UKRAINE – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky struck an unusually subdued tone as he addressed his nation this week, hinting at a willingness to negotiate with Russia for the first time since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion more than two years ago.

Zelensky suggested Moscow should send a delegation to the next peace summit that he hopes to hold in November. Russia was not invited to the previous peace conference, held in Switzerland last month, as Zelensky said any talks could only happen after a Russian withdrawal from Ukraine. Kyiv is currently facing the double whammy of a difficult frontline situation and political uncertainty over the level of future support from Ukraine’s closest allies.

While the progress Russian troops are making in eastern Ukraine has slowed significantly since US weapons started arriving in the country in May, it has not stopped entirely. Russia is still gaining territory, albeit at a much slower pace. At the same time, questions are emerging about the willingness of some of Ukraine’s closest and most important allies – notably the United States and Germany – to continue pouring resources into the conflict in support of Kyiv.

Speaking to reporters, Zelensky said Ukraine was not receiving enough Western assistance to win the war, pointing out that its outcome will be determined way beyond Ukraine’s borders. “Not everything depends on us. We know what would be a just end to the war, but it doesn’t depend only on us. It depends not only on our people and our desire, but also on finance, on weapons, on political support, on unity in the EU, in NATO, in the world,” the president said.

Former US Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst said it was plausible Zelensky’s shift in tone was a reaction to the events unfolding in the United States, where former President Donald Trump announced a staunch critic of sending support to Ukraine. Speaking to CNN from the Aspen Security Forum, Herbst said that it was possible Zelensky was trying to reach out to the potential future Trump administration by stressing he would be willing to negotiate – as long as the deal on the table is just.

“It has to be (a) reasonable peace, which does not permit Russian occupiers to continue to torture, repress and murder the people of Ukraine who are being occupied,” he said. Russia has repeatedly denied accusations of torture and human rights abuses in Ukraine despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. (CNN)…[+]

GERMANY – Head of the cybersecurity firm issues a public apology but cautions that a total recovery could take weeks. Businesses and services around the world were slowly recovering after a massive technology outage wreaked havoc across the world and raised questions about the vulnerability of the global interconnected economy.

A faulty software update caused the “unprecedented” outage on Friday, grounding flights, knocking out financial companies and news outlets, and disrupting hospitals, supermarkets, small businesses and government offices. By Saturday, several services were back online, but George Kurtz, the CEO of US cybersecurity company CrowdStrike – whose botched software update on its Falcon Sensor hit Microsoft’s Windows operating system – cautioned that a total recovery could take weeks.

CrowdStrike said it had rolled out a fix for the problem and Kurtz said he wanted to “personally apologise to every organisation, every group and every person who has been impacted” by the widespread glitch. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” he warned in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant and ensure that you’re engaging with official CrowdStrike representatives.”

US President Joe Biden’s team was talking to CrowdStrike and those affected and was “standing by to provide assistance as needed”, the White House said in a statement. “Our understanding is that flight operations have resumed across the country, although some congestion remains,” a senior US administration official said. Junade Ali from Britain’s Institution of Engineering and Technology said the scale of the outage “is unprecedented, and will no doubt go down in history”, telling the AFP news agency that the last incident approaching the same scale was in 2017.

“It shows our increasing dependence upon computers,” said Toby Walsh, chief scientist at the Artificial Intelligence Institute, University of New South Wales. “The irony of course is that the internet was designed to be a nuclear-proof communication network. It is clearly not that at all,” he told Al Jazeera. In Europe, major airports including in the German capital, Berlin, which had suspended all flights earlier on Friday, said departures and arrivals were gradually resuming.

However, dozens of European flights were cancelled. Turkish Airlines said it had pulled 84 flights and Italian officials confirmed about 80 departures had been cancelled. Across Latin America, airports were asking passengers to arrive for flights hours earlier than usual. Chinese state media said Beijing’s airports had not been affected. Companies were left patching up their systems and trying to assess the damage, even as officials tried to tamp down panic by ruling out foul play. (Aljazeera)…[+]

PARAMARIBO – Whenever the political parties that are part of the ruling coalition have launched their election campaign they use state employees to make propaganda. This year is no different and the state employees who are stationed at the District Commissioner’s Offices have already been deployed to carry out political duties.

 Several state employees have been given permission to sign the attendance lists before leaving their workstations to work elsewhere for the political parties. The state employees explained that they receive these instructions from their superiors. They receive their salaries at the end of every month although they were not at their work stations. Other state employees who have to do more work because of this trend have expressed their discontent and made it clear that state employees must do the work that they get paid to do and nothing else. They also made it clear that the political parties must pay these people from their own funds and that they must not spend the taxpayers’ money on their recruits. Reports indicate that the state employees who work for political parties during business hours receive a higher salaries than their coworkers. Their coworkers who do twice the work for even less money complained that this unfair situation is demotivating them. Meanwhile the work that must be done is piling up at several ministries which means that the citizens who go to these ministries have no other choice than to wait several months for their papers to be processed. For now the state employees are focused on promoting their political parties instead of doing the work that they were hired to do. Many citizens complained that they would have to wait until after Election Day for their papers to be processed by these state employees…[+]

 PARAMARIBO – Qatar’s state-owned energy giant QatarEnergy has inked a deal with U.S. oil and gas giant Chevron to acquire an interest in a production-sharing contract (PSC) for a block offshore Suriname.

Thanks to this, Qatar will purchase a 20% working interest in block 5 offshore Suriname, partnering with Chevron. The U.S. firm will stay on as operator and retain a 40% interest, the same as Paradise Oil Company, a subsidiary of Suriname’s national oil company Staatsolie.

Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, the President and CEO of QatarEnergy, said: “This agreement highlights our continued commitment to exploring the promising basins of Suriname and marks an exciting new partnership with Chevron in the international upstream sector.

“We are pleased to conclude this acquisition with our partners and look forward to working with them in block 5, offshore Suriname. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the authorities of the Republic of Suriname, and our partner Chevron for their support in reaching this agreement.”

Block 5 is located in shallow water depths of about 30-45 meters off the coast of Suriname. The license is moving to its second exploration phase, which entails a commitment to drill an exploration well.

Staatsolie and Chevron signed a 30-year PSC for block 5 in 2021. The U.S. major had previously owned a 60% interest in the block but decided to transfer 20% to Shell later that year.

The Qatari giant also has stakes in other blocks offshore Suriname. In May 2023, it inked a deal to hold a stake in blocks 6 and 8, while PSCs for blocks 63, 64, and 65 were signed with partners in December 2023. (Offshore Energy)

GUYANA – Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali had a virtual meeting on Friday with renowned entrepreneur Elon Musk, the proprietor of X (previously known as Twitter).

President Ali took to the X platform to share details of their discussion, stating: “We explored the progression of Guyana’s economy, with a particular focus on innovation and technology sectors, and the potential opportunities within these fields.” The billionaire who is also a prominent figure in the tech world, is not only at the helm of X but also leads the space exploration company SpaceX and the electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla, Inc. (Loopnews.caribbean)