Davos updates | Kyiv mayor grateful for pledges of support

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko speakes at a conversation about the war in Ukraine during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Thursday, May 26, 2022. The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum is taking place in Davos from May 22 until May 26, 2022. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

German chancellor Olaf Scholz speaks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Thursday, May 26, 2022. The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum is taking place in Davos from May 22 until May 26, 2022. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

German chancellor Olaf Scholz speaks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Thursday, May 26, 2022. The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum is taking place in Davos from May 22 until May 26, 2022. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

German chancellor Olaf Scholz speaks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Thursday, May 26, 2022. The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum is taking place in Davos from May 22 until May 26, 2022. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Vitaliy Klitschko, Mayor of Kyiv, Ukraine, speaks during the 51st annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, WEF, in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, May 26, 2022. The forum has been postponed due to the Covid-19 outbreak and was rescheduled to early summer. The meeting brings together entrepreneurs, scientists, corporate and political leaders in Davos under the topic "History at a Turning Point: Government Policies and Business Strategies" from 22 - 26 May 2022. (Gian Ehrenzeller/Keystone via AP)

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — The mayor of Kyiv says he's grateful to receive calls from the leader of other cities around the world pledging their support for rebuilding the Ukrainian capital.

Speaking Thursday at the World Economic Forum's meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Vitali Klitschko says the support is important but “first of all, right now, we have to stop the war. And after that, we have to rebuild all infrastructure which destroyed (by) aggressors."

He says 300 hundred buildings in Kyiv have been destroyed, including 220 apartment towers.

Klitschko says the “main priority right now until the winter season is to rebuild, to make a reconstruction for these buildings and give these services to these people who is right now homeless.”

For that, he says around 80 million euros ($85.6 million) is needed.

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Chancellor Olaf Scholz says Germany must pursue its climate goals even more resolutely because of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

In a speech Thursday on the last day of the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Scholz said Germany’s plan to become carbon-neutral by 2045 has become “even more important” as a result of the war.

He added that while the conflict is not “the sole trigger of the turning point,” it increases the pressure to act. If the Paris climate targets were not met, he says the world would be heading for a catastrophe.

The German chancellor also mentioned how new, emerging powers in Asia, Africa and Latin America are taking advantage of the opportunities offered by globalization. He says that “for too long, we have practically equated ‘democracy’ with the ‘West’ in the classical sense.”

To broaden multilateral cooperation, Scholz says he invited South Africa, Senegal, India, Indonesia and Argentina to the summit of the Group of Seven major industrialized nations in Elmau, Bavaria, next month.

Scholz says, “they represent countries and regions whose cooperation the world needs to move forward on global challenges in the future.”

He added that a new partnership also means showing solidarity in the face of looming hunger, commodity and inflation crises.

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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has sharply condemned Russia’s war on Ukraine and called for global cooperation to overcome life-threatening challenges such as climate change, hunger and dependency on fossil fuels.

Speaking Thursday at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Scholz said the “invasion of Ukraine does not mark the outbreak of any conflict anywhere in Europe. Here, a nuclear-armed superpower claims to redraw borders.”

Scholz said Russian President Vladimir “Putin wants to return to a world order in which the strongest dictate what is right, in which freedom, sovereignty and self-determination are not.”

The German chancellor described Putin’s war politics as “imperialism,” which is “trying to bomb us back to a time when war was a common means of politics, when our continent and the world lacked a stable peace order.”

He says the world is no longer bipolar like during the Cold War between the U.S. and Soviet Union. Instead of using the power politics of past centuries, the chancellor said it’s important all powers work together to solve threats like hunger, climate change or dependence on fossil fuels.

Scholz said: “If some want to take us back to the past of nationalism, imperialism and war, our answer is ‘not with us.’ We stand for the future.”

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Journalists, press freedom advocates and human rights activists debated how governments and the private sector can safeguard a free press.

Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Christophe Deloire said Thursday at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos that while hundreds of journalists have been imprisoned in repressive regimes, there are also “invisible prisons, invisible bullets — journalism itself, beyond journalists, is under attack” by digital platforms and social networks.

Also speaking on a press freedom panel, Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth said that “social media has become a way for autocrats and others to evade that kind of journalistic accountability” provided by traditional news organizations.

Roth said powerful governments can set up “fake sites and trolls” and pump out misinformation.

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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is wrapping up the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting with a speech in Davos.

His address Thursday comes after days of discussions about Russia’s war in Ukraine, a global food crisis, climate change and other hot-button issues.

The yearly gathering of elites that was suspended twice over the COVID-19 pandemic has been overshadowed by the war in Ukraine. It's doused moods among policymakers but not stopping advocacy groups and business leaders from trying to improve fortunes and — as forum organizers hope — the state of the world.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and an array of lawmakers, local officials and business leaders captured the spotlight in-person and virtually to drum up support for their country’s fight.

Attention is turning to Scholz’s near-finale address, mostly to see if he might try to answer two of Ukraine’s key appeals: for stronger sanctions against Russia and better weapons to help their forces fight.