South Africa’s ruling ANC party has brushed aside criticism of a large donation it accepted from a mining company linked to a Russian oligarch under U.S. sanctions.

Viktor Vekselberg is an investor in United Manganese of Kalahari Ltd, which last year donated $826,000 to help fund the ANC’s electoral conference. Critics say the donation undermines the party’s claim to a “neutral stance” on the Ukraine war and its refusal to criticize Russia’s invasion.

The donation, worth 15 million rand in the local currency, was made public recently when South Africa’s electoral commission released a statement detailing funds received by political parties in the third quarter of the 2022/23 financial year.

Asked by VOA whether a donation by a company linked to a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin affected the ruling party’s stance on the war in Ukraine, spokeswoman Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri demurred.

“The ANC receives both solicited and unsolicited financial support from various parties from all over the world,” she said by text message. “Some get accepted and others returned if found not to be aligned to the ANC’s values and policies. This current support will be looked at in the same light.

“The ANC’s stance on Russia-Ukraine conflict will remain the same. We do not believe that anything progressive can come out of conflict and war. We still urge all parties to meet and find amicable solutions.”

Solly Malatsi, national spokesman for the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, criticized the donation.

“This explains what the ANC government’s approach to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is because it’s on the receiving end of millions of rands in donations from Russian oligarchs,” Malatsi said. “It flies in the face of South Africa’s quest for and respect for human rights as the light that guides our foreign policy.”

The money went toward the ANC’s December electoral conference in which President Cyril Ramaphosa was given a second term. There had been problems in funding for the event, with the heavily indebted party battling to meet its costs.

United Manganese of Kalahari, Ltd., or UMK, is a South African company that mines the metal crucial to the production of iron ore.

One of the shareholders is the ANC’s funding front Chancellor House, according to investigative reports in South African media, while a Vekselberg-linked company owns another share of less than 50% – effectively allowing UMK to avoid U.S. sanctions.

The Russian businessman, who is reportedly close to the Kremlin, was on U.S. sanctions lists even before the invasion of Ukraine last year. After the war started, his luxury yacht was seized by the U.S. government and his U.S. properties searched by the FBI.

South Africa, which has a history of close ties with Russia, has abstained from condemning Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine at the U.N.

The donation raises questions about Pretoria’s political stance on the Russia-Ukraine war, said Steven Gruzd, a Russia expert at the South African Institute of International Affairs.

“Viktor Vekselberg has been linked to the ANC before; this is not the first time his name has come up, and this is a sizeable donation to a very cash-strapped political part,” Gruzd said.

“They’re trying to spin it that this is a regular donation, a run of the mill contribution to a political party among many others, and that they will screen it to see that it’s in line with their values.”

Last month, South Africa hosted the Chinese and Russian navies for joint military exercises off its east coast, despite the concerns of the United States and European Union.

In August, Putin is expected to visit South Africa for the annual summit of BRICS – a group of emerging economies made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
…

The United Nations’ top human rights official says the proliferation of crises brought on by conflict, climate change, poverty and discrimination are eroding people’s fundamental rights and freedoms and threatening the stability of nations worldwide. 

In a brisk overview of recent human rights developments around the globe, Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, told delegates attending the U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday that “one quarter of humanity is living today in places affected by violent conflict, and it is the civilians who suffer the most.” 

He then launched into a critique of Russia’s war in Ukraine, which he said has led to “civilian casualties and destruction of a shocking magnitude.” 

“The rights of Ukrainians will be harmed for generations to come, and the war’s impact on fuel and food prices, as well as geopolitical tensions, are impacting negatively on people in every region of the world,” he said. 

The invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago led to Russia being suspended from the U.N. Human Rights Council. 

While the war in Ukraine is in its second year, Türk noted that people in Syria have endured 12 years of excruciating bloodshed, calling it “a microcosm of the wounds inflicted by utmost contempt for human rights.” 

He deplored alarming security situations in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, while welcoming the implementation of an agreement ending hostilities between the Ethiopian government and rebels of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, or TPLF.  

Despite this progress, he warned that the presence in Tigray of Amhara regional forces and the Fano militia, as well as Eritrean Defense Forces, could result in “very serious violations.” He added that “the human rights situation in other regions of Ethiopia is of great concern, particularly Oromia.” 

The Fano militia is an ally of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and fought alongside Ethiopian forces to stop the TPLF. Eritrean troops also fought on the side of the Ethiopian government. 

Communal violence has been continuing in parts of the southern Oromia region between ethnic Oromo and Amhara. They are Ethiopia’s two largest ethnic groups. 

The U.N. rights chief presented a snapshot of human rights conditions in dozens of countries in all regions of the world. He spoke of widespread violence in Libya, of armed gangs who have taken control of Haiti, and of the worrying human rights situation in the Kashmir region, which India and Pakistan claim. 

He highlighted the virulent threats to human dignity posed by discrimination and racism, noting the unparalleled “repression of women in Afghanistan.” 

A fact-finding report submitted to the council on Monday accused the de facto Taliban rulers of pursuing a policy “tantamount to gender apartheid.” A U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan reported that “the Taliban’s intentional and calculated policy is to repudiate the human rights of women and girls and to erase them from public life.” 

Türk criticized Iran for its discriminatory behavior toward women and girls and denounced the executions of four people protesting the government’s authoritarian rule and the death sentences handed down to 17 other protesters. 

The high commissioner also took aim at the policies of powerful countries such as the United States, where, he said, “People of African descent are reportedly almost three times more likely to be killed by police than are ‘white’ people.” 

He added, “In the U.S. and all countries, swift and determined action to hold perpetrators accountable in each case should be the rule, not the exception.” 

Regarding China, Türk said his office had opened channels of communication to follow up on a variety of human rights issues, including the protection of minorities, such as for Tibetans, Uyghurs, and other groups. 

“In the Xinjiang region,” he said, “My office has documented grave concerns, notably large-scale arbitrary detentions and ongoing family separations — and has made important recommendations that require concrete follow-up.” 

A landmark report issued by the previous high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, concluded that Beijing’s incarceration of nearly a million Uyghurs and other Muslims in so-called vocational centers in Xinjiang could constitute “crimes against humanity.” China denies these charges. 

Hilary Power, Geneva director, Human Rights Watch, said the test of the high commissioner’s commitment to “follow up” on government abuses in Xinjiang “will be his willingness to continue monitoring and reporting on the situation, and to brief the U.N. rights council on his report and its key findings.”   

While the high commissioner’s assessment of the state of global human rights was generally pessimistic, he sounded a positive note on progress being made in three African countries. 

He praised Tanzania for opening civic and democratic space over the past two years. “Bans on media outlets and political rallies have been lifted and reform of restrictive legislation is promised,” he said. 

He said Zambia has “taken positive steps towards greater respect for human rights and the rule of law” and that Kenya has made some advances “towards accountability for serious human rights violations.” 
…

Nearly sixty years after one of the world’s worst nuclear accidents, Spain has asked the United States to clean up tens of thousands of cubic meters of radioactive soil and end a controversial chapter of the Cold War.

Madrid hopes that improved relations with Washington may make the U.S. honor a promise made in 2015 to cart off the contaminated soil.

In 1966, a B-52 bomber lost four hydrogen bombs after it collided with a refueling aircraft over the village of Palomares in southern Spain.

While the hydrogen bombs did not explode, two of them released plutonium, contaminating a two square kilometer area of land.

About 1,600 U.S. Air Force personnel were sent from a nearby base to clean up the area but were issued little protective gear while they spent weeks working in the remote site. Some later died.

About 1,400 tons of contaminated soil were shipped to a facility in the U.S. state of South Carolina.

It was the height of the Cold War and the matter was considered highly sensitive, so Washington’s priority was to quickly eliminate all evidence of one of the biggest nuclear accidents in history.

Years later, concerns over the lingering impact of the collision began to surface after a study conducted in 2007 by the Spanish Nuclear Safety Council suggested that up to 50,000 square meters of land remained contaminated. The area was fenced off and barred from use for development or agriculture.

Promises

In 2015, after decades of pressure from Madrid, Spain and the United States signed a statement of intent to dig up a patch of contaminated soil near Palomares and bury it in a secure area in the desert near Las Vegas in the U.S. state of Nevada.

But no final agreement was reached, and nothing happened.

Diplomatic relations worsened between Washington and Madrid during the presidency of Donald Trump, especially after a leftist government took power in Spain in 2018.

Spain now hopes improved relations between the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden and the Spanish government led by Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez may resolve the issue.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has presented an official request to the United States asking it to retrieve the soil. So far, there has not been a response from the U.S.” a source at the Spanish Foreign Ministry, who declined to be named in accordance with custom, told VOA.

The Spanish newspaper El País reported Monday that the request had been made a few months ago.

“The United States conducted remediation following the 1966 accident at Palomares and met with Spanish government officials on numerous occasions to discuss a range of bilateral issues including possible further remediation of the site. The Biden-Harris administration is open to further dialogue on this issue,” a U.S. State Department official told VOA.

Calls for action

Oscar Velasco, mayor of Cuevas de Almanzora, which includes Palomares, said unless action was taken now, the plutonium in the subsoil could spread.

“If they leave it until 80 years after the crash we could have a worse problem on our hands,” he told VOA.

However, advocates, who have been fighting for removal of the contaminated soil, were not hopeful that Washington would deliver on Spain’s request to resolve the matter.

José Herrera Plaza, who has spent 20 years investigating the Palomares accident, said since 1966, the incident had been manipulated by politicians.

“Unfortunately, I don’t hold out much hope that this will be solved again. Once again, the politicians are using this for political ends,” he told VOA from his home near Palomares.

“We are two months before regional and local elections in May in Spain and we are expecting national elections in December. It is no accident that Spain has made this request now.”

Herrera said successive governments in Spain had manipulated the accident for political gains.

In 1966, shortly after the accident, Manuel Fraga, a minister in the government of longtime Spanish ruler General Francisco Franco, and the U.S. Ambassador Angier Biddle Duke swam in a nearby waterway to prove everything was safe in a staged photo opportunity.

However, decades later, U.S. veterans started to suffer from cancer or other ailments that many claimed were caused by exposure to plutonium during the clean-up operation.

As more veterans started to die, a dwindling band of survivors fought for recognition that their conditions were linked to weeks spent collecting debris in the Spanish countryside.

In 2021, the retired U.S. servicemen scored a landmark victory, which meant the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs had to re-examine claims by veterans of Palomares.

The decision was a major step toward ensuring veterans have access to benefits they earned while serving.

Until the 1980s Spanish scientists relied on outdated equipment to assess the pollution. Several areas are still contaminated and fenced off but the effect on local residents is unclear.

“In 2015, we hoped they would remove 50,000 square meters of land, which we know is polluted. So far, nothing has happened. I am not hopeful,” José Ignacio Domínguez, a lawyer for Ecologists in Action, a Spanish conservation group, told VOA.

Ecologists in Action is taking legal action to try to make the Spanish government reveal details of the accident, which remain state secrets 57 years after the crash.

In 2020, Spain’s National Court, which deals with terrorism, major financial fraud or matters of national security, asked the government to open the files on the case.

Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press.
…

Garbage collectors, utility workers and train drivers are among people walking off the job on Tuesday across France to show their anger at a bill raising the retirement age to 64, which unions see as a broader threat to the French social model. 

More than 250 protests are expected in Paris and around the country in what organizers hope is their biggest show of force yet against President Emmanuel Macron’s showcase legislation, after nearly two months of demonstrations. The bill is under debate in the French Senate this week.

Unions threatened to freeze up the French economy with work stoppages across multiple sectors, most visibly an open-ended strike at the SNCF national rail authority.

Philippe Martinez, head of the CGT union, said the protest movement is “entering a new phase,” on news broadcaster FranceInfo.

“The goal is that the government withdraw its draft reform. Full stop,” he said.

Some unions have called for open-ended strikes in sectors from refineries and oil depots to electricity and gas facilities. Workers in each sector will decided locally in the evening about whether to prolong the movement, Martinez said.

All oil shipments in the country have been halted on Tuesday amid strikes at the refineries of TotalEnergies, Esso-ExxonMobil and Petroineos groups, according to the CGT. 

Truckers have sporadically blocked major highway arteries and interchanges in go-slow actions near several cities in French regions.

In Paris, garbage collectors have started an open-ended strike and blocked on Tuesday morning the access to the incineration plant of Ivry-sur-Seine, south of the capital, Europe’s biggest such facility.

“The job of a garbage collector is painful. We usually work very early or late … 365 days per year. We usually have to carry heavy weight or stand up for hours to sweep,” said Regis Viecili, a 56-year-old garbage worker.

Some strikers said that such an intense rhythm has a negative impact on their daily life and that the job was so demanding that they often experienced tendinitis and aches. That’s why they have a special pension plan. But with the planned changes, they would have to retire at 59 instead of 57.

“A lot of garbage workers die before the retirement age,” Viceli said.

“A garbage worker has seven years less life expectancy than a regular employee,” said Natacha Pommet, a CGT union activist.

Commuters packed into one of the rare trains heading for Paris from the southern suburbs before dawn. The government encouraged people to work from home if their jobs allow.

A fifth of flights were canceled at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport and about a third of flights were scrapped at Orly Airport. Trains to Germany and Spain were expected to come to a halt, and those to and from Britain and Belgium will be reduced by a third, according to the SNCF rail authority.

Most high-speed trains and regional trains have been canceled.

More than 60% of teachers in primary schools were expected to be on strike, as well as public sector workers elsewhere.

Public transportation was disrupted in most French cities.

On the French Riviera, there were no intercity trains, including those linking France to Italy via Monaco, impacting tens of thousands of daily commuters to the principality.

The reform would raise the official pension age from 62 to 64 and require 43 years of work by 2030 to earn a full pension, amid other measures. The government argues the system is expected to dive into deficit within a decade as France’s population ages and life expectancy lengthens.

Opinion polls suggest that most French voters oppose the bill.

At the Saint Lazare train station in Paris, Briki Mokrane, a 54-year-old fire safety worker, said “obviously it’s very very difficult for workers, but unfortunately in France it’s always the same: we have to have strikes or demonstrations to preserve our rights.” 

Left-wing lawmakers say companies and the wealthy should pitch in more to finance the pension system.

France’s eight main unions and five youth organizations will meet on Tuesday evening to decide about the next steps of the mobilization.
…

New York is a city that never sleeps.

But this New York, once known as Novgorodske, is in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. In its empty streets, half-abandoned buildings and dark cellars, the sound of cannons seems louder, even more frightening. Russian and Ukrainian soldiers are around, entrenched within a few kilometers of each other. The artillery never seems to stop.

“I take barbiturates every night, but when the bombs start to fall too close, they just wear off, I don’t relax, I don’t rest, I don’t sleep,” Ianna Nikolaivna, 55, told VOA on a cold, sunny day in late February.

Nikolaivna is one of 2,000 people left living in New York, Donetsk. Another 10,000 people left this city, so classically Soviet, so typically industrial, so typically eastern Ukrainian.

“When the city changed its name to New York, we thought that the tourists would come, that things would get better, that Kyiv would finally look at us,” Nikolaivna said in front of the building where only she and a neighbor live now. “But we only got the war; New York at the end means sadness and destruction to all of us.”

The news started to spread in July 2021. The old Novgorodske was changing. They decided to abandon the Russian name. The small hilly city, home to a chemical industry named after former KGB founder Felix Dzerzhinsky, would be called New York.

Officially, the change was related to history. It was the Germans, brought by Empress Catherina, the Great, who first named the town of Neue York. With the rise of the Soviet Union, the city gained a Russian name: Novgorodske, or New City.

But that was just the official excuse. People here wanted to get the attention of the world, including the West, and Kyiv. The city has felt abandoned since a separatist war in the Donbas broke out in 2014. Donetsk is part of the Donbas region.

“They wanted to show that they were Ukrainians, that they had nothing to do with the separatists, that they didn’t support Russia,” Yuri, an unemployed driver, said while standing in a small line for donations at the city hall. “They thought they were going to get support, money, that tourists would come here to experience the New York of the Donbas,” he said, to the laughter of the other men waiting to collect the supplies.

Yuri laughed too. And then became serious: “Just walk around to see that nothing has changed, that nothing new has come; there is only misery and destruction here.”

At first, New York gained attention and even some support. The city museum was renovated, promises of renewed roads and streets spread and a new school considered. Some even believed that old chimneys would again litter the sky with dark smoke.

Hopes were so high that the city administration organized a New York marathon three months before the war started. It was November 2021 and the war around here had already begun seven years ago. But in those autumn days, battles were rare and the guns were quiet. Hope still glowed like Times Square lights in New York City in the United States. But in New York, Donetsk, only five competitors showed up for the marathon.

Galina is a small country town woman. She was born 43 years ago in a village on the outskirts of Novgorodske. It was the time when everything here was part of an extensive empire.

“During the Soviet Union, the industries were working; there were jobs for everyone; we lived well. I remember that, that we lived well,” she said while giving a tour of a 6-meter-square cellar built to store potatoes. At her side were three of her five children: Mark and Vlad, 11 years old, and Yelisej, 9. Since a bomb fell in their backyard two months ago, they have been living here, squashed, scared, under candlelight and the warmth of a small coal stove.

“I believed things would get better, that becoming New York would make them look at us, that we wouldn’t stay … ”

Tears flooded Galina’s face. She tried to hold back her tears and seemed ashamed to show her pain in front of her children. But she can’t hold back and cries again.

“We’ve been stranded here for over 30 years, since the Soviet Union collapsed, nobody cares about us anymore,” she said.

Galina is married to Yuri, from the food distribution line at city hall. He, too, said he misses those times they barely experienced, the time the elders always say were the best times around here.

“Our hopes started to die in 1991; that’s the truth,” he said, pointing out where the Russian troops are now.

This New York sits on top of a hill. From here, you can see the outskirts of Horlivka, a city under the rule of the Russian troops.

“They’re over there,” Yuri said, pointing to the buildings on the horizon. “The people there, you know, must be suffering the same as us over there.”

Ianna Nikolaivna doesn’t know Yuri, Galina or any of their children. But she said she understands well why young people like them say they miss a government that became known around the world for its brutality, hardship and cruel treatment of Ukrainians during the times of the great famine in the 1930s.

“Anyone over 40 years old misses the Soviet times; this is an industrial city in a mining area,” she said. “It was tough work, but there were good rewards. The salary was good, the houses were good and the services always worked.”

Her husband spent part of his life in a coal mine until he lost his leg in a car accident. She dedicated her life to the city library.

They lived the good life until the neoliberal reforms of the ’90s swept the countries of the former Soviet Union from east to west. She said the reforms pushed them into poverty. Now the war is pushing them into misery.

“We don’t have water, electricity or gas here,” she said. “Today we are lucky that the weather is good. We can go outside, walk and we don’t have to stay in a cold room all day.”

A loud explosion startled Nikolaivna. She calmed down and said, “I’m like this; every time I hear a loud sound, I jump. But now it was a bomb, let’s go to the basement; they’re falling close.”

At the City Hall, Olena no longer cares about the sound of the bombs. There are so many of them, and it’s so frequent that she said there is no reason to be scared.

“It’s a matter of luck; we can’t do anything about it,” she said.

She was the only city employee working that day. She spent the day tending to those who ventured into the empty streets to pick up supplies donated by volunteers.

On her table, a solitary Ukrainian flag seemed to challenge the men who remember the good times when everything here was part of the Soviet Union. She doesn’t laugh at the jokes they make about the town’s name change, nor does she seem to care much about the conversation between the reporter and the residents who remember the Soviet times.

During a short break, she explained why she’s still in New York despite everything.

“I have the feeling that if I leave one day, I’ll never come back, that everything I’ve built in life will be destroyed. I will stay. After all, I’m a New Yorker,” she said, with her first smile of the interview.
…

The Italian health minister’s proposals to extend a smoking ban include the outdoor areas of bars and parks, according to details reported by local media, drawing the ire of right-wing Cabinet colleagues who labeled him a “communist.” 

Minister Orazio Schillaci, a technocrat with no party affiliation, said in January he would crackdown on smoking, including e-cigarettes, which are being widely used by teenagers. 

The new rules will include the outside areas of bars and at public transport stops, La Stampa newspaper reported on Monday. The prohibition will also be extended to parks if pregnant women and children are present, it said. 

Junior Culture Minister Vittorio Sgarbi, known for expressing his opinions, called Schillaci’s view “intimidating” and said such bans would instead encourage people to smoke. 

“This is something typical of an authoritarian and dictatorial communist regime,” Sgarbi told AdnKronos news agency. 

Italy’s top health institute (ISS) said some 24% of adult Italians were smokers last year — roughly 12.4 million people and the highest percentage recorded since 2009. 

The government passed a ban on smoking indoors in 2003, which came into force two years later. 

Health association Fondazione Umberto Veronesi estimates at least 43,000 people die in Italy every year for smoke-related reasons. 

But the proposed clampdown also faces skepticism from Deputy Prime Minister and League party leader Matteo Salvini, who quit cigarettes four years ago but said the open-air ban on e-cigarettes was “exaggerated.” 

“Electronic cigarettes are helping a lot of people to abandon regular cigarettes,” he added on Twitter. 

The Health Ministry did not reply to a request for comment. 

The proposals would need to be approved by the Cabinet before being passed to parliament. 
…

The British government said Monday it will introduce legislation to ban anyone who arrives in the United Kingdom in small boats across the English Channel from ever settling in the country.

The government said a bill — expected to be announced Tuesday — will bar asylum claims by anyone who reaches Britain by unauthorized means and will compel the government to detain and then deport them “to their home country or a safe third country.”

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the law would stop the “immoral” business of smuggling gangs who send desperate people on hazardous journeys across one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

Critics say the plan is unethical and unworkable, since people fleeing war and persecution can’t be sent home and is likely to be the latest in a series of unfulfilled immigration pledges by successive U.K. governments.

Britain receives fewer asylum-seekers than some European nations — nine per 100,000 people in 2021, compared to a European Union average of 16 per 100,000. But thousands of migrants from around the world travel to northern France each year in hopes of reaching the U.K.

Most attempt the journey in dinghies and other small craft now that authorities have clamped down on other routes such as stowing away on buses or trucks.

More than 45,000 people arrived in Britain by boat in 2022, up from 28,000 in 2021 and 8,500 in 2020. Most went on to claim asylum, but a backlog of more than 160,000 cases has led to many languishing in overcrowded processing centers or hotels, without the right to work.

Protesters, some aligned with far-right groups, have demonstrated outside hotels housing asylum-seekers. One protest near Liverpool last month descended into violence, with demonstrators setting a police van on fire.

The channel journey can be as little as 42 kilometers and is less dangerous than migration routes across the Mediterranean, where at least 70 people died in a shipwreck on February 26 off Italy’s southern coast. But dozens of people have died in the channel, including at least 27 in a November 2021 sinking of an overcrowded boat.

The British government says many of those making the journey are economic migrants rather than refugees, and points to an upswing last year in arrivals from Albania, a European country that the U.K. considers safe.

Refugee groups say most of the channel arrivals are fleeing war, persecution or famine in countries including Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq. A majority of those whose claims have been processed were granted asylum in the U.K.

Sunak has made stopping the boats one of his “five pledges” to voters, alongside halving inflation, kickstarting economic growth, slashing the national debt and cutting health care waiting lists.

But previous headline-grabbing immigration policies have run into opposition. A plan announced last year to send migrants arriving in Britain on a one-way trip to Rwanda is mired in legal challenges.

Cooperation with France on stopping the boats stalled amid Britain’s acrimonious split from the European Union, though U.K.-EU relations have improved since Sunak took office in October. The U.K. and France signed an agreement in November to increase police patrols on beaches in northern France, and Sunak hopes to cement further cooperation when he meets Macron at a U.K.-France summit on Friday.

Sunak also faces pressure from right-wingers inside his Conservative Party, who have called for tougher measures, including pulling Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights. The government says it has no plan to leave the convention.

Refugee charities and human rights groups say many migrants risk the cross-channel journey because there are few safe, legal ways to reach the U.K. The government says it will establish more legal asylum programs — adding to those set up for Afghanistan, Hong Kong and Ukraine — but has yet to give details.

“The government’s flawed legislation will not stop the boats but result in tens of thousands locked up in detention at huge cost, permanently in limbo and being treated as criminals simply for seeking refuge,” said Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council. “It’s unworkable, costly and won’t stop the boats.”
…

Iran said on Monday that it was open to a prisoner swap with Belgium after the latter’s Constitutional Court upheld an exchange treaty in a case that could see a convicted Iranian diplomat switched for a jailed Belgian aid worker. 

Aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele was arrested on a visit to Iran in February 2022 and sentenced in January to 40 years in prison and 74 lashes on charges including spying. 

Brussels called that retribution for a 20-year jail term given to Iranian diplomat Assadollah Assadi in 2021 over a foiled bomb plot in the first trial of an Iranian official for suspected terrorism in Europe since Iran’s 1979 revolution. 

An Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson said the way was now open to execute the prisoner exchange pact. “With the recent development, we hope to see an opening in connection with the case of this diplomat,” the spokesperson said. 

Belgian lawmakers cleared the treaty in July, but it was held up by legal challenges from an exiled Iranian opposition group. 
…

Turkey’s right wing IYI Party has proposed that the mayors of Ankara and Istanbul serve as vice presidents if the opposition wins the May election, a spokesperson said Monday, after the party left the main opposition alliance last week.

The suggestion could pave the way for IYI to return to the bloc.

IYI, which was the second-biggest party in the alliance of six parties, exited the group last week after its leader Meral Aksener rejected the expected nomination of Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) as the bloc’s presidential candidate.

Instead she had proposed that either Ekrem Imamoglu or Mansur Yavas, mayors of Istanbul and Ankara, be the candidate, saying opinion polls showed they would win against Erdogan by a large margin.

Hours before the five remaining parties of the alliance were to announce Kilicdaroglu as their candidate, the two mayors held a brief meeting with Aksener who conveyed to them a fresh proposal for them to serve as vice presidents should the bloc win the May 14 election.

Aksener put forward an “inclusive” proposal, IYI spokesperson Kursad Zorlu told reporters, moments after the two mayors finished their meeting.

“She has conveyed the proposal that the two mayors serve as executive vice presidents,” Zorlu said. “Our leader will convey this proposal to Kilicdaroglu in the coming moments,” he added.

The opposition drama comes two months before presidential and parliamentary elections. A major factor for voters is expected to be last month’s devastating earthquake, which killed more than 45,000 people and left millions homeless.
…

Azerbaijani troops and ethnic Armenians exchanged gunfire on Sunday in Azerbaijan’s contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh, killing at least five people, according to reports from Azerbaijan and Armenia. 

Nagorno-Karabakh was the focal point of two wars that have pitted Azerbaijan against Armenia in the more than 30 years since both ex-Soviet states have achieved attendance. 

Azerbaijan’s defense ministry said two servicemen were killed in an exchange of fire after Azerbaijani troops stopped a convoy it suspected of carrying weapons from the region’s main town to outlying areas. It said the convoy had used an unauthorized road. 

Armenia’s foreign ministry said three officials from the Karabakh interior ministry were killed. It said the convoy had been carrying documents and a service pistol and dismissed as “absurd” Azerbaijani allegations that weapons were being carried. 

Nagorno-Karabakh has long been recognized internationally as part of Azerbaijan, though its population is made up predominantly of ethnic Armenians. 

Armenian forces took control of Karabakh in a war that gripped the region as Soviet rule was collapsing in the early 1990s. Azerbaijan recaptured large swathes of territory in a six-week conflict in 2020 that ended with a truce and the dispatch of Russian peacekeepers, who remain in the region. 

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan have met several times as part of efforts to resolve the conflict, but periodic violence has hurt peace efforts. 

For the past three months, Azeri environmentalists have been blockading the Lachin corridor linking Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, saying they oppose mining operations in the region. 

Armenia says the protesters are political activists acting at the behest of Azerbaijan’s authorities. 

The World Court ordered Azerbaijan last month on Wednesday to ensure free movement through the Lachin corridor. 
…

Prime Minister Kaja Kallas’s center-right Reform Party won Estonia’s general election by a wide margin on Sunday, according to near-complete results, beating out a far-right rival that had campaigned against further arms deliveries to Ukraine.   

Reform won 31.6 percent of the vote, with right-wing runners-up EKRE taking 16 percent. In order to stay in power, Reform will again have to form a coalition with one or more of the parties in the Baltic state’s 101-seat parliament.    

The Centre Party secured 14.7 percent of Sunday’s ballot, Estonia 200 got 13.5 percent, the Social Democrats received 9.4 percent and the Isamaa (Fatherland) party 8.3 percent.    

“This is much better than we expected,” Kallas said of the result. “We have ruled out a coalition with EKRE and I stand by my words.” 

EKRE leader Martin Helme suggested on election night that Reform “stole” the election.  

“We didn’t do anything wrong. We did everything right and with honesty, unlike those who stole our well-deserved victory,” he said.   

Reform is a center-right liberal party that appeals to business owners and young professionals.   

It has promised to raise military spending to at least three percent of GDP and ease taxes on business, and wants to pass a law approving same-sex civil partnerships.   

EKRE, meanwhile, had campaigned against additional military aid to Kyiv, called for a halt in Ukrainian refugee arrivals and for lower immigration rates to protect local workers.   

The electoral commission must still verify the results, but if confirmed, Reform will win 37 seats — three more than they did four years ago.   

Escalating tensions  

Estonia, a country of 1.3 million people bordering Russia, is a member of the EU and NATO, and has led international calls over the past year for more military aid to help Ukraine fight off Russia’s invasion.   

Its military assistance to Ukraine amounts to more than one percent of GDP — the biggest contribution of any country relative to the size of its economy — and the ongoing war there was on many voters’ minds.   

“It’s obvious that what is happening in Ukraine is very important for Estonia as well,” 35-year-old engineer Juhan Ressar told AFP at a polling station in the capital Tallinn.   

“Maybe people… have forgotten the importance of independence.”   

Speaking of aid to Ukraine, Kallas said on Sunday: “I think with such a strong mandate this will not change.”   

“Other parties — except EKRE and maybe Centre — have chosen the same line. So I think we can find common ground here,” she added.     

According to EKRE’s Helme, Estonia should not be “further escalating tensions” with Moscow.    

Estonia has also been grappling with a cost-of-living crisis, enduring one of the EU’s highest inflation rates — 18.6 percent in January over 12 months earlier.   

For 62-year-old pensioner Pjotr Mahhonin, only EKRE “represents the Estonian people”. He accused the prime minister of being more interested in “another country”, referring to Ukraine.   

Like many Estonians, he said he feared war. “We have a big neighbor, Russia, and it’s very dangerous.   

“If war starts, we are the country on the front line.” 

Abstention uncertainty  

Rein Toomla, a political expert from the Johan Skytte Institute, said Reform could safely exclude EKRE from any coalition building, as its “position has now become so weak that it can be easily ignored”.   

According to political analysts, a coalition between Reform, Estonia 200 and the Social Democrats is possible, as is one between Reform, Centre and Isamaa.   

The Centre Party, which is traditionally popular with Estonia’s large Russian-speaking minority, has supported government policy on Ukraine and on Russia. The center-left party had also promised more investment in infrastructure and affordable housing.    

This put off some Russian-speaking voters, raising fears of high rates of abstention among the minority, who account for around a quarter of the population.   

Overall voter turnout was 63.5 percent, according to the electoral commission. 
…

Industrial action in France over the government’s planned pensions overhaul will cause heavy disruption to public transport again on Tuesday, the transport minister and several public transport authorities said Sunday.

For the sixth time since the start of the year, unions are calling for a nationwide day of strikes and demonstrations, aiming to repeat the large turnout seen on the first major protest Jan. 19 when more than a million people marched against the pension reform.

“There will be very strong impacts,” Transport Minister Clement Beaune said in an interview with France 3 TV, adding that he expected the strike to be “one of the most difficult ones” for travelers since the start of the protests.

“For many it will be a real hassle,” he said.

Some unions, such as the hardline CGT, called for a rolling strike at refineries and at the national railway operator SNCF.

“We are moving up a gear,” the head of CGT, Philippe Martinez, told French weekly JDD. “The ball is now in the president’s court. It is up to him to withdraw this reform,” he said, referring to President Emmanuel Macron.

Macron is pushing for the reform, which would raise the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64, calling it vital to avoid the collapse of the state pension system.

The strikes have already curbed power generation at some of EDF’s nuclear plants.

SNCF said in a statement that it expected one high-speed train in five to run Tuesday. Almost all its regular Intercites  trains will be canceled, it predicted.

RATP, the public transport operator for the Ile-de-France region around Paris, said metro lines and suburban trains will be heavily disrupted, with some metro lines only running at peak hours.

France’s DGAC aviation authority said it had asked airlines to reduce flights by 20% at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport and by 30% at Orly airport on March 7-8.
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Pope Francis called on authorities Sunday to stop human traffickers operating in the Mediterranean, as he expressed his sorrow over last week’s migrant boat disaster off Italy’s Calabrian coast, in which dozens of people were killed.

“I renew my appeal to prevent such tragedies from happening again. May traffickers of human beings be stopped,” the pope said in his weekly address to crowds in St. Peter’s Square.

Local authorities said 70 bodies had so far been recovered following the incident. The migrants had departed from Turkey and were from countries including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Somalia and Syria.

“May journeys of hope never again turn into journeys of death, may the clear waters of the Mediterranean no longer be bloodied by such dramatic accidents,” the pope said.

Around 80 people survived after the boat broke up and sank in rough seas near Steccato di Cutro, a resort on the Calabria region’s eastern coast. Authorities estimated it had carried up to 200 migrants.

Three alleged traffickers were arrested this week and prosecutors began looking into the way emergency services responded to the disaster, after accusations that authorities were slow to react.

“I pray for the many victims of the shipwreck, for their families and for those who survived,” the pope said.

Right-wing Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who this week called on fellow European Union leaders to do more to halt illegal immigration, praised the pope’s remarks.

The government was “continuing to deploy all necessary forces to combat human traffickers and stop deaths at sea,” she said in a post on Facebook.
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Much of Russia’s yearlong invasion in Ukraine has devolved into infantry fighting in the eastern regions of the country, in part because Moscow’s forces are short on artillery munitions, the British Ministry of Defense said Sunday.

In its latest assessment, London said, “Recent evidence suggests an increase in close combat in Ukraine. This is probably a result of the Russian command continuing to insist on offensive action largely consisting of dismounted infantry.”

The ministry said that late last month, Russia mobilized reservists who have described “being ordered to assault a Ukrainian concrete strong point armed with only ‘firearms and shovels.’ The ‘shovels’ are likely entrenching tools being employed for hand-to-hand combat.”

It said, “The lethality of the standard-issue MPL-50 entrenching tool is particularly mythologised in Russia,” but that “little has changed since its design in 1869.”

“Its continued use as a weapon highlights the brutal and low-tech fighting which has come to characterize much of the war,” defense officials said. “One of the reservists described being ‘neither physically nor psychologically’ prepared for the action.”

Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops holding out in Bakhmut faced increased pressure Saturday from Russian forces as civilians received assistance in fleeing the besieged eastern city.

It is now too dangerous to leave Bakhmut by vehicle, a Ukrainian army representative told The Associated Press, so civilians now must flee on foot. Ukrainian soldiers set up a pontoon bridge Saturday to help civilians reach the nearby village of Khromove, the AP said.

One woman was killed and two men were badly wounded while trying to escape over the makeshift bridge, according to the Ukrainian troops helping them.

Ukrainian troops have destroyed two key bridges just outside the city, including one to Chasiv Yar, cutting off their last remaining resupply route, according to U.K. military intelligence officials and other Western analysts.

Destroying the bridge may be a sign that Kyiv is preparing to leave. The Institute for the Study of War said that by taking out the Chasiv Yar bridge, Ukrainian troops may “conduct a limited and controlled withdrawal from particularly difficult sections of eastern Bakhmut,” while making it more difficult for Russians to pursue them.

If Russian fighters do capture Bakhmut, it would be a rare battlefield gain after months of setbacks and might allow them to cut Ukraine’s supply lines and press toward other Ukrainian strongholds in the Donetsk region.

Ukrainian National Guard Deputy Commander Volodymyr Nazarenko told Ukrainian broadcaster Kyiv24 the city remains under Ukrainian control despite intense and ongoing attacks by Russian forces.

“Every hour in Bakhmut is like hell. The enemy had successes in the north, northwest of Bakhmut a week ago. Ukrainian soldiers are fighting back. Over the past few days, the front line has been stabilized thanks to our hard work and efforts,” Nazarenko said.

Bakhmut’s deputy mayor, Oleksandr Marchenko, confirmed to the BBC that “thanks to the Ukrainian armed forces, they still haven’t taken control of the city.”

Marchenko said about 4,000 civilians remain in what was a city of 70,000 that is all but destroyed. They live in shelters without gas, electricity or water, he said.

Responding to reports of the withdrawal of some Ukrainian troops, Serhiy Cherevatyi, the spokesperson of the eastern grouping of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, told CNN on Saturday that Ukrainian soldiers are rotating positions in Bakhmut in controlled, planned cycles.

Cherevatyi said there have been hostilities around Bakhmut, in the villages of Vasiukivka and Dubovo-Vasylivka to the north of the city and in the villages of Ivanivske and Bohdanivka to the west.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of Russia’s Wagner Group mercenary force, posted a video Saturday allegedly showing coffins he said contained bodies of Ukrainian soldiers being sent to territory held by Kyiv.

In the video, Prigozhin, wearing military gear, said, “We are sending another shipment of Ukrainian army fighters home. They fought bravely and perished. That’s why the latest truck will take them back to their motherland.”

The British intelligence update on Twitter said Bakhmut is vulnerable to Russian attacks on three sides, but that Ukraine is reinforcing the areas with elite units.

Meanwhile, Russia’s defense minister visited Russian soldiers in Ukraine Saturday.

The ministry said in a statement on the messaging app Telegram that Sergei Shoigu “inspected the forward command post of one of the formations of the Eastern Military District in the South Donetsk direction.”

Shoigu has been criticized for Russia’s poor performance in its war against Ukraine. In a video released Saturday, the military chief was seen handing out medals to Russian military forces.

Zelenskyy in Lviv

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spent a second day in Lviv in Ukraine’s west on Saturday, in a meeting of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, he said in his nightly address.

Zelenskyy said they discussed security, energy, social protection, financial issues and anti-corruption matters.

The United for Justice conference continued for a second day, including discussion on the investigation and punishment of Russian fighters for abuse, rape, and other violent crimes committed in the occupied territory.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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“Italy here we come!” cheered the young men, in Urdu and Pashto, as they filmed themselves standing on a boat sailing in bright blue waters.

They were among around 180 migrants — Afghans, Pakistanis, Syrians, Iranians, Palestinians, Somalis and others — who left Turkey hoping for a better, or simply safer, life in Europe.

Days later, dozens of them were dead. So far, 70 bodies have been recovered from the Feb. 26 shipwreck near the small beach town of Steccato di Cutro, but only 80 survivors have been found, indicating that the death toll was higher. On Sunday, firefighter divers spotted another body in the Ionian Sea and were working to bring it ashore, state TV said.

The tragedy has highlighted the lesser-known migration route from Turkey to Italy. It also brought into focus hardening Italian and European migration policies, which have since 2015 shifted away from search and rescue, prioritizing instead border surveillance. Questions are also being asked of the Italian government about why the coast guard wasn’t deployed until it was too late.

Based on court documents, testimony from survivors and relatives and statements by authorities, the AP has reconstructed what is known of the events that led to the shipwreck and the questions left unanswered.

The fateful journey

In the early hours of Wednesday, Feb. 22, the migrants — including dozens of families with small children — boarded a leisure boat on a beach near Izmir following a truck journey from Istanbul and a forest crossing by foot.

They set out from the shore. But just three hours into their voyage, the vessel suffered an engine failure. Still in high seas, an old wooden gulet — a traditional Turkish style boat — arrived as a replacement.

The smugglers and their assistants told the migrants to hide below deck as they continued their journey west. Without life vests or seats, they crammed on the floor, going out for air, or to relieve themselves, only briefly. Survivors said the second boat also had engine problems, stopping several times along the way.

Three days later, Feb. 25, at 10:26 p.m. a European Union Border and Coast Guard plane patrolling the Ionian Sea spotted a boat heading toward the Italian coast. The agency, known as Frontex, said the vessel “showed no signs of distress” and was navigating at 6 knots, with “good” buoyancy.

Frontex sent an email to Italian authorities at 11:03 p.m. reporting one person on the upper deck and possibly more people below, detected by thermal cameras. No life jackets could be seen. The email mentioned that a satellite phone call had been made from the boat to Turkey.

In response to the Frontex sighting, the case was classified as an “activity of the maritime police.” Italy’s Guardia di Finanza, or financial police, which also has a border and customs role, dispatched two patrols to “intercept the vessel.”

As the Turkish boat approached Italy’s Calabrian coast Saturday evening, some of the migrants on the boat were allowed to message family, to inform them of their imminent arrival and release the 8,000-euro ($8520) fee that had been agreed upon with the smugglers.

The men navigating the boat told the anxious passengers they needed to wait a few more hours for disembarkation, to avoid getting caught, according to survivors’ testimony to investigators.

At 3:48 a.m., Feb. 26, the financial police vessels returned to base, without having reached the boat due to bad weather. The police contacted the coast guard to ask if they had any vessels out at sea “in case there was a critical situation” according to communication obtained by the Italian ANSA agency and confirmed by AP. The coast guard replied they did not. “OK, it was just to inform you,” a police officer said before hanging up.

Just minutes later, at around 4 a.m., local fishermen on Italy’s southern coast spotted lights in the darkness. People were waving their cell phone flashlights desperately from atop a boat stuck on a sand bank.

The suspected smugglers grabbed black tubes, possibly life jackets, and jumped into the water to save themselves, according to survivors. Waves continued smashing into the vessel until it suddenly ripped apart. The sound was like that of an explosion, survivors said. People fell into the frigid water. Many could not swim.

Italian police arrived on the scene at 4:30 a.m., the same time that the coast guard says it received the first emergency calls. It took the coast guard another hour to get there. By then, bodies were already being pulled out of the water with people screaming for help while others attempted to resuscitate the victims.

The young victims

There were dozens of young children on board the boat. Almost none survived. The body of a 3-year-old was recovered Saturday.

Among those who lived was a Syrian father and his eldest child, but his wife and three other children did not. The body of his youngest, age 5, was still missing four days later.

One Afghan man drove down from Germany, searching for his 15-year-old nephew who had contacted family saying he was in Italy. But the boy also died before setting foot on land.

The uncle asked that his name, and that of his nephew, not be published as he had yet to inform the boy’s father. The boy’s mother died two years ago.

The aftermath

Prosecutors have launched two investigations — one into the suspected smugglers and another looking at whether there were delays by Italian authorities in responding to the migrant boat.

A Turkish man and two Pakistani men, among the 80 survivors, have been detained, suspected of being smugglers or their accomplices. A fourth suspect, a Turkish national, is on the run.

A day after the shipwreck, Frontex told the AP it had spotted a “heavily overcrowded” boat and reported it to Italian authorities. In a second statement, though, Frontex clarified that only one person had been visible on deck but that its thermal cameras indicated there could be more people below.

In an interview with the AP, retired Coast Guard Admiral Vittorio Alessandro said the coast guard’s boats are made to withstand rough seas and that they should have gone out.

Alessandro added that the photos released by Frontex showed the water level was high, suggesting the boat was heavy.

The coast guard said Frontex alerted Italian authorities in charge of “law enforcement,” copying the Italian Coast Guard “for their awareness” only. Frontex said it is up to national authorities to classify events as search and rescue.

“The issue is simple in its tragic nature: No emergency communication from Frontex reached our authorities. We were not warned that this boat was in danger of sinking,” Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said Saturday.

Alessandro, however, lamented how over the years the coast guard’s activities — which previously occurred even far out in international waters — have been progressively curtailed by successive governments.

“Rescue operations at sea should not be replaced by police operations. Rescue must prevail,” he said.
…

Voters in Estonia are going to the polls Sunday to cast their votes in a general election.

The government of Prime Minister Kaja Kallas’ liberal Reform party is one of Europe’s most steadfast supporters of Ukraine.

Political analysts say Kallas and Reform will likely emerge as winners against Martin Helme and the nationalist far-right EKRE party.

Kallas, if she wins, has promised to keep Estonia on a course to adopt more green energy and to continue to accept Ukrainian refugees.

Meanwhile, Helme has told his supporters that a EKRE victory would bring a halt to the transition to green energy and a halt to the influx of Ukranian refugees.

Both leaders have said they are looking forward to heading the next coalition government.

Almost half of Estonia’s eligible voters have already cast their ballots electronically.

Estonia broke away from the Soviet Union in 1991 and has gone down a Western path, joining both NATO and the European Union. 
…

Ukrainian diver Stanislav Oliferchyk proudly bears the name of his late grandfather, who died in brutalized Mariupol. Russia’s troops turned the Ukrainian port city into a killing zone in the process of capturing it. The elder Stanislav could no longer get the cancer treatment he needed in the ruins, his grandson says. He was 74 when he died last October.

Another victim of the months-long Russian siege of Mariupol was its gleaming aquatic center. Oliferchyk had planned to use the refurbished sports complex as his training base for the 2024 Paris Olympics. But it was bombed the same day last March as the city’s drama theater. The theater airstrike was the single deadliest known attack against civilians to date in the year-old Russian invasion. An Associated Press investigation determined that close to 600 people died.

So it takes no leap of the imagination to understand why Mariupol-born Oliferchyk is horrified by the idea that he and other war-traumatized Ukrainian athletes might have to put their anger and consciences aside and compete against counterparts from Russia and ally Belarus at next year’s Olympics.

“I’m angry most of the time. I just can’t stand it anymore when shelling happens,” said the 26-year-old Oliferchyk, a European champion in 3-meter mixed synchronized diving in 2019. “I want Russia to let us live in peace and stay away from us.”

Defying fury from Ukraine and misgivings from other nations, the International Olympic Committee is exploring whether to allow Russians and Belarusians back into international sports and the Paris Games. The IOC says it is mission-bound to promote unity and peace — particularly when war is raging. It also cites United Nations human rights experts who argue, on non-discrimination grounds, that athletes and sports judges from Russia and Belarus shouldn’t be banned simply for the passports they hold.

For Ukrainian athletes setting their sights on Paris, the possibility of sharing Olympic pools, fields and arenas with Russian and Belarusian competitors is so repellent that some say they’d not go if it happens.

Sisters Maryna and Vladyslava Aleksiiva — who won Olympic bronze in artistic swimming’s team competition at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 — are among those who say they’d have to boycott.

“We must,” Maryna said during an Associated Press interview at their training pool in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.

Russia is the giant of their sport, previously called synchronized swimming, having won all the gold medals at the past six Olympics.

Completing each other’s sentences, the Ukrainian twins added: “Our moral feelings don’t allow us to stand near … these people.”

Oliferchyk worries that enmity could spill over if Ukrainians encounter Russians and Belarusians in Paris — a likely scenario given that Olympians will be housed and dine together in accommodation overlooking the River Seine in the city’s northern suburbs.

“Anything can happen, even a fight,” Oliferchyk said. “There simply cannot be any handshakes between us.”

Having to train in the midst of war also puts Ukraine’s Olympic hopefuls at a disadvantage. Russian strikes have destroyed training venues. Air raids disrupt training sessions. Athletes have lost family members and friends, or are consumed by worries that they will. Because Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has also closed the country’s airspace, traveling to international competitions has become an arduous odyssey — often of long train rides to neighboring Poland, for onward flights from there.

“Our athletes train while cruise missiles are flying, bombs are flying,” Ukrainian Sports Minister Vadym Guttsait said in an AP interview.

He recalled a meeting he took part in between IOC president Thomas Bach and Ukrainian cyclists given refuge in Swizterland.

“Bach asked one of the cyclists how she was doing,” the minister recounted. “She started crying. He asked why. She said that day they (Russian forces) attacked her city, where her parents were, and she was very nervous.”

“This is how every athlete feels about what is happening in Ukraine,” the minister said.

Ukraine’s artistic swim team, including the Aleksiiva sisters, used to train in the Lokomotiv sports center in Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city. A Russian strike with powerful S-300 missiles wrecked the complex in September, the region’s governor, Oleh Syniehubov, said at the time. He posted photos showing a giant crater and severe damage to the exterior.

Maryna Aleksiiva said they used to think of the sports center as “our second home.” Their substitute pool in Kyiv doesn’t have the same broad depth of water, making it less suitable for practicing their underwater acrobatics, the sisters said. On a recent morning when they spoke to the AP, air raid sirens interrupted their training and they had to get out of the pool and take refuge in a bomb shelter until the all-clear sounded.

The power also flickered briefly off at times. Russia has been systematically bombarding Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure for months. When attacks shut off the pool’s heating, the water gets so cold that the sisters train in full-body wetsuits — far from ideal for their elegant sport.

“It’s hard to move,” Vladyslava said.

The terrors of war also take a mental toll.

“Every day we read the news — explosion, explosion, air alert,” Maryna said. “We feel so nervous about our relatives.”

Oliferchyk said he cannot imagine a handshake between Ukrainian and Russian athletes for “the next 50, 100 years.”

The Neptune arena in Mariupol where he wanted to train for Paris was wrecked by a Russian strike last March 16. As with Mariupol’s drama theater also destroyed that day, civilians were sheltering at the sports complex from bombardments. They included pregnant women who moved there after a Russian strike the previous week devastated a city maternity hospital. Video posted on Facebook by the region’s governor showed the Neptune’s shattered front and a gaping hole in its roof.

The IOC’s possible pathway out of sports exile for Russians and Belarusians would see them compete as “neutral athletes,” without national flags, colors or anthems.

That idea is a non-starter for Ukraine’s sports minister and athletes who resent that would-be Olympians from Russia and Belarus aren’t taking a stand against the invasion.

“They just do nothing and say nothing. And precisely because of their silence and inaction, all this horror is happening,” Oliferchyk said. “A neutral flag is not an option. It is not possible.”
…

Climate activists splashed a dark liquid over an artwork Saturday near the German parliament building. Desecrating the art, engraved with key articles from the country’s constitution, drew condemnation from the speaker of parliament and other lawmakers.

The Last Generation group said supporters symbolically “soaked in ‘oil’” the outdoor installation — a series of glass plates on which 19 articles from the German Constitution setting out fundamental rights are engraved. They pasted posters over the work that read, “Oil or fundamental rights?”

The group said in a statement that “the German government is not protecting our fundamental rights” and argued that continuing to burn oil is incompatible with doing so.

Parliament Speaker Barbel Bas said she was appalled by the action and has “no understanding for it.” She said the work by Israeli artist Dani Karavan, titled “Grundgesetz 49” after the German name of the post-World War II constitution and the year when it was drawn up, is a reminder to respect and protect rights such as freedom of expression and assembly.

“Those are the fundamental rights on which the demonstrators from Last Generation themselves base the justification for their actions,” Bas said in a statement. “I can only hope that the glass plates of the artwork were not permanently damaged.”

The work was wiped clean by Saturday afternoon. Last Generation has repeatedly drawn attention and anger over the past year with actions that have included blocking major roads and throwing food at famous paintings.
…

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Saturday announced a gender equality law that will require more equal representation of women and men in politics, business and other spheres of public life.

The Equal Representation Law will apply gender parity measures to electoral lists, the boards of directors of big companies, and governing boards of professional associations.

Sanchez made the announcement during a Socialist party rally ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8. It will be approved during Tuesday’s cabinet meeting before going for debate in parliament.

He said the government was “not only taking a step in favor of feminism, but in favor of Spanish society as a whole.”

It is the latest in a series of equality measures announced by the leftist coalition government. In December, lawmakers passed a transgender rights bill, as well as a pioneering law covering sexual and reproductive heath that, in a first for a European country, offered state-funded paid leave for women who suffer from painful periods.

“If they represent half of society, half of the political and economic power has to be women’s,” Sanchez said Saturday.

The Equal Representation law will require women to make up 40% of the management of any listed company with more than 250 workers and an annual turnover of 50 million euros ($53 million).

In politics, the law will require parties to offer equal numbers of male and female candidates during elections, with the aim of increasing gender parity in parliament. At the moment women make up 44% of Congress and 39% of the Senate.

It will also require professional associations to have at least 40% women on their boards, as well as juries for any awards financed with public money.
…