32 2GM Monday December 6 2021 | the times
Wo r l d
Estonia A fleet of robots have
gone viral after their efforts to
negotiate an inch and a half of
snow were captured on video. It
shows the vehicles with their
wheels spinning in vain after
being caught in a minor drift.
They were on the way to deliver
meals to a fashionable
neighbourhood in the capital
Tallinn, where residents are
considering having them fitted
with caterpillar tracks.Food delivery robots
get stuck in the snowUAE security adviser to
visit Tehran for talks
Dubai The UAE’s top national
security adviser is visiting Tehran
to meet officials and discuss ways
to expand bilateral ties. The UAE
said that it was trying to ease
tensions but that concerns
remained about Iran’s behaviour
in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and
Lebanon. Talks between world
powers and Iran on how to
restore a 2015 nuclear deal were
suspended on Friday.Vigilantes held after
‘blasphemer’ murder
Pakistan The prime minister
assured Sri Lanka’s president that
more than a hundred people had
been detained after the killing of
a Sri Lankan factory manager
who was accused of blasphemy.
Imran Khan said the death of
Priyantha Kumara, a father of
two, in Sialkot, Punjab, amounted
to a vigilante killing. His body
would be returned to Sri Lanka,
the country’s embassy said. (AP)Soldiers ram and kill
protesters in Myanmar
Myanmar Five people were killed
and dozens injured after a
security forces lorry rammed an
anti-coup protest in Yangon.
Soldiers fired at the protesters
and arrested 15 of them. A verdict
is expected today in the first of a
dozen criminal cases against the
overthrown leader Aung San Suu
Kyi. More than 1,300
demonstrators have been killed
since February’s coup. (Reuters)Motocross racer dies in
Austrian ski avalanche
Austria Three skiers were killed
in an avalanche in the state of
Salzburg and a further two were
injured. Among the dead was
Rene Hofer, 19, who was a junior
world and European motocross
champion. His team, Red Bull
KTM, said in a statement that,
alongside his racing ability, he
would be remembered for his
“approachable, fun-loving and
friendly personality, along with
his ever-present smile”. The skiers
were hit by a 200m-wide slab of
snow, which crashed over a slope
in Tweng. One died at Klagenfurt
hospital after being found by the
police. Another was rescued after
four hours and has since
recovered. (AP)Pupdate Pictures of players from Russia’s Zenit St Petersburg football team went viral after they carried dogs from local shelters onto the field to promote adoption
Beijing has attempted to upstage Pres-
ident Biden’s summit with Taiwan this
week by unveiling a rival forum to high-
light President Xi’s “true democracy
that works”.
It is part of Beijing’s efforts to counter
criticism of its authoritarian govern-
ment and establish China not only as a
democracy but as a superior one.
A white paper released by Beijing
over the weekend said: “China’s whole-
process people’s democracy integrates
ANNA MEYER/FC ZENITEurope must wean itself off its reliance
on the Chinese and American tech-
nology that underpins its societies or it
will be vulnerable to cyberattacks and
other kinds of interference, Finland’s
prime minister has warned.
Sanna Marin also said that the Euro-
pean Union’s dependency on outsiders
for food, energy and medicine made it
fragile. Marin, 36, the world’s youngest
prime minister, said the bloc needed to
become more self-sufficient and indep-
endent in the face of the great power
tensions between the US, China and
Russia.
She said she was concerned that
crucial elements of infra-
structure such as schools, hos-
pitals and transport systems
were increasingly powered by
technology developed out-
side the EU, leaving weak-
nesses that could be
exploited by hostile
countries.
China has set out a
strategy to create a
globe-spanning
“digital silk road”,
including in the
Reliance on China’s tech
makes us weak, EU told
fields of telecommunications and med-
ical technology.
In August analysts revealed the exis-
tence of a Chinese surveillance data-
base containing the names of 2.4 mil-
lion foreign citizens, including tens of
thousands in the EU. Lithuania has
advised consumers to avoid Chinese-
made smartphones and claimed that
some of the most popular handsets
have built-in censorship capabilities,
although this is disputed by the manu-
facturers.
“We have to see that the world is
changing, and not in a good way,” Marin
said. “I think the discussion of Euro-
pean strategic autonomy is a key
element when you look at the geo-
political perspective because if you
are dependent then you are
fragile.
“You can be influenced more
easily if our societies are digit-
ised. If you cut production [in
strategically important sectors]
then we are vulnerable and we
can be influenced.”
Marin is also the first
EU national leader topublicly distance herself from the in-
coming German government’s pro-
posal to create a “federal state of
Europe” by handing substantial new
powers to Brussels and remoulding the
bloc’s architecture. “We haven’t sup-
ported opening the [EU] treaties,” she
said. “We can see that there are many
problems if we open that door... Of
course we are always willing to have a
constructive discussion but we also feel
that maybe the treaties aren’t our big-
gest worry: it’s the real life happening
around us.”
The migration crisis on the frontiers
of Belarus has sent a ripple of anxiety
through Finland, which shares an 830-
mile border with Russia.
After Magdalena Andersson, 54, was
confirmed as Sweden’s first female
prime minister last week, four of the five
Nordic states are now led by women,
with the exception of Norway.
In Finland 11 of the 19 ministers in
Marin’s cabinet are women, as are the
leaders of all five of its ruling parties
and the largest force in opposition, the
right-wing populist Finns party.
Marin said she hoped she “could do
her share” in breaking down the pat-
riarchy but noted that this had been the
work of generations of Finnish pol-
iticians before her.Strongman
on syllabus
in Chechnya
Chechnya
Tom Parfitt Moscow
A biography of Chechnya’s former
leader Akhmad Kadyrov entitled A
Path Bathed in Light has been made
required reading in schools, in the latest
sign of the personality cult surrounding
his son.
Kadyrov, the pro-Moscow president
of the Russian region, was assassinated
by suspected Islamist militants in 2004.
His son Ramzan Kadyrov succeeded
him three years later and has run the
republic like a personal fiefdom ever
since, according to critics.
A survey last year found that there
were 346 streets and lanes in the region
of 1.4 million people named after the
Kadyrov family. There are also scores
of public buildings named in their hon-
our, including schools, sports clubs and
the capital Grozny’s main mosque.
A Path Bathed in Light is being “act-
ively studied in all schools of the region”
in Russian history lessons, the state-
run Grozny TV channel reported. It
was written by Amrudi Edilov, a police
chief who said that he had taken on the
task in response to a call by Ramzan
Kadyrov to boost patriotic education.
His father, when chief mufti of
Chechnya, supported a separatist war
against Russian federal forces in the
1990s but went over to the Kremlin in
2000 when President Putin appointed
him as head of the administration of the
Muslim-dominated republic. He was
killed at the age of 52 in a bombing at a
sports stadium in Grozny.
Ramzan Kadyrov, 45, ran his father’s
militia, which became notorious for
allegedly carrying out torture, abduc-
tions and extrajudicial killings.
Tumso Abdurakhmanov, a dissident
blogger who survived a hammer attack
in Sweden last year, compared the new
book to hagiographies about Vladimir
Lenin in communist times. He added
that historical figures such as the 18th-
century Chechen resistance leader
Sheikh Mansur and the Robin Hood-
style bandit Zelimkhan did not feature
in Soviet schools, “but they remain in
the memory as heroes of our people”.Beijing hosts its own summit to rile US
process-oriented democracy with re-
sults-oriented democracy; procedural
democracy with substantive demo-
cracy; direct democracy with indirect
democracy; and people’s democracy
with the will of the state.
“It is a model of socialist democracy
that covers all aspects of the demo-
cratic process and all sectors of society.
It is a true democracy that works.”
A report issued by China’s foreign
ministry aims to “expose the deficien-
cies and abuse of democracy in the
US as well as the harm of its exporting
such democracy”. It expresses hopethat the US would improve its practise
of democracy and “change its way of
interacting with other countries”.
In an attempt to pre-empt Biden’s
summit for democracy, which begins
on Thursday, Beijing opened its forum
on Saturday. The virtual meeting will
be attended by people from more than
120 countries and regions. Yukio Ha-
toyama, a former Japanese prime min-
ister, and Bob Holden, a former Mis-
souri governor, spoke at the opening.
Beijing is infuriated that Biden invit-
ed Taiwan to the US summit but left
China out, saying it incited division.Finland
Oliver Moody Helsinki
China
Didi Tang Beijing
Sanna Marin said that
the EU’s dependence on
outsiders made it fragile