brussels — The European Union on Monday officially launched its mission to protect maritime traffic in the Red Sea, which has been disrupted by Houthi rebel attacks, the European Commission president said.

Several countries have expressed their intention to participate in this mission, called Aspides (“shield” in ancient Greek), including Belgium, Italy, Germany and France. Spain has indicated that it will not participate.

“Europe will ensure freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, in coordination with our international partners,” EC President Ursula von der Leyen posted on X from an EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels.

“We have just approved the launch of the naval military operation Aspides, of which Italy will have command of the forces,” Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani confirmed on X. 

The mission is planned for one year but may be renewed.

It will be up to the mission’s command to determine when it will have sufficient resources to be fully operational. That should take “a few weeks,” according to a European diplomat. 

The German frigate Hessen left on February 8 for the Red Sea, with a crew of 240. It will be in a state of permanent alert and will be able to respond to possible attacks with remotely controlled missiles, drones and boats.

Greek general command  

Belgium has announced its intention to send its frigate Marie-Louise. France has said it is ready to make one of its frigates already present in the Red Sea available to the Aspides mission. 

The EU agreed in January on the principle of a maritime surveillance and patrol mission in the Red Sea, provided that its mandate was purely defensive. 

Greece will assume general command of this mission and Italy will assume operational command at sea, a European diplomatic source explained Friday. 

It will be able to fire to defend merchant ships or defend itself but will not be able to target objectives on land against Houthi rebel positions in Yemen, according to diplomats.  

The Houthis, who control large areas of Yemen, say they have been carrying out attacks on ships in the Red Sea in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where Israel is waging war against Gaza’s Hamas rulers in retaliation for an October 7 attack on Israel.  

These attacks in the Red Sea triggered retaliatory strikes by U.S. and British forces, the latest of which took place Saturday.  
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With Turkey-U.S. relations improving rapidly, Washington offered to allow Ankara to buy its advanced F-35 military jet if it removes to a third country the S-400 missiles it purchased from Russia. But as Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul, the missiles remain a potent symbol of deepening Turkish-Russian ties.
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PRAGUE — Hundreds of Czech farmers drove their tractors into downtown Prague on Monday, disrupting traffic outside the Agriculture Ministry, as they joined protests against high energy costs, stifling bureaucracy and the European Union’s Green Deal.

Farmers across Europe have taken to the streets this year, including in Poland, France, Germany, Spain and Italy, to fight low prices and high costs, cheap imports and EU climate change constraints.

Czech farmers are planning to join protests this week, although major agricultural associations distanced themselves from Monday’s action, in which tractors blocked one lane of a major road through Prague, slowing but not completely snarling traffic.

Several hundred whistling and jeering protesters gathered outside the Agriculture Ministry yelling “Shame” and “Resign”.

“We came today mainly because of the bureaucracy around farming, the paperwork is on the edge of what is bearable,” 28-year-old farmer Lukas Melichovsky said while in the line of tractors.

Another farmer, Vojtech Schwarz, said cheaper imports did not face the same scrutiny as domestic production: “They have a different starting line because we are overseen by a million officials,” he said.

The government has said the organizers of Monday’s demonstration have little to do with real farming.

“Today’s demonstration does not have much in common with the fight for better conditions for farmers,” Prime Minister Petr Fiala said on X social media platform, adding some of its organizers were pro-Russian or had other political aims.

“We are negotiating with those who represent farmers,” Fiala said.

The Agrarian Chamber (AK) plans protests alongside other European farmers at border crossings on Thursday and was not part of Monday’s tractor protest.

Its main complaints are EU farm policy, market distortions and low purchase prices coming from surpluses amid cheap imports from outside the bloc.  

Farmers also complain of costs associated with the EU’s climate change fight laid out in the Green Deal, which sets out agricultural regulations for the bloc’s 27 members for decades.

“Farmers are desperate in this hopeless situation and do not know what they should expect in the near future, let alone the distant one,” AK president Jan Dolezal said last week.  

In Slovakia, farmers were due to protest this week to push the government to help the sector, angry over late subsidies, uneven aid or cheaper non-EU imports, including from Ukraine.  

Tractors took to some streets already on Monday, with TASR news agency reporting farmers had blocked the main border crossing between Ukraine and Slovakia for one hour.

Earlier this month, Polish farmers blocked roads across the country and at border crossings with Ukraine, kicking off a month-long general strike to protest against EU policies.
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Miami, Florida — Lionel Messi and Inter Miami get the new Major League Soccer season under way on Wednesday with pressure on the Argentine star to deliver trophies for his club and more eyeballs on the league.

The World Cup winner joined Inter from Paris Saint Germain in mid-July, the biggest name ever to move to MLS and his signing caused a massive spurt in interest in American soccer.

The eight-times and current Ballon d’Or winner, made an instant impact, leading Miami to the Leagues Cup title, packing stadiums and massively increasing subscriptions to Apple TV’s MLS Season Pass broadcast package.

But the excitement waned as the 36-year-old struggled to maintain his fitness in the face of a hectic schedule and Miami were unable to overcome their poor early season results and make the playoffs.

Then Inter’s decision to undertake a grueling overseas pre-season tour backfired with Messi and the team booed in Hong Kong after the star sat out a high-profile friendly due to injury.

Poor performances added to the sense that money-spinning trips to El Salvador, Saudi Arabia and Japan had been a mis-step for a team looking to hit the ground running this season.

A long and busy season awaits for Messi and his team-mates who as well as competing in MLS, have qualified for the regional CONCACAF Champions Cup.

Miami will also aim to defend their Leagues Cup title — against Mexican as well as MLS opposition — and all those challenges come in a summer which will include Argentina’s bid for the Copa America in the USA.

Messi has been joined in Miami by another veteran striker in Uruguayan Luis Suarez, making up a quartet of former Barcelona players with midfielder Sergio Busquets and left-back Jordi Alba.

Coping with expectation

No MLS team has ever been able to draw on players of such pedigree and experience and with that comes the expectation that they will land the club’s first MLS title.

Messi is well used to such pressure but it is a new sensation for some of the younger players in Gerardo Martino’s squad.

Shanyder Borgelin, the 22-year-old striker who scored in last week’s home friendly against Argentine club Newells Old Boys, says the team can cope with the high expectations.

“That’s expected when you have the greatest player in the world, four of the greatest players in the world, but I think we’re ready,” he told the Miami Herald.

“We are all called up to a big task. I definitely think the (preseason) losses and everything that comes with that made us a lot stronger,” he added.

Miami kick-off their campaign on Wednesday at home to Real Salt Lake with the rest of the league getting under way on Saturday.

Defending champions Columbus Crew start their title defense at home to Atlanta United with their French coach Wilfried Nancy looking to maintain the momentum of a playoff campaign which ended in victory over Los Angles FC.

LAFC, the 2022 MLS Cup winners, host Western Conference rivals the Seattle Sounders in the biggest clash of the opening weekend.

LAFC have lost four regular starters from last season’s team including Italian Giorgio Chiellini, who has retired.

But Steve Cherundolo’s side have added a World Cup winner of their own with France goalkeeper Hugo Lloris joining from Tottenham Hotspur.

Top-scorer Denis Bouanga remains with the club despite reports he could head back to France but the future of the team’s talismanic Mexican forward Carlos Vela remains unclear.

The 34-year-old Vela is a free agent after his contract with the club was not yet renewed.

There are some new faces on the bench with former Aston Villa manager Dean Smith taking charge at Charlotte and Phil Neville, the former Manchester United player and ex-Inter Miami boss now at the Portland Timbers.

The opening games are set to be officiated by replacement referees after talks over a new collective deal between the refs union and the league’s Professional Referees.
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THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The Palestinian foreign minister on Monday accused Israel of apartheid as he urged the United Nation’s top court to declare that Israel’s occupation of lands sought for a Palestinian state is illegal and must end immediately and unconditionally.

The allegation came at the start of historic hearings into the legality of Israel’s 57-year occupation of lands sought for a Palestinian state. The case stands against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war, which immediately became a focal point of the day — even though the hearings were meant to center on Israel’s open-ended control over the occupied West Bank, the Gaza Strip and annexed east Jerusalem.

Palestinian Foreign Affairs Minister Riyad al-Maliki said he stood before the International Court of Justice “as 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, half of them children, are besieged and bombed, killed and maimed, starved and displaced.”

“More than 3.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank, including in Jerusalem, are subjected to colonization of their territory and racist violence that enables it,” he added.

The session, expected to last six days, follows a request by the U.N. General Assembly for a non-binding advisory opinion into Israel’s policies in the occupied territories. Judges will likely take months to issue an opinion.

“The United Nations enshrined in its charter the rights of all peoples to self-determination and pledged to rid the world of the gravest breaches of this right, namely colonialism and apartheid,” al-Maliki continued. “Yet for decades, the Palestinian people have been denied this right and have endured both colonialism and apartheid.”

The Palestinians argue that Israel, by annexing large swaths of occupied land, has violated the prohibition on territorial conquest and the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, and has imposed a system of racial discrimination and apartheid.

“This occupation is annexation and supremacist in nature,” al-Maliki said and appealed to the court to uphold the Palestinian right to self-determination and declare “that the Israeli occupation is illegal and must end immediately, totally and unconditionally.”

After the Palestinians’ address, an unprecedented 51 countries and three international organizations will speak. Israel is not scheduled to speak during the hearings, but could submit a written statement.

Yuval Shany, a law professor at Hebrew University and senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, said Israel will likely justify the ongoing occupation on security grounds, especially in the absence of a peace deal.

It is likely to point to the Oct. 7 attack in which Hamas-led militants from Gaza killed 1,200 people across southern Israel and dragged 250 hostages back to the territory.

However, Palestinians and leading rights groups argue that the occupation goes far beyond defensive measures. They say it has morphed into an apartheid system, bolstered by settlement building on occupied lands, that gives Palestinians second-class status and is designed to maintain Jewish hegemony from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Israel rejects any accusation of apartheid.

Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek all three areas for an independent state. Israel considers the West Bank to be disputed territory, whose future should be decided in negotiations.

It has built 146 settlements across the West Bank, according to watchdog group Peace Now, many of which resemble fully developed suburbs and small towns. The settlements are home to more than 500,000 Jewish settlers, while around 3 million Palestinians live in the territory.

Israel annexed east Jerusalem and considers the entire city to be its capital. An additional 200,000 Israelis live in settlements built in east Jerusalem that Israel considers to be neighborhoods of its capital. Palestinian residents of the city face systematic discrimination, making it difficult for them to build new homes or expand existing ones.

Israel withdrew all of its soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005, but continued to control the territory’s airspace, coastline and population registry. Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade on Gaza when the Palestinian militant Hamas group seized power there in 2007.

The international community overwhelmingly considers the settlements to be illegal. Israel’s annexation of east Jerusalem, home to the city’s most sensitive holy sites, is not internationally recognized.

It’s not the first time the court has been asked to give an advisory opinion on Israeli policies.

In 2004, it said a separation barrier Israel built through east Jerusalem and parts of the West Bank was “contrary to international law.” It also called on Israel to immediately halt construction. Israel has ignored the ruling.

Also, late last month, the court ordered Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in its campaign in Gaza. The order came at a preliminary stage of a case filed by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide, a charge that Israel denied.

South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress, has long compared Israel’s policies in Gaza and the West Bank to the apartheid regime of white minority rule in South Africa, which restricted most Black people to “homelands” before ending in 1994.
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LONDON — Alexei Navalny was asked four years ago what he’d tell Russians if he were killed for challenging President Vladimir Putin.

“You’re not allowed to give up,” he told a documentary maker. “If they decide to kill me, it means we are incredibly strong and we need to use this power.”

Russia’s prison agency announced Friday that Navalny had died in the Arctic penal colony where he was serving a 19-year sentence on charges of extremism. His death sparked accusations around the world that he had been killed.

What does the opposition do now? 

Kremlin political critics, turncoat spies and investigative journalists have been killed or assaulted in a variety of ways. The Russian opposition has lost its brightest star with Navalny’s sudden death in a prison colony. Now the question on everyone’s mind: What does it do now?

Most of Russia’s opposition is either dead, scattered abroad in exile or in prison at home. Remaining opposition groups and key political figures have different visions about what Russia should become, and who should lead it. There is not even an anti-war candidate on the ballot to give Putin a token challenge in next month’s election for a sixth term.

The end of dissent? 

With Navalny’s elimination from the picture, many are wondering if this is the end of political dissent in Russia.

“Alexei Navalny was a very bright and charismatic leader. He had the talent to ignite people, to convince them of the need for change,” said Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former tycoon who spent a decade in prison in Russia on charges widely seen as political revenge for challenging Putin’s rule in the early 2000s.

“This is a very difficult loss for the Russian opposition,” he told The Associated Press.

Graeme Robertson, a professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of a book about Putin and contemporary Russian politics, says the biggest problem that has plagued the Russian opposition “is that it has been unable to break out from small liberal circles to attract support from the broader population.”

Khodorkovsky, who lives in London, is one of several Russian opposition politicians trying to build a coalition with grassroots anti-war groups across the world and exiled Russian opposition figures. They include Russian chess legend Garry Kasparov, Mikhail Kasyanov, a former Russian prime minister and Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr. who is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence in Russia for treason after criticizing Russia’s war in Ukraine.

But Navalny’s team, and the Anti-Corruption Foundation he founded, are not a part of it.

“We constantly tell the guys from the Anti-Corruption Foundation … that it would be great if we all met not only in front of television cameras, but sat down at the table,” Khodorkovsky said in another interview before Navalny’s death, referring to a television debate in January hosted by the independent Russian TV channel Dozhd.

While Navalny was the first leader to build a national Russian opposition, there were other opposition factions who didn’t like him or his organization.

Before his death, there were public and heated disagreements on social media between members of his team and other politicians about how they could challenge Putin in March’s upcoming election.

Putin consolidates power 

Meanwhile, the Russian leader has continued to consolidate his grip on power, cracking down on dissent at home, imprisoning critics of the war in Ukraine, and silencing independent media.

Squabbling among the opposition, “doesn’t help,” said Nigel Gould-Davies, a former British ambassador to Belarus and senior fellow for Russia & Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

But, even if the opposition were united, he questioned whether “given the instruments of coercion, repression and intimidation available to the Russian state, what difference, at least in the short term, would that make?”

Three decades of Putin 

Putin is eyeing at least another six years in the Kremlin, which means he could effectively rule Russia for almost three decades.

Russia’s remaining opposition leaders and activists, largely outside the country, are now grappling with the question of how to mount an effective challenge to the Kremlin. That would mean breaking through state propaganda to reach Russians inside the country and offer them an alternative to the Kremlin’s vision of the future.

It is a difficult task, one which even Navalny struggled with after he returned to Moscow in February 2021 to face certain arrest after recuperating in Germany from a nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin.

Shortly after his return while he was in jail, his team released a social media investigation into corruption that was viewed millions of times. It provoked a series of anti-graft protests across Russia, but the police brutally cracked down and detained thousands of people.

While Navalny’s team continued to publish successful investigative reports, they ultimately suspended the protests and said they would switch to different tactics.

Although Navalny had his finger on the pulse, and his team succeeded in widely publicizing the investigation, the anti-corruption message ultimately failed to produce political change inside Russia, Robertson said, because most Russians “know their country is badly governed and that their elite is corrupt, but they don’t see it being any other way.”

In the three years since Navalny was jailed, Russian authorities have introduced more laws tightening freedom of speech and jailing critics, often ordinary people, sometimes for decades.

Khodorkovsky said the response to Navalny’s “murder” should be to join forces and continue work started before Navalny’s death, trying to convince ordinary Russians to protest in any way they can during March’s presidential election.

He called on Russians to protest by writing Navalny’s name on the ballot paper during the election. The Russian Anti-War Committee, backed by Khodorkovsky and other politicians, is also asking Russians to attend “Noon against Putin,” an idea that was supported by Navalny in early February, which suggests using the pretext of the vote as an opportunity to gather and protest at noon on March 17.

Opposition in exile 

In the meantime, the Russian opposition faces a future largely in exile without one of its brightest leaders.

It will be incredibly difficult, but Russia’s exiled politicians say they are determined that the hope of democracy in their country does not die along with Navalny.

“Putin,” Khodorkovsky said, “must understand that he can kill his political opponent, but not the very idea of a democratic opposition.”
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BERLIN — This week’s Berlin international film festival is wrestling on- and off-screen with the weight of the Nazi past and the menace of a resurgent far right.

The 74th Berlinale, as the event is known, has a reputation for confronting political realities head-on with high-profile movies and hot-tempered debates.

German director Julia von Heinz brought together an unlikely pair, U.S. actor Lena Dunham and Britain’s Stephen Fry, for her drama “Treasure,” about a Holocaust survivor who returns to Poland with his journalist daughter.

Inspired by a true story, the film shows their journey following the fall of the Iron Curtain, after decades of family silence about the Nazi period.

Fry plays the seemingly jovial Edek searching for a connection with his uptight daughter Ruth (Dunham).

Their travels take them to Edek’s childhood home in Lodz, where they make the chilling discovery that a family living in his old flat is still using his parents’ porcelain tea service, silverware and a green velvet sofa they abandoned when they were deported.

Fearful it is the last chance to record his memories, Ruth convinces Edek to return to Auschwitz.

‘A new perspective’

Von Heinz, speaking after a warmly received screening, said that a rise in anti-Semitic incidents in the wake of the Gaza war had spurred her to finish the film for the Berlinale.

She rejected suggestions there had been “enough” movies dealing with the Nazi period.

“There can never be enough stories to be told about this and I think we are giving it a new perspective,” she said.

Fry added: “While history may not repeat itself, as somebody once put it, (it) rhymes and there are similar feelings now as we know rising up.”

The actor, who had several relatives who were killed at Auschwitz, said it was “an extraordinary feeling” to shoot scenes outside the former death camp.

Dunham, who also lost ancestors in the Holocaust, insisted its lessons are both rooted in the Jewish experience and transcend it.

“It’s important to acknowledge that the far right, be it here or in the U.S. — there’s an incredible and shocking amount of anti-Semitic rhetoric and there’s also a shocking amount of Islamophobic rhetoric, anti-Black rhetoric, transphobic rhetoric,” she said. “The goal is to isolate people based on their identities and make them feel inhuman and that’s a universal story unfortunately.”

Resistance ‘superheroes’

“From Hilde, With Love,” starring Liv Lisa Fries of international hit series “Babylon Berlin,” also debuted at the festival over the weekend.

It tells the true story of Hilde Coppi, a member of the “Red Orchestra” anti-Nazi resistance group, who gave birth to a son in prison while awaiting her execution for “high treason” in 1942.

Director Andreas Dresen grew up in communist East Germany, a region where the far-right AfD is poised to make strong gains in key state elections later this year.

He said that in school, resistance members were often portrayed as larger-than-life “superheroes,” meaning many felt incapable of having similar courage to stand up to authority.

Fries, whose vivid portrayal impressed critics, said Coppi joined the Red Orchestra in trying to sabotage the Nazi war effort out of a basic sense of right and wrong.

“It was not only decency but also a sense of solidarity — solidarity is always worth standing up for,” she said.

Dresen stripped the movie of historical images familiar from Nazi movies such as “waving swastika flags and thumping jackboots.”

“Political terror is part of our present and unfortunately not as far away as we would like,” he said. “I really wish this film weren’t so topical.”

“From Hilde, With Love” is one of 20 films in competition for the festival’s Golden Bear top prize Saturday.

Commitment to ’empathy’

The two films premiered amid a fierce debate over whether the Berlinale should continue to invite AfD politicians to its galas.

A bombshell revelation last month — that party members attended a meeting outside Berlin at which mass deportations of foreigners and “poorly assimilated” German citizens were discussed — raised the stakes.

After initially insisting that the elected representatives should attend, the Berlinale backtracked and disinvited five AfD officials, citing its commitment to “empathy, awareness and understanding.”

The move was widely praised by the artistic community, but dissenters argued that democratic culture meant tolerating even offensive views.

Kenyan Mexican actor Lupita Nyong’o, the festival’s first black jury president, was asked whether she would have attended the opening ceremony Thursday in the presence of far-right officials.

“I’m glad I don’t have to answer that question,” she replied. “I’m glad I don’t have to be in that position.”
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Beijing — China’s foreign minister has told his Ukrainian counterpart that Beijing does not sell lethal weapons to Russia for its war against Ukraine, a statement said Sunday.

Wang Yi told Dmytro Kuleba during a meeting on the sidelines of a major security conference in Munich on Saturday that China “does not take any advantage of the situation and does not sell lethal weapons to conflict areas or parties to the conflict,” according to a foreign ministry readout.

China says it is a neutral party in the Ukraine conflict but has been criticized for refusing to condemn Moscow for its offensive.

China and Russia have ramped up economic cooperation and diplomatic contacts in recent years, and their strategic partnership has only grown closer since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Beijing has faced accusations that it is supplying lethal arms to Russia, charges it has always denied.

“No matter how the international situation changes, China hopes that China-Ukraine relations will develop normally and continue to benefit the two peoples,” Wang told Kuleba, according to the ministry’s readout.

“Once again, I would like to thank Ukraine for helping the Chinese people evacuate safely under emergency conditions,” it said. “The Chinese people will never forget that.”

The readout said Wang stressed that China adheres to the political settlement of flashpoint issues and insisted on promoting peace talks.

“We will continue to play a constructive role in bringing an early end to the war and re-establishing peace,” Wang told Kuleba.

“Even if there is only a glimmer of hope for peace, China will not give up its efforts.”
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Russian authorities are detaining people mourning the death of opposition leader Alexey Navalny. He died in custody at an Arctic Circle penal colony late last week. Western leaders blame Russia. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
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London — Atom bomb epic “Oppenheimer” won seven prizes, including best picture, director and actor, at the 77th British Academy Film Awards on Sunday, cementing its front-runner status for the Oscars next month.

Gothic fantasia “Poor Things” took five prizes and Holocaust drama “The Zone of Interest” won three.

Christopher Nolan won his first best director BAFTA for “Oppenheimer,” and Cillian Murphy won the best actor prize for playing physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb.

Murphy said he was grateful to play such a “colossally knotty, complex character.”

Emma Stone was named best actress for playing the wild and spirited Bella Baxter in “Poor Things,” a steampunk-style visual extravaganza that won prizes for visual effects, production design, costume design, and makeup and hair.

“Oppenheimer” had a field-leading 13 nominations, but missed out on the record of nine trophies, set in 1971 by “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

It won the best film race against “Poor Things,” “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Holdovers.” “Oppenheimer” also won trophies for editing, cinematography and musical score, as well as the best supporting actor prize for Robert Downey Jr.

Da’Vine Joy Randolph was named best supporting actress for playing a boarding school cook in “The Holdovers” and said she felt a “responsibility I don’t take lightly” to tell the stories of underrepresented people like her character Mary.

“Oppenheimer” faced stiff competition in what was widely considered a vintage year for cinema and an awards season energized by the end of actors’ and writers’ strikes that shut down Hollywood for months.

” The Zone of Interest” — a British-produced film shot in Poland with a largely German cast — was named both best British film and best film not in English — a first — and also took the prize for its sound, which has been described as the real star of the film.

Jonathan Glazer’s unsettling drama takes place in a family home just outside the walls of the Auschwitz death camp, whose horrors are heard and hinted at, rather than seen.

“Walls aren’t new from before or since the Holocaust, and it seems stark right now that we should care about innocent people being killed in Gaza or Yemen or Mariupol or Israel,” producer James Wilson said. “Thank you for recognizing a film that asks us to think in those spaces.”

Ukraine war documentary “20 Days in Mariupol,” produced by The Associated Press and PBS “Frontline,” won the prize for best documentary.

“This is not about us,” said filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov, who captured the harrowing reality of life in the besieged city with an AP team. “This is about Ukraine, about the people of Mariupol.”

Chernov said the story of the city and its fall into Russian occupation “is a symbol of struggle and a symbol of faith. Thank you for empowering our voice and let’s just keep fighting.”

The awards ceremony, hosted by “Doctor Who” star David Tennant — who entered wearing a kilt and sequined top while carrying a dog named Bark Ruffalo — was a glitzy, British-accented appetizer for Hollywood’s Academy Awards, closely watched for hints about who might win at the Oscars on March 10.

The prize for original screenplay, went to French courtroom drama “Anatomy of a Fall.” The film about a woman on trial over the death of her husband was written by director Justine Triet and her partner, Arthur Harari.

“It’s a fiction, and we are reasonably fine,” Triet joked.

Cord Jefferson won the adapted screenplay prize for the satirical “American Fiction,” about the struggles of an African-American novelist

Jefferson said he hoped the success of the movie “maybe changes the minds of the people who are in charge of greenlighting films and TV shows, allows them to be less risk-averse.”

Historical epic “Killers of the Flower Moon” had nine nominations for the awards, officially called the EE BAFTA Film Awards, but went home empty-handed.

There also was disappointment for Leonard Bernstein biopic “Maestro,” which had seven nominations but won no awards. Neither did grief-flecked love story “All of Us Strangers” with six nominations, and barbed class-war dramedy “Saltburn,” with five.

” Barbie,” one half of 2023’s “Barbenheimer” box office juggernaut and the year’s top-grossing film, also went home empty-handed from five nominations. “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig failed to get a directing nomination for either the BAFTAs or the Oscars, in what was seen by many as a major snub.

Britain’s film academy introduced changes to increase the awards’ diversity in 2020, when no women were nominated as best director for the seventh year running and all 20 nominees in the lead and supporting performer categories were white. However, Triet was the only woman among this year’s six best-director nominees.

The Rising Star award, the only category decided by public vote, went to Mia McKenna-Bruce, star of “How to Have Sex.”

Before the ceremony, nominees, including Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan, Emily Blunt, Rosamund Pike, Ryan Gosling and Ayo Edebiri all walked the red carpet at London’s Royal Festival Hall, along with presenters Andrew Scott, Cate Blanchett, Idirs Elba and David Beckham.

Guest of honor was Prince William, in his role as president of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. He arrived without his wife, Kate, who is recovering from abdominal surgery last month.

The ceremony included musical performances by “Ted Lasso” star Hannah Waddingham, singing “Time After Time,” and Sophie Ellis-Bextor, singing her 2001 hit “Murder on the Dancefloor,” which shot back up the charts after featuring in “Saltburn.”

Film curator June Givanni, founder of the June Givanni PanAfrican Cinema Archive, was honored for outstanding British contribution to cinema, while actress Samantha Morton received the academy’s highest honor, the BAFTA Fellowship.

Morton, who grew up in foster care and children’s homes, said that “representation matters.”

“The stories we tell, they have the power to change people’s lives,” she said. “Film changed my life, it transformed me, and it led me here today.

“I dedicate this award to every child in care, or who has been in care and who didn’t survive.”
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Istanbul — Authorities in Turkey detained Sunday the director of the company managing a gold mine where a massive landslide in the country’s east left nine workers missing, local media said.

A huge landslide engulfed Tuesday the Anagold Madencilik company’s Copler mine in the town of Ilic in Turkey’s mountainous Erzincan province, trapping the workers under tons of rubble, and becoming a potential environmental disaster. The landslide involved a mound of soil extracted from the mine, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya previously said.

Cengiz Demirci, Turkey director and senior vice president of operations at the Denver-based SSR Mining Inc., Anagold’s parent company, was detained Sunday morning. Earlier this week, authorities also detained eight other Copler mine employees as part of the investigation into the disaster, six of whom were formally arrested.

Hundreds of search and rescue personnel are still looking for the workers who have been missing for six days so far.

Turkey’s Environment Ministry announced Saturday it was canceling Anagold’s environmental permit and license.

Experts warned the landslide could be an environmental hazard as the soil was laced with dangerous substances, including cyanide, used in gold extraction. They said it may affect the nearby Euphrates River which stretches across Turkey, Syria and Iraq. The ministry had closed down a stream leading to the river to prevent water pollution.

In 2020, the same mine was shut down following a cyanide leak into the Euphrates, roughly 3 kilometers (1.86 miles) away. It reopened two years later after the company was fined and a cleanup operation completed.

Shares at SSR Mining plummeted over 50% in the wake of Tuesday’s disaster.

Turkey has a poor mine safety record.

In 2022, an explosion at the Amasra coal mine on the Black Sea coast killed 41 workers. The country’s worst mining disaster took place in 2014 at a coal mine in the municipality of Soma, in western Turkey, where 301 people were killed.
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The Hague, Netherlands — The U.N.’s top court will from Monday hold hearings on the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories since 1967, with an unprecedented 52 countries expected to give evidence.

Nations including the United States, Russia, and China will address judges in a weeklong session at the Peace Palace in The Hague, seat of the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

In December 2022, the U.N. General Assembly asked the ICJ for a nonbinding “advisory opinion” on the “legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.”

While any ICJ opinion would be non-binding, it comes amid mounting international legal pressure on Israel over the war in Gaza sparked by the brutal October 7 Hamas attacks.

The hearings are separate from a high-profile case brought by South Africa alleging that Israel is committing genocidal acts during the current Gaza offensive.

The ICJ ruled in that case in January that Israel must do everything in its power to prevent genocide and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza but stopped short of ordering a cease-fire.

On Friday, it rejected South Africa’s bid to impose additional measures on Israel but reiterated the need to carry out the ruling in full.

‘Prolonged occupation’

The General Assembly has asked the ICJ to consider two questions.

Firstly, the court should examine the legal consequences of what the U.N. called “the ongoing violation by Israel of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.”

This relates to the “prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967” and “measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem.”

In June 1967, Israel crushed some of its Arab neighbors in a six-day war, seizing the West Bank including east Jerusalem from Jordan, the Golan Heights from Syria, and the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula from Egypt.

Israel then began to settle the 70,000 square kilometers of seized Arab territory. The U.N. later declared the occupation of Palestinian territory illegal. Cairo regained Sinai under its 1979 peace deal with Israel.

The ICJ has also been asked to look into the consequences of what it described as Israel’s “adoption of related discriminatory legislation and measures.”

Secondly, the ICJ should advise on how Israel’s actions “affect the legal status of the occupation” and what are the consequences for the UN and other countries.

The court will rule “urgently” on the affair, probably by the end of the year.

‘Despicable’

The ICJ rules in disputes between states and its judgments are binding although it has little means to enforce them.

However, in this case, the opinion it issues will be non-binding.

In the court’s own words: “The requesting organ, agency or organization remains free to give effect to the opinion by any means open to it, or not to do so.”

But most advisory opinions are in fact acted upon.

The ICJ has previously issued advisory opinions on the legality of Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia and apartheid South Africa’s occupation of Namibia.

It also handed down an opinion in 2004 declaring that parts of the wall erected by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory were illegal and should be torn down.

Israel is not participating in the hearings and reacted angrily to the 2022 U.N. request, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling it “despicable” and “disgraceful.”

The week after the U.N. resolution, Israel announced a series of sanctions against the Palestinian Authority to make it “pay the price” for pushing for it.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that while advisory opinions are nonbinding, “they can carry great moral and legal authority” and can eventually be inscribed in international law.

The hearings should “highlight the grave abuses Israeli authorities are committing against Palestinians, including the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution,” said Clive Baldwin, HRW senior legal adviser.
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beijing — China’s foreign ministry declined to comment Saturday on the death of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, describing it as “Russia’s internal affair.” 

“This is Russia’s internal affair. I will not comment,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in response to a question from AFP. 

Navalny, the Kremlin’s most prominent critic, died Friday in an Arctic prison, Russian officials said, a month before an election poised to extend Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hold on power. 

Navalny’s death after three years in detention and a poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin deprives Russia’s opposition of its figurehead at a time of intense repression and Moscow’s campaign in Ukraine. 

Beijing and Moscow are staunch allies and have strengthened their relationship even as Western countries have turned their backs on Russia over its military invasion of neighboring Ukraine. 

Both sides also have made much of the personal relationship between the two leaders, and China’s President Xi Jinping has referred to his Russian counterpart Putin as his “good friend.” 

Dissidents and some Western leaders placed the blame squarely on Putin and his government for the 47-year-old’s death, which followed months of deteriorating health in harsh detention conditions. 
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MUNICH — Top diplomats from the U.S. and China on Friday held a “candid and constructive” discussion on issues vexing their strained relations over Taiwan, the situation in the South China Sea, Russia’s war against Ukraine and synthetic opioids, the State Department said. 

The meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference marked the latest and highest-level meeting between the two sides since U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks late last year in California. 

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Blinken emphasized the importance of maintaining peace in the Taiwan Strait and expanding on nascent counternarcotics efforts. Blinken also raised concerns about China’s support for Russia’s defense industrial base that Washington sees as helping Moscow’s military operations against Ukraine. 

“The two sides had a candid and constructive discussion on a range of bilateral, regional and global issues as part of ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication and responsibly manage competition in the relationship,” Miller said. 

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Wang called on the U.S. to remove sanctions against Chinese companies and individuals. 

Wang emphasized that Washington’s policy of “de-risking” economically from Beijing “has become ‘de-Sinicizing,’ ‘building a tall fence’ and ‘de-coupling from China’” and “will come back to bite the U.S. itself,” according to a ministry readout Saturday morning. 

He also called on the U.S. to stop searches of Chinese nationals. Recently, Chinese state media published reports of Chinese citizens being searched at the U.S. border. 

In one prominent case, a group of students led by their professor, Xie Tao from Beijing Foreign Studies University, were interrogated for three hours upon arriving at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, according to Xinhua. Xie is the dean of the School of International Relations and Diplomacy at the University. 

Wang affirmed that cooperation to combat the spread of fentanyl was going “positively” and would continue, as well as the agreement to keep military-to-military communications. Both sides also discussed the ongoing Israel-Hamas war and the war in Ukraine. 

Blinken “reiterated that the United States will stand up for our interests and values and those of our allies and partners,” Miller said, adding that the current situations in the Middle East and with North Korea had also been topics of conversation. 

“Both sides recognized the importance of maintaining open lines of communication between the United States and (China) across a range of strategic issues, including consultations and high-level meetings in key areas in the coming months,” he said. 
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BERLIN/VILNIUS, Lithuania — Hundreds of protesters, many of them Russian emigres, gathered in cities across Europe and beyond on Friday to express their outrage over the death of Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny.

Often gathering outside Russian embassies, they chanted slogans critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom they blamed for the activist’s death, holding up signs calling him a “killer” and demanding accountability.

Putin’s most formidable domestic opponent, Navalny fell unconscious and died on Friday after a walk at the Arctic penal colony where he was serving a three-decade sentence, prison authorities said.

In Berlin, a crowd of 500 to 600 people, according to police estimates, gathered on the city’s Unter den Linden boulevard, chanting in a mixture of Russian, German and English.

Some chanted “Putin to the Hague,” referring to the international criminal court investigating possible war crimes committed in Ukraine. Police used barriers to close off the road between the Russian embassy and the crowd.

“Alexey Navalny is the leader of the Russian opposition and we always kept hope in his name,” said a Russian man draped in a blue and white anti-war flag, giving his name only as Ilia.

In Lithuania, formerly run from Moscow but now a member of NATO and the European Union and home to a sizable community of emigres, protesters placed flowers and candles by a portrait of Navalny.

“He was always with us, so it is all surreal,” said Lyusya Shtein, 26, a Pussy Riot activist who has lived in Vilnius since leaving Russia in 2022. “None of us yet understand what happened.”

In Russia itself, prosecutors warned Russians against participating in any mass protest in Moscow. Police watched as some Russians came to lay roses and carnations at a monument to victims of Soviet repression in the shadow of the former KGB headquarters.

Rights group OVD-Info, which reports on freedom of assembly in Russia, said that more than 100 people had been detained at rallies in memory of Navalny. Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

Groups also gathered in Rome, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Sofia, Geneva and The Hague, among others.

More than 100 protesters stood outside Russia’s London embassy, holding placards that called Putin a war criminal, while in Lisbon hundreds held a silent vigil. Pavel Elizarov, a 28-year-old Russian living in Portugal, said Navalny had been “a symbol of freedom and hope.”

Near the Russian embassy in Paris, where around 100 protesters gathered, Natalia Morozov said Navalny had also been a symbol of hope for her.

“It’s hard for me to express my emotions, because I’m really shaken,” said Morozov. “Now we no longer have hope for the beautiful Russia of the future.”

Navalny’s death, if confirmed, leaves the scattered groups that oppose Putin without a figurehead, and no obvious candidate to marshal any discontent over his demise into mass protests.

Navalny’s wife, Yulia, was in Munich on Friday, where a vigil also took place. She told the Munich Security Conference she could not be sure her husband was dead because “Putin and his government … lie incessantly” but said that if confirmed she wanted them to know “they will bear responsibility.”

On the other side of the Atlantic, at a vigil outside the Russian consulate in New York City, Violetta Soboleva said she had volunteered for Navalny’s presidential campaign in 2017.

“I really believed that he’s the one and he can lead Russia to a better future,” said Soboleva, a Russian studying for her doctorate in New York. “And now we’ve lost this future forever.”
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The United States is blaming Moscow for the death of Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny in a remote Russian prison. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports.]
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new york — United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed shock Friday on the reported death of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny and called for a credible investigation into his death.  

“The secretary-general expresses his condolences to Mr. Navalny’s family and calls for a full, credible and transparent investigation into the circumstances of Mr. Navalny’s reported death in custody,” U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters.  

Navalny, 47, died Friday in the high-security Arctic penal colony where he was serving a 19-year sentence for extremism, Russia’s prison agency said. Navalny’s family was working Friday to confirm the veracity of the report.    

He was a vocal critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, an anti-corruption campaigner, and had run for public office. His death comes less than a month before elections that are likely to give Putin another six years in power.  

The U.N. human rights office said it is “appalled” at the reports of Navalny’s death and called on Moscow to end the persecution of politicians, human rights defenders, journalists and others sentenced to jail for the legitimate exercise of their rights.    

“Last August, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk highlighted that the latest 19-year sentence raised questions about judicial harassment and instrumentalization of the court system for political purposes in Russia and called for Navalny’s release,” spokesperson Liz Throssell said in a statement.  

She said that if a person dies in state custody, “the presumption is that the state is responsible.” Throssell echoed the U.N. chief and urged “an impartial, thorough and transparent investigation carried out by an independent body.” 

Alice Edwards, who is the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, said on the social media platform X that she was devastated by the news. Edwards said she and several other special rapporteurs had tried to intervene on Navalny’s behalf with the Kremlin. 

She also demanded a full investigation and an independent autopsy to determine the cause of his death.  
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