After Jeddah summit, Ukraine’s peace formula only way forward, says Kyiv’s FM Dmytro Kuleba

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Updated 16 August 2023
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After Jeddah summit, Ukraine’s peace formula only way forward, says Kyiv’s FM Dmytro Kuleba

  • Ukraine’s top diplomat says the world is moving towards a global peace summit
  • Commends Saudi Arabia’s “constructive role in international politics”
  • Says the Global South has suffered as a result of Russian aggression

RIYADH: The world is moving closer to a peace summit, but an end to the conflict with Russia can only be achieved if Ukraine’s peace plan is adhered to, Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian minister of foreign affairs, has told Arab News.

In an exclusive interview, conducted via Zoom, Kuleba said it was “premature” to discuss specific locations or dates for a global summit, but said the dialogue is moving in the right direction — provided the Ukrainian peace formula is implemented.

Senior officials from 42 countries met in Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah on August 5 and 6 in an attempt to draft key principles on ending war with Russia. The summit followed a similar forum in Copenhagen, Denmark, earlier this summer.

“Following the meeting in Jeddah, I can conclude that we’re definitely moving in that direction at a good pace and this is going to happen,” Kuleba said. “We are working hard with Saudi Arabia and other countries involved in arranging this summit, proposed by Ukraine.

“And the deliverable of this summit is very clear — that the peace formula of Ukraine, which is a comprehensive way to solve the conflict, will deliver, and all of the issues covered by this peace formula will begin to be implemented.

“This is the only way forward based on the UN Charter and international law.”

Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, has said he is hopeful that the diplomatic initiative will lead to a peace summit of world leaders in the autumn to endorse the principles, based on his own 10-point formula for a settlement.

He first presented the blueprint at the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, last November.




“Following the meeting in Jeddah, I can conclude that we’re definitely moving in that direction at a good pace and this is going to happen,” Kuleba said. (SPA)

It covered nuclear safety, food and energy security, the release of prisoners, the restoration of territory, the cessation of hostilities, accountability for war crimes, environmental safety, the prevention of future aggression, and confirmation of war’s end.

For its part, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova recently commented that Moscow appreciated the “mediating and humanitarian initiatives” of friends of Russia, but reiterated her country’s rejection of Ukraine’s “peace formula.”

“By promoting Zelensky’s formula, the Kiev regime and the West are attempting to belittle the great importance of peace initiatives proposed by other countries and to monopolize the right to their advancement,” she told a press conference last week. 

The Jeddah meeting concluded without a closing press conference, but the Kingdom has maintained its desire to serve as a neutral intermediary between Russia and Ukraine. On Tuesday, the Saudi Cabinet described the Jeddah summit as a continuation of the Crown Prince’s initiatives and efforts to contribute to the achievement of a lasting peace and reducing the impact and humanitarian impact of the crisis.

At the Copenhagen meeting in June, Ukraine’s demand that all Russian troops withdraw before peace talks could start was seen by some participating countries as an unrealistic demand.

Russia, which controls swathes of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea and parts of Donetsk and Luhansk, has said any negotiations need to take into account the “new territorial realities.”

Asked whether this means the positions of the two nations are irreconcilable, Kuleba said Ukraine had “truth” on its side.

“From all perspectives, legal and political and economic and also historical, Russia must respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders,” he said.

“Its borders were recognized by Russia, as well as by the rest of the world, including Saudi Arabia and other countries. So the difference between our position and the position of Russia is that our position is legitimate and the Russian position is illegitimate.




Assistant Editor in Chief of Arab News Noor Nugali spoke with Ukraine’s Dmytro Kuleba in an exclusive interview. (AN photo)

“And the truth in this case is on our side. So why should we not be pursuing the truth?”

Commenting on the Jeddah summit, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had said “any attempt to promote a peaceful settlement deserves a positive evaluation.”

Asked whether this was a sign that Russia might be open to alternative avenues to peace, Kuleba said Kyiv does not trust Moscow’s words — only actions.

“I think it would be premature and naive to make any conclusions from one comment of the spokesperson of President Putin,” said Kuleba.

“On different occasions, not only him but also other senior Russian officials have stated that the Russian aggression against Ukraine will continue until Russia meets the objectives of this aggression.

“So, we do not trust Russian words. We want to see specific Russian actions and deeds on the ground to draw a conclusion that they are willing to restore peace. As of now, this does not seem to be the case.”

Arab News reached out to the Russian Embassy for comment, but was unsuccessful.

Kuleba acknowledged the prominent role Saudi Arabia has played in efforts to resolve the Ukraine crisis, starting from the prisoner swap it brokered in September 2022 to Zelensky’s address to the Arab League in Jeddah in May this year and, most recently, as the host of this month’s summit.

“I believe Saudi Arabia has been playing a very constructive role in the matters related to the Russian aggression against Ukraine,” he said.




"When Russia unlawfully attacked Ukraine and installed the blockade of Ukrainian sea export of grain. This was illegal and unlawful, by definition,” Kuleba said. (AP)

“We understand that your leadership has recognized an opportunity for Saudi Arabia to play a truly global, constructive role in international politics.

“And I can only commend the vision and the leadership of your country in these matters because to solve global problems, you need global ambition. Saudi Arabia has clearly demonstrated that it has the ambition.

“As a result, it has also demonstrated it has the capacity to deliver, which can only be welcomed and commended.”

Ukrainian officials have lately shifted their diplomatic emphasis toward building support beyond Kyiv’s core Western backers by reaching out to the countries of the Global South.

Commenting on why Ukraine suddenly views the Global South as such an important constituency, Kuleba said many of these nations had suffered as a result of Russia’s aggression.

“Although the Russian aggression against Ukraine takes place in Europe, it has global repercussions and it’s the countries of the Middle East, of Asia, of Africa, of South America, who feel the consequences of the Russian aggression,” said Kuleba.

“This is why it is important to have all of these countries on board in a joint effort to end this conflict, to ease pressure on our economies, on global food security and, of course, to restore respect for international law, which is in everyone’s interest.”

Asked whether he believes nations like Turkiye, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Brazil and even China have sufficient incentives or influence to convince the Kremlin to change course, Kuleba said it would be a gradual process, but one that is moving in the right direction.

“If I look at the list of the countries who took part in the similar meeting of national security advisers and representatives of foreign ministries in Copenhagen slightly more than a month ago, and then at the follow-up meeting in Jeddah, I see that the number of countries participating is growing — including China, who joined the format for the first time — which speaks for the very simple fact that they do see value and their incentive is growing,” he said.

“It doesn’t happen in a day but the overall dynamics of this process is positive. And I would like to once again thank Saudi Arabia for playing a very constructive role in helping other countries to join the process and to realize their interests in this process.”

Kuleba said it was the collective voice of the Global South, as opposed to individual nations, that would ultimately bring Russia to the table.




(Saudi Arabia) has the capacity to deliver, which can only be welcomed and commended, Kuleba said. (AFP)

“If you take China, they enjoy a special relationship with Russia,” he said. “If you take Turkiye, they have a very deep relationship with Russia. If you take Saudi Arabia, you can say the same.

“So, perhaps every country acting on its own doesn’t have a sufficient amount of energy that could make Russia change its position. But if you take all of these countries together, the cumulative effect on Russia can be a game changer.

“And that is the purpose, to bring together everyone who is willing to change the situation for the good. Because together we can stop this war, we can implement a peace formula and restore Ukraine’s territorial integrity, in the interests of the entire international community.”

There are nevertheless concerns among countries of the Global South about jeopardizing ties with Russia by siding with Ukraine. Indeed, even NATO itself seems unsure of how far to go in antagonizing Russia, refusing to offer a clear path for Ukraine to join the military alliance.

“I think these are two separate tracks,” said Kuleba. “Ukraine is steadily moving toward its integration into the EU and NATO for economic and security reasons. This is a very natural choice for our country, given our history and geography.

“Countries of the Global South have lost a lot as a result of the Russian aggression against our country. But this has nothing to do with our aspirations to become members of the EU or NATO.

“What countries of Asia, Africa, Middle East and South America want to see are stable global food markets, prospects of trade with Ukraine, and tapping the full potential of education for their students in Ukraine. All of these functioned perfectly before Russia attacked.

“So, I don’t have the impression that the countries of the world see the situation through the prism of Ukraine’s regional interests, which are about close integration with the EU and NATO.”

Ukraine appears to view Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative in July as an issue with which it could possibly rally support from the Global South.

Ukraine and Russia are among the world’s top grain exporters. The grain deal was brokered by the UN and Turkiye in July 2022 to help combat a global food crisis that had been worsened by the invasion.




Ukraine’s army is attempting to regain swathes of territory, including Crimea and parts of Donetsk and Luhansk, which Russia now controls. (AP)

Russia said not enough grain had reached poor countries under the terms of the deal — a claim disputed by the UN. Moscow also felt that the part of the deal allowing for greater Russian agricultural exports was not being honored by the West owing to sanctions.

Responding to the Kremlin’s argument, Kuleba said Russia has no right to demand preferential terms amid a crisis of its own making.

“We have to go back to February 2022, when Russia unlawfully attacked Ukraine and installed the blockade of Ukrainian sea export of grain. This was illegal and unlawful, by definition,” he said.

“So, when Russia tries to bargain something for itself as a result of its own illegal actions, we cannot talk about accommodating Russia’s legitimate concerns and interests under these circumstances.

“Russia created the problem, and it has to make every effort to solve this problem, instead of trying to keep the blockade of Ukrainian ports, and while trying to secure its own interests in global affairs. This is just not how it works.

“If this kind of Russian behavior is tolerated, then other actors across the globe will be tempted to follow suit, to create problems and then try to solve these problems at the expense of others instead of just removing the initial reason — the fundamental reason for the problems that we all are facing.”

• Noor Nugali is the assistant editor in chief of Arab News


Thailand’s new PM outlines policies to parliament as consumer mood drops

Updated 58 min 2 sec ago
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Thailand’s new PM outlines policies to parliament as consumer mood drops

  • Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra highlights signature plan for a ‘digital wallet’ handout of 10,000 baht to 50 million people
  • The scheme has been criticized by economists and former central bank governors as fiscally irresponsible, which the government rejects

BANGKOK: Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra on Thursday outlined her government’s policy agenda to parliament, headlined by plans to give away 450 billion baht ($13.4 billion) in handouts to jumpstart Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy.
Political newcomer Paetongtarn’s cabinet was sworn in this month, after parliament elected her Thailand’s youngest premier following the shock removal of predecessor Srettha Thavisin by a court decision.
The polices largely continue ally Srettha’s agenda and that of their populist Pheu Thai party, including debt restructuring and legalizing casinos to draw in investment and more tourists.
Paetongtarn told parliament her government was facing challenges, including structural economic problems, and said the government would act with urgency to stimulate growth.
“If there are no financial and fiscal measures to support economic growth, it is expected that the country’s economic growth rate will not exceed 3 percent per year,” she said.
That would result in the public debt level approaching the ceiling of 70 percent to gross domestic product (GDP) in 2027, she said. Public debt stood at 63.74 percent of GDP at the end of July.
“Therefore, it is a great challenge that the government must urgently restore the country’s economy to quickly grow strongly again,” Paetongtarn said.
While she highlighted the signature plan for a ‘digital wallet’ handout of 10,000 baht ($300) to 50 million people, some of which Paetongtarn has previously said will be given in cash, there were no updates on how or when it would be rolled out.
The government had said this week it would distribute 145 billion baht ($4.2 billion) of the program to support vulnerable groups later this month.
The scheme has been criticized by economists and former central bank governors as fiscally irresponsible, which the government rejects. It has struggled to find sources of funding.
The government insists the policy is necessary to energize the economy, which the central bank expects to grow 2.6 percent this year, up from 1.9 percent in 2023 but far adrift of most regional peers.
Consumer confidence dropped for a sixth straight month to a 13-month low in August, a survey showed on Thursday.
Paetongtarn, 38, made her debut appearance in parliament as Thailand’s second female prime minister. She is the fourth member of her family to hold the top job.
Among those was her father, the billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra, Thailand’s most influential and divisive politician over the past two decades, who has backed the stimulus plan and is a key figure behind her Pheu Thai party.


Starmer to say UK’s national health service needs ‘major surgery’

Updated 12 September 2024
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Starmer to say UK’s national health service needs ‘major surgery’

  • His speech in central London follows the publication of a 142-page investigation which found that the health of Britons had deteriorated over the past 15 years

LONDON: Prime Minister Keir Starmer will warn Thursday that Britain’s state-run National Health Service must “reform or die” after an independent report said the venerated institution was in a “critical condition.”
Starmer, whose Labour party was elected by a landslide in July, will promise “the biggest reimagining” of the NHS since it was founded 76 years ago.
His speech in central London follows the publication of a 142-page investigation which found that the health of Britons had deteriorated over the past 15 years.
The report’s author, Ara Darzi, an unaffiliated Lord in parliament’s upper chamber, said the NHS had fallen into “disrepair” due to a lack of investment, top-down reorganization and the coronavirus pandemic.
“What we need is the courage to deliver long-term reform — major surgery not sticking plaster solutions,” Starmer was due to say, according to excerpts of his speech released to reporters.
“The NHS is at a fork in the road, and we have a choice about how it should meet these rising demands.
“Raise taxes on working people to meet the ever-higher costs of aging population — or reform to secure its future.
“We know working people can’t afford to pay more, so it’s reform or die,” Starmer was expected to say.
Health minister Wes Streeting told Sky News there would be “three big shifts” — moving certain services from hospitals to the community, fully switching from analog to digital and “giving staff the tools to do the job, so that we tackle that productivity challenge.”
He said the government would not “do as the Conservatives did, which is just pour more money into a broken model, and fail to reform.”
Labour dumped the Conservatives out of power on July 4 in part on a pledge to “fix” the NHS, accusing the Tories of having “broken” it during their 14 years in power.
Darzi’s report notes that the NHS is seeing a surge in patients suffering multiple long-term illnesses such as diabetes and high blood pressure.
It says the UK has higher cancer rates than other countries and is lagging behind in its treatment of major conditions.
It also notes that waiting lists have swelled to 7.6 million and that a tenth of patients at accident and emergency wards now wait 12 hours or more before being seen.
Darzi said that he was “shocked” by what he discovered but added that the NHS’s vital signs “remain strong.”
Starmer was expected to outline the three areas of reform for a 10-year plan to “turn around the NHS,” whose universal model is a source of British pride, despite its shortcomings in meeting demand.
Just over a year ago, his Tory predecessor Rishi Sunak announced a 15-year drive to recruit more than 300,000 staff to deal with a chronic shortage of doctors and nurses.
At the time, it was estimated that the NHS would have a staff shortfall of 360,000 by 2037 because of an aging population, a lack of domestically trained health workers and difficulties recruiting and retaining staff, in part because of new visa rules.
“The challenge is clear before us; the change could amount to the biggest reimagining of our NHS since its birth,” the prime minister was set to say.
Starmer, whose mother was an NHS nurse, has spent much of his first two months in power blaming the Tories for leaving Labour a dire inheritance in sectors ranging from health to the economy and prisons.
The Conservatives, whose leader Sunak is the son of an NHS doctor and a pharmacist, accuse him of exaggerating the country’s problems as a way of laying the groundwork for future tax increases.


Ukraine businesses hire more women and teens as labor shortages bite

Updated 12 September 2024
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Ukraine businesses hire more women and teens as labor shortages bite

  • Companies hire more women and young people to fill gaps
  • War and mobilization have hollowed out workforce

KYIV: After spending years in what she described as “boring, sedentary” roles in the offices of several Ukrainian companies, Liliia Shulha landed her dream job as a truck driver with Ukraine’s leading retailer, Fozzy Group.
“I always dreamed about big cars. Instead of (playing with) dolls, I drove cars when I was a child,” she told Reuters.
“Now the situation is such that they take people without experience and they train. I was lucky,” said Shulha, 40, wearing a company uniform in front of a large truck.
As the war with Russia drains the labor force, businesses are trying to cover critical shortages by hiring more women in traditionally male-dominated roles and turning to teenagers, students and older workers.
With millions of people, mostly women and children, abroad after fleeing the war, and tens of thousands of men mobilized into the army, the jobs crisis could endanger economic growth and a post-war recovery, analysts say.
Ukraine has lost over a quarter of its workforce since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, central bank data showed.
Nearly 60 percent of businesses said finding skilled workers was their main challenge, an economy ministry survey of over 3,000 companies showed.
“The situation is indeed critical,” said Tetiana Petruk, chief sustainability officer at steel company Metinvest, one of Ukraine’s largest employers with a workforce of about 45,000. It has about 4,000 vacancies.
“The staff deficit that we feel has an impact on our production,” Petruk told Reuters in an online interview.
“We are not the only ones who feel the staff shortages, all companies in the regions feel that, including our contractors.”
Reuters spoke to representatives of nine Ukrainian companies, from big industrial firms to retail groups and small private entrepreneurs. All said staff shortages and a growing mismatch of skills were big challenges.
Businesses said they were changing recruitment and business practices, automating, rotating existing staff and expanding their job descriptions, re-hiring retirees and offering more benefits, especially for younger workers.
They have also had to increase wages. The average monthly wage is now about 20,000 hryvnias ($470) compared to about 14,500 a year ago.
“There is a noticeable shift away from gender and age bias in candidate selection as employers adjust criteria to attract needed employees,” said the Kyiv School of Economics. “This trend also extends to entrepreneurship, where the share of female entrepreneurs is growing significantly.”
More women
Male-dominated industries are more affected by staff shortages, the central bank said.
The construction sector, transport, mining and others have all suffered because of military mobilization, for which men aged 25 to 60 are eligible. To keep the economy running, the government provides full or partial deferrals for critical companies.
In the energy and weapons production sectors, 100 percent of staff are eligible for draft deferral. In some other sectors, firms can retain 50 percent of male staff. But the process to secure deferral is long and complicated.
As the government toughened mobilization rules this year, the number of men preferring informal employment — allowing them to stay off public data records — grew, some enterprises said.
In the agricultural southern region of Mykolayiv, women are being trained as tractor drivers. Women are also increasingly working as tram and truck drivers, coal miners, security guards and warehouse workers, companies say.
“We are offering training and jobs for women who have minimal experience,” said Lyubov Ukrainets, human resources director at Silpo, part of Fozzy Group.
Including Shulha, the company has six female truck drivers and is more actively recruiting women for other jobs previously dominated by men, including loaders, meat splitters, packers and security guards.
The share of female employees is growing in industries such as steel production. Petruk said female staff accounted for about 30-35 percent of Metinvest’s workforce and the company now hired women for some underground jobs. Metinvest was unable to provide comparative figures for before the war.
Some other women are unable or unwilling to join the workforce because of a lack of childcare. Shulha, who works 15-day stretches on the road, has moved back in with her parents to ensure care for her 14-year-old son and 16-year-old daughter.
Young people
Businesses and economists expect labor market challenges to persist. Employers are turning their attention to young people by offering training, job experience and targeted benefit packages.
Metinvest, which previously focused on students, is now increasingly working with professional colleges, Petruk said.
Silpo is more actively hiring teenagers for entry-level jobs in supermarkets and has launched a specialized internship program for students.
Mobile phone operator Vodafone repackaged its youth program, creating an opportunity for about 50 teenagers in 12 cities to get their first job experience.
“We want to offer the first proper experience of the official job to this young audience. Another objective is to build a talent pool,” said Ilona Voloshyna of Vodafone Retail.
“Also we want to understand the youth,” she said in a Vodafone shop in Kyiv as six teenagers consulted with visitors.
The government and foreign partners have launched several programs to help Ukrainians reskill.
“We provide the opportunity for everyone at state expense to obtain a new profession which is in demand on the labor market, or to raise their professional level,” said Tetiana Berezhna, a deputy economy minister.


SpaceX-Polaris crew poised to attempt first private spacewalk

Updated 12 September 2024
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SpaceX-Polaris crew poised to attempt first private spacewalk

  • It is the Elon Musk-led company’s latest and riskiest bid to push the boundaries of commercial spaceflight
  • Jared Isaacman has declined to say how much he is paying for the missions, but they are likely to cost hundreds of millions of dollars

WASHINGTON: The first private spacewalk is set for Thursday by a group of astronauts who will leave a SpaceX capsule after a delay of a few hours, testing a new line of spacesuits in the company’s riskiest mission yet.
A billionaire entrepreneur, a retired military fighter pilot and two SpaceX employees have been orbiting Earth aboard Crew Dragon since Tuesday’s pre-dawn launch from Florida of the Polaris Dawn mission.
It is the Elon Musk-led company’s latest and riskiest bid to push the boundaries of commercial spaceflight.
Live streaming of the event is set to begin at 4:55 a.m. ET (0855 GMT), SpaceX said on Thursday, with two astronauts venturing outside Crew Dragon while two stay inside.
The capsule, at an altitude of 700km (435 miles), will be completely depressurized, and the whole crew will rely on their slim, SpaceX-developed spacesuits for oxygen.
Jared Isaacman, 41, a pilot and the billionaire founder of electronic payments company Shift4, is bankrolling the Polaris mission, as he did his Inspiration4 flight with SpaceX in 2021.
He has declined to say how much he is paying for the missions, but they are likely to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, based on Crew Dragon’s price of roughly $55 million a seat for other flights.
The others in Polaris include mission pilot Scott Poteet, 50, a retired US Air Force lieutenant colonel, and SpaceX employees Sarah Gillis, 30, and Anna Menon, 38, both senior engineers.
FARTHEST SINCE APOLLO
Throughout Wednesday the spacecraft circled Earth at least six times in an oval-shaped orbit as shallow as 190km and stretching out as far as 1,400km, the farthest in space humans have traveled since the last US Apollo mission in 1972.
The gumdrop-shaped spacecraft then began to lower its orbit into a peak 700-km position and adjust cabin pressure to ready for the spacewalk, formally called Extravehicular Activity (EVA), the Polaris program said on social media on Wednesday.
“The crew also spent a few hours demonstrating the suit’s pressurized mobility, verifying positions and accessibility in microgravity along with preparing the cabin for the EVA,” it said.
During the spacewalk, Isaacman and Gillis will exit the Crew Dragon tethered by an oxygen line while Poteet and Menon stay within.
Only government astronauts with several years of training have done spacewalks in the past.
There have been roughly 270 on the International Space Station (ISS) since it was set up in 2000, and 16 by Chinese astronauts on Beijing’s Tiangong space station.
The Polaris crew has spent 2-1/2 years of training with SpaceX mission simulations and “experiential learning” in challenging, uncomfortable environments, said Poteet.
Last month the fighter pilot told reporters in Florida that spaceflight preparation was more intense than he had experienced in his military career.
“I can tell you without a doubt this has been some of the most challenging training that I’ve ever experienced,” Poteet said in Cape Canaveral before the launch.
The spacewalk will happen as a record 19 astronauts orbit Earth, after Russia’s Soyuz MS-26 mission ferried two cosmonauts and a US astronaut to the International Space Station on Wednesday, taking its headcount to a rare high of 12.
Three Chinese astronauts are aboard the Tiangong space station.
The first US spacewalk in 1965, aboard a Gemini capsule, used a similar procedure to the one planned for Polaris Dawn: the capsule was depressurized, the hatch opened, and a spacesuited astronaut ventured outside on a tether.
During the mission, the private Polaris astronauts will be subjects for a range of scientific studies on how the human body reacts to deep space, adding to decades of health studies on government astronauts on the ISS.
Since 2001, Crew Dragon, the only US vehicle capable of reliably putting humans in orbit and returning them to Earth, has flown more than a dozen astronaut missions, mainly for NASA.
The agency seeded development of the capsule under a program meant to establish commercial, privately-built US vehicles capable of ferrying astronauts with the ISS.
Also developed under that program was Boeing’s Starliner capsule, but it is farther behind.
Starliner launched its first astronauts to the ISS in June in a troubled test mission that ended this month with the capsule returning empty, leaving its crew on the space station for a Crew Dragon capsule to fetch next year.


Democrats claiming Florida Senate seat is in play haven’t put money behind the effort to make it so

Updated 12 September 2024
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Democrats claiming Florida Senate seat is in play haven’t put money behind the effort to make it so

  • Democrats hope ballot amendments on abortion rights and marijuana legalization will help boost turnout on their side

BOYNTON BEACH: Florida Democrats made bold claims last week about their chances in a state that has steadily grown more conservative in recent years. But so far they have not matched their words with the kind of money it will take to win there.
“Florida is in play,” proclaimed Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a former representative from Miami, at the start of a bus tour in defense of women’s reproductive rights in Boynton Beach. Mucarsel-Powell is the choice of Florida Democrats to challenge incumbent Republican Sen. Rick Scott for one of a handful of Senate seats the GOP is defending this election cycle.
According to data from AdImpact, which tracks spending on advertising by political campaigns and their surrogates, Republicans have outspent Democrats on Florida’s US Senate race by roughly a 4-to-1 margin through Sept. 11, $12.7 million to $3.2 million. Based on ad spots currently reserved through the general election, that margin is expected to grow.
The dynamics of the Senate race mirror what has happened in the presidential race in a state that used to be hotly contested by both parties’ top-of-the-ticket candidates. Vice President Kamala Harris did not attend the launch of the bus tour and has not been to Florida as a candidate since she replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee for president in the race against Republican former President Donald Trump.
The Republicans’ massive spending advantage may help to explain why Scott scoffs at the claims coming from Democrats about Florida being competitive.
“They are so far from what Florida voters believe in, that they don’t have a chance in the world of winning Florida,” he said in an interview last week. “They don’t have a chance of beating Trump, and they don’t have a chance of beating me.”
Mucarsel-Powell says her side is more in touch with voters on issues such as reproductive rights. She says ballot amendments on both abortion rights and legalizing marijuana will help Democrats turn out voters. She also said the switch from Biden to Harris gave Florida Democrats a burst of fresh momentum.
“This is momentum that has been building for quite some time, and her announcement just was like the tip of the iceberg on the momentum and the energy that was building here around the state of Florida,” Mucarsel-Powell said in an interview.
A national AP-NORC survey conducted in July showed that about 8 in 10 Democrats said they’d be satisfied with Harris as the party’s nominee for president, versus 4 in 10 Democrats in March saying they’d be satisfied with Biden as the nominee.
But Mucarsel-Powell’s task remains formidable. Although some polling shows Scott leading narrowly in the Senate race, national Democrats have yet to invest heavily in Florida’s expensive media markets. Harris, who has proven to be a prolific fundraiser since she became the Democratic nominee, recently allocated $25 million of her own campaign funds to help down-ballot Democrats in November — with only $10 million of those funds going to US Senate candidates. Harris’ campaign did not respond to questions on how these funds were being allocated.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said it has spent money on staffing and digital advertising on the race but didn’t specify how much. In a statement, they did not address plans for spending going forward but said: “Scott’s unpopularity coupled with the strength of Debbie Mucarsel-Powell’s campaign makes Florida one of Senate Democrats top offensive opportunities.”
Scott, who has his eye on a Senate leadership position if he wins, said he would welcome a bigger effort from national Democrats.
“I hope they spend a bunch of money and waste it, because they don’t have a chance of winning the Senate in Florida,” he said.
Florida Democratic Party chair Nikki Fried said national Democrats showed their support by starting their bus tour in Florida and sending campaign representatives there to support Democratic candidates. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who is in a strong enough position in her own reelection bid to work on behalf of other Democrats around the country, was one of several Democrats who joined Mucarsel-Powell at the start of the bus tour.
“They could have started anywhere else in the country. They started here in Palm Beach County, in Donald Trump’s backyard,” Fried said. “That shows how important Florida is, and that they are going to continue to watch what is happening on the ground, send surrogates here and making sure that we are in play for November.”
About 150 people attended the bus tour event.
Fried acknowledged that Democrats have been outspent on advertising in Florida, but she said they’re putting their energy into campaigning at the grassroots level. She said 40,000 new volunteers signed up after Harris entered the race and were making an all-out effort to knock on doors and reach out to Florida voters by phone.
This year’s Florida ballot looks different from the one voters saw two years ago, where US Sen. Marco Rubio and Gov. Ron DeSantis led the top of Florida’s ticket. The governor had hoped to ride a wave of momentum from his emphatic 19-point victory to national prominence but was unable to loosen Trump’s grip on the Republican Party nationally.
Trump, now a Florida resident, defeated Biden in Florida by 3.3 percentage points in 2020, further diminishing its status as a swing state.
Brian Ballard, a Republican political strategist who was a top fundraiser for Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign, said the lackluster spending effort by Democrats will make it harder for Mucarsel-Powell to introduce herself to people across the state who don’t recognize her — as opposed to Scott, who was Florida’s governor from 2010 to 2018 and has since then been serving in the Senate.
The lack of spending from the national party, Ballard said, is “usually a sign of a losing campaign.”
“Florida is not in play,” Ballard said. “I hope the Democrats commit and spend a lot of money in Florida on the presidential race. It’ll move the needle not at all. If she’s relying on Democrats spending on top of the ticket, she’s relying on fool’s gold.”
The Florida contest has not drawn much attention from national Democrats, who are trying to hold onto far more Senate seats than Republicans this year. Instead, they have focused much of their energy and resources on defending seats they already hold, including in the red states of Ohio and Montana. Still, the Florida US Senate race was close in late July, just before the Florida Senate primaries, according to a poll of Florida voters conducted by the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab.
Scott said in the interview that he isn’t “taking a chance” by treating his own race lightly. And yet he has spent at least some of his time campaigning for other Republicans, including a trip across state lines to battleground Georgia last week for a town hall in Braselton, northeast of Atlanta.
“This is a team sport,” Scott said of his efforts on behalf of other GOP candidates.
Tiffany Lanier, 36, attended the bus tour Tuesday morning in Boynton Beach. Lanier, a Lake Worth civic engagement public speaker, said that although Biden ran on a similar platform to Harris, she thinks Harris’ position and emphasis on abortion rights really excites and motivates people to turn out to vote.
“I think it was more like in my wilder dreams that Florida would be in play for this November,” Lanier said. “I know that we are so very tight in the polls, but I do see that there is an energetic shift. And so, I do see a lot of possibility here.”