EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini said in Berlin yesterday that foreign ministers from the bloc would discuss whether to increase sanctions on Russia and how to help Ukraine at a meeting in Brussels on Monday.
“There will be a discussion there, but I would say not just on whether to increase the sanctions, but most of all how to support Ukraine in these difficult times,” she told reporters at a foreign policy conference with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Steinmeier said Ukraine risks sliding back into fighting between government troops and separatist rebels.
“We don’t want a return to the situation as it was two or three months ago,” he said. “Everything suggests that the parties are making renewed preparations for violent conflict. We have to prevent that.”
The US, UK and EU have threatened to tighten sanctions after they accused Russia of continuing to arm rebels in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, where a ceasefire has crumbled in the past week.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied being militarily involved in the conflict.
The US and its allies are stepping up criticism of Russia after a Nov. 2 election by the self-proclaimed separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk raised tensions.
Russia on Monday said that sanctions it faces would prevent its economy from growing next year.
Meanwhile, US Vice President Joe Biden warned Russia over Ukraine after new columns of tanks, trucks and heavy artillery rumbled toward the pro-Moscow rebel stronghold of Donetsk on Monday.
Biden spoke to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko by telephone, with the pair agreeing it was “critical” for Russia to honor its commitments to a ceasefire agreement signed in September.
“The vice president noted that if Russia continued to willfully violate the terms of the Minsk agreement, the costs to Russia will increase,” a White House statement said. “The vice president urged the speedy conclusion of a coalition agreement to enable the Ukrainian government to continue the process of passing and then implementing reforms, and delivering on other commitments made to the Ukrainian people in the Oct. 26 parliamentary elections.”
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Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
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