EU set to agree sanctions over Russia, Myanmar crackdowns at Feb 22 meet
EU FOREIGN ministers were expected on February 22 to approve sanctions against those behind Russia’s crackdown on Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and his supporters, as well as those responsible for the coup in Myanmar.
The top diplomats from the 27-nation bloc meet in Brussels for talks that will also include a wide-ranging videoconference with new US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
But it will be responses to a raft of abuses in various regions that will dominate, with Venezuelan authorities also in the crosshairs over widelycriticised elections last year.
The move to target the Kremlin comes two weeks after EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell was caught in a diplomatic ambush in Moscow that enraged member states.
Capitals are eyeing using the EU’s new human rights sanctions regime for the first time to hit individuals responsible for the clampdown with asset freezes and visa bans, diplomats said.
A senior European diplomat said: “I expect a political agreement to be reached.
“Then experts from the member states should work on the names.”
Waves of sanctions
Late on February 21, two of Navalny’s closest allies met in Brussels with eight EU foreign ministers and several EU ambassadors ahead of February 22’s meeting.
Leonid Volkov, one of the allies, said they “talked about targeted personal sanctions against Putin’s closest allies and people who are guilty of major human rights violations”.
But European diplomats say only those directly implicated
in Russia’s treatment of Navalny can be targeted because the list needs to stand up to any challenge in court.
The February 21 meeting was organised by Lithuania, whose foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, did not identify the other EU participants.
“The biggest hope for tomorrow [February 22] is that we will make a unanimous decision about the list” of people to be sanctioned, Landsbergis said.
The mood towards Moscow has hardened in the wake of Borrell’s disastrous trip to Russia, during which Moscow
announced the expulsion of three European diplomats and rebuffed talk of cooperation.
The EU has already hit Russia with waves of sanctions over the 2014 annexation of Crimea and Moscow’s fuelling of the war in Ukraine.
The bloc in October slapped six officials on a blacklist over the poisoning of Navalny with Novichok, a nerve agent.
President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent domestic critic was this month jailed for almost three years after returning to Russia following treatment in Germany.
His sentencing sparked nationwide
protests that saw baton-wielding security forces detain thousands.
The EU also appears to be gearing up to hit Myanmar’s military with targeted punishment after it seized power this month and launched an increasingly deadly bid to crush protests.
Borrell on February 20 condemned the violence against peaceful rallies after two demonstrators were killed and said EU foreign ministers would “take appropriate decisions”.
A senior EU official said February 22’s meeting would adopt conclusions that “foresee
maybe to take some particular measures on some of the members of the military”.
In addition to those measures, the official said ministers were expected to place some 30 members of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s regime on a blacklist.
The listings would target those involved in December elections the EU refused to recognise and broader human rights abuses, the official said.
Ministers are also set to discuss China’s crackdown on Hong Kong and see if the EU needs to beef up its response as Beijing tightens it grip.
MALAYSIANS can expect faster and wider Internet connections in the coming years as the government is injecting 15 billion ringgit ($3.7 billion) to roll out the country’s 5G network over the next 10 years.
The 5G rollout will begin in some areas by the end of this year, said Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin at the launch of the MyDigital & the Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint on February 19.
The 5G technology will boost healthcare, such as enabling “health monitoring applications for chronic patients, smart emergency assistance and special applications for senior citizens who are living alone”, he said.
The Covid-19 pandemic, which has forced many workers to work from home and students to go online for their lessons, has shown the need for faster Internet service, he said.
There have been reports of students climbing trees or hills for better reception, particularly in large states with poor broadband penetration such as Sabah and Kelantan.
The 5G network could be up to 20 times faster than current 4G mobile connections.
Muhyiddin said: “The role of digital technology has become more obvious over the last one year when the Covid-19 pandemic created challenges for countries to continue life as normal.
“It has never been clearer that technology is a convenient tool for advancement in the best of times, and an essential tool of survival during the most challenging of crises.”
Among the aims of the Malaysia
Digital Economy Blueprint were tackling digital inequality in education by providing all households with access to the Internet, and all students access to online learning.
Malaysia’s household Internet penetration rate improved from 87
per cent in 2018 to 90.1 per cent in 2019, according to government data, but the country suffers from a lack of high-quality Internet infrastructure in rural and remote areas.
A total of 35.3 per cent of urban households had access to fixed broadband in 2019, compared with a mere 11.7 per cent of rural households.
The rollout of 5G is a key plank in the 22 billion ringgit National Fiberisation and Connectivity Plan, which the Perikatan Nasional government led by Muhyiddin has promised to maintain despite the change of government.
Muhyiddin said the government, through its Cloud First strategy, has targeted the migration of 80 per cent of public data to hybrid cloud systems by the end of next year.
“All these cloud services will allow Big Data, AI [artificial intelligence], IoT [Internet of Things] and other applications to be utilised to enhance and strengthen government services,” he said.
The premier in his speech said between 12 and 15 billion ringgit will be invested by Cloud Service Provider (CSP) companies over the next five years.
The government has so far given conditional approvals to four CSP companies – Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Telekom Malaysia – to build and manage hyper-scale data centres and cloud services, he said.
“These hyper-scale data centres, as well as hybrid cloud services, will be created to increase data storage space, thus reducing operating costs and improving analytical efficiency,” he said.
IWAS asked recently, “What is holding back clean energy progress in Cambodia?” My answer was simple: electricity planning decisions. An electricity plan was made in the wake of the 2019 power shortages, but understandably that was made quickly and under pressure.
That plan will see 74 per cent of electricity supplied from fossil fuels by 2030, mostly from importing coal fired electricity from Laos or importing coal or gas to make electricity in Cambodia. The purchase price for the 2.4GW Laos coal project was stated in 2019 as $0.077/kWh – compare this with the competitive auction for a 60MW solar project at $0.0387/kWh led by the Electrite du Cambodge (EDC) and supported by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
It’s only in the last two years that project developers in Cambodia have demonstrated that solar and wind can make electricity cheaper than burning coal, oil, gas and often hydro. This means new scenarios are required to compare costs and benefits with different share of this new solar and wind resource to ensure Cambodia is on the best economic and technical path.
Thankfully, the ADB is supporting the government to develop Power Development Master Plan out to 2040. It has been going slowly due to hesitation from the government to have scenarios comparing the 2019 plan with scenarios with higher levels of cheaper solar and wind power – and perhaps some the deals done in 2019 may need to be abandoned. But if Vietnam is planning to walk away from 17GW of coal projects on their books following the success of its domestic solar and wind industries, then it’s possible for Cambodia, too.
Fortunately, much of the technical data collection work has been done. Work completed last year by the Intelligent Energy Systems (IES), supported by the Australian government, concluded that Cambodia has 44GW of high potential solar, 6GW of wind, far higher than the 15GW Cambodia is projected to need by 2040. Back in 2017, expert electricity analysis funded by the ADB showed the Cambodian electricity grid can take 10-20 per cent capacity solar with no problem, up to 40 per cent with manageable limited impacts. Today, the grid is doing really well with eight per cent solar capacity, but that share will now decline as more coal projects come
online. Cambodia now has excellent and commendable experience in integrating solar output into the grid – from 2016 when no solar was on the grid to over 0.23GW of solar by the end of last year.
So it is now possible to compare the Business as Usual 2019 plan with other scenarios with higher shares of solar and wind. Why should this be done? Because these sources are cheaper than coal, oil and gas. They are also produced within Cambodia, creating jobs, investment and contribute to the government’s aim of increasing energy independence.
Only by comparing the technical and economic difference between the plan set after the 2019 power shortages with alternative plans can we know if Cambodia is on the right path. Certainly, Bloomberg New Energy
Finance show global trends moving away from fossil fuels towards solar and wind, while Cambodia is rapidly heading in the opposite direction.
This is what Cambodia’s big investors – like Adidas, H&M, VF Corporation – have been asking the relevant ministers to consider. Forward looking companies have to meet their own global renewable commitments to their customers – and within a tight timeframe. The above mentioned garment
companies make up more than 30 per cent of all Cambodia garment exports – more than $2billion of exports. Factories producing for Adidas employ 80,000 Cambodians. These and many more companies operating in Cambodia are calling on the government to consider if the grid can avoid following the 2019 plan.
Equally important is the lost opportunity for more investment in Cambodia. The Laos 2.4GW of coal projects is around $3 billion of investment – inexplicitly not in Cambodia, but in Laos, even though the Cambodian government is underwriting those projects with a purchase agreement. If a competitive process was made for all that power to be produced in Cambodia, I wonder how much money could be saved on the electricity purchase price, and what jobs and investment could be made for the country?
The only way to know this is to model the scenarios and be willing to compare the costs, benefits and technical aspects of solar and wind. As a starting point, it should be easily possible to build on the existing hydro resources and model a scenario where half electricity is from renewable energy up to 2040.
This type of independent scenario analysis in China showed that
increasing solar and wind generation (from three per cent now to 28 per cent and 11 per cent respectively) they could lower their electricity production costs from $0.0735/kWh to $0.065/kWh and reach half of generation from renewable energy by 2030 – well on the way towards supporting China to their net-zero target by 2060.
Cambodia is still at a crossroads and it’s not too late for Cambodia to alter its path. Those Laos coal projects haven’t closed finance, and there are some technical considerations such as the long transmission line from Laos to Phnom Penh, and even the availability of suitable coal deposits in Laos. There is still a chance to walk away from plans to have three quarters of Cambodia’s electricity depending on imports of coal, gas or electricity from neighbours. Cambodia can still consider the economic, social, environmental and energy independence benefits that could come from a more ambitious share of locally produced solar and wind power, and be a country demonstrating green energy leadership.
SUITS and tailored shirts are out, sweatpants and pajamas are in: remote working is changing work clothes habits, and while vaccines may bring back some formality, old-school office attire should emerge from the pandemic far less starched and strict.
“For the last year, everybody has just been dressed from the waist up, wearing nice shorts for Zoom calls,” quipped stylist Sascha Lilic.
Many workers who have already returned to offices notice a new relaxed vibe.
“I saw someone wearing just their socks when they walked through to get something from another department,” recalled Deanna Narveson, a journalist in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
“I think I’ve been dressing slightly more casual myself,” added Narveson, who nevertheless makes sure she puts on “real clothes” when working from home.
According to employees at several companies, the casualness has happened by itself without management or HR teams intervening.
“Shorts and T-shirts at the Pentagon was pretty new,” said Matt Triner, boss of IT consulting firm
Hunter Strategy, which the US government has contracted to do several projects.
The relaxation of dress codes in the professional world was already under way long before the pandemic, with the tech sector and start-up generation leading the way.
It was even catching on at banks. “We have had a ‘flexible’ dress code policy for almost two years now, which encourages our people to use their own judgment for what is appropriate to wear for their work day,” said a spokesperson for Goldman Sachs.
The pandemic has seen the trend toward comfort accelerate, though.
“Suits and ties were already going away in IT. The pandemic gave the last hangers-on an excuse to let go,” said Triner.
The trend has been catastrophic for formal menswear companies like Brooks Brothers and the parent company of Men’s Wearhouse, which both declared bankruptcy last year.
New York designer David Hart, a specialist in luxury men’s ready-towear items, has taken “a step back” from tailoring from the time being to focus on knitwear, masks, sweaters
and polo shirts.
‘Disruptive’
The pandemic will have “lasting consequences” in the way people dress for work, particularly men, according to Lilic.
“The outfit will become more casual. It will still be a suit, but there might be a drawstring waist or elasticated waist,” he said.
Lilic, who has worked with several major fashion houses including Hugo Boss and Elie Saab, predicts more loafers and a lot fewer ties.
“The open collar shirt is going to be great,” he said.
The shift is already visible among fashion brands, which are pushing
more and more cotton and linen jackets as well as polo shirts and even simple sneakers.
Workplace looks will become more individualistic, but also respectful of the office environment, Lilic believes.
“It will respect more of your personality,” he said. “But I don’t think it is going to be so impactful on men’s fashion that everybody’s going to turn up in their banking office as a rapper.”
Appearance, and some formality are “still important to some customers”, said Triner, though “as customers get younger, this is changing rapidly”, he added.
“I think the suit will stay but it
won’t have the blatant physical effect. It will less [be] something to hide behind,” said Lilic.
For American designer David Hart, “there will be a strong urge for men to start dressing up again” after the pandemic.
“I think that people will start dressing up for themselves and not because they are required to for work,” he said, confident that the rise of men’s fashion will continue.
Hart, whose brand was built on tailored jackets and trousers, even dreams of a post-pandemic world where “suits and ties will become disruptive”.
“The man wearing a suit will be the new rebel,” he said.