Search

Just another WordPress site

Poland

Poland redeploys Patriot missiles to capital city for drills

by www.independent.co.uk Leave a Comment

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails

Sign up to our free breaking news emails

Patriot missile batteries that Poland acquired from the U.S. last year have been deployed to the country’s capital Warsaw as part of military exercise, according to Poland’s defense ministry.

Poland is taking additional steps to strengthen its defensive capabilities as Russia’s war in neighboring Ukraine enters its second year later this month.

At least three ground-to-air missile launchers were seen Monday at Warsaw’s Bemowo airport.

Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said on Twitter over the weekend that the redeployment of the missile batteries from their base in Sochaczew, central Poland, to Warsaw was “an important element to the training” of the 3rd Warsaw Brigade of Missile Air Defense.

The Patriot batteries are part of Poland’s multibillion dollar armaments purchases from the U.S., South Korea and elsewhere.

Poland has also received Patriot batteries from Germany, to boost its air defenses in the east, where a stray missile came from across the border with Ukraine and killed two civilians last year.

Euro Police Arrest 48 Across Four Countries in Relation Over Drugs App

by www.breitbart.com Leave a Comment

BERLIN (AP) – European investigators have shut down an encrypted communication service that was used as a secure channel for organized crime, particularly in the drug trade, and arrested 48 people, German authorities said Monday.

More than 70 properties were searched in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Poland on Friday, when the arrests were made, the criminal police office in the western German state of Rhineland-Palatinate said in a statement.

It said that those arrested were users, operators and administrators of the communication service, Exclu.

The detentions resulted from an investigation launched in 2020, which had its roots in the shutdown the previous year of a former military bunker in western Germany that hosted sites dealing in drugs and other illegal activities. Those included Exclu.

German authorities said Exclu was offered to users as a smartphone app, with a six-month license costing 800 euros ($860). It had an estimated 3,000 users – 750 of them in the Netherlands, where police also were involved in the investigation.

In Accusing Russian Energy Giant Gazprom, E.U. Begins a Test of Wills

by www.nytimes.com Leave a Comment

BRUSSELS — European antitrust regulators on Wednesday charged the Russian energy giant Gazprom with abusing its dominance in natural gas markets, a move amounting to a direct challenge to the authorities in Moscow.

The antitrust chief, Margrethe Vestager, took pains to describe the matter in terms of business markets. But the case cannot help but be a test of geopolitical wills, given the tension between Russia and the West over the Kremlin’s involvement in the Ukraine crisis.

Gazprom’s immediate response seemed aimed at elevating the issue to a matter of international relations. Gazprom suggested that it was not subject to the European Union’s antitrust jurisdiction because it is a state-controlled company. It signaled it was effectively an arm of the Russian government, “empowered by the laws of the Russian Federation with special socially significant functions” and with “the status of a strategic government-controlled business entity.”

In terms of antitrust law, many experts see the European Commission as having an upper hand, along with significant economic leverage.

Gazprom, they say, despite its market dominance, may need European customers even more than Europe needs its gas. That is because changes in the global energy market in the last year have weakened Gazprom financially, while also creating more potential alternative sources of supply.

The European Union is “in a stronger position to take on Gazprom than it has been before” said Christopher J. Weafer, a senior partner at Macro-Advisory, a Moscow-based business consulting firm. He noted, for example, that gas production in Azerbaijan would be coming online at the end of this decade. And he cited the potential of gas from Iran, if sanctions against that country were lifted. Iran has gas reserves comparable to Russia’s.

Europe “seems intent on putting a cap on Gazprom’s position,” Mr. Weafer said. “They can do that.”

Gazprom could eventually face a fine theoretically running higher than 10 billion euros, or about $10.7 billion. But the larger worry for Gazprom is the prospect of being forced to allow more competition in markets it has long controlled.

Mr. Weafer said that one of the few levers Gazprom might have in opposing the antitrust case would be to refuse new contracts to European customers, but that “that would be pretty much cutting off their nose to spite their face.”

Specifically, the European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, said that unfair pricing might have resulted in higher gas prices in Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland — countries that have long been wholly or substantially dependent on Russian gas. In those countries, the commission said, Gazprom was suspected of charging wholesalers prices that were significantly higher compared with the company’s costs or to benchmark prices.

The commission also suspects Gazprom of quashing competition by restricting gas flows to some parts of Europe. Gazprom seems to be “pursuing an overall strategy to partition Central and Eastern European gas markets, for example by reducing its customers’ ability to resell the gas cross-border,” the commission said in a statement.

Ms. Vestager, the European Union’s competition commissioner said, “Keeping national gas markets separate also allowed Gazprom to charge prices that we, at this stage, consider to be unfair.”

”If our concerns were confirmed,” she said, “Gazprom would have to face the legal consequences of its behavior.”

The commission also said that Gazprom might have been leveraging its powerful market position in Bulgaria and Poland by making supplies of gas conditional on those countries’ agreeing to participate in pipeline projects to carry even more Russian gas into Europe. The commission, which described its case but did not publicly share the formal “statement of objections” it had sent to Gazprom, indicated that it suspected the Russian company of strong-arming Poland and Bulgaria.

What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.

Poland operates a pipeline called Yamal in a joint venture with Gazprom. The commission said Gazprom had made gas supplies conditional upon maintaining its control over investment decisions for the pipeline. “This pipeline is one of the main infrastructures that could allow gas from suppliers — other than Gazprom — to enter the Polish market,’’ the commission said.

Bulgaria had agreed to be the landing point for a planned Black Sea pipeline called South Stream, before resistance from Brussels prompted Russia to suspend that plan last year. The commission said Gazprom had made wholesale gas supplies conditional upon Bulgaria’s agreeing to participate in South Stream, “despite high costs and an uncertain economic outlook.”

Bulgarian officials did not immediately respond to questions. A Polish diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case, said that a greater degree of scrutiny should be required in such arrangements when the “bargaining position of wholesalers vis-à-vis a dominant supplier is weak.”

Gazprom said in a statement that it “considers the objections put forward by the European Commission to be unfounded.”

The company added that it “strictly adheres to all the norms of international law and national legislation” and that its pricing policies “are in full conformity with the standards observed by other producers and exporters of natural gas.”

The regulators’ move is a frontal challenge to President Vladimir V. Putin’s economic and geopolitical strategy by potentially limiting Russia’s ability to set prices favoring some customers and penalizing others.

President Dalia Grybauskaite of Lithuania, the country that called most vigorously for formal charges, said, “The decision is a strong signal to consumers and the market that rules apply to everyone.”

”The era of Kremlin-backed political and economic blackmail draws to a close,” said Ms. Grybauskaite, who also called for “swift and conclusive” results in the case.

One analyst said a quick result in the case looked unlikely, particularly since Gazprom had insisted on its importance as a strategic entity of the Russian government.

”I do not expect the government in Moscow to send someone to negotiate directly with Brussels as that would recognize the authority of the European Commission in these matters,” said Sijbren de Jong, an energy expert with the Hague Center for Strategic Studies, a research organization. “Gazprom and Moscow are going to do everything they can to continue to deal with national governments, rather recognize the primacy of Brussels over whom Gazprom deals with, and how,” Mr. de Jong said.

But some antitrust lawyers said Gazprom, and potentially its Kremlin backers, might have little choice but to deal with the European Commission in Brussels. Procedurally, the company has 12 weeks to respond to the commission’s charges.

”Gazprom has suggested since the start of this case that antitrust should not apply, given that it’s one of Russia’s strategic entities,” said Anne MacGregor, who is special counsel in Brussels at the law firm Cadwalader. “But that does not cut much ice with Brussels.”

”Many non-E.U. companies have been found in breach of the Union’s competition rules in the past,” Ms. MacGregor said. “Gazprom has subsidiaries established in the Union, and some of these were the subject of surprise raids by the commission back in 2011 when the case began.

”If you are doing business in Europe, then it really does not matter where you are from or who you are,” she continued. “You still must comply with E.U. rules.”

Gazprom has previously sparred with the commission, more than a decade ago. In those disputes, over its contracts in Western Europe, Gazprom agreed to fundamental changes without paying fines. In a series of settlements from 2003 to 2005, the commission ensured that companies including Eni of Italy, OMV of Austria and Ruhrgas of Germany would no longer be prevented from reselling gas to buyers in other countries.

But that was in a period when Russia was not engaged in military activity in Ukraine or the target of Western economic sanctions. This time, predicted Mr. Weafer, the Macro-Advisory analyst, there will be a considerable amount of political bluster from the Russian government. “The Kremlin,” he said, “is going to complain about this in fairly clear terms.”

The War in Ukraine Intensifies the War for Tech Talent

by www.newsweek.com Leave a Comment

With the war in Ukraine breaking on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic and its ensuing shutdown, tech companies have been scrambling to fill a talent void, especially as the virtual economy becomes increasingly larger.

The second year of the pandemic in 2021 saw the combined effect of the Great Resignation and accelerating demand heat up the war for talent in technology to extreme levels. Tech companies doubled down on the SaaS revolution, wherein software is sold as a subscription service through the cloud rather than a licensed product. Corporate executives accelerated their plans for digital transformation as they saw the virtual economy become more real than ever. It was a harsh awakening for those who believed the war for talent was overblown. In 2021, wages escalated by more than 50 percent and attrition rates exceeded 30 percent in India—the epicenter of the technology talent war. Other parts of the world were not far behind. Technology service providers ate some of these costs and passed some to corporations who have thus far resisted passing those costs on to customers. Many are betting on the transformative (if not addictive) power of digital solutions to drive future growth.

One would think that the recent market downturn may take a bit of the steam out of the demand for tech talent as major software and services firms like Meta , Uber , Twitter and Salesforce have announced hiring freezes or slowdowns in the past few weeks. Big buzzy names in start-up ecosystems like Mural, Cameo, On Deck, Robinhood, Workrise and Thrasio have announced layoffs. The size of tech start-up bubbles worldwide in Tel Aviv, Silicon Valley and Bangalore also appears to have reduced (if not already burst).

If you are hoping for some respite in this war for talent, it is not happening anytime soon. Most view this downturn as a minor speed bump with structural tailwinds behind the digitization of the business and economy. “The digital transformation services specialists like Globant, Endava and Thoughtworks are still projecting over 30 percent growth for the next 12 months and a growth trajectory that remains north of the pre-pandemic approximately 20 percent norm for at least a couple of years,” says Aswin Shirvalkar, a senior industry analyst from Citibank. It will continue to be a talent-constrained market for the foreseeable future where demand exceeds supply.

Even worse, the permanent dislocation of demand supported by the nearly 700,000 (as per Staff augmentation companies DAXX and Qubit Labs) IT professionals in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus will continue to keep the talent supply chain scrambling even faster in the months to come.

Over the past 10 years, Eastern Europe has emerged as a large and potent talent market in the global supply chain outside of India. Unlike India, however, it is fragmented across multiple countries. Ukraine, Belarus and Russia collectively represent the largest at-scale markets for high-end technology talent in Eastern Europe, besides Poland. Several other countries like Romania, Slovakia, Serbia and Latvia have robust talent pools but at a much lower scale. While many corporations in the United States and Western Europe continue to support Ukrainian tech services, the market for 450,000 professionals in Russia and Belarus will for a long time be dislocated due to the likely reticence of Western companies to do work out of those regions.

While some firms in Russia and Belarus have proactively started relocating their employees to Georgia, Armenia and Mexico (which allows Russians to get work permits), the sheer scale of this talent dislocation would require other parts of the talent supply chain in the U.S., Western Europe, East Europe, Asia and Latin America to step in to support this demand. But are the talent supply chains ready?

From the perspective of the corporate customers in North America and Western Europe, several options exist for the global talent supply chain to step in to satisfy this displaced demand. Still, they are already scarce on technology talent to support existing demand in almost all cases.

Option 1. Relocation of Ukrainian talent to continue to support the demand: Most Ukrainian firms have successfully relocated their employees and families to western parts of Ukraine and neighboring Poland and Romania. While a long-term solution is uncertain, pending the resolution of the war, it would be fair to say that the national pride caused by the war has increased the likelihood that displaced Ukrainian families will want to return if possible. Nevertheless, even if Ukraine remains a vibrant talent market in the future, it will stay a geopolitical risk that needs to be dealt with. Firms are more likely to limit their exposure to Ukraine than increase it.

Option 2. NATO Eastern Europe as the alternative: Poland represents the ideal alternative to Russia and Belarus, given similar time zones, cost structures, talent quality and an at-scale talent pool of 300,000 engineers. However, Poland was already struggling to meet the demand, with attrition rates approaching 20 percent. We already see the demand-supply gap escalating in Poland as many corporations look to Poland to source talent. Poland will likely become overheated with wage escalations and attrition that may start approaching India. That leaves the other Eastern European alternatives in Romania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia—but the relatively low scale of these talent pools will not be able to handle the influx of demand immediately. It will take a couple of years before these markets expand to support this demand.

Option 3. Acceleration to destinations in Latin America: Perhaps the largest net beneficiary of the Ukrainian crisis could be Latin America—especially Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, which represent the most prominent talent pools. It comes far closer to meeting the demand for the same time zone and lower cost structure relative to India—especially for demand from North America. However, Latin America is still in the early stages of developing the talent needed to enable the digital revolution—full-stack coders and native digital skills in cloud, data and analytics. Mexico is already heating up with wages for high-end digital talent reaching $100,000 to $120,000, approaching those of several Tier 2 and Tier 3 locations in the U.S. Given currency fluctuations, Argentina has been grappling with high attrition rates between 20 to 30 percent and volatile labor markets. Brazil is viable, but English-speaking talent is in short supply. Latin America is an option for traditional IT talent, but the war for native digital talent will be a harder one to fight.

Option 4. Scaling up in India and China: India has been running red hot, with attrition rates approaching 30 percent and wages escalating over 50 percent in some cases. In fact, before the Ukrainian crisis, several customers were increasingly looking for alternate destinations in Asia (Vietnam), Africa (South Africa) and Latin America (Argentina, Mexico) to source their talent. While the scale of India is clearly a core strength, as a talent acquisition leader in a major tech services firm put it, “We could find the cream of the crop in India a few years ago. Today, we find the crop.” Furthermore, in the light of the recent evolution of China’s relationship with the U.S., it is improbable that China, despite its large talent pool of more than 6 million software engineers, will become the preferred destination for handling the demand not met through Russia and Belarus.

Option 5. Rely more heavily on domestic talent pools in the U.S. and Western Europe: Global talent supply chains were created over the last two decades due to the inherent talent shortage at cost-effective rates in domestic markets. The total tech talent pool in the U.S. and Canada is smaller than either India or China, albeit more productive given culture, skill and time-zone advantages. Western corporations could always go back to this more expensive option, but this would only compound their battle with rising inflation rates across all labor and non-labor inputs to production in the current economy.

At a minimum, the Ukrainian crisis will force corporations to redraw their global supply chains for digital talent. It will be based on the availability of skill set, time zone, scale, geopolitical risks and other such parameters. So, at least in 2022 and 2023, the war for talent should remain intense.

About the Author

Ranjit Tinaikar is the CEO of Ness Digital Engineering, a full-lifecycle digital services transformation company. Before Ness, Tinaikar served as the president of Fitch Solutions (a data and analytical services business) and as the managing director of advisory and investment management (a data analytics business unit of Thomson Reuters). Tinaikar was a partner at McKinsey and one of the earliest leaders in forming its digital practice. He also founded the Lean Software Development and IT strategy practices.

E.U. Debates How to Coordinate With U.S., U.K. If Russia Invades Ukraine

by www.newsweek.com Leave a Comment

On Monday, European Union foreign ministers debate ways to coordinate with the United States and United Kingdom if Russia invades Western-leaning Ukraine.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who chaired the meeting, said no decisions have been made regarding sanctions against Russia, but ministers discussed possible measures to take if an invasion happened.

“The European Union stands united in support of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Borrell said. “Any aggression against Ukraine will come with political consequences and with a high economic cost for Russia.”

According to U.S. intelligence officials, Russia moved 70,000 troops close to Ukraine’s border and is readying for a potential invasion early next year. However, Moscow rebuffed concerns for invasion into Ukraine and denied it has plans to do so.

“We are convinced that Russia is actually preparing for the all-out war against Ukraine,” said Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis.

If the invasion happened, it would be “an unprecedented attack on a country that shows a Western direction. That means that the answer has to be unprecedented from the Western countries as well,” Landsbergis said.

Military experts said that if Russia does invade, while it may face resistance, Ukraine lacks the necessities to fully counter Russia’s military, according to the Associated Press.

“In case of Russian aggression. I will have no choice—every Ukrainian is ready to die with arms in hands,” said Colonel Viacheslav Vlasenko, 53, of Ukraine. “Ukraine will never become a part of Russia. If we have to prove it to the Kremlin that Ukraine has the right for freedom and independence, we are ready for it.”

But the EU ‘s big powers, France and Germany, and other members of the 27-country bloc further from Russia’s borders do not share the same assessment as the U.S., Poland and the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. They acknowledge Russia’s troop movements but do not consider an attack imminent.

In 2015, France and Germany brokered a peace agreement that helped end large-scale hostilities in Ukraine’s east, where Ukrainian forces have been fighting Russia-backed separatists since 2014 when Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.

Efforts to reach a political settlement to the separatist conflict, which has killed more than 14,000 people in seven years, have failed. Sporadic skirmishes continue along the tense line of contact. Russia so far refuses to meet France and Germany for more peace talks on the conflict.

Monday’s meeting was a prelude to a busy week of diplomacy in Brussels focused on Ukraine. EU leaders meet Wednesday with their counterparts from Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Moldova. An EU summit on Thursday will also focus on what actions might be necessary.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.