BEIJING – Chinese President Xi Jinping exchanged New Year greetings with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. On behalf of the Chinese government and people, Xi extended sincere congratulations and best wishes to Putin and the Russian people. Xi said that 2024 marks the 75th anniversary of the establishment of China-Russia diplomatic relations, a new significant milestone in the bilateral relationship. In the extraordinary journey over the past 75 years, China-Russia relations have grown more mature and stable, he said.

In face of the accelerated transformation unseen in a century and a volatile international landscape, China and Russia always move forward hand in hand along the right path of non-alliance, non-confrontation, and not targeting any third party, Xi said. Over the past year, the two heads of state held three meetings in Beijing, Astana, and Kazan, and maintained communication through phone calls, exchanges of letters, and other means, Xi said, adding that they had candid exchanges of views and reached broad consensus on bilateral relations and major international and regional issues of common concern. The political mutual trust and strategic coordination between the two sides have been advancing toward higher levels under the strategic guidance of the two leaders, he added.

Practical cooperation in various fields has yielded tangible outcomes, such as the completion of the China-Russia east-route natural gas pipeline, and the successful launch of the China-Russia Years of Culture has fostered a closer bond connecting the two peoples through generations, Xi said. China and Russia also support each other as chairs of the BRICS mechanism and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), contributing significantly to solidarity and cooperation among the Global South, he added.

Noting that 2025 marks the conclusion of China’s 14th Five-Year Plan period and the 80th anniversary of the victory of the World Anti-Fascist War, Xi said that no matter how the international landscape evolves, China remains committed to deepening comprehensive reforms, advancing Chinese modernization, and promoting global peace and development. Xi also expressed confidence that China-Russia cooperation in various fields would continue to create new opportunities for growth. The Chinese president voiced readiness to maintain close exchanges with Putin and keep China-Russia cooperation on the right course so as to continue consolidating and deepening China-Russia ties featuring permanent good-neighborly friendship, comprehensive strategic coordination and mutually beneficial cooperation, injecting strong momentum into the development and modernization of the two countries, and contributing to the well-being of the two peoples and safeguarding international fairness and justice. For his part, Putin extended heartfelt New Year and Spring Festival greetings to Xi, wishing the Chinese people happiness and good health. (Xinhua)

Photo: Chinese President Xi Jinping shakes hands with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. (X)

SEOUL –  South Korea’s impeached President Yoon Suk-yeol will be arrested before a warrant issued over his short-lived declaration of martial law expires next week, the country’s chief anticorruption investigator has said. Oh Dong-woon, the head of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, told reporters on Wednesday that the arrest warrant against Yoon would be executed “within the valid period”, the last day of which is Monday. “We aim for a smooth process without major disturbances, but we are also coordinating to mobilise police and personnel in preparation,” Oh told reporters at the government complex in Gwacheon, south of Seoul.

Oh warned that anyone seeking to block Yoon’s arrest could be prosecuted. “We consider actions such as setting up various barricades and locking iron gates to resist the execution of our arrest warrant as obstruction of official duties,” he said. Speculation about when and how authorities would take Yoon into custody has swirled since the country’s Joint Investigation Headquarters sought a warrant for his arrest, which a Seoul court granted last Tuesday. Yoon’s security detail previously blocked investigators from executing several search warrants directed at the president, and local media have suggested that authorities would be unlikely to forcibly detain the embattled leader without coordinating with his bodyguards.

If arrested, Yoon would be the first sitting president taken into custody in South Korean history. He is facing criminal charges of abuse of power and insurrection, a crime punishable by life imprisonment or the death penalty, over his brief imposition of martial law on December 3, which plunged South Korea into its biggest political crisis in decades. Yoon’s legal team has argued that the warrant is “illegal and invalid” as investigators do not have the authority to investigate the president for insurrection.

Yoon, who served as the nation’s top prosecutor before entering politics, has been suspended from his duties since December 14, when the National Assembly voted 204-85 for his impeachment. Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok has served as acting president since Friday, when the legislature voted to impeach Yoon’s initial successor, Han Duck-soo, over his refusal to immediately appoint three justices to the country’s Constitutional Court. The court is deliberating whether to uphold Yoon’s impeachment or restore his presidential authority, a process that could take up to six months.

Choi last Tuesday approved the appointment for two justices nominated by the parliament, leaving just one vacancy on the bench. At least six justices on the nine-member court must approve Yoon’s impeachment to remove him from office. Yoon has defended his brief martial law decree as legal and necessary, citing the threat of “anti-state forces” and obstructionism by his opposition rivals. (Al Jazeera)

Photo: Oh Dong-woon, chief of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, speaks to journalists at the Government Complex in Gwacheon. (AFP)

BUCHAREST  –  Romania and Bulgaria have become full members of the Schengen zone, expanding the borderless area to 29 members and ending a 13-year wait for the two Eastern European countries. The expansion, made possible when Austria and other members dropped their objections to the former communist countries joining, officially took place at midnight (22:00 GMT) on Wednesday, marked by ceremonies at various border posts. Identification checks at the land borders between Bulgaria and Romania and their neighbouring European Union member countries officially ceased at midnight, providing travellers free access to the rest of the 27-member bloc.

The two Balkan countries partially joined the Schengen Area in March, but open travel was restricted to those arriving only by air or sea. Late last Tuesday, the interior ministers of Bulgaria and Romania met at the Ruse-Giurgiu border crossing between the two countries to mark the opening of the frontier. Another short ceremony was held at a border crossing between Hungary and Romania with a meeting between Hungary’s national chief of police and the chief inspector of Romania’s border police.

Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007, but were not integrated into the borderless zone until March, when border checks were lifted from maritime and air travel. Land border checks remained in place due to opposition, chiefly from Austria, over concerns that the two countries were not doing enough to prevent migrants from entering without authorisation. The expansion of the Schengen Area came after months of efforts to integrate Bulgaria and Romania into the zone by Hungary’s government as it held the six-month rotating presidency of the EU.

Some one million ethnic Hungarians live in the Transylvania region of Romania, a legacy of the partition of Hungary following World War I. Relations have been historically rocky between the two countries, but opening the border will ease travel and strengthen links between the regions. Schengen, one of the main achievements of the European project, was established in 1985 as an intergovernmental project between five EU countries – France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. It has gradually expanded to become the largest free travel area in the world. However, several Schengen member countries, including the Netherlands, Austria and Germany, this year reinstated some land border checks over concerns ranging from migration to security. Some EU officials warned the reimposed checks could undermine the scheme’s goals. Before Bulgaria and Romania’s partial admission, Schengen was comprised of 23 of the 27 EU member countries, along with Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. About 3.5 million people cross an internal border daily, and more than 420 million people live within the Schengen Area. (Al Jazeera)

Photo: A Bulgarian woman celebrates at a checkpoint at the Giurgiu-Ruse border between Romania and Bulgaria on January 1, 2025. (AFP)

PORT OF SPAIN – A state of emergency was not enough to stop the murder of 39-year-old Keegan Barbour who was shot dead early on January 1 at his home on Laventille Road. His death marks the first murder of the year in Trinidad.

Police said a group of gunmen burst into his home at 1.30 am and began shooting. Barbour ran to the back of the house but the men chased and shot him. Residents in the area called the police and PCs Ravi Chinpire and O’Connor of the San Juan CID responded.

The year ended with 625 murders, with the last murder victim of the year being attorney Randall Hector, who was killed in a drive-by ambush after leaving church on Stanmore Avenue, Port of Spain. On December 30, President Christine Kangaloo declared a state of emergency which gave police and supporting officers additional powers to fight crime. The move came after six people were killed in what was believed to be the beginning of a brutal gang war over the weekend. (Trinidad and Tobago Newsday)

BAKU  –  With Azerbaijan in mourning this week over the Christmas Day plane crash that claimed 38 lives, political scientist Farhad Mammadov’s mind raced back to November 2020.

Then, on the last day of the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, Azerbaijan shot down a Russian helicopter near its border, while it was in Armenian airspace.

“Immediately, the president of Azerbaijan called the president of Russia, took the blame for himself, for the country, brought an apology, and then there was the punishment of the guilty and the payment of compensation,” said Mammadov, who is the director of the Baku-based Center for Studies of the South Caucasus.

Four years later, the roles have reversed — almost.

On December 25, Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 took off from Baku bound for Grozny in Chechnya, with 67 passengers and crew onboard. As the plane neared Grozny in Russian airspace, it appeared to have come under fire from the ground and changed course east, crashing near Aktau in western Kazakhstan. Only 29 people survived.

Although Russian officials at first speculated that the plane hit a flock of birds or an oxygen tank onboard exploded, the damage appeared consistent with that from surface-to-air missiles used by the Russian air defense. Last Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin apologised for the “tragic incident” but did not directly take responsibility on Russia’s behalf, claiming Ukrainian drones were in the area.

However, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev has demanded that Russia formally accept responsibility and pay compensation to the survivors — reflecting the anger in Azerbaijan over Moscow’s handling of the catastrophe, and the expectation that Putin be as upfront about what happened as Aliyev was in 2020.

“Azerbaijan is expecting the same now, which we have not seen yet,” said Mammadov. “And if the Russian side has chosen the path of partial apology, then we will expect subsequent apologies, punishments and compensations at the subsequent stages of the investigation into the ongoing case.”

For many in Azerbaijan, it is not just a question of what hit the plane, but how Russia responded to the emergency.

“What makes this situation even more appalling is what happened after the plane was shot down,” Leyla, a native of Baku, told Al Jazeera. “Landing permission in Russian territory was denied. This is the most gruesome part of the incident and something people cannot forgive.”

Azerbaijani officials have claimed that the pilots were denied emergency landing permission in Russia, forcing them to change course to Aktau, across the Caspian Sea.

“If the plane had been allowed to land in Russia after the mistake was realised, perhaps those lives could have been saved. Instead, the plane was sent to Kazakhstan, a decision made by heartless, incompetent individuals,” Leyla added. “This lack of humanity and accountability is what angers and devastates people the most.”

But could the fate of Flight 8243 also damage Russia’s relations with Azerbaijan?

As a former Soviet republic, relations between oil-rich Azerbaijan and its enormous northern neighbour have been complicated – but, unlike for example, the Baltics, not completely hostile.

Azerbaijan briefly gained independence following the Russian Empire’s collapse at the end of the First World War. But in 1920, the Red Army invaded, bringing Azerbaijan back under Moscow’s wing for the next seven decades. (Al Jazeera)

Photo: People mourn at the grave of flight attendant Hokume Aliyeva during a funeral of the crew members of the Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 killed in a deadly plane crash in Kazakhstan this week, at the II Alley of Honor in Baku. (AP)