Putin – Faith Matters https://www.faith-matters.org Working with Faith Communities Countering Extremism, Supporting Integration & Challenging Hatred. Founded by Fiyaz Mughal Wed, 14 Sep 2022 22:55:03 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 https://www.faith-matters.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/favicon.png Putin – Faith Matters https://www.faith-matters.org 32 32 95725945 Pope Francis visits Kazakhstan as ‘pilgrim of peace’ https://www.faith-matters.org/pope-francis-visits-kazakhstan-as-pilgrim-of-peace/ Wed, 14 Sep 2022 22:43:54 +0000 https://www.faith-matters.org/?p=10484

Pope Francis landed in Kazakhstan on Tuesday to attend an international religious gathering, as part of his three-day visit to the central Asian country.

In the Kazakh capital Nur-Sultan, which was called Astana until 2019, the so-called Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions is taking place for the seventh time.

Francis is the first pope to attend the international meeting organized by the Kazakh government. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev deemed his presence an honour.

Until now, John Paul II had been the only pope to visit post-independence Kazakhstan, in 2001.

For the 85-year-old pope, who suffers from knee problems and spends most of his time in a wheelchair, it is his third trip abroad in 2022, following trips to Malta and Canada.

The pope described his trip as a “pilgrimage of dialogue and peace” as he addressed the faithful on Sunday.

The head of the Catholic Church landed in Nur-Sultan and was received by President Tokayev. Following the airport welcome, Francis attended a reception with the president and diplomats.

Upon his arrival, Francis stressed that his trip is in solidarity with all those seeking peace in the world. Calling himself a “pilgrim of peace,” Francis said he wishes to amplify the cries of those who advocate for peace around the world.

He addressed the war in Ukraine while at the reception, calling the Russian invasion tragic and senseless. Speaking of such conflicts threatening the globe, the pope said the world must find harmony.

Once again, the pope reaffirmed that Russia is responsible for the war in Ukraine. Francis was previously criticized for not doing so when the Russian invasion began.

The pope traditionally sends greetings to the capitals of the countries he flies over, however his outbound flight from Rome to Nur-Sultan avoided Russian airspace, sparing him a Telegram message to President Vladimir Putin.

The Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions starts on Wednesday. Around 100 delegations from 50 countries are due to attend the two-day meeting.

On the first day of the congress, Wednesday, a joint prayer and bilateral meetings are on the agenda. Francis also plans to celebrate a Mass. On Thursday, a final statement by the religious leaders is to be read, then his return flight is scheduled.

A meeting with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, which the Vatican had hoped for, will not take place. The Russian religious leader, who has always defended the war launched by President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine, recently bowed out from travelling to Nur-Sultan.

Kazakhstan, with a population of 19 million, is home to a small community of about 125,000 Catholics. Some 70% of Kazakhs are Muslim while 26% are Orthodox Christians. Pope Francis has praised the coexistence of the different religious groups there.

]]> 10484 Russian opposition leader Navalny poisoned with Novichok, says Germany https://www.faith-matters.org/russian-opposition-leader-navalny-poisoned-with-novichok-says-germany/ Wed, 02 Sep 2020 23:58:17 +0000 https://www.faith-matters.org/?p=9206

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned with the same type of Soviet-era nerve agent that British authorities identified in a 2018 attack on a former Russian spy, the German government has said.

The findings – which experts say point strongly to Russian state involvement – are likely to increase tensions between Russia and the West.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the poisoning of Mr Navalny attempted murder and said it was meant to silence one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics.

The Berlin hospital treating the dissident said he remains in a serious condition though he is improving.

It said that it expects a long recovery, and it still cannot rule out long-term consequences from the poisoning.

The German government said that testing by a special German military laboratory at the hospital’s request showed “proof without doubt of a chemical nerve agent from the Novichok group”.

“There are very serious questions now that only the Russian government can answer, and must answer,” Mrs Merkel said.

“He was meant to be silenced, and I condemn this in the strongest possible manner.”

Mr Navalny, a politician and corruption investigator who is one of Mr Putin’s fiercest critics, fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from Siberia on August 20 and was taken to hospital in the Siberian city Omsk after the plane made an emergency landing.

He was transferred two days later to Berlin’s Charite hospital, where doctors last week said initial tests indicated Mr Navalny had been poisoned.

British authorities identified Novichok as the poison used in 2018 on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in England.

The nerve agent is a cholinesterase inhibitor, part of the class of substances that doctors at Charite said last week had shown up in Mr Navalny’s system.

German foreign minister Heiko Maas said the Russian ambassador was summoned to his ministry on Wednesday and told in “unmistakable” terms of Germany’s call for the Navalny case to be investigated “in full and with full transparency”.

“We now know that there was an attack with a chemical nerve agent,” Mr Mass said.

“That makes it even more urgent to determine who was responsible in Russia and to hold them to account.”

The Kremlin remained tight-lipped and said it had not been informed, even though its ambassador in Berlin had been summoned.

The German government said it would inform its partners in the European Union and Nato about the test results.

Mr Maas said it wants to consult with them in light of the Russian response “on an appropriate joint response”.

Germany will also contact the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

“Russia itself should have a serious interest in good relations with its neighbours in Europe,” said Mr Maas.

“Now at the very latest, it is the time to make a decisive contribution towards this.”

In an update shortly after the government’s announcement, the Charite hospital said Mr Navalny is still in intensive care and remains on a ventilator.

But it said that he “continues to improve”.

“Recovery is likely to be lengthy,” it said in a statement.

“It is still too early to gauge the long-term effects which may arise in relation to this severe poisoning.”

Mr Navalny’s allies in Russia have insisted he was deliberately poisoned by the country’s authorities, accusations that the Kremlin rejected as “empty noise”.

“To poison Navalny with Novichok in 2020 would be exactly the same as leaving an autograph at a crime scene, like this one,” Mr Navalny’s longtime ally and strategist Leonid Volkov said in a tweet that featured a photo of Mr Putin’s name and a signature next to it.

The Russian doctors who treated Mr Navalny in Siberia repeatedly contested the German hospital’s poisoning conclusion, saying they had ruled out poisoning as a diagnosis and that their tests for cholinesterase inhibitors came back negative.

Novichok is a class of military-grade nerve agents developed by the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War.

Western weapons experts say it was only ever manufactured in Russia.

After the Skripals were poisoned, Russia said the US, Britain and other Western countries acquired the expertise to make the nerve agent after the Soviet Union collapsed, and that the Novichok used in the attack could have come from them.

According to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, there is no record of Novichok having been declared by any nation that signed the chemical weapons convention.

“Unless you are working for the military, it is impossible to be accidentally exposed,” said Richard Parsons, a senior lecturer in biochemical toxicology at King’s College London.

“It is only dangerous when it is about to be used, ie, mixed together. It is unavailable from anywhere except the Russian military as far as I am aware.”

Britain charged two Russians – alleged to be agents of the Russian military intelligence service GRU – in absentia with the 2018 attack that left the Skripals in a critical condition and killed a local woman.

Russia has refused to extradite the men to the UK.

British police believe the nerve agent was smuggled to Britain in a counterfeit Nina Ricci perfume bottle and sprayed on the front door of Sergei Skripal’s house in Salisbury.

More than three months later, the bottle was found by a local man, 48-year-old Charlie Rowley.

He was admitted to hospital and his girlfriend, Dawn Sturgess, 44, died after being exposed to the contents.

]]> 9206 The Utter Betrayal of Residents of Aleppo as Syria Burns https://www.faith-matters.org/the-utter-betrayal-of-residents-of-aleppo-as-syria-burns/ Tue, 13 Dec 2016 02:06:34 +0000 https://faith-matters.org/?p=6295

We went to war in Iraq on a false premise, led by a man who had already hitched his mast to the warship of George Bush. So many lies, half-truths and media spun stories meant that public confidence has never been the same in international interventionism since Iraq.

So when the chance to act against Bashar Al Assad came in late 2013, Parliament voted against any action, dazed partly by the looming shadow of Iraq.

Fast forward to today and the incoherent and disastrous policies Western nations have taken in Syria, namely of inaction and hand wringing, and we have a civilian population who are bearing the murderous brunt of Assad and his regime. Their hands are not only steeped in blood, they are steeped in the entrails of Syria as a nation which lies like a deceased carcass on the floor. Syria as a nation, no longer lives.

Today, social media postings highlighted the absolute carnage and human rights abuses that are taking place by Assad forces, egged on and supported by another dictator sitting in the Kremlin, who has managed to run rings around the West. These are the painful pictures that show a humanitarian disaster unfolding as we wring our hands and as the opposition in our country has single handedly failed to stand up for military intervention in Syria. So weak is the political opposition that they cannot coherently put together a strategy, but then again, let us not forget who voted to hold the hands of our nation and military at a time when a difference could possibly have been made. It was that same political opposition that cowered in the Commons lobbies and who spoke about the spectre of Iraq when many of those same MPs had supported war in Iraq in 2003.

So as we read these social media statements, ask not what we have done for the people of Syria, but what we have done to the people of Syria through our inaction and moral ambivalence when so many die as we speak.

https://twitter.com/RevolutionSyria/status/807012858320080896

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