tightened — quickly.

“We did discuss money,” Farage told broadcaster GB News after the meeting with Musk. “That’s a negotiation we will go back and have again. He is not against giving us money. He hasn’t fully decided whether he will.”

Britain has strict limits on how much political parties can spend on elections, but they can accept unlimited donations, as long as the donors are U.K. voters or companies registered in Britain. Musk’s social network X has a British arm, Twitter U.K. Ltd., with a registered address in London.

Critics say that’s a loophole that allows foreign influence in U.K. politics. The voting watchdog, the Electoral Commission, is calling for changes, including limiting the amount a company can donate to how much it earns in Britain.

“It’s crucial that U.K. voters have trust in the financing of our political system,” the commission’s chief executive, Vijay Rangarajan, told The Guardian. “The system needs strengthening, and we have been calling for changes to the law since 2013, to protect the electoral system from foreign interference.”

Britain’s center-left Labour Party pledged during the summer election campaign to tighten the rules on political donations, although legislation is not scheduled in the coming year. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesperson Dave Pares said Wednesday that work is already under way to “reinforce existing safeguards” against “impermissible proxy donations.”

The Labour government and the right-of-center opposition Conservatives are trying to figure out how to deal with Musk, who has taken a keen interest in the U.K. — and seemingly formed a strong dislike for Starmer.

Musk often posts on X about the U.K., retweeting criticism of Starmer and the hashtag TwoTierKeir — shorthand for an unsubstantiated claim that Britain has “two-tier policing,” with far-right protesters treated more harshly than pro-Palestinian or Black Lives Matter demonstrators. Musk has compared British attempts to weed out online misinformation to the Soviet Union, and during summer anti-immigrant violence across the U.K. tweeted that “civil war is inevitable.”

Farage has echoed some of those themes in his own social media output and his party’s anti-“woke” agenda, which includes pledges to slash immigration, scrap green-energy targets and leave the European Convention on Human Rights.

Founded in 2021, Reform U.K. is the latest in a string of small hard-right parties led by Farage that have had limited electoral success but an outsized influence on British politics. Farage’s opposition to the European Union helped push the country toward voting in 2016 to leave the bloc, a seismic political and economic break with the U.K.’s nearest neighbors.

Reform U.K. won just five of the 650 seats in the House of Commons in July’s election, but it came second in dozens more and secured 14% of the vote. Now it is pushing for fast growth, trying to professionalize its previously ramshackle organization and holding gatherings around the U.K. to recruit new members.

Farage, a strong communicator who has embraced TikTok and other platforms, aims to emulate Trump’s success in using the power of personality and social media to reach the “bro vote” — young men who are traditionally less likely to turn out at election time.

Farage told GB News that Musk has “already given me considerable help – understanding the process from start to finish, reaching disaffected communities who frankly feel there’s no point voting for anybody.”

The electoral power of social media was on show recently in Romania, where far-right candidate Calin Georgescu came from nowhere to win the first round of the presidential election in November, aided in part by a flood of TikTok videos promoting his campaign. Amid allegations that Russia had organized the social media campaign to back Georgescu, Romania’s Constitutional Court canceled the presidential election runoff two days before it was due to take place.

With Britain’s Conservative Party trying to recover from its worst election result since 1832, Farage dreams of making Reform the main opposition — or even the government — after the next election, due by 2029.

That’s a long shot, but Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester, said a big donation from Musk could have “disruptive potential in all sorts of ways.”

He said Musk’s money would give Reform “the opportunity to try and build up a serious campaign organization, which is something that they have generally lacked.”

“It’s certainly adding a new joker to the pack of cards in British politics,” Ford said. “We’ve had no shortage of surprising developments here in the past few years. And maybe this is the next one.”
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Президент України Володимир Зеленський провів розмову з президентом Чехії Петром Павелом
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Загалом має бути 10 фіналістів, останнього учасника фіналу оберуть глядачі голосуванням у «Дії» в січні
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WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump has signaled eagerness to wrap up the war in Gaza as quickly as possible, even as the outgoing Biden administration continues its last-ditch diplomatic push for a ceasefire deal.

Earlier this week, Trump said if the hostages held by Hamas are not home by Jan. 20, 2025, the date of his inauguration, then “all hell is going to break out.”

The warning is similar to the threat he issued on social media earlier this month, where he said, “There will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity. Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America.”

It’s not clear what Trump plans to do in Gaza. When asked to clarify the threat, he said, “It means it won’t be pleasant.”

Trump may deploy resources to place military pressure on Hamas, said Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. However, it’s unlikely to be “significantly harsher than what the Israelis have brought to bear over the last 14 months.”

“There could be another element — which I hope that’s not the approach — to maybe squeeze some of that humanitarian aid going in,” Alkhatib told VOA.

It’s also possible that Trump’s threats are directed to Hamas members outside of Gaza and the countries that support them, and Trump might move to pressure those nations to cut off financing, Alkhatib added. Hamas is a U.S.-designated terror organization.

Hamas’ external wing may be more receptive to Washington’s pressure, particularly since its patron, Tehran, has been weakened through the loss of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Like Hamas, Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy, while the Assad regime was Tehran’s stalwart ally.

Trump’s warnings send “an unmistakable message to the people in the Middle East that the U.S. wants to get this done,” said David Makovsky, director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy Project on the Middle East Peace Process.

This leaves Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu navigating between placating the ultraright-wing faction of his coalition — which is pushing for building settlements in and even annexing Gaza — and pleasing Trump, who wants credit for ending the war and potentially expanding the Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia, Makovsky told VOA.

The 2020 agreement brokered under the first Trump administration normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, then later with Morocco.

“Trump is not into building more settlements and staying in Gaza. Trump wants, I think, a Nobel Prize for a breakthrough with Saudi Arabia,” Makovsky said. “And I don’t think those things go together.”

Analysts say that even before taking office, Trump is already shaping the calculations of combatants in the Middle East. His pick for national security adviser, Representative Mike Waltz, gave the president-elect credit for last month’s ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, brokered by the U.S. and France.

“Everyone is coming to the table because of President Trump,” Waltz posted on social media. “His resounding victory sent a clear message to the rest of the world that chaos won’t be tolerated.”

US ‘hopeful’ for deal

Meanwhile, the Biden administration has pledged to spend all the time left in its waning days to try to make a deal happen. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday he is “hopeful” an agreement can be reached.

“Gaza has to be translated into something different that ensures that Hamas is not in any way in charge, that Israel doesn’t have to be, and that there’s something coherent that follows that enables the governance, the security, the reconstruction of Gaza,” he said.

That goal is still out of reach, despite Washington’s renewed diplomatic push with Turkey, Egypt and Qatar.

“I don’t see a scenario in which President Biden is going to be able to really fundamentally shift the needle here,” Alkhatib said.

He added that while Hamas may be motivated to secure a deal while Biden is still in office rather than after Jan. 20 when the U.S. is likely to drive a much harder bargain, they know that any assurances provided by the Biden administration may not be fulfilled by the Trump administration.

This despite officials from both the Biden and Trump administrations saying they are working together in handling global conflicts, partly to secure the transition period that may be seen by adversaries as moments of opportunity, said national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

“And so, the imperative on us, both the outgoing Biden administration, the incoming Trump administration, has to be to lash up more tightly than is typical, to spend more time together than is typical, and to try to ensure we are sending a common, clear message to both friends and adversaries in the Middle East.”

The common message from the two leaders is that the U.S. wants the conflict to end. So far, the warring parties are not listening. 
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U.S. billionaire Elon Musk, set to join President-elect Donald Trump’s administration, waded into Germany’s election campaign on Friday, calling the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) the country’s savior.

The AfD is running second in opinion polls and might be able to thwart either a center-right or center-left majority, but Germany’s mainstream, more centrist parties have vowed to shun support from the AfD at national level.

Europe’s leading power is expected to vote on February 23 after a center-left coalition government led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz collapsed.

“Only the AfD can save Germany,” Musk wrote in a post on his social media platform, X.

Musk, the world’s richest person, has already expressed support for other anti-immigration parties across Europe.

The German government said it had taken note of Musk’s post but declined to give any further comment at its regular press conference.

Musk reposted a message by German right-wing influencer Naomi Seibt that criticized Friedrich Merz, chancellor candidate for the conservatives, who are comfortably ahead in surveys.

Musk had already voiced support for the AfD last year, when he attacked the German government’s handling of illegal migration.

Last month, Musk called for the sacking of Italian judges who had questioned the legality of government measures to prevent irregular immigration.

And this week Nigel Farage, leader of Britain’s right-wing Reform UK party and friend of Trump, posted a photo of himself and Reform’s treasurer meeting Musk at Trump’s Florida residence, and said he was in talks with Musk about financial support.

 
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A hastily negotiated bill to keep the government open failed Thursday, after Democrats and some Republicans objected to a deal to extend the debt ceiling through 2027. The changes came after President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk rejected a bipartisan agreement to fund the government through next March. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more.
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Також протиповітряна оборона збила 40 БПЛА в ході нічної атаки Росії, ще 20 локаційно втрачені
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Голова Харківської ОВА Олег Синєгубов повідомляє про п’ятьох поранених у регіоні
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WASHINGTON — Top diplomats from the Biden administration are in Damascus on Friday to meet new Syrian authorities led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a State Department spokesperson said, the first in-person and official meeting between Washington and Syria’s de-facto new rulers.

The State Department’s top Middle East diplomat, Barbara Leaf, Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens and newly appointed Senior Adviser Daniel Rubinstein, who is now tasked with leading the Department’s Syria engagement, are the first U.S. diplomats to travel to Damascus since Syria’s opposition militias overthrew oppressive President Bashar al-Assad.

The visit comes as Western governments are gradually opening channels to HTS and its leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, and start debating whether or not to remove the terrorist designation on the group. The U.S. delegation’s travel follows contacts with France and Britain in recent days.

In their meetings, the U.S. officials will discuss with HTS representatives a set of principles such as inclusivity and respect for the rights of minorities that Washington wants included in Syria’s political transition, the spokesperson said.

The delegation will also work to obtain new information about U.S. journalist Austin Tice, who was taken captive during a reporting trip to Syria in August 2012, and other American citizens who went missing during the Assad regime.

“They will be engaging directly with the Syrian people, including members of civil society, activists, members of different communities, and other Syrian voices about their vision for the future of their country and how the United States can help support them,” the department spokesperson said.

“They also plan to meet with representatives of HTS to discuss transition principles endorsed by the United States and regional partners in Aqaba, Jordan,” the spokesperson said.

The United States cut diplomatic ties with Syria and shut down its embassy in Damascus in 2012.

In a seismic moment for the Middle East, Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war, ending his family’s decadeslong rule.

The lightning offensive raised questions over whether the rebels will be able to ensure an orderly transition.

Forces under the command of al-Sharaa – better known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani – replaced the Assad family rule with a three-month transitional government that had been ruling a rebel enclave in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib.

Washington in 2013 designated al-Sharaa a terrorist, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. It said the Nusra Front, the predecessor of HTS, carried out suicide attacks that killed civilians and espoused a violent sectarian vision.

U.S. President Joe Biden and his top aides described the overthrow of Assad as a historic opportunity for the Syrian people who have for decades lived under his oppressive rule, but also warned the country faced a period of risk and uncertainty.

Washington remains concerned that extremist group ISIS could seize the moment to resurrect and also wants to avoid any clashes in the country’s northeast between Turkey-backed rebel factions and U.S.-allied Kurdish militia.
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The U.S. Defense Department’s annual report on China’s military power, released this week, says the PLA is accelerating modernization, but it still faces several operational challenges in executing a rapid and decisive invasion of Taiwan.

Click here for the full story in Mandarin. 
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During his first press conference as president-elect, Donald Trump mentioned U.S.-China relations, stating, “China and the United States can together solve all of the problems of the world.” The remark quickly trended on Weibo, sparking discussions among Chinese netizens.

Click here for the full story in Mandarin.

 
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Унаслідок удару частково зруйнований двоповерховий багатоквартирний житловий будинок
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WASHINGTON — Immigration has been a defining challenge of the Biden presidency, marked by record numbers of asylum-seekers and other migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border. President Joe Biden pledged to modernize the nation’s immigration system and rebuild a refugee resettlement program that had hit historic lows under the previous administration. 

But despite issuing a record number of immigration-related executive actions — surpassing the Trump administration — Biden’s efforts drew criticism from both sides of the political spectrum. Critics on the right said the administration was being too lenient, while those on the left said it was too harsh.  

The Biden administration inherited a fractured immigration system, including a backlog of asylum cases, a reduction in refugee processing capacity, and policies such as Title 42 that significantly shaped migration patterns. 

During a webinar, Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at Migration Policy Institute (MPI), provided an overview of the Biden administration’s record. He noted that Biden’s approach to enforcement away from the border has been seen as largely favorable by experts and immigration advocates.  

He said Biden administration officials focused on enforcement guidelines, rather than trying to deport everyone, yet the crisis at the border cast a long shadow over his legacy.  

He emphasized the success of legal immigration under Biden, pointing to the high numbers of visas issued, the record number of naturalizations and the resurgence of refugee admissions.  

About “3.5 million people were naturalized under the Biden administration, the highest of any one-term presidency,” he said. 

However, Chishti said the administration’s handling of border security was less successful. The administration faced overwhelming numbers of migrants, many arriving from countries beyond Mexico and Central America. 

“The Biden presidency entered office with a crisis at the border, which was precipitated by the COVID crisis and Title 42,” he said. The administration’s failure to call the situation a crisis, he added, contributed to a perception of mishandling, despite efforts to manage it through new programs like the CBP One app and various parole initiatives. 

Handling the border  

Marielena Hincapie, a visiting scholar at Cornell Law School who participated in the webinar, praised efforts under the Department of Homeland Security’s leadership to increase naturalization rates, expedite work permit processing, and implement innovative policies such as deferred action for undocumented workers who had experienced labor disputes.  

These measures, she said, benefited not only immigrants but also the broader U.S. workforce and economy. 

Hincapie also criticized the administration’s handling of border issues, calling it mismanagement.  

She highlighted the role of Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in exacerbating the crisis by busing and flying thousands of migrants to New York, Chicago and elsewhere. 

Hincapie also pointed to additional involvement at the state level, saying, “There’s not only the busing and flying of migrants, which DeSantis did, but also litigation.” 

“And I really see this as the Biden’s inner circle, his political and communications folks, failed to understand that this was a narrative war and the fact that they refused to call it a crisis when that is what voters were seeing. … They fell silent and decided not to prioritize immigration, and by doing so, they ceded the narrative,” she said. 

Migration shifts  

The Biden administration also faced shifts in migration patterns.  

Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, associate policy analyst at MPI, said the reality at the U.S.-Mexico border shifted once again during Biden’s term with migrants arriving in large numbers from across the Western Hemisphere and from countries around the world.  

The demographics of migrants also changed, she said, from single adults to families, and many were seeking asylum, further complicating border processing.  

U.S. law offers asylum to people facing persecution in their home countries on the basis of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular group. 

Though there are two kinds of asylum, affirmative and defensive, not all asylum claims come from migrants arriving at the border. Immigrants may claim affirmative asylum within one year of their latest arrival in the United States or request a defensive asylum while fighting an order of deportation. 

“All this resulted in a high number of migrants released into the interior of the U.S.,” Putzel-Kavanaugh said.  

This brought the border crisis into the interior of the nation, with large numbers of newly arrived migrants heavily concentrated in cities like New York, Chicago and Denver — cities already facing housing shortages. 

Putzel-Kavanaugh also praised the Biden administration’s work to pair increased enforcement with options for safe and orderly legal migration.  

“We saw the introduction of programs like CBP One app, which allowed migrants to make appointments at ports of entry along the border, and the parole program for nationals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela,” she said.  

Despite these efforts, Putzel-Kavanaugh said many saw the measures as “too little, too late.” 

But that shift in migrant arrivals from irregular crossings to legally arriving at ports of entry has been one of the few success stories of Biden’s border management strategies.

Monthly migrant encounters dropped significantly from the highs of December 2022, with a decrease from more than 300,000 encounters to about 106,000 in October 2024, according to CBP figures.  

Issue for years to come 

While Biden’s efforts to modernize immigration systems and address asylum claims were significant, experts said the ongoing challenges of irregular migration and border security will remain a focal point in U.S. immigration policy for years to come. 

“I do think in summary, we do have two real important crises in our country,” Chishti said. “We do have a labor market crisis across occupations from low, mid to high levels [and a border crisis]. This is why a lot of these people who have come in, even though they came irregularly, have been absorbed.” 

Chishti pointed to remarks in 2022 from Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, about the U.S. labor market and its dynamics. Powell said immigration is a key source of labor supply, and the significant decline in immigration levels during the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the labor supply-demand mismatch. 

That shortfall in immigration resulted in fewer workers available to fill jobs, particularly in sectors that traditionally rely on immigrant labor, such as health care, hospitality and agriculture. Powell acknowledged that addressing the labor supply constraints, including through immigration policy, could help ease pressure to raise wages and reduce inflation without significant harm to employment levels. 

“The reason nothing is happening on changes or reform to our legal immigration system — so we can get more people legally for our labor market needs — is because of the crisis of the border,” Chishti said. 

“These are twin crises, but they’re getting interlinked,” he said. “Unless we get the border crisis under control, we won’t be able to address our labor market crisis.”
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WASHINGTON — A senior White House official on Thursday said nuclear-armed Pakistan is developing long-range ballistic missile capabilities that eventually could allow it to strike targets outside of South Asia, including in the United States.

In his stunning revelation about the onetime close U.S. partner, deputy national security adviser Jon Finer said Islamabad’s conduct raised “real questions” about the aims of its ballistic missile program.

“Candidly, it’s hard for us to see Pakistan’s actions as anything other than an emerging threat to the United States,” Finer told the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace audience.

“Pakistan has developed increasingly sophisticated missile technology, from long-range ballistic missile systems to equipment that would enable the testing of significantly larger rocket motors,” he said.

If those trends continue, Finer said, “Pakistan will have the capability to strike targets well beyond South Asia, including in the United States.”

His speech came a day after Washington announced a new round of sanctions related to Pakistan’s ballistic missile development program, including on the state-run defense agency that oversees the program.
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«З-під завалів дістали дівчинку-підлітка та чоловіка»
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