Lithuania Cuts off Russian Gas Imports, Urges EU to Do Same

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Lithuania says it has cut itself off entirely of gas imports from Russia, apparently becoming the first of the European Union’s 27 nations using Russian gas to break its energy dependence upon Moscow.

“Seeking full energy independence from Russian gas, in response to Russia’s energy blackmail in Europe and the war in Ukraine, Lithuania has completely abandoned Russian gas,” Lithuania’s energy ministry said in a statement late Saturday, adding that the measure took effect in the beginning of April.

Lithuania managed to reduce imports of Russian gas to zero on Saturday, a move seen a milestone in achieving energy independence in the former Soviet republic of 2.8 million, the ministry said.

“We are the first EU country among Gazprom’s supply countries to gain independence from Russian gas supplies, and this is the result of a multi-year coherent energy policy and timely infrastructure decisions,” Minister of Energy Dainius Kreivys said.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda posted an upbeat tweet on his account and urged other European nations to do the same.

“From this month on — no more Russian gas in Lithuania. Years ago, my country made decisions that today allow us with no pain to break energy ties with the aggressor. If we can do it, the rest of Europe can do it too!” Nauseda tweeted.

In 2015, nearly 100% of Lithuania’s gas supplies derived from imports of Russian gas but the situation has changed drastically over the past years after the country built an off-shore LNG import terminal, launched in 2014, in the port city of Klaipeda.

The energy ministry said from now on all gas for Lithuania’s domestic consumption would be imported via Klaipeda’s LNG terminal.

Last year, some 26% of Lithuania’s gas supplies derived from deliveries from a Russian gas pipeline while 62% came via Klaipeda’s LNG terminal and the remaining 12% were imported from a gas storage in neighboring Latvia.

Baltic neighbors Latvia and Estonia are also heavily dependent on Russian gas but the operator of Latvia’s natural gas storage said none of the three Baltic states were importing Russian gas as of April 2.

Uldis Bariss, the CEO of Conexus Baltic Grid, told Latvian media on Saturday that the Baltic gas market was currently being served by gas reserves stored underground in Latvia.

Last month, Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte said Klaipeda’s LNG terminal wouldn’t have enough capacity to provide gas for all the three Baltic countries.

As a solution, Estonia’s government has proposed building a LNG terminal jointly with Latvia and Nordic neighbor Finland in the Estonian port town of Paldiski, which is not far from the capital, Tallinn.

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Western leaders to impose further sanctions on Russia

Western leaders are set announce a further set of sanctions against Russia on Wednesday, the US has said.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the measures will target Russian financial and state-owned bodies, as well as some officials and oligarchs.

Ms Psaki said the move will “hold accountable the Russian kleptocracy that funds and supports Putin’s war”.

Calls for further sanctions have grown in recent days amid allegations of Russian atrocities in Bucha.

The town’s mayor told the BBC on Tuesday night that Russian forces had killed around 320 civilians during their occupation of the town, while the discovery of mass graves has caused outage in western capitals.

Ms Psaki told reporters during a news conference in Washington DC on Tuesday that the sanctions, which are expected to include a ban on all new investment in Russia, will “degrade key instruments of Russian state power, impose acute and immediate economic harm on Russia”.

The Wall Street Journal said on Tuesday that the Sberbank, Russia’s largest lender, may be among those targeted.

US media has suggested that sanctions could also target the two daughters of Russian President Vladimir Putin, though Ms Psaki refused to comment on the reports.

She added that the sanctions will be announced will be taken in coordination with the EU and other G7 nations.

“In coordination with the G7 and the EU, an additional sweeping package of sanctions measures that will impose costs on Russia to send it further down the road of economic, financial, and technological isolation,” Ms Psaki said.

On Tuesday, the European Commission proposed broad new sanctions on Russia, including a potential ban on imports of Russian coal and additional measures targeting state-owned businesses and officials and oligarchs in Moscow.

The proposed ban on Russian coal, which must be agreed by all 27 member states, would mark the first time the EU has blocked imports of Russian energy.

The bloc buys around €4bn (£3.3bn) worth of coal from Moscow every year.

Some member states, including Germany, are heavily reliant on Russian energy and had been reluctant to directly target the sector. But sentiment appeared to change after evidence of Russian war crimes emerged, with French President Emmanuel Macron joining calls for a ban earlier this week.

Member states are also expected to impose a “full transaction ban” on four Russian banks and ban a range of other Russian and Belarus imports, including wood, cement, seafood and liquor, worth €5.5 billion (£4.59bn).

And Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, said she intends to close EU ports to Russian vessels and ban Russian and Belarusian road transport operators from the region.

Ms Von der Leyen accused Russia of “waging a cruel and ruthless war” against Ukrainian civilians and said the EU must “sustain utmost pressure on Putin and the Russian government at this critical point”.

But Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis on Tuesday evening criticized the EU’s proposed sanctions package, calling it a “feeble response” which is “an invitation for more atrocities.”

“Coal, four banks…a ban on ports and borders (with exceptions) is not really an adequate sanctions package to the massacres that are being uncovered,” Vilnius’ chief diplomat wrote on Twitter.

Addressing the UN Security Council on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russian leaders of committing war crimes in his country and called for them to be brought to justice.

“The Russian military searched for and purposefully killed anyone who served our country,” he said. “They killed entire families, adults and children, and they tried to burn the bodies.”

Also on Tuesday, American officials said they will provide $100m (£76m) in anti-armour Javelin missiles to Ukraine’s forces. This is the sixth batch of US equipment aid released to Ukraine since August.

US Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in a statement that the newly-authorised money will “meet an urgent Ukrainian need for additional Javelin anti-armour systems, which the United States has been providing to Ukraine and they have been using so effectively to defend their country”.

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Tanzanian cartoonist unveils locally made electric car

Tanzanian cartoonist Masoud Kipanya has officially unveiled the country’s first locally made electric car.

The environment-friendly electric car’s brand name is Kaypee Motor.

It has been made from local materials and requires six hours of charging to run between 50 to 60km, according to Mr Kipanya.

The car has not yet been approved for use on Tanzanian roads, but he hopes to get certification soon.

Mr Kipanya told BBC Swahili that people still don’t believe that he made the car which took him 11 months to complete.

“This is a very powerful car that comes with its own charger and it is user friendly.”

“Let us not wait for foreigners to be doing these things for us,” he told the BBC.

He said he had spent a lot of money developing it but wants to sell it at a lower price from 8m Tanzanian shillings ($3,400; £2,600) so that it’s affordable to porters and distributors.

The thought of developing the car started nine years ago, he said.

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Cardi B wins order forcing YouTuber to remove defamatory videos

Evelyn Frimpong by Evelyn Frimpong  April 6, 2022

Cardi B wins order forcing YouTuber to remove defamatory video. 

Cardi B has won an injunction forcing a YouTuber to delete and never repost defamatory videos about her.

It comes a few months after the rapper won a £2m lawsuit against Latasha Kebe, known online as Tasha K.

In a court document seen by Radio 1 Newsbeat, a judge has now ordered Kebe to remove over 20 videos.

The singer, known for hits including I Like It, Money and WAP, was subjected to a “malicious campaign” of false accusations by Kebe.

Kebe hosts gossip site UnWineWithTashaK which has one million subscribers.

During the trial, lawyers for the singer, whose real name is Belcalis Marlenis Almánzar, said Kebe had waged “a campaign to damage and destroy [Cardi B’s] reputation among her fans and the consuming public”.

Kebe has to take down 21 videos in the next five days from her YouTube and social media channels.

In the original case, Cardi B’s lawyers said Kebe started making “degrading and harassing statements” in early 2018 and continued to do so, at one point falsely claiming the star had worked as a prostitute.

A judge has now banned Kebe from making certain statements about Cardi B’s sexual health and personal life.

The judge stated that both sides had agreed to the terms of the “permanent injunction”.

Cardi B’s lawyers said the comments and videos on Kebe’s channel caused the singer “embarrassment, humiliation, mental anguish, and emotional distress”.

Following a trial in January, a jury in the state of Georgia sided with Cardi B, holding Kebe liable for defamation, false light, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.In total, Kebe was ordered to pay Cardi B just over £3m in damages and legal fees.

Kebe is currently appealing the original verdict, and if the appeals court overturns that decision, this injunction would also be revoked.

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U.S. Navy to Name Ship After Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

U.S. Navy to Name Ship After Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The ship, a replenishment oiler, is designed to carry fuel to the Navy’s operating carrier strike groups.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Supreme Court Justice who fought for women’s rights for more than a half century before her death in 2020, will have a U.S. Navy ship named after her, military officials said on Thursday.

The U.S.N.S. Ruth Bader Ginsburg (T-AO 212), which has not yet been constructed, will be a John Lewis-class replenishment oiler ship designed to carry fuel to the Navy’s operating carrier strike groups, the Navy said in a news release.

The class and lead ship, T-AO 205, is named in honor of Representative John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat, who died in July 2020. Mr. Lewis was a stalwart of the civil rights movement and the last surviving speaker from the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963.

All of the ships in this class follow a naming convention honoring leaders who have fought for civil and human rights. Other ships in the class are named after Harvey Milk Robert F. Kennedy, the abolitionists Lucy Stone and Sojourner Truth, and two other former members of the Supreme Court: Earl Warren and Thurgood Marshall.

The oiler ships measure 742 feet long and have the ability to carry up to 162,000 barrels of oil with expansive dry cargo capacity, aviation capability and a speed of 20 knots, the Navy said.

“She is a historic figure who vigorously advocated for women’s rights and gender equality,” Carlos Del Toro, the secretary of the Navy, said in a statement about Justice Ginsburg. “It is my aim to ensure equality and eliminate gender discrimination across the Department of the Navy. She is instrumental to why we now have women of all backgrounds, experiences and talents serving within our ranks, side by side with their male Sailor and Marine counterparts.”

This will be the first U.S. Navy ship to bear Justice Ginsburg’s name and is sponsored by her daughter, Jane Ginsburg. (A sponsor typically attends key events for and maintains close ties with the ship, a spokesman for Navy said.)

Justice Ginsburg died from complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer in September 2020 at age 87. She was the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

She developed a rock-star following in her later years and became an unlikely cultural icon to a much younger generation. A law student, Shana Knizhnik, anointed her the Notorious R.B.G, a play on the name of the Notorious B.I.G., the famous rapper who was Brooklyn-born, like the justice. Soon the name, and Justice Ginsburg’s image — complete with a frilly lace collar — became a cultural fixture.

It was announced this week that her famous “dissent” collar, along with other items related to her tenure on the court, including a judicial robe, are being donated to the Smithsonian’s national Museum of American History.  The donation by her family coincides with the museum’s decision to award Justice Ginsburg its signature honor, the Great Americans Medal.

Before taking her seat on the Supreme Court in 1993, she had argued six cases before the court from 1973 to 1978, winning five.

Although Justice Ginsburg delivered numerous noteworthy opinions in her career on the court, one of her more notable came in 1996 when she wrote for the majority in United States v. Virginia, a case that opened doors for women to enter Virginia Military Institute.

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Rwandese court sentences Kagame’s opponent to 25 years in prison

The Rwandan prosecutors’ appeal of the verdict in Hotel Rwanda humanitarian Paul Rusesabagina’s Sham Trial concluded today in Kigali. The Court of Appeal chose to maintain the original 25 year sentence for the 67 year old Rusesabagina, which means that he will still die in prison.

While it is positive that the politicized trial process is finally over, the fact that this appeal by the prosecutors even happened adds insult to injury for a man who is only in jail because of his humanitarian work and criticism of the human rights record of the Rwandan government.

Why did the Rwandan prosecutors even go forward with an appeal to what was already effectively a life sentence? Only President Kagame and his prosecutors can tell us for sure.

International observers made it clear that Rusesabagina’s show trial had nothing to do with the law. Rather this was really all about silencing his dissent and sending a chilling message to other critics. The appeal is just more of the same.

The world needs to remember – trials of critics and perceived political opponents in Rwanda have very little to do with the law, and everything to do with politics and sending a message to others who might dissent.

It should be noted that since Paul Rusesabagina’s arrest, dozens more human rights activists, journalists and dissenters have disappeared, died or been detained for speaking out about the Kagame government transgressions.

A recent Opinion by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, combined with the report released earlier today by the Clooney Foundation’s TrialWatch group, make it clear that Rusesabagina’s human rights and trial rights have been denied by the Rwandan government at every opportunity.

Today’s result is meaningless, because Paul Rusesabagina’s health is rapidly deteriorating with every day that passes and he will die in prison without international support.

The United Nations, European Union, members of the US Congress and UK Parliament and many others have all called for his immediate release on compassionate grounds. It is critical that this happens soon.

 

In 2005, Paul Rusesabagina was a receipient of a Medal of Freedom from president George W. Bush and was hailed globally as a hero. But in August 2020 he was apparently kidnapped from the United Arab Emirates to Rwanda.

Paul Rusesabagina thought he was heading to Burundi when he boarded an airplane in the United Arab Emirates on the night of Aug. 27, 2020. But the 66-year-old former hotelier, who inspired the acclaimed 2004 film “Hotel Rwanda,” landed behind bars in Rwanda’s capital.

Rusesabagina’s whereabouts were unknown for several days until Rwandan authorities paraded him in handcuffs during a press conference in Kigali on Aug. 31. Rusesabagina’s adopted daughters, Anaise and Carine Kanimba, were together in Washington, D.C., when they got a telephone call from their brother, telling them about their father’s arrest.

DNT News, Kigali

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The French election is just two weeks away: Russia’s invasion is overshadowing the vote

With the first round of voting in France’s presidential election less than two weeks away, the political debate is heavily influenced by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Far-right political leaders have suffered a setback in opinion polls for their links to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin while incumbent Emmanuel Macron has been criticized for being absent from the political campaign as he tries to deal with the geopolitical crisis on the continent. And, above all, the war in Ukraine has pushed up energy and food prices across Europe — fueling concerns also in France about the cost of living.

“This campaign is strange but special in a way,” Clement Beaune, France’s minister for European affairs and supporter of Macron told Charlotte Reed.

He added that when Macron was elected for the first time in 2017, people did not know him or his platform. “Now the French people know him. People know what his DNA is about,” he said, explaining why the president has not been campaigning as much as five years ago.

At the same time, he added, “people would not expect him or like him to be absent, to be absorbed by rallies, campaigning himself so basically he needs to be president.”

Macron is the European leader that speaks with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin the most and has tried to act as a bridge between Moscow and Kyiv and attempts to reach a ceasefire.

Opinion polls predict that Macron will receive 28% of the public’s support in the first round of voting, due to take place on April 10. This is followed by anti-immigrant party leader Marine Le Pen at 19% and by the far-left political veteran Jean-Luc Mélenchon at 14%, according to Poll of Polls.

The same polls suggested prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24 that Macron was going to win the first round with 25% and Le Pen would come second with 17% of the votes. The European security crisis that ensued pushed public support for Macron to 30% before coming down to the current 28%.

“Emmanuel Macron maintains a clear lead over his challengers. However, the initial boost in support for him after Putin started his invasion of Ukraine has largely worn off,” Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Barenberg, said in a note Monday.

Nonetheless, the expectation for now is that Macron will be re-elected after a second round of voting on April 24.

“Although the pandemic has slowed down his reform momentum temporarily and contributed to a significant shift away from fiscal consolidation, we maintain our long-held call that France is heading for a golden decade of faster trend growth,” Schmieding also said, based on the economic reforms that Macron has put forward both as economy minister and then as president of France.

For the far-right, the tables have turned in the wake of the invasion. Eric Zemmour, a new face in French political scene, dropped 4 percentage points in opinion polls and is now seen to be outside of the top three candidates in the first round.

Zemmour has said that Ukrainian refugees with links to France should receive visas, but defended different rules for asylum seekers based on their religion. Prior to becoming a candidate, Zemmour also said that he would like a “French Putin” to lead the nation.

Marine Le Pen, running for a third time in France’s presidential vote, has regained some political support for her comments on the cost of living and her more moderate comments on the European Union, but she also faced an initial embarrassment in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Her anti-immigrant party not only received funds from Russian banks, back in 2014, but she also printed a number of campaign flyers with a photo of herself and President Putin — which have now reportedly been binned.

“The (European) skepticism is not the same as it was five years ago,” Beaune said; in comparison with the 2017 election.

The deep reality is that people want Europe to survive, especially now against a backdrop war, he added.

Macron is once again campaigning on a pro-European platform and has used the war in Ukraine to get backing from other European leaders for some of his long-term policy aims, notably a more independent security policy for the bloc.

88% of French voters said they are worried about the situation in Ukraine in a poll shared by Ifop Monday. However, only 40% of respondents said that this would likely influence their vote in the first round of the French election.

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