World
Eurozone surprises by avoiding contraction in last quarter of 2022
The eurozone continued defying the percentages by displaying financial development within the final quarter of 2022, a interval by which most analysts and buyers anticipated to see a contraction.
The 20-strong bloc grew by an especially modest 0.1% price throughout final 12 months’s fourth quarter in comparison with the earlier quarter, the place it had expanded by 0.3%, in accordance with preliminary figures launched by Eurostat on Tuesday morning.
This implies an estimated 3.5% development price for your complete 12 months.
“Excellent news: the euro space prevented a contraction within the final quarter of 2022,” Paolo Gentiloni, European Commissioner for the financial system, stated on Twitter.
“We proceed to face a number of challenges however the outlook for this 12 months appears to be like just a little brighter at the moment than within the autumn.”
The event confirms a rising pattern of optimism that’s progressively pushing away the spectre of a much-dreaded recession brought on by Russia’s battle in Ukraine, the vitality disaster and hovering inflation.
The Worldwide Financial Fund, J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs have in current weeks revised upwards their 2023 forecasts for the eurozone, reflecting the bloc’s resilience within the face of an unprecedented financial panorama.
‘Not horrible, however not good both’
A technical recession is outlined as two consecutive quarters of financial contraction, though different components, corresponding to employment, salaries and international funding, could be considered earlier than making the ultimate designation.
The eurozone has not registered a adverse quarter since early 2021 when a brand new wave of COVID-19 infections and lockdown restrictions pushed the bloc right into a double-dip recession.
“We have been all very pessimistic after the summer time as a result of gasoline costs went via the roof after Russia minimize off gasoline exports to Europe. All people was forecasting a really tough time through the winter,” Grégory Claeys, a senior fellow at Bruegel, a Brussels-based economics assume tank, informed Euronews after the discharge of the GDP knowledge.
Sturdy underground gasoline storage, purchases of non-Russian liquefied pure gasoline (LNG), continued fiscal assist, EU-wide energy financial savings plans and a milder-than-usual winter have labored collectively to cushion probably the most devastating impression of the vitality disaster, Claeys famous, together with the dreaded state of affairs of necessary gasoline rationing and mass industrial shutdowns.
However uncertainty remains to be excessive, as Russia exhibits no indicators of stopping the invasion of Ukraine any time quickly. Moreover, the continent faces the onerous job of re-filling its underground storage with none Russian gasoline earlier than subsequent winter arrives.
“It is not horrible, nevertheless it’s not good both,” Claeys stated.
Germany contracts
Nation by nation, the Eurostat figures present a combined image throughout the eurozone: Belgium (0.1%), Spain (0.2%), France (0.1%), Latvia (0.3%) and Portugal (0.2%) are amongst those that recorded optimistic, albeit restricted, development charges.
Alternatively, Italy (–0.1%), Lithuania (–1.7%) and Austria (–0.7%) contracted.
Germanys, the bloc’s industrial powerhouse, posted a worse-than-expected adverse price (–0.2%) following a number of quarters of average development.
The decline was linked to a drop in client spending attributable to persistently excessive inflation.
Eire remained the best-performing nation, with a formidable 3.5% price within the fourth quarter.
Eire’s GDP statistics have been criticised by some economists as deceptive and out-of-touch as a result of they’re closely influenced by international funding from multinationals looking for to profit from the nation’s infamous low-tax system.
“The eurozone’s determine is biased by Eire’s,” Claeys stated. “Possibly with out Eire’s quantity, the eurozone would have posted adverse development within the final quarter of 2022.”
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World
Tunisian journalists jailed for criticizing the government, sparking outcry over press crackdown
- Two Tunisian journalists were sentenced to one year in prison for criticizing the government.
- Each journalist received six months for disseminating “fake news” and an additional six months for “making false statements with the aim of defaming others.”
- Both journalists denied the allegations, citing Tunisia’s laws protecting freedom of expression established after the 2011 revolution.
A Tunisian court on Wednesday sentenced two TV and radio journalists to one year in prison for criticizing the government on their programs and on social networks.
Borhane Bsaïs and Mourad Zeghidi were each given six months’ imprisonment for disseminating “fake news” and an additional six months for “making false statements with the aim of defaming others,” in reference to Tunisian President Kaïs Saied, court spokesperson Mohamed Zitouna said.
The sentences come less than two weeks after both were arrested. They are among a broader group of journalists, activists and lawyers charged under Decree 54, a law criminalizing the dissemination of “fake news” aimed at harming public safety or national defense.
TUNISIAN LAWYERS STRIKE IN PROTEST, ALLEGING TORTURE OF ARRESTED COLLEAGUE
The law, passed in 2022 to fight cybercrime, has been widely criticized by rights advocates who say the offenses are vaguely defined and are being used to crack down on the president’s critics.
Both Bsaïs and Zeghidi denied the allegations. In court, they referred to laws protecting freedom of expression that Tunisia enshrined after its 2011 revolution, when it became the first country in the Middle East and North Africa to topple a longtime dictator. Both said they were simply doing their jobs, analyzing and commenting on political and economic developments in Tunisia.
“I am neither for nor against the president. Sometimes I support his choices, sometimes I criticize them. It’s part of my job,” Zeghidi said.
Bsaïs, host of the radio show “Emission Impossible” (“Impossible Program” in English) was accused of undermining the president on the air and in Facebook posts made between 2019 and 2022. It’s unclear why authorities targeted old posts like his as they pursue a growing number of Saied’s political critics.
He defended his opinions and in court objected to being brusquely arrested last week “like a dangerous criminal.”
The trial has drawn international condemnation and sparked criticism in Tunisia, where many journalists gathered in front of the court in a show of support.
“We are all on provisional release because any journalistic work can give rise to prosecution,” Zied Dabbar, president of Tunisia’s National Journalists Syndicate, said of Decree 54. He said 39 journalists have been prosecuted under the law this year.
Saied has faced criticism for suspending parliament and rewriting the constitution to consolidate his own power three years ago. Critics have spoken out against the government’s approach to politics, the economy and migration in the Mediterranean in the years since.
World
Russia arrests another general on bribery charges
Authorities arrest Lieutenant-General Vadim Shamarin, latest in a string of bribery arrests of high-ranking officials.
Marking the fourth arrest of a high-ranking military official in a month, Russia has detained Lieutenant-General Vadim Shamarin, deputy head of the army’s general staff, on suspicion of large-scale bribe-taking.
A military court ordered on Wednesday that Shamarin, who also heads the Ministry of Defence’s main communications directorate, be jailed for two months, according to the state-run TASS news agency.
Shamarin’s detention follows the arrests of other top defence officials as part of an effort to stamp out corruption relating to the awarding of lucrative military contracts.
Earlier this month, Major-General Ivan Popov, a former top commander in Russia’s offensive in Ukraine, and Lieutenant-General Yuri Kuznetsov, head of the Defence Ministry’s personnel directorate, were arrested on bribery charges.
In April, Deputy Defence Minister Timur Ivanov, a close associate of former Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, was also arrested for alleged bribery. President Vladimir Putin later dismissed Shoigu as defence minister soon after his inauguration in May, replacing him with economist Andrei Belousov.
Shoigu had been widely blamed for Russia’s failure to capture Kyiv early in the Ukraine fighting and was accused of incompetence and corruption by Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief of the mercenary Wagner Group, who died in a plane crash last year after launching a “failed mutiny”.
Three other people have also been arrested as part of the crackdown – a friend of Ivanov, a boss at a construction company alleged to have paid bribes, and the former head of several companies subordinate to the Defence Ministry.
Shamarin is a deputy to General Valery Gerasimov, head of the general staff. Gerasimov has not been accused of any wrongdoing, though he has at times faced harsh criticism over the performance of Russia’s military in the war in Ukraine.
The Kremlin denied on Thursday that authorities were carrying out a targeted purge.
“The fight against corruption is an ongoing effort. It is not a campaign. It is an integral part of the activities of law enforcement agencies,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Major assault
The arrests and change of leadership at the Defence Ministry comes as Russian forces made one of its most significant battlefield advances in 18 months with a major assault on Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region.
The latest Russian attacks on the city of Kharkiv, the regional capital, killed six people and injured at least 16, local authorities said on Thursday.
Governor Oleh Syniehubov said Russian forces struck Kharkiv about 10 times. The attack also targeted Zolochiv and Liubotyn in the Kharkiv region, injuring at least two people in each town, he said.
Posting on Telegram, Syniehubov reported that nearly 11,000 people had been forced to leave their homes in the region since Russian forces launched their ground attack on May 10.
Meanwhile, Ukraine launched a drone at a village in Russia’s Belgorod border region and shelled the occupied city of Gorlivka in its east on Thursday, killing two people, local authorities said.
The Russian Defence Ministry said on Thursday that its air defence systems in Belgorod destroyed three Olkha and 32 Vampire rockets and three drones launched by Ukraine overnight.
The Kremlin says its new Kharkiv offensive is aimed at creating a “security zone” to prevent future Ukrainian attacks across its border.
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