MONEY

Paul Rouse is CFO and treasurer of Thryv Holdings, Inc., a Nasdaq-listed company that provides a small-business software platform to clients who seek to reach more customers, stay organized, get paid faster, and generate reviews. Rouse has an extensive career in finance and has been CFO of Dallas-based Thryv for over 10 years.

Global Finance: How has the CFO role changed?

Paul Rouse: The speed of change has been incredible. You really have to be flexible and adapt because things move much faster than they used to. I started in public accounting at Ernst & Young, where we did everything manually. Ledgers and calculators. I even took the CPA exam without a calculator. Technology quickly took off. I became the computer auditor in our office simply because I learned how to use the Apple computer we were given. If you adapt quickly and embrace change, it can significantly boost your career. Now, you have to leverage artificial intelligence; if you’re not using it yet, you’re already behind.

GF: What do you use AI for at Thryv?

Rouse: We use it not just for finance but also for business operations, which I think is even more crucial. It automates tasks that people used to handle manually. For example, we use AuditBoard, which tracks everyone involved in a process, including auditors and staff. It’s essentially doing the internal audit work while also functioning as an organizational tool. These tools are vital now.

GF: Were there any tough periods at Thryv?

Rouse: There were two particularly tough periods. First, when I initially joined, we had to turn Thryv around. This involved restructuring the former company, setting up the right platform, and securing the proper capital structure. That was really challenging. Now, we’re at another pivotal point, transitioning fully from a Yellow Pages marketing business to a software company. These are two entirely different businesses. Thryv was formed in a 2017 merger between Dex Media, a Yellow Pages publisher that restructured its debt in 2016, and YP Holdings, another Yellow Pages publisher.

We’ve had to transition out of a declining business. The challenge is running that down for cash flow to fund our growing software business, which saw a 30% increase last quarter, all while keeping shareholders aware that this isn’t an easy journey. We’re close to completing this transition. This year, over 50% of our business will be software.

GF: Is being CFO of a relatively small firm different from the same job at a larger corporation?

Rouse: You have to be deeply involved in the business; it’s not enough to just be an accountant. You need to be an innovator, a strategist, a motivator. You have to lead efficiently, cost-effectively, and simply. For instance, we recently acquired a troubled software company in Phoenix, Arizona. I just got back from there, working hands-on to understand what went wrong, what they’re doing right, and how to integrate it with our existing operations. In larger companies, roles are more siloed.

GF: What keeps you up at night?

Rouse: Ensuring that we have the right capital structure to complete this transition. This means having the right mix of debt and equity and keeping all stakeholders aligned. It’s also about maintaining company morale and supporting our employees through this journey.

GF: What’s the key to maintaining good relationships with shareholders?

Rouse: Communication. You have to consistently keep them informed about where the company stands, especially since the journey is often bumpy and non-linear.

GF: What advice do you have for aspiring CFOs?

Rouse: It’s not for the faint of heart! You need to have the stomach for it. It’s very stressful, but also highly rewarding. And don’t think it’s all about math; it’s more about strategy. I haven’t done a spreadsheet in 20 years. It’s more about leadership, getting the right people on board, keeping everyone motivated, and ensuring no one loses sight of the goals. That’s the job, and I love it.

After months of presidential election coverage, new poll highlights years-long trend of political fatigue in US.

After a year dominated by a relentless and intense United States presidential election campaign, Americans are looking for a break from political news, a new poll suggests.

The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released on Thursday found that 65 percent of US adults said they felt the need to limit media consumption about politics and government “due to information overload [and] fatigue”.

Broken down by political affiliation, about seven in 10 Democratic Party voters – 72 percent – said they were taking a step back from political news. Fifty-nine percent of Republicans said the same as did 63 percent of independents.

“People are mentally exhausted,” Ziad Aunallah, a 45-year-old in San Diego, California, told AP. “Everyone knows what is coming, and we are just taking some time off.”

The survey, conducted in early December, comes weeks after Republican Donald Trump secured a victory in the November 5 presidential election over his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Media coverage focused on Trump and Harris as they spent months on the campaign trail, crisscrossing the country to hold rallies and meet with voters.

Since Trump’s victory, the US president-elect – and his plans for once he gets into the White House next month – have dominated the news cycle.

But like the AP-NORC poll found, US television news ratings show that many Americans aren’t tuning in as 2024 comes to a close.

After election night through December 13, the prime-time viewership of the MSNBC television news network was an average of 620,000 households, down 54 percent from the pre-election audience this year, the Nielsen company said. CNN’s average of 405,000 viewers was down 45 percent over the same period.

There was a marked difference, however, when looking at the numbers at the Fox News channel, a favourite network for Trump supporters.

There, the postelection average of 2.68 million viewers is up 13 percent, Nielsen said.

Since the election, 72 percent of the people watching one of those three cable networks in the evening were watching Fox News, compared with 53 percent prior to Election Day.

Political fatigue and a need to disengage from the news is not a new phenomenon in the US, where polarisation and divisive rhetoric have skyrocketed in recent years.

In 2020, the Pew Research Center found that about two-thirds of Americans reported feeling “worn out” by the amount of news available to them, nearly the same percentage of people who said they experienced news fatigue in 2018.

Pew also reported in September last year that 65 percent of people surveyed said they always or often felt exhausted when thinking about politics while 55 percent said they always or often felt angry.

The same survey found about eight in 10 Americans responded negatively when asked to describe the state of politics in the country with many opting for the word “divisive” to explain the situation.

Arash Javanbakht, an associate professor of psychiatry at Wayne State University in the US state of Michigan, has explained that “the politics of fear” is among the top three reasons why many Americans are disengaging from politics.

“The COVID-19 pandemic, more than a decade of intense political stress, polarizing social media and wars across the world, as well as public disillusionment with US politics and media, have led, I believe, to many people experiencing burnout and learned helplessness,” he wrote in The Conversation this month.

Marcelo Flora, partner and head of Digital Platforms at BTG Pactual, discusses FX management amid elevated geopolitical tensions and the rise of the Chinese yuan.

Global Finance: In a landscape where central bank decisions and carry trades significantly influence global FX markets, what unique value can a bank offer its customers?

Marcelo Flora: Despite major global progress in the fight against post-pandemic inflation, we can see differences in monetary policy cycles across economies as well as different approaches by central banks and their decisions on interest rates. BTG Pactual has a team of FX specialists who can provide tailored advice on navigating the complexities of FX markets, especially in light of varying monetary policies and interest rate decisions across different economies. This includes guidance on hedging strategies and risk management to capitalize on opportunities and mitigate risks associated with carry trades. Custom-tailored offerings and strategies have become a significant trend in corporate banking.

GF: How do geopolitical issues impact your clients’ FX strategies, and how do you address their concerns in this context?

Flora: Geopolitical issues can increase global economic instability and volatility in financial markets. During such periods, investors redirect their portfolios quickly, seeking safe-haven currencies to lower their risk levels. This movement of capital to safer markets strengthens the strongest currencies and depreciates other currency pairs.

Against this backdrop, it is vital to have a customized approach to each specific need in order to understand the level of exposure and use BTG’s diverse hedging portfolio to analyze the best bespoke solution for each client. BTG’s research provides decisive support to the sales team, which helps our clients and other business areas make decisions and highlights potential upside and downside risks.

GF: As Brazil solidifies its role as the world’s breadbasket, what steps have you taken to meet the increasingly specific needs of clients in this sector?

Flora: Brazil’s agricultural sector is a cornerstone of the national economy, contributing significantly to GDP and exports. The annual credit requirement in the agricultural sector is a staggering R$1 trillion, underscoring the critical role of financial institutions in enabling the investment needed to develop and modernize the sector. Our bank has been at the forefront, offering financial solutions tailored to the specific needs of rural producers. BTG has a full shelf of trade finance solutions to address our customers’ needs. We offer electronic trade loans, and pre- and post-shipment to narrow the gap between our clients’ financial needs and their export receivables.

GF: Is there a growing demand for currencies other than the US dollar? What guidance are you providing to customers regarding this shift?

Flora: The US dollar and the euro are still the main currencies used in global payments, but we can see a growing trend for alternative currencies. China has been the main player in trying to internationalize its currency, as it attempts to create alliances worldwide in order to increase yuan usage. China uses its status as a global trade leader to spur the use of yuan in contracts and in export and import payments with Chinese counterparties. The use of alternative currencies can be really attractive and reduce the cost of the total transaction, but as a side effect, it can increase risk and volatility.

GF: How are AI and other breaking technologies helping shape future offerings in the FX market?

Flora: Technology has driven a major change in the FX market. The most significant impact has been on trading. The FX sales desk has developed a more efficient trading and execution tool. By leveraging AI, we have significantly reduced the time needed to close an FX transaction. For next year, we are already working on a solution to improve client experience by streamlining the registration of recipient information and evaluating how we can improve the questions we ask to increase assertiveness and speed up the entire approval process.      

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The decision comes amid a consistent decline in inflation, with November’s annual consumer price index (CPI) falling to 47.09%, the lowest level since June 2023. This represents the sixth consecutive month of disinflation, down from 48.58% in October. On a monthly basis, inflation rose by 2.24%, the smallest increase in five months.  

Disinflationary momentum strengthens in Turkey

The CBRT stated that “leading indicators point to a decline in the underlying trend in December”, with domestic demand continuing to moderate. While core goods inflation remains subdued, service sector prices are showing signs of improvement. Unprocessed food inflation, which had been elevated, appears to have eased in December.  

The central bank noted that the tight monetary stance is bolstering disinflation by moderating domestic demand, fostering real appreciation in the Turkish lira, and improving inflation expectations. 

However, it cautioned that inflation risks persisted and pledged to maintain a prudent approach to monetary policy, adjusting its stance on a meeting-by-meeting basis.  

Looking ahead, the CBRT reiterated its medium-term inflation target of 5%, with a tolerance band of 2%, while projecting inflation to decline to 21% by the end of 2025 and 12% by the end of 2026.  

“We think the new set of projections is now more attainable, but the projected delay in the disinflation process will likely attract some attention”, Muhammet Merkan, economist at ING Group, said recently.

Improved credit rating and economic outlook

Turkey’s recent economic stabilisation efforts have garnered international recognition. In November, Standard & Poor’s upgraded Turkey’s long-term sovereign credit rating to BB- from B+, citing improved monetary policy, stabilisation of the lira, and rebuilding of foreign currency reserves. 

The agency highlighted a narrowing current account deficit, now reduced by about four percentage points of gross domestic product since 2022, as a positive signal.  

Similarly, a recent report by BBVA commended the CBRT’s foreign reserve accumulation and noted the bank’s return to being a net foreign currency buyer. 

Despite these achievements, challenges remain. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) forecasts Turkey’s GDP growth to slow to 3.5% in 2024 and 2.6% in 2025, reflecting the impact of necessary macroeconomic stabilisation measures.  

Market reactions

The Turkish lira remained stable following the rate cut decision, with the euro-lira exchange rate holding steady at 36.61. 

Since November, the lira has strengthened by 2% against the euro, though it has weakened by 12% against the single currency over the course of 2024.  

As Turkey navigates its path to sustained disinflation and economic rebalancing, the CBRT’s strategy of maintaining tight monetary policy while fostering coordination with fiscal measures will be crucial in achieving long-term stability.

Teenager Sam Konstas captured plenty of attention with a superb batting debut on day one of fourth Test in Melbourne.

India fought back with four late wickets to leave Australia on 311 for six on day one of the fourth Test after teen debutant Sam Konstas had lit up the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) with a thrilling knock in the morning.

Tempers rose in blazing heat in front of a bumper Boxing Day crowd of 87,242 on Thursday, with Virat Kohli booed by home fans after bumping shoulders with Konstas on the pitch after the 19-year-old smashed India’s bowlers around the park early on.

Konstas shrugged off the clash on the way to scoring 60 from 65 balls as Australia’s top order rewarded captain Pat Cummins’s decision to bat after he won the toss.

Trapped lbw by Ravindra Jadeja after the second drinks break, Konstas trudged off with huge cheers and the third-quickest half-century (50 from 52 balls) by an Australian test debutant behind Adam Gilchrist and Ashton Agar.

“It was quite surreal, obviously, with the big crowd, biggest crowd I’ve ever played in, and I feel like the boys welcomed me,” said Konstas, who has 11 first-class matches under his belt.

“So just playing with that freedom and backing myself and lucky to get a few runs today. Obviously, a bit disappointed with the way I got out, but hopefully we get a bit of momentum for tomorrow.”

It was left to Jasprit Bumrah to keep India in the fight, the pace spearhead bowling danger man Travis Head for a duck with the ageing ball and getting all-rounder Mitchell Marsh to nick behind for four.

Seamer Akash Deep later chipped in with the wicket of Alex Carey for 31, breaking a rapid, 53-partnership with Steve Smith.

At the close, a patient Smith was not out 68 and Pat Cummins on eight. Marnus Labuschagne made 72 and Usman Khawaja 57.

Bumrah finished as the best of the India bowlers with 3-75.

The five-match series is locked at 1-1 after India won by 295 runs in Perth before being crushed by 10 wickets in Adelaide. The rain-affected third Test in Brisbane was drawn.

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Leading the charge were companies that capitalised on sector-specific trends such as the green energy transition, defence spending, and a resurgence in travel and technology. 

Here’s how the year’s top performers within European large-cap companies achieved their stellar results. 

10. SAP SE 

SAP SE, the German enterprise software leader, posted a 71.56% year-to-date gain through Christmas 2024, driven by strong growth in its cloud business. 

Cloud revenue rose by over 30% year-on-year, with robust demand for its S/4HANA Cloud platform. 

SAP’s integration of generative AI into its software offerings and strategic acquisitions of niche AI startups further cemented its position as a leader in enterprise software innovation.

9. Leonardo S.p.A.

Leonardo S.p.A., the Italian aerospace and defence giant, achieved a 72.41% return so far in 2024. Increased defence budgets across Europe drove demand for Leonardo’s military technologies, including record orders for helicopters. The company’s cybersecurity division also saw significant growth, reflecting heightened global concerns over digital threats.

8. argenx SE

argenx SE, a Belgian biotech firm, delivered a strong 76.01% year-to-date return, thanks to the continued success of Vyvgart, a blockbuster treatment for autoimmune diseases. Robust sales in the US, Europe, and Japan drove revenue growth, while positive clinical trial results for its pipeline drugs reinforced optimism about the company’s future prospects.

7. NatWest Group

NatWest Group, one of the UK’s largest banks, has gained 82.22% year-to-date. Rising interest rates in the UK and Europe significantly improved the bank’s net interest margins, while cost-cutting initiatives and strong growth in mortgage lending and personal banking deposits bolstered its financial performance.

6. Rolls-Royce Holdings

Rolls-Royce Holdings continued its impressive run with a 92.06% year-to-date gain. The aerospace giant benefitted from the rebound in international travel, which boosted demand for wide-body aircraft engines. Rolls-Royce also streamlined its operations by exiting non-core projects, such as its electric flying taxi venture, and reinstated dividends to signal its financial health to investors.

5. International Consolidated Airlines Group

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International Consolidated Airlines Group (IAG), the parent of British Airways and Iberia, saw its stock rise by 94.52% so far this year, as global passenger travel surged back to pre-pandemic levels. 

The company leveraged strong demand for transatlantic and European routes, combined with its rollout of fuel-efficient aircraft, to improve profit margins. 

Additionally, IAG strategically expanded its market presence by acquiring additional airport slots in high-demand cities like London and New York.

4. Rheinmetall AG

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Rheinmetall AG, a German defence company, posted a 115.89% gain this year, benefitting from a sharp increase in European defence budgets amid ongoing geopolitical conflicts. The company secured multi-year NATO contracts and expanded its ammunition production capabilities, positioning itself as a key supplier for Europe’s growing security needs.

3. UCB SA

UCB SA, a Belgian biopharmaceutical company, achieved a 140.05% year-to-date increase, propelled by groundbreaking developments in its drug pipeline. The US FDA’s approval of its neurological treatment was a significant milestone, complemented by strong sales of new immunology therapies launched in the US and EU. Investor sentiment was further buoyed by promising late-stage trial results for several pipeline drugs.

2. Kongsberg Gruppen ASA

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Kongsberg Gruppen ASA, a leader in defence and maritime systems, has delivered a remarkable 177.40% return year-to-date. 

The company capitalised on surging demand for its missile systems and defence technologies, driven by geopolitical tensions in Eastern Europe. 

Its expansion into autonomous maritime systems further cemented its position as a leader in innovative technologies, resulting in record-breaking revenues.

1. Siemens Energy AG

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Siemens Energy AG is the undisputed top performer of 2024, with a staggering year-to-date return of 326.00% by Christmas. 

After resolving significant wind turbine quality issues that had plagued its performance in 2023, the company restored investor confidence by winning record contracts for renewable energy and hydrogen projects. 

Siemens Energy also navigated concerns over insolvency earlier in the year, securing government-backed guarantees to stabilise its financial position.

Lessons from 2023: Can winners repeat?

History suggests that sustaining stellar performance over consecutive years is a rare feat.

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Among 2023’s top-performing stocks, only Rolls-Royce Holdings and Leonardo S.p.A. managed to maintain their positions in 2024’s top 10.

Rolls-Royce gained 92.06% year-to-date, building on a 221.57% surge in 2023, driven by aerospace recovery and streamlined operations. Similarly, Leonardo rose 72.41%, following its 87.64% gain in 2023, supported by increased defence spending and cybersecurity demand.

However, 2025 brings a host of challenges that could reshape market dynamics. The second term of Donald Trump’s presidency raises the risk of U.S. trade tariffs on European goods, adding pressure to an already struggling automotive sector. German and French elections, European Central Bank rate cuts, and the Russia-Ukraine conflict entering its third year will further shape market responses.

In this complex environment, adaptability will be crucial. Emerging opportunities in green energy, AI, and defence technology are likely to drive the next wave of winners. 

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Companies that can navigate geopolitical risks and capitalise on evolving trends will be best positioned to thrive. 

For investors, diversification and a focus on long-term resilience remain essential.

New Delhi, India — As India’s Parliament convened for its winter session in late November, the world’s largest democracy braced for heated exchanges between Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party and the opposition, led by the Congress party.

The northeastern state of Manipur is still burning, after more than a year of ethnic clashes that critics have accused the local BJP government of exacerbating; the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth has slowed down; and one of India’s richest men, Gautam Adani, is at the centre of a corruption indictment in the United States.

But on a cold and grey day in mid-December, BJP leaders marched through Parliament premises holding placards aimed at pushing back against opposition criticism by linking the Congress to an unlikely villain in their eyes: George Soros.

Since early 2023, the Hungarian-American financier-philanthropist has emerged as a central target of the BJP’s rhetoric, which accuses Soros of sponsoring the country’s opposition and backing other Modi critics with the intent of destabilising India. Those accusations sharpened ahead of the 2024 parliamentary elections in which the Hindu majoritarian BJP lost its majority for the first time in a decade, though it still secured enough seats to cobble together a coalition government.

But the campaign has reached fever pitch in recent days, with the BJP even accusing the US Department of State of colluding with Soros to undermine Modi.

In a series of posts on December 5, the BJP posted on X that the Congress leaders, including Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, used the work of a group of investigative journalists — funded in part by Soros’s foundation and the State Department — to target the Modi government on questions related to the economy, security, and democracy.

The BJP cited an article by French media outlet Mediapart claiming that Soros’s Open Society Foundations and the State Department funded the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). Then, it drew attention to the OCCRP’s exposes on the alleged use of Pegasus spyware by the Modi government, investigations into the Adani group’s activity, and reports on declining religious freedom in India to suggest that Soros and the Biden administration were in effect behind this coverage.

“The deep state had a clear objective to destabilise India by targeting Prime Minister Modi,” a BJP spokesperson said at a news conference, adding that “it has always been the US State Department behind this agenda [and] OCCRP has served as a media tool for carrying out a deep state agenda”.

The comments targeting the State Department took many analysts by surprise as the US is one of India’s closest strategic allies. But some experts have suggested that the move is about domestic political posturing, aimed also at aligning the Modi government with the incoming Trump administration’s insistence on how the “deep state” conspires to undermine democracy.

“The instrumentalisation of Western criticism into a domestic political platform represents a rather new phenomenon in Modi’s India,” said Asim Ali, a political researcher. It represents an effort, he said, to build the narrative of a “face-off between a ‘Western-backed coalition’ and a ‘popularly backed nationalist coalition’.”

An ‘easy target’

In January 2023, US-based forensic financial research firm Hindenburg alleged in a report that the Adani Group had been engaged in a “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades”.

After the report’s release, Adani Group’s shares plunged in value by about $112bn, before recovering over subsequent days. The firm has since followed up with more research and analysis on the conglomerate’s business practices.

The Adani conglomerate has denied the allegations. Hindenburg, in turn, received a show-cause notice from the Indian capital market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), accusing the group of using non-public information to build short positions against the Adani Group.

But the fraud and corruption allegations became the centrepiece of the Congress-led campaign against Modi and Adani in the then-upcoming Indian parliamentary elections.

Congress leader Gandhi alleged in Parliament in February 2023 that “the government policies are tailor-made to favour the Adani Group”. He displayed two photographs of the prime minister and the billionaire sharing a private jet and of Modi taking off in an Adani Group jet for campaigning ahead of the 2014 national election.

In February 2023, Soros waded into that Indian political war over Adani. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, he said the Adani crisis “will significantly weaken” Modi’s “stranglehold” on the Indian government.

This was met with furious condemnation from Modi’s party. Then-federal minister Smriti Irani said the founder of the Open Society Foundation has “now declared his ill intentions to intervene in [India’s] democratic processes”. India’s Foreign Minister S Jaishankar described the billionaire as “an old, rich opinionated … dangerous person”.

Al Jazeera has sought responses from Open Society Foundations on the allegations against it levelled by the BJP and ministers in the Modi government but has not yet received a reply. However, in September 2023, it issued a statement about its activities in India, where it said, “Since mid-2016, our grant making in India has been constrained by government restrictions on our funding for local NGOs.”

But the recent criticism of Soros is not so much about the billionaire, said Neelanjan Sircar, a political scientist at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) in New Delhi.

“Soros is an easy target: he represents a lot of money, he represents a position that is critical of Modi, and, of course, funds a lot of things,” said Sircar. “But it is not about him as this abstract entity for everybody to hate – rather, it is his alleged connection to a set of social and political actors that the BJP is trying to vilify within India.”

Since the recent US indictment of Adani, over allegations of bribery in India that the group has denied, Modi’s party has sharpened its attacks on the Congress and Soros, attempting to portray deep links between the two. The BJP cited alleged funding by Soros of the Forum of Democratic Leaders in Asia Pacific (FDL-AP), which has Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi’s mother, as co-president, to bolster its claim. “Soros is not a citizen of this country and he wants to create instability in the country,” said Jagdambika Pal, a member of parliament from the BJP.

The Congress, however, has rejected suggestions that it is influenced by any foreign actor and has insisted that the BJP’s anti-Soros campaign is aimed at distracting the country from the Manipur crisis, India’s economic challenges and the US indictment of Adani in an alleged bribery scheme.

BJP leader and spokesperson Vijay Chauthaiwala denied a request from Al Jazeera for comment on criticism of the party’s attacks on Soros.

Meanwhile, the French media outlet Mediapart in a public statement, said it “firmly condemns the instrumentalisation of its recently published investigative article about OCCRP … in order to serve BJP’s political agenda and attack press freedom.”

The anti-Soros narrative

India is not the only country where right-wing movements have targeted Soros, placing the 94-year-old at the heart of global conspiracies.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has accused Soros of trying to push immigrants into Europe and has tried to stop the billionaire’s support for groups in the country through a legislative bill. In the US, supporters of President-elect Donald Trump frequently accused Soros — without evidence — of financing Black Lives Matter protests and caravans of migrants headed to the US during the first Trump administration.

Often, these conspiracies also carry anti-Semitic undertones, critics say.

But the campaign in India is different, according to research by Joyojeet Pal, an associate professor at the University of Michigan. An analysis of posts on X around Soros found that Indian influencers pushing conspiracy theories about him are generally “careful not to use anti-Semitic tropes” and rather focus on his “soft spot for Muslims”, Pal told Al Jazeera. By extension, that translates into an alleged “hatred of Hindus”, according to this narrative, Pal said.

Pal’s research found that a few social media accounts belonging explicitly to the BJP politicians “were important in putting out the key content” against Soros when the party pushed back against his comments on Adani and Modi. “However, the main amplifiers of content were [pro-Modi] influencers … by aggressively retweeting content to make it viral.”

Presenting Soros as a shadowy puppeteer “is very attractive” for some political movements, said Pal, because it “suggests a broader conspiracy”, showing their opponents “as weak enough that they need to take orders from a foreign manipulator”.

In India, the attacks against Soros have moved from social platforms like X and Instagram to WhatsApp chats and increasingly shows on mainstream television where he is targeted by BJP spokespeople and party supporters.

As a result, “people all the way down to villages know there is this entity called Soros who is targeting India, but none of them know exactly who this person is”, said Pal. “An unknown enemy is much scarier than one you can see and evaluate.”

‘Tone deaf’ or ‘posturing’?

To many observers of India’s foreign relations, the big surprise in recent days has come from the BJP’s decision to paint the US State Department as a party to the supposed Soros-led conspiracy against the Modi government.

In a media briefing on December 5, Sambit Patra, a BJP spokesperson and parliamentarian, insisted that “50 percent of OCCRP’s funding comes directly from the US State Department … [and] has served as a media tool for carrying out a deep state agenda”.

On December 7, the State Department said the BJP’s accusations were “disappointing”, adding that the US “has long been a champion of media freedom around the world”.

Experts too questioned the BJP’s accusations.

“The Indian attack seems tone-deaf and out of step with reality in the sense that the US State Department has seemingly gone out of its way to convey its desire to strengthen and deepen ties with India,” said Michael Kugelman, South Asia Institute director at The Wilson Centre, a Washington, DC-based think tank. “It is very opposite of wanting to malign and destabilise the country.”

The US government has been “really bending over backward to show just how committed they are to partnership with India” on multiple fronts, from security, technology, and trade, to education, he said.

But Kugelman noted that “the BJP’s posturing could be for the incoming Trump administration, which has essentially made the same type of arguments against the so-called US deep state”.

Sircar and Ali, meanwhile, both said the BJP’s focus on Soros as a villain was — in their view — fundamentally rooted in domestic politics. Modi, Ali said, wants to use “anti-Western nationalism as an attractive nationalist plank in parts of India resilient to the lure of Hindu nationalism”.

And in Soros, India’s governing party has found the face to put on its dartboard.

Azerbaijan is marking a day of mourning after a local airline’s passenger plane crashed off the coast of the Caspian Sea.

Authorities across Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia are investigating the emergency landing on Wednesday morning that killed at least 38 people.

Here’s what we know about the crash.

Where did the passenger plane crash?

The plane crashed about 3km (1.8 miles) from the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan, on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea.

It was en route from Azerbaijan’s capital Baku to Grozny, capital of the Chechnya region in southern Russia.

Who was on board?

The Embraer 190 aircraft, flight number J2-8243, carried 62 passengers and five crew members.

According to Kazakh officials, the people on board were citizens of four different countries:

• 42 Azerbaijani citizens
• 16 Russian citizens
• 6 Kazakh citizens
• 3 Kyrgyz citizens

How many of them survived?

There are 32 survivors, including two children, who have been hospitalised, with many in critical condition. Many were pulled out from the wreckage, while some, according to first responders and video footage, dragged themselves out, bloodied.

Kazakhstan’s Deputy Prime Minister Kanat Bozumbayev announced that 38 people had been killed.

Russian news agency Interfax quoted emergency workers at the scene as saying that both pilots, according to a preliminary assessment, died in the crash.

Why did the plane crash?

The crash was reportedly due to an “emergency situation” onboard after a bird strike, Russia’s aviation watchdog said on Telegram.

The plane had to divert from its original route because of heavy fog in Grozny, its intended destination, and make an emergency landing.

Commercial aviation-tracking websites recorded the flight travelling north along its scheduled route on the west coast before it disappeared. It later reappeared on the east coast, circling near Aktau airport before ultimately crashing.

“According to preliminary reports, the plane requested landing at an alternative airport before the accident … due to heavy fog in Grozny,” Al Jazeera’s Yulia Shapovalova reported from Moscow.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in a statement that “according to the information provided to me, the AZAL airline plane, flying on the Baku-Grozny route, changed its course due to worsening weather conditions and began heading toward Aktau airport, where the crash occurred during landing”.

The nearest Russian airport, Makhachkala, was closed earlier in the day due to drone activity.

Strong GPS jamming in the region, which has been linked to past incidents, may have further complicated navigation and contributed to the crash, according to an online post by FlightRadar24.

Aliyev acknowledged that there were multiple theories over what might have caused the crash, but cautioned against speculation.

“There are videos of the plane crash available in the media and on social networks, and everyone can watch them. However, the reasons for the crash are not yet known to us,” the Azerbaijani president said. “There are various theories, but I believe it is premature to discuss them.”

What is the latest on the ground?

Emergency services have been actively responding to the situation.

Firefighters extinguished the blaze caused by the crash, while 150 emergency workers and medical teams, including specialist doctors flown in from Astana, are treating the injured.

Azerbaijan Airlines said it is suspending all its flights between Baku and Grozny, as well as Baku and Makhachkala until the investigation is concluded.

The airline has also set up a hotline for family members of the passengers and posted all their names on its social media pages.

Aliyev also signed a decree declaring December 26 a day of mourning in the country. The Azerbaijani president, who was flying to Russia for a summit at the time, said he was informed of the crash while he was in midair.

“I immediately gave instructions for the plane to return to Baku,” Aliyev said in a statement issued by his office.

What investigations are taking place?

Kazakh, Azerbaijani and Russian authorities said they were investigating the crash.

“An investigative team, led by the deputy prosecutor general of Azerbaijan, has been dispatched to Kazakhstan and is working at the crash site,” the Prosecutor General’s Office in Azerbaijan said in a statement.

Azerbaijan’s state news agency, Azertac, said that the team dispatched to Aktau for an “on-site investigation” also included Azerbaijan’s emergency situations minister and the vice president of Azerbaijan Airlines. Azertac said that the plane’s black box – a flight recorder that investigators use to determine the causes of aviation accidents – had been found.

Aliyev, in his statement, said that a “criminal case has been launched” and that the Azerbaijani public would be “regularly informed” about progress in the investigation.

Kazakhstan has formed a government commission to examine the cause of the disaster and ensure that the families of the dead and injured were getting the help they needed.

The investigations are focusing on potential technical problems and the closure of nearby airspace.

Embraer, the Brazilian manufacturer of the aircraft, has expressed its willingness to assist with the inquiries.

BREAKINGBREAKING,

Journalists from Al-Quds Today were covering events at al-Awda Hospital when their vehicle was struck.

Five journalists have been killed in an Israeli strike in the vicinity of a hospital in central Gaza, according to Palestinian authorities and media reports.

The journalists from the Al-Quds Today channel were covering events near al-Awda Hospital, located in the Nuseirat refugee camp, when their broadcasting van was hit by an Israeli air strike, Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif reported early on Thursday morning.

Footage from the scene circulating on social media shows a vehicle engulfed in flames.

A screenshot taken from a video of the white-coloured van shows the word “press” in large red lettering across the back of the vehicle.

The deceased journalists have been named as Fadi Hassouna, Ibrahim al-Sheikh Ali, Mohammed al-Ladah, Faisal Abu al-Qumsan and Ayman al-Jadi.

Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif said that Ayman al-Jadi had been waiting for his wife in front of the hospital while she was in labour to give birth to their first child.

Breaking: Five journalists lost their lives after their vehicle was incinerated in an Israeli airstrike targeting the broadcasting van of “Al-Quds Today” channel while covering events near Al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp, central Gaza Strip. pic.twitter.com/oiAmxgZwO5

— أنس الشريف Anas Al-Sharif (@AnasAlSharif0) December 26, 2024

Civil defence teams retrieved the bodies of the victims and extinguished a fire at the scene, the Quds News Network said.

There was no immediate comment from Israeli authorities.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) earlier this month condemned Israel’s killing of four Palestinian journalists in the space of a week, calling on the international community to hold the country accountable for its attacks against the media.

At least 141 journalists have been killed in Israel’s war in Gaza since October 7, 2023, according to the CPJ.

The pain is still fresh as Cut Sylvia recalls the last time she looked into her two-year-old daughter’s eyes.

It was a normal morning in the Indonesian coastal city of Banda Aceh in north Sumatra when Sylvia and her husband began to see people fleeing in front of their home, warning of oncoming sea water.

Holding her infant daughter, Siti, in her arms, it was a matter of minutes before Sylvia was overwhelmed by the waves inundating their home.

“I cannot describe that moment when I saw her eyes, and she saw my eyes, and we were staring at each other,” Sylvia told Al Jazeera.

“She was not even crying or saying anything. She was just staring at me. I knew that we would be separated,” she said.

Siti was swept away, taken by the tsunami.

After 15 minutes of feeling as though she was “in a washing machine”, Sylvia clambered on to the rooftop of a house where the enormity of what had just happened began to sink in.

“I felt so sad, very sad. I cannot express with words what I felt when I knew my daughter was lost.”

Sylvia’s husband, Budi Permana, was also washed away, finding safety at the top of a coconut tree – the height the sea waters had risen to. He later collapsed from exhaustion while searching for his family and was found by members of the Red Cross, who initially thought he was dead.

Sylvia and Budi were reunited a week later in the city of Medan, 600km (370 miles) from their destroyed home in Banda Aceh.

No trace of Siti has ever been found.

Lacking closure over the fate of their young daughter, the couple’s grief remains fresh as they, and the world, mark the 20th anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami – the deadliest and most destructive in recorded human history.

‘They tend to just destroy everything’

Just before 8am local time on December 26, 2004, a magnitude 9.2 to 9.3 earthquake struck off the west coast of the Indonesian province of Aceh in northern Sumatra. An estimated 227,898 people were killed or declared missing across 14 countries in the tsunamis that followed.

Indonesia was the hardest hit, followed by Sri Lanka and Thailand, while the furthest fatality from the epicentre was reported in the South African city of Port Elizabeth. With 131,000 people killed, it remains by a considerable margin the deadliest natural disaster in the history of Indonesia – the world’s second most disaster-prone country after the Philippines.

While great advances have been made in tsunami research, sea defences, and the development of early warning systems in the two decades since the Indian Ocean disaster, experts warn that complacency is setting in as memories fade of the scale of the destruction in 2004.

“The thing that’s misunderstood is that a tsunami is not an ultrarare hazard. It’s actually a relatively common hazard,” said David McGovern, a senior lecturer and tsunami expert at the London South Bank University, pointing to a deadly tsunami that battered Japan just seven years later in 2011, the result of the fourth most powerful earthquake ever recorded.

“There are around two tsunamis on average a year that cause death or damage,” he told Al Jazeera.

Concerns about complacency were high on the agenda as some of the world’s leading tsunami engineering experts gathered on December 6 in London at a symposium to mark the 20th anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami, as well as to take stock of the current state of tsunami research.

In a twist of fate, a day earlier, while the attendees were eating dinner at a restaurant in central London, news of a powerful magnitude 7 earthquake off the United States West Coast filtered through to the group. The earthquake triggered a tsunami alert, impacting some 500 miles (800km) of the California and Oregon coastline.

Though the alert was later rescinded, McGovern said the timing “felt strange, to say the least”.

The alert only “reiterated the importance of the symposium and the message it was trying to deliver”, he said.

McGovern, a key researcher at MAKEWAVES – a multi-institutional and multinational project founded by tsunami researchers – said a “heck of a lot” has been learned over two decades of research since the Indian Ocean tsunami, including simply how the waves deliver damage.

“That’s something we didn’t know. And the reason we didn’t know was because tsunamis, in real life, are so destructive that when you do field surveys, the only information they really give you is the maximum values of the destruction,” he said.

“They’re so destructive, they tend to just destroy everything.”

The group’s latest project, announced in September, is the development of a prototype design for what would be a pioneering machine in tsunami wave generation technology – the Tsunami Twin Wave.

When the prototype schematic is completed in 2026, the United Kingdom government-funded design will model for the first time the impact of multiple incoming and outgoing tsunami waves, not only showing how tsunamis cause damage as they come in, but also how they cause damage as they return to sea.

This seemingly simple innovation will fill a “huge knowledge gap” in the field, McGovern said.

Due in part to the misperception of tsunamis being a rare phenomenon, researchers at MAKEWAVES are “always fighting the lack of funding” for tsunami research, McGovern said.

This relative apathy comes despite the heightened risk posed by tsunamis in the coming decades, as sea level rises caused by climate change look set to only exacerbate the issue.

“My hope on the 20th anniversary is that we don’t forget this risk, we don’t assume it was a once in a millennium event, and we continue to prioritise one of the most deadly natural hazards humanity faces,” he said.

‘I didn’t know it would happen so quickly’

It is a question of when, not if, a devastating tsunami of the same scale as 2004 hits again, experts say.

Predicting exactly when such an event will happen is impossible, but few have come closer than Phil Cummins.

He has been described as the person who “essentially predicted” the 2004 tsunami.

More than a year before the Indian Ocean tsunami struck – at an October 2003 meeting of the International Coordination Group for the Tsunami Warning System in the Pacific – Cummins, a seismologist, called for alert systems to be expanded to the Indian Ocean due to what he perceived to be the growing risk of a devastating wave.

Referencing Dutch colonial-era records in Indonesia, he told the meeting in Wellington, New Zealand, that great 19th-century earthquakes caused by fault lines west of Sumatra had generated destructive ocean-spanning waves, and a recurrence of such an event was just a matter of time.

Just months before the tsunami, in August 2004, Cummins reiterated his concerns in a PowerPoint presentation to experts in Japan and Hawaii. He again warned that a giant earthquake could occur in central Sumatra at any time, posing a grave danger to several countries from tsunamis.

Not even Cummins realised just how prophetic his warning would be.

“I was shocked,” said Cummins, an adjunct professor at the Australian National University.

“I guess there were feelings of vindication, but also feelings of guilt, because I hadn’t been standing on the ramparts and screaming up and down. In retrospect, I should have done that, but I didn’t know it would happen so quickly,” he told Al Jazeera.

While the tragedy that unfolded on December 26, 2004 proved Cummins’s prediction eerily accurate, he was wrong about one aspect – the earthquake’s epicentre was in north Sumatra, not central.

In 2003, Cummins and his colleagues at Geoscience Australia had used a computer simulation to map a magnitude 8.8 to 9.2 underwater earthquake that hit off the coast of central Sumatra in 1833, causing a major tsunami. That simulation showed the earthquake’s epicentre was near the cities of Bengkulu and Padang – about 500km (310 miles) south of the 2004 tsunami’s epicentre.

Cummins believed that this area was the “number one place” for a major earthquake and tsunami to recur.

“That’s where everyone thought the next tsunami would be, Padang,” Cummins said.

“The really odd thing is that it still hasn’t occurred. Everyone thought it was going to happen for sure, but here we are in 2024. It’s mysterious,” he said, adding that such an event occurring off the coast of Padang is “still a major concern”.

“Twenty years have gone by, I worry that people have gotten more complacent, perhaps myself included, and I don’t know why it hasn’t happened,” he said.

“From what we know, I’d say it’s still the number one place.”

‘People have become more complacent’

Despite major advances in earthquake alert systems and tsunami awareness and preparedness in coastal communities in countries such as Indonesia, Cummins warned that there is only so much that can be done to protect those living near the likely epicentre of future disasters.

“We still haven’t solved the problem of what to do about communities right next to the earthquake that might be hit by a tsunami. That can happen in as little as 10 or maybe 30 minutes, it’s very little time to get a warning out and for people to react,” he said, pointing to the example of Padang.

“Even though there is some awareness there, I don’t think there is any sense of urgency. I think people have become more complacent. It’s a very crowded coastal strip, a low-lying coastal strip. There’s a river that the population would have to get across. I think it’ll be very difficult to evacuate,” he said.

Rina Suryani Oktari, a professor at Syiah Kuala University in Banda Aceh, has witnessed a similar complacency set in among coastal communities in northern Sumatra as time has passed.

A coordinator for the Disaster Education and Management Research Cluster at the Tsunami and Disaster Mitigation Research Center, Oktari said cheap land prices have drawn many people back to high-risk coastal areas.

“We are now better prepared, but there’s still a possibility that there will be a big number of victims if there’s another tsunami,” she told Al Jazeera. “Many people have come back to live in the coastal area. The population is now even higher than before the [2004] tsunami.”

Cummins, for his part, cautioned that a new mega-tsunami could hit at any time, without warning.

“A lot of people are going to die no matter what,” he said, adding, the “losses will be much greater” if communities are not well drilled.

One couple who have not grown complacent are Budi and Sylvia, who still recount their loss of Siti as a cautionary tale for other Indonesians.

Budi will never give up hope of finding his daughter, despite the two decades that have passed since she slipped from Sylvia’s arms.

He said that for many years, while working for the Red Cross, and now Islamic Relief, he would visit orphanages, asking if they had any girls who had been found during the 2004 tsunami.

Budi draws inspiration from the case of one Indonesian girl who was reunited with her family in 2014, 10 years after she was swept away during the tsunami as a four-year-old.

“I hope that also happens with my daughter,” he said.

“I hope.”

Trump shares social media post attacking ‘radical left lunatics’ and says Canada could become 51st US state.

The outgoing and incoming United States presidents had different messages for the Christmas holiday, with Democrat Joe Biden urging Americans to reflect and unite, while Republican Donald Trump offered a holiday greeting and then took aim at his political opponents.

Biden narrated a video tour of the White House Christmas decorations that was published on YouTube late on Christmas Eve on Tuesday, in which he urged Americans to set aside “all the noise and everything that divides us”.

“We’re here on this Earth to care for one another, to love one another,” Biden said in a voiceover as a camera pans past adorned evergreen trees and bedecked fireplaces inside the White House. “Too often we see each other as enemies, not as neighbours, not as fellow Americans,” he said.

Biden urged Americans to find a moment of “quiet reflection” to remind themselves to treat each other with dignity and respect, to “live in the light” and remember there was more to unite than divide Americans. “We’re truly blessed to live in this nation,” he said.

Trump published a mid-morning “Merry Christmas” message on Truth Social on Christmas Day on Wednesday with a photo of himself and his wife Melania, followed by more than two dozen re-posts of articles or other social media posts that backed his political positions on topics including defence secretary nominee Pete Hegseth and his pursuit of Greenland and the Panama Canal.

Later, Trump published a more lengthy “Merry Christmas” message that claimed Chinese soldiers were operating the Panama Canal, and criticised Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Biden and Democrats.

“Merry Christmas to the Radical Left Lunatics, who are constantly trying to obstruct our Court System and our Elections,” Trump wrote. “They know that their only chance of survival is getting pardons from a man who has absolutely no idea what he is doing.”

“Also, to Governor Justin Trudeau of Canada, whose Citizens’ Taxes are far too high, but if Canada was to become our 51st State, their Taxes would be cut by more than 60 percent,” Trump wrote.

Biden took office in 2021 promising to “end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal,” and said he bowed out of the 2024 presidential race in July to unite the country.

Biden’s Democrats lost every battleground state and both houses of Congress in the November election.

By some measures, polarisation in the country has increased, including during the 2024 campaign that saw Biden face Trump, again, before Kamala Harris took over the Democratic candidacy before she eventually lost the presidential election.

Trump has called for the prosecution of perceived political enemies, the US takeover of the Panama Canal and pledged to restructure the federal government.

Suspected riot erupts inside a prison in capital Maputo, with some officials denying the incident is linked to post-election unrest.

A suspected riot inside a jail in Mozambique’s capital has left at least 33 people dead and 15 injured, while more than 1,500 prisoners escaped, authorities said.

Police general commander Bernardino Rafael on Wednesday said 150 of the prisoners who fled the prison in Maputo have been recaptured.

Mozambique is experiencing escalating civil unrest linked to October’s disputed election, which extended long-ruling party Frelimo’s stay in power. Opposition groups and their supporters claim the vote was rigged.

While Rafael blamed protests outside the prison for encouraging the riot, Justice Minister Helena Kida told local private broadcaster Miramar TV that the unrest was started inside the prison and had nothing to do with protests outside.

“The confrontations after that resulted in 33 deaths and 15 injured in the vicinity of the jail,” Rafael told a media briefing.

The identities of those killed and injured were unclear.

A report by the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) said the prisoners overpowered guards and seized AK-47 rifles, allowing them to escape the correctional facility.

Mozambican journalist Clemente Carlos told SABC the escapees likely took advantage of the Christmas holiday season, when fewer guards were on duty compared with regular working days.

“This shocking incident raises urgent questions about the state of security and the justice system in Mozambique,” Adriano Nuvunga, director of the Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Mozambique, wrote on X on Wednesday.

“Now, more than ever, it is critical for authorities, civil society, and international partners to collaborate to ensure public safety and address the systemic challenges that led to this situation.”

Meanwhile, at least 21 people, including two police officers, were confirmed dead during two days of violence over election results on Monday and Tuesday, including attacks on petrol stations, police stations, and banks.

The fatalities brought the death toll in the country to 151 since October 21, according to Plataforma Decide, an election monitoring group.

Pope Francis calls for “arms to be silenced” around the world, appealing for peace in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan in his Christmas address as he denounces the “extremely grave” humanitarian situation in Gaza.

He used his traditional message to the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics on Wednesday to call for talks for a just peace in Ukraine as the country was pummelled by 170 Russian missiles and drones in a Christmas morning barrage that Kyiv described as “inhumane”.

His voice breathless, the 88-year-old pontiff also appealed for a ceasefire in Gaza and for the freeing of Israeli hostages held there by Hamas.

In Sednaya, Syria, a large crowd gathered near a historic monastery on Christmas Eve to witness the lighting of a towering tree adorned with glowing green lights.

The celebration offered a rare moment of joy in a city scarred by more than a decade of war and its infamous prison, where tens of thousands of people were held and tortured. Families and friends stood by the illuminated tree – some wearing Santa hats, others watching from rooftops – while a band played festive music and fireworks lit up the sky.

Meanwhile, a snowstorm in the Balkans stranded drivers and downed power lines on Tuesday, but some saw the beauty in it.

“I’m actually glad it’s falling,” driver Mirsad Jasarevic said in Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina. “We did not have snow for Christmas for 17 years here, and now is the time for a wonderful, white Christmas.”

Ankara has repeatedly insisted that the Kurdish YPG militia must disband and called on the US to stop supporting it.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned that Kurdish fighters in Syria will either lay down their weapons or “be buried”, amid hostilities between Turkiye-backed Syrian rebels and other armed groups since the fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad earlier this month.

Following al-Assad’s ouster on December 8, Ankara has repeatedly insisted that the Kurdish YPG militia must disband, asserting that the group has no place in Syria’s future.

The change in Syria’s leadership has left the country’s main Kurdish factions on the back foot.

“The separatist murderers will either bid farewell to their weapons, or they will be buried in Syrian lands along with their weapons,” Erdogan told lawmakers from his ruling AK Party in parliament on Wednesday.

“We will eradicate the terrorist organisation that is trying to weave a wall of blood between us and our Kurdish siblings,” he added.

Turkiye views the YPG militia – the main component of the United States-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militia, which has waged a rebellion against the Turkish state since 1984.

The PKK is designated a terrorist organisation by Turkiye, the US and the European Union. Ankara has repeatedly called on its NATO ally Washington and others to stop supporting the YPG.

Al Jazeera’s Sinem Koseoglu, reporting from Istanbul, said this is not a surprising statement by Erdogan “as it is the official rhetoric of the Turkish government”.

Since the YPG is considered “the Syrian branch of the PKK, Ankara believes that they should either lay down arms, or they should fight and they will be defeated,” Koseoglu said.

Earlier, Turkiye’s defence ministry said the armed forces had killed 21 YPG-PKK fighters in northern Syria and Iraq.

SDF commander Mazloum Abdi acknowledged last week the presence of PKK fighters in Syria for the first time, saying they had helped battle ISIL (also known as ISIS) fighters and would return home if a total ceasefire was agreed with Turkiye, a core demand from Ankara.

He denied any organisational ties with the PKK.

Erdogan also said Turkiye would soon open its consulate in Aleppo, adding that Ankara expected an increase in traffic at its borders in the summer of next year as some of the millions of Syrian migrants it hosts begin to return to their homes.

Russia has accused Moldova of plotting a military operation in Transnistria, a Russian-backed secessionist region, setting off concerns among some analysts that Moscow might be a “false flag” attack in Moldova.

Russian intelligence said earlier this week that Moldova’s President Maia Sandu was planning a military operation in Transnistria, which borders Ukraine. Sandu was sworn in for her second term as president on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed that NATO was turning Moldova into a weapons hub for Ukraine, an accusation that is only likely to further fuel fears that Moscow might be seeking a justification for potential action against its smaller neighbour.

Here is more about what is going on with Russia and Moldova — and what to expect.

What has Russia alleged?

On Monday, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service said that Moldova’s Sandu was planning a military operation in Transnistria. Russian intelligence speculated that the military operation could escalate into war.

Sandu’s chief of staff, Adrian Balutel, refuted the claims, insisting that the country had no such plans to militarily enter Transnistria, even though it claims the territory as a part of Moldova.

Then, on Wednesday, Russia added a new allegation — that the US-led NATO had transferred a large number of weapons to Moldova in recent months. Maria Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, said that Moscow believed these weapons were ultimately intended for Ukraine. She cited Sandu’s pro-Western leanings to bolster her claims.

In recent months, Russian President Vladimir Putin has increasingly suggested that not just Ukraine, but other countries that help it in its war against Moscow could potentially be treated by the Kremlin as enemies that it might attack.

What are the ‘false flag’ concerns?

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Sandu has raised the alarm that Moldova could be Moscow’s next target, urging Western leaders to address Moldova’s concerns.

When Sandu was sworn in for her second term this week in the capital Chisinau, she said, “We managed to open the door wide to the European Union.” Moldova has been a candidate country for the EU since June 2022, waiting for Brussels to formally accept its request to join the group.

The Kremlin’s latest accusations, say analysts from the Washington, DC, based Institute for the Study of War, could be part of a larger plan to disrupt Moldova’s accession into the European Union (EU), by destabilising it. The Kremlin, the ISW cautioned in a report, could also be setting conditions “for a false flag operation in Transnistria”.

What is Transnistria?

Transnistria is a Russia-allied breakaway region of Moldova, sandwiched between part of the Dniester River in Moldova, and Ukraine. Romania lies to its West.

The region broke away from Moldova in 1990. In September 2006, it passed a referendum reasserting its independence and calling for a union with Russia. This referendum was not recognised by Moldova.

In February 2022, leaders of Transnistria issued an appeal to Russia for protection. The appeal came days after the Ukraine war broke out, and was similar to appeals made to Russia by pro-Moscow leaders in parts of Ukraine, which Russia used as justification to take over Crimea in 2014, and large chunks of the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces in 2022.

Internationally, Transnistria is recognised as belonging to Moldova, but Europe views the region as occupied by Russia since 2022.

Transnistria hosts Russian troops, as well as a major Russian weapons storage facility, the Cobasna ammunition depot.

Presently, 1,500 Russian soldiers are stationed within the breakaway Moldovan region, according to a report published by Harvard International Review in October.

What are other ways Russia is pressuring Moldova?

Political: Moldova voted in a presidential election last month amid claims of Russia meddling. However, the pro-Western Sandu won 55.33 percent of the vote, defeating former prosecutor general Alexandr Stoianoglo, who had the backing of the Russia-leaning Socialist Party.

In a report published earlier this year, London-based think tank Chatham House said that research by the think tank “suggests that Moscow is also targeting the Moldovan public information space with toxic disinformation”.

Moldova’s national security service has also alleged that pro-Russian oligarchs in Moldova have paid millions of euros to stage antigovernment protests and commit election fraud. These include former Moldovan parliamentarian Ilan Shor, who was convicted in absentia for fraud charges in January.

Energy: Meanwhile, Moldova faces an energy crisis. Moldova receives about 2 billion cubic metres (71 billion cubic feet) of gas from Russia annually. Since 2022, all this gas is sent into Transnistria.

Transnistria then sells electricity, generated using Russian gas, to Moldova.

However, this gas comes through a pipeline that passes through Ukraine. Kyiv has now decided that it will no longer allow the transit of this gas. Sandu has accused Gazprom, the Russian gas giant, of refusing to consider the use of an alternative pipeline, and has tried to prepare Moldova for what she has said will be a “harsh” winter without Russian gas.

Russia’s gas supply to Moldova is expected to end on January 1, 2025. Earlier in December, Moldova declared a state of emergency over the impending shortage.

Transnistria then sells electricity, fuelled by Russian gas, to Moldova.

Violence: In April 2022, explosions targeted the Ministry of State Security in Tiraspol, the largest city in Transnistria. A day later, more explosions destroyed two powerful radio antennas among other facilities in Transnistria.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, alongside other allies of Ukraine, said these explosions were also false flag attacks orchestrated by Russia to portray Transnistria as being under attack from Moldova — because of Moldova’s support for Ukraine.